Chapter 11

As the pager buzzed for the fourteenth time today I had to force myself not to switch it off. A manager in my line of work would be expected to be on call twenty four hours a day. No matter how they might personally feel about it.

I'd spoken to Shepard four days ago just as Aria had suggested. It had been great to see him again but if anything it only highlighted how far we have been drifting apart since I left his ship. My path leads towards Cerberus and my sister. His takes him towards the Reapers, following whatever hopeless orders the Alliance has been able to cobble together.

Don't get me wrong, I will never doubt his ability, but what can any one man do against these monsters? He told me that the Alliance has a plan of some sort but he couldn't tell me what it was. They're saying it's highly classified, but I think it might just be a ruse to stop their troops from going mad.

Well, who can blame them? Everyone in the galaxy is losing hope. The Reapers have taken Earth and the whole of the Hegemony. Even the Turians are barely keeping a foothold in their home system of Trebia and they have the biggest fleet of all. Every day more news comes in about fleets that have been destroyed or colonies that have been wiped out. Panic is spreading like a wave across the galaxy, flowing out from Reaper controlled space like an unstoppable tide. With every system they capture millions more become paralyzed by grief and fear. Even here on the station we've seen twelve members of staff stop work just this week.

The pager buzzes again and my focus is jolted back to the room as I realize I've been letting myself get distracted. Luckily the message is benign, just another meeting that they need me to attend. The team working on section D want to completely reconfigure the power distribution systems to try and increase the output. They want me there to hear their proposals for final approval of the work.

Pausing only briefly to glance at the big orange and black symbol emblazoned on the wall, I reply back to signal my consent. Which will mean another two hours lost but there's no helping it. Turning back to the symbol I reflect on the oddity that led to Cerberus being one of the few terrorist groups to create its own logo and put it all over their installations (even above my own desk).

Not long after my chat with Shepard, Aria's people got in touch to let me know that the deal was agreed. They would provide me with the Deceiver, a fully equipped stealth ship, in exchange for the Hades and her captain just as soon as she had performed one final duty: dropping me off on this station.

The plan had come from information taken from the terminal aboard the Hades that I had managed to save. It had given us the name of several active Cerberus projects operating in the region. Measured by budget, Project Goliath was the biggest and most promising lead we had for getting into the heart of their organization.

From there I came up with a simple plan. I would assume the identity of the former XO of the Hades, arrange a transfer to the project, and go undercover, looking to find any data that might uncover more of Cerberus' operations (there was very little data on the ship that was of use to us). It would be too much to hope that I'd get details regarding Ori's abduction but with any luck, I could work my way high enough up the chain to know where to start looking.

Becoming the former XO whose name I learned from Marie was "Elise Larona" was actually easier than it sounds. All the identifying documents we needed were stored neatly in her office aboard the ship. Getting a mask that could adequately disguise me as her wasn't too difficult either. We had a clear image of her face and I knew all too well which areas of the Citadel Wards we'd need to go to to find someone that could make the prostheses I would need. The final step was in finding a reasonable excuse for my transfer to the project but Captain Lentz was very obliging in requesting an official transfer once I had finished explaining the alternatives to him.

So everything was in place. A week ago I was still being hunted by them but now I was back in Cerberus colors, filing reports and managing staff allocations for them.

'Not to mention, answering calls from them,' I thought as my pager buzzed yet again with another call. This time it was Director Cordanoy requesting another update on when he could expect the budget review for the next quarter. It feels ridiculous doing this kind of work when the war's going on but the director insists. It's fortunate that I never met him when I was a real Cerberus employee but I'd heard about his reputation for being a stickler for standard procedure. Apparently, that hasn't changed even during a war.

I sent him a message letting him know that I was working on it and guaranteed that the report would be delivered on time. One of the benefits of being genetically enhanced was that I'm able to complete my 'official' work in record time, clearing my desk to focus on subterfuge without arousing suspicion.

Not that it's been going particularly well. It seems that ever since virtually the entirety of the Lazarus Project staff went rogue on him, the Illusive Man has become even more obsessive about security. There are monitoring devices everywhere and access around the station is strictly regulated based on the needs of each employee. Anyone caught trying to sneak into an area they don't have a clear reason to enter is in pretty immediate danger.

The security force here is like nothing I've ever seen, even in a Cerberus facility. Mechs were phased out from security detail ever since that little trick Wilson tried during Project Lazarus. Instead they've been replaced by more of the 'enhanced' guards I saw aboard the Hades, and there a lot of them on board. While it's hard to get an exact count from my current position, I estimate they number at least a couple hundred.

What I don't understand is where they've all come from. Since they always wear masks to hide the facial scars caused by the implantation process I've no idea if any of them are more former colleagues that have volunteered to undergo the procedure. But even if every member of Cerberus I've ever met or known about had signed up it still wouldn't explain their numbers. Either the Illusive Man was keeping large sections of the organization hidden from me or he's found a way to massively boost its numbers in the last few months.

I've considered attempting a repeat of our performance aboard the Hades. If I could get at the Director then maybe I could force him to order these troops to help me take over the station just like Marie did to Captain Lentz. Unfortunately whenever I've seen Cordanoy so far he's always been under heavy guard and not just by regular soldiers either. During my time here I've learned that Cerberus has developed a new kind of supersoldier: the Phantoms.

I don't really know how the Phantom's get made other than it's supposedly some kind of upgraded version of the Reaper cybernetics used on the ordinary grunts. So far I've only seen them in action once, and that was when Larson and Simmons tried to escape. I knew them as former security consultants that Cerberus had 'acquired' by buying up their gambling debts. Quite a shady pair to be honest but they were geniuses in their line of work and knew how to handle themselves in the field. In fact, they were so effective I almost recommended that they be transferred to the Lazarus Project to serve on Shepard's squad.

They created a distraction by venting one of the main coolant tanks into an adjoining section before making a break for the hanger bay. As soon as Cordanoy figured out what they were up to he sent the phantoms after them. They were tough men, Larson especially, but having seen the security footage they never stood a chance. The phantoms have been outfitted with tactical cloaks that rendered them almost invisible, but it was how they moved while you could see them that really has me concerned. Once they got up to speed they were just a blur of motion, too fast for even my enhanced perceptions to follow.

Simmons got hit first and went down. He got back up seconds later but you can see that he's limping badly. Larson went back for him, tried to hold them off while Simmons got away but they were just too fast for him. He took down a couple of them but once they got in close with their swords he was finished. After they cut him to pieces they caught up with the other one and did the same to him. The whole fight was over in less than five minutes.

Afterwards, some people guessed that they might've been indoctrinated by something the techs were working on in the lab. We've been assured there's no Reaper tech on the station but many were skeptical until it came out that the escape attempt was for a very different reason. Simmons had had family living on Earth. By all accounts, they hadn't been particularly close but apparently, when he learned that the Reapers had taken the system he had insisted on being allowed to take a shuttle and try and rescue him. When Cerberus refused to let him leave, the pair of them started hatching an escape plan.

I hear the incessant buzzing again and I'm about to scream in frustration when I realize it's not the pager this time but the other communicator in the room. The one good thing about being back in Cerberus is that rank has it's privileges here. In this case, that means my own personal communicator (restricted to a small number of Cerberus approved endpoints, of course). It was QEC based which limited my contact options considerably but luckily the Hades had been equipped with its own QEC which we stripped out before handing it over to Aria (hopefully she won't miss it too much).

That QEC hub was now aboard the stealth ship we had acquired from the Queen of Omega, allowing my friends to contact me whenever they needed to (so long as they don't blow my cover).

I quickly went to check that there was no one around outside my office under the guise of getting another cup of coffee before returning to my work station and opening the lines of communication. Instantly the holographic projectors flared into life, throwing an image of Marie and Jackson into the room.

"What have you got for me?" I asked as calmly as possible while keeping one nervous eye on the door.

"Just checking in, which should have happened two days ago if you hadn't ignored our calls."

"You called my office just for that? I sent you a written message on the day I arrived advising against any unnecessary contact."

"Which was in direct violation of the protocol we agreed upon before you went in. The plan was for you to report back to us every three days."

"I warned you at the time that it might not be possible. When I arrived I discovered that the security measures were far more extensive than I had anticipated so I had to adapt our protocols."

"In a text? Without even discussing it with your base team first?"

"It was safer and it's not like this is the first time I've needed to adapt to difficult circumstances while undercover. I'm sure you've seen my CV."

"No one is doubting your skills Miranda but you've undertaken this operation with virtually no preparation time and put yourself in a situation that has the potential to be emotionally compromising for you. My analysis suggested this operation carried several risk markers but-"

"But there wasn't any other choice or anyone else that would be able to pull off this mission. I have seventeen infiltration missions recorded against my name and that's only the official count. Look,"

I said raising my open palm in a surrendering gesture.

"The more time we spend arguing the greater the chance of detection so we might as well get straight down to business. Have you been able to learn anything about the station from the outside?"

Jackson shook his head slowly.

"We've managed to get a few more images of it from different angles but... well see for yourself."

I waited as the projection of their faces was replaced by the images captured by the stealth ship, flickering by one by one. As they were put on display I took another look at the door, knowing that if anyone walked in my only hope would be to hit the off switch immediately.

"These pictures are close to useless," I complained as the last image was replaced by Marie and Jackson again.

"I'm sorry Lawson, I wanted to get in closer and get some more detailed ones but someone wouldn't let me," Jackson explained rather pointedly

"You'll have to forgive me if I'd rather not see us all get caught just so you can get some higher quality surveillance pictures. I'm not sure what use you think we'll be to Operative Lawson if we've been blown into a million pieces," came the reply from a voice that was off camera. Up to that point I hadn't even realized the Colonel was on the bridge but I guess that was the point. The last thing we needed was to have someone walk in and see me talking with a Turian.

"The problem we have," Marie said placatingly "is that Cerberus understands the vulnerabilities of a stealth drive better than we do. Their patrols ships run alongside a swarm of basic surveillance drones. They can't detect us on scanners but they're proving very effective at sweeping a wide area for visual identification."

I nodded. The stealth system developed by the Alliance had been stolen by Cerberus for the Normandy. They knew its weaknesses well but it had still been our best option for allowing our new ship, the Deceiver, to stay in close proximity during the operation (as they had insisted upon).

"So what do we have?"

"Not much. As you know the station was built into the side of an asteroid, similarly to Omega which makes it difficult to get a clear picture of its full size. We've got about 200m of it sticking out of the end but there's no way of telling how far the structure extends into the rock. Can't make much of the design from what we can see, but we have our suspicions it might not be a Cerberus station at all."

"What makes you say that?"

"From what we've seen, Cerberus has been using mining lasers to try and free more of the base from the asteroid. Have to assume they would've built it out in the open given the choice."

"It could be an old outpost build by one of the local warlords. It's not uncommon for Terminus warlords to build structures like this to defend their borders. Usually, they wind up being murdered by a subordinate or something and the station gets abandoned as the borders shift again."

"I can't recall offhand any factions that were known to operate in this part of space but I'll see if I can't-"

With a single button press, the projections vanished even as the sound of footsteps became more obvious to my augmented sense of hearing. Accessing the hacked security feed outside my office I who it was. The janitor shuffled slowly down the corridor outside and I slunk further behind my desk.