Miranda Lawson, comfortably ensconced on the bridge of her own ship, surrounded by her own Cerberus-free crew, frowned at the mission briefing she'd downloaded from her omnitool and onto a datapad before turning to Shepard's hologram. "This plan is nuts," Miranda announced simply.

"Do you have a better plan?" Shepard asked without rancor but with a wry grin that said she wasn't so in love with the plan that she would reject someone else's.

"Do it without Hammer One," Miranda answered in a tone most would have described as flat indifference. "You've got enough Stilettos running around, enough Monkey Wrenches. Does there really need to be a Hammer One at all?"

Shepard nodded grimly. "With Harbinger sitting by the beam like a murder-vulture with one egg? Absolutely."

Miranda returned to the briefing, knowing Shepard was using precious encrypted communication time for this call. Perhaps some part of her even hoped that Miranda would see something someone else had missed. Maybe she just wanted someone to argue her out of the plan. It was pretty desperate, even for Shepard.

But this time, Shepard wasn't angry and terrified for the lives of her crew. This time, it was crazy in cold blood. "I'm sorry, Shepard. But if you're that much of a liability, then it would be better for you to simply stay out of sight."

"I can't."

That was true, too. People expected to see Shepard out at the front because she'd been out at the front the whole time. Perhaps there really was no alternative: if Shepard disappeared when Harbinger expected to see her, the machine might just get curious as to why and start looking for subtleties, or start leveling portions of the city just to see if Shepard happened to be there. It was hard to tell what a disappointed, fixated Reaper might do…and therein lay the real value of Hammer One: it kept the Reaper acting (hopefully) in a predictable fashion.

"I know," Miranda agreed, shaking her head. "So I suppose it's going to be full steam ahead."

Shepard nodded. "It'll be alright."

"I hope so."

"How are you getting on with Hackett?" Shepard asked, changing the topic entirely now that everything necessary had been said.

Miranda shifted in her seat, somewhat amused. "I got a few sideways looks from the Alliance brass when I showed up and volunteered to help. Fortunately, they can't be choosy at this point…" Then, in a spirit of fairness, "…and I think someone put in a good word for me."

Shepard grinned as if to say 'of course I did.'

"I'm glad you called. I wanted to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Shepard frowned.

"…not quite that ominously," Miranda chuckled uneasily at Shepard's sudden wariness. "It's just…even if this pulls off flawlessly," Miranda waved the datapad with the mission brief on it, "everything will change."

"On our terms," Shepard answered back. "We've been a galaxy on the run until now, Miranda. It's time we stopped running. Once we do, and we turn and stand our ground, and we push back, nothing is going to stop us."

She knew Shepard was deliberately tapping her own experiences to encourage confidence.

"This isn't goodbye. You have to believe we're not done yet. We all do, or what's the point of any of this?"

Miranda sighed. "Listening to you, I can believe it."

"Good. Be careful out there, Miranda."

"You too, Jalissa."

Shepard gave her a rusty grin, then looked down, as if searching for the function to sever the call. She looked back up a moment later, hand poised. "Oh, one more thing before I go—if I wanted to buy you a potted plant as a ship-warming gift, what should it be?"

Miranda blinked, arching her eyebrows, surprised by the question because she and Shepard had never discussed her preference for having live plants aboard a spaceship. She hadn't had any on the SR-2 to give away her interest; even after she and Shepard started to bond, she simply hadn't made time to find some flowering thing to keep her company in her office.

It wouldn't do any good to ask 'why would you want to know that?', because it was a reasonable kind of question in the context of 'you have a new ship, what can be done to make it homey?' Still, it didn't sound like a question organic to Shepard's mind, which made her mildly suspicious.

"I like irises, the frillier the better," she finally admitted. "Not purple, though."

Shepard nodded slowly, clearly filing the information away for later. "Thanks."

"Shepard, where do you think you're going to find a florist in this neighborhood?" Miranda asked with prim disapproval as Shepard stifled a sudden laugh.

"I don't, of course. I'll see you on the other side, Miranda," Shepard grinned, then severed the connection.

If it was her last look at Shepard, Miranda thought as she settled back in her chair, at least it was a pleasant one. "I put you back together once, Jalissa," she mumbled under her breath, "don't get yourself so beat up that I can't do it again."

Miranda looked over the mission brief again, then sighed. Well, if this was the plan, best to make sure she was in a good position to be part of it.

Thank goodness Oriana was back at the Crucible's building location with Jacob's family—though it had been a difficult choice, given her preference for knowing exactly where her sister was at all times. It was good feeling like she could turn her back for a minute without needing to worry about Henry Lawson or Cerberus getting too close.

Henry was dead.

Cerberus was practically down for the count.

Miranda swallowed, wondering how much of the Illusive Man was left at this point, if there was anything left at all of that once brilliant mind. But, clearly, brilliance had blinded him, led him off the path of wisdom. It was a sad fate for someone she had once followed with such dedication.