Captain Adrianna Navarro sat on the edge of her command chair within the Jon Grissom's sprawling CIC, leaning slightly forward, her posture erect and arms resting on the supports.

After weeks spent traversing deep space, crossing the massive expanse between Earth and Arcturus, her determined mood had largely remained intact, bearing the burden of her massive responsibility stoically and without complaint. Her bloodshot eyes flicked up to the mission clock, checking the duration of their latest sustained FTL jump. It had just ticked over forty-two hours.

She looked bleary-eyed, but actually still felt quite sharp, thanks largely to the cocktail of stimulants her ship's Chief Medical Officer had been supplying her with. Navarro hated to pump herself full of synthetic chemicals simply in order to remain alert, but after weeks of sustained travel and with the responsibility of hundreds of thousands of lives weighing on her, caffeine simply wasn't cutting it.

She'd been averaging around three to four hours of sleep a day during the bulk of their near month-long journey, relying heavily on the drugs to keep her alert and even-tempered. Making matters worse, Navarro's XO had been away on an emergency family matter when the Reapers had arrived in Sol and hadn't been able to make it off the planet to rejoin the Grissom, leaving her with an even heavier load to carry. But her plight was by no means unique among the captains and crews of what had become known as the Exodus Fleet.

She wasn't the only one risking long-term stimulant addiction for the sake of operational sustainability either. Nearly every member of the navy crews was being asked to work double and triple shifts, making due with less rest while assuming far greater responsibilities than normal. But it was what was required of them as they leapfrogged through the black, inching ever closer to their target within the Arcturus Stream—the system's closest mass relay, designated Arcturus-Delta.

On the whole, Navarro was shepherding one hundred eighty-eight civilian and military starships carrying in excess of two hundred and thirty thousand men, women and children. She still marveled at the number, amazed at how quickly Admiral Anderson and other leaders on Earth had organized the colossal airlift amid the invasion. From jumbo starliners to private corporate transports to huge, long-range mining vessels, it was a diverse hodgepodge of FTL-capable ships that she and her battlegroup were spiriting away from their homeworld.

The journey had been by no means an easy one.

What was left of Navarro's battlegroup had waited at the rally point beyond Earth's orbit for more than three hours, determined to satisfy Admiral Anderson's final directive and save as many civilian lives as possible.

It had been a punishing, bloody endeavor. What remained of the orbital patrollers, fast attack corvettes, and fighter wings had taken a terrible beating while they heroically worked to screen for the transports fleeing the planet. The sheer number of brave men and women that had fallen during the frantic airlift had quickly become too great for Navarro to keep track of. She'd finally tasked the VI to keep a running tally of the pilots and captains she'd be recommending for posthumous valor awards.

Eventually, after the Reapers had largely finished decimating Earth's defenses and began to turn more of their attention toward her growing fleet of mixed vessels, she'd been forced to weigh anchor and turn away from their besieged homeworld, escorting the huge civilian fleet out of the warzone.

But even as they accelerated away from Earth, flights of small, sub-light drive equipped ships continued to claw their way out of the atmosphere, desperate to escape the Reapers. Their pilots and captains pleaded with her to wait for them. But it was too late.

The massive bulk of her fleet had the acceleration advantage and the stragglers had no chance of reaching them. And she couldn't wait for them. She couldn't risk the lives of so many for so few. She'd ordered her Comm Ops team to instruct those left behind to head for Jupiter, resupply at the mining and observation stations there, and then make their own way out of the system, avoiding the relay at all costs.

In all likelihood, it was a death sentence. She knew that. Those ships likely would have been better off turning back to Earth to seek out shelter, wait for the worst for the fighting to subside, and then pray for a miracle. But she couldn't quite bring herself to convey that bit of pragmatic advice. At least on a starship one could hold onto a shred of hope. It's what she would have wanted. Far better to die among the stars than buried on a devastated planet.

They cursed her. They begged her to stop and wait for them. But she couldn't. She had a responsibility.

The lives of the many…

Gagarin Station had been her fleet's only stop on the way out of the system.

Home to nearly nine thousand permanent residents, the huge Bernal Sphere floated just inside the inner edge of the heliopause. A good deal beyond the major commercial shipping lanes between Earth and the Charon Relay, Gagarin was remote enough to have avoided the Reapers' immediate attention but close enough to the relay to observe what was happening near the massive, ancient structure that was the Sol system's link to the galaxy beyond.

The vantage point from Gagarin revealed exactly what Navarro expected to find in the region surrounding the relay—a powerful Reaper blockade force, sealing off the fastest escape route from the system.

Admiral Lindholm's First Fleet had remained engaged with the Reapers at Charon during most the ensuing action near Earth and Mars, but she'd finally been forced to disengage and preserve whatever was left of her forces. With communications in the system severely disrupted, Navarro didn't know what had become of the Admiral. She hoped that she'd been able to fight her way back through to the relay and jump clear of the system. But she feared that the woman who'd served as her mentor years before was now adrift among the slowly expanding clouds of debris and broken Alliance hulls littering the Sol system.

But a desperate run through the Reaper blockade wasn't an option for Navarro. The massive civilian fleet under her care was far too unwieldy and vulnerable for such a bold tactic. Even if the enemy presence had been lighter, it would have easily taken the better part of a full day to coordinate the transition of so many ships. That was far too much time for the Reapers to catch up and cut them down.

Her flagship and a few swift escorts likely could have punched through the blockade and made the jump before taking catastrophic damage, but she wasn't about to take the heaviest of the Alliance's remaining firepower in the system and leave the rest of these people to make their own way out. Anderson had told her to protect them and that's exactly what she intended to do.

Navarro and the other Navy captains spent nearly an hour trying to convince the administrators of Gagarin to abandon the station and load the populous onto the ships of her fleet. But the residents of the old station formed a stubborn community and one that was largely distrustful of the Alliance. In the end, less than a quarter of the people chose to leave their home and join the flight out of the system. The rest put their faith in the remoteness of their antiquated space station, believing the Reapers wouldn't expend effort on such a strategically insignificant target.

But Navarro felt differently.

After witnessing the thorough, merciless Reaper invasion of Earth, she knew they were faced with an enemy unconcerned with traditional military strategies or hampered by resource management and logistics. This enemy was more akin to a rapidly spreading virus than any kind of conventional hostile force. They were a plague, compelled to spread the infection to all corners of human occupied space. They were a scourge that no amount of distance could protect you from.

No, the people that had chosen to stay behind on Gagarin were not safe. It would be only a matter of time before the Reapers came for them too.

They seized nearly a third of the station's long-term provisions, as much as they could transport in the few short hours before getting underway again. It was yet another command decision that had turned Navarro's stomach. But they had a long journey ahead of them and hadn't been nearly prepared enough to care for so many people and ships. She knew the people on Gagarin were doomed. Those that came with her still had a chance.

The distress call they'd received from the station twenty hours later had proved the Captain's grim prophecy correct. A Reaper patrol—or, perhaps, a force chasing after Navarro's fleet—had descended on Gagarin and was beginning to slice the massive station to pieces.

There wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. The fleet was already more than a light year away and powerless to help. She ordered the comm channel terminated. Her crew had already heard enough screaming and pleading to last a lifetime.

Gagarin had made its choice.

For the next four weeks, the Exodus Fleet pushed on through the black, steadily crossing the vast distance from Sol to the Arcturus Stream and the nearest mass relay beyond Charon. The goal was the Skyllian Verge and, ultimately, Elysium.

Before the Alliance secure networks had completely collapsed, intel showed that the Reapers had bypassed the Petra Nebula completely. Instead, the enemy had chosen to blitz through, from relay to relay, making straight for the strongholds in Exodus, Arcturus, Trebia and finally Sol. Navarro was betting that the enemy wouldn't yet be able to break off a sizable enough force to backtrack to a world like Elysium when both Earth and the turians continued to resist.

It was a big gamble, but Navarro didn't see much of an alternative. They simply couldn't run and hide forever.

One of humanity's older colonies, Elysium lacked significant, permanently stationed naval assets. The Alliance had hoped that the absence of an overt show of force so close to the nearby batarian home system would ease tensions between the two civilizations. Instead, a network of defensive orbital satellites was tasked with the bulk of the colony's protection while a rapid response force was always maintained at Terra Nova and Arcturus.

Navarro was counting on that lack of major military power in the system to keep the planet off the Reapers' radar and allow her to deliver her civilians to a place of relative safety, even if only to resupply and catch their collective breath.

But with the comm buoy network shattered from Sol to Arcturus, her fleet's conventional means of long-range communication and its link to Alliance Command was broken and their intel had gone stale. The Jon Grissom did possess a Quantum Entanglement Communicator array—the only operational unit among the Exodus Fleet—but its only node pairs had been linked to the Systems Alliance HQ at Vancouver and Arcturus Station, which were both long gone, obliterated by the Reapers. The particle node that would have allowed her ship to connect to the human embassy on the Citadel had been in transit at the time of the attack and was likely also lost.

They were isolated, flying blind, and increasingly desperate to reach a friendly port of call.

The vast majority of the ships making up the Exodus Fleet, overcrowded as they were, hadn't been anywhere remotely prepared enough to embark on a month-long journey across the vastness of deep space. Early on, Navarro and the other captains had redistributed provisions as efficiently as they could while moving at speed. But after the first week, they'd been forced to impose half rations for all the military personnel to help stretch the supplies they had on hand. A week after that, the civilians, aside from the very young, were asked to make due with considerably less while they struggled to make their food and fresh water stores last.

They weren't the Quarian Migrant Fleet and they hadn't had centuries to perfect the art of keeping an entire civilization in near-perpetual motion, traversing the stars. Simply keeping these Alliance refugees fed and warm had become a monumental task for Navarro and the other leaders. She had to see them through to a place of safety and one with adequate resources soon or else conditions within the fleet would deteriorate very, very rapidly.

"Ma'am, the Anna's drive core saturation is reaching threshold prematurely again," The ensign at Ops said. "They'll be in the red within the hour."

Navarro sighed to herself. The Anna Comnena was an enormous hospital ship—the largest in the fleet, actually. The late Admiral Caine had been wise to send her and her frigate escort well away from the fray during the Battle for Earth, allowing the ships to make a relatively easy rendezvous with the rest of the Exodus fleet before heading out of the system. But she wasn't exactly the swiftest of the vessels among their convoy. More problematic, however, was that her mass effect core efficiency had been steadily eroding over the course of their journey, reducing the distance the fleet could cover during their FTL sprints. The big ship needed a week in a well-equipped fleet yard to have her engines sorted out, but she wasn't the only one. Dozens of other ships among the fleet were suffering from similar problems while they struggled to maintain speed, anxiously pressing on toward the relay and a lifeline beyond it.

"Distance to the next waypoint?"

"Just over three hundred million kilometers, Captain."

"Alright, that'll have to do then," Navarro said. "Ensign Kapoor, signal to the fleet to prepare for deceleration and transmit updated rally point coordinates."

"Aye, aye, ma'am," Kapoor said. "Transmitting instructions and verifying revised rally point data."

This was the tedious part. Coordinating the FTL drive core discharge procedures among a fleet of nearly two hundred starships was an excruciatingly deliberate process that literally took days to complete. They could cover vast distances during their sustained FTL jumps, but ensuring that static electrical charges accumulating within the individual drive cores were kept to manageable levels was a constant concern. Frying the hulls and passengers within them to a well-done crisp was less than ideal and something Navarro was keen to avoid.

Careful navigation was absolutely essential. The supercarriers, Enterprise and Pegasus, were both equipped with massive, portable discharge platforms. But those constructs weren't designed to service much more than half a dozen ships during a twenty-four hour period. Instead, the fleet prioritized courses that took them within manageable distances to stellar objects with sufficiently powerful magnetic fields for each leg of their journey.

The calculations were incredibly complex, but nothing the highly advanced navigational VIs couldn't handle. And while orchestrating the discharge procedures of so many varied starships was an enormous task, the naval command crews that oversaw the effort were becoming increasingly efficient at it. Even still, it was a clear reminder of just how inconvenient traveling these great distances could be without the luxury of mass relays.

"Signal to Pegasus and Enterprise to standby for carrier operations. I want that fighter screen deployed as quickly as possible. We're much closer to Arcturus now and the last thing we need is a Reaper patrol dropping into our formation in the middle of discharge maneuvers."

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

Navarro remained seated as she surveyed the activity in her CIC, every member of her crew performing an array of complex tasks with the kind of careful symmetry that was born from countless hours of training and repetition. Each and every one of them was feeling the strain, fatigued after weeks of being on the run while remaining vigilant for signs of Reaper pursuit. They were an exceptional group of young men and women and the pride she felt in leading them helped to buoy her own spirits.

She felt the subtle shift in the Grissom's ambient vibration that signaled their drop from FTL speed and flicked her eyes up to the big, central tactical screen, watching as the plots of the other navy ships in the convoy popped back into normal space and took up carefully prearranged positions.

The warships of the fleet always came first, accelerating ahead of the main formation before dropping to sub-light speeds, blazing the trail and securing the immediate area before the civilian and other naval support vessels followed.

After the Grissom, the Normandy SR1-class frigates, Gallipoli and Ain Jalut, came next, each appearing roughly four hundred kilometers off the big dreadnought's port and starboard sides. The agile fast attack and recon ships immediately went stealthy and peeled away, forming the outer edge of the fleet's defensive perimeter. The two supercarriers, Enterprise and Pegasus, along with their array of escort cruisers and frigates, arrived a few seconds later. Then the two Havoc-class corvettes—likely the only two of their kind that had survived the Battle for Earth—arrived and added their contribution to the growing assembly of naval firepower.

Each ship had a specific quadrant of space assigned to it prior to decelerating from FTL, each focusing the full might of their passive sensor arrays out into the black, searching for signs of Reaper activity before the remainder of the fleet arrived.

During the invasion, they'd quickly come to realize that the Reaper vessels were incredibly stealthy and practically invisible at ranges beyond a few hundred thousand kilometers. Their mottled, insectoid-like hulls seemed to blend in with the blackness of space and their mysterious reactors emitted little more radiation or identifiable energy signatures than what was normally detectable among the background levels of the cosmos.

But even just one of those massive capital ships could wreak incredible havoc if it were allowed to get close enough to the vulnerable civilian ships. The military crews had to be tremendously methodical with their threat detection procedures or risk losing thousands of lives in the blink of an eye.

Navarro studied the plots on the tactical display, watching as the warships established the defensive perimeter. The sight of the maneuver they'd duplicated more than a dozen times always gave her the same sense of frustrated powerlessness.

A fleet made up of two supercarriers, the most advanced dreadnought ever built by humankind, and an array of deadly frigates, cruisers and heavy patrollers was a frightening display of military force. All told, they had well over a hundred combat drop ships and nearly five thousand embarked spaceborne Marines at their disposal. In any sane assessment, it was a ferocious battlegroup capable of giving even the most well-defended colony world pause.

But when faced with an enemy as powerful as the Reapers—one with no apparent supply lines to threaten and without any other obvious weaknesses—the concept of sane military assessments could quickly be thrown from the nearest airlock.

"No indication of enemy presence on long-range sensors, Captain," Lieutenant Anders reported from the Tactical station a few minutes later. "The first waves of civilian transports are dropping into position now."

"Enterprise and Pegasus report all assigned fighter squadrons launched and assuming patrol pattern Echo-Six," Ensign Kapoor reported from Ops.

Navarro nodded, studying the data streaming to her personal display attached to her command chair. The fleet had been forced to drop out of FTL prematurely, but they were still very close to their goal of the Arcturus Delta Relay. She closed her eyes and said a silent little prayer before glancing over to Ops.

"Kapoor, patch me in to Pegasus Actual. We're going to leave the fleet in Captain Joyner's hands during the discharge operations while we press ahead to the relay. We'll scout out the Vetus system and confirm Elysium is secure."

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

"And alert the flight deck to clear some space. I want to borrow a squadron of Tomahawks for the trip." She glanced around at her assembled crew. "Ladies and gentleman, it's time we go find these people a safe haven."

SSV Normandy

Miranda stood beneath the shower head, rinsing the shampoo from her long black hair, breathing in the exotic citrusy fragrance and soaking in the soothing steam and warm water.

After her earlier round of biotic training in the Cargo Bay, her skin was left feeling tingly and sensitive, much like it often would after a demanding combat mission, back when she was at the height of her powers.

Far from painful, she found the sensation was a comfort to her. It made her feel normal again, more like her old self. More complete.

She smiled when she heard the shower stall door opening behind her. "Shouldn't you be on duty, Captain?"

"We still have a couple of hours at FTL before we hit the relay," Shepard said, running a hand through her wet hair. "I'm rotating the first watch out of the CIC for a break. I want them rested and sharp before we transition to Elysium." He began kissing her neck and moving his hands down the sides of her body. "I made the executive decision to grant us a bit of breather as well."

"That was generous of you," Miranda said and purred. She leaned back deeper into his embrace, coaxing his hands along her flat stomach and up to her breasts, her pulse quickening with desire as she felt his excitement growing.

She turned and draped her hands over his shoulders, accepting his hungry, passionate kiss. His hands moved down to her hips and then under her thighs, lifting her up until she wrapped her legs around his waist.

"Whatever shall we do with our free time?" she said breathlessly.

Shepard sat with his back against the headboard, his head tilted up, looking out through the viewport on the roof of his cabin as the blue-shifted light of millions of stars sped by. The Normandy was racing toward yet another far corner of the galaxy and to a place where the only certain thing he expected to find was more extreme danger.

But he felt calm, focused, and alive.

Being with Miranda had that effect on him. The intimacy they shared was always beyond the mere physical pleasures of sex. It was something more. Something that felt elemental to the man he'd become. It was a connection unlike anything else he'd experienced before.

He'd had more than his fair share of lovers in the past. Even before his actions during the Skyllian Blitz had made him a hero recognized throughout Systems Alliance space and he'd been labeled as one of the most desirable bachelors around, he'd rarely had trouble attracting the attention of beautiful women.

But after Elysium, the fame that that horrible battle had brought him virtually assured he'd never again have to spend an off-duty night alone. And back then, the women that swooned after him were always welcomed. He was younger then, supremely confident in himself, and self-indulgent.

It felt strange to be returning to Elysium now. He thought about how much he'd changed since the Blitz and wondered if learning the truth about the Reapers had been the only reason for it.

The Battle of the Citadel had amplified his legend to an absurd degree. But by then, he'd been determined to move beyond the image of Commander Shepard that the Alliance had been exploiting for years and try to figure out who he really was. Suddenly, the attention heaped upon him by women more interested in the idea of him rather than the actual man had become tiresome and embarrassing. He'd been reckless and greedy, soaking up one superficial encounter after another.

Not long after they'd first met on that Eden Prime battlefield, he felt certain that his relationship with Ashley Williams would devolve along those same lines. She'd swooned over him at first and had come on strong. He hadn't exactly discouraged it. But then something seemed to click with them. It may have been after Feros, or maybe Noveria. He couldn't remember the exact moment. But they'd somehow moved beyond all that noise and had found something far more genuine in a friendship free of casual sex and emotional baggage.

She'd become one of the truest friends he'd ever known.

Sometimes he wondered what it would have been like if that relationship had moved in another direction, if he'd not become so captivated by Liara and had instead chosen Ashley.

At the time, many of their mutual friends had thought they were a near perfect match. And Ash was a beautiful, passionate woman. She was someone he'd refused to categorize and whose place in his life he protected fiercely.

But he never once regretted having missed an opportunity with Ashley. Not after he'd met Miranda.

He shifted his eyes so he could admire her while she dressed, pulling up her panties and fastening her lacy black bra. She spent a few moments drying her damp hair with a towel before moving to the dresser to retrieve her uniform and boots, pulling on her slim-fitting trousers first.

Once she'd purchased a few things on Noveria, the advanced textile fabrication tools in the Quartermaster's office were all she needed to create something she deemed more appropriate to her personal style while still keeping with the spirit of the Alliance Navy—barely.

The end result was nearly identical to the synthetic black leather outfit she often favored during their earlier time on board the Normandy, complete with a body-hugging fit, her signature tri-strap belt and a choker around her neck. But in place of the jet black and yellow trim of her old uniform was now the dark steel blue of the Alliance paired with subtle white piping. And where the Cerberus logo had once been proudly featured above her left breast was now emblazoned with the arch and three stars of the Systems Alliance Navy.

He smiled at her unwavering devotion to the provocative style. And he couldn't deny that she rocked the look like no other. It was an outfit that might make a lesser woman appear shallow, but somehow only served to enhance Miranda's strength of personality.

He never tired of admiring her. After all the women he'd known in the past, all the one-night-stands and all the brief affairs, not a single one who had come before measured up to this femme fatale he'd fallen for.

Physically, she was stunning. From the first moment he'd seen her on Lazarus Station he'd been slapped in the face by that inescapable fact. But the sexual attraction wasn't the reason he loved her, it was more of a happy byproduct.

She was strong, decisive, intelligent, thoughtful and supremely confident. But there was also a deeper vulnerability and inner turmoil that she'd only just begun to allow him a glimpse of.

He was drawn to Miranda and the secrets she kept hidden behind her eyes. He could get lost in those eyes.

She zipped up her blouse, fastened her belt around her waist, and bent down to pull on her knee-high platform heel boots.

"Now that you've enjoyed the show, are you planning on getting up, Captain?" she teased, pulling her long, full-fingered gloves over her hands, one-by-one.

"I'm thinking about it," he said and jumped up from the bed. He walked over, took her into his arms and pulled her into a deep kiss. "Then again, maybe we don't need to get back down to the CIC just yet."

She exhaled, biting her lip, and shoved him away by his bare chest. "Now you're just being irresponsible."

He laughed, watching her stride over to his locker and retrieve his uniform. She walked back across the cabin, a mischievous expression on her face as she looked him up and down, and then pushed the bundle of clothes into his chest.

"Time to get dressed, soldier. That's an order." She cocked her head to the side and gave him a wry smile before sitting down at the desk to finish her hair and makeup.

He watched her for another moment and pulled on his underwear and pants. "I was thinking, after we finish this errand with Tuchanka, it'll be time we head back to the Citadel and allow the crew some R&R. Not just a few hours on a frozen rock like Noveria, but some actual time to unwind. I'm sure Goyle will have the situation with your warrant sorted out by then too."

"Mmm hmm," Miranda said, half listening while brushing her hair.

"I'd say we've earned a day or two for ourselves as well," he said, pulling a t-shirt over his head. "Maybe get a room at one of those luxury hotels in Kithoi Ward, go see one of those shows you like at the Taralos Amphitheater."

"That does sound nice."

"You know, it might not be the worst thing for you to take a little extended time off." He started to secure the buckles on the front of his smock. "You've been going non-stop for months. I know you're still not sleeping well and you've barely had a chance to catch your breath since Bahak."

Miranda stopped dragging the brush through her hair and set it down upon the desk. "Excuse me?"

He'd hit a nerve. Maybe he'd meant to. But there was no mistaking the icy glare she was fixing him with through the mirror. "Listen, I know you don't want to deal with this, but I'm worried about you, Miri. Those nightmares you're having aren't going away. I don't want to wind you up or force you to talk about it, but you're holding too much in. You've barely even mentioned what happened with Kenson." He exhaled. "Or about what happened with this guy Logan on the Citadel."

Miranda had gone rigid in her chair, listening, but then abruptly shot up to her feet and rounded on him.

In an instant she turned from the woman he'd fallen in love with to the severe Cerberus operative she'd been when they first met. When she spoke, her voice was sharp and steely. "I've endured some terrible things in my life, John. Things I had trouble moving past. But, eventually, I always did. This is no different."

She made to push past him but he took her by the arm. "Miranda, wait," he said. "This is different. You're different. The way you compartmentalized these things before won't work anymore, you have to see that. You can't just bury it or push it aside. And you can't deny the effects it's having on you, physically and emotionally. I've seen the jumpiness, the hit to your reaction time. That's not normal for you. And your biotics? Have you even stopped to consider part of what's holding you back could be related?"

"Please, spare me the psychobabble, Shepard. The deterioration of my biotic abilities has nothing to do with how I'm feeling. My body was damaged at the cellular level. It's science."

"Maybe. But can you say that with absolute certainty, Miranda?"

She pulled her arm free from his grip, a shadow seeming to pass over her face, and took a step back. "Fine. You want hear how the SAIS nearly broke me? Sure, let's work through that. You want to hear about how I murdered Kenson, John? Okay. Shall I describe how it felt to push that woman through an airlock? We can do that too. And yes, Dorian Logan nearly raped me while my sister was two floors down in the car. Afterward, I murdered him too. Shall we spend some time exploring the emotions that incident evoked in me? Will that satisfy your curiosity?"

Shepard stood his ground. He'd spun her into this defensive state, causing her to lash out defiantly. But he knew her. He knew it was the wall she always threw back up when she felt threatened. She was trying to shock him into backing down.

Maybe she thought it was weakness to admit she'd been hurt so deeply. Maybe she thought she'd been compromised somehow. But he couldn't allow her to face all that alone. He loved her far too much to see those scars become permanent.

He had his own guilt to deal with too. He still blamed himself for the ordeal she'd been put through. He'd have to come to peace with that someday. But right now, this wasn't about him. He wouldn't allow her to remain adrift, no matter how determined she was to push him away and climb back into her protective shell.

He took a deep breath, pained by the fear and anger he saw in her eyes. "I'm not asking you to relive the past. But this burden you're dragging around isn't yours to bear. You think you've done evil here. You haven't. You survived. For Oriana, for yourself, for all of us. You've saved lives and you're going to save a lot more before this is over with. You're not broken. You're not diminished in any way. And you're not alone anymore. It's not weakness to let someone in."

Miranda's face was turning red, her eyes welling with tears of stress. She blinked and they ran down her cheeks.

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. She didn't resist. He could feel her body trembling, feel her heart pounding against his chest. He whispered in her ear. "When I thought I'd lost you, it was almost the end of me, Miranda. I don't want to push you on this, but its tearing me up to see you struggle alone. It doesn't have to be that way. This was all my fault anyway."

She swallowed, holding back the emotion. "It wasn't your fault," she said, her tone softening. "I'm a big girl and I've suffered worse. Besides, it was no more than what you were put through."

"I'm not so sure about that," he said. "You shouldn't have been there. You shouldn't have been taken."

"You need to stop beating yourself up about that. It's done. We're here and we're moving forward again." She kissed his lips gently. "You know, I never feared being judged before. But now…" She trailed off and her eyes moved to the floor. "The things I've done. I don't want to lose you, but everyday I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

"That I'm not who you're supposed to be with, John," she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "That I'm a fraud. I don't deserve this."

Shepard held her out so he could look her in the eye, his penetrating gaze boring into her, trying to convey every ounce of love he felt for her. "Now you listen to me, Miranda Lawson. You are everything to me. And I don't care what you've done. I'm not going anywhere. We've gone through a little bit of hell to make it back to this point and there's likely going to be more before this is all over with. But none of that's going to change how I feel about you. I love you."

She breathed out heavily, her composure already returning. "I'm going to hold you to that, Shepard."

He smiled and kissed her, feeling the tension begin to fall away. She fell back into his arms, settling her head upon his chest.

EDI's voice coming through the intercom broke the silence. "Captain, Miss Lawson. I apologize for the intrusion but we're approaching the relay and preparing to decelerate from FTL."

He glanced upward reflexively while EDI spoke and when he returned his gaze to Miranda it seemed that she was as poised and collected as ever, her aura of self-confidence restored and her eyes dried.

She took a step back and smoothed out her uniform with her hands. "We better go," she said and gave a faint smile. "We'll talk more later, okay?"

"We're starting to get some preliminary scans of Elysium on long range scopes, Captain," Samantha Traynor said. "Grissom Academy is currently on the far side of the planet, but should be swinging into view within the hour."

Shepard nodded, his arms folded in front of him as he stood near the center of the CIC. Miranda was off to his left, her eyes glued to one of the tactical consoles near the railing. Garrus and Liara had also joined them in the Normandy's nerve center, eager to see what they'd find waiting for them in the Vetus system.

The Normandy had passed though the local mass relay a little over an hour ago and had been steadily closing on the Alliance colony world ever since. They were approaching at speed, but operating under full stealth conditions, a barely perceptible speck hurtling through the black.

"Hmm, that's strange," Traynor said. "I'm not receiving telemetry from any of the fleet beacons around the planet. They're all dark."

Shepard furrowed his brow at that. It wasn't a positive sign. "Those beacons don't go offline—ever," he said. "Are we picking up any other broadcasts?"

"No, sir. Nothing but background interference. In fact, it's far too quiet out there. We should at least be hearing some commercial freight or mining operation chatter, but nobody seems to be talking at all."

Miranda shot him an uneasy look. "Perhaps the Reapers beat us here."

"New contact, sir!" Ensign Riley called out from Tactical. "Bearing five-zero degrees, distance approximately four thousand kilometers. EDI already has it tagged as batarian, Akula-class light cruiser. It's sweeping the area with active scans."

"Sound general quarters, Traynor," Miranda said.

"Aye, aye, ma'am," she said and engaged the 1MC from her console. "General Quarters, General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations. This is not a drill."

Two brief warbling bursts sounded throughout the ship after Traynor's voice was carried to all decks and the lighting in the CIC dimmed to even more subdued levels, bathing the staff in the cool blues and bright reds of their consoles and the tactical screens.

"They're obviously looking for what came through the relay, meaning us," Garrus said. "The sensor packages on those Akulas are more than a generation behind, which explains why they're being so noisy about it."

"Yeah," Shepard said slowly. "But what the hell are they doing here?" He hit the nearby intercom switch. "Helm, CIC. Joker, steer us well clear of that bogey. I don't know what's going on yet but let's avoid announcing our presence for now."

"Roger that, Captain," Joker said. "Not a problem. I could do a few donuts in front of that heap without being seen."

"Let's keep that to a minimum, Joker. Just give it a wide berth and get us to Grissom a-sap. Looks like we're heading into a hornet's nest and I'd like to avoid kicking it just yet."

"Copy that, Shepard."

Another thirty minutes passed while the Normandy made a wide, sweeping arc around the presumed-hostile warship and drew closer to the Alliance colony world and the big space station in geosynchronous orbit above it. Part of Shepard wanted to confront the Hegemony cruiser right then and there to find out just what the hell it was doing operating in Alliance space. The cruiser displaced a good deal more tonnage than the Normandy, but its significantly inferior technology made it no match for his frigate. But as unsettling as the batarian presence was, he couldn't let it distract from their mission—at least not yet.

"I'm getting better imagery of the planet now," Miranda announced, bent over a console, her gaze locked on the ultra-sensitive long-range optical array scopes. "There are more batarian ships in orbit. I can see two additional cruisers and a planetary assault carrier. There are also several obvious, fresh debris fields in the vicinity. The orbital defense satellites look to be intact, but are clearly offline. Grissom Academy is just coming into view now as well. Traynor and I are working on establishing a tight-beam comm link."

Shepard swore under his breath. They'd come expecting to find a Cerberus raid on the station but were now faced with what looked like a full-scale batarian invasion of a core Alliance colony world. With the promised Genophage cure nearly complete and the Reapers steadily grinding Earth and Palaven to dust, this was a massive distraction their fledgling coalition could not afford. "Traynor, get me a secure channel on the local comm buoy network."

"Aye, sir."

"Well, this is disconcerting," Liara said, stepping closer to Shepard. After several days confined to the Med Bay after emergency surgery to treat the wounds she'd sustained on Sur'Kesh, the asari was beginning to look like her old self again. Still not quite ready to go on an away mission, she at least was free to move around the ship again. "I've heard rumblings of sporadic batarian raids on remote outposts over the last week, but moving on Elysium is a bold move for the Hegemony."

"Were we wrong about Cerberus?" Garrus ventured. "Could this all be a play by the Hegemony to take back control of the Verge?"

"I do not believe so, Mr. Vakarian," EDI said, her familiar blue holographic orb springing to life on the nearby console. "It's highly unlikely that the Illusive Man would have allowed the encryption algorithms we detected in their doctored comm burst to fall into batarian hands. Furthermore, we're now close enough to Grissom Academy to capture high resolution images through the primary optical array. There is a Cerberus Hadrian-class destroyer moored at the station's main docking apparatus."

"EDI's right," Miranda said. "The batarian vessels in orbit over Elysium are all antiquated designs, similar to the first cruiser we observed. They're likely from a colonial garrison based on the outer edge of Hegemony space. That destroyer alone is more than a match for them. If Cerberus didn't want them there, they wouldn't be."

"Galactic-wide war makes for strange bedfellows, but Cerberus working with the batarians?" Garrus said. "That's an awfully unlikely alliance."

Miranda shrugged. "It's likely one merely born out of convenience. I'm skeptical the batarians are capable of disabling the Alliance defensive satellite network over Elysium. It's far more plausible that Cerberus is responsible."

"Seems the Illusive Man's humanity-first stance isn't so ironclad these days," Shepard said.

"I'm afraid that's always been the case," Miranda said. "He's never been averse to working with other species, providing the end result benefits Cerberus. This situation works to his advantage somehow. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say they're planning on blaming the Academy raid on the batarian incursion. They won't take the chance of leaving any data behind or witnesses alive to challenge the claim either."

Shepard blew out a long breath. "I agree. With the Reapers turning the batarian's home system into a breeding ground for new troops, whoever's left of the Hegemony must be desperate to scratch out territory and grab resources. The Illusive Man is a master of exploiting that sort of thing."

"Local comm buoy network is inoperable, Captain," Traynor said. "The hardware's all intact, but I can't establish a link with either the secure Alliance channels or the general civilian frequencies. All requests are being actively refused. It looks like they've been tampered with."

"EDI, see if you can do anything about that."

"Yes, Shepard."

Shepard walked a few steps over to the secondary operations console where Miranda's sister was seated and put a hand on the back of her chair. "Oriana, head back to the Comm Room and get a QEC connection to Alliance Fleet Command at the Citadel. Provide a report on what we've found at Elysium and only that. Just the details on the batarian and Cerberus presence in-system. EDI will transfer the relevant data for the Navy. Understood?"

Oriana jumped up from her seat and gave a resolute nod. "Yes, Captain," she said. "I understand." She saluted and shared a quick look with Miranda, her young face showing both exhilaration and anxiety, and then quickly disappeared through the aft hatchway.

"Cerberus starfighters detected operating near the station," Miranda said after returning her focus to her console. "That Hadrian accommodates twelve Tridents. It looks like they have all their birds running a wide patrol pattern of the area around Grissom Academy." She looked up from her screen, glancing toward Shepard. "Captain, if anyone over there is even remotely competent at their job we'll eventually be detected. Stealth or not, we're not completely invisible."

He nodded and hit the intercom again. "Helm, CIC. All stop on the main thrust, Joker. Let's just drift a bit while we figure out our next move."

"Copy that, Captain. All stop."

"I've got a hit on that tight-beam broadcast," Traynor said. "Someone on the station is sending back encrypted Alliance identifier codes."

"Authenticate that transmission, Specialist," Miranda ordered.

"Aye, ma'ma. I'm on it… Confirmed. Codes are authentic and current, issued to Staff Commander Kahlee Sanders, acting director of Grissom Academy. I can establish an audio link."

"Do it."

Traynor punched out a few more rapid commands on her console and then glanced over to the command staff. "Audio link established."

"Grissom Academy, this is the SSV Normandy, Captain John Shepard commanding. We're on approach to the station. What's your status?"

"Oh thank god," the woman's voice cracked over the CIC speakers. "Normandy, this is Kahlee Sanders, director of Grissom Academy. We are in trouble. Cerberus troops have boarded the station and have already taken control of over two-thirds of the facility. They're rounding up our students and seizing tech. Our security teams have tried to slow them down, but they're no match for the soldiers. I've barricaded myself in a secondary data center and still have limited access to internal networks and the local, low-powered comm array. So far, they haven't found me."

Shepard shared a quick look with Miranda before responding. "Understood, Commander. We're close, but you've got a Cerberus destroyer at your primary docking collar and a dozen fighters flying overwatch around the station. It's more than we can handle in a straight-up fight."

"I know," Kahlee said. "They secured all the main docking ports and the shuttle bay as soon as they arrived. But there's still an auxiliary cargo bay they haven't sealed off yet. It's not far from my position."

Shepard signaled to Traynor to mute the line and then glanced around to his staff. "I need options."

Garrus spoke up first. "Insert a small team onto the station, round up as many hostages as we can, and slip out quick. We're probably looking at a fully reinforced platoon embarked on that destroyer, but it'll be tight confines over there. That'll help neutralize their numbers advantage. Making the getaway with those fighters swarming is going to be tricky though."

"The remaining Kodiak is stealthy enough to get through the fighter screen and deliver the team, especially if we can use the Normandy to create a distraction and draw some of them away from the station," Miranda said. "It'll be tight, but manageable. But unless that destroyer also decides to leave prematurely, I'm not sure how practical getting back out will be. More likely, we'll have to try and secure part of the station and protect the students Cerberus hasn't already captured. We might be able to frustrate them and delay their timeline."

"At which point they might just decide to destroy the station on their way out the door, just like you've suggested they will, Miranda," Liara said, looking unnerved. "It's a tremendous risk and whoever goes over there will have no assurance of escape."

"There are no perfect options available here, Liara," Miranda said. "It's going to be risky whatever we do. But we have to act. The Illusive Man is here for a reason. We can't allow him to succeed in whatever he's attempting to accomplish."

Liara looked like she wanted to argue further, but remained silent.

"Miranda's right," Shepard said. "There's not really a safe play here. And Jack's on that station. I'm not going to leave her hanging out to dry when we can do something about it. It's not ideal, but we need to get a team over there and figure out the rest later. The Normandy won't have any trouble attracting their attention and running interference. We might have better options once we see how Cerberus reacts to that."

"And Elysium?" Miranda said.

"Definitely beyond what we can deal with on our own," Shepard said. "Let's start with the station and see about getting the students and staff clear. We'll have to circle back to the issue with the colony later. Hopefully Fleet Ops will be able to send help from the Citadel." He looked at Traynor and nodded, signaling to resume the audio connection. "Commander, we're going to try and a get a team over to you in a shuttle. You think you can get that auxiliary cargo bay open for us?"

"I've just been checking on that, Captain. It won't be a problem right now but I don't know how much longer it will be before they realize I'm still in the system. If you're going to do it, you better hurry."

"That's the plan. Give us a few minutes to get a little closer and prep the team. And keep this line open, Sanders. We'll transmit specific timing and instructions shortly."

"Understood, Captain. And thank you. Grissom Academy out."

"Garrus, you're with me. Traynor, alert Vega, Mallory and Westmoreland, tell 'em to prep for a priority combat drop." Shepard started to turn toward the elevator but was stopped by Miranda clearing her throat emphatically. "XO?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"A quick word please, Captain," she said, giving him a sharp look before stepping to the side and slightly away from the rest of the CIC crew.

"What is it?"

"You can't leave the Normandy, John," she said quietly. "Not with all these hostile ships prowling around the system. I should lead the mission to the station. You need a skilled pilot to get past those fighters and Cortez has only just regained the use of his right leg. He can't take you."

He frowned. "Rhodes then."

She gave him an impatient, almost offended look. "Rhodes is an adequate shuttle pilot under normal conditions, but I'm far superior. You know this. If Cerberus spots the approach, you wouldn't stand a chance against those Tridents. You need me in that cockpit and we can't both go." She touched his arm discreetly. "You know I'm right."

Shepard stared back at her, his jaw set, struggling to find a good reason to disagree, but failing. He did know she was right. "Alright," he finally said. "Take Garrus and the Marines and save whoever you can. No unnecessary risks. We'll run interference out here and be back around to work out the extraction plan."

"Aye, aye, sir," she said with a wink before striding purposefully to the lift. "Garrus, you're with me."

Shepard turned and watched her strut away, disappearing into the elevator with Garrus. He let out a frustrated breath, once again left to wonder if commanding a starship was really the best fit for his particular talents. He walked back over to the central CIC dais and hit the intercom with far more force than necessary. "Helm, CIC," he growled. "Joker, stand by to make our presence known to these assholes. I'm feeling like swatting a few flies today."

Vega, Westmoreland, and Lieutenant Mallory were already in the Armory when Miranda and Garrus stepped from the lift and out onto Deck Five. The Marines were all in varied stages of undress, helping each other into their heavy battle armor and gathering weapons and gear. They were moving with a heightened level of urgency, but still maintained the precise, cool demeanor of the highly skilled warriors they were.

Farther forward, the Flight Ops crew was scrambling to prep the Normandy's surviving advanced-model Kodiak, maneuvering the big shuttle into launch position, triple-checking propulsion and defensive systems, and, most critically to the mission, inspecting the sensor-defeating hull plating and the array of electronic jamming equipment intended to mask their approach to the station.

Garrus joined the Marines and went straight for where he kept his personal weapons and gear, seizing his beloved sniper rifle from the rack first.

Miranda gave a curt nod to the others as she strode past, already unzipping the front of her blouse as she approached her locker. She slipped off her top and exchanged it for the black, long sleeve undershirt folded inside, pulling it over her head before leaning down to pull off her boots.

With time of the essence, there was little room for modesty. They had only minutes before they'd need to be in the shuttle and on the move, hardly enough time for Miranda to be overly concerned with flashing a little skin in the busy staging area.

Not that the occasional display of semi-nakedness in the common areas was a rare occurrence on a busy and cramped Navy warship. This Normandy might have been originally designed with a fair bit more personal crew comfort in mind, but she still sacrificed a good deal of personal space for the sake of functionality. The Alliance's decision to transfer the Armory and combat staging area to a busy deck like the Shuttle Bay followed this rational, adapting the frigate to be more in line with typical Navy layouts where any semblance of privacy was sacrificed for the sake of expediency.

But regardless, it had been a very long time since Miranda had been described as shy or reserved. And at the moment, everyone around her was entirely too focused on the task at hand, all of them professionals and fully aware that lives were hanging in the balance on the besieged space station. Even Lieutenant Vega was too absorbed in his preparations to gawk. Or, at least, he was sly enough to conceal whatever quick peek he stole of his XO standing nearby, dressed in little more than her underwear.

A young specialist who looked all of nineteen years old rushed over, carrying pieces of Miranda's heavier combat armor.

"No, Specialist," Miranda said, glancing up at the girl as she wriggled out of her pants. "I'm flying today. Just bring me the combat flight jacket and a harness rig."

"Yes, ma'am," the Specialist said, nearly tripping over herself as she dashed back to the supply area.

Miranda's first order of business was to get her team past the Cerberus starfighters patrolling the area and safely onto the station. She wasn't about to be encumbered by heavy battle armor while squeezed into the Kodiak's cockpit. She threw her uniform pants into the locker and grabbed her pair of nano-fiber weave tactical pants and sturdier combat boots, pulling them on in turn.

They would almost assuredly encounter heavy resistance once on board the station and she was well aware that her biotic barrier capabilities were very much a work in progress. She'd need to take care when the shooting started, seeking cover where she could find it. Lieutenant Vega's bulk should do nicely for that purpose, she thought wryly to herself.

The Specialist returned with the requested gear and began helping Miranda into her jacket and securing her personal kinetic barrier unit to the small of her back.

"Thank you, Specialist," Miranda said, zipping the jacket half way up her chest and beginning to fasten the harness around her torso. "I'll need six clips each for my Paladin and M-12. And four flashbang grenades as well."

"Yes, ma'am."

Miranda was clearing and checking the action of her Paladin heavy pistol when she heard the lift doors open behind her followed by the sound of heavy, thundering footfalls. She looked over her shoulder and saw Wrex lumbering into the Armory, brushing aside one of the other attendants as he reached for the rack of heavy shotguns.

"What exactly do you think you're doing?" Miranda said.

"What does it look like?" he growled. "I'm coming with you."

"Absolutely not. This is strictly Alliance business. Your fight is waiting on Tuchanka."

"It sounds like there's a perfectly good fight over there," Wrex said, pointing his claw-like hand toward the Shuttle Bay ramp. "Besides, it's not like I have anything better to do. Standing in that War Room, moving krogan fleet assets around that don't even exist yet is downright insulting. I'll clear those Cerberus pyjaks from your little space station for you, Lawson." He looked around at the Marines and Garrus. "And if this is all you're sending against what that destroyer is packing, you need the help. No offense, Garrus."

"None taken, Wrex," Garrus said, glancing at Miranda and giving a shrug. "He's not wrong."

Miranda thrust the pistol into the holster at her side. "Fine. But this is a delicate operation, Wrex. I can't have you indiscriminately blowing holes in the hull of the station or, more importantly, the students we're tasked with rescuing. You will follow my orders at all times. Is that clear?"

Wrex gave a slow, guttural laugh and waved a hand distractedly. "Don't worry, Lawson. You're the boss."

Chief Sun was trotting up to Miranda a moment later, the oversized ear protection headset resting around her neck as the Kodiak's engines roared to life a couple dozen meters behind her. "We're getting her warmed up for you now, XO," she shouted over the sudden noise. "All systems check out fine. Fuel and ordnance is topped off."

"Thank you, Chief," she said and finished collecting the rest of her gear from the specialist, checking the Locust over quickly before sliding it into the holster strapped to her thigh. "Alright, let's move out!"

Miranda crossed the deck at a trot, the Marines, Garrus and Wrex right behind her, their heavier weapons clattering against their combat armor. She jumped into the idling Kodiak and angled her body through the center hatchway to the cockpit while the others piled into the troop compartment and began strapping in.

Sliding gracefully into the pilot's seat, Miranda thumbed on the holographical HUD, and placed the flight headset over her head, pushing a few strands of her long hair out of the way for the comm earpiece and mic.

Lieutenant Mallory emerged through the center hatchway a moment later and climbed into the co-pilot's seat. "Mind if I join you up here, mum?" he said. "It turns out krogan warlords take up quite a lot of space in a Kodiak's troop compartment. And I generally fancy a view whenever I can manage it during drops."

Miranda raised her eyebrow at that last comment. "Very well," she said, running through an abbreviated pre-flight systems check and setting up the tactical links to EDI's networks. "But tighten up that harness, Lieutenant—"

"Because you fly real bloody fast," he said, finishing her sentence and flashing a roguish grin. "I've heard. Vega clued me in to that one, actually." He cinched the safety straps around his shoulders forcefully. "I'm ready."

Miranda gave a soft laugh and smirked, making a personal note to steer Oriana well clear of the man. He's handsome and seems to think he's charming as well, she thought to herself.

"CIC, Lawson here," she said, hitting the switch to close the shuttle's armored troop doors. "We're secured and ready for launch. Designate flight Electra One-One."

"Copy, Electra One-One," Traynor's voice came back in her ear. "We're lining up our final approach now. Stand by for Shuttle Bay door release and stealth launch procedures."

"Understood. Standing by."

The warning strobes and alarms sounded in the in the Shuttle Bay thirty seconds later and the massive forward ramp began to lower.

"You're a go for launch, Electra One-One," Shepard said in her ear. "Stay safe out there. We'll be back around for you as soon as we can."

Miranda smiled. "Copy that. See you soon."

Miranda eased the Kodiak through the transparent mass effect field protecting the Shuttle Bay from the hard vacuum of space, using only the low-powered vectoring thrusters to gently push the shuttle clear of the Normandy, mindful to keep their power signature as small as possible. Drifting ahead of the frigate, she pointed the nose vaguely toward the big space station in the distance and waited.

The Normandy shifted course and crept along for another several minutes, putting distance between her bulk and the Kodiak floating innocuously in space. Once the big frigate was nearly a hundred kilometers away, she ran up her reactor to full output and engaged the full suite of active sensor gear. The space around the frigate was practically lit up with the sudden barrage of exotic radiation and high-powered comm gear, creating a beacon that the Cerberus starfighters couldn't have missed even if their pilots had been fast asleep.

The Normandy then flared its main thrusters, feigning a rapid approach to the space station before turning sharply and roaring away from Elysium. The effect was immediate. Two-thirds of the Cerberus Tridents peeled off from their patrol patterns and accelerated away from Grissom Academy, giving chase.

"Thank you, Shepard," Miranda said quietly to herself, watching as the full range of hostile contacts in the region was painted on her tactical overlay, a pleasant byproduct of the Normandy's burst of active scans. She tapped the intercom to the troop compartment. "Eight of the Cerberus fighters are peeling off and chasing the Normandy. That leaves four for us to evade on our approach. It won't be a problem. Sit tight."

Miranda waited a little longer before taking action, watching the remaining Cerberus starfighters reform into a new patrol pattern, getting the measure of her adversaries, and then finally eased the throttle forward. They were still more than two hundred kilometers from Grissom Academy and, unless a focused optical or active sensor array happened to be pointed directly at them, almost completely undetectable. Even still, she approached with caution, fully aware that just one well-placed missile from a Trident starfighter would be fatal.

Coming to within a dozen klicks, she juked left and fired another series of rapid bursts from the maneuvering thrusters, keeping the station between her and a pair of the fighters that had swung wide around the opposite end. The maneuver took them away from the cargo port they were aiming for and closer to the destroyer that was still moored at the other end of the structure.

Miranda held the Kodiak steady for several moments, relying more on the mental image she had of the Cerberus patrol patterns than what her tactical display was relaying. Silently counting off the seconds, she dipped the nose of the shuttle and accelerated beneath the station's superstructure, coming to within a meter of the hull while moving at speed. She visualized the second pair of Tridents on the other side of the station, moving in the opposite direction, even as the onboard VI calculated the hostile crafts' predicted trajectories.

She chanced a brief glance at Mallory seated to her right and smiled slightly, noting the death grip he was applying to the armrests, watching nervously through the virtual view port while the station's exterior sped past in a blur, close enough to reach out and touch.

Twelve more seconds and they were in the clear, passing beneath one of the massive arms of the station. Miranda flipped the Kodiak's orientation and deftly brought the heavy shuttle to an abrupt stop, pointing the nose directly toward the reinforced doors of the auxiliary cargo bay hatch.

"Sanders, this is Miranda Lawson, Normandy's XO. We're here. Open the hatch."

"Copy that, Lawson. Disengaging outer blast doors and unlocking the port. Should be opening now."

"I see it," Miranda said, coaxing the shuttle forward and through the steadily widening gap. "What's the situation in this part of the station?"

"So far, you've got a clear path from the hanger bay to my location…" There was a pause on the open line. "Shit. I've got activity in the adjacent corridor. I think they're looking for me. They'll be outside the compartment in a minute."

"Copy," Miranda said. "Stay calm. We're almost there. I'm sharing a tactical map of the station's interior with you now. Mark your location and the fastest route there from the cargo bay."

Miranda set the Kodiak down toward the back of the cramped maintenance bay, gliding the ship into a space barely large enough to accommodate its bulk. A quick check of the outside atmosphere confirmed the compartment had re-pressurized and she unlocked the safeties on the shuttle's troop doors.

"Let's move," she said, unbuckling her flight harness.

Mallory was already out of his seat and passing through the hatchway to the troop compartment. Miranda followed the Marine medic, pulling the Paladin heavy pistol from its holster as she went. Jumping down onto the deck, she found the other Marines and Wrex had already established a perimeter around the shuttle, weapons drawn. Garrus was at the compartment's interior hatchway, his assault rifle in one hand while he worked the console. She rushed over and joined him.

Garrus glanced back at Miranda. "You sure you don't want to put something on a little more rugged than that jacket, Lawson?"

"I'll be fine. Let's get going. Sanders is in trouble."

He nodded, slapped the door switch and swept out into the corridor beyond, leading the way with the muzzle of his rifle.

Miranda followed the big turian, staying close and directly behind his armored back. She tapped the headset she was still wearing and activated the tactical visor overlay, instantly feeding her an array of enhanced-reality intel about their environment. "We have hostiles closing in on the base commander's location," she announced to the team over the squad channel. "Objective's marked on your TacNet map."

They moved quickly through another cluttered storage compartment and then immediately went down a stairwell, dropping to the level below, Miranda and Garrus following the route Kahlee had sent back over the network. The Marines were moving fluidly behind them, checking corners with their weapons like a single, well-drilled entity. Wrex trailed a few steps behind, sweeping the muzzle of his huge modified Claymore shotgun from left to right, covering the team's rear as he marched along.

Another series of short corridors and then left through a secondary mechanical room brought them to within ten meters of the compartment Kahlee was sheltered within. The commotion they heard from the other end of the hallway announced that Cerberus had already reached her location.

Garrus reached the edge of the hatchway and took a knee, his assault rifle tucked in close to his body. Miranda knelt next to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and poked her head around the corner for the briefest of moments.

"Four commandoes preparing to breach the door," she said, plucking a grenade from her harness. "Garrus, Vega, stand by to engage."

The big Marine Lieutenant came forward with his assault rifle at the ready, silently acknowledging the command.

Miranda thumbed the safety from the explosive and tossed it down the corridor. "Flashbang out!"

The other end of the hallway was consumed in an explosion of disorientating noise, light, and smoke. Garrus and Vega swung out from cover simultaneously and fired several short, controlled bursts downrange, dropping three of the hostile soldiers. Miranda crouched low behind the Marine, squeezed the trigger of her Paladin, and sent two ultra-high velocity slugs straight through the last Cerberus trooper's battle helmet. The man's head jerked back violently and he fell lifelessly to the floor.

Garrus and Vega continued down the corridor, sweeping the area with their weapons and checking the Cerberus troopers that were bleeding out on the deck for signs of life.

"Clear!" Garrus called over the comm.

Miranda strode forward with the others on her heels. She stopped at the door the Cerberus troops had managed to pry partially open and peeked inside. "Sanders, its Lawson. We're clear out here. Open the door."

The heavy doors lurched the rest of the way open, moving on damaged actuators and rails. Miranda stepped through the gap, keeping her pistol tucked in close to her body, muzzle pointed at the floor. She was met by a pretty blonde woman dressed in an Alliance Navy uniform, cradling an Avenger assault rifle in her hands as she stepped out from behind a row of servers and network equipment.

Kahlee scrutinized Miranda for a moment, her eyes settling on the Alliance emblem on the left breast of her flight jacket. "Miss Lawson, it's good to see a friendly face," she said. "Thank you for coming. I know your people are taking a big risk walking into this situation."

Miranda nodded and holstered her weapon. "What can you tell me about what's been happening inside the station?"

"Cerberus secured the main dock in no time at all, brushing aside our mech sentries with ease. They took the station's main operations center in the central tower a few minutes after that. Their troops have been spreading out ever since, grabbing students and seizing experimental tech. They've been methodical and brutal. I'm not sure how many of our staff members are dead, but I'm afraid it's probably most of them. It seems like they know exactly what and who their looking for."

"That's not surprising," Miranda said. "The Illusive Man wouldn't send an advanced destroyer to raid a research and development outpost without some very specific goals in mind. Can you tell if there's been any recent activity at the docks?"

"I'm not seeing any airlock seal changes or docking arm activity, if that's what you mean," Kahlee said, glancing at a nearby bank of terminals. "But my window into the station's networks is exceedingly limited now. I'm losing insight into more systems every few minutes. But that Cerberus ship is still definitely there."

Miranda swore under her breath. The destroyer hadn't decoupled yet to pursue the Normandy. They were stuck there—at least for now. "Are you aware that a batarian battlegroup has taken up position over Elysium?"

"Yes. We saw them coming before the colonial administrators did. They just swept right past the station and went for the planet." She sighed. "A few of the orbital patrollers came around to engage them, but they didn't stand a chance against the batarian cruisers. The rest of the Alliance ship's pulled back to the other side of Elysium. They were hopelessly outgunned. They must have done something to the satellite defenses too. The automated guns didn't even fire once."

"I think that trick is beyond this particular group of batarians. It was more likely Cerberus's doing. We think they're working together. Did you manage to get a message off to Alliance Command?"

Kahlee shook her head. "The comm buoy networks went offline twenty minutes before the batarians came into view. The Cerberus cruiser showed up shortly after that. They said they were a turian patrol that had seen the attack on Elysium and were coming to get us clear. They must have doctored their ship's transponders and spoofed their power signature because we couldn't tell the difference. Once they were in visual range, it was too late to do anything about it."

"Immediate area's secure, but those guys will likely be missed before too long," Garrus said, entering the compartment.

Miranda nodded toward him and then turned back to Kahlee. "How many students and staffers are on the station?"

"Fewer than twenty students are left," she said. "Most of our students are colony kids that were sent home after the war broke out. The ones left are from Earth and Terra Nova and had nowhere else to go. We were running a skeleton staff too, just a few remaining instructors, support techs, and our internal security people." A dark shadow crossed her delicate features. "A lot of them were executed as soon as Cerberus took the docks."

"What about Jack?" Garrus said.

"Jack? You know her?" Kahlee said and shook her head. "I don't know for certain. I haven't seen her or her class since the shooting started."

"Who are these children exactly?" Miranda asked.

"Not children, really. At least, not most of them. I've only got a few young ones left on the station. The rest are teenagers and Alliance Navy recruits. Some are prototyping advanced tech for the military. Others are biotics, training for military support operations. Jack would be with them. That is, if she's still alive."

Miranda gave a knowing smirk. "Don't worry. She's still alive."

A tone sounded from a nearby terminal, signaling an incoming radio broadcast. Kahlee rushed over and took a seat behind the desk, tapping the controls.

"Kahlee, it's Froeberg," a man's voice came through. He sounded winded and in pain. "Cerberus has troops converging on Orion Hall. They've boxed in a group of students there. They have control over the entire wing. I'm cutoff and my men are all dead. I'm all that's left."

Kahlee looked up at Miranda, her face contorted with stress.

"Who is that?"

"Our Director of Security, Miles Froeberg. He's the reason I'm still alive."

"Tell him to fall back to this location if he can. There's nothing else he can do against these soldiers. We'll deal with Orion Hall."

Kahlee let out a relieved breath and nodded. "Thank you," she said while her hands flew across the keys of the console. "I'm sending you the fastest route to Orion Hall, as well as alternatives if you get stuck. Please hurry."

Miranda gave the other woman what she hoped was a heartening look and pulled the Locust submachine gun from its holster on her thigh. She walked out of the compartment with Garrus while Kahlee sent instructions back to her man over the radio. "Mallory, remain here with Sanders and secure the room as best as you can. We'll use this location as our first rally point. The rest of you are with me."

"You heard the lady," Garrus shouted, yanking back on the action of his rifle. "Let's move out!"

The team jogged down the corridor the Cerberus troopers had come from and then up two flights of stairs, following the directions Kahlee had forwarded to their tactical network. Garrus again led the way, clearing every corner and blind spot with his heavily modified Phaeston assault rifle as the team trotted along close behind.

They emerged from the stairwell and out onto a much wider corridor, entering one of the Academy's primary common decks. Miranda came up alongside the turian, the stock of her Locust SMG tucked in tight against her shoulder, sweeping the muzzle left to right in a tight arc while her boots stamped out a steady rhythm. The others trailed slightly behind, moving with precision and purpose. Even Wrex seemed focused and reasonably professional.

As they made their way closer to Orion Hall at the station's central axis, the team began to come across the bodies of Academy staffers who had been caught up in the raid. Most of the fallen were Grissom's security people, outfitted in little more than technical jumpsuits and armed with only crowd control stun sticks and the odd light pistol. They hadn't stood a chance against the highly trained shock troops Cerberus had sent.

There were a few dead students as well, children really. Miranda paused and knelt down beside the body of a girl no older than eleven or twelve. Her hair was a bright shade of red and her face freckled. She was lying in a small pool of her own blood and had likely died instantly when the bullet tore through her sternum and heart.

She touched the girl's face gently, closing her eyes. When she stood again, she saw that Westmoreland was staring down at the body with a look of grief mixed with rage.

"There's nothing we can do for her, Private," Miranda said, quickly wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. "Let's go find the ones we can still help."

"Yes, ma'am."

The corridor they were tracking down terminated after another forty meters at a set of heavy internal blast doors, no doubt automatically sealed when Kahlee's people had attempted to secure the facility.

"I'll get the door," Miranda said. "Cover me." She worked the console with her free hand, vaguely aware of Garrus exchanging his Phaeston for the Mantis sniper rifle slung over his armored back.

The turian and Vega formed up along either side of the wide hatchway while Westmorland took up position directly next to Miranda, the Marine's Avenger trained back down the way they'd come. Wrex stood directly in front of the doors, his massive tree trunk-like legs spread wide and the Claymore cradled in his arms. He looked like a bull waiting for the opportunity to charge.

Miranda completed the bypass and quickly followed the rest of the team through the open hatchway. It led to an open antechamber with three other corridors splitting off in separate directions.

"It's this way," Miranda said, raising her Locust again and taking the hallway to the right.

There was shouting and a loud, electronic tearing sound coming from farther down the corridor, prompting the team to pick up the pace. Around a set of pillars bordering another foyer they found the source. A group four Academy students were huddled together beneath the dome of a localized protective barrier, surrounded by a squad of Cerberus troopers. A combat engineer was using a heavy plasma torch, trying to overload the barrier, while the other soldiers held what looked like riot control guns, the kind that fired energized stun nets designed to incapacitate and capture criminals.

A Cerberus trooper guarding the perimeter of the strike team was on the ball, catching Miranda's group coming around the corner before they could coordinate their attack. He dropped the non-lethal stun gun and reached for the assault rifle slung over the front of his chest.

The back of the man's helmet exploded in spray of blood and composite poly-armor before his fingers reached the hand grip of his Harrier assault rifle, the round from Garrus's sniper rifle piercing the weak spot in his visor with extraordinary accuracy.

The other soldiers scattered and reached for their more lethal weapons. Miranda fired a burst from her Locust, catching two of troopers in the legs as they dashed for cover, sending them tumbling to the ground. Vega and Westmoreland were moving up an instant later, dropping three other Cerberus commandoes with rapid, precise bursts of fire from their assault rifles.

Then Wrex was pushing past them all, thundering ahead and taking hold of one of the remaining hostile soldiers with a powerful biotic field. The krogan Battlemaster flicked his left arm with a terse motion, sending the man hurtling against the wall with devastating, bone-crunching force. He slid down the wall, slumped to the floor in an awkward pose and didn't move again.

Wrex took another several steps forward, surveying the area around the barrier field, before halting next to the two soldiers Miranda had knee-capped, the men still writhing on the floor and trying to reach their rifles that had skittered across the room. With a casual, one-handed aim, he fired one shot a piece into their armored helmets, reducing their heads to horrendous, pulpy mounds of blood and gore upon the polished floor tile. "Clear," he barked over his shoulder.

Miranda shook her head in disgust. "Oh for god's sake, Wrex! Those men could have possessed valuable intel."

"Yeah, maybe next time, Lawson." Wrex said and then wandered a little off to the side, inspecting his Claymore.

Miranda took a deep, steadying breath while Garrus and the Marines spread out and secured the immediate area. She holstered her Locust on her thigh and approached the students gathered within the barrier.

A young woman who looked about twenty years old was standing toward the front of the group, her Omni-tool activated and held out in front of her, staring at Miranda and the others suspiciously. "Who are you? What do you want?" she demanded and jerked her head slightly backward. "This is a cyclonic multicore shield prototype. We can hold you off for hours."

Miranda held out her hands, trying to calm her. "We're with the Alliance Navy. We're here to help. You can disengage the barrier now."

The girl looked unconvinced and glanced toward Wrex and Garrus. "I don't know…"

A young man that had been kneeling down next to the barrier emitter stood and approached. "Hello, Miss Lawson," he said.

She studied him for a moment before recognition dawned on her. "Hello, David," she said softly. "You're looking quite a lot better than when last we met. How are you?" David Archer's head was as bald as the day Miranda and Shepard pulled him from the ghastly Overlord neural interface on Aite. But a far cry from the pathetic, abused boy his brother had reduced him to, he now looked strong and healthy.

"I'm well. I like it very much here at the Academy, with my friends. But I don't believe Cerberus is welcome. I think they ought to leave."

"I believe you're right, David," Miranda said and gave a pained smile. "We'll see to it."

"You know these people, David?" the girl asked.

David smiled, glanced at Garrus and nodded. "Yes. They work with Commander Shepard, the man who arranged for me to come here. They're friends."

The girl looked from David to Miranda and then executed a quick command on her Omni-tool. The barrier field shuddered for a moment and then dissipated completely.

"Shepard is nearby, David. He's going to be back around with our ship soon to see that you're all taken to safety while we deal with Cerberus." Miranda looked closer at the girl standing before her. She was tall and pretty, her dark hair cropped short and stylishly. "What's your name?"

"Octavia," she said confidently. "Octavia Reed." But then her gaze drifted to the left, settling on the two headless corpses Wrex had left on the floor. She began to turn a pale shade of green.

Miranda shifted to the right, blocking the girl's view of the carnage. "Octavia, my name is Miranda Lawson," she said and took hold of her upper arm, squeezing it in a firm grip. "You look to be in charge here. I need you to continue to be a leader. We need to go and help the others in Orion Hall so I'm going to have to ask you to get these three to safety. Can you do that for me?"

Octavia nodded decisively.

"Good. Hurry back down this passageway and drop down two flights to the maintenance level. Then go straightaway to the Server Room in Section 12-D. You'll find Kahlee Sanders and one of my men there."

"Yes ma'am," Octavia said and gathered up the other three students. She gave Miranda a brief, grateful smile and led them away.

Miranda watched them trot down the corridor and tapped her comm. "Mallory, I'm sending four students back to your location now. Come forward and meet them, make sure they arrive safely."

"Roger that, mum," Mallory's voice came back over the squad channel. "I'm on the move."

A series of explosions from the adjacent compartment rumbled the floor beneath her feet and she heard the telltale, muffled staccato of the Cerberus Harrier assault rifle fire. A shill, rapid alarm then pierced the air and orange strobes began to flash above the heavy set of blast doors farther down the corridor that led into Orion Hall. Everyone turned toward the source of the racket, guns raised.

"What the hell is that?" Vega shouted over the din.

"Imminent hull breach alarm," Miranda said and sprinted down the corridor toward the hatchway. She slid to a stop at the door's console and quickly scrolled through several menus on the small holo-screen while the others caught up. "The compartment's still pressurized. Get ready, I'm opening the doors."

Wrex was already planted dead center in front of the hatchway, his Claymore held at the ready. Garrus and Vega came forward and flanked the big krogan while Westmoreland took up a position on Miranda's left, covering her again while she worked to override the safeties on the door.

The primary and emergency redundant locks released with a dull thud a second later and the doors slid away into the walls, revealing a scene of total chaos.

The air inside the cavernous Orion Hall was thick with the haze of weapons discharge and smoke from a small fire burning in the far corner. More than a dozen bodies littered the floor, scattered throughout the room. Most were clad in Cerberus armor but a few were also very clearly more Grissom Academy civilian staff. Several young men and women dressed in Alliance Navy recruit uniforms were clustered halfway up a stairwell on the other side of the room, projecting barriers and dealing biotic energy strikes at the enemy commandoes streaming into the hall.

Jack was standing toward the center of the hall, a pulsating aura of biotic energy around her as she faced off against a full squad of Cerberus troopers. They were advancing on her from two different directions while sheltering behind full-length armored riot shields strapped to one arm, aiming heavy submachine guns with their free hands.

Jack managed to lash out with a bolt of energy, ripping one the shields away from the soldier holding it, sending it flying across the room and toward the door Miranda had just opened.

"Ah, shit!" Westmoreland yelled, pulling Miranda down by the shoulder and out of the way right before the shield sailed by and lodged itself in the wall behind them.

Wrex roared and charged forward into the fray, shouldering aside a Cerberus trooper who was totally unprepared to find a krogan Battlemaster running toward him. He paused for a brief second to drill the man with a round from his Claymore and then marched further into the hall, lashing out with a series of biotic attacks. Garrus and Vega were already on the move, firing on the soldiers closing in on Jack while they sidestepped to the left, seeking out cover.

Miranda's Locust was in her hands a heartbeat later. From her knees, she leveled the weapon on the nearest Cerberus trooper and squeezed the trigger, catching the man in the arm, spinning him around and sending his assault rifle flying. She adjusted her aim upward and finished him off with another short burst into the head. Westmoreland was firing from a crouch beside her, picking out targets on the far side of the room with calm, practiced discipline.

Miranda slapped Westmoreland on the shoulder and they advanced into the hall, staying low and moving to the right while Garrus and Vega continued left. Wrex was still wading directly ahead into the center of the big open space, attracting all kinds of attention from the stunned Cerberus troopers. Half the team that had been attacking Jack shifted their focus and directed a flurry of concentrated submachine gun fire at the krogan, the rounds pelting and ricocheting off his armor and biotic barrier.

Jack took advantage of the distraction and sent another, sweeping arc of biotic energy at the other three soldiers closing in on her. Their legs were whipped out from under them, sending them toppling upon each other awkwardly. She looked to her right and spotted Miranda and the Marine Private approaching from behind a pillar and sprinted over to them, sliding to a halt behind cover just before another volley of bullets slapped into the wall beside them, raining shards of poly-carbonate and ceramic tile onto their heads.

"What the hell are you doing here, Cheerleader?" Jack shouted over the din of gunfire.

Miranda popped up from behind the pillar and fired a burst from her Locust, dropping another Cerberus trooper scrambling for cover. "Saving your bony ass, as usual."

Jack snorted a laugh. "And who the fuck is this?" she said, giving Westmoreland a sideways glance. "Your new girlfriend? You batting for the other team now, Lawson?"

"Name's Private First Class Bethany Westmoreland, ma'am," Westmoreland said, unfazed. She emptied her clip into another charging trooper, ejected the spent mag and slapped in a fresh one. "And you're addressing the SSV Normandy's XO there, so kindly mind your mouth, ma'am."

Jack laughed again. "Holy shit, is she for real, Cheerleader? And how exactly the fuck are you the XO of an Alliance Navy warship?"

Miranda gritted her teeth, picking out her next target. "It's complicated."

"Right, I'm sure it's a rousing fucking tale. Tell it to me later." She leaned out from the pillar and sent a shockwave rocketing down the nearest open corridor, nearly ripping the limbs off of two more charging soldiers in the process. "First, I need to get these kids clear of this shit."

"That was the idea, yes."

Garrus whistled from across the room, emphatically pointing at something behind and above the women.

Jack stared back at him, befuddled. "Well fuck me sideways. I had no idea turians could whistle," she then looked to her right to see what Garrus was alerting them to. "Oh shit!"

Miranda turned her head, following Jack's gaze, and saw the group of Alliance recruits huddled at the top of the stairwell. Two of them were maintaining a biotic force field against a wide, shattered external view port, struggling to maintain the integrity of the window and keep the entire compartment from depressurizing. "Jack, um, a little help?!" a dark-haired girl called out.

"Private, cover us!" Miranda shouted, joining Jack in dashing across the room and up the stairs toward the group of recruits, staying low and firing behind her as she went.

Westmoreland stood and fired another few bursts of covering fire before spotting a Cerberus trooper taking aim at the other women. She switched her rifle to semi-auto, sighted her target through the scope, and squeezed the trigger. His head snapped backward and his body slumped to the ground.

Jack took the stairs two at a time and slid to a stop in front of the ruined view port panel, instantly throwing up a far more powerful biotic force field than the young women. "I got it, Rodriquez," she shouted before movement from the other side of the landing caught her eye. "Get down!"

Two Cerberus troopers were thundering up the other set of stairs, the muzzles of their Harrier assault rifles flashing. Jack ducked her head as super-heated incendiary rounds impacted the wall above her, raining sparks and bits of metal on top of her.

"Lawson!" Jack shouted.

Miranda crested the top of the stairs, instantly recognizing the Cerberus soldiers advancing. She brought her Locust back around in front of her and squeezed the trigger, but the firing mechanism struck down on a spent thermal clip. She released the weapon from her grip and threw her arms forward, igniting a surge of dark energy near the troopers.

The biotic singularity that erupted between the two armored troopers knocked them off balance and sent them crashing into each other awkwardly, but then quickly diminished before vanishing from existence prematurely. But Miranda had already seized the Paladin heavy pistol from her shoulder rig holster, aimed and fired, the hammer blows striking them center mass and slamming them to the deck. She strode toward them as they struggled to recover and plugged them both with a double-tap to the head, stopping their movement permanently.

"That was a pretty pathetic singularity, Cheerleader," Jack said over her shoulder. "But I suppose it's progress. Now, get the damn emergency shutters back online for fuck's sake!"

Miranda glared back over her shoulder, ejecting the thermal clip from her pistol, slapping in a fresh one, and thrust the weapon back into its holster. She stepped over to a bank of consoles and quickly began to access the local emergency system protocols. A moment later, a series of rapid warning claxon blasts sounded just before reinforced steel panels slid down from hidden recess points in the outer walls, sealing every view port in the hall.

Jack dropped the biotic field keeping the compartment's atmosphere in place as soon as the heavy shutter slammed shut and spun around, ready to confront the next threat.

Westmoreland was slowly walking backwards up the steps to join the other women, sweeping the muzzle of her rifle side to side. But everything had gone silent, the cacophony of weapons' fire coming to an abrupt halt.

"Clear below!" Vega shouted over the squad channel.

"Copy." Miranda had pulled her pistol once more and was casting her gaze around the upper platform. "Clear up top. Secure the other entry points into the hall."

"Roger that."

The Private crossed the landing to Miranda, scooping up her Locust SMG along the way, and handed it to the XO. She accepted the weapon and gave a curt nod. "Go and help the others secure the access points, Private."

"Copy that, ma'am," Westmoreland said and trotted off and back down the stairs.

Miranda let out a long breath, glancing to her right where the Alliance recruits were gathering around Jack. They were all biotics of varying skill level and they all looked nearly spent after helping to hold back the Cerberus assault.

"Alright, amp check!" Jack said and jabbed a finger into the chest of one of the male recruits. "Prangley, those fields were weak. Cerberus isn't going to lie down out of pity like that girl you took to prom. Grab juice and an energy bar. We move in five." She walked over to where Miranda was standing a few feet away. "So where the hell is Shepard, Princess?"

"With the Normandy, drawing most of the Cerberus starfighters away from the station. Is this everyone you had with you?"

Jack glanced back over her shoulder. "Yeah, these are all my guys," she said, a clear note of pride to her voice.

"Your guys?" Miranda said, raising an eyebrow.

"That's right. They're mine. What, you thought I wasn't going to hack it here?"

"Frankly, no, I didn't, Jack. Your history isn't exactly brimming with examples of your leadership abilities or long term commitments."

"Yeah, well, sometimes things change. And sometimes they don't. For instance, you're still a total bitch."

"And you're still an insufferable ingrate," Miranda said almost reflexively but finding that the venom she once held for the woman seemed to have diminished somewhat.

Garrus appeared at the top of the stairs and cleared his throat loudly, intervening before the verbal jabs escalated any further. "Ladies, we don't have a whole lot of time before Cerberus sends through another wave. Can we save this cozy little reunion for later?"

"Oh hey, Garrus," Jack said, giving him a quick upward nod. "Nice shooting down there. You're still ugly as sin."

"Good to see you too, Jack."

"How's the gang doing over there, Ensign Prangley?"

The young male Alliance recruit that Jack had teased a minute before stepped closer. "Good. We're almost set." His eyes settled on Miranda for an extra moment while he tried to suppress a boyish grin.

"Uh huh," Jack said, narrowing her eyes. "Try not to drool all over your fancy uniform, Prangley. Lawson here is spoken for. Plus she's probably old enough to be your mother." She shoved him back over toward the other recruits, his facing turning a bright shade of red. "Go get the others ready to move."

Miranda smirked. "Very cute, Jack," she said, retrieving a second comm piece from her jacket pocket and handing it to her. "Channel twenty-three bravo." She then tapped the comm on her own headset. "Mallory, Lawson here. Status?"

"Just back in the server room with the students you sent back, mum," Mallory said. "The Security Director's here now too. He's in rough shape. I'm working to stabilize him now. No additional hostiles seen in the immediate area."

"Mum?" Jack said and sniggered.

Miranda rolled her eyes and shrugged. "He's very English," she said. "Understood, Lieutenant. Put Sanders on."

"Lawson?" Kahlee's voice came back over the radio a second later.

"Commander, I'm here with Jack and six of her students. You have four with you now, yes?"

"That's affirmative."

"We saw the bodies of three students on the way, two males and a redheaded girl. They looked young. I'm sorry."

"Understood," Kahlee said, her voice taut with emotion. "That leaves six more unaccounted for."

"I think Cerberus may have already bagged them, Kahlee," Jack said. "We saw a couple being dragged off toward the docking bay while we were falling back to Orion Hall. I'm sure they weren't the only ones. I'm sorry, we couldn't reach them. We were taking a lot of heat."

"It's not your fault, Jack. You did an incredible job keeping the others safe."

Jack grimaced and looked at the floor.

"Kahlee, once your man is able to move again, I want you and the others to fall back to our shuttle," Miranda said. "The Cerberus presence here is even more aggressive than I feared. You'll be safer in the Kodiak while we figure out our next move. Can you fly?"

"Yes, I'm fully rated in Kodiaks."

"Good. If the Normandy returns before we make it back, and if they're able to clear the skies for you, take the shuttle and get out."

"I don't like the idea of leaving you and most of my students behind, Lawson."

"It's only a contingency plan. Hopefully it won't come to that."

"Alright," Kahlee said. "We'll make our way back to your shuttle just as soon as the Lieutenant finishes patching up Miles. I'll report back once we're there."

"Copy, Lawson out."

Miranda, Jack and the others descended the stairs to the hall's lower level. The emergency fire suppression system had finally extinguished the small blaze burning in the far corner and the ventilation fans were beginning to draw out the smoke and the acrid smell of weapons fire.

Vega approached with Westmoreland at his side. He looked over the recruits and Jack before addressing Miranda. "Got all the hatchways locked down, XO," he said. "We checked the civilians too. They're all dead."

Miranda nodded absentmindedly, glancing around the devastated hall. Her gaze settled on a middle-aged woman in a suit who'd been gunned down before they'd arrived, giving her that same sour feeling in her gut she'd felt when they encountered the dead children along the way. What happened to Cerberus? She thought to herself. How long was I blind to this kind of savagery?

"Wow," Jack said, gazing over at Wrex. "Is this Grunt's daddy? He's definitely ugly enough."

"Watch your tongue, human."

"Why don't you come over here and make me, Godzilla?"

"Enough," Miranda said wearily. "We need to get moving."

"Okay, but to where exactly?" Jack said. "The place is still crawling with Cerberus troops and it sounds like this plan's a work in progress, Lawson."

"Maybe you should take Jack and these students back to the Kodiak, Miranda, try to get clear," Garrus offered. "The rest of us can dig in and keep Cerberus busy and wait for Shepard to swing back around in the Normandy."

Miranda shook her head. "Too risky. The fighters out there will be on even higher alert now. They'll be expecting us to make a break for it. Even with the Kodiak's stealth systems I don't think I could evade them long enough to get away and jump to FTL, especially with the situation above Elysium. Besides, I don't want to give up on the other students Cerberus has already captured. There may even be a few still hiding on the station." She looked Garrus in the eye. "And you know as well as I do what will become of the Academy once that destroyer takes its leave."

Jack's eyes narrowed. "What? What are they going to do?"

"They'll destroy the station," Garrus said quietly, careful not to let the students hear. "Try to cover their tracks and blame it on the batarians."

"Fucking pricks," Jack muttered under her breath. "Okay, so what then?"

"Cerberus hasn't gone to all this trouble for just for the few students they've managed to capture so far," Miranda said. "They've invested heavily in this little operation and won't be satisfied until they acquire the rest of their targets. The ones they haven't murdered already are clearly valuable to the Illusive Man." She glanced over at the group of Alliance recruits again. "I have an idea about David Archer, but what makes this lot so special?"

"My guys?" Jack said, looking over her shoulder. "They're some of the most naturally powerful biotic humans ever found. Seriously, their metrics are off the charts. They're raw right now and don't have any idea how to focus all that juice yet, but the potential is big time. They're also the only people alive with functioning L5-X3 implants. Those things are pretty badass, Lawson."

"This is an extension of the Ascension Project," Miranda said, a hint of awe in her voice. "They're the successors to Gillian Grayson and the others, aren't they?"

Jack nodded slowly.

"We'd thought that you might have been Cerberus's primary target, Jack. It's likely you're still one of the primary objectives here. But even if just one of these young people possesses the abilities Grayson demonstrated…" She trailed off, deep in thought. "The Illusive Man won't leave here without them."

"Okay, so these kids are gifted," Garrus said. "Does that really change anything? We're still effectively stuck while that destroyer is docked."

Miranda exhaled. "Shepard will be back. We just need to hold out for a while, keep Cerberus busy and away from Kahlee's group." She paused for a moment, coming to a decision. "These recruits looked like they could handle themselves well."

"Damn straight," Jack said. "I trained them."

"Then I think it's time we go on the offensive. If we can take the Ops center back from Cerberus, it will severely hinder their mission here. It may even give us a chance to free the students they've already captured."

Jack's lips curled into a wicked smile. "Goddamn, Cheerleader. You've really grown a pair. I could kiss you on the lips."

"That's quite unnecessary, Jack. Come on, let's get moving."

Author's Note:

Fuck it. I wanna get to posting my own stuff. I will go and post the rest of Mal Cobb's work, unedited. I'll edit them later.