Chapter 9 – From Bad to Worse to Hell

April 16, 2185

Captain's Quarters, Normandy SR-2

Osun System, Hourglass Nebula

Since both the Imir system and the Osun system had Mass Relays in them, it didn't take long for Joker to travel between them once the Normandy's tanks of anti-protons were full. It seemed like the hour just flew by and we were moving towards one of the docks of the Purgatory. The ship was massive, even bigger than an Everest-class dreadnought, though most of it was living space now, being a converted ark ship. Once Joker had dealt with the requisite approach procedures, I radioed Garrus and Kasumi and asked them if they wanted to join me in a prisoner pickup. Kasumi asked for the details, and I told her there were no pictures, just long list of crimes. She said that sounded kind of hot, so she was in.

My reason for only taking two team-mates was the thought that this was just a simple prisoner pickup, it shouldn't be any more difficult than a trip to the Citadel. Garrus just laughed at that and asked me when was the last time that I ever did anything that didn't end up with someone shooting at me. I had to agree with him, so I told both of them that weapons would probably be a good idea. I then went up to my cabin to see if my armour was clean yet. The auto-cleaner beeped as I came in, and I put on my still-warm armour. I had to admit; I liked it better when it was warm. I headed down to the armoury and pulled out my weapons, and was soon joined by Garrus and Kasumi. The three of us walked to the airlock just as Joker brought the Normandy to a perfect dock with the Purgatory.

After the standard pressurisation and decon routines, we stepped out of the airlock and onto the deck of the larger ship. We followed a corridor until we came to a room with several armed Blue Suns, two on the floor and two on the catwalks above. None of them had weapons in hand, but they all had them on the magnetic holsters on their armour. One particularly forward turian held up a hand to stop us. He said that our package was being prepped, and that we'd have to relinquish our weapons to continue inside the cellblocks, since it was a high security area. I pulled out my pistol and told him some things: first, that he could have my weapon when he pried it out of my undead hands, but I'd considered his position and I'd relinquish one bullet, where would he like it?

The door behind the guards opened and another turian stepped through, with tech-enhanced shields and no helmet, giving the three of us a very hard stare. His face was entirely bare of any sort of facial tattoos and markings. I remembered a conversation I once had with Garrus about the facial tattoos most turians sported. He said that in the early days of turian expansion, some of the outlying colonies began civil war with each other. Turians would tattoo their faces with unique designs to mark which colony they came from. Even after the Hierarchy stepped in and crushed everyone that was left once most of the real fighting was over, most turians still bore the tattoos of their home colony; even Palaven turians had a design. He also said that 'bareface' was a slang slur, one used for someone was untrustworthy, or a politician, which was pretty much the same thing. I had a flashback to Saren, and I remembered that his face too was devoid of any sort of tattoo.

This all rushed through my mind as I looked at the turian who had just entered the room, the one who seemed to have an aura of command. He told his men to stand down, and introduced himself as Warden Kuril. He said that our weapons would be returned to us on the way out, and that this was standard procedure for any prison. I didn't particularly feel like telling him I'd helped kill his boss recently and trusted Blue Suns about as far as I could kick them, so I just repeated that I wouldn't be giving up my weapons. He gave me more of his hard stare, and then backed down, saying that they were more than capable of handling three armed guests.

His demeanour seemed to change to one slightly less tense then, telling the three of us to follow him to outprocessing, where Jack was being taken out of cryo. The three of us followed him into a tunnel overlooking one of the cellblocks, giant arms moving individual cells around. Kuril said that each cell was a self-contained unit, and that he helped keep order by flushing a few out of the airlocks as an example. He said that there was no escape from here, and that all of the prisoners knew it. As we walked along he asked if there were any questions we had.

I only had one question for him; I wanted to know more about Jack. He actually stopped and turned around, a look of shock on his face. He seemed weirded out that I hadn't been informed more about Jack. He said Jack was the meanest ball of violence and hate he'd ever seen, and more powerful, crazy and dangerous than any one being he'd ever met. He said he'd seen extremes of one or the other, but Jack combined them all and took them to a whole new level, and that I'd see soon enough. We kept walking, and I noticed a fight between two prisoners start down below. The warden noticed this as well, and said that Purgatory housed some of the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy, and that they were well equipped to deal with them. I looked down and saw that the two fighting inmates were now contained in their own little mass effect bubbles and had been forcibly separated.

We kept walking until we came to an intersection. He pointed down the left fork, and said that outprocessing was down the hall past the interrogation and supermax wings. He was going to go to his office and check that the funds from Cerberus had cleared for Jack's payment. He then said that he'd see me later, but there was a hint of something in his voice that I really didn't like- something that made me glad that I had insisted on having my shotgun.

We walked along the passageway, hearing the steadily growing sounds of someone obviously being beaten. The passage turned to the right and we came to the 'interrogation' wing. By the nearest cell there was an armoured turian looking in at a fellow guard pistol-whipping a human prisoner, the man in the orange jumpsuit giving out a fresh scream each time the pistol hit him. The one in the cell was working pretty hard at it, and wasn't showing any signs of slowing down soon. I walked up and looked on, slightly sickened by the nonchalant nature of it all, like it was just part of life here. I asked the one standing in the passageway if this was necessary, and he said this was only a massage compared to what the man's victims had gone through.

I forcefully told him I wanted him to stop. He turned his head towards me and I could almost see the incredulous expression through his opaque faceplate. He said that we were in a high security area; guards, guns and cameras everywhere, and I had the gall to threaten him? I just replied with a smug expression that all of that wouldn't be fast enough to save him from me, and that I wasn't going to ask again. He just stared at me, weighing how much he was willing to gamble on my not shooting him. Then he turned to his compatriot in the cell and told him to stop, for now. The turian inside looked out and saw the three of us standing there. He then stood up and walked to a corner, leaving his recent victim to lie on the floor, bleeding. I gave the guard outside one last hard stare, before continuing down the hall.

We were just about to pass into the supermax wing when the prisoner in the last cell called out to us. He asked if we were buying prisoners, could we buy him as well? Garrus turned to me and said we were here for Jack, not anyone else. The prisoner must have heard him, because he backed a step away from the glass and told us to forget it, he didn't want to be anywhere near Jack. I felt like asking him about the fact that the prisoners here were for sale, but I had more pressing matters. We walked on through the supermax wing, a dark and depressing place, and came to another intersection. The left section went into a large room that had 'Outprocessing' painted on the wall.

We followed the left passage, coming into a room filled with metal desks. There was a single tech working at a terminal near the door, who told us to go through the door at the far end of the room. We went to the door and opened it, only to be greeted by the sight of an empty cell. Kuril's voice came over the speakers, saying that he was sorry, but I was more valuable as a prisoner than a customer. His voice was very calm as he told us to drop our weapons, proceed into the cell and no harm would come to us; like he thought that the idea of our resisting was laughable and outrageous. I just turned around, grabbed my shotgun from my back, whilst Garrus and Kasumi likewise pulled their weapons. I called out that nobody stabs me in the back, and that I was going to send him to hell myself.

Kuril then yelled into the microphone, telling the Blue Suns to activate the ship's systems and subdue me. The tech at the far end of the room pulled out a pistol and began firing, but only got off two shots before Garrus put him down. Before we could get far the nearby guards began swarming into the room, batarians and turians backed up by the dog-like FENRIS mechs. Kasumi's shields obviously weren't up to an assault of that magnitude, because her shields failed and a shot managed to hit her in the arm, sending her to the floor, luckily behind cover. I jumped over to her and activated my omni-tool, sending an application of medi-gel from the tank in my armour to her wound. She immediately looked less pained, but I pressed on her good arm, giving her the message to stay down and still while Garrus and I took care of things. She nodded and I gripped my shotgun in two hands again, looking at the IFF scanner on my visor. I jumped up long enough to take out a turian who was advancing on Garrus, while he shot a batarian in the face.

Once the room was clear I held out my hand to Kasumi, who took it. I looked at her wound, which now had a blue-green glaze over it from the medi-gel. She said she'd been shot before, but it had been a while and she'd forgotten how much it hurt. I asked her if she was ok to fight and she said she was fine, bringing up her pistol as proof. The three of us started moving back towards the passageway, while I radioed EDI to get me Jack's location. We got to the passageway and had to duck into cover as there were more mercs coming from the fork that we didn't take before. As I got off a pistol shot into a human who was advancing on us, EDI came back over the radio. She said that she'd hacked into the systems and gotten a map for us. I pulled up the map on my omni-tool and she highlighted a room down the corridor the mercs were coming from. I closed the map and turned around again to see Kasumi fire a shot into a batarian's thigh. I finished him off with a shot to the forehead, right between the upper set of eyes.

Since he was the last one, I motioned for my team to follow me down the corridor. They both nodded and fell into step. We followed the curve until we came into a small room, which was overlooking a larger one. The tech inside started shooting at us in desperation, his shots ricocheting harmlessly off my biotic barrier. I didn't even need to bother aiming as I pulled out my shotgun and pulled the trigger, not even caring that I didn't give him a chance to surrender. In another lifetime maybe I would have, but things were different now, I was different. Once he was down, his blood starting to pool on the floor, we went over to the security console overlooking the room below. I got a good look and saw four YMIR mechs down there, all powered down for the moment. The console had a little screen up and I read it, learning that this was a cryogenic isolation cell, and that the current occupant was none other than the infamous Jack. I looked at the vitals and they were all good, she had been prepared for defrosting and was just awaiting the final step. I looked at the console, a fairly high-end one, and saw that the last activation step required a unique alpha-numeric code, the kind of code that would be impossible to produce on the fly like I needed. I did see another option, which was to hack the console and release the security controls. Unfortunately, this console was networked into the entire ship security grid. If I hacked this one, then all the cells would open and this ship would descend into all-out war between the guards and the inmates.

I stood in thought for a second, wondering if this was the right thing to do, and then I remembered how the Warden had just tried to sell me into slavery. There were a lot of things I was prepared to tolerate, since the Terminus was fairly lawless and I was just one person, but slavery wasn't one of them. I didn't survive the raid on Mindoir, join the Alliance and participate in the Theshaca raids just to let slavers get away with it. I turned to Garrus and Kasumi and warned them that things were about to go to hell. They both just nodded and adjusted the grip on their weapons, as I sliced in a few code sequences on the console.

I was rewarded by the giant robotic arm descending and pulling up the cell that Jack was held in. There was a moment where the cold gases obscured her, and then the YMIR mechs activated. Once the gases cleared the three of us got our first look at the infamous Jack, and it was nothing like any of us expected. Instead of Jack being the gigantic muscled man that I had expected, Jack was just a skinny woman. Hair shaven ridiculously short, skin covered in tattoos, wearing long pants but what looked like straps for a top, I was a little jealous because her breasts were those incredibly rare ones that didn't need any kind of support. She opened her eyes and twitched her hand as she woke up, and then switched from just woken to full battle mode.

She pulled off the metal restraints that held her and rushed at the heavy mechs at the end of the room, her entire body glowing bright purple as her biotics kicked in. I'm a biotic, and because of that I'm more in tune to feeling mass effect changes in the immediate vicinity. The only thing that I could compare to feeling Jack literally punch her way through a mech, shields and all, was accidentally standing next to a ship's drive core when it jumped to FTL. As I looked down at the carnage this woman wreaked below, I couldn't help but feel in awe, not just at her power but also at the animalistic grace with which she moved.

By the time she'd torn the second mech in half with her biotics, the other two were already at full speed on their auto-cannons. She just jumped out of the way of the line of hot bullets, using biotics to help lift her onto the shoulder of one of the mechs. Since the targeting and recognition software didn't have a high sensitivity for synthetic signatures, the other mech tore its companion to pieces as Jack rode on its shoulders. Once it was down, Jack put on a display of parkour and jumped from the fallen mechs to the floors and walls, each time staying ahead of the spray of the auto-cannon. Her body then was covered in biotic purple as she launched herself at the final mech's head, torpedoing right through it. Once it was down she looked around and decided to punch her way through the wall. The ship obviously didn't appreciate whatever she hit, because I could hear alarms starting to go off.

The alarms seemed to bust us out of our little trance, and I told the other two the it was time we departed the ship, and following Jack was the only way to catch up to her at this point. We ran down the nearby stairs and into the remains of Jack's cell. We then followed through the hole she had punched through the wall and several things happened. First, the lighting systems failed, prompting the emergency lights to bathe the area in a hellish red hue. I remember feeling it was kind of ironic, purgatory was the last step before hell in some human faiths, and now the Purgatory was descending into hell. Kuril tried his best to restore order to what remained of the ship, shouting all over the ship's PA for the techs to lock it down, authorising lethal force and telling them to recapture Jack, not kill her. As we advanced the computer's voice came through, saying that sectors seven, nine and eleven had lost life support, with no survivors.

We came along a door that Jack had obviously used and found some prisoners who had managed to kill or otherwise subdue some Blue Suns and steal their weapons and turned them on their former guards. They were ridiculously outnumbered, outgunned and outclassed, but I had learned to never underestimate the power of desperation and a lucky shot, an example shown right in front of me as I saw a turian guard take a bullet to the neck and blue blood spray out all over the floor. The prisoner was quickly gunned down, joined quickly by the rest of the prisoners before the mercs turned their guns on us. We took them down as quickly as we could, not wanting Jack to get captured or killed, or the ship to fall apart before we were off it. As we were fighting we heard Kuril's voice again, threatening the prisoners that if they didn't go back to their cells he would open all the airlocks.

As we moved forward through the yards, fighting both mercs and prisoners lucky enough to get weapons, EDI called over the radio saying that Kuril's techs had managed to lockdown the areas behind me, so I'd have to find another way off the ship. I had bigger problems to deal with right then, so I put that problem to the back of my mind. As soon as we had cleared yet another area of mercs, the computer droned that there had been a hull breach in sectors 12, 14 and 30, that the power plant had suffered damage and that core systems failure was imminent. Great, just what I needed right at that moment. We came across the corpse of a turian guard who had obviously been swarmed by prisoners with improvised blades. Garrus took one look at it and said that he didn't agree with everything they did here, but they kept the worst criminals away from innocents. They kept maniacs here, in the best interests of the galaxy.

We kept moving, hearing Kuril shouting over the PA for all the guards to converge on cellblock one. I consulted my map and looked in the direction of Jack's path of destruction and it seemed that they both lined up. We moved up and towards cellblock one, and ran into both some prisoners who had managed to get weapons, and Kuril standing on an elevated platform. He seemed nonchalant as he aimed his Revenant heavy assault rifle one handed at the head of a prisoner stupid enough to poke it out of cover and pulled the trigger, painting blood and brain across the walls. He saw us come and we raced for cover, knowing that rifle was powerful enough to punch even through the toughest shields and armour with only a few shots.

He shouted down at me from his perch, saying that if I'd only cooperated, he could have sold me and lived like a king. He sounded like he was drunk, or at least his voice was strained like he was drunk. He regained a little composure as he said that he could at least recapture Jack, who I couldn't find right now. From my cover I shouted back at Kuril that he was nothing but a two-bit slaver, and I wasn't going to stand for it. He retorted that he did the hard things that civil governments were unwilling to do. My visor lit up as more Blue Suns started to converge in cellblock one, and Kuril pressed a button on his omni-tool, opening up the nearby mass effect bubble generators that I'd seen before. Three of then came up and surrounded Kuril in a thick mass effect bubble. I knew that bullets had no chance of penetrating that kind of barrier, but the generators themselves looked frail enough to destroy. Unfortunately, there was a distraction in the form of the Blue Suns mercs that we had to contend with.

I looked at Kasumi and she nodded, activating her stealth cloak. Garrus and I shot at the mercs to distract them, whittling down their shields, punching through armour and hitting vital parts until they were down. Luckily for us there was plenty of cover around, as though the guards used this area for live-fire training, so it was easy for us to stay in cover long enough not to get shot. Kasumi worked like magic, moving to the far corner of the room behind cover, and leaning out just long enough to shoot at the generators. Soon, all of the other mercs were dead and it was only Kuril and us.

He was no slouch himself though, there was a reason he only had one weapon on his armour and that was because he knew how to use it. He had a commanding position and view of our little battlefield, and his Revenant sounded out like a cannon as he pounded into our cover. The few times I leaned out to shoot at him he didn't just pepper my barrier, he destroyed it, forcing me to get back into in cover and recharge my barrier. Eventually the three of us managed to get his shields down. He let loose with a violent barrage with his rifle then, pounding the cover Garrus and I were using so hard that shots were starting to penetrate it. We both leapt out and ran separate directions to more cover.

His shots rang out in my direction, allowing Garrus to get in a few shots. Kasumi was the real sneaky star of this battle, using her invisibility cloak to sneak up behind him as the two of us kept his attention on us. As one of my shots ricocheted off his armoured collar he turned and snarled at me, only to have Kasumi reach out from behind him and slit his throat. Just for a second, I saw a look of pure murderous intent in her eyes, before she replaced it with her standard smile. We didn't have a lot of time to celebrate the victory as the ship rocked with a violent explosion, and we saw Jack running along the passageway above us, a passageway that would lead directly to the Normandy if I was correct. Joker shouted at me over the radio, telling me I had to get to the ship now, or he'd leave without me.

I looked at my options, and I didn't have a lot. Time was a huge factor that was currently not in our favour. I looked at the glass in the passageway's windows, my visors not giving me a whole lot of information. I asked Garrus about the windows, and whether he thought they were bulletproof. He gave me an odd look, but he touched a few holographic buttons on his omni-tool and looked up at the glass, before saying that a few decent shots from the Mattock would probably do it. I told him to shoot it out, and then I took a few steps to give myself a better angle for what I was about to do. I steeled myself mentally, because this was highly likely to be extremely exhausting.

As some glass shards fell to the floor I told Garrus and Kasumi to stand next to me. Once they were in position I told them each to get a strong grip on my shoulder. Kasumi raised an eyebrow and Garrus gave a look of confusion as they both wrapped their arms around my shoulders, but it wasn't until I help my arms out from my side that they knew what I was about to do. I heard Garrus start to shout my name, but it was already to late for him to let go. I used my biotic charge to lift the three of us up to the shot out window, the mass effect bubble protecting us from the sharp shards. As soon as the biotic fields exploded away from us I collapsed, because the effort of transporting three people instead of just myself was exhausting. Garrus held my arm too tightly to let me more than slump, and the look on his face was priceless. I doubted before that there was anything that could shock him, but apparently going shotgun on a biotic charge was it. I had to literally pry his talons off my armour before he let go. Kasumi just looked at me and said that was one of the coolest things she had ever done, and then sighed that she wasn't a biotic. The three of us went down the corridor at a brisk jog, Garrus helping me stay upright for the first few steps, because the computer had now given us a 15-minute warning before the ship's core detonated.

We got down the hall and saw the Normandy still docked, with Jack now pacing around in the hallway, mad as hell. She didn't see the batarian coming up behind her, so I did her a favour and put a bullet through his faceplate. She didn't look at him but she did turn around and look at me. She looked at me for a few seconds, curious written all over her face, before I heard her speak for the first time. She asked be brusquely what the hell I wanted. I told her she was welcome for me killing that batarian, and she just said she would have killed him anyway, and asked me again what the hell I wanted.

I told her who I was, and I was surprised at her reaction, because usually my name gets me a lot of places and usually a mix of fear and awe. She didn't even flinch. I told her I was here to get her off this ship, and she bluntly said that there was no way that she was going anywhere with me, especially since I was with Cerberus. I looked out the window at the Normandy, clearly seeing the Cerberus logo one the wings of projecting from the nose. This was one of the times that I felt like hating myself for who I was working with, but unfortunately I didn't have the luxury of time nor the virtue of patience today. I told her that being my enemy is always unhealthy, and Kasumi joined in, saying that Jack should take my advice unless she wanted things to go bad for her.

Jack looked at the Normandy and then at me, saying that I turned up in a Cerberus frigate to take her away, did I think she was stupid? Frankly, I thought she was being rather stupid about this. I showed up in the only ship that's liable to escape the coming destruction of the Purgatory, I'm offering not ordering, and she's arguing. Garrus interjected that we could always take her unconscious, and Jack just said she'd like to see us try. After seeing her little display, I wasn't willing to fight her, especially since I was still a little woozy from my last exertion. I told him we weren't going to do that, and Jack said that was a good move, but I heard the implied threat behind it.

Jack looked at me a little more curiously, and said that if I really wanted her, I needed to make it worth her while. I asked her what she wanted, and she looked over at the Normandy. She said that she had a past with Cerberus, and that she wanted access to Cerberus databases to figure it out. I personally figured if she wanted to do my job for me, she was welcome to it. I told he she could have all the access I could give her. She pointed at me and threatened that I better be straight up with her. I just nodded in reply, beginning to feel the massive need for food that accompanies heavy use of biotics, and she finally asked me what the hell we were waiting for.

The four of us ran the rest of the way to the airlock, the pressure door slamming behind us and we could hear the sound of the Normandy disengaging from the Purgatory even before the decon and pressurisation. As we came in Joker turned around to look at me, asking me what the hell went so wrong that even in space on a prison, I get shot at and destroy major infrastructure. I just looked at him and told him I had a disagreement with the warden, and that he should have just taken my offer. Joker was about to say something else when Jack emerged from behind Garrus' heavy armour, and for the first time that I've known him, he was lost for words. He just stared; jaw hanging open, until Garrus escorted her to the briefing room. Once he was able to regain control of his jaw, he turned to be and tried several times to start to speak, but he always got stuck on the first word, and just gave up and turned around, somehow still managing to get across his disbelief at my ability to attract sexy women, even after death. I pre-empted him, telling him that I thought he should be careful, since she was more likely to kill him than kiss him. It seemed to kill his smile a little bit, but only a little.

I walked over to the briefing room, to find Miranda already there, giving Jack a disapproving look as she put her boot on the table. As I walked in, Miranda began telling Jack she was welcome to the Normandy, that she was second in command, and on this ship, everyone followed orders. Jack just told Miranda to back off, she was here because of her deal with me, not to make friends with Cerberus cheerleaders. I turned to Miranda and told her to give Jack access to the Cerberus files we had on the ship, before telling Jack to let me know what she found. Miranda gave me a look that screamed disagreement, but she nodded. Jack used this opportunity to get in her face, telling her that soon they would all be friends, including every dirty secret Cerberus had. As she walked towards the door, she said that she'd be downstairs, somewhere near the bottom of the ship, something about not liking a lot of traffic. She gave me one last warning to keep people away from her, it would be best for everyone involved. Miranda looked at me and shook her head in disapproval.

I dropped off my weapons at the armoury and my armour back in its locker for the second time today, before heading back downstairs for something to eat. It wasn't mealtime, but I was seriously hungry after that last biotic charge. I had Gardner whip me up some leftovers, a double serving, and then sat down and ate all of it. Once I was done, I decided to go and get to know our newest member a little better. I asked EDI where she had set herself up and she replied that Jack was in the undercroft on the engineering deck.

I went down, surprised that such a place even existed, and found that Jack had found a cot and set it up with some other things in the muted red lighting. She looked up when she heard my footsteps and asked me what I wanted. I replied that I just wanted to get to know her better. Nodding and waving a datapad, she replied she was still getting to know her own story, and she thanked me for getting her the files. I told her I was glad they were helping, and she replied bluntly that she wasn't here to make friends. I needed her to kill; she needed the files, end of story. She pointed at the datapad, saying that Cerberus was into some nasty shit. I didn't need her to tell me that twice, I'd experienced more than my fair share of Cerberus projects. I asked her if she was looking for answers, and she said she was looking for names, dates and places, not answers. She continued that once she found them, she was going to go hunting. The people on her list would pay, their associates, friends and families would pay. She reached for a gun she had nearby, a serious hazard near a drive core, and said that the galaxy was going to be a lot emptier when she was done.

I asked her about the history between her and Cerberus, and she was quite for a little while. She finally said that Cerberus had raised her in a facility somewhere. She'd escaped as a kid, and as long as she'd been running, Cerberus had been chasing. But once she found what she was looking for, the hunters would become the hunted. I asked her why she was so obsessed over this instead of moving on. She looked at me and shouted that she went to sleep with this stuff, she woke up with it tormenting her. Every person she killed, she pretended it was one of the ones who'd done this to her. Even I had to admit the sheer fury in her voice was scary, and reminded me I did not want to be on her bad side.

I looked around the improvised room and asked her if this was what she wanted, because I was sure we could arrange something more adequate for her. She walked to the back of the room and was silhouetted against the red light. She said this place was dark, hard to find and not populated, which spelled safety to her. Without warning she leapt on top of part of the ship that was about hip height. She spread her legs in a squat and told me this ship was a powerhouse, and that I could live like a queen if I went pirate, and she'd be willing to help me if I did. I went along with her, asking if she'd be my first mate. She said she didn't want any official position, she'd just lead the boarding party, and any executions. I asked her why she seemed to enjoy killing so much, and she said that every time someone died and it wasn't her, she figured her survival odds increased, simple as that. I left her to it and went back to the CIC.

I checked my private terminal and found two messages waiting for me. One of them was from Chairman Burns, head of the Parliamentary Sub-Committee for Transhuman Studies. It was a thank-you for saving his life from those terrorists, and that he'd lost some political ground to do it, but he'd gotten the L2s the reparations they deserved. He didn't know if he could help again, but he owed me his life, so all I had to do was ask. It was good to know that sometimes the things I did came to a happy conclusion. The other email was from Kate Bowman, one of the lucky ones who managed to survive Balak's assault on X57 and his attempt to slam it into Terra Nova. It was another thank-you, and she was also glad to hear that I was alive, especially after the sadness it caused on Terra Nova when they found out their saviour had died. I read through it a few times, even though it was short, because it reminded me that even though I fought hard for the right things, I couldn't save everyone, and I couldn't punish everyone either. If I hadn't been so focused on making sure people were safe, then I could have captured Balak and handed him over to the Alliance. Thinking on it though, the Alliance probably just would have traded him over the Hegemony on some bogus political stunt, so I might as well have just killed him, or handed him over to the some interested parties on Terra Nova who would have relished the opportunity to learn more about his organisation.

I closed the emails and tried to set a destination on the galaxy map, but before I could do anything Joker came over the intercom, telling me the Illusive Man was coming through with an urgent call. I walked over to the briefing room, unaware of how this one call would change my second life forever, just like the beacon on Eden Prime had changed my first.