Mass Effect: Labyrinth

by Lilivati

Spectres have always risked losing everything. But Nathaly Shepard never imagined she'd lose her life and her home, only to band forces with her greatest enemy against an impossible challenge. Back in the Alliance, Kaidan uncovers a secret with dire implications for the future- and the past. A re-imagined ME2 that includes a full Kaidan storyline.

21. The Null Hypothesis

Chapter Twenty-One: The Null Hypothesis

August 2185

Shepard found Miranda in her office, preparing for their arrival at Korlus a few hours hence. She looked up with her usual polite smile as she came through the hatch. "Hello, Shepard."

"Good morning." Shepard settled into one of the chairs across from her desk. "You assembled a brief on this training camp we're about to visit?"

"I have." Miranda pulled up the report on her terminal. "It's clear after Omega that mercenary politics are going to play a critical role in our activities. I didn't understand what was going on between the Suns and Blood Pack, and I don't think you did either."

She shook her head, once. "The Terminus was never my specialty, even when I had current intel."

"Our contact, Okeer, is here on contract to the Blue Suns."

Whatever her other feelings towards her X.O., Shepard had to admit she was immensely competent. She'd assembled the report in only a few hours. "Why the Suns? I thought krogan were associated with the Blood Pack."

"He's been cagey in his communications. And this is the mercenary equivalent of boot camp. Not exactly a prime hunting ground for Collectors eager to gather up human DNA." Miranda sat back. "But just being there will provide intel on the Suns. And we've had another opportunity arise as well."

"On Korlus?" Shepard didn't hide her skepticism. "Isn't that place a landfill for spaceships? Full of scrap?"

"What better place to create a complex training ground?" Miranda shrugged. "Cheap to configure, out of the way, and too impoverished for anyone to care about a few stray bullets."

"I suppose. It's high-gravity and hotter than hell, though." Shepard sighed. "We better requisition a whole pallet of deodorant."

Miranda's eyes cut to her. That sounded almost like a joke. Shepard's attention remained fixed on the terminal display. "This looks like another Cerberus dossier on a potential recruit."

"Zaeed Massani," Miranda confirmed. "He has extensive experience throughout the Terminus. I expected to meet him on Omega, but he never showed."

She leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. "He's connected to the Blue Suns, right?"

"Possibly. We're not certain of the nature of his affiliation." She tapped on the keyboard. "He's a gun for hire. Most recently, he took a bounty on a batarian target. We think he's rabbited here. Massani had boots on the ground in Choquo five hours ago."

Shepard couldn't think of a worse place to run. "Why?"

"Maybe the target thought if he enlisted, the Suns would protect him. Or maybe he had other connections here." Miranda shrugged.

She parsed the information, her eyebrows raised. "Says his last job before this was commandeering and scuttling a turian frigate? Where do you find these people?"

"I didn't find them." She folded her arms on the desk, with a small grimace of frustration. "That was someone else's assignment, under the Illusive Man's personal attention. He got a list of names and passed them to a… researcher in my project, to flesh out their dossiers and recommend them for the team. About a half dozen made the cut."

"A researcher." She hadn't missed the pause.

"It shouldn't surprise you that preparation for this mission required a large number of staff."

"These dossiers are very thorough." It troubled her. Cerberus had no respect for privacy whatsoever.

"Would you prefer vague? You've said many times you like to know the people you work with."

"This is different from knowing somebody. A dossier is just an assemblage of information." Shepard hated this new prevarication in herself, hated the way her tongue kept catching on her scrambled thoughts. Like she couldn't drum up any confidence for anything, not even a basic conversation. "How much do you know about me?"

Miranda was candid. "Would it bother you if I said nearly everything? Our researcher was very good at her job."

"You don't know everything." That, at least, was absolutely certain.

"You became a vegetarian in 2182." Miranda pulled out this piece of trivia with a spark of amusement. "This persistent paranoia is absurd. The Lazarus Project had no nefarious agenda."

"Sure," Shepard said, her voice peculiarly heavy. "But you can't tell me why I'm vegetarian."

Miranda glanced up. Shepard knew her eyes gave away nothing. She continued in the same hard, even tone. "That's the difference between memorizing a fact and knowing something."

"Your dossier wasn't generated out of malice. We wanted to give you the best chance we could at recovering from your accident."

"I want to see a copy of it."

"I don't have a complete version on our local server, but I'll see what I can do."

"Just like my medical records from the Lazarus Project. Convenient."

"Yes. It was a massive conspiracy to store all your records close to the project which urgently required them."

Shepard watched her for several moments. No doubt Miranda was an excellent liar. She wished she believed she was lying now. Her faith in the Illusive Man blinded her to the things he might want to hide. From her, or from Shepard.

Shepard switched topics. "Tell Joker to approach Korlus with the IES hot. I don't know what we're going to step in after that mess with the Suns defending the plague ward, and I don't want to arrive with our pants down."

"Good idea. I'll see to it."

/\/\/\/\/\

Several hours later, Shepard stood on the bridge, watching the Normandy approach Korlus. Out the port, the planet was an angry brown ball wrapped in stringy clouds.

"Orbital insertion complete. Two hours of stealth movement remain before the drive core must be discharged," EDI announced, her blue orb pulsating. "Be advised that other ships in orbit above Korlus will be unable to detect us with enough warning to avoid a collision."

"Noted." Joker punched off a proximity warning light in irritation. Shepard raised an eyebrow. He sighed. "This planet's one big garbage heap. There's so much debris floating around it'll be a miracle if we don't chip something."

Like most modern spacecraft, the Normandy could absorb minor hazards, like small impacts from scrap. But if Joker was annoyed enough to mention it, the risks could be worse than usual. "After we head down, you should retreat to a lagrangian point. Stay hidden out of the way and conserve power."

"And if things go south?"

"You won't lose much time getting back here."

EDI chimed in. "Shepard's logic is sound. The ship requires more time to power its acceleration systems and enter Korlus' atmosphere than cross the minor distance from the L1 or L2 points."

"I know that," Joker snapped. "Still makes my neck twitch."

Shepard folded her arms. "You're just annoyed that you don't get to do a Mako drop."

"Cerberus wants you to walk everywhere, that's their problem." He threw up his hands. "But don't come crying to me when their half-assed shuttle pilot falls asleep at the LZ and leaves you to extract yourself."

So that was the real problem. Shepard hid a grin. "Nobody's stopping you from commanding the shuttle."

"And leave Normandy to that thing?" He pointed at EDI, who pulsed again, unperturbed. "She'd have the co-pilot eating out of her hand in no time."

"I do not have hands, Mr. Moreau."

"OSD slot. Whatever." Joker shot her an accusing glare. "Don't think I didn't hear Oyama fawning over you yesterday."

"Ms. Oyama removed dirt from my camera lenses." EDI's inflection, if she could be said to have any, took on a hint of amusement. "Full communication function has been restored to the bridge."

"Don't worry, I've got plenty of grease left."

"Joker." Shepard was losing patience. "Play nice with the fancy computer. Haven't two hundred years of vids taught you anything?"

EDI's constellation of lights brightened slightly. "Shackling subroutines in my programming prevent such undesired outcomes."

Shepard stared at her, hard, for a long moment. That almost sounded like sarcasm, but EDI had no sense of humor whatsoever. Or personal desires, as far she could tell, at least beyond a well-maintained ship.

The intercom activated. Jacob. "Shepard, we're set for departure."

She glanced up at the ceiling. "Be right there."

"Don't forget to bring back tribute for the future overlord," Joker called after her. "Like a rusty antiproton accelerator, or maybe some rat-chewed wires."

Shepard shook her head and kept walking.

Down on the hangar deck, Miranda and Jacob were already aboard. The shuttle's untouched white paint stood not only as a reminder of Cerberus, but also that this ship, this crew, remained largely untested. The fresh-off-the-line feeling left Shepard wanting for a sense of continuity. The original Normandy crew all trained together before setting out, and the SR-1 took her share of battering and then some in her six months of service.

These days that loneliness never quite left her, thought she got more proficient at squashing it. Now, she raised her suited hand and scraped one of the knuckle plates across the paint near the hatch. White gave way to a thin, ragged streak of blue. "This is a Kodiak. Alliance surplus."

"No need to reinvent the wheel," Miranda said, crossing her legs. It was the first positive comment Shepard heard her make about the Systems Alliance.

Still, she was conflicted. A veneer of paint and some new cushions wouldn't change what the shuttle was, a piece of an older life hiding aboard her new, unwanted ship, yet somehow the difference meant the entire world. "They're not supposed to sell to you."

Jacob snorted. "I doubt Cerberus bought it direct."

Shepard lacked the appetite for another pointless argument about propriety. Jacob might have served, but it was obvious he never understood what service meant, if he couldn't tell the difference between that and this. She ducked her head and climbed aboard. "Do we have a lock on Okeer or Massani?"

"I spoke with our agents down on the surface." Miranda sat back as the hatch slid shut, folding her hands over her knee, perfunctorily professional as always. "They tracked Massani to the training camp. We should be able to pick up them both. Less fortunately, the Suns haven't responded to our visitation request."

Shepard, for her part, continued to gaze around the shuttle interior, picking out the familiar features lurking beneath the Cerberus adulterations. Here, a metal strut was encased in a plastic bulkhead; there, canvas hand-holds were supplanted by long powder-coated tubes.

A certain brittle sweetness entered Miranda's voice. "Care to join us, Shepard?"

She cleared her throat. That seemed to happen a lot lately, unintentionally drifting somewhere else. It concerned her too deeply to admit out loud. So she reached for completely different topic. "I was born on a first-gen Kodiak. My mother kept putting off medical leave until her C.O. literally ordered her off the ship. She was en route Arcturus when I popped out, right between the emergency pressure release and the med kit. Or at least that's how she tells it."

Jacob chuckled, as the pilot lifted the shuttle out of its berth and headed out of the bay. "At least she's got a sense of humor about it. My mom just complains about how my dad wasn't there."

"They split up?"

"Actually, no." He folded his arms across his chest. "Though I can't say anyone cried too hard when he died."

Miranda stared out the port as the hangar deck bulkhead gave way to the blue-dotted arc of Korlus, studiously avoiding the small talk, though Shepard was damned if she knew what was offensive about it. Maybe just her own lack of a mother.

The blackness of space gave way to the orange plasma of re-entry, though the cabin didn't so much as tremble despite the violence without. Kodiaks had out-sized drive cores to start with, and this didn't begin to tax the shuttle's dampeners. They were held stable in a mass effect field.

In fact it took Shepard a moment to realize when they'd slowed enough to shed the heat. Korlus drowned in a soupy brown haze thick enough to chew. As they lost more altitude, here and there through the smog she glimpsed acres of rusting metal and dots of brilliant turquoise, acid green, and blood red— lakes too polluted to retain their natural color. The heavy backbones of discarded ships stuck up from the refuse like bony fingers clawing at the toxic air. Bulkheads formed crude retaining walls to hold back the refuse.

Shepard wasn't much for planets, but only a fool would mistake the complete waste on display. "Garden worlds aren't exactly a dime a dozen."

"No." Miranda's continued to gaze out the port, collected as ever. "Cerberus advocates human expansion into the Terminus in part to prevent this sort of squandering."

"Yes, well, that's worked out for you." Shepard sat back and crossed her arms. "Colonies being taken by the dozens and all."

Miranda didn't dignify that with a response.

The Kodiak set down on a relatively flat patch of piled metal and the pilot popped the hatch. A baking heat wafted into the shuttle, dry and carrying the tang of rust. Shepard felt herself sweating before both feet were on the ground, and for the first time, felt a faint spark of appreciation for her drastically shortened hair.

From somewhere up ahead, a woman's voice barked from tinny loudspeaker. "There is only one measure of success: kill or be killed! Perfection is your goal."

"Seriously?" Shepard said, to no one in particular.

Jacob was equally disgusted. "Canned orders over a loudspeaker? Who does that?"

"More like platitudes— the cheap kind." She drew her rifle. "Stay sharp. We don't know what kind of welcome to expect."

The Blue Suns had assembled the decaying scrap into a kind of obstacle course, with ladders, twisting alleys, high perches and valleys, concealed and not. Everything a trainer could want for a live fire exercise. Judging from the shots sounding in the distance, that was exactly what was happening.

They followed a ramp down into the complex. A figure clad in the Suns' trademark blue hardsuit raised his weapon and let off a round. Shepard returned fire, and he fell, dropping his gun in the process.

"Trainees," she sighed. She hadn't aimed to kill. They continued down the ramp towards the fallen merc.

A very young man sat against a decaying bulkhead, clutching his side and muttering to himself. The sheen of sweat lathering his forehead was more than the heat. "Shit… shit… it won't stop bleeding… I'm gonna… damn it."

Jacob glanced at Shepard, and said in an undertone, "He's not hurt that bad."

"He doesn't need to know that just yet." She tucked her thumbs into her utility belt and sauntered forward.

The merc glared up at her as she came into range. Blood spattered his headset, like he'd touched it after hauling himself over here. "I knew it wasn't berserkers. You're with that other guy. Freelancers. Or— or Alliance. Or— hell with all of you."

Shepard folded her arms. "You get a lot of Alliance out here?"

Korlus was well inside the Terminus Systems. That only seemed to make him angrier. He couldn't have been more than seventeen. Maybe even a bit younger. "I'm not telling you anything."

She had to bite her lip to keep a straight face. She'd barely nicked him, as bullet wounds went, though it evidently spurted some and was quite enthusiastic. Blue Suns must give their recruits absolute shit gear. "I've got a nice fresh dose of medi-gel right here. But if you'd rather I keep walking…"

"Fuck."

"I'll take that as a 'yes, ma'am, I want your help'." She squatted down in front of him, and draped her arms over her knees. "What other guy?"

"Some random commando. Alone. Wouldn't identify." The kid's breath came heavy, as though he really was mortally wounded. Imagination was a hell of a drug. "He took out a whole patrol by himself."

"You shoot at everyone who comes through here?"

"Private property. I'm on guard duty," he grunted. "Look, Suns are the only ones out here. Jedore uses krogan overflow from the labs to train us up. That old krogan bastard's really cleaning house this week. You're not Suns, so why shouldn't we shoot you?"

Miranda's interest sharpened. "Lab overflow?"

At the same time, Shepard asked, "What krogan? I thought Okeer was the only krogan in the camp."

He glanced between them and curled his lip. "Jedore hired Okeer to grow her an army, but the krogan he creates are insane, so they're repurposed for live ammo training by the hundreds."

Miranda shook her head. "Why?"

"Not a damn clue. They don't let us in the labs." He closed his eyes with a long sigh of relief as Shepard packed his injury with the promised medi-gel. "I don't get paid enough for this crap. Don't get paid at all yet."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "If you start limping now, you might find a shady spot before you bleed out."

He stumbled off, cursing. Jacob turned to her with silent judgment on his face. She was unmoved. "Not much like Alliance basic."

"No," he said, letting it go.

They resumed walking. Shepard looked at Miranda. "Is it much like Cerberus boot camp?"

"The paramilitary recruits go through an indoctrination to Cerberus operational procedures, but most of our people come to us already trained in combat. There's no need to duplicate it."

Shepard made a sound of satisfaction. "That's just it, isn't it."

Miranda didn't bother to hide her weariness. "What lecture are you preparing now?"

"No." Shepard started walking again. "That's why the ship feels more like an office than a crew. It's been nagging at me."

Jacob cleared his throat. "All of the Normandy crew is trained to fight, at least at a rudimentary level. Obviously staff with non-combat roles aren't as—"

"I'm not bothered by—" She blew out a breath and started over. "You know that's not the point of basic. I mean, sure, we fold that in, too. But you think we'd spend ages teaching some logistics paper-pusher to shoot a pistol if that was the main objective?"

"Ah, yes. Camaraderie." Miranda kept her eyes ahead, her tone disdainful. "Everyone who comes to Cerberus already believes in our cause. We're all fighting for the same objectives."

Shepard's hand slashed through the air. "Again, not the point. You can't run a military operation like some kind of non-profit. In a war, everyone involved has to think only of the good of the group. That's why we spend three months isolating our recruits and re-engineering their priorities."

"It does work, Miranda," Jacob put in. "When you get in a tough spot, you can't think. You have to defend your team, even if it costs your life. Sometimes that's the only reason anyone survives."

"I never said it didn't work. But I think you'll find deeply held beliefs can be just as binding."

Shepard let that stand. Certainly their mission, to defeat the Collectors, checked all of her boxes. Daring, novel, challenging, critical to safeguarding human space. But she had no faith— would never have faith— in the Cerberus cause. The very idea of Cerberus acting as a military protector in the Terminus left a foul taste in her mouth. Her crew, on the other hand, consisted of believers.

In the navy common cause was likewise assumed, and if your opinions ran in a different groove, you kept it to yourself. It occurred to her that this might be why she felt so alienated aboard ship. She hadn't exactly been silent about her misgivings.

And if she couldn't get them all on the same page, fighting as a team, when they hit the Collector home world they'd be paste.

"You've gone very quiet," Jacob remarked.

Shepard shook her head to disperse her thoughts and changed the subject. "Just thinking that I've seen this before. Saren bred a small army of krogan clones, on Virmire, before we destroyed his labs. Even had a krogan scientist assisting him. Droyas. A drive core explosion does a lot of damage, but it was a huge complex… there was rubble left in areas."

Miranda gave an eloquent shrug, uncaring. "It wouldn't be the first time cast-off tech made its way to merc hands. I don't see that it matters."

"We should visit the restricted research base," Jacob said.

Miranda nodded. "If nothing else, it's the most likely place to find Okeer."

"Let's see how the day goes." Shepard raised her rifle a bit higher, the quicker to aim, not enough to interfere with her movements. "Some kind of valley up ahead. I saw a flash of blue armor."

There was indeed a large trench scraped out of the scrap pile. A pair of women carrying rocket launchers ducked out of sight as the squad approached.

"Shit," Shepard said, just as another announcement came over the loudspeaker.

"Being hired is merely the beginning. You must earn your place in the mighty army we are building." Jedore, presumably. "Training is part of your contract. Kill our enemies, prove your right to walk among us."

Jacob ducked sideways as a rocket sailed at his position. "What the hell?"

"You heard the lady." Shepard moved up and crouched against what looked like a discarded freezer from some long-lost ship's mess. "She wants a fight, I'm happy to oblige."

More than, actually. As one of the Suns darted out of cover to fire her rocket, Shepard nailed her knee. She collapsed. Shepard felt a curl of satisfaction; these days, combat was the only time anything felt right.

A second later Shepard's forehead contracted painfully, and Miranda's biotics lifted the merc three meters into the air and slammed her face-first into the trench.

Shepard shot at the second rocketeer and managed a minor hit. The merc scrambled out of sight. She moved up and climbed onto a broken duct in hopes of getting a sight line.

The woman leaned out of cover already firing. Shepard managed to drop her, but the rocket was already in the air, and even her reflexes weren't fast enough to kill the merc and dodge the missile. It exploded against the ducting.

Her shields went down with a familiar pop and she pitched forward into the trench as the ducting collapsed. Shepard tumbled for ten meters, with no purchase to redirect her fall, and landed hard on her side. Despite relaxing her limbs to reduce impact, she was surprised when her arm didn't snap; she'd broken bones in falls before.

The mercs gave her no time to contemplate it. She had to scramble on hands and knees as the rocketeers' ground support peppered her location with his shotgun.

The rifle was somehow still in her grip. Shepard dragged herself behind a pile of rust, spent a half second listening to him fire another shot to pinpoint his location, spun around, and landed three shots in his chest. The first two destroyed his shields. The third cracked his ceramic plating, the last line of defense, and made him stumble. From above, one of her squad finished him off. Then there was silence.

Shepard sat back behind her cover and pressed her comm. "Report."

"Hostiles neutralized." Jacob had that familiar tone again, the one that sounded more like an Alliance marine than anyone Cerberus, that he only used when he was nervous. "Area clear."

Miranda seemed equally uncertain. "We should keep moving. We're out in the open here."

"Agreed." Shepard studied the far end of the trench. "Get down here. There's a path into the compound."

"Copy that," Jacob said.

While she waited, Shepard crossed the trench towards the fallen merc. He wore a headset. A stream of barely-audible babble came through the speaker. Shepard bent, slipped it off his head, and secured it over her ears. The Alliance imbedded comms in all of their personnel, hard to interrupt and impossible for an enemy to casually overhear their communications, but at considerable expense compared to this.

Past the usual static of interference with her own, internal unit, she heard a merc issuing urgent commands. "Team Four, do you read? Team Four!" A pause. "Comm, tell Jedore we have a problem. Patrols are going dark on both ends of the base. One guy can't do that. Either the krogan are pushing, or we're being raided."

She smiled to herself, adjusted the volume, and went to rejoin her squad.

Jedore wasn't impressed with her field commander's request. And she didn't have the tact to answer it privately, instead resorting to the loudspeaker as before. "The krogan are your example and your warning! As ferocious as they are, failures are expendable."

"A little out of touch," Shepard remarked.

Jacob shook his head. "I've never thought much of the Suns, but this is depressing, even for them."

The dead merc's radio lit up again. "They're loose! Run for your damn life! The krogan are free!"

After she relayed the intel, she asked, "Think that's Massani?"

Miranda lifted her hand, palm up. "They'd be as much a danger to him as the mercs."

Jedore's voice shouted from a nearby loudspeaker. "Who authorized that krogan release? Okeer? I will have order in my compound!"

Shepard snorted, amused. "I should've figured Jedore would have some enemies here."

"Yeah." Jacob rubbed his chin. "Maybe that's why Okeer called us."

They reached the end of a ramp and rounded a corner. A lone krogan, shrouded head to toe in a grimy hardsuit, faced off against a squad of mercs. Shepard's mouth thinned into a line. The bright colors of his suit would stand out against the rust of the training base. Unlike the Suns, he had no secondary weapons, no backup, and he wore a tight-fit helmet that she could tell wouldn't provide much periphery vision.

Just a training exercise. No need to make it too difficult.

She raised her rifle and shattered the bone of the nearest merc's dominant arm.

He let out a scream and lost his grip on his gun. As he turned, she was able to get her first choice— a clear shot at his head. His corpse swayed on its feet for a long second before toppling over.

Her crew was caught off-guard. They scrambled for cover. Shepard couldn't be bothered; at that moment, her indignant fury guarded her better than a foot of lead. She caught motion out of the corner of her eye— another merc, this one with a heavy secondary shield glimmering above his armor, levering a massive krogan shotgun in her direction. That strongly implied exoskeleton augmentation in his hardsuit. But it also made him slow.

She was less familiar with these newer guns than she liked, but had learned to identify the location of the thermal clip— and that to aid heat transfer, the chamber was rarely well-protected. Shepard took aim. The bullet went all the way through the gun and pinged off the turian's armor.

His mandibles flared, exposing a sneer, thinking she'd missed. He fired. It was a heavy-hitter. Her shield went down instantly and her armor plating cracked, somewhere between the layers, with an audible shatter. She could feel the bruise blooming over her ribs. But she didn't so much as stumble, though she'd expected to lose her footing as soon as she heard that snap. Maybe armor tech had come as far as weaponry over the past two years.

There wasn't time to think about it. Shepard was in the open, shield recycling, armor damaged, facing three mercs.

A manic grin lit her face. Her blood pounded, hot under her skin, and her feet felt like they were born to stand on this patch of dirt.

Shepard threw herself sideways, rolling out of the way of the next attack, and rising in a crouch to take out a batarian merc at his knees. The krogan chose that moment to barrel into the fight bodily, shouldering the turian out of the way and seizing the fourth merc, a human woman, in both of his massive hands.

Meanwhile, Miranda completed some kind of tech wizardry and the secondary shields vanished, leaving the mercs looking almost naked in comparison. Jacob wasted little time firing off several rounds in rapid succession, and then using his biotics to pull the batarian towards his position. Shepard's head twinged but she hardly noticed— until Miranda followed it with a ball of raw dark energy, detonating the incompatible fields in a massive explosion.

Shepard went to her knees. Her vision faded out. For a moment her whole world shrank to the eight pounds of brain that now felt like the core of a star, nothing but blinding pressure.

The krogan all but flung the human merc at the wall. She hit the decaying bulkhead like a rag doll, her head bouncing freely off the metal, limbs askew, and slid to the ground.

Shepard swallowed several times and tried to clear her sight, aware her life depended on it, nausea tearing at her gut. The biotic display had been less than a meter away, closer than ever. Every nerve felt poisoned.

The turian raised his shotgun. She looked into the barrel.

Then, as he squeezed the trigger, the gun all but disintegrated in his hands as the misdirected heat melted the chamber and the weight of the weapon tore it apart. He dropped it with a yell, the gloves of his hardsuit smoking. The krogan pivoted in place, clumsy but effective, and fired his weapon. The turian merc crumpled and lay still.

In the aftermath Shepard got to her feet and rubbed her knotted stomach, though it was hard to soothe through the protective layers of her suit. She looked at the krogan. "Thanks."

He ambled towards her, not hostile, but didn't stop until his bent head was centimeters from her chest, and inhaled deep through his nostrils. "You."

She felt more than saw her squad shift behind her, and raised her hand automatically in a silent order to hold. The krogan sniffed her again. "You don't smell like this world. You… are new. Seven night cycles and I have felt only the need to kill. Some difference makes me speak."

His voice was deep and oddly cadenced, as though he was unaccustomed to using it. He backed off several steps. The tiny visual ports of his helmet glowed yellow, inhuman, and not much like krogan either.

"You've been fighting for seven days?" she asked.

"No. I was flushed from glass mother seven night cycles past. I was not perfect." He said this without any inflection whatsoever. "The voice told me to fight. So I fight."

"You're supposed to be part of Jedore's army." Shepard remembered what the injured merc said about the krogan being crazy, and wondered if that was Jedore, or being bred in a tube, part of a massive experiment.

"I know that name. Anger. Also laughter. It is not a name that will be sung when we march." He paused. "I don't know what that means, but I've heard it many times."

Shepard was a little familiar with krogan customs and had some idea of exactly how much of a joke that made Jedore, but that wasn't the first question on her mind. "How many times could you have heard it in seven days?"

"I heard a voice in the water, a scratching sound. Not with ears. Inside. I called it father. It liked that. The voice taught me what I needed. Walking, talking, hitting. It ordered me to survive, to fight the enemy that threatens all my kind. But it was disappointed. I am not what it needs me to be."

Miranda folded her arms. "A cure for the genophage."

It wasn't a question. But the krogan tilted his head nonetheless. "Cure? Cure was not mentioned. Survive. Resist. Ignore."

Shepard set aside why the Blue Suns might care about the genophage, figuring she could find her own answers soon enough, and not sure she'd understand the krogan's reply, anyway. "I need a way to the labs."

"The glass mother. Yes." He glanced off. "She is up. Past the broken parts. Come."

They followed him down a narrow alley. He gripped a thick metal panel over two meters long, straining at the weight of it. With a grunt he cast it aside. In its place was an informal doorway leading further into the base.

She glanced from the opening to the krogan. "You could have run."

"The voice told me to wait."

"The voice sent you out here to die." Shepard couldn't stop herself. "It threw you out like you were just another piece of ship trash."

"I am not perfect," he acknowledged, as though it was solemn truth. "But I have a purpose. I must wait until called. Released. I will not run, and I will not follow."

Shepard already didn't like Jedore. But as she stared into his placid, passive face, she made up her mind to kill her. Maybe drown her in a tank. "Thank you. I won't forget it."

He didn't shift at all. "There are more fleshy things ahead."

She gave him a nod, and gestured her squad through, giving him one last glance before following.

The krogan continued to weigh on her mind as they moved steadily forward, dealing with merc patrols as they found them. This whole business left her feeling dirty. And it struck a little too close to home. I am not what it needs me to be.

The increasingly desperate messages over the stolen radio demonstrated Jedore neither empowered her field commanders, nor provided them with resources to repel any real threat. She holed up with her the base's only supply of mechs while her recruits died like rabbits.

Shepard had trained in a harsh school. The N7 program rivaled any in the galaxy. Putting her life on the line for a mere exercise wasn't unfamiliar, but at no point had the navy treated her like an expendable target dummy. At no point had she made live fire target practice out of other living beings. She didn't like killing recruits who weren't remotely prepared to face a spectre because their commanding officer was too shit scared to give them a fighting chance. She didn't like killing krogan who were bred as experiments and discarded just as carelessly.

Half her crew— over twenty people— died at Alchera and were likely still there. And she was here. Because Cerberus thought she was special, like she was worth using, and they were used up.

"The path leads inside," Jacob said, scattering her thoughts. "Looks almost like a CIC."

She peered through the shadows. A winding ramp led to a series of platforms, the belly of the ship somehow both darker and more open than an Alliance vessel. "It's a dreadnought CIC. Batarian."

"Looks intact." Miranda tried her footing on the ramp. "They're using it as a staircase. We must be getting close."

They climbed up the ramp. The slope didn't present much of a challenge, but between the oppressive heat, the higher gravity, and the barely-viable concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, their pace was slower than usual. Thus the squad was barely a third of the way to the top when they heard the shotgun blast, followed by the rattle of an assault rifle and a liberal stream of curses. In English.

The man sounded more annoyed than panicked, not at all like the mercs they'd encountered so far. Shepard increased her pace, but saw no reason to sprint up to the platform and arrive in an unknown situation out of breath. Maybe EDI was right, and she should adjust the treadmill settings. The Cerberus coma-PT wasn't cutting it.

She found him midway up the ramp, crowded behind a dented cargo crate, his battered rifle set firmly over its top. Beside him, a batarian in a Blue Suns hardsuit cowered with his knees drawn up to his chin and his hands over his ears. Up ahead, a pair of krogan advanced steadily on their position, firing in lockstep, more like a pair of mechs than any krogan she'd met.

He barely acknowledged her as she scrambled into cover beside the batarian and took aim. She had to shout to be heard. "Zaeed Massani, I presume?"

"Who wants to know?" he asked, continuing to fire.

Shepard managed to pierce the helmet of the nearest krogan, who stumbled but kept his footing. She'd hit the bony crest, then. She adjusted her sights. "I'm Shepard. You signed a contract with Cerberus but missed your pick-up."

He barked a laugh. Massani had a thick Londoner accent, and a complete absence of adrenaline. His next shot went into the krogan's knee. "And you're the Illusive Man's enforcement?"

Further back, Miranda and Jacob had found their own cover, and were chewing away at the second krogan. Shepard watched a third step into view at the top of the ramp. "I'm not here for him. He can fuck himself."

The first krogan finally fell, fewer than four meters from their position. They each shifted to the second. "Nobody visits this shithole for their health."

"I'm on a mission to stop the Collectors from abducting colonists." Krogan weighed several tons and had multiple redundant organ systems. No amount of bullets seemed to slow them down. Shepard elected to try her earlier idea, and shot through his heat sink to disable his gun.

Massani hammered away at his armor. "Can't say I like true believers much. Your kind or Cerberus. But your people can move a lot of credits."

Figured it would be greed. She bit her tongue, though, because it was hard to pretend her motives for staying with Cerberus, to fill in her lost two years, were any less selfish. There were lots of ways to fight Collectors. Not so much in the Terminus, maybe. And a lot of ways to get paid.

Jacob managed to net the krogan in a biotic field that pulled him away from the ramp, doomed to fall several stories once it failed. Miranda fired steadily. "More coming!"

A fourth and a fifth krogan emerged, and Shepard thought she saw a sixth in the shadows behind them. They needed a new strategy. Her gaze swept the field, taking stock of her options.

The batarian shuddered every time a round struck their barricade. He had no weapons, and an orange omni-tool tracer circling one wrist suggested Massani had found his bounty. His eyes had a wild look. "You have to help me!"

Nothing inside the abandoned dreadnought could explode, and very little of the structure could be damaged by the weapons at her disposal. Between her position and that of her squad, they had the krogan in a crossfire, but they were too well-armored for it to matter. Shepard continued firing and radioed her squad. "Block their path! Create a bottleneck!"

"On it," Jacob answered, tersely. The krogan had them pinned. Nobody had time for something extra.

Nonetheless, shortly thereafter, a collection of debris limned in the blue glow of a mass effect field rose through the air and settled on the ramp. The junk blocked line of sight of up the ramp, and prevented more than a single krogan from firing on them at a given time.

Provided, of course, that they could get each one down before it moved into the clear and let the next one follow.

The trigger clicked on Shepard's gun. She popped out the thermal clip and reached for a fresh one, almost without conscious thought. And then kept reaching, all the way to the bottom of her pouch. "Damn it."

She threw the now-useless rifle to the ground and drew her sidearm. The pistol might as well have been a water gun, for all the threat it posed to the armored krogan. Shepard ground her teeth. "Should've melted down every last goddamn geth weapon we found—"

Massani took in the situation with a quick glance, and tossed her bag. "Catch."

"Thanks." She slammed in a new thermal clip and resumed her attack, leaving the pistol and bag where they fell beside her.

Which was when the batarian finally located his courage, grabbed the pistol and the bag, and made a run for it.

"Shit!" Massani turned away from the fight and fired on the fleeing man.

Shepard couldn't see what happened, but something struck her shields from behind, and a fraction of a second later she heard her pistol go off. "What the hell—"

With both of them distracted, the leading krogan, only slightly wounded, charged her position. Shepard scrambled back on her hands and knees as he stormed over the crate, bending the top under his weight.

She caught Massani out of the corner of her eye. His face was set in a snarl, his attention fixed on the batarian. Then the krogan's massive boot appeared over her face, and she rolled, her arm dangling off the ramp. The floor vibrated like a drum as it landed.

Her rifle lay across the ramp. She flung herself onto her side, seized it, and shot at his ankles. The krogan fell to one knee as his leg buckled. That enormous head turned to her.

Then he flew up through the air on a column of blue sparks, and slammed back into the ramp so hard Shepard nearly bounced off the edge. The world spun. Her stomach crawled halfway up her throat. Her head was a misery.

The krogan groaned. She gathered enough of her wits to send a bullet into his face. He shuddered once and lay still. Shepard looked back at her squad, and saw Miranda withdrawing her hand, the end of a biotic mnemonic gesture. Her brow furrowed.

"They're slowing down," Jacob said, as a voice over Shepard's stolen radio called out for backup. The mercs were being overrun. Distracting the krogan force, maybe.

She sat up, slowly, massaging her scalp. If her skull was going to try to blow itself apart every time a sudden mass effect field appeared in her vicinity, she had a real problem on her hands. The effect wasn't fading with time, and unlike traversing the relays, she couldn't just wait it out.

Several meters back, Massani rolled the batarian over with the toe of his boot, muttering curses. "Stupid jackass. I'm losing money on this deal."

Shepard gestured at the corpse. "What's with the baggage?"

"Someone wanted this sorry bastard alive." Massani spat. "He thought the Suns would protect him. He should've known better. The Blue Suns might be friendly with batarians but recruits are expendable."

Jedore's increasingly callous orders made that perfectly clear. Shepard got to her feet and retrieved her pistol along with the spare clips. "You know who I am?"

"A war hero who runs out of thermal clips in the middle of a routine battle." He folded his arms. Here and there, exposed by gaps in his battered yellow hardsuit, extensive tattoos decorated the muscle.

"I spent two years dead," she said, shortly. "And the geth never ran out of clips so clearly an engineer fucked up somewhere."

Massani barked a laugh. It lent his face an odd look. Judging by the left half, the lines gathered around his eye and narrow mouth, the nondescript gray-brown of his thinning hair, Shepard deduced he was at least ten years her senior, and likely closer to fifteen. The right half was nothing but a mass of puckered scar tissue that barely moved with his smile. His eye was clouded over.

She gave the batarian another glance. "You shoot well for a blind man."

"I was aiming for his leg."

It was her turn to laugh. Her squad joined them, Miranda all business, Jacob hanging back. The Cerberus operative put her hands on her hips. "Why weren't you on Omega?"

Massani was unperturbed. "Your boss didn't pay me to wait. You were late, and I had another opportunity. I should haul him back and recover some of the fee."

"The Illusive Man will cover your losses," Shepard cut in, before Miranda could respond.

Massani glanced between them. "And why would he do that?"

"Because he wants me very badly, and I'm willing to let him continue to believe that's possible." She didn't care that she was saying it in front of Miranda. It was nothing she hadn't said to the Illusive Man's face.

Miranda checked her omni-tool. "We need to find Okeer fast. We're running out of more than supplies."

"This is too much like what Saren pulled in '83 with his cloning lab." Ash died for that information, a price far higher than its value. A part of Shepard needed to know whether there was more to it. "The reapers helped him then. They're helping the Collectors now."

Jacob frowned. "We don't know that for certain."

It felt right. Shepard surged ahead. "We're nearly at the labs. We'll know soon enough."

Massani switched out his thermal clip and cycled his rifle. "I'm game. You paid for it, after all."

They left the batarian lying in his blood, and made for the top of the ramp. Between the loudspeaker and the radio, it seemed the krogan were winning the battle. They faced scattered patrols of increasingly disorganized mercs as they neared the facility. These field commanders were so green they couldn't even manage their own orders. Instead, they called for protocols, memorized formations and strategies that were essentially useless against a team with the experience of Shepard's squad.

Jedore offered no help. From her secure post hidden away somewhere on the base, she accosted her recruits for their "unbelievable" failure to neutralize a former spectre, two high-ranking Cerberus operatives, and a seasoned mercenary. Blind eye or no, Massani could easily earn his keep. Aside from his motives and demeanor he wasn't much different from other special operations marines Shepard had worked with through the years.

The mercs gave it their best, though. Shepard's anger grew with every recruit who fell, mostly aimed at Jedore, for putting her in a position where she had to kill them. She had half a mind to go looking for her later, if she wasn't at the labs, and send a clear if short-lived message on the responsibilities of leadership.

At last, they came upon an assemblage of rotting decks and staircases that almost resembled a real building, and made their way upstairs. The computers and other equipment they passed along the way confirmed this was the lab. But they found no scientists, no other personnel. Shepard began to wonder if this was a fool's errand after all.

She tagged open a hatch at the top of the structure and proceeded into the next room, as rusty as the rest of the place, but appointed with a number of lab tables, computer terminals, microscopes, and other scientific equipment. A krogan stood beside an oversized cloning tank. "Good. You're finally here."

The tank held an armored krogan, completely unconscious, his blue eyes staring blankly through the curved glass. Okeer himself had a brisk air. He didn't bother turning away from the computer affixed to the tank as they approached. "These batteries will not wait while you play with idiotic mercs."

"Not the smartest way to greet the heavily armed group that just kicked in your door."

Okeer did turn then, contemptuous and disappointed. His head crest was so dark it was almost black. His eyes betrayed his great age. "The deceased Shepard has no reason to want me dead. You want what the Collectors gave me."

She raised an eyebrow, surprised to be recognized, and the direct mention of the Collectors. Okeer took on a smug satisfaction. "Yes, I know of their interest in your colonies, and of you. All krogan should know you."

Nothing about Okeer's posture was threatening. She rested her hands on her belt, near her pistol, but not touching it. "You're upset I destroyed the genophage cure that wasn't really a cure at all."

"On the contrary, I approve." Okeer spread his arms wide. "I especially like the part where you obliterated Saren's plans with nuclear fire. It has weight."

In the back of her mind, Kaidan sat up against the armed bomb, clutching his wounded leg in both hands and pale as a ghost. The bomb's countdown alarm wailed in the background. He looked up at her, those warm brown eyes of his that she knew so well filled with fear.

She pushed it aside. "It was the best I could do with the available resources."

"Saren's pale horde were not true krogan. Judging value by numbers is the mistake of outsiders, whether spectres or mercenaries, it makes no difference." He rested a hand on the tank. "Jedore grows impatient. It is time for you to take me out of here."

"Excuse me?" She crossed her arms. Taking Okeer and his pet project along wasn't mentioned in their earlier communications.

"I'd like to hear what he has to say," Miranda put in. "And conditions here are deteriorating rapidly. We should continue the conversation elsewhere."

Okeer didn't stir, his gaze fixed on the krogan within. "The Collectors granted me tech to create one pure soldier, one who can inflict upon the genophage the greatest insult an enemy can suffer. To be ignored."

"So you don't want to cure—"

"The genophage does not produce strong krogan. The only quality it filters is the ability to survive the genophage." Okeer sneered. "The coddling that results from such a filter sickens me more than a thousand salarian curses. Let us carry the genophage. Let us find victory by climbing atop the dead, as krogan have always done. Let them fear my lance."

The window beyond the lab displayed row after row of tanks, enough to produce hundreds or even thousands of krogan, given enough time. Okeer had thrown away all but one. Shepard's eyes shifted back to him. "You're as cruel and manipulative as those who sanctioned the genophage."

"Perhaps. But I will restore the krogan, and one soldier will not provoke a… nuclear response." Okeer smiled at her discomfort. "My legacy is perfection."

Shepard decided then and there Okeer would never set foot aboard her ship. "I need whatever you know about the Collectors."

"They are strange. So isolated, yet very available when your sacrifice is large enough. I gave them many krogan."

The loudspeaker activated. Jedore's cold rage obvious even through the distortion of the cheap equipment. "Attention. I have traced the krogan release. Okeer, of course."

For the first time, Okeer seemed troubled. He rushed to the window. Far below, a slight woman with a cap of dirty blonde hair spoke into her radio. "I'm calling blank slate on this project. Gas these intruders and start over from Okeer's data. Flush the tanks."

Immediately, white vapor began to pour from vents in the lab. Shepard reached for her helmet without any conscious thought. Okeer was too upset for such considerations— not that an outsized lab coat provided much protection. "She'll kill my legacy with a damn valve!"

Miranda grabbed her arm. "Shepard, we need his information."

"I've wanted to kill Jedore since we set down anyway." She drew her rifle. "Okeer—"

He turned back to the tank. "Go. I will… stay, and do what must be done."

They hurried through a hatch at the far end of the lab, down a ramp, and into the tank room. Jedore was alone save for a handful of heavy mechs and krogan, newly flushed and too confused to organize. Though she shouted stridently, her orders were entirely ignored.

Shepard glanced at her squad. "Get the krogan. I'll handle Jedore."

"Copy that." Jacob rushed ahead, Miranda close behind. Massani turned to the nearest mech.

It was slow going, but the lab offered plenty of cover. To Shepard's absolute lack of surprise, Jedore kept to the far corner, with as much of her remaining forces and the lab itself between her and Shepard's team. She started when Shepard appeared from behind a tank with a gun trained on her head. "Freeze."

Jedore held her weapon like she barely recognized it. "What the hell is your problem?"

"You're a bad leader, a terrible person, and you're in my way." Shepard tracked her as she moved sideways. "Take your pick."

"How did Okeer get to you?" Jedore demanded. "I monitor all of his communications off-world."

Shepard declined to explain herself. She gestured to a tank. "Get in."

Jedore stared. "What?"

Across the room, Jacob shouted, "Krogan neutralized!"

Over her radio, Shepard heard Massani say, "Good. Now get your asses over here and take care of these mechs."

Shepard took another step towards Jedore. "You heard me."

Her look was pure poison. "I'd rather be shot, if it's all the same to you."

"Oh, but it's not." Another step. "Get. In."

Jedore stared down the muzzle of her rifle, and swallowed. She stepped into the tank. The locking mechanism slid into place.

Shepard approached the console. Jedore raised her voice, hysterics muted by the tube. "What are doing?"

She was never at home with strange technology. It took her a few tries to find the fill controls. Jedore began to shake as the nutrient bath covered her toes. "You can't be serious!"

On the radio, Miranda said, "Heavy mech, nine o'clock."

"I see it," answered Massani. Shepard heard the distinctive sound of a rocket cycling into its left arm. Across the room, Massani fired. "Got it!"

The mech exploded at the same moment the rocket fired, badly off-course. Shepard flinched as it streaked past. Jedore screamed as it exploded against the tank, abruptly silence. Nothing was left but scraps of metal and cooling glass shards.

Not quite as satisfying, but effective. Shepard activated her radio. "Jedore's dead. Let's wrap-up."

The last of the fumes were dissipating as they arrived back at Okeer's facility. They smelled not quite the same as vinegar, strong enough even in the residual to tickle the inside of her nose. It felt wrong. Why did it feel so wrong?

Okeer slumped over a terminal, clearly dead, a hastily recorded vid playing on the screen. "The Blue Suns brokered my deal with the Collectors, but the tech was consumed by my process." Vid-Okeer paused, straining for breath. "You gave me time, Shepard. If I knew why the Collectors wanted humans, I would tell you. But everything is in my prototype. My legacy is pure. This… one soldier. This grunt. Perfect."

Jacob scratched his head. "Okeer's ruthless, but he gave his life for this one krogan? Why?"

"I want to find out." Okeer's goals were clear enough, but his exact methodology remained mysterious. And this was the second time she'd found Suns in proximity to Collector technology. Shepard crouched near the tank, inspecting the battery meter, and activated her comm. "Shepard to Normandy."

The delay was minimal at these distances, even at light speed. EDI replied promptly. "Standing by, Shepard."

"I have a package that needs retrieval."

A pause, and then Joker came on the line. "Commander, there's no room near your location for the ship to set down. Can you carry it out?"

She looked at the tank. It was six tons if it was a kilo. "That's a negative."

Jacob said, "The shuttle can't get it out either. Even if we weren't taxing the lift capacity, it would never fit."

Massani checked his gun, purely out of habit. "You could go back to Choquo and hire a lift. Without Jedore driving them the recruits won't challenge us again."

"Sounds good. Can we lock out the controls?" Shepard didn't want anyone messing with the tank while they were gone, and didn't want the hassle of posting a guard.

Miranda went to the console. They levered Okeer off the keyboard, and she typed a few queries. "I can switch control authority to us easily enough. There, done."

They called in the shuttle and flew back to Choquo. Shepard sat back, tired, but in a good way. She wasn't sure how much they actually gained with this exercise. But it was nice to be worn out from real work instead of endlessly stomping away at a treadmill belt like some kind of damned gerbil.

/\/\/\/\/\

A few hours later, they were in Korlus' disputed capitol. They were all tired and filthy from their long day fighting in the smog, and negotiating a transport for the tank could take some time. Miranda insisted they rent a room to get out of the heat.

Unlike the rest of Korlus, the suite was clean, done in pale blues and grays that defied the heat of the day. The furniture was a bit old but stylish for its time, and serviceable. Miranda was reasonably satisfied. Nothing like what one found in truly civilized space, naturally, but that was asking a bit much of a scrapyard world.

Jacob climbed in the shower first. Alliance marines, even ex-marines, showered faster than any people Miranda had ever met. Shepard said this was because ship VIs turned off the hot water after four minutes to encourage people to move along.

Massani scorned cleaning up at all. He seemed to prefer being crusty, in every possible sense of the word. He and Jacob headed back out to find a hauler and retrieve his personal possessions, leaving her and Shepard alone. Shepard was quiet on the shuttle flight, and for once content. Miranda didn't question it; keeping the peace had become a full time job, and she appreciated any speck of downtime she could get.

When she got out of the shower herself, cinching her towel tight and combing out her wet hair, she found Shepard at the window, studying the people jostling on the street below with her arms folded. Miranda spoke. "It's a sad little place, isn't it?"

"Sad, maybe. Little, no." Shepard turned back to the room and hooked her thumbs into her utility belt. She'd put her hardsuit back on. Not that she had a change of clothes— Miranda supposed she wasn't comfortable enough to strip down to the undersuit. "It's a hard life out here."

Miranda retrieved a bottle of water and lay back on the couch, lounging a bit. A small indulgence of relaxation. "I understand the need to study Okeer's prototype."

"But?" Shepard was almost amused.

"I have concerns about waking it."

She shook her head and paced the length of the window. "I haven't decided what to do with him yet. Judging by the other krogan we met, nobody's ever asked his opinion on anything. I'm not sure the confines of our ship are the best place to discover what he thinks."

"This krogan was created and indoctrinated by a madman. I can guess what it might think."

"You don't find that interesting?" Shepard turned to her. "I should thank you. For getting the krogan off me, on our way up here."

Miranda shifted, unreadable. "I was protecting a Cerberus investment. Don't take it personally."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Miranda's eyes slid to her. It was almost a joke. "I'm concerned about something else as well. You freeze up every time I use a biotic effect in your vicinity. At first I thought it was just surprise."

"And then you realized that didn't make any damn sense?" Shepard prickled reliably at any suggestion of weakness. "I've worked in close proximity with biotics before. I know what to expect."

"That leaves an unfortunate selection of possibilities." She regarded her casually, as though this was a chat about the weather. "Did you have an undocumented sensitivity to mass effect fields before you died?"

Shepard ran her fingers through her hair and turned away. "What does it matter?"

"It's not out of the question that the synthetic portions of your nervous system could create amplified feedback." Miranda got up and moved towards her. "If so, we need to address it medically."

Shepard took a tidy step away. "We're not talking about this."

"Shepard—"

"I'm fine, Miranda." That hint of exasperation had returned, the one that wasn't exactly angry, but said back off.

Miranda raked the hair off her face, the wet strands sticking to her fingers. "Have it your way. You always do."

Her expression changed. It looked almost like chagrin. "I didn't mean… Do you know what it's like to have someone know everything about you, when you don't know the slightest thing about them? Wouldn't you want some privacy, too?"

Privacy was a foreign concept for most of her childhood. She grew up well aware her father was watching or at least recording her every move— every success, every failure. She was monitored by a small army of professionals charged with molding her into the crowning achievement of her father's life.

Now, she didn't put herself in situations where personal vulnerability was a factor, and it wasn't her fault Shepard wound up in that position over Alchera. "We can't always afford the things we want."

"I'm handling it." She let out a sigh, and changed the subject. "I'm starving. You want some food?"

She blinked, surprised. "Dinner would be appreciated."

"Any requests?"

"I…" Miranda was off-balance. "I imagine any human food is hard to come by here, but I've developed quite a taste for Indian cuisine."

"Me, too. I'll see what I can find." Shepard made to leave, no fuss, no barbs.

In fact, the conversation had gone so unusually smoothly that it took a few moments for Miranda to realize Shepard had paused at the hatch, with a strange look on her face.

Miranda frowned, a kernel of nascent unease settling in her gut. "Was there something else?"

Shepard inhaled deeply through her nose, saying nothing. She'd worn that expression before, most recently when they arrived back in Okeer's lab, like she'd just noticed something odd or out of place, but couldn't quite identify what.

Then she turned sharply, with an expression like a volcano just before the peak disappears. Like the stillness in the air above a fault line before the earth slips sideways and brings everything toppling down.

Miranda caught sight of it and froze, all comfort evaporated. Unconsciously, her feet arranged themselves into a fighting stance.

Slowly, enunciating every word, Shepard said, "Your shampoo..."

"Yes?" Miranda's brow creased.

She squared herself to Miranda. Her voice had yet to be raised. "I can smell your shampoo." She took a step. "I can smell it. I could smell Jedore's gas, too."

Miranda eased upright, still feigning relaxation, but with every muscle poised to spring. She'd rarely felt so threatened in her life, and Shepard wasn't doing anything but staring at her. "If the scent offends you, we'll be back on the ship with our own things soon enou—"

Shepard rushed her without warning, leaping over the couch, and pinned her to the window with enough raw strength to knock the air from her lungs. She shoved the muzzle of her pistol into the soft underside of Miranda's jaw, pressing so deeply that she was forced to tip her head back just to get a breath.

"What," Shepard growled, "Did you do to me, you unholy Cerberus bitch?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Miranda tried to remain calm, but her own weapon was across the room, and no amount of struggling budged Shepard so much as a millimeter. Her hands weren't free to form the movements for biotics. The woman was solid muscle. "I saved your life."

"When I died, I had no sense of smell." Shepard pressed yet more closely to Miranda, her breath hot against her face. She was so tall. Miranda couldn't equal her, especially barefoot. She had to balance on her toes to avoid being choked— no chance of stomping down. Shepard couldn't be bothered to care. "I lost it after a serious head injury. The brain, you see, is so very difficult to repair. Why can I smell your shampoo?"

Miranda tried to speak. Shepard pressed the gun to her so violently she thought it might push through her skin. "What did you do to my brain?"

Miranda managed to meet her eyes. There was nothing in them but rage, fueled by just the thinnest stream of naked fear. "Basic neural implants. Just—"

She was forced to stop speaking as Shepard let out a savage growl and half-closed her throat with the pressure of the gun. She struggled for a breath. "Just three! Some parts of your body were— disconnected. We had to— had to establish— linkages—"

"You put implants in my head!"

"The Illusive Man wanted you just as you are." Miranda took another strangled gulp of air, wondering why the hell anyone would want this banshee as she was. "All they did was restore n— nerve connections. Including to your— your nose."

Shepard stared at her. Miranda knew that stare. She hadn't been on the receiving end very often, but each time left its mark. It was the look of a person who was making up her mind— not whether to kill you, but whether to let you live. It was the look of somebody who had come to see killing you as the default option.

"You need me," Miranda said, low and cold, with every scrap of defiance she'd ever had.

Shepard spat and dropped her. Her knees collapsed from the suddenness of it. She fell to the floor, gasping, the towel flapping around her.

"I will have a report," Shepard said, in even, deadly tones, "On my desk, by this time to tomorrow. It will detail everything down to the fucking adhesive on these neural implants. Am I clear?"

Miranda massaged her throat, wiped the back of her hand over her face, smearing Shepard's saliva. "As glass."

Shepard spun on her heel and stalked out. Miranda entertained a brief fantasy of leveling a biotic attack at her retreating back, to caution her against reckless threats, but she knew better than to act in haste. Certainly she knew better than to anger the Illusive Man, who considered Shepard his most crucial investment. And there was also just the faintest doubt, deep at the back of her mind, facing down Shepard driven half out of her mind with rage, whether she would prevail.

But she would not be treated like this, no matter how distrustful or unsettled Shepard might be. Nobody— not even her boss— could expect this to stand.