Semper Vigilo

by CunkToad

Due to a drive core malfunction, a human vessel arrives just in time to save the Council Envoy from the yahg. What happens when humanity enters the galactic stage not as the race that got attacked by the turians for breaking a law they weren't aware of, but as the race that saved a turian platoon from certain death? M for wartime violence, pre ME1 - ME3, no OP humanity.

105. Back to the Twilight

Chapter 105. Back to the Twilight

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25. April 2417 AD, Hagalaz, Ship of the Shadow Broker

"All forces be advised. The reactor has been secured," a voice came over the radio just as Rodriguez opened the door that would allow them to leave the brig behind for good. Unlike the screen-filled room they were in just now, this one didn't seem to hide any nasty surprises. It was only a boring-old storage room with various crates filled with items 'borrowed' from all over the galaxy. Whereas the young biotics following him probably wondered how wine from an asari world had ended up in the same room as batarian rugs, salarian omni-tools and turian legion insignias, Morneau had a decent explanation at hand. The Broker – just like the deceased Donovan Hock - liked to dabble in collecting. In fact, now that he thought about it, that might just be the reason the two had met to begin with.

Well.

Either that or the whole arms-dealing side-show Hock had run before Okuda had roped Morneau into his little vengeance plot and put a few submachinegun-rounds into the man for killing his love.

"Good copy," Furaha, who judging by the sound of gunfire still seemed to face the lion share of the Wave's resistance, responded. "Reroute whoever's expandable at your position to the engines and reinforce the assault there."

"Understood, rerouting squads Red and Gold," the soldier responded just as Morneau passed a crate with human writing that most certainly didn't belong to the collection of trophies. Due to a box that batarian writing labeled as 'quarian junk', his eye only caught a partial of human letters that spelled out '- hne- ked-'. Needless to say, that was already more than enough for him to stop and shove the obstructing crate out of the way and reveal the full 'Property of Hahne-Kedar' text.

He reached into a pocket of his kit and pulled out a small, green chem-light. After his run-ins with PGI, whom he firmly believed to be a part of Hahne-Kedar, Redford's personal suspicions on Insight's role, the Broker's already established connection to the group at the hands of Aganian and his attempt to lull Morneau into a conversation about them, Morneau immediately wanted to tear the box open and see if it somehow explained all of this.

But since he liked his face being in one piece and opening an IED or some other kind of booby-trap could quickly change that, he resisted the urge.

"You guys think there's something we should know?" Jorgensen muttered as Morneau cracked the light to start its glow and then planted it on top of the box so that whoever came through here later would know that this box was of particular interest. When he turned around, he found everyone but Prangley looking at him – presumably in expectation of an explanation.

"No. Just making sure this gets returned to its rightful owner," he replied. Better for them to think HSAIS took issue with Hahne-Kedar tech ending up in alien hands than to figure out the truth.

After the box was marked, the specialist looked at the small screen in the corner of the room, halfway expecting it to turn on and get another commentary from the Shadow Broker.

That didn't happen though.

"Let's move on," he said, pointing the way they had been going and eyed the door up ahead. Unlike the other ones, this one didn't appear to be locked, which immediately made him suspicious. An unlocked door on a ship where every room seemed to be constructed with the intention of delaying any possible incursion couldn't be good. "Get ready for things to get ugly," he added, not exactly thinking about the fact that the squad had probably already considered things as 'ugly' the moment one of their own had gotten his head squished by a yahg in powered armor.

"Copy that," Prangley replied before looking at his squad. "Boost your barriers," he instructed while taking position on the opposite end of the brownish, rectangular door. Since there was no need for Rodriguez to bypass any security locks, he'd finally get his wish to be on point alongside the specialist. Morneau glanced at him, then behind to make sure that everyone was in cover. When he had assured himself of the relative safety of the unit he was accompanying, he nodded towards Prangley, prompting the soldier to open the door. In response to him hitting the old switch, it hissed and stuttered and then slowly opened up.

Much to his surprise, they weren't immediately bathed in machine gun fire. Emboldened by the lack of deadly projectiles, Morneau risked a peak and immediately narrowed his eyes when he realized that the large room ahead, which judging by the various screens and large armored window front showcasing the storm raging outside, appeared to be the observation deck situated next to the bridge; the last stop towards reaching the Shadow Broker.

Morneau scanned the room from the left to right. And just as a lightning bolt cracked outside, he saw a lone, purple asari with a slender figure sitting in a massive chair in what appeared to be a command-and-control element surrounded by a variety of screens and terminals – far too many for any one person to simultaneously track. She had a smug grin on her face, a stun baton in her hand and – just like all the other Final Wave operatives – she wore a white set of armor highlighted with a red, three-pronged star.

With the star being an undeniable identifier of her allegiance, Morneau fired off his rifle.

But instead of striking her barrier, his first round and the ones that followed impacted against an invisible dome surrounding the asari, who seemed distinctively unimpressed by his actions.

After three shots achieving nothing but end up as small blue cracks on an otherwise invisible forcefield, Morneau stopped shooting and the asari stopped playing with her baton. While he took note of the shield-generator build into the ceiling, she off-mindedly tossed her only weapon to the ground, clapped her hands together and slowly stepped into the center of a ceiling light. Once there, she raised her arms in a surrendering gesture before stepping outside of the dome.

Truth be told, Morneau considered shooting her then and there. He knew exactly what this was and by all means, he should end it before it got anywhere.

… but then again, a willing captive associated to the Final Wave and the Shadow Broker was probably worth taking… or at least worth hearing out for a minute or so.

"Stop right there," he called into the direction of the asari, hoping that none of the BAR troopers got trigger-happy or worse, dropped their guard. "You do as much as twitch a muscle, you die."

"Well, well, well. If it isn't my former colleague. Solomon Gunn. I'd say I heard great things about you, but the only thing that really stuck around is that you're a traitor," she said, sarcastically before coming to an immediate stop.

He mustered her, trying to remember if he somehow knew her. In the process of trying to kick-start his mind, Morneau noticed the stylized, pitch-black asari skull to her chest insignia. There could have been a thousand explanations for this creative choice, but considering his luck and the circumstances of this encounter, Morneau feared that it was a relic of her previous employer: Eclipse.

Out of the thousands of mercs that the HSA had killed in that conflict, none had given them as much trouble as the ones bearing this mark. The small, worn-out skull identified the asari as a member of the long dead Jona Sederis' honor guard.

While their origins had never been exactly determined – mostly due to the Republics best efforts to keep them hidden – it was always believed that the select few asari wearing this badge used to be soldiers from a platoon of elite huntresses hailing from Thessia. They had gone rogue right after Eclipse' founding at the promise of earning themselves a fortune working for Sederis and brought with them whatever horrible secrets the Republics were trying so hard to keep bury. And considering that asari could live for centuries, there were bound to a whole lot of those horrible secrets.

Morneau aimed his rifle in the middle of her exposed face and made sure that phasic ammunition was applied.

If he was right about the skull, this asari was a danger to everyone present.

She needed to be put down.

He stayed behind his cover and pressed his finger against the trigger. But just one small squeeze away from discharging his gun again. Morneau was stopped by something unexpected: for a moment, the asari seemed like she genuinely wanted to surrender.

"Wait, wait!" she suddenly declared, stopping his squeezing. All hints of sarcasm and confidence gone and – much to his own confusion – that gave Morneau reason to pause, mostly because he tried to limit his technical war crimes to the heat of combat. "You aren't actually going to shoot someone who's surrendering, are you?" the asari asked with what he assumed was faked innocence. Then she lowered her raised hands and held them out in front of her, making him doubt his own assumption for just a second too long. "Take me prisoner. This Broker shit isn't worth dying over. I'm done," she offered, this time towards the BAR troopers.

Morneau almost bought her act.

Almost.

Sadly his companions weren't as used to people lying in their faces as he was.

In the same moment that Prangley gave the order to move out and left his cover, the specialist added two and two together. He understood what the slender asari was doing in the same instant that he saw a purple flicker dance over her hand and heard a door hiss somewhere behind her.

He technically had two choices, yell a warning to the soldier to get back and hope that it worked, or take the shot and hope that it worked.

Since he always favored direct solutions for his problems, Morneau chose the latter.

He pulled the trigger but by the time the round left the muzzle of his borrowed Valkyrie, his target was no longer there. The tiny phasic projectile tore through empty air and a trail of purple, biotic residue; but no asari skull.

She had already moved along with deadly intentions.

One second Prangley was half-exposed in the doorway, in the next, he was limply flying into Diego and sending both of them spiraling back into the storage room because of the biotic charge that had just hit him: the telltale move of asari huntresses.

The hit Prangley had taken looked and sounded nasty, but Morneau didn't have time to check on them because now the asari was standing right next to him and throwing a particularly dark-looking biotically fueled punch at his head. With time and positioning working against him, he only managed to derail the blow by sacrificing the rifle he'd just borrowed.

In remembrance of a basic hand-to-hand drill that had been buried somewhere in his muscle memory ever since the first lessons at Grissom Academy, Morneau slapped the asari's hand away with his Valkyrie, realizing far too late that the direct contact between the weapon and the dark-glowing biotics – which he now recognized as a tell-tale sign of a very powerful annihilation field - would result in him only retaining half an assault rifle.

As her punch had impacted with the wall and Morneau had removed his gun out of the equation by his own stupidity, the two looked at each other for a split-second. The purple asari smirked in recognition of what had happened and continued her attack, Morneau on the other hand relied on another basic he probably should have used earlier: ducking.

He got of the way of the punch in the nick of time and came back up slightly to the left of the asari– catching sight of several, vaguely human-looking figures streaming into the bridge in the process. Simultaneously, he pulled his handgun. Whoever those guys were, he had more pressing issues to take care of.

In retrospective, he probably should have chosen his biotics to fight the Final Wave merc. But since only a comparatively little portion of his training since leaving Grissom Academy had concerned itself with his biotics and so much of it had instead been aimed to turn him into a 'regular' specialist – who usually didn't come as biotic models – the trusty SIS-8 at his hip was his instinctual choice.

He roughly aligned the handgun with the merc (at this distance there wasn't a lot of sense in aiming) and managed to fire off a few shots before the same thing that happened to his Valkyrie happened to the well-maintained handgun that had accompanied for nearly fourteen years. In one second he was firing off bullets, in the next, the asari – who's barriers had caught all of the rounds – grabbed a hold of the weapon's barrel and made it disappear with a burst of dark, biotic energy.

Since he was still holding on to the gun with his hand, the annihilation field continued upwards to his hand and then did something the asari probably hadn't expected.

After a second of looking as destructive as before, it died down in a small flicker at the curtesy of the amethyst spots now glistening orange on his gauntlet.

He was left unharmed instead of being rendered unarmed in the truest sense of the word.

The asari – clearly stunned by what had just happened – never saw his next move coming. He'd attribute that to how stupid it would have been for anyone else to attempt something like this on someone clad in an annihilation field.

Morneau – who had just remembered what he was wearing and what that meant for the biotic field protecting and strengthening the asari – forwent all flashy hand-to-hand tactics and decided to solve the problem by using his head; both figuratively and literally.

Confident in Robin's and Ardrey's engineering skills, he grabbed a hold of the shoulders of the asari and smashed his helmet into the unprotected face of the Eclipse-veteran; first once to check if the coating would really interrupt a sustained biotic field (which in practice, both barriers and annihilation fields were) and then again when the purple blood that had spurted on his visor confirmed that it did.

With biotics as a force-equalizer removed from the equation and both of them essentially brought down to normal, the effects of his primitive attack were devastating.

The asari, while clearly an experienced and well-trained fighter, was still only as strong and resilient as her muscles, statue and overall biology permitted her to be. While she probably ranked high among her own kind, compared to a human male - particularly one with Morneau's habits and hobbies – she suddenly fell very short.

The strength and resilience competition currently going on was as one-sided as one would expect when considering that the specialist with his armor and gear on probably weighed at least twice, if not thrice as much as the slender, purple commando currently tasting the front of his helmet.

As expected, an unflinching, armor-plated helmet propelled by the full force of someone of Morneau's build (and species), had some pretty nasty results on an exposed face of flesh and bone.

It didn't hurt the asari to the point of allowing the specialist an opening to make a move to finish the fight; it ended the fight immediately, far quicker and far different than the asari had suspected. The two headbutts of the specialist was all the violence ever needed. They broke the majority of smaller bones in her face and knocked her out cold.

When he realized she'd gone limp in his grip, the Section 13 operative looked at the merc for a second and contemplated if he should finish her like he'd finished the turians. But just as he reached for his knife, he came back to his earlier decision and determinted that HSAIS probably had a lot questions for someone from Sederis' former hit squad. With that in mind, he quickly zipped some restraints around the asari's hands and feet and turned his attention back to the mess at hand.

First he checked on Diego and Prangley. One of the two armored figures – Diego – was up and about and dragging his unmoving comrade – Prangley – into cover to render first aid.

Not good considering that this meant that they were down on two more rifles, but also not terrible considering at least one of them was still alive and on his feet.

Next he turned to the other side of the door, intend on assisting Rodriguez and Jorgensen with fighting the new arrivals… or he would have, if he still had any other weapons and munitions besides his biotics, a combat knife, some hand grenades and a lot of now useless SIS-8 magazines.

He looked at the captured asari, only to realise that the merc had been so confident in her biotics that she hadn't even bothered to bring a gun.

'Stealing's not an option then', he thought before looking to the BAR troopers. "I need a gun!" he declared loudly, just as well-aimed gunfire caused the hunkered down Jorgensen to flinch further into his cover. With biotics alone, he wouldn't be able to be much help.

"Seriously? Again?" the BAR trooper asked, probably wondering if specialists made a habit of losing his firearms in the worst possible moment or if it was just something unique to Morneau. Three in one mission certainly painted a bad picture, he'd admit that much.

Despite his disbelief at the fact that the specialist had lost not one, but three guns already, Jorgensen grabbed the mass accelerator pistol magnetically locked to his hip, a standard-issue SIS-9 Phalanx, and slid it across the floor towards Morneau, who snatched it as soon as it had cleared the opening of the door.

For a second, he considered trying to salvage the phasic ammunition mod of off Hussein's shattered Valkyrie rifle, but then the extend of the damage that the asari had done became evident. Nothing of the rifle's middle had survived, which was impressive considering the fact that Valkyries, just like every other weapon in the HSA arsenal, were first-and-foremost built with durability in mind.

Speaking of durability.

He quickly glanced at his gauntlets and noticed that the black alloy and amethysts spots were now covered in a layer of grey, smoldering ash that came off as soon as he rubbed it with his other hand. The action revealed the stone-grey armor underneath and confirmed what he'd already known. Just like Robin had told him, the insulator coating was a one-time ace and now it was partially gone.

As soon as the thought surfaced, Morneau shook his head at the idea of how much longer he could have sustained his grappling fight with the knocked-out asari before ending up like on Noveria. Instead, he leaned out of his cover to shoot at whoever was shooting at them. When he did, the next surprise hit him.

As soon as his sights had leveled themselves on a figure in bulky black armor lacking any markings whatsoever and he had squeezed of the first shot at it – something that immediately made the figure duck after its shields absorbed the hit with a strange, almost red glow - the specialist remembered Hock's goons from Kosh.

These guys weren't Final Wave.

So what were they doing here?

He put a few more shots into the cover that the figure was hiding behind - now that he had a mass accelerator, ammunition conservation was hardly an issue – and then returned to cover only to immediately pop back up at another angle and height, switching from the basics of hand-to-hand combat to the basics of gunfighting.

"What's our plan?" Rodriguez asked while Morneau fired at the next silhouette, only to once more observe the red shimmering.

With Prangley out of the picture and the fight firmly in motion, he figured that it was only natural for them to turn to him. He didn't respond immediately, mostly because he was trying to find the perfect cadence of putting down enough rounds on his target without needing to vent the heatsink of the gun. But when he failed at that – which really should have been expected considering how little range-time he had clocked in with mass accelerator pistols compared to other guns– he turned to look at the young biotic.

"They still taught you immobilize and neutralize, didn't they?" The concept was easy. One part of the unit acted as bait, the second part stunned their targets using a biotic stasis and the third part either moved into a more favorable position or simply destroyed the locked-up target. Back in his Grissom days, it was the go-to strategy of human biotics. It had been designed to make integrating the units into the standard fire-and-maneuver doctrine of human infantry as easy as possible.

"Course they did!" Rodriguez replied before Morneau saw a small object fly towards out of the corner of his eye.

- shit.

Their opponents had clearly seized the moment they had spent on debating to do some firing and maneuvering of their own and gotten into throwing-range.

"Grenade!" he yelled reflexively, just before the thing landed right next to him and his asari captive.

Without doing as much as thinking about it (something that definitely would have gotten Rodriguez, Jorgensen, him and their captive killed in this specific situation) Morneau kicked the round explosive back through the door and into the room it had come from. It exploded diagonally across from him, just behind the wall that served as the cover of the two BAR soldiers currently fighting with him. It was then immediately followed up on by more bursts of precise assault rifle fire clearly meant to pin them to allow for another throw.

He wouldn't let it get that far.

"Immobilize and neutralize now! I'm the bait!" he declared before throwing himself out of the door frame and into the first cover available within the room, the socket off a control panel. He fired his gun into the general direction of the black figures all the way until it hissed steam and then hunkered down behind the socket. This little, three-second-long dash immediately resulted in his barriers shattering and his experimental shields flashing a warning that they were now on their own.

Their enemies were good shots with good weapons and good ammunition, which was inherently problematic for them, even if Rodriguez declared that she 'got one' a few moments later.

Before he could rejoice in that statement, a bright, orange explosion erupted somewhere up ahead in the room and the tell-tale noise and shine of thermite igniting itself stood out among the gunfire.

He could only see it on the somewhat reflective metal floor he was currently looking at, but from this angle it almost seemed like an incineration packet had just triggered.

These devices were as controversial as salarian ocular flashbangs. However unlike the strange salarian invention – which at least had the curtesy of not going off unless the user absolutely wanted them to – these batarian-made devices had a nasty habit of getting set-off by things like gunshots, freak electric currents or open fire.

Morneau inched along his cover and leaned out to see if he could spot another one of the armored figures, all the while thinking that he had never heard of anyone other than SIU or religious fanatics using those things. Even the External Forces refused to use them and those guys were fanatics in their own right.

… not that he minded his enemy wearing an easily exploitable weakness somewhere on their armor…

"Good work," he said over the radio, trying to see another target and maybe take it out of the equation with a well-placed shot. When he couldn't immediately find one, he looked at the next terminal socket. Him running around the room should draw them out. He checked the indicator on his HUD. His barriers weren't back up fully yet, but his shields were still good.

And since the way was shorter and their enemy was down one shooter, his current defenses should suffice. Probably. "Listen up. We're doing the same thing again. Moving in five, four," he counted, all too eager to leave before yet another grenade was tossed his way. He'd already gotten lucky once, he somehow doubted it'd end up working twice. "three, two, one," he finished before running off again and - once he'd taken the first few shots and jumped forward - sliding into the relative safety of the batarian-made terminal closest to him.

This time around, there was no confirmation that their move had worked. As a matter of fact, neither Rodriguez nor Jorgensen said anything and as he threw a look at the door, which was now covered with a red cloud of smoke very reminiscent of the standard-issue smoke grenades of the HSA, Morneau understood that the same move wouldn't work twice on whoever they were facing.

He'd have to come up with a new trick and quickly too. In the wake of his sprint, rounds began to bounce off and then pierce through Morneau's limited cover, hitting his shields.

He looked around as much of the room as he could see right now. But other than the terminal sockets and the seat they'd found the asari in, there was noth-

Immediately, his eyes darted back to the seat. He'd just remembered a crucial detail from earlier. The shield generator integrated into the ceiling. It was a good ten meters away from him and odds were that he wouldn't get there without getting gunned down… but if he did, he'd have the best piece of cover in the room and could attack into every direction.

He took another second to focus on the shots pouring down on his own position and the doorframe hiding the BAR troopers. It didn't seem like they were coming from anywhere other than in front of them and unless their enemy had the inhuman ability to split their bullets in flight, the gunfire had to come from at least two of the three remaining opponents, meaning that only one was unaccounted for.

Those were odds he was willing to take.

He ignored the mass accelerator round that struck through the socket next to his head and pulled out the one smoke grenade he had brought, deciding to take a page out of his enemy's book. After taking a deep breath, he pulled the pin, flung it into the general direction of where the gunfire was coming from and declared over the radio that he was moving.

Then he was off, running for the (hopefully still active) domed shield in the center of the room. He jumped over a socket in his path and noticed the figure taking aim at him. He was now about halfway to the massive chair and realized that he had grossly misjudged how long it would take him to actually reach the safety of the bluish glow surrounding it or what weapons his enemies were carrying. As a concussive shot – a type of guided munition usually used to subdue biotics – tore through the smoke and somehow hit him squarely in the chest (could these guys see through smoke specifically designed to combat any kind of scope?) his barriers exploded with a flash of purple. With the hit knocking the air out of him, Morneau tumbled to the floor just in reach of the safety of the shield dome and a red warning message flashed up in the corner of his HUD, once more dominating his field of vision.

As he pushed himself off his back, Morneau grunted.

He really ought to turn that function off if he got the chance.

He ignored the flashing red light, crawled into the middle of the dome and got up next to the chair. Then he aimed his Phalanx at the three black figures who'd just shot at him and were now steadily – almost mechanically - advancing on him to join him in the dome to try and kill him. As he waited for them to show a hint of hesitation (which they didn't) Morneau had to admit that he hadn't actually planned any further than this and would once more have to rely on improvisation to get himself out of the hole he'd just dug.

He pondered his options. His gun, his biotics, the remaining grenade… but before he had to resort to any of this, the universe – in a strange change of heart - seemed to favor him for a change.

A mere second before all three enemies would have entered the dome and he would've had to find out if he could win a three-on-one with the positively deadly-looking merc-commandos, a second doorway leading to the room they were in exploded out of its frames. A breaching charge.

Before the smoke had cleared, a swarm of figures in HSAMC hardsuits flooded into the room – headed by Captain Furaha – and not a moment later, the three figures in front of him were gunned down and their incendiary packs detonated right outside the shield. The blast had enough force and heat to burn a small hole into the ground and turn their wearers into ash before anyone could try to identify them and as they smoldered, Morneau was really glad that he'd been inside of the shield just now.

"Clear!" one BAR trooper exclaimed. Summoned by his call, Morneau stepped out of the dome and the squad he had accompanied walked out form beyond the dispersing smoke. He spent a split-second contemplating if he should ask where the hell they'd been and if they had enjoyed watching him trying not to die, but then he remembered what he'd told them and silently watched as the three carried Prangley – who's feet were dangling at an odd and definitely broken angle – towards him.

They'd done exactly what he'd asked of them. So if he wanted to blame anyone for his latest near-death experience, he only had to look at himself…

As usual, really.

After nodding at Rodriguez, Morneau spun around to the higher-ranking marine approaching him. His HUD identified her as Furaha and his first reaction was to want to say something about Hussein and being sorry for not getting everyone through in one piece. But then Magic once again took over, realized where the marines had come from (the bridge) and pointed out the obvious.

"Did you come across the Broker on your way here?" was the first thing that left his mouth. His voice sounded cold and detached and right now he was sure that he perfectly played as stereotypically stoic HSAIS spook all grunts learned to hate.

Furaha shook her head and Morneau got a sinking feeling in his gut.

Had they missed him?

Had all of this been pointless?

"Didn't see any Broker on our way here. Just a whole bunch of very desperate Wavers," she retorted before nodding to the marines. "Where's Hussein?" her tone already told him that she already knew.

"KIA by one of the yahg. Nothing I could do to stop it. Sorry," he replied, this time around not sounding quite as cold as just now.

Furaha nodded ever so slightly. Maybe she'd hold it against him, maybe not. Matter of fact was that he had failed. They both knew that. Furaha looked at the ash on the ground where one of the black-armored figures had fallen. "Who were these guys?"

"I'd like to know that too," the specialist responded before looking around the room in and sighing loud enough for the biotic officer to notice.

"There's no way he escaped, right?" the captain asked.

"I really wanna say no, but, yeah," he trailed off before gesturing towards the empty room and walking away to investigate. "This suggests something else."

Their plan had been fool-proof.

No one could have left the ship, let alone the planet or the system.

… so where the hell was their target?

Had he fled in some unknown way?

Or was he hiding?

Given that he was presumably a yahg, Morneau had expected the Shadow Broker to put up a fight. They were fiercely territorial beings and considering they had pretty much come to his doorstep and challenged everything he stood for… he'd figured there'd be hell to pay.

Yet here they were. A Shadow Broker lair without a Shadow Broker.

Maybe the illusive figure was a smart coward after all?

He walked back to the chair underneath the shield generator and looked around the observation deck for any clues. A secret door, a hidden escape pod, optical camoflague; basically anything that could explain why the Broker was gone.

The answer had to be somewhere around here. He only needed to-

As soon as he heard the squeaking of servomotors and the hissing of a door, Morneau interrupted his clue finding and turned around.

The sound was coming from the front of the chair, just where a bunch of BAR troopers were now staggering to either side of the opening floor to avoid falling down into a dark hole.

"Considering that you are all vermin," a deep voice declared before all of the lights and screens on the observation deck turned off, turning the room completely dark, "I have to admit that I am impressed by your ability to become a continued nuisance to my operation," as his HUD turned night-vision green and the room once more became visible, the first thing Morneau saw was a triangular shaped full-face helmet with eight glowing eyes and a bunch of BAR troopers rushing for cover upon Furaha's order to 'get clear' of whatever – or rather whoever – was now entering the battlefield.

After they stopped tracking individual targets, he felt all of the eyes zero in on him and on instinct, Morneau took a few cautious steps back and stared at who he presumed to be the one and only Shadow Broker.

For a second, he was glad that the Broker was still here after all

But when his mind told him that there was now a yahg in a heavy suit of powered armor standing right in front of him and staring at him like he was dinner, he realized that he'd much rather have preferred it if the Broker had turned out to be a runner after all.

He narrowed his eyes and a few cautious steps immediately turned into him quickly running for the closest cover when a huge machine gun n the Broker's right hand became visible.

What else could he do?

Stand still and find out if he was bullet proof?

Or try taking on what was basically a mech in hand-to-hand combat?

The yahg was much larger than any of the ones he'd just fought and, much to his dismay, it also appeared to have an even more advanced exoskeleton and the protection of an energy shield just like the one he'd been hiding behind.

Screw the 'basically' in his previous assessment.

This thing was a mech; a poor man's Paladin. There was just no other way to put it.

Curtesy of said shield, the Broker could ignore the bursts of gun fire, biotic attacks and explosives thrown at him by the BAR and simply wait as the elevator continued to ascend; something that took a worryingly long time and made Morneau wonder just how large the suit the Broker was wearing really was. Simultaneously, he also came to the conclusion that any attempts of taking the Broker in alive had just died.

As he jumped into cover, Morneau pondered that at least now he knew what the Broker had been stalling for. Putting on something like that was bound to take some time.

"Find a way to take him down!" Furaha ordered before the sporadic attack orders of individual squad leaders turned into a cohesive assault on the mech suit.

While the BAR engaged the Broker with everything they had - including but not limited to machine guns, biotics and small missile launchers- Morneau looked at the Phalanx pistol in his hand. Against the Paladin-rip-off currently hunched over in the center of the observation deck, his gun might as well be a peashooter. Especially with the shield still protecting him.

The same couldn't be said about the Broker's own weapon though.

The gun in the mech's gun started to move and before the yahg unloaded on the BAR troopers unfortunately closest to him, he said something that stood out to Morneau enough to imprint itself into his memory.

"All the more ironic that it will be a weapon your disloyal kind helped me create that finally removes your taint from my home," what the fuck did he mean by-

The sound of Morneau's own thoughts was drowned out when the large autocannon fired and ripped through the BAR troopers standing next to the yahg. Despite flashes of protective barriers and shields, the gun effectively cleaved them in half like a scythe going through grass before punching holes into the wall of the bridge, which involuntarily triggered a hull breach alert that led to emergency shutters slamming down from their compartments.

When he was done cutting down the soldiers on his right, the yahg slowly turned the large gun back towards Morneau, still ignoring the gunfire, rockets and biotics being thrown at him. As the Broker moved, the top of his armor suit scraped along the ceiling and his feet made the metal floor underneath him squeak and bent, which gave the specialist an insight that should have bene obvious in the first place.

...someone clearly hadn't intended for this thing to be used indoors and unlike an actual Paladin, it seemed to be very slow on its feet; a flaw that hadn't survived even the first generation of the first prototypes of the Hahne-Kedar suits precisely because of how vulnerable it made them.

Anyone who knew half a thing about mechs – and especially a species who'd gone through several wars involving them – would have known that mobility beat armor.

The yahg however clearly lacked this experience.

He could use that.

As the Broker moved his heavy suit of armor through the dark deck – smashing his screens and various sockets with his gun in the process – Morneau began to move, staying ahead of the muzzle of the machinegun and waving for the BAR troopers in his way to do the same. The ones who were focused enough to catch on followed, the ones who didn't hit the deck and hoped for the best while continuing to throw everything they had at the Broker.

It didn't really do much.

Nothing -not even the missiles- seemed to deplete the shields. It was like he had an infinite power supply stored somewhere in his armor and every time he took a missile to the face or a biotic blast to the back, he only growled and got angrier.

As Morneau passed Furaha, who was probably wondering why their HSAIS asset was running around in literal circles, the Broker decided that he was done conserving ammo and simply began to fire as he slowly spun around the room.

"You can run, but that'll only prolong the inevitable," he stated while his shots punctured the hull and made more shutters appear. While his gun was loud, his deep voice was reinforced by the filters of his helmet and as such, his boasting was (sadly) still audible. "First I will crush you and then I will crush the rest of your insolent kind. The galaxy will know its place and your collective sins to my people will be repaid in blood and service," while the yahg gloated and possibly betrayed his future intentions or dreams of a yahg star empire, Morneau finally noticed that every time a shot impacted with the Broker's shields, the shield generator in the middle of the room flared to life with a small burst of energy that appeared as an almost white flash through the night vision of his helmet.

This tiny detail (which he really should have picked up on earlier) immediately told Morneau how the Broker's trick worked.

The armor didn't actually have a proper shield generator.

It was syphoning energy from the ship's own shields.

That also explained why the lights on the bridge had suddenly gone out.

The lines couldn't support the tech and the suit at the same time.

He was feeding all the power of this section into the little projector over the chair, which meant that a little shove in the right direction – say by the means of a few well-placed shots- could break the entire thing.

The specialist slowed down, first into a jog and then into a walk. When he reached the dead angle in form of the back of the slowly turning mech and looked at glowing exhaust ventils and clamps and bolts clearly meant to keep the whole suit together were visible, he stopped and aimed his Phalanx; not at the vulnerable bits and pieces of the yahg's armor, but at what was directly above him: a powerline leading to the generator.

This was a stupid idea that could literally blow up in his face and kill everyone in the front half of the ship.

But it was about the only thing he could think of right now that might save the lives of all present – excluding the Broker, of course.

… who dared, won, right?

His first shot did nothing and neither did his second. They only harmlessly bounced off the metal exterior of the powerline. His third however managed to hit something crucial and produced a spark, which turned into a bright fire that traveled along the length of the bridge after his fourth and fifth shots hit the very same spot. When it reached the shield projector, it turned into an explosion… which was now travelling directly towards him.

- well. Shit.

As it hit him and the world turned upside down and weightless, the specialist could only really think that sometimes you won and sometimes you died and that he'd finally managed to run his astronomically large fountain of luck dry.

After seeing nothing but white for several moments, Morneau briefly wondered if all the people still holding on to old terrestrial religions or the weird neo-monotheistic blend of human faiths that had surfaced after humanity's expansion across the stars had been right after all and you really did end up in some kind of endless boid after you managed to off yourself up in a spectacularly stupid manner.

… but then white and weightless quickly turned into broken metal, rough winds, an HASMC helmet and the realization that he was dangling off an edge in what used to be the front-half of the Broker's ship and only being saved from falling into Hagalaz's stormy winds by a biotically-gifted human holding on to his arm.

The figure holding him was clearly struggling, but at least nothing appeared to be crumbling underneath her an no husks were leaping at either of them.

After spending a fraction of a moment considering how ironic this was, Morneau forced himself back to a sound state of mind.

He shook his head, surrounded himself with a layer of biotic energy and grabbed on to a piece of jagged metal that looked strong enough to support his now reduced weight. Then he pulled himself up and rolled away from the edge. Once that was done, his first action as to turn his head to where the Broker had been standing.

In place of the yahg-paladin, he only found the remnants of large mech legs, burned metal, half-molten pieces of armor and a broken gun that should've probably been placed on top of an APC and not in someone's hands.

So much for putting him into a present with a bowtie.

... although knowing HSAIS, they'd still have a field-day after scraping a bit of Broker juice out of those boots with a spoon and looking at it with all kinds of fancy microscopes and whatnot.

He turned his head to his savior – Captain Furaha,– rolled his neck to produce a loud crack (which he probably shouldn't have done considering he'd just gotten thrown through the air and landed in god knew what position) and then forced himself to stand up, taking note of the sting in his ankle in the process.

Probably sprained.

Even if he'd gotten front row seats to what was essentially a small bomb exploding and definitely had gotten injured in the process, he still utterly refused to be a casualty.

"Thanks," he said, trying to determine if the blood taste in his mouth was new or if it had already been there since he'd been smacked around by the other yahg. When his tongue found a warm, bloodied spot just outside his mouth, he was relieved that the bleeding seemed to at least be externally and then subsequently decided to ignore it.

He looked towards the half of the deck still standing where human blood had spurted all over the wall and a bunch of BAR troopers were standing over the remains of their comrades. "How many?" was his first question. He needed to know, if only for the sake of being able to add to the list of people who'd died on his watch.

For a second the captain was silent. She turned the way he was looking and her shoulders dropped. "In here? Just the six from earlier," huh. He hadn't expected that good of a – "in total, twenty-six KIA, thirty-one wounded. For now. Three of the wounded aren't looking that good." Morneau did some quick maths.

That was half the unit who'd either died or gotten injured just for the Broker to anti-climatically explode at the hands of what was probably a fairly obvious design flaw in the shield system.

He sighed.

Yeah. That sounded about as right of a finish to this shitshow as possible.

After spending another moment taking in the carnage, he looked at the remains of the command-and-control station and asked a question he knew would once more make him seem like the coldest person on the planet.

"What about his data? His network?" he asked while walking over.

"If it wasn't on the servers, I think its save to say that it's probably gone now," Furaha responded while following him. "You need any help?" she observed because he had to limp the first couple of steps because of the sharp pain in his presumably twisted ankle. He shook his head and pushed through the pain. It was nothing a pair of tight boots couldn't fix and considering the messed up troopers lying at the opposite end of the room, he really couldn't complain.

"I'm fine. Take care of your men," he said, a sharp inhale betraying that the twisted ankle might actually be broken after all. He ignored it nonetheless and only stopped walking forward when he could lean against the chair and interface his omni-tool with the one terminal that had miraculously survived the fight.

He could worry about injuries later on.

Right now he needed to finish his mission.

Besides, twenty-fifth century medicine could bring someone back from getting spaced and blown up, so fixing something as basic as a broken ankle really wasn't that big of a deal.

He impatiently watched as his omni-tool build up the connection and cursed when the first things he read after looking for the messages were statements along the lines of:

'Shadow Broker unresponsive for two minutes. Terminating contact from Sur'Kesh until further notice'; 'he flatlined two minutes ago. Unless someone picks up, Palaven's going dark permanently,'; 'and that's the two-thirty-minute mark crossed. Thessia is going offline as well. You know how to reach us in case you decide to resurrect again,' and finally 'unresponsive for three minutes. Assuming network compromised. Burn clearance granted?'

For a second he wanted to smash the terminal in front of him to pieces because it seemed like everything had been for nothing.

But then he read the last message and wondered what was wrong with him that he felt good about what was essentially bad news.

'Negative on the burn clearance. If the yahg's dead, Insight is taking over the show. We still have work to do. You know our goals, you know your rally points and you know the punishment for desertion. Report to me on the backup channels within the hour or prepare to face the consequences.'

.. what an oddly human-sounding sentence.

"Anything?" Furaha asked, prompting Morneau to quickly shut off his omni-tool. The Broker was one thing. Project Group Insight however was an entirely different beast. Especially if Redford was right, which was usually the case.

"Not sure yet," he lied. He was definitely sure. "We'll have to wait for the analysts to dig through all of this rubble," he lied on before looking at the boots of the Broker's poor-man Paladin before realizing what had been lingering in the back of his head all this time. "The squad I accompanied, are they-" he began. The last time he'd seen them was before the Broker's attack and he hadn't actually though to check up on them until now.

"They are fine, except for Hussein. But you already knew that." Furaha replied.

Morneau felt his jaw tighten.

"I said I'd get your guys through this in one piece, and I didn't," he said. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" the captain responded. "I'm the one who lost twenty soldiers just to get here. If anyone failed at protecting these guys, it's me," she trailed off and looked at a soldier being carried off by a pair of still standing biotics. "Just answer me this," she stated. "Was it worth it? Did you get what you needed?"

He looked at the terminal and then the Broker's remains, thinking back to his earlier white-lies.

"I know you want to hear me say yes, but the truth is, I'm not sure. Not yet at least," he stated, knowing that what he was about to say wasn't a white-lie but rather a straight-up false statement that'd only make however long Furaha and everyone else still had a bit more bearable after today. "Only thing I know is that with him dead, the galaxy's going to be a bit safer from here on out." … if only that were true. The reality of their situation was the opposite. Things would only get worse from here. "Let's get the hell out of here. I've seen enough of this place for two lifetimes."

"Two lifetimes?" Furaha asked. "The way you fell back there, I'd say you already used up eight of those in here."

"Trust me. At this point I'm way past eight lives."

---

Three Hours Later, 25. April 2417 AD, HSASV Scott

After returning from the ship and making sure that the salvage crews knew exactly what to look for, Morneau had gotten a quick debriefing from yet another HSAIS intelligence officer he didn't know and then been ordered to 'return to Cronos Station immediately and without detours' – which presumably meant that he wasn't going to have any downtime despite having just finished one hell of an op.

When that was done, he had packed up his damaged gear into a footlocker which he intended to haul to Robin at the first chance he'd get. The ablative armor really had come in useful and he'd definitely see if he couldn't get it replaced and maybe convince someone to distribute it to other units now that he could attest to its usefulness first hand.

After he'd taken care of his gear, Morneau had finally decided to take care of himself next and limped to the Scott's infirmary, where a medical officer had immediately diagnosed him with a 'complicated' fracture of his ankle, a 'moderately severe concussion' and 'one hell of a guardian angel'.

The man had advised him to stay in the infirmary for some check-ups – especially because the broken ankle could only get fixed tomorrow after it was done swelling up, but since he was … well... himself, he'd just asked for some painkillers and a brace and then limped back halfway through the Scott to pass a message to Redford that they needed to talk about 'his role as an instructor in the upcoming Marvel Course'.

While such a course did in fact exist, Morneau would most definitely not be doing any instructing in it whatsoever. It was a code phrase they'd agreed to use years ago whenever the topic being discussed wasn't actually supposed to leak through the proper levels of HSAIS bureaucracy or anyone else listening in on their conversations.

And since Redford was … well… the guy who'd taught him everything, Morneau was sure the older specialist would understand his intentions.

With his gear and himself maintained and the situation thoroughly debriefed – both officially and unofficially – Morneau only needed to do one more thing, which ironically, he dreaded far more than the idea of fighting the Reapers, chasing insight or – worst of all – the Internal Affairs debrief and regular post-undercover-op interviews waiting for him back on Cronos Station: debriefing the hostage.

As the technically highest-ranking (and currently only) HSAIS operative on board of the Scott, the intelligence officer he'd talked to had ordered Morneau to give Wong the usual 'if you go public about this there will be consequences', 'no one would ever believe you anyways' and – most importantly- 'for the greater good, you need to understand that you can't breathe a word of this to anyone' speeches the Internal Affairs lawyer types usually handled whenever there was a public fallout for a classified HSA operation.

So while someone else would handle the investigation into the exact nature of Wong's work – a specialist was deemed to valuable for a task like that – HSAIS did see it fit to have him be the deliverer of what was essential a glorified NDA.

Back when the order had come through, he'd figured that it wasn't such a big deal to do this. Especially after he'd been handed a literal script to read off and told himself that his last run-in with Wong on the Broker's ship had been fine as well.

But then he'd remembered that he couldn't just run off with the excuse of chasing his mission or hide behind the anonymity of body armor this time around and that he would have to face the woman in all her justified anger and use all of his debatably good emotional skills to give both of them some closure.

That was easier said than done, especially when his mind had already moved on to how he'd get the director to sent him after the Reapers the moment he was back on Cronos.

… but just because it was hard didn't meant that he could just skip out on it.

What the hell kind of specialist ran away from a conversation anyways?

So here he was.

Standing in front of the large meeting room he'd had Wong sent to the moment he'd heard that she was already up, medically cleared and about and asking questions left and right. Before actually walking inside, he had decided to try and arrange what he wanted to say in his head before going in. That was the surest way he could think of to avoid getting rhetorically demolished by someone who made a living out of asking painful questions and exposing people's (and the government's) dirty secrets.

His concept was easy.

Address the situation, clarify that what happened had happened and then finally inform her that this was the one and only time they'd talk to each other.

A clear cut; the best kind of closure anyone could ask for.

As his hand hovered over the lock, he wondered if it was too late to get a refresher on the interrogation-resistance classes all specialists were put through. But before he could make up his mind or find another excuse to delay this conversation (which he was sure would rank on a level of discomfort and awkwardness similar to his post-Noveria talk with Alec's daughter) he swiped the lock and stepped inside to find Wong sitting with her arms crossed, pouting at the clock on the wall.

Since her fancy Citadel clothes hadn't survived the Wave's interrogation and the BAR's first aid treatment – let alone the Scott's medical staff – she was now clad in an unmarked marine uniform. So technically, she and Morneau were wearing partner look for this occassion, barring the exception that unlike him, she'd actually gotten a brand-new set.

Whereas her clothes were fresh and new, Morneau was wearing same thirteen-year-old combat shirt and washed-out BDU pants he always wore when someone told him that he was required to even wear a uniform to begin with.

At this point they had seen just about every advanced training course in the HSA and probably been on anywhere between one- and two-hundred different planets where they had collected all kinds of dusty and colorful kinds of dirt and it was honestly a miracle that they had survived this long in the care of someone with as many close-calls as him.

Then again, if one remembered his late-SIS 8, another casualty of the most recent mission, it should be evident that some things shared his luck. At least for a time.

He looked at Wong's uniform.

The too-large blouse was hanging over the woman's shoulders and had been buttoned all the way to the top. This was not the way it was supposed to be worn and overall he got the distinctive impression that this was the first time she was wearing anything that wasn't modern-day fashion. After trying hard to ignore the odd way her sleeves were rolled up or how the collar had been turn upside – a pet peeve just about everyone who went to a military academy or belonged to the military in general would have – he dismissed her apparel and looked at her face.

Her make-up was gone, her hair was tied in a messy ponytail and her dark eyes - which looked exactly as red as you'd expect them to be after the reported breakdown she'd had after her evacuation - were staring a hole into his head with enough energy to melt dreadnought-grade armor.

Morneau opened his mouth only to realize that the nice opening statement he'd been putting together in his head was suddenly forgotten.

Similarly, his usual knack for improvisation seemed to have abandoned him.

With his mouth half opened, he stayed looking like an anxious idiot for a few more seconds before catching himself and sitting down at the opposite end of the elongated table in an effort to recover.

It was clear that the table was meant for much more than two people but if he was honest with himself, he was glad that they were divided by at least eight meters worth of HSAN property.

It made things feel less personal and he liked less personal.

Briefly he considered whipping out the script crumpled up in his pocket and really just reading it off… but that just didn't feel right.

He'd broken a lot of people on his quest to stop the Shadow Broker and unless he suddenly learned necromancy or took a joyride back to the Citadel to chat up Aganian, Wong was about the only one he could give some kind of closure.

… he just didn't know how.

"Yeah," Wong finally said after interrupting the uncomfortable silence, "I wouldn't know what to say either if I was you right now."

---

One Minute Earlier, 25. April 2417 AD, HSASV Scott

After getting freed from what she now knew was a cell on the Shadow Broker's ship, everything leading up to the last hour had been a blur to the journalist.

She remembered thinking she'd heard Gunn's voice and then she remembered a whole bunch of soldiers carrying her on a stretcher all the way through a combat zone and into a shuttle.

After the flight (which form her perspective might as well have taken anywhere between a minute to half a day) she'd been checked by all kinds of doctors, might have kind-of sort-of had a little breakdown in the infirmary after realizing how close she'd gotten to dying and then gotten her ribs fixed at the curtesy of medical equipment doctors on the Citadel wouldn't even think about selling to their worst competitors.

Once that was done, a doctor and a psychiatrist – both surprisingly empathetic for military people– had told her that there was someone else she needed to see before she could inform her family of the fact that she was currently not a body rotting away in some corner of the lower wards or locked up in the dungeon of some freaky slaver.

She'd expected a lot of people.

But as the door pulled open and the less fashionable twin of her murderous fake-ex-boyfriend walked in with a slight limp, she had to take a second to sort out her mind.

By all accounts, the dark-haired soldier in front of her looked exactly like Solomon Gunn, barring the haircut and the lack of a stubbly beard and a fashion sense.

He had the same athletic figure, the same hazel eyes, the same straight posture and the same 'I kill people for a living' aura as Gunn.

Yet he was also wearing an HSA uniform, sporting a fresh cut on his lip and seemed to have an unfamiliar, almost painfully looking expression of discomfort on his face.

For a second, she thought that the man – who she was now certain as the same person as her murderous fake-ex-boyfriend but simultaneously definitely not Solomon Gunn - wanted to say something. His mouth was certainly opened like he did. But then he clearly choked on his words and silently sat down at the other end of the table in a manner that was so unlike Solomon Gunn (who had almost always boasted a sense of impossible confidence and cockiness) that Emily Wong wondered if he was his lost twin after all. The contrast in behavior was just too much for any one person to convincingly portray.

She continued to look into his hazel eyes, which she realised had a strangely empty and distant look to them now that she was actually paying attention to them, and then finally did what he clearly lacked the courage to do: speak.

"Yeah," she said. "I wouldn't know what to say either if I was you right now," she began before interlacing her fingers. "Need some help getting started?"

Her statement was met with no reply.

She'd take that as an invitation. She felt the anger bubble under her skin and, in a very cathartic manner, she allowed it to slip out. "Here's an idea. How about you explain to me who you really are? Or what the hell the meaning of all of this is?" she stated before her voice grew louder. "One moment I'm on the Citadel dating an asshole merc like you and next thing I know, your Wave buddies gas me and drag me all the way to the ship of the fucking Shadow Broker. Then they beat the crap out of me until you decide to come busting in the door alongside the HSA like you're suddenly a knight in shining armor or something like that. What the fuck kind of chain of events leads to something like that?" she finished before repeating her initial question. "And who the fuck are you?"

Her outburst (which was really just the beginning of her anger) seemed to set off something in the man. He looked at his watch for a split second and then suddenly stared at her. The emptiness and distance in his eyes was gone and the air of insecurity that seemed to have surrounded him up to now was now replaced by a certainty she wouldn't have thought him capable of after her initial impression of him.

"My name's not important. The only thing you need to know is that I work for the HSA and that Solomon Gunn never really existed. Despite what you believed, I was never a merc or a member of the Final Wave. It was all a ruse and part of a much larger operation," he began before mirroring her posture and folding his hands together. What he was saying was sounding more like a testimony in front of a court than a conversation and for some godforsaken reason, it was devoid of any hint of emotion. It was just a clear, factual statement that sounded like he'd practiced it. "Regarding the circumstances of your capture I can only say this. As of now, we believe that the Wave abducted you because your work came dangerously close to revealing something about a business partner of theirs. It's all based on assumptions though," he shrugged before rubbing his reddened knuckles. "It's good that you asked about me to begin with. That's a good subject to lead into to the real reason I actually ´needed to talk to you," she narrowed her eyes. Who the hell talked like that? "You see, Miss Wong, since you just became an involuntary participant of a –"

Her brow twitched an anger

"Are you serious?" she suddenly snapped, but probably not for the reason the government tool in front of her believed. "Six months," she stated flatly, prompting the man to adopt a confused look.

"Excuse me?"

"You've been lying your way into my life for six months and you seriously have the nerve to 'Miss Wong' me?" she folded her arms before deciding that she'd break the stiff formalness of this guy by any means necessary. "Flash news, Mister-my-name's-not-important. Even if you don't like it, we're definitely on a first-name basis ever since you disappointed both of us the night after date number four," she offered, hoping to make the man uncomfortable. It was hard to tell if she succeeded though because the only reaction she got out of him was a return to his stoic expression. If the jab at their shared sex-life hit him, he wasn't showing it. Still, she continued. "So before you say anything else or tell me that I became an involuntary participant of god knows what HSA suits like you are up to whenever they aren't busy sweeping dirt under the rug, you are going to tell me your name and you're going to apologize for playing football with my life," she declared, choosing to ignore the small detail that she'd used this guy just as much as he seemed to have used her.

For a moment, her opponent stayed silent.

But then he leaned back in his chair.

"A name? That's what you want?" he asked, sounding almost amused and almost human too.

"For a start," she responded, trying to see if she could finally awaken the heat-visions he always fantasized about having as a child.

"Okay," he said flatly. "You do realise I could give you any name and you'd have no idea if it's my real one, right?"

"I'm a journalist. I am good at telling if people lie or not," she countered, prompting him to let out a chuckle.

"Bold statement considering it took you six months and one kidnapping to figure out that Gunn doesn't exit," the man offered, in turn prompting Wong to inhale sharply and angrily. "You're a journalist, yes. But I'm a trained spy, Emily," he went on before a hint of Solomon Gunn's cockiness broke through the surface. "Lying to people like you is literally what I do for a living and trust me when I say this, I'm quite good at it too."

Wong wondered if he realised the irony of telling someone that he was a good liar and then asking them to trust them?

'…probably not considering that he was a dumb G-man,' she thought before deciding to continue her offensive. "And here I was thinking you earned your bread by killing babysitters for the Final Wave," she responded harshly. "Silly me," she went on, ignoring how the man still didn't seem phased by her continued jabs at his ego. "Name. Now," she pressed, even if she was well aware that she held no power in this conversation other than whatever emotional attachments this guy still had to her; which considering his reaction just now might not even exist.

"Killing's occasionally part of the job," he replied. "But I didn't waste the volus though," he said before once more leaning back in his chair and trying to get back into his 'casual role'. "I'm Daniel. Nice to meet you. Can we go on now?" he finished, sincere enough for her to not actually try and find out if he was as good of a liar as he claimed to be.

So instead she put on a satisfied smile.

"Hello Daniel, I'd be lying if I said it was nice to meet you too. Volus murderer or not, you still strike me like a violent asshole," she replied. "But yes. You may go on now. Last I recall you told me that I was an involuntary part of something?" she trailed off.

The man – Daniel – clearly seemed to be irritated by her reply. Or at least she liked to think that that was what that second of hesitation and blank, stoic look was meant to hide.

"Since you became an involuntary part of what will from this point onward be considered a compartmentalized military operation under the direct authority of the Human Systems Alliance Ministry of Defense and HSAIS, there are certain obligations I need to inform you of," he glanced up into the air as if he was trying to remember something. "This begins with the fact that you may never discuss or publish anything related to the events surrounding your capture by the Final Wave, your relationship to Solomon Gunn or any information you might have procured in relation to these events or the operation that freed you."

"Obligations? You're making it sound like this is something I chose. This is unfair bullshit."

"It's not my intention to make it sound like you chose this, but if you break it down, yeah. You are obligated to these things whether you want to or not. That's kind of how obligations work."

"Or what?"

"Or you'll find out who holds more soft power. The HSA, or you," the threatened neutrally.

Wong narrowed her eyes and decided to pull out the mightiest weapon of any halfway functioning social order.

The law.

"Before I agree to anything, I want to talk to a lawyer."

The man across from her snorted and she got the distinctive impression that the depth of his character was limited to 'stoic killer' and 'amused douchebag.

"Nope," was his single-word reply.

"I'm a citizen of the HSA. You can't just forbid me to talk about something that happened to me because of your actions. I have rights."

Now Daniel shrugged and looked to the side.

"We can, actually," he replied before muttering. "You see, the part of HSAIS that's responsible for this operation isn't bound to any regular old laws. If we tell someone to stay quiet, it's in their best interest to stay quiet."

"Or what? You make them disappear?"

This time the man seemed to take genuine offense. Or at least that's how she'd interpret the slight twitch of his eyes and the squeezing of his own hand.

"No, we don't hurt innocent people," he shook his head with a strange emphasis on the word innocent, "If you were to violate the terms I'm about to explain to you, the only thing that will happen is what I already warned you will happen. You will find out that the HSA has much more soft power than you do. That's it."

"That's a vague threat."

"It's supposed to be," he rubbed the back of his head and exhaled before his face suddenly dropped into a frown and allowed the stoic expression to slip away. "Okay. Can we start over?" he suggested out of the blue.

She'd take that as a victory and seize the initiative.

"Why? Am I starting to make sense and hurt your fragile world-view?" she questioned before faking surprise. "You aren't starting to doubt what you do, are you?" she went on. "If you are, here's some more food for thought. You can work for the good guys and still be a bunch of asshole bad-guys!" she declared as her anger got the better of her. "And looking at you I think that you and those guys you work with meet that definition perfectly. Asshole bad guys who happen to get the chance to live out their violent fantasies and bullshit ideologies for a good cause," she accused, expecting a comeback or something along those lines.

Only when the lines had left her mouth did she realize that what she had just said wasn't at all appropriate.

This guy, this Daniel, and the 'assholes' he worked with had just thrown themselves into the grinder to get her out of a living nightmare.

She obviously didn't know anything about the actual scale of her rescue, but just from the infirmary she'd been able to tell that this gig had costed lives.

She bit her lip and did something very rare for herself.

Apologize immediately.

"Okay. That last part was uncalled for. Sorry."

She expected him to react like her and seize on that moment of weakness.

What she got however was far different.

"Nothing fragile about it," the man replied quietly with a weird undertone, seemingly ignoring the rest of her outburst except for one little detail. "And I'll never have doubts either."

He pressed the finger of his one hand against the knuckles of his other hand (not at all unlike he was pulling a trigger of a gun) and his eyes twitched ever so slightly a couple of times. While this was happening, it didn't seem like he could maintain eye contact with her, or at the very least he didn't want to after what she had just said.

Instead of looking directly at her, he was staring at the table like it was the target of his invisible gun and his eyes were locked onto something only he could see, piercing and full of sorrow at the same time.

It was a look she only remembered seeing one time before, back when he'd still been pretending to be Solomon Gunn.

He'd woken up in the middle of the night like a bolt of lightning had shot through him and then he'd told her something about a guy named 'Alec' and his daughter. Back then she'd been touched by his sincerity, something that had lasted exactly as long as it had taken for her to come to the conclusion that Solomon Gunn was a nanny-murderer. Ever since then, she'd considered everything that hurt him a good thing, including whatever incident had happened to this Alec-guy.

That perception had lasted until this very moment.

Considering where they were sitting right now and who this Daniel seemed to be, she would now normally have wondered if any of what he had told her that night had even been true. But that look and the way it was coming back just now after she'd basically insulted him and his colleagues as bad guys… it hid something deeper, something the man couldn't shake no matter who he was pretending to be.

It was a part of him, maybe the one and only truth he'd ever truly shown her.

… and that made her ashamed of ever thinking that it was a good thing.

Suddenly Wong was inclined to listen.

"Fine. Truce. Let's start over," she offered, to which he nodded.

"Okay," he took a breath to seemingly steady himself and his tick seemed to stop. "I came in here to try and give you some kind of closure for what I put you through. Maybe find some for myself too along the way," he stated. "Cleary, I failed miserably at that. This whole conversation went somewhere I really didn't want it to go," he mumbled with an out-of-place empathy and humanity not befitting of a government tool, let alone someone with an 'I kill people for a living'-aura.

… who was this guy and what had he done to the G-man sitting in front of her just now?

"Emily," he began. "I know this is a whole lot to take in and I can't imagine how hard this entire situation has been on you. You're right. Nothing about this is fair. You didn't choose any of this."

If one ignored the fact that she'd actually been exploiting him too, that was true!

"It was forced onto you, by me and the Wave and the Shadow Broker and all other kinds of nasty people you're better off not knowing about," she took offense at that comment but considering his apparent change of heart and her share of blame in the matter, she'd led his 'We, the government, protect you, the sheep, by keeping you ignorant'-attitude slide for the time being. "I'm sorry for what happened to you. I really am," he suddenly reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of actual paper, which he subsequently tossed into her hands with perfect accuracy – not a small feat considering she couldn't catch something to save her life.

"This is the crappy script I'm supposed to read to you. It's all in here, what you can and can't do, how you'll be eligible for state-financed psycho-therapy should you require it and how the HSA may or may not ruin your life if you go blabbering about how we just wasted the Shadow Broker and lost nearly thirty biotics doing it," he sighed.

Hold up... they'd just done what?

"Since I think you're more than smart enough to read it for yourself, I won't waste any more of your time with chewing it up for you," he got up and stuffed his hands into his pockets, procuring a rolled-up piece of black fabric with something red sawn on it. The object seemed to serve no purpose other than keep his fingers busy. "I think I've done enough talking anyways. Nothing I say is going to erase what that happened in the last six months or the last five days. It won't uncrack your rips, it won't untraumatized you and it won't remove the fact that I used you to make the Wave think Solomon Gunn was an actual person instead of a trojan horse," he walked around the desk and took a seat somewhat closer to her. Now they were sitting at a less ridiculous distance to one another. From this angle, she could tell that the piece of cloth was a worn-out patch with a barely recognizable red dagger sawn on top of it.

She'd seen that logo before in the huge post-Fringe-Wars documentary they'd made about that Jon Grissom guy.

He'd been with HSAIS too, hadn't he?

Section Thirty-One?

Or Thirteen?

It had been something like that…

"Hell, I can't even sit here and tell you that I wouldn't do everything all over again knowing what it would do to you. I'd be lying if I did," he said, removing some of the sympathy points he'd just gained. "But I can promise you one thing."

"Which is?" she said, interrupting him if only because she felt like he'd been talking forever.

He nudged his head to the side and cracked a small smile.

"As soon as I walk out of that door," he pointed the way he'd come from with his thumb. "I'm gone from your life for good," he finished with a finality she hadn't expect to hit her the way it just had considering all the hate she'd projected on him and what she'd just said during this exchange. With his G-Man shell cracked, she felt like they were only just meeting now and here he was, telling her they'd never talk again.

Hold up number two.

.. why exactly was that an issue for her all of the sudden?

This guy was a bad guy…

Right?

… as her brain told her that he'd come busting through the door in her literal hour of need, Wong was starting to doubt that assessment and coming to see him in a different, much more favorable light, which was weird considering that he'd just admitted to the fact that he'd put her life in jeopardy all over again.

"And that's supposed to help me how exactly?" she responded in return to his offer.

"When I'm gone, you won't have to worry about me interfering with your life or using you to cross of HSAIS' most wanted list ever again. And unless you manage to piss of the wrong people again, you probably also won't get kidnapped again either," he rolled up his patch again and got back to his feet. "I really hope that that promise gives you some kind of closure because it's about the only thing I can give to you other than that stupid Internal Affairs script."

Wong looked at the man with the dark, military haircut, busted up lip and braced ankle and noticed something loose dangling underneath his shirt, the necklace.

Huh.

That made two truths he'd shown to her in all of six months. He lingered for a second and then started to walk away with a slight limp. When he was about to reach the door, it broke out of here.

"Wait!" he turned his head at her quip. Wong was not entirely sure where it come from, but she recovered quickly. "I still have a lot of questions," she added, quickly sorting her statement into the right context.

"Like?" Daniel retorted and Wong hesitated.

She didn't want to know.

But she also really needed to hear it.

For closure.

For both of them.

"Was any of it real?" Maybe it was the stress of the situation, or maybe it was the painkillers they'd given her… but she needed to ask. She could tell that the question pierced through the G-Man armor he was wearing because of the way he glanced at the floor.

"Maybe. In all honesty, I'm not so sure myself," Daniel sighed. "But it doesn't matter anymore," he pointed at himself and then to her. "Last meeting, remember?" there it was again, that finality and certainty she'd rarely ever heard from anyone. It was like a warped version of Gunn's cockiness and confidence turned into a pure, unwavering certainty of someone who stood on solid ground with both feet firmly planted on top of the spot they'd chosen.

Truthfully, it was much more attractive than the stupid go-lucky merc act she'd initially fallen for in some capacity.

"Hypothetically speaking," she started, intend to clarify that this really was just a hypothetical scenario. "Is this the last conversation even if I don't want it to be?"

"Yes," he responded quickly and with a firm nod. "I get where you're hypothetically coming from," he once more mirrored her words. That seemed to be something he like doing, wasn't it? "I hypothetically went there too before coming here, at least for a second or two," he admitted. "and in another life with another me, we maybe could have-" this time he trailed off, seemingly to maintain his unwavering certainty. It was a little charming, she wouldn't deny that. "Like I said. It doesn't matter. People like me... we don't get that kind of life. Not even hypothetically and especially not with people like you. It's not what we're here for."

"Is that what you really believe?" Wong pressed. "Or is it just what you tell yourself to avoid a chance at going somewhere else with your life? I mean, don't you want to be happy? Or at least not lonely all of the time?" she was assuming a lot of things, but that was what all investigative journalism was based on in the first step. Assuming things and then finding out whether or not they were true.

Maybe some of the things she'd said were accurate.

Maybe they were all wrong.

She didn't know because he only shrugged in reply.

"I'm right where I'm supposed to be. That's all I'll ever need."

She didn't agree with that.

But she could respect the mindset.

He turned to look at the door. "If there's nothing else, I'll get going now," he began to slowly limp away from her. But just as she reached the door, her curiosity got the better of her for one final time.

"One more thing, actually. If you don't mind," she said quickly before pointing at her chest to indicate the spot where he was wearing a necklace. "That necklace. It's the only thing you're wearing now that you also wore back on the Citadel. Everything else' is different. Even the watch," she observed the wristwatch and its strange blue glow and briefly wondered what kind of tech that was. Then she set her journalistic curiosity aside to satisfy her own, personal interest. "What makes it so special?"

The spy smiled a slightly crooked smile and touched the necklace through his uniform.

"We all need something to come back to, don't we?"

"Still doesn't explain why you kept it and nothing else."

He let go of the necklace and stuffed his hands into his pocket.

"Because someone gave it to me to remind me of who I am. It'd be kind of pointless to leave that behind, don't you agree?" she couldn't help but notice the clear shift in voice. There was a softness to it she'd never heard before, not even when he'd pretended (or possibly been) in love with her.

… maybe not so lonely after all?

… she wondered what that 'someone' would say when she heard of what had happened between them...

Then again, if you were involved with someone like this Daniel guy, you probably knew what you were buying, right?

"Must be one hell of a special someone if you're wearing it day in and out," she observed, suddenly understanding a lot more about the man than maybe even he himself.

"Yeah," he nodded. "You could say that," he opened the door but stopped in the door frame. "Word of advice. Try and stay out of the sights of shady merc organizations in the future, alright? Oh. And maybe think about moving off the Citadel. Maybe somewhere a little less central."

"My journalistic integrity requires me to deny that first request, but considering how the Wave's still back on the station, I think you raise a good point about moving some place else," she responded. Then she looked around the room. "After all, I'd hate to have to get saved by you twice in one life," he snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

"Smart call. Statistically speaking, I don't do well on second dates. Or fourth ones," he stated with a hint of self-irony and she smirked in amusement. "Take care, Emily Wong," he finished.

"You too, Daniel," she said before realizing that he'd never given his last name, "something," she finished.

"Morneau," he offered. "Daniel Morneau."

"Well then, you take care too, Daniel Morneau," it felt appropriate to echo his word since that seemed to be his favorite thing to do in a conversation. Besides, out of the two of them he was certainly the one living the more dangerous lifestyle, so he actually needed to take care of himself. "It was truly a pleasure to meet you for the last time," she said as she watched him leave, this time actually meaning it.

"Likewise," it echoed from outside of the room and then, just like that, her murderous fake-ex-boyfriend – who had turned out to be neither a murderer nor a particularly bad guy – was gone as quickly as she'd been introduced to him.

.. she wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that just yet.

But then again, thanks to his rescue, she'd have a whole lot of years left ahead of her to figure it out.

---

Codex: Neo-Monotheism (Part of the Entry Series 'Human Religions in the Mass Effect Age')

While the role of religion in human society is not nearly as large as it used to be prior to humanity's ascension to a space-faring species and over two-thirds of all HSA citizens do not consider themselves as religious or at the very least do not belong to any form of organized religion, it is still impossible to fully separate the development of humanity society from the development of human creeds and faiths.

In addition to the old terrestrial religions already in existence prior to the first passage beyond the Charon Relay, various sets of new believes began to surface alongside the first colonists of extra-solar worlds. While some were based around the protheans or the ruins of other alien civilizations encountered throughout the Attican Traverse, the largest and most dominant of these faiths rose in the form of Neo-Monotheism; a religion based on teachings from Christianity, Islam (the two largest Abrahamic religions and largest human faiths at the time of the first Relay Transit) and Judaism (the third Abrahamic faith).

Neo-Monotheism is a religion predominantly practiced on the core worlds of the HSA (barring the exception of the hugely diverse Earth, the mostly Hindu Eden Prime and the nearly entirely atheistic Terra Nova and Horizon) and as of the last large HSA-wide census of 2416 AD is currently practiced by a third of all religious HSA citizens, making it the second largest faith after the modern-day version of 25th century Islam. (In the wake of humanity's ascension to a Mass-Effect-Age civilization and the eve of Christianity, more Christians than Muslims converted to Neo-Monotheism or became non-religious, hence uprooting Christianity from its spot as the most-practiced faith among humans)

While the Human Systems Alliance is an entirely secular state - a societal development only shared by the Turian Hierarchy and the Salarian Union - and as such does not officially recognize or support any 'one true religion', a critical look at the initial development of Neo-Monotheism and the actions of the Human Systems Alliance Ministry of Culture and Arts and the long-since disbanded Ministry of Extra-Solar Colonialization paint a different picture. During the second phase of human colonialization (lasting from 2177 AD to 2208 AD), it is clear that high-ranking HSA officials took measures to specifically promote the spread of Neo-Monotheism among the religious communities of the HSA's first colonies.

These measures included but were not limited to:

- the preferential selection of atheistic and Neo-Monotheistic individuals as first-wave colonists during the screening process

- the introduction of Neo-Monotheistic-sponsored childcares run by Neo-Monotheistic believers

- the issuing of tax-breaks for organizations and construction projects related to the Neo-Monotheistic faith

While theologists and sociologists over the years have long since identified these early attempts at deliberate favoring Neo-Monotheism as a subversive method to 'strengthen' the notion of 'a human people united under one flag and one faith' and pointed out that these measures were most likely aimed at preventing any religious tensions in the newly claimed regions of space by keeping out as many of the old religions as possible, the HSA's official ruling in the wake of the dissolution of the ESC Ministry was that the people in charge of the selection process let their own faith cloud their judgment and acted without any sort of official directive; for which they were subsequently discharged from all official positions of power.

As a measure to prevent any future events like this, it was ruled that colonial screening processes and informative census outside of the HSA's own official bi-yearly survey could no longer include the category 'creed', the first step of the process that would eventually lead to the majority of humans no longer considering themselves as members of a religion.

Furthermore, all restrictions on applying for HSA sponsored colonial efforts – which were tightened strictly in the wake of the mass exodus to Terra Nova, Arcadia and Horizon to allow for a more organized colonialization effort based on the Eden Prime-Model – were declared naught in 2208 AD. This ruling launched the third (and largest) wave of human expansion, which the subsequently rapid growth of the HSA's economy and territory but also the instability of the Fringe Worlds are still attributed to today.

Although still practiced outside of the core worlds (and even by non-human individuals in larger Council Space), it should at this point be noted that Neo-Monotheism never rose to popularity within the populace of the Fringe Worlds, which much like Horizon and Terra Nova are almost entirely atheistic or agnostic.

In 2399 AD, a paper published by an asari xeno-theologists based around the renowned T'Lav University of Thessia came to the following simple, albeit somewhat satirical conclusion to explain this phenomenon:

'It would appear that in between their obsession with hexagons, eagles, conspiracies, a dead language and everything related to the colors white, red and gold (editorial note for species with differing color perceptions from the galactic average such as the Elcor, the Hanar or the Raloi: this is a reference to both the official colors of the HSA's flag and the sigil of the senate of the IFS Movement), the populations of the former Independent Fringe Worlds and the Terra Novans – who hate each other so passionately – find little time to focus on anything spiritual or realize the irony of their similarities and see past their differences.' – Doctor Kaliarah J'Roasi; War, Death, Devastation And Money: A Study of Human Faiths in the Mass Effect Age.

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A/N:

Holy shit.

This became a LOT more than I planned! (partially because I kind of added the scene with the asari commando for some further action to make up for the Broker dying in a rather sudden moment and partially because god damn did I end up writing a lot for Wong's segment...)

Remember when i said this chapter wouldn't be all about Morneau?

Well that turned out to be a fucking lie.

I'm not one hundred percent positive just yet since I'm still typing the Author notes just now (as you can tell) ... but I think this one's only going to be short a few words off of Chapter 97 Insight, which up to now holds the record for being SV largest chapter at nearly 17k words.

I mean I was expecting this to end up somewhat longer considering its effectivly the end of Morneau's ME 2 (from here on out, he will head into his 'interlude' and then straight into his Mass Effect 3 plot) ... but god damn. What is it with his chapters becomign this large?!

I'll certainly have to keep this size in mind when we hit the next ME2 conclusion... which you may now guess: Who's story will conclude first, Shepard's ? Or Haugen's?

Since I think this chapter speaks for itself, I won't say a whole lot more other than the usual and one tiny question:

First the tiny question: Are these getting to large? I THOUGHT I had settled into a comfortable 10k to 12k pattern but after checking the other chapters, I realised we've lately mvoed to a 12k to 15k range regarding the wordcount, partially because the codex entires are getting longer nad partially because I'm putting more into each chapter to scratch off more of the parallel narratives and unify the story in its intended spot. (I won't say more but I think after Illium, Haugen's latest op and this chapter here its slowly becoming evident where everything's leading)

Is this still 'pleasent' to read?

Or is it too much?

I figure the overall wordcount and storysize makes SV already intimidating enough for new readers... so maybe I ought to turn it down a bit?

Or can I just continue to go wild?

Let me know.

And review in general while you're at it :p

For the record we're at 793 reviews, 1206 favorites and 1308 follows.

See you around next time.