Garrus' omni-tool had beeped to tell him that the wind had just changed direction. The crowd's cheering was nearly deafening and almost made him miss the notice. He knew it was going to be tough for Shepard to hear his call with the cheering in the background but Shepard needed this information to line up his shot. He activated his comm. and began to give Shepard the latest wind speed and direction.

"GARRUS…..FAILSAFE!"

Before Garrus could finish his report, he heard Shepard shouting something over the comm. The crowd's cheering made it hard for him to hear the whole message but one word he heard in particular stood out: failsafe. Garrus knew something was wrong because Shepard would never use that word in a transmission otherwise. Shepard was telling him to get Tali off the stage immediately.

Garrus shot out of his chair and charged onto the stage. As he ran, he pulled off the quarian mask he was wearing so as not to alarm Tali too much when she saw him coming at her. Tali quickly recognized him and her smile vanished as she became slightly confused as to why she was seeing him. She didn't get the chance to ask as she heard a shot just as Garrus reached her. Instinct quickly overtook Garrus and he jumped onto her and forced her down to the ground. As they fell, Garrus felt the bullet fly by mere inches behind him. The bullet had to have been a large caliber round because when it struck the stage's backdrop, an explosion of splinters shot out and rained down on top of Garrus and Tali.

Between the sound of the gunshot and the explosion of splinters, it didn't take long for the crowd to realize what was going on. The cheers quickly turned into panicked screams as everyone in the crowd raced for the nearest exits. The only people not running for the exits were the members of Tali's security team. Half of them were trying to locate the source of the gunfire while the other half was rushing the stage to assist Tali who was now being helped up by Garrus. They drew their weapons on Garrus but were quickly ordered to stand down by Tali as she told them who he was. Garrus then started leading Tali off of the stage while the security team provided cover for them.

"Garrus what's going on?" she asked as they approached her skycar.

"We need to get you out of here," Garrus replied, "the mystery backer sent someone to kill you."

"What?"

"I promise I'll explain everything later but right now you need to go."

Tali wanted to ask more questions but the urgency in Garrus' face told her that it was not the time for it. She gave Garrus a quick hug and got into her skycar. Once the skycar's doors were closed, Garrus banged on the roof signaling the driver to pull out. As the skycar flew off, Garrus called Shepard on his comm.

"We're all good down here Shepard," he asked, "Tali's being evacuated now. Did you get the shooter?"

"No," Shepard's voice replied, "he moved out of my view before I could take the shot. He's in the building directly across from where Tali was speaking. I'm on foot and heading there now. The shooter was on the eighth floor so if we hurry we should get there before he's able to leave the building."

"Copy that, out."

After Garrus signed off, he asked the leader of Tali's security team if he could borrow a skycar. He agreed and showed Garrus to the nearest one. As he got into the skycar, Garrus silently hoped that Shepard would find the shooter first. He figured Shepard was going to want to talk to the shooter first. But it was going to be hard for Garrus to resist the urge to kill the shooter on sight for what he almost did to Tali.

(BANG!)

The first shot Ashley fired was a perfect headshot killing the hostile instantly. Before any of the three remaining hostiles had a chance to react, she fired two rounds into each one. When the last hostile hit the floor, she lowered herself out of the vent surprising the hostages when she landed. Ashley quickly introduced herself to them and raised her gun in case any hostiles tried to enter the conference room to investigate the shots. While nobody entered, she nearly jumped when she heard Luciana's voice coming over an intercom.

"We just lost the team responsible for guarding the hostages. All personnel report to the conference room and take out any intruders you find."

Shortly after Luciana stopped speaking, Ashley heard gunfire coming from outside the room. Convinced that the hostages' ties would keep them from going anywhere, Ashley peeked out the door and saw Liara positioned behind some cover and engaging hostiles coming from down the hallway. Liara saw Ashley out of the corner of her eye and laid down some suppressive fire allowing Ashley to join her behind the cover. The two then began alternating firing and reloading while keeping the hostiles from getting near the conference room. Before long the hostiles started dropping as Ashley and Liara's shots started hitting them.

As the hostiles kept appearing and dropping, Ashley started to feel that something was wrong. If she was counting right, they had almost killed every remaining hostile that they saw on the camera feeds. There was no reason for all of the hostiles to come to the conference room. The smart choice would have been to leave some of the men at their posts to wait and ambush them when they tried to get the hostages out. Why was Luciana ordering all of her men to charge into what would ultimately be their deaths?

After a few more minutes of fighting, the last hostile dropped and no more new ones appeared. Bodies were sprawled out all over the hallway. Ashley and Liara shared a confused look as they both reached the same conclusion. There were indeed twenty dead bodies in the hallway. If they added the four hostiles Ashley killed in the conference room, then they had killed twenty-four out of the twenty-five hostiles they counted when they did their recon. The only hostile left was Luciana herself.

"What just happened?" Ashley asked.

Liara shook her head, "I don't know. Do you think this was the plan all along?"

"Maybe, if Luciana thought we had made our choice coming to save the hostages, sacrificing her people like this could have been her way to ensure they got out okay. She did say that she and the backer try their best not to cause innocent casualties. They'd rather sacrifice their own people since they're criminals. Although I doubt they would have let that stop them from killing the hostages if they thought we chose to save only Tali."

Liara gasped, "she still might kill that hostage she took if she finds out Shepard and Garrus are on Rannoch."

"You're right. First let's get the other hostages out of here and then we'll go after Luciana."

Liara nodded and followed Ashley back into the conference room. Once inside they started releasing the nine hostages seated around the conference table. It wasn't normal procedure to let hostages go anywhere alone but Ashley and Liara were convinced it was safe enough since Luciana was the only hostile left. So they sent the hostages on their way and informed them to tell the Alliance forces outside to hold position until the final hostage was secured. Once the last hostage left the conference room, Ashley and Liara went out through another door to follow Luciana into what turned out to be a room full of cubicles that were used as the offices for the brokers who worked in the building.

(BANG!)

They had barely set foot into the offices when a shot hit the doorframe inches from them. They ducked into the nearest cubicle just as another shot hit where they were standing. Ashley peeked out from the cubicle and was able to just make out Luciana across the room. The hostage she called Ms. Morrison was being held in front of her as a human shield. Though Morrison's long blond hair was draped over her face and she was wearing glasses, Ashley could make out fear in her eyes and tears rolling down her face. With no clean shot she could take, Ashley had no choice but to try reasoning.

"It's over Luciana!" she said. "All of your men are dead and the other hostages have escaped. Let Ms. Morrison go and we'll let you walk away."

"HA!" Luciana laughed. "I know that you can't just let me walk. Ardat-Yakshis like me are not allowed to live. If I let Ms. Morrison go you'll just gun me down like an animal. Now I have a shuttle waiting for me and until I reach it, Ms. Morrison is coming with me to ensure that you don't try anything."

There was nothing Ashley and Liara could do but watch as Luciana retreated further into the room as Ms. Morrison cried out for help. Ashley looked to Liara hoping for an idea but Liara's mind seemed to be elsewhere. Before Ashley could ask what she was thinking about, a smile like the one she had in the maintenance room appeared.

"I think I know where she's going," she said, "I have an idea. Follow me."

With no time to ask questions, Ashley followed Liara back into the conference room.

The building that Shepard had seen the sniper in was, to his surprise, the local police headquarters. It was hard for him to believe a sniper could infiltrate a police station but Shepard decided that was a question to be asked at another time. When he arrived, the building was surrounded by numerous cops and vehicles. Normally you would expect to see that at a police station but the way they were organized looked like a standoff at a bank robbery or hostage situation. As he approached the main entrance, he saw that Garrus was already there and was in a heated argument with an officer who was manning a small section of the barricade that went around the headquarters.

"I'm sorry sir but anyone who is not a police officer is not allowed in the building at this time," said the officer.

"I am a police officer," Garrus replied.

"But you're not a local police officer. Your C-SEC credentials don't mean anything on Rannoch."

"Do Spectre credentials mean anything here?" Shepard asked as he approached.

The officer turned to argue with Shepard but froze when he recognized him. Even if Shepard wasn't a recognizable war hero, the fact he was one of only two human Spectres made it so that he didn't need to show any credentials. The officer snapped to attention and stood to the side to let Shepard and Garrus pass. On the way in Shepard gave Garrus a pistol. Garrus couldn't risk sneaking weapons into the park so he had to leave his gun behind. Now that both of them were armed, they carefully entered the police headquarters' main lobby.

The lobby didn't offer much cover but it meant that Shepard and Garrus would spot the shooter easily if he was in the area. Unfortunately the shooter was nowhere to be seen. The pair did one thorough sweep to confirm and gave an all clear call to the officers outside. Once the officers were inside, Shepard explained that he and Garrus were going to work their way up and search floor by floor. As they progressed, the officers would follow them up and guard all access to the lower levels in case the shooter got past them and tried to come down. The officers all nodded to acknowledge the plan and Shepard then led Garrus up to the next level.

Their search went without much action for the first seven floors. It was when they got to the eighth floor that they finally found something. Inside what appeared to be an armory, a Black Widow sniper rifle was found lying by a window that overlooked the park. Shepard's knowledge of all weapons told him that to use a as powerful a weapon as a Black Widow to kill one quarian was overkill and he figured the sniper knew that. This only confirmed Shepard's hunch that Toombs was the sniper. He was someone who would hate Tali strongly enough to go to such extremes to kill her. The only other clue was some shrapnel on the floor that likely came from the spot where Shepard's shot struck the exterior wall.

"I don't like this Shepard," Garrus said after they had cleared the floor, "we should have found the shooter by now. The only other place he could have gone is up but it makes no sense for him to do that."

"Unless he has a ride coming to pick him up," Shepard replied as he activated his comm. to speak to the officer from outside, "Officer have any shuttles landed on the roof in the last few hours?"

"No sir," the officer's voice replied, "no shuttles are expected to arrive today and we haven't seen any unauthorized shuttle's approach the building."

Shepard silenced his comm. and said to Garrus, "we need to be careful. The shooter was probably told that a shuttle would be coming to get him on the roof. If the shuttle hasn't arrived by now it probably won't at all. That's going to make him desperate and he might try something stupid to get out."

Garrus nodded and followed Shepard up to the next floor. With their pistols raised, they entered what turned out to be the holding cells area. The silence told them that they were empty of prisoners. They both knew however that it didn't necessarily mean that were completely empty. Shepard silently ordered Garrus to go down one row of cells while he went down the other. He then slowly made his way to the opposite end of the hall peeking into each cell as he went. He didn't have much luck until…

(SLAM!)

When Shepard was about to enter one of the middle cells, the door slid shut catching Shepard's gun arm between the doorframe and the door. His combat armor protected him from feeling pain but the surprise of the door shutting was enough to cause him to drop his gun. The door then opened again and Toombs appeared. Before Shepard could react, Toombs grabbed him and pulled him into the cell. He then threw Shepard across the cell and into the back wall. Shepard turned around in time to see Toombs closing the cell door and grab the gun from the floor. Shepard charged at Toombs and managed to push the gun away before Toombs could fire a shot. The two then struggled to gain control of the weapon.

As they fought, a banging sound was heard on the cell door. Garrus had come to investigate the noise and was trying to get inside. Unfortunately the door held firm and since the cell was not lined with bars he couldn't fire a shot to hit Toombs. With no other choice Garrus shouted that he was going to get the key from one of the officers.

Inside the cell, Shepard had managed to twist Toombs' arm enough that he got him to let go of the gun. He then brought up his knee and hit Toombs in the gut. He followed up by straightening Toombs up and punched him across the face. The punch sent Toombs into the wall. To Shepard's surprise, it didn't take long for Toombs to recover from the punch. When he hit the wall, he bounced right off of it and came head on into Shepard ramming him into the opposite wall. Toombs then went to throw a punch of his own but Shepard managed to move his head to the side causing Toombs to hit the wall instead. The sound of the impact made even Shepard feel the pain Toombs was no doubt feeling in his hand. While Toombs was nursing his hand, Shepard made an attempt to reason with him.

"Please Toombs," he said, "I don't want to kill you. I probably should after what you did to Miranda but I'm not the murderer you and your boss think I am. If you stop this now and tell me who you're working for, I'll see to it that you receive a lighter sentence."

"Never!" Toombs shouted as he went to throw another punch.

Fortunately Shepard was able to grab the punch and used it to help flip Toombs over so that he was now lying on his back. Toombs was quick to get back on his feet and into a crouch position. He then did a sweeping kick knocking Shepard off his feet and onto the ground as well. Before Shepard could get up, Toombs jumped on top of him. Shepard tried to push Toombs off of him but Toombs had already gotten himself situated and was able to resist Shepard's struggle. Toombs then wrapped both his hands around Shepard's throat and started choking him. Shepard grabbed Toombs' hands and tried to remove them from his throat. He fought hard at first but his dwindling air supply caused him to get weaker. As he started to black out, he could see Toombs had an evil smile on his face and heard him begin to laugh.

"I may not have gotten your quarian friend Shepard," he said between laughs, "but at least I will have the pleasure of killing you. I told you I would be serving your death sentence someday. Goodbye Cerberus stooge."

Shepard listened but could not hear any sounds coming from outside the cell. Where was Garrus with the key? It was getting harder for him to think straight as the oxygen supply to his brain dropped. He was almost beginning to see the inside of his eye sockets as his eyes started rolling up. With the last bit of thought process he could muster, he decided to try one last thing. His right hand let go of Toombs' hand and pulled back like he was going to punch him again. However this time his omni-tool appeared and was glowing red instead of its usual orange. Toombs was so focused on choking Shepard that he didn't notice what was happening. Within seconds, Shepard's omni-blade deployed and ran across Toombs' neck. In one swift motion, Shepard straightened his arm causing the blade to go clean through Toombs' neck. Toombs' face briefly showed surprise before his whole head came off and rolled across the cell floor.

Now that Toombs no longer had a hold on his neck, Shepard gasped as he was able to breathe again. As he took in more breaths, he slowly started getting his senses back and rolled Toombs' headless body off of him. He sat himself up and rested up against the cell wall. Even though he knew it was necessary for him to survive, Shepard was disgusted by what he did to Toombs. Shepard was not someone who liked to use blades on people but there were times like this where it was his best option. If he had to kill someone, he would prefer to use his gun and get it done quickly so the person didn't suffer.

A click coming from the cell door snapped Shepard out of his thoughts. The door then unlocked and opened revealing Garrus on the other side. Garrus raced to Shepard's side and helped him up onto his feet. After taking in the sight of what happened to Toombs, Garrus focus turned to Shepard who was starting to get some color back into his face.

"Are you okay Shepard?" he asked.

"I think so," Shepard replied while still panting, "I might want to have a medic take a look at me just in case. Can you help me get to the elevator?"

Garrus smiled as he offered Shepard a shoulder and helped him out of the cell to the nearby elevator.

The situation on the inside of the headquarters may have been resolved but the outside was still somewhat frantic as officers were running around and yelling orders trying to get the place completely secured. In spite of the chaos there was one happy moment happening in the middle of it. Shepard and Garrus emerged from the building and were greeted by Tali waving to them from the crowd standing along the perimeter. Shepard asked for one of the officers to allow Tali past the perimeter while Garrus helped Shepard over to a nearby medic. Once Garrus had helped Shepard onto a gurney, he turned around just in time to be greeted by Tali's embrace. As the couple hugged, a medic approached Shepard and gave him a quick examination. When the medic gave him clean bill of health, Shepard joined Tali and Garrus as they walked away from the headquarters.

"Thank you both for saving my life," Tali said.

"You're welcome Tali," Shepard replied, "you'd do the same for us."

"I'm sure she has on more than one occasion," said Garrus.

"Are we keeping score now?" Tali chuckled.

Shepard was about to reply when his comm. started ringing. He tapped his ear to answer it and was nearly deafened by Traynor talking hysterically. It took a few moments before Shepard was finally able to calm her down enough to speak clearly. As she spoke, Shepard's face turned from one of concern to one filled with sheer terror. This did not go unnoticed by Garrus and Tali who shared a look of concern and were trying hard to suppress the urge to interrupt Shepard and find out what was going on. Suddenly Shepard's legs gave way and he would have hit the ground if Tali and Garrus weren't there to catch him. Not able to wait anymore, Tali spoke up.

"What's going on Shepard?"

Liara's hunch had paid off. After following some directions she provided, Ashley arrived at the trade center's shuttle garage. She carefully entered and was relieved to see that there was only one shuttle parked inside. At least it wasn't going to be hard finding Luciana's shuttle. There was no sign of Luciana or Morrison so Ashley figured that they hadn't arrived yet. Liara did tell her that the directions would get her to the garage before them. Not wasting a second, she ran to the lone shuttle and climbed inside. She situated herself inside the pilot's compartment and raised her rifle so that it would greet the next person who entered the shuttle.

A few minutes later, Ashley heard the sound of Morrison screaming for help. Then she heard Luciana telling Morrison to shut up and that she would be set free once they reached the shuttle. Luciana then dragged Morrison into the shuttle and froze when she found herself staring down the barrel of Ashley's rifle. Unfortunately before Ashley could get a shot off, Luciana managed to get Morrison directly between her and Ashley.

"I told you not to follow us Commander," Luciana said, "do you want me to kill Ms. Morrison?"

"Please," Morrison sobbed, "I don't want to die."

"You're not going to die Ms. Morrison," Ashley said as she took a step forward, "Luciana you don't believe in killing innocent people. Ms. Morrison is not a criminal nor does she have any connection to Captain Shepard. Killing her would be murder and you keep trying to convince people you're not a murderer. Don't do something that will prove you wrong."

Luciana stepped back from Ashley and took Morrison out of the shuttle, "on the contrary Commander it will be you who kills her. I'm giving you every chance to save her by letting me go. If I pull the trigger, it will be your fault."

Ashley continued to step closer forcing Luciana to keep moving back. Convinced that Ashley was not going to back down, Luciana started to pull the trigger. It was then she suddenly realized that she wasn't moving. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't move a single muscle. She quickly figured out that she had been put into stasis. With Luciana unable to move, Ashley was able to safely pull Morrison away and started comforting her. Then Liara appeared from Luciana's peripheral vision. Liara took Luciana's gun and then pointed her own right at Luciana's head. Nothing happened for several seconds until Luciana was finally released from stasis and was able to speak again.

"You could have just shot me while I was in stasis." she said, "why didn't you?"

"I wanted to," Liara replied, "but the Commander insisted that we do this the right way. Get down on your knees please."

Luciana scoffed but she did what she was asked and also bowed her head.

"Find peace in the embrace of the goddess," Liara said quoting the phrase Samara would use when she executed a criminal.

(BANG!)

The shot went clean through Luciana's head killing her instantly. Ashley and Liara watched her body fall down while Morrison covered her mouth in shock. Like Shepard, Ashley and Liara never took pleasure in killing people but they were almost willing to make an exception for Luciana because of the friends they lost thanks to her. After a second they both started comforting Morrison who was now visibly shaking because of the ordeal.

"It's okay Ms. Morrison," Ashley said calmly, "it's over now."

Morrison didn't speak but managed to nod her head to indicate that she understood. Ashley and Liara each took one of Morrison's arms and helped her inside the shuttle to let her rest in one of the seats. They then stepped out of the shuttle to give her some space. The two then shook hands to congratulate each other.

"Great job Liara," said Ashley.

"You too Ashley," Liara replied, "I also got some good news from Rannoch. Shepard and Garrus were able to rescue Tali. It shouldn't be long now before they find the shooter. All in all, I don't think we could have asked for a better outcome."

Suddenly Ashley's comm. started ringing indicating Specialist Hawkins was calling her. She answered the call and was about to give a report when Hawkins spoke first. Unfortunately Ashley wasn't able to hear clearly what he said. She stepped away from the shuttle and asked for Hawkins to repeat what he said.

(BANG!)

A gunshot was heard and Ashley felt something wet hit her back. She didn't bother wiping any of it off as she had an awful feeling what it was. When she looked back towards the shuttle, she gasped at what she saw. Lying next to Luciana face down and completely still was Liara.

"LIARA!" Ashley screamed.

Ashley ran over to Liara's body and carefully turned her over. She instantly locked eyes with Liara's which were wide open like something surprised her. If the fact that Liara's eyes had no life in them didn't tell Ashley that she was dead, the bullet hole in her head sure did. Ashley wanted to cry but she was more concerned with where the shot came from. There was no one in front of her so that meant it could only come from….

Ashley slowly turned around and found herself staring into a pistol's barrel. She looked past the pistol to see that it was being held by Morrison who no longer looked like the terrified woman Ashley had just left in the shuttle. Instead she looked at Ashley with a sinister smile. She also was no longer a blonde as she was now sporting long brown hair and she was not wearing her glasses anymore. The blonde wig Ashley thought was her hair and the glasses were on the ground next to her. The shock of the new woman in front of her made Ashley speechless.

"Commander," the woman formally known as Ms. Morrison said, "I believe you and your husband have been looking for me the last two years."