I don't own the Mass Effect.

Saga III: Return to Sender

…Then hoist the Black Flag

Date: 05-21-2184

Location: Heavy Cruiser Reliant, high orbit of Zadith Ban, Anti-Spinward Terminus

I'd forgotten how much I hated fighting aboard ships.

It was all of the chaos of fighting inside of an enclosed space, made even less fun by having to actually care about keeping the collateral damage to a minimum. The lack of snipers and rubble was really the only thing that made it a slight improvement over urban combat, though I'll admit to not really considering the few good things about the situation at the time.

Mostly because Aethyta's daughter was as head strong and annoying as the old bitch herself was.

"Stay fucking down!" I snarled at Joa, grabbing her by the shoulder with my left hand and hauling her out of the way a few heartbeats before a Varren leaped out from a cabin doorway. It snarled as its claws barely missed her stumbling form, then yowled in agony as my SMG stitched a line of bloody holes across its side.

The Asari pirate cursed and tried to get her shotgun up, only to let out a snarl when Voya kicked her left leg out from under her as she rushed past to deal with a Vorcha who was leaning out from another cabin to fire wildly at us with a pistol. The light rounds splashed across her armor before she hit it in a smooth tackle, her blades flashing as she tore at it.

"Stop fucking-" I absently brought my left fist around in a tight arc that ended in one of the Joa's bare breasts, drawing a high pitched yelp and ending her bitching.

I'd have remonstrated her verbally as well, this with the third goddess damned time she'd tried to get involved in the actual fighting, but I was interrupted by the arrival of of another Vorcha pack diving through the closing airtight doors in our section of the hallway, shrieking warcries as they joined the fight.

Illyan and Shyeel both shifted aside, their heavy carbines booming out rounds that sent the viral aliens to the decking, but the creatures were fast and two of them got past the Asari duo.

One flung itself at Voya just as she had begun to rise, violent cursing emerging from her helmet as she went right back down, while the other tried to shove its gun right against my helmet to blow my head off. Catching the weapon with an armored hand, I shoved it aside to let it discharge uselessly against the bulkhead while ramming my own gun into its throat and putting a five round burst through its neck.

"Oh for Athame's fucking sake." Shyeel cursed as she drop-kicked the thing struggling with Voya, executing it only once it was on the floor. "Voya, use your goddess damned gun!"

The Quarian started to growl something back, but her voice was swamped by the cacophony of yet another minor battle erupting in this section of the ship. Vorcha, lead by a single Scarlet Tear, sprinted out of a connecting hall, stumbling to a halt as they saw us. The pause proved to be fatal, as the crew members who had been pursuing them promptly caught up and swarmed over them.

One of the latter even had the good sense to slam the airtight bulkhead shut across the hallway, blocking any chance for the enemy to retreat back the way they'd just come. In that, at least, the warship's design was working in our favor.

Like most Batarian warships, the interior of this one was essentially an armored honeycomb, complete with massive blast doors that could seal off the various sections as needed. Thanks to Voya and Joa, we'd been able to seal and unseal the various sections as we'd moved through the vessel, doing quite a bit to limit the defender's ability to get at us.

Of course there was a disadvantage, we'd lost nearly ten minutes as the pair of them had struggled to keep someone else from venting the air out of the deck we'd been on. Not that it would have bothered us, but we sort of needed Joa and her people.

"Elissa," I spoke into my comms, half watching the furious crew beating the Blood Pack members to death with their bare hands, half paying attention to planting my foot on top of Joa's bare toes to keep her in place. "We've reached deck five."

"We're approaching engineering control." The Eclipse Captain reported back, "Resistance is increasing."

"We noticed." I grimaced. Getting control of the ship's internal communications had actually been Voya's main priority, and between her and one of Joa's officers she'd been able to bring it all down before we'd left the cargo bay. It had let us get most of the way to our target with only minimal resistance, but it had only been a matter of time before Ganar or the Scarlet Tears realized that they had company on board.

"I'm sending the signal." I exhaled after a few moments furious thought on the matter. The plan had been to call in the Armada only after we'd seized our targets and gotten moving, but if the Krogan on the bridge could get a message to the station and demand reinforcements on board...

We needed them distracted, and a giant Eclipse fleet would definitely do the trick.

"...agreed." She replied, "We'll double time it. Eclipse out."

Cutting the line, I glanced over to Shyeel to see her already pulling her omni-tool up. A few quick flicks of her fingers sent the signal to the docked ship that we'd arrived in. The glowing panels above her wrist gave a single ping to show that the automated systems had received the message, then shifted to show a timer rapidly counting downwards.

Joa grunted from behind me, "Three minutes? Where the fuck was the fleet?"

"Just outside the system's halo." I replied, mildly impressed by her ability to focus... even if I could have done without her being so damned determined to personally take her ship back "Theory was that the Blood Pack wouldn't have their sensors calibrated that far out."

"Good theory." She exhaled. "That fucking hurt by the way."

"That was the point." I replied. "Stop fucking trying to get in front of us; focus on keeping your officers alive."

"They can handle themselves." Her lips twisted. "Get off my-"

I half turned and grabbed her shoulder, squeezing just hard enough to make her flinch and shut up. "I get this is your ship, I get they did shit to you. But you aren't wearing armor, and I need you to fucking survive."

Said crew behind her blinked, flinched, or twitched mandibles in surprise. Most of the group we'd run into in the cargo bay had peeled off as we'd moved, grabbing the rest of the crew and helping to get their collars off before organizing them, but she'd kept the ones she'd need to man the auxiliary bridge once we got there.

Joa glowered at me as I finished talking, tugging her leg back until I pulled my weight off of her foot. "I'll take it under advisement, mercenary. Auxiliary bridge is two sections ahead, we need to stop wasting time."

I could only exhale tightly, shoving my own annoyance to the side. She'd made it very clear that killing Ganar Iraz was extremely important to her, and that he'd done some fairly savage things to a lot of her people.

And I wasn't exactly in a place where I could tell someone else to not seek vengeance. Not that I really wanted to tell her to stop, but this entire bloody fiasco would be for nothing if she died.

Shaking my head, I turned away from her and pushed off with my bad leg. It promptly released a long throb of pain that radiated up from my ankle, making me glad for the helmet that hid my grimace.

"Right, let's get moving. You and yours stay in the back, Shyeel, Illyan, take point."

Voya's head shifted, the visor hiding the glare that I knew was directed at me. I ignored it entirely, hefting my gun up to remind her to actually draw her own. She did after an annoyed mutter, slowly falling in beside me as we started moving towards the closed blast door.

The crew had finished killing their prey, grabbing the dead Pack member's weapons and scattering aside as we approached. Joa quickly began snapping orders at them to make sure the other cabins on this deck were clear as Illyan flicked the controls, the heavy metal sliding out of our way.

Gunfire promptly, and unsurprisingly, lashed out at us, though not terribly accurately. A pair of Scarlet Tears, Turians, had managed to get a half-dozen Vorcha into something like a defensive position, but half of them were still mostly in the open and had clearly been bickering with the mercenaries; their heads snapping back to the front even as we started shooting back.

As usual, we dealt with the Vorcha first. Shyeel and Illyan dropped four of them in as many seconds with quick, efficient bursts of gunfire. Voya and I dealt with the last two; our lighter weapons killing them just as quickly, and leaving us with a mere pair of opponents... who didn't last much longer.

One turned and fled, leaving his companion to absorb the fire coming at him from all four of us. His own shots didn't to much more than nudge at our shields before he collapsed, cobalt blue blood spraying from his rent armor.

"Dammit." Shyeel cursed, breaking into a loping run to try and catch the other before he could attract more attention. Illyan easily kept pace with her, with Voya and I doing our best to keep our aching bodies moving behind them.

Both Asari gave up on running after a few breaths, instead simply flashing ahead to take down the target before he could try and seal the next section. Shyeel's was textbook, her biotic movement leaving her with her rifle right against the back of the Turian's helmet. Illyan's... was much less so, the larger Asari flashing forwards at an angle.

Voya barked out a weak laugh as she slammed into a wall, armor clattering as she fell on her ass and clutched at her head.

"Illyan..." I sighed as we reached her, reaching out to help her get up.

She had the decency to sound sheepish as she pulled at my arm, hauling herself up, "Sorry Cie. Thought I could manage it."

"Wanted to show off you mean." Voya continued to cackle, drawing a rude gesture from the Asari as I waved for them both to get moving again. They did so, the Quarian's snickering seeming to rejuvenate her as we drew closer to our target.

I honestly expected some kind of fight when we got there, one that would have been extremely annoying given that we'd have to be careful not to shoot up the control consoles when we stormed the place. But when the door slid open, the only thing that came out was a bit of dust kicked up by the ship's ventilation system.

"Huh." Shyeel grunted, sounded as nonplussed as I felt. She carefully stepped inside, Voya following as they checked around and behind the cramped stations. "That's... weird."

"Iraz is an idiot when it comes to security." Joa snorted as she pushed past me, her five subordinates following. "He was all proud of buying some Drell slave to reprogram our access codes. Moron never realized the guy barely knew how to operate an omni-tool."

Illyan snorted, lowering her weapon as the pair of us came in last, sealing the hatch behind us. "If he's so stupid how did he end up in command here? Nepotism?"

"He's got a good tactical mind." The pirate twisted her lips, as though it physically pained her to admit as much, "And he's got a decent brain for naval tactics."

I nodded slightly, leaning back against a bulkhead and watching as her officers kept working. "He just has issues with details? Sounds like most Blood Pack commanders."

She opened her mouth to reply, then winced as alarms began blaring overhead. A Turian male, who'd managed to to at least grab a few pieces of armor from a dead Scarlet Tear, flicked his mandibles as he glanced up. "Eclipse fleet just arrived in system Captain... by the spirits, the Solar Eclipse itself is here."

"Get a communications line open." Joa started giving orders before I could, "Identify us to them, I'd rather not get shredded by that monster. Report off by systems."

"Communications are ours." The same Turian replied at once, "I'm cutting the main bridge out of the Pack's network."

"Secondary batteries are under local control... but I think we can override the point defense array." A young Asari reported, biting her lip as she examined data scrolling past on her screen. "Some of the other officers have hit the command keys you indicated, I think we control a third of the ship right now."

Joa glanced at her sharply. "You think?"

"Might be a little more." The maiden shrugged a bare shoulder. "Ven, passing you the data, can you confirm them?"

The Turian nodded, stepping over to look at her data before darting back to his station to start repairing the ships intercom system. While he did that, the other male Turian present let out a chirp of success. "Killed power to the primary guns, should make us less of a target."

His Captain nodded in approval before flicking her gaze to the final station. "Engines?"

"Engines are... not responding, I think the Eclipse team must still be fighting in there because we aren't accelerating either." Asari number three scrunched her nose up, "I've got sensor data at least. We're away from the station and drifting above and behind the Pack fleet, barriers are up and stable... Athame's... that dreadnought just blew the Jarrakot in half."

Joa exhaled, "Get that data on the main table for me. Ven, soon as you have comms up, get a general broadcast out. All crew who are still alive are to gather behind bulkhead seven, we'll vent the air out from everything in front of that. We'll kill everything in our half the hard way."

"Ma'am."

I forced myself to walk normally over to the holographic table, trying not to show that I was leaning on it as I waited for the images to come up. "Venting the air will probably only get rid of the Vorcha and Varren."

"Probably." Joa flicked her gaze towards me and my companions, "I'm assuming you'll help us clear them out?"

I didn't want to. I really didn't want to. The notion of fighting Krogan in enclosed spaces was one that I would have avoided even if I was fucking healthy. Athame's ass, all I wanted to do was to drag Illyan to the nearest bed so that I could use her as a body pillow to pass out on top of.

"Not like we have anything else to do." I exhaled, going for confident but knowing I that just sounded tired. "Assuming you stay here and don't do anything stupid."

Purple-blue lips pressed together as the display flickered, "Are you going to tell me why you need me alive? I'm assuming it has something to do with my useless bitch of a mother."

"You'd be correct." My right shoulder shrugged. "There's... shit, look. She's got one of my friends hostage, the price to get her back was saving your naked ass."

Joa blinked a few times. "She what?"

"You heard him." Shyeel sighed, moving to stand on my left. "Bitch doesn't really care for us, especially since Sederis took one of your sisters hostage after Aethyta tried to murder her."

Joa blinked several more times, then seemed to groan and rubbed furiously at her face. "Athame's fucking... this is why I fucking left, too much goddess damned drama."

I couldn't help but snort, turning my head to watch as symbols marking ship positions began to appear. "I can understand that."

"Can you?"

My lips twisted a bit, "If this ship has a bar, I'll happily have a few drinks and bitch out your mother with you when this is over."

"It'll take more than a few drinks to get through all the shit she's done." Illyan pointed out.

Grunting, I dipped my head to accept the point. For her part, Aethyta's daughter simply snorted, but her body language relaxed minutely and her tone became far less cautious. "You were some of her agents, weren't you? She never did treat them well."

"Something like that." I admitted, bringing a hand up to open my link to Elissa. "But we can talk about that after this is done. Elissa, engines?"

The sound of a heavy gunshot preceded the woman's voice, "Just finishing up, crew are getting them back online. Bit of collateral damage thanks to a pyromaniac Vorcha, slowing them up a bit. You already secured your target?"

"We did." Not that we'd had to fight to do so. "Leska is here and engaging everything, I'll keep you updated."

"Sounds like a plan. We're going to stick around until we're in the clear." Meaning that she wasn't about to let them throw the ship into FTL until more Eclipse troops could be brought on board to make sure that Joa couldn't try and get out of going to Illium with us.

I murmured a few quick words in reply, then settled in to watch the naval battle unfold.

Leska had rolled in with her flagship and its attendant battlegroup, forming up in an odd formation as they approached the planet and its defending fleet at a high angle. Her dreadnought had a good dozen cruisers in a tight cluster around it, while her lighter vessels were moving in pairs or trios in a hemispheric screen in front of them.

The Blood Pack had already lost several light ships, red markers showing the wreckage as they scrambled to pull their core fleet back and into some kind of formation. They didn't seem to be having an easy time of it, probably since we were absconding with their flagship, and were grouping up in three different flotillas rather than a single formation.

"Warlords must be bickering about who is in command." Joa murmured, leaning forwards as she watched the images shift. "One group protecting the station, another moving to low orbit to block any invasion, and a third trying to move to surround us."

"I'm not much of a space tactician." I spoke, mostly to pass the time as we waited, feeling the deck shudder beneath my boots as the engines roared to life. "I know the theory but that's about it. The situation looks all right, yes?"

"Better than all right." She rolled a shoulder in a shrug, bringing a hand up to indicate the ships trying to escort us and then the approaching Eclipse force. "She's going to roll the Eclipse in... two minutes, give or take, and rake those light cruisers with her broadside guns. Her strike ships will finish them off as they pass, but they'll stay close to the dreadnought. If the Pack stay true to form the frigates trying to herd us will dart in for torpedo runs to give their warlord time to take his ship back."

The wave hit the beach in my head as I correlated the information I was seeing to the memories of studying traditional naval battles. "I get it, their close enough to overlap their secondary batteries."

Joa nodded. "They might take a few hits but those frigates will disintegrate. After that... probably rotate her screen between her and the station, and just keep pace with us until we're secure to hit FTL."

The next several minutes played out more or less exactly as she'd stated. Leska's old capital ship tore apart the three larger ships trying to catch up to us, the Krogan ships disintegrating when her cruisers joined in the barrage thirty seconds later. Nine or so frigates promptly flipped away from us and accelerated towards the Asari ships, the remaining four electing to make a run for it instead.

That turned out to the be the wiser move, with none of the attackers doing more than scratching the armor on a few of the strike cruisers before falling apart beneath the combined barrage of GARDIAN lasers. While that was occurring, more sections of our ship started to report in, the Blood Pack being pushed into the front half of the ship as more members of the crew had their collars removed and joined the revolt.

"We'll have our half of the ship soon." Joa half closed her eyes as her people kept chirping out reports, most of them revolving around how many sections they'd managed to reclaim, or how the Eclipse force was forming in an escort formation around us. "Losing too many of my people in the process."

"Price of rebellion." Shyeel spoke quietly, "Could have been a lot worse."

"I know." Her lips twisted a little as she shook her head, "Took me years to get enough people to run this ship, they were a solid bunch."

"You'll still have a solid core to build from." My fellow Reyja'krem seemed determined to reassure her, and quickly began asking more detailed questions about the ship. The technical ones drew Voya into the conversation, and I found my own interest rising up until Illyan hauled me away and dragged me over to the side of the room.

I grabbed her hands before she could pull my helmet off, blinking in confusion. "Illyan?"

"You need painkillers." She replied, deftly twisting her wrists out of my grip and then seizing my helmet again. "Especially if we're about to go after a biotic Krogan."

A steady throb from my ankle informed me that she had a point, and I gave her a slight nod as she pulled the protection off. Pills were quickly pushed in front of my face, and then into my mouth when I opened it to tell her to slow down for a moment. I glowered at her before dry-swallowing the things, grimacing as they went down. "Illyan."

"Someone has to take care of you." She replied without a hint of shame, hefting my helmet up as if she was going to put it back on for me. "You're kind of terrible at doing it on your own."

I glowered at her and jerked my head back, "I can put the stupid thing back..."

She shifted a little closer as my voice trailed off, keeping her body between me and Joa to hide my shaking hands. For my part I exhaled and leaned back against the bulkhead behind me, lowering my limbs and closing my eyes. Hands carefully made sure that my hair was secure through my neck guard before lowering my helmet into place, and then strong fingers were wrapping around mine.

"Almost done with this." Illyan spoke quietly. "We wait for the Eclipse to get more people on the ship, we help them kill Ganar, then we're done. We can go home for a while."

I felt her strength keeping my hands in place even as my muscles kept twitching. What was worse was that I could feel the panic starting to bubble up, the threat of hyperventilation coming with too many memories of what we had just gone through. What I'd gone through before that... and before that... and...

No. If I kept sitting here I'd have a break down, I had to be moving. I had to do something. "Yeah... and no. Let's just... let's just get this over with."

Even with the helmet in the way I knew she'd just blinked in confusion. "Cie?"

"Let's go kill Ganar." I exhaled. "It's an objective, something I can focus on. We'll kill him and call it a day."

"That's..." Her voice trailed off when I tilted my head sharply to the right, silently informing her that I hadn't been making a suggestion about it. "Right. So... we just fight our way to the bridge and attack a biotic Krogan and Athame knows how many guards?"

"We won't attack him, we're just going to kill him." Flexing my fingers, I pulled one hand away from hers to draw my hand cannon from its makeshift holster. "There is a difference. Joa!"

The pirate leaned around from where she'd been conversing with Shyeel and Voya, "What?"

"I need a straight path to the bridge, and I want everything sealed along that route so we don't run into any problems."

Shyeel made a groaning sound and hung her head, and even Voya's body language showed surprise.

"Cie...?" The Quarian trailed my voice questioningly. "What are you doing?"

"I don't feel like sitting around anymore." I replied. "So I'm going to go kill Ganar. Feel free to come with."

Joa just sort of gaped at me. "Kean, he's five centuries old and a powerful fucking biotic. Sederis the younger is already loading up a commando team to shuttle over to deal with him before we leave the system, why not wait-"

"Captain." I all but snapped her title, causing her to blink rapidly as her mouth clicked shut. "Secure a route to the main bridge. Please."

She stared at me for several breaths, then shook her head and muttered something involving funerals before raising her voice and snapping out the appropriate orders.

Illyan carefully let go of my other arm only once she was sure it wasn't shaking anymore, letting out a long exhalation as she drew her rifle. "So... what's the plan?"

I shrugged. "I'll let you know when I have one."

Pillar of Strength

"This is a bad plan." I protested for the tenth time as we strode down the broad hallway, stepping over the dead forms of asphyxiated Vorcha. "A terrible one even."

"That's because it's not a plan." Voya growled, "It's a fucking impulse decision. Why aren't we stopping him?"

"You want to try, feel free." I offered, waving a hand at where Cieran was stalking out in front of us, and managing to keep my mouth shut about Voya being the one to bitch about impulse decisions.

"You are the one in a relationship with him." She countered. "You're also the only one who can restrain him."

Which was a complete and total fucking lie. The little bitch could take Cieran if she felt motivated enough, mostly because he wouldn't go all out against a friend whereas she wouldn't hesitate for a heartbeat to cause him all kinds of pain.

"Voya, Illyan." Cieran called back, his voice a little irritated. The 'I can hear you, so fucking shut up' both unsaid yet entirely audible. I really had no idea how he managed to do that... maybe he'd picked it up from Ghai during their melding sessions, or just from hanging around her so much back in the old days.

Grimacing, I turned to look at the only one of us who wasn't actively wondering if Cie was finally suffering from a total mental collapse.

Shyeel shrugged when she noticed that both Voya and I were staring at her, taking a few quicker steps to move closer to Cieran's left side. "Sooner Ganar is dead, sooner we can finally relax."

I felt my face pull into a glower. What the fuck was going on where Voya was the one being reasonable and Shyeel was the one agreeing with the stupid plan to go kill a Warlord.

The smaller Asari let out a tired sigh when I kept my helmet locked on hers, "Illyan, we're all exhausted, and having down time in between fights isn't doing us any good. We might as well just get it over and done with so that we can settle down without having to worry about what's coming next."

"But we could be done with this," I argued, "We could just leave this to Elissa and-"

"No." Cieran cut me off, his voice quiet but hard. "That's not a message I want to send to Sederis."

My lips twisted a little, but I couldn't really find a counter-argument for that. That old bitch really wasn't someone the Cie, and by extension the rest of us, could afford to show weakness to. Our little corporation was in a fairly precarious position when it came to working with the Eclipse, and if she thought we were skipping out on helping her troops...

"I really hate that bitch." I settled for muttering.

"She's better to work with than T'Ravt." The human male shrugged a shoulder before holding a hand up for us to stop. We did just in time to hear a Krogan roaring somewhere up ahead of us, his deep voice echoing down the hallway. "Sounds like he got Joa's message."

"Yeah." Shyeel took a step forwards as a massive clang rang through the ship, the closed door in the distance bulging outwards as something struck it. "You sure about this?"

"No." He admitted before twitching his head. "You three get to cover."

I glowered at the back of his skull for a few moments, then reluctantly moved to a nearby hatchway. Settling down to a knee, I hefted my gun up and sighted on the distant blast door as Shyeel and Voya did the same on the other side of the hall. While we did the sensible thing, Cieran spun his hand cannon in one hand and simply stayed standing right in the middle of the fucking open.

I wanted nothing more than to grab him and lock him in a room so that he could properly calm down, and felt my biotics flaring a bit around my forearms in time with the waves of anger.

"Calm down." The asshole had the temerity to sound amused as he shifted his balance, stretching his legs out a bit.

"It's her job to worry about you." Shyeel spoke as she brought her carbine up, settling it against her shoulder. "I think the over-protectiveness is kind of cute."

Voya snorted, "I think it's annoying."

I bit my tongue to stop from sniping back, which nearly made me bite the thing off when the Krogan Warlord finished smashing his way through the sheet of solid metal.

Ganar Iraz was fairly large as far as Krogan went, about the same size as the one we'd met on station. He wore heavy armor sans a helmet, painted blood red, and held a massive warhammer in both hands. It crackled with dark energy as he lowered it, his head turning slightly so that he could better see us with his right eye. Behind him lurked several other Krogan, all similarly armored though bearing actual firearms, though they seemed to be staying a respectful distance behind their lord.

"Who the fuck are you!?" His deep voice easily carried the thirty or so meters down the hall. "Where is the bitch!?"

"My name is Kean." Cie replied blithely, his helmet speakers increasing his own volume. "And Joa isn't here."

"Obviously!" The Krogan snarled, taking a heavy step forwards. "Tell me where she is and I might let you live!"

Cieran let out a scoffing noise. "No you wouldn't. Are you going to come and try to kill us or are we going to waste more breath talking? I have things to do."

I had to give him credit for the sheer arrogance he poured into the words. He managed to sound both bored and irritated, and shifted his body as he shook his head to reinforce that he barely considered the Krogan to be any kind of a threat.

Iraz reacted more or less as Cie had hoped, letting out a furious roar and stampeding directly towards us as biotic power flared around him.

Three of us started shooting at us, but not at the Warlord. Heavy bursts from my carbine began slamming into his bodyguards, who had started to rush after their blood-raging boss. Unfortunately they had the good sense to have helmets on, preventing us from simply killing them quickly, but they didn't seem to enjoy being shot at given that they couldn't risk shooting back with Ganar in the way.

Our own shots didn't last much longer, the three of us managing to bring the barriers of one of our targets down before the Warlord was on top of us, his massive hammer whirling towards Cieran's skull.

What happened next was... rather anticlimactic.

Cieran easily ducked beneath the wild swing and took a quick step forwards and inside of the taller Krogan's guard. The Warlord had a moment to goggle at him before the heavily modified Executioner in Cieran's right hand was shoved into his unprotected throat, his biotic protection unable to do anything as the massive cannon began booming.

The rounds went directly up and through his skull, shattering his crest and spraying the human in orange blood... and then he was quickly stepping back to avoid being crushed by the corpse as it collapsed with a massive clatter of noise.

"Huh." Cieran offered into the absolute silence that followed, the four surviving guards all just staring at the scene before them. "Well... you four mind surrendering?"

They didn't, their guns snapping up in reply to his offer, but they'd seemed to have lost any appetite for just rushing us. Instead they began firing in a controlled rhythm as they retreated back the way they'd come, forcing Cie to dart behind me as shots rang off of his shields and then his brightly colored armor.

I brought my gun up and replied in kind, trying to focus on the same target, raising my voice so that Cieran could hear me over the gunfire. "Feel better?"

"Not really." He admitted, leaning out a bit and flinging his left hand out. An incinerate spun out from his launcher in reply, sailing down the hall to detonate in a flash of fire. The Krogan's continuous retreat prevented it from doing more than make one of them bellow in pain, his companions moving to block Voya's shots from finishing him off.

And then they were gone, retreating through the shattered blast door and lumbering into runs that would carry them back to the bridge proper.

"Sad when the guards are smarter than their boss." Shyeel mused as she cautiously stepped out from cover, "We didn't even get to use the plan."

"Cieran hits him with a submission net and then we all shoot him isn't a plan." I reminded her, heaving myself back up to my feet and feeling my armor pinch at my breasts as I did. The pain worsened my already bad mood as I turned to stare at Cie, "We're going back now."

Cie cocked his head slightly, "You don't want to clear out the bridge while we're here?"

Snapping my left arm out, I grabbed him by the armored collar around his throat and dragged him against my front. He promptly made gagging sounds as I got my fingers around the thing, all but chocking him as I turned to our companions. "Mind watching my back? I have something to drag out of here."

Shyeel gave me a slightly theatrical wave, and Voya's eyes were curled in wicked amusement as her visor unpolarized.

Illium News Network

Stocks stabilized somewhat as the majority of the Golden Armada returned from Omega, although Admiral Leska Sederis and her flagship remain absent. Careful observation by our reporters indicate that her ships departed in the direction of Zadith Ban, possibly heralding an Eclipse invasion of the Blood Pack's strongest remaining world.

In other news, economic groups hoping that the situation will soon stabilize in the Terminus are growing increasingly confident as the war continues to turn against Emperor Ganar and his supporters. The current over/under as offered by the Commission in Nos Irrail is seven months.

Next up is: Sins of the Daughter...

Happy new year to all, may work not be terrible and writer's block not be a thing. Both combined to make this chapter take forever to come out, you all have my apologies for the long delay. The next chapter will feature a lot of discussion between the group and Joa, and then Cie and Illyan will have a bit of a talk of their own... it shouldn't, shouldn't, take nearly as long to write.

On another note, the next chapter is already written (for once!) and will post as soon as this chapter hits twelve reviews (or early next week) :)

Please read and review, criticism is welcome, flames not so much, as usual. Reviews are my lifeblood as a writer.. every-time my email goes off with a review it makes me want to write more, so please take the time to leave one. Guests can leave them as well, and it only takes a minute, so please. Even if it's as simple as "I enjoyed it, please continue."

Thanks, Kat

Review Responses

The Hayne → He got a good bit of treatment when he was living with Nynsi (in between Arrival and Terminus). His relationship with Illyan is going to cause a few shifts in him, but it's not going to be an overnight kind of change.

Permeakra → He's aware of the holes in his theory, which is one of the many reasons he doesn't like to think about it. The next saga should be of some interest.

Tallygirl02 → Perhaps it would.

GreaterGoodIreland → I'm glad it's working... I know the other stories tending to go on and on, so I'm focusing more on getting the pertinent bits down and then moving on (while not skimping on quality). This particular saga is only set to last for six chapters, which is four less than my original plan for example.

Rfpizzle → He and Elissa are from the very start of Ronin.

BJ Hanssen → Nah, not important at all. ;)

Legendary Junk Mail → He's aware of the issue, he's got a few rules for her about it.

Jozs001 → I'm thinking about it.