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Shepard's comm link pinged. It was Thane. "Are you almost here?" she asked him.
"Yes. I'm nearing the building, but … running is difficult. I'll try to get to you."
"The Executor's office," she told him. As she closed the comm link, Garrus called her over to the window.
Following his gaze, she saw a chair moving, sliding out from under a desk. Behind it came the salarian councilor. He climbed out from under the desk, looking cautiously around him. Just as Shepard was going to rap on the window to alert him to their presence, something else appeared. A shadow, landing gracefully behind the councilor. As Shepard watched, the shadow resolved itself into a person, lightly armored in black.
"Who is that?" Garrus asked.
Vega had joined them at the window, and he shook his head at the question. "No one good."
"Shield your eyes!" Doing so herself, Shepard pointed her gun at the window. Two quick shots and the glass shattered, landing on the floor below in a waterfall. She leaped through the now-empty window—a good jump, and she landed on her feet, gun out, facing the man in black on the other side of the councilor.
He held out his hand, a ball of something that looked like lightning forming in it.
Shepard moved closer. "Don't even think about it."
The salarian councilor hissed in fear. "Shepard, he's going to kill us all!"
"That remains to be seen." She spoke with more confidence than she felt. The man in black was doing a good job of keeping the councilor between them, keeping Shepard from having a shot, and he was clearly aware of the two men in the window above. Even Garrus couldn't manage a clean shot, and anyone who could stay out of Garrus's crosshairs was a true professional.
"I mean Udina," Valern snapped impatiently. "He's staging a coup. He's got the other councilors now—he intends to hand them over to Cerberus."
Garrus and James had wearied of trying to get a shot in from overhead. They landed on either side of Shepard. She gestured at them with her head. "Three on one, pal," she said to the man in black. "It's over."
"No," he said, speaking for the first time. "Now it's fun."
The councilor shrank back, hands up as if to prevent what was about to happen. Before the man in black could move, however, a pistol was pressed against his temple.
It was Thane, and Shepard's heart leaped with joy to see him there, alive and fit and looking like his old self. Knowing him as she did, she could see the toll the run had taken on him in the lines of his face and the way his jaw was set, but he was master of himself for the moment.
In a sudden movement, the man in black knocked the gun away from his head. Thane responded with a right hook, which the man in black blocked easily. He jabbed at Thane's head, making contact with his jaw.
Shepard took a step toward them at that, knowing that in Thane's weakened condition he might not be in any shape for this fight, but she couldn't get a clean shot without hitting either Thane or the councilor.
Thane had rallied and the two men were trading blows, blocking and striking with precision. They appeared to be equally matched. If Thane had been at the height of his skills, he would have taken this man easily, Shepard could see, but he wasn't, and it was taking everything he had to match him.
The man in black flung Thane over his hip. Thane rolled immediately back to his feet, drawing his gun and firing. The man in black disappeared. While they all searched for him, he reappeared to Thane's left, drawing a sword from a scabbard on his back. Thane immediately turned and started shooting, while the man in black closed the distance between them. He slashed with the sword, while Thane slid underneath it, the blade passing inches from his face and knocking the gun from his outstretched hands. The sword flashed again and again, and Thane dodged it each time, whirling to strike the man in black in the midsection with a well-aimed kick, and following it up with another.
With his biotics flashing, Thane's blow threw the man in black across the room. Stooping to retrieve his gun, Thane leveled it at his opponent, popping a new heat sink into place even as the man in black regained his feet. The two men closed with each other, too rapidly for Shepard or her team to be able to do anything to help Thane.
When they met in the center of the room, the metal blade buried itself in Thane's midsection.
Shepard was stunned, unable to believe what she had seen. Surely this wasn't happening. Not now.
But as Thane tumbled to the ground, she couldn't deny it.
"Thane!" She went to her knees next to him. "Thane!"
Vega and Garrus were shooting after the man in black as he fled, both of them following him so Shepard could see to Thane.
He was struggling to rise, but she put a hand on his shoulder. "Let me see how bad it is."
Catching her hand before she could look at the wound, Thane said, "There will be time. Go after him."
She needed to—much as she wanted to stay with the man she loved, the Council needed her, the Citadel needed her to stop Udina. "I'll find you."
"I know you will. Go, siha."
Shepard called up her omni-tool as she ran after Garrus and Vega. "Bailey, Thane's been hurt. He needs medical attention immediately. I have to take care of an assassin."
"He must be going after the rest of the Council," Bailey responded.
"Udina's trying to seize power. Get the word out. I have to get to the councilors."
"Will do."
She closed her omni-tool and ran, letting her shock and grief spur her on.