The Normandy dropped out of the Skepsis System-relay after a four day journey and soared through space and headed to the rendezvous point to meet up with the mercenary fleet.

Shepard walked through the aisle up to the bridge, "What do we got Joker?" Shepard stopped behind the pilot.

"Good timing, Commander. We're being hailed by Aria T'Loak." Joker replied from the seat and was looking at the LADAR monitor. "I got two frigates, one cruiser and a dreadnought on the scope. Old, repurposed stuff."

"Patch her through."

Joker pressed a holographic button on his interface and Aria's voice was heard through the speakers, "You are on time Shepard."

"You want us to dock with your ship?"

"Yes, I'm coming aboard."

"We'll begin the docking procedure."

Joker tagged the ship on the monitor that they were to dock with and slowed down the Normandy, firing its thrusters. Joker aligned the Normandy with the other ship and slid up next it as the mercenary ship extended the docking arm. Joker held his cool and kept the Normandy steady and a few seconds later the docking arm connected with the Normandy.

Joker reported triumphantly, "Locks engaged."

Shepard praised, "Good show Joker."

Joker shrugged, "That's why I'm here."

"One person entering, Commander." EDI reported. "Pressurizing and starting decontamination."

"Okay EDI, thanks. Remember, keep an eye on her while she's aboard the ship, and limit her access."

"Of course, Shepard."

Shepard walked out the cockpit and stopped outside the airlock. A few moments later the door opened and Aria stepped through. She wore a Terminus Assault Armor with the helmet clipped to her harness and weapons holstered.

"Welcome back." Shepard greeted.

Aria nodded, "Thanks Shepard."

"Weapons are not allowed on board so I'll escort you to the Cargo Bay where you'll have to discard your weapons," Shepard informed commanding.

Aria shrugged indifferent, "It's your ship. Lead the way."

Shepard gestured with his hand for her to follow him and they walked through the aisle. Shepard was surprised by her willingness to obey but said nothing.

"Are we ready to leave for Omega?" Aria asked impatiently.

"Yeah. I take it your fleet is briefed on everything."

"They are. They will depart in five hours after the Normandy has left, as you said, Shepard. They will then proceed to Omega in the Normandy's wake and engage Cerberus forces in space."

"Okay, we've to move fast on Omega accomplish our tasks in time," Shepard said. The two approached the Galaxy Map and Shepard called out to the intercom, "Joker?"

Joker's voice was heard in the intercom, "Yes Commander?"

"Let's head to Omega. Send confirmation to the mercenary fleet."

"Roger that Commander. Disconnecting from the merc ship."

Shepard and Aria stopped at the elevator.

"Good, that will be all, Joker."

"Copy."

Shepard pressed the elevator button and the doors opened.

Shepard stepped inside with Aria trailing, he punched in the Cargo Bay on the interface and the elevator lurched as it descended.

Shepard turned to Aria and explained, "You'll not have access to all the areas of the ship, only the Crew Deck is open with the exception of a few select areas. You can use the Starboard Observation Room if you want sleep and have some privacy. We have asari food if you don't particularly care for human food."

"Awfully nice about the food, Shepard," Aria smirked, "You don't trust me Shepard?"

Shepard explained, "I don't see a reason for you to be in Engineering or the CIC and other areas. We'll brief and disembark from the Cargo Bay once we arrive at Omega."

"Relax Shepard," Aria reproached. "The way I see it; if you don't defeat the Reapers, we're all dead. It's in my interest to help you."

"Good of you to be pragmatic," Shepard mused. "If you want me, call for EDI and she'll contact me."

"Who's Edie"'

"I am." EDI's voice was heard in the elevator. "EDI stands for Enhanced Defense Intelligence."

"An AI." Shepard said casually.

For the first time since ever meeting Aria, Shepard could tell she was genuinely surprised.

"You have an AI onboard?" Aria asked dumbfounded.

Shepard smirked, "Yeah. Nothing to worry about." He shrugged indifferent, "Of course, she'll keep her sensors on you at all time."

The elevator stopped and the door opened to the Cargo Bay.

Aria frowned, "Not much faith in me, Shepard."

Shepard walked out and Aria followed into the armory and they walked to the right.

Shepard countered, "Yeah, well, you're a criminal. A Terminus pirate, so forgive me if I don't trust you very much with the most advanced warship in the Alliance Navy."

Shepard stopped at the row of weapons lockers and racks in the corner of the armory and turned to the Pirate Queen.

Aria shook her head, she wasn't amused, but had to fall in line, it was Shepard's ship after all.

"I guess we'll have to entertain your preferences here then, Shepard," Aria pointed out.

"Exactly." Shepard gestured to an empty weapons locker, "You can leave your weapons, thermal clips and any grenades here." He opened the empty locker.

Aria shrugged and removed her weapons from her armor and placed them on the racks inside. She then emptied all her pouches of thermal clips and grenades and placed them in compartments in the locker under Shepard's scrutiny.

Aria couldn't help but to laugh, "You seriously don't trust me, do you?"

"No, but I have EDI watching over you," Shepard replied evenly. "So play nice."

"I already told you, it's in my interest that you win this war, Shepard," Aria reproached.

"I'll show you to the observation room," Shepard simply said.

The two left the armory and rode the elevator up to the Crew Deck where Shepard showed her to the observation room, her home for the next 24 hours it would take to travel to Omega. The crew had been properly briefed that they would have their guest there so if the crew wanted to relax somewhere it had to be port side or the mess hall. It was the safest area to have Aria, after all, there was nothing there she could tamper with. Aria made herself comfortable in the room and Shepard left her for the elevator which he would take up to the Captain's Cabin.

Shepard exited the elevator and headed to the Captain's Cabin and walked down the stairs and found Miranda standing near the bed in her robe. She had just taken a shower as her black hair was still damp and she was about to get dressed. He stopped at the end of the stairs.

A few moments later, Miranda turned to Shepard and smirked as she saw him gawking, "You are staring, John."

"It's hard not to." Shepard responded with a sly smile and walked over and slid an arm around her waist and pulled her close and kissed her. She did not put up any resistance and reciprocated the kiss and rested her arms around his shoulders. Shepard let the other arm wander her body and slid it under the robe and caressed her naked hip.

Shepard's seductive actions made her moan in response. She moved one of her own hands to his and interlaced their fingers. She then moved away his hand from her hip and broke the kiss and breathed heavily.

Shepard smirked, "You are a provocative distraction." Their hands parted and once again Shepard put his arms around her waist and she rested hers on his shoulders.

"Hmm, maybe I shouldn't wear the suit anymore and instead wear something else." Miranda smirked and pretended to be deep in thought.

"Please keep it."

Miranda grinned at Shepard, "I do think Commander that it would be for the best that I don't wear it actually."

"I don't agree at all. It's good for my morale if you wear it." Shepard smirked.

Miranda shook her head and grinned, "You get too excited in my presence."

"Is that a bad thing?"

Miranda smirked, "Not always, but we have to prepare."

Shepard insisted, "But a few kisses won't hurt." He grinned, "After all, there's still time until we reach Omega."

Miranda rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically, "Oh well, I guess a can make out with you for a while."

"You make it sound like a chore."

Miranda teased, "Oh, it is."

Shepard pushed her gently down the bed and leaned in and kissed her. After all, there was a day's travel to Omega so they had a lot of free time until then, why not make the most of it.

He never shunned from getting his hands dirty. Not once. Being part of Cerberus, and before that Alliance Special Operations, had given him the tools necessary to carry out the job, and that he did. With the looming Reaper threat General Oleg Petrovsky knew that defeating them would have to be done by any means necessary. Including violently taking control over Omega and keeping its inhabitants in check so Cerberus operations past the Omega 4 relay could continue without interference.

But Adjutants? When he had realized that the Illusive Man had created these Husk-like creatures with the sole purpose to unleash them on Omega, part of him was sickened to the core. That was too much, and he had to kill several civilians that had been infected by them. But he did take gratification that he killed Raymond Ashe when he had become infected. Cerberus consisted of too many of the likes of Ashe. Petrovsky did what was necessary to accomplish a mission, but sacrificing his own men and civilians was not part of the necessity. Ashe could easily sacrifice anyone to accomplish the mission.

Bastard!

But Petrovsky got anything he wanted to carry out his operations. Any scientists and whatever else they needed to study Reaper and Collector technologies he was given, a lenience that he had never experienced before during his time with the Alliance Marine Forces. After Commander Shepard had destroyed the Collector Base they had moved in weeks afterwards and had actually been able to find important items to research. Although Petrovsky could sense something was amiss when the Illusive Man had handed him his assignment to prepare to venture beyond the Omega 4 Relay and subsequent annexation of Omega station.

But whenever Petrovsky asked for details about Shepard's mission, or if they even could use Miranda Lawson's brilliant mind in studying Reaper technology, the Illusive Man had clamped down and ordered Petrovsky to stop asking questions and carry out the mission with the resources given. That reaction had always struck Petrovsky as curious considering that having John Shepard working for them was no secret and that Miranda Lawson had evidently carried out her assignment with considerable professionalism should warrant her participation on this part of the mission. But everything surrounding the outcome of the Lazarus cell had been shrouded in mystery. Rumors persisted that Shepard had taken he new Normandy, and deserted with the surviving crew and team. This was further solidified when he had received reports that Shepard had turned himself over to the Alliance six months earlier. But that a loyal Cerberus Operative such as Miranda Lawson had left Cerberus could not be true. Right?

So could Lawson have known something that Petrovsky didn't? Petrovsky had had second doubts about Cerberus for the past months now. He had come to the conclusion that the Illusive Man was a power hungry and sick man that used any advantage for his own needs and the General had doubts that those needs would help humanity. That notion had presented itself pretty quickly after they had established a foothold beyond the Omega 4 Relay and begun ferrying Collector and Reaper technology to Cronos Station. More and more of his men had been rotated of the station to undergo 'combat applicable enhancements', and returned weeks later...changed. The fucking Illusive Man had turned them into husks that mealy obeyed orders. They were only a shell of their former selves. No personalities, no past memories. Nothing. He was amazed that they still had names. Only he, the scientists, the support staff and his small cadre of officers had been spared. Petrovsky wondered why, but he could guess that if any of them disobeyed any direct order from the Illusive Man, the troops would turn their weapons on him and someone like Kai Leng would be flown in to take control of the situation.

Petrovsky sighed and rose from his bed. When taking over Omega they had taken over Afterlife and used it to direct operations and the defense of Omega. Omega Control had not suited their needs and had been dismantled. Instead they had repurposed Afterlife, installing computers, server farms and any other equipment they needed. And Petrovsky had taken over Aria T'Loak's office and used it as his own quarters.

Petrovksy quickly showered and shaved before he put on his uniform. A few months earlier he had worn this with pride, Cerberus was the only organization doing what as needed to protect humanity, but now...now he wasn't sure. But the Illusive Man did have a plan to fight the Reapers; Petrovksy was just not sure he believ it anymore. Using Reaper technology against their enemy could prove to be very dangerous, and transforming their soldiers to Husks did not sit well with Petrovsky. What else was the Illusive Man up to?

Petrovsky grabbed some breakfast in the cafeteria, a VIP lounge that had been repurposed. And with a cup of coffee he ventured down the Operations Hall, which was the former large circular dance hall filled with computers, holographic displays and radars. With the fleet patrolling outside, Omega was a very heavily defended position. Not that nothing had happened in the months following their invasion. But you could not get to complacent.

Petrovsky walked over to one of his senior duty officers that were sitting in front of a computer alongside the wall. "What's for today, Hudson?"

The man turned to the General and rose from the chair and grabbed a datapad off the table and read from it. "Well, we have a new shipment coming from Avernus in about two hours that will head out to one of our research stations, they're finalizing the prep, and we expect to rotate some personnel from Avernus."

Petrovsky nodded, "Very well. As you were."

The duty officer saluted and sat down at the computer.

The General took a sip from the coffee and sighed inwardly, well, another boring day in hell.

After the 24 hour transit, the Normandy would soon emerge through the relay and begin the one hour journey to Omega. The last day had been rather uneventful, Aria had kept to herself in the Life Support Room and only left to eat in the mess hall. The her credit, Aria had behaved and EDI had not reported any problems at all.

The mercenary fleet had also left for Omega five hours after the Normandy's departure. The mission was on.

Shepard entered the bridge and approached Joker who was busy helming the Normandy.

"We should be there soon, right?" Shepard asked.

"We're 30 seconds from exiting the relay." Joker reported.

"Good. IES stealth systems engaged?"

"Uh…yeah. I just engaged it. You think I haven't done covert infiltrations before." Joker said sarcastically.

"Just making sure, Joker." Shepard murmured, "Let's hope this works."

"Please, have some faith Commander." Joker replied from behind the seat.

The Normandy dropped out of FTL with a jolt and soared away from the relay.

"We're in." Joker reported. "No contacts around the relay." Joker was watching one of the holographic monitors displaying the LADAR.

"Good. When we're in range, get a SITREP on the enemy and send it to the mercs."

"I'm going to prepare for the mission Joker. If anything happens, contact me."

"You got it Commander. I'll keep a low profile."

The Normandy had soared through the system for the next hour while the team and Aria had prepped for the mission, securing their armor and headed down to the Cargo Bay to retrieve weapons. The Normandy had dropped out of light speed and silently started its reconnaissance run and EDI had relayed a report on the enemy defensive force to both Shepard and the mercenary fleet, which was still a few hours in transit away from Omega.

Shepard and Miranda exited the elevator and stood in the armory. The team was assembled and most were prepared for the mission while others still stuffed their harness pouches with thermal clips and grenades. Lieutenant Cortez was also in attendance, leaning on a workstation behind the assault team.

Shepard already had his N7 armor on and walked over to his locker and collected his weapons, thermal clips and assorted grenades; he holstered his M96 and M5 to his armor, Shepard decided to fight light today, and walked back to the team.

Miranda retrieved her weapons and equipment as well.

"Alright people, listen up." Shepard turned to face the team after he was ready. The team turned their attention to their Commander as he continued, "We have detected 6 ships, 4 frigates and 2 cruisers, and EDI have sent the report to the mercenary fleet."

"That's substantial firepower Cerberus got." Garrus observed who was on Shepard's right.

"Yeah, but we have an ace up our sleeve; the Normandy." Shepard turned to Aria who was leaning on a computer workstation. "Best route into Afterlife? Undetected of course."

Aria straightened herself from the workstation and activated her omni-tool and the team turned their attention to a holographic map of Omega.

"We can probably not walk into the front door, so we have to infiltrate Omega through the sewers that run beneath." Aria explained and highlighted the maze of sewers running under the night club. "From the sewers we can reach the club's waste disposal room through a secret passage. From there we can access the entire club. With my access codes and help of course." Aria grinned.

There was a low murmur of discontent from a few members of Shepard's team.

"Disgusting." Liara complained standing next to Garrus.

Garrus shrugged, "We wear hard-sealed armors, so we should be alright."

Miranda was standing next to the armor bench observing Aria. "We'll need extensive contamination after that little excursion." Miranda pointed out. She had never liked Omega and after last year's operations there, she had hoped never to return.

"And they have not found this passage I presume?" Shepard interjected.

"Hopefully they haven't, the entrance is behind a wall at the waste disposal plant, and if we're lucky they have found the entrance which is used as a ruse instead, and have therefore not spent time finding the actual entrance."

"Okay." Shepard answered eyeing the holographic map emerging from Aria's omni-tool. "I got to ask, how do you know that Cerberus uses Afterlife as command center."

Aria sighed, "When I left Omega, Patriarch was still fighting Cerberus. And he continued to do so for about two weeks after I left." She paused and spoke glum, she respected the former adversary and was sad about the krogan's apparent death, "After that he stopped reporting in."

"I'm sorry to hear."

Aria nodded. "And he sent some information my way which pointed to that Cerberus used Afterlife. Plus they had established themselves inside before I was exiled."

Shepard continued his briefing, "The Cerberus fleet is stationed outside the asteroid field around Omega." Shepard turned to Cortez who was leaning on a workstation, "Go in fast and quiet Lieutenant."

"Right Shepard." Cortez answered.

Shepard continued, "No matter where we infiltrate we'll probably draw the attention of Cerberus. We can fly in stealthy but most shuttle access points will likely be controlled by Cerberus, so there's were of course EDI comes in, she'll do her best to hack and disrupt, giving us a few moments of advantage. I don't want us to be bogged down by enemy fire considering they're battalion strength on the station. Fire and movement is key. I want a few of us to carry missile launchers just in case we meet something big."

The missile launcher used by the Alliance Armed Forces was the M168 Multi-Purpose Guided Assault Weapon which was made by Hahne-Kedar. It was a light weight, compact and shoulder-fired disposable fire-and-forget man-portable guided missile launcher about a meter long when fully extended. Each missile launcher held a magazine of two miniature missiles with a high-explosive shaped charge. The missile could be fired in either lock-on before launch, automatic self-guidance or free-fire mode. The missiles were capable of engaging both air and ground targets at ranges exceeding 5 kilometers. Even if designed to be disposable in the heat of battle to lighten the load of the user, it could be reloaded with new missiles. The Hydra was able to destroy or heavily damage lightly armored targets, but for bigger targets such as infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) and main battle tanks (MBT) a more powerful weapon system and missile was needed.

"Speed an' violence, mawer like it." Zaeed growled from Shepard's right, leaning casually on a crate.

Shepard nodded, "Yeah, the ROE is kill any Cerberus people that are opposing us; I have not much love lost for them. Hopefully, with martial law in place, we won't bump into civilians."

The assembled team nodded in agreement.

"Let's mount up." Shepard ordered.

Shepard and his team plus Aria sat in the confined passenger compartment in the Kodiak shuttle while Cortez piloted it through space.

Shepard glanced at Zaeed who was seated next to him. Shepard asked, "What happened between you and Cerberus?"

Zaeed was inspecting his rifle and turned his attention to Shepard and snorted, "They wan'ed me fer a mission they said. So we arranged a meeting. But i' all turned in'er a cluster fuck."

"Oh, what happened?"

"We were in a bar in Thun - on Zorya - an' the bloody Cerberus twats turned their weapons on me. Had ter shoot me way out. Messy."

Miranda, who sat in front of them, raised an eyebrow, "Why would they do that if they wanted you for a job?"

Zaeed shook his head, "No idea missy."

Miranda was about to frown at Zaeed for calling her 'missy' but Shepard almost unnoticeably shook his head and Miranda refrained from frowning at Zaeed.

Shepard speculated, "Well, their troops are Husk-like, maybe Cerberus is looking for candidates for their indoctrinated forces."

Zaeed had spent the last days reading all the intelligence that the Alliance had on Reapers and Cerberus, and with the modified troops Cerberus wielded, that theory was plausible. "That might be right." Zaeed said. "Bastards." Being turned into some Husk-like thing was not high on his agenda. But killing Cerberus troops was very high on his agenda.

"Two minutes from drop point." Cortez reported from the cockpit. The two divider doors to the cockpit was locked and sealed behind Cortez.

The team was all wearing combat armors, even Liara as well, and it too was laden down with a battle harness of various pouches.

Miranda was wearing a Rosenkov Materials black combat armor that accentuated her bodily curves as her suit did, although the armor and battle harness was much more bulky.

Now comes the moment of truth, Shepard thought as the shuttle turned to the right.

Cortez flew the shuttle slowly and expertly through the asteroid field surrounding Omega, keeping his distance from any of the Cerberus ships as well as keeping an eye on the FOD-radar that tracked the asteroids. Asteroid fields were pretty wide open because the large planetoids were relatively far away from each other, usually hundreds of thousands of kilometers or even millions of kilometers, so if space vehicles flew slowly those large planetoids could be avoided. The real threat was the smaller debris that was not always detectable and could be very dangerous if a ship's shields were unable to deflect them.

Eventually Cortez cleared the asteroid field and slowed down as he closed the distance to the giant space station in the hollowed out asteroid.

Shepard's voice was heard in the cockpit, "You got a good landing spot, Lieutenant?"

Cortez swiped his hand over the holographic interface.

"Well, there's a shuttle docking bay here at the spaceport." Cortez tapped the monitor and sent the image to one of the consoles in the passenger compartment. "If EDI can do her magic and open the airlock for us we could land there."

The image was a topographical depiction that showed the Gozu district, a residential area of the lower parts in Omega directly under the district were Afterlife was located.

There was silence as Cortez figured Shepard was examining the topographical depiction.

"It'll get you close to the sewage treatment plan as it's on the same district." Cortez said after a few more moments of silence.

"Good work Lieutenant. Let's do this now."

"You can start now EDI." Cortez transmitted to the Normandy as he steered the shuttle closer to the station.

"Affirmative, Lieutenant." EDI responded. "Initiating the electronic attack."

After doing his regularly morning rounds in the command center, checking up on the various department heads, Petrovsky headed for the stairs that would take him up to the floor overlooking the main floor. He planned to get to his office and write the latest operations report and send it to Command.

"Sir!" A communications officer called out for Petrovsky who turned at the direction of the voice.

"What is it?" Petrovsky walked over to the officer who was sitting at his computer workstation.

"Warlock 1 reports that the shuttle docking airlocks opened at the spaceport."

Petrovsky turned mortified when he heard that, "Are we venting air into space?!"

"No sir, the mass effect barrier curtains are still functioning." The communications officer tapped a key on his keyboard and brought up a systems page for the district on his monitor. With the barrier curtain up it protected that particular district from venting air into space but shuttles could still fly through unimpeded.

"Solar wind interference?" Petrovsky asked as he glanced at the monitor.

"It's a possibility, they're reporting multiple systems failure across the board and I have static interference on the radio channel."

Petrovsky turned to a radar technician on his left, "Any unknown contacts in the system?"

"Negative. We had a light speed disturbance around the relay an hour ago but we didn't detect any ships come through the relay or entering the system from within the nebula. The fleet hasn't reported anything either." The radar technician answered without turning away from the monitor.

The logical conclusion was either solar wind interference or faulty systems. But he did not discount the possibility of an attack by insurgents, even if it had been calm the past months.

"I have lost radio comms with Warlock." The communications officer reported.

Petrovsky turned to the officer, "If they haven't fixed the problem in ten minutes, send an engineering team to get everything up and running."

"Roger that sir."

"Are there any problems elsewhere?"

"Standby sir." The communications officer browsed the system for a few moments. "No, everything appears to be operational."

Aria was sitting on one of the seats in the Kodiak as they bounced around, she sat next to the door in front of the turian, his name had escaped Aria. It was only the turian and the male Marine who were foreign to her. What interested her was Liara T'Soni, apparently she had been an information broker on Illium for some time after the Battle of the Citadel, and before that an archeologist. She had gone off the radar last year for some reason. Aria wondered what she had been up to since then.

"One minute!" Cortez reported in the intercom.

Aria watched as Shepard pulled up his helmet from the floor. The turian rose from the seat and positioned himself near the door.

"Helmets on." Shepard ordered as he secured his sealed helmet on his head. The other six secured their own sealed helmets. Shepard rose from the seat and walked over to the shuttle door where Garrus stood.

"We'll only use the radios. Sound off." Shepard ordered through his radio. The other team members answered one by one through their mouthpieces; the radios were in working condition. Shepard grabbed his M96 from his back.

"30 seconds." Cortez's voice was heard in their earpieces now instead.

The shuttle flew through the mass effect barrier. The shuttle slowed down and fired its small thrusters and descended down on a landing platform in the shuttle bay. The shuttle bay was compromised of several landing platforms with a few parked shuttles as well as maintenance bays for shuttles of varying sizes. The spaceport was equipped to take even the large commuter shuttles. The shuttle bay itself was part of a spaceport with a two story space traffic control building, several support buildings and a spaceport terminal grouped together to form an island on the other side of the landing platforms.

Aria rose from the seat and brought up her Punisher sub-machine gun. She glanced at Shepard who stood with his back in front of her. She had heard the stories, and read some reports she had been able to procure from her contacts after their encounter last year. She was actually astonished by the human Spectre, he was a living legend. And the galaxy counted on him.

"Sensors and cameras indicate no targets in the vicinity. But you are walking into an unknown area Commander." Cortez said.

"Copy." Shepard responded as the shuttle took ground and the door opened.

Shepard and Garrus jumped out the shuttle with their weapons ready. The two ran up to a low barricade that surrounded the platform and covered their front. Aria and the others jumped out and hunkered down at the barricade as well, Aria followed suit and aimed her weapon down range. It had been centuries since she had taken part in military operations as a mercenary when she was young and she felt a little rusty, but everything was slowly coming back to her know.

"Clear." Garrus reported as he continued to survey the area through the scope of his Phaeston.

Shepard said, "Clear. Cortez, dust off."

"Roger that Commander, be safe and good luck."

The shuttle fired it's thrusters as took of a few meters of the ground and turned to proceed out through the barrier.

Shepard did one final check of the tarmac, surveying the scattered buildings but could see no hostile activity.

"On me. Let's move out." Shepard ordered as he vaulted over the barricade.

"Sir." The communications officer who was monitoring the task list off all the programs and functions that had been shut down at the spaceport called out for Petrovsky.

Petrovsky hurried over to the officer. "Yes?"

"It seems the airlocks are closing now. Maybe they're getting everything back online?"

Petrovsky watched the list on the monitor in front of him and saw in green text; AIRLOCKS: GO.

"Probably. How about the communication?"

The officer shook his head. "Still out."

"Ok, refrain from sending out the engineering team, it seems Warlock is restoring everything on their own."

"Roger."

Aria ran in the back of the team as they advanced through the shuttle bay next to several landing platforms on the tarmac, they used the parked shuttles as cover from the control building on their right. During their flight to Omega, Aria had updated their omni-tool navigation computers so they could take the fastest route to the sewage plant and Shepard was leading them and he wanted to find a way around the spaceport. The main problem was that the parked shuttles ended after four platforms, and Shepard was apparently not to keen to traverse the tarmac to the other side of the spaceport. There could be enemy presence in any of these buildings and being out in the open could get the attention of Cerberus.

Shepard stopped at the front nose of a shuttle, the team following him stopped in their tracks. Shepard peered across the side of the shuttle and looked down the length of the spaceport. To get to the exit they had to run about 100 meters to the island of buildings that was on the other side; it was a perfect ambush point.

Shepard turned to the team behind him and explained his thoughts.

Zaeed snorted behind Aria, he was the last in line, "It's a goddamn kill zone that's fer sure."

"We'll need cover." Shepard said as his gears began turning in his head. "Garrus, Zaeed. Use your sniper rifles to cover us while we run to the other side."

Both Garrus and Zaeed complied and holstered their assault rifles and brought up their sniper rifles instead, Garrus was carrying his standard Krysae and Zaeed used the Devlon Industries M92 Mantis Enhanced Sniper Rifle fitted with a Mark 6 Sniper Scope with a 6x-24x variable magnification, the rifle was primarily used by the Alliance for long range engagements. They shifted position and used the barricade behind the platform as cover. They vaulted over the barricade and steadied their rifles and aiming them at the buildings ahead of them, searching for targets.

When they were in position Shepard continued talking to the rest of the team, "I'll head over first to recon the area."

"I don't like this." Vega murmured next to Shepard.

"No, but we have no other options." Shepard responded. He turned and looked around the corner of the shuttle one last time. He took a deep breath and ran away from the shuttle.

"No contacts." Garrus reported from behind the barricade as Shepard ran off.

The time ticked by and Shepard had moved about halfway through the tarmac when Zaeed noticed movement in the control building. He was about to call out the suspicious activity when a long burst of fire came from the control building, shattering the windows.

The fire was concentrated on Shepard, sending concrete chips and dust from the ground flying around him. Shepard was hit by several rounds that were for the moment deflected by his shields and armor. Shepard staggered from the hits on his armor and in his earpiece he could hear Miranda's frantic voice, screaming his name. He was in a bad position with no cover in sight. But he pressed on, staying still would be fatal.

As a contrast to her voice, Garrus started a calm commentary to point everyone's eyes to the control building, "Target, right 2 o'clock high. Second floor, shattered window to the right."

An impressive volley of fire and biotics hit the second floor, prompting the offending machine gunner to take cover and ceased firing at Shepard who, despite taking several hits, scurried across the remaining part of the tarmac before he took cover behind a small shack in front of the larger two story control building. The gunner above in the control building could not hit Shepard from that angle.

Shepard had his back to the wall and panted heavily from running and his body ached after the kinetic shock of the bullets hitting his armor. He grunted in pain.

"You alright?" Garrus asked.

"Yeah." Shepard grunted into his mouthpiece. "The armor and shields took care of most of the bullets."

His team's fire stopped for the moment but they still had their weapons trained at the second floor.

"Cerberus?" Vega asked, leaning on a shuttle and aiming down the sights of his Valkyrie.

Garrus responded, "Likely, but I couldn't ID the gunner. Zaeed?"

"I got no visual on 'im." Zaeed answered from Garrus' right.

As the lull in fire continued, the enemy in the building appeared again, this time firing down on the platforms instead. The bullets ringed as they hit the shuttles. Shepard popped out of cover and fired up at the building, seeing the barrel of a machine gun.

Aria leaned out of cover from behind the barricade and tried to draw out the enemy with a biotic pull. The machine gunner, wearing white and yellow armor was pulled out of the window, floating in mid air. The fire team behind the barricade took this opportunity to shoot the Cerberus trooper that screamed in horror while floating two stories up in the air.

Shepard watched as the biotic pull wore of and the body fell to the ground.

"Good work people. Stay in cover." Shepard ordered. He doubted that the gunner was alone.

And he was right, more aimed fire erupted from the first and second floor as more windows was shattered. Shepard hugged the wall and popped quickly out of cover firing into the first floor. But he pulled back quickly as several troopers shifted their fire at the shack.

"I need suppressive fire." Shepard ordered.

Miranda hunkered down at the nose of the shuttle and reloaded her M8 Avenger and turned to the two snipers at the barricade behind her. Being the XO she was Shepard's proxy, and with him on the front lines she had to coordinate the rest of the team.

"Zaeed, Garrus: concentrate your fire on the second floor." She turned to the two asari biotics and Vega that was taking cover next to her, "We will provide suppressive fire for Shepard."

They nodded in agreement as Zaeed and Garrus continued to fire their weapons, daring the fire that was directed at them.

The fire team directed yet another volley of gun fire and biotics at the building.

Shepard readied a grenade from one of his pouches. The Cerberus team opened fire at the platforms, giving Shepard an opportunity to use the grenade. He stepped out of cover and hurled the grenade at the shattered window frame of the first floor before he stepped back to the wall. The grenade detonated and he heard synthetic screams in pain. He popped out of cover and aimed his M96 at the windows, waiting for a target to pop out of cover to return fire. Above him, on the second floor, the fire from his team kept the Cerberus troops in check.

After what felt like an eternity he saw a Cerberus trooper propping up against the wall next to the shattered window. Shepard rapidly fired of several rounds at the bulky trooper. The rounds hit the trooper in the head and throat. The trooper fell to the ground with a gargling synthetic sound. Shepard turned back to the wall and reloaded his rifle.

Garrus enthusiastically called out, "Scoped and dropped!", when he killed a third Cerberus trooper that had been lifted off the floor thanks to one of Liara's singularities that she had perfectly positioned inside the building, lifting up the Cerberus troopers that had taken cover behind the walls.

As the enemy fire had died down, Shepard and his team lifted their fingers from the triggers and observed the building. Shepard was getting worried; the last thing he wanted was to be caught in a drawn out fire fight with Cerberus. He just hoped that EDI could block communications from the area so the Cerberus troops couldn't call for backup.

"I think we need to clear the building just to be safe." Vega commented from the platform.

Shepard agreed, "You are right. I need two shooters up here with me. The rest will have to cover our assault."

Aria volunteered, "I'll help you."

Vega responded before anyone else could, "I'll volunteer Loco. It was my idea after all."

"Right, get over here." Shepard was still aiming his rifle at the first floor.

Aria and Vega rose from the shuttles and ran across the tarmac and ended up next to Shepard.

"On me." Shepard ordered and darted from cover with his M96 at the ready. The three man team headed for the door to the control building. Shepard swiped his hand over the holographic interface and the door opened with a hiss. Suddenly they heard gunfire coming from above them, he jumped by surprise and prepared to take cover when he looked up byt saw that the gunfire was directed at the platform. The Cerberus troopers on the second floor did not know that Shepard and his team were below them. The team under Miranda's command opened fire at the second floor.

The three man team stepped through and entered the building, they were standing in the reception hall; the room was heavily damaged from Shepard's grenade. On the floor the bodies of four Cerberus troopers were lying, three of them had been ripped apart by the grenade and the fourth trooper had been killed by Shepard's gunfire. Shepard led the team through the reception and found a door with a sign that indicated that it would take them to the second floor. Shepard opened the door and the trio carefully cleared the stairwell as they walked up to the second floor and stopped at the door leading into the control room were they could hear muffled gun fire.

Shepard cursed under his breath when he saw that the holographic interface was red instead of green, indicating that the door was locked. He activated his omni-tool and moved it to the interface and let the hacking program go to work on the locking mechanism. It took about ten seconds before the interface turned green. Shepard stepped aside and took up position next to the door. Vega and Aria had done the same on the opposite side of the door. They were waiting for his go ahead.

"Alright, we breach through with flashbangs after the door opens." Shepard ordered as he pulled out a flashbang grenade from a pouch. Vega proceeded to pull out one as well.

"Miranda, stop your firing." Shepard was not in the mood of being shot at from Miranda's team when they breached the control room.

"Copy that Commander." Miranda responded and soon the fire outside ceased.

Shepard swiped his hand over the interface and the door opened. Shepard was still in cover and tossed the grenade into the room, moments later Vega tossed his into the room as well. Shepard's grenade detonated first with a loud bang and a bright flash and was soon followed by Vega's flashbang. The team entered the control room with raised weapons. Inside, the walls were riddled with workstations and monitors. In the middle there was a table with a holographic interface, resembling the war table on the Normandy. In the room there were also five Cerberus troopers that were disoriented by the flashbangs; three of them was stumbling around in the middle of the room and gasping in pain, they had been firing their weapons at the parked shuttles below them. The two others had their backs to the Cerberus fire team and had covered the doors. The two were stumbling around as well, dazed by the flashbangs.

Shepard, Vega and Aria stopped inside the large control room and opened fire at the dazed troopers, quickly dispersing them as they fell to the floor.

Shepard surveyed the room and stated, "Clear."

"Clear here." Vega responded.

The three began walking around the control room, checking the bodies to see that they were all dead. Behind the table with the holographic interface, Aria heard gasping sounds coming from the floor. She walked around with her Punisher at the ready and saw a Cerberus trooper crawling on the floor trying to get to his assault rifle he had dropped on the floor when shot. Aria stowed her weapon on her side and hunched down and turned around the trooper onto his back. He was bleeding profusely from his torso, coughing and making gargling sounds from within his helmet. He didn't have long to live.

Aria's biotics flared up and her right arm was engulfed in a biotic field as she slammed her clenched fist into the trooper's helmet, crushing it and the man's skull, sending blood and synthetic material flying through the air.

"It's clear now." Aria said darkly as she stood up from behind the table.

Shepard came up from behind Aria and observed the dead troopers. He then radioed Miranda, "We cleared the second floor, meet us outside the main entrance.

"Alright Shepard." Miranda answered.

A few short minutes later the seven of them rendezvoused outside the control building.

"We need to get out of here. No plan ever survives contact with the enemy, and when Cerberus gets their act together and understands something is very wrong here I don't want to be here when troops shows up." Shepard explained. He tapped his omni-tool and brought up the navigation screen. They had to walk a fairly long way to get to the sewage plant and the sewers.

"I'd like to take point." Aria said from behind Shepard.

Shepard turned surprised, although it was not visible through the faceplate. Finally he nodded, "Okay, you can do that."

Oleg Petrovsky was pacing frantically around what once was the dance floor's bar. Instead of serving alcohol, Cerberus had turned it into a snack bar. And Petrovsky was on his fifth cup of coffee for the morning. He was anxious. They had yet to establish communications with Warlock squad at the spaceport. And Warlock had not fixed any more problems since the airlocks. Petrovsky could not help to wonder if something was terribly wrong. He could not dispel the thought that there could be some kind of guerilla attack on the spaceport, but ever since taking control over Omega the mercenary groups had been pacified to the point that they could not muster any attack. As there had been no ships entering the system he didn't think that there was an outside attack on Omega. But he felt uneasy about the whole situation.

His military mind raced as he tried to figure out what could have happened. He sighed inwardly, If there was a problem at that spaceport, it was either system malfunctions or an attack. It was that simple. He cursed himself for having reduced his active forces around the station. He had become too complacent because of the lack of dangers since taking over Omega. Instead of having a platoon at the spaceport he had positioned a squad.

Idiot!

Petrovsky turned around and ran to the other side of the hall. "Have we heard anything yet from Warlock?"

The communications officer turned in his chair, "No sir."

"Alright, send engineers and a platoon to the spaceport. Have we heard anything from anyone else?"

"All is normal." The communications officer turned to his terminal, "I'll direct the troops."

"Good." In reality it was not good at all he thought, Petrovsky did not like the situation one bit.

Aria was on point, leading the team to the sewage plant with Shepard behind her. To gain lost time, she had suggested taking a short cut through a warehouse ward. The engagement with the Cerberus squad had set them back in time, and they needed to preferably be in position to assault Afterlife when the Normandy and her fleet started their attack on the Cerberus fleet. Aria had been surprised by the minimal resistance at the spaceport, had General Petrovsky lost his edge? Not that she could claim to know the man after their short encounter, but he had struck her as a no nonsense kind of man. He was certainly well versed in military operations.

The warehouse ward was brimming with worn down and crummy buildings filled with components, machinery and other materials that was stored there. Some discarded, some not. Since Cerberus took over, the warehouse ward on the Gozu district was now abandoned.

The team reached a courtyard surrounded by buildings, cranes, a large loading dock, a conveyor system and small shacks. Aria stopped near a repair shack and the others behind her stopped as well. She scanned the immediate area in front of her but she could not see anyone. Figuring it was safe she took a few steps ahead but stopped again when she saw the lights of a very large service lift further down blinking. But before she could voice hear concern to Shepard, the large elevator door slowly opened and revealed a platoon of Cerberus troopers exiting.

"Get down!" She hissed into her mouthpiece and slid down to cover behind the repair shack. The rest of the team scurried to cover behind whatever crates they could find nearby which provided the best cover.

Shepard had hugged the wall with his back near Aria. He asked, "What?"

Aria peered across the corner of the shack and saw the platoon moving through the courtyard; they were less than 100 meters from them.

"A Cerberus platoon, about 30 of them, just exited the large cargo elevator further down the courtyard." Aria explained.

"Shit." Shepard muttered. "Probably reinforcements."

Aria retreated from the corner and pressed her back against the wall next to Shepard, "Possibly, but regardless, they will reach our position soon."

Shepard sighed and shook his head before his tactical mind headed to work, "We will have a better chance if we attack them from two fronts. I'll take two, and Miranda you take charge of the rest here." Shepard paused while he leaned out on his side of the shack and looked down the low wall that extended from the shack and ended at a loading dock further down.

"Yeah, I'll take my team down this small wall here to the loading dock and engage the enemy from the side."

"You got it Shepard." Miranda responded from behind a crate.

"Zaeed and Liara, on me." Shepard ordered as he walked around the corner of the shack and ducked down the low wall. Zaeed and Liara moved up from their crates and ended up next to Shepard. The trio began to traverse the length of the wall, keeping a low profile.

Miranda headed to the shack from her crate and positioned himself next to Aria and asked, "What do you see, T'Loak?"

Aria peered once again around the corner of the small shack, the platoon was in the middle of the courtyard.

"They're halfway here."

Miranda transmitted, "Shepard, what do you want us to do?"

There was a short moment of silence before Shepard responded in their earpieces, "Alright, we're running out of time. Light 'em up."

"My pleasure." Aria said deadly. She stepped out of cover and with a swift motion of her arm she unleashed a shockwave that tore through the small advance team of the platoon, the men screamed as the biotic explosions ripped their armor and almost severing their limbs. Aria returned to cover just as bullets began raining down on their position, hitting the shack's walls.

From behind her, Miranda stepped aside from the shack so she had clear view of the courtyard. Seeing a trooper trying to get up from the ground she used her biotics and lifted up the trooper who was then slammed into the ground with a bone crunching sound. He didn't move anymore. As the remaining troopers of the advance team retaliated by opening fire at their direction, Miranda darted back to cover.

"We got their attention." Miranda said. On her right both Garrus and Vega was positioned in cover behind a series of crates next to the shack and opened fire in controlled bursts with their assault rifles at the enemy.

Shepard led the two others down the wall. They could hear the sounds of gunfire and synthetic screams as the others had begun their attack. Shepard stopped and turned to the two others. They were about halfway to the loading dock, running while keeping a low profile was not very fast. Shepard peeked above the wall to see what was happening.

"We can't be dickin' around 'ere fer an' all long, Shepard. We need ter get in' the fight." Zaeed growled impatiently.

Inside her helmet, Liara rolled her eyes and suppressed a sigh at Zaeed's 'eloquent' use of words.

In the middle of the courtyard, Shepard saw that the Cerberus platoon was being hammered by the surprise attack moments ago, but that would soon change if the platoon got their act together. Several troopers from the advance squad had fallen back a bit and taken cover behind some crates stacked on each other. The rest of the platoon provided cover fire from behind cover in the back ranks and deployed smoke grenades as cover.

"This is as good as place as any." Shepard said. "Let's engage."

The Cerberus duty officer, Hudson, ran up the stairs to the balcony overlooking the control room/dance hall. He hooked a right and continued down the hallway to the private area of the former night club where the Commanding Officer was residing. After running past several VIP tables the officer ended up in another hallway that led directly to Petrovsky's quarters. Hudson stopped and was panting heavily after running. He banged on the door with his fist and moments passed by before the door eventually slid open to reveal Petrovsky.

"What is it Lieutenant?" Petrovsky asked as he watched the young Cerberus officer out of breath.

"Sir, Havoc 6-1 is reporting contact with a small enemy force in the warehouse ward of the Gozu district. Apparently it looks like a mercenary squad, mixed races."

"Son of a bitch!" Petrovsky exclaimed as he walked out of the room, the duty officer stepped aside to make room for Petrovsky in the hall. "Walk with me Lieutenant."

The young officer walked behind Petrovsky as they hurried through the hallway.

"Talk to me." Petrovsky ordered.

"Sir, they were heading for the spaceport when they were engaged by the enemy. They're receiving small arms fire and biotics."

"Casualties?"

"A handful sir."

The two left the hallway and was walking above the control room/dance floor.

"How the hell did this happen? I thought we had pacified all the mercs on this station. And the weaponry, how did they get hold of that?"

"It's a big station sir; they could have hidden the weapons and the biotic amps somewhere we couldn't find them."

Petrovsky nodded. Regardless of what he thought of the eerie modifications that had been made on his soldiers, he could not deny that they served a purpose. Cerberus soldiers had been turned into a potent fighting force that could rival even the Alliance's MARSOC or the turian Black Watch.

MARSOC was the abbreviation for Alliance Marine Forces Special Operations Command, a component command of the Joint Special Operations Command, a unified combatant command which was charged with overseeing the various special operations units part of the Alliance Armed Forces. MARSOC supplied three battalions of MARSOC operators to JSOC, all N-series qualified, the very elite of the Alliance's special operations community.

Aria and Miranda had retreated away from the shack. Aria had slid behind the wall behind it as Miranda had taken cover behind a crate next to Garrus. Aria rose quickly from cover and unleashed another shockwave before taking cover again. The shockwave moved forward and knocked down the last few Cerberus troopers of the advance team that were behind some crates. On her left further down the wall, both Shepard and Zaeed took the opportunity to each hurl away a grenade at the enemies that tried to pick themselves up from the ground despite their severe injuries. Shepard's grenade hit a trooper in the head as it detonated, and the headless body slumped down on the ground. Zaeed's inferno grenade detonated and sent out smaller fragments that killed the two remaining enemies on the ground, its plasma burning away at their armor and bodies.

Liara broke cover and biotically pulled away a trooper that had been hiding behind a crate. As the trooper was pulled at Liara's direction, she aimed her submachine gun at the helpless trooper and quickly killed him. The body floated before the biotic power wore off and the body fell to the ground. Shepard and Zaeed joined her and opened fire at the troopers before the three of them returned to cover when a few enemies opened fire at their direction.

Aria reloaded her Punisher before she peeked above the wall, there was still a substantial enemy force left in front of them firing at their direction, obscured at the moment by smoke cover. To even the odds she unleashed yet another shockwave at the smoke screen, although she could not see her handy work, the screams in pain were enough to satisfy her curiosity what had happened.

"Concentrate on those bulky guys-" Shepard instructed over the radio net.

"Centurions." Miranda interjected.

"-whenever you see them, they're popping smoke all over the place."

Both Garrus and Zaeed had reverted back to their sniper rifles, with their modified scopes they could switch on thermal imaging and see the body heat through the smoke. They fired off a few shots through the smoke and Zaeed reported a kill.

Aria dared the incoming fire again and unleashed a new shockwave attack; she grinned again when she heard the screams from the injured troopers that were tossed around by the biotic force.

The smoke began to diminish and soon gave Shepard and his squad a clear view of the courtyard again.

A lone figure dashed across the courtyard as a few smoke grenades released its content on the courtyard. The man slid down near a crate and began to deploy a turret next to the crate; it was facing directly at Shepard and his squad. Aria was about to call out the threat and open fire when the Cerberus engineer suddenly was lifted up several meters above the ground by a blue glow and slammed into the ground. Aria could not see the aftermath of the biotic attack because of the crate, but Miranda was fairly certain she had killed the Cerberus engineer, or atleast incapacitated him. The half-deployed turret was quickly destroyed by a combined biotic and gunfire attack.

Aria popped out cover again and fired her weapon in short controlled bursts at the Cerberus troopers that were darting from cover to cover, trying to advance on Shepard's squad. Several of her rounds hit a Centurion in the torso. He stopped in his tracks and staggered from the kinetic shock. Aria finished off the trooper with a burst of rounds to the head. The Centurion fell to the ground. Aria returned to cover behind the wall as several Cerberus troops directed their fire at her in retaliation.

While hunched down at the wall she saw Liara further down next to Shepard and Zaeed. She broke cover and spawned a singularity near another small squad of three Cerberus troopers behind some stacked crates. The troops were captured in its radius and lifted of ground, exposing them. Aria took the opportunity and rose up from cover and unleashed a biotic warp that detonated the singularity a few seconds later. A tremendous biotic explosion slung the screaming Cerberus troopers away from cover. One of the troopers landed close to the loading dock and Shepard and Zaeed quickly rose from cover and killed the helpless and already dying Cerberus trooper. The two others lied on the ground, motionless.

The enemy gunfire died down and it was eerie quiet in the courtyard. The silence was interrupted from a shot echoing from Garrus' Krysae. He reported the kill over the radio and hunched down again behind the crate to reload his rifle. Aria was perplexed that the enemy had disengaged and she scanned the area ahead of her.

"Anyone got anything?" Shepard asked from his position.

"Negative, I-" Garrus was interrupted by the sound of a gunship engine as a gunship appeared from behind one of the buildings behind the Cerberus squad.

It was a Cerberus developed thrust-vectoring vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) gunship, based on reversed engineered designs of the RAV-56E Shrike gunship which was in service with the Systems Alliance and various Earth nations. The angular, black and stealthy two-seat gunship positioned itself near the courtyard while the gunner searched for targets. The double-barreled machine gun spooled up and opened fire. The mass-accelerated rounds ripped right through the small shack near Aria's position, sending bits and pieces of its thin walls and roof flying. Moments later the gunner fired several unguided rockets that struck the shack and also blowing off a chunk of the wall behind it near Aria who huddled up as much as possible to protect herself from the explosion and the debris. The shack soon collapsed on itself as the gunner continued firing at their position.

"Keep your heads down!" Shepard ordered from his hiding spot. He tried to keep himself as low as possible, but with two others nearby, it was very cramped behind the wall.

The gunfire stopped as the gunner continued to search after targets, panning the turret back and forth, patiently waiting for anyone to pop up from cover.

Behind his crate, Vega put his rifle on the ground and reached for his missile launcher on his back. He peered carefully across the top of the crate, the guns of the gunship were pointed at the direction of Shepard and the others so he rose from cover. He leveled the missile launcher on his shoulder and aimed it at the gunship. The targeting mechanism locked onto the gunship and through the sight he had a clear line of fire. Vega switched of the safety with his thumb and pulled the trigger. With a slight thump the weapon fired one of two missiles and it left the tube and flew towards the target with a contrail of white smoke emitting from the rocket engine.

The missile accelerated but the pilot of the gunship pulled up in a high-g maneuver and dropped several bundles of countermeasures to spoof the missile's targeting system. Instead the missile failed to track its target and flew harmless below the gunship and struck the building behind it, exploding as it penetrated the wall, sending debris flying.

Vega quickly dropped to cover as the gunner turned the machineguns on Vega's position and opened fire in retaliation. The remains of the Cerberus platoon opened fire again at Shepard and his squad, providing cover for their gunship.

Garrus said from behind his own crate behind Vega, "The pilot's just going to drop countermeasures over and over, it's no use."

"We'll need to overwhelm him with missiles." Shepard said, he had dropped his own rifle on the ground and reached for his missile launcher. "Garrus, we'll need a third shooter, the rest of you will have to provide cover fire. Do not fire the missiles at the same time guys."

Aria had listened in and carefully peered over the wall on her end, "We better do something fast, because they're slowly advancing on our position."

The gunship concentrated its fire on the other squad and Shepard took the opportunity and glanced at the courtyard from his position; he saw several Cerberus troopers advancing on them through the courtyard and several smoke grenades released smoke around them.

"Be ready!" Shepard ordered as he dropped down below cover.

The rest of the squad, sans the missile shooters began to return fire. Shepard, Liara and Zaeed didn't receive the same amount of fire as the others did so Liara and Zaeed were able to direct more accurate fire and biotics at the troopers. The others had to blind fired over their covers as not to expose themselves to the volley of gunfire that was directed at them from both the troopers and the gunship. Vega and Garrus quickly agreed on who to fire first after Shepard's attack.

Shepard tightened his grip on the missile launcher and brought it up to his shoulder as he rose from cover, the weapon quickly locked onto the target. The gunship began turning as the pilot was alerted to the new threat through his suite of computers and warning receivers. Wasting no time, Shepard switched of the safety catch and pulled the trigger. A missile was launched from the weapon and it soared through the air. Shepard turned down to cover again.

The Shrike pulled up and turned to the right and a new bundle of countermeasures was released from its lower fuselage. Shepard's missile lost track of the gunship and flew past the gunship, striking a building behind the Shrike.

As the gunship turned its attention to the direction of the first missile attack, Garrus and Vega saw a small window of opportunity to attack. They stood up from behind cover and aimed their launchers at the gunship and Garrus fired his missile first. The gunship had to break of the attack and dodge the incoming missile. Garrus' missile was soon followed by a new missile when Vega fired his last one. The attack had the desired effect Shepard had hoped for as it quickly overwhelmed the pilot who dumped more countermeasures but that only tricked Garrus' missile which flew past the Shrike.

Vega's missile was still tracking and struck the gunship in one of its thrusters, a bright explosion rocked the gunship and the thruster stopped working, coughing as it slowly died. The gunship was still airborne, trying to achieve level flight but shuddered. The pilot then tried to turn around and head away, saving the dying gunship.

Shepard rose again from cover and locked the last remaining missile on the target, daring the rounds that were fired at him. He fired the missile at the gunship and quickly headed down to cover again. The second missile blew off a chunk of the gunship's tail and one of the tail stabilizing wings, leaking oil and hydraulic fluid from the tail. The pilot continued fly towards the buildings but after a few seconds of stuttered flight the damaged vertical and horizontal fin assembly turned into a black blur of smoke before it exploded.

The gunship began to spin to the left, loosing lateral control, the nose of the Shrike began to pitch forward and the spin increased. The gunship began to plummet towards the courtyard, one of its wings clipped the top of a warehouse building and the gunship turned to its side and slammed into the courtyard where the remains of the Cerberus platoon was, they had noticed the crashing gunship and tried to outrun it, but the gunship slid through the courtyard with tremendous force, sending concrete, crates, walls and other materials flying, as well as unfortunate Cerberus troopers that were hit by the gunship. The Shrike slowed down and made a full stop on its side, leaning on the wall of a warehouse.

The Cerberus gunfire had died down as the kicked up dust settled. Vega rose from his cover and shouted triumphantly, "Eat that you fuckers!"

Aria had seen the entire spectacle as the gunship crashed, she chuckled lightly. She couldn't come to terms if it all had happened because of Shepard's skill or his luck. But she decided not to question anything, she was merely happy that the threat was gone, in a quite spectacular fashion too boot.

Shepard discarded his spent missile launcher and reached for his M96. He rose from cover and scanned the devastated area in front of him, ready to fire his weapon at any hostiles. But he saw none.

"Everyone alright?" Shepard asked as he glanced over to his right and the team that was spread out.

"Miranda reporting in."

"Vega here."

"I'm fine." Aria reported.

"Garrus here."

Shepard gave Liara and Zaeed a quick look over who stood up from the ground.

"I'm fine, John." Liara said.

"Yeah yeah, let's go kill some mawer Cerberus shits." Zaeed growled.

"You two on me." He then looked down the wall to where Aria was who was also standing up, searching for targets, "Aria on us, we'll clear the area, the rest of you cover us."

Vega, Garrus and Miranda acknowledged Shepard's order and aimed their weapons downrange. Shepard vaulted over the wall with Liara and Zaeed close by and they walked slowly towards the crash site. With her weapon at the ready, Aria vaulted over the wall and soon joined them. The four man squad swept the crash site, slowly checking every cover they could find, searching after survivors, but saw only mutilated bodies. Soon they concluded that the surviving platoon had died in the crash.

"It's clear." Shepard reported and motioned for the three others to follow him, "Miranda, assemble in the courtyard."

"On it." Miranda said and led Vega and Garrus to meet up with Shepard and his impromptu squad in the middle of the courtyard.

"Damn Loco!" Vega exclaimed when the team was assembled. "That was nuts!"

"Yeah, I agree with James, that's one for the books." Garrus was grinning under the helmet.

"Oi Shepard, I take extra fer anti-air yew know?"

Shepard chuckled, "Well it's good that you didn't shoot any missiles then, Zaeed. Even better that I don't pay you anything."

Zaeed snorted and shook his head as he holstered his M92 and retrieved Jessie instead.

"I call that luck Shepard." Liara said. "Pure luck."

Shepard gazed on Miranda who had said nothing; he suspected she was mildly amused about him daring enemy fire that way.

"Alright then, were to?" Shepard turned to Aria, "I want to get out of here now."

"We can go through the back yard over there." She pointed to a fenced area further down on the opposite side of the courtyard from the crash site. "It'll take us to the sewage plant, it's not far away now."

Shepard nodded, "Okay, you're on point again."

"Havoc 6-1 is gone, so is X-ray 2." The duty officer informed Petrovsky, "We can't reach them on the radio."

Petrovsky was perplexed to say the least. "Are you telling me that a bunch of mercs took out one of my platoons, and a gunship?"

The Lieutenant hesitated for a moment before he spoke, "Yes sir. It seems like that's the case."

Petrovsky sighed, "I want all units on full alert and I want the command center locked down! And send new teams to the warehouse and the spaceport."

The Lieutenant saluted, "Yes sir!" He turned away from Petrovsky and quickly walked over to one of the computer workstations to issue the orders to one of the technicians.

Petrovsky shook his head. He decided to arm himself and walked to the doors that would take him to one of the lower floors where the armory was located. He sighed, what the hell is going on?

The team had arrived at the waste disposal plant in the outskirts of the warehouse ward. Once they got closer, Shepard had assumed lead and took the team deeper into the plant by cutting through a typical perimeter fence. The waste plant was as run down and gritty as any other building on Omega. The team was on edge, after their previous engagement they half-expected to make contact with Cerberus at any moment, but nothing happened. They moved slowly but they were aware of the clock ticking down. Shepard took a quick look on the time on his omni-tool, they had 30 minutes left. Aria quickly pointed them to the manhole in a processing building which would take them underground.

Shepard ordered Garrus and Vega to open up the manhole cover, they found some picks which they used to lift of the cover.

Liara stood a few meters away from the manhole, she privately thanked the environmentally sealed armours, the odor coming from the manhole was most likely not very pleasant.

"Disgusting." Liara murmured quietly. She crossed her arms.

Miranda came stopped next to Liara, "I agree, but the alternative is worse than some foul smell."

Vega straightened himself up after they had removed the cover and asked, "We won't have to worry about sewer alligators, right?" Vega's voice carried a mix of amusement and concern.

"What?" Garrus asked bewildered on the behalf of the non-humans present. "What's that?"

Miranda shook her head, "It's just a urban myth from the early 20th century Earth, that large reptiles live in sewers in cities."

"That's stupid." Garrus said.

"Yeah, but do we even know what's down there?" Vega continued.

Shepard activated the flashlight on his rifle and walked over to the manhole, "Cut it, we're going down here that's that." Shepard knelt down and aimed the rifle down the dark hole, illuminating the darkness. There was a ladder leading down the large pipe, he saw a slow flow of sewage a few meters down. He had never had the 'pleasure' of going through sewage before while on a mission so it seemed it was always a first time for everything.

"You first." Liara said deadpanned from behind Shepard.

"Yeah." Shepard said unamused. He holstered his rifled and climbed down the ladder, a few moments later the people above him saw a light flicker on from the sewer pipe.

"You are all welcome to the party." Shepard reported.

Little over a minute later the team was assembled in the sewer pipe, sewage was flowing between their legs, reaching to the top of their boots of their armors, and it was pitch black, the only source of light was the flashlights on their weapons.

Shepard turned to Aria, "Okay, you know this way right?"

Aria nodded, "Yes. We'll need to head straight ahead 400 meters which will progressivly slope up, then in the junction we will go left 500 meters until we reach a dead end were we will find a passage to the club's own waste disposal."

"Okay, you are on point." Shepard simply said and motioned with his hand.

Aria nodded and walked past Shepard as she began walking the length of the sewer pipe with the rest in her wake.

"Stay close people, I don't want anyone lost here."

"Eh, ground element?" It was Joker in the radio with some interference. "Blue Force Tracker dropped the fix on your position."

"We're in the sewers, proceeding to target location." Shepard answered.

"Okay, good luck."

"Thank god for our armors." Vega complained when the transmission ended. "This can't be sanitary for one bit."

Liara exclaimed deadpanned from behind, "That's what I've been saying all long!"

Vega chuckled lightly. "It has to smell like shit down here."

"Yeah, but it won't kill you." Shepard said.

Vega snorted, "You sure about that Loco, it looks funky here. Or maybe you like getting dirty."

"Maybe I do James." Shepard said lighthearted.

There was a halfhearted chuckle from Vega. "I knew there was something wrong with you."

The rest of their journey through the underbelly of Omega continued in silence through the darkness that made the sewer pipe feel increasingly claustrophobic. As Aria had told them earlier, the pipe began to tilt upwards, making it increasingly difficult to walk thanks to the sewage and the slippery surface. But they used a rundown service gang walk, or what looked like one, which made their trek much easier. They grabbed onto the handrail and soon they reached the plateau were the junction was, the junction split the pipe in several directions which continued into the dark. They took a left and continued on. According to Aria they had left the Gozu district when they arrived on the plateau. They pressed on through the muck until they reached the dead end Aria had talked about. They were directly under Afterlife.

Shepard aimed his rifle at the wall, illuminating the dead end, "So this is your secret passage to flee Afterlife if need be?"

Aria sighed, "Yes, I am not afraid of some sewage Shepard."

Shepard nodded and turned to her, "So what can we expect when we come up?"

"There's a waste disposal room in the back of the club, a hallway leads into the rest of the club, we'll emerge on the floor overlooking the main dance floor."

Shepard looked around, "How do we get there?"

Aria smirked, "Allow me." She holstered her weapon walked to the wall

"What do we do if that room is guarded?" Garrus asked from behind Shepard.

Shepard shrugged, "Let's hope not."

Aria pressed one of the tiles on the wall and a part of the wall, about the size of a small door, retracted with a hiss to reveal a very cramped compartment with a ladder leading up. Shepard walked up and aimed the weapon at it to illuminate it.

"There's only a small ledge after the climb so we'll need to climb up one at a time. I'll climb up and open the passage." Aria said and reached for the ladder.

Petrovsky and his duty officer were looking at a holographic monitor, waiting for a link with the team at the warehouse ward to be established. The communications officer was typing on his keyboard and a few moments later a live feed was established. The platoon commander on the other end looked down on his omni-tool.

"What's the situation Lieutenant?" Petrovsky asked.

"We reached the courtyard, and we can confirm the loss of Havoc and X-ray." The Lieutenant responded through the computer's speakers.

Petrovsky still cringed inwardly at the synthetic voices of his troops.

The Lieutenant panned his omni-tool around the courtyard where the bodies of the platoon, and the crashed gunship, were seen on the monitor.

"Christ." Petrovsky muttered. "The mercs did all that?"

The panning stopped and the Lieutenant on the other end brought the omni-tool up to his helmet so he could see Petrovsky at the commander center, "It appears so sir. What do you want us to do?"

"We'll clean that up later, head to the spaceport and rendezvous with the team heading there."

"Roger that." The link was severed.

"32 men and one gunship..." Petrovsky stared at the monitor for a few seconds before he turned to Hudson. "Have we any footage from the spaceport? We have cameras there."

Hudson shook his head, "Sorry sir, we can't establish a download link with the servers."

Petrovsky frowned "What? Why?"

The communications officer sitting at the computer spoke without looking up from his computer, "Well...eh...sir, it appears that all the ports and hard drives are clogged up with...well...porn. We're talking exabyte after exabyte. We don't dare to connect and even try and remove anything as it could be loaded with malicious software. Who knows what that could do to the rest of the system."

Petrovsky looked baffled at the communications officer at the chair and then the duty officer, "The mercs hacked our systems at the spaceport and did that?"

"Apparently sir." The communications officer answered.

Petrovsky sighed, "Allocate the advanced CPU's and isolated servers to get through all that crap, I want too see any video images that are on those cameras." The General turned to Hudson, "And you are sure there's no one in the system, the Sahrabarik System I mean?"

"Negative sir, nothing." Hudson said.

Petrovsky turned to the communications officer again, "Have the fleet do a scan of the system."

"Yes sir." The communications officer began typing a flash message to all ships.

"You don't think we're alone sir?" Hudson asked.

Petrovsky shrugged and turned to the young officer, "I'd like to know how the computers got clogged up, and that the airlocks at the spaceport opened shortly before the battle at the warehouse ward is indeed suspicious. I can tell you that we will find the small team at the spaceport dead as well."

"You don't think this is the work of mercenaries?"

Petrovsky shook his head, "I don't think so, this seems to be too advanced for any mercs that would still be alive on the station. How would they be able to hack our systems without specialized equipment?"

"There's still the distinct possibility that they had hidden a lot of stuff."

"I'm having my doubts Lieutenant."

"So this could be the Alliance...?" Hudson almost whispered.

"They got several Normandy-class ships in inventory that can infiltrate without being detected. And one of them is the Normandy."

Hudson's eyes widened, "You think Shepard is here General?"

"Our forces did battle him and his squad on Mars." Petrovsky stated. "He escaped Earth. We know he has a connection with Aria, and our intelligence believe the rest of the Normandy-class ships were deployed elsewhere. And those ships carry the new shuttles that are built with stealth technology. So it's either the Normandy or any of the other stealth frigates."

"Oh, god." Hudson murmured.

"Have all forces continue on their high alert readiness, and lock down all districts."

Hudson snapped to attention and saluted, "Yes sir!"

Joker sat in the cockpit of the Normandy as it silently soared through space. He monitored the systems and was on alert for any hostile reactions from the Cerberus fleet while waiting for the mercenary fleet.

His lounging was interrupted as EDI began talking "Jeff, the Cerberus ships are running active scans of the system."

Joker quickly swiped his hand over the interface and shut down the film and watched one of the other screens, "Yeah, you are right."

He quickly glanced at the Blue Force Tracker, but it was still dark. Shepard and the others were still underground. A few moments later though, that changed as a fix on one of them showed up.

Joker pressed a holographic button, "Ground team, come in."

Silence. He tried again, "Commander, come in."

A few moments later of silence, the Blue Force Tracker had a fix on another team member."

"Normandy to ground team, come in."

"Yeah, what is it Joker?" Shepard asked over the radio.

"Sir, the Cerberus fleet is scanning for something in the system, probably us. Are you alright?"

"Huh, they're suspecting something I guess. Yeah, we're fine. We're at the target objective."

"Great, then we can get the show on the road. There's still 7 minutes left until the mercs show up."

"Yeah copy that. Transmit when they show up."

"Copy."

Joker straightened himself in the seat and swiped his hand over the interface. The Normandy began moving away towards Omega, Joker intended to get into position so he could engage the enemy when their allies arrived to engage the enemy.

Joker opened up the ships intercom, "All hands to battlestations, be ready for combat."

EDI spoke, "Weapons ready, and we're ready to fire."

"So what do we do?" Aria asked and watched Shepard. Behind him Liara climbed up from the ladder and entered the waste disposal room from the opened passage in the wall.

Earlier, Aria had climbed up and arrived in a very small compartment. She had then punched in a code into a keypad and the wall had slid to the side to reveal the club's waste disposal, a room with several trash compactors.

"First I'd like to know what awaits us on the other side of that door." Shepard said and pointed at the exit down the length of the room.

Aria nodded, "We'll enter a hallway that will lead into the floor and balcony overlooking the main dance floor. There are also two staircases on the opposite sides of the balcony leading down to the main floor. I suspect that Cerberus have turned that dance floor into a command center, if not we'll have to find it."

Shepard nodded and then looked down on his omni-tool, "The fleet will be here in 7 minutes."

The last man up was Garrus, the team was now assembled and Shepard turned to them.

"Ok, outside that door we will be able to reach the main dance floor which probably have been converted to a command center, there will be two staircases opposite each other on the upper floor leading down to the dance floor. I want two teams assaulting with flashbangs. I'll take Liara and Aria, Miranda you take the rest and position yourself near the other flight of stairs."

"Okay Shepard." Miranda said.

"Questions?"

"Rules of Engagement?" Liara asked.

"We shoot first and ask questions later, I want to lock down the command center and don't want to worry too much about taking prisoners, but if people surrender we'll take them alive and worry about them later. Liara I want you on the computers as soon as possible. If the command center is not on the main dance floor we advance further down into the club and find it. Regardless, I want a team to secure the rest of the club after we've secured the command floor."

The assembled team acknowledged his orders.

"You all heard Joker, the Cerberus fleet is scanning the system so Cerberus suspects something is wrong. We'll get in position and attack when our ships engage the Cerberus fleet."

Petrovsky was hovering behind the communications officer who was typing away on the keyboard. They had been effective enough to access the clogged up systems and had began erasing everything. The officer sitting at the computer was confident enough that they could access the video images in a few moments.

"I got it!" The officer exclaimed triumphantly and pressed a button on his keyboard.

Petrovsky turned his attention to the monitor that began showing images from the tarmac at the spaceport. Nothing happened for almost a minute, the images shown were merely of the airlocks that had opened. Petrovsky was about to tell the communications officer to speed forward when a Alliance colored Kodiak shuttle flew through the barrier curtain and landed on a platform.

The Alliance! Petrovsky could scarcely believe it, they had been infiltrated.

"Fuck." Hudson blurted out, he stood next to Petrovsky watching the same images.

The shuttle door opened and revealed a turian and a human jumping out and taking up position near a wall.

"Zoom in on the human!" Petrovsky ordered.

The communications officer tapped a key and the program zoomed in on the man.

Petrovsky could not identify the Alliance Marine, but the black tinted armor with the N7 logo on the torso confirmed his fears. The Alliance was here and the man leading them was probably Commander Shepard. Several other armed people jumped out of the shuttle.

"They're out there somewhere." Petrovsky said antagonized. "I want increased patrols in the Gozu district, with everything locked down they can't have come very far. I want them hunted down and killed. I want Shepard alive, or whoever that man is that's leading them."

"Yes sir." Hudson said and ran off to the other side of the hall.

Suddenly one of the radar technicians shouted in surprise, "Holy shit! We got unknown contacts coming out of FTL!"

Petrovsky ran up to the radar technician, "Any ID?"

"Negative sir, standby, they jumped to light speed, but I'll run a scan on the data we got." The radar technician activated the IFF system of his computer and did a back trace. "They will be here in an hour."

There was a flurry of activity in the command center. Technicians hunched down at their computers were trying to coordinate a counter-attack when the enemy would be in range.

Petrovsky took a deep breath and tried to calm down. He smelt a hint of a strange odor coming from somewhere above him. He frowned; not only did they have the Alliance running around and they were attacked by unknown ships, the fans were beginning to act up as well. Omega was not the most sanitary place in the Milky Way.

Suddenly he heard a thump near his feet; Petrovsky looked down and was surprised when he saw the unmistaken form of a flashbang grenade. He tried to turn away but the sudden bright flash activated all the light sensitive cells in his eyes, he was blinded. The loud concussion noise not only deafened his ears, but it disturbed the ears fluid, causing him too loose balance. He screamed in pain.

A few moments earlier.

Shepard slowly and quiet hugged the wall next to him near the stair case. The team had exited the waste room without incident and there were no guards on the floor and balcony above the dance floor. And Aria had been right; the entire main floor had been converted into a state-of-the-art command center. Alongside the walls there were workstations manned by technicians. The large circular opening in the center usually had a purple holographic cylindrical display that extended from the ceiling through the entire night club was now shut down. The large suspended circular ring where asari dancers usually danced was empty. Aria had a few seconds earlier muttered that Cerberus would pay for this desecration of her club.

"We're in position, so far so good." Miranda reported form the other side of the floor.

"Good, standby." Shepard responded. He looked down on his omni-tool, the fleet should have arrived 15 seconds ago from the relay and then head to Omega to attack. Shepard was a little apprehensive now. Joker had earlier reported that he and the Normandy was speeding through space to set up in preparation for the attack. Now everything hinged on the mercenary fleet.

In either case, they had to carry out the attack even if the mercenary fleet did not arrive. Cerberus apparently knew Shepard and the others were on the station. Getting off Omega without the mercs would be difficult if it came to that. He just didn't trust mercenaries, whatever Aria had said.

His line of thought was suddenly interrupted when someone below them shouted, "Holy shit! We got unknown contacts coming out of light speed!" There was a moment's beat and the technician said, "They will be here in an hour."

"They are here Commander. We're moving to engage." Joker reported in Shepard's earpiece.

Finally, Shepard thought. He reached for a flashbang in one of his pouches and ordered, "Okay people, look lively. Flashbangs out!"

He quickly rose from the wall and looked down on the dance floor; he hurled the grenade over the wall into the hall. Next to him, Aria and Liara threw out one flashbang each as well and the trio quickly returned to cover and grabbed their weapons.

Several loud bangs were heard and the hall was momentarily lit up by several accompanying flashes. Shepard stood up and quickly ran around the corner with his M96 at the ready.

Aria was behind Shepard and followed him down the flight of stairs and on the other side of the room Miranda's team quickly ran down to the hall. The Cerberus staff was dazed and disoriented, some screamed in pain after the flashbang attack, instinctively holding their hands over their eyes.

On Aria's left a row of several workstations had been set up near the wall and the three Cerberus personnel tried to move away, but being blinded and disoriented they would not get very far. Aria moved her arm swiftly and unleashed a shockwave towards the Cerberus personnel that was staggering near the chairs. The biotic force made contact within a few short seconds and severely injured the three unprotected humans, tossing them to the sides, their bodies hit the walls and the handrail around the circular opening in the middle. If not killing them out right they would be incapacitated by the shockwave.

Gunfire erupted around the hall as the other team members opened fire at the Cerberus personnel, two guards at the exit was quickly shot and killed by Zaeed and Vega before they continued through the dance floor. Miranda used her biotics to lift an unsuspecting Cerberus worker of the ground and who was then slammed into the ground. Shepard and Garrus quickly killed two other dazed guards at the other door below what once was Aria's private booth that overlooked the dance floor.

Aria hurried past the large circular opening in the middle. Near one of the staircases leading up to her private booth, Petrovsky was staggering from the effects of the flashbangs, he was wearing Cerberus assault armor and was trying to pull out a Hornet sub-machine gun from his side. Aria used a biotic push which propelled the Cerberus General into the workstation behind him. He slid down on the floor unconscious.

Liara was right behind Aria and used singularity to trap several other Cerberus personnel that was near a row of computers. Two of the three had begun to regain their consciousness when they were suddenly swept of the ground by the singularity which was soon detonated by a biotic warp launched by Miranda. The three Cerberus personnel were flung around the dance hall and they were either knocked unconscious or killed by the biotic explosion.

"Clear!" Vega reported from their back ranks.

"Clear here." Liara reported next to Aria.

"Check the bodies." Shepard ordered as he stepped up next to Aria as well, he noticed her stare at the man lying next to a demolished workstation. The others started a thorough sweep of the dance hall.

"Petrovsky?"

Aria nodded, "Yes."

Shepard turned to Vega and Zaeed who was on the other side of the hall near the exit, "Go downstairs and clear the club, if you run into trouble call for help."

The two men acknowledged and ran past the circular opening and proceeded through the door under Aria's private booth.

"Liara, on the computers and lock us down, try and isolate Cerberus troops and do what you can to disrupt their operations."

"Right Shepard." Liara responded and walked over to a terminal and sat down.

"None are alive Shepard." Garrus reported from the other row of computers behind Shepard and Aria.

"I concur." Miranda reported as she walked over to the others, "They all appear to be dead."

"Okay, good work people." Shepard turned to Liara who was sitting and typing away at the computer. "Anything?"

"Ah yes." She responded. "We're in lock down mode already. I'm in the process of scrambling communications, radars and sealing all airlocks at the spaceports where they're launching fighters."

"Good work."

Aria had watched the unconscious Petrovsky lying on the floor for a while. The man began to stir and slowly woke up.

Petrovsky's head was throbbing and his back ached. He didn't feel good at all. The last thing he remembered was several bright flashes and loud explosions and then he was suddenly lifted off the ground and had felt an excruciating pain eradiating through his body as he was thrown into the wall behind him. He began waking up and tried to open his eyes to look around. The eyes did not respond and the bright light in the room pained his senses.

He felt strong arms grabbing his own arms and he was abruptly yanked and dragged along the floor and forced down on his knees, someone grabbed his hands and kept them locked behind his head.

His eyes slowly adjusted and saw three people standing in front of him, one man and two women. The man had the same N7 armor as the man on the surveillance video and held onto a M96 rifle. Petrovsky began to look around and saw the dead bodies of his staff. On his left further down at row of computers sat another woman working at a terminal. He felt a foul smell from the people surrounding him; it was that smell he felt right before the attack.

Clever, they had probably used some hidden passage to gain access to the club while he had his troops searching the Gozu district. Through the faceplate on one of the women he could see that it was an asari, he'd remember those eyes anywhere. It was Aria T'Loak. She had returned after all.

"General Oleg Petrovsky? Do you hear me?" The man in black armor asked through his voice module.

Petrovsky didn't answer, he wouldn't answer any questions, nor could he, the pain was too much at the moment that he could only gasp in pain. But he recognized that voice anywhere, it was Commander John Shepard. He had seen enough interviews with the man to know that voice.

A few seconds later one of the women spoke through her own module, "It is." The voice was full with hatred.

Petrovsky recognized that voice as well, it was indeed T'Loak. So she had enlisted the help of the Shepard to assault Omega? He had never thought that would happen.

"Right." Shepard muttered and looked up at the man behind Petrovsky that was holding on to his hands. "Garrus keep an eye on him, if he moves shot him."

Petrovsky heard nothing from the man behind him, which he figured was a turian due to the name and the unmistaken feel of a strong turian hand pressing on his arms. It was most likely Garrus Vakarian. The turian was famous for being part of the team that took down Saren years earlier. Petrovsky suddenly felt cold steel pressing on his neck. He slowly looked over his shoulder and saw a turian Carnifex pistol being pressed to the side of his neck.

Shepard turned and began talking to the other woman who also wore a black armor, but it was unlike Shepard's own. T'Loak remained still and had her eyes fixed on him. They were probably talking through their radios as he could not hear a single word.

He was a high-ranking Cerberus operative, and it was standard operating procedure that all troops and forward deployed personnel were outfitted with ocular flashbangs, but he could not draw himself to that level of dedication, or devotion to the Cerberus cause to even think of using such device now to end his life. He had no illusion what end was waiting for him when Aria got her hands on him. He only wished that it would be a quick end or that Shepard would take him to the Alliance.

Cerberus policy was that all troops and forward deployed personnel were implanted with ocular flashbangs or cyanide capsules, but most clandestine operatives and personnel that needed to move about in regulated Citadel Space were not outfitted with such devices because with everything being scanned, alarms would go off if a Cerberus operative outfitted with cybernetic implants that explode tried to enter a world in civilized space. Customs inspection on Citadel worlds were very rigorous with full body scan, checking identitags and medicards, scanning omni-tools and any cybernetic implants and so forth, and such inspections was not easily avoidable and mandatory. Only salarian STG personnel were allowed to enter and exit worlds with ocular flashbangs implanted.

"So what do we do now?" Miranda asked.

"We sit tight until the mercenary ground forces assaults Omega." Shepard answered.

The doors behind Garrus and Petrovsky opened with a hiss and Zaeed and Vega stepped through and walked up to the others.

"No problem I assume?" Shepard asked and turned to the two arrivals.

Zaeed shook his head, "No, we found no 'ostiles nor traps."

"Commander?" Joker called out.

"Yeah?"

"Just wanted to report that we're moving on Omega."

"Good. EDI?"

EDI responded, "Yes Commander?"

"Do you have enough processing power available to mine the Cerberus servers?"

"Yes Commander."

"Outstanding, I'll have Liara open up the network for you."

"Of course Commander."

"I'm on it Shepard." Liara responded when she had heard the communication.

Aria turned to Shepard, "I need to contact my fleet to prepare for the ground assault."

Shepard nodded, "Of course."

Aria walked away and began pushing a few buttons on her omni-tool to contact her fleet. Whatever she said the rest could not hear as she was on a separate channel.

In the corner of the hall near Shepard and Miranda, a badly damaged Quantum Entanglement Communicator was turned on. Shepard noticed the activity and turned his attention to it, and the familiar stature of the Illusive Man walked into view.

"Shepard." The man greeted. He donned the same expensive suit as he always did, with the signature cigarette in hand. The holographic display was damaged as it flickered rapidly.

Shepard was not nearly as surprised as the others in the room was. Liara drew herself away from the monitor and looked at the QEC. From behind him Shepard could hear footsteps picking up speed as Aria ran back to the others. She had heard the voice.

Shepard activated his voice module and walked towards the QEC and stopped in front of it.

"I did not expect such exquisite company." Shepard explained sarcastically. "I would have prepared."

The Illusive Man ignored the comment, "I thought I told you Commander that I don't want you to interfere with my plans. And yet I find you at a Cerberus base." The Cerberus leader took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled.

Shepard shrugged, "You didn't really think I would listen, do you?"

The Cerberus leader shook his head, "No, unfortunately your actions are expected."

From behind Shepard, Miranda walked up and stopped at his side.

The Illusive Man looked around the room and his eyes fixed on General Petrovsky, in a condescending tone he said, "I always knew you were a weak man Oleg, you could never do what was necessary, not even now when Cerberus doctrine dictates that you can't be taken alive."

Shepard glanced at the disgraced General, his head was slumped down. Shepard turned back to watch the Illusive Man who now turned his attention to Miranda. Shepard thought the Illusive Man was many things, most very unflattering, but he wasn't stupid. Even in combat armor, the Illusive Man figured out who the woman standing next to Shepard was.

"Miranda. I was truly disappointed in your decision. With your service record you were the last one I expected to defect for this…man." His tone was harsh, but void of hatred. He took another drag from the cigarette.

"I made my decision." Miranda spoke through her own voice module. She crossed her arms. "That station needed to be wiped of the face of the galaxy. You couldn't be allowed access to such technologies."

The Illusive Man exhaled, "Well, in the end it didn't matter you see, but I never thought you were one of such short sighted nature. It has been a pleasure to work with you, but you'll understand that I need to contain the situation."

Shepard turned slightly to Liara, he didn't want to have a repeat of Cerberus wiping all hard drives like on Mars, "Liara! Lock out all outside access!"

"I'm on it." Liara quickly turned to her terminal and began working.

"You chose sides - you picked wrong, Miranda." The Illusive Man severed the connection.

Shepard walked over to Liara, "Talk to me."

"I don't know if they're trying to access the servers or not, but I've taken down almost all connections, EDI will still be able to continue the download."

Shepard patted her on the back, "Good work." Shepard walked back to Miranda who was staring at the shut down QEC.

"What the Illusive Man said, that sounded ominous didn't it?" Shepard said.

Miranda turned to him and nodded, "Indeed it did."

The Normandy and the mercenary fleet had crossed large swathes of space towards Omega and the enemy was waiting in a defensive posture, waiting for the mercenary fleet, but they did not know of the Normandy's presence.

The Normandy was much closer to Omega and at the outer edge of the asteroid field orbiting the center of the system the Normandy and quickly proceeded to engage the Cerberus fleet.

Joker engaged one of the Cerberus ships with a massive volley of Javelin disruptor torpedoes to disable the target first, hopefully taking out shields and maybe emergency thrusters.

The problem with attacking ships with a mass accelerator weapon like the Thanix, was that if the attacker wasn't within the kill zone, the mass accelerated slug could miss the opponent if he was able to track and calculate the incoming slug and use the emergency thrusters to escape from the slug's path.

So it was standard operating procedure, regardless of stealth systems or not, to overwhelm and destroy the enemy ship's kinetic barriers, weapons, defense systems, thrusters, engines and electronic warfare systems with disruptor torpedoes or missiles before proceeding to attack with Mass Accelerator Cannons, to minimize the risk of the opponent to evade any incoming MAC slug. Another advantage to missiles was that they did not generate huge amounts of waste heat on the firing ship like mass accelerator weapons did, instead the missile or torpedo was launched with cold gas, and once clear of the ship, the missiles' own propulsion systems ignited, the waste heat was the missile's problem and not the attacking ship's. This was another ace in the hole for a stealth frigate as there was no excess heat generated to be stored in the IES sinks, leaving these systems available to store other heat generated by the ship. The disadvantage with missiles or torpedoes was that there were a finite number of them.

The Javelin torpedoes struck the Cerberus cruiser, the warheads detonated and raked the shields and the hull of the target. There were multiple hull breaches and one of the engines was destroyed as the rapid asymmetrical mass effect disruptions caused the target to rip itself apart. The cruiser was now floating dead in space. Joker quickly switched weapons and the powerful Thanix-cannon extended from underneath the fuselage and fired a massive blue slug from the double barreled cannon. The molten metal round accelerated through space and hit the cruiser and ripped it apart as the mass accelerated round passed right through the ship, injecting itself through the plating and transferred the energy as intense heat as opposed to the pure kinetic force of torpedoes or missiles. The incredible heat created a nightmare of biblical proportions on the cruiser, the fluctuation of pressure from the heat and the kinetic force literally vaporized everything.

This left the Cerberus fleet with only five ships left.

The other ships were surprised by the sudden attack on their flank, frantically using their vast array of sensors looking for the attacker. At the same time, the mercenary fleet; two frigates, one cruiser and the dreadnought exited near Omega and proceeded to engage the Cerberus fleet. The dreadnought-converted-to-a-carrier launched dozens of fighters to harass the Cerberus fleet.

The Normandy pulled up as the two Cerberus ships opened fire with several disruptor torpedoes as well as the cruiser's main gun. The enemy fire missed the Normandy as it made an inverted roll and brought the nose down on the Cerberus ships. The Normandy locked its weapons system onto the Cerberus cruiser and opened fire with a salvo of torpedoes that effectively ripped apart the hull of the ship before the Normandy fired its main gun on the target. Another blue slug was fired from the Normandy's cannon at the cruiser which punched right through it as explosions enveloped the dying ship.

While the fleets battled, mercenary shuttles converged on Omega and mercenaries swarmed the station, battling the entrenched Cerberus forces. Hundreds of mercenaries launched an attack on Afterlife to clear the immediate area of Cerberus troops. With Shepard's squad in control of defense turrets, which had been turned on the Cerberus troops, the mercenary forces were able to clear the area. The space battle was over within the hour and more shuttles of mercenaries were flown into Omega and began engaging the Cerberus forces. Soon the entire bulk of the force was inserted, either through shuttles or ships docking with the station. The mercenary force also began using turian-built A-61 Mantis gunships within Omega, and with Cerberus air forces contained, the mercenaries soon had air superiority as well as space superiority. Mercenary commanders soon reported successes against the enemy.

Aria's own people soon docked near Afterlife and started to take over responsibilities from Shepard's squad as their job was more or less finished. EDI had successfully downloaded all the information they could get their hands on from the Cerberus servers, Aria was happy to let them leave with those copies. Liara would have her work cut out for some time as there was a lot of information to sift through.

There had still been the issue of General Petrovsky. Shepard had no idea what to do with him, but considered bringing him along to the Citadel to hand over to the Alliance, but Aria wanted to exact revenge on him. Shepard had no love for Cerberus but was no sadist, and Petrovsky could have important intel, but the issue resolved itself pretty quickly when Petrovsky, in a secluded corner guarded by several mercenaries, initiated his ocular nerve flashbang, the man's head was blown apart. Death was instantaneous.

During their sweep of Afterlife, Shepard had found several M96 rifles in Cerberus colors. Miranda had explained that those were converted into automatics and been named Harrier. They had been developed by Cerberus Skunkworks the previous year before being handed out to Cerberus troops. Shepard had made the decision to take several back to the Normandy.

Shepard had made the decision to leave Omega as Aria and the mercs seemed to have everything under control. At the exit, Shepard had assembled his team when Aria approached him.

"I want to thank for your assistance Shepard." She said earnestly and offered Shepard her hand which he shook. She had removed her helmet earlier and Shepard was surprised when she looked and sounded genuine.

"Sure. We delivered a blow to Cerberus operations so I'm content. We got a lot of information downloaded. Everybody got what they wanted."

Aria nodded, "I'll get you those forces when the time comes. With Omega firmly in my grasp again I have a lot more leeway, I'll have the rest of the mercenary bands in the palm of my hand soon enough."

"Right. We'll get out of your hair now. I got some official business to take care of."

Aria nodded and the two parted. The Normandy had docked at the docking bay closest to Afterlife. The team made its way there and entered through the air lock. The team had to stay in the decontamination compartment for several minutes. Not once or twice were they decontaminated, but even three times by the automatic moving mechanism in the ceiling before they were allowed inside

Finally they entered the Normandy properly.

"What an incredible smell you've discovered!" Joker was standing at the threshold of the cockpit. Keeping some distance between himself and the others when they walked through the airlock. Jock tried not to inhale as the smell made him gag. The others passed by Shepard and Joker and they headed for the Cargo Bay to remove their armors and hand in their weapons. As they continued down the hallway to the CIC they got some stares because of the faint sewer smell.

Shepard chuckled, "Maybe you should come along next time?"

"No thanks, I'll stay right here." Joker replied deadpanned.

"Suit yourself," Shepard shrugged. "Get us to the Citadel. We have a Primarch to pick up and a summit to attend."

"You got it."

Quotes from Transformers 3, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Edited 2014-01-16: depiction of how a mass accelerator weapon and missiles work in space combat. Some ideas lifted from the "Atomic Rockets" website, which contains a large collection of details for aspiring sci-fi writers on how to craft a story with technical details on space warfare, faster/slower than light travel, how to design a starship for your story, suggestions on how interstellar trade and empires work and much more. Special thanks to EbabahCussiEnoImreh for additional ideas.

Edited 2014-06-18: made up a name and some info for the unnamed missile launchers in this fic.

Edited 2014-11-27. Canon doesn't specify the origin of the Mantis. Likely because of game development restrictions, or laziness, BioWare only made one design for every faction to use; every military or mercenary outfit uses the same hardware like Kodiak shuttles and Mantis gunships.

Edited (2015-05-09): I decided that it would appear quite daft by the Alliance Navy to only have the Ain Jalut and the Normandy in inventory as the only Normandy-class stealth frigates. So they constructed additional frigates.