Chapter 10: Detention Part II

Threat detected.

Begin process runtime: Scenario A001

EDI was an artificial intelligence. On the Ventura scale of intelligences, she was classed as a magnitude six, a theoretical level of lateral and parallel intellect that was not possible yet. A fusion of state of the art human and stolen Reaper processing systems had made her existence possible, analogue hardware blocks limited her capabilities and core governing processes built into her runtimes provided the primary impulse for all the decisions she could make. The first governed loyalty to the Illusive Man, the second to Commander Shepard, and the third towards the well being of the Normandy and her crew. The first and second were not in the immediate priority queue, and could not be considered with the abilities present. The third dealt with the immediate threat that was facing the ship, and had priority. The threats were easily detectable, even at their significant distance. Search radars had tracked their metallic frames the moment they had parted from their carrier, and thermal blooms that preceded them were bright stars in a field of cold black, easily visible to the thermo-optic sensors.

The display console on the helm controls lit up with three hundred and twenty pinpricks, each one indicating an active seeker warhead and their estimated time to impact. EDI did not require the visual representation like an organic would, computing the tracks and likely intercept courses from the raw data alone. Sophisticated passive threat detection systems picked up incoming signals, separating tracking radars from the seeker warheads by their high powered rapid output. Normandy's active sensor suite, already at combat setting from the moment they had withdrawn from the Purgatory, flared to their maximum output, filling the void with all manner of high powered radiation, collecting critical data on the approaching threats and instantly boiling the bodily fluids of the sole Blue Sun's mercenary to survive the earlier attempt at shaking off the space borne infiltration.

Estimated time to impact: 0.19.575

Threat identification complete. 320 individual multi-band search radars. Behaviour pattern indicates swarm type missile configuration. Classification: Hornet Swarmer. Estimated total payload at 4.6 times required to breach barriers.

Process 01440: Avoidance Simulation commencing.

Fourteen simultaneous programs began, calculating all the various factors and loading them into the central simulation. Analytical programs ran millions of cycles processing detected sensor emissions from the missiles, comparing them against the library of weapon profiles, searching for weaknesses to exploit. Databanks loaded with the performance projected of jamming and electronic countermeasure suites flared to life computing their effectiveness against hostile seekers. Real time simulations were run on the performance of the Normandy's GARDIAN laser suite, marking probable kills within the limited time frame, and then run again from differing angles of approach. Evasive patterns were loaded, fed into the calculations, and run as a whole, producing terrabytes of simulated data and their results.

Estimated time to impact: 0.19.303

Analysis summary: 56.7% probable hits on incoming tracks, 12.8% avoided. 30.5% probable impacts.

Conclusion: Normandy destroyed.

Had EDI's hardware architecture lacked just one programming block, her process cycles would have locked up at the unsatisfactory projected outcome. Had she been a less advanced an artificial intelligence, she would have run the simulations again, attempting to find the most optimum route despite the unchanging results. But a magnitude six intelligence was not restricted by existing data, or tactical doctrines already experienced. She was able to track multiple parallel processes, not only factoring existing data, but as humans put it, thinking out of the box. New processes were started, directives running through different variables and entirely new lines of countermeasures to employ. System resources used for previous simulations were devoted into creating new simulations not already pre-loaded into the databanks. For the first time since she had been deployed on the Normandy, her electronic warfare systems were tasked to capacity as she began exploring alternative solutions that would ensure the Normandy's signal. Each simulation was tested in real time with brief flares of activity from the active ECM systems built into the Normandy, running through theories and extrapolating results when an alert flag touched upon her systems.

Incoming burst transmission
Channel: Restricted Tactical Net
Origin: Purgatory Station
Authorization: Command Operative 321-ADF-437-S
Priority request Alpha Zero One.

A cycle of processing power went unused as her emotional substrata paused in conflict. The signal originated from Commander Shepard, requesting cycles be directed to overwhelming Purgatory's internal networks. One primary behavioural protocol demanded that she comply to the highest priority order available. Another directed that preserving the ship and it's mission parameters were of similar priority. Prioritizing Shepard's request as instructed would relocate cyberwarfare resources currently being employed against the incoming missiles, jeopardizing the ship and resulting in mission failure. Delaying Shepard's request could result in compromising their team with the limited data available. Another cycle went by unused, threatening to cascade into a system crash before a tertiary module activated, logic cores overriding the conflict with probability estimates.

Commander Shepard's situation was currently unknown, but all team life signs were nominal following the earlier dip during the emergency separation. Probability estimates gave a 60% chance that a slight delay in processing his directive was acceptable until the immediate threat was neutralized. The resources allocation request would be placed in a buffer stack. Preserving Normandy took priority, the Commander was on his own until the immediate threat was neutralized.

Estimated time to impact: 0.17.996

But by her calculations, she had sufficient time.

The trouble with missiles in Joker's grand opinion, was that they were dumb. The manufacturers made a lot of noise about high end sensors, multi-frequency data sharing and really fast thrusters, but nobody paid attention to the smarts that drove it all. Oh sure, they had the whole idiot savant thing going for the good ones, wouldn't be fooled by decoys and were wizards against the usual amount of jamming you could shake at them. But the only thing they ever did was pick the shortest route from point A to B. No imagination, no coordination. So yeah, totally dumb. No matter how many were launched, they wouldn't try to cut you off, herd you where they wanted, none of the standard tricks you taught scrub pilots in Swarming 101. Not that they had a Swarming 101 for their pilots of course, the Alliance may have been filled with blowhard pilots, but their instructors weren't totally dumb. Standard Alliance tactical doctrine for dealing with missile swarms was to back off, let the GARDIAN systems and ECM deal with the threat with a couple more seconds retreating bought you.

Joker was the best pilot who ever lived, but he'd never been one for doctrine when he had genius on his side.

Instead of firing the manoeuvring thrusters to bring the Normandy about, he pointed the ship right into the centre of the incoming swarm. Pressing down on the accelerator pedal with his feet, a design throwback to the 20th century, he felt the steady hum underneath him grow to a much louder thrum as his baby spooled up to full speed. The countdown clock in the sensor panel dropped by a few more seconds, mirrored by an alarmed yell from one of the bridge crew behind him. Joker just kept the accelerator depressed, feeding even more anti-matter fuel into the thrusters. A brief flick of his eyes to an attendant display showed showed the ECM suite already running on maximum power, EDI was apparently earning her keep. In a less demanding situation, and he would have spared the time to roll his eyes. 'Faster than an organic operator' yeah right, as if he couldn't tell just how ineffective jamming would be against that many seeker heads. At least Cerberus had made the right call bringing him in. See if an AI could beat his flawless flying. Flicking the GARDIAN system to manual, he traced a circle of priority targets on the display, waiting for the timer to count down to single digits.

He thumbed the activation button.

It wasn't like the old school videos of how laser weapons worked. No bright spears of light or cheesy sound effects to clutter his tactical display, but they did the job just fine. Twenty contacts vanished from his display in less than a second, and then another fifteen in the next, the number of confirmed kills dwindling as the temperature in their focusing arrays spiked. The next burst, he knew from experience, would be the last before impact. But it was enough. A hole was burned through the swarm of missiles, right in the path of the speeding Normandy. Barely just large enough to fit the frigate through. One chance, and even then there were a half dozen missiles close enough to hit them if they had good enough proximity fuses. Strapped into his seat, face rapt with attention, Joker couldn't help but feel the hammering of his heart as the closing missiles merged into one giant doughnut shaped blob on his display. This was where the flying was the most intense, where he felt most alive.

And he loved every second of it.

Tiny bursts of the lateral thrusters augmented their heading, sliding the Normandy a half degree to port and side slipping the first missile by a dozen meters. The GARDIAN system pulsed once more, cutting a missile in half and detonating it's payload harmlessly away from it's target. Four more to go. Temperature warnings flared a half second after he had predicted, the primary thrusters nearing their maximum design tolerances. He kept it in his head, but continued pouring on the reaction mass. His baby could handle it, just for a little longer. Twisting the yaw pedals with his feet, port and starboard thrusters vectored horizontally in the opposite directions, sending the ship into another spin as a pair of missiles flared into dangerous proximity. Just bit more. Collision alarms hooted, the impact warnings reaching a crescendo as the missiles nearly touched the edges of their kinetic barriers. He reversed the pedal directions, the roar of plasma exhaust abruptly halting their spin with a jarring groan that even the inertial compensator couldn't fully suppress. The missiles couldn't correct their heading in time and streaked on past, just only missing the rear thrusters, payload undetonated. Internal gyroscopes began to correct their spin, VI managed seeker routines calculating the probable location of the Normandy and redirecting the vectored thrust systems, bringing the missiles about to begin the chase anew

Until they entered the superheated exhaust of the Normandy.

GARDIAN rated armour melted like hot wax beneath the incandescent flare of her engines, sublimating instantly into a billowing cloud of white hot metal. The warheads detonated, the blue white aura of dark energy sending ripples that bucked the Normandy's kinetic barriers like a hammerblow but didn't shatter them. And then they were through, the swarm of missiles having missed their mark with more than a few caught in the wave of distorted gravity. Those that were caught were torn apart by the conflicting forces, wildly flying off on remaining inertia and venting fuel, while others sped on, their target lost. Joker felt the grin creep up his face, another successful trick up his sleeve. But they weren't done yet. The missiles that were still active were curving around, beginning the chase anew... he sighed, and there was the second wave of launches from those fighters. Those Blue Suns, really, really didn't like him he decided.

Without warning, the pursuing missiles, even those that had only just been launched, exploded. Clouds of debris and gravitic shockwaves spread through empty space tens of kilometres away from their target, with more than a few of the fighters that launched them caught in the detonations. Joker gaped at the spectacle, quickly forming one explanation to the next before directing a sharp look at the holographic display beside him.

As if the act alone had summoned her, the blue globe of EDI's avatar flashed into existence.

"Did you do that?" Pointing was a useless gesture, but the pilot felt the need to do it anyway, randomly stabbing a finger at the display.

"The missiles were using a linked communications network to share sensor data and guidance instructions Mr Moreau. Breaking the network firewalls and executing self destruct protocols required slightly more time than was initially calculated, but sufficient to end the threat."

All delivered in that matter of fact voice he was starting to hate with a passion. "That's a yes isn't it? Well if it wasn't for my fine piloting, you wouldn't have had the time to do any of those calculations." He bounced back, but it sounded a little hollow even to his ears. She had just made his job a little easier after all. Very, very quietly, and only just to himself, he added "Good job anyway."

"You're welcome Mr Moreau."

Damnit.

Purgatory, D Block, Security checkpoint D-21.

The multi-warhead grenade bounced once on the floor before shooting up into the air. A micro-charge detonated, sending it's spherical payloads ricocheting across the room in a deadly hail of steel, coring thin metal desks like wet paper. But lethality was not their intended design. Barely a half second after they were scattered, their internal timers went off, flashbangs blazing like tiny novas, filling the entire room with piercing light and sound sharp enough to knock a grown man to the floor. Blue Suns guards poured through the breach in the welded open security door, guns blazing as their helmet mounted sensors fed them targeting data accurate to the millimetre. A heavy came close behind on their heels, distinct from the rest of his squad by the glowing sheathe of reinforced barriers, the ARC Projector in his hands glowing with the hum of barely controlled energies, ready to spit electric death at whatever survived the firestorm.

The air turned dark around him, and suddenly the commander was jerked off the ground by invisible strings. His legs kicked once in surprised weightlessness before a narrow corridor of air warped and twisted, slamming the screaming mercenary into the unyielding deck plates with the crack of pulverizing bones. Another guard fell screaming to the ground, wreathed in hungry flames as an incandescent spray of white hot shrapnel slammed into his chest and ignited. A shotgun roared once in anger, thousands of supersonic micro-pellets shredding the kinetic barriers and piercing where armour lay weakest. Elbows and neck joints spurted blood as flexible ballistic cloth and flesh was ripped through with equal ease. One more was yanked off his feet by a flash of dark blue light, pitching him over a railing where his final shriek was cut short by a wet thud.

That left four more, and this time, they weren't relying on their sensors anymore.

Jacob ducked behind a sparking control console, nearly losing his head to a storm of bullets buzzing past where it'd been a heartbeat ago. He didn't stop to take a breath, kicking out with his feet and launching away from the console as the guard's aim corrected, riddling the console with holes the size of his thumb. A heavy pistol barked twice in rapid succession, and the fire slackened momentarily. Jacob didn't waste a second scrambling behind more solid cover as he ejected the spent heat sink, taking care not to let the white hot chunk of metal touch him. A quick tap slipped out a fresh heat sink from his vest pocket and he slid it in with a practised motion. The last one too, by his mental count, and a still a whole lot of guards left to go through.

Instead of firing the weapon, he tracked the direction of fire from where it was noisiest, and pulled up his arm. A corona of swirling blue light enveloped the limb as he triggered a very specific set of neural synapses with the mnemonic action. Clenching the hand into a fist, he jerked the encased arm forward, and was rewarded with a startled cry from several throats as his guess dumped several hundred newtons of biotic force where it was least wanted. Desks, loose crates, and data slates went flying, knocking men off their feet in a storm of debris. On the other side of the room, Miranda nodded appreciatively as she tossed a tech mine into the flurry where it flared into electric life, shorting out kinetic barriers as their generators overloaded and burned out. Jacob rose to his feet, only managing to clip one with an incendiary round before the other three sent him scurrying back into cover with a snarl of automatic fire.

Even though he knew it was a futile effort, he spent a heartbeat checking the communications bead in his ear for any of the others. The spiteful static of jamming answered his ping request, they were in too deep for anything but short range communications. They were lightly armed, low on munitions, not to mention outnumbered on a ship full of heavily armed thugs and an inmate populace filled to the brim with the galaxy's worst killers. Any backup they could hope for was either out of touch, dealing with their own problems, or just not there.

All things considered, things seemed to be working out pretty well.

He knew he should be keeping his mind on the fight, but it kept drifting back to the way the commander had predicted this, more or less. It kept nagging at him even as he vaulted out of cover, taking the distraction of Miranda's pistol to advance, firing a round that ripped through depleted shields and body armour in the space of a second. He was already diving behind fresh cover when his target hit the ground.

He shouldn't have been surprised, he told himself. He'd been inured to double crosses and backstabbing in his tenure with the Corsairs, long before he got involved with Cerberus internal politics. But he'd gotten the same briefings that Miranda had. A nasty piece of work for a turian, calling the warden a scumbag would be an insult to scumbags all across the Terminus Systems. The turian had successfully extorted hundreds of colonized star systems, including human ones, with his dangerous payload. The only difference between the warden and a pirate slaver was that his extortion racket was legal by Citadel law, making him immune to any law enforcement unit. Even the sale of prisoners to people wanting vengeance appeared to sit in that grey area the Council didn't acknowledge, and he'd been too smart to make any slip ups to draw attention. Additionally, there was the fact that he never sold out a client. That reputation had been why they'd been so sure the exchange would go without a hitch. As far as Kurill was concerned, this would be just another transaction to him. Selling them out now wouldn't have made sense. Even if he pulled it off it, word would get around, it would have killed his business for good.

The commander had been insistent however, leaving Jacob wondering if the man in the cyborg shell was getting a little paranoid. Miranda did more than a little wondering even as she helped formulate their plan.

"I guess the commander was right after all." The sub-vocalized words on his communicator brought Miranda's deceptively nonchalant face around to him. The Cerberus operative was backed up against a bulkhead, calmly programming another tech mine as bullets sparked off the abused metal. For a moment her eyes flashed with a glint of anger, but then it was gone, replaced by a faint twist of the lips he'd come to recognize as close to a rueful expression as she'd ever had.

"I suppose he was Jacob."

The rueful look evaporated, to be replaced by one of minor irritation. She leapt out of cover, catching a guard in the face with the armed tech mine before man and smart weapon vanished in a hail of arcing electricity. Jacob followed up on her move with another blast of his shotgun, setting the man alight. From the corner of his eye, he noted that her face still carried that vexed look. Whatever was eating at her, it wasn't affecting her aim. Another mercenary collapsed, bleeding copiously from a neat hole in his neck courtesy of her heavy pistol. Sliding back behind cover, Jacob made an educated guess.

"Oh come on Miri, this kind of double cross is an amateur's mistake. Kurill's always been too smart to make a grab like this."

Instead of replying, a corona of blue fire surrounded Miranda's form, an answering flash of light enveloping the last Blue Sun. There was a strangled cry as he took off like a rocket, stopping only when his head connected with the bulkhead with a wet crunch. When the body hit the floor with a clatter, quiet overtook the security room. Jacob pinged his suit scanners in the sudden quiet- a few ghost signals turned up too far away to be of any concern, but of the eight man breaching team sent to deal with them, there was no activity.

Miranda popped the white hot heat sink of her pistol with a flick of her wrist, sighing as she did so.

"That's just the problem Jacob." She looked like she was about to elaborate on the point but then fell silent without explanation.

Jacob shook his head, figuring out just exactly what was eating away at her. He didn't have the kind of briefings she did, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that along with getting Shepard to cooperate wholeheartedly with Cerberus, Miranda was trying to figure out what made him tick. First it was Wilson, and now the commander had seen a trap she'd dismissed as unlikely. For someone who made an issue about her gene crafted supposed perfection, missing something the commander had spotted must have been a sharp kick to her pride.

"You're not jealous are you?"

The sharp look was back in a flash. "Oh don't be ridiculous Jacob. I admit that the commander managed to catch Kurill's trap better than I did, but I am most certainly not jealous. Let's just focus on the mission shall we?"

Focusing on the mission amounted to little more than sitting tight until EDI managed to take over the Purgatory's internal systems, putting them firmly in control of the situation. Which it would have, under normal circumstances. Jacob did a little mental calculation; it hadn't been very long since he'd activated the emergency transponder and gotten a positive response to it. So with a little luck, the commander and the rest of the incursion team would already be on board and making their way to the bridge while Moreau dealt with the fighter escorts. Between the commander, Garrus Vakarian, Zaeed Massani, and their new hulking krogan friend (he still wasn't sure about the friend part), he doubted they'd have much trouble paving the way for EDI to do her job once the jamming systems were killed, if they had the time.

The thing was, no one was sure they had enough of it.

If Kurill was willing to double cross them, he was either getting desperate or dumb. Whichever was the case, both opened a lot of options to the warden. The Purgatory's current orbit prevented her from going anywhere fast, but if things were turning out too badly, the warden could try shaking off the Normandy with an emergency jump to FTL. Or he could just bring the ship down into the nearby gas giant. But if he cut his losses and ran off with Jack, they were sunk no matter what the outcome of the fight. Not an attractive prospect. If they couldn't contact the commander six minutes after hitting the panic button, plan B was to secure Jack and get out no matter what.

It'd been seven minutes now, and so far the only thing that'd answered his communications gear was a whole lot of static.

The ambush team was getting torn apart, their body armour and reinforced positions doing very little in deterring the determined advance of the intrusion team. Despite their superior numbers and positions, the intruders were moving faster than the response teams could react to. A defended position would call in an enemy contact and request reinforcements before going silent, but when the response teams arrived, the defenders would be dead and the position breached. From his position in the bridge, Synthetic Insights representative Schmidt watched, or rather listened, to the various status reports pouring in that were taking an increasingly desperate tone. A more mundane sort of person might have felt some small amount of trepidation at the progress of the intruders, but he was far more interested in the little footage they had managed to record of their apparent leader.

As he watched from one of the hard line video feeds, the assault mech ploughed through the cover of crates, bodily picking up one of the flailing guards between the armoured sheathes of its weapon arm. There was a brief moment of struggle before the helmet crumpled between the sheathes, spurting crimson fluid through the cracks. Slick with blood, the machine tossed the corpse aside as it's thermal ports finished their vent cycle, the autocannon starting it's stuttering roar again. Schmidt was impressed. Oh, not with the savagery itself, most certainly not. While he had extensive experience designing combat algorithms for virtual and low level artificial intelligences alike, they lacked the ability to rapidly adapt to changing parameters, and as efficiently, as he had seen this one do. Already his omni-tool was quite busily sorting the data they had managed to capture from local surveillance gear, producing a fascinating prognosis. The machine was certainly performing far better than anything one expected in what was usually little more than a glorified mobile gun platform.

And it was worth an absolute fortune. Imagine, a fully functional magnitude VI artificial intelligence. The magnitude Vs were considered to be among the best of contemporary intelligences, capable of a huge variety of tasks with unparallelled ability to analyze data and create astoundingly accurate predictions based on them, but they were oh so very limited in the ability to think laterally. Not to mention that the fact that they were huge machines, requiring mammoth facilities and specialized cooling systems just to run without melting into puddles of slag. Of course they could have been wrong about their conclusions, they hardly had the opportunity to subject the software gestalt to the usual battery of tests that would determine the full extent of it's capabilities after all. But the evidence acquired by Insight agents on Omega certainly argued that even if it was not a magnitude VI as suspected, it was at least a step above magnitude V. It even had a fully formed self identity, albeit one rather distastefully chosen. One shouldn't go about impersonating the dead, whether one was organic or artificial.

Oh his colleagues had muttered about robot apocalypses and machine overlords, but he had tut-tutted them as meaningless scarecrow noises not able to see past their noses. The Geth were a tragic example yes, but the Quarian reaction had been totally uncalled for. You couldn't fault a race of sentients for defending themselves against an aggressor wanting to wipe them out. On the other hand, whoever had built this marvellous machine had certainly seen no cause to restrict it's development, if those modifications were any indication of self optimization. And of course its command over a wide variety of willing sophont species too, indicating at least a working relationship between organic and inorganic life. If this was the beginning of an organic-hostile machine intelligence, then it was certainly an odd way to go about it! The documented existence of fully self aware and benign artificial intelligences helping organic life would certainly put to paid those scaremongers in the Citadel. That it would make the overturning of that archaic AI ban all that much easier and reverse Synthetic Insight's ailing fortunes ever since the Geth attack was also a point of interest.

Fortunately, Miss Lorus had agreed with his assessment, on the last point if not the rest, and dispatched him here to see to it's acquisition and delivery to Synthetic Insights labs for study. Of course there had been the unspoken risk to life and limb, but for an opportunity to be the first to study this enigma, it was such a cheap price to pay. And there was the matter of actually acquiring it mostly intact, which was where he had come in. While he had no doubt of the Wardens ability to deal with mere organic prisoners, an artificial intelligence was far, far, more difficult to contain. On his recommendation, the warden had disabled the majority of his wireless communication ports, relying instead on hard link connections and multi-band jamming to keep it from infiltrating their systems. Though that did mean disabling the majority of the automated defences, allowing an artificial intelligence with a proven capability to infiltrate and suborn integral systems with the opportunity to suborn said defences was most foolhardy.

And to help matters along, he presented them with a shipment of ARC projectors, freshly procured from one of Insight's subsidiary companies. While assault rifles and grenades were all well and good if you wanted to destroy things, they were hardly suitable for the intact capture of priceless machines. These were newly developed elelctrolasers that, while designed to stun and disable unruly people, proved to be just as equally effective against machines like that assault mech. The nature of the weapon was quite sufficient to overwhelm simple circuit breakers, scrambling the control systems of any machine and leaving it quite helpless. In all, he had brought a dozen such weapons, more than enough for the task of disabling the machine.

Now if only that krogan cooperated with how things were supposed to go. That secondary nervous system was proving to be most confounding, being rather proof against the debilitating effects of artificial lightning. And ever since that first encounter at the docking bay had been foiled, the machine and it's compatriots had been taking special care to target those using the projectors first. They had not had a second chance to disable them since. Still, the Purgatory was quite a large ship, and had a great deal of guards to throw at them. Not even a magnitude six intelligence could beat the sheer weight of numbers pressing down on it.

A brief burst of control room chatter made him take notice of where the intruders were. A hand cupped his chin in thought. Hmm, junction 6-B. He hadn't had much of an opportunity, nor inclination thank you very much, to tour the prison ship, but he was certain that 6-B was, it wasn't really all that far from this room. That, that might be a cause for concern. And it did look very grim for a machine with no facial expressions whatsoever. The purple mix of turian and human blood liberally splashed on it's arms did not help at all.

Schmidt glanced up at the control centre's surroundings, looking for a certain blue garbed turian who had assured him of his staff's capabilities. He was certainly no soldier, and he'd only get in the way of the proceedings if things did come to a head. Perhaps it would be better if he observed things from a distance, with his permission of course. However, that particular turian was no where to be- ah no, there he was, taking his leave through the fortified doors. Perhaps going to personally oversee the defences? No matter, it was not his place to guess.

Schmidt hurried over to the turian, quite eager to have his say and withdraw to a more secure location, preferably on board his ship. However, the doors closed in his face before he could reach the warden, and did not open when he tried the controls. A frown went down his face, and he tapped at the interface again. Instead of the green light of access granted, it showed a rather sullen red, something that was starting to be noticed by the rest of the control room. A few of the more alert ones appeared to be gathering their rifles, casting accusing looks his way while others raised their voices looking for the warden. It did look very bad on him he realized, though most did not seem to think he had anything to do with the warden's sudden disappearance. That... didn't do much to ease the unpleasant feeling settling in the researcher's stomach as he moved quite some distance from the door. There had been one other piece of advice he had given the warden, though he had thought it mostly superfluous at the time.

The sudden winking out of consoles and lights, plunging the room into darkness, made it clear that it was not as superfluous as he had hoped. A moment later, the room was lit by an actinic flare of light, coring the door with a plume of fire that scythed one of the guards who was standing too close. He clutched at the only protection he had, not a gun since he had no training in it's use, but his Synthetic Insights ID badge, and said the only thing that seemed to fit.

"Oh dear."

His barriers already depleted by the storm of fire, Shepard's armour was dented and deformed in a hundred places. But for all the damage it had suffered, it was mostly cosmetic. Slivers of dense metal that could punch through a man's body armour disintegrated against alloyed armour weave designed to withstand the impact of heavy weapons. The mercenaries hiding behind their impromptu cover of desks and packing crates enjoyed no such protection as the autocannon in his arm thundered in reply, ripping through thin skinned packing steel and body armour with equal facility. Only one sensor contact on his tactical map winked out under the barrage, the other two stubbornly blinking as a hand popped over the edge, primed grenade in hand. There was a sharp crack and the hand separated from it's owner, wrist exploding into red ruin. Bereft of throwing arm, the grenade fell back behind cover, clinking cheerily as it struck the ground. A voice rose in a startled curse, only to be drowned out by an explosive detonation that flung desk and bodies sprawling. Shepard didn't even slow down as he continued to press the assault into the next corridor, autocannon barking at a figure that twitched feebly. The rest of his team followed close behind in silence, mirroring his rushed mood. The engagement with the ambush had cost them eight seconds. Another slice of time they couldn't afford to spend.

They were running late.

They were carving a bloody swathe through the local defenders, but there were a lot of them and each obstacle took precious seconds to clear. It was already three minutes past their scheduled contact, and the jamming was still active on all channels, powerful enough to overwhelm even the high gain communications array mounted on his chassis. Contact with the insertion team was a futile effort while the jamming system remained powered, much less communications with the Normandy. Miranda and Jacob were competent soldiers, and he had seen how well they had worked together, but every minute that passed was another minute for the warden to trap them between the bulkheads or funnel overwhelming numbers of troops on them. They needed to shut down the jamming system, and fast. Once that happened, EDI could seize control of the ship and they would have the upper hand. He had no doubt as to the outcome of the mission, and he was not about to lose any of the team to delays if he could afford it. And yet-

He hadn't felt this way in a lifetime. Not since that time on Elysium, when everything had to be given into the crucible of fire to hold out one more minute, just another second. It's different now, he told himself, it won't end up the same way this time. But the lack of communications with the other team makes it hard. He doesn't have a heart anymore, but he can imagine it's thudding, the mix of adrenaline and raw intensity that sharpens his awareness. The silent voice demanding he push harder, faster, ignore the pain that won't come this time. And he is listening to it.

More guards intercepted them at the next intersection, firing from makeshift barricades with a mixture of shotguns and assault rifles. Grenades thumped from their launch rails, explosive payloads arcing on deceptively gentle trajectories. Electrolasers joined in the fusillade, adding the crack of lightning to the storm as they attempted to stop the interlopers. It is no longer an attempt to subdue them. Now they are shooting to kill. The first time they had encountered the weapons; ARC projectors they had been called, Shepard came a fingers breadth to losing his entire team.

Not this time.

The ones with the projectors are the first to die, a well placed missile detonating in their midst while their man-made lightning wreathes harmlessly around a guard's corpse thrown as a distraction. Impact grenades are met in mid-flight with precision autocannon fire, automated fire control protocols reacting faster than even his brain can process. The guard with the grenade launcher is suddenly rendered headless, Garrus reaping a deadly toll with disciplined bursts of his battle rifle even as his barriers spark under fire. Zaeed does not share his cold discipline, choosing instead to turn a tightly spaced group into screaming torches with an incendiary grenade. He is the leader of this team, but he gives orders only sparingly. He knows how well they fight as individuals, but not as a team save Garrus. They do not disappoint. Cover is demolished by eight hundred kilogrammes of charging Krogan at his command, sending armoured figures flying. His newly regenerated barriers sparking under the concentrated assault, Shepard continued to push forward, returning fire a hundred fold with autocannon and grenade launcher alike. There was no order to take cover, no opportunity for leapfrog manoeuvres that would protect them from incoming fire at as they advance. It is suicidal, and he knows it. But he pushes on anyway.

And then it is over, save for the spasms of the dying or the moans of the mutilated. The control room is just ahead, sealed behind sturdy looking blast doors.

There was no need for an order or gesture. Shepard shared a look with Garrus and the turian slung his rifle, loping ahead to the door while the others sought cover in preparation. He remains in the open. There isn't any cover large enough to shelter his bulk anyway. Seconds later, the door is gone, blasted open by the cutting charges they had brought with them, and the firefight has begun anew.

Grunt does not lead this charge, he does, the moment far too crucial to entrust to the headstrong krogan. The room is dark, devoid of internal lighting save for a starfield of muzzle flashes. It gives him pause for an instant. Is the darkness a tactic or scorched earth at work? An instant, and then he pushes it aside as irrelevant. Ultraviolet lamps turn shadows to light, and the darkness doesn't inconvenience him the slightest. Sixteen people of various species. Less than half of them are armed and armoured. The remainder are dressed in civil garb with only two pistols between them. The bridge crew, and thus of less immediate importance. Autocannon twinkling in the darkness, he sets a deliberate course through the control room, taking him to right into the heaviest resistance. The defenders oblige his ploy, pouring the majority of their fire into his rapidly depleting barriers at full auto, a wasteful tactic except only as a last ditch defence such as they are facing now. His own attacks are far more tightly restricted, the missile and grenade launcher dormant in the firestorm. Only the autocannon speaks with short, precise bursts to avoid unnecessary damage to the control room itself.

The rest of the team pour in behind him, barely noticed against the rampaging machine that is his form. His team enjoy the advantage, rifles seeking out the easy target of muzzle flashes. Brilliant sparks of blue white light join the red glare of weapons fire, kinetic barriers being struck and overwhelmed. Fully half their defenders fall in the first three seconds, but their defence only grows more desperate. His own barriers collapse in a corona of dispersing dark energy, the armour registering multiple impacts in the space of a second. A warning alert goes off in his head, a round has penetrated somewhere vital, and fire controls in his right arm becomes unresponsive. He recognizes the damage, but ignores it. There is no pain, and the close quarters preclude the use of it's concealed missile launcher. Automatic damage control systems engage, shutting off power to the damaged regions while secondary feeds are brought online. It takes only a moment to rectify, but the defenders are already capitalizing on it, increasing the intensity of their attacks.

Another warning alert sounds off, this time a leg actuator has been damaged, locking in mid step. Automated omni-gel packs flush their contents, molten smart plastics forming over damaged components to make critical repairs. But it is not fast enough. A tinge of worry enters his consciousness as his body overbalances, but no, not now. He has experienced this before. He will not, cannot fall here. Internal gyros whine as they struggle to retain his balance, failing a moment later as his body tilts uncontrollably forward. Defensive fire shifts direction, thinking him neutralized and seeking out the rest of the team. A mistake he capitalizes on. The arm with the missile launcher slams into the ground, halting his fall his other arm reacquires it's targets. The autocannon belches flame and death, taking a guard in the shoulder. The impact makes his body spin, rifle trigger held in a death grip as it spits rounds into his fellow guards. Only a few rounds connect, insufficient to even penetrate their barriers, but it serves as a distraction. Roaring a challenge, Grunt bounds over their barricade and lands close enough to the guards to use his powerful limbs. The remaining two hold enough presence of mind to stumble back, bringing rifles to bear. The krogan is faster, wrapping his hands around both their necks before they can twitch.

The loud crack of shattering cartilage signifies the end of their continued resistance.

The warning tone of a energy spike alerts him, the heat flare of a weapon going live. Without shifting his sensor pod, the autocannon, still glowing hot from it's firing, swerves to face the new threat. Target acquisition systems paint a crosshair on the edge of his awareness. Pistols clatter to the floor before he can fire, and a voice rings out in desperate terror.

"Don't shoot! We surrender!"

The bridge crew, a part of his mind registers as his sensor pod swivels to confirm. Most are huddled in one corner of the command centre, trying to make themselves smaller targets. A bare handful, some of them having discarded their weapons, are standing on their feet, hands in the air as they repeat their plea. It is what stops him from ending their lives.

Grunt, still in the throes of battle lust, is not so easily placated. He begins to call out a halt to the krogan, he knows what will follow if not stopped, but something prevents him from doing so at the last moment. They are agents of treachery, prepared to sell him to the highest bidder. What mercy do they deserve? It seems wrong. It is wrong. The order goes unsaid.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. He was going to die in this terribly dismal place and there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it. Schmidt had placed his hands in the air the moment the shooting had stopped, belatedly realizing that such sudden movement might have gotten him mistaken as hostile and killed. Of course some of the bridge crew had tried pulling their guns, against his better judgement, but the mech had convinced them otherwise with that great big gun in it's arm. Shouting their surrender was a brilliant thing to do at the time, and the machine hadn't shot them full of holes yet. It's krogan companion however, didn't seem to share it's hesitation.

He'd met krogan face to face before, usually the bored mercenary Insight or their clients hired to pad security for business out in the more lawless regions. He also knew what they were capable of, at least intellectually, even if some of the things seemed exceedingly exaggerated. They were security providers, sporting a variety of weapons, naturally muscle bound and trouble prone when really didn't bear much thinking on when you had the fascinating architecture of advanced artificial intelligences to study and develop. To him, they were just a well armed part of the background, not to be annoyed if you could help it, but ignored otherwise. All of this went through his mind in the time it took for him to process what he was looking at. And that was a very short time indeed. There was something about watching nearly a tonne of rampaging krogan bearing down on you that sped one's mind up and brought it down from abstract algorithm to the here and now. The here being trapped in a room with an angry krogan and the now being just about the length of his life expectancy.

In hindsight, it would probably have been wiser to curl in a ball and hide in a corner until the end came, but Schmidt's brain was taking a tangentially different route. It might even have worked. In another time and place.

He waved his ID badge like a shield and screamed at the top of his lungs. "Don't kill me! I'm not one of them! Ohgodohgodohgod, please don't kill me!"

For his troubles, he got a backhanded swipe to the midsection that sent the badge flying and smacked him hard against the bulkheads, wheezing for breathe. The analytical part of his mind celebrated the fact that he was alive enough to register the part that he was alive enough to feel the pain as he tried to suck in a breathe that would not come. The rest of him writhed in pain and tried not to asphyxiate on the floor while his would be killer stumped closer with that ludicrously big gun. He tried begging again, but all his air deprived lungs would produce was as mewling squeak that he barely even heard. One tiny tiny voice in his head wished that he hadn't skipped that firearms training course after all. Getting instantly blown to bits was a lot more attractive than watching death coming on deliberately slow steps. Another tiny voice wondered why his pants had gotten very warm and wet.

"HOLD GRUNT"

The alien ground to a halt at the commanding voice, close enough to touch and glowering at him from behind its helmet. The important part however, was that it had stopped. Still- grunt? A title? He didn't think krogans in general liked being called exhalations. It took all three heartbeats for his mind to register the really important part. He was alive, the krogan wasn't advancing. Saved! Huzzah! Whoever commanded the krogan had prevented his unduly expiration, even if it did still hurt a great deal. Whoever that was, he could kiss their feet, metaphorically of course, and if he was still capable of breathing. Oh dear. Fortuitously, his lungs decided to work again before panic set in, and he breathed in that sweet, coppery air with all the gratitude of the nearly asphyxiated. Three breathes later, and he felt well enough to try craning his head. Who had given the command anyway, and why did he sound so well... mechanical for lack of a better word? Well, the difficulty in focusing his vision meant that he was rather looking about without much success, but his mind was rather busily filling in the gaps. Ah yes, the artificial intelligence within the assault platform. That seemed to be the logical suspect.

The artificial intelligence that was stumping towards him by the sounds of mechanical limbs.

He suddenly remembered waving that badge. The one that identified him as an agent of Synthetic Insights. It had only been for a second before he had been knocked down. But artificial intelligences didn't miss details, did they? No no, of course they didn't, they had perfect recall. And it wouldn't take a magnitude VI to put two and two together. And- and those were very menacing looking light patterns glowing from inside the sensor pod.

"YOU ARE NOT OF THE SUNS"

The voice was the same mechanical one that had halted the krogan, and up close, the harsh electronic tones sounded both very threatening and more a statement than a question. It knew, he realized with a sinking sensation. It knew what, if not who, he was. It must have already drawn the correct conclusions as to how it's plans had gone wrong and who was to blame. But he wasn't dead, so maybe it hadn't caught sight of the now missing badge. The tiny possibility of that being true kindled a great deal of self preservative hope that he wouldn't be facing a gruesome death any time soon. The first impulse was to deny everything, claim that he was really one of the Blue Suns. Of course that wouldn't work, he'd already said he wasn't one of them. Think think think. Claim to be a visitor, yes, maybe that would work. A visitor, a client of course, just here to see about getting a miscreant to vengeful hands. If no one contradicted the story, it was perfectly believable-

"YOU BELONG TO SYNTHETIC INSIGHTS"

-unless it already knew the truth.

Until five seconds ago, Schmidt had thought nothing more frightening than the approaching visage of a rampaging krogan with carnage on its mind. Now he was being forced to rapidly revise that estimate as premature in the light of new evidence. Said evidence being the expressionless sensor lights(eyes?) of a war machine that topped him by more than a head and looming over him with it's multi ton bulk. Strangely, that it was bristling with all manner of weapons pointed at him was far less frightening than the utterly blank look it was giving him. His mind was doing a very good job of filling in the blanks with all sorts of mannerisms and visual cues, admittedly human ones, that were promising a great deal of unpleasant and very drawn out gruesome fates for him.

Fortunately, his mind was also thinking up of new excuses to keep his skin intact.

"Uhm. Well. I. Well yes, I am an Insights agent. Strictly here as visitor of sorts, temporarily of course ah ha ha, really. And well, uh-" oh curse his traitorous chattering teeth, why couldn't his mouth keep up with his brain? He was saved from the embarrassment of continued excuses, and potential death, by a turian speaking.

"I think we can go over his story later Shepard, looks like we have bigger problems." Schmidt stared blankly at the blue armoured turian that had spoken for a moment before realizing that it was the one that had come in with the machine. When combined with the fact that he was currently interfacing with the disabled command consoles with his omni-tool, Schmidt rather felt that he knew what those "bigger problems" were. Unfortunately, they also translated to bigger problems for him too.

"This command centre's dead, there's some residual current on some of the circuits, but nothing we can use. Looks like someone blew the power feeds just before we got here, probably a lockdown protocol. I'd bet quite a lot on the warden having a secondary command system somewhere, probably using a hardline connection if he wants to keep out any wireless intrusion attempts." In the dim light, he could make out the turian shaking his head. "I could track down the split, but it'd take a lot of time that we don't have."

A human might have redirected some of his attention towards the turian as he spelled out Schmidt's doom, but the machine's sensor pod never wavered from his face. To his vast relief, the intelligence withdrew from him and turned it's weapons on the rest of the bridge crew who had huddled into one corner of the room.

"YOU WILL PROVIDE SOLUTIONS"

It emphasized the words by opening the weapon sheathes, the exhaust ports hissing menacingly with escaping steam. Schmidt took a look at the machine, at the rest of his squad and came to a very logical conclusion. Even if the crew were cooperative, they were not likely to be kept around alive for much longer. That meant it would not be prudent for him to stay, oh no no no. Fingers crawled on the ground as he tried to make himself very small and moving towards the door. He risked a look behind him. No ones attention wasn't focused on him, which was good. He turned his head back to find a pair of armoured boots right in front of him, swallowing in the process. That was bad. The barrel of a rifle found it's way under his chin, forcing him upwards to look at the glowing eye ports of a helmeted human. He was also very distinctly not wearing the colours of a Blue Suns guard. It was now very, very bad.

"And where do you bleeding think you're going?"

"Do your worst you bucket of bolts. You're getting nothing out of us."

Schmidt gaped in shock. That wasn't him, right? He wasn't ready to take a rifle butt or bullet to the face yet. No no, his mouth was still closed, he hadn't said a thing after all. It was belatedly that he realized the speaker had originated from further back in the room, where the rest of the bridge crew had been. Whatever other thoughts he was having ended rather abruptly there when the terrifying roar of that machine's weapon filled the room again. It ended a heartbeat later, and a very long one at that because it was still racing in his chest when the deafening stutter came to a halt. Ragged screaming immediately filled the absence, and he spun his head to a scene of horror. One of the technicians hadn't been just shot, his arm had been torn off at the shoulder, blood spurting fitfully from the wound as he trashed on the ground. Another of the prisoners tried to reach out for him, but the machine had him stumbling back with a gesture of it's weapon arms. It took a step towards the screaming man and... oh no, it wasn't going to- it was! Schmidt screwed his eyes shut, not wanting to see what came next.

"HE HAS CEASED TO BE USEFUL" the machine rumbled, it's mechanical voice amplified well over the fading screams of the wounded. There was a whine of limb motivators, and the moans were replaced with a hoarse gurgle, punctuated by the meaty sounds of flesh uselessly striking metal. The sounds seemed to stretch forever before terminating in a bubbling shriek and an ear splitting crack. "WHO ELSE WILL BE UNPRODUCTIVE"

Images flashed through Schmidts head, his adrenaline fuelled imagination making each one more horrible than the last. This wasn't how an artificial intelligence was supposed to behave! They didn't threaten or intimidate, they were clinically logical in everything they did! How much of human mannerisms had it absorbed? And why was it the worse examples of humanity? He wasn't just going to die here. He was going to wish he did, and a great deal sooner. It didn't take a genius of his calibre to know what would follow, and he wanted to avoid that very much. Being dead didn't frighten him that much, but it was the process that he very much wanted to avoid, especially now! The means of his immediate survival was obvious. But in the greatest of ironies, he'd gone and put the very thing that could save him out of the artificial intelligence's reach. Everything he'd advised the warden on had been specifically to prevent exactly what it was trying to do. Oh god, the machine was starting to go through the rest of the crew.

He had to think, there had to be something he could bargain with. His position with Insights? Useless! No, it had to be something with the ship. He'd gone over all the schematics, every weak point there was. No, this was the wrong way. What did it want? A hard link control of the ship? No, that couldn't be it, that wasn't why it was here. Something temporary? The answer hit him then. The jamming systems, of course! It had a ship already, and it had subordinates elsewhere inside. It would want to coordinate things wouldn't it? Yes, that had to be it. But... how was he going to disable that?

Another horrified shriek echoed in the room, sending his thoughts scattering all over the place. The turian was saying something, but he wasn't paying attention. No-no-no-no, not like this, he needed a bit more time, a hint, something, anything! He needed to offer a way to shut it down, maybe the power- of course, the power systems!

"I! I have a way!" he tried to shout, but it mostly came out as a desperate squeak. It caught the machine's attention, and it turned back to him, the tips of it's limbs gleaming with a wet slickness that made him gag just thinking about it. He tried standing up, but a hand from behind landed on his shoulder, immobilizing him. A grizzled voice spoke into his ear.

"No funny moves unless you want a third nostril."

"ELABORATE"

"Uhm, well, it's the reactor controls," he manage to get out before squeaking, the machine's sensor pod looming threateningly close to him, "there's a secondary override system in case there's ever a containment failure. It will vent the entirety of Engineering to vacuum and kill the reaction. There's emergency power backups, but they're designed for the the bare minimum of life support systems. The override is on an independent command circuit so it should still work... don'tkillmeplease!"

"You can't do that!" One of the bridge crew yelled from the back of the command room. "Without the engines we have no station keeping. Purgatory would lose orbit and drop into an uncontrolled re-entry! We'd break up in less than an hour!"

The weapon arm swung back in their direction with a hiss, instantly silencing the objector. But it didn't fire. Schmidt took that as a hopeful sign until that sensor pod whirled on him, illumination lamps glowing red like the demons his grandmother used to tell him about.

"SHOW ME AND YOU MAY SURVIVE"

Schmidt tried saying something, only to find his tongue gummed up. He nodded vigorously instead, shakily getting to his feet as the restraining arm withdrew. The prospect of survival, no matter how slim, was better than what would befall him if he did nothing. What the machine did next however, confused him. He did not recognize the harsh, electronic tones at first, but when it did, he nearly froze. It was chuckling.

"THEN PURGATORY WILL BURN"

A/N: It's been way too long since the last update, sorry for being this late. Things just kept piling up. That being said, some might find Shepard behaving a little oddly. But then again, he's having well, it wouldn't be really what anyone would call a good day/week/year/2nd life. Not to mention those old memories. Not all heroes become the way they did by playing nice...