When they finally lost the mercenaries they regrouped at Shepard department.

"Someone to tell me what's going on here?" Wrex asked.

"Yeah, who were those guys? They were heavily armed and using C-Sec shuttles," said Ashley just as bewildered.

"I don't know. I've never seen them before," Shepard frowned.

"I can't believe you survived all that," said Brooks in disbelief. "They had guns! And grenades! And those drone things!"

"It's all right," said Shepard as he raised his omni-tool. "I'm calling Command Bailey; see what's going on with C-Sec."

"Okay, that sounds…" She then shot up. "Wait! Wouldn't that just make whoever you contact the target, too?"

"She's right, Shepard," said Ashley. "Until we know more, it's a big risk."

"Okay," said Shepard deactivated his omni-tool. "For now, we run this ourselves."

"Right. Ourselves. On our own. Outside the law. Okay. Yeah," Brooks nodded.

Shepard had the instinct impression that she was very nervous. "Brooks, it's okay. I know is a lot to deal with."

"I got shot!" Brooks reminded. "I've got medi-gel, but still, I took the desk job explicitly to not get shot! And you killed a hundred guys with a pistol!"

"Well, yes, that did happen…" Shepard admitted.

Brooke shook her head in disbelief. "I mean, who does that? Well, you, I guess. But besides you? They said the medi-gel might may be jumping." She then looked at the others. "Do I seem jumpy?"

Ashley and Wrex looked at one another unsure how to answer that question.

Shepard was more curious on how Brooks got involved. "How did you get mixed up in this?" he asked her.

"I monitored data for Alliance Intel to prevent fraud and hacking of officer IDs," she explained. "Like someone using an admiral's pass to get into a nightclub on the Citadel when the admiral is fighting on Tuchanka? I wrote a tracking program. It's really neat. I named it 'Mr. Biscuits' after my cat."

"Brooks," said Shepard trying to maintain his patients.

"Right, sorry!" she said apologetically. "Anyway. Mr. Bis… my program detected a region your classified files. Soon, everything we had new was compromised: personal files, mission reports, everything."

"Since when does hacking personal records involve heavy-weapons fire?" Wrex frowned.

"Think of what criminals could do if they had Shepard's military access codes. Or Spectre codes, even!"

Wrex looked at Shepard. "Explains why they need you dead, Shepard. Nothing to stop them until the damage is done."

This was definitely serious. "Okay, let's figure out who they are and shut them down. Ideas?"

"Maybe. That pistol you picked up…" Ashley gestured.

"For such a tiny thing, it packs a punch," said Wrex as Shepard held out the pistol. "Never seen anything like it before."

Liara then chose that moment to enter into the apartment and approached. "Let me see it," she said. "I might be able to help. Glyph…"

Liara activated her omni-tool and Glyph appeared out of thin air.

"I'll begin collecting relevant intel for review, Dr. T'Soni," he said.

Shepard looked at Liara. "Liara."

"Shepard, I'm relieved to see you're in one piece," she said. "Shame about the sushi place, though. It was a favourite."

Shepard felt slightly guilty as he scratched his head. "I hear that."

"All right, Liara's on point. What about the rest of the crew?" Wrex passed.

"Yeah, what about those slackers?" said Joker as he entered the apartment.

Shepard smiled as he walked up to him. "Joker. You've been busy."

"I found some folks who actually like being shot at," said Joker as the rest of the crew entered into the apartment.

"Permission to come aboard, Shepard?" EDI asked.


Joker was still slightly annoyed that Shepard had used as bait. EDI and Javik found the entire situation with the this tank quite amusing which was probably the only thing they have in common. Shepard also noted that Tali was looking at the sushi place which was now closed.

"Back during my Pilgrimage, I used to walk around here that sushi place and what's the best through the window. I knew they'd never let me inside, but I'd think to myself, someday, when I've proven my worth to the galaxy, I'll go there for dinner" she said. She then turned towards him in a manner that suggested that she was quite annoyed. "And then you broke their floor."

"Do they even have food you can eat there?" Shepard asked with a raised eyebrow.

He assumed that Tali was glaring at him behind her visor. "Not the point. Shepard."

James was grateful that Wrex had showed up in time to save the day and mentioned that something similar happened to him once, but the difference was he was a prisoner. However, his focus was mainly on Brooks and Shepard could have sworn that the Lieutenant had a bit of a crush.

Shepard then made his way over to Liara and Brooks, who was watching as Liara was analysing the gun.

"I'm going to have to write a report about getting shot," she said looking at Shepard. "I hear there was a really complicated."

"It's faster if you make a template," said Shepard speaking from experience.

Brooks stared at him. "I think maybe you get shot too much."

Liara then looked up from her work. "Shepard, I found something. We can gather team whenever you're ready."

"You found something?" Shepard asked making his way towards.

She nodded. "I've made some progress. Would you like me to call the meeting?"

Shepard nodded. "Do it."

A few minutes later the rest of the crew assembled around the table and Liara began to show what she had discovered.

"We have a lead," she said. "I called in some favours to trace on the gun. It led me to a casino owner named Elijah Khan. He spent suspected of using his profile to smuggle weapons after the Citadel. Immediately after the attempt on Shepard's life, Khan made an interesting call."

Liara activated her omni-tool and brought up in audio log.

"I'm cutting you off," said Khan's voice. "I'm returning your down payment now."

"What's the problem?" said a voice, which was filtered.

"Turn on a vidscreen! When I sell a gun, I don't want it showing up on the nightly news!" said Khan angrily.

"You won't be linked to me," the client assured.

"Save it," said Khan dismissively. "Our association is terminated. And if you even think of coming after me, I've got info on you ready for prime time, so ponder that. Khan out."

"So that's our identity thief," said Shepard folding his arms.

"Looks like he's got an ID disguiser," said Garrus. "Those things are a pain in the ass to get around."

"Did you get anything on the mercenaries who attacked us?" Shepard asked looking at Liara.

"They're a privately military cooperation called CAT6," she said and then turned to the others. "As most of you know, CAT6 is an Alliance nickname for dishonourable discharges. Many have criminal records, histories of steroid abuse, and other charming features. No doubt hired by the thief, not by Khan."

"That phone call was pretty damning stuff. How'd you get it?" Shepard asked curiously.

Liara shrugged. "It involved the weapon's biometric data, salarian intelligence, and a hanar prostitute with camera implants."

Shepard blinked. "Seriously?"

Liara just smiled. "No, but the truth is boring."

So they were dealing with a bunch of mercenaries that were undisciplined and lone wolves without any concern for themselves or those around them. The mention of the private human military company made him wonder if Cerberus was involved somehow.

Shepard then decided to focus on the bigger picture. "Khan didn't sound suddenly to whoever that voice was. Maybe he'd pass on that info to us."

"That will take some extremely smooth talking," said Liara looking doubtful. "If he sees you, you'll probably assume you're looking for revenge. The casino has a panic room. Chances are, he'll have gone to ground there. EDI can give us programs to hack the door, but the cameras and guards complicate things."

"Yeah. Khan could disappear or worse," Brooks agreed. "If his guards even open fire, normal people could get hit. Like I did."

Shepard nodded. "She's right. We can't risk spooking him. We go in quiet. Small team. No gunplay."

Glyph then appeared in front of them. "Dr. T'Soni, deceiving the casino will be hosting a charity event to assist war refugees."

Shepard looked at Liara and they both agreed this would be the perfect opportunity to sneak in.

"Purchase some tickets, Glyph, then call up a layout of the building."

Glyph then vanished and produced a schematics of the casino.

"Score," said Joker cheerfully. "So how close can you get? You don't usually put a back door in a panic room."

"This air shaft bypasses the security gate and ends up in storage," said EDI highlighting portions of the schematics. "From there, the panic room's door-camera can be disabled."

"Too convenient," Ashley frowned. "There's going to be alarms all over that shaft."

"I believe I have some countermeasures that might help," said Liara. "I'll know more once we're inside."

"Who will go in the shaft?" Javik asked. "They need to be small in size."

"Yeah, that's not me. Too many stacks of roast varren leg," Wrex joked.

In truth there was only a handful of them that could fit into the shaft and had the skills qualified to hack the system. They turned to their first choice which was Tali.

"I suspect my suit's built-in tech would be picked up by security sensors," said Tali.

Then they turned their eyes to EDI.

"My presence in the casino would arouse suspicion," she said. "Mechs are not allowed since they have cheating software."

"What you need is somebody trained in zero-emissions tech," said Brooks. "No electronics, no metal. Just undetectable polymers. We had a course back at Op-Int, disabling a bomb with these little tweezers. See, the bomb was filled with shaving cream…"

"All right. You're in," said Shepard cutting across.

Brooks stared at him, clearly she had not intended to volunteer. "What? No. What?"

"You said it yourself. We've all got too much tech."

"But… I managed to get shot just coming to talk to you! Now I'm supposed to hack my way into a safe room?"

"We'll be backing you up," Shepard assured. "The second you hit something you can't handle, we'll cover you."

"If that settled, it looks like there's one last hurdle to get us inside," said Liara looking down at her omni-tool.

"Which is?" Shepard asked.

"Black tie required."


An hour later Shepard, Ashley and Brooks were at the casino which had many onlookers cheering as famous figureheads paraded into the casino. Shepard had to buy a new suit due to the fact that his other one had been torn, covered in bullet holes and soaking wet. Brooks was wearing a light blue dress and trying not to freak out with everyone watching. Ashley was wearing a dark blue dress and this was entirely new experience for Shepard since they are never seen her in dress before and she looked as beautiful as ever.

"Looking good, Commander. Lean and mean," said Ashley placing her arm around his as they made their way into the casino.

"Business now. Pleasure leader," he said in a saucy way.

"Sir, yes, sir," said Ashley slyly.

Once they were inside they started to pick up their positions.

"I'll go to the ventilation shaft. Wish me luck," said Brooks.

Shepard reached for his radio. "Liara, you have any input?"

"I'm here, Shepard," said Liara. "EDI and I will keep in contact in case we're needed. Khan has a lot of surveillance set up. I'd mingle with the guests if you want to look normal."

Shepard then looked at Ashley. "Okay, Ash. Time to meet the riff-raff."

Shepard recognised a few of the guests like Columbia Rios and Sha'ira and had quite a few interesting conversations with the guests. After which they started to get to work thankfully Liara was able to get some hands-on some lenses that would allow him to see security grids and wiring and a hacking software to allow them to fool the cameras.

Once they switched off the alarm on the grate that allowed Brooks to enter the shaft they return to mingling. Unfortunately, it wasn't long until Brooks was directly above a guard meaning that Shepard had to distract him so that she could keep on moving.

Shepard then had to access another junction box, but in order to do that he needed Ashley to distract the guard and he had to use the hacking software to trick the camera. Unfortunately, the next junction box was in the viewer two guards which meant that Ashley had distract one of the guards and he had awakened to the other guard wasn't looking to access the junction box.

Sadly Brooks tripped a silent alarm and a guard approaching her position. Shepard had a quickly made his way towards him to give EDI time to pose as another guard in order to inform and that it was a false alarm.

Finally they were almost at the panic room, but the next hurdle was quite difficult. There are two sets of cameras and two guards patrolling the area which meant this required perfect timing. Shepard had to wait until one guard was looking away so that he could trip one of the cameras and then had Wrex distract the other guard to allow him to do the same to the second. When the way was clear Shepard approach the final junction box that would allow them access to the panic room.


When the door was opened Shepard and Ashley joined Brooks and they entered into the panic room before any of the guards realised what was going on. There they found Khan sitting in his chair with his back towards them looking at the fireplace.

"Khan, I'm not here to threaten you," said Shepard. "We need to talk."

When Khan didn't respond Ashley made her way towards him and turned the chair around. They soon discover that Khan was dead and judging from the bullet hole in his chest it wasn't too long ago.

"Can just anyone walking here?" Ashley asked sounding annoyed as she crossed her arms. "I don't feel so special now."

Brooks quickly accessed Khan's computer but all the information been deleted. "Commander! There's a deletion order on the terminal."

"Damn it!" Shepard cursed as he began to access the computer hoping to find something useful.

"Everything's been wiped," said Brooks looking flustered. "I don't know if it was him, or the killer, or—" She then looked at Shepard with a slightly panicked look. "When I checked that alarm, did I screw this up?" She then noticed that Shepard was still looking for something. "What are you looking for?"

"Mistakes," said Shepard simply. He smiled when something appeared on his search. "Thought so. Whoever it was had to do this fast. They wiped the terminal, but not the comm."

"Oh. So we can take the comm back the safe house to scan it, or…"

Suddenly a blurry image appeared on the monitor behind them. "Elijah. Coming crawling back?"

"Guess again," said Shepard as Brooks activated her omni-tool.

"You. I see you've recovered from flopping on the floor like a fish," said the mystery man.

"You need to do better than that. The last guy that trash-talk to me was a few kilometres taller than you."

"Brave. I thought as much, but it won't matter. You have nothing. All you can do is wait for the hammer to fall."

"Why do this? What did I do to you?" Shepard asked wanting to understand the motive.

The mystery man didn't answer the question. "I'm going to take everything you have and everything you are."

Then the transmission ended.

"Damn it!" Brooks cursed. "Sorry, Commander. There wasn't enough time to trace the call."

"We're not finished," said Shepard determinedly. "Pull out the data drives."

"The ones that got wiped?" Brooks stared. "You think we can find something?"

"With EDI, anything's possible. The sooner we get them to her, the sooner we can track down this threat."


An hour later they were turned back to Shepard's apartment.

"Hell of a party," said Ashley. "Too bad the host died."

"It wasn't a total loss," said Shepard. He then looked at Brooks. "Brooks, work with EDI to see if there's anything useful on those drives."

"Here's hoping!" said Brooks crossing her fingers. "I'll let you know what we find, Commander"


Shepard hanged out with the rest of his crew as they waited for EDI and Brooks to finish going over the data drive they retrieved.

"I think we got something, Commander," Brooks called.

"What have you found?" Shepard asked as he made his way over to them.

"Commander, EDI and I have been analysing those drives. I think we found something if you're ready."

"Let's hear it," said Shepard.

"Though the data's root structure was erased, the logic integrity remains viable," said EDI.

"EDI has an incredible talent for this stuff," said Brooks. "I know she's an AI, but even still. We found an encryption communication from a few days ago. Just need another minute to crack it."

"A whole minute?" said Joker sounding unimpressed. "EDI here could shape that down to five seconds."

"I thought it would be best to allow Staff Analyst Brooks a chance to improve her decryption skills," said EDI.

"And now you've lost your chance to show off."

"Like she needs it," said Brooks crossing her arms. "You're the crew of the Normandy. You're legends to the rest of the Alliance."

"Legends can be good or bad. Which are we?" Shepard asked.

"You're the kind that people look up to. The kind they owe their lives to."

"Then how come everyone's always shooting at us?" Wrex asked.

"I think it's mostly you, Wrex," said Tali. "The bigger the target, the bigger the… uh, target."

Wrex looked at her. "You're saying I've gained weight?"

"It just means there's more of the legend to love," said Liara.

Wrex glared at her, but said nothing.

"And the camaraderie, the friendship? I think that's your secret weapon," said Brooks crossing her arms.

"It's all just part of the job," said Shepard modestly.

"Wait… 'job?'" said Garrus. He then looked at the others. "You mean the rest of you are getting paid for this?"

At that point the data from the data drive was fully analysed.

"Here we go," said Brooks as she looked over the data. "Wow. Those mercs who are after you? They report a loss of weapons. Like, big ones."

She then pulled out a hologram of an Atlas mech.

"Mechs?" Ashley stared. "What do they need that kind of firepower for?"

Glyph then appeared flashing.

"It appears this drone is preparing to rebel," said Javik.

"I have just monitored the commander's Spectre access code in use at the Citadel Archives," said Glyph.

"Punch it up," Shepard ordered.

Glyph then pulled out the hologram of the archives and highlighted a section of it.

"The archives are going into emergency lockdown," said Brooks. "Whoever's hacking your records is there right now!"

"What do we know about the place?" Shepard asked.

"Council keeps sensitive historical information there. Real hush-hush. Even my old C-Sec clearance never got me in."

"Then we'll find our own way in," said Shepard. "Gear up, and let's—" He turned around and stopped when he came face-to-face with a volus holding out a pizza box. He then looked at his crew. "What's with the volus?"

"Oh. Pizza-delivery guy," said James. "I got the munchies."

"Double pepperoni," said the pizza delivery volus.

"These archives are huge," said Brooks focusing on the real problem. "You'll have a lot of ground to cover. Shame you can't bring everyone."

"Who says we can't?" said Shepard turning towards. "All hands on deck for this one."

"Hell, yeah," James smiled. "But, uh, who get to take point with you?"

Most of his crew coughed to get his attention and the volus coughed to point out that he was still holding the pizza box. "Who's going to pay the bill?" the volus asked.


"What do you mean you, he fell through the fish tank?" Rick asked.

Rick and Rose were with Bailey as they were talking about the recent attempt on Shepard's life of the sushi place.

"Just as I said some armoured men showed up and started shooting at the place looking for him," said Bailey.

"That was one of my favourite sushi places," Rose complained.

"I don't thing Shepard did it on purpose," said Rick. He then turned his focus on Bailey. "Have we heard anything from?"

"No, and that's just the strangest thing," Bailey shrugged. "But I am getting reports that these mercenaries got their hands on a C-Sec shuttle."

"Maybe he's lying low in wanting to sort this out himself," Rose suggested.

"It's possible," Rick agreed. "I however think there's more involved than just simple mercenaries thugs wanting to prove that their tough."

"You don't think it's another Cerberus attack?" Rose asked.

"Well they were all human, but they don't have any ties to Cerberus in fact they have ties to the Alliance," said Bailey. "Ever heard of CAT6?"

Rick eyes widened. "So these mercenaries are just some Alliance washouts that got caught breaking military protocol."

"That would appear to be the case," Bailey frowned. "I'm stepping up security in the area and am looking at every possible lead."

"I'll see if I can't reach Shepard," said Rick as he activated his omni-tool. He tried to call Shepard, but he didn't answer. "Shepard's not picking up."

Bailey frowned. "That doesn't sound good."

"I'll inform Hackett and in the meantime you search for any trace of these mercenaries. I want them caught."

"Don't worry, Major, we're on it," said Bailey.