A/N: Sorry about the wait, no one does a Garrus/James run on Sur'Kesh on youtube. Anyway, the final Mass Effect 3 DLCs will be released in the next two weeks(or less depending on when you read this), and I'll determine if the Mandalorians are going to go through it. The new multiplayer characters look fun(especially taking control over a geth Juggernaut and a hammer wielding krogan).

With Garrus and James ready, Shepard, Mandalore and Wrex took the shuttle down the Sur'Kesh. While on transit Shepard turned to Wrex, "This is the salarian homeworld we're headed to. They aren't used to seeing krogan here, so let's keep it simple. We land, get the females, and leave before anyone changes their mind."

Wrex was doing a final check on his M-300 Claymore Heavy Shotgun, ready for anything. "I still don't trust a word they say."

Mandalore was standing next to him, "I know what you mean. I've dealt with enough salarians to know they'll never tell you everything if it gives them an advantage. But I think the angry aliens act should get them motivated."

Wrex growled, "Who said anything about acting?"

Shepard tried to contain the situation before it got out of hand, "Just…try to keep it verbal."

"These females are the best, and probably last hope for my people."

Mandalore patted Wrex's shoulder, "We'll bring them back home, one way or another."

Wrex was smiling, "I appreciate it, Mandalore. Not too many in the galaxy that can still hold their own in a fight." Garrus cleared his throat, catching Wrex's attention. "I suppose I could use your sniper too, Garrus," chuckling about his remark.

Garrus was also smiling as he joked, "Figured you'd gone soft sitting on your throne, forgot how to hold a gun."

The shuttle's pilot, Cortez, shouted back, "Commander, I have the salarian base on sensors."

"Set her down."

The shuttle moved closer to the isolated base located deep within a rainforest. On their approach it seemed that the salarians were unprepared for their arrival. "Commander, salarian ground control says we don't have clearance to land."

"Tell them that the dalatrass authorized this herself."

Wrex however wasn't waiting, "I knew they'd never keep their word!" He moved to the door with Mandalore getting his DC-17m configured for its sniper rifle form, "Let's see them stop a krogan air drop!"

Still several meters above the ground, Wrex opened the shuttles door, "Wrex!"

Shepard was too late as Wrex already jumped out. Several salarians moved to contain the situation, "We have an unauthorized landing!"

"And who authorized you to hold my race hostage?" using his biotics to send two salarians against a wall and quickly pulling out his shotgun. As he did however two laser sights were just as quickly on him. Wrex looked up to find the two snipers that had him, though Mandalore had one in his sights, ready to fight back.

The shuttle lowered to allow Shepard, Garrus and James to jump out to try and stop all of this. More salarians moved in, with omni-tools and weapons at the ready, "Halt!"

"Stand down! Hold your fire!" An unarmed salarian rushed over as he moved past his comrades. "Commander Shepard, restrain your colleague. We only found out about the transfer a few moments ago."

Shepard took a step forward, "I'd rather avoid a diplomatic incident."

"As would we."

"But you have something valuable to Wrex."

"Something worth dying for," he quickly shouted.

"This matter can be resolved, but I must insist he remain under guard."

Wrex was rather reluctant to even consider the idea, as was Mandalore, though Shepard turned to the two, "I can handle this Wrex. Mandalore?"

Wrex paused at the numbers, but his faith in Shepard outweighed his doubt for the salarians, folding his shotgun and putting back on his back, "Anything goes wrong, and all bets are off."

Mandalore raised his rifle, reconfiguring it to the assault rifle, "Don't blame me when the fireworks start back up."

Mandalore jumped out of the shuttle as he joined Shepard, still weary of salarian intentions. "I'm Padok Wiks, and I appreciate your understanding, Commander. With war on everyone's minds, our people are on edge."

One of the specimen containment units was being transferred with a yahg inside as he tried to fight his way out. "Careful! Watch the containment shield!"

Garrus turned to James with a smirk, "Brings back memories."

"As you can see, this base contains sensitive information."

Shepard turned to Wiks, "What kind of work goes on here?"

With a smile he listed a few examples, "Evolutionary trials. Morphological simulations. Exogenetic assessments."

Mandalore shock his head, "Nothing is ever simple with salarians, is it?"

Wiks continued smiling, "Science has always been our best defense. The research we do here has kept Sur'Kesh safe for millennia."

Mandalore understood the idea behind it, but he still had some concern over their intentions, "And I assume one of these defenses has something to do with lost krogan?"

Wiks turned to Mandalore, "The females were in poor health when we found them on Tuchanka. They were brought here to stabilize their condition."

Wrex had two salarians escort him, one leading and the other with a rifle to his back. As he passed Shepard he said aloud, "This whole planet smells wrong."

Shepard calmly intervened before Mandalore could say anything else. "I'd like to see them."

Wiks nodded, "Of course. I'll need to clear you for the lower levels. Give me a few moments, and meet me near the elevator."

As Wiks left them, Mandalore grabbed Shepard's shoulder, "Shepard, the dalatrass is working real hard to prevent the females from leaving. I wouldn't be surprised if she had spies or something in an attempt to sabotage us while on transit."

He whispered back, "You really think the dalatrass would endanger her people?"

"If it stopped this cure, I think she's willing to pay any price."

Mandalore moved on ahead to speak with Wrex for a bit. "This is where all you salarians come from, huh? No wonder you're so soft. Too busy writing poetry about waterfalls." Wrex spotted Mandalore's approach, "Mandalore. You're one of the few aliens here I can trust." Wrex turned to look at the elevator, "You know how much I don't like this. I should be the one going in."

Shepard walked over, "How about you stay here and we fight one war at a time?"

Mandalore was chuckling to himself, "That display was nothing."

Wrex leaned against the wall, "He's right. That was just good old-fashioned krogan hot air. If it'd been real, they'd be dead."

James was rather impressed, "Maybe when this is over, you and I can go toe to toe. Just for fun."

"Shepard here almost did. He ever tell you about our little chat on Virmire? You could say we had a…disagreement. Good times." Wrex casually leaning back and smiling all the while.

Garrus chuckled, "Right. The best."

With the final Basilisk loaded onto the station the Tervho received a message from the Alliance. Emily was allowed to sit in on this briefing as Prath and Aay'han held it for the expected ground team. "Alright people, the Alliance has discovered a Cerberus lab hiding out on the planet Sanctum. We're going in and busting it open."

Tishad was a bit apprehensive, about Aay'han giving so little information. "And what exactly are we grabbing or destroying this time?"

Prath moved up as a hologram of the system was now being projected in the room. "The Alliance believes that Cerberus is doing research involving Reaper technology. Unfortunately the Alliance recon team was forced out before they could confirm anything else. The Alliance wants any research data and Reaper tech to understand Cerberus' connection to the Reapers and possibly find better means of combating them both."

"Excuse me, but Reaper tech? Doesn't that stuff indoctrinate upon proximity?"

"Right," Aay'han grabbed a small box, "Which is why Forta has been developing these containment units that should negate that effect," activating the box to demonstrate an energy field emanated around it. "So we go in, silence any Cerberus flunky that gets in our way, nab the data and tech, and bug out before they realize what hit them. Any other questions?" No one seemed opposed now that they knew they didn't have to worry about indoctrination. "Good. Suit up!"

Arriving at Sanctum, the Tervho held back outside of sensor range as the team loaded up into an unmarked Kodiak shuttle. The shuttle's IFF tags were based on Cerberus IFFs the Mandalorians have captured and used against them. Forta was making a few last minute checks on the containers as Aay'han had the team outfitted with shuk'oroke to have this mission play out as silently as possible.

The team was inserted without being detected, but just the same the shuttle flew off to a secluded location until extraction. Tishad moved around the right, stopping as a Cerberus trooper was on patrol. Aay'han took Forta and Zelon to the left, but a Cerberus solder as blocking their path. Unlike Tishad he was on a terminal, he wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

Tishad had her opening, she rushed behind the trooper, quietly, grabbing his helmet and crushing it with her hands before he could alert the rest of the facility. Despite having to her two webbed fingers together in one finger glove, Tishad was amazed by the inhuman power of the Mandalorian gloves, crushing the man's helmet and skull with relative ease. Tishad dragged the body back to the LZ and tossed the body over the ledge. Tishad got back to work of clearing the rest of the base silently.

Prudii was with Tali, watching on board the Rayya as her fleet begun the assault against the blinded geth in the Far Rim cluster. "And so it begins. Are you sure we still can't reach out to the geth?"

"I don't know…After this I doubt it…but…"

Prudii turned to her, sympathetic that he could not convince the quarians from attacking, but he understood what it meant to follow orders. "Whenever your people get to the ground fighting or you need boarding actions, don't hesitate to call upon me and Rang. We'll do whatever possible to assist."

Tali leaned her head against his arm, "Thanks Prudii, you know how to make me feel better." Prudii turned back to the view as quarian fighters were mopping up the remnants of the geth presence within the system.

With Kirrahe's unnerving support the team encountered Mordin Solus, Wrex's inside source, and learned that only one of the krogan females had survived despite having Malon's data on hand. With the base under Cerberus assault, Wrex had no trust for the salarians to keep her alive, demanded she be brought back to the landing area so she could be extracted before the salarians had an excuse to kill her.

Fighting through Cerberus, they reunited with Mordin and the female as Shepard accessed the terminal, "Are you okay?"

"Containment shield is holding. Will try to repair if necessary. Can't speak for krogan's health, however."

The female, confined to her restraints looked to them, "I'm fine, Commander."

Mordin started to contemplate aloud, "Females kept secret. Possibly a mole in STG. Could be indoctrinated. If no krogan alliance with turians, Reapers left unchallenged."

Aran kept his eyes out, "We'll do more than challenge those fierfeks."

With the pod moving again, Mordin looked down, "Shepard, meet us at next checkpoint, Cerberus likely to target-" the wall behind him was destroyed as Cerberus shuttle appeared with two troopers opening fire on the pod and the team. Mordin recovered for the blast as the pod moved out of the line of fire, "Hurry! Next checkpoint!"

"Copy all squads: I have the krogan in sight. She's in transit, heading up to the next level. Target Bravo has also been sighted moving to the checkpoint. All squads converge."

Mandalore waited to hear all of that from Cerberus before he used the DC-17's anti-armor attachment to kill the two troopers after hearing all of that. "Come on, they aren't done yet."

Back on the Normandy, Pyth was busily working to translate the plans, bothering Javik for more information. "This symbol here, in your opinion would you say it was meant to mean, 'derivative' or is it supposed to be 'inhibitive'?"

"I don't know! It looks like both to me."

"A derivative inhibitive? How perplexing…"

"You understand our written language, why do you insist on bothering me?"

Pyth held the datapad she was writing on against her chest, slowly darting her eyes to his four, "Because despite having studied insectoid languages, an endoskeletal species was rather rare among your classification, especially when there are visible exoskeletal characteristics." Pyth took another look over the plans, "What I don't completely understand are all of the notes. You'd think a species developing a weapon to destroy the Reapers would know what they were doing but this…" Pyth rushed out of Javik's room, racing back up to the elevator to use T'Soni's computers.

Pyth inserted her research into one of the monitors as she started to display them on other monitors. "Pyth, what are you doing?"

"I think I might be uncovering a disturbing truth." She was breaking the device down into its various components, using the Prothean notes and a bit of imagination on her end.

With the device broken down to its various components, Liara attempted to understand what she was attempting. "I don't see it. What are we doing?"

"I believe I just proved this weapon is not Prothean in origin. Or at least roughly 96% of the design. You see, these notes I've been working on for so long to understand are translation notes, not unlike my own where I would scratch out or overwrite some prior notions. Oh…the implications…then that would mean other cycles also fought back, just as the Protheans did 50,000 years ago and we are now." Pyth turned to Liara, "I think this information should stay within this room. If word broke that this device could potentially have been built by previous cycles, I imagine galactic morale would plummet considerably, if not pitfall."

The fighting on Sur'Kesh was getting more intense as Shepard and team killed another squad of Cerberus troopers before finding Major Kirrahe killing a Cerberus soldier in hand to hand combat. "Commander, stay back! Hostiles just down the hall."

"Is there an easier way around?"

Kirrahe reloaded his weapon, "You could say that."

Kirrahe jumped out of cover, firing his white pistol at a group of three Cerberus soldiers. He fired three shots for each, and each shot was an active grenade as they stuck to their targets before detonating. "How do not I have one of those?"

Mandalore readied his weapon, "If you want Garrus, I'll give you a few spares we have."

"Go, Commander! I'll cover you!"

As Kirrahe grabbed an assault rifle and moved to cover, a combat engineer rushed out as he placed down a turret, "Orion Squad, your orders are to hold position and block access to next checkpoint. Termination of Target Bravo is secondary."

Mandalore stopped Shepard from moving up, "I'm going first. I want to test something."

Mandalore activated his omni-tool as he rushed out of cover and directly into the line of fire. One of the Cerberus soldiers shouted, "Target Bravo is on the move!" the turret opened fire on Mandalore, however it was just a hologram.

As Shepard looked around the corner, Mandalore reappeared behind cover as he dragged a Cerberus trooper over and jabbed his vibroblade into his neck. Garrus tossed an Overload tech mine, disrupting the turret's shield, allowing James to use a Carnage blast to create a tech burst that destroyed it and stunned a few nearby troopers. Mandalore tossed a grenade at their feet, killing the lot of them as Shepard used a sniper rifle to kill a Guardian through the slit in his shield.

With this level cleared Mandalore moved to the nearby scanner, ready to move up. As they moved through the small passageway, James turned to Garrus, "That Mordin guy was right. Cerberus knew we were coming. Why else would they be here?"

Garrus just shrugged it all off, "Every war has its traitors."

"Yeah…" Mandalore turned back to the two, "and I think I know the bitch behind it all."

Shepard paused just to turn to Mandalore, "You're not thinking the dalatrass is behind this?"

"Why not? The delayed notice to the base of our arrival, the skirting of STG perimeters, unauthorized messages sent from within the base, Cerberus' unusually timed arrival, targeting me as 'Bravo'. You don't tag a Bravo unless you have an Alpha, and only the salarians knew only one female survived, let alone were here to begin with. Bev, Prath…" Mandalore tapped the side of his helmet, stopping himself when he remembered he wasn't with his ship.

Garrus grabbed Mandalore, "You alright?"

"Yeah, just remembering Prath is with the others and Bev is teaching students for the Alliance. If I had them here I'd have them back track Linron's communications or something to prove she's behind this." Mandalore did look back to where they left Kirrahe, "But I think I have other options, like Dalatrass Narra."

Using the shuk'oroke to their advantage, Aay'han and the team on Sanctum eliminated the last Cerberus personnel on the site. With free-range of the labs, the team started to carefully scourer the systems for intel. Tishad was disgusted at one of the projects she found, "Bastards! 'Will only lead to medi-gel advances for Hanar.' And they call it a failure!"

Aay'han found logs from one C. Talavi before and after his 'integration' into Cerberus. "Gab that data, Huerta or one of the other hospitals could use it. Forta, any luck on the artifacts?"

"Nabbing number four as we speak. The box is full and I've grabbed a lot of notes left behind by Cerberus."

"Good. Zelon, status?"

The salarian's helmet was tracking several heat signatures throughout the facility, easily distinguishing friends and foes, "We've got plenty of movement, but nothing to suggest they know anything's wrong here. That doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend getting our asses out of here ASAP."

Aay'han finished leaving Cerberus a goodbye present. "Gev traat'aliit!" The Mandalorian shuttle arrived to pick them up. With the team set, Aay'han grabbed a detonator from his belt and waited for them to get further before he pressed the button. Aay'han strategically placed four explosives against different fuel line junctions. The explosion put Cerberus in utter chaos attempting to contain the flames and giving them the chance to leave without worrying about Cerberus chasing them.

A/N: I always had issues with that N7 mission, grabbing Reaper tech without some kind of special container or something to prevent the possability of indoctrination, the number of artifacts we leave behind and how we couldn't stealth kill everyone when we arrive. But oh well, game mechanics and blah.

Mandalorian Translation:

shuk'oroke(shoo-KOH-rokeh)- crushgaunts

Gev traat'aliit!(gehv TRAHT-ah-LEET)- Pack it up team!