A/N: Thank you all for the favorites, follows, and the reviews! Special thanks to those who took the time to leave a review on the last chapter. I really appreciate your continued support. :)

Big thanks to Suilven for beta reading.

The ship felt almost empty now, with just the three of them on board. Not that Shepard really minded; when it came down to it, she could definitely do without the thundering racket of Wrex's snoring at night, or the frequent bickering between Captain Kirrahe and Mordin Solus during the day, no matter how amusing the high-paced back and forth between the two salarians (sometimes three, on the rare occasions Jondum Bau had decided to chime in as well) might have been.

If there was one thing she truly missed, though, it was Amanda's magic touch in the kitchen. She had absolutely no idea how that woman had been able to wrangle such satisfying meals out of the plain rations and simple ingredients they kept in the cooling unit and the food storage, but everything Amanda had put together had always tasted fantastic—unlike the bland, freeze-dried packet of meatloaf, peas, and mashed potatoes Shepard had warmed up for herself this evening.

She shoveled in another spoonful of the dreadful meal and, to distract herself from the less than stellar taste, she opened up her omni-tool to check her messages. She was in luck: there was one from Ashley, a small ping indicating that it had just been received via a nearby comm buoy.

She tapped on it eagerly, and smiled as she read the note. It was short and to the point, just as most of Ash's communications had been.

Hey. How's Spectre business?

Shepard pulled up the keyboard interface and typed a quick answer, then choked down the rest of her dinner and chased it down with a long gulp of water.

Fine. Cleaning up the scum of the galaxy. How's everyone?

She sent the text, then stood up from the table and tossed the aluminum tray, still smeared with the remnants of the potatoes, into the recycling system. It was too late for coffee now, so she helped herself to Bau's stash of decaffeinated herbal teas and chose a packet with a jolly salarian holding up some kind of an exotic orange fruit on the packaging. She was fairly certain the Spectre wouldn't mind—he had offered her a cup here and there, after all, during the last few weeks. Besides, if he didn't want to share, he shouldn't have left it out on the counter in the first place.

Conscience sufficiently allayed, Shepard prepared the tea and poured herself a mug, and took a deep inhale of the rich, citrusy scent before she walked back to the table. By the time she sat down and took a sip of the steaming brew, Ashley's reply had already come in.

Nice. I mean the taking out the trash part.

Crew's fine. Joker says he's thrilled not having you breathing down his neck in the cockpit for a change. Jenkins thinks he'll finally have the chance to win at poker one of these nights, now that you're gone. It hasn't happened yet, but he keeps hoping. Dr. Chakwas is bored out of her mind in the medbay. She says that, with you off the ship, there's nobody to patch up after a firefight. Kaidan seems to have less frequent migraines nowadays, what with you not being here to charge into battle and force him to overuse his biotics in order to save your ass.

Shepard shook her head and rolled her eyes at the ceiling. Her friends were all a veritable bunch of comedians—and not very good ones at that. Still, she snorted out a chuckle, and kept on reading.

So, yeah, we all miss you.

How's the teammate?

With his customary impeccable timing, Garrus chose to stroll in at that very moment. He flashed his sharp teeth at her in a friendly smile, and padded over to the fridge to find something to eat. She followed him with her gaze, and watched as he bent down and rummaged inside one of the drawers, muttering something under his breath about the paltry selection of dextro dishes that didn't actually make him want to throw up.

Shepard almost laughed out loud. Well, if anything, her teammate was certainly fun to be around. If she had to summarize her other observations about him as well, she'd have had to say that he was intelligent, witty, interesting, he knew how to make her laugh, and... he had the most gorgeous blue eyes she'd ever seen.

Right now, however, he seemed to be done raiding the refrigerator, so, before he could catch her staring at him and his backside, she returned her attention to her omni-tool and tapped out a reply to Ash.

He's all right.

Ash's retort came almost immediately, and Shepard couldn't help but wonder whether the Normandy was really that close or if they'd just gotten lucky with the buoys.

Really? What happened to 'I'm gonna kill him?'

Even though her friend wasn't there to see it, Shepard's shoulders lifted and dropped in a shrug.

Well, turns out he has his uses. He's capable, he's an excellent shot, and he's pretty good to have at your back.

She fired off the message, and quirked her lips into a wistful smirk as she remembered how very, very good it really had been to have him at her back—literally—in that cold lab on Noveria, and how very, very capable he had been with his hands when he'd slid his fingers down her front and gently cupped her breasts and...

Her cheeks heated up and her throat went dry at those memories, and she lifted the mug to her lips to quench her sudden thirst. She took a few careful sips of the hot liquid, and by the time she looked up from behind the curling steam, Garrus was already pulling out the chair opposite hers and sitting down at the table with a tray of some strange looking meal.

Whether on purpose or not, he bumped her foot with his, and when she flicked her eyes at him, he gave her one of those cheeky grins that used to drive her up the wall. Now, it set a chain reaction of fireworks and electricity loose in her belly that spread out to her chest and beyond, right down to the very ends of her fingertips.

Her messaging program chimed softly to alert her to Ash's reply and, reluctantly, she tore her gaze away from those pretty blue eyes to read what the gunnery chief had to say about her unexpected praise of the turian.

Glad to hear it. Just don't—oh, shit, I've gotta go. Talk to you later.

Shepard sent a short message of acknowledgement, and turned off her omni-tool with a rueful smile. As interesting as this Spectre training business had been, sometimes she really missed the Normandy and her crew.

Her silent reverie was interrupted by Garrus's throat clearing. "Good news?" he asked when she glanced back up at him.

She shook her head. "No, just talking to a friend."

The strange spear-shaped fork stilled in Garrus's hand, and he gave her a searching look.

"Uh, boyfriend?"

He tried to sound nonchalant, she could tell, but there was a strained timbre in his voice that she was pretty sure hadn't been there before.

Her eyebrows shot up on her forehead as she pondered the meaning behind his question. Was he getting at what she hoped he was getting at? Nah, it was better not to get too excited about his inquiry. He was probably just being nosy. Not like he'd made any moves since that memorable night on Noveria, or even brought up the subject of their little escapade in that cold lab. Though, to be honest, neither had she. Granted, other than a few shy smiles and sideways glances, they hadn't exactly had a lot of chances for private conversations until now, what with the mission immediately after the lockdown and all those people coming on board after that.

Garrus cleared his throat again, and she realized that she'd made him wait a bit too long. She gave him an apologetic smile. "No, just a friend."

He nodded in understanding, but, apparently, he wasn't quite done with his questioning yet. He dropped his gaze down to his plate and poked at his food absentmindedly. "Do you have one?"

"One, what? A friend?"

"No. Boyfriend."

Shepard's heart just about exploded. My, my. So he was interested. Was it insane how happy that made her? Probably. Right now, however, she didn't care. With anybody else, she would have told them to mind their own business; with him, she couldn't tell him fast enough how single and how very available she really was.

"Not at the moment," she said. "Fraternization is not allowed in the military, and it's hard to develop a relationship with a civilian when you're gone all the time." She dropped her gaze onto the shimmering, still-steaming surface of her tea, and idly traced the rim of the mug with her index finger. "How about you? You have a girlfriend?"

A month ago, she wouldn't have given a rat's ass if he'd had an entire harem pining for him at home. Now, she had to remind herself to breathe as she waited for his reply.

Garrus's mandibles spread out in a relieved smile. "No, no girlfriend. Too busy solving crimes and kicking ass on the Citadel."

The nervous knot in Shepard's stomach dissolved and turned into a warm, comforting buzz, and she glanced back up at him with a bright smile of her own. "That's… good. I mean…"

His hand slowly began to inch across the tabletop to touch hers. "Yeah. I know. So, I was thinking—"

If Garrus had the best timing, Bau had the worst. The door to his cabin slid open, and he burst into the mess with the widest grin Shepard had ever seen on his face.

"Ah, you're both here. Excellent. I have good news."

Garrus withdrew his hand and leaned back in his chair with an air of forced aloofness. Shepard mirrored his pose and carefully kept her eyes on the Spectre as he took a seat and opened up his omni-tool.

"I might have mentioned earlier that I've been on the trail of a highly skilled, elusive criminal called Kasumi Goto," he said. He tapped a few icons before he continued. "Here, I've forwarded some of my case files to you. Study them; familiarize yourselves with her tactics and capabilities. For now, however, it's enough to say that she is a master thief, tech expert, and infiltrator, who has stolen a large number of extremely valuable items all over the galaxy. I've been trying to catch her for years, but she's always managed to stay one step ahead of me. By the time I arrive at the scene of her newest crime, she's always gone, with every trace of her erased. It's been extremely hard to follow her trail. Until now."

Bau beamed at his protégés triumphantly and waited for a few seconds for dramatic effect before he went on. "I've just received a call from one of my contacts on Illium. Miss Goto's partner, a drell assassin by the name of Thane Krios, has been spotted in Nos Astra. If he's there, it's extremely likely that Miss Goto is as well. Even if he's alone—which I doubt, since they've been working together for quite some time now—with some careful investigation, tracking, and a little bit of luck, he might lead us to her. This is the closest I've been to catching her. So, as you might have already guessed, our next destination is Nos Astra."

~ooo~

They spent the rest of the evening studying Bau's case files and discussing possible tactics they could use to track the Spectre's slippery target down. By the time Shepard and Garrus had retreated to the crew quarters and fell into bed, their brains too numb from hours of planning and strategizing to do anything else but sleep, they had all but forgotten about their earlier conversation in the mess.

That is, until Shepard's head hit her pillow.

She closed her eyes and tried to push Kasumi Goto and the upcoming mission's details out of her mind, but as soon as those thoughts had mercifully stopped lighting up the neurons in her brain like a string of Christmas lights, the words Garrus had uttered earlier in the mess took their place and began to roll around in her head. Telling herself to stop thinking about him was no use; no matter how hard she tried, she could not stop wondering what he had been about to say just before Bau had stormed out of his room.

It was pure torture, not being able to ask him about it now. She listened to his steady breathing, wishing he were still awake, and when he made a small noise that could have been a suppressed sigh, she decided to take that as an indication that maybe he was.

"Garrus?" she whispered. "You awake?"

There was a short pause before he answered.

"No."

She chuckled and propped her head up on the palm of her hand, and peered over at his form lying in the bunk across from hers. His head turned in her direction, and she could have sworn that she saw his eyes light up in the darkness. Like a cat, she thought. A graceful, lethal, predatory big cat. Or a dinosaur. Did dinosaurs have glowing eyes?

Garrus yawned. "Do you need something?" he asked, shaking Shepard out of her musings about her roommate's alien and so very non-human-like features. All right, so maybe she was insane for being interested in someone outside her own species. It didn't matter. She still didn't care.

His voice was thick with drowsiness, and, for a moment, she almost regretted having woken him up. But, as long as he was conscious now…

"Earlier, in the mess," she started, "you were about to say something just before Bau came out of his room. What was it?"

He was silent for a few seconds, and she started to wonder if he'd gone back to sleep or just didn't want to answer, but after a gentle cough, he finally began to speak. "I was, uh, going to suggest that maybe next time we're on the Citadel and we have some shore leave, we could, you know, go out and have a drink together. Or dinner. Or something. I know a nice restaurant that serves both dextro and levo dishes."

Shepard's heart jumped into her throat and her lips stretched into a face-splitting smirk. "Well, well, Officer Vakarian, are you asking me out on a date?"

"Would that be all right?"

She was enormously grateful for the darkness in the room, for she couldn't stop grinning like a lunatic now. "Yeah. Sure. I think that would be, uh, fun."

"Good."

He mumbled something else that was too low for her translator to catch, and the room fell silent again after that.

Shepard dropped her head back down on her pillow and closed her eyes, and this time, she had no trouble falling asleep.

~ooo~

Nos Astra seemed like a pretty nice place—until you found out about the shady contracts, indentured servitude, and well-hidden lawlessness behind the shiny façade of its elegant buildings.

The one good thing about the city, however, was its extensive surveillance system and countless security cameras that recorded nearly everything that went on in its public spaces. It did nothing to prevent the illegal activities that happened behind closed doors, of course, but it did help the planet's tourists and residents feel safe—and, as it turned out, it proved to be an invaluable tool for finding a few important clues about Kasumi Goto's and Thane Krios's whereabouts.

"Always try to keep a good working relationship with the local law enforcement," Bau advised his protégés as the rental shuttle came to a stop next to the spaceport's police station. "You never know when you might need their help."

He climbed out of the vehicle and waited patiently for Garrus and Shepard to clamber out after him. "I've known this detective for several years," he carried on as he headed for the door. "We worked together on a case, and she promised me then that if Miss Goto or her partner ever showed up on Illium, she'd let me know. And now, we're going to reap the fruits of that friendly relationship." He glanced over his shoulder with a proud smile, then strolled into the building with a confident spring in his step.

"Where's Detective Anaya?" he asked the first person he came across just inside the door.

The asari nudged her head in the direction of the far corner. "She's over there, with the justicar." Her voice held a strange mixture of awe and terror, and it positively seemed like she shivered at that last word.

"Thank you," Bau said, slowing his stride as he craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the duo in the indicated area.

"What's a justicar?" Shepard asked. She took a curious peak at the two asari sitting behind a low wall on the other side of the room. The one seated at the desk wore a drab, conservatively cut uniform; the other, perching in an alcove, was dressed in a colorful, skin-tight leotard with a plunging neckline that did almost nothing to contain her ample breasts.

"They are members of an ancient monastic order that swear an oath to discard their possessions and dedicate their lives to pursuing justice and punishing wrongdoers by any means necessary. They have absolute power in asari society; it's quite a fascinating part of their culture."

Shepard scratched the back of her neck. "Are they always dressed like… that?"

Garrus snorted in amusement, but Bau merely opened his arms in a clueless shrug. "I don't know. I've never seen one before."

As they approached the pair, the policewoman glanced up from the datapad she'd been studying and waved them over. "Ah, Spectre Bau. I'm glad you got here today. Tomorrow might have been too late."

The salarian gave her a questioning look. "Why? What happened?"

"Nothing yet. But I might not be here tomorrow."

Bau sat down and tilted his head in confusion. "Oh? Are you going on vacation?"

The asari's lips pursed in a cheerless smirk. "I wish. No, I'll probably be dead."

For a long moment, a shocked silence settled on the group. Even Bau seemed to be too taken aback to say something.

It was the justicar's cool, emotionless voice that finally cut through the collective fog in their brains. "What Detective Anaya is trying to say," she said, turning her pale blue eyes in their direction, "is that if I am not released within twenty hours, I will be forced to kill her."

If they'd been confused before, they were absolutely flabbergasted now.

"Say what, now?" Garrus blurted out. His hand drifted unconsciously towards his back to slide his fingers along the barrel of his gun, but when Bau gave him a firm headshake, he forced his arms to drop down at his sides. Nevertheless, his talons tightened into tense fists. Threatening a police officer wasn't exactly high on his list of tolerable behavior, no matter the social or cultural status of the individual in question.

Bau narrowed his eyes as he took in the justicar's casual pose and unreadable expression. She didn't seem to be concerned about murdering an innocent person in the slightest—who happened to be a person of the law, at that. Was that kind of a behavior why she'd been arrested? Had she gone rogue and committed a heinous act? But, if that was the case, why was she sitting here casually, instead of being locked up in a high security prison?

"Why are you in custody?" he asked. "Did you commit a crime?"

The detective leaned back in her chair and heaved out a deep sigh. "No, she hasn't. At least, not that I know of. But my superiors aren't willing to take the chance. Most of the time, when a justicar is on a case, they will do anything to pursue their goal, and if somebody gets in their way, they won't hesitate to use force. Which is fine in asari space, but not in an intergalactic community like Illium. So, I was ordered to take her in custody to prevent some kind of an embarrassing incident." Anaya rubbed her brow with a deep blue hand and shook her head, as though even she couldn't quite believe the stupidity of her superiors. "Her justicar's code requires that she comply for twenty-four hours. Beyond that, she'll have to do something to get out. Which means killing me and anybody else who might stand in her way."

Garrus's jaw dropped. "Damn. And I thought C-Sec was bad. I don't think I'm ever going to complain about my bosses again."

Shepard folded her arms in front of her chest and leaned back on one hip as she stared at the asari, sitting in the alcove as indifferently as though they were talking about next day's weather. "What kind of justice is that? Killing innocent people and going on your merry way?"

Bau shot her a disapproving look, but the justicar didn't even blink at her outburst. "I can assure you," she said, in the same unemotional voice as the first time she'd spoken, "I do not take these matters lightly. Being able to continue with the pursuit of my target might cost a few lives, but if I am successful, it will save many, many more. Wouldn't you make that choice, too, if you had to?"

Shepard shook her head. "There must be another way."

"There is none."

"Is this criminal that dangerous?" Bau asked.

"She is. She's a ruthless predator who has killed countless people all over the galaxy already. She controls her victims with her mind, leaching every bit of life force out of them, and leaving lifeless shells behind. And each time she does this, she gets more and more powerful—it is absolutely imperative that I stop her. I tracked her down to Nos Astra, but as soon as I was getting close, she was smuggled off world somewhere. I need to find out where."

The Spectre lifted a slender finger and tapped his chin as he mulled over the information. This killer's modus operandi sounded suspiciously familiar. "Hmm. Does this happen a lot? There was a case like this on Omega recently. A human woman, last seen in the company of an asari, found dead, her entire nervous system and all brain functions destroyed."

The justicar's mask of cool collectedness disappeared in an instant. She sat up straight, back rigid, her earlier relaxed posture utterly gone. "No, it is very rare. It must be her. There's no other criminal like that on the loose right now. Do you have any other information about the case?"

Bau shook his head. "I don't, but there's someone else who might." He raised his arm and called up his omni-tool's interface. "If you give me your contact info, I'll send you the address of the person who handled the victim's autopsy. He can also direct you to the unfortunate girl's mother. She might be able to tell you more."

He waited as the asari opened up her omni-tool's messaging program and the two devices automatically synched. "Justicar… Samara," he said, reading the name off of her omni-tool's ID key, "I'll let Professor Mordin Solus know about your investigation. He'll be expecting you at his clinic. I'm sure he'll be happy to help."

Samara's lips drew into a barely noticeable smile. "Thank you. I greatly appreciate your help." She slid off her perch and turned to the detective, her impassive face taking on a regal expression once again. "Am I correct in surmising that, as long as I leave the planet, I am free to go?"

Detective Anaya gave her an enthusiastic nod. "Yes."

"Very well. I'll be leaving then. I am pleased that I did not have to kill you."

Anaya's shoulders seemed to relax a small amount, but her voice didn't change from her no-nonsense tone one bit. "Not nearly as pleased as I am."

Samara glanced down at her omni-tool, scanning for the Spectre's name in the data files he'd just sent her. "Spectre Jondum Bau. If you ever need my help, don't hesitate to call on me."

With that, she strolled out of the police station, head high and back ramrod straight, leaving a trail of jubilant sighs behind.

"Well," Anaya said, waving a hand at the chair on the other side of her desk, "that was definitely perfect timing, Spectre. I owe you one. Please, sit down."

Bau nodded his head at Garrus and Shepard before he took a seat. "Thank you. Now that that's done, let me introduce my companions. This is Officer Garrus Vakarian from Citadel Security and Commander Jane Shepard from the Alliance Navy. They are working with me at the moment." He leaned forward and laid his hands flat on the surface of the desk. "You said you had some information about my target?"

The detective turned her monitor around so that her visitors could see it, and pushed a few buttons to call up a series of video footage she had saved and put together for the Spectre. "Yes. After our last conversation, I put in a watch for any drells arriving in Nos Astra, and a few days ago, I got a ping back from Customs and Immigration about a drell by the name of Sorjon Lysal landing at the spaceport. He came on a passenger ship, and seemed to be traveling alone. However, when he checked into a hotel—the Lessaria, to be exact—he was with a female human. The ship's passenger manifest and surveillance video confirms that the female had arrived on the same ship as this "Sorjon Lysal."

They watched the clips of a drell with green skin and black scales and a slender human woman, her face obstructed by a cleverly chosen hood over her head, as they disembarked from the same charter plane, careful not to be seen together as they went through customs, then, later, walked down a hotel's corridor side by side, and disappeared into the same room.

Bau leaned forward, his eyes shining with unbridled enthusiasm. "Yes! That's them. That's Thane Krios and Kasumi Goto. Are they still planetside?"

Detective Anaya shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. Last night, they broke into the Dantius Towers, killed Nassana Dantius and most of her guards, then they took off in a chartered ship."

The Spectre's lips pressed together into a tight line and his eyes hardened in frustration, but the storm clouds that had gathered over his head dissipated as quickly as they'd come. He was more than used to these kinds of setbacks; this wasn't the first time he'd arrived just a bit too late, but he hoped it was the last. "Any information about where they've gone?"

"No. The trail went cold once they left Illium. But I can give you the name and ship ID of the vessel they rented."

Bau gave her a nod, and Anaya tapped on a few buttons to forward the information to his omni-tool's address. He stroked his chin and turned his attention back to the video screen. "Why did they attack their victim? Did they steal something valuable from her? Or was it a contract killing?"

"As far as we know, nothing went missing. As for your other question, we don't know yet. We're working on the case, but so far, there are no real leads. A lot of people wanted Nassana Dantius dead; she was not a popular person by any stretch of the imagination. But we haven't received any tips about a contract on her head."

Bau's fingers tapped out a discordant beat as he watched the rest of the surveillance footage. There were a few shots from the Dantius Towers themselves: the drell disappearing around corners and into vents; dropping down from the ceiling and snapping a guard's neck in the same fluid motion; raising his sniper rifle and sending a bullet into the skull of another guard while keeping the terrified workers around the merc alive. He couldn't help but admire the graceful way he moved and the swiftness with which he did away with his opponents; but the most interesting scenes, as far as he was concerned, were the few shots that actually showed his main target, the elusive Miss Goto, shimmer into view from her cloak to hack a door or disable a security device. This was a rare opportunity to observe her work, and he couldn't pass up the advantage it might give him to study her methods.

"Can you send me a copy of these files?" he asked, turning his attention back to the detective.

"Sure can. And if we find out anything more, I'll let you know."

Bau pushed his chair back with a satisfied nod and stood up. "Thank you. We'll be here for a while longer, so call me if you have something."

He signaled to Shepard and Vakarian to follow him, and they left the station, a little wiser about the situation, but as far as their targets went, still empty-handed.

"What are we going to do now?" Shepard asked as they walked back to the shuttle's landing zone.

"Find out as much as we can about what they did while they were here and where they went afterwards."

They climbed into the rental vehicle and he put in the destination before he continued. "But first, we're going to pay a visit to Nos Astra's best information broker."