I pinched my nose and rubbed my eyes with practiced ease, rising from my chair and stretching my arms and back with a grunt.

"Enough." I told myself. "Time for a break."

Starring at my console for hours had burned out my concentration as well as my eyes.

I exhaled deeply, trying to relax my shoulders and neck, but almost immediately tensed.

A chime on my omni-tool messenger saved me from myself.

{Kaidan: Poker on the crew deck in 15, bring creds!}

{Garrus: I'll be bringing Joker's too.}

{Joker: I'm winning those back, I know what your twitching face-plates mean now.}

{Wrex: How do you mute this thing. Delete me.}

{Tali: [sent attachment – Omni Tool Messenger Instructions]}

{Ashley: Will be there, Chase coming also.}

"Time for a break." I told myself again.

My eyes felt heavy, weighted with the hours of sleep I was missing. I was exhausted and worse, we'd barely even started our mission. The vision I received on Eden Prime waited for me again when the lights went out and I was starting to dread the sight of my bunk.

I changed out of my uniform into some Alliance PT gear and made my way towards the crew deck, intent on grabbing a cup of coffee on the way there. Pausing at the door I had second thoughts about going. I was so tired.

You should try to be a little social with your crew. You need to be approachable. I reminded myself, recalling Anderson's advice.

With a heavy sigh I keyed the door and left the safety of my dark command suite.

The game had already started by the time I arrived, with Kaidan, Ash, Garrus, Joker and Chase seated around the table, cards in hand.

"Pull up a chair, Sir." Ash offered.

"No thanks, I'll watch, do a little reconnaissance for next time."

"Always next time with this guy." Joker mused.

I rolled my eyes and groaned. "Alright alright, deal me in."

Taking a seat next to Chase, Garrus threw me some cards and the initial round of betting began. I looked around the table and lifted my chin in Garrus' direction.

"So where are the others?" I asked.

Garrus shuffled his cards and placed a bet. "Wrex is brooding in the cargo hold. Tali said something about girl time in the Mako and took Liara with her."

Ash scrunched her nose and raised an eyebrow, "Girl time?"

"In the…Mako?" Kaidan finished.

Joker shrugged his shoulders, "I've heard about kinkier things happening in the Mako."

"Our Mako?"

"No A Mako."

"We're girls…I could use some 'girl time'" Chase added longingly.

Ash perked up and slammed her cards on the table, "Yeah! This is discrimination!"

"I'm sure it's tough," I reasoned, "being the only ones of your kind on board a human ship."

"Ahem" Garrus coughed.

Joker waved his hand dismissively. "Garrus, you're not a Turian, you're a cop. Cops are their own species entirely. They don't have feelings or emotions or - "

"I'm not a cop anymore." He said quietly.

The air suddenly became very serious and some shifted in their seats uncomfortably.

"You won't go back to C-Sec, when this is over?" Kaidan asked.

Garrus looked up slowly from his cards, locking eyes with me across the table. "Everyone thinks being a cop is about punishing people for doing wrong. But that's not true. You know it isn't. It's supposed to be about believing in people, believing in the good. In the will of people to do what's right despite their own instincts. But it's not that either.

"It's about numbers and quotas and elections and revenue and, and, and. It's not about justice. It's never about justice."

I set my cards facedown on the table, canting my head and ready to hear more. The others took their cues from me, urging Garrus to continue.

He took a breath and finally laid his cards on the table.

"A few years ago, I was assigned lead on a vice investigation. We were looking into some of the clinics on the Citadel because there was a massive increase in organ traffic."

"Are organ sales legal on the Citadel?" Ash inquired.

"No, this was the black market. Some hospitals and clinics have the capacity to manufacture organs but the sale and traffic of them is prohibited. Anyway, we started zeroing in on the clinics because there were never any bodies. Well I mean – there were bodies – there are always bodies on the Citadel – but we weren't finding carved out corpses anywhere, you know?

"My trail brought me to a clinic in the 5th ward, down deep in the sub level. A Salarian, Dr. Saleon had a lot – and I mean a lot – of unusual clients. I'm talking kids, sex workers, junkies, homeless, the most vulnerable among them."

"Aren't those the types of people that use clinics the most?" Kaidan asked.

"Yes, but we also noticed a massive influx in sand and halex sales in the same area, like the locals were flush with cash. And some people would be in and out of the clinic multiple times per week. It just didn't look right so I started digging further. I got warrants, I searched, I questioned him but I couldn't find any machinery or grow operations. He seemed clean on the outside.

"So running out of ideas I started pulling in his frequent customers and his employees one by one and picking away at the layers. One day I'm interrogating a duct rat and he starts coughing. He coughs so hard, he opens the incisions on his gut and starts bleeding. We send him to the hospital. They do a scan. They find out he has two endoglands when there should be one. Four of midosporades when there should be two. You get the idea."

"Jesus." Chase muttered. "What a monster."

"Now that I've got this information, I order DNA tests on all the organs seized from every black market buy and demand they be cross referenced with all profiles, not just deceased. Well turns out a bunch of those organs had live donors. And wouldn't you know it, they'd all been to Saleon's clinic."

We stayed silent, hoping for Garrus to end the story with a tale of Saleon's arrest. But given his tone, his body language, and the subject, we anticipated the disappointment.

"My supervisor, to her credit, actually supported the arrest. I asked for a team of heavy ops, I asked for transport docks to be shut down, I asked for a standard lookout to be issued. But…the operations major shut it down. Saleon had no priors, and we apparently couldn't prove it was him who was performing the operations. It was all apparently too circumstantial.

"So I raised hell, threatened to resign, and when that didn't work I went to the press. So C-Sec finally issues an arrest warrant and guess what? Saleon is long gone. It got – a lot harder to get up and go to work after that."

Another awkward silence ensued, everyone around the table too nervous, too ill-equipped to offer anything but off colour humour that wouldn't have been appropriate at that exact moment.

"So that's why you don't want to go back?" I questioned, breaking the barrier that had gone up in those moments.

"Yeah, I guess. I like doing what we're doing, here. There's no red tape. You're free to do what you want to accomplish your mission."

I scoffed unconsciously. "You think I can do whatever I want?"

"Can't you?"

"Yeah, I'm curious about this one too." Ash added and I shot her a glare.

I heaved a sigh. "You just watched me let a terrorist flee a crime scene. I let that same guy go on Torfan and he came back and he almost succeeded in killing an entire colony. In the past month alone, I've given first aid to pirates who've orchestrated atrocities on humans, atrocities that I've personally experienced. I have to fight my instinct to let them die every time. I have to work every second to do the right thing.

"And sometimes knowing what the right thing is can be really difficult. And when I find myself in those grey areas I look to codes, ethos, teachings from my superiors, whatever I can grab on to make sure I can live with myself in the minutes, hours, days and years afterwards.

"Not everything is black and white and I wish it was because it would make things really easy. But it has nothing to do with easy. It's about doing what's right because it's right. That's the only reason you need."

Garrus leaned back in his chair and cleared his throat. "So you wouldn't have grabbed a gun, marched to Saleon's clinic, and shot him between the eyes?"

"I would have wanted to. But no, I wouldn't have." I said honestly. "I'm a soldiers and a killer, Garrus. But I'm not a murderer."

"Every man needs a code." Kaidan mumbled.

I snapped my finger and pointed to him, "Exactly."

"Hmm" Garrus contemplated.

Joker threw his cards to the center of the table, "Well sorry for ruining the game, everyone!"

The table laughed at the gesture, perfectly time to wash away the melancholy brought on by the discussion, and we all picked up our cards and started throwing credits into the pot to entice him back into the game.

A few rounds later, I was slightly poorer but the mood had been restored. I stood and excused myself, wanting to check on Wrex in the cargo hold before heading to bed.

"Thanks for coming, boss." Garrus said to me as I turned to leave and I smiled in return

When I arrived in the cargo bay, Wrex was exactly where Garrus had said he would be, tinkering with his armour and weapons near the back of the staging area. The cargo bay was empty, less the Mako strapped too its moorings, holding silent its own secrets for the moment.

"The asari and the quarian are in the Mako," he grunted, hearing my approach.

"Not looking for them."

"The quarian –"

"Tali." I corrected.

"Tali…came to show me some weapon mods she could install, but the asari – "

"Liara." I corrected again.

"But Liara wanted to talk with her so they're in there." He said, gesturing to the truck.

"So what are you doing?"

"…Decorating."

"Decorating what?"

"What does it look like?" He growled, his eyes red and predatory.

"Looks like you're modifying your armour. I guess I'm just wondering why."

"Tradition."

"What's the tradition?"

"You humans ask a lot of questions."

"We sure do."

He laughed quietly, a low rumble in his body. "You see this?" he held up his chest plate and showed me etchings carved into its frame. "Every time we survive a big fight, we carve its name into the armour."

He let me hold and examine it and I marveled at the alien writings that plastered a little more than half of his plates.

"You've had this a long time?" I asked, wondering how many battles he fought.

"Not as long as you'd think. Half of these are from my time with you." He laughed again, a slow, low cadence.

"Well, I'm honoured."

"You're a good warrior, Shepard. I like fighting with you."

I smiled at him and handed back the armour. "So it's newish armour then? Do you get a new set once you've filled the other, is that it?"

"No."

I tilted my head at him, urging him to continue before I asked another question.

"I had a set – a clan set. It was mine. I earned it. I killed for it. But my brood brother stole it from me and sold it."

"Do you know where it is?"

"If I knew that, I'd be carving 'Terra-Nova' into its plates."

"Well, I still have a very expensive information broker on our payroll. Send me the details."

He stopped tinkering and looked up at me in a sudden, frightening movement.

"You would do this for me?"

"Of course."

I swear I could see the slightest smile pry at his jaw. "Thank you." He said, simply.

Leaning against the table where Wrex worked, I nodded towards the Mako. "What do you think they're talking about in there?"

"The asar - Liara's mother." He said, matter-of-factly.

I scrunched my nose. "How do you know that?"

"Just a guess. That's the reason she's here, isn't she?"

"Well, if we can find her mother, we can maybe find Saren. And I'd like to talk to him…"

"She's not ready." He said.

"Ready for what?"

"To kill her mother."

I furrowed my brows. "What makes you think we're going to kill her mother?"

He slowly turned to look at me. "There's one outcome to this. You must know that."

I thought about it for a moment. I had researched Matriarch Benezia on the periphery but I knew she was a person of conviction, that she threw herself bodily into challenges and was greatly respected for her dedication, commitment and diligence. Deep down, I knew Wrex was right, and his comments were causing me to second guess my initial instincts.

"I have to believe she can be reasoned with. And Liara can help me do that." I said.

"I think it would be a mistake to take her, when we do find her. But maybe she will surprise me."

"What if it were you, if you were Liara, could you do it." I immediately regretted the question.

"Yes." He set his armour down and turned to me. "I killed my own father. He betrayed me. He tried to have me killed. So I killed him."

"Do you regret it?"

"No. He would have taken the krogan back to war. And he was a coward, to betray me the way he did." He picked up his armour again and finished one of the alien symbols. "So Liara and I have that in common. She has been betrayed. Her mother tried to have her killed. So like I said, she may surprise me."

Just then, the intercom echoed in the cargo bay, causing Wrex to cringe.

[Sir, Anderson on the comms for you in your office.] Joker called.

[I'll be right up]

"Right." I pushed off the table and angled myself towards my next mission. "Thanks for talking with me, Wrex."

"Shepard."

I hadn't spoken to Anderson or checked in with the Alliance via vid or voice communications in a long time, sending only reports on our missions to Agebinium and Terra Nova. I really didn't wan to to talk about either, especially with Anderson.

Steeling myself against the inevitable discomfort, I answered the voice call.

At least I could be spared his eyes.

"Shepard. How are you?" He began, professional and cordial.

"Fine, Sir. Yourself?"

"Well enough."

He paused long enough to make me check the connection. Here it comes, I thought.

"Shepard, what the hell is happening out there."

"With what, sir?"

"We thought Haliat was dead."

"He is now, Sir."

"Shepard –"

"Dav – Sir, I applied first aid per Alliance regs but did not have the resources to ensure his survival."

"That's not what I'm asking."

"Then what is it? The mission's complete, it was a success. Fifth Fleet was satisfied with the report."

Anderson exhaled deeply and I felt his eyes judging me through the screen. I imagined the same look on his face as he had when I stood in his office after Torfan. He's judging me again, I thought. He's evaluating me still, gauging my morality again.

"And Balak? Am I reading this right, that you let him escape?"

"I had to choose between him and the civilians, Sir." I said, punctuating the last word.

"I'd like to be kept in the loop."

"I'll make sure to CC you on all my reports to Admiral Hackett, Sir."

"Thank you." He said, his voice a little softer.

"Is there something you had for me?" I asked, slightly annoyed that he had called me just to question me.

"Yes, actually. I'm passing this on from the embassy. A research colony on Feros sent a distress call. They're being attacked by Geth."

"What's attracting the Geth?"

"Unknown. The colony is Zhu's Hope. It's built on the foundations of Prothean ruins and funded by Exo-Geni Corp. The two don't seem compatible, one's skyscrapers and the other is a biomedical research conglomerate. You will need to investigate."

"Are we talking about another beacon?"

"Not to our knowledge, and that's coming from Udina. If there was a beacon he should know about it, but I'm not sure I can trust him yet."

I frowned and slid into my chair, dreading another encounter with the Geth and the Protheans. "Understood. Send me whatever you got."

"Shepard, you alright?"

I leaned forward in my chair, suddenly disappointed I couldn't see his face. "Doing fine for now. Could use more dextro rations, more variety in our gear. Some extra funding."

"I'll look into it." He promised. "How is the crew? Your new additions?"

A cheerful smile flashed across my face for an instant. "They're making us proud, Sir."

"Knew they would. Alright, Shepard. Be careful out there. Stay safe. Keep in touch."

"Will do, Sir."

I cut the call before I Anderson had the chance to interrogate further, and linked to Pressly.

"Call up the map." I told him gruffly. "Find the system Feros is in and get us there. I want a full briefing on the planet and the colony Zhu's hope for next shift start. And whatever you can find on an Exo-Geni Corp." I added.

"Aye-Aye, Sir."