A/N - Sorry for the dual post, I had to make a change to the configuration of the previous chapter.

*** Torfan, Surrender ***

Sagh Erroghtid had been intimidated quite enough.

Whoever these Alliance soldiers were, they were slowly but surely picking off his cohorts at leisure. The High Guard unit had been tasked to find the humans and kill them.

Much more easily said than done, especially since former XO Prazatch, now presuming himself to be Mighty-made, was keeping all the advanced equipment for himself. After the Lady Bundoo had evacuated, the field-promoted officer had been making himself comfortable in his new quarters, while Sagh and his unit of three had been essentially made jobless.

The detonation of Lady Bundoo's cruiser had been confirmed by Sensor Technical, but there had been little doubt of what happened when it had nearly pulverised the base.

From his current position near the door into the bottom level of the silo, Sagh had watched lives be wasted in attempts to secure the silo from the humans, noticed his fellows moving away from the new XO, or trying not to move so as to remain unseen and unnoticed.

So far, Jenta Menoddi – the new XO – had recklessly sent fourteen Worthies (including two of Sagh's three people) to their Reward in failed attempts to flush the one human in the semidarkened silo. He had been ordering them into the silo about once every ten fesar. If he had reported this at all to Prazatch, he would surely report a smaller number of casualties. It was over nine fesar since the last attempt with an RPG launcher.

Sagh narrowed his eyes and frowned in disapproval. It would be better to surrender than die. We can do nothing if we are dead.

As if responding to that very thought, one of the younger Worthies came to the door, stopping in front of Sagh, but facing into the silo. He did not look at Sagh as he lifted his assault rifle overhead with both hands and stepped directly out of the shadows. It looked like suicide; every Worthy in the engineering chamber already knew the human could see that door.

At first, Sagh was confused. He knew Rerik distantly; the Compute Technical had been assigned to the Torfan installation over 200 days earlier, and had shown himself both capable and proficient. The times they had spoken, Rerik had been respectful and concise, but had seemed to have much he was not saying. Sagh had hoped to find out how deeply the young soldier's intelligence ran, but had not yet had an opportunity.

At the moment, his actions seemed uncharacteristically brash; they also appeared to be entirely deliberate. But what was he hoping to do?

Sagh also noted that Rerik was still walking.

Jenta, from deeper in the room, had turned at the motion, and finally reacted. "Rerik, stop!"

Young Rerik did not stop, but with a single decisive motion, tossed his weapon ahead of himself and into the silo; it tumbled in the dust and debris as the young batarian continued into the silo. Sagh recognized the human surrender-gesture: throwing down one's arms. Though every Worthy was bound to a weapon in a ritual older than ranged weapons, Rerik had decided to attempt surrendering rather than being hunted.

As this idea boiled in Sagh's head, Jenta leapt to his feet, drew his sidearm, and shouted out the door, "Rerik, return immediately!"

Young Rerik still did not stop, though he did balk, half-glancing over his shoulder. He was too far committed, and surely in the crosshairs of the humans.

"Curse you, Rerik!" Jenta's sidearm came up. "Return or I will gift you your Reward myself!"

Arms still held above his head as he walked, Rerik did not even look back.

Sagh watched dispassionately as the XO ran up alongside him, stopped short of the door. Jenta aimed carefully, executed the unshielded Rerik in the middle of the silo with a single shot to the head.

Rerik had clearly preferred to take his own destiny in hand, surrender to the human rather than be sent to die. Though the gamble had not paid off, Sagh agreed; a chance for life was always the better choice. The dust from Rerik's fall had not even settled as Sagh immediately raised his own one-shot sidearm inside the Jenta's military-grade kinetic shield and snapped the trigger. There was a small explosion of blood from the far side of Jenta's head, some of it slowed by the shield and then arcing down to the dusty floor.

Jenta crumpled to the deck with a clatter of armor.

And as Lord High Guard, this almost made Sagh the highest ranking officer on the base.

At the very least, it made him the new Executive Officer.

One of the soldiers said, "Mighty…uh…Lord High Guard, what does this mean? What have you done?"

"I have saved your lives," Sagh turned toward the still-open hatch. "Follow and do as I do."

# # #

From the elevated hide, Shepard watched as another batarian weapon sailed out of the hatch, bounced and skidded to a stop.

The noise reverberated around the empty silo for a second before another batarian emerged from the same hatch, hands raised and slightly outstretched. He seemed much more self-posessed than the first, and the gunfire had come from the room on the other side of that same hatch. Had this one shot the other? Was it so he could surrender instead?

That didn't make any sense. Batarians never surrendered anyway, and wouldn't it be better to let an underling do so? Or was this guy about to be shot, too?

The alien shouted something; Shepard subvocalized, Victor Indigo, enable external translation from batarian.

His helmet chirped quietly, but the batarians had gone silent.

Slowly, other weapons followed, and then more batarians.

With Jordan comatose, it was quicker for Shepard to stand his weapon on its bipod and drive the still-flightworthy drone down from its perch to address the batarian who had come out first.

The drone spoke with the translator's vocoder, Shepard's words, "Do you surrender?"

"Yes, I…surrender." Sagh felt his shoulders tightening in emotion; a human would not have known whether to call it anger or indignance. It made the words stick in his throat.

"Who was the first out the door?"

Sagh looked down at Rerik's body, considering what to say. "That Worthy was the last victim of the former regime."

Shepard felt his face contorting at the thought that this "former regime" had wiped out his whole team. But he had seen the batarian speak, read the translation. He scowled, This is insane. Have I dropped into the middle of a mutiny, or a coup? What in the hell am I supposed to do? His NetBite data was almost two weeks old; if there was indeed a coup taking place, he would not know about it.

Adding to his confusion was the knowledge that there had been a significant shake-up – for all intents and purposes it had been a coup – almost a decade ago, and the reasons were still largely unknown because of how little information ever seemed to escape the batarian hegemony. It may have been a normal part of life there.

"Who leads the current regime?"

The batarian heard the drone's translation as, "Who is in command?"

"I am."

"Then I accept your surrender under the Citadel Council conventions." It wasn't a great answer, but it was almost certainly the only protocol they both understood. "You and your personnel shall now disarm and surrender battle gear. I require that you lead them to a secure place where you can supply yourselves with necessary facilities and consumables. I will send one of my people down to meet you and arrange for holding until Alliance forces return."

Damn, I could really use some help. Shepard switched from speaking through the drone to team LOSI. "Shepard here. Is anyone else on the air?" He paused. "I have captured the last of the batarian pirates. If you're holed up, they have just surrendered to me. I could use some help corralling these guys."

Silence.

"Jordan is here with me, but hurt bad. Major, are you still, there? Acknowledge!"

He did not want to expose himself to this without at least a working shield generator. He tapped his helmet impatiently, "Team One, Team Two, come in! Come on, give me a signal. VOX, RTM, anything. Just let me know you're there. Anyone on Task Force Vel, respond!"

Damn damn damn damn…

After much mental hand-wringing, he reoptimised the drone for voice control, then climbed down with pistol in holster, his Gorgon slung over his back, and Jordan's assault rifle next to it. He couldn't turn his head around far enough to watch for signs of hostility, and his rear-facing cam was out, but at least the drone's fisheye camera feed was still showing him the twenty or thirty batarians standing around, looking at the humming, hovering drone and each other.

But every step down the ladder had Shepard half-expecting a bullet, hoping it would hit a part of the armor that was still there. He moved with occasional irregularity, hoping it would make him harder to hit.

# # #

Sagh watched the human descend the ladder, wondering if this was the only human left. Had he just surrendered to a single human? With all the chaos, the remaining Worthies might kill him for that alone. He had failed them once already, and Lady Bundoo had taken her cruiser to her death anyway.

He turned and spoke, "As your ranking leader, I have chosen to surrender to save all our lives. Do not dishonour me."

But with his hands, he used a language of signs, a language as old as the cultural schism that had divided Khar'Shan into Nobles, Worthies, Commoners, and Slaves. More importantly, it was a language unknown to the humans, and which he kept hidden from the watchful eye of the drone.

We have been buried by the Bundoo, he signaled. We have a chance to live again. Consummate your burial if you wish, but we can burden the enemy military, gather knowledge about the cursed humans. Do not think this an end, most Worthy warriors. It is an opportunity to serve the world that thinks us dead, to secure our rewards by crippling the enemy from within, by lying to him when we may.

One of the Worthies – Sagh thought he recognized him – looked discouraged. "Mighty One, will they not enslave us? Would it not be better to die?"

"Humans do not take slaves," Sagh said aloud. "They only enslave other humans." He repeated his signed message as he spoke, We will live out our days lying to the uncultured humans, building up a Strong Reward by honouring our Nobles even in captivity.

"A single, helmeted human approaches, Mighty One." The disdain in the soldier's voice was obvious. "Shall we not overpower such dishonour?"

"Not when your Commander has spoken your orders." This was true, if misleading. Sagh was not certain he was the Base Commander, but over the past several days, he had watched nearly all his superiors either die or depart with ill-fated Golezh. If Prazatch was wallowing in his cocoon of power, Sagh wanted to exploit the obvious capability of this honourable alien – or at least one capable of sabotaging Golezh – to complete the overthrow of a clan so wholly devoted to self-interest.

The soldier lowered his eyes in apology. "Forgive my ignorance, Mighty One; I am yours to command."

The lone human approached with an assault rifle in both hands, but aimed down and away in its patrol ready position. The drone spoke, "You must lead, this soldier will be behind you." The batarian looked from the drone to the helmeted Shepard, and back as the hovering device spoke.

That could not be. Were they so trusting of a surrender that Sagh could lead them anywhere?

"I do not understand," answered Sagh. Perhaps further explanation would make things clearer.

The voice from the drone paused. "Citadel Conventions require that a surrender be upheld by both sides. You must lead your troops to a place where they will remain in custody. The soldier who is in the silo with you will follow the last, and keep the group together. Walk in single file, and do not speak with each other. All of you must put your hands on top of your heads while walking."

Sagh had not considered that aliens would behave so strangely. But if the rest of the base personnel could be protected by the cursed Citadel's influence over the human, Sagh would accept those terms. He would negotiate with the human commander himself, and secure their future free of the old regime's corruption. At least they would be less likely to die slowly in a base no one was rushing to claim.

"I understand."

After repeating the orders to his Worthies, Sagh led the way into the next room, out into the circling accessway, and turned to the right. The drone followed him with a soft whir, dropping back toward the end of the line of his Worthies, and then returning a few seconds later.

Because he was at the front of the column, and with his hands over his head, his ability to sign to the Worthy behind him was limited.

The pilot of that drone must be counting us to be sure none attempt escape, he realised.

He would not be able to get his Worthies back into their own quarters, at least not yet. But if he kept everyone secured for long enough to assure their captor that they were honorable, perhaps he would be able to get them moved back to their quarters later.

The only place Sagh knew that could immediately provide a visibly secure holding location for those who remained was the slave warehouse. It was only a hundred meters or so away, but the arc of the accessway meant some of them might manage to escape. Sagh wondered if that was actually bad.

When they reached the room where aliens taken as slaves were normally kept for shipment, the drone had just left his end of the line he led. At the entrance controls, he disabled the ability for the cages to be electrified, acid-washed, or gassed; sometimes this was used for control, occasionally it was used to put down a problematic slave. Before the drone returned, he also managed to disable the cameras so the human would not be able to see any attempt at escape before the line of his Worthies had fully entered the warehouse.

He began methodically locking each of his charges into separate cages but did not shackle them. This would surely be confusing for them, but Sagh did something extraordinary, something he had only read in a story: He made each Worthy part of his conspiracy by encouraging and reassuring them. "Remain strong. I will be here with you. We the Living are infinitely stronger than the Dead."

It was not very many days since they had used these very cages to hold humans. Though there was a faint stench of human blood and residue, the individual cages were more comfortable than floor-spike cuffs, and would let the humans feel more powerful for now. Though rather small, the cages were also slightly cleaner, as they were elevated from the floor so excrement or blood could be washed away periodically. With a 1-cm mesh on the floor, 3-cm gaps in the ceiling and three of the walls, and one solid wall with a door, water could even be hosed through the cages for cleaning or watering slaves.

He was still doubting himself, not paying enough attention to his inferiors as the one of them began quietly using her personal comm, working her way up the command chain to stop this bizarre coup.

# # #

Prazatch approached the east floor entrance to the silo, found no one to meet him. "Jenta. Jenta!"

Detritus filled the floor of the silo, almost up to his ankles, even in this anteroom. As the door came into view, he saw his XO's body on the ground, the head mostly blown off. Jenta! We are betrayed! Another body lay beyond the door, in the silo, a lesser Worthy bled to death from a head wound.

He bellowed, running out the door and into the silo with the guided missile, and aimed it up toward where the human was hiding.

The infrared aiming sensor reported, No target.

Lowering the launcher, Prazatch studied the blackened impact points that showed where the human had been hiding. Clearly there had been much fire exchanged, but to attack from cover? He knew the cursed humans had a phrase for such a thing, guerilla warfare, but to him it was blasphemy, cowardice, insult. Utterly despicable.

Such a coward must surely die. He stopped in mid-stride, frowning, studying the construction of the seeking missile launcher in his hand. But to use this weapon would be too great a mercy.

As he searched the silo for signs of what had happened, his 'comm signaled a request for link. He pulled the device off his shoulder and said, "Prazatch. Who speaks?"

"Jaleh speaks," came the desperate whisper, "Mighty One, we have been surrendered by the Lord High Guard! He claims authority! We are in the slave pens!" The signal cut off.

Prazatch looked up in anger, turned and began to run to the Command Compound.

# # #

As Shepard followed the last of the batarians into a large, high-ceilinged room, he saw the one in red and gold methodically locking the others into individual cages. The cages, with a footprint between one and two square meters, were just two meters tall. They were suspended by chains from tracked bars that ran along the room's slightly longer axis, it became quickly apparent that this was a mechanized slave warehouse.

The cages left their inhabitants easily seen from the entrance, and readily abused; he assumed this was by design.

At first he was angry until he realised, That has a certain justice to it.

The nearest caged batarian seemed to be completely absorbed by him. It was on the floor, leaning against the far wall of the low cage, and looked almost pink in colour.

Though he and his battlesuit had taken quite a beating since this operation started, Shepard realized he surely looked alien, powerful, and grotesque to them. The armor layer was scorched almost entirely black, the exoskeleton, though mostly functional, was the only thing keeping the collection of broken bones, lacerations and other injuries moving like a human. Besides the fact that it probably made him look like some kind of robo-zombie, the exoskeleton was also starting to make irregular noises and move less fluidly, which made him lurch as he took a step closer.

He subvocalized, Victor Indigo, what does it mean when a batarian turns pink?

Fear, appeared on his ARO.

Even badly damaged, the battlesuit's full-immersion helmet had no details that bore any semblance to a face; it was one of the more disturbing aspects of the T-3. It also kept Shepard's face completely hidden; he grimaced hatefully without knowing it.

Stepping around to the side of the cage, he inspected the lock. It was mechanically simple but highly effective, inaccessible from within the cage, impossible for someone inside it to open without assistance, or some kind of robotic arm at least two meters long. Working his way down the row of occupied cages, he checked each lock, making doubly sure it could not be opened. Through the slot at the bottom of the door he could see to the permanently stained floor.

The first row filled, the batarian in charge had started to fill a second row of the cages.

Shepard directed the drone by voice to approach the one in red and gold while he continued to inspect the cages for security, and told the drone when to stop. As the drone's camera view showed what it could see, Shepard considered that this batarian's outfit looked like part heavy combat armor, part circus outfit.

At the moment, the "leader of the current regime" was standing in a cage that was closed but not locked. The batarian had its hands on top of its head in what looked like a posture of sincere surrender. It confused Shepard; batarians simply did not surrender, ever.

"I will need your help to be sure that your peoples' needs are being met," Shepard said to him through the translator. "Food, water, toilet, medicines, and other things like that. Can I depend on you to know where the needed resources can be found?" Though the drone hovered in place to carry on the conversation, Shepard continued to work his way along the cages, hand-checking that they were secured. He wanted to maintain the ruse that there were more functional humans than just himself.

There was a pause as the translation was rendered and displayed on his ARO.

Sagh had to gain the trust of the Alliance soldier if he was to help those left in his charge. He spoke to the helmeted human.

Yes, displayed Shepard's ARO, I will not waste your strength now [on that]. I must tell you of us, and how we might strive together.

"You…what?" Shepard hesitated in his cage inspection, then continued with a scowl of uncertainty. "First things first. I need to know your immediate needs. Are there any of your people who require medical aid?"

From across the room, shouts came from the batarians. Shepard looked up, but the one solid wall of each cage hid whatever it was that was causing the disturbance.

Gesturing for 50% acceleration, he snapped the safety off Nordberg's assault rifle and considered that the exoskeleton largely hid his limp as he hurried along the row of suspended cages, back toward the entrance.

# # #

As Prazatch entered the slave pens, he saw row after row of his Worthies in shipping cages.

His own Worthies! How had this happened?

Because Lady Bundoo had taken her armouring staff (and their knowledge) with her to their deaths, Prazatch was left to figure out the power armour donning procedure by himself. He had not been entirely successful, but it still granted him a significant advantage over almost any other potential combatant.

When he stomped into the slave warehouse, the servo growl of a BSA-PA120 exoskeleton evoked an immediate response from the batarians there. Readily recognized from state propaganda, the sound and appearance was thrilling to his Worthies, and even to him. As he lumbered along the row of cages, the occupants recognized him immediately and called for him to help, pointed to their right as they shouted accusations about the Lord High Guard, shook their cages and begged forgiveness when they saw their leader armed with a full-auto minigun.

Prazatch activated an extra layer of shields, and charged his weapon's multiple barrels as he continued to the end of the row of cages. He bellowed, "Ter Erroghtid! What have you done?"

There was a clatter ahead and to his right, and then a shout, "Alliance soldier! Defend yourself or he will kill you!"

Shouting and cage-rattling came from the prisoners almost continuously. Prazatch felt the strength of his Worthies, knew what to do, knew he would be able to do it mightily. Though the former Lord High Guard was hidden from his sight at the moment, every Worthy in the room seemed to be pointing toward the traitor.

Prazatch moved between the cages, saw no intruders, continued into the next row and saw Erroghtid running towards him. They collided, the top-heavy Prazatch toppled to the right, the direction Sagh had been running. As he fell, Prazatch twisted left, firing. The weapon's six barrels fired with the sound of a continuous humming buzz, drawing a line of bullets across empty cages and the ceiling; an exposed conduit burst into flames as it took damage.

Prazatch curled his whole body into a fist to capture the traitor, rolling to crush or stun him.

# # #

Shouts started to come from the cages and riotous noise as the batarians began to rock them on the chains from which they hung. Shepard's ARO displayed, Alliance soldier, defend yourself or you will be killed by the other [imperative]

Shepard turned and saw the red-and-gold armored batarian running toward him. He was pointing toward the door when another batarian in power armour stepped from between the cages and collided with him. The top-heavy powersuit seemed to tip over and fall awkwardly in slow motion.

Shepard couldn't get a clear shot with them grappling, so he ran closer, still at full neurocog acceleration. As the world continued to slow down around him, he could see that the exoskeleton was clearly an advantage, but it moved with hesitation, untrained. The other batarian was well trained in hand-to-hand. The autocannon fired a burst of eighty-nine rounds – his acceleration allowed him to count them – then there was a splash of fluid.

The autocannon fired again, both batarians falling to the ground together with a sound like, "geck!"

Shepard stopped quickly; there was no circling around to avoid crossing in front of the autocannon without losing sight of the batarians.

They both lay there for a second, the armoured one on top. Shepard could hear breathing. "Help…help me up, human!"

Hopefully, the "circus batarian" had driven a blade into the half-suited attacker. But Shepard had time to notice the one pinned beneath was both entirely lax and unmoving.

Though his "run" was more like a "jog," he moved as quickly as he could toward them, dropping the assault rifle quickly and reaching over his back for the Gorgon. The weapon decompacted into his hand, and he lifted it to his shoulder without adjusting its settings, fired once at the head of the power-armored soldier.

Accelerated, he could see the shot had failed the alien's shield, only doing some superficial damage to the alien's skull.

The batarian gave a roar and flipped over, somehow hurling the limp red-and-gold-clad body at him with full power assist. It was like getting hit by a ground car. The dead batarian's body hit the rifle barrel first, levering it like a club; Shepard was thrown across the room. His ARO informed him his right shoulder had been dislocated and his left wrist sprained by the impact. The noise from the cages was deafening. The batarian cheers sounded like wild animals having a war.

As he skidded away from the batarian, and with the sniper rifle knocked from his hands, his cognitive overclock allowed him to draw his pistol and start firing. The batarian's shields had not recovered from the Gorgon's antimateriel round, and Shepard's overclock allowed him to aim for specific parts of the head, even as he pulled the trigger as fast as he could.

The armored batarian stumbled backwards as Shepard fired repeatedly, until it finally collapsed to the ground.

Getting to his feet and limping forward, Shepard checked the weapon, giving it a chance to cool down. Adjusting the ammo for maximum stopping power (which would configure each round for the largest, flattest round the accelerator could handle,) he aimed at the alien's head and methodically blew its brains out as he approached. This son of a bitch has already pretended to be dead. By the time he stopped, there was only a bloody mass.

It took almost ten full seconds for him to realize he noise from the cages had died out. He could hear the cages squeaking as they swung from their chains. He turned and looked; the one he looked at, stood and faced him, arms akimbo, hands balled into fists, teeth gleaming.

Defiance, read his ARO.

He turned away, weapon still in hand, looking to the batarian in red and gold. Can I save this guy?

Lowering himself to his knees, he waved his omnitool over the body. A large blade protruded from the batarian's neck, internal fluids still leaking around it. In the back of his mind, he sensed this was not just bad, it was a tragedy, a lost opportunity.

He was beyond caring if the captives heard or understood. "Victor Indigo, how can I save this batarian?"

His NetBite had some information abut how to check for life signs, (there were none) and how to restart the easier of the two circulatory organs, but after several minutes of painful failure, Shepard sat back, exhausted, defeated, and with copious ARO notifications of his own bodily damage, found himself alternately weeping and cursing.

Eventually, he heard a noise from the cages, a low growl that his ARO told him was one of disapproval.

Shepard turned away, unwilling to care any more about the caged batarians.

He returned slowly to the silo, crawled back up the ladder to the perch where he'd left Jordan, spent over twenty minutes doffing the battlesuit, and then attempted to analyse the isssues and repair them.

It only took half an hour to re-set his shoulder; his bloodstream tech helped, and his omnitool provided good info about how to do so himself.

But without a way to make durable components, there was little else he could do. The armor was a burden without the power joints, and the sensors had failed days ago, leaving him no hands-free way to detect any other batarians. The battlesuit was not a leveraged product, so much of its design was not interchangeable with the CEVA suits of the rest of the team.

As he leaned against the wall, he was suddenly gripped by a tiredness. The rest of the batarian pirates were locked up, and any that were tracking him would make noise trying to get into the perch where he and the comatose Jordan were hidden. His eyes were dry, he was thirsty, and he noticed his ARO indicating his operational level was still dropping as he continued to walk and move.

It also displayed warnings he had not seen before about amygdala upregulation and stress hormone levels and the cognitive effects of injury combined with exhaustion.

Even with the exoskeleton assistance that was still available, he simply had to spend some time and resources attending to his medical needs.

He relaxed against the wall, trying to think of a resource he had not already used.

# # #

He woke suddenly, quietly moving his hand to his sidearm. Shit! I fell asleep without setting a sentry!?

God damn it god damn it god damn it. He lit his gauntlet and activated the sensors. A minute of motionless silence suggested no one was near.

His ARO showed he had been asleep for almost 90 minutes. He sat up, looked to Jordan, had an idea.

"Hey, Sergeant. If you have no objection, I'd like to use your suit's armor modules." He began removing the other soldier's helmet and tech pack, replacing his own, and setting up a logical interface to his own suit's control suite through his omnitool. The atmosphere had been rebuilding for days, and was high enough that suit air was no longer a resource that needed monitoring.

It should have taken fifteen minutes, instead it took almost two hours. The armor layer was designed to fit over a combat biosuit, and Jordan was actually a little taller and more muscular than he. But it gave him a full suite of working battlefield awareness sensors, and maybe a working comm set.

"This is Shepard, calling any members of Task Force Vel."

Silence.

"This is Shepard, calling any members of Task Force Vel. Respond."

Ack, replied his ARO.

"Who's there?"

After a pause, there was another Ack.

Maybe that's the only control they have. "I've received your acknowledgement; keep transmitting, I'll come to you." The signal gave him both hope, and fear of a trap. "Can you hit that command more than once at a time? Of so, hit it twice."

Ack.

And then, several seconds later, Ack.

Shepard waited another few seconds to see if the signal was dumbly repeating. (Stranger things had happened.) "It sounds like you have a very limited ability to respond at all. But I'm pretty sure you're an Alliance soldier. Are you physically immobilized? As opposed to being held at gunpoint, for example." Shepard cringed at the thought. "Shit, if you're at gunpoint, respond with one 'acknowledgement' right now."

Silence.

"That's a relief. So you're physically immobilized? If so, respond with one ping only."

Ack.

Shepard waited. "Right. I was in touch with Major Kyle in binary mode earlier. Major, if that's you, give me another ping."

There was an uncomfortable delay. "Sir?"

Ack.

Shepard took a breath and exhaled with a sigh. "Good to know you're still alive, sir." He lit his omnitool gauntlet and opened a chronometer. "All right, next I want to verify your constraints. Give me two pings as fast as you reliably can."

Ack.

The second signal took eight seconds; Shepard had begun to doubt he was still in touch with an Alliance soldier.

Ack.

He toggled the comm off and relaxed against the wall with a sigh. He looked down at the comatose Jordan. "Brother, this could take all damn day." It was easy to imagine she had said it to him.

It would be so easy to just relax, he thought. Just to rest for a bit.

He closed his eyes.

And then frowned with unexpected anger. "There are lives at stake here, fercrysakes." He sat up. "I'm the only one who can help them!" He swatted at his comm control again, unaware that he was starting to suffer from cognitive problems. He repeated, "Major Kyle, is that you? If it is, send me one ping now."

Ack.

"That's what I thought. Sir, this is Lieutenant Shepard. As far as I know, it's down to the three of us: You, me, and Jordan, and she's in an induced coma, but stable. There are three MIAs at the moment, but I still want to walk the base with an SRS and try to find them. But I have to be careful, because I might find batarians instead. That's the bad news.

"The good news is that the batarian cruiser is now a hole in space. The way it was destroyed should make it apparent to the Alliance that our mission was a success, and we're just waiting for pickup.

"What's still unknown is whether all the pirates are neutralized. That ASP I was using was destroyed in the fight, and I have no way of scanning the whole base to find them, or you.

"So tell me this: Are you seriously injured? If you are, ping me once, now."

Silence.

"If you're injured, but not critically, ping me once, now."

Silence.

"If you're not injured, ping me once, now."

Silence.

Crap.

"Are you still there?"

Ack.

"Well, what the hell else is there?" He frowned at his own pointless question. "Sorry, sir. Don't answer that."

Inspiration: "Wait, are you immobilized in such a way that doesn't allow you to know how badly you're hurt?"

Ack.

He barked an ironic laugh. "Well that's a big help." He shook his head. "Sorry. Don't give up, I'll find you. We'll make this work. Stay strong, sir. I'm coming." He snapped the comm off, cursed himself for his weakness and considered how to locate his CO.

He needed a way to communicate quickly and reliably with someone who could only send one bit every eight to ten seconds.

He toggled the comm back on. "Okay, it seems like – at best – it takes a few seconds for you to, uh…get through some process to 'cue up' an acknowledgement, but once it's ready, you can reply quickly. If that is the case, ping me now."

Ack.

"All right, I think I've got a way to do this quickly. But I need to know how urgent this is. Is your ability to signal going to end relatively soon? Like if you're running out of power, or you needing to rest, or if you're losing blood too fast. If there is a clear and present threat to your ability to signal, ping me once, now."

Silence.

Shepard waited. "That sounds like really good news. Now I want to check this modality. If you did indeed work your way around so you could signal when needed, ping me once, now."

Ack.

For the first time in days, Shepard felt a refreshing wave of hope.

"Okay, good. Next task is for me to find where you are. I'm going to start eliminating areas to narrow down where I need to look." He paused, considered how to do that. "Do you know enough about where you are to answer questions about it? If yes, ping once."

Ack.

"Good, good. We came in at ground level, but ordered everyone down after the missile attack." Shepard wanted to eliminate large areas as quickly as possible. "Ping me once if you are in one of the two slips."

Silence.

"Are you on the ground floor of the base, but just outside the silo?"

Ack.

Shepard's eyes widened; he scrambled forward to the end of the service accessway that opened into the silo, about 40 meters off the ground. "Are you serious? Do you know which side? Is it the north side?"

Silence.

"So you're in the south side."

Silence.

He was almost frantic. "Major, are you still there?"

Ack.

He turned quickly around in a full circle. "You don't know if it's the north or south? Are you—"

Ack.

"Wait, are you near one of the doors at the middle?" He paused. "If you are, ping me once."

Ack.

"Are you still there? Wait, start over. Are you on the ground floor, in one of the outer rooms?"

Ack.

"Is it on the north side?" Shepard was so distracted, he forgot that he didn't know where all the batarians were. He also didn't consider his injuries until his ARO flashed a warning about his right foot; he gripped the ladder rails more tightly to slow his descent, landed on his left foot first.

Shepard tried again, "Is it in the north side, sir?"

Silence.

Favoring his right foot, he slid down the second ladder to the next balcony level. "Are you still there?"

Ack.

Shepard's slower descent gave Kyle more time to reset. Landing on the next balcony with a grunt, he looked left and then right for the next ladder. "So you know where you are…but only to the extent of being on the ground floor of the circum-silo parts of the base. And near the middle?"

Ack.

"Okay, that's…that's okay, I'll just scan both. My scanner pack is rubbish at this point, I've abandoned it." He started his way down the ladder, "But I can still scan with my omnitool, it's just slower and shorter range. Hang tight, sir, I'll be there shortly."

He returned to the silo and started across it before realizing he would have a difficult time climbing all the way to the top of the silo by ladder. His omnitool still had a map of the base, so he headed toward what he hoped was a lift, scanning carefully for any signs of bad guys.

Riding the lift up, he remembered, I also need to make sure the batarians aren't starving.

He stopped the lift, rode it back down, limped to the slave warehouse.

He walked first to the fallen body of the one mysterious batarian. Who was this guy? Why did he do this? What did he hope to do?

He was suddenly aware of the smell of something burning. At first, he looked around, then realizing that if he could smell it inside his hermetic battlesuit, it might be a system of subsystem shorting out or otherwise failing. But if there was a fire in the warehouse when the batarian had used that minigun…

He cracked the helmet's seal at the neck and lifted it off, inhaled deeply. It didn't seem to change the amount of smell, but he looked toward the fallen "pirate" in its alien battlesuit and frowned.

*** Glossary ***

ASP: Advanced Sensor Pack

CEVA (suit): Combat EVA

EVA (suit): Extra-Vehicular Activity, a pressure or environment suit

MIA: Missing In Action

NetBite: An extranet protocol that allows a user's Pview (see Pview) of the extranet stay local to their processing for realtime access when no connection is available for realtime access; Netbites are also gathered by VI from the extranet (and from user sensors such as cameras, microphones, omnitools, etc.) in anticipation of user needs in the future; the size varies by user, but 1-2 petabyte NetBites are not uncommon in 2174

Pview: "personal view," a VI-augmented assemblage of data from the extranet that a user is considered likely to access at any given time. Necessarily a subset of extranet data, pview allows for an approximation of functional extranet access without actually having it.

RTM: RealTime Messaging

SRS: Surface Reveal System; part of an ASP specifically designed to use surfaces (revealed and calculated) of material heterogeny to display what an object is in a way that does not require further identification to be understood