…

"It worked."

(J. Robert Oppenheimer)

…

SSV Explorer, February 2nd, 10:45 PM, 2182

…

I sat forward in my bed, breathing slowly as I felt my side once again. It was still rough, breathing after what I had done to myself. During our narrow and disjointed escape, I had accidentally opened a small part of my intestine back up, letting blood pour into places it wasn't supposed to. It eventually traveled into my lungs, shortening my breath to the point I couldn't stay conscious.

Dimitri picked my sorry ass up and carried me all the way down to the ship's med bay, stripping my armor off and putting me inside one of the automated ICUs standard on most Alliance ships. Since Cerberus had stripped the ship's systems of all Alliance data, including V.I.s, Dan put Lydia into the system. After her brother gave her a quick explanation, she started up the unit and stitched me back up again.

I didn't wake up until a day later, when everything had settled down to a reasonable degree. Not my choice, mind you. Lydia didn't want me moving around for a while. Once I had risen, I got the rundown on what happened while I was out in that hospital.

Once their attack was concluded, Lynda had her cronies blow up Aldrin Station with a series of demolition charges. They had been placed on the reactor level next to the Nemo-Michaels that had been installed. Once the charges went boom, it set off a chain of explosions that leveled the whole station and any other remaining members of Cerebellum. Everyone onboard who wasn't already dead died. That was well over 600 people, technicians, support staff, security, maintenance... all killed for no good reason.

Lynda then tried to force the others to work for them. To say the least, she didn't succeed. Every one of the Project Leads refused to work with them despite all the threats Cerberus leveled at them. This persisted for about a month until every member of our team had been imprisoned due to the security risks they posed. I had actually busted them out at the best possible time, this "Illusive Man" character was going to have them all moved to another facility until further notice.

Of course, that was before I got them out of there.

There was one thing we knew for certain. Cerberus wanted us alive. They were willing to destroy a top-level Alliance research facility to capture us, and their ploy almost worked.

They didn't count on me, though.

Now we had other problems. Apparently this Minuteman Station we had escaped from was located smack-dab in the middle of the Terminus Systems. The Terminus, as far as I knew, was basically the Wild West of the galaxy. It was filled with pirates, mercenaries, murderers, and all other manners of craziness I could barely fathom.

Dimitri, being a former Alliance marine, knew that Alliance warships were strictly prohibited from entering the Terminus Systems, both by the Citadel Council and the Alliance itself. Both parties were scared shitless of provoking the mercenary factions in the region, fearing that if they intruded on their territory, they'd might be able to pull together their forces enough to be a threat.

What this all amounted to was us having to slowly snake our way around certain star clusters in an attempt to avoid said mercenaries and pirates. It didn't matter if this was a warship or not, if anyone determined enough came across us they would surely try to claim us as their next "prize".

We really didn't want that. All we wanted to do was get back to Alliance space again, tell the Admirals what happened.

I sat in the med bay, reading some of the e-books on my omni-tool I had downloaded before the attack. I was currently in the middle of reading 1984, a frightening book about a dictatorship that suppresses all emotion in its citizens in an attempt to keep them loyal and docile. It was a scary world poor Winston lived in, but I took comfort in the fact that 1984 had long since passed.

The door on the other end of the room opened, and Mara walked in looking at me. Knowing that she was most likely coming over to speak to me, I closed my omni-tool and got comfortable.

"So… how's the sitting around and doing nothing going?" She asked, walking over with her hands in her pockets and a smile on her face.

"It's going remarkably well, I must say." I answered with a smug look on my face, resisting the urge to touch my side. "How bout' you? What are you doing in the absence of a proper lab?"

"Oh, reading, watching movies, bothering other people... the works." She shot back, giving me a bemused look.

"You're doing a great job at the "bothering people" part." I joked with a big smile, turning my omni-tool back on for a brief moment at pointing at it.

"Well, as they say, practice makes perfect." She joked right back, finally managing to properly pick up on my sarcasm for once.

I let off a small huff, shaking my head as I smiled. Then a new thought creeped in.

"Tell me… how come you were always so combative with other people before all this happened?" I asked, looking into her bright green eyes. "To be frank, you we never this friendly before."

She looked at me for a few seconds, eventually frowning and taking a seat next to me.

"Well… after they put me in confinement, I had a lot of time to think about a few things." She started, looking down at the ground as she pulled her legs up to her chest. "I haven't been… the nicest person over the years. I've hurt a lot of people to get where I am today, and I never gave it a single thought. Not once."

I looked at her, keeping quiet as she opened up to me.

"Being in that situation, seeing those people butcher my colleagues without a second thought… It caused something to click into place that day. I never knew I could feel so sad." She said slowly before looking at me once again. "That day, I learned that I have friends. I have friends, and I care about them. I never realized how much they meant to me until they were already gone."

I nodded, giving her a gentle pat on the back.

"You still got us." I remarked, giving her a soft smile.

"Yeah, I do." She smiled, putting her hand on my blanketed leg. "Well, I need to get some sleep. See you tomorrow."

"See ya." I finished, watching her stop at the door for another look at me before closing it.

I sat there in silence for a few minutes, thinking about what she said before shutting off the main lights and drifting to sleep.

…

SSV Explorer, February 4th, 8:15 AM, 2182

…

Today I was released from bed rest, much to my delight. My side had healed up nicely and I could barely feel anything at all, let alone any pain from my previous injuries. Lydia informed me that I should still take it slow, warning me against any heavy physical activity like running or even stretching. Of course, the first thing I elected to do with my newfound freedom was explore the ship.

Outside the med bay, there was a large mess hall with lockers, weapon racks, and its own kitchen off to the side. Opposite to the med bay was an empty storage room. On any normal Alliance warship, the place would be bustling with off-duty marines, but here the place was eerily vacant. That disturbed me slightly, making me think about the movie Alien for a brief moment.

Normally a ship of this size and class, especially with the stuff we and the engineers stuffed in the back, would have been extremely difficult to maintain without a trained crew. Luckily for us, we had Powell and Lydia. I suppose they could also double as MOTHER, minus the "crew expendable" bit.

Behind the mess were two elevators and two short hallways that led to the crew quarters. I suspected that most of the others were likely still sleeping, especially Dan, so I decided to hold off on taking that route. I instead jumped in one of the elevators to go visit the hangar.

Everything in this ship was surprisingly compact, despite its fair size. While the two sides of the ship that "fanned out" had areas of their own, it mostly consisted of weapon systems and armor plating. It had been lightly armed, loaded up with GARDIAN systems fit for anti-fighter support and a marine detachment for ground insertion.

That changed quickly when we had gotten our little mitts into the clockwork. While I didn't have a lot of involvement, Dan and I did contribute the NM reactor along with Jack's Gravity Drive. Dimitri on the other hand… heh.

He saddled the ship up with a ton of extra titanium armor, installed more powerful kinetic barrier emitters to make use of the surplus power output, and replaced 75% of the GARDIAN arrays with 250mm cannons. Two were housed inside specially-designed turrets, and there were three turrets on both sides of the ship.

Now that I thought about it, we'd be able to kick the shit out of anything smaller than us.

After the agonizing wait on the elevator, the doors finally slid open to reveal the hangar. It was small, even by Alliance standards. It would barely be able to hold two of those M35 Mako tanks, and even I thought that was depressing. They had to extend the engineering section's walls out farther to accommodate the Reach System, eating up the space the cargo bay once had.

It felt more like a small basketball court now, one filled with crates of supplies and heavy equipment.

Inside the engineering section, it was easy to see why they needed the extra space. Our Gen-II NM Reactor was twice as big as our first one, easily taking up the same amount of space as two of those water turbines from Hoover Dam. It was an interesting design we came up with. The first half of the reactor was a miniaturized fusion plant, it hung above the main engineering area and looked akin to the large Arc Reactor from the first Iron Man movie. The big difference was that instead of bolts of electricity, streams of bluish plasma swirled counter-clockwise around the main chamber.

The second part was the Eezo Core, which had to be given its own specially-designed containment structure due to the potential for a catastrophic energy release with all the plasma that fed it. It was situated where it normally would have been, in the back of the room. Humming, it visibly vibrated as mist from the cooling systems slowly drifted about. It was connected to the fusion reactor with a series of pipes and wires that ran along the ceiling haphazardly, only decipherable by their color-coding.

The Gravity Drive was the most interesting, even if it did look like a freaking tape dispenser. It sat directly opposite from the Eezo Core next to the wall separating it from the hangar. It had a constantly spinning center section that would produce a gravity field when running on full power, projecting said field outside of the ship in a fast, rather violent burst. I heard it was actually quite pretty to watch from inside the ship, seeing the stars become red or blue-shifted depending on which direction you looked. It was connected to the reactor via large electrical wires that ran up the wall.

All three of these barely left any room for the maintenance systems, hence why they needed to make the room bigger. Still, the U-shaped walkway that snaked both doors together was barely big enough for three people to stand next to each other.

I walked back out to the hanger to find Dimitri was here, doing push-ups in the open part of the hanger. He was dressed in a simple black tank top and standard combat trousers, switching between arms as he moved up and down.

"Ah, hello." He greeted during a pause, shooting me a smile.

"Hi Dimi." I replied with a smile, walking over and leaning on one of the hanger supports as I watched.

"I see fair maiden has released you from her clutches." He grunted out in his usual accent as he continued to do push-ups. "What brings you down here so early in morning, my friend?"

"Curiosity." I replied matter-of-factly, crossing my arms. "You know… I've never actually set foot on this ship until the other day."

"It is beautiful ship, is it not?" He commented, standing up and taking a deep gulp from his water bottle as he looked around. "Imagine if we had gotten our hands on one of those "stealth systems" Turians are developing."

"Heh, all we'd need is some sort of large-scale cloaking device to hid us visibly." I remarked, holding out my hands as I imagined a billboard. "The ultimate stealth ship!"

"A cloaking device! Now there is idea." He smiled, rubbing his chin in thought.

I thought about his accent for a second, then another thought crossed my mind.

"Hey Dimi, I never actually asked where you grew up." I said, sitting down on the floor as he began to do crunches.

"Why do you ask?" He inquired, looking up at me.

"I dunno, why not?" I replied, shrugging. "I just like to know the people I work with."

He looked at me again for a moment before shrugging in acceptance.

"Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. Born and raised." He answered quickly before doing another crunch.

"How'd you end up working in a science division?" I inquired further, genuinely curious.

"That is bit of story. Parents sent me to SibFU to get a higher education. They did not want me to work in a factory or chemical plant." He answered, looking forward for a moment before continuing. "I did not like working in Krasnoyarsk, so I opted to join Alliance instead. A few years later, I was approached for position at Aldrin and took it."

I nodded, looking down at him as another thought crossed my mind.

"What do you think is going to happen when we reach Alliance space today?" I asked, causing him to completely pause.

"To be honest, my friend, I have not a clue." He answered with a slightly worried look on his face. "We were part of heavily classified projects, they may shoot us on sight for all we know."

"Why would they do that?" I asked, not believing how cynical he was suddenly.

"Think about it. We get taken by terrorist organization, gone for two months, classified information stolen…" He mused, looking down at the ground before looking back up at me. "Even if we are still valuable, we would likely be considered security risks and shot. Easier for them that way."

"If you're so sure about that, then why didn't you tell the others?" I asked, trying to figure out his thought process.

"I did." He corrected, looking harder at me. "I suggested we instead go to Citadel, but only Dan agreed with me. Everyone else wanted to immediately return to Alliance space."

I pondered what he said for a minute before looking back to him.

"Well, I guess all we can do is hope it doesn't come down to that." I said with some reassurance, getting back on my feet. "I'm going to go see if I can wrangle myself up some breakfast."

"Heh, удачи." He remarked, causing me to stop in my tracks and look at him in confusion.

"That's "good luck" in Russian." He smiled, before returning to his crunches.

"Well, you learn something new every day." I said with a smirk, stepping into the elevator and punching in the crew deck. I silently cursed the speed of the elevators I've encountered around here before the doors opened, revealing the CIC.

The entire room was lined with control consoles for various systems, all of which were of course empty. A large holographic projector sat in the center of the room before it tapered off into a long hallway. That hallway led to the "bridge" or "cockpit" area where the pilot, communications and radar consoles all sat. Every space here was accounted for, though a lot of empty space did still exist here and there.

I took a seat in the pilot's seat and reclined back, staring up at the stars as they passed.

…

SSV Explorer, February 4th, 2:11 PM, 2182

…

"Disengaging Gravity Drive in three… two… one." Dimitri announced from the pilot's chair as Jack and I sat to his sides in the communication and radar stations respectively.

The ship shuttered slightly as the space outside our ship returned to normal space, the gravity field dropping and removing the distortions.

We had finally reached Alliance space after several days, reaching a little colony known as Eden Prime. It was fortunate that the colony was so close to the Terminus, despite how dangerous that was in the long run. It didn't really matter to us, a port in the storm was all we were looking for.

"There it is, Eden Prime." Jack commented with a smile on his wrinkled face. "Great little vacation spot, as long as you don't mind the smell of fertilizer."

I nodded with a smile, looking at the radar in my usual, paranoid way. That's when I spotted something that only fueled said paranoia.

"Um… Dimi? I thought you said Eden Prime only had a small patrol guarding it." I remarked, looking over my shoulder at him.

"It does, why?" He inquired, looking down at my console.

"I'm asking because it looks like the whole Seventh Fleet is orbiting the planet." I explained as his eyes went wide in surprise. He leaned over in his seat to get a better look at my console. Sure enough, he caught glimpse of the several dozen ships orbiting the blue/green planetoid.

Just as he went to say something, Jack's console lit up with comm chatter.

"SSV Explorer, identify yourself immediately or you will be destroyed." A mildly familiar voice inquired over the priority channel, having overridden our comm grid.

"This is Dr. Dimitri Vsevolod, ID Number 898038. We have escaped from captivity and request immediate assistance." Dimitri quickly announced over the channel.

"Doctor, are all the other project leads present on the ship?" The voice inquired as Admiral Catharine Parangosky herself appeared on the vidscreen.

Dimitri's face dropped slightly as those words entered his ears. It took a lot to worry The Bear. That was enough to throw all of us into a state of suspicion.

"Excuse me for a moment, Admiral." Dimitri paused the call, looking down at me. "What ship belongs to her?"

"It looks like they're being led by the SSV Elbrus, an Everest-class dreadnought." I announced, looking hard at all the contacts on my screen. "Powell, keep your scanners up and look out for anything suspicious."

"Understood." His disembodied voice agreed, as Dimitri looked harder at me. I nodded.

"All Project Leads are present and accounted for, Admiral." Dimitri reluctantly replied after turning the vidscreen back on. The pale woman looked off to the side, saying something inaudible.

"Good. Now power down your engines and other systems, doctor." Parangosky ordered, folding her hands behind her back. "Gather your crew and prepare to be boarded."

"I am afraid I cannot do that, Admiral." Dimitri slowly denied as the Admiral gave him the stink eye.

"Why is that, doctor?" She shot back, getting a condescending tone in her voice. "I've given you a direct order, and I expect you to follow it."

"I'm not going to do that because if you didn't intend to have us killed, you wouldn't have brought a dreadnought with you." He replied, getting her to narrow her eyes as she cut the connection.

"Well, I guess that's our answer." I remarked with a frown, as Jack's console lit up with even more comm chatter.

"Fighters are being deployed and I'm detecting energy transfer to weapon systems!" Powell announced as Dimitri sounded the alarm.

"Everyone get strapped in down there, the Alliance wants us dead and they're sending the whole Seventh Fleet after us!" I announced over the ship's announcement system as I felt a light lurch in my stomach as Dimitri swung the ship around.

"Lydia, how long until we are able to jump again?" Dimitri asked as he fired the engines as hard as he could.

"One minute to jump charge. Two if defense systems are in use." Lydia answered, looking just as worried as the rest of us as she appeared on the projector next to me.

Vibrations could be heard through the hull as the fighters caught up with us. Powell fired the remaining GARDIAN systems, their infrared lasers burning away at their critical systems and forcing them to back off. It wasn't enough, though. The sheer number of fighters beginning to bear down on us was too much for the kinetic barriers to handle.

Several missiles got through the GARDIAN grid, impacting on our starboard side.

"Сукин сын!" Dimitri yelled loudly in Russian, veering the ship sharply towards port. "глупые ублюдки!"

"What?!" I inquired out loud as the maneuvering thrusters fired, sending us into a spin.

"Never mind!" He dismissed loudly as more thuds could be heard impacting off our barely-holding barriers.

"One minute to charge!" Lydia announced as a very heavy vibration shook the ship. It nearly rocked me out of my seat, causing a brief burst of pain from my side before I pulled myself back up.

"What the hell was that?" Jack asked, his face twisted in confusion.

"They're firing their main guns!" Powell announced as pinpoints of light could be seen coming from the ships in the rear-view camera.

In an attempt to throw off their aim, Dimitri fired off the emergency thrusters to propel us into different trajectories. He fired them so much that alerts were beginning to sound off all over the ship.

"Thirty seconds!" Lydia announced once more as alarms rung in my ear.

"Give me a random vector back into the Terminus and make it a far away as you can!" Dimitri ordered as the fighters tried to close back in to finish off our barriers.

"Oh my God, get us out of here!" Jack yelled, beginning to panic.

Dimitri focused on the space in front of us as the magnetic field went up, enveloping the ship and distorting the view of everything around us. We jumped to FTL speeds, the stars outside peeling away and instantly being replaced with new ones.

Everyone on the bridge sat in silence for a few minutes, all of us panting and sweating profusely. I had to roll up my sleeves and place my forehead on the cold, metal surface next to me I was so hot. Dimitri sat forward and let sweat drip off his face onto the floor as he stared blankly ahead. Jack had his hands on his chest and panted heavily, his white and gray hair sticking to the sides of his head.

"Powell… damage report?" I asked, clutching my side once again as the pain slowly dulled away.

"No atmospheric breaches. Turrets 1 and 2 on the starboard side of the ship are gone. Both GARDIAN arrays are fried." Powell listed off as I stared up at the bulkhead above me. "About 62% of the emergency thrusters are fused and require complete replacement. Minor damage all over the rest of the ship."

"How about the reactor?" I asked, staring up at the stars.

"Reactor is holding steady, though the heat inside Engineering is currently well above safety limits at 36.1° C." He continued to list off as Jack got up and left the cockpit. "Shall I activate emergency coolers?"

"Do it." I replied, rubbing my forehead as yet another headache began to form.

I got up and looked up to Dimitri, who was still hunched over in exhaustion.

"You alright?" I asked, still panting as I looked down at him.

"No, I am not." He remarked bitterly, shaking his head before standing back up. "Come, let us check on the others."

I nodded, following him as Lydia and Powell took over.

The inside of the CIC, which had previously been clean and uniform was now a complete mess. The vibrations had shook many panels off the walls and damaged electrical conduits. Wire bundles hung haphazardly from parts of the ceiling as lights either flickered on and off or were completely gone.

The mere thought of having to fix all of this alone made my headache worse.

Jack was sitting next to the elevator, too exhausted to get back to his feet.

"I create… the Gravity Drive… and this is… what I get?" He remarked through labored breaths, clutching at his chest. "Unappreciative… bastards…"

"Come on, we've gotta go check on the others." I urged as Dimitri and I picked him up by the armpits and carried him inside the elevator.

As the elevator descended, my mind raced as to what we would do next. I thought hard about it, and came to only one logical conclusion. We needed to find a place that offered security, seclusion, and contained people that we could help. As insane as it seemed at first, it made more sense the more I thought about it.

The Quarians. The Migrant Fleet.

…

A/N: Well, the Alliance has foolishly turned it's back on the remains of Cerebellum, and the team is on the run yet again. What will happen when Sean brings up his idea? What will happen to their ship? Only time will tell.

For anyone who is curious, deviantART user nach77 has allowed me to use his Alamo-class Light Frigate design as a basis for the SSV Explorer. If you want to check it out, search Alliance Frigate - Alamo Class on deviantART. Make sure to tell him what you think of it!

I'd love to read any reviews, I'm always up for suggestions or constructive criticism. Stay tuned!