Disclaimer: The Mass Effect universe is the property of Bioware/Electronic Arts. No infringement of these copyrights is intended as this is a not for profit fan fiction work.

Rewrite Notes: Still inspired by the Beyonce song "Save the Hero," from the album I am…Sasha Fierce.

Author's Notes: Alright before anyone gets offended by some of the content in this chapter I'm reminding everyone she's only known the crew for six days and in this rewrite she's much less of a paladin and more of a special forces operative. Also, as I said in my Intro over on AO3, there are no sympathy races in the story anymore, no poor Quarians or poor Krogan. There's quite enough of those stories out there if you want to read them.

Revision History: 12/30/2017

Part 1: Chapter 12::8 Days Post-Awakening: Korlus

The Blood Pack never even bothered to send down a shuttle to determine what exactly had happened to Warlord Garm and his forces, they seemed only interested in recovering their transports. Those however, they seemed determined to find. Determined enough that the cruiser sent to scan for them was still searching eight hours later. While they waited for the Blood Pack to give up their hunt for their transports, Shepard kept her people busy with various tasks. She assigned EDI and Miranda to hacking into Okeer's data and searching through it for any information about the Collectors or anything else useful. That included information on his prototype, now named Grunt, who had now joined them. She sent Jack, Grunt and Jacob out strip the dead for their weapons, spare ammo and grenades as well as anything else valuable. She also had them do a genetic scan of every krogan to help identify them. That information she sent up to the Menrva for the crew to run a search to see if any of dead had bounties on them. Finally she put Joker and Garner in charge of setting up a new 'Normandy Fund' though this one would obviously not be named the same, so they could fund their operating expenses. Like the old Normandy Fund she had setup during their hunt for Saren, they were to incorporate and set up a bank account as a salvage company on Illium. Despite its higher taxes, Shepard chose to incorporate on Illium for the same reason many mercenary groups did, you could setup your company relatively easily and without showing up in person as well as operate and access your funding from both Council space and most of Terminus space.

While she probably would have done all of this anyway after her experiences with funding the mission for Saren, the newly incarnated Menrva Salvage Company had been made necessary by the news that Miranda had given her a few hours before the beginning of the mission. They had received a rather sizable bill from the Cerberus station, namely one for the modifications she had ordered for the ship as well as the Anoydine armor and all the armor upgrades they had ordered at the time. Miranda had been bewildered and embarrassed by the fact that she had not been informed of this before she ordered the changes to the ship, but Shepard had only snorted in amusement at the pettiness of it. Apparently TIM had been that attached to having the Cerberus logo flown all over the place by his new SR-2 Normandy. Unknown to her XO, Cerberus had given them a budget. They would pay for the regular crew's salaries, basic supplies and a monthly budget of 50,000 credits, but anything else they needed to fund on their own.

Currently, they were nearly three million credits over that budget as the new paint job and re-furbished asari-made shuttle had not come cheap. From the way Miranda had acted the Cerberus operative had expected her to react with anger to the news, but Shepard hadn't been that concerned about the amount. Even before becoming a Spectre she was used to running self-funding operations, for that was how they had ran quite a few of the undercover N-7 missions. They had been pretending to be asari mercenaries after all, and mercenaries weren't in the habit of leaving expensive equipment they could sell behind nor reluctant to claim a bounty on a dead enemy. Though she had balked at the idea of stripping the dead and turning their bodies over for bounties as a freshly minted special forces operative, she had learned how to get past her moral reluctance for the sake of the mission. It was the same now, they could hardly operate on only 50,000 credits a month given the list of items and ship modifications she knew they needed in order to have a chance at surviving when they went up against the Collectors.

Shepard hopped up on one of the counters in Okeer's lab, scooted back and rested her back against the wall. She glanced over to where Miranda was glued to Okeer's computer as she and EDI continued to scan through the treasure trove of information they had found on his experimentations, then leaned her head back and closed her eyes. It had been a very long day so far, nearly twelve hours, and it looked like it would be a much longer one still. The Blood Pack ship, having done a rather random search pattern for about four hours, was now redoing the search in a proper grid pattern. EDI estimated it would take them at least another four hours to complete it. They really wanted those five transports back, but she wasn't inclined to easily give them up when they were worth an estimated 250,000 for their oversized eezo cores alone. What she was really counting on was that Garm at least would have a sizable bounty on his head, enough that when combined with selling off the transports the amount would cover the three million owed and leave some left over. She frowned, still though, this seemed like and odd thing for the head of Cerberus to do, peeved over her painting over his pretty paint job on the ship or not. Miranda had been horribly embarrassed and confused over the entire matter and it seemed like TIM was just handing her an opportunity to put a wedge in the tiny fracture this provided in the operative's certainty in Cerberus and crack it open.

The question was did she want to bother? Was the operative enough of an asset to spend the energy, time and effort to cultivate? Not to mention the looming uncertainty of her visit to the Citadel to inform the Council that she was alive and although she was currently working with Cerberus could she please be reinstated as a Spectre. Though she didn't mention it to anyone she knew there was a significant chance of that meeting not turning out the way she wished, but with the bounties on Cerberus personnel after Trident she didn't have many choices left that allowed her to keep trying to stop the Reapers. She needed her Specter status reaffirmed in order to operate without worrying about them all being arrested and the ship impounded if they were in League space and to hopefully decrease the number of bounty hunters after them otherwise. She grimaced, honestly though there was no guarantee the Council would even see her. They might just have her quietly locked away some where she couldn't cause trouble while they figured out how Cerberus had brought her back to life. The only reason she wasn't more concerned about that happening was that Anderson was a Council member. The more probable outcome was that the Council's price for giving her back her Spectre status might be for her to hand over the Menrva and all of the Cerberus personnel on it.

Quite frankly she didn't know if she would take that bargain or not, it would depend on a number of factors. The first would be that she could protect Joker and Chakwas from any repercussions due to their joining Cerberus, the second would be that the Council have leniency for Daniels and Donnelly as well as the colonist crew-members who were lured into Cerberus solely on the promise of serving on her ship, and third that she be offered her a ship and crew in replacement and the freedom to pursue the Collectors. She felt guilty over the fact that she was even thinking about this given that many of the crew members seemed to truly be there solely because she was supposed to be leading them, but the fact of the matter was Cerberus reputation as a terrorist group was well known and everyone on her crew had knowingly joined them anyway. The only exceptions to that were EDI, who had no choice in her creation, Jack, who had joined her only to get info on Cerberus, and Grunt, who as far as she could tell just wanted a place to belong and a good fight. Shepard knew the Council wouldn't let her spare the AI, but she would make a determined effort to get Jack and Grunt released to her if she had to turn over the rest. She huffed a bitter, frustrated breath, all of that was of course assuming they listened to her at all and didn't simply blockade the relay, take the ship by force, do what they wanted to those that survived, and inform her she could accept it or resign. She had little to no leverage over the Council to even persuade them to listen to her and that put her in a weak position to bargain for anyone, including herself.

Something was still nagging at her though, Shepard let out a weary breath, something besides the worry of how events might go during her visit to the Citadel. She had the feeling she was missing something obvious, she didn't know what it was though and right now she was simply too exhausted to figure it out. She sighed, her mind wandering in her tiredness. How was she going to deal with Grunt and Jack and then Jack and Miranda as well as helping her XO develop drills for the crew? So many damn things she needed to do to get the crew even in shape to go after the Collectors and now she needed to consider funding as well. She frowned as another thought rose in her mind, maybe that's what TIM actually wanted? For her to be so busy with her team, the crew, and finances that she didn't have any energy left to think about other things? It was a possibility she would definitely have to consider further.

"Shepard," Miranda's voice jerked her awake sometime later, "perhaps you should nap somewhere more comfortable. The shuttle has cushions, you could lie down there for a few hours."

"No," she automatically protested, shaking her head, "just give me a few to wake up."

"Commander please," the earnestness other woman's plea surprised her, "if the Blood Pack does come down here we need you to be ready to fight them. That means you need to rest if you're tired. The cargo bay just one deck away, you would be very close if we need to wake you."

She could see the sense in Miranda's reasoning, "Very well," she agreed slowly sliding down from the counter. "If that ship deviates in any way or the other two cruisers move closer wake me immediately," she ordered the dark-haired woman as she headed toward the door.

Miranda nodded, "I will Commander."

She must have dropped off the moment she laid down; for she woke up out of an oddly realistic dream of Thalion talking to her, it was four hours later. Amanda rubbed her face as she sat up, that had been a particularly weird dream to have she thought to herself trying to capture the details of it from her wisps of memory. She and Thalion had been sitting at a cafe together. They had been outside as well, Amanda recalled, since she could clearly remember the feel of the sun on her head and breezes bringing the scent of flowers. They had been discussing tactics over cups of eirien tea, which had tasted almost like hibiscus tea, but with the addition of berries. How bizarre, Amanda shook her head in bewilderment, maybe she had somehow placed herself in one of his memories while dreaming? In any case, one of the topics they had discussed stuck in her mind, "You will never defeat your enemy by reacting to his actions, by chasing after him. To defeat him you must determine his objective, then once you know that you must deny him it. No matter the advantage he appears to have, or how much planning he appears to have done, if you can deny him his objective you have rendered all of that useless and succeeded in defeating him anyway."

Shepard pondered his advice. She knew what her objective was, to stop the Collectors, but was that the Illusive Man's objective? She thought about the concerning lack of combat experience in the crew, not from a perspective of needing to properly train them, but simply evaluating that fact without reacting to it. Then she considered the ship that Cerberus had given her. Yes, it was larger, yes it had a correspondingly larger element zero engine core, but it did not possess any substantial improvements in its kinetic barriers, armor or weaponry over the original Normandy and whatever had destroyed her former ship had cut the SR-1 nearly in half. For all the Cerberus claimed to be giving her all she needed to succeed in her mission to stop the Collectors, they had also left some very obvious vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities that they had to be aware of, and yet had made no effort to correct. She recalled Nihlus saying that some of the species in the Terminus, and she knew he had meant the Batarians, might actually be willing to start a war to get their hands on a Prothean beacon when discussing the one found on Eden Prime. Shepard's eyes narrowed in thought, the Illusive Man knew that Collector tech was based on Reaper tech, what might he do, or spend…to obtain it. Amanda felt a chill go down her spine, maybe four billion? Maybe the price of an expendable Spectre, an expendable warship, and an expendable crew? A grim expression crossed her face as she considered the question forming in her mind. Was stopping the Collector's his actual goal, or was using her to get through the previously impassable Omega 4 relay and gain access to the Collector's home world or outpost and their Reaper-based technology? What exactly was the risk vs. reward ratio if she was successful and he gained access to Collector or Reaper tech? More, much more than four billion she was certain, probably by an order of magnitude.

She felt like an idiot, all TIM had to do was dangle the Reapers in front of her along with a deserted colony to tug at her past and heart and she had developed tunnel vision and focused solely on stopping the Collectors. Thank Goddess for that dream making her question more than what was directly in front of her. She had been so fixated on the weaknesses that needed remediating in her team, in the crew, in the ship, so that they could stop the Collectors that she had failed to more than fleetingly question why those weaknesses they were there in the first place. She felt certain this was TIM's actual goal and objective, using her to gain access to whatever was on the other side of the Omega 4 relay. Oh, he probably wanted the famous Commander Shepard to stop the Collector attacks on human colonies, she thought sarcastically and then frowned at her next thought, and for her do so while flying Cerberus colors and under the Cerberus aegis. It both fit in with the we support humanity flag the terrorist organization publicly flew, and - her grey eyes narrowed - and they would spin it as if she were a supporter of Cerberus itself. She gritted her teeth together, no wonder he had been unhappy with her repainting the ship and insisting that there be no public display they belonged to Cerberus. Realizing that she was actually grinding her teeth together Shepard forced herself to take a few deep breaths to relax and regain control over her emotions.

Once she felt calmer, she steered her thoughts away from the idea of being used as an advertisement for the terrorist group and being played like a fool, something that would just make her angry all over again, and focused it instead on the issue before her. How was she to achieve her goal of stopping the Collectors while outmaneuvering TIM and preventing him from achieving his goal? Not a simple task since she would probably have to go through the Omega 4 relay to permanently stop them. While the Collectors could retreat there, resupply, repair whatever damages were done to them - have safe harbor essentially - it would be almost impossible to stop their attacks for more than just a short while. No, to stop them for good whatever base or bases they had on the other side of the relay had to be destroyed. Fortunately, the slow pace of their Collectors attacks suggested a limited infrastructure on the other side…on the other hand though, they could be limiting the frequency of their attacks so as not to raise the alarm about their activities.

Her brow furrowed as she pondered the next logical question. If she had to go through the relay, which was what TIM desired, how was she going to stop him from doing the same? Or failing that, stop him from being able to access the Collector technology there? Well, she asked herself, what did she know about the Omega 4 relay? From what TIM had told her no non-Collector ship passing through it had ever returned, and he believed the Collectors were able to interact with the relay in a unique way which allowed them safe passage through it. So, they would have to research or find out whatever that thing was which allowed them to transit safely through the relay. If she prevented him from…which she couldn't Shepard realized angrily, EDI was wired into the ship, and anything they discovered would be forwarded to Cerberus by the AI. She growled in irritation at the realization. She really didn't have anything against the AI. EDI had been amazingly helpful with the reconnaissance drone, but the fact of the matter was the AI's presence made it very difficult to impossible for her to keep anything that happened onboard the ship from Cerberus.

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, alright then, if that wasn't an option then the only one left was for her to ensure Cerberus couldn't actually access whatever technology was on the other side which meant completely destroying it. Or…completely destroying them… She shook her head, truthfully either was a tall order for her to accomplish. At least she knew where the Collectors were located, whereas Cerberus took pains to make sure it would be very difficult for anyone to actually wipe out the entire organization. She sighed, feeling the weight of almost impossible expectations falling back on her shoulders, hopefully she was right about the limited infrastructure, and the Collectors had just a base or station and not an entire world. If there was an inhabited Collector world on the other side of the relay, there would be little she could do besides make a quick raid and then get out. Take the intel back to the Citadel, and pray they paid more attention to her than when she tried to persuade them to move on Ilos.

She shook her head as she thought about it, maybe there was something she could use as leverage to persuade them but what? The answer when it popped into her mind made her want to smack herself upside the head for not having realized it a moment earlier. Maybe being a Spectrecicle or the Drell neurochemicals had done something to her ability to reason clearly…or maybe she had just not taken a moment to objectively work through this before now she realized ruefully. The Illusive Man wanted Collector technology enough to spend two years and four billion dollars on her so she could go get it for him. She would bet that if she presented this as to the Council as an opportunity for them to get intelligence on Cerberus as well as getting access to the Collector's technology they would be just as interested. Normally they would balk at the suggestion of going into the Terminus Systems, but the Omega 4 relay was within the territory of Warlord Aria T'Loak who Alliance Intelligence believed owed her rise to power directly to the support provided her by the Asari Republics Intelligence Services. Even if that wasn't true, the League and the Republics had worked together before to stop the Hegemony from taking over Esan, so it wasn't a stretch to think the League would be willing to play ball with the Council especially if they shared in the spoils.

Besides…she tilted her head in thought, if the League had access to the technology as well as the Council that would ensure it would make its way out onto the market instead of locked up in a research lab somewhere. While that opened up the possibility of slavers and pirates acquiring such weapons, it might also spur an arms race between the various weapons manufactures as they attempted to improve on whatever technology was found…and that would ultimately help everyone when the Reapers arrived from dark space. Also, there was another reason to make sure the Council saw what was on the other side of the relay. If the Collectors were working for the Reapers, or more likely controlled by them in the same way they had Saren, then there might be evidence of the Reapers which the Council could not just wave away as being a byproduct of her overactive imagination the same way they had the visions given by the beacon.

So, Amanda thought with a smirk actually feeling a stirring of optimism for the first time since she woke up, the revised shinny and new plan: Sell the idea to the Council that they could get access to Collector technology by giving her back her Spectre status and agreeing to her remaining with Cerberus long enough to use their assets to gain access to the Omega 4 relay. Then she just needed to ensure that the Council was the one who got access to whatever was on the other side while preventing Cerberus from accessing it and cross her fingers there was hard evidence of Reaper involvement that didn't end up just indoctrinating everyone. That was a concern, but sometimes you had to settle for most of what you wanted instead of all of it and right now she would settle for them taking her seriously. Besides, if they were actually taking her seriously they would take her warnings of the possibility of indoctrination seriously thus mitigating the risk of it.

The lure of Collector tech would be her leverage to ensure the Council didn't confine her when she showed up on the Citadel, didn't try and take over the Menrva, and most importantly, that they didn't prevent her from stopping the Collectors attacks on human colonies. Though none of the colonies which the Collectors had attacked so far had been particularly large or prosperous, Shepard suspected the attacks had done more long-term damage to Humanity than many suspected. It was easy to quantify the lost lives, and decreased production and revenue from the attacked colonies. Harder to quantify however were the rippling effects of such attacks. A decreased interest in supporting new colonies, and a reduced rate of emigration from Earth to the colonies since the colonies were seen as dangerous and unsafe while Earth was protected from any such attacks. Her concern was the fact that there were only 15 or so billion humans in the galaxy, and around 11 billion of them still lived on Earth…which was likely to be a prime initial target for the Reapers. That was not good for the long-term future of Humanity and the Systems Alliance, she thought grimly, not good at all.

"Hey, Shepard. EDI said you were up and moving again, so answer." Jack's voice echoing around the shuttle broke her out of her thoughts.

Shepard glanced down at her helmet which she had taken off in the sealed shuttle and placed on the floor beside the bench where she was sleeping for quick retrieval. She picked it up, pulled it down over her head and engaged the seals before answering, "Yes Jack?"

"I think Grunt's figured out we aren't asari. Might want to speak with him," the convict said sounding rather cheerful about it.

"Ah," she replied eloquently, "I wondered when that would happen. Probably best now rather than springing it on him later."

Jack cackled with laughter, "Yea, probably."

Shepard crossed over to the controls by the door, unsealed and opened the asari shuttle's hatch then stepped down to the freighter's deck. "Oh, yea," Jack added, "We got back news on the bounties." She sounded positively gleeful, noted Shepard so it must be good news. "Someone back in Citadel space really hated Garm. One of those asari matriarchs. Sucker had a 50 million credit bounty on him. Must have slaved one of her kids or something," Jack noted. "Okeer wasn't well liked either, though less so than Garm. He has a 5-million-dollar bounty on him. Couple of the others had bounties on them too, but not much compared to those two, a few 100,000 and 50,000 credit bounties."

That…that was much better than she had even allowed herself to hope, thought Shepard a bit dazed, hell that beat any bounty she had ever had a hand in claiming up until now.

"So how are you going to divide that up?" Jack asked her, now sounding quite a bit more serious.

Shepard turned to look at her, the armored woman's arms were crossed over her chest. She sighed, "Not probably what you want to hear, but operating costs and upgrades to the ship, our armor and weapons come first. None of us can spend anything if we're dead."

Jack had taken a breath as if to respond but then let it go as she heard her full statement. "Operating costs, ship upgrades?" She sounded a bit accusative, "I thought Cerberus was running this mission."

"They're paying the salaries of the regular crew members," Shepard replied, "and giving us a budget to run the ship of 50,000 credits a month. I need to fund everything else as well as the salaries of those I recruit…like you and Grunt. From what I understand, the regular crew is getting paid around 200,000 credits per year. I'm thinking of setting the salaries for the ground crew to 600,000 credits. Provided we actually collect on those bounties of course," she hastily added. "Then, after that…the Menrva Fund's already set up to disperse on the completion of the Collector mission. Whatever is left over will be divided between the surviving crew members and ground team at a 40/60 split."

"Seriously? You're supposed to be stopping these Collectors and they're making you pay for everything?" Jack commented referring to their conversation concerning what they had discovered on Freedom's Progress and who was actually behind the attacks on human colonies. "Cerberus can't be trusted, they're probably really after something else and just using you."

Shepard huffed out a bemused laugh, maybe she should let Jack handle the long-term tactics, the convict seemed to have a solid grasp of TIM's likely goals. "You're probably right," she agreed, "in any case does the salary meet with your approval and the arrangements for the distribution at mission's end?"

Jack remained silent for a long moment, and Shepard wished she could actually see the other woman's face through her faceplate instead of just her own reflection. "I can live with that type of pay, yea. As for the distribution, just so long as it actually happens otherwise I'm coming after you."

"Fair enough," responded Shepard. "Now where's Grunt at?"

Jack jerked her head toward the other side of the ship, "Wandering around where the fighting took place. I think he's talking with some of the other clones."

"Huh," Shepard responded not expecting that answer, then she asked, "and the Blood Pack cruiser?"

"Left orbit about thirty minutes ago, but the Blood Pack cruisers are still in system," Jack replied. "Your ship's crew is keeping an eye on them," she snorted, "doing something to earn their share of the bounty at least."

"They're not fighting down here, but they're certainly not safe up there either," Shepard commented, trying not to lecture. "In any case, might as well start collecting the bodies to turn in for bounties. Chakwas can send down stasis pods for them as soon as the Blood Pack ships leave. I'll talk to Grunt while we're getting that done."

Jack snorted, "And remind him of who exactly killed Garm and almost squashed him like a bug while you're telling him you're not an asari like he thought?"

Shepard winced at the reminder of what had nearly happened, however, "Yea, that's pretty much it."

"Probably a good idea," commented Jack as she turned and sauntered off toward the front of the ship.

Shepard knew it was, Krogan were usually extremely competitive and obsessed with proving their personal strength. Whether over their environment or over others, seemed to be much the same to them, or so she had been taught in school. That was what lead to the Rebellions, once the Rachni were gone the obvious targets to prove themselves against were the other Citadel races. Her military training had only built on that concept in the Krogan section of their xeno-cultural studies, she especially recalled the videos they had shown of the results of the asteroids they had dropped on Turian worlds, the hospitals they had shown no hesitation to attack or bomb to prevent them from offering lifesaving services, and the emaciated, beaten-down slaves that had been freed from their work camps. N training made sure to strip off any rose-colored glasses their future special forces operatives might have been wearing about any of the other species. Concerning the Krogan in particular, they made sure their operatives understood that this would have been Humanities future had the Hierarchy not employed the genophage to stop the Krogan from overrunning the galaxy. The genophage was an ugly thing without a doubt, but the Krogan had shown an equally ugly side of themselves during the Rebellions and nothing they had done since then indicated that history would not repeat itself should their numbers be replenished.

Until she had met Urdnot Wrex, Shepard had seen no evidence to disprove anything she had been taught about the Krogan. Quite to the contrary, everything she had witnessed firsthand out in the Terminus Systems had only confirmed that what she had been taught about the Krogan was simply the unfortunate truth. Wrex proved to be a fortunate anomaly. For one thing, he was the first krogan she had an opportunity to actually get to know rather than their interaction being limited to the immediate kill or be killed. Wrex was far more forward thinking and adaptable than she had been taught to expect; and, as they became friends, he had taught her a lot about his race. How to successfully interact with them, and how to tell which ones would be more trouble than help to her. She was hoping Grunt would prove to be helpful rather than troublesome. She was willing to give him an opportunity, but if he proved too disruptive then she would just drop him off somewhere with his due pay and let him make his own way.

Grunt was standing next to one of the other clones in their yellow and red armor. Shepard glanced at the silvery armor he wore which actually left part of his arms bare and didn't even have a helmet, and made mental note to herself to made sure they kept both Okeer and Garm's armor and didn't send it along with the bodies for the bounties. Either one would be better than the pretty display armor the young krogan was wearing now.

As she walked up to them, she heard the clone say to Grunt, "The words in the glass mother told me that I was not perfect, that is why I am here."

"Okeer told me that I was perfect," Grunt replied, "but I was defeated by Garm and by Shepard."

Shepard shook her head at them once they noticed her approach, "All of us have been defeated at one time or another, sometime ask me about how it went when I went up against a cruiser sized ship."

"You have been defeated?" Grunt sounded like that was a revelation to him.

She snorted, "Against a cruiser sized ship? Of course I was defeated, but sometimes it's about first surviving, then giving yourself time to learn and gain experience." Shepard laughed silently at herself, strong words, only time would tell if she could manage to follow her own advice. "For instance, I'm definitely going to make sure the Menrva gets better armor and upgrades to its barriers and weapons."

"You are not asari," Grunt said next.

"I am not," Shepard replied after a moment wondering how this would go over, "I am Commander Amanda Shepard, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance."

"Humans are soft, less than a finger deep to sever your spine," Grunt stated, apparently something he had learned from his tank conditioning, "but Spectres are the best that their species has to offer."

"That's what they say," Shepard confirmed.

Grunt seemed to think about that, taking a moment to respond, "You are the best among the humans then."

Shepard shrugged, "One of the best human soldiers," she corrected, "yes. There are some other humans who are just as good as I, and even a few that are better at small unit tactics," she thought of Admiral Ahern in particular.

"Why appear to be an asari?" he questioned her.

"Timing is sometimes everything, and right now I'm gathering intelligence and building a team," she responded. "I don't want our enemy to know that I'm tracking them until I'm ready for us to show ourselves."

"And then crush them!" he slammed his hands together.

"Yes," Shepard agreed, "and then crush them." She was equally amused by his eagerness and aware of how much a headache it was going to be to train him to control it. Jenkins had been eager for battle too, and it had only gotten him killed on Eden Prime.

"Your enemies are the Collectors?" he questioned her.

"Yes, they are," she responded after a moment, "they're attacking human colonies and need to be stopped."

"They are a worthy and strong enemy," he said, his expression indicating his pleasure.

Around an hour or so later Shepard had worked her way around to helping Jack move the bodies of the remaining krogan with lesser bounties on them. There was no one else currently near them, which was exactly what she had carefully arranged to happen. Shepard turned muted her internal mic and turned on her external speaker, "So how did you end up that turian prison ship?" She asked the question she had been curious to hear the answer to ever since it came up several hours ago.

Jack just stared at her for a moment, then looked around them. Shepard heard a snort of laughter when it registered how far away from the other's they were, "Fine, one of the Blood Pack krogans walked up behind me and knocked me out on a Cerberus station. They were following me for my bounty and I was there to kill one of the Doctors that experimented on me. Then I found out they had other biotics there. Ones they had duped into thinking Cerberus was helping them, but all of them had lost their parents. Some coincidence huh, that's what Cerberus did to me, killed my parents and took me. That's what Cerberus did to them too, killed their parents so they could get them." Jack's body lit with dark energy as she lifted a piece of decking then sent it slamming into another, "Only they got treated decently, and I got experimented on."

Shepard parsed through what she had just been told, then responded, "I'm aware that Cerberus is trying to use me."

"Then why are you helping them," Jack snarled at her.

"Because sometimes alternatives are much worse," Shepard answered as she used her biotics to lift the krogan body they had just located onto the nearby grav sled.

Jack was silent for a moment, "These Collectors are bad sure, but are they really worse than Cerberus?"

"Its what's behind them that concerns me," Shepard responded, "the Collectors may only be a front for a much larger threat."

"What larger threat?" Jack spat.

"The same one that was behind the Geth attacking us, and was controlling Saren at the end through the implants he was foolish enough to accept from it."

"You're talking those Reapers," Jack huffed, "you know the Turians said you were just imagining that, that it was those…" the convict was obviously drawing a blank.

"Metacons," Shepard filled in, "yes I saw what he said," she fought from gritting her teeth at the reminder. "But it really doesn't matter if I'm right or he is, the fact of the matter is that the Metacons almost won against the Protheans. They spent centuries fighting them and finally were forced to uplift and absorb just about every other species in the galaxy to conquer them."

"You mean like the Salarians did with the Krogan?" Jack sounded startled.

"Exactly like," Shepard confirmed, "If that was a Metacon ship the Geth found, then if there are more out there and the Geth get absorbed by them then we are in danger. The Metacons were quite intent on wiping out every organic species in the galaxy in the time of the Protheans, and they almost succeeded…maybe they even did in the end and that's why the Protheans are no longer around."

"You don't know from that beacon knowledge you have?" Jack challenged her mockingly.

Shepard shook her head, "Whatever attack the beacon was warning about was sudden, unexpected, widespread, and after," she emphasized the word, "they thought the war with the Metacon's was over."

That ended the tattooed woman's mocking, "Well shit, that doesn't sound good."

Shepard chuckled grimly as she agreed, "No, no it doesn't."