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"Good work, Penny. You're doin' fine." Friend Jacob complimented her, circling the small table she was working at in the middle of the armory and watching her work. Like a hawk watching its chick, and she couldn't decide whether she or the broken Predator were the chick.

It was the same table he maintained the crew's weapons on, as much a table as a workbench with little recessed drawers on the sides filled with the tools of his trade. Screwdrivers, hammers, wrenches and all kinds of other niche little tools and fastenings she hadn't recognized but that he had happily explained to her when she asked. With Best Friend Pyrrha having fun down on Korlus, she'd been left alone, and Mordin had rapidly busied with his experiments and tests. Soon, Penny had concluded that he would remain busy long enough that she should head out.

Friend Jacob, on the other hand, had been bored and lacking in anything to do except tinker. When she'd once again expressed an interest in learning, he smiled and waved for her to come over for a lesson.

"That weapon has a problem in it's firing system. Its thermal clip is over filling with heat each time it fires." He explained kindly as he reached the other side of the table. A single long, dark skinned finger stretched out to tap the still mostly-assembled barrel assembly to point out where he suspected the problem to be and he ordered firmly, "See if you can identify the cause without help."

"Yes, Friend Jacob. I will certainly try my best at least!" He nodded and she returned the gesture, setting to work.

Unlike 'normal' girls her memory was excellent and she recalled his brief, quick and admittedly more simplistic explanations of the tools without fail. As such her hand found the little Omni-Driver in a drawer by her thigh. A simple scan along the weapon set it to automatically attune to the Predator's internal and external fastenings. Once it beeped its little confirmation that its scan was finished and it recognized the weapon, a twist of the handle set the Omni-Gel production unit in the grip working. From it came a glowing, orange little star-shaped driver head just like the screws that fastened together the Predator called for. Using it, she deftly began piecing apart the weapon to find its fault.

"The thermal coolant vent that runs along the firing barrel was damaged." She reported, holding the little strip of silver steel up and using the narrow head of the screwdriver to point out a scratch about the width of her pinky finger's nail and half its thickness. "The damage was slight, but it lowered thermal dissipation efficiency by thirty-two percent. Enough that it would dump more heat into the Thermal Clip to compensate."

"Yeah, that's exactly right." The man nodded, setting the damaged piece aside and handing her a new one. While she replaced it and pieced the weapon together he watched on, lips pursed and arms crossed. Quietly, he asked, "You sure you don't know anything about Eezo based weapons?"

"I didn't." She answered shortly, eyes flicking between each piece as she rapidly found what she needed with her off hand while her right reassembled the weapon properly. Quietly, she added, "Then you taught me, so now I know how to identify the parts and tools you showed me and work them."

"Yeah." He nodded, "And you picked it up right away. No mistakes."

"I, uh… I have an eidetic memory from my mother's side, so that's no problem for me, once I see it once- Hrk." She lied, a hand slapping over her mouth to stifle the hiccup that tried to force itself out. An unconscious measure insisted on by the General, so that she couldn't be easily turned against Atlas by any means and simply lie her way through it. A silly concern, but her father had relented rather than not build her. To Jacob, she lied again, "S-Sorry! I ate quickly this morning and now I have the hicc- Hrk!"

"Just don't throw up in my armory, kiddo." He chuckled, shaking his head and sighing. With a smile he nodded respectfully, "Eidetic memory huh? Damn. Some people get all the luck with stuff like that."

"I wouldn't say that…" She murmured, a hand unconsciously rubbing her bicep where her own cabling had once twined around her, ripping and tearing her to pieces. Quietly, she murmured, "Some things you want to forget, Jacob…"

"Kiddo...?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." She blinked the memories away quickly and picked up the reassembled Predator, turning to hand it to the worried, waiting man beside her. He took it gently and she smiled, asking, "Did I do it right, Friend Jacob? I replaced the thermal line like you said to, so the weapon's efficiency ratings should have returned to normal levels."

"...Yeah, I'll check it." The man nodded, setting it back on the table and running his glowing arm over it. It chimed a pleased little chim a moment later and he bobbed his head in satisfaction and surprise, giving her a small smile. "Back to one-hundred percent after the replacement. I doubt you have the minutiae of everything down, but… I have a feeling you'll pick up the tech stuff pretty damn quick."

"I have a… Special talent in learning things like this, thanks to my eidetic memory and interest in the matters." That much, it seemed luckily enough, didn't trigger her internal censorship program and yank a hiccup out of her. A small mercy, to which she assumed she could credit not mentioning her existentially challenged mother.

She was not a good liar…

"Well whatever the hell is goin' on, you're a pretty quick learner." Jacob complimented, laying a hand on her head and ruffling her hair familiarly. A not altogether unpleasant, if somewhat more familiar than she would have preferred, thing. When she squirmed away he chuckled, turning to take a rifle off the wall, "I like that about you, kiddo. Now, want to move on to somethin' bigger than a dinky little Predator?"

"Oh, yes, please!" She bounced on her heels excitedly, looking at the bulkier Avenger as it extended. "I would very much enjoy learning how to make the Avenger kill things better!"

Hopefully, Pyrrha was having just as much fun down below, with the Commander on Korlus.

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Stepping around the corner ahead of the others she was the first to see the heavy, armored door through which they expected to find the labs. Two final Blue Suns soldiers stood to either side of it, crouched behind thick decking and holding light assault rifles. One flinched on seeing her but the other stood, hefting his weapon and spraying an inaccurate burst that she let rake across her uselessly. Spinning on a heel she launched her shield across the hall and into his chest, slamming him back against the door and leaving him to slump over it like dinner over a platter.

She gave the other mercenary a look and he flinched, tossing his rifle over the low cover and letting it clank to the floor. Smiling, she nodded, "Wise decision." To the others behind her she added, "The guards on the door are done, Commander."

"Good work, Nikos." The soldier complimented as she stepped around the corner, chuckling at the trembling guard and his unconscious partner. "Well, Huntress, looks to me like your reputation is already spreading through the grapevine."

"Indeed it does…" And while she didn't like that violence was what she was known for, she did know that she preferred it to the bloodier alternatives. Shrugging the matter off the Mistralian waved to the angry red lock on the door that signalled it was locked and asked, loudly enough the guard could very well hear and understand her point, "I do hope our new friend here doesn't mind letting us through, though. It would be so aggravating to have to find another way through…"

"H-He has the keycard!" The guard quickly answered, pointing a long and armored finger at the unconscious man across the small pathway from them. "It's in an armored little pocket on his hip, under your… Uh, your shield, ma'am."

Finding it under her shield she stood, showing it to the Commander who nodded and stepped back to lean against the heavy half walls that ran along the otherwise open-air walkway that connected the open platforms to the freighter the Blue Suns were hosted in. Gesturing at the open door past them, she ordered simply, "Take your friend and get out of here. Some of your fellow Suns are out there waiting. Take them and go."

"B-But if I just leave, Jidore will-"

"Not be a problem since my friend here," the Commander jerked a thumb at the seething Zaaed, "has a big problem with the Suns. Specifically their leadership, if he knows 'em. Zaeed?"

"Hired the bitch m'self, way back when." The man grunted, drawing Pyrrha's curiosity. She didn't actually know much about the man bar his barely concealed hatred of the Blue Suns throughout the slugfest that had been Korlus. Baring his teeth, the man growled, "She was one'a the ones that helped that future fuck nugget I told ya 'bout."

"She won't be leaving here in one piece, don't you worry." The Commander filled in, giving Pyrrha herself a long look to tell her it wasn't up for debate. She didn't like it, of course, but there was nothing she could do for it so she nodded. Mirroring the gesture, the more heavily armored woman jerked her head back the way they'd come again and shrugged, "Through the door now or I let Zaeed express deliver you to the ground floor. I'm sure he'd enjoy it."

"Damn straight." The man chuckled, cracking his knuckles, and laughing, "Only lettin' ya go because I don't feel like pissing off Red there."

"I-I…" He stammered but trailed off in thought for a moment.

Finally he nodded quietly, pulled his friend across his shoulders in a fireman carry and rushed off to anywhere that didn't have four angry people staring at him. Or, well, one angry person, one bored woman, a Turian, and a woman who simply ignored bullets and beat people unconscious with a shield. Potato, tomato, she figured.

"So we have a locked door." Shepard prompted them after a moment, drawing their attention onto her. Cocking her head she asked, almost playfully in spite of the corpses and wounded not a dozen feet away beyond the door and outer hull of another ancient, dessicated hulk, "Hey Nikos, who do you think gets to take point position?"

"Right." Her Aura was at about half now, after everything, so she was still more or less bulletproof. Raising her shield arm, keycard that would electronically undo the lock in her hand behind it, she sighed, "On your word then, Commander."

Beyond the door was a small laboratory of sorts, though it at first appeared more as a morgue, which seemed to have been made inside a rather large airlock. To one side were rows of several trolleys, two filled by the stiff corpses of the Krogan they'd been fighting for an hour now. A third on the bed closest to them had been covered up, a folder set at its feet for reference. On the other side of the small room was a veritable wall of computers and shelves, the latter stacked high with more generic sorts of laboratory equipment. At the end of it, in front of the door further into the complex that was the ship, was a simple metal desk with glass walls.

Inside which, in spite of the glass walls, an Asari had curled into a tight little ball.

"Um…" Kneeling, Pyrrha tapped a knuckle against the glass of the desk, drawing wide off-blue eyes to her. Smiling reassuringly, she asked as gently as she could manage, lest she scare the poor thing, "Are… Are you, um, well?"

"I-I…" Slowly, her eyes slid past her own to look over her shoulder where the others had coalesced, Zaeed the only one paranoidly looking out for traps. Like a shot from a gun she bolted, out from under the desk and onto her feet, pointing a long finger at the Commander and shouting, "Y-You're supposed to be dead!"

"Do I know…" The soldier's words cut off and as Pyrrha stood she shoved past her, grabbing the Asari by the throat and shoving her several feet into the wall, holding her there. While the woman pawed at her armored wrist, Shepard almost shouted, "Rana Thanoptis! How am I not surprised someone like you would be involved in something like this?"

"W-Wait, you don't understand- Ack!" Shepard silenced whatever argument she was going to make with a jerk, pulling her forward and slamming her back against the wall. Strained, the woman choked out, "I-I don't even know how you're a-alive! What is happ- Hrk!"

"I. Got. Better." Shepard snarled, pointing a finger in the woman's face and growling, feral and near mad. "But it looks like I'm the only one who 'got better'. Doesn't it, Garrus? Hell, she's even working on Krogan again!"

"Nope." Garrus answered, stepping up beside the Commander while Pyrrha and Zaeed watched on confusedly. Presumably for their benefit since their confusion was evident enough, he explained, "Thanoptis here is a very accomplished doctor. So much so Saren noticed her, back before the attack on the Citadel. Had you working on Krogan too, didn't he?"

"I'm…" The Asari choked, beating against her assailant's hand desperately, but couldn't get anything out.

"Nuh uh, Red." Zaeed grunted when Pyrrha moved forward, his hand gripping her arm at the wrist to catch her. Shepard turned to look over her shoulder, light glinting off her visor and hiding her eyes, and Zaeed yanked her back a bit. Stepping in front of her a little, he grunted, "Hard for blue tits there to answer questions without air, eh, Commander? Might wanna ease off a bit."

"..."

"Or don't." He shrugged, adjusting his rifle in one hand across his chest, the other gripped tightly around her sword-arm to keep her still. Finally letting her go and stepping back into her to force her back a step, he finished, "Just sayin', Commander. Ain't my problem, but doin' something hasty won't help anyone get anywhere. And comin' from me, that's rich enough you should probably listen."

"...Fine." The woman grunted, turning and shoving the Asari back towards them. Garrus stepped to the side to avoid her but Pyrrha surged forward, past Zaeed, to catch the choking woman. Shepard only demanded, "Explain yourself, Thanoptis. And be sure to include why I should not take you out on the catwalk, put a bullet in your spine and toss you over the lip."

"That's specific…" Garrus murmured, giving the Mistralian a look when her glare shot up at the threat.

"I-I'm doing the same thing as I was trying to do under Saren!" The woman answered after she'd caught her breath, pushing off of Pyrrha and staggering to her desk. When Shepard only snorted in shock and amusement that that was her explanation, the Asari went on, bringing up files on her terminal. "I'm trying to help people, I mean. Mostly the Krogan, just like under Saren."

"It sure looks like it." Shepard murmured, bobbing her head at the corpses. "How'd they enjoy your 'help'?"

"Okeer's methods, not mine." She grimaced, looking over the bodies and then sighed and shaking her head. "Nonviable clones. I want a cure to the Genophage, an end to all of the… An end. But Okeer?" She scoffed, stepping aside and gesturing at the terminal, "Okeer wants warriors, born and bred for him to lead, and that are immune to the disease completely. I want a cure. But Jidore gives him all the funding-"

"Because she wants a Krogan army." Garrus rumbled sardonically, his 'lucky' guess drawing the woman's once again anxious eyes to him. Clicking his mandible he noted, "You do seem to be the go to for twisted little psychopaths to get their made to order Krogan armies, after all."

"That is not why I am here." She assured them, tone sliding from confidence and into pleading like water rolling down a hill. Waving her hand at the terminal she pleaded to Shepard and the Turian both, since they had been the ones to speak against her the most. "You have the files right here. I unlocked all of them for you to have! Proof of my goals. I just want to help people."

"And working for, in order, war criminals, mercenary lords and war criminals, is the way to do that?" Shepard chuckled, "Wish someone had told me. Would've gone into a different line of work."

"It is the way when no one else in the galaxy will pursue the kind of research you want to pursue!" The Asari argued hotly, gesturing at the dead Krogan on the table and then her terminal meaningfully. "I don't like this part, but I don't get to choose my partners very easily. Wealth to fund it, a lack of care for common law, and sympathy for the Krogan in any way aren't exactly common traits to be shared by one person. Say what you will, do what you will to me, but I can't just… Let this genocide go because it's quiet enough for your comfort!"

"That isn't your decision to make."

"We all make decisions that aren't ours to make." She countered quietly, "Uplifting the Krogan was unnatural and done for the wrong reasons. That wasn't our decision to make."

"We had no choice in the matter!" Garrus argued hotly, as though something personal had been stung by her words. What it was Pyrrha didn't know, stood in the back of the room beside Zaeed, watching the entire argument play out like one might a performance in a theater. "If we hadn't done that then worse would have happened to the galaxy thanks to the damn Rachni. What, you think the damn Krogan would have enjoyed Rachni liveships landing on their surface while they have arcady gunpowder weapons and hammers?"

"And I don't have a choice either." Rana finished, eyeing the two who'd argued with her warily. "I can't leave this sitting. And like I said, you have access to my terminal. You can see how my methods differ from Okeer's. If a Krogan is dead already I'll test their body and collect samples, but that's it. So just… Do whatever you're going to do to me already but know that I won't stop trying to help the Krogan."

"...Leave the terminal and get out." Shepard ordered quietly, grabbing the Asari by her fitted suit and shoving her towards the door they'd come in through. She staggered and turned back, and the Commander added threateningly, "And don't forget we have your terminal. I'm going to put a fine toothed comb through it and if we find anything that makes me think letting you go twice is a mistake… Well, you know."

"Yeah, I do." The Asari murmured, "Now if you'll excuse me, I know how you work, so I'm going to get as far away from here as possible before you nuke the place."

"Come on." Shepard growled as the Asari disappeared behind the closing door, vanishing to sprint away now that she'd been allowed to. Turning her back on the door, the woman finished simply, "Let's get Okeer and get out of here already. I'm just about done with this dump of a planet."

Silent and wary of the woman's apparently mounting anger, the threesome followed her through the door.

The next room was far larger than the airlock laboratory they'd come from, twice its height and maybe five times its length. Every wall save the one immediately to their right was covered up to the halfway point in buzzing, working terminals. Above those were thick pipes and newer looking cabling, spindling around the room like a web from which hung a single silver pod. Inside which rested a single Krogan, his eyes closed and chest rising gently in the suspension fluid he'd been grown in.

"Finally, you reach me." The Krogan standing beside the pod rumbled, not even bothering to turn to speak to them. Waving a hand at the monitor above his, they could see a security feed of the platform outside. His way of explaining what he said next, Pyrrha supposed as he finally turned to them, nodding respectfully as their leader stepped forward, "Commander Shepard, it's… Intriguing to see you, shall we say."

"You don't seem surprised to see me."

"Should I?" He rumbled a growl and, after a moment, Pyrrha realized he was laughing. Turning back to his work he went on, "Who else could come here in a Cerberus ship, yet land with the Archangel of Omega on her team? Not only that, but you field the Huntress and the founder of the Blue Suns as ground infantry. What other Human woman wears that armor, fights with that rifle, and could field such a team?"

"Fair enough." Shepard nodded, seemingly bemused by the warlord's quick assumptions. For the stunned Vakarian's sake she asked, "How do you know he's the real Archangel, though? Far as we know, almost no one knows he didn't die on Omega."

"Hah!" The Krogan laughed, turning to give them a wide, toothy and feral smile, as though he were having fun at a game that Pyrrha couldn't recognize. "Are you suggesting I should think these worthless mercenaries could contend with Archangel when I know you went to his aid? Or did you expect me not to put two and two together when you came here with the Huntress in tow, and she supposedly lead a Cerberus marked team on that mission."

"And you." He rumbled, turning fully to look at Pyrrha head on, fingers rolling into fists as he approached her. She didn't flinch, though her foot slid back in case he attacked, and the Krogan laughed in her face when she offered her shield hand to shake in greeting. "Offer one hand but arm the other. Wise, Human. Very wise indeed."

"Thank you…?"

"You are welcome." He answered, leaning close to take a deep draught of her scnet, the side of his face nearly touching her own. Still she held her ground and after a moment he stepped back, nodding, "I smell the blood of Krogans on you. I could scarcely believe my own eyes no matter how many times I saw you engage Krogan in hand to hand. I needed to smell it to be sure, but you… You are unique."

"I am, yes." Resurrected by a god, and gifted with powers outside the knowledge of this galaxy, she felt that wasn't a brag.

He nodded and then, so suddenly even she almost couldn't react in time, his hand snapped up, Predator in hand. She grunted as the rounds punched against her chest and sparked away and staggered back a step. But only one, shield snapping up and around, catching the weapon and forcing it up before stepping in and slamming a fist into it. The warlord, laughing, grabbed her arm and turned, hurling her away and into the glass that dominated one wall. She grunted again as she impacted and slid down, ducking under another shot before snapping her hand out and up, crushing the weapon's barrel.

In the same moment, Shepard slammed into him, a titanic blow that forced him to a knee. Grinning, he turned to her and met her hand cannon, pressed into the flesh just below his crest. Quietly, the woman demanded, "Why the hell did you just attack my teammate, Okeer?"

"A test." He laughed, rising in spite of the weapon aimed at his cranium. Warningly, she nudged it against him, and he chuckled. "You won't kill me, Human. You need my expertise and talents to help you combat the Collectors stealing your colonies, no?"

"You know about that…?"

"Of course I do, Archangel. Or do you prefer 'Vakarian'? Garrus, maybe? No, we aren't familiar enough for first names, I suspect." The Krogan answered, trundling back to his computer as the Turian grimaced. Returning to his work, the Krogan warlord went on, "I suppose I should name a price for my help, hm? I can't stay here any longer, and refuse to leave my perfect creature behind."

"Perfect?" Shepard asked, collapsing her sidearm and returning it to her hip. Her hand free again, she adjusted the grip on her rifle into something more comfortable, held across her chest again. "I thought your goal was to cure the Genophage. What purpose does one Krogan clone serve?"

"Did that woman, Rana, tell you such nonsense?" He snorted, shaking his great head as he worked on whatever he was doing. Sighing, he explained, "No, I wished to defeat the Genophage. To humiliate it completely and utterly, and reduce it to nothing. To levy at it the greatest insult a foe can suffer. To be ignored."

"To be ignored…?"

"Oh yes, Huntress. For a Krogan, to be ignored by your foe is the singularly most insulting, degrading experience there is." The Krogan rumbled, turning to give her another of his feral, almost mad grins. "And you trussed up and ignored one of the greatest Blood Pack warriors on Omega. Truly, you are an interesting creature."

"I don't think I like being called an 'interesting creature'." She murmured, self-conscious in a way she hadn't been since her first swimsuit shoot years ago. Like he was sizing her up as a product, a sensation that crawled up her spine and sent shivers in its wake. "And besides, we are wasting our time here."

"Hah. And that is where her concern lies! Not with the bloodthirsty warlord after her head. But with my phrasing and with the time of the day!" Shaking his head he turned back to work and sighed, smiling thinly in that nearly predatory, Krogan way, "But you are right. We are wasting our time and, soon enough that wench Jidore will-"

As though on cue the overhead intercom, staticy and clearly in need of repair, buzzed to life. From it, a woman's voice spoke, "I've traced the full release signal back, Okeer of course. I'm putting an end to this little experiment. Flush the tanks!"

Over their heads, the pipes thrummed and hissed, an alarm blinking over the tank the sleeping Krogan was in. Angry, Okeer turned to them and bellowed, "I name my price, Commander! Take Jidore's head while I prepare this perfect little grunt of mine for transport. If he dies or she lives to see the sunset, then I will give you nothing!"

"You heard the crazy Krogan." Shepard sighed tiredly, turning to head to the door on the other end of the room. "We've got one last hunt to get through before everything is dealt with."

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As nothing UBER interesting happens throughout this mission's, er, mission, I skipped it. In the interests of not bloating the Korlus mission out, I gave you the first encounter and then skipped to Okeer, to establish what was going on. What is happening on the planet isn't super important to anything, and I didn't want to rehash pre-made stuff rather than just move the story along since I had ZERO plans to change any of it.

As always stay safe out there keep stocked up but don't panic buy, and wash your hands, ya nasties. XD

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Falcon Lord :

Yeah, she's used to dickweasels like him. Cardin, anyone?

Frosty Chops :

Thanks! And yeah, sad to say we never did.

Howell :

And Cerberus does not intentionally have a moral compass. They just accidentally a good guy decision sometimes.

Guest Questioner :

I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Depends. Espa and I have talked it out a few times and I have ideas, but… Well, that may not happen as a result of starting the story a few weeks before V7.

Sad, but oh well.

Biotic Questioner (Guest) :

By 'force multiplier' I mean the military verbage. Follow me, here. So say a Marine has a Force Quality of ten. A Marine with a rifle would be multiplied by .2, to a value ot 12. The rifle is a force multiplier. Calling something specifically A force multiplier only means that they add some 'edge' that is otherwise unattainable. Both biotics and Aura are force multipliers of differing applications. Similarly, Superman's heat vision would be a force multiplier to HIS abilities as well, supernatural or not.

Tekaman Blade :

Glad you're enjoying it!

Tpoynt :

I believe I made a note of that actually. If not, well… Geth do not intentionally infiltrate.