Shepard stared at the five-metre-wide lava pool. "Note to self: Don't trap yourself inside active volcanoes."

"Little late for that note, isn't it?" Garrus asked. He edged forward as if judging whether or not he could get around it. "Damn, that's hot."

"Holy crap, C-Sec," Shepard gasped, "that is some of the best detective work I've ever seen. How are you not the Executor?" Chuckling, she stumbled as he gave her shoulder a shove.

Backing up a little, she shielded her face behind her arm. "Anyone still alive over there?" she called out. "Sparky? You still breathing?"

Kaidan walked around the elevator's center pillar, the asari archeologist leaning on his shoulder. "Yeah, we're still here, but um … aren't you on the wrong side of that lava?"

"Wow, C-Sec, watch your back. Sparky's in the hunt for detective of the year." She winced and limped backwards as a jet of steam erupted out a crack in the floor. "You wouldn't have a really big fire extinguisher in your pants, would you?"

Alenko's face turned the colour of the lava, but his mouth twitched at the corner. "First time I've heard it called that, ma'am."

Dr. T'Soni jumped back from the lieutenant, her face frozen in a comical mask of surprise as she lost her balance and scrambled to stay on her feet. He caught her, mumbling awkward apologies as he steadied her.

Shepard just shook her head. "You're scaring the doctor with your perversions, Sparky." She pressed her lips tight to keep a grin from forming. "Honestly, I'm shocked and dismayed at your lack of sensitivity."

"This place is still coming down," Nihlus shouted, limping around one of the side mechanisms. "Maybe we could save the witty repartee for aboard the Normandy."

"But it won't be funny then," Shepard said. She shrugged and sighed. "We're stuck over here, so the three of you head for the surface, meet up with the second team and get aboard the Normandy. I'll get C-Sec here to use his finely honed investigative skills to find us a route around to the back exit. When we get clear, we'll radio for pickup." She looked to Garrus, cocking an eyebrow in query. He nodded and turned his back on the lava, activating his omnitool.

"Be careful, ma'am," Kaidan called.

Shepard lifted a hand in a casual wave. "No worries, Sparky. We'll see you aboard in a few minutes." She gave Nihlus a curt nod in answer to his stare, and turned away, still able to feel his eyes fixed on her back.

"Okay, so … ." Shepard called up the mine layout on her omnitool as she stepped up next to Garrus. "We are … " She pulled in on the roughly sketched in area behind the elevator shaft, then dropped down fifty metres. "… about here?"

Garrus glanced over and nodded. "I've got a scanning app on my omnitool for finding hidden entrances, hollow areas in floors … that sort of thing. It's short range, but might be able to help us find our way through." He started down the corridor to the right. "The rear exit is a series of ramps at the far east of the mines. The archeological team didn't go into those tunnels - too unstable."

Shepard grabbed her pistol off her hip and took the lead, stepping around the battlemaster's corpse. "Of course they are. It wouldn't be any fun if there wasn't an almost certain chance of death." She turned, walking backwards a few steps and held out her hands. "Cheer up, C-Sec. It's an adventure."

Garrus chuckled and moved over to the wall, scanning. "Right. I'll try to remember that."

The corridor ended another fifty metres along in a cave in. Shepard pulled a section of rebar out of the pile and poked at it. "I think I see air at the top. Your scan say what's on the other side?"

Garrus climbed up about halfway. "It's all open on the other side. A vertical shaft." He looked down at her and shrugged. "Another elevator, maybe?" He looked up. "It's going to take some digging to get me through there, though. I'm not freakishly tiny, like you."

"Freakishly tiny?" Shepard started climbing, scrambling up on all fours, her rebar still clutched in one hand. "Maybe you're just freakishly huge." She chuckled. "I think I can make it through, do some recon, and help dig from the other side to get your freakishly monstrous butt through." She reached the ceiling and the maybe hand's width of space along the apex of the curve. Shoving at the fallen rock and construction materials, she cursed herself for choosing that day to beat her hands to living crap.

Grinding her teeth together, she gave herself a shot of medi-gel through her armour and forced herself to keep digging. Finally, she made a hole big enough to wriggle through. The other side was almost absolutely dark. The slope of skree angled down away from her as far as she could make out. Activating the flashlight on her omnitool, she shone it down, able to see that the slope ended abruptly, dropping away into nothing.

"Fan-fucking-tastic," she muttered.

"What's that?" Vakarian's head appeared in the hole. "Can we get through here?"

Snapping around like a whip, Shepard blinded him with her flashlight for a moment before she turned it off. "Odds are that we'll end up in a landslide to our death, so sure … this way is awesome." She grabbed a large tile, using it as a shovel to dig at the hole, enlarging it enough for the turian to get through.

When Garrus made it through far enough to hang half in and half out, he shone his flashlight down the slope to where Shepard could just make out an orange glow. Lava. Great.

He looked into her eyes, his brow plates arching. "I think we have different definitions of awesome, Shepard." He opened the map on his omnitool. "There should be a corridor over to my right."

When they both shone their flashlights at the far right, Shepard saw a slightly darker, oval-ish patch against the darkness. "Okay. We'll stick as far up this mess as we can get. Always easier to head downhill if we come in above the corridor." She looped a hand under his arm to help anchor him as he turned to aim his feet toward the sheer drop below them.

"Okay," he said and pulled away. "Go ahead."

Clambering, using the rebar to both test her footing and help anchor her, Shepard made her way sideways along the rubble, her flashlight all but useless as she navigated through the dark.

"I might actually be willing to let the krogan take me prisoner if he found me here," she grumbled, pausing to catch her breath. Picking her way through the loose, uneven footing set her legs trembling with fatigue, her bad knee singing a really off-key version of the Hallelujah Chorus.

"For the lord, God, omnipresent, reigneth," she muttered, leaning down to rub the kneecap.

"What was that?" Garrus asked.

"Religious-based grumbling," she said, trying to keep the strain out of her voice. "I do that. Don't let it alarm you." She pushed up and started picking her way forward again. "Moving out, C-Sec. Keep up or … ."

She heard him clambering behind her.

He cursed. "Or get left?"

"Nah, I won't leave you." She chuckled. "I don't like being alone in the dark."

"Um, Shepard?"

She spun, the knife edge of alarm in Garrus's voice cutting into her. "Oh shit, C-Sec." She scrambled down the debris field to where he very slowly but inevitably slid toward the chasm. The more he tried to climb, digging into the skree with his talons, the more broke loose, and he began to pick up speed.

"Stop moving, dammit! Lay flat, spread your arms and legs!" She let herself slide, using the chunk of rebar to control her descent. "Just about there. Grab my foot." She stabbed the rebar into the rubble and threw herself down onto her hip, holding onto the metal with both hands. For a few, breathless seconds, she thought the rebar wouldn't catch. Garrus grabbed hold of her foot, but they both kept sliding.

Finally, with an excruciating jolt that felt like the bones in her arms had yanked right out of the skin and muscle, the rebar dug in and held.

"Climb fast, damn it," she said, her words coming out in grunts that ended shrill enough to be screams. She might as well have been hanging on to a bare high voltage wire for the agony shooting through her hands.

Thank the sweet baby Jesus for adrenaline.

The turian threw himself sideways, wriggling like a beached fish as he tried to catch hold of her with both hands. "I'm too heavy. You can't hold us both." He clawed at the loose rubble with his right hand, but his struggles just started them both sliding again.

Shepard lifted herself as much as she could manage, pressing down on the metal bar, but they lost nearly another metre of ground before it caught again. "For fuck's sake, C-Sec, do what you're told." Gasping, she tightened her grip on the metal bar and looked down. His lower legs hung over the void. "We're on the express train to pancake city, so climb. I can hold us."

Both hands grabbed hold of her foot, and he hauled himself up, using her armour as fingerholds. Each of his movements tugged at her grip, and her hands started to slip on the rebar.

"Hold up." She looked down as he grabbed hold of her belt. "Can you let go of me without sliding?"

Slowly, he loosened the grip on one hand, then the other, rolling slightly to the side. "Yeah."

"Okay. I need to hook my elbow on this bar. If you start sliding, shout and grab me, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Shepard looked up, took a deep breath and heaved, keeping her body completely still, dead weight as she lifted. Hooking one arm over the rebar, she grabbed her wrist with her other hand. "Okay, I'm secure. Climb with the strength of the Enkindlers, Brother C-Sec."

He gripped her with both hands again, climbing up until he could grab the bar as well. Once his weight was off her, Shepard relaxed, huffing and puffing. "Wow, you're heavy," she said, gasping between words.

He let out a breathless laugh. "And you're freakishly strong as well as freakishly tiny."

"Sweet-talker." They laughed helplessly for a few minutes, then Shepard took a deep breath. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

"Agreed."

Using the rebar as an anchor, they pulled themselves along the skree on their hands and knees until they reached the side corridor and hauled themselves up onto solid ground.

"An adventure, right?" Garrus asked, lying flat on his stomach, staring down over the drop.

"That's what the poster said when I signed up." Shepard crawled on her hands and knees over next to him and slumped on one hip to peer down. Lava poured down like waterfalls from side corridors on two different levels, pooling at the bottom of the elevator shaft a good fifty or so metres below them.

"Thanks for not letting me fall into that," Garrus said, shoving himself up onto his feet. He held out a hand to help her up. When she winced at the thought, he bent over and lifted her onto her feet. "The ramps to the surface shouldn't be too far." He wrapped an arm around her waist, helping her limp down the corridor.

The ramps turned out to be a rickety, rusted-out pretzel of metal. Shepard went first, testing everything to make sure it would hold her, then jumping up and down to test it for Garrus's significantly higher mass. Despite its fragile appearance, the metal held, and in less than an hour, they climbed through a long culvert to a door onto the surface.

"Glory hallelujah. Praise the dirty brown disgustingness of this planet," Shepard sighed, sinking down onto her backside in the dirt. She opened a channel to the Normandy, calling for pickup.

Garrus remained standing, turning to look in the direction of the dig site. A giant plume of smoke and ash billowed a hundred storeys into the air. "An adventure," he muttered.

"Now there is a beautiful sight," Shepard sighed as the Normandy swooped in to pick them up.

"Glory hallelujah, Sister Shepard," Garrus said, lifting her off the ground into his arms. "Glory hallelujah."

Shepard chuckled. "You know, you keep carrying me around, I'm going to get used to it."

"Right, you letting someone carry you." He set her down at the top of the ramp. "That will be the day." He patted her shoulder and strode to his locker.

"I'm sure C-Sec will be glad to tell you the tale of our harrowing escape," she told the crowd of crew and team members, as they pressed in eager to hear the story of how she'd made it out. "I need a shower and a nap." She straightened. "Ground team from Therum, debriefing in the Comm Room, 0630. Pass the word."

She hobbled to the elevator and then to the med bay to check on Dr. T'Soni and Nihlus. They both lay on beds, sound asleep and cozy under blankets when she looked in.

"Captain!" Dr. Chakwas called, striding toward her. "Are you all right?"

Nihlus woke and stared blurrily at her for a moment before bolting upright.

"Spectre Kryik!" the doctor barked, whirling to face him, a stern finger pointed toward his nose. "Stay right there. Don't make me tranq you again."

Shepard nodded and chuckled. "Yeah, I'm fine." She held up her hands. "No need to tranq me, Doc. Nothing a shower, a couple of ice packs and eight hours of sleep won't cure." Suddenly every muscle in her body insisted on lying down, and she slumped against the door. "How about your patients? Both going to be okay?"

"Dr. T'Soni is suffering from exposure, exhaustion, and dehydration. She'll be fine by morning." Dr. Chakwas looked from the asari still sleeping on the far bed back to Nihlus on the closest. "Spectre Kryik tore a ligament in his right, proximal ankle joint. A night in a regen field and a couple of days rest will see it right."

Shepard gave her a bone-weary smile and shoved off the doorjamb. "Excellent. I'm off to take a shower and lapse into unconsciousness. Good night, Doc … Nihlus." She turned and hobbled away before Nihlus could do anything more than open his mouth.

A half hour later, Shepard checked through her messages, having received one from an Admiral Kahoku in reference to her inquiries about Armistan Banes, Dr. Michel's blackmailer. His men supposedly found Banes's body on a ship, but those same men had just disappeared in the Sparta system. She replied, offering to stop in the system to check it out on their way to Eden Prime.

"Curiouser and curiouser," she grumbled, and sent out a crew memo that they'd be heading for Sparta. After notifying the ground team to meet for a quick briefing at the Mako prior to dropping at 0800, she had Pressley set their course and then put her computer to bed.

Shepard collapsed onto her bed, wishing the Alliance knew the difference between granite and mattress material. Her hands throbbed like they were trying to jump off her wrists and make a break for freedom, and her knee had swollen to the point where it looked like a small football had taken refuge inside her trouser-leg. Closing her eyes, she let out a long, slow breath.

"So tired," she moaned, stretching a little. Horizontal felt glorious. Painful, but glorious.

Knuckles rapped on the door.

"Seriously? Come on, people, give the captain a break. Pressley has the ship," she shouted without opening her eyes.

"Not really all that eager to talk to Pressley, actually," a warm, dual-toned voice called from the other side. "I think I'd rather knife fight Chief Williams for the last donut and then eat it."

Shepard grinned. "Come in, C-Sec." She didn't get up. If he was uncomfortable with his captain splattered in a ruined heap on her bed, he could leave.

The door opened and Garrus walked in. He stopped just inside, then let out a sharp breath and nodded. "Yeah, that's about what I thought." He walked over to the desk and set a small crate on it, then passed her a large insulated thermos. "It's soup. I figured after the way you were handling your guns that a fork or spoon would be out of the question."

"Thanks. I appreciate the thought, but I'm not hungry." She took the thermos and set it on her nightstand.

"You're what? Forty seven kilos soaking wet, in armour? Yes, you're freakishly tiny … ." His mandibles fluttered. "… and freakishly strong, but you're still too skinny. Besides, we just spent the better part of five hours outrunning lava. You've got be hungry." He pulled her chair over next to the bed and sat. "I just downed four ration bars without chewing." He sat and shrugged then put the thermos back in her hands. "Although with those, it's best not to."

Frowning, Shepard tilted her head off to the side. "Yeah, I guess the groceries aren't the best for you guys, are they?" She took a sip of soup, her brow wrinkling. "Wow, this is good. Tomato made with milk?" Narrowing her eyes, she gave him a considering scowl. "How did you know about that? You really have been going through my file, haven't you?"

He bobbed his head in what she was learning amounted to a turian shrug. "I wanted to know who I was signing on with. You make a colourful first impression." Turning in his chair, he opened the crate. "It's just rehydrated soy milk. Only kind in the refrigeration unit."

She reached out and laid her hand on his knee. "C-Sec. Thanks. I appreciate the thought." She set the thermos down. "Next time we hit a world with dextro supplies, I'll take you and Tali ashore with me. You can do some shopping, get some food that isn't ration bars." Flopping onto her pillows, she sighed. "If they're anything like the levo ones … ." She gave an exaggerated shudder.

Flopping her arm across her brow, Shepard relaxed into the mattress. "Thanks for the soup. You didn't hit me as the caretaker type, C-Sec."

He shrugged and deadpanned, "I'm a complex fellow … an enigma, really."

She laughed, her first decent belly laugh in days. "Yeah." She picked up the thermos and sipped her soup. "Yeah, I guess you are at that." Still not bothering to sit up enough to do more than drink, she met his eyes. "You did some good work in there today. Go get some rest. You don't need to fuss over me."

He took the mug and set it on the nightstand and held out his hands. "Come on, show them to me."

Shepard's laugh cut bright and sharp. "We don't know one another well enough for that, C-Sec. Besides, I didn't think turians were into breasts."

His mandibles fluttered, and he cleared his throat. "Nice try. You know I meant your hands. Drop your shields, and let's see what's under the gloves."

Shepard grumbled and peeled the soft glove off the hand closest to him, wincing as the pressure disappeared and the throbbing upped in volume. She held out the purple and black, still-taped, swollen mess. "I don't think anything is really broken. It's just bruising."

He took her hand between both of hers, feeling along the bones and fingers with far more care than she would have expected. "You showered and left the tape on?" He picked at the end of the tape, working it off slowly.

"I couldn't grip it to peel it off," she admitted. "Leave it, it's helping control the swelling."

"You're going to lose a finger or two if we don't take it off," he growled as she tried to pull her hand back. "So, what did Kryik say or do to cause this?"

Scowling, Shepard snatched her hand back, then gave up when he just captured it again. "What makes you think it was Nihlus? Maybe I'm just a crazy woman who beats on immovable objects for something to do."

He cut off the bit of tape he'd removed, then coiled an ice wrap around her hand, turning the appendage into a flipper. "We'll let them numb up a bit. As for the crazy woman … could be. The crazy part is definitely accurate." His mandibles fluttered in a way she recognized as a teasing smile. "But, you've got a nice matching set of boxer's fractures that should be in med bay, and they aren't. Pretty sure you aren't avoiding Dr. Chakwas, so it's either Dr. T'Soni or Kryik." He gestured for her to give him the other hand. "And, T'Soni hasn't been around long enough."

Shepard rolled over on her side and placed her fingers in his talons. She winced preemptively when he moved to slip off her glove, but he took more care than she had. "Harkin wouldn't talk to Nihlus because he was afraid of the council. Instead of Nihlus beating him to death, I used my feminine wiles to get him to talk."

He chuckled. "Ah. Jealousy."

Shepard laughed. "Yeah, right, C-Sec. That's insane for so many reasons."

He nodded. "It's still true." He wrapped another ice wrap around that hand, then placed the thermos between her flippers. "Eat."

She sipped the soup, glaring at him the whole time. "Nihlus is only interested in being a pain in my ass."

Garrus leaned back. "If that was the case, he wouldn't have recommended you to the council. Spectres have better things to do than mentor random candidates just to make their lives miserable." He shrugged. "I don't know all that much about humans, but out here, people like you are pretty rare."

"I'm just a soldier, C-Sec. Nothing rare here." She sat up, pressing her back against the wall, and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"I've read your file." He focused on taking supplies out of the crate, not putting any pressure on her. "Most of the early stuff is redacted, but I can make a pale guess as to what happened on Mindoir based on the fact you came out alive, but living on the street, and hooked on Hallex."

She turtled up further. "I don't talk about that."

He moved over to the bed since she'd withdrawn beyond his reach and began unwinding one hand. "You kicked it though, became a champion athlete, one of the Alliance's most decorated. Not many addicts manage to pull off that transition."

Shepard watched him peel the tape off her hand, not sure how she'd gotten suckered into this conversation. She sighed and whispered, "He called me a whore."

He nodded and cocked a brow plate. "Your MO is pissing people off. You've been called worse."

Chuckling, she nodded. "Was called a gangrenous, prolapsed elcor cloaca once. I think that might have been Ambassador Udina, actually." A tight grin attempted to change the subject. "He really hates me."

"So?" Finished unwrapping that hand, he balled up the tape and tossed it into the crate.

"Dammit, C-Sec, I said I don't talk about this stuff." He shrugged, and she grumbled. "It was the way he said it, like I made him sick. And now, I really am done talking about this."

"So, tomorrow, Edolus to investigate the mysterious Armistan Banes?"

He surprised her. She'd thought he'd keep pushing, the interrogator in him unable to let it go before she'd confessed her entire soul. A tiny smile forced its way onto her lips, lifting just the corner of her mouth.

"Yeah," she said after a moment, watching him from under heavily lidded eyes. "I have no idea why I'm going through all this effort to find some mad scientist, but something about it is nagging me. Since we're in the neighbourhood, we can check out the admiral's missing men before heading to Eden Prime." She grinned. "At the very least, Dr. Michel will be grateful. You could get lucky, C-Sec. She likes you."

He cleared his throat and focused on packing her hand in ice. "The doctor is a good woman."

Her grin widened. "Ohhh, I see. You know about her little crush. Not as oblivious as you let on."

Cocking a brow plate at her, he held up her hand, and she laughed, bright and heavy.

"Yeah," she said, still smiling. "Yeah, you see everything." She chugged him on the shoulder. "You're all right, C-Sec."