A/N: Hello, I'm not dead!
I've started my PhD program and I'm working on finishing my thesis (*screams loudly and pulls out her hair*) but it unfortunately doesn't leave quite as much time for me to do fun things like write. However, I've been encouraged to make time for it, during my recent diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and admitting that it makes me relax. Who'd'a thought ...
Anyway, no, I haven't forgotten about this. My characters have been sullenly glaring at me for quite a while, and I think Shepard is getting impatient. And no one wants Shepard to be impatient.

Chapter 36: The Chase

People had avoided him for many reasons throughout his life.

Often it had been because, simply, he was a biotic. Mostly because, not only was he a biotic, but his implant was of the L2 make and that made him "dangerous and unstable." Or it was because other people in his units had accused him of being too "uptight." More recently it had been because one person or another had been pissed about certain things he'd said to Shepard at one point or another over the past couple years. Or, in the general populace, because he was a Spectre and that made him scary.

This was the first time the last reason had occurred on the Normandy.

The second base they had hit had a little bit more information than the first — or, at least, more than they had gotten from the first one. But that wasn't enough. They were no closer to finding Shepard and Joker than they had been before, and they had no more information to show the Council.

Everyone was frustrated, but he had far surpassed frustration. He was beginning to panic.

The thought of Shepard, most likely alone, dealing with pregnancy and captivity and whatever else she had to be going through, threatened to overwhelm him the longer they went with no new discoveries. And he knew that throwing his helmet into his locker and storming off without taking off anything else had just made Garrus and Tali start muttering at one another again and left the others pretty sure that he wasn't usually like that.

That meant he was back in the Loft, staring down at the datapad that had been the result of Shepard's first, and last, doctor's visit. Just out of his line of vision was the picture frame that had never left her desk, now holding a picture of the two of them at their first 'unofficial' wedding.

"Kaidan, I have received the information from Admiral Hackett and will begin to search for a list of old Cerberus Bases." EDI's voice came over the intercom, breaking him out of his reverie.

"Good. Tell me as soon as you have something."

"Also, Kasumi has asked us to meet her where she has, apparently, been infiltrating. She says she has information."

"Great. Set course."

"Right away."

He waited, but EDI seemed done. With a sigh Kaidan picked up the picture frame, brushing a finger down it.

He would find her, even if he had to tear the galaxy apart to do so.

The desk terminal chimed, and with a heavy sigh Kaidan opened his mail. Liara.

To: Spectre Alenko, K.; EDI; Admiral Tali'Zorah vas Normandy; Lawson, Miranda; Traynor, Samantha

From: Encrypted — T'soni, L

Subject: Shepard

I had Glyph run some simulations, based on relay data. We were fortunate they made their move so quickly after the War — while the Relays in Council space have been completely reactivated, less than half of Terminus ones have been. Because they've been using old Cerberus bases, I had it cross-reference old Cerberus and military infrastructure and reactivated relays.

The Omega Nebula is, as far as Aria is concerned, clean. I tapped into some of her communications — her people are pretty much keeping it patrolled. Mostly so passing ships pay them, but that's to be expected.

I've attached a list of relays to check out. They all showed activity the day Shepard and Joker disappeared, and they have one or more former Cerberus bases. Yes, the coordinates are included.

As I find more information I'll pass it on. Echidna is being terribly efficient at hiding. Even Cerberus wasn't this quiet.

Kaidan downloaded the list and studied it, resting his head on his fist. If they weren't in the Terminus Systems — though they were all in agreement that was likely — then they weren't even on the right side of the galaxy.

He'd check the Spectre Office, see if anything else came in.

Hell, at this point they could be in the Sahara and no one would know the difference.

There was one thing he hadn't tried. Kaidan sent a message to Miranda, asking her to come up to the Loft.

About three minutes later, the door opened without any announcement and Miranda sauntered through. He'd noticed that, after a few days being on the same ship as her — she didn't really walk, she constantly seemed to own her surroundings. He could only imagine what it had been like to have both her and Shepard on the same ship.

"You asked me to come up?" He noticed that she settled herself on the couch without pulling her eyes away from the datapad she was holding.

"Yes." Kaidan dropped down into the chair across from the sofa, leaning forward onto his knees. "Look, and — don't take this the wrong way — but you were with Cerberus for a while."

Miranda lowered her datapad, arching a perfectly-shaped eyebrow. "And?"

He rubbed his hands together, thinking.

"I needed to talk to someone who might know how they think," he finally blurted out. "We've exhausted nearly every lead and without someone who knows Echidna's methods, we're dead in the water. I know they aren't Cerberus, but they were."

"So you need me to try and get into their head?"

He nodded. Miranda sighed, crossing her leg at her knees.

"Echidna would have been more akin to a Cerberus group that had broken off from the main," she began. "Similar to the parts that you and Shepard cleared out in '83." He nodded again. "I don't know too much about the mentality of those groups except that they were extremely xenophobic, whereas Cerberus was just pro-human. Take what we're dealing with now." She made a general hand motion. "This attack was incredibly planned out. I'd suspect it would have happened even if Shepard hadn't gotten pregnant."

"So you think —"

"Once she'd taken the Council position, they would have hit hard and fast. A nonhuman 'sympathizer' like Shepard would be completely destructive to their interests."

"So what if she'd never gotten out of the hospital?"

"It's very easy to fake a medical mistake. Especially with the shape she was in."

Kaidan dug his hand into his forehead. To think that they would have taken her down so easily if she hadn't gotten out —

"Especially because we have yet to determine how wide their network is. If they had anyone in the Alliance..." She cleared her throat, shifting slightly. "But I think this worked into their plans very well. Neither of us needs much imagination to determine what they intend to achieve." Miranda shook her head. "But I don't know anything that would help us figure out where they're hiding. If I did, I would have put it into our simulations so far."

"But ... why the name Echidna?" Miranda shrugged. "You have to admit it isn't a very ... impressive name."

"Whoever is in charge is obviously educated," she replied. "And highly so, to know about a character like Echidna."

"Any idea why the name though?"

"Echidna, in mythology, is the mother of Cerberus. It's a form of going back to the roots of the organization — which, of course, means even more anti-alien policies and human supremacy. Along with more infiltration. They may already have agents in the Alliance and on the Citadel." She tapped her finger on her knee. "Which reminds me. When Shepard takes the Council position, we'll have to definitely triple-check her aides."

"I'm glad you have so much confidence in us getting her back." Kaidan wasn't lying. He'd seen Miranda's record — even from Shepard's reports when she was with Cerberus — and she had one of those drives that should terrify anyone on its bad side. It was little wonder Shepard held her in such high esteem.

Miranda scoffed. "Even if I didn't, I seriously doubt such a trivial thing as pregnancy would keep her from tearing through at least half their base."

Kaidan chuckled. As much as he never wanted to think about Shepard trying half the things she did on a normal basis ... "I'd be disappointed if she hasn't already tried."

Miranda echoed it. "Same."

#

J: That went well.

Shepard sighed at her screen.

S: That shit is nasty.

J: How long did it take?

S: About a minute and a half.

J: Wow. She knew him well enough to picture the face Joker was making.

S: Yeah. When we do make our move, we need to do it fast.

J: Do you have an idea?

S: A bit of one.

J: Percentage of success?

S: About ...

S: Goddamn you, you know how I am with statistics.

J: It's a guess, not physics. Make shit up, that's what everyone does.

Shepard chewed on her lip.

S: 1 in a million?

J: Seems legit. That impossible, huh?

S: Pretty much.

J: Still think that's better odds than the whole Collector thing. And the whole "Let's go to Earth and fight the Reapers!1!" thing we've pulled off.

S: We also had a full squad. And then a bloody army.

J: Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

She chuckled.

J: So. What's the plan?

S: Straightforward cut-and-run. Next time I think I can, I take out the guards one of the times I get taken out for an exam, and make my way over to where you are. Then, plan from there.

J: ... you know, sometimes your simple plans suck.

S: You have a better one?

J: Not really.

S: Didn't think so.

J: So. When's this gonna go down?

S: A couple weeks, probably. I need to get them into a false sense of security.

J: It would probably be good for them to not be expecting you to bash their heads in.

J: Um, Shep ... How are you feeling?

Well, for starters, she felt like an elephant. She could only imagine what it'd be in a few months. Her pants were starting to get tighter, and her head would randomly start to ache and that would aggravate her implant, leading to her crawling back into bed, defeated, and hoping whoever was in control of the lights in her cell would take pity on her.

She'd also started having nightmares again, though whether this was due to the medication she'd been on finally leaving her system or because she'd heard that women tended to have more vivid dreams when they were pregnant, she didn't know.

S: It's weird. But I'll live.

J: You better. Alenko would have my ass. How much of the galaxy do you think he's ripped through?

S: If it's any less than half, I'll be slightly disappointed.

#

With a few exceptions, Kasumi worked best on her own.

Of course, she didn't on particularly large heists, where she needed several people to watch things she couldn't on her own. But this was a small thing. Simple, really. Too simple, almost.

All it had taken was a bit of a wardrobe change. She'd swapped out her jumpsuit for a simple lab coat, her regular makeup for something more understated, and lost the hood. She made it a point to only be known with the hood, after all. It made things like this far too easy.

After that, a couple days posing at one of the bases as a new hand from the Boss — no one seemed to know his name, considering he simply signed everything off as 'L' — was very simple. She edited a couple of the incoming messages to include her alias and then strode in with a few datapads as if she owned the place. After that, no one asked her any questions.

Kasumi was, after all, very good at what she did. And it paid off.

Echidna's organization was a lot tighter than what she had seen while working for Shepard under Cerberus. While Shepard had been given free reign to conduct her activities as she saw fit without much "official" oversight, Echidna cells seemed to be run extremely tightly. Someone seemed to be constantly writing reports to both "L" and someone named "Oxley," who if she had to guess was L's version of Miranda. And there were cameras everywhere.

That worked fine for her. She could bug a place like a pro. Without being noticed.

It'd been about four days that she'd been 'undercover,' and her job finally gave her access to the mainframe. After that, it was almost child's play to install a Trojan that started downloading everything.

She'd sent a message to Alenko and company the fifth morning. She knew they'd be there any time, and was in the uncomfortable process of wearing two sets of clothing — her jumpsuit under her lab uniform. It was hot as hell, but that was about it. Hopefully EDI was up with the plan and would hold up her end of the bargain.

Around noon, someone reported a Kodiak shuttle appearing on ladar. A few minutes later, visual scanners identified it as an Alliance shuttle, and someone turned on the sirens.

Kasumi hurried back in the chaos to the server room. Finding that no one had, fortunately, moved in to set off the wipe, she promptly pulled the compressed mainframe data off and turned back towards the door to find the head of the base's security force watching her, gun upheld.

"Oh!" Kasumi covered, pointing over her shoulder at the mainframe. "I wanted to double-check the wipe. You know those Alliance types." She motioned back at the door. "Uh, shouldn't you be ... you know, ready?"

He opened his mouth, and Kasumi took that as her cue. In less than a second she activated her stealth field, leaving him immediately on alert. Kasumi slipped around his back, readying her knife, and it took merely a few seconds to appear behind him and slash his neck in one smooth motion. He staggered before falling to the ground, then fell still. She rushed back into one of the labs, finding the scientists huddled back in a corner. Pretending she was frantic, she joined them, purposefully staying near the front of the group. Gunfire echoed through the base, and she checked to make sure blood wasn't bleeding through her lab coat. That would be a dead giveaway.

After several minutes of extended gunfire as the security force was mowed down (along with the telltale signs of a few biotic detonations here or there), the door snapped open. Kaidan was the first in, gun still ready; behind him strode everyone else, including EDI. Good.

"Free one-time offer," Jack barked. A few of the scientists nodded mutely, immediately showing their hands — the rest followed suit as soon as they realized what the offer was. Kasumi played along, and EDI almost immediately singled her out.

"You have access to the mainframe?" Kasumi nodded, doing her best to look nervous. "Come with me, please."

If the scientists realized that no one stopped the AI from leaving with her, they didn't comment.

Once away from the group, Kasumi shed her uniform and tugged her hood back into place. "Ugh. Didn't think I could take another second in this place."

"I am glad to see you are unharmed," EDI replied. "You said you had —"

Kasumi handed her a datastick. "There you go. Entire mainframe, all nice and ready for you to dissect it."

EDI dropped it into a pocket of the BDUs she'd picked up wearing on away missions and nodded. "I'll compile this with the information Liara sent me once we are back on the ship. Did you learn anything else?"

"Oh, I learned quite a bit. C'mon, let's get them back to the ship. We've got stuff to talk about."

#

"That's it?"

"Well, no one seems to know who the guy is, so it wasn't like I could just ask around," Kasumi replied, leaning against the wall.

"I am absolutely sure that the information we need is somewhere in the database," EDI stated. "I am running all my encryption programs on it as we speak. As soon as I have information, I will alert the ship."

"You ... said that there was someone named Oxley involved?" Miranda asked slowly, drawing her finger along her lower lip as she thought.

"That was one of the names, yeah."

"Tell me you know this guy," Jack said. "Even better, tell me you know where I can punch his fucking face in."

"No, it sounds familiar," Miranda mused. "I can't place it, though. It isn't a common name ... I'll go through my files. If he was former Cerberus I'm sure he's in there."

"Are we even getting any closer to finding them?" Tali protested. The conference room fell silent as everyone decided it was a good time to not look at each other. Garrus finally cleared his throat and straightened, starting out of the room.

"Hey," Kaidan called after him. Garrus raised a talon, not bothering to look back.

"Just gotta call in a favor."

Jack huffed. "Must be fuckin' nice."

"All right. We'll wait until EDI's broken the encryption on those files and we've gotten it together with what Liara sent us, and hopefully we'll be closer," Kaidan said, trying to sound optimistic. "And when we do find it, we don't mess around. We hit wherever they're being held, and we hit it hard."

There was a series of nods, and he pushed himself away from the table.