"Oh, for fuck's sake." Scott launched himself backwards and nearly fell out of his chair.

"What?" Sara demanded.

"Liam?" The way Scott said his name made it sound like an insult. "Really? Liam?"

"...He was there?"

Her brother continued with his withering stare. "Really?"

"Okay, fine, no, I'm lying," Sara replied with a roll of her eyes. "I entered the crew's cabin to debrief Liam, and that's all."

And debrief him, she did. Sometimes, depending on her mood, she would debrief Liam multiple times a day.

Now it was Scott's turn to heave a pillow at her. "I don't get you."

"We're all entitled to our one, Scott!" Sara proclaimed. "I recall a certain Yvette Simko who showed up completely unannounced to my dig site on Quana in the off chance that you might be visiting me."

"She did not!"

"Why in the hell would anyone think you'd be at a Prothean dig site, Scott?"

He chuckled. "Well, if it's any consolation, Yvette Simko has to be at least five centuries dead by this point."

"Sure," she drawled. "Unless she followed you on Hyperion and is just waiting to be thawed."

"No way!" He snapped upright. "I checked the roster. Twice."

Sara raised an eyebrow. "Did you?"

"SAM, cross reference any mention of the name, 'Yvette Simko' in the databases of both the Hyperion and Nexus." Scott grinned as he said it, but then muttered, "I still say you should have banged Peebee."

"Yeah, you should have banged Peebee," Peebee chimed in as she walked through the door.

"Get out of here!" Sara tossed her pillow the asari's way.

The pillow froze midair as Peebee smirked at it. "You should listen to your brother. He has impeccable taste."

"I do have my moments, don't I?" Scott threw his arms behind his head.

"Why would you be telling your brother about your conquests, anyway?" Peebee wanted to know. The pillow dropped to the ground as she plopped down on the bed next to Sara. "That was always the one thing that my sisters did not want to hear about."

Scott made a face in commiseration. "Seriously."

"It's so you understand the context!" Sara exclaimed. "You make it sound like I'm telling you explicitly what he liked to do with his thumb and ring finger and I'm not!"

"Well, why not?" Peebee pouted. When Scott then veered his withering glare at her, she shrugged. "What? Inquiring minds! What does Liam Kosta have that I lack?"

When Scott's only answer was raucous laughter, Peebee joined in. "Besides the obvious, I mean!" she giggled.

Sara let her head fall into her hands. "Oh my God!"

"Okay, so you saved Eos, you saved Havarl," Scott managed between guffaws. "What next? I heard Cora was super pissed."

"Well, yeah."

"Ooh!" Peebee clapped her hands. "Do we have popcorn? I want popcorn."

"Hush," Sara snorted.

Despite all the good deeds and hard work, there'd always be someone unhappy. An easy bet was Director Tann. But apparently, with enough time alone on the ship with nothing but her plants, Cora Harper had decided it was perfectly acceptable to be a tad bit miffed.

Sara had just uncrumpled her slacks off the floor and slipped them back on with the sole purpose of not being naked as she trekked it to the showers when Cora knocked. So, instead of letting the hot water melt away her latest bad decision, Sara was stuck in the crew's quarters with Cora Harper, and was entirely preoccupied by whether or not Cora was aware of the fresh stain in Liam's bunk or if she could smell the stink of sex that practically emanated from Sara's hands and hair. She considered for a moment if sitting on the wet spot would conceal it or just draw more attention to it.

"Forgive me for speaking candidly, but what were you thinking?" Cora asked.

"I wasn't, really," Sara replied, not quite sure why Cora would even care.

"Well that was obvious!" Cora snapped and as she did, the clasp to a footlocker rattled. "You race in with only two others to take on an entire camp of hostiles? Were you trying to get yourself killed?"

Oh. She meant that. "I didn't want a full battalion in a Remnant vault. I didn't need extra people tripping over one another as it reset."

"None of that would have mattered if you were all killed by Roekaar." Cora sighed and dropped onto a bunk. Not Liam's. "You are not just humanity's pathfinder, you are the Pathfinder. Until we can find the other arks, you are all we've got. I can't have you dying off in the middle of nowhere with Peebee as the only one to pass SAM off to."

"Wow. I was going to thank you for the concern, but that kind of took a dark turn, there."

"You know what I mean."

"Do I?"

Cora's nostrils flared, annoyed, but she took a deep breath. As she exhaled through her mouth, she seemed to push out whatever ugliness Sara had put there and was able to resume her regular, motherly tone. "I just want you to be more mindful. You're the Pathfinder, now. When you put yourself at risk, you put more than yourself at risk."

"Thanks, Mom," Sara groaned. "You'll be happy to hear my next plan of action is to just make a pitstop at the Nexus for updates and supplies."

"I wouldn't call rubbing elbows with Tann 'happy,' exactly, but it's sensible." Judging from that placating smile, all was right in the world of Cora Harper again. "And I'm too young to be your mother. Think of me more like a big sister."

No, Sara would not. "Sure," she said.

If she thought Cora was annoyed by saving a planet and improving relations with the angara, Jarun Tann and the other bureaucrats were going to send her to another level of fuckshit crazy. When they arrived on the Nexus, Sara radioed Doc Harry on the Hyperion's med bay for her regular pilgrimage, only to be intercepted and immediately whisked before the leading superfecta of assholes.

"You've put us in a hell of a pickle," Addison said as soon as Sara was in earshot.

"I'm doing good, thanks for asking," Sara replied.

It got the reaction she'd hoped for. Addison's eyes had a dangerous glint to them as she stared her down. Sara could practically count down to when enough wires would connect in the other woman's brain to launch into a scathing tirade. Four, three, two...

Kesh intervened. "What my associate means is, while it's great that you found some survivors from Ark Natanus, are you sure you couldn't find any hint of the ark, itself?"

Sara squinted at them. "No..?"

With Tann's hands clasped together as he placed himself in front of the others, he reminded Sara of a televangelist. "When Ark Hyperion docked in the Nexus, we were able to use it to power an entire sector that had previously been dark," Tann explained.

Kandros had been pacing up until that point. The turian stopped abruptly and barked, "My people are worth more than their ship!"

"Wait." Sara took a step back. "You're mad because I couldn't find an ark that I hadn't even been looking for?"

"No, no!" Tann was a little too quick to assure. "We're confident that you'll be very successful once you decide to search for the missing arks. It's just the tricky matter of-"

"Tann and Addison are just cranky over the turian refugees you brought back from Havarl," Kesh interrupted.

"I don't understand." It seemed to Sara that some of this group was a bit too invested in being unhappy no matter the circumstances. "Was I just supposed to let them fend for themselves on Havarl?"

"Yeah, I'd love to hear your alternatives," Kandros muttered.

"It's okay. We can put them to work on Eos," Kesh was saying.

But Addison would have none of it. "We still have people in stasis," she snapped. "We had a set order based on need and availability. Now you want me to cross my fingers and hope someone in that random hodgepodge is a doctor or a geologist? I already alerted people that their families were due to be woken up, now I have to let them know I'm a liar. "

"The situation changed and you were mistaken," Tann told her. "Remind them that things are constantly changing and all of this is temporary."

"I'll have my men tell the protesters in hydroponics that," Kandros scoffed. "This is all temporary." The turian stormed out of the door of Pathfinder Hall without looking back.

Sara wallowed in the awkward silence that followed his 's impotence and Kesh's mounting frustration. Addison cut the lingering stares at the empty doorway short.

"You are the Pathfinder," she said. "I want you to path-find. The angara are refusing to let us have an outpost on Havarl, so as far as I'm concerned, you shitted around and wasted my time for nothing. Find an ark or give me another outpost."

Sara nodded as she and SAM absorbed the information. "Well, sure. When you say it like that."

Addison answered her with an angry huff of air through her nostrils. "Figure it out," she growled. "I have to go disappoint some people, now."

Tann continued to wear that tight, shit-eating grin as she left. He pried his hands apart just long enough to let a single, crisp clap echo through the hall. "As you can see, things are a little stressful here, but I'd like to view them as growing pains."

Kesh openly rolled her eyes at him. "People got excited when you and your ark showed up, but they lose sight of the fact that there's a lot of work that needs to be done and you can't just wave a wand and fix things instantaneously."

"But you should fix some things," Tann added.

"She is," Kesh snapped before Sara could open her mouth. "I get the angara being protective of Havarl. There weren't any alien outposts on Sur'Kesh or Thessia or Earth. Perhaps they'll allow us to send some of our scientists to assist with their team? If nothing else, we could sample some of their native foodstuffs to see if it's compatible with any of our physiologies."

"That makes sense," Sara agreed.

"See, Number Eight?" Kesh glared at Tann. "Progress."

With the Tempest fueled up and their prerogatives clear, Sara departed. They'd make a quick pitstop at Prodromos to act as an escort to a supply transport to prevent it from being pirated by exiles and to drop off the turian refugees, excluding Avitus Rix. Strangely enough, as soon as it was known that Avitus was a retired Council Spectre, him being awake and on the Nexus wasn't an unnecessary drain of resources. Avitus had agreed to assist Kandros with maintaining order in exchange for resources to track down the turian ark. Everyone else would be thankful for the opportunity to partake in the backbreaking labor of outpost life, of course.

On the way to Eos, it gave Sara time to discuss and plan with Jaal and Evfra. In the Meeting Room of the Tempest, Jaal had already activated the vidcon terminal, so that Evfra's image was waiting for her by the time Sara sat down in one of the many chairs.

"Jaal's been keeping me updated," Evfra told her. "Good work on Havarl. Going out of your way to free that science team was a selfless act."

"Thank you. I'm-"

"But your true agenda is clear- to explore Aya's vault." He made it sound like a bad thing when he said it like that.

Later, Sara learned she should have listened to her gut and said, "No shit," instead of dancing around, tripping over her words and attempting to be polite. She'd blame it on being accustomed to parlaying with Tann, but if she ever felt like being honest, Sara knew she had a bad habit of saying what she thought people wanted to hear so that she could slip through the cracks and just continue on with whatever she felt like uninterrupted.

"Jaal says you want to help find the Moshae," Evfra said. "Why should I let you?"

Because the Moshae was important and the angara had been unsuccessful so far without Sara's help? She put on an ill-fitting smile. "Any time I risk myself and crew for you, that's one less angaran life on the line. Your sages thought it was perfectly acceptable to use me as cannon fodder."

The Resistance leader laughed, harsh and cold. "They would, wouldn't they? You're so eager to die? Fine. She's being kept on a special kett facility on Voeld. They're protected by a dynamic shield tech we haven't been able to crack. Its ability to adapt outstrips the speed of our current processors."

Sara supposed they were headed to Voeld, anyhow. Convenient that she could stretch herself thin enough to potentially establish an outpost on the frozen planet and rescue the Moshae. But if it was processing speed that he needed...

"That's where I can help," Sara realized. "Respectfully Evfra, this time, you need me."

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. "Respectfully," Evfra sneered. "I need nothing from you. We angara take care of our own."

"You need processing speed to crack the shields and I have that." Fuck. "If I add my AI to the mix, I guarantee a shield breach."

"AI?" He didn't recoil horrified, but he seemed to be calculating. "Of course. Things make more sense, now."

Like how a plebe like her could crack the vault tech? Sara shifted in her seat. "I'm not sure if that should be common knowledge or not, if you know what I mean."

"The fact that you're trusting me with this information separates you from the kett."

"I would hope so."

"You will be a welcome addition to this mission," Evfra decided. "You'll be briefed when you reach our base on Voeld."

As Evfra cut the transmission, Jaal just blinked at the dead air. "I did not think he would trust you so quickly, " he said finally. "Congratulations."

Sara shrugged. "I'm pretty sure he still hates my guts, so..."

"That's just his way," Jaal snorted.

"Oh, good," she drawled. "That's just what I wanted to hear."

The outpost of Prodromos was led by a human named August Bradley. As soon as Sara's boots touched soil, he greeted her with a strong handshake and an appreciative nod to the supply transport. "Aren't you a sight?" he exclaimed. "This is the first transport to make it here intact. We were hurting for supplies."

"I can't promise there's the bottle of wine you requested in there, but there's definitely some rations and painkillers," Cora cut in as she walked down the gangplank.

"It'll have to do," Bradley chuckled. He dropped Sara's hand in favor of hers. "That's why we're a science outpost, so we can figure out the best native flora to ferment, right?"

"Something like that," Sara agreed. "Do you have the arrangements figured out for the turian refugees, yet? We're here to drop them off before we head to Voeld."

"More refugees?" Bradley frowned. "I thought you meant the ones we already housed."

"No..?"

"We'll make it work," he said. "We need all the help we can get. But it sounds like maybe we'll have to double up the Leusinia survivors to make room for your new refugees."

"Leusinia?" Cora asked. "You have asari refugees on Prodromos?"

Bradley nodded. "For a little more than a week, now. Why?"