Caelan - (Turian) Something extremely pleasurable or pleasant. English equivalent: Ambrosia

Tarc - Turian equivalent to shit.

Derra - Wife. Female bond-mate.

Senuxem - Ancient exalted. A term of reverence when referring to one's elders: grandparents, great grandparents. Senux: slang. A derogative. Human equivalent: geezer.

73 Days ASR 0219 hours Sahrabarik (9 hours out from Omega )

The dark stink of Haestrom's bowels fouled Garrus's sleep with nightmares. Every now and again, Shepard's voice broke through the darkness and suffocating silence. Her soft words and gentle caresses coaxed him from sweat-soaked nightmare back into the calm, breeze-ruffled meadows and leafy, shade-speckled forests of sleep. She joined him there, both discovering a peace in his dreams they might never experience while awake.

Scent invaded unconsciousness first: the sharp, medicinal ozone smell of a medbay. As much as he disliked the odour, it amount to pure caelan compared to the reek drowning his nightmares in blood, corruption, and death.

"Doc? He's waking up."

Oh, blessed spirits, that voice. It drew a keen of longing and gratitude through his second larynx. After all the nights he'd rushed to bed in order to meet her in his dreams after she died, there she sat, her tiny fingers clinging to his talons, her voice washing away the nightmarish chill. He forced his eyes open, his gaze finding and latching onto her pixie face with it's sharp chin, crooked nose, and eyes the colour of summer grass.

Shepard—his kahri—smiled. "Hi there, gorgeous." She reached up, her hand cool on his plates as she stroked his face. "You gave us quite a scare."

Allowing his eyelids to drift most of the way closed, he let out a long breath, never so grateful to feel the too-thin mattress of a medbay bed beneath him. "Sorry about that," he replied, his voice startling him: reedy and dry with only shadowed subvocals. Staring into his mate's eyes, he thought back to Tuchanka, following the trail of memories. "I remember finding Weyrloc Guld's body, but then everything gets foggy." He scowled, some of the memories returning, blurry and drifting through a haze of heat and blood. "Wrex? The females?" He lifted his head to see krogan occupying the other beds, but no one he recognized.

"Wrex and Grunt are fine. As far as we can tell, Grunt wasn't affected, and Wrex recovered quickly once the docs got to him." She glanced over her shoulder at the closest bed. "The females aren't doing as well. Mordin and Karin are on it."

"And me?" He leaned up a little, moving slowly as the room tipped hard to starboard and began to roll. "How long have I been here?"

"Nearly the whole trip back. We just landed on the Omega side of the relay from Hawking Eta. We'll be docked in nine hours." Pressing gently on his shoulder, Shepard eased him back down onto the mattress.

"Nine hours?" He closed his eyes. Spirits, he'd been asleep for nearly four days? "What happened to me?"

She lifted his hand to her mouth, kissing each of his knuckles in turn. "Those orbs put the whammy on you and dragged up Haestrom. You took off. Martin and I ran you down, got you on the shuttle. I'm not surprised that your memory is spotty. Whatever those orbs did, they scrambled up your nervous system pretty badly." She stood and bent over him, her lips soft and tasting of salt: she'd been crying. "How do you feel?"

Garrus took a quick inventory. Other than a headache, nothing hurt, and his head felt clear. He sat up, drawing in a deep breath to test his torso for the lingering pain from his mostly healed damage. His spine groaned, setting up a complaints department just above his pelvis, but everything else felt fine. "I'm sore from lying on this bed, but no worse for our adventure."

The air moved, bringing with it the scent of antiseptic and something Shepard called English Rose: the telltale perfume of Karin Chakwas. "Lie back, General," the doctor said as she approached the bed. "You need to take it easy for a couple of days. Your brain has suffered a traumatic event and, like any organ, it needs time to heal."

He chuffed. "I think my organs have suffered enough traumatic events for three lifetimes. What happened to me, exactly?" he asked. He released Shepard long enough to lower himself back down onto the pillows they'd arranged to help make up for the torturous mattress. The second he settled, he reached out for Shepard's hand and tugged her closer, needing to feel her warmth against his hide. She obliged, rolling her chair right up to his side, her free hand lifting to caress his face.

"We don't know why yet, but you reacted instantly to the reaper indoctrination signal, and the results proved devastating." Chakwas fussed over his scans. Spirits, it must be news of the worst order to have her dissemble so badly; she usually just jumped right into the tarc.

Chakwas pulled up what looked like a multicolour image of a turian brain: his brain presumably. "It appears that whoever performed the vivisections, modifications, and combat tests chose you for some predisposition or susceptibility to reaper indoctrination." She shrugged. "It might have been because you have a resistance to it, but we need to do more testing to be sure."

She tapped at the interface of her omnitool then swept it over him: head to feet then back to his head. "We've got the swelling under control, but there's scarring along your entire nervous system."

"More testing should provide means of detection … defense," Mordin said, hurrying in the door. "Have learned all I can from Mr. Weaver's implants. Need to observe differences, effects on unprotected mind." He stopped at the end of Garrus's bed.

Shepard jumped up, throwing herself between Mordin and Garrus—all spikes and claws—as cold and furious as Garrus had ever seen her. "You're talking about exposing my husband—the general at the head of the entire organization—and his already damaged nervous system to more of the fucking reaper signal?" She laughed, shards of ice. He saw them hit their marks … on both Mordin and Chakwas. Spirits, she wanted him to submit to their experiments as well?

Shepard stepped around the bed, pushing in on Mordin in a way he could construed as threatening. "Don't let any stupid ideas take hold inside your slippery old brain," she said, her face less than a finger's width from the salarian's chin. "I have very little faith in your ethics right now." Oddly, needing to crane her head back to meet Mordin's stare didn't diminish the threat.

Garrus's mandibles flicked. He cleared his throat, trying to back Shepard down gently. As much as he hated the thought of letting those bastard reapers back into his head, he couldn't fool himself into believing he'd navigate the war against them and the collectors without being exposed to it again. And they needed to be able to defend their people against it. He'd gladly sacrifice himself to protect the rest of Archangel—maybe even the rest of the galaxy—from the reapers and leviathan's most insidious attacks.

Shepard reached back to lay her hand on his ankle, but she turned toward Chakwas. "You too, Doc?" When the Normandy's doctor nodded, Shepard continued around to meet Garrus's eyes. When her stare latched onto his, she shook her head. "Please, don't tell me you're considering doing this."

Garrus held out his hand, his palm cold without hers gripped in his talons. He smiled and beckoned her back to his side. Once her fingers laced with his again, he looked past her to Mordin. "Do you have any idea how we're going to test me … or anyone," he qualified when Shepard tensed, "against reaper indoctrination?"

"Theories only," Mordin said, his mouth set as if he'd just bitten down on a rancid vitivern fruit. "Access to reaper device will prove most enlightening. Acquisition problematic."

Shepard let out a noisy sigh, rumbling a little deep in her throat, and for a second Garrus wondered if his mate had picked up the habit from Nihlus. Surely, she hadn't learned it from him.

Garrus squeezed her hand. "We have time to talk about everything: whether or not to go ahead and how to make any tests safe." A weary smile met Shepard's sudden sharpness; she couldn't help reacting any more than he could when she placed herself in danger. When she relaxed, he glanced over at Dr. Chakwas. "May I go up to our cabin to rest until we get back to Omega? This bed is going to break my spine if I spend any more time on it."

The doctor nodded but held up a card of electronic patches. "You can go, but I want to monitor your neural activity."

Letting out a long sigh of relief, Garrus sat up. "Agreed." He waited patiently while the doc applied the patches to his temples and the base of his spine. Shepard passed him his robe when he swung his legs off the side of the bed. Allowing her to sort the robe's panels even though he could have done it himself, Garrus studied his wife's face. Taking note of the dark circles under her eyes, the drawn lines around her mouth, and the wan cast to her skin, he knew she hadn't exaggerated when she said he'd given them a scare.

"How's Nihlus?" he asked, taking both of her hands in his to still their fussing. "Is he recovered enough to share you?"

She swallowed hard and nodded. "You've been asleep for three days, Callor. He's fine." She waggled her head a little side to side and shrugged. "As fine as he can be, considering. Well enough to squish into a third of the bed, anyway." Backing up a step, she tugged on his hands. "Come on, let's get you out of here before they lock you in a big cage with a bottle of water hanging on the side and a hamster wheel for you to run on."

"Shepard," Chakwas protested, scowling at his mate, "you know I'd never risk Garrus's health without extreme need. What happened to the Weyrloc could happen to our people. As much as I hate asking, I must."

Garrus pulled Shepard in, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "We'll talk about it, but the discussion is moot until you come up with a way to measure what you need."

"In the meantime," Chakwas continued, "we've upgraded the turian version of the serum." She passed him a handful of ampules. "Take one every six hours."

At least ten questions sparked in his head, not the least of being why he needed to take the serum while not exposed, but Garrus simply took the ampules. They could worry about questions when he felt a little less scraped raw and left for dead. So, instead of quizzing the doctors, he gathered his derra in against his side. "Thank you, doctor … Mordin."

Shepard said nothing as they passed through the Ypres's galley to the elevator. Neither did they speak for the few minutes it took to ride up to their quarters, but the air thickened, tension building like thunderheads on the horizon. The silence held until they entered the cabin, but as soon as Shepard saw that Nihlus had stepped out, she stiffened.

"Kahri," Garrus said, interrupting before she began, "let's table the discussion until after we relax and get some sleep." He turned to face her, cradling her jaw between his hands. "I've been asleep for three days, and you look like you haven't slept three minutes." The weariness he saw slithering beneath her impenetrable outer shell tugged a soft keen loose. Leaning down, he touched his brow to hers. "I'm right, aren't I?"

She leaned into him. "Karin and Mordin didn't know if they'd … " The sound of her swallowing cut the air, her love and her fear of losing him so palpable he felt it manifest between them: a separate, starved entity. "... if they'd get the swelling under control. I couldn't leave you." A warm palm pressed against the side of his face, slow and full as it brushed his hide. "But I got some sleep in the chair." Easing herself back, she kissed his brow. "Come on, let's get into bed. It's been one hell of a week." She turned toward the stairs. "We should have fresh sheets. Nihlus was going to—"

Garrus snagged her hand and pulled her back into his arms. "It's going to get worse from here, Kahri. We're all going to be forced into risks well out of any sane comfort zone." He nuzzled the top of her head when she slipped her arms around his waist: two unyielding, iron bands. "But I promise to fight through the pits of buratrum to come home to you. All right?"

She nodded against his chest, her head heavy, her body heat seeping through his robe. A soft sigh drifted between them before she said, "I know I can't protect you any more than you can protect me, but damn it, if I have to do this without you." She lifted her head to stare into his eyes, hers shining with the tears he knew she'd never let him see fall. Well, maybe not 'never', but rarely enough to keep them precious. "I don't want to live in a galaxy without you and Nihlus. There's nothing but death and pain in that galaxy."

He kissed her, pulling her in tight. Tarc, hearing her say those words … they felt like talons wrapped around his throat, razor sharp claws ripping out every soft, precious thing keeping him alive. "I've been there," he whispered against her lips. "I survived. Nihlus survived. Sometimes it felt like we wouldn't, but we did, and so will you if the worst comes to pass."

"Until the war ends."

The four words formed a barbed, jagged prophecy. Sanding down the worst of the edges, her hand slipped along the inside of his arm to grip his talons. She led the way to the stairs, Garrus following with dragging steps. Would he feel any different if he needed to fight through the war without her? Wouldn't the end be a welcome chance to rest, to join her wherever they ended up after death?

Just before he stepped down the first stair, a light flared across his field of vision, blinding him in a wash of brilliant white. It dimmed, his scorched retinas settling to reveal a large armlight burning overhead. He tried to move, but could only squirm; bands on all four limbs and across his torso strapped him down. Agony burned through him, tiny pulses along each nerve, building … stacking one upon the next upon the next, a fire leaping from tree to tree until the entire forest blazed.

"Garrus?" Wraithlike, Shepard's voice drifted down through the light. "What is it, love? Are you okay?" He heard fear tightening her voice, an intractable wrench. "Garrus?"

Fearing the connection might prove a singular chance, he turned away from his wife's concern and closed his eyes. Pushing back the pain, he forced himself to focus on details: a cold metal table surrounded him. A sling cradled his cowl between table sections and a metal frame held his head immobile. Voices, louder than Shepard's but indistinct, moved around him outside the glare. Zooming in on them, he pulled them closer: humans, a female and two males.

Despite the cruel reality of the light searing his eyes and the pain arcing along every nerve, he knew he stood in the captain's cabin on the Ypres. He could feel his Kahri's hand clinging to his. Using the contact as a lifeline, he squeezed her fingers to reassure her and dove into the memory.

He might never get a better chance to drag up what happened to him after the Haestrom shipyard. Whoever took them hadn't just been playing around. They'd possessed a very specific agenda. Only he or Nihlus held the slightest hope of figuring out what they—probably Cerberus—wanted.

"Are the cranial implants online?" the female voice asked. He heard the sharp click of heels against tile, then cool, rubbery fingers touched his head. "We need to ensure the carrier signal controls him."

"The cranial implants are functioning perfectly, and have been from the third day," a male voice replied. "Right now, our biggest issues are the skeletal lattice and microfibre weave. His body is rejecting them. Immunosuppressants and the most powerful antihistamines aren't controlling the reaction." As the man mentioned the damage, Garrus's agony exploded, his nerves reduced to ash.

The woman made a frustrated sound. "Run blood panels on all ten of them. We're not going to be able to just stick the human variations of the tech into the turians like we can with the krogan and asari."

"Would it be helpful to acquire a few quarian subjects?" the third voice asked. "Despite their health issues, they could provide a common baseline."

The sharp heels clicked across the tile in a pacing pattern eight steps long. "Quarians are not easy to come by. Even the disappearance of their pilgrims doesn't go unnoticed." After thirteen circuits, the footsteps stopped at his side. "They're not practical in the long run, but we need to untangle the turian problem."

"We can arrange to purchase them," the very helpful third voice offered. "That way, even when they go missing, the trail won't track back to us."

A feminine, but disgruntled sigh blew across Garrus's face. "Very well. A half dozen, and see if you can negotiate for ten more converted turian units. Older generations, not the most recent, and a variety of generations if possible." The cold, rubber-covered fingers grasped his head, prying his eyelids open to shine a light into them. "Just make sure the transactions can't be traced back to the organization."

"Callor?" Warm, dry hands gripped his head between them, her calluses chafing softly as she rubbed his hide, as if trying to buff warmth into his hand. "What's happening? Are you okay?" A sharp edge of panic lanced Shepard's words. "Doc, something's going on. Garrus just froze up and he won't talk to me."

Squeezing his derra's fingers to try to calm her worry, Garrus struggled to hold the memory close, to see it through to the end. He needed to know who had carved Nihlus and him up like a couple of laboratory animals and maybe, most importantly, why.

"I'll put out feelers on Omega. It takes a little longer to approach the collectors through back channels, but it'll be untraceable."

The female made a soft, formal sound of acquiescence. "Fine, get moving. We need to fill in the gaps and soon. All this reaper tech isn't going to do us any good if it kills every subject we implant with it. They're going to have 'the mistake' up and recruiting aliens within weeks … a couple of months at the most."

Tarc, he wished he knew human accents better. It sounded a little like Zaeed, but more formal: distinguished and nasal rather than earthy and coarse. The woman pried open Garrus's other eye and shone the light in it. He kept the eye open long enough to make out a dark shadow on the other side of the spot blindness. Long hair hung down: definitely human.

"He's starting to come out of the anesthetic. Get him back under and let's get these implants out; prepare for round five."

The pain Garrus had been forcing to the back of his mind vanished as dreamless darkness swallowed him.

"Garrus? Come on, verro, snap out of it and give me a sign here before I really start freaking out and end up kicking your asslessness." Shepard's hand patted his cheek, each blow landing with greater strength until they stung, virulent enough to help him drag himself back from wherever he'd gone.

"I'm fine, Kahri." Opening his eyes, he caught her hand before it could land. "I got a flash of memory from the time I went missing." He pulled her into another hug, able to feel his own trembling through her body. "They were implanting us with reaper tech, and it wasn't just Nihlus and I. I could hear a woman speaking, and she ordered someone to take blood from all ten of us."

Shepard let out a long breath, her fingers curling handfuls of his robe into her fists. "Let's get into bed before you lay all this on me. We can mull the entire problem over then sleep on it."

Garrus nodded. "Yeah, let's get some sleep. We can hammer it out with the others tomorrow back at Archangel."

74 Days ASR Archangel Headquarters, Omega, Sahrabarik

The familiar buzz of conversation and debate eased Garrus down into the padded leather of his seat in the Archangel conference room. Spirits, it felt good to be home. As much as he knew he needed to be out there, fighting, he missed the bustle and camaraderie of headquarters. It had been his entire life for almost two cycles, and he felt a little like he'd abandoned it the moment Shepard returned.

Not that his people needed him there. He'd outdone himself when he'd chosen the inner command circle; they could run Archangel without him if it survived losing its figurehead. The moment he stepped off the dock, he'd begun the debriefings, meeting with each of the department heads, not at all disappointed with how well his people handled the organization's affairs during his absence.

"Building three is full," Nyreen Kandros reported, drawing him out of his thoughts. He chuffed; they'd started wandering the moment he asked for status updates. His throaty utterance drew the tarin's attention as she continued, saying, "Most of the slaves we liberated decided to stay. And we've begun cleaning up building four. If we get the influx of Blue Suns Zaeed predicts, we're going to need to start housing people onboard ships."

Garrus frowned, his guts tightening into a knot. Wait. What? "Blue Suns, Zaeed?" Spirits, they could never trust a mass influx of mercs. "Why would Suns join up? They were trying to wipe us out a few weeks ago."

A disgusting, guttural grunt or belch curdled the air around the merc. "I finally chased that god damned bastard Vido to ground," he said. Rather than jubilant or even his usual ornery old bastard self, Zaeed's tone tipped toward depressed. Had catching up to Vido and disposing of him robbed the old merc of purpose? Garrus resolved to take him aside before the end of the day to find out. The Suns respected the bastard, so they needed Zaeed cussing and fighting if a mob of the mercs joined up.

"Most of Vido's senior bootlickers got their arses blown into roasted dog chow when the refinery exploded," Zaeed continued, his face twisted into a sneer. "The men asked me to step up; I said no goddamned way."

Surprised, Garrus lifted a brow plate. He never expected Zaeed to refuse the reins of his old organization; he'd always assumed Archangel would lose the ornery old senux once Vido met his just end. After all, Zaeed co-founded the merc band. "And you told them to join us?"

Zaeed shifted as if his chair had grown spines, but then dissolved back down into it. "I'm too old and too much of a bastard to put up with all the bullshit of leadership." He made another revolting noise in his throat, his voice laced with derision when he continued. "Besides, I thought Archangel needed bodies. Can beggars be bloody well choosy when we have dreadnoughts sitting out there like fucking ghost ships?"

Instead of replying, because Zaeed had the right of it, Garrus looked back to Nyreen. "Has the accounting department run budget projections for this increase in recruits?" He tried to concentrate on the details of preparing Archangel for its second massive inundation of bodies in a month, but Mordin's glowing omnitool on the other side of the room kept pulling his attention and holding it.

Thank the spirits his people didn't need him to micromanage the business end, because at least half of what they said sailed straight past him as he watched the salarian's expression. He'd worked with Mordin long enough to know the look on the scientist's face meant that he'd discovered something both fascinating and perplexing. The information on the small screen above the tool showed scans of a krogan head and upper spine.

"We've put out feelers with the Alliance," Anderson said, "looking for retired officers to come in as instructors. The reception has been mixed, but Hackett speaking for us has helped."

Shepard scoffed. "I'm surprised they didn't just tell you to stick it up your ass."

Anderson grinned and shrugged, tipping one ear toward his shoulder. "As I said, Hackett being on our side has helped."

"We need at least five dozen experienced, senior officers or trainers," Vortash replied. "We're all working fourteen hour days and there's still just too many." The batarian hesitated, but then met Garrus's gaze with his usual directness. "We've been talking about casting a wider recruitment net. There are krogan battlemasters and geth who have been fighting for hundreds of cycles."

Garrus nodded, dragging himself back. "I'll have my pari and General Victus ask discreetly among the ranks of turian military retirees as well. All these recruits aren't any good to us without training. Even the seasoned mercs need to be brought up to speed on our tech and methods, so hire are many as you need." He looked around the room. "Archangel has always embraced talent wherever we found it, and I trust you to be far more choosy than I am."

He looked around the room, meeting each set of eyes long enough to both encourage them to speak and to enjoy their company, the unique, cooperative energy that made up his inner circle. "Any other housekeeping?"

The glowing chia obscuring Legion from view strobed a couple of times before the geth spoke. "The chiastyllia and geth have created a design for a new class of frigate," he said. Schematics appeared on the large holo-screen at the center of the space. "The collectors are biotic, therefore more susceptible to biotic attacks than tech attacks."

Garrus leaned in, trying to decipher the plans, but coming up empty. The geth and chia's creation amounted to something new. Despite the lack of familiarity, something in the design inspired hope. No, more … the strange looking contraption excited him. They knew the effectiveness—or lack of effectiveness—of standard weapons. Something new might just help level the turram pitch a little.

"We designed a large scale biotic amp. It connects and channels the power of several biotics into a single emitter," Legion continued, "which fires warp blasts and singularities. We believe the data from our simulations warrant the development of a prototype for further testing."

The simulation data replaced the schematics, the numbers pulling a low whistle from Shepard. "Sweet baby Jesus, no kidding." She looked to Nihlus, who nodded, the set of his mandibles betraying the same eagerness Garrus felt. When she turned to look at him, excitement practically crackled in his derra's eyes. "I say, let's get the prototype underway," she said.

Garrus grinned, his mandibles flicking hard. Finally, something with the potential to make a difference in the fight. "Absolutely. We'll need reaper and collector materials to test it against, but the faster we get it built, the better." Spinning his chair around, he looked to Sidonis. "Can you head out to Haestrom and get our shipyard back up and running?"

Sidonis answered with a sharp nod. "We'll need to keep it low key in case the collectors come after it again, but it wasn't damaged, just powered down and left empty."

"We need to capture an intact collector vessel," Shepard said, bringing the soft buzz of excited conversation and planning to a dead stop. "We need to take their tech apart and get ourselves particle cannons. Sovereign's corpse gave us a hell of a start, but we need to step up our game and go on the offensive." She stood, pacing through the holo-image twice before Legion deactivated it. "They need to know we can hurt them. Otherwise, all our bases are sitting ducks. That means getting our hands on every scrap of collector tech and reaper tech we can find." She spun to face Liara. "I'll leave it to you and the Brysons to play detective and find us rumours about dead reapers. If the Leviathan of Dis died during the war against the protheans and we killed Sovereign … there have to be others."

The passion fueling her words wove an optimistic spell, pulling Garrus forward: his arms braced, legs ready to jump into action, breathing shallow. With the exception of Mordin, whose attention never waivered from its fix on his omnitool, everyone in the room mirrored the general's posture. He knew they felt the same, wondrous certainty: they'd win. Archangel could accomplish anything with the angel herself leading the charge. The fight would be terrible, and it would cost them all far more than they could even imagine, but in the end, victory awaited them. And in that moment, he blessed Cerberus for bringing her back. At least someone possessed foresight … evil foresight, but still foresight.

"How are we going to capture a collector ship?" Nyreen asked, her tone matter of fact rather than skeptical. "They've kicked our asses on every front. Our ships didn't even scuff their paint. Besides, even if we do attack and by some miracle we win, their ship is going to be in pieces."

Shepard nodded. "You're absolutely right. Conventional thinking isn't going to get us anything but dead. We're going to need to get creative. So, if an idea jabs you in the ass, don't sit on it because you're afraid we'll think you're crazy. Bring it to us. It might be completely batnuts—and I can't guarantee we won't laugh and call you a lunatic—but it also might spark some magnificent inspiratation we can make work." She paused, staring down at her hands. "We need a means of boarding a collector ship so we can fight our way through."

Nihlus leaned forward, his forearms buttressed against the arms of his chair. "If we put enough people on board to take out a couple hundred collectors, what's stopping them from scuttling the cruiser?"

Shepard glanced toward the furthest QEC emitter to the left. "EDI? Can you help us out here?"

"Using information mined from the collector bases on Thessia and Palaven, I believe my cyber-warfare suites are able to penetrate collector defenses and seize control of their computer," the AI replied. "I could prevent the collectors from enacting a self-destruct protocol." EDI paused, her projection dimming for less than five seconds before she said, "Yes, I believe I've discovered a breach in their outer defenses that makes it possible for me to attack from within."

"Your cyber-warfare suites would be able to penetrate collector defenses and seize control of their computer," Shepard repeated the AI's words. She started pacing once again, the skin between her brows wrinkling, her teeth gnawing at the inside of her bottom lip. Garrus watched the gears clicking into place, the pieces of something falling together right before their eyes.

"Attack from within," she said, her voice soft … talking to herself rather than the rest of them. She stopped directly in front of him, meeting his stare. Her eyes crackled with energy, her body taut, practically vibrating.

Garrus grinned. Spirits, she'd figured it out. Something EDI said had ignited a connection inside Shepard's beautiful, faster-than-light brain. When she pivoted to face Nihlus, Garrus felt cold, as if the brilliant, mid-summer sun disappeared behind a cloud. Without any jealousy, he glanced at Nihlus, pleased at the easy set to his fratrin's shoulders, the joy painted on the underside of the thoughtful frown, the fact his hand never drifted to his absent flask. Nihlus truly had been ready to kick that pyjak out the airlock.

Shepard looked at the blue glowing representation of her ship's AI. "Once we're in, you'll be my go-to girl, EDI. We'll need you to crack locks, open doors, seal off sections, and julienne the collector units into strips so thin they can't overwhelm us."

She paced for another couple of seconds, muttering the whole time about Earth history before she stopped at the central QEC control. "We're going to need scans … all the scans we can get our sweaty, little, grubby fingers on. We need to know the inside of their ship better than they do." Her grin turned ever so slightly maniacal. "I want them to see us blasting through their ship and pee in their collector undies while they collector sob into their collector hankies."

Garrus watched, a wry grin welcoming thher certainty; she'd already decided on the mission. For some unknown collector cruiser out there, the game was already over. The rest of them not knowing how to get aboard the ship didn't matter; that seemingly insurmountable but tiny hurdle sat directly in Shepard's rearview mirror.

"EDI, check the Archangel database and see if any of the ships that tangled with the collectors got a chance to scan the vessels." Shepard returned to her chair and sat down. "Use your imagination to search out other sources."

"As you wish, Captain Shepard," the AI replied with her usual enthusiasm, "I'll set aside formulating my plans for galactic domination for the duration." For a moment, Garrus envied the AI her eternal cheer and willingness to milk a joke far past its best before date.

"Thank you, EDI." Shepard tossed him a wink, indicating that she'd said all she needed to for the moment.

"All right," Garrus said, "capturing a collector vessel is tabled for future discussion." He glanced around the room. "Any other housekeeping?" Rubbing his hands together, he used the friction of his gloves to heat his talons.

When the rest of Archangel shook off their shell-shocked expression—which he completely understood: they weren't used to watching Shepard work—they all indicated to the negative.

Grateful, Garrus focused his attention on Mordin, both anticipating and dreading the salarian's report. "What's the status on the krogan?"

Mordin's attention snapped from his omnitool as if he'd been waiting for them to get past the business too mundane to be worthy of his attention. The salarian oscillated, the frequency of his energy growing until he looked set to breach the barriers between universes. "Urdnot Grunt's scans provided fascinating insights into genophage cure, indoctrination, and the reapers' quest to answer their question." He glanced at Garrus, but quickly moved past to Shepard, no doubt hoping for a more friendly audience. Disappointment awaited him.

Shepard's earlier enthusiasm vanished in the face of the reminder of Mordin's horrific secret. She radiated anger as clearly as Mordin emitted excitement.

The salarian cleared his throat. "Stated previously, Urdnot Grunt unaffected by either indoctrination signal. Searched for reasons. Discovered why on Korlus mission recordings: Okeer referred to other vat grown krogan as failures. Claimed Grunt his only success. Traded for collector technology used in Grunt's creation."

Garrus leaned forward, his forearms braced across his knees, talons clasped. "The other krogan claimed to have no spark. Urdnot Bakara equated the spark to their soul."

"Soulless creations," Shepard whispered. She raked her fingers through her hair as she met Garrus's stare, hers grasping for fingerholds on a slippery climb. "Holy blessed Enkindlers. Like the reapers. The collectors gave Okeer the tech … Grunt was a proof of concept test."

"Exactly," Mordin said, his voice reflecting . "Scanning Grunt's DNA revealed correlation with data from computers on Thessia and Palaven. Segregated data showed irregularities. Urdnot Grunt revealed same irregularities. Minute attachments to DNA consisting of crystallized carbon."

A low hum of realization escaped from Shepard as she bolted upright in her chair. "Chiastyllian DNA? They're what made the difference?" She turned her chair to look at Nihlus. "Some of the uncorrupted chia got caught in the chamber with the asari when the machine took them apart and analyzed them."

Garrus's fratrin nodded. "Makes sense. It could be the reason the leviathan were so desperate to control the chia: they're a weapon or, well, a defense at least."

Dr. Chakwas cleared her throat, a delicate but firm sound that directed everyone's attention to her. "Most importantly, Urdnot Grunt provides us with another control for testing the indoctrination devices. Comparing his brain scans during exposure to ones of a krogan without his resistance could reveal the exact frequencies we need to block."

Shepard stood, resuming a pacing pattern to the QEC pads and back to her chair. "So we need to locate intact devices of both types: reaper and leviathan."

Nihlus's subvocals growled a little as he said, "Locating them won't be as hard as making sure we can shield them." He paused, a thoughtful frown following Shepard along her pacing circuit. "What about the shields Tashac and Merrol used to protect them from the Conduit and the other keys?"

Shepard stopped. "We don't have a way to duplicate the tech, unless …." She spun, setting Garrus's heart racing when their eyes met. Like a trail through heavy brush, the brilliant green of her stare led him along the winding paths of her thought process. They'd just made contact with people who possessed Tashac and Merol's technical memories.

"Horizon," he said. "We need to decide how to use the facility including how to best defend it without drawing attention to it."

From the center QEC pad, Liara cleared her throat, a gentle, unassuming hum of sound. "If I may, General? Shepard?"

Garrus turned his chair to face the asari researcher. "Go ahead. Was your mission a success?"

A smile brightened Liara's face. "More than successful. The Brysons, Kumun Shol, and I discovered the entrance to the structures he's been excavating for the past several cycles." She looked as though even a single degree more passion would set off a catastrophic chain reaction culminating in an explosion. "We discovered another prothean sleeper base—as we guessed—composed of ten wings and an armoury. Unlike Horizon, this facility was clearly a military outpost. Most of the sleeper pods lost power over the millennia—the VI shutting them down a wing at a time—but two wings remain functional. We rigged a reactor to make sure they didn't fail before we decided what to do."

"Thank the blessed Enkindlers you didn't revive them," Shepard said, her words sliding along a relieved breath. "How many are we talking about?"

"Seven thousand pods," Liara replied, the dubious slant to her tone echoing the sick lurch in Garrus's gut. Spirits, seven thousand could just walk in and take over Archangel. The council races and Alliance would consider them a threat, and probably one not worth the risk. "Enough to be a serious threat if their beliefs closely mirror Javik's."

"I can't see a large force of protheans playing well with others," Shepard agreed, "but especially our sadly primitive races." She lifted an eyebrow as she met and held Garrus's gaze. "They'd be useful as hell; they fought the reapers before, but they're going to try to take charge, and this isn't their galaxy."

Liara took advantage, slipping into the thoughtful silence. "The Brysons also have some clues to track down the leviathan. We're on our way back to the Citadel. One of Garret's researchers reported in to say he found something. I'll keep in touch as I can."

"Excellent. Good work, Liara," Shepard said. "Any help we can get would be brilliant."

"Okay," Garrus said, bringing the topic around to the inevitable. "Our work into indoctrination has to continue. That's going to mean obtaining intact reaper and leviathan orbs and then setting up a safe offsite laboratory to run tests." He looked from eye to eye. "Ideas?" When no one answered, the general let out a long sigh, the beginnings of a headache building behind his eyes. "Right." He leaned back, slumping a little further into his chair. "Get comfortable people. It looks like it's going to be a long day."