MASS EFFECT CHASM: CHAPTER 12

"Your move, one-eye," Jack grinned across the table at Zaeed as she held her undisclosed spread hand of cards.

Massani flipped the ex-convict off before tossing two cards her way before finding his replacements. The sour look on his face gave away his position. Still, not a good hand. He slid to the pile in the middle. "You want to play, little girl?"

"Sure, why the hell not?" Jack tossed in her chips, then added in one more. "Why not make this interesting?" The scowl on the gruff man's face further implicated him. She called him on his bluff. Would he press this further?

"Damnit!" Zaeed tossed his cards on the table in dismay. "I'm out."

"You're too damn easy," The biotic chortled as she retrieved her winnings. "Though, it's nice to play cards. Hell, I haven't played in years. Too bad Shep isn't with us."

"She's too goody goody," Zaeed muttered as he shuffled the stack of cards for his deal. "You think she be down here playing poker?"

Jack shrugged haphazardly and waited for her new set of cards. Leaving them face down, she bent the top corner up slightly to peek at what they were: Jack, King, Three, Five, and Ten. "Heard you were with the Suns awhile back." Her hand was not the greatest but could be a lot worse. She decided to strike up a conversation to get him to relax and see where this would go.

"Yeah, what about it?" Zaeed mumbled as he arranged the cards in his hand. This time, his facial expression was neutral. Was he learning?

"A recruiter sought me out before I went to Purgatory. I can't believe those shits wanted me. Ironically, the same bastards ran the prison." She tossed in her Three and Five to seek replacements. "I'm not a team player." Holding up her new cards, she saw another King and a Four. One was better than none. Not the hand she was hoping to play. "Why did you quit?" She inwardly cursed when she saw how calm Zaeed was. The bastard has a good hand!

This time, Massani looked up from his hand and glared at her with both his real eye and his fake one. "Better opportunity." He returned to his replacement of cards with his jaw clenched. Mentioning his past was pissing him off. "You ask a lot of questions. Shepard must be rubbing off on you."

"Fuck off," Jack shot back playfully as she tossed in three chips.

He met her with four of his own. "You know. You're like the only non-Cerberus bastard that I can get along with."

She shook her head with a smirk. "I'm not fucking you. Forget it."

His jaw dropped by her accusation and he sat up straighter. "What? No. I'm too old for that shit." He paused and thought for a second. "Besides, I'm not quite into your type."

Jack nodded her head with a knowing grin. "Samara."

Zaeed turned red. "The asari is a lethal killer. Very impressive."

"Don't get a hard-on right here," Jack continued to toss out the banter as she placed her pair of Kings down.

"She does have a nice piece of ass though," The man agreed with a chuckle and presented his prized three Aces.

Jack shoved her lost chips his way in aggravation. "Ugh, you sicken me."

Zaeed laughed some more as he tossed her the deck of cards. "Your turn."

The elevator doors opened and revealed Shepard's cabin. Dratin paused before stepping out. His omni scan produced no cameras in the passage. Satisfied that he was not being monitored, he moved to the door and stopped once again. A few taps on his omni and he was able to run his decryption program on the door lock. The software would give a false positive so no intrusion would be detected by the ship's security system or by EDI. Seconds later, the doors opened and revealed the empty cabin.

The inside of the dormitory was so pristine and organized. A framed picture of a male human stood out from the desk. Most likely Shepard's partner. He had to work fast. He wasn't there to sightsee or rummage through what she had. That wasn't him. His objective was clear. Sitting down at the workstation, he accessed the private terminal and bypassed any firewall blocks. Cerberus was locked down pretty tight. A tech with lesser skills than him would be detected. Not him. To him, it was like breaking into a vorcha store. He moved to the messages and typed in the recipient's location. The timing couldn't be more perfect. Shepard was on a mission with the turian and salarian and the ship was right outside a comm buoy. He could ping the buoy and get the message to its destination. There was always the risk of detection, however, he would have to take that chance. He couldn't back out now. Shepard was not lying at all about the Collector threat. He fought against the sickening bastards firsthand. Aria needed to know. That was his job. He was days late from reporting in and she expected better of him. After typing out the short message, he sent it and then deleted all trace of him from the terminal. Standing up, he was satisfied and bolted out the door.

The elevator couldn't move fast enough back down to the cargo bay to where he was stationed at. It was only then when he reached his desired level, that he allowed himself to take a breath. The tiny hairs on his neck were still raised from the heightened anxiety. Hearing sounds of laughter down the hall, curiosity got the better of him and he turned away from his intended direction. The door to Zaeed's room was open and inside sat Jack and Zaeed at a table in a poker game. Realizing that he stumbled too far in their field of vision, he quickly sidestepped to avoid being seen. Too late. Damnit!

"What the hell are you doing snooping around down here?" Zaeed growled at him. "Don't you have a pisshole to crawl into?"

"Oh, lighten up, gramps," Jack snapped at him then looked over at the corner of the wall to where Dratin stood just outside. "You any good at poker? We could use another player. I'm getting bored whipping Zaeed's ass over here."

Sighing in annoyance, Dratin came back into view. "No, thank you. I have stuff to do." He avoided their eyes and moved away towards his hideaway. He was sloppy.

"Well, shit." Jack chuckled at Dratin slinking off. "Thanks a lot, Massani. You scared him away."

"Don't like those bastards. Goddamn terrorists," Zaeed grumbled under his breath as he shuffled out their next deal.

"He's a pretty good shot. He took down a few scions on Horizon." The ex-convict countered thoughtfully. "Better him than them."

"All he will be good for is shooting you in the damn back," The old merc was not swayed. "Never will like those four-eyed assholes." He sorted through his hand that he dealt to himself and grimaced. Nothing to work with. "Hey, what you think of the drell?"

"Thane?" Jack thought for a moment and shrugged. "He's like all mystic and shit. Heard he has over a hundred ways to kill someone."

"Shepard said that the hanar trained him. The jellyfish," Zaeed scoffed.

"Meh, I could take him."

"Yeomen Chambers, my system scrub produced an unauthorized encrypted message from the Normandy one hour ago." EDI flagged Kelly at her station.

The redhead was startled by the news. "From which terminal?" Kelly's face flashed with worry.

"Shepard's."

Chambers scratched her head as she thought about the timing. "An hour? But the Commander was away at that time and still not back yet." Her mind raced at the different scenarios. They had multiple non-Cerberus operatives onboard. The dossiers were thoroughly checked.

"Protocol dictates that this is to be reported to Operative Lawson." The AI reminded her.

"Yes. Uh, I'm heading there now," Kelly was so flustered that she almost forgot what she was doing. She knew all the regs. Why couldn't her feet move? The AI was perfect. Per the guidelines, it would notify her first of the security hack since she handles messages. The message sent was unauthorized. If she was not aware of this, then Miranda needed to be notified. This was huge! A security breach! Racing into the elevator, her heart thumped quickly in her chest. Were they under some type of cyber-attack? Was this a random test by Miranda? She was known for their "pop quizzes." No one would dare to try to infiltrate their system while they were nowhere near a docking station. Where would the perpetrator go?

Miranda sat collectively at her terminal when the yeomen entered her office in distress. "Yes, Kelly?"

Firing off a salute to her, Kelly caught her breath. "EDI detected an unauthorized message in the system."

"EDI?" Miranda narrowed her brow as she addressed the ship's computer for clarification.

"Miss Chambers is correct. The message was sent one hour ago from Shepard's terminal."

"Damnit," Lawson hissed through gritted teeth. Things were going too smoothly to be true. "Where did it go? Who the hell sent it?"

"Omega. The message has been blocked."

"Blocked?" Miranda snarled by the AI's response. "You're telling me that you can't figure it out!?" Cerberus invested millions in EDI after they secured the AI program from the Alliance. It was cutting-edge and state-of-the-art experimental technology. The Alliance only dipped their toes into the pool of artificial intelligence. A field that was banned from the Council. No one had the guts to push the limits. Cerberus was not governed by the alien races. They refused to do so. This was to improve humanity. To make them the superior race. Was EDI suggesting that someone or something was able to beat it?

Kelly chewed her lip as she listened in intensely. "Mam, who do you think could have done this?"

The dark-haired woman remained poised behind her desk. Her eye ridge lowered as her mind processed all the possibilities. The heightened tech expertise and Omega gave it away. It was the batarian. The same person that she didn't trust. Why didn't Shepard listen to her? EDI may fail at finding out what he told Aria, but she sure as hell wouldn't. Pulling out her drawer, she retrieved her M-5 pistol. "I know who it was. Head back to your station, Kelly. EDI, tell Jacob to come here at once."

"Understood," EDI responded. Kelly saluted again before swiftly moving out of the office to follow her orders.

Jacob Taylor was startled to see Miranda standing up in her office with her weapon in her hand at the ready. "Expecting trouble here?"

"I told Shepard. I told Shepard not to bring that damn batarian here!" Lawson ranted as she moved to the door where he was.

Jacob held up his hand to stop her. "What is going on?"

"He accessed Shepard's terminal and sent a message to Omega. He bypassed all the security protocols."

"Shit," Jacob tapped the holster of his pistol that was already strapped to his right hip. "You think we should just call him out on it now?"

"Yeah, EDI was blocked and we do not know what the contents of the message were. This is a threat to Cerberus, Jacob." She glared hard at him. "Don't give up your loyalty now."

He returned the icy look. "I know where my loyalties lie, Miranda."

"Good. Then follow me. We will handle this."

Dratin's absence from the cargo bay made him even guiltier. There was no time to waste! "EDI, locate Dratin."

"Dratin Ges'sark is located in engineering," The AI complied seconds later.

"Quick! Before, he sabotages the Normandy!" Miranda raced back to the elevator.

"Don't lock down the ship, Miranda!" Jacob yelled at her back as he followed her. He already anticipated her next move. Any lockdown would alert sirens and startle the crew including the batarian. They had to catch him off-guard.

The brunette fired him a nasty look as she double-checked her pistol. Moments later, the elevator doors reopened and she dashed to engineering. Gabby and Kenneth's uneasy glances their way confirmed that the batarian was there. Kenneth silently pointed towards where the drive core was located. The alien's back was turned to them as he stood at the rail, observing the large structure in front of him. With her pistol drawn right at him, it was only then that Miranda gave away their position. "Step back from the core and put your hands up!"