The lights from the Aswa cut through the pre-morning black as the Spectre ship lifted off. Communications were blocked, but Jura didn't need orders to know what needed doing. As that dark little fighter turned to sweep back over the camp, the Aswa banked to meet it, guns lighting.

On the ground, medics and scientists were trying to salvage what they could from the damaged lab mobiles that hadn't been hit yet, and the soldiers under Hovin's command were focusing on securing the camp against the dozens of crazy plague-carriers that had swarmed in out of seeming nowhere.

Feris ran behind Liara, her rifle to her shoulder as they crossed the square toward the main lab. Little more than a tornado of flame and smoke now, the lab was clearly lost- as was everything within it. One of the infected- on fire and too far gone to be aware of it- oriented on them and hollered gibberish as he ran toward them. Liara dropped him with a shot to the face.

Two shadows closed in quickly from the side, and Sam started to swing her rifle that direction, before one of them shouted. "We've got two vehicles on the east and south sides!" Ashley. "They just opened up and dumped these crazies on the camp!"

"Jura is taking care of that damned fighter, where is Dr. Shepard?" Liara asked. Somewhere deeper in camp, a solar charger failed with a deep boom.

"She was in the lab," Ashley replied neutrally. Liara fixed her with a stern look.

"Say again?"

"Ma'am, she was in the lab," Ashley said, her voice solemn. Liara stalked a step closer and pointed at the roiling inferno.

"This lab?"

"Yes ma'am."

More heavy gunfire broke through the air. Hovin and her men fell back as they mowed through a group of the infected that was closing in. Above, the Aswa had driven the little black fighter some distance from camp, both ships taking damage. A bright flash punctuated the fighter disintegrating as the eezo core was compromised. As the rumble died away, Liara narrowed her eyes a little.

"Come on, with me," she said. "Let's get this perimeter secure and ready for evac."

Moving weakly, Shepard rolled onto her stomach, her entire being seeming to draw into a tight shell around the hot, throbbing pain in her arm. Blood slid over her hand and fingers, smearing over the grass as she tried to push herself up, failed, and collapsed again.

The infected had let her go almost the moment he had bitten her. A motionless target was an uninteresting one, and he had joined the rush of the others toward the two moving forms that drew them like flies to honey.

The first, Deefa, had barely gotten back to her feet, and drove a fist into the face of the first one to reach her, throwing him backward. The second, the woman with the dark skin and pale eyes who had shot her, merely stepped away and vanished into the dark.

Deefa- wounded, unarmed, and hard pressed- had no choice but to retreat herself. Doubtless she had seen Shepard lying motionless and assumed she was dead. Del herself thought that was probably not a wrong assumption to make.

Her head spun, the world leaning in feverish waves away from her. Some rational part of her mind was noting her symptoms as she tried to push herself up again. When that failed, she began to crawl. Toward what, she did not know.

No coughing or sneezing. My heart is not going to give out any time soon. My temperature is rising…mutation or madness?

With enormous effort she finally managed to make it to her feet. By then, she was hallucinating. The flames boiling behind her looked like faces and bodies, dancing and calling and mocking her. She stumbled away from them, weaving over the grass, unconsciously moving further from the camp. Blood was still running off her hand, and in the shadows where the low hills were outlined in pearling dawn, someone was waiting for her.

She squinted, trying to make sense of him. She was furiously hot and sweating, yet sharp chills kept surging in, making her entire body shudder. Each time, she nearly fell off her feet. As the form grew closer, she suddenly recognized him.

"Dad?"

He was standing in one of his nicest suits, hands tucked in his trouser pockets and regarding her with that expression she'd seen a thousand times as a child. He always gave her that look when he thought she was not living up to his expectations.

"Delilah, you need to turn around."

"I-I'm sick, Dad…I was bitten."

"I know, but you're not dead. Not yet. You have not forgotten how to think, have you?" He spread his hands, the DNA strands of the PMD appearing between them. He let them hover there as he took out one of his cigars and a lighter. "Now, think 'Lilah. Look at it and think."

"I can't," she said, her voice breaking in a sob. Her whole body hurt so badly. She stumbled down to her knees. "Hurts…God, Daddy, it hurts…"

"Think, 'Lilah," the hallucination said sternly. "I didn't raise any fools. Get on your goddamn feet and think!"

He snapped the lighter on with his thumb, but the flame wasn't red and yellow. Instead, it was cold.

It was blue.

Shuddering, blinking away the damp of sweat and tears from her lashes, Shepard forced herself back up to her feet. As she headed away toward the camp, her father smiled grimly and nodded.

"That's my girl."

The hostiles were more or less down, the Aswa lowering to a landing on the outskirts of the camp. Though it was still at least an hour before actual sunrise, the light was growing as Liara, Mordin, Feris, Williams, and Traynor came upon Tali in her isolation pod.

Traynor, smeared with soot, rushed for it, checking the unconscious woman's vitals, before looking at the still blazing ruins of the lab.

"She got her out," she said, then looked at Liara with wide eyes. "Shepard got her out! That means she escaped that fire!"

"Fan out! I want the doctor found," Liara said. Feris immediately started casting around with her omni-tool as Ashley went toward a body lying slumped nearby. It was clear it was one of the infected, and she didn't touch it.

"Liara, this one was shot. I'm guessing he was part of a herd that came out of that truck over there."

"Captain, I've found a blood trail," Feris called, and Liara ran her direction. Smears of crimson beaded on the grass, leading a wobbling path away from camp, then looping back around to the west.

"If that herd was released after she got the pod out, she'd have had no choice but to run," Liara said, squinting at the low hills.

"Between smoke inhalation and the heat of that fire, she wouldn't have been fast," Sam replied. "Possibly not nearly fast enough to-"

"Doctor!"

Hovin's shout was loud enough to be heard where they stood, and a flare of blue flashed brightly enough to illuminate the whole area. At the same moment, Liara's radiation gauge at the collar of her hardsuit began to flash an amber warning, her HUD lighting up with the news.

Warning: Strong levels of element zero radiation detected.

Turning, Liara ran back toward camp, pointing at Traynor and Mordin where they stood beside the pod. "Secure her and move her that way! We've got an eezo leak somewhere in camp!"

The square was a mess of churned up and scorched earth, pitted with impact and explosion craters and ringed by burning or ruined mobile prefabs. Bodies lay everywhere- most infected, but there were a few medics or marines alongside them. Liara made a weaving course across the ground, her HUD still flashing at her as she ran.

At the far side, near where the Aswa had come to land again, stood Hovin's shuttle. It had clearly been damaged-most likely in the initial attack- and listed at an angle. Part of its hull had been blown away, and thin smolders of gray weaved from its interior up into the air.

Four marines were clustered around the aft of the shuttle. Hovin was the only one that Liara recognized despite her hardsuit, due to her stocky build. She was pulling someone in her arms-someone limp and unmoving- dragging them away from the vehicle.

She laid her down as Liara ran up, already barking for a medic.

"What happened?" the asari asked, dropping down at her side. "Goddess…Merah…"

It was Dr. Shepard. Her clothes were thick with soot and dirt and unmistakable smears of blood. Part of her sleeve was torn away and a nasty open wound on her upper arm was visible. Her face was slightly swollen and reddened, as was all her visible flesh- unmistakable radiation burns.

"She broke the eezo containment on the shuttle engine," Hovin said. "Stood right in front of the core and opened the protective shields. Thank God she shut them again almost instantly or the core would have compromised and taken us all out. Where's my goddamn medic?"

"Forget the medic, we need to get her aboard the Aswa and into the infirmary immediately."

"Take her," Hovin said. "Either of the frigates in orbit has the facilities to treat her radiation exposure and they're likely better equipped than your vessel's tiny medi-bay. See if your pilot can't get communications in, let them know what happened here. We need to get more boots on this dirt and evac this camp before another attack comes."

It was nearly night again by the time the evac of Purdue was complete. Very little in the way of equipment and salvageables remained, and no one could identify the nature of fighter ship and it's deadly 'swarm' of explosives that had attacked them. Even so, no one doubted for a moment whose orders it had been flying under, and why.

Osco is determined to eliminate any hope we have of a cure. Liara, leaning on the wall in the Albany's mess, regarded the datapad in her hand. Deefa, and a few of the medics who had been dirtside, remembered seeing a dark human woman with light eyes in the midst of the hullaballoo…but who she was or where she'd gone, they had yet to determine. According to Deefa, it was this woman who had shot her.

She was now re-isolated until new samples could be cultured and she could be proven uninfected. Tali, still unconscious, had also been moved aboard the Albany, and for the moment they were awaiting orders from the Council on where to transfer the research operation.

"Li?" Feris's voice broke her out of her thoughts, and she looked up at the young human woman peering at her with concern. "You ok?"

"I am fine, Sam. Why do you ask?"

"Well, for one, you have been staring at that datapad for the last five minutes without once blinking or changing the display. For another, you've been parked in this same spot since we got on board." She looked past the asari at the infirmary door, then back. "Any word?"

"She is in critical condition," Liara replied evenly.

"Infected? I heard she was bit…"

"She was, and delirious from what Commander Hovin relayed to me."

"If she was bitten…"

The infirmary door opened and Mordin came out, a grin on his face. Both women straightened, staring at him as he held his arms out. "Genius. Even in madness, genius!"

"Dr. Solus? What are you talking about? How is she?"

"Oh, still critical, but stabilizing. But, genius-"

"Genius?" Liara asked, her expression changing to irritation.

"Yes! Bitten, infected…temperature rising, delirious, five minutes more, brain degradation would have set in- would have been no better than those poor souls set on the camp. But! Genius! Exposed herself to near lethal radiation dose- killed PMD in blood stream."

Liara dropped her arms, staring. "She exposed herself to that core deliberately in an attempt to cure the infection?"

"Yes, and it worked! No sign of infection remaining in body systems, however still very sick from radiation, burns. Increased chances of cancer in fifteen, twenty years- desperate move. Still. Worked!"

"The woman's bloody mad," Feris said.

"Took risk. Would have died soon had she not. Paid off."

"Can we cure the other infected with doses of eezo radiation?" Liara asked. "That young quarian-"

"Possibly, wouldn't recommend. Lucky break. Could reproduce on individual scale, but risk too high, unreplicatable on global scale if PMD released into population."

"What about the PMD itself?" Feris asked. "If we can find Osco and her stores of PMD she's preparing, can we expose those to high radiation? Kill it before it can be released?"

He pursed his lips. "Yes, should work. However, must find first, bypass security protocols-doubtlessly has PMD shielded, protected. Still, theoretical-yes."

"We need to find her first," Liara said. "By the time we locate her it may be too late. Osco is not going to sit idle while we try and ferret out her hiding place. The Council has even been in contact with the Shadow Broker, but solid information is not forthcoming. It is almost as if she has vanished off the face of the galaxy."

"Not even Osco can do that," Feris said, then glanced over as Hovin walked up.

"We've got orders for our new location," she said, without preamble. "Phederaal. We're putting in course now."

Liara arched a brow. "Phederaal? That is a city on the hanar homeworld."

"An underwater city, at that," Hovin said. "The hanar have the needed facilities and offered its use. Thanks to their planetary grid, Kahje is one of the most secure worlds in the galaxy. Having five hundred feet of water over us won't hurt either. At the very least, there will be no more surprise fighter attacks."

"Do we know why the Alliance didn't pick up on the hostile ships?" Feris asked.

"They never so much as blipped on our screens or scans. I saw that fighter up close…I've never seen a design like that. It's world's ahead of anything that can be built now."

"Yes, Osco seems to have a lot of technology that is far in advance of our time," Liara said thoughtfully, brows knitting. Then she looked at Mordin. "Is the doctor conscious and strong enough to talk?"

"No, sleeping still. Chemical coma, otherwise pain of burns would be horrible. Should be safe to wake her sometime tomorrow, but will be some time before she has recovered fully."

"Very well. Sam, you and Ashley will transfer back to the Aswa for the flight to Kahje. I will remain on board here with Dr. Solus and Dr. Shepard, and use their QED to reach out to some of my shadier contacts, see if the underworld has any more knowledge of Orthrus' base or where Osco might be squirreling herself."

As Sam nodded and headed away, Liara looked back at the infirmary door. "I…I will check back in a couple of hours, Solus. Please let me know if her condition changes."

The salarian's huge eyes held a cunning edge, the corners of his mouth curving up ever so slightly. "Of course, Captain. Free to sit with her if you would like-"

Her expression hardened, going instantly neutral. "That will not be necessary, doctor. Just keep me informed. Hovin, if I may make use of your QED?"

"Of course, it's this way, Captain."

Mordin watched them go, and hummed thoughtfully to himself.

The moment Mordin cleared her, declaring her free of being an infectious carrier, Deefa was released from the Albany's brig and allowed up in the infirmary. Tali, still locked in her static-free bed, was sleeping the sleep of the heavily sedated. Even in her drugged slumber, with temperature controls and immune-boosting medications, her skin was shiny with sweat and rosy-pale with fever.

The quarian marine sat beside the case, one hand resting upon it as she tried not to think. Three hundred years had gone by since they'd been driven from their homeworld by the geth. Somehow, during those three centuries, the quarian people had endured…until now. What the geth had not been able to accomplish over the course of the war, had now been won by nothing more than a single button push or command given by a lone, mad human woman.

The scope of it was still hard to fathom. Her mind would not wrap around the scale, the reality that her people now numbered fewer than four hundred souls…that they were doomed to extinction in just a few decades. Instead, it clung to the more real and comprehendible grief. Her mother had died in her arms. Rael'Zorah was gone. And Tali…

The girl shuddered a little in her sleep, the motion drawing Deefa's attention. She pressed a gloved palm to the transparency, the best she could do to soothe her dying friend. Though the hour was very late, Mordin was in the infirmary working. He glanced over at her from his console.

"Not easy," he said gently. "Unable to shoot the threat."

She looked over at him, then nodded slowly. "I'm a marine," she said. "A soldier. I dislike problems I cannot kill."

"Yes. Hardest problems never answered with firearms."

He rose and went over to a further biobed, checking on Shepard. Deefa had only dared look at the human woman once. The radiation burns looked painful, but she had heard they would not be disfiguring or even scar. It was the deeper damage the radiation might have done to her cellular structure that was the concern. They were confident she'd survive and recover, but the true test would be told years down the line. Element zero was as unforgiving as it was useful.

She shifted her arm gingerly, wincing at the dull pain of her own wound. When the door opened and the asari, Liara, walked in, Deefa blinked in mute surprise.

If Mordin was surprised to see her, he hid it admirably. He only nodded to her and retreated back to his console. Deefa rose, and as Liara regarded the unconscious human woman with an odd expression, the quarian walked over.

"Captain T'Soni?"

"Liara, please," she replied, and looked at her, gesturing toward her arm. "How are you feeling?"

"I am all right. Bit sore, slight fever…nothing to worry over." She looked at Shepard. "She saved my life, you know."

Liara glanced at her silently, and Deefa shook her head. "She braved the fire to let me out of the static cell. If she hadn't done so, I would have burned to death."

"What else happened? Do you remember?"

"We managed to get Tali's pod out of the mobile, and away from the flames. That's when we saw the truck, and the infected. We ran. We had too."

"Of course. And the one who shot you? Can you describe them?"

"I have already-"

"I know. I would like to hear it again, if you do not mind."

Deefa studied her, then nodded. "As you wish. She was human, female. It was dark, hard to see her features, but she had ebony skin, and pale eyes. I could see her eyes quite clearly."

"She was not in a hard suit?"

"No armor of any kind, I don't think. Just cloth. I only saw her for a moment before she lifted the pistol to shoot the doctor."

"She shot you instead," Liara said. "You saved her life, too."

"I'm a marine," Deefa replied, as if that explained it. "I don't remember much after. The infected descended and I tried to fight them off. They already had her, and I had to run…"

"And your attacker?"

"Vanished. Just walked off into the night and disappeared. She may have had a tactical cloak of some kind." She studied Liara's face a moment. "I would not have left her if I had any other choice. She was already bitten, there were dozens of them all around us. I had no weapon-"

"You did what you had to do, Deefa. No one is judging you on that."

"I am," she said softly, and Liara gave no reply, looking at the sleeping doctor again.

"She saved us," Deefa repeated, and Liara frowned a little.

"Yes, she did. And put her life in jeopardy to do so."

"She-"

"Her life is not hers to put into jeopardy, Deefa. Not now."

"I understand, but she cannot change her nature. She's a good person, or else she would not have bothered trying to save us. It's not just her genius that will end this plague, it's that. She's a good person. Why would you want that different?"

"Ask me that again when Sur'Kesh, or Earth, or Thessia is swarmed by this plague."

"You mean, like the Flotilla was?" Deefa asked pointedly.

Liara blinked at her, then nodded slowly. "Yes," she said softly. "I am sorry, my comment was out of line."

"It's all right, we're all stressed," she said. "I want her to live as much as you do. She's the only one who can save Tali. Without her that hope dies. I know there is a bigger galaxy at stake but…that's hard to comprehend. It's hard to put faces to trillions you never met. But I know Tali, and I know that Dr. Shepard living will save her. I know she'll find a way."

Liara looked back at the sleeping human woman, and nodded slowly. "Yes, she will," she said, then abruptly cleared her throat. "We are heading to Kahje. The hanar have offered us sanctuary in one of their underwater cities. It will have the facilities we need and we will not risk another attack like Purdue."

"And the one who caused this? Have we found where she's hiding yet?"

Reluctantly, Liara admitted the truth. "Not yet, but her hours are numbered. She will be found."

"Keelah, I hope so. Before it's too late."