A/N: Surpriiiiiiiiise!


The group clustered closer as Brooks put a few commands into the console. Then her eyes went wide.

"What is it?" Del asked. "What'd you find?"

"Whoever our Mr. Strange is, they ordered a lot more from Kahn than just that pistol," she said. "I've got requisitions for quite a lot of armor, some really heavy-duty guns, and…these."

She activated the console's small holograph projector, and an Atlas appeared on the table, etched in light. It was cousin to the one that had attacked them on Sur'kesh when Sydney had died; it's body-builder cousin who had been taking steroids.

Vega gave a low whistle, as Liara and Tali closed in behind Brooks, looking over her shoulder.

"Fuck! How many of those do they have?" Del asked.

"Looks to be about four," Brooks said.

"That's not too bad, Boss," Joker said. "We just need to get you a couple of fire extinguishers."

"Shepard, it looks like they're supplying an army," Tali said as she looked up from the screen, ignoring Joker. "How many of these Cat6 rejects are there?"

"Too many," Del said, and glowered. "I get hold of the chun behind this I'm going to fold them in half. What the fuck are they thinking, getting together that amount of gear and firepower when civvies on half a dozen home worlds are fighting the Reapers with spitballs and toothpicks?"

"Because they know it'd take that much to take you down," Wrex said. Shepard snorted, still glaring at the holographic Atlas.

"No, they're after something else. Something I'm not seeing," she said. "Steal my codes, take me out, and then what? All that gear can't just be for me. Something-"

Glyph, hovering quietly near Liara, suddenly lit up and began flashing. "Dr. T'soni, I have an incoming alert, protocol five."

"What the fuck is a protocol five?" Jack asked as Liara immediately activated her omni-tool.

"I set Glyph to alert me if Shepard's idents or Spectre codes were used," she said, and her eyes lifted to Del's. "It seems our Mr. Strange, or one of his company, has just logged in as you at the Citadel Archives."

"What, you mean right now?"

"Moments ago, yes," Liara said, then nodded as her omni-tool flashed again. "They are using your Spectre codes. The first access was to enter the Archives accessway. They just used them again to get into the Archives proper."

"What are the Archives?" Del asked. "What's there?"

"It's where classified Citadel records, artifacts, and schematics are stored. Even in C-Sec I never had clearance to get in," Garrus said. "Who knows what kind of havoc they could wreak with a tenth of what they find in that place?"

"Do you know where it is?" Del asked him, and when he nodded she said, "Then we gotta move, before they get hold of whatever it is they want to get hold of. Garrus, work with Li on the best way to get in. Gear up and get ready for war. If they've got an army, I'll be bringing my own. Let's show these fuckers how the crew of the Normandy does it."

"This will be an outright party," Ashley said, as people started to scatter to grab their gear.

"I've got shotgun!" Wrex said happily, and limping along in his wake, Joker waved a hand in the air.

"I've got the fire extinguishers!"

"I'll get the party favors," Vega grinned.

"We'll stay here then?" Nan asked, slightly teasing. Shepard caught her arm as she started past to get her own gear.

"Stay here and stay safe," she said. "You and Helen both. If anyone gets hurt you two are our only infirmary."

"Could we listen in, like we did with the casino?"

"I doubt it. I'm going to guess there won't be much in the way of communication outside the Archives from those inside, not if the information it holds is that restricted. Unfortunately, you may not know what's going on until we get back here."

"I understand," Nan said, then hugged her tightly. "You just stay safe. There are only so many sets of sheets in this apartment, don't go ruining another set by bleeding all over them."

"I'll do my best," Del said, then hurried past her, still barking orders.

Mr. Strange wanted a fight? Wanted to threaten her friends and family? Well, he was about to learn that the people he'd chosen to pick that fight with had taken down threats several kilometers bigger than he was. All of them- well, maybe not Brooks, but the rest- had been tried through fire a thousand times before, and she had full confidence that they'd get through it again.


Liara, with Garrus's help, guided them to a landing spot in a seemingly deserted section of the Citadel near some storage facilities, and the crew piled out, all but bristling with guns. Not a living soul could be seen in any direction.

"Why here?" Wrex asked, looking around with a squint. "This doesn't look like an Archive to me?"

"The Archive is below us," Garrus told him. "Shepard's the only one that's got clearance to go in the front door, and that clearance has registered her as already in there. Until that clearance is logged as leaving, it's locked."

"Yes," Liara said. She was in a hard-suit, but had not put Glyph away. "If we attempted to use Shepard's idents to get in again, while the systems think she's already inside, we would all be locked in a very small room and flooded with sedating gas. By the time security was able to straighten out the mess, it would likely be too late."

"So what's the plan?" Tali asked.

"Tali, c'mon, do you have to ask?" Del gave the quarrian a wink. "What is always my plan?"

"To blow shit up?" Tali said sarcastically, folding her arms, just as Vega stepped past her with a large cannister in his hands.

"Where you want our football?" he asked.

"This way, James," Liara said, directing him to a spot on the floor to set it down. Tali dropped her arms as she watched them, then turned back around to Del.

"I thought you were joking! That's an actual bomb!"

"I never joke about explosions, Mei Mei," Del said with a grin.

As Vega started to set the bomb, Liara addressed the group as a whole. "The Archives are quite sizeable. It is possible that our Mr. Strange went in alone-"

"But I don't get that kind of luck," Del said, stepping up to her side. "Expect that army, full weapons, and those four Atlas suits to be waiting somewhere inside."

"Oh, I really hope so," Wrex grinned, almost dancing from foot to food. Jack was grinning as well, glimmering lightly with blue biotic fire.

"I haven't had a chance to really tear shit up since I started at the Academy," she said. "It'll be nice to stretch."

"Ok, this is set," Vega said, stepping back and tossing the trigger to Del, who deftly caught it. Everyone cleared back outside the blast zone. Wrex, Javik, Jack, and Liara put a biotic dome over the bomb to ensure that its force was directed downward as much as possible, and to shield the others from any possible debris. It swirled in lazy blues and greens.

Del hit the trigger as soon as she was sure it was secure, and the bomb went off, ripping a hole the size of a skycar in the floor at their feet. As the biotics dropped, Wrex grabbed his shotgun and peered into it, then dropped down with a delighted laugh. "Krogan first!"

"And I thought Grunt was a big damned kid," Del said, as the others began to drop down after him.

The hole had allowed access to what looked like a catwalk or ramp of some kind. It was pretty dark, the catwalk branching around to each side and a set of stairs leading down into a short hallway. Beyond that hall the space opened up into a broad room that looked like a loading dock, or a temporary storage location for items being moved in or out of the Archives.

Despite their upbeat mood, the crew were far from careless. Garrus touched Brooks shoulder and tilted his head to the right, then turned himself down the left hand side. Both were carrying snipers. Garrus was a crack shot, but Brooks had nothing much more than basic training with the weapon. If the fight got nasty Brooks was their most vulnerable member. Keeping her out of the thick of the firefight would help keep not only her, but everyone else safe, and Del knew that Garrus would watch her closely.

Wrex lead the group down the stairs but not even he charged into the open room, waiting instead at the end of the short hall with weapons ready, letting Del past them. Her rifle in hand, she surveyed the room carefully. Boxes and crates covered with tarps- some very large- were scattered here and there, and on the far end of the room was door. Ringing the room were those catwalks where Garrus and Brooks had gone.

Seeing nothing untoward, Del carefully stepped out, clearing the corners and then gesturing at the others behind her to follow. Slowly the group trickled in from the hall, spreading out to each side. Del edged a bit to the right, trying to get a better look at the door around a particularly large crate that was standing on its end, half obscuring it.

Above the door, there was a large vent. As she tried to see around the crate her eyes lifted to it, catching an anomaly in pattern that drew her attention.

The vent cover was missing. As she looked, the dark behind the vent was broken by a thin lance of red light that flashed more brightly as it passed over her faceplate.

"Sniper!" she barked, and everyone in the room scattered immediately toward cover. Del's HUD lit up as the hissing whisper of the bullet sizzled past, missing her by inches. One of the biotics sent a wave up toward the vent, but as Del slid down behind one of the crates she realized she could hear a hell of a lot more gunfire, squeals and metallic thuds filling the air.

She looked around her cover again and saw Cat6 soldiers swarming into the room from several of the crates where they had apparently been hidden, the fronts of those crates the source of the thuds as they had fallen and hit the floor. She could see two or three other figures in armor on the catwalk above. The only place they could have come from was the vent.

Garrus dropped one of these, then two, but the other was rushing around toward Brooks. The analyst took a wild shot at one of them, missed. As Del surged out of cover the analyst nearly fell, dropping her rifle.

Del fired, taking out the merc that was closest to Brooks and then spraying shot at the vent where yet another merc appeared to be emerging, forcing them to duck back again. As they did so, Del shifted her aim and sent a bullet through the neck joint of one of the bastards at ground level that was closing in toward Tali, then half ducked as a part of a crate and two more mercs sailed past over her head, riding on a biotic slam that Jack had sent crashing into them.

"Stop!"

Del wasn't sure how many mercs had hidden in those crates- at least half a dozen, but it didn't seem to be more than that. All of them looked to be down.

At the shout, she whipped around, her rifle aiming toward the figure that had shouted.

The largest crate, the one that had almost blocked Del's view of the vent, was still standing- though a few holes had been punched into it. It was tall enough that the top stood fairly level with part of the catwalk. A merc, probably the same one that had started to come out of the vent before Del's gunfire drove them back, was now standing on top of this crate, an arm slung around a clearly terrified and out of breath Brooks. She had a scrape over her face where her helmet had torn past, having been forcefully removed. The muzzle of a pistol was pressed against her bare temple, and an arm was slung around her throat.

Behind the merc on the crate threatening Brooks, another stood in front of the vent. He wore a suit of light armor. No weapons pack was on his back though his shield generator was clear, as was a pistol at his waist. He also had no helmet.

It was his voice that had rung out through the room, and he looked down at Shepard and the others like a politician at a lectern about to give a speech.

"Well, it is good to see you again, Alison," he said. "You and your…girlfriend?"

He gestured lightly at Liara. Most of the crew had come out of cover, and like the other biotics, Liara was writhing with dark energy.

"You know this pendejo, Boss?" Vega asked. From the corner of her eye Del could see Garrus. He was a good shot, but she could see even from here that he couldn't hit the merc holding Brooks hostage without hitting Brooks too, or giving the merc time to empty her skull. So he had fixed his sights firmly on the man on the catwalk.

"Tal Salinos," Del growled. "I'm betting that's as much an alias as the one I gave you."

He gave an amused, condescending little smile. "Do have your crew lower their weapons, and switch off all those lovely biotics. I would hate to see anything happen to your friend."

When Del didn't immediately shift to lower her gun, the merc holding Brooks tightened their arm with a notable aggression, making Brooks squeal.

Del nodded her head, and the glow of biotics started to die, as the others began to lower their weapons. Garrus glowered, setting his sniper down and straightening, showing his hands were nowhere near it. Moving gingerly, Del laid her rifle in front of her feet, then straightened again. "Tell them to let her go."

"I'm a little surprised to see you cooperative," Salinos said. "But I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Why not?" Del snarled. "What the fuck do you want? You hire all these Cat6 goons, outfit an army, and went to a fuck of a lot of effort trying to take me out. What the fuck for? What is your fucking problem with me? What could I possibly have done to you that pissed you off so fucking much? I never met you before the casino!"

Salinos straightened a little, putting a hand on his chest and lifting his brows in a mockery of surprise. "My dear Alison, I've done none of those things!" he said. "My interactions with you have been strictly business. I cannot tell my companion here to let your friend go because, well, she doesn't answer to me. Quite the opposite. Her motivations, I assure you, are less clean than just business. With her-"

"It's very fucking personal," the merc snarled. Taking her arm off of Brook's neck, she gripped the analyst by her hair with a force that immediately had Brooks yelp in pain again. Twisting, she pitched the analyst off the crate as if casting aside a piece of litter. Brooks fell a good fifteen feet and hit the ground hard.

Liara's hand lit up a little as Brooks was thrown, reflexively about to reach out and catch her with biotics, but the merc thrust her pistol forward and spanked a bullet at the asari's feet. She recoiled. The instant she'd fired the shot at Liara, the pistol snapped back to aim at Del's face.

A black anger filled Shepard's head, and no doubt was reflected in her expression. She, too, had tensed to snatch up her rifle or charge- or both- the moment that the merc had fired at her Tianlán, but it seemed the merc bitch's reflexes were just as fast as hers were.

"Don't fucking move," the merc growled, and Del felt an odd sensation. She could have sworn she'd heard that voice before, but couldn't place it.

"You're such a fucking ignorant goon," the merc said, and Del could see some of the others exchanging confused looks. The little of Liara she could see without taking her eyes off the merc, seemed to have gone pale. "You want to know who can hate the great Del Shepard so much?"

Lifting her free hand, the merc reached up and pulled her own helmet off. Strands of black hair stuck to sweat-damp skin that had a slightly reddish hue. Murderously dark eyes burned at her, and the lopsided grin she gave Del was as sharp and mirthless as a switchblade.

"Why, Del Shepard herself, that's fucking who!"