Shepard and Grunt didn't have time to mourn as they suddenly heard a beeping sound coming from the terminal connected to the bio-toxin. Shepard ran over to see that the beating heart icon had stopped and the timer was counting down. It didn't take long for him to figure out what was going on. The timer was linked with a heartbeat monitor that monitored Vido's heart rate. The idea being that once Vido was dead and his heart stopped beating, the timer would begin counting down. Now Shepard had less than five minutes to disarm the device. He started typing a few buttons to see if he could find the disarm commands. He finally found it but when he opened the commands, a message popped up. When Shepard read the message, his heart sank.

"DISARMING MECHANISM DISABLED"

"Dammit,' Shepard cursed.

"What's wrong Shepard?" Grunt asked.

"Vido sabotaged the device," Shepard said, "I can't disarm it."

"Well then I say we smash it."

"There's no way to guarantee that would stop the device from working. Maybe I can dismantle it and remove the triggering mechanism."

Unfortunately it didn't take long for Shepard to see that his idea was not going to work. The likely spot where the important hardware would be housed was behind a steel plate that was screwed into place. It was going to take him too long just to take off the plate. Despite having a thorough knowledge of explosives, he wouldn't have enough time to find the trigger mechanism. Shepard realized that Vido chose five minutes as the time because he knew no one could disable it in that amount of time.

From Shepard's point of a view, the situation was hopeless. Vido knew what he was doing with the device. He set the bomb in such a way so that once it was armed, there was no chance of being disarmed before it released the toxin. Two minutes had gone by while Shepard assessed his situation and now there was only three minutes left. Even though they were still a ways out from the city, the toxin would still kill a lot of krogan.

Grunt was able to figure out the same thing when he saw the sense hopelessness on Shepard's face. He looked out the door and could see the city in the distance. Krogan were not easily willing to admit defeat. As Grunt stared out towards the city, he knew that he would not do that now. There was one thing he could try. It might not help a lot but it would do some good and in his mind it made it worth trying. First he had to be sure that there was nothing Shepard could do to talk him out of it.

A noise got Shepard's attention and he looked up to see Grunt taking the turian from driver's seat and throwing him out of the Hammerhead. Shepard walked over to Grunt to find out what he was doing but was surprised when Grunt proceeded to pick him up and throw him out as well. He was slightly dazed from the landing but quickly got to his feet and turned to get back into the Hammerhead. But he found the door to be closed and heard the engines revving up. He quickly activated his comm. and tried to get through to Grunt but got no response. Unable to do anything else, Shepard just watched as the Hammerhead turned away from the city and flew away.

When he couldn't see the Hammerhead anymore, Shepard turned his attention to the turian that Grunt threw out before him. He started to apply some first aid to the wounds the turian sustained when the Hammerhead crashed. It was then that he finally heard a reply from Grunt.

"Sorry I had to throw you out Shepard but I didn't think you would approve of what I'm doing," he said.

"What exactly are you doing Grunt?" Shepard asked slightly agitated.

"I figured if we can't disarm the device then I can at least get it out somewhere where it won't do any damage."

"Grunt there was less than three minutes on the timer. You're not going to make it in time."

"I HAVE TO TRY SHEPARD! THESE ARE THE LIVES OF MY PEOPLE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT! Would you just sit around if it was your people who were in danger?"

Shepard sighed, "No I wouldn't. Just make sure you take that vaccine I gave you before the timer goes off. I already lost one friend today. I don't want to lose another one."

"Don't worry Shepard. I'll be fine. Grunt out."

After Grunt signed off, Shepard pulled out his own vaccine vial and injected himself with it. He pulled out his spare vial and went to give it to the turian but found that he was dead. Shepard figured the crash must have done more damage to the turian than he thought. He began to call the shuttle for an extraction when he noticed something strange. The turian's omni-tool was visible like it had been recently used. Shepard quickly pulled out his own omni-tool and tried to see if he could sync it with the turian's. The sync proved successful and Shepard pulled up the turian's recent activity. The only thing listed was that the turian had sent a message seconds before he died. Unfortunately the message was deleted after it was sent so Shepard couldn't see its content or find out who the recipient was. It couldn't have been Vido because he was already dead and the Dalatrass was in custody. Could it have been Vido's real client? His thoughts were interrupted when he heard Grunt's voice on the comm.

"Shepard, are you there?"

"What is it Grunt?" he replied.

"Something's wrong. The timer reached zero but the bio-toxin didn't get released."

"Say again?"

"The bio-toxin is not being released. Maybe the device failed."

"Maybe. Better to be safe than sorry though. Get it out of the city's range."

"I'm almost clear now. At least if it decides to go off now it won't hurt anyone. Okay Shepard. I'm at the minimum safe distance."

"Great. Park the Hammerhead. I'll call the shuttle and have it…"

(KA-BOOOOM)!

Before Shepard could finish his statement, a loud explosion was heard coming through his comm. For a second he thought he had gone deaf. When he recovered he looked towards the direction of the Hammerhead. It was small but off in the distance Shepard could see a pillar of smoke. Quickly Shepard tapped his ear to restore his comm.

"Grunt what happened?" he said.

Silence.

"Grunt are you okay?….Come on Grunt talk to me!…..GRUNT!"

Sadly only silence responded to Shepard's cry. Dejected, Shepard dropped to his knees. He just couldn't believe what had happened. Within a matter of a few minutes, two of his friends were dead. Despite killing Vido, capturing the Dalatrass and saving a major krogan city from a bio-toxin attack, Shepard felt like he failed the mission.

He was also feeling confused. Too many things didn't make sense. Why didn't the bio-toxin get released when the countdown ended and what caused the explosion? When the timer reached zero the bio-toxin was still in close enough range to kill a few krogan in the city, which Shepard thought was the point of the attack. Why did nothing happen until after Grunt got out of range of the city? It made no tactical sense and Vido was a tactical man who would not have allowed a mistake like that to happen. Plus the fire from the explosion that did happen would have vaporized the toxin before any damage could be done. So why release the toxin that way?

As Shepard sat there pondering these questions, a voice was calling him over his comm. It was Ashley checking on his status.

"What's happening down there skipper?" she asked. "We could see the explosion from up here in the shuttle. Are you alright?"

"Williams…" Shepard began to say but couldn't quite finish.

"Skipper?" Ashley said, her voice showing more signs of panic.

Shepard took one more breath and finally spoke, "the city is safe. The explosion was outside the lethal range and Vido is dead."

Shepard could hear Ashley breathe a sigh of relief, "that's great news sir. We got the Dalatrass onto the Normandy. Cortez and I are on our way to…."

"Ash," Shepard interrupted calling her by her first name, "Grunt and Zaeed are dead."

This time it was Ashley's turn to be silent for a minute.

"What?" she gasped. "How?"

"I….I don't know," said Shepard who was now starting to sob, "I just…don't know. Dammit Ash, nothing that happened here makes sense. We find out Vido wasn't actually working for the Dalatrass, nothing happened when the bio-toxin countdown ended, and for no apparent reason the Hammerhead explodes right when Grunt got it outside the toxin's lethal range. I…I just don't understand it. What's going on here Ash?"

"I wish I knew," Ashley replied, "I'm having Cortez pilot the shuttle towards your comm. signal. We'll pick you up and head back to the Normandy. Maybe we can figure out some stuff once we're on board."

"I hope so."

With that said, Shepard got off his knees and sat down to wait for the shuttle to arrive, all the while looking towards direction of the smoke pillar.

Over the course of the next few days, several major events and investigations occurred. The first was an investigation into the explosion of the Hammerhead. Salvage teams determined that the device Shepard found on board did contain samples of Thoros-B. If the device had worked properly, it would have been dispersed and a lot of krogan would have been lost. Unfortunately they couldn't determine why the device failed. They did however find a spot underneath the Hammerhead that looked like a blast zone. This indicated that a bomb had been placed underneath it and explained what caused the explosion Shepard saw. Unfortunately no one could explain why a bomb was there in the first place.

Dalatrass Linron was brought before the Council and other leaders in the Salarian Union to face charges of conspiring to commit mass genocide. Her plea for everyone to understand that everything she did was all in the galaxy's best interest fell on deaf ears. She was found guilty of the charges and was stripped of her title before being sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. Despite the charges, the Council offered her a lighter sentence if she would tell them the name of the client that she represented in her negotiations with the Blue Suns. The Dalatrass declined the deal all the while claiming that she didn't work for anyone and the operation was all her doing. The only explanation anyone could come up with was whoever the client was, they were someone powerful enough that they were even capable of scaring the Dalatrass into silence.

Shepard stayed true to what he told Dr. Cohen and launched a raid on Binary Helix's base on Noveria. The raid's goal was to shut down the facility and extract Dr. Cohen. Shepard realized back on Tuchanka that he only assumed Dr. Cohen was referring to the Dalatrass when he talked about the client who bought the Thoros-B samples. Yet Dr. Cohen never mentioned the client's name. Shepard needed Dr. Cohen to tell him who the actual client was. When the raid was over, all employees found at the base were taken into custody and the facility was shut down. Sadly Dr. Cohen was found in his office dead. When Shepard questioned the staff to find out what happened, all they said was that they were ordered to kill him. Shepard figured that the client must have realized Dr. Cohen was a loose end and paid Binary Helix to silence him.

With no other leads to go on, Shepard turned to Liara for one last attempt to ID the client. He sent her the turian's omni-tool data to see if she could recover the content of the last message he sent or trace where it was sent. Despite every trick she had up her sleeve, Liara was unable to recover the content of the message. She did however make one critical discovery. The message was sent to an extranet address that was encrypted in a similar way as the bank account that funded Balak's coup attempt seven months ago. Unfortunately the encryption was still just as unbreakable as it was back then and she couldn't I.D. the owner of the extranet address. Overall, the mission to save the krogan was a success but the investigation into the events led to more questions than answers.