Author's Note: I kind of didn't realize how long this update was until I had edited. So, this is the longest update so far and coincidentally is also the beginning of the longest story arc. I'm so happy you all had such kind words for the return of this story. It made me feel so bubbly and giddy inside. I hope you all enjoy this update. :)


It was amazing to Charlie that she felt so much better after that night. Oh, she was still angry about the Kithoi Ward incident, but now it was more of a passionate drive to fix the situation. Before it had been eating at her mind and she had been lashing out at everyone. Now she had calmed down and was actually using logic and reason.

Charlie didn't see Nihlus again for a while, but he did send her the information from Kyrnee's console like he promised. It wasn't that informative or helpful and it appeared that the turian female was even more paranoid than Charlie gave her credit for. The only information that was of any use was a couple of locations for stash houses and some codenames of a few members of the Lemures. This led to some drug busts and Pallin tried to spin this for the media so it appeared that C-Sec was back in control. However none of the officers were actually fool enough to believe that this counted as a victory. The Lemures were done, but the human group set up shop and eventually called themselves The Abyss.

Crime in Kithoi Ward died down for a while, but The Abyss slowly gained more members, all of which were human, and started to terrorize the ward again. In addition to selling Sand the gang was also responsible for robberies, mugging, unsanctioned prostitution, and smuggling weapons. They weren't even quiet about it; they all but shouted their activities through the wards. The most frustrating part about The Abyss was that no matter how many members they arrested, there were always more out there. Charlie wasn't even sure they had a head to the organization. What she needed was to find out where they were getting their funding.

Aside from work, life was going well for Charlie. Grace had been excelling in school and biotic training. The teachers and doctors were not sure how the teenager was able to use her biotics without the implant, but Grace's powers had greatly improved. Charlie had been informed that the doctor's latest theory postulated that the tumor-like organ that had developed within Grace was acting like a natural form of implant. Her control over her biotics had also vastly improved and there had been no more incidents of accidental usage of her powers. This had lead to Dr. Sanders giving Grace permission to leave the station for a break on Earth.


May 2177

"I'm telling you it's going to be far too hot in Florida." Charlie groaned again at Garrus.

"I would have thought that a native Floridian could handle her own home's weather. You don't hear me complaining about the radiation in Cipritine."

"Do you know what muggy is, Garrus?" Charlie responded dread and horror carefully etched in her tone.

"Based off the context of our other conversations, I would hazard that it's hot and humid weather." Garrus drawled.

"Sol is not your friend; it is your sworn enemy. It means that nothing can make the heat better, shade refuses to work properly. The air is heavy with stifling heat and water; I definitely do not miss it. The heat isn't even the worst part, the bugs are. I guess mosquitoes won't be a problem for you though. " She looked over Garrus' plates.

Garrus briefly looked down at his omni-tool for a description. "Tiny, flying insects that feed on levo-based blood; I don't see that being a problem. Even if they could get through my skin, they wouldn't live that long."

Charlie shook her head at his luck, and then a sudden sharpness formed around her eyes. "You know, maybe I should take you out for a dip in one of our springs. I'm sure the Ichnetucknee is still open and this is an excellent time of year to go."

Garrus gave Charlie a disparaging look. "You are well aware of how turians feel about water."

"Yes, I know, I know, lots of flailing and drowning. But the only thing to do in Florida during the summer is get in the water and the spring's water is always 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Besides you don't really swim in it, you just float. Like in an inflatable tube."

Garrus narrowed his eyes at her. "Why are you pushing this, Charlie?"

Charlie giggled and gave him her most "innocent" smile, which was absolutely terrifying. "Look up the wildlife in Florida."

Garrus spent the next few minutes searching on his omni-tool. His face went slack as he read off a list. "Spirits, that thing is huge."

Charlie peeked at the vid footage of a very large alligator. "Yeah, but mostly you just see the small ones and they're only 3-5 feet. I mean I guess you could lose a hand to them."

"I wasn't aware that the wildlife on Earth came in a plated variety." Garrus mused as he scrolled through the images.

Charlie snorted. "Why do you think I'm always making dinosaur comments at your expense?"

Garrus face turned sharply toward Charlie. His small impossibly blue eyes narrowed and his plates drew tight against his face. "You have never said anything like that to me."

Charlie felt trapped by his scrutiny for a moment before she placed a finger on her chin and replied. "Oh, then I guess I said that behind your back."

Garrus looked like he was going to add something, but instead he shook his head and muttered. "Racist."

"Anyways" Charlie continued. "Yes, Florida has some … interesting wildlife, but I wasn't really expecting this sort of reaction from you. Doesn't Palaven also have some terrifying natives?" A smirk grew on her face as Garrus glared at her and patiently waited for her to finish the sentence. "And also some wildlife?"

His eyes were rolling before she finished the question and he responded in his gravelly voice over her inane giggles. "Yes, but anything potentially dangerous is kept to strictly maintained zones. It's as much for their protection as it is for ours. You've actually swam with these creatures?"

"Well yes. It's not that big of a deal there. You just move out of the way and thank god you can actually see it. I mean they aren't particularly vicious. Cottonmouths and alligator snapping turtles are really the dangers."

He typed in the command into the orange screen and then looked oddly at Charlie. "Charlie, it says here that the turtles been extinct in the wild for the past hundred years and there are only a few left in captivity."

Charlie grabbed Garrus' arm and looked at the scrolling information. He was right. "Oh." She simply said.

Garrus wisely decided against pointing out the inconsistency in Charlie's story, mostly because this was not the first time he had noticed one. His sharp eyes did not miss the familiar shuttered look that passed over her face.

They were on a shuttle to Elysium where they would transfer to a shuttle to the Grissom Academy station. The temple that Charlie had previously found for Grace's Bat Mitzvah on Earth had welcomed them again for another attempt at the ceremony. Charlie couldn't help the excitement building in her at the prospect of returning home to Florida. She knew it wouldn't be the same, but it was still Earth and it had been her home for twenty-five years. Perhaps the wildlife had changed, but surely the cities couldn't have. Especially some of the older ones, such as St. Augustine, would still be preserved.

The large shuttle shook as it entered Elysium's atmosphere. Charlie and Garrus gathered their bags and were ready to leave to make the connecting flight when the shuttle touched down.

"Attention: Any individuals waiting on departing flight 8443 bound for Jon Grissom Academy, please make your way to a staff member." An overhead speaker informed them. The message repeated two more times.

Charlie and Garrus looked at each other and found the same emotion written on each other's face, nervousness. The pair left the shuttle and approached the first staff member they found. The young woman was smiling, but she appeared to be as curious as the two of them felt. They were escorted to a small room in the back of the terminal. There were a few more people pacing the room, which contained a few scattered chairs and couches, as well as some truly horrendous art reproductions.

Charlie stopped moving when she noticed that a couple of the women were crying and everyone appeared to be shell-shocked.

"Are you family members or staff?" A young man in an Alliance uniform asked her.

"Family, I have a daughter on the station."

The man looked at Garrus questioningly, but apparently decided better of it and didn't repeat the question.

"Alright ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to remain here. There has been an attack on the station and we're keeping family members in a secured location."

Charlie opened her mouth in shock and then clicked it shut and switched to her "cop face". "What information do we have at the moment?"

"I'm sorry ma'am; I'm not at liberty to say. The most I can tell you is, at the present time, there have been no casualties in the student body. The Alliance is handling negotiations; we'll get them out of there."

A man who had been steadily pacing the room walked briskly over to the soldier and said. "We've been in here for over a half hour. When is someone who is able to talk to us going to show up? I am Reg Peters and all three of my children are on that station. This is outrageous!" The man was visibly shaking when he finished speaking and the soldier was clearly at a loss on how to handle the situation.

More of the family members started to gather around in a semi circle, as if the closeness of their presence would encourage the young soldier to tell them what was happening. Charlie looked at the young man and saw the panic in his eyes. She also saw that he was definitely not going to tell them, either because he was going to follow orders or because he didn't actually know. Charlie entered a few commands into her omni-tool remotely and said. "It's going to be alright, folks. If you would take your seats, I'm sure that we'll find out what's happening very soon." She turned to the soldier. "Why don't you step outside and give these people some space?"

The soldier looked longingly at the door and replied. "I'm supposed to keep an eye on them."

Charlie smiled warmly at him. "I'm C-Sec detective." She flashed her credentials on her omni-tool. "I probably have a little more experience with handling these kinds of situations. That's the only door in and out of this room. Why don't you stand guard out there and I'll take it from here?"

The soldier looked gratefully at Charlie and moved to the exit, but she caught his arm in a firm armclasp. The friendly gesture went on a little longer than was strictly necessary as Charlie typed with her right hand behind her back. She was extremely grateful that she had activated her omni-glasses before they had arrived in the room. It might have seemed suspicious to do so now.

Charlie eventually released the man's arm and he left the room. As soon as the door was closed she turned to the crowd. "Alright we have a few minutes now. I'm C-Sec Detective Charlie Nacht and this is Detective Garrus Vakarian. I need to know right now if any of you have a problem with me finding out and sharing with you news of what's happening on the station."

The man who had introduced himself as Peters spoke first. "I don't care how you have to do it, I need to know what's happening." Everyone else in the room repeated the same sentiment.

Charlie nodded her head once and pulled up her omni-tool interface on her arm. Garrus leaned over and spoke quietly into her ear. "I take it you 'tagged' him?"

Charlie snorted under her breath. "Remind me to send a thank you card to the duct rats."

"Tagging" was essentially a harmless hobby of the youth on the Citadel. The game was to upload a phishing virus to an unsuspecting "mark". The most common form of this virus would simply broadcast a symbol of the youth who had tagged him. The more impressive and wealthy the tagged individual was, the more people would see the tag. Now in its simplest form, tagging was just a harmless game. However, it wasn't too difficult to make it into a more insidious virus. Essentially the phishing virus convinced the user's omni-tool that it was a software update and is given limited access to the device. It was fairly common to use this to hack into bank accounts or steal an identity. The software companies were constantly updating their security systems to prevent this from happening, but Charlie was also on top of those updates and her tagging program was fairly unique.

All she wanted from the soldier was his identity and omni-tool codes. She then used those codes to make her tool a temporary clone of his own and went to work looking for information on the Grissom Academy attack.

"Alright folks, I have an update." Charlie announced to the room in a low voice. "42 minutes ago, Grissom Academy was attacked by turian extremists." There were a few sharp intakes of breath and Charlie looked up to see that the crowd was staring at Garrus. "The exact group is unknown, but it appears that they may have originated from Nanus. They are currently listing their demands or threatening to kill the students. Huh." Charlie stared at the screen mutely.

"Charlotte, what is it?" Garrus asked her.

"The Alliance is giving into them."

Peters spoke up. "Well that's a good thing, isn't it? We want our children back and that might be the only way to do it."

Charlie and Garrus shared a wary look. "Actually, that is not the right tactic for turians." Garrus said. "I would bet credits that the terrorists only made contact to voice their mission objectives and someone in the Alliance asked them what their demands were. A turian, especially ones like these, will not accept defeat and they'll view a bribe as a surrender. The Alliance is going to look very weak if they go through with this and that will only strengthen the view of humans in the terrorists' eyes."

A woman who still had the remnants of tears in her eyes said, "So what do we do then?"

"Strike team." Charlie said, "Hit 'em hard and hit 'em fast. It's the only way to handle turian terrorists. I can't find if one is being planned by the Alliance, the soldier's clearance isn't high enough."

"What is the Alliance giving them?" Garrus asked.

Charlie flicked the screen. "Looks like they are going to trade two of the non-biotic students for a hard line into a comm buoy, a vid recording device, and an untraceable credit chit."

"How are they sending it?"

"Unmanned shuttle, it's lifting off in an hour."

Garrus moved to the bags and started unpacking his armor. "Alright, that's how we're getting on the station."

Charlie lowered her arm and furiously said. "We can't get on that shuttle. I don't have clearance and I have no idea how I'm sneaking a seven and half foot tall turian on to the base."

Garrus didn't stop his movements, but he looked up at her. "In your opinion, are the terrorists going to make good on their threat to kill the students?"

"Yes." Charlie massaged her temples, her tone eked with grim dread. "Unless the Alliance is planning on hiding a squad in the shuttle, which the terrorists will be expecting and shoot down, they will definitely follow through with the plan."

"Do you think the Alliance is planning to do that?"

She shook her head slowly. "From the chatter I read, no. They're treating the terrorists like they're human. It's a mistake and probably one that they'll catch too late."

Garrus handed Charlie her suit of light armor. "So, we are going to go. We have to, Grace is there."

"Damn it, Garrus. That doesn't solve the question of how we are going to pull this off."

Garrus rubbed his eyes with the pads of his fingers. "We don't have the authority, but you know someone who does. You need to call Nihlus."

Charlie gaped at the turian and then grabbed his arm to drag him away from the others. Her voice was a furious whisper. "First of all, he's not here; I think he's still on Illium. So any authorization I got from him would be to use his Spectre codes. Second of all, he's not here. So we would be using Spectre authority without one present and that is impersonating a Spectre. You know that that is an extremely serious charge. At best, that is career ending. At worst, that's life in prison. Let's count off the felonies shall we? Impersonating a Spectre, breaking into a secure Alliance base, stealing a shuttle, and disrupting hostage negotiations."

Garrus painfully gripped her arm, his voice laced with frustrated rage. "Negotiations that are going to fail if we don't do something. If Grace dies how are you going to live with yourself if you didn't do everything possible? Now I'm going and you are not going to stop me."

He shoved her away and went back to putting his armor and weapons together.

"Fuck it." Charlie muttered under her breath. She placed the vid call to Spectre Kryik, but kept her end of the conversation for her eyes and ears only.

"Kryik." Nihlus' voice said on the other end, but he didn't enable the video portion.

"It's Nacht, I need a favor."

Nihlus' face appeared on the interior of her visor. Smug would be the best word to describe his face. "Well hello, Nacht. What can this Spectre do for you?"

Charlie attempted to hide the scowl and failed. "What have you heard about Grissom Academy?"

There was a pause as Nihlus tapped at something off screen. His face furrowed at what he saw there. He looked back at Charlie the former smugness replaced by grim lines. "Nacht, I'm nowhere near you. I won't be able to be there for a day, at least. I'm sure you know that is too late. The turian group appears to be a sub-group of Facinus. Honestly, it doesn't look good from what I'm seeing. They aren't known for letting people live and it's nothing short of amazing that they haven't killed everyone yet."

Charlie closed her eyes and took a breath. "I know you can't get here and I'm not asking you to. Nihlus … give me your Spectre authorization codes, please. I know what I'm asking, but who's to say that I didn't copy these from you at an earlier date. You know I won't point any fingers at you."

Nihlus didn't say anything for a long while. "I can't protect you when this thing inevitably goes south."

"I'm not asking you to."

The Spectre stroked the side of his face. "What would you do if I said no?"

"I'd find another way. God help me if I know what that is right now, but I'm getting up there and I'm getting Grace out."

"Does this mean that you've reconsidered the power that Spectres yield?"

Charlie snorted and shook her head. "Absolutely not, it's far too much power with far too little oversight. But right now it's … useful."

"Fine, I'm sending you my codes. I'll come see you in prison, in case you get lonely."

"Make sure you smuggle in my smokes." She smiled at him.

"Naturally, by the way you're insane."

She shrugged. "I've been called worse. And thank you, Nihlus. I'll do what I can to make sure this doesn't come back on you."

The Spectre gave a curt nod and closed the line, but not before a small data packet was transferred.

Charlie turned back to Garrus who had already donned his bulky armor. The crowd of concerned parent was watching the two of them intently. It occurred to Charlie that she should probably be a little worried about what they will say to the Alliance after she and Garrus are caught. Because the mission will only end in one of two ways; either they successfully make it up to the station or they get caught groundside. Either way, the long arm of lady justice would not let them go and they were probably looking at jail time. Of course there was always the possibility that they could be killed on the station. Charlie decided that she really didn't want to think that far ahead and ignored the witnesses to their crime.

"I got the codes and we're good to go." Charlie informed Garrus as she wiggled into her armor.

Years of practice meant that she was dressed very quickly and a few minutes later she was attaching her equipment on to her person.

"You're bringing Ada?" Garrus asked Charlie as she attached the computer to her belt.

"Of course, she might be useful and I'd like to have the full version with me." She replied. Over the years, her originally small VI program had … grown. It was still a VI, Charlie had made sure of that even though she had named it "Lady Ada Lovelace". Charlie was a little offended that so few people understood the reference to the mathematician. She could forgive the aliens their ignorance, but it was appalling how few humans recognized the name of the first computer programmer. Ada was an impressive piece of programming and Charlie could not take the full credit for her. Cecilia Modius had definitely helped in the beginning and Charlie had also bastardized a few market and one off-market VI programs to supplement the growing Ada. However, Ada had become far too large to be contained solely in her omni-tool and glasses, so Charlie had to bring a small drive with her as well. She relied heavily on the VI and leaving Ada behind on such an important mission seemed foolish.

Garrus shrugged at Charlie's response, as he did not trust how attached she was to VI.

Charlie finished buttoning her shirt over her armor and asked, "Have you considered how we're getting out of this room?"

"Actually, I can help with that." A small and very pregnant woman emerged from the group.


Grace Wallis was sitting in the dorm room she shared with Kastanie. Micah, Sebastian, and Kastanie were in the room, as well. The boys were practically fawning over her roommate and this greatly amused Grace. Well it would have amused her more if she wasn't desperately trying to study. She appreciated Garrus getting her into the higher level physics and biology courses, but they were thoroughly kicking her butt. The soft music coming from the keyboard mingled with the boys words of encouragement were extremely distracting. Kast had taken piano lessons and was thrilled when Grace was assigned as her roommate, because she had the keyboard Char had given her. Grace had yet to learn how to play, but she could barely pry Kast off it long enough to go to class.

"If you guys don't calm down, I'm going to lock all of you out." Grace told the noisy group.

Sebastian turned around to look at her. "Grace, you're in your head again. We're being super quiet."

Grace considered this possibility. She had been extremely sensitive to emotions since the implant had been removed. The first few months had been almost deafening to her. Grace focused on what she was hearing and found that there was no way the boys were actually voicing the dirty thoughts. Shuddering at the images that were flooding through her mind, she tried to shut them down again and return them to the dull whispering in the back of her head.

"Fine, but you all have disgusting minds and you should be ashamed of yourselves." Grace turned back to her book.

Kast laughed uproariously and the boys blushed a deep red while avoiding eye contact. The moment was soured by an intense wailing of the station's emergency siren.

"Another drill? This is getting to be ridiculous." Micah groaned.

Grace left the desk and poked her head outside the door. Technically when the sirens rang you were supposed to make your way to the emergency station on every floor, but they were alone in the dorms today. Everyone else was at the biotiball game; Grace had convinced Kast to stay in with her and the boys tagged along, like they always did. A wave of some emotion hit Grace and she couldn't quite place it. It was so familiar too.

"Come on, Grace. Let's get this over with. I can't believe they're running a drill during the game, man they're going to pissed." Micah laughed at the misfortune of the players.

Grace ignored him and refused to move from the doorway. Something was wrong. It suddenly hit her where she had felt that emotion. "Everyone get back!" Grace pushed the others firmly into the room and shut the door.

"What's going on?" Kast grabbed her arm.

Grace shook her head, trying to rid it of the distasteful feeling. "I don't know, but there are a lot of turians on the floor. They feel … hateful. I don't know what that means, but I don't trust it."

Sebastian and Kast started to glow with the blue biotic energy as they lifted shields around themselves. Grace was struck by being temporarily jealous of their ability. Kast was a solid biotic, but Sebastian was downright gifted. Grace didn't exactly struggle herself, but everything she did took time. She had to make calculations and expend the energy wisely. Every other biotic could simply make a gesture and will the power into existence. She did seem to have more reserves than the rest. Grace hadn't actually hit a limit of power or a tiring point, though this wouldn't mean much in a fight.

"Oh god, what's happening to me?" Kast's glow of blue light started to flicker and the girl fell to her knees. Micah rushed to catch her.

Sebastian groaned and clutched his head. "Don't use your biotics. It feels like they're tearing me apart."

He sat down heavily on the bed. Grace snapped her head to the left. "I can hear them. They are searching the rooms. I think they are looking for students."

Micah looked up from where he was holding Kast on the ground. "How are you doing, Grace? These two aren't going to be much good. We need to get out of here. Ideas?"

Grace flexed her joints; it was odd, but she felt fine. "I think I'm okay. Get her away from the door."

Micah half-dragged Kast across the room and behind Grace. He was the only non-biotic in the room and she was grateful for the help. She wasn't sure she could do this alone. Grace turned her full attention to the door. She focused on the seam and tried to build heat. Grace had gotten much better at this exercise over time. It still took a few moments to build up enough energy to start to weld the door shut, but it was much faster than when she had first used the ability.

By the time the door was tightly sealed, they could all hear the men searching through the adjoining rooms. Sebastian and Kast had emptied their stomachs on the floor and they both looked extremely ill. Grace could feel the panic building inside of her and she had to shut her eyes to keep it from flowing out of her.

"We need to get out of here, but I don't know what to do." Grace attempted to make her voice sound strong and steady, but it came out as a barely audible whisper.

Micah stood up and surveyed the situation. He was already quite tall and at the moment Grace could see the Alliance Officer of his father shining through him. "Alright, can you cut a hole through the wall?"

Grace looked around at the four walls of the small room. "Which one?"

Micah pointed towards the back wall and moved her desk away from it. He pointed out a small area to cut through. "Try and make it just big enough for us to get through. I think there is a storage room on the other side of the dorms. We should be able to make it into the maintenance tunnels from there."

Grace wrestled with the panicked thoughts and pushed them down long enough to weaken the spot in the wall. It didn't take much effort for Micah to kick a hole in the metal after that. Thankfully, Kast and Sebastian were mobile, though they were still very ill and needed assistance to walk in a straight line. There was indeed a large room on the other side of the wall, it was dark and full of boxes and neatly stacked furniture. Micah quickly led the group to a maintenance shaft and they carefully made their way down to a small landing.

Once they were fairly safe and the turian thoughts were nowhere near them, Grace felt her control over her mind slip. Panic took her. This wasn't the first time Grace had been in danger, this wasn't even the second time, but this was the only time that Char hadn't been right next to her. Back on Mindoir, Grace could remember feeling scared when the strange men had attacked her home. She could clearly remember the distraught sadness that had taken her when her mother died, but she had Char. Char wasn't fearless or calm, but she radiated protectiveness. Grace knew that Char wouldn't let anything happen to her. It was same when they had been kidnapped by the insane Bill on the Citadel. Char and Garrus had both been there and Grace had allowed herself to get caught up in their strength and let it keep the panic and fear from taking her.

This time she was alone. She wasn't alone, but it was worse than that. Grace was surrounded by people who were panicking and scared. It felt like the walls were amplifying their emotions back at her and threatening to drown her. So, she crouched on the floor and cried.

"Grace, I need you. I can't do this alone." Micah sat down next to her and rested a warm hand on her back.

"I can't help you. I just … I can't." Grace whispered the words into her knees where her face was buried.

"Yes, you can. You're the only one here, besides me, who isn't sick and we need to work together. Try and focus on me. I'm pretty calm right now."

Grace turned her head slightly to get a look at Micah. "You're not calm. You're scared at this whole situation and you're mad at your dad for not training you."

She was right. Micah's father was in the Alliance, but he didn't want his son to follow in his dangerous footsteps. So when the boy had shown an aptitude for engineering he had sent him to Grissom for technical training. However Micah was determined to join the Alliance and had told his friends of his plans to enlist when he reached eighteen.

"That's not quite true. Here take my hand." Micah held his palm out to her.

"Are you sure?" Grace asked him warily.

"Yeah, here take it."

Grace hesitantly reached and accepted the skin contact. She let the blue glow spread from her and looked questioningly at Micah before she began. He nodded his head with a smile. The loud rushing noise filled her ears as she made contact with his thoughts. Most human's minds were the same, a hundred voices talking at varying levels all at the same time. Micah's was no different and Grace patiently listened to his mind. Some of the voices were contradictory, but it was clear that although he was scared, even frightened, there was a resonating core of determination that ran through him. As Grace had thought, he mostly definitely was not calm, but he was grounded in determination to stay alive and to keep the others alive. It wasn't all that different from how Char felt.

Micah's mind was very disorganized though and it always bothered Grace when she would connect with someone to find them in disarray. It was equivalent to seeing your friend's bedroom for the first time and finding it a pigsty. Grace always wanted to clean it up for them, but she never tampered with another's mind, she only observed. She wasn't positive that she even could, but she also never tried.

Grace took her hand back from Micah and gave him a small smile. "Thank you for that. I do feel better now. Where should we go?"

Micah looked at the two sick teenagers leaning against the wall. "We need to get to the clinic."


Charlie let out a nervous laugh after they were out of sight of the Alliance soldier. "I can't believe that worked."

Garrus laughed as he set the pregnant woman down in a chair. "If there is one thing that every male has in common, regardless of their species; it's not knowing how to handle a screaming woman. Especially a pregnant screaming woman."

The pregnant woman, Martha Lang, chuckled as she rested her hands on her round stomach. "It's so true. You should have seen my husband during our first. Now you two go get our other babies back. I'll stay here for an hour or so and wait till I know the shuttle is gone, before I return to the room."

Garrus and Charlie exchanged goodbyes with the expectant Martha and set off down the hall to the exit to the terminal. After they made their way through the door, Charlie stopped at an automated ticket booth and waved Garrus down to have him stop as well.

"What are you doing?" He asked impatiently.

Charlie shrugged noncommittally and said. "Covering our tracks."

Garrus seemed to accept this and was silent for a few minutes before dryly asking, "So, I couldn't help but notice that you knew that Kryik was on Illium. I just find it interesting that someone who claims to have no interest in a person knows their location."

Charlie didn't look up from her omni-tool. "I know the location of a lot of people. I know that Chellick is at Jenna's apartment right now. I know that Pallin is in his office, probably yelling at some poor fool. And I know that you are right here, asking to get your ass kicked."

Garrus ignored the old threat. "I just find it interesting. I mean weren't you telling me that it was a casual thing and you hadn't seen him since that night?"

Charlie let out a warning growl.

"Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds coming from a human? Oh I get it, that's how you won Kryik over, wasn't it?"

Charlie continued to work on her tool, but sounded exasperated. "Damn it, Garrus. Is now really the time to be harassing me?"

"Now is the perfect time. Your hands are all preoccupied."

"Fine, I've seen him a few more times. It's still a casual thing though. I still don't particularly like him or his job and I tell him so every chance I get."

Garrus tapped his chin and looked like a parody of thoughtful. "That conversation you had with him was awfully fast to get a Spectre's help. I mean you asked him for a terribly huge favor and he almost immediately agreed to it. Either you have some fantastic and mind-blowing moves or it's not as casual as you keep claiming."

Charlie finished what she was doing and shut off the orange glowing tool. In the same moment, she turned to Garrus hit him solidly at the waist. She was careful not to do any real damage. "Trust me when I say that it's because I'm fantastic and mind-blowing." Charlie growled the words without any real venom, and then turned around and marched to the terminal exit. Garrus fell in behind her chuckling.

The small Alliance base shared the landing zone with the terminal, so it was not long before the duo had made their way to entrance.

"Put your helmet on." She muttered to Garrus as they walked the guard post.

"Why?"

Charlie turned and gave him a stern look. "You're Spectre Nihlus Kryik and you're keeping your damn helmet on."

Garrus put the helmet on, but said. "I thought we could just get past security with the codes."

"We probably could, but I would rather go in the front door so anyone looking at the vid feeds will know who we are. The simplest plan is the best plan and you pretending to be Kryik is the simplest part of this whole farkakte venture. By the way, under no circumstance are you to open your mouth. Anyone who tries to run a voice print will immediately know what's going on."

"Good thing, no one here has probably ever met Kryik. I'm a little taller than him."

Charlie added. "You also have a less broad chest, yet somehow his waist is narrower than yours."

Charlie laughed when Garrus gaped at her and stuttered while trying to remember how his tongue worked. It was far too easy and satisfying to work him up.

"So who are you going to be?" Garrus asked.

"C-Sec Detective Charlotte Nacht, obviously. Like I said, we're going with the simplest plan. Alright your tool is convinced you are Kryik. Let's do this and try not to get caught."

Charlie had a whole story planned out in her head as they approached the booth with the guard. Thus she was almost disappointed when the man barely acknowledged their presence. They simply walked up to the booth, Garrus waved his codes into the console, and then they stepped into the building. It was seamless and incredibly anti-climatic.

Garrus offering Charlie a shrug and she whispered, "We need to get to our hands on some stealth emitters and a couple of bio-maskers." Charlie looked at the map of the base laid out behind her glasses. "Down this hall."

Charlie used Ada to keep their route as personnel-free as possible. This meant that it took longer to reach their destination, but it felt safer this way. Nobody stopped them, but they were given some strange looks as they passed. Of course they made an odd pair, to a bystander. A 7'6'' turian, armed and in full armor, accompanied by a 6'1'' human female, who was also armed. It also didn't help that Charlie had slipped into her cop-mode. Her body language and purposeful stride sent a few younger privates scurrying out of her path. Of course, the same presence drew the attention of the older officers.

She stopped in front of a door and motioned Garrus to head inside without her. Charlie needed to keep an eye on the hall and he was more than capable of picking up the equipment. Garrus had just disappeared when she heard elevated voices coming from the room opposite her.

"This is a mistake, Captain. I'm telling you that you're going to get people killed. Let me take a team up to Grissom and I promise that we'll put a stop to this." The deep male voice was passionate and Charlie silently agreed with him.

"David, this isn't your command. I'm playing this by the book and that is …"

"Damn it! They aren't human, Yelchik."

The voices were too muffled to understand after that and even her glasses couldn't completely make out the conversation. A few minutes later, the door slid open and a tall, dark-skinned, uniformed man stepped out. Charlie was stuck between looking at him and acting casual. When he didn't move from his position she chanced a look at him. His uniform claimed him as a captain and that concerned her. His heavily scarred face appeared to be drawn in a permanent scowl as he stared at Charlie.

"Detective Nacht." The captain's voice was a deep rumble and almost seemed familiar to her.

"Captain." Charlie replied with a nod.

The captain looked at Charlie suspiciously and was about to say something when Garrus stepped through the door behind her. Charlie silently cursed the timing.

The man looked between the turian and the woman, and then asked. "What's going on here?"

"This is Spectre Nihlus Kryik." Charlie prayed that he wouldn't call her on the lie.

The captain looked skeptically at Garrus and leaned in close to them. "I know Kryik and I know that's not him. What the hell are you two doing?"

Charlie knew she was made and gave it her last effort. She leaned in close to his face and growled. "I'm saving Grace. I know that you don't agree with the Alliance's handling of the terrorists. We're going up there and we're bringing back the kids. You can stop us, but you'd be stopping their best chance of survival."

''Breaking into an Alliance base is not the way to save them and I'm surprised that you, Nacht, don't know better. Come with me." The captain sternly motioned them down the hall and away from their eventual goal. When Charlie moved to pass him, she caught a glimpse of his name printed on his chest.

"Anderson? David Anderson?" Charlie asked. She quickly wracked her brain for any information she might have that would be useful. The problem was that the game hadn't told her a lot about his personal life before the Mass Effect events and it had been over nine years since she had played them.

"Yes?"

Charlie landed on the only thing she could remember and hoped that it was correct. "You have someone up there too, sir. Let us go and I promise that we'll do everything we can to save her."

Anderson stiffened. "What are you talking about?"

"Dr. Kahlee Sanders." Charlie said and then held her breath praying she was right.

The stern look on his face broke as he drew his eyebrows together and looked away from Charlie. "Regardless, I can't let you and who I assume is the turian detective you're always with go up to Grissom without backup. It's reckless and if the terrorists find you in that shuttle, then they're going to take it out on the civilians on the station."

"Unless you can convince the captain," Charlie jerked a thumb at the closed door. "They're dead already. Give us a chance to try and save them."

Anderson seemed to think this over for a second, before motioning to the pair's weapons. "You can't take those with you. They'll run a weapons scan before they open the shuttle. I'm going to assume that you already thought of stealth fields and bio-sign maskers."

Charlie mentally kicked herself for forgetting about the weapons. She gave Anderson a nod in thanks, as she didn't trust her voice, and quickly fled down the hall towards the shuttle bay.


Grace grunted as she lifted Kast up to Micah. She was not very strong or tall, at only 4'11'' and 90 lbs, and couldn't even be classified as wiry. Grace was barely more than a little girl in stature and she was lamenting never going to the gym with Char, not that the woman had ever actually offered. It didn't help that Kastanie was easily five inches taller than Grace and had definitely filled out her curves.

It had taken forty minutes to get to their current location, which was as close to the medical bay as the maintenance tunnels would allow them to get. It would have been a much faster journey, but Kast and Sebastian had completely passed out fifteen minutes after they started to travel and Grace and Micah had been stuck carrying them.

"Alright Grace, do you feel anyone out there?" Micah asked her after she had climbed up the ladder.

Grace closed her eyes and opened mind as wide as she could. The sensation was always an unpleasant one as it exposed her to far too many differing emotions.

"There are definitely others on this level. I'm not sure if they are humans or turians, there are too many to pinpoint. There isn't anyone in the room that the hatch opens into though."

Micah nodded his understanding and quietly opened the maintenance hatch. Grace saw the young man peer into the room and then take a cautious step into the blackness. The air caught in her lungs when he tripped over something and she could feel his rising panic. Grace built up biotic energy and let her hand glow blue so they could see in the darkened storage room. She waved her hand around to the shelves and realized that they must be in the pharmacy, as the shelves were full of medi-gel and pill bottles.

It was frustrating to be in the correct place to help the others, but not have the required medical knowledge.

Micah leaned down to her ear and whispered, "We need a doctor."

Grace nodded her head and together they walked to the pharmacy door. She held up her hand to stop Micah from walking through the entrance, when she heard the voices.

"Remotely turn off her implant then." A harsh turian voice grated.

"She doesn't have one." A quiet feminine voice responded after a moment.

"Well then you better think of something else or I'm killing another one."

"I'm not saying anything else; you're just going to kill everyone anyways." Grace heard the defiance echoing through both the woman's tones and emotion.

Grace looked up into Micah's eyes that were reflecting the blue glow. They were full of hatred and rage at the turian. She knew he was going to open the door before he even moved, yet she still couldn't stop him.

The open door revealed a large and heavily scarred turian male leaning over a prone human female. At the sound of the swishing door, the turian turned to the pair of teenagers and cocked his head quizzically at them. It would have almost been funny, but he followed the motion with pulling an assault rifle and leveling it at them. Micah blindly charged the turian, who easily lifted the boy off the ground, shoved the end of the rifle in his gut, and sneered. Grace was going to set him on fire, but that took too long. Instead she crossed the room and rested one hand on the turians forearm.

The turian immediately went still and Micah was able to pull himself out of his grasp. Grace was only dimly aware of this though. When she touched the turian's mind she did something she had never done before. Grace had thought that this might be possible for her, but she had always stayed behind her old rule of "look, but don't touch" when looking into another's thoughts. When she had touched the turian, she set up a mental shroud inside his mind. She couldn't control his thoughts; she could only prevent him from acting on them. However, this left her painfully exposed to his screaming mind. Hundreds of ideas flitted up to the surface of his mind like a pot of boiling water. Most of them were hateful thoughts about hurting the woman or Grace or Micah or any human at all, but some of them were benign. Such as, talking to a colleague or readjusting the scope on his gun or what he was going to eat for lunch. The sheer amount of conflicting emotion threatened to drown Grace, but she kept a firm grip on his mind and maintained the shroud around him.

Grace was vaguely made aware of a tapping on her shoulder and a voice speaking in her ear. She forced herself to pay attention to her surroundings.

"You can't kill him. The others will notice. Can you make him leave?" A woman's voice spoke to her.

"Can you make him leave the gun too?" A young man's voice said.

Grace was dimly aware of nodding her head, before she plunged back into his mind. She sifted through his thoughts until she found the right ones. Grace wasn't sure if she could prevent some thoughts from existing and she wasn't even sure if she should try to do that. It felt incredibly wrong to have such control over someone, but she could bury worst of the thoughts and drag the appropriate ones to the surface. She somehow knew that she was not able to create thoughts in his mind; she could only manipulate original ones.

Her task complete, she carefully withdrew herself from his mind and took the shroud with her. The turian started moving the moment she removed her hand from his arm. He walked over to the counter, placed the rifle on it, and then just left the room. Grace sat down on the floor with a sigh of both relief and disgust. She felt dirty, like her mind had touched something unclean.

"That was awesome." Micah said in an awed voice. He then reached down to help Grace off the floor.

The second his hand touched her arm, Grace turned to him and spat. "Get your hands off of me, you piece of pyjak shit."

Micah jerked his arm back like she had burned him and Grace glared at him, hatred of humans filling her. The look of concern and confusion on his face slowly brought her out of the venomous thoughts.

"I'm … I'm sorry, Micah. I don't know what that was."

"Kids, we need to leave now. I don't know how long that trick is going to work on him." The badly beaten woman pulled herself off of the floor and Grace recognized her as Dr. Sanders.

Grace nodded her head in agreement. She had brought up the recollection that the turian needed to use the bathroom and she was really unsure what would happen to his mind after he was finished with the task. She put no voice to these thoughts though, as she didn't particularly trust her voice after what she had said to Micah.

"Dr. Sanders, Kastanie and Sebastian got really sick and they are passed out in the maintenance shaft. Can you help them?" Micah asked the injured woman as he helped her up.

Sanders pushed her blonde bangs away from her face and asked, "It started with a failing of biotic abilities, shifted to violent illness, and right now they are passed out?"

Grace nodded her head.

"The same thing happened to all of the biotic students and staff. I don't know what it is. I'm sorry, but we need to go." The quiet command in the adult's voice spurred the teenagers into moving. Grace awkwardly took the rifle that the turian had left. It was far too large for her and it felt odd in her hands, like she wasn't even sure if she was holding it properly. So she held it away from her body and was careful to keep her hands well away from the trigger and the barrel was never pointed in anyone's direction.

Grace disappeared inside of her own mind. This was a common exercise for her. Her body could continue the motions of conscious thought, but in reality her mind was elsewhere. What had she done to that turian? No, that was a lie. She knew exactly what she had done. What was truly frightening about the action was how easy it had been. How she had known exactly what to do. All of the years of telling herself that she would only observe and never interact had been for nothing, because now she had crossed that threshold and now her abilities were evident. Could she even go back to just observing? Maybe, but she didn't want to. The thing that made Grace truly feel like a monster was that she was wondering what else she could do. Creation of thoughts was probably outside of her ability. However, she had a feeling that the extermination of thoughts was not. What would happen if she chased down every conscious part of a person and simply deleted it? It would take a while, that she was sure of. What she had done to the turian had taken a while too, but Grace couldn't help the ever so slight feeling of elation of the power that she wielded. She was unique and she was powerful.

Grace shuddered at the thought, but didn't bury it too deeply in her subconscious. She wondered briefly what Char would say about her using the ability. The thought brought a small smile to her face. Char wouldn't have a problem with it at all; in fact, Char would probably have given her a hug and praised her for her quick thinking. Char would probably have been more concerned about Grace and not even have given a single thought to the turian. Then again the woman did have very elaborate notions of personal security and perhaps tampering with another's mind would fall into that realm. Grace gave a mental cry of frustration that Char was not here.


"I thought that you knew how to use a stealth generator." Charlie whispered furiously to Garrus. They had safely boarded the shuttle and were currently standing at the back of the vehicle.

Garrus sighed in frustration. "No … well not really. I don't know. I thought you did. You were the one who suggested them. Can Ada figure them out?"

Charlie snatched the device from his hands and muttered under her breath as she linked with the software. After a few minutes, she looked back up to him. "I can get them activated, but they require full integration into our armor to mask our movements. As neither of us is prepared for that, we'll have to stay perfectly still or risk breaking the field."

"I can't believe that you don't already have a stealth generator in your suit. It would work so well with your style."

Charlie placed one hand on her hip and motioned with the other one to her armor skin suit. "I already have a shield generator, a tech shield generator, and Ada. All of that drains power, so I've upgraded my battery cells and currently have twice of the normal amount. I briefly looked into getting a stealth generator and came up with two good reasons why that would be a horrible idea. One is that my batteries can't handle anymore drain and I'm already a ticking tech bomb if I get hit with an overload. The second reason is that I am terrible at stealth. Just because they couldn't see me does not prevent them from hearing me. You can hear the whine of the processors I carry around at twenty feet as it is. No, I'd much rather stick with my normal style."

"Shotgun to the face?" Garrus asked with a smirk.

"Exactly, this reminds me that we don't have any weapons."

Garrus sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "I know. By the way, we can't attack any of the terrorists in the shuttle bay either."

"Why?"

"Because if they think that the Alliance double crossed them and sent up an extraction team, then they're going to start killing students and now that they have access to the extranet they're going to broadcast it. So, we're going to have to leave the shuttle somehow and get far away from the bay before we launch into the rescue."

Charlie steadied herself as the shuttle broke the atmosphere. "Oh is that all?" Her tone was soaked in sarcasm.

Garrus didn't verbally respond to her jab and the rest of the short shuttle trip was spent in anxiety fueled silence. The shuttle shook as it was hooked in place by the docking clamps. Garrus and Charlie gave each other worried looks as they pressed themselves flat against the bulkhead and activated the stealth generators. This could go pear-shaped very quickly and Garrus let himself sink into the familiar rhythm of his military training. The ability to calm his mind even under extreme duress is makes Garrus Vakarian a truly remarkable sniper. He was concerned about Charlie though, patience was a gift as well as a virtue and it was not one that she possessed. However, she was the embodiment of single minded determination and Garrus silently asked the spirits that Charlie chose to display that today.

The hatch noisily grinded open and two turian males entered the shuttle. Garrus was immediately struck by their turian military discipline. The manner in which they moved wasted no motion and the shuttle was quickly scanned and searched. Thankfully, they were not discovered, but one of the males positioned himself directly in front of Charlie with his back to her. Garrus knew what face she was making and silently willed her not to attack the easy target. Just in case she did it anyways, Garrus formed a plan for his counterattack and braced himself to launch at the second male.

Miraculously Charlie did not attack the male and the two turians made short work of removing the Alliance's equipment from the shuttle. Once they had left and once again closed the hatch, Garrus saw the flicker of a stealth net beside him and then Charlie was walking towards the hatch.

"What do you see?" He asked her.

Charlie moved her head around the interior of the shuttle and let out a small gasp. She immediately brought up her omni-tool and started tapping at the screen.

"What is it?" Garrus asked again.

"They're going to space the shuttle." She said in rush.

"Fuck, what do we do?"

"You can shut up, while I try and stall them." Charlie muttered absently as her fingers ghosted across the orange screen.

With a sharp flick of her wrist the glow turned off and the woman sank to the floor and started to pry open the metal.

"What are you doing?" Garrus was getting increasingly frustrated at feeling left out of the loop.

"Opening the secondary hatch." Charlie grunted and Garrus sank down next to her and assisted in the endeavor. "Alliance shuttlecrafts always have a small hatch located at the bottom. They're only for maintenance work and they are supposed to open above a small alcove for repairs." The hatch clicked open and Garrus could see a darkened space underneath the shuttle, it was illuminated in a dim red light.

"Oh good, they brought the shuttle in according to standard loading procedures." Charlie dropped into the small opening and called up to Garrus. "Hey it's like the beginning of a terrible horror movie. Too bad neither of us are virgins, we might have had a chance of making it out."

Garrus grunted as he forced his large body through the small opening. It had definitely been made with a human physique in mind. When he finally fell to the floor next to Charlie he understood what she meant by the odd comment. The small room was poorly lit and the red light was flickering ominously. Charlie tapped in a few commands to her tool and the ceiling began to close as the shuttle was lifted away. After the ceiling slid shut the red light went completely out and Garrus reminded himself that he was a rational turian.

"Are you alright with the lights off? I have the glasses, but your visor only covers one of your eyes."

Garrus peered at Charlie through his visor and replied. "It's definitely not an ideal situation, but it's better than the alternative. So we'll keep the lights off."

Charlie gave a quick nod and set off down the short hall to the set of stairs. "This leads back up to the shuttle bay and we're going to have to head up there. However, there is an elevator less than ten feet from the exit."

The armored woman stopped at the exit and held a fist up to signal Garrus to wait. After a minute she pointed out the locations of the three guards that remained on the level. Charlie gave him an anxious look to reveal her frustration at being confined to the small space and Garrus thought he could almost read the ludicrous plan forming behind her large, orange illuminated eyes.

Garrus place his large three-taloned hand on her shoulder and shook his head, preventing Charlie from completing whatever scheme she was dreaming. She scowled at him and Garrus bit back the chuckle.

Garrus' sensitive ears could hear the footsteps overhead and he looked at Charlie for confirmation. She nodded and silently signaled him that two of the men had taken the elevator. The third man was still in the observation booth on the upper level. Charlie cautiously opened the floor level hatch above them and held a hand up to Garrus as she peered over the edge. After she gave him the sharp arm gesture to move, Garrus sprinted for the elevator with Charlie on his heels.

"Where to?" She asked once they were safely in the elevator.

"First things first, we need to be armed and we need to know what the situation is on the station. We aren't rescuing anyone if we don't know where they are."

"Right, security station it is." Charlie tapped the console in the elevator. The gentle hum of the motor and the bright cheery lights of the interior seemed to mock the seriousness of their situation. A soft chime sounded and the doors slid open. Garrus and Charlie were tucked against the walls of the elevator and Charlie appeared to stare at the metal wall as her omni-glasses gave her a readout of the vicinity. Charlie signaled an all-clear and the two of them darted out of the elevator and found cover.

The area that the elevator had opened to was a long hall with large decorative plants lining the walls. It was definitely not an ideal place for a firefight, in Garrus' opinion, as there was a considerable lack of places for adequate cover. So they found themselves running from wall to wall, with Charlie stopping every other minute to check the surroundings. It was tedious and Garrus felt positively naked without any weapons. He briefly wondered if the Alliance would actually return his perfectly calibrated Punisher after this was all over. Of course that was assuming that they made it out and that they didn't spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Garrus examined the dark thought and found it pointless to dwell on, so he firmly dismissed it and continued to follow Charlie down the hall. Even though it had been years since they had worked closely with each other, it was surprisingly easy to slip back into the old patterns. Charlie's glasses made her excellent scout and she could handle most anything in a close range. Garrus was better suited at understanding a field and forming tactics around the information she would feed him. His sniper rifle typically made him outstanding at long range and the assault rifle helped with close range work. They still made a good team and Garrus found that he didn't even need to see the hand signals that she was giving him. He knew what she was going to say by the tension in her shoulders or the minute emotions that flickered across her face.

The hall opened into a large, empty foyer. There were stairs along the back that lead up to a small room and there were two additional exits that presumably led to other sections of the level. Garrus immediately did not trust the room. He couldn't see anyone, but it seemed too fortuitous for such an easily defensible position to be left unguarded. Evidently Charlie had no such reservations. After scanning the area with her glasses, she reported no hostiles and quickly moved into the room.

Garrus followed her, but couldn't shake the caution building under his plates. When he ducked beside Charlie he drew his long combat knife from his boot sheath. His companion eyed the weapon and gave him a questioning look, but shrugged and drew her own blade. Charlie nodded at a low wall before darting to the piece of cover, Garrus waited till she was almost there to follow her.

A feint shimmer behind Charlie was the only warning Garrus had before a turian male grabbed her and set a gun against her head. It was a foolish mistake on the turian's part to place the gun directly on Charlie, without first securing her arms. Because Charlie simply ducked, sent a wicked elbow into his side, and pulled him over her shoulder towards Garrus. Garrus was already moving and caught the turian before the terrorist had a chance to react properly. A quick twist of his head and the male was down.

When Garrus looked back to Charlie, she was grappling with another turian. By the time Garrus had pulled a pistol from his fallen foe, Charlie was driving her combat knife up and under the unguarded portion of his helmet. Garrus quickly moved to the low wall beside her and scanned the room for more stealthed assailants.

"I hate stealth generators." Charlie huffed while checking the sights on her newly acquired assault rifle.

Garrus nodded his agreement and said, "We need to move. We're too exposed here and there could easily be more of them." He glanced at Charlie's weapon and held out his pistol. "Switch."

Charlie complied and Garrus felt much more comfortable with the familiar assault rifle.

"I'll follow you. Tell me where to go." Charlie said.

Garrus nodded to the back stairs. "We go up. Search the room and hold that position."

Charlie's response was to pop out from cover and quickly dart closer to the stairs. Garrus covered her movement and waited until she gave him the signal to follow. He was almost to her when Charlie's head snapped to look just left of him and she raised the pistol and sent a short three-round burst beside him. Garrus did not question her action and instead spun in place and opened fire into the empty space she had attacked. There was a flicker of a stealth generator powering off and a turian fell heavily to the ground. Garrus rolled into cover beside Charlie.

She simply motioned to her glasses and said. "Jacked up the sensitivity. All of that turian weight still sends vibrations into the floor."

Garrus saw the almost manic expression in her eyes that was offset by the hard lines in her face. Her eyes didn't seem to stop from darting around the room and he realized that the amount of information being fed to her through her glasses must have been overwhelming. He gently tapped her shoulder and motioned for her to continue their ascent up the stairs. After a few moments, Charlie complied and Garrus was a little surprised that she simply darted up the stairs and tucked into a corner beside the entrance into the room. He gave the ground floor one last sweep with his rifle before following Charlie.

The control room appeared empty when they entered it. Garrus quickly shut the doors and keyed them to his encryption. That wouldn't completely prevent someone from entering, but it would give him time to prepare.

"What's the plan?" Charlie asked him.

Garrus looked around at the small room and found a cabinet full of weapon mods. He sifted through the small devices until he found a couple of high powered laser scopes. Charlie caught the scope that he tossed to her and dumbly looked at it.

"Stealth nets can't replicate focused lasers." Garrus explained while he attached the sniper scope to his assault rifle. "We might not be able to pick up the discrepancy, but our visors definitely can."

Charlie held up the pistol and the large scope, as if daring him to make them fit together.

Garrus almost chuckled at the absurdity of a pistol with an 8 inch rifle scope attached to it. "Hand me that." He began dissecting the scope. "We don't actually need the scope, we only need the laser. I cannot believe that you can't do this yourself. You can write beautiful programs and break into almost any security system, but you can't remove a laser from a simple scope?"

Charlie huffed at him. "I don't like hardware. There are too many wires and circuits and … I just hate it. Programming is language and mathematics. I can do that, it's like breathing to me."

"There aren't any wires or circuits … never mind. Give me your arm." Garrus took the proffered right arm and began to strap the laser onto it. "By the way, if you hate hardware so much, how did you ever build those glasses?"

"Bribed a salarian." Charlie said with a shrug.

"What the hell? What does that mean?" Garrus looked at Charlie like he had never seen her before. Charlie never bribed people. Threatened? Yes. Bribed? No.

Charlie sighed and shook her finger at Garrus. "I'm telling you this in confidence. So there was … this salarian, I'm not naming names. Anyways, he was trying to sell a VI without a permit. Apparently he had tried to acquire one, but there was an inquiry into whether his VI was actually an AI. I saw the program and it was definitely a VI. Anyhow he ignored the illegality of his work and proceeded to sell it. When I caught him, I gave him the option of leaving the Citadel and selling his wares elsewhere or going to jail. He chose to leave."

"Where did the bribery come in?"

"Oh yeah I may have included a clause that required him to leave a copy of the schematics for his omni-glasses. I may have also acquired one of his VIs."

Garrus gave Charlie a longsuffering look. "Is Ada the VI?"

Charlie shook her head vigorously and then tried out the new laser attachment on her arm. "No definitely not, but she may have started out that way. Miss Lovelace long ago outgrew that programming. Didn't you, love?" Charlie absently stroked the metal fixture at her waist.

"Spirits, you are an odd one. Let's go."

It didn't take them long to clear the ground floor. As there were not any turians left in the foyer. After they stripped the three fallen terrorists of weapons and ammo, they returned to the loft and Charlie sat down at the console. Garrus set about appropriately modding their new weapons and adjusting the sights for the both of them.

"Alright, it looks like they have two groups of students and three groups of staff." Charlie called from the console.

"Biotic and non-biotic?" Garrus hazarded the guess.

"That would be my first thought, but I can't tell which is which. The main difference appears to be that one group is conscious and the other isn't. They're definitely alive though. I doubt the terrorists would waste so many soldiers to guard dead kids."

Garrus set the rifle down carefully, because his hands had threatened to drop it when Charlie had given him the news. He walked over behind her and peered the security cameras.

"Are any of the adults unconscious?" Garrus asked in a low tone.

Charlie tapped on the screen and brought up footage of the adult group. "Yeah, but only a few of them."

Garrus reached over her and tapped the screen to enlarge a section. There was a woman laying on a gurney. "Is that …"

"Yeah that's Grace's teacher, Professor Tyrelle."

Garrus went quiet and looked from feed to feed.

"What is it, Garrus? What did they do to the biotics?" Charlie asked him.

Garrus took a deep breath. "Do you remember the Malindra?"

Charlie's eyes blanked for a second while she pulled up the memory. "The asari cruise liner? Yeah you said they were drugged, right?"

"Yes, well it wasn't just the asari that were affected. Eventually we found out that it was a drug called Omega-Enkaphalin, it retards the biotic nodules. It leads to coma-like state and then eventually death. If I remember correctly it takes a few hours to be fatal."

"Who made this?"

"Cerberus." Garrus responded darkly. "They sold it to the batarians, who used it in multiple attacks. As to why they did it … I think you would have to ask them."

Charlie was silent for a while as she contemplated this. Garrus noticed that although she was quiet her hands were not idle as she tapped on both the console and her omni-tool. Clearly she was working on some task and Garrus went back to his abandoned work with the weapons.

"Why would the batarians kill the biotics?" Charlie asked suddenly.

Garrus didn't look up from his calibrations, but responded. "They wouldn't. We never found any proof, but it was widely assumed that they possessed a counter agent to the drug. It's possible that these terrorists have it, as well. But …"

"But if their plan is to kill everyone anyways, why would they need an antidote?" Charlie grimly finished for him.

Garrus heard the woman mutter something that his translator didn't pick up. "What was that?"

Charlie leaned her head against the screen. "I said, if this is a Cerberus made drug, then that implies that they are behind the attack. I can't believe that they are behind yet another plot. I mean, first of all, there's Mindoir. Then there was the Malindra. Then there was Kyrnee. Now this too? What do they have to gain from this? Their ultimate goal was supposed to be the 'betterment of humanity'. How the hell does killing a bunch of kids further that? Especially when those kids are brilliant or biotic powerhouses."

"Why are the turian extremists attacking the school? None of this is supposed to be logical." Garrus responded. The anxiety building inside of him did not betray the calmness in his tone.

"See, I can actually understand the terrorists. I'm not saying I agree with them, but I get it. They feel their way of life is being threatened, so they react in the only way they know how. By attempting to scare the Alliance into quelling their colony programs and 'showing' Earth that the galaxy is a terrifying place. I'm not saying I agree with them, but I get it. What I don't get is Cerberus. They always have a reason, sometimes it doesn't make sense immediately, but they play the long con. I just do not get it right now."

"And you know all of this from your many dealings with Cerberus over the years?" Garrus scoffed at her.

"Sure, why not?" There was an odd quality to Charlie's voice that made Garrus turn his head and look at her. It was the same tone that she took when she was dodging a comment about her past. It wasn't a lie, but it was definitely a side step of the truth. Garrus wished that he had more time to delve into the many questions surrounding his former partner, but they needed to move.

"Are you ready? We need to move."

"Almost done." Charlie's hands darted across the screen and her brow was furrowed with concentration. "Alright I'm done. We should have remote access to this station from here on out. I've sent Ada to try and gain additional access to the entire station, but it's probably going to be a while. She doesn't work as quickly on her own yet. She's not as … creative as I am. However she has patience for miles."

Garrus snorted at her. "So she's the complete opposite of you?"

He shook his head at her wild grin and motioned to the table with the weapons laid out. One of the terrorists had had a decent sniper rifle, so he was pleased, and he had found a shotgun hooked underneath a desk for Charlie. He watched as she checked the sights and strapped the weapons to her body. She attached her usual shotgun and pistol to opposite thighs, but his eyeplates rose when he saw her grab an additional pistol for her hip and settle an assault rifle between her shoulders. Garrus had never seen Charlie with such a heavy loadout. Typically she was rather minimalist on the weapons and heavy on the tech, but today she was not taking chances. Garrus completely understood her mentality.

"Did you find her?" Garrus questioned Charlie, knowing full well that she knew who he was referring to.

Charlie looked up into his face before responding. "No."

Garrus nodded his head and pulled his command face firmly in place. "Alright, well I don't think we're going to be much good to the kids all by ourselves. Our first task will be to find the security team and free them."

Charlie gave a curt nod to her head and Garrus watched her eyes flicker behind the orange glow while her fingers twitched. "Got 'em." She reported. "Level 3, interior; looks like they're being kept in the engine room. Smart. They can't risk using weapons in there."

"Well, that's where we're heading then. Good thing the terrorists can't use their weapons either."


Author's Note: I originally wrote Ada in a long time ago as Charlie's silent companion. However, I failed to realize how closely the name was to another similar character, EDI. By the time this was pointed out to me, I couldn't change it because I had already fallen in love with her. So ... whoops?