Enjoy the chapter everyone!

POV: TorchbeaRed Eyes

As soon as the flashbangs went off and my world went white I made the best decision I could and dived for cover. Though the only cover in the area was the crates I had been near but they were small. Landing, where I hoped I was in cover, I curled up into the fetal position as I heard gunfire start to go off around me. My eyes still seeing spots as I reached behind me and grabbed my Mattock.

Firing a few shots down the range at the incoming soldiers I noticed immediately that they were Cerberus, they had easy to identify uniforms. As the soldiers noticed me firing back at them the dozen or so soldiers all turned their guns on me and fired as one. I dropped down behind cover immediately before they could shred me in half.

That was when I noticed that the squad I had been helping to train plus Kal was nowhere to be seen. I hoped that they were in the breaching area, where we used to train the recruits, and hadn't just abandoned me. They didn't seem like the people to do that but after being flashbanged anything could have happened in the confusion.

Grabbing two grenades off my bandolier I popped up out of cover and threw them at the Cerberus soldiers still out in the open. They all scattered away from the incoming grenades and I used that as my opportunity to run into the Breaching area. A lot of places that they wouldn't be able to see me and I would actually be able to perform my more complicated hacking abilities.

Barging through the door I delved deep into the rooms having memorized them during my time here. I did so until I was at the heart of the area and when I got there I immediately began to hack the lights in the area and shut them off. Then I sent a message to Tali saying that Cerberus had boarded and to be safe.

With that done I hit my pulse and saw that there were 22 life signs in the area and 9 in the breaching area. Five of those nine were clustered together in one of the rooms on the far side while another four were pretty close to me. That was all the info I needed before setting off towards the closer group of four.

Since I hadn't designated any of the Quarians as friendlies in my HUD besides Tali I was taking no chances on who I was coming up on. Sneaking around to get behind the closer group I saw lights protruding from what I assumed was their helmets and hushed whispers in english. Guess these were the Cerberus group.

Waiting for them to exit the room I snuck in behind them and followed suit. Going through the room I hit the pulse again and saw that one was close to the door they had just left through. Taking out my knife and a grenade and went to the door.

Kicking the door open I tossed the grenade through. Panicked shouting quickly followed before the grenade went off and I burst through the door with my knife at the ready. Of the four in there 3 of them had been shredded by the grenade, enclosed space did them no good. The final one was starting to push himself off the ground from where he had dived, he had been the one closest to the door.

Stopping his recovery via an augmetic hammer blow to the back of his helmet he collapsed down on the ground groaning and barely conscious. I proceeded to hack his omni-tool and access their comms before plunging my knife through his neck. He gurgled out once before falling still and the threat had been eliminated.

Tuning into their comms I tried to make sense of why they were attacking the Quarians. It was never explained in the games and if it was in the lore I never saw it. Either way it boiled down to what they had been notorious for. Experimentation. They wanted to capture a few quarians and see what made them tick among other things. Though, there was a fair bit of chatter saying that a HVCT (High Value Capture Target) was here as well, I assumed they were talking about me. I was happy they didn't know about the file.

It didn't matter either way though. They were here and they were trying to harm innocents. I would do my absolute best to stop and kill all of them before they could accomplish their goals. It was off to a good start at least, I had their comms and they were already down 4 soldiers.

Hitting my pulse again I located where the Rookies and Kal were set up. I made my way there as quickly as I could not bothering with true stealth anymore, the grenade had thrown that out the window. Now, when I got to them the two that had been watching the corridor I came from opened fire immediately upon seeing me. It actually made me proud with how quick they were in their response.

Still, I dived back into cover. They let off a couple rounds at me afterwards but then stopped and I hit my pulse to see what they were doing. The pulse ended and I saw that they were moving to flank me thinking that I wasn't alone. I hit the pulse multiple times as they moved and again they made me proud. They were perfectly efficient and instead of moving I just sat there and looked at where I guessed the first head would peak out from.

Sure enough 30 seconds later one of their heads peaked around the corner. They saw me looking at them and simply dropped their head. A second later they came around the corner with one of their buddies. The other two plus Kal came from behind me.

"Good to see you're all alive," were the first words out of my mouth. The rookies looked happy at that. Kal didn't respond immediately but did after a second or two.

"You too Torch," no full title? Felt a little weird but this isn't the time to be complaining.

"You have any info on what's going on?"

"We're being boarded and we aren't the only ship that it's happening to, but that's it for the attack. I don't who and I don't know why. As for orders, Admiral Gerrel informed me a few minutes ago that we're to make our way back to the Security Room."

"They're Cerberus, Human Supremacists. They want prisoners, live test subjects and it's exactly what you think."

"Fuck. I'm telling the Admiral," and then he walked a few paces from us and began contacting the Admiral. While he did that I got Sam to hook up everyone to the pulse. A moment after Sam was done with that Kal came back over.

"Orders stand. Torch?"

"I'm coming. Your people, your show," he gave me a nod and then gave out silent orders through hand signals.

We made our way out of the maze and on the way out I hit my pulse several times. The rookies were confused as to what was happening but Kal just gave me another appreciative nod. What it showed us was that of the remaining 13 soldiers that had been left after I killed those four only 5 were still in the immediate area. The rest, I assume, left to go about fulfilling their job.

That little statement left me with quite a bit of anger. If you're going to experiment on people do it when they were willing, not taken or forced. Or at the very least do it so in a way that it could actually benefit people as a whole. Not just as a source to find weaknesses or create weapons. Fucking Cerberus.

Either way when we saw that there were only five left in the area we decided to eliminate them. Kal gave us the go ahead to pick our targets and wait for his signal. Even though the other four with us were rookies, they knew the layout of this place like the back of their hands and snuck around the hanger without making a sound. As soon we were in place behind the soldiers he gave the signal and my knife got another kill. Along with all the rookies who got their first kills.

To my immense surprise none of them freaked out. All handling the taking of a life extremely well, I was damn proud. Leaving the bodies where they lay we made our way out of the hangar and to the Security room. Along the way we found a couple of scientists who we had get into the middle of our formation.

Also along the way I would periodically hit my pulse, which is how we found the scientists, to make sure that we were alone. There was only one time that we weren't alone besides when we found civilians. It had a group of three soldiers in front of us preparing a small ambush in front of us. I informed kal of what I could do with my omni-tool and he gave us a plan.

Kal got one of the rookies to get the civilians into cover before giving me the go ahead to use grenades. Using the pulse once again just to make sure exactly where the soldiers were I tossed a singular grenade down the hallway. It blew up a good couple of feet from all of them, two on the right and one on the left, but they all dived into cover just in case.

However, as they were just getting up we rushed them and they never had a chance. I had boosted the shields of Kal and the other three rooks allowing them to go through the edge of the blast without a problem in their blitz. It worked perfectly.

With that out of the way we finished escorting the civilians to the Security Room. Getting there both Admiral Gerrel and Zorah opened up the door for us. There were already a bunch of people in there but from the quick look no Tali. Walking with Kal to the Admiral he reported in and asked if there had been any other boarding parties on this ship. The answer was no but this had been a mostly scientific vessel, the training ground being for the rooks who would watch over the scientists before becoming true marines. So I was told at least.

"Torch, would you be willing to lend your hand to eradicating our wouldbe boarders?" Gerrel asked, like he had to. Again with the shortening of the name, guess it made sense.

"Of course sir. There should only be about 10 more here."

"Good. Here's the ships layout," he spoke as he sent me the schematics before turning to look at Kal. "Sgt. Your rookies can watch us, you go with Torch."

With no other prompting we both made to leave. As the doors opened I received a message from Admiral Zorah and it confirmed my suspicion. Tali wasn't here and her father wanted her as a priority. He didn't have to ask twice and it became my priority without a second thought.

Stepping outside of the security room I hit my pulse and got nothing. With that we made our way to where Tali usually did her research. As we made our way there it didn't take long for us to come across a pair of Cerberus personnel. It was when we were about halfway there that when I hit my pulse I picked them up on it.

Giving the signal to Kal we found the room that they were in. As we prepared to breach the room I hit my pulse one more time just to see exactly where they were in the room. One was on the far left and the other on the right. A couple of hand signals later and Kal nodded back to me ready. Since I was on the left side of the door I would take the one on the right and he would take the left.

Hitting the button to open the door it slid open and both of us pushed into the room. I opened fire on my guy as Kal went behind me and started to fire on the other one. I only got three shots off before my arm began to hum and I dived to the side. Trusting in the hum has worked before.

As I dived out of the way a Throw flew by me and slammed into the Cerberus soldier I had been shooting at. He flew into the wall and collapsed onto the floor unmoving. Rolling over on the floor I faced the other soldier and poured fire into him with Kal. With no cover to speak of he dropped almost instantly. Once he was dead I walked up to the one who had been thrown into the wall and put a bullet through their skull.

A singular hand motion later and we were back on our way. We encountered no soldiers and no resistance on the way to where Tali is usually doing her research. Once we got outside the doors I hit the pulse and so no one inside. Deciding to go in anyways I gave the signal to Kal and we breached the door a few moments later.

There was a decent amount of blood inside and two more Cerberus bodies but no Tali. That was good enough for me and told me she was at least alive. It's a good thing she was starting to take after me in terms of paranoia too, no one on this ship besides the soldiers, myself and her kept weapons on their person. Plus with those two dead in this room there were only 6 left on the ship.

Thinking on where she might go next, I had to guess that she would try and either make it to the Security Room or her own room. Since she wasn't at the Security room that left only one place that she might go. Or at least the one place I thought that she would go.

Making our way around Kal voiced that we should be focusing on hunting the soldiers and not looking for another scientist. You know I would have agreed with him if a little bit of dread wasn't starting to set in for me. The soldiers saw me in the hangar, they knew exactly who I was. So if I was the HVCT like I originally thought then they should've come after me there before I could escape, not leave. Which left really only one other option to me, they were after Tali.

As we made our way to her room I would periodically hit the pulse just to make sure that we were alone. Every single time I hit the pulse we were alone, that is until we were just down a hallway from her room. Hitting the pulse again 6 signatures came up, and one of them was Tali. Throwing stealth out the window I sprinted down the hallway to where the signatures had come from.

Hacking the door open as I approached it I didn't waste any time and sprinted right through the door. Slamming into and decking the first Cerberus body I saw still standing. He stumbled back a couple steps and that's all I needed. Pulling my gun up I made to kill the soldier only for someone else to tackle me to the ground sending my AR away and get on top of me.

On pure muscle memory I slammed my augmetic arm into the soldier's throat as he tried pinning me to the ground. I both felt and saw his windpipe close, he fell off me clutching at his neck trying in vain to breath. Pulling out my pistol and knife I got ready for the fight. The knife in my left and the pistol in my right.

Jumping at the soldier I had knocked down he raised his rifle blocking my knife but from the force of the thrust from my augmetic hand it cracked and bent his gun. It didn't outright break it though and he held it there for a moment. That ended real quick when my other hand came forward with my pistol, put it against his neck and pulled the trigger. Killing him instantly.

Spinning around on a knee I saw Kal shoving his gun against the faceplate of one of the soldiers and pulling the trigger, blowing the man's head off. As for Tali she had her knife buried in the neck of another. Looking around there was only one other Cerberus soldier remaining and he had just knocked Kal out with the butt of his rifle from behind. I hadn't seen the man with Kal's body in the way earlier.

The soldier then enveloped himself in biotic energy, my arm humming the whole time, and charged me. Not having the space or time to dodge, I raised my arms up defensively hoping to minimize the damage. I was surprised at the result.

I felt his fist impact onto my arms and grunted at the impact but I wasn't thrown back. Instead I felt him slam into my shoulder and go up and over my body making me fall back onto the ground. For him though he continued on his way from the momentum and slammed into the wall. Grunting to myself as I made to get up and kill the soldier I was beat to the punch by Tali who blew his head off with her shotgun.

Looking at her she held out a hand and I took it. Hoisting me up I gave her a brief hug before observing the carnage that had happened in the room. Around us there were the remaining 6 Cerberus soldiers all dead around us. I guess Tali had gotten one before Kal and I got here and that was fine with me.

Giving a simple sign to Tali she nodded and went to the door and watched the hallway. Bending down to Kal I tried to stir him but he was well and truly knocked out. After two minutes of fruitless actions trying to wake him up I decided to just up and throw him over my shoulder, Fireman's Carry style.

Tapping Tali on the shoulder she went out the door taking the lead with her shotgun at the ready. Following behind her with Kal on my back we made our way to the Security room. Along the way I sent a message to Admiral Zorah saying that I had gotten his daughter and that we were on our way back.

We made our way straight back to the Security Room. No walking around in search of any more scientists, we did come across a few though. All were dead and most looked like they had been double tapped. Judging from the blood splatter on the ground where their heads were at least.

Once we arrived at the Security Room the door opened and we made our way inside. Tali immediately went to her father as soon as she was in the room and I walked off to the side gently letting Kal down to the ground. He'd be fine, probably just a bad concussion. After that was done with I made my way over to where Tali was with her father. Though as I made my way over Admiral Gerrel quickly made his way over to her as well.

"Does Cerberus know what is on that File Tali'Zorah," Gerrel hissed out as soon as he made his way to her, both of us arriving at the same time.

"They aren't here for the file Admiral," I spoke as soon as he was done. He whirled on me, anger evident in his body language. I was really starting to get curious why he was so invested in the file. Tali hadn't told me everything about why he wanted it or how he even came across it but this amount of obsession was curious.

"How would you know what they're after?" he sneered at me.

"I hacked their comms after I killed one a group of them. They aren't here for the file, they are here for your people. They're taking them."

"Why?" Tali asked

"Probably to study them. That would be my guess at least," I said shrugging my shoulders.

"As usual, we're being pushed around by the rest. Unlock that File Tali'Zorah, the Quarian Race needs it," well I guess he knows what's on it at the very least. I'm assuming he saw Tali working on it, or at least something along those lines.

"Are you deserving of it though?" I asked and that got a response from all three of them.

Gerrel looked furious at the even possibility of the Quarian race not being deserving of that file could give them. Admiral Zorah seemed to shrink into himself and think about it, he knew what that could give them and what it might cost in the long run. Tali looked hurt but at the same time it seemed that she understood the question.

"That file could give us back Rannoch! We could return home, take it from the Geth. Show the rest of the galaxy that we aren't to fucked with."

"And after you get back Rannoch, how would you show the galaxy you 'aren't to be fucked with'? Would you fight them? Show them what the Quarian race is capable of? What happens if you lose and they take it from you or they reverse engineer it? What then? You'll be right back where you started," as I spoke Gerrel got angrier and angrier with each word that came out of my mouth. Admiral Zorah started nodding slowly along as I continued to talk though; Tali didn't do anything.

"How do you even know what's on the file human," Gerrel sneered out. Admiral Zorah sighed at that, probably expecting me to rise to the bait. I wasn't about to though.

"I gave it to Tali to study. It's my file," I spoke in an eerily calm voice stepping up to the taller Quarian intent on staring him down. "Would you like to know where I got it?"

"Torc-"

"Ae-"

"Shut up. I want to hear what he has to say," Gerrel snapped at both Tali and her father. That got the biggest reaction out of Tali's father I had ever seen. The man always seemed mild mannered, excluding the time he talked to me about Tali.

"You're telling me to 'shut up' on one of my ships Admiral Gerrel?" Zorah hissed, pushing me out of the way as he stepped up to the other Admiral and stared him down. "I am 15 years your Senior in the Admiralty. Not to mention why are you here? Why are you not at your post on your ship? You are the head of our military, this whole fiasco should have been avoided. At the very least it should've been minimized but you let your obsession blind you from your duty. I suggest you sit down and shut up before I put forward a motion to have you stripped of your Admiral status."

"You wouldn't dare. I'm the best Military Admiral we've had in almost a century."

"The recent turn of events beg to differ and who's to say the next one won't be better? Sit down and shut up Admiral. Now."

That seemed to take all the wind out of Gerrel's sails and he stomped away leaving us along. After that I had to look at Tali's father in a new light. This man was someone I would've liked to learn over at some point in my life. For politics and science this man would've been a dream to study under but such as it is, it wouldn't happen. Regardless of that fact the way that he had handled that was awesome.

"The ship is clear Admiral," I spoke, alleviating the tension that had been building.

"Good."

After that he began walking around the room and giving out orders to everyone. No one was sitting around doing nothing. The scientists and techies respectively were doing the most work trying to reconnect with the fleet and make sure all the systems were running; Tali was with them. The rest were either treating the few wounded that were around or with me. The ones with me were just the rookies and we made our way around the ship looking for more survivors.

We spent the better part of a couple hours looking through the ship. In every nook and cranny that could've been used to hide in by the personnel on the ship. We didn't find that many, the Cerberus soldiers had been surprisingly efficient and brutal as they went through the ship. What had been a ship with about 90 souls in total had been reduced to less than half in barely half an hour. A part of me was quietly impressed by the efficiency.

Either way by the time we were done scouring the ship for survivors the Cerberus ships had left the area. I didn't know the total amount that had been lost or captured until later that night when Kal would come by my ship. He talked to me for a bit and commiserated that he hadn't done a good enough job. I shut that down quick, he hadn't known it was coming and had done the best he could. Best to move on and learn from it.

The total killed was about 2,000 across the fleet and about 200 missing, most of the missing were children. All were presumed to be taken. At that we shared a couple of drinks before Kal took his leave. Not long after he left Tali would show up. The first thing she did when she got to my ship was take off her mask before kissing me. I, of course, reciprocated.

"Aedon, we need to talk," she said, pulling away from the kiss before putting her mask on she sat down at the table.

"What's up?"

"You're going to need to leave the Flotilla," well I wasn't expecting that.

"Why?"

"A good bit of the populace think you were involved with the attack."

"You realize how fucking stupid that sounds right?" she quietly got out of her chair before coming over to mine. I pushed out the chair and she sat on my lap.

"I do but no one besides me, the doctors and the Admirals know what you've been doing for us. No one outside of us, the rookies here and Kal'Reegar actually trust you."

"When should I leave?" I asked, accepting what she had said. I didn't like it and felt thoroughly insulted but I understood where they were coming from. I was an unknown, here for barely a month and then the fleet was attacked.

"The doctors want more samples, so not tomorrow. The day after you should leave," her voice was somber and resigned and I couldn't fault her for feeling that way. Reaching up I took off her mask, her face was sullen.

"I'll see you again. You know that right," I spoke putting my head against hers.

"I know… You better fucking call Aedon, I swear to the ancestors if you don't," I couldn't help but chuckle at that. She then snaked her arms around my head. She was probably the only person who could do that without my paranoia going crazy.

"Of course Tali," I smiled at her and she smiled back before leaning down to kiss me but I stopped her before she could. "You never told me how Gerrel found out about the file. Especially how he found out what was on it," she looked a bit put off at that but sighed before talking.

"I needed help figuring out power distribution for the wiring and asked for help. They asked what it was about and I lied, they did their own investigating and saw what was on the file while I worked on it. Then they gave the info to Gerrel in return for a higher position on one of his ships."

"It's really that cutthroat here?" I was kinda shocked to be honest, it always seemed like the Quarians were always working together as a whole even if they disagreed. This subterfuge was rather surprising.

"The ones who contribute the most get the best care Aedon. The Admirals silently encourage it and as much as I don't want to admit it, it works… can we not talk about that anymore please?" she pleaded and who was I to say no.

"Let's," and she replied with a smile before leaning down and kissing me. I reciprocated the kiss and squeezed her ass in response. She then grabbed fistfulls of my hair in her hands before deepening the kiss.

Tali's words rung true the next day. Every Quarian I passed avoided me like the plague and I could tell just from their body language they didn't trust me and were afraid. Even on the ship I had helped protect they didn't trust me even a little bit. That being said, it didn't bother me that much, I've been around worse. It still did bother me though.

Either way after the doctors had taken as much as they could from me that day I stumbled my way back to my ship. Getting there I layed in bed for the rest of the day, Tali would come by to visit at night and gave me some extra food to take with me. I asked her about the file and she told me that it would be kept with her for now. It may get to Gerrel at some point but it wasn't going to be in the immediate future.

With that last little bit of information I thought on where I should go next. It took me all of 15 seconds to think of my destination, Omega. If there was a place I could make a true and tangible difference it would be there. Now, it was just about getting there and going unnoticed for as long as possible.

In the games Aria knows exactly when Shepard arrives saying that she knows everything about Omega. I call bullshit and since no one could actually connect this ship to me I decided that the best course of action for me would be to just go there and dock regularly. Hopefully find a warehouse or place to stash it in along the way.

From the snippets I could find about Omega on the net it seemed that they had a new righteous mercenary there. Everyone's favorite bro Garrus, he hadn't gotten the Archangel moniker yet. So basically my plan when I get to Omega consisted of me finding a place to stash my ship and then find Garrus. After that I would help him.

That being said it would have to change. In the books he only ever goes after the mercenaries believing them to be the root cause of all the problems. Now, a good reason but I didn't really agree.

Yes, we would need to go after the mercenaries but like it always was the people needed the most help. Killing mercs would just create a power vacuum and cause more problems than it would actually solve. Now, killing the mercs, especially the head guys, was definitely on the table but first we needed to help the people.

Give them some type of support system. Make them feel safe, grounded, protected. Hell, helping the orphans would be probably the best start we could have. It would just boil down to us actually going through with it. I was sure I could convince Garrus to see it this way, the man was logical if anything. He would understand the need for this.

The Mercs are just a secondary cause of all the shit that happens on Omega. The people needed to be safe, or at least believe that they were before anything could happen. Arm them if need be, train them if need be, and simply put give them a reason to work for something better than what they already have. That is what we needed to do.

So the day after the tests, body still sore from them, I said goodbye to Tali and her father and then left. The trip to Omega took me 4 days to get there from where we were. It was a boring time but I kept myself occupied by going through my training regime in the plane and making sure my weapons were all ready. I also tested out the flamethrower.

I wasn't stupid enough to actually fire the thing, the would've ended very badly but enough to make sure that the thing actually worked. It did, started up up and everything. Now, I don't know when I'll get to use it but just having it was something to me. Besides, it pays to be paranoid; never know when a flamethrower will come in handy.

That brings me to know as I was pulling into Omega airspace. Looking at Omega the place was massive, you don't really get to see how truly big it is in the games but it was massive. Looked to be roughly the same length of the Citadel but a lot skinnier and it was obvious even from the outside that a lot of it wasn't usable. Broken down or just plain venting atmosphere; it looked like a piece of shit to be honest.

With that in mind it was no surprise that it was the way it was. The home of mercenaries everywhere and everyone who was looking to get away. Where no one would actively look for them and the abandoned. In layman's terms, it was a cesspool.

"Omega Docking Station. Identify," the voice came through the radio. I didn't have a name for my ship yet so I came up with one on the spot.

"The Lost Hand requesting to dock. Identification as follows: 9124 T. T." they were silent for a few moments on the line before responding.

"Acknowledged Lost Hand. Proceed to dock 51C."

"My ship is on the smaller side, would it be possible to park it in a warehouse somewhere?"

"No. Proceed to dock 51C," oh well, couldn't get everything. I'll just have to find a place eventually.

I proceeded to the dock and parked there. Once I parked I stayed in the ship for a few minutes. Got undressed out of my armor and put all of it, plus weapons and clothes, into a bag but kept my knife and pistol on me. Applied some makeup and then left the dock.

No one gave me a second look as I got off my ship, most probably thought I was either a criminal or rookie merc. Walking through the docks I didn't particularly like what I saw. Prostitutes, drugs, slaves; honestly what you would routinely expect from a place like this.

Now, my only goal was to find Garrus. What better place to start to look for him than at a bar. Not Afterlife though, I wasn't going anywhere near Aria's place for a bit. Needed more info on the layout and I didn't want her noticing me. Where I ended up going was some even seedier place two levels below Afterlife called the Sunken Sword.

Sitting down at one of the corner booths near the exit with my bad to my left I ordered one of the house beers and a couple minutes later they brought it to me. It wasn't the best tasting beer I've ever had but it wasn't too bad.

In my corner booth I sat and listened to everyone around me. Say what you will about seedy bars but they were always the best to pick up information if you were looking for it. Loose lips and it was where everyone went to unwind after a long day at work.

It paid dividends too as I heard them talking about some upstart mercenary group that was on the righteous side. No one knew who was their leader, just that there were only Turians and Humans in the group. That sounded like Garrus alright. A couple minutes later I heard the same people talking about how they had hit an Eclipse base yesterday. Only 4 levels from here.

Finishing up my beer I paid the bartender and then made my way to the base. Once I was only a level above the base I went into an alley and got all my gear on. Throwing my bag over my shoulder I left the alley and stalked my way to the base keeping out of sight and to the shadows as best as possible.

Once I got to the base I got to see what they had done to it. It was utterly decimated and burned down, they didn't do anything half effort. Approaching the base I walked through what had been the outer entrance and saw that there were a lot of bodies here. Checking them over most only had a singular bullet wound to them besides the burns. A sniper did this.

Looking at the outer area I realized why, this place was a killzone, how the Eclipse hadn't noticed that I don't know. Open area with no cover and mostly free line of sight from all the buildings and area around it. Crouching down at one of the bodies I saw that it had been shot right through the lightswitch from behind and had fallen face first. Checking the other bodies it seemed that all the shots were coming from one area.

Turning my head to look in the direction that the shots had probably come from I looked for a good place to shoot. Not too high so he wasn't overtly noticeable, not to low so he couldn't see over the wall, a good medium but on the lower side would be where Garrus would shoot from.

After a few minutes of looking at the buildings he had to of shot from I spotted the place I would fire from. It was a building that had seen better days but definitely provided a lot of cover and plenty of areas to move to if he got spotted.

Making my way there I made it up to the flood I guessed he had shot from. Finding nothing on that floor I went up one and then I found my evidence. A singular table and chair he would've been able to sit in for hours if need be that had plenty of cover and gave him a decent sized gap in the cover to shoot through.

Smiling to myself I know had to figure out where he went afterwards and how he got there. It would take me about an hour to find anything and it had been at the broken down elevator. The dust surrounding the open elevator doors had been disturbed.

Looking at the outline of the elevator I saw Turian hand prints on the top and assumed he came from above by rappel. Getting into the elevator I got on the service ladder and started climbing until I found another open elevator door.

Going through said elevator door I followed the dust tracks all the way to the exit of the building. From there I went into the alleys and followed the path that I would take to avoid attention. Along the way I came upon some homeless people and in exchange for some credits they told me which way to go; they got extra credits from me in exchange for telling no one else about this or me. From there I just followed the words of the homeless; some looked scared shitless when they saw me but when I said I was looking for someone they opened up quickly.

Anyways, it would still take me over 4 hours to find Garrus and his hideout. They were over 7 floors away from the Eclipse base and well over 8km* from it. It was a dinky little rundown hotel that had most definitely seen better days. From the outside it was the perfect place to hide out and defend themselves. Very few ways to get in and seemed to have plenty of cover inside for ambushes. In short, it was a killzone in and of itself.

Now, my only problem was getting in to say hi to Garrus and company. Thinking it over for a couple of seconds I decided to just say fuck it and pounded my fist on the front door. There was no noise at all from the inside but when Sam increased the audio I got whispers from inside and what sounded like people readying their weapons.

Opening the door I strode inside with all the confidence of someone who was supposed to be there. As I took a few steps in I pulled out my knife and pistol and more of less kept them on display at my side. Just to make sure that when Garrus saw me they would dispel any doubts that he might have.

Continuing to talk into the building I kept the audio enhanced and started making my way to where it was the loudest. Taking no precaution at all to hide my own footsteps or be stealthy, I wanted them to know I was coming.

Turning a left at the end of the main entrance hall I started to pick up the shuffle of footsteps going around me. Continuing down the new hallway there was a single door at the end of the hall. Going up to it I stood there for almost a minute as the ones around me finished getting into their ambush positions.

After they were set, I guessed because there was no more noise, I raised my knife hand and knocked on the door. Nothing happened for a few moments before the door slowly started to open. Standing there was Garrus and he had a gun raised to my face, I reciprocated by having my pistol pointed at his stomach.

"Whose ship did we kill the doctor on?" he asked, behind my mask I smiled.

"Dr. Heart's. And I let you use my pistol," He lowered her gun at that.

"It's good to see you Wynne," he reached out his hand and I took it, bringing him into a 'bro hug'.

"You too Garrus. My paranoia seems to have wiped off on you huh," he grunted in acknowledgement before gesturing for me to follow him as he went into the room.

"Heard a good bit about you while you were on Illium but then you disappeared for a month. Where have you been?"

"Had to see about a girl," he swiveled his head to look at me out of the corner of his eye as he kept walking.

"How's Tali doing?"

"Good… very, very good."

"There's a story there," I heard a voice say to my left. Snapping my head in the direction of the voice a Turian was leaning up against the wall.

"Wynne, meet Sidonis. Best urban tracker out there," my gun hand twitched preparing to kill the man here and now but I stayed my hand. I wasn't about to condemn a man for something he hadn't done yet, especially when I have the power to change that outcome.

"Nice to meet you, maybe you can teach me some things," I said reaching out my hand to him.

"I look forward to it," he responded, taking my hand.

"Get the rest to the conference room. I'll take Wynne there now," Garrus ordered Sidonis and he nodded before going off. Garrus then took me to a small room with a projector and probably enough space for about 15-20 people max.

"How have you been Garrus?" I asked as soon as we got into the room.

"Not the best. All the bureaucracy of C-Sec and that NDA was the last straw, even with a higher position I wouldn't have been able to do jack shit."

"And Omega?"

"Not much better but we're starting to make a dent, even if it's a small one."

"That's why I'm here. I want to help."

"It's more than appreciated Wynne."

"You want to hear what I have to say about it though?" he gave the go ahead motion with his hand so I continued. "I think you're doing this all wrong. You're hitting the gangs and mercenaries but they aren't the root cause of all this shit. It isn't Aria either, she's just the queen bee. It's the people, they have to feel safe, protected; they have to feel that being better for themselves and those around them is actually worth the effort. Killing the mercs and gangs creating a power vacuum in area's will only make things worse."

"He's right, you know?" A female voice said behind me and on instinct I whirled around leveling my pistol at the new face. I recognized the face but I couldn't pin it on who exactly they were.

"Wynne, meet Nyreen Kandros. Our info specialist and scout," now I remember her. She was from the Omega DLC and she had a relationship with Aria beforehand. I would keep an eye on her.

"A pleasure," I said, giving her a nod, one that she returned.

"What do you think we should do then?" Garrus asked me as I turned my head back to him.

"A lot but let's start simple. An orphanage."

And that's a wrap for the chapter. Thanks for all the continued support of the story!

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Red Eyes: T-minus 3 chapters.