Dealing with the Reapers outside, Lissarkh was able to use her lightsaber to cut the doors open. Rushing to the artifact, the human was fighting single handedly against a small horde of husks. He was doing admirable until he was slashed at by one of the husks and lost his pistol. He started crawling toward the artifact, knowing they were there, "The darkness can't be breached."

"The artifact," a clean sphere like structure of unknown metal that was pulsating with dark blue and green colors that oscillated like waves, imbedded into the rock.

"Like in Bryson's office." The team tried to help, but there were just too many husks and they were intent on getting the artifact. "Move! I've got a shot!"

"Turn back." He pulled out a detonator as the lights on his belt lite up.

Rang dove away toward the door, "GET DOWN!"

The explosion centered around the man, completely destroying him and the remaining husks in their attempts to reach the artifact before its destruction. As they got back to their feet the smoke settled and the artifact was completely incinerated with not even a fragment surviving the inferno. "Damn it."

Garrus noticed a body nearby, checking the human he had a datapad he was coddling, protected from the blast. "Shepard. You need to see this."

"What've you got?"

Rang was examining the body as Garrus looked around, "Like the General said, that wasn't Garneau—this is. Looks like he's been dead for a while."

"I don't have the gear with me to say 100%, but my initial findings peg him stiff for about three days or so," Rang then proceeded to play around with his arms.

Shepard looked down, "So Leviathan can attempt to kill Bryson, take over this colony, and he can use them as puppets. Anything else useful?" hoping Garrus might have something.

"Looks like some encrypted data and a personal log. Eight missed calls from a Dr. Ann Bryson."

"Ann Bryson?"

Before Shepard could get more answers, the door into the room opened as three of the miners staggered in, almost like waking from a bad dream, "Who…who are you? What are you doing here?"

Shepard was about to speak with them, but Lissarkh stopped him, "Be gentle. These people have been through much, or rather much has occurred here and they were swept along for the events."

Shepard nodded, continuing to the miners, "I'm Commander Shepard. Are you all right?"

"I think so. I feel like…I feel strange but…all right."

Shepard turned to Garneau's body as Rang was getting it ready for transport. "Do you recognize this man?"

The asari among them looked first, "I've never seen him before in my life."

"Someone here killed him."

She looked to them in disbelief, all of them pretty shocked by the revelation, "Someone here? How is that possible? I'm so sorry…"

Shepard was hoping they might have some memory of their enslaver, "Can you tell me anything about what happened to you?"

"Not really…I, uh," they all seemed to be struggling, "remember…It just seemed cold. I remember a feeling. Cold and dark."

"If dark was a feeling, that's exactly what I felt."

Shepard turned to the charred remains, "That artifact: do you know where it came from?"

"Came out of the mine." The miner turned back, "Right…head office was supposed to send someone. That's all I can…"

Shepard wasn't going to get much else from them, "Cortez, what's your situation? Can you bring the shuttle?"

"Affirmative. Strangest thing. Couple of minutes ago, the Reaper forces broke off and left."

"Reaper…" the miners looked to one another, "What's a Reaper?"

Shepard looked to Lissarkh, then to the miners, "What year do you think this is?"

"2176," one of them said as though it was a no-brainer.

"2176 was ten years ago."

"What?" the miners looked confused.

"Let's arrange for these people to be evacuated into temporary quarantine."

Shepard moved away from them as Lissarkh joined him, "No recollection of events of ten years' time," Lissarkh didn't seem aware of the extent of laps they had, "They are in for some unfortunate news."

On the shuttle flight back to the Normandy, Lissarkh seemed dreadfully concerned, "This Leviathan is dangerous. The power to destroy a Reaper, an ability that mirrors indoctrination…"

Garrus then proposed a dangerous thought, "Do you think it actually is a Reaper?"

Shepard gripped the overhead railing even tighter now, "If it is a Reaper, then I want to know what it's up to. How long as it been out here, and, more importantly, why?"

"I disagree with the initial assessment, Vakarian." Lissarkh continued to meditate in the middle of the shuttle. "This Leviathan controls over people is far different from the indoctrination we've seen the Reapers use. Reaper influence is almost impossible to be completely freed from but once the Leviathan's control is removed they are themselves once more. The similarities are also something we should not ignore, however I do not believe your Leviathan to be a Reaper."

Shepard sat down, letting the question stir but for now focused on what they could do, "EDI, did we get anything from Garneau's notes?"

"Yes. They suggest that Garneau created a way to block the artifact's mind-affecting properties. The artifact seems to be the key."

"Agreed. When I head back to Bryson's office, I want you there."

"Yes, Commander."

"I want to know just what the hell these artifacts really are and what they can do."

Rang was cleaning a trophy he had made from a Marauder's head, "You know my answer to that. Plus aren't we forgetting something?"

"Pyth, and she's still in the room with it I bet."

The Normandy quickly returned to the Bryson's lab to contain the artifact as Shepard, EDI and Lissarkh checked on things. Returning they found Pyth in a meditative pose similar to Lissarkh's, completely mute to her surroundings. "We need to shield the artifact they've got here right away."

EDI moved to the display, working her omni-tool, "Using Garneau's data, I should be able to accomplish this without difficulty."

EDI finished, turning to a button as Shepard quickly hit it. The shield surrounded the artifact and once it was completely enveloped the colors from the orb faded black. "Damn thing's been here the whole time. Is Pyth all right?"

Lissarkh was sitting across from her, mirroring her pose, "Fear not. She is in a deep Draethos meditation. Designed to block all 'noises' from their mind."

"Can you snap her out?"

Lissarkh closed her eyes, "I will do my best. I have only seen this technique once, and that was through the Jedi Archives."

EDI looked back, "It appears that the amount of time spent near the artifact is key. After a certain duration, it affords Leviathan an impressive mind control capability."

"Then I guess it's fortunate we have people who can block such control. EDI, could you bring up security footage as to what happened to Pyth?"

"Certainly."

EDI displayed a holographic screen on her omni-tool as she screened through the data and displayed Pyth hard at work deciphering hieroglyphs and reviewing the team's data. EDI skipped to several different instances where Pyth would look around, as though trying to find someone or something. Finally she started calling out, "Hello? Is there someone else here?" Pyth reached across a table, putting her sword onto her belt. Fast-forwarding roughly half an hour Pyth seemed to be looking around the lab, frantically trying to find a clue, "No, this fragment has been contained with an electromagnetic shielding, though I doubt a hunk of metal could contain any sort of sentiency. Bestial fossilized skeletal remains…wall carving…mineral deposits…wait!" Pyth moved back to the room where Bryson was shot, "You!" pointing to the artifact, "I see…" Pyth activated her omni-tool to record something, "I doubt I'd last much longer now. But you will not take me." Pyth moved to where they found her, crossing her legs as she started to slow her breathing. All of this occurred roughly five hours ago.

Pyth picked herself back up, "So she was telling the truth."

Lissarkh picked herself in a single motion of her legs, "And now let us continue with the investigation to find the other researchers."

Pyth started to pat herself down, "That was a rather annoying experience."

"Are you alright?"

"Oh, you mean beyond almost being mind-controlled by a hostile alien lifeform that will do anything and everything to keep its location and existence a secret, just fine."

"I'm sorry."

"For what, Commander?" Pyth walked over to the inactive artifact, "This is an occupational hazard not many are willing to believe or acknowledge. Ancient bacteria or viruses, hostile native life, unknown artifacts, and those are just the more common ways to go when you go to territory I've traversed. I wasn't able to get much word done with the constant chattering in the back of my mind so sorry about that."

"Wait," Shepard backing Pyth up just a bit, "You said alien lifeform. The Leviathan is organic?"

Pyth just shrugged, "Possibly. I'm not absolutely certain. My hesitation may be derived from the fact that I know this one droid capable of hypnotically inducing individuals into several humiliating situations. But from my estimates I would have to believe that Leviathan is an organic species."

Mandalore and Traynor started up a game of dejarik while they were waiting for Shepard to find the next piece in the Leviathan puzzle. Rang was watching, though only because he had already used up his extranet time. Mandalore moved his K'lor'slug into the Ilthmar Gambit trap, "Your move miss game master."

Traynor had been learning rather quickly, as she moved her pieces to the kintan strider death gambit. "Oh very nice. Didn't think a beginner would dare such a risky move. Though you are up against a master here so I suppose you need to throw out those kinds of risks."

"Hey!" Sam yelled at him.

"No cheating Rang."

"What? Who's cheating? I can't be held responsible if I tell her about your plan to…"

"Rang, Rang, Rang," from behind, Swoop managed to sneak up on him and wrap his arm around the unsuspecting commando before giving him a nuggy, "You just need to let things go. And by that I mean your pissed off attitude for the temporary defusing."

Rang struggled to break himself free, "We could have used a few explosives for the Bashees that crashed down!"

"Hey, you should really remember to never get a Mando woman angry."

Rang started to look around, "Where? I don't see Ras, only Hioja, boss. Wasn't she down in engineering with Bev?"

Swoop finally let go as Ash tapped his shoulder, "I may not be a Mandalorian," cracking her knuckles, "but I'm told my temper could rival one."

"Ah. Yes. You certainly do. And now I shut up."

Prudii was just standing around engineering as Tali was trying something with the Normandy's stealth systems. "Routing heat through propulsion and weapons will let us use the internal emissions sinks for three hours longer than normal."

"Not if it overloads propulsion."

Adams had faith in Tali, "Give her a chance, Daniels. Increasing the utility of the stealth drive could come in handy."

"Propulsion and weapons systems have built-in heat sinks. They can trap heat while we're in stealth mode to buy us time. Quarian ships do it when they can't find a safe place to bleed off static charge. It's completely safe."

Donnelly protested, "This isn't a quarian freight hauler, Tali. Our heat diffusion systems are precision engineering. Do this, and we'd have to replace them twice as often."

"We can afford that. I'm more worried that it won't work. Can't put my finger on why, though."

Daniels spouted again, "It's going to overload propulsion."

"You'll be fine, Gabby. Weapons would overload long before propulsion."

Adams now felt uneasy, "That doesn't make me feel better."

"It's a risk, yes, but it's worth it when we need the stealth drive."

"Just give us another minute down here." Prudii was acting as speakers again, look down to find Bev's tag moving below them. Rasen was close by too, but she was about a meter away from each other. "Without a few extra measure here and here, the systems are going to go into a hard restart."

"That should do it. Try it now Tali," Rasen was also on the comm and helped Bev with the augmentations.

"Rerouting heat flow." Everything seemed fine, the warning light weren't going off and nothing was losing power.

"Hey, what's going on?" Garrus was checking in, "The Thanix Cannon instruments are saying its overheating to the equivalent to three shots and we aren't shooting."

Rasen quickly noted, "Better than propulsion and a hard restart."

"Let's get to work on the venting…" Prudii pushed himself off the wall, walking over to help Bev and Rasen.

With Swoop and Rook away, Dagger was getting an extra hand from Cortez and C3 with maintenance on the LAAT. "This is an impressive bird. But the profile could use a bit of work."

"She may not be the prettiest vessel in the galaxy, but she gets the job done in a pinch and can dish out the pain. Ain't that right, C3?" She started to whistle happily, checking the power couplings for the two turrets and the main weapon systems.

"Well it's armed from nose to tail, but without a decent aim or firepower it's all worthless."

"True enough." Dagger was opening hatches to make sure they weren't jamming, "The tail gun in back was only useful for anti-personnel. Since we've gotten a hold of her Swoop and I have been modifying her to give a nasty bite against fighters. Not enough for a kill, but it'll make a smart pilot think twice about attacking from behind."

Cortez opened the hatch within the main hold, "This doesn't seem like it's a part of your systems."

Dagger climbed down and checked on what he was talking about. "Ah, that's the salvaged ARC-170's shield generator. Not the smoothest transition from ship to ship modifications but without speeder bikes to store in there, it felt like a waste of space until the mod."

"What type of shielding are we talking here?"

"Energy based. Great for deflecting shots from droid starfighters. Don't know how well we'll handle fire from Reaper Oculi. They proved to be rather effective against the Collectors and their flying crab cakes."

"Very interesting. But don't you have to worry about the team that you're transporting when they need to get out?"

Dagger tapped onto a panel near the medical droid, activating the shield. "Nah. It's cold plasma. They only react to high-energy or at certain velocities." Dagger demonstrated, walking out the open side door. "Nothing to it. They have to watch the flak if we're dropping in hot."

"You Mandalorians seem prepared for this war."

"Truth be told we were a part of another war before joining yours. Born and grown to fight a war for a galaxy we barely knew, not something everyone is proud of. But our ancestors isn't too dissimilar to the krogan, warriors by blood, and proud of it. We aren't letting these Reapers have their way. Not if we can say anything about it."

"Hey I've been meaning to ask," Cortez was now looking over the locks, "I've noticed that you guys look almost exactly the same. Are you guys brothers or…"

"Clones," Dagger quickly answered, "All of us are from the same man, though with some genetic modifications for improvements. Though I think some of us got the better end of the treatment than others."

The Mandalorians still onboard the Tervho were being sent to their next assignment to aid a fuel depot that has recently fallen silent. "Prath do we have any intel on this place?"

"Yes," handing off a datapad to Aay'han, "A fuel processing plant and depot initially created by the asari. The krogans attempted to capture the planet during the Rebellions, but at most token forces occupied the planet at any point during the war. After the Krogan Rebellions came to an end it became a joint turian-asari facility used as an important fuel depot for military vessels patrolling asari space."

"I can see how that could be a crippling blow. Any word on what might be going on down there?"

"Unknown beyond the facility has been found unattended. However it should be assumed that the depot has been compromised and the original staff has been eradicated."

The planet was now on display of the galaxy map, "Why's that?"

"A hundred turian soldiers were stationed at the site. Turians don't retreat."

"Stupid. Something I agree with Kix about. And I'm assuming most of this equipment isn't exactly sturdy."

"Not all of it."

"Enough that we don't need a loose cannon like Nyona smashing something important that might take time to replace. Anything else worth noting?"

Pyth handed off a new datapad, "Just the official Alliance engineering team being dispatched to join us. It's under command of a Captain Lee Riley, an N7 graduate praised as one of the top engineering teams the Alliance has. There will also be a turian liaison with her as well. Your primary objectives will be the reactivation of the facility, but be wary…"

"And assume the hostiles are still on site. I've told Sigma Squad that a few times myself during our service in the Republic." Aay'han moved to the elevator to get to the hangar, "Forta, Tishad, Sal and Taridus to grab their gear and prepare for a surprise attack."

A/N: Figured I should have had Cortez talk about the Larty soon but I suppose it helped skip the 'investigation' portion of the lab. Yes I found the Tali scene funny, but I thought her little trick should have work given how long she's been working on the Normandy's systems.

Mandalorian Translation:

N/A