Shepard set the car down at the transit station and popped the door. She glanced back at Kaidan. "Give us a second, will you, Sport?"

"Is 'Sport' going to be a thing, Captain, or can I request something a little less eight year old T-ball player?" Kaidan asked as he climbed out.

Shepard grinned. "Sure, how does Sparky hit you?"

Kaidan laughed and pointed over to the far wall by the med clinic door. "I'll just be over there."

Shepard leaned back in her seat. "So, Nihlus, we both suspected the council was covering for Saren," she said softly.

Nihlus just stared out the front. "Harkin's not exactly reliable. He was intent on crawling into your armour at the time."

"What if he is reliable? Is any evidence going to make a difference, or do we take them whatever we dig up, only to find ourselves and the entire crew of the Normandy on the wrong end of a kill order?" She looked over at him. "I need to know what I'm getting my people into here, Nihlus."

"We find evidence that they can't ignore." He got out of the car, his shotgun settling easily into his hands.

Shepard sighed and shook her head. "Shepard, the asari councillor left her poodle on Illium . . .." She climbed out and headed for the med clinic door, but before she palmed the control, she turned to Nihlus. "If we meet resistance in here, I'm lead." When he gave her a stiff nod, she hit the door control.

The door opened to chaos.

"Sweet baby Jesus." Shepard ran in the door, taking stock of the situation as she crossed the few metres of open floor. Five bad guys with a female hostage just head and to the right, and a C-Sec agent on the far left hand side of the room. Ducking behind a low wall, she shouted, "Kaidan, take cover at the end by C-Sec over there. Nihlus, draw their fire down the wall. I'll go for the woman." She launched her drone to draw off some fire, then overloaded the thug holding the hostage. The tech attack stunned both of them, giving her a chance to move. Leaping over the wall, Shepard grabbed the hostage and spun her behind some crates, using her shields to give the woman cover.

Surrounded and unable to find shelter from the hail of bullets, the small squad of thugs went down within seconds.

"Slick as shit," Shepard said, grinning as Nihlus came around the corner and gave her a firm nod. "Hm. Sterner stuff, indeed."

After making sure the last one was dead, Shepard turned to the woman, who remained hunkered in the corner behind the crate, her arms wrapped around her knees.

"Hey there." The captain crouched down in front of her. "Are you okay? What's your name?"

"I'm fine, just shaken up." The woman took a deep breath and nodded, meeting Shepard's stare with a far steadier one than she would have thought. "My name's Dr. Chloe Michel. Thank you for saving me."

Shepard stood and held out her hand to help her up. "It's our pleasure. I'm just glad we didn't sit in the car talking any longer. Sorry about the overload there. It seemed better to stun you than let him shoot you, but I know it stings." She gave the doctor's hand a comforting squeeze then turned to the turian at the other end of the room. "You Vakarian?"

"Yeah, Garrus Vakarian." He looked to the doctor. "Are you all right, Dr. Michel?" When she assured him she was, he turned back to Shepard. "And who are you?" He looked at the three of them like they'd dropped out of the sky. She supposed they sort of had.

"Comm . . . Captain Jane Shepard," she said, pointing to herself. "Spectre Nihlus Kryik, and Lt. Sparky Alenko." She ignored the exasperated glare from the LT., well . . . except for shooting him a quick grin. "We've been looking for you."

"Shepard? Kyrik?" Vakarian walked over to her. "You're the ones who were on Eden Prime?"

"Yeah, we were there," Nihlus said, stepping forward. "We're trying to prove that Saren Arterius was responsible for the attack. My sources said you were investigating him?"

Shepard looked to Kaidan. "Keep an eye on the door, LT."

"Yes, ma'am."

She looked back to the C-Sec officer. "Can you help us out?"

He nodded. "I was investigating Saren before we even heard about the attack on Eden Prime. I started hearing reports from all over the traverse and terminus of quarian pilgrims disappearing. When I first started making inquiries, I'd heard of maybe five disappearances, but once I started asking questions, the number rose to nearly a hundred."

Shepard watched him, staring intently into his ice-blue eyes. She liked him, she decided. He didn't have Kryik's 'never met a situation he couldn't defeat' arrogance, and still seemed to give a rat's ass. That alone was rare enough to be noteworthy. "So, why are you here? And what does a bunch of missing quarians have to do with Saren?" She thought for a second, wondering what a quarian pilgrim was. Her mind spat out an environment suited alien wearing a thanksgiving costume. "Probably not right," she muttered to herself.

The doctor cleared her throat. "I believe I may be of some assistance."

Shepard looked over at her and grinned: the doctor had pluck. "Okay, doctor. The floor is yours."

"A young female quarian came to me last last night. She'd been shot in the arm. Polonium rounds. Naturally, because of her weakened immune system, she was quite ill. She was very frightened, said she'd escaped from the geth and needed to find somewhere safe to stay and had information to trade for it." She looked at Vakarian, the expression on her face almost as amusingly adoring as Vakarian's was oblivious. "That's when I called Garrus, but before he got here, she took off, said she'd been told to talk to Fist." Her expression said she knew Garrus would know that name. He did not disappoint.

"Fist is low-life, bottom-rung loser in organized crime, but also an agent for the Shadow Broker," Garrus offered. "If she went to Fist for help hiding, she's just going to get killed. Fist's as watertight as a rusted out toilet."

"Wow, thanks for that mind-gem." Shepard shuddered and looked to Nihlus. "So, we visit Fist?" When he nodded, she started for the door. Part way, she turned back. "You going to be okay, Doc?"

Chloe Michel nodded. "Yes, thank you, Captain. I think it's an excellent time to take a few days off."

Shepard grinned. "Couldn't have said it better myself. Nothing screams spa weekend like being taken hostage by thugs. Take care." She pointed to Garrus. "Vakarian, walk with us." As she reached the door, Nihlus stepped up beside her. She looked over at him and gave him a wink, glad to see him checking back in.

Garrus strode up next to her. "You going after Fist, Captain?"

She looked over at him and nodded. "You know where we can find him?"

"He owns Chora's Den." He looked at her with an expression she decided to call 'excited puppy'. "Take me with you? I need to know where all this is going."

"Sure. You good with those guns?" She laughed when he just raised a brow plate at her and set his head at a cocky tilt. "Guess so." She palmed the door and gestured for Kaidan to fall in. "So, Vakarian, why do you think Saren is behind your missing quarians?"

Garrus made a subharmonic rumble of disgust down low in his throat that sent a tingle down her spine. "Saren is that cop everyone knows is dirty but who's so well protected that no one can ever prove it. When I started looking at the data, he was in the area near way too many of the disappearances to be coincidence."

Shepard opened the car. "Okay, so . . . what's a quarian pilgrim? I'm assuming it has nothing to do with turkeys."

Kaidan let out a coughing laugh, but the two turians just stared at her. She shook her head. "At least Sparky got the joke. Get in gentlemen."

Nihlus climbed in the front. "Quarians leave the flotilla when they reach adulthood, going on a pilgrimage to find something of value to take back to the flotilla."

Shepard hummed and nodded as she closed the hatch. "Okay, so coming of age." Lifting off, she sent the car zipping into the traffic lane. She added one and one and got zero. "Wait. Quarians are really tight knit, aren't they? That means we have a whole lot of frantic quarian parents somewhere? Why haven't we heard anything about this?"

"They're also very insular," Nihlus added, "and they don't trust council authorities."

Shepard cut a glance across at him and tipped her head, acknowledging that fact. "Yeah. Guess you get treated like dog crap on someone's boot long enough, you start to resent it. Go figure."

Vakarian made that grumbling sound that gave her goosepimples again. "Let's hope this quarian can tell us what's going on."

"Didn't we just fight our way into Chora's Den?" Kaidan sighed.

Shepard chuckled then groaned. "Crap, Harkin will still be there. Think I could plug him and pretend it was an accident?"

"Harkin?" Garrus made a rude noise. "They might just give you a reward."

Grinning, Shepard pulled the car into the transit station. "I like the way you think, Vakarian."

They heard gunfire before they even got to the door.

"What is with this place?" Shepard groaned, pulling Roger off her back. "Vakarian with me, we go in the door, take the left. Kryik, you take Sparky to the right?" When he nodded, she palmed the door control. "Meet you on the other side."

Once again, a door opened to chaos. Except this time the gunfire wasn't directed at them, but a massive krogan in red armour. After watching him in action for a moment, she waved her team forward.

"He seems to be doing fine on his own," Garrus called.

"He sure does," Shepard agreed, overloading the thug directly in front of the krogan. She winced as the big guy charged and the sound of snapping bones drowned out even the gunfire. She put the thug out of his misery as she passed him writhing on the floor. Launching her drone, she followed in the krogan's wake, finishing off any his shotgun didn't leave a two foot hole in the middle of.

"I want to be a krogan when I grow up," she grumbled. Bullets peppered her shields from the right, but a couple blasts from Nihlus's shotgun took the thug behind the bar out before she could even bring Roger to bear. She chuckled and gave him a nod.

She hadn't fired Roger more than ten times when they reached a gap in the wall leading to the rear of the club. The krogan waited for them there, leaning against the door.

"Nice work," Shepard said, walking up to him. "You clear a room faster than I do, and that's saying something."

The big guy straightened and stepped into her, his red eyes staring into hers from a couple hand widths away. After a second, he laughed, a harsh cough of sound. "Who are you? Am I going to have to kill you?"

Shepard grinned. "My name's Captain Jane Shepard, and I sure hope not. We're here to get some information from Fist. What's your story?"

"I'm here to kill him."

Shepard nodded. "Good to know. Personal grudge or just business?" She cocked a hip affecting a nonchalance she didn't feel.

"Business. The Shadow Broker doesn't like it when his agents turn on him." The big guy glanced back at the door. "Fist knows we're here."

Shepard chuckled. "Fair to say."

"Maybe we should get in there before he kills the quarian?" Nihlus suggested from just behind Shepard's shoulder.

"A very good idea." Shepard straightened. "We go in together? We get our information, then you do what you need to?"

The krogan nodded. "I can live with that."

Shepard palmed the door, then stopped dead, coming face to face with a couple of terrified men holding guns. "Seriously? WIth your hands shaking that hard, you couldn't hit me if you tried." She nodded over her shoulder. "Go on, get out of here."

They stared at her until she lifted Roger, then nodded and bolted.

"Guess we killed all the real guards Fist had," the krogan said, giving a satisfied grunt.

"You got a name, big fella?" Shepard asked, leading the way toward a door at the far end of the room.

"Urdnot Wrex." He punched the door control, striding in, completely unconcerned as turret fire pelted his shields. A blast from his shotgun took one out.

Shepard hit the wall and leaned out, overloading the shields on the other one, then finishing it off with a couple of shots.

A human male held a small quarian in front of him, a pistol held to her head. "No further, or I put a bullet in her head."

Shepard looked back at Nihlus. He traded his shotgun for his sniper rifle. She nodded, then hung Roger on her back and stepped out, her hands held away from her body. "Hey, we're here to talk. No one needs to do anything drastic." She moved forward, covering the wall to help block his view of Nihlus as the Spectre lined up his shot.

"Yeah right. Like you talked your way in here?" Fist backed up, dragging the quarian with him. "I know the Shadow Broker sent Wrex here to kill me."

Shepard shrugged. "That's between you, Wrex, and the Shadow Broker. I just need to talk to the lady." She glanced over at Wrex who was moving up on Fist's other side, and shook her head. A shotgun would take the quarian out too. They needed a precise strike.

"Who else is there?" Fist tried to look around her.

"Take a step to your right," Nihlus whispered in her ear. She did. "Your other right, Shepard."

Shepard stepped right and raised her hands a little, drawing his attention back to her. "Sparky, Vakarian, come on out where he can see you," she called, then stepped forward. "You're in control here. Let's just . . .." She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence as a bullet whistled past her ear, slamming through Fist's forehead. The body stood there for a second as if it didn't realize most of its head was gone, then went down, dragging the quarian with it.

Shepard jumped forward and helped the young woman to her feet. "Are you okay?"

The quarian stood there for a moment, far more composed than Shepard would have thought, then nodded. "I'm fine. Thank you." She looked down at Fist's body, then just sort of crumpled at the knees.

Shepard grabbed her around the waist and helped her to a couch, sitting her down. "Good." She sat beside her. "My name is Captain Jane Shepard. What's yours?"

The quarian let out a shaky breath. "Tali'Zorah nar Rayya." She looked from one to the other. "What are you all doing here?"

"We were looking for you, actually." Shepard nodded toward Nihlus. "Spectre Kryik and I have been looking for evidence that another Spectre named Saren Arterius was responsible for an attack on a human colony. That led us to Officer Vakarian who has been looking into Saren too, but related to disappearing quarians."

"Eden Prime," Tali said and nodded. "I was there. An asari matriarch named Benezia approached me on Omega. I was just there to catch a ship to the Citadel." She looked to Shepard as if trying to assure her that she'd never normally be caught dead anywhere near a hole like Omega. When Shepard smiled and patted her shoulder, the quarian let out a long breath.

"The matriarch said that she and Saren needed my help. I was suspicious because of all the disappearances, and tried to get away, but you can see how well that went. Next thing I knew, I was locked in a room on a geth ship. I managed to bypass the door and hid. When the geth landed on Eden Prime, I escaped but the geth caught me and took me to the bridge of their flagship."

Tali shuddered. "That thing is terrifying. It whispers inside your head all the time. Anyway, they sent me back to the geth. I hacked my guards and used them to sow chaos while I escaped again. After stowing away on a turian cruiser and then a transport, I made it to the Citadel. Still, Saren's people tracked me, got a shot off in the markets. Hit me in the arm." She shook her head. "My father's going to kill me."

Shepard rubbed the young woman's back. "I think he'll be proud. You're resourceful as all hell, practically a quarian Houdini."

"A what?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Human escape artist," Kaidan explained.

"You were going to trade information for somewhere to hide?" Nihlus prompted. He crouched down in front of her.

Tali brought up her omnitool. "I managed to take some recordings while the matriarch thought I was unconscious on the dreadnought."

"I got the information from the beacon," a rough, flanged voice said, "but Kryik came after me before I could secure it for transport."

"And you think one of the humans used it?" a second, elegant, female voice asked.

"Yes. The beacon overloaded. It's gone, and the data it stuck in my head makes no sense. It's incomplete. Jumbled. We'll never find the conduit without more information." Saren sounded as if he teetered on the edge between rage and madness.

"We need someone with knowledge of the protheans."

Saren barked out a harsh laugh. "You mean your daughter? How's she going to be any help? Suppositions and theories are all she knows."

The calm, regal voice never wavered, showing no discomfiture. "Do we have other options at this point?"

"We need to pressure Rael'Zorah . . .."

Shepard glanced over at Tali, both connecting the family name and the young woman's sudden stiffness.

". . . convince him that the only way to get his people back is to give us the star charts. Maybe we send him his own daughter, in pieces."

The recording cut out. Tali gave an apologetic shrug. "They realized I was awake, so I had to turn it off."

Shepard smiled. "It's way more than we had five minutes ago." She looked into the silvery glints of the quarian's eyes through her mask. "This Rael'Zorah, is the father who's going to kill you?"

Tali nodded.

"Okay. Give us a second, but don't worry, okay? We'll protect you from here on." Shepard looked up, finding Kaidan, nodding for him to come over and take her spot when she stood and headed back toward the door. Nihlus, Vakarian, and Wrex followed.

She grinned, noticing the two self-appointed new members of her squad, but then she looked into Nihlus's eyes and the smile bled away. "What the hell have we walked into here?"

He shrugged and shook his head. "They're looking for a conduit? Abducting quarian adolescents to pressure the Admiralty Board into handing over star charts? And what do the geth have to do with any of this?"

"The geth believe that Saren is a prophet of their gods," Tali called, drawing all their attention. She nodded. "They're ancient, powerful machine intelligences called Reapers. According to the information I hacked from the geth ship, these Reapers hunted the protheans to extinction and then vanished fifty thousand years ago. The geth think Saren can bring them back."

"Oh, and here I thought it was going to be something terrifying." Shepard shuddered as the images from the vision flashed through her mind, an ice cold chill slithering up her spine and into her brain. "Sweet baby Jesus," she whispered. "That's what the vision is showing me. The protheans being destroyed by the Reapers." Her eyes locked onto Nihlus's again. "But . . .."

"Why would the council be helping Saren bring back monsters capable of destroying everyone and everything?" he finished, his tone as terrified and bewildered as Shepard felt.