Silont flicked the green switch on his control panel. His favorite switch.

This switch put his stealth tech and weapon systems into high alert. This switch cloaked his ship while making his weapons charged and ready to deliver a massive deadly force if need be. But this made it incredibly hot, adding to the pressure of stress and anticipation. It wasn't an easy nor a smart idea to surprise and attack a Chimera faction, especially within the middle of all its forces.

Silont was definitely afraid of death, and this definitely put him at risk. It was difficult to tell whether or not that this mission could be deemed a suicide mission, as there was a high chance of him dying. But there was also a good chance of him not dying, he just had to pull this off.

Even so, there was a certain thrill in the face of death. He romanticized it heavily. Call it a strange, twisted sense of masochism. All Silont thought of it was an unknown, and as a self-declared explorer, he was always curious about what the experience would be like. Even his fighter's name paid somewhat of a tribute to his wandering ways. The name itself was Khelish, but to the best of translation, the name of the fighter was, The Sea-Cutter.

But at the moment he had a job to do and lives to protect. He quietly maneuvered his fighter into the small fleet. It took some time to track them down, but with Liara's help, it thankfully didn't take longer. He didn't know how she did it, he was just glad that she did. Because right now, they were on course to Rannoch. Shepard sure made a lot of enemies.

The fleet was small, yes. But it was highly advanced. Noticeable experimental guns protruded from each ship. They seem to have invested themselves in the best weaponry they could get.

But even with the impressive display of firepower, it was easy to tell that they had a loose chain of command. Each ship was sprawled haphazardly through space that there was no defined formation. They seemed eager to get to the front of the pack to get a chance for a blow at Shepard.

Ya'know, I expected a more ground-controlled base of assassins, I didn't think they'd come as a full-blown army of corvettes, frigates, and even destroyers! Liara probably managed to find them on size alone.

Speaking of which, Liara had started contacting him through his encrypted channel.

"Silont, are you in position?"

"Almost, which ship am I supposed to attack first?"

"I couldn't get any information on what ship their leader is on, is it possible for you to patch a video feed through?"

Silont was dumbfounded, "I'm in the middle of the entire fleet! Do you know how risky that is? I can't risk them tracking an open video signal. This is the only encrypted form of communication I have with you and there's not a camera attached to it."

Liara sighed, "Then all I can say is look for the most, 'official,' looking one. Good luck, Silont." Then she cut out.

Well, that was short and sweet. Okay then Si, let's get to business.

He took a quick sweep to look for any ships the leader might be on. If the leader was anything like the attacker on the Citadel, then he had the most hatred for Shepard. That sometimes leads to greed, and that greed would be wanting to be known as the one who killed the invincible Shepard. So their ship might be the most powerful as well as the most classy. Probably a destroyer.

It was pretty difficult to choose which one it could be. Each ship had its own balance of weaponry, and each of them also had a moderate amount of red and black color to match the Chimera symbol. Most of the others were just plain gray. Silont twisted and turned his own fighter to get a good look at each and every one. If he couldn't base it off of weaponry and fanciness, then he would have to base it off of size.

But that was not needed. His original idea was partially proven as there was one frigate in particular that was nearly all red and black. A large symbol was seen on each side of it. The ship itself was also large, so large in fact that Silont could fit multiples of his own fighter inside of it.

And there it is. He edged The Sea-Cutter closer and closer, around and around until he could find a good point to attack. He had to do it fast, his stealth tech couldn't last for long.

He noticed the bridge of the frigate was close to the top and to the back near where the main thrusters were positioned. The mix of anticipation, fear, and external heat was causing Silont to sweat underneath his mask uncontrollably.

The fighter's HUD flared, and the sights were set upon the wall that covered the bridge.

Okay, here we go. He swallowed the thought. 3...2...

He pulled the trigger, and all hell broke loose the next few moments. The first thing that happened was that the frigate was incapacitated due to the bridge being totally and utterly obliterated, the next was an awkward silence, and after that was raining hellfire.

It didn't take long for the enemy to realize what was going on. It surprised Silont to see that there was hardly any hesitation before they opened fire on him, even at the ship he just took down.

No regard for potential survivors? I mean I know I'm the one that just killed a whole bunch of them, but really? That's just sickening!

With his cloak gone he had to think fast about how he was going to fight all of them off. Looking at the dead frigate in front of him, he went on pure instinct and lowered his fighter into the hole where the bridge used to be. Okay, extra armor, let's do this.

The ship's carcass was taking heavy damage and Silont could see bodies of armored Chimera soldiers floating off into space in some of the holes, some of them on fire, melting, or already charred black to the level of being unrecognizable. Silont cringed slightly from the sight.

Luckily he could see just above the hole of the dead ship to see his incoming bogies...and all of the fire that was raining down on him.

He may have extra armor, but he wouldn't be able to hide in the shell for long. He turned his fighter around until it found a good grip on the insides. This is going to leave some serious scratches.

He cringed as his locked fighter screeched from the friction of moving the larger ship. He turned until he was pointed towards one side where multiple frigates that were coming onto him. He couldn't exactly fire his guns at them, not yet anyway. But it wasn't anything a couple blasts couldn't do.

Pulling the triggers, his guns tore through the innards of the shipception, allowing him opening room to fire out of.

"Excuse me, Lady Death, may I have this dance?" Silont said to himself.

A whir from his fighter sounded and raining fire came out from within the carcass into the enemy. Thanks to some of the experimental weaponry he managed to scavenge off of previous battles he had with Chimera, it didn't take long for the shields to crack and an enemy ship was dusted. But more contacts were coordinating and closing in on him.

Let's pick up on their chatter. Silont turned a knob on the console and messed with his piloting terminal to eavesdrop on what the enemy was saying to each other, and boy was it an odd, unenergized frenzy.

"Where's the fire coming from?"

"The Red Pharoah's gone zombie!"

"Lay it on 'em! The enemy is inside!"

"Who are we fighting?"

"Surround it! We can't let it escape!"

"At least we got them intimidated," Silont said to himself. He let off a few rounds of cannon fire and heavily damaged another ship. Silont could see bits and pieces of scrap and debris fall away from his extra shell of armor, and he needed to start moving if he had any hope of keeping it on him long enough.

He adjusted the thrusters of his fighter to help him start moving left and right, but it was painfully slow as the carcass had so much mass to move, and only allowed him to dodge mere shot or two. He let off a volley of cannon fire, heavily damaging a corvette and scrapping another. I'm so dead. I am so, so, so dead.

There was too many of them. There was still enemies that he was fighting in front of him but he was still getting fired at from behind, and a single lucky shot could end him completely. He took a deep breath. Plan B.

Screeches were heard as his fighter lost grip of the carcass. He twisted the controls and made a ninety-degree turn and extended the docking pole he used as an aid for entry to ports. He made sure to stay towards the back of the carcass in order to make his plan work. I'm gonna get so sick from this.

He pulled the thrusters slowly into overdrive, and the carcass began to spin backwards toward the other half of the enemy fleet. After he got up to a good speed, he readjusted his ship once more to grip the carcass so he was spinning along with it.

"The hell is it doing?" One of the enemy ships chattered.

"Wish I knew, buddy," Silont responded, knowing no one was going to hear him.

He tried to get a glance at all the enemies that were spinning around him. He was already feeling nauseous. He flexed his core to keep his lunch and focused on one ship closest to him. After a couple of spins, he timed his shot and fired.

And I Missed...miserably. This plan isn't going as well as I thought it would.

He spun like clockwork and it took another two shots before he demolished one. After that first hit, he started to get his timing down and managed to hit another ship, damaging it severely. Another spin and he landed a crippling shot on the bridge of another, taking it out of the battle.

How many is that now? Like, eight dead?

He was starting to get very sick from the spinning, and the floating debris that was peeling from the carcass was obscuring his view. In that moment, Silont almost had a heart attack as the carcass had another, bigger burning hole tore through its side, hitting mere yards in front of his fighter. The blast was strong enough to effectively stop the carcass from spinning.

Silont didn't even have a moment to react as another blast hit the back end, just above the aft of his fighter.

Silont thought he was dead, but the carcass was hit at an angle so that it threw his fighter out of its body, exposing him to the rest of the fleet.

The severity of the situation hit him.

"Oh shit..."

If he wasn't sweating and shaking in his suit before, he was sure now. There was still plenty of enemies that were left, and by plenty meant there was too many. He had to pull out of the fight.

He jerked hard on the controls, forgetting he didn't have the extra mass to move, and spun out backwards. Luckily for him, the jerk allowed him to dodge a blast that came up behind him, missing him by inches.

C'mon! I gotta ditch this party!

He faced the direction home and prepared to jump to FTL speed. But there was still a wall of enemies in front of him. On instinct, he picked a random target and let loose one of the few torpedoes that he had.

The traveling speed of the torpedo seemed agonizingly slow. He was surprised how he hadn't been hit at all in between that time of the torpedo moving and finally colliding with its target, setting off a ball of fire with chunks of the ship flying out and colliding with others, causing more damage. At the same time, he locked the cockpit of his fighter, allowing for extra armor at the cost of access to some of his systems.

There was his window. He pushed on the throttle and gained speed through the carnage, narrowly escaping the other ships. Once out of the flames and on the other side, he switched gears and gained a higher speed to jump to FTL. But a loud screech was gaining on him.

What the hell? Looking behind he could see a fighter almost exactly the size of his own, black like his only with rich red markings, like the color of blood.

"So this is the trouble maker?"

A deep, gruff voice echoed through Silont's open channels. He didn't care, however. He just wanted to get away from there.

He pushed harder on the throttle. Normally he wouldn't do so, as a sudden thrust in power would most likely tear bits off of his fighter, but this was an exception.

"Dammit." Came the gruff voice again. "You may be fast enough to get away this time. But if that happens to be you in that ship, Shepard. I just want to say that you may have hurt us, but we will kill you. We will hunt you down like the low life you are. We will slaughter you. You may run, but I won't give up. Here, have a going away pres-"

The channel faded out as Silont's fighter finally entered FTL. But the screeching did not stop. Silont looked over his shoulder and was shocked to see a rocket gaining on him.

No...way. I'm dead. I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm de-

The rocket was experimental and probably couldn't handle FTL speeds for long. It burned out and exploded just behind his right wing, taking it off completely, interrupting Silont's thoughts in the process by completely knocking him out, both by the explosion and also by the sudden headrush of the sharp turn his fighter had taken. His eyes closed on the sight of open space through the large breach in his cockpit.

His eyes reopened a little later. He thought he was actually dead this time, but the speed of going sideways at a downwards angle reminded him of what had happened.

His fighter was missing a wing and it had a gaping hole in his cockpit the size of a full-grown krogan. It had dropped out of FTL but was still careening through space like a free meteoroid. Silont didn't know how long he's been flying through space like this, but he knew it couldn't be longer than a minute or two.

His chair was bent towards the hole to where he was just at the entrance of it, which didn't ease his nerves. He was glad to see his suit had automatically locked its seals. It was a good thing that quarian outfits were basically spacesuits that they wore all the time. Still though, Silont didn't know how long he would possibly survive this before colliding into something.

"Well Agent Mikera, this is definitely a double, 'Oh shit,' moment."

He grasped his chair and unbuckled his seat, working himself away from the breach. The controls were covered in black ash and burn marks but were still functional. Thank the ancestors. If the controls were functional, then so were his communications.

He gave a shaky jab at a button that gave Liara a call, and he tried his best to stay patient and awake until she picked up on the signal.

"Silont! Where are you? What happened?!"

"I'll tell what happened after you help slow me down!"

"Slow you down?"

"Yes! Half of my ship is gone and I'm falling through space like a one-pound weight attached to an elcor!"

"Wha-? Nevermind, I'll get you out. Just tell me where you are."

With a heavy sigh, Silont sent the constantly changing coordinates to Liara. He was getting woozy.

"Wow...that is fast."

"Well, think of something, I'm too busy trying to stay awake," Silont yawned. "What would I give for some air resistance, or friction. Whatever it's called."

RANNOCH

"After we freed your ship you were buried on a body closest to Rannoch as we could get during that time. The rest of the crew were cremated."

Across from Shepard sat a confused, old quarian man lost out of time, struggling and only sighing out of exasperation. "That's all and very good...John?" Shepard nodded. "But you have to forgive me for changing subjects and being rather direct minded. How did I come back? How are we on the homeworld?"

"I was getting to that. Although it would have been easier if you actually watched the vid I left for you."

"Not easy to do that when there's a killing machine that just casually walks into your room."

"I guess you're right. But you see, the reapers are practically the reason for everything."

"As have been blared throughout the galaxy for years," Rael said in a tired, viciously comedic tone.

"Yes, well. There was an old reaper here on Rannoch that practically took control of the Geth here. It's why they were so hostile. We managed to free the Geth by destroying the reaper, and made a deal afterwards where Rannoch could fall back into quarian hands."

"Perfect..." Rael trailed off and several moments passed. It was slightly awkward, but he finally got around to asking his other question. "How am I alive?"

Shepard sighed. "Same way I came back to life."

"I'm sorry?"

Shepard snook shook his head. "Sterilize the room again, Randy."

"Sure thing, Shepard-Captain," came the geth's voice over the speakers. A simple mist cascaded from a sterilization unit installed in the ceiling.

"Wait...Shep-?"

Shepard pulled down his headwraps and leaned over, pulling the heavy helmet off his head. His neck felt exposed and his head felt smaller, his face particularly felt wrong, like it wasn't right to show it off. He looked up and kept a steely gaze into Rael's blue visor. This isn't how I imagined our first meeting at all.

"You're alive?" Rael questioned simply, with a mix of disbelief and confusion. "My daughter spoke highly of you." Shepard flinched slightly. "But I heard you died? She was severely devastated. What happened?"

"Cerberus happened."

"Explain."

"They brought me back from the dead, rebuilt me through the use of something called, 'The Lazarus Project.' Like you, I was dead for about two years."

Rael chuckled. "Something tells me I'm not liking some details in omission."

A bit of sweat pooled on Shepard's neck. "We had the same goal, taking down the reapers, albeit for different reasons. So we worked together somewhat. But when the time came, I destroyed both the reapers and Cerberus. I managed to scavenge the Lazarus Project before they fell and...here you are."

"Wait? Gone?" Rael questioned. "Those racist bastards are finally gone?"

"Yes, sir. Now they're just a broken faction of mercenaries hellbent on my destruction. Call themselves Chimera now. Don't worry, though, we have Silont going to clean them up."

"Silont? Didn't know he was still around."

"Isn't he on special service? Why wouldn't he be?" Shepard questioned.

"Last I heard he was following my orders for once and doing a recon mission. Was a good way to get him away and learn something useful. Then I heard he got tangled up with another geth patrol before I...died."

"So you were the one that sent him out on that mission? Yes, he told me about it. Very impressive feat he did. Took down twelve ships," Shepard informed him, slightly on hostile edge.

"Twelve? Wow. How's he doing now?"

"I'm not sure, haven't seen him in a couple days."

"Sounds like him, always going off doing his own thing."

"Yeah, well, he's been a great help in protecting us."

Shepard couldn't tell behind the blue visor, but judging from the slight pause and a stronger glint of light in one of his eyes, Shepard could guess that Rael was raising an eyebrow. Why did I say us? Please don't question. Shepard cursed in his thoughts.

Relieved, Rael continued on. "Quite. I hope he is well, wherever he is. But I have a more pressing question..."

"...Does anyone know of my revival?"

Shepard stopped breathing for a second, and gave a strenuous cough. His lungs burned, he quickly searched for the little white machine and scanned it over, checking to see if anything in his system changed. Nothing.

"Are you alright, Captain Shepard?"

Shepard held up a finger, signaling to give him a moment. He picked up his helmet and raised it over his head and pulled it snug around his neck. He was more comfortable behind the golden visor. The air was more safe in his helmet and he took a couple deep breaths, slowing down his painful coughs.

"Apologies," Shepard coughed again, "Sorry about that."

"Yes, well, I'll keep in mind to ask about you're condition, but my question still stands."

Wow, straight to the point. "No one but me and a few geth," he replied nervously. His stress level went slightly higher when he saw Rael bow his head.

Rael sighed. "Probably for the best. Shepard, I need off this planet."

Shepard took a moment to process this sudden request. "Ad-...Zorah...I didn't help bring you back for nothing. I was hoping to ease the reveal of your revival to the quarians."

"I don't know if you know this Captain, but there are good reasons to why I died."

"I know, I was on the ship, I saw what happened. Don't worry, your name is safe."

Rael shook his head, "I'm glad. But I still committed the crime, and even so, how are we supposed to just...reintroduce me? Years Shepard, I'm sure they already have some sad idiot to replace me."

Shepard bit his tongue. If only you could see who it was. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But right now you need to regain strength. The orange glow will fade after awhile."

"I don't know if I can thank you yet, Captain. But I appreciate you coming by and informing me of these events. I'd like to know more but I already need rest from this. We should talk later."

Shepard gave a knowing nod. It is quite a shock to be revived to see a couple years suddenly slip by. It's disorienting, and somewhat depressing. Shepard wheeled his chair over to the old quarian and stared at him, unsure whether to offer consolement. Rael tipped his head slightly, questioningly.

"Yes, absolutely. I need rest myself. The days are very long here," Shepard answered awkwardly. "I'll see you later," and started for the door.

"Shepard," he turned his head, "Maybe next time you could tell me why a human is in that suit. I'd very much like to know."

Unsure whether it was hostile or not, Shepard answered anyway, "Yes, absolutely. Take care Ad- Zorah." Shepard continued wheeling and opened the clean, spotless door. Before he could close the door behind himself all of the way, he heard a faint voice from Rael, who shifted from sitting on the couch to standing in front of the window in the hot, afternoon sun.

"I wonder what my daughter is doing."

A shiver of fear ran down his spine. At least he hasn't forgotten her, but was reviving him the right thing to do?