XIII

Auld Lang Syne: My Trusty Friend

It wasn't necessarily the easiest thing to do to track a crewmate through a bustling city—as opposed to, say, a barren plain in the middle of nowhere. Advertisements popped up on your omni-tool, shopowners shouted at you in the market, the news blared from random speakers. There were always a dozen different distractions and interfering signals, and there were a lot of different places a person could go. But Garrus had occasionally been asked to meet up with Shepard on the Citadel back on the SR-1. The principle was the same, even if he wasn't as familiar with Nos Astra.

He finally found her in a more casual area of the market, away from the stockbrokers and venture capitalists and colonial speculators. There was a travel agency, a store that catered to spacers setting up exploratory expeditions, a shop for tourists, and a taxi stand nearby. The crowds were quieter here, off work and perusing the market for leisure instead of a business deal. She'd had a few adventures while hacking terminals for Liara. She told him all about them as they headed over to Eternity, and both of them pretended not to notice how she deliberately didn't ask about his business with Liara and the tight, shallow quality of their usual banter. Liara was right: Shepard wasn't happy, but she wasn't interfering. Garrus decided that was good enough.

The Eternity lounge was a little bit higher class than some of the joints Garrus had visited with Shepard in the past. Sure, there was an asari stripper dancing on the table at a human's attempt to throw a bachelor party for his salarian coworker, but she seemed to be a special order. Afterlife's poles were nowhere to be seen, and everyone else seemed to be dressed and still sober enough to stand. There weren't gangsters or hookers in the corners here, just ordinary people out for a good time with one or two friends—and there was no karaoke machine. Inoffensive, wordless dance pop pumped through the speakers instead. It might be a good place to blow off some steam one evening while they were docked—but they weren't here for that.

Lawson and Taylor hadn't arrived yet, so Garrus and Shepard were standing by the bar. The conversation had dried up, so they were people-watching. Garrus had been eavesdropping on the salarian's bachelor party, amused by the guy's human friend, whose good-natured but culturally ignorant attempt to celebrate his coworker's breeding contract actually seemed to be working anyway. The salarian had moved from protesting about the importance of the event to wide-eyed fascination with the dancer's movement, and his turian friend was neck-deep in his liquor glass.

Shepard wasn't as interested in the multicultural bachelor party. She was focused on a quarian kid next to an older asari matron in a long, professional dress. The quarian girl was nervous, looking all around, wringing her hands. The asari was trying to reassure her, but she looked worried too. "It's okay. I'll think of something."

"You said Synthetic Insights would buy me," the quarian said. "You said it was an easy sale."

"I assumed they would want an AI tech," the asari replied, irritated. And that was it. Shepard was crossing the room. Garrus followed her, ready to back her up if necessary. "Hello, can I help you with something?" the asari asked them.

Shepard's arms were folded. She looked about ready to hit the asari with her nastiest incineration tech. "Have you made this quarian your slave?"

The asari stiffened. "We prefer the term 'indentured servant.' Before you do anything hasty, know that this quarian signed the agreement voluntarily, and her servitude contract is completely legal on Illium. If you actually want to help the quarian, convince the Synthetic Insights representative to purchase her contract."

Shepard made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. Then she turned, and spoke more gently to the quarian girl. "What brought you to do this?"

The quarian girl sighed. "I tried to play the stock market," she explained. "I'm good with numbers, and I thought I had a way to make unlimited money. I lost everything. Then I got a credit line and lost that. Then I took out an illegal loan. You get the picture."

The asari managed to look both sympathetic and superior. It was a special knack a lot of the older ones had. "As part of our agreement, I paid off her debts. Five years from now, she'll have a fresh start and excellent work references."

"Sounds great," Shepard said flatly. "Unless you lose her paperwork or come up with a reason to hold her longer."

Across the bar, Garrus saw Lawson and Taylor walk in. He waved them over, as the asari patiently tried to describe to Shepard how legalized slavery worked on Illium. Jacob and Miranda took up places behind Shepard. Jacob was smiling a bit, while Miranda looked exasperated.

"I don't keep service contracts myself; I'm a contract broker," the frustrated asari was telling Shepard. "I assumed Synthetic Insights would jump at the chance for a skilled AI tech, but they won't even make me an offer."

The woman seemed nice enough, as slavers went. It was a nasty business, but instead of dismissing the kid's worries, she was trying to comfort her, and instead of telling Shepard to mind her own business, she seemed to be trying to leverage Shepard's concern for her charge to get her a place. Shepard seemed to have picked up on this too; her tone had changed. "Why not just keep her? You said she had technical skills."

The asari grimaced. "Quarians' strict health requirements and diets make them expensive to house and feed. I run at a minor profit at best. I don't have the money for constant suit repairs and clean-room facilities."

The quarian was almost shaking. "So what happens if Synthetic Insights won't take me?" she wanted to know. A dozen idiotic mistakes down the road, the girl's entire life was in the hands of her owner now. If she couldn't find a place that could provide for her, she could die of infection or malnutrition.

The asari gripped her charge's shoulder. "A solution always presents itself. I will take care of you."

Shepard looked thoughtful. She had an idea. She nodded once, decisively. "I'll talk to the Synthetic Insights rep and see what I can do," she told the asari.

The asari looked surprised. It was clear enough Shepard wasn't the type to support a slave broker. "Really? Thank you. I'd appreciate that."

"Must you right every wrong in the galaxy?" Miranda sighed as they turned away.

"Every one I can, anyway," Shepard replied. "And this is an easy fix." She waved them off and went to talk to the company rep the asari had indicated.

"And she's quarian," Miranda muttered.

"Have there been others?" Garrus asked, interested.

Lawson and Taylor filled him in on the two other quarians Shepard had run into already—young, stupid, and alone, just like this one. In a bad situation, just like this one. Garrus grimaced. "Tali will tell you it's no big deal, but it isn't that unusual for a quarian to run into serious trouble on their Pilgrimage," he told them. "Tali had it especially bad, running into information that had both Saren and the Shadow Broker after her, but most of them just aren't prepared for life outside the Migrant Fleet. We'd get complaints in C-Sec every now and then—quarians sick on the streets because they thought their parents' restaurant recommendations were just suggestions, one or two that had resorted to theft, a few that had been victims of hate crimes. Ran into one or two on Omega—but most of them were smart enough to avoid that place, out on their own. But ever since we saved Tali, I'd guess Shepard's had her eye out for other kids in similar situations."

"That'd be consistent with her psychological profile," Lawson observed, watching Shepard talking with the Synthetic Insights rep. "I just wish it didn't slow us down. I want to talk with Lanteia."

"What's all this about, anyway, Miranda?" Taylor wanted to know.

Lawson's weight shifted. She twisted her hands in front of her. "I suppose you both deserve to know. I don't know what Lanteia's found out. Things could get messy." Then she told them about how she and her twin sister had escaped their dominating father years ago and Oriana, her sister, had found a new family on Illium. However, Lawson had recently received intelligence that her father could have found Oriana, and had asked for Shepard's help guarding her sister as she and her family moved to a new, secret location.

Everyone has a loose end to tie up, some last little thing they need to take care of before we go on this suicide mission. Wills to write, families to look after, questions to answer. Garrus wasn't worried about his family. If anything, they'll be better off without the dropout screwup. All the questions he still had could be answered on the Normandy—or by the person who had given his entire team over to the enemy and had to pay for it.

But Garrus respected that the last thing Lawson wanted to do was to make sure her family was safe. He wouldn't have figured she loved anyone in the galaxy. But interestingly enough, Taylor seemed more than a little put out by Lawson's description of their objective. "You could've told me, Miranda," he said. "Huh. Never would've thought Shepard would be the first person you'd call out to help with this."

"We're serving on her crew now. I needed her permission to come," Miranda protested. "And I've told you now. It was irrelevant before. We all have things—people we want to protect, Jacob. It was nothing personal. I would have thought you'd understand that."

"Think I'm starting to," Jacob muttered. "Well, maybe things will be different now. Maybe going into the Omega-4 relay, you're starting to realize we're all on your side here. Huh. You're the one that said she'd pull us in new directions."

Miranda's eyes flicked to Garrus. "Whether we like it or not. If it makes you feel any better, if I had a choice, you're the first one I would've brought in on this."

And she wouldn't have brought me in at all. Garrus kept quiet. Sometimes staying quiet was the best way to gather information. He wasn't particularly interested in Lawson and Taylor's history, but it was useful to know that Taylor was or had been in a position to expect Lawson to tell him all about her personal information—and that Lawson didn't even trust the people closest to her with information about her past. Either deep down, she knows what Cerberus is too, or her father is just that bad. The one meant they really might be able to work with her in the long-term; the other might be valuable information about whatever mess they were wading into.

"Not much," Taylor said, still steaming beside Garrus. "But thanks." He and Miranda fell into tense silence, and Garrus reverted to people-watching, wishing he was back on the ship. Or somewhere else. This was supposed to be his shore leave.

The company rep Shepard had been talking to crossed over to talk to the slave broker and the quarian, and Shepard came back to join them. She slapped her hands together, looking extremely satisfied with herself.

Lawson raised her eyebrows. "Well?"

"It was a PR thing. After the geth uprising, Synthetic Insights can't take any more negative press. They could use a tech, but the last thing they want is to be known for owning slaves. Seventy percent of the galaxy would rise up and scream at them," Shepard explained. "I suggested they buy her contract, free her, and then garnish her wages until they break even. The quarian'll get a cut check, but she'll be free. And Synthetic Insights gets good press for freeing her."

Lawson looked impressed. "Clever. Come on. We're wasting time."

"I wouldn't call it wasting, but we can go ahead and move on now that you're both here. Lead the way."

Lawson led the way to a room in the back, decorated with silk hangings with low lighting. Garrus guessed it wasn't usually used for business meetings, but the suited asari they met there, Lanteia, was completely professional from the crisp, clean style of her makeup to the pressed pleats of her dress. She rose to greet them.

"Ms. Lawson? I'm glad you've made it. We've had a complication."

"What happened? Is Oriana all right?" Miranda asked.

"She's fine," Lanteia assured them. "But you listed a man named Niket as your trusted source? He contacted me, warning that your father has sent Eclipse mercenaries to make a sweep. He suggested that the mercs might be watching for you personally. He's offered to escort Oriana's family to the terminal instead."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "You didn't mention anything about Niket," she said.

Lawson waved an impatient hand. "He's a friend. He and I go back a long way."

Taylor scowled. Garrus heard him mumble, "Well, I've never heard of him."

Lanteia scrolled through her omni-tool, taking in names at a glance. "Do you want to bring in any of your other Illium contacts, Ms. Lawson?"

"No. You and Niket are the only two I trust on this," Miranda told her.

Shepard cleared her throat. "What information do you have about the mercenaries?"

Lanteia glanced at her. "I've confirmed that they're Eclipse and that they're working for an organization Ms. Lawson warned us about. I could try to alert the authorities, but so far they've done nothing illegal."

"With Eclipse, it's only a matter of time," Garrus muttered.

"Best not to draw attention to ourselves, though," Miranda said. "You made the right decision," she told Lanteia. "We'll handle this ourselves."

"It's your sister, Miranda. What do you want to do?" Shepard asked.

It was a bad situation, Garrus thought. Oriana and her family didn't know him. They didn't know Shepard or Taylor. But Miranda and Oriana's father had the resources to hire Eclipse to look for her, and when they were paid to secure an asset, they weren't picky about how they did it. They'd go in rough and hard, and if they managed to make contact with Oriana, the family would be scared. When we get to them, there's no guarantee they'll be prepared to trust us. Best thing to do is to cut off Eclipse before they get to the family, but the mercs have a head start.

They didn't have numbers, weapon specs, or an eye on the area they were plunging into. We don't even know who Oriana's 'family' is. How many of them are there? Are we looking at parents? Foster siblings? A husband and kids? They were going in blind, and Garrus shifted. He didn't like it. If it was his call, he'd hold off on the operation until they had a better idea of the situation—but he understood they didn't have that kind of time. They had to secure Oriana before the mercs did—and before they had the chance to report the situation to her father.

And if this went bad, Miranda's head wouldn't be in the game moving forward. This was what Shepard had meant this morning about preparing everyone for battle—along with recruiting Thane Krios and Justicar Samara, she was focused now on making sure everyone had it together before they went through the Omega-4 relay, just like she'd done with Kasumi back on Bekenstein. And she'd chosen to get Miranda on her side first, work with Taylor to heal the breach between her other recruits and the Cerberus crew.

Miranda was thinking. She held out her hand, and Lanteia dropped a skycar key into it. "Lanteia, we'll follow Niket's suggestion. The four of us will take the car and draw their attention. Have Niket escort the family to the shuttle. Give him full access to the family's itinerary, just to be safe."

Lanteia nodded. "Understood, Ms. Lawson." She turned on her heel and left the room, and Miranda started leading the way out the back of Eternity to a parking garage. Garrus started wishing he'd brought his old Vindicator instead of picking today to test out the Mattock. He hadn't calibrated the scope or checked the fire rate—and it sounded like they were headed for trouble.

Shepard was reloading her pistol. "So I just want to make sure I've got this straight: the plan is for us to get shot down by Eclipse while your sister gets to safety?"

"It's short and sweet, I'll give it that," Jacob cracked.

Miranda rolled her eyes. "Eclipse doesn't know what I have planned, and they'll be under orders to take my sister alive. They won't risk anything that could kill us."

"I doubt that Eclipse will send all their people just to stop us," Shepard pointed out. "Better to just slow us down while they secure their objective. Do you want to give Niket any backup?"

Miranda shook her head. "Niket can take care of himself. Besides, any armed backup just draws attention to him." She glanced at Garrus speculatively. "And you might be underestimating the attention we'll draw. Considering the situation, it might be a very good thing you're with us, Garrus."

I hadn't even thought of that. Fantastic. "Archangel rides again!" Jacob cried, pounding Garrus on the back. "This ought to be good."

"Happy to help," Garrus drawled, but he glanced at Shepard. For the purposes of the overall mission, it was really better if all the gangs in the Terminus thought he was dead, like they'd reported on Omega. It was all over now, but in the months before Sidonis had turned, they'd really been turning up the pressure on the thugs and criminal syndicates infecting the Terminus like a cancer. His team had hit them with surgery after painful surgery—the cancer was self-replicating again now. In five to ten years it'd be like Archangel had never happened—but everyone they'd left behind remembered the pain, and if they knew he was alive, they'd still be looking for revenge. It'd be all too easy to connect Shepard to Archangel's survival, and the last thing their mission needed was another war.

Lawson stopped at the skycar they were supposed to be taking, a sleek, light gray shuttle with white leather seats. She clicked the key fob and opened the doors. "In the back, Jacob," she said, gesturing to the passenger row, where the windows would not roll down. She leaned on her left leg, considering. "You, too, Shepard. Garrus, you take the front seat. If we need to fire back at them, I want you to be able to shoot."

"You know, I'm generally considered a pretty decent sharpshooter, Lawson," Shepard complained.

"Far be it from me to deny it," Miranda said. "I've seen your training scores, and I've watched you in combat. But if we have to shoot, I want them to see him do it."

Shepard hesitated. "You okay with this, Garrus?" she asked. "Could bring down a lot more trouble later on if things go bad."

"True," Garrus said. A hard, cold knot clenched in his gut then, and he took out his rifle. "But when have things ever been easy?"

Part of him wanted to bury Archangel, like he'd told Liara. Leave everything he'd done and everything he'd lost on Omega there to die. But on the other hand—those two years mattered. The people we helped mattered. And wouldn't it just drive them insane to know they didn't kill us? Not all of us, anyway.

It would be a hollow victory, but it would be a victory nonetheless. Shepard frowned, but nodded. She slid into the back seat next to Taylor. "I'm ready whenever you are, Miranda."

Lawson walked around the shuttle and took the driver's seat next to Garrus. "Thank you," she told all of them. "I appreciate this. I hadn't planned on Eclipse, but they never planned on us."

Lawson pulled up her sister's itinerary—she was departing from the domestic spaceport with two others in three hours—on a private, charter ship to a location that was blacked out in Lawson's own file. Garrus saw a cursor blinking above the description—a password protecting the information. "High security, even for you," he remarked.

Miranda followed his gaze just for a second. "Not high-security enough, apparently," she said darkly. "Keep an eye out the window, Garrus. We'll need a report on Eclipse movements as soon as possible."

Garrus looked over the skyline. Illium's star was setting behind the skyscrapers now, turning the edges of the glass and metal structures crimson. The lights of skycars, restaurants, and casinos blinked and shone in the shadows below. They were making for an adjacent area of the domestic spaceport—where traveler's possessions were sorted and packed away into the various ships.

Above the brown and black cargo yards, Garrus saw five large, armored ships emblazoned with the all-too familiar fiery 'E' of one of his least favorite organizations in the galaxy. "Platoon-strength at least," he told the others. "Maybe more." Who the hell is Miranda's father?

"Damn it!" Miranda cursed. "They'll be dropping troops into cargo areas."

The skycar rocked, and Garrus was thrown into his seatbelt. His armor absorbed what would have been a sickening constriction. The skycar controls flashed, and Miranda fought to regain control, but there was no hull breach, no rush of outside air. The vehicle Lanteia had loaned them had rudimentary shielding. Garrus looked at the gunships. Wrong angle, wrong weapon. The blow came from below—single shot. He looked out the window and saw his man, an Eclipse merc holding a rocket launcher on the edge of a group. They'd weathered the last shot, but he knew they couldn't take another hit.

Garrus rolled down his window and took aim. Saw the merc's blue eyes behind his visor—and another guy in tech armor yelling at him.

Shepard leaned forward. "They don't want to fire." She gestured ahead at a pile of crates two meters high. "Put us down in that cover behind them."

"Let's hope they really do want to take us alive," Miranda replied.

"Not exactly what I wanted to hear," Garrus said. He kept his gun trained on the trigger-happy human until cover blocked him out as the skycar came in for a landing.

Miranda switched off the skycar and opened the doors. They all piled out, drawing their weapons, ready for action. Miranda closed and locked the doors of the skycar, stuffed the keys into a cargo pocket, and took the lead.

Her chin was high; her eyes were like ice as they rounded the corner. She looked every centimeter the corporate princess she apparently was. "Since you're not firing yet, I trust you know who I am."

The lead mercenary, the man in the tech armor Garrus had seen yelling at the trigger-happy rocketeer, sneered. Somehow every sneer looks worse on a guy with a goatee, Garrus reflected. "Yeah, they said you'd be in the car. You're the bitch that kidnapped our boss's little girl."

Garrus was liking this operation less every minute. They'd flown in blind against forty or more professional mercs to save a little girl? A noncombatant child? They'd needed another team at least.

If Miranda had any idea how bad the situation was, though, she didn't show it. She scoffed. "Kidnapped? This doesn't involve you. I suggest you take your men and go."

The merc looked her up and down contemptuously. "Think you've got it all lined up, huh? Captain Enyala's already moving in on the kid. She knows about Niket. He won't be helping you."

That was even worse. Are they onto Niket, or is something else going on here? Crap. We didn't have enough information.

Shepard was upset too. "Just a second, Miranda. You told me Oriana was your twin sister."

"That what she told you?" the lead merc challenged Shepard. "No, this crazy bitch kidnapped our boss's baby daughter. He's been looking for her for more than a decade."

So she's old enough to move on her own, anyway. Still . . .

Miranda squirmed under the skeptical gazes of all three of them. She knew she was in the wrong here. "It's complicated," she muttered. "We share the same DNA, just not the same birthday."

The merc pointed an accusing finger at her. "You took a baby from the richest guy in the galaxy, lady. I don't know what your damage is, but you're not getting away with it."

Shepard's jaw was tight. She was not happy, but she turned to face the merc again. "Tell me what you meant about Niket."

"Nothing you need to worry about," the merc said, nodding at his friends. Their guns were down, but they were moving to deliberate combat positions on every side at every range. "Nobody's gonna get killed unless you do something stupid. You walk away now, the girl goes back to her father, and everybody's happy."

Miranda shook her head. "Everybody but my sister. And me."

"Should we be talking to Captain Enyala about this?" Shepard asked. Behind her back, Garrus saw her signal Taylor. Be ready. He was scowling, but he shifted position slightly anyway. He would have a barrier ready the second this went south.

"You don't want to talk to the captain," the merc told them. "She's not as . . . polite as I am. She's the best commando I've ever seen. I've seen her tear people in half with her biotics, and she's getting paid a lot to stop you."

Miranda's lip curled. "She gets in my way, she'll never have a chance to spend it."

Shepard shrugged. "Putting aside details for the moment, you're not getting Miranda's sister," she informed the mercenaries. "If you push this, it'll go badly for you." She made another miniscule movement at her side, this time directed at Garrus, drawing his attention to a conveyor belt overhead. Hooks suspended from it were moving cargo over the shipping yards. A crate was moving in overhead, directly over the stretch of the field where Eclipse had positioned their midrange fighters.

The man signaled the troops. They all raised their weapons. "Captain Enyala ordered us to give you one chance to walk away," he said. "This whole time been talking, my men have been lining up shots. When I say the word, we unleash hell on your squad, so I suggest you walk away nicely, unless—"

Shepard closed her left hand into a fist. Jacob's blue, biotic energy enveloped them all in an extra barrier. She raised her pistol at the same time Garrus brought up his rifle. Two shots rang out. Hers hit the merc square in the forehead. He fell back with a small, round hole right between his eyes. Garrus's shot shrieked through the rusty chain hanging from the conveyor belt. The crate it was supporting fell with a crash, crushing three mercenaries beneath as Miranda and Jacob opened fire on the rest.

They split, diving for cover from the other mercenaries while Eclipse reeled. "Did . . . did you see that?!" someone shouted, voice high in disbelief.

"She called her Shepard," another one said, by a crate a long way down the field. "You heard those rumors from Omega?! You think—"

Garrus took the shot, and the merc went down, throat torn out.

"It's them!" someone else screamed. "It's Archangel and Commander Shepard! Call for backup!"

Miranda clenched her fist, and a mercenary screamed as his organs simultaneously failed inside his body and his skin did its best to turn inside out. "You see? What did I tell you?" she murmured to Garrus.

"It's nice to be popular," Garrus answered, using an overload program to take down the shields of an engineer trying to flee the scene. Shepard took him down from the back.

Miranda stood. "Come on, we need to get to Niket!" She plunged forward.

Taylor glared after her. "Let's make sure she doesn't get herself killed," he muttered to both of them.

You really couldn't ask for a better place for a shootout than the cargo yards of a spaceport. Sure, the crates flying around on the overhead conveyor belts were distracting, and all the cargo lying around everywhere was as much cover for the enemy as it was for them, but it all just added interesting levels of challenge to a fight. Well, for anyone who liked shooting at range. Grunt, Tali, and Jack wouldn't have been as happy.

Captain Enyala, whoever she was, was standard Eclipse issue, which meant there were a lot of engineers in her team. The fifth time a salarian sent an incendiary over Garrus's head, he said, "I have to admit, I like it a lot better when we're the only ones doing that."

The melted plastic of the crate beside him was black and gooey, and the smell of it burned the inside of his nostrils. A rifle cracked on the other side of the field, a human female's head burst in an explosion of blood, brains, and bone, and he saw Shepard appear on the enemy's flank. "Too hot to handle, Garrus?" she said into the radio. "Stop whining."

"That's terrible," he informed her, taking out a screaming human Taylor had just sent flying and sending an overload program at the offending engineer's shields.

"Learned from the best."

"Can we focus here?" Taylor demanded, shooting at the salarian, missing as the target ducked behind a crate.

Shepard's laugh sounded over the wire, low and thrilling, and an incendiary rocketed out from her position in a trajectory she'd calculated a lot better than the other guys. The salarian screamed as he was engulfed in flames. "How about you wait to talk to us about focus until you're hitting your targets that clean, Mr. Taylor?"

A guy in tech armor yelled at his one remaining ally, a human engineer, and both of them turned their fire on the place Shepard had been. Rookie mistake. Garrus's visor was tracking her heat signature—she was already moving again, and, scared of her tech, they'd ignored Taylor's biotics. He hooked one of them right out of cover, managing to pull her into the first guy as he did so. Lawson clenched her fist, and the biotic field around both targets ignited. A full warp field was even more gruesome than a perfect headshot. Nothing could crush armor and twist bone quite like dark energy. Garrus watched the two mercenaries' bodies collapse, turned into sacks of blood and failing organs.

Taylor grabbed a few cooling heat sinks off the warehouse floor. "You want to watch that smack talk, Commander?"

Shepard was doing the same, reloading her rifle to move on. "Did I hurt your feelings, Mr. Taylor?"

Jacob kept the banter up, but his entire body was oriented toward Miranda, straining to go. He was frowning. "Maybe a little. Planning to do anything about it?"

Shepard ran a scan on her omni-tool, signaled two synthetics and eight more hostiles up ahead. She nodded at Lawson to move forward. "Garrus, cue up some of the shit you have on that thing. Seems Jacob wasn't listening earlier that this is a no-whining zone."

Garrus fought a smile. "Right away, Shepard. Does complaining about my music count as whining? Just trying to get a handle on the rules here."

"Saying your music's shit isn't a complaint, it's a statement of fact," Shepard returned promptly.

"Ouch," Taylor laughed. "You want some salve for that burn, Vakarian?"

"Thanks, but I'll just borrow some from Miranda," Garrus said, glancing at Lawson's fading sunburn and cueing up a quarian artist's electronic instrumental from five years back. He'd redownloaded it a couple weeks back. Shepard fell into a smoother gait at once, and the corner of her mouth twitched up. She always had liked this one.

But Miranda scowled. "Can we just focus, like Jacob said?"

"Trust me, you don't want us to do that," Taylor said, his voice dark. "Enemies," he warned, as they rounded the corner. Miranda flicked her wrist and burned out the circuits of a LOKI mech. Shepard faded out, and Taylor threw up a barrier in front of them until they could move to cover.

The mercs were positioned in front of a cargo elevator—it would take them up a level, past the intake yard and closer to the docks. The enemy was set up in arc formation in front of the door. Shepard would take their flank, so Garrus took out the shields of the point man. Taylor took advantage, and the guy went down to three calculated pistol shots to weak places in his armor. Miranda was battering the shields of two others with her Locust; Garrus took out one when he rose to shoot a tech program and the other when she staggered back, shocked by her friend's brains all over her helmet.

The other LOKI went down in a burst of tech energy. Shepard, her shields supercharged from the attack, ran out on the mercenary flank, shooting a spray of bullets from her Locust. The five remaining mercenaries were completely unprepared for her appearance so far from where she'd gone dark. Three of them turned bodily to face the new threat—but Miranda had already taken the shields of one. Taylor took the shot. As Shepard retreated back into cover, Garrus took out a second guy.

A blue flare around him, a current of energy that set his hide tingling, was the only warning he got. 0%, his visor read. Garrus ducked, but the engineer that had stolen his shields had sprinted away from her two teammates, using her supercharged shields to escape the formation that had killed nearly all the rest for heavy cover on the right. At the same time, a combat drone flew away from her gauntlet toward the left—where Shepard was alone.

As if her retreat had been a signal, one of the other guys—in tech armor, lit up blue and charged toward Miranda, Jacob, and Garrus. Lawson and Taylor's first shots evaporated in his barrier, and then he was right there, omni-blade extended, dark energy bubbling around him. Garrus stood, and the salarian at the door opened fire, full auto at Taylor and Lawson. Garrus saw Taylor throw up a barrier, but he was a bit busy. He hit his attacker beneath the arm—and his biotics went dead. He kicked the guy full in the chest. His insulated boot passed through the tech armor, designed to deflect higher-speed projectiles. He heard the tech hiss, the human grunt. He staggered back but didn't fall, brought his shotgun up, but Garrus was already there. He seized the gun by the barrel and flipped it around. In two quick movements he clubbed the merc with the butt, rotated the gun again, and shot his man three times in the face.

In a split second, he ducked, feeling another incendiary pass over his shoulder. He dropped the shotgun, brought up his rifle, caught the engineer in his scope, her face twisted in fear and hatred, and fired.

Taylor and Lawson had taken care of the salarian. "Shepard?" Garrus called.

She came out from the left. "I'm here. She was smart, that last one," she remarked. "Word's gone out—they were targeting you at the end there."

His visor showed her shields were fully intact—no injuries. "They were targeting both of us," he corrected her. "Trying to pin both of us down."

Miranda bit her lip. "I shouldn't have brought you into this," she said. "This is my fight. We can't afford to lose either of you." Her eyes caught on the dead salarian's belt. She bent over. "Hang on. I've got one of their radios. I'll patch us in, see if we can get an idea of what we're up against, hear what they're saying." She punched the button on the elevator to head up a level. All of them filed in behind her. A new static came in on the line over a human rock classic.

As the elevator doors closed behind them without a sound and the machinery kicked in around them to take them closer to the spaceport, Miranda looked at Shepard. "Shepard, I think I owe you an explanation."

"You owe all of us an explanation, Miranda," Jacob said. They were done with levity for now. It was time for some real talk. "We came in blind, and now there's a kid on the line. We needed time and intel to set this up right."

Miranda shook her head. "She's not a child—and she is my twin, genetically. My father . . . grew Oriana when I was a teenager. She was meant to replace me. I couldn't let my father do to her what he did to me, so I rescued her. She's almost a woman now."

Shepard was frowning. "I can understand choosing to go your own way, but you stole a young child from her father."

Miranda's fists clenched. "If you knew my father, you would understand," she said. "I wasn't the first one he made, I was only the first one he kept. I was brought up with no friends, pushed to meet impossible demands." She raked her fingers through her hair, distressed by the mere memory. "I wasn't a daughter to him, I was . . . I don't know what I was. Oriana has had a normal life. I made the right decision." There wasn't a shred of uncertainty in her voice.

"Not when you kept us in the dark," Shepard argued. "Jacob's right. We needed this information. You have to trust us, Miranda."

"She'll be nineteen this year. She's smart and able to take care of herself. I wouldn't have gone in this way if we needed to have people on her personally. I'm very protective when it comes to Oriana. There are people who would use her against me, but—" Miranda sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry. You deserved to know." She directed her words at Jacob, but then turned to Shepard and Garrus. "All of you did," she admitted.

Eighteen was a lot better than eight or eleven, but it still wasn't great, especially since they were talking about a human civilian, not someone like Miranda. They'd taken out a lot of Eclipse mercs already—but there could be a lot more of them in between them and the spaceport.

They all digested what Lawson had said, and Taylor was the first one to speak. "I get it. Don't like it, but I get it. Not all our esteemed coworkers are as nice as me. Too many like Wilson." He held out his hand to Miranda, and Miranda took it.

"Jacob—"

"Let's just—leave it, okay?"

Garrus could almost taste the regret in the elevator, but Miranda nodded. "If that's what you want," She turned to Shepard and Garrus. "Commander? Garrus?"

Garrus looked at Shepard. He knew where he stood with Lawson. She worked with him because she had to and resented him because Shepard had been sidelining her. He'd explicitly threatened her organization once. He didn't have ground to stand on to complain about Lawson's failure to confide in him, except that tactically, not knowing the details had put them all in more danger than they had to be—and Oriana and her civilian family as well. And anything that needed to be said about that had already been said. Lawson doesn't come from a background where people can trust one another, but we didn't create an environment for her where she could understand we were different.

And when it turns out that maybe you can't even trust your oldest, closest friends, how are you supposed to trust semihostile, weeks-old acquaintances being forced to work with you? He didn't like what he'd been hearing about Niket.

Shepard knew part of this was their fault. "Not knowing the whole story's complicated things and put us in a bad position. But I know I haven't given you much reason to trust me. If Eclipse knows where Oriana is, they'll be moving in on her soon. We need to hurry."

Miranda's eyes flicked back to the level indicator on the cargo elevator. "Agreed. I'm a bit worried by what the merc said," she said. "If they've got to Niket somehow, this is going to be harder than I'd planned. According to the specs I reviewed, we'll need to cut through the cargo processing yard to get to Oriana."

Shepard grimaced. "Can you tell me anything about the cargo processing yard?"

"We'll be moving through conveyer systems," Miranda explained. "There'll be a lot of movement. Finding targets won't be easy. We'll need to stay sharp. And these cargo transports carry hazardous materials, so watch what you shoot at."

"And what about Niket?" Garrus asked. "We can stop the mercs before they get to Oriana, but if we have to protect him too, or—"he hesitated, his suspicions nagging at him. Better if she knows, he decided. We can be ready. "Are you sure your friend can be trusted?"

Miranda frowned at him. "Of course," she said. "Niket is one of my oldest friends. I guess you could say he was my only real friend. He's the only person I didn't cut ties with when I left my father."

That wasn't necessarily promising, Garrus thought. "Is there a chance your father could be using Niket to get to you?" he asked.

Miranda sniffed. "I'm sure he's tried, but Niket is one of the few people who understands what my father is really like. I trusted him with my life when I ran from my father. He won't betray me now."

Garrus recognized that confidence. He'd felt it. But when the pressure's on, even the people you thought you could absolutely count on can turn on you, and that's when you're not up against 'the richest guy in the galaxy.' He glanced at Shepard and Jacob. Jacob looked doubtful, Shepard grim. "I hope you're right," Garrus said.

The elevator opened. "Let's go find Niket and Oriana," Shepard said.

"Right," Miranda said, moving ahead with Taylor.

Shepard fell back to walk beside Garrus. An alert on the side of his visor blinked, and Garrus realized she'd switched off her radio for a moment. "Stay as far back as you can," she said in a voice too low for Lawson to hear. "You can take them out at maximum range, but let's minimize the number of mercs that catch sight of you and decide they want to be the one to finally take Archangel out."

"You don't let them box you up and pin you down again," Garrus challenged her in return. "Even with a combat drone."

She narrowed her eyes at him—and for a second he thought he'd crossed the line, curtailing her strategy in light of the conditions they were facing. Namely, a bunch of mercs who want us both personally dead. But Shepard just nodded. Her wrist rotated, her radio came back on, and she moved forward, while he fell back.

The first shots sounded ahead. "They're on the far side of the conveyer line," Miranda called. "Time your shots." Garrus saw her and Taylor fan out, crouching down among the crates. Shepard took up position behind a trolley between them, where either of them could assist her if needed.

Garrus scanned the area, and found a stack of crates partially around the corner. The angle would be difficult for the enemy, weaving in and out of a cargo compartment on the other side of a conveyer line and coming in from the left—but it wasn't too difficult for him. Using the shadows, he climbed the boxes to get some height. It changed his firing trajectory so he'd be firing under the items passing through the conveyer line for the most part. Garrus scoped out the other side of the battlefield. Two asari, three salarians, five humans.

He chose his first target, fired a concussive blast first to take down her shields, then, to the beat of the pulsing mix playing over their channel, he fired a second shot in between a passing suitcase and a crate full of straw. He saw a propane tank over by one of the salarians, fired another shot, and when the explosion spooked the two guys nearest the blackened, three-limbed corpse out of cover, Lawson and Shepard were waiting to take full advantage.

"He's over there!" one of the asari cried. "Watch the stack!"

"Let's try a little fire!" a salarian yelled. An asari had to pull him out of the way as Miranda's shots puckered the wall behind where he'd been standing.

"Sure, let's," Shepard said in an undertone. Her attack hit the asari and salarian's joined hands. It glanced of the asari's barrier, but she hissed and darted away. The salarian screamed.

"I've got him!" Taylor called, seizing him in a biotic field and pulling him into an oncoming crate. He hit and fell down into the cargo line. His corpse got caught in the works between two belts, but the cargo on the belts kept moving. Garrus saw a smear of blood and tissue on the line moving past where he had fallen.

Garrus heard swearing over the Eclipse channel. Two of the remaining mercs started to fall back—he couldn't get a good shot at them through the cargo. "This is Enyala," came a terse, female alto through the radio. "Keep the bitch back. Niket is nearing the transport terminal."

"You try it!" one of the engineers snapped. "She's got Archangel and Commander Shepard with her! We're getting slaughtered!"

"Archangel died on Omega, you ass. I don't care how many men you lose. Just stall them, damn it!" Enyala ordered.

One of the humans rallied with the two asari. "Eclipse forever!" Garrus shot him right in his wide open mouth. His spine tore through the back of his neck and he collapsed to the floor. Shepard shot at one of the asari—her biotics flared, deflecting the bullet. Lawson hurled an energy field her direction, and she screamed as her own field destabilized, throwing her and her friend away from the impact. Jacob caught one of them in another field, pulling her throat into the cargo line above. Violet blood showered down on the asari trying to climb to her feet.

She slipped, mouth working, arms windmilling. A wild shot from her assault rifle hit a crate passing through the cargo line. The box burst, and blue trays full of pill bottles hit the ground with a crash and scattered. Shepard, with Taylor on her flank, moved ahead, circling behind cover around the cargo line. Garrus leapt down from his perch, following Miranda. He heard a shotgun, Shepard's Locust—a LOKI up ahead warning them to cease hostilities.

Then he caught up. The asari was dead, and two LOKI mechs that had come up on the flank had been disabled. "Two of them got away," he reported. "They ran up ahead."

"Divert everyone except my guard from Niket," Enyala said over the radio. "I'll handle him and the kid personally."

Miranda was crumpling the wrapper of a high-protein bar. "Damn it, I'm not letting her get Oriana." She lifted her chin, tossed another to Taylor.

He caught it, shucked the wrapper in a second and had wolfed it in another three.

Garrus fell in line as they moved forward. "What does she mean, 'take care' of Niket?" he asked. "Like she's going to 'take care' of your sister. But they're not trying to kill Oriana, are they? The goal is to get her back to your father."

Miranda tossed her head. "I don't like what you're implying. Niket is on our side. We can trust him. We have to stop Enyala from reaching him."

"And what if you're wrong?" Garrus challenged her. "What if he's waiting for her?"

"We have to consider the possibility," Shepard said quietly.

"No, we don't," Lawson retorted. "Look sharp!" she cried, as they rounded another corner. Jacob threw up a barrier as the fire started, and Miranda nodded at the belts ahead. While they'd had to go around the last one, there were maintenance steps here. "We can cut down through the cargo line," she suggested.

"Hell, yeah," Taylor crowed, plunging forward, Miranda at his heels. He's just been waiting for a chance to get in close. Shepard nodded at Garrus, and the two of them broke apart to come at the enemy from two other sides. Garrus took up position on a trolley, shoving a fuel container down into the cargo line before someone else could take advantage. Shepard crouched behind an armored crate—weapons, probably, or climate-controlled pharmaceuticals. Miranda skated through the enemy on the other side, taking down shields with tech and automatic fire for Jacob, who went at them with his shotgun or a biotic punch—even messier, but just as effective. They looked like they had a handle on it, for the most part, but Garrus saw a sniper on the far left aiming at Lawson. He hit the woman with a concussive blast. She went down, and when she started climbing to her feet, it was only to meet a bullet from Shepard. Her blood spurted up as her body fell down—and this time she didn't get up.

Shepard vaulted over her crate and down through the cargo line. Garrus followed her. They were sprinting now, racing to get to Niket and Oriana before Enyala—whatever she wanted to do with them. Garrus collapsed his Mantis and pulled out the Mattock. It'd be more effective moving at this speed.

"Eclipse operatives have attempted to delay you by disabling the elevators." EDI's voice was calm and cool over the beat of the drums. "I am overriding their lockdown."

"Thanks, EDI!" Shepard panted.

"You are welcome, Shepard," the AI said. She sounded pleased. I have got to stop anthropomorphizing her. If she's pleased, it's just because she's programmed to like helping us.

They rounded the corner, and Garrus saw the borders of a queue. They were leaving the cargo yards behind, heading toward the administration level, where occasionally the spaceport workers would need to wait in lines. Six humans and salarians were crouched inside the queue, huddled together, eyes bright and afraid. But on the signal of one of the salarians, the formation burst like a star, keeping mobile instead of waiting to be shot in the comparatively open space. It would buy them only a few more seconds.

"Combat drone engaged!" a salarian yelled, tenor voice breaking with fear and anger.

Garrus rotated his left wrist. "And disengaged," he muttered. He shot two bursts at the salarian, taking out his shields, then jumped sideways into a somersault as no less than three of the six they were facing turned their weapons on him personally. Crap.

Taylor charged into the gap. He tried to flare, but his biotics flickered and died. He grunted as his shields absorbed two, four shots before one of the metal fuel containers lying around came flying—hurled physically, not biotically—into one of salarians firing their direction. An incendiary attack followed immediately, and Garrus dived forward, seized Taylor's ankle, and threw him bodily back from the explosion.

The guns turned on Shepard then—standing over by the trolley where the fuel container had come from, but Garrus, retreating in front of Taylor while Taylor's shields regenerated, fired at one of the distracted idiots that had gone for the diversion instead of shooting at the two men down. Lawson was on another, and as Shepard faded out, the remaining mercenaries swore as they realized what they had done.

Garrus and Taylor had reached the last pieces of cargo, and they knelt behind cover. The last salarian still behind the queue fired at them, but he was closer to Miranda, and teeth bared, she reached down, seized his arm, and turning with her entire body, threw him into the wall beside the elevator. Dazed, he slid down, and she fired three bullets into his brain. On the other side of the room, Shepard decloaked behind a human engineer and thrust her omni-tool up through his back. Her pistol was already pointed at the last merc—but Garrus took the shot before she could.

He went down, and Shepard pushed the impaled merc off of her, rolling her eyes. "Showboat turian," she muttered.

Garrus stood. "You love it."

"That was some nice coordination there," Taylor said, standing with him and extending his hand to Garrus. "Saved my ass again, Vakarian. Shepard."

Garrus shook Taylor's hand. "You saved mine first." The two of them followed Miranda into the elevator that would take them up to the administrative level below the docks.

"Niket has reached the terminal," Enyala reported over the radio. "He'll switch the family over to our transport."

And that just about does it for the combat high. Garrus killed the music. Shepard glanced at him then back at Miranda, who blanched white as if she'd just been kicked in the gut.

"Niket? But—that can't be right!