MASS EFFECT: WINTER EYES

CHAPTER 6: RAVEN

Moving quickly between breaths, Raven removed her armor, stuffing it in the bag she had alongside her, then slipping on the hotel maid uniform. The bag was a standard issued for the hotel cleaning crew and was large enough to be perfect to house her compacted rifle and armor along with a few extra goodies should there be a cause for it. Her mind raced, and she found herself taking longer to put on the uniform than she practiced. Before her run, she did a timed rehearsal back at basecamp three times; cutting her time down by five seconds each time. There was no room for error and she knew the distraction would cost her. Who was the turian? How come in the back of her mind that he felt somewhat familiar, yet distant? He too was armed with a sniper rifle and clearly had the advantage over her. Was he that terrible of a shot or was it a warning? "Damnit, move it!" She clumsily grabbed her bag and slipped the strap over her right shoulder as she scurried from the room. Pausing at the door, she listened in for a moment to note there were no sounds coming from within the hallway. The coast was clear.

Opening the room's door, she glanced each direction with her lavender eyes, before turning to the escape stairwell. She already downloaded the schematics to the hotel prior to her arrival. She noted a breezeway down on the eastside of the fifth level that connected the building a sky cab car terminal. She had to make it there and catch her ride to the port's dock to leave the planet. Within the hour, the entire place would be on lockdown. Racing down the steps, she paused again at the fifth level's door and listened. Still no one. Thankfully, the chaos below did not make its wave up near her yet. She knew that the turian would be on her and she figured from its past location, that he had about a ten-minute ETA. She had about five minutes left. Swiping her stolen ID badge, she was able to exit the hotel into the breezeway and slowed her pace down. The breezeway contained a few stragglers from the garage who were looking down below, watching the crowd and commenting amongst one another in alarm. Raven glanced leerily at some of them and took the risk of moving over to the closest window side. The people groundside really couldn't see into her location, which was good for her.

Noting a distressed human couple beside her, Raven gasped slightly in feign, watching the people scramble around. "Oh wow…what is going on?" She asked to the couple.

The man of the group, who Raven noted to be in his early twenties with sandy blonde hair, had a petrified look on his face. "They say it was a shooter! I can't tell if anyone was injured."

The woman was sobbing as she clutched him. "I knew we shouldn't have come here, Todd!"

Todd gently held her and tried his best to calm the frantic woman down. "Easy, Jenn. We are safe. They will catch the guy."

Raven placed her hand gently on Jenn's arm as she gave her a comforting smile. "He's right. You are safe. I'm so glad I don't go that way when I leave my shift." She glanced below to see the same turian moving towards the hotel entrance. He was easy to spot because he was working against the crowd. Raven tried her best not to become tense. She then spotted an asari, krogan along with her intended target following him. "Shit." The word slipped out under her breath. "What the hell is going on?" Eying the window once more to see the group gone, she moved away towards her destination, quickening her steps, but not too fast to become suspicious.

Two minutes later, she reached the sky car that was waiting for her. It was one of Charon's agents that was already planted on Elysium and had been monitoring Miranda's movements prior to the attack. The dark purple haired woman looked her way in deep concern as she sat behind the controls. "What took you so long?"

Raven shoved her bag into the back of the vehicle and took the passenger seat beside her, allowing the door closed first before addressing her question. "It was a setup. Someone is onto us." She pressed herself back against the seat as she glared hard up at nothing as the cab exited the garage with other vehicles. "I failed."

"Easy. I didn't notice any aid for Miranda." The woman glanced her way slightly as she maneuvered the vehicle sharply around stopped vehicles. The entire skyway was slowing down, becoming a gridlock due to the disruption below. "Damn traffic. We should still hit the port in ten minutes. I'll radio ahead to make sure we are ready to take off as soon as we get there."

Raven remained silent as she looked out into the darkness from her window, seeing lights of other cabs pass by. The driver's call to their ship becoming background noise. She decided not to relay the information about the turian that stopped her nor his other companions for now. She desperately reached into her mind to figure out how come he looked familiar, but there was a block and she became even more frustrated when trying to solve the mystery. Growling through clenched teeth, Raven hit the side of the cab with her fist. "Damnit!"

The sudden outburst startled the driver and she nearly lifted from her seat. "Calm down! You going to make me crash and I don't want to be stuck here. The whole damn security net will be looking for us shortly. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in an Elysium prison." The woman paused when Raven didn't reply. "You okay? What happened down there?" She frowned.

Raven sighed hard and closed her eyes in dismay. "Ambush."

The peach skin color female salarian escorted Miranda and the others to another room of the precinct. "My apologies for any inconvenience, Ms. Lawson. I know that the entire ordeal of being brought down here is quite embarrassing, but please understand that my men were simply following orders."

"Is the port on lockdown? We can't let this person get away." Miranda asked sharply, ignoring the apology. She was grateful that Garrus and the others showed up when they did. She had no idea what was in store for her. After leaving Cerberus, she knew her life would constantly be in danger; even more so than when she was with the organization. However, the near chance of death without knowledge left her a bit uneasy.

"Yes. I have all shifts working right now, making barricades and setting up checkpoints."

"What about the dock, Sergeant Anisa? Have they grounded the flights?" Garrus brought up as he was the second in line behind them in the hallway. He thought back to his playbook when he was a C-Sec officer. Whenever there was a high alert on the station, standard procedure was to setup checkpoints and shut down all outbound and inbound crafts until the all clear was given. It seemed like Elysium was running the same play, but he had to be certain. He had to find Macha. He knew that it was her.

Anisa entered the designated room, allowing them to file in, before she turned to address his concerns. "A call was dispatched to the dock and I have sent a team down to do checks, Mr. Vakarian. I'm glad to see that you still have the officer in you. We need more people like that here."

Garrus nodded his head in acknowledgment. He knew that she already had their files prior to her meeting. Most likely, she was informed of their arrest upon their transport to the precinct. It was twenty minutes from the hotel and then another ten minutes before the officer met them. He glanced over at his companions with a slight crack in a smile. "Thirty-minute window."

Anisa moved to the row of video monitors and typed away at a terminal. "I have asked the hotel to transfer their surveillance feed over to me. Should take a minute for it to download, but this may give us some insight on the attacker and who to look for." Everyone stared at the dark screens in great anticipation, remaining silent. After a minute, the salarian frowned. Grumbling, she pulled up her omni tool. "This is Sergeant Anisa. Did you submit the feed?"

"My apologies, mam." A man came back through on the other end. "There seems to be a malfunction in the feed. It seems that the footage we have for the time query was an overlap from the previous day. I-I don't know what caused this. I have notified our IT department."

"When can you get this fixed?" Anisa sighed hard as she rubbed her temple with her other hand.

"I-I'm not sure. They are working on it now. I will check back as soon as I know something."

"I'll be calling back in ten minutes." The salarian ended the call.

Liara looked at her friends with a frown. "Charon sabotaged the feed."

"Clever bastards." Wrex commented.

"So, we have nothing?" Miranda sighed in exasperation. "Well, that's just great."

"Let me check on my other teams. Feel free to stay here. My apologies." Sergeant Anisa excused her from the room.

"Sitting here will be a waste. Stupid salarians." Wrex grumbled lowly.

"Shhh, Wrex." Liara shook her head quickly at him. "Keep your voice down."

Garrus glumly eyed his companions as he took a breath. It was time to tell them what he witnessed. "I…I saw the assassin."

"You did?" Miranda turned on her heel to look at him. "What did they look like? Male? Female?"

"Spirits…I pray that I'm wrong about this. It looked like Shepard."

Liara gasped as she held her fingertips to her mouth. "Sh-Shepard….? Goddess, no. You certain?"

"Different hair and eyes, but yeah, an exact match other than that." He thought back to the image of her in his scope. The last time he had her in her sights was on Omega. He remembered the determined look on her face as she pushed her way across the bridge to his hideout with the Blue Suns. Back then, he too, thought he was seeing something. As far as he knew, she died in the attack on the Normandy.

"Shepard?" Miranda scoffed at the clue. She moved away from the group to eye the monitors. "That can't be. Why would she?"

"Garrus, you certain about this?" The krogan asked his longtime friend. "Your turian old eyes not playing tricks on you, are they?"

The turian's lips smiled slightly by the jab. "If only that was the case…"

Liara's dark blue eyes stared at the floor as she tried to process what was disclosed. Despite her intel, nothing came across that Shepard was still alive, even after all these years, and the reports of Charon. Was it really her? Was it another clone like the one they fought on the Citadel years ago? "No body was discovered among the ruins of the Citadel on Earth." She reminded the group. "We should explore this further."

"The Citadel exploded. How could she survive that?" Miranda tossed out.

"Shepard could." Wrex chuckled. "She's tougher than a thresher maw. I knew she wasn't dead."

"We don't even know if that really is her, Wrex." Liara eyed the group. "We mustn't let this get out. If we tell anyone, then agencies will start to label her as one of them."

"Should we fan out and search the port?" Lawson asked.

Garrus shook his head slowly. "Don't bother. She's long gone."

T'Soni frowned by the statement. "Then we are back to square one."

Hours later, Raven met Erinyes at the debriefing room. The holo image of Elysium displayed in the center with Raven standing on the left side and Erinyes standing to Shepard's right. The woman before Raven was silent, which made her start their conversation. "The mission was a failure."

"I read your report." Erinyes' face was neutral. "Thank you for your promptness on that. There's another group shadowing us?"

"I'm not certain," Raven explained. "The turian stopped me. He and the others were moving to the hotel. No insignias and no chatter from local security that they were moving in on me."

"You said it was a turian, asari and a krogan along with Miranda Lawson?"

"Yes. She was following them and seemed to be working with them. By the turian's position point, he was ready for me. She was tipped off. You think she hired a private security group? Suns? Eclipse?" She tossed out names that came familiar to her. The Blue Suns were mostly noted for their security detail and still thrived after the Reaper War. The Eclipse were not a heavy player anymore, but still had pockets around. It wasn't uncommon for mercs to use an acid bath to remove tattoos from their skin to hide their affiliations during certain missions. The task was extra, and Miranda could well afford the expense.

"Maybe." Erinyes breathed hard through her nose as she stared at the planet. Miranda's death was taken away from her for now and she didn't like the idea that the traitor of Cerberus was free still to roam around while her father's corpse rotted. She already knew who Raven was talking about when she gave descriptions of the others that accompanied Miranda on Elysium. It was shocking to know that Shepard's team was still together. A fault of hers. She should have anticipated this. However, she was fortunate that Raven could not recall who they were, which meant the chip she implanted in her brain was functional. She had to be sure though. "You were not able to place their identities?"

Erinyes noted that Raven shook her head without any forced hesitation. "Not a clue."

"We will see what security footage we can obtain from the scene to confirm who they are. They may pose a threat to our future operations." Charon's leader remained calm and collective. She couldn't let any sign of relief show on her face to their investment. The idea of the old squad coming back into Raven's life was troubling, so she had to stay on top of this and it may be wise to not let her go out on missions alone. She couldn't let them take Raven and reveal her identity. She would not allow their interference once more like they did with her father's work. His legacy would go on. Charon would survive and thrive. It would be the glory of Cerberus before the Illusive Man took the daunting task on to revive Macha from the dead. That was his fatal mistake. "You are dismissed for now, Raven."

"What about Miranda?" Raven spoke up. She didn't like the notion of the woman who betrayed her to go free and cause potential harm to more allies. Anderson's murder still troubled her.

"I will keep my agents on her. Elysium like Omega will be on full lockdown now. Another attempt will be foolish on our part. Stand by for your new orders."

Raven saluted dutifully before she turned to exit the room. "Raven?" Erinyes called back to her.

"Yes, Erinyes?"

The woman didn't bother to look at her as she said, "My agent said you were late at the pickup. Your time was very disappointing."

Raven scowled for the reminder that she allowed the turian's presence to cause her delay. "It won't happen again."

Erinyes' gaze remained at the screen even after Raven left. The gentle hum of machinery in the room was the only sound besides her own breath. Her hands clasped behind her back. "Their interference almost cost me. I cannot allow any mistakes. It's time to take out the turian."