A/N: 12k words in a day. This one's for you, Nemrut. :D

This is likely to be a controversial chapter, not in the least because some people have identified my TIM with 'Good Guy Greg' for some reason that I had to correct. I look forward to feedback.

Thanks to the Editing Gang for their usual bang-up job, and to several of them for pointing out much needed clarifications.


'Ultimately, evil is rarely found in the intentions one puts forth. It evolves through acts, through roads best left untraveled, through intentions that start off noble and fall by the waysides of expediency, fear, and doubt. As the ancient poem goes, no tragedy stalks about in dramatic black robes, seeking out souls to trouble - it is all too often sought out by the acts of those whose grasp exceeds their vision.'

-Matriarch Benezia T'Soni, 'No Single Raindrop Blames Itself for the Flood'


Tela Vasir wasn't a big fan of human ship design. Everything was too boxy, with too many straight lines. There were no curves, no softness, nothing to gentle the impact of being in a vacuum in a machine environment that could go south at any given moment. Humans had a fixation on hard forms and straight lines, as if artificial order could protect them from the entropy of deep space.

Childish, really. But then again, they were very much like children in many ways.

They did make comfy chairs, though. She sat back in the one in Delacor's wardroom on the Kazan, as the big human listened to the C-Sec FINCIN analysts finish up their report.

With a faint smile, she spoke. "In other words, there's not a single jot of evidence that Cerberus – or any human companies – are investing in the wildcat colonies. And the Butcher felt kindly enough to send us a drone basically telling us we're morons."

The volus lead investigator's breathing apparatus rasped sharply before he spoke. "Essentially correct, Spectre Vasir. -shrrrk- While our investigation is not fully completed, we've identified a few likely fronts for Cerberus. Mostly fallout from what looks like infighting between -shrrrk- that group and the Shadow Broker. Most of the investments are in a baffling range."

Delacor folded his hands on the desk. "Such as?"

The salarian standing next to the volus in the small haptic image consulted an info-pad. "Keep in mind this is almost certainly out of date – the Illusive Man, assuming he is involved, has no doubt cut his ties to these companies and cleared out any leads. But the primary investments were in aerospace construction, particularly mobile and rapid construction, and several esoteric bio-tech companies. The focus of the bio-tech was mostly involved with biotic-cybernetic research and genetic restoration therapy."

Delacor looked baffled, glancing at Vasir uncertainly. "Any reason why these would be chosen, some goal of the Illusive Man's?"

The salarian twitched into a shrug. "Possibly. More likely, however, that they were chosen due to high profitability and lack of interest by financial investigators. Whatever the case, if Cerberus is attempting to move on the wildcats, they're being very inefficient – the primary group acting in those regions and drumming up support is the Hand of Hades terrorist network."

Vasir sighed. "Putting us back at square one. Thank you for your assistance, Cera Muthan, Cera Latheas." She killed the signal and turned to face Delacor. "The Council is going to love this. Not only is our assertion completely off, the Butcher has intelligence assets good enough to figure out we're looking for her – and where we are – in a matter of days. Goddess help me."

The other Spectre gave a disgusted wave of his hands, cybernetic eye whirling slightly. "Feh. I'm beginning to understand why Shepard didn't like the Council very much. And in any event, they'll be happy their worst case scenario is actually wrong. I'm more concerned about the intelligence issue, and even more concerned about the Butcher's motivations. What is her goal in taking down slavers and then revealing who is behind the attacks?"

Vasir shrugged. "If Tradius's pet AI is right, and this is cousin Liara… she always did have a soft heart. And if she's struggling with Shepard's memories and suffering from bond dementia, maybe she's doing this out of outrage against the slavers. Shepard hated them, after all. Cerberus's motives in working with her – assuming that they're bankrolling her – are what puzzles me."

Delacor shook his head. "Oh, that I can understand. I had… dealings with that group for a while. I've talked to the Illusive Man. He's a big believer in having access to as many tools as possible, and I have no doubt that the Butcher – whoever she is – is being led by the nose. He'd go along with wiping out the slavers since those slavers mostly predated on humans, and while making Cerberus look good may not have been his goal, when this all comes out he'll be happy to take the fucking credit, I assure you. Assuming his hype isn't just all talk, taking out the slavers and revealing the Collectors is his way of protecting humanity, no doubt."

Vasir ran a hand over her crests. "Tradius didn't seem to put much faith in that idea."

Delacor's mouth turned down as he stood, gazing out the port side window. "Admiral Ahern is, to put it bluntly, not a big fan of Cerberus or anything like it."

She leaned back. "He and I go way back. I know he's not a big fan about lots of things in the Alliance. But you almost sound as if you are a fan of Cerberus. Need I remind you what they have gotten up to?"

He shook his head. "I'm not a fan. Merely… pragmatic. I'll admit they were helpful to me at one point in my career, but I always thought their actions were short-sighted and likely to get us into more trouble than help us out. Hades is the same way."

He looked over his shoulder. "I won't say I'm a big fan of aliens either, but I'm honest enough to admit a soldier usually sees the worst of other races, not the best."

He turned to face her fully. "But what I meant about Ahern – and his view of Cerberus – is that he had history with some of the people in Cerberus. General Florez was a close teammate of his, and I think her being involved with Cerberus may have clouded his opinion of them. Whatever the group was, I can't imagine it is the same if they are working with asari and quarians."

The asari folded her arms. "Fair enough. Arguing about it won't fix anything, and tides will end up on the beach no matter how much we talk about it. Bigger question : what do we do now? That drone self-destructed, and while it came from the direction of asari space I'm sure that isn't even remotely accurate. We have no leads on where the Butcher might be, or her next actions." She cracked her neck. "Given her last stunt, I really don't want to wait to find out either."

Delacor sat back down, tapping the haptic controls on his desk to bring up a starmap of the Traverse. "We have two pieces of information. First, the Butcher took out slaving operations in this area of the Attican." He highlighted a group of star-systems. "Second, Freedom's Progress is here, on the edge of the Traverse." He highlighted that system as well. "Assuming her ship doesn't have some kind of freaky super-efficient FTL, that means her location is within seventy FTL hours of the edges of this space."

Vasir sighed. "That's over two hundred star systems, and some of them aren't even in the Traverse, more towards the tip of the Black Rim. More than two hundred, actually, if we take into account not every one has been visited by probes. Even more if we assume that she might be operating with a tender that can drop charge for her."

He nodded. "Unfortunately, that's the only thing we have to go on. We can't flood the Traverse with quarian scouts or STG units without drawing Aria's attention. Our only real choice is to split our fleets into search parties and start going through systems one by one. And, as much as you hate the idea, wait for her next action."

Vasir narrowed her eyes. "Or we could attempt to contact her directly."

He arched an eyebrow. "How exactly do we do that?"

She smiled. "The STG has some older Cerberus codes we broke after the fall of their HQ. And we know Cerberus is monitoring comm networks for keywords. We code up a wide-band transmission on several comm networks, some generic message that includes the term 'butcher' and 'Illusive', and incorporate the codes in the header file to include a short message. Cerberus should, if they're even active and capable of monitoring the situation – which I can only presume they are – pick up on it."

Delacor scowled. "That sounds… flaky at best."

She smirked. "More flaky than manually searching over two hundred systems in hostile space?"

He shrugged. "You're the senior Spectre. What will you say?"

She smiled. "Something to attract attention."

O-TWCD-O

Jack Harper mused over the transmission from Shepard's trip on Dirth, pausing to sip at his Wild Turkey, before setting the info-pad down. The fact that she'd managed to gain the services of Charles Pressly was frankly unimportant in operational terms, but it would put her more at ease.

Miranda might react poorly, but then again, she might not. Shepard lacked anything approaching charisma, but her blunt talk had the odd effect of making people know she wasn't going to bullshit them. If she gave Miranda a task to focus on, Harper was sure Miranda would show her worth in short order.

He didn't pick her as his heir because of her looks, after all.

As for the actual intel from Dirth, he was somewhat disappointed. He had hoped Shepard would be able to make contact with Prince Windsor, but based on the information that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Maxwell Manswell wasn't stupid or arrogant, unlike too many other foes Harper had faced, and almost never left loose ends loose for very long.

The rest was mostly a wash. Contrary to what the good Commandant thought, he was very much aware that 'Richard Manswell' was actually Williams. He'd even told Shepard as much when she'd been awakened, not that she remembered that – hardly surprising, given her emotional turmoil at the time. He had his own eyes and ears in places few expected, and he wasn't about to be taken by surprise a second time.

Maxwell Manswell, no doubt, thought he was merely yet another money-obsessed survivalist, someone with a certain level of cunning but without the wide frame of vision to see the bigger picture. Harper lit a cigarette and exhaled.

He loved it when people thought they understood him and got their concepts about him so wrong.

Still, Chisholm's information about the removal of indoctrination sensors in Vancouver was certainly troubling. Williams and Harper had parted ways before Noveria and the discovery of indoctrination on Virmire, but he doubted the man would think he was in any danger. Williams had a particularly high opinion of himself, and the bits of data he'd gotten from the two spies inside the Black Sector pointed to the fact that they were studying Reaper technology with not even enough safeguards.

Cerberus had a cell studying some bits of Reaper tech as well, but it was all done by mechs, with the controllers remotely directing them from orbit. He saw no reasons to take chances… or give Shepard any reason to distrust him. He had enough projects in the works that Shepard would no doubt take offense to without doing anything to truly anger her.

He inhaled sharply, tapping the small control panel on the arm of his chair, bringing up several additional reports. Things were beginning to move in ways he needed to be ready to alter or change, and a lot of how Cerberus would come out of this mess would depend very much on Shepard and her reactions.

Handling Shepard with the proper care was critical. He had a lot of irons in the fire, but none of them had the potential Shepard had in changing what he could actually do with the money and power he'd accumulated. Shepard's idealism was at least grounded in reality, and if she could be truly brought into Cerberus as a willing partner instead of a reluctant contractor, Manswell was fucked. Shepard was an icon that could not be corrupted. She was a noble by right of her heroics, and the SA had spent two years building her up via propaganda to support their war on the geth.

It was only fitting for him to take advantage of such a thing. He was almost certain Manswell had plotted very carefully to counter anything Harper might come up with, but the man couldn't have predicted Shepard's resurrection.

He smiled thinly. The only issue would be keeping Shepard in the proper mindset. Managing the situation would require very careful timing to keep Shepard busy enough to not have time to ask questions, but not so busy as to make her feel as if he was directing her actions – even if he was. And he had to balance releasing information to turn her against the SA and the Council with making it seem as if she was convincing him to work with other species.

She was surprisingly touchy about the idea of submitting to his orders, given her slavish obedience to orders before death. Then again, he had yet to win her acceptance as a proper authority over her.

Finding the appropriate lever – or leash – for Shepard, unfortunately, was proving far more difficult. Chambers' reports on her mental and psychological state was promising, but the redhead felt attempting seduction at this time was too risky. Still, the possibility was always there. Chambers felt that Shepard would be more vulnerable to honest attraction than sexual release, to emotional ties rather than mere carnality.

And, of course, there was always the somewhat dubious suggestion by Trellani. She claimed that she was skilled enough in the asari mental arts that locating an Alliance asari and mentally modifying her to exhibit some of the same traits that the late Liara T'Soni had would not be hard.

Of course, such an asari would not be Liara T'Soni, nor have any of her memories. But Chamber's initial workups suggested a personality style akin to T'Soni's - perhaps drawing on the detailed graybox memory extracts they had from Shepard to find particularly effective parts of said personality - would get Shepard's attention.

Introduced at the proper time, such an agent – properly treated with post-hypnotic suggestions and unaware she was bait – would snare Shepard if need be. Jack had his doubts about such a plan. The concept itself was certainly doable, but frankly there was always a chance - however slim - that Trellani's touch on the asari's mind would be detected.

Harper did not fear many things, but he could not even imagine the level of titanic fury Shepard would exhibit if such a plan were ever to be discovered. It was, at best, a last-gasp plan, only to be used if her psyche began to fragment or she experienced complications requiring a bonded asari in her life once more.

And in any event, that level of enticement would have to wait until events ran their course more fully, however. His primary focus now was on pulling together Shepard's required team. Shepard was powerful and surprisingly well-rounded after Ahern's training, but lacked specialties that going up against the Collectors would require.

And pulling together said team was not going as smoothly as he would have liked.

Doctor Solus was on route to the Silver Rim, Ms. Goto was still planning her little fracas on Bekenstein, and by all reports the situation on Ilium was going to come to a head very soon. Shepard would have to be carefully managed and prodded to the right places at the right times, but that shouldn't be too hard, given that all her intel on the situation came from him in the first place.

The only real unknowns at this point were whatever Okeer was up to – which, in a pinch, could be handled with an accidental orbital bombardment, or simply letting Shepard get pissed off – and the clumsy maneuvering of the Council.

He had to be very careful in how he played his next few cards. Humanity's position on the Council was delicate, and he needed to make sure nothing he did placed humanity as a whole in a poor light – or as a threat. Given the Alliance's short-sighted idiocy involving NOVENSILES, he had to make sure that the Alliance wasn't exposed until the proper time – and by his hand, or at least that of Shepard.

He needed to apply a new set of pressures, and with a smile he tapped his commlink.

A few moments later, a genial, heavy bass voice answered. "Jack! Glad to see you haven't been killed off yet."

The Illusive Man shook his head. "Of course not, Henry. I'm merely keeping a lower profile than usual."

Henry Lawson's image flitted up on the main haptic screen on the far wall of Harper's command center, reflecting in distorted shapes off the glossy floor. "No doubt. I don't think you are calling me up to schedule our next poker game…what's up?"

Harper dumped his ashes in the tray built into the arms of his chair. "I sent a… feeler out to determine the current status of Prince Windsor. He's being held incommunicado, under Commissariat lockdown, on Dirth. According to the information we have, there are at least several Commissars, and probably a full Legio detachment, plus very heavy security. A military coup d'état with him as its head will not be possible anytime soon."

Lawson shrugged. "It was a long shot idea anyway, Jack. The geth project would make it easier, but that would have still required at least two or three of the bigger noble houses to go along with us."

Harper nodded. "We'll discuss the geth project in a bit, although it is the main reason I called. First, what about your own efforts?"

Lawson snorted. "I've got some feelers of my own out there, of course, but the politics are getting stupider by the day. Six Red Notes in the past two months, mostly to stop the congress from curtailing funding towards black projects. The High Lords are taking a much heavier hand, and the Corporate Court's extraterritorial powers were enhanced last week as well. The announcement this morning about a Manswell running for President, well."

The industrialist's broad face twisted into a sneer. "You have to admit, it's all very neat."

Jack nodded. "And NOVENSILES?"

Lawson sighed. "They've scrapped the fourth run – too many cascading errors – but are starting up the fifth and sixth trial runs. It slowed a lot when the Butcher cut the damned slaver networks in the Traverse apart, but not for long. They had some sort of backroom deals cut between the AIS and the STG, and are getting slaves in from the Black Rim now."

Jack puffed on his cigarette. "Openly?"

Henry laughed. "Hell no. Off the books, of course. The AIS liaison I work with was pretty smug about the whole thing, actually. I've slowed down the development as much as I can with concerns about genetic stability and protein-sheath collapse – not hard when the last batch turned to mush – and so far they aren't pushing. But they're moving forward with the genotyping."

Harper shook his head in disgust. "MarsGene?"

Lawson nodded. "Ever since President Windsor was locked up and the decent half of the family killed off at Nova Scotia, Dared Windsor has had a much freer hand. Doesn't help MarsGene is basically operating without any damned oversight on Deimos now. Harder to obtain alien samples with Cerberus out of action and Hades still getting ramped up…but they're kidnapping the occasional alien SA citizens to make up for it."

Harper inhaled on his cigarette again. "Ruthless, if hardly surprising." He rolled the cigarette's tip around the edge the ashtray, then looked back up. "I've had some financial setbacks. Jenesys Pharmalife was penetrated by the Broker, and he managed to route connections at least to a full cell. Nothing that exposes you…but they may have recovered fragments of the data on Project Osiris, and the Broker is going to start putting pieces together sooner or later. I'm shifting all the QEC routing to run directly through Hammerhead Station for now, and we'll have to rely more on HelNet's QEC encryption than direct comms. The other cells have been restructured, but my end is still mostly secure."

Lawson nodded. "So far, nothing on my end has been penetrated. Still, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. They've added more Commissars…and a couple of guys in black armor jumpsuits and non-stock mil-spec cyberware. They're heavily concerned about security and some of the things going on in the labs I no longer have access to. I don't think they suspect me in any way, but… if they knew I was part of Cerberus…" He trailed off. "I have Oriana to think of, after all."

The Illusive Man's face tightened imperceptibly. "Henry, you're not a 'formal' part of Cerberus. I always kept our interactions at arm's length and under the cover of my public persona, to throw off Florez and Williams. If things are getting dangerous, get the hell out with Oriana while you still can. I can have people get you in a day."

Lawson's eyes flickered, then brightened. "I'll stick it out a bit longer, Jack. At least until I can get a full baseline on what they're doing with NOVENSILES. As for the other project we're working on…"

He tapped something on his omni-tool as Harper leaned forward. "I've set up a ring of shell companies, like I said, to get this ball with the geth rolling. So far, I think we're completely in the dark as far as anyone else knowing about it."

Images flashed up, showing rows of geth in various states of disassembly. Lawson's voice was edged with triumph. "We're fully capable of recreating baseline geth soldiers, although we're still doing all the building and work using mechs, since we're not sure if any of this stuff is Reaper tech or not. Building geth-style ships has taken more time, but we're set up pretty good in the two systems I picked out – lots of raw materials in the asteroid belts, and so far off any trade lanes that no one will ever go looking."

The Illusive Man smiled, stubbing out his cigarette. "How many have we been able to produce?"

Lawson sighed. "Only about fifteen ships, and only one of those is cruiser sized. But we have over six thousand platforms now. They aren't really 'geth', of course. We're still using the copy of the EDI AI Rasa obtained for us, code-named EVA." Lawson's voice dipped a bit, his expression turning stern. "She'd have appreciated the reference, Jack."

A faint smile crossed Harper's features for a moment. "She was always going on about the potential of AI, that is true." He exhaled sharply. "You were saying?"

Lawson brought up another image. "They aren't geth. We've copied as much telemetry and footage of the geth fighting style, and EVA does an excellent job of faking up things, but they don't get smarter the more of them we add, and the bigger ones are too complex to recreate. Still, we estimate we can have a full-on strike force in another six to seven weeks at the current rates of production. Once we finish the third production line, that triples."

Harper nodded. "And with no link to Cerberus, any actions taken by these geth cannot be linked back to us. I think we have just the tools we need to manipulate events as we see fit, Henry. Very well done indeed."

The industrialist chuckled. "The only tricky part was getting it set up. I've purged every record of the process, and in a week I'll be able to start liquidating the shell companies. Once that's done, and the remains are folded into a holding corporation, I'll edit up what's left to point fingers back at Manswell and see who comes sniffing. STG, probably."

Harper leaned back in his chair. "Good. I'll keep in touch when I am ready to proceed with the next steps. Shepard is… not exactly trusting, if more cooperative than I expected."

Lawson shrugged. "I've done what I can to help. Can't do much about the Omega situation, but I have my people on Ilium putting out queries. One thing came to my attention – images of the Sisters in action." Another tap of his omni-tool pulled up a grainy long-distance image of two slender figures in black and red armor. The distinctive blast of a shotgun illuminated the scene as the taller of the two fired on some Broker goon.

Harper frowned. There was no real value in the image, but something about the weapon in the hands of the asari tickled his memory. With a grunt of irritation, he set it aside. "Not of much use, sadly. Still no ideas who they could be?"

Lawson spread his hands. "Sneaking about isn't my skill-set. My people are good, but Ilium is dangerous and asking the wrong sorts of questions would attract attention I can't afford. Rumor has it they're backed by the STG… might want to hit up some of the known STG-sponsored information brokers and see if you can't shake anything loose."

Harper nodded. "I will have to see what Kai and Pel shake loose once they handle their current assignment." He sipped at his drink. "I'll be in touch, Henry. Stay safe."

Lawson nodded, killing the connection without further words, and Jack Harper sat back, lost in thought. He was considering going down to have a meal when his comm system lit off. "Yes?"

The voice of one of his communications analysts spoke. "Sir, we picked up a curious message inserted into six trunk commnet messaging systems. Just started up about an hour ago. The message is a generic transmission of shipping manifests, but it triggered our systems because it contained keywords – butcher and illusive – and the messages themselves were involving some of the front companies breached by the Broker, sir."

He lit a fresh cigarette. "I see. I presume there was more to the message?"

"Yes sir. There's an encrypted header file on each one…using old TYPHONET coding schemes. We haven't used those since the incident on Edolus. We decrypted the headers and they contain a message. 'Butcher. Looks like your trail is being followed. Need to talk. Council needs answers. We know who you are. Cousin Tela.' The message is identical across all packets."

Harper leaned back in his chair, then his face split into an amused grin for a moment. "Cousin Tela, is it? Good work, Gareston. Have the messages routed to my system for review. Reply to the listings with the following, using the same encryption. 'Will contact you when ready. Strongly recommend you act on Collector threat now. Confirmation Reapers are involved. Not who you think I am.' Send it after six standard hours, and use an FTL drone from… the Silver Rim."

"Yes, sir."

The comm signal disconnected, and Harper tapped his own comm panel. "Get me the Normandy on QEC."

O-TWCD-O

Pressly's return to the Normandy was low-key, but Sedanya, Tali, and Joker were all present to welcome him aboard, along with most of the Normandy Marine team.

He laughed out loud when he saw scarf around Joker's neck matched Tali's reik. "I see you two are out in the open now."

Joker tilted his head. "Huh?"

Pressly smirked, leaning back in his lift chair. "The XO has to review all entry and docking usage logs, Jeff. Including when someone uses a certain clean room twelve times in half as many days back on Arcturus."

Joker blushed a bit, then smirked. "Says the man who got blasted out of his mind and had a threesome at the Consort's place on the Citadel."

Tali chipped in. "And the very handsome asari lady on Thessia when we were there most of the day."

Shepard folded her arms, arching an eyebrow. "I didn't hear about that one."

Pressly muttered something under his breath and Shepard suppressed a grin, pushing her hair back. "Alright, Doctor Sedanya, he's all yours."

The asari doctor nodded, stepping forward with an activated omnitool. "I need to do some deep scans of your nervous system and what exactly those hacks in the military did to you before I can make recommendations to the cyberneticists back at the base, but by the time the Normandy docks there we should be ready for surgery. At the very least, we can give you full mobility…maybe bionics with a more natural look for the arm."

Pressly waved a hand. "That can wait a bit. I need to meet this XO of Shepard's so we can begin discussing what needs to get done. I've had… a lot of down time. A lot of time to think, go over my life, my beliefs. And a lot of time to wonder what I could have done better as executive officer."

Miranda Lawson swallowed and stepped forward. "That would be me, Mr. Pressly. Miranda Lawson, in charge of the project to revive Shepard and several other critical pieces of this operation."

Shepard glanced at the two of them and smiled. "Miranda, I'll be in the comms room. Vigil says Big Daddy TIM wants to talk at me. I trust you two can get along?"

Sedanya snorted, moving to push the lift chair. "You two can have your XO briefing in medical so I can get this scan started. I have enough difficulty with Shepard, I don't need two difficult patients."

Pressly smiled. "Good to see you too, Doc."

Shepard rolled her eyes and headed to the elevator, taking it up to the CIC deck and exiting. Heading through the still empty lab area, she entered into the QEC comm room aboard the Normandy.

Vigil popped into view. "The ship is prepared to move. Orders for Mr. Moreau?"

Shepard waved a hand. "Unless something changes, set course for Purgatory. Max stealth and stay off the trade lanes."

Vigil evaporated, and Shepard blinked. The AI was getting flakier all the time. With a sharp exhalation to steady her nerves, she hit the comms button, taking in the glowing outline of the Illusive Man.

"I trust you got my report?"

Harper nodded, his customary drink in hand, smoking a cigarette. "That I did. I am not sure I approve of Chisholm's… casual attitude – putting you into the open with such a shallow disguise and no military backup was a large risk to take, one that did not develop the way I had hoped."

She shrugged. "He said Windsor was too locked down to see. You gave your reasons why you wanted me to meet him, but I was under the impression I'd be picking someone else up besides Pressly."

Harper sighed. "Originally, my impression was that Chisholm was in stronger command of the situation, and had an additional resource to bring into play – he was going to attempt to extract Windsor's daughter, Eliza, both to neutralize the blackmail put in place over the former President and as a potential asset of her own." He exhaled smoke, tapping his ashes away.

"Obviously that plan did not proceed as intended, and he had no opportunity to update me with changes. While not under direct scrutiny in person, his communications opportunities are sharply limited. No matter. We have obtained… interesting intelligence, and you have reclaimed your old XO."

Shepard nodded. "Yeah. I'm guessing the Alliance wasn't keeping tabs on them?"

Harper sipped his drink. "At first, yes, for almost a year. But they reduced such when nothing ever transpired, and as it stands the surveillance was completely canceled four months ago. And in any event, I have people in place to… deflect… such inquiries if the AIS becomes concerned. For the most part your Marine team was heavily sidelined and only Ms. Williams and Mr. Cole remain active."

He gestured with the cigarette. "On the other hand, recent intel suggests Ashley Williams has been assigned to serve under Delacor. So the possibly of contact is now there, if… tricky."

She shrugged. "If it happens, it happens. You didn't call to chitchat."

He leaned back, blue eyes focusing on hers. "No, I did not. We've received a feeler from a surprising source. The Spectres looking for you appear to have taken precipitous action when they realized you and I were not attempting some act of dastardly evil among the wildcat colonies. Using a rather creative method, they have sent you a message of sorts. They claim the Citadel wishes to speak with you."

He puffed on the cigarette. "There's one problem. They seem to think you are Liara T'Soni."

Shepard was speechless for a long moment, then shook her head. "Well, given the truth is so fucking strange that I can barely believe it myself, that's not much of a stretch."

He nodded. "Normally, I would be… hesitant to engage in dialogue of any kind with the Council until our own plans are ready." He gave a thin smile. "But I have given some thought to your words about how Cerberus is likely to be viewed."

She arched an eyebrow. "You actually listened to me?"

Jack Harper sighed. "Yes, I did. You are not simply some gun-for-hire, Shepard. I value your insight very highly. I told you at the outset that this would be a partnership. That means I have to pay attention to your input, even if I tend to have little faith or trust in the motives and the plans of the Citadel Council."

He stubbed out the cigarette. "For the moment, I have given them a noncommittal reply, urging them to take the Collector threat seriously, linking them to the Reapers, and clarifying that you are not Liara. I decided not to cast aspersions on the Broker and his intelligence – yet – without more proof we can carry to them. Still, no matter how limited, an open line of communication is useful in several ways."

He shifted in his seat. "The transmission is scheduled to go out in a few hours. I had it transmitted from the Silver Rim, to further confuse them. I'd like it if you could wrap up events at Purgatory and Korlus as rapidly as possible while they are distracted."

She nodded. "Purgatory is where I'm headed now. I'll need to drop Pressly off at the base before moving out to Korlus. Still no news from Massani? I'm guessing he's not going to be able to meet me at Purgatory."

"He is in the process of finishing his business now. He will be meeting you at Korlus. There is a possibility the man he's hunting has gone to ground with other Blue Suns units and he wants to check that out personally before beginning his contract. He comes at a very high price, so make good use of him on Korlus – Okeer is unlikely to be cooperative and is extremely dangerous."

She nodded sourly. "He beat the ever-living fuck out of Wrex, the toughest fighter I know. Still, I'm thinking I'll get some useful information out of him."

Harper nodded. "I'm keeping a very close eye on Omega and Ilium. When I know more I will let you know."

She nodded. "Then I'm off to Purgatory, unless there's something else?"

He gave a small, strange smile. "One more thing. There have been troubling reports of renewed geth activity in several areas outside the Perseus Veil. Until we know more I'd recommend steering clear of that entire region. The war with them was thought to have crushed most of their fleet holdings and cleared out several strongpoints, but if they are retooling and rebuilding…"

She winced. "Well, it's bad and good – if the geth are still fighting then the Council and Alliance will build more warships. We're going to need as many as we can fucking get."

"Quite so. Once you've acquired Jack, return to your base as you originally planned. I'll have a familiar face waiting for Jack there that may aid in winning her cooperation."

She arched an eyebrow, but nodded. "…Fine. Shepard out."

She killed the connection, pinching the bridge of her nose. As usual, she could read the Illusive Man about as well as she could read ancient Peruvian – not at all – but something about his tone near the end, talking about the geth, sounded a bit too happy.

She pushed it out of her mind, and decided to head down to engineering. Maybe Tali would be up for a talk. She didn't want to hover over Pressly, and she'd chatted the ears off her Marines for hours already, in a sad attempt at reclaiming something like normalcy in her life.

She exited the room, and after several seconds the form of Vigil popped into existence, triggering the QEC link again. It illuminated, showing Jack Harper reviewing a datapad in his lap. He looked up in clear surprise. "…Ah. It's you."

Vigil made a chiming sound. "Mr. Harper. As a rule, I tend to frown on attempts to 'keep me in the dark' as it were. Your little geth project, while certainly entertaining, would have been much more efficiently handled by me."

Harper's eyes narrowed, his mouth drawing into a thin line. "There are times, Vigil, when your open reticence at providing me with any reasonable level of actionable technology, your insistence on operating large amounts of military hardware, and your open belief that we are all going to fall to the Reapers inspires me to hesitate to place all my eggs in one basket. In hindsight, notifying you of the plans I have would somewhat exceed my expectations of what I had in mind for your… interaction with Cerberus."

The sphere pulsed in amusement. "Be that as it may, organic – such thick-tentacled manipulations may deceive that pack of deluded savages cowering aboard the Reaper mousetrap, but could have unexpected reactions. The technology the geth are using – and that you are indirectly using – is Reaper in origin and function. It would be simplicity for the Reapers – or their agents, I presume – to override such forces and force them into their own command structure."

Harper shook his head. "The geth warforms being used contain no runtimes."

Vigil gave a human sigh. "Mr. Harper, the war-form design incorporates, among other things, a wideband receiver for signals transmission. It doesn't matter if you load them with an AI of your own design or not, everything built to that specification can have something downloaded into it – such as said runtimes."

Harper leaned back into his seat. "The purpose of the mock geth was to spur additional warship construction, to draw fleet attention to whatever the Broker is up to in the Far Rim, and stir up fears about geth – and Reapers. Your worries sound, frankly, farfetched at best, although I will certainly keep them in mind."

Vigil pulsed. "The Collectors have infowar capability and hacking prowess at least roughly on par with my own, Mr. Harper. I understand you are worried about the amount of power I have under my control, with my daemons running Shepard's fleet and army of war robots. Having a backup army of geth under your command must seem like a clever counterbalance to that, as well as the no doubt useful goals you just alluded to – not to mention a hidden power to support your precious humanity."

The sphere brightened. "But please keep in mind, I am a picotech creation engine. I could, with no more than one of my sub-spheres, create an entire Inusannon fleet and man it with war-golems in as little as ninety-six solar hours. My loyalty is not to Shepard, nor to you – I cooperate with you because I choose to do so, and because you are useful to my goals."

The Illusive Man's eyes narrowed further. "I see no conflict in my plans and yours at this time. The geth copies… as you have just stated… are hardly of any level of threat."

Vigil bobbed. "This is true enough. I merely wished to point out that they carry a certain level of danger, remind you of both my independence and my level of access…and, in the charming parlance of Shepard, 'fuck with your head.' I don't care that you have your own plans, Mr. Harper. But I hate it when you are sloppy."

It killed the connection, before allowing itself a moment of amusement. That human was entirely too full of his own intellect to be allowed to get too smug, less he try something ignorant involving Vigil himself.

More importantly, though, Vigil didn't like the idea of robot armies at the Illusive Man's beck and call. Gaining aptitude with too much Reaper technology might incite the Reapers to conduct a more in-depth cull of species than normal, and he'd expended a great deal of effort in preparing the yahg for when this Cycle's races were wiped out. The yahg were impressive – much more so than any of the current Cycle's primitives – and he did not want to have their potential wasted due to the paranoid plotting of an ignorant meatbag.

If the Illusive Man thought he was in control of the situation, well, his opinion of the human's intellectual capacities would lessen.

Vigil internally debated on notifying Shepard before deciding not to. After all, Harper had taken exquisite precautions against Vigil finding out about the geth project, routing all aspects of it through his ally Lawson. Unfortunately, Harper didn't seem to realize Vigil had injected a few of his own particles into the QEC pairing chambers used by all of Cerberus and was monitoring every bit of their communications.

That had started as simple self-preservation, to head off the kind of silliness that had ended with him locked in a cargo container on the Citadel, surrounded by 'computer experts' that wouldn't have qualified as janitors in the Inusannon Collective. Monitoring Harper's usually excellent fieldcraft and subtle touch had become a pastime for him in recent weeks, however, especially as he was no longer distracted by the goal of bringing Shepard back to life.

And, of course, he was an Inusannon device. Trolling would never get old.

O-TWCD-O

For the balance of most days aboard the Purgatory Isolation Enforcement Station, Warden Kuril of Meshar had what he considered a calm day. Calm being relative, of course. Any station holding hundreds of violent criminals, psychotic cyborgs, biotic terrorists, and the worst volus lawyers in space was always going to have a few things going wrong.

But in general, on an average day, things ran well and in the proper order, his men were safe, the violent scum he kept locked up were behaving themselves, and he didn't have to deal with that clown Vido Santiago.

Today, however, in his irritated opinion, wasn't going to be the average day, much less a good one. The day had started with a food riot due to burned out mass effect field isolation devices not kicking in, resulting in two of his men being injured. A big contract to house some fifty felons from the Elcor Stability had fallen through. Power conduits were blown in part of cryostasis and replacements would cost damn near a quarter of a million credits. One of the volus lawyers he had locked up had sent an appeal, a document of over thirty thousand pages with four-hundred and eleven annexes, demanding it be adjudicated at the Vol Court of Corporations.

And, worst of all, he was having to deal with that clown Vido Santiago.

He stared in exasperated disbelief at the somewhat grainy image on the haptic screen in his office overlooking the primary run of the prison station. "Vido, I'm afraid the answer is no. When you took Massani out of the picture, it was presented to us as a business decision he had agreed to. Years later we find out you ambushed him and supposedly killed him, and then lied to the rest of the legion commanders."

He sat back in his curved chair, stretching his spurs slightly. "Now we come to find out you didn't even have the sirefucking decency to kill him clean, but left him alive – and he's back to put a bullet in your skull. Not only do you expect me to risk my own life by trying to get in his way, you want me to strip my station – which is, I point out, filled with some of the most violent and dangerous criminals in the galaxy – of Suns legionaries to back you up."

He examined his talons a long moment before glancing back at the screen. "I'm not exactly sure what recreational drugs you've been taking to think I would do that, but I know a good rehab clinic when you want to get clean. You'll have to look elsewhere for help."

Vido's ugly face took on harsher lines as he spoke. "I'm the goddamned LEADER of this corporation!"

Kuril sniffed. "No, you are the CEO. When Zaeed formed the Suns, each of the four Legion commanders – myself, Tarek, Jedore, and Vosque – agreed to let him run things in terms of large-scale contracts and general direction, but the men we had remained under our command. You did the business tark-shit, and when you had Solem brought on board we treated him just the same – as one of the Legion. You put the job offers up and let us bid on them, but you are NOT my commanding officer, and my men don't answer to you,"

Vido spluttered and the turian smiled. "Look, Santiago. I'll be blunt. Even if I wanted to help you, I can't. I only have a few hundred men, and most of our weapons are not heavy enough for direct battle, but for riot suppression. By the spirits, I don't even have proper armor against the kind of shit the Firestorm likes to use. I have no battle suits and the ships I have on station have their FTL drives removed specifically to prevent mass escapes – they're only present to pick off any torpedoes used against the station, or shuttles attempting access. The only FTL capable ships I have are the evacuation units…and those are integral to the station's integrity."

He leaned back slightly. "So I have no methods of having my men reach you. And as I said, the station is a dangerous place – I need the entirety of my unit here to prevent riots and escapes." He leaned forward. "I don't understand why you need my men anyway. I thought you were working with Solem and Tarek. What exactly happened to Solem's unit…and why did you leave Omega?"

Vido grimaced. "Solem's unit was the first thing Massani hit. His Firestorm PMC blew their HQ while I was away on Omega, killed most of the unit instantly, some kind of fuel-air-eezo explosive. By the time I found out about it, it was too late to convince Tarek to help me. Plus, the fucking Archangel is killing everything on Omega, and that lunatic Tarek wanted to go take him on directly. Then Zaeed contacted him directly – and one of my guys told me Tarek was going to sell me out to Massani for cash!"

Kuril privately thought that was an outstanding idea, and quite possibly the only good use slime like Vido could be put towards. Out loud, he merely shook his head. "I would suggest trying to reach out to Vosque and his asari unit. The Citadel is pretty safe, and if you keep a low profile I doubt Massani will look there for you, given all your contacts are in the Traverse. And there's certainly no love lost between Darner and Zaeed."

Vido swallowed. "Has he contacted you? Zaeed, I mean."

Kuril settled his fringe. "Zaeed? No, not yet. Then again, there were times we didn't see eye to eye much better than he and Tarek did. Worst case scenario, Vido, you can always simply run back to Earth. As far as I know you're still an SA citizen, right?"

Vido scowled. "I'd have to give up most of my money to do that!"

The turian smiled. "Which is still better than losing your life, no?" He glanced at the status board for the sensor network and flicked a mandible. "If you'll excuse me, I'm afraid I have incoming guests."

With a satisfied snarl he killed the connection, before tapping a commlink, contacting his lieutenant. "Kesara, can you add Vido's commlink ID to the spam filters, please? I saw your alert, we have an incoming ship?"

Rather than answer, the doors to his office slid open, revealing the form of his lieutenant and bondmate, Kesara. Wearing thin-line riot armor backstopped with omni-fields, she walked into the room holding an OSD and nodded sourly. "I've added him already, he keeps coming up with shifting ID's."

The warden sighed. "I see. Well, add this one too. The ship?"

She nodded, running a hand over her crests and pulling out an info-pad "Yes, we have… a strange reading on the sensors. The picket ship at the relay in the Vark System reported an activation six hours ago, but didn't pick up any ships. And our blueshift sensors have been quiet. Yet out of nowhere what looks like some kind of super-heavy destroyer just entered detection range, transmitting a confirmation code for a prisoner transfer."

Kuril shook his head. The asari matriarch who'd visited him the day before had warned him this would happen, and that he should take special care receiving the visitors who would come aboard. Getting up from his desk, he cracked his neck. "I was informed this would be the case. Some kind of cloaking, I think. Have Jack moved from cryostasis to recovery and prepped for transfer, put at least ten guards on the transfer shift."

He paused. "These people…are extremely dangerous, Kesara. They're paying top dollar for us to let Jack slip through the net and look the other way, and I've been told to meet their representative solo. They've already transferred the money so I don't think they're out to try anything, but have Alpha and Beta standing by in case things go vakar-shaped."

The asari nodded, biting her lip. "Should I have the admin area cleared?"

He shook his head. "Have them dock at port eleven, near recovery. There won't be any paperwork on this one. We'll have a 'minor accident' and report her dead later on."

His bondmate gave him a skeptical look."You usually hate skidding over the waves in that fashion."

He nodded, but shrugged. "I usually don't get handed ten million credits for a single convict, either. Besides, despite how crazy Jack is, I find myself admiring her – she got in trouble stopping slavers, after all. If I can get her free and make a profit without burning myself or the Suns, I will."

He left his offices, entering the main central corridor of the station. Purgatory had started life as a mass hydroponics station project of the volus, but had failed to maintain profitability and to sell enough produce to the Traverse markets. The Blue Suns had bought the station for a pittance when they began operations, and over time it had expanded.

The central section was given over to docks, medical facilities, armories, and living quarters for the Security Team, as well as hangars and the like. Four massive connecting arms lined with unpressurized passageways linked the central hub to four large penal sections. Each section was given over to specific criminal groupings – one held biotic criminals, another cybernetic enhanced types, a third held various criminals in cryosleep or isolation, and the final one was split between a temporary holding area for bounty captures they planned to sell, an execution unit for governments who didn't like to get their own hands dirty, and a few specialty cells for volus criminals.

The passageways linking each section to the center required full environmental armor to traverse, as they had no atmosphere, easily preventing escapes. Kuril engaged his helmet on his own armor, activating the airlock to transition to the long passage, his thoughts on Jack.

Jack was certainly a violent criminal, but her short career had been one of a mix of opportunistic looting and vigilante actions against slavers. He didn't know much about her background, only that she'd fallen in with some freebooters operating out of the Traverse, failed human Corsairs acting independently from the SA.

The group, calling themselves the Blade of Eris, had crushed several small slaving outfits, looting the groups and freeing some slaves where they could. They also felt like looting and blowing up the various units that made use of such slaves. They fell afoul of trouble when they smashed a slaving ring that was apparently providing slaves to some turian Deathwatch group.

Kuril snarled softly to himself as he walked, the turrets in the corridor slowly tracking him as he did so. The main reason he'd fallen out with the Hierarchy himself was their half-talon attitude towards the atrocities committed by the Deathwatch. Oh, he knew other races did bad things, but the Deathwatch, in his opinion, was truly sick.

Slaves were used by them to practice executions, to teach new members how to quickly kill members of any race they ran across, and to test out members in live-fire conditions. Chipped with nervous system shunts and limbic system overrides, they would force their captives to attack in special arenas where new Deathwatch trainees slaughtered them by the score, sometimes for training – and sometimes for darker purposes.

Deathwatch doctrine had fallen to new lows after certain turians like Saren had more of a hand in its direction. The Deathwatch was encouraged to become amoral and hard, rather than the honorable if brutal group it had been under the watch of leaders like Vakarian and Pallin. Part of this was no doubt driven by the tork-shit the salarians and asari had driven the Hierarchy into.

He slapped the hatch access at the far end of the corridor and stepped into the airlock, waiting for pressures to equalize. Poor Jack and her band of freebooters had hit a Deathwatch slave holding facility, and from there how exactly she ended up in his prison, with a small payment every month to keep her that way was a complete mystery to him.

Rather than poking at it – given the Deathwatch was involved – he'd just kept his mouth shut. Jack had been violent enough that after only a few months she'd killed six inmates and two of his guards, and he'd had her shot full of tranquilizers and placed into cryostasis. Now a shady group of some kind was willing to pay millions to get their hands on her.

He didn't like the situation. But money was money, and he couldn't afford to be picky.

The airlock equalized, and he entered the core of the cryo containment facility. Catwalks circled the central area, overseeing row upon row of heavily frosted canisters, each containing a single inmate. Cryostasis was inexpensive once the initial equipment cost was paid, and removed an inmate's ongoing need for food, medical care, and other maintenance costs. Some called it cruel, but Kuril thought it was actually the most merciful way to incarcerate someone.

A revival team was already at work on the fourth tier of containers, along with a bulky cargo mech. He looked up and tapped his omni. "Status on the transfer and revival."

The leader of the team, a Third Centurion, looked down and saw Kuril, tapping his own omni. "Fifty percent complete, Warden. Vitals look good, brain waves coming out of theta ranges now. Probably another thirty minutes until she's awake. We have the recovery area in lockdown and pulse suppressor coils are at full charge. We also gave her a shot of enfidorcin, should make her biotics almost impossible to use for a good two hours."

Kuril nodded. "The buyer is coming to the cryorecovery docking area. We won't be handling this one in admin. Once Jack is awake and can be moved, we want her moved to the shuttle they'll be using as soon as possible." He paused. "Do not antagonize these people, Greth. They're dangerous."

The centurion gave a salute. "Understood, warden. We'll keep you informed."

Kuril nodded, and turned down to his left, heading through a narrow corridor lined with heavy pipes for the cryocooling systems into a narrow corridor. Heavy reinforced doors pierced both sides of the corridor, leading to the equipment used to maintain the stasis cells and the temperature control systems.

After a few minutes' walk he ended up in another cross corridor, and pushed through the heavy isolation doors to the wide open bay of the hangar built at the lowest part of the cryo facility. Even as he did so, the outer atmospheric field flickered and a sleekly armored black shuttle craft – human, if he wasn't mistaken – began entry.

As soon as it was inside, the outer field snapped shut, the inner atmospheric barrier falling and generating a brief breeze as pressure equalized. The shuttle came to a neat halt before descending to the hangar deck, touching down perfectly and powering its engines down.

He stepped forward, surreptitiously checking his weapons as he did so. He waited patiently as the shuttle's side hatch swung out, then to one side, and a small metallic ramp descended to meet the hangar deck.

A pair of up-armored security mechs stepped out first, unarmed but with heavy Phaeston rifles on their back magnetic mounts. They were followed by a human woman in a tight fitting armored outfit, with long black hair, and finally by a larger figure in very heavy bone-white armor and a mirror-faced, elongated helmet.

Kuril swallowed as he recognized this last figure from videos and the extranet, and took a single step forward. "Welcome to Purgatory Isolation Enforcement Station, a division of the Blue Suns private military consortium. I wasn't informed my client was the Butcher."

The armored figure folded her arms, tilting her head slightly. "Is that going to be a problem, Warden Kuril?"

He shook his head slowly. "Not at all. I rather admire what you have done in the Traverse, it was long overdue." He sighed. "I knew Shepard. She certainly would have approved herself."

For some reason the human female to the left found this slightly amusing, if he could read human expressions correctly. The Butcher merely nodded, and spoke. "Is this hangar bay secure? That is, no cameras, no recording devices, and no one else is here?"

Kuril frowned but nodded. "That was what your representative insisted on. That I was to meet you here, by myself, with no witnesses or recording devices."

The Butcher paused, as if listening to something on her internal comm feed, then nodded. "Good. There is a reason I asked for these precautions. I've been very careful not to reveal myself in public…but the time will soon come where I am forced to do so, and I want certain parties to know before hand, so they can back me up."

He flicked a mandible. "Have we met before, then? I don't do much business with the Asari Republic."

For some reason the Butcher laughed, and then she tapped the controls for her helmet. It split and folded back, revealing not blue skin but pale brown tones, black hair, and piercing blue eyes.

"I believe the first time we met, we were alone, and you asked me why I did what I did. I told you it was because I would never let assholes get away with reducing more of the innocent to the sort of hell I'd been through, and if you had a problem with it you could shove your talons up your ass."

Kuril's gizzard contracted, his eyes narrowing, his fringe lifted. He almost had to physically tamp down on his instinct to spring and leap, to kill this… this impostor. It had…

Her words registered, and he forced himself to take a deep breath. "Sara Shepard was killed."

Shepard smiled. "Yes, I was. I was also revived. I've been…you might say being rebuilt over the past two years."

He shook his head slowly, mandibles tensed. "I find that extremely hard to believe. The Alliance buried a body. The rumor was that your body was a mangled ruin. You are either some form of clone, or surgically altered."

She felt back onto one hip, a pose he knew very well, her lips quirked in her own half-smile. He inhaled, and shivered. It certainly smelled like her. Her heartbeat was steady, calm. But there were other scents on her. Machinery. Something else, something…metallic and bitter. And he could hear the faint whine of cybernetic motors.

"If I'm a clone or a mockup, how the hell could I know what I said to you when we first met? It was just you – your squad was in the corridor behind you, and no one else was around." She folded her arms. "Kuril. You were the first turian I met that I trusted. You were the person who convinced the First Army group that letting me go after the slavers at Vetra was a good idea."

She looked at him, her voice steady. "I'm me. I don't have very many fucking people I need to believe me, but I didn't invite you to my goddamned wedding because you are an acquaintance."

He stared at her a long moment, thoughts racing. His eyes traced her form, narrowing. "We had a conversation on Setros, after I recommended you for a commendation. Just the two of us on the shuttle."

She smiled. "I remember. You were talking about how worried you were about Kesara being away from the Suns."

He began to shake quietly. There was no possible way anyone but her could have known about that conversation. His mind tumbled in confusion even as his voice flanged heavily enough that his omnitool translator stuttered. "You died, fool girl."

She snorted, taking a step forward. "I can't be killed. That was always the legend, right?"

He stared hard at the decking, then looked back up at her. Relief, anger, confusion and a host of other emotions battled it out in his gaze. "It's been two years, Sara. You could have said something – "

The woman next to her spoke. "She could not. Until recently she was in a medically induced coma…and a host of other factors. It was only a few weeks ago she regained consciousness and mobility." She sighed. "And if some of her own closest associates doubt her return, you can imagine galactic reaction – or that of the Alliance – if she openly announced her survival."

Kuril dug his talons into his fringe before stepping forward. "I… am glad you are alive. But I am still at a loss..what are you doing? Why the asari disguise? What is going ON?"

She placed a hand on his shoulder, reaching up to do so, keeping those storm blue eyes fixed on his. "I'm fixing shit, Kuril. I'm done fucking around. They killed Liara, and my friends. They've fucked my government, they've ignored my warnings, and they're letting innocent people get killed or worse. I'm going to fix things – my way."

The sheer steel in her voice – no copy could replicate that. He placed both his own hands on her smaller frame and lifted her and her armor up as if it weighed nothing, crushing her into an embrace. "Idiot monkey. You'll only get yourself killed again that way."

He let her go after a long moment. He'd never forgotten she had saved his life, the life of his brother and sister. That she'd endorsed his own campaign against slavers and their ilk even when it got her in serious trouble. That she'd risked her career going after those bastards on Miris V, the ones who'd killed his father and his wife.

She nodded. "Maybe. But you know me." She gave an exhale herself, and he could smell her relief and a tang of shaky fear and stress.

He let her go. "…alright. I've engaged in enough…whatever I just went through. Spirits of fire!" He shook his head, still in disbelief. "You are here, for Jack. Why?"

Shepard's face grew cold, angry. "Not many people know this, Kuril. But… the Broker is responsible for what happened to me. He set me up, set the Normandy up. Got my crew killed. And he was going to sell my body to… certain parties."

She looked up at him. "Liara and my friends went to stop him, and Tetrimus Rakora killed them."

Kuril snarled. "That sirefucking traitor. Is there no end to his filthy dishonor? Murderer of children, dark sneak thief…"

She gave a flat smile. "Since he's a powerful biotic, I need an edge. From what I've been told, Jack's biotics are unique."

He gave an ugly bark of laughter. "Jack's biotics are dangerous. She can do things I've never even heard of, twist attacks back on themselves, warp biotic fields like blowing bubbles. But she's…unstable. Violent, bitter, hateful. Scared and scarred, full of unspent rage. She's not someone you can rely on when things are bad, Shepard."

The woman shrugged. "The ever-fucking Council isn't going to listen. The Alliance may have been in on my death. I'm not even going to consider going to the other races. There's no one to help me but myself and the people backing me, and they aren't exactly… wholesome themselves. I don't care if she's goddamned crazy – I need her help."

Kuril sighed. "I'm certainly being paid enough to do it. The Deathwatch sent her here. I suspect that they plan to take her back whenever they get around to being ready to study her, cut her up in some lab. I'm surprised they haven't checked on her already, but the troubles in the fallout after the Batarian Incident have kept them busy. You're probably saving her life by taking her away."

He exhaled and took a step back. "Just…be careful. She's the meanest handful of violence and hate that I've ever encountered, and I've seen more than a little."

Shepard only tapped her helmet control, the mirrored faceplate sliding back to cover her features, her voder altering her voice once more. "Well, good. Exactly what I'm looking for."

Kuril sighed. "She's currently in recovery, with a full squad of my best men. I'll go see what the progress is like and have them bring her here." He paused, looking her over again, and then shook his head. "I still can't believe…"

He straightened. "I presume you want me to keep this quiet?"

She nodded, and he gave her a turian honor salute. "My silence is my word. Be back in a bit." He stalked off, out of the bay, and Shepard let out a long exhalation of breath.

Miranda looked at her, speaking quietly. "I know that couldn't have been easy for you, but we will need as many non-human voices with no ties to Cerberus backing you up when this all goes public, Shepard."

The armored figure nodded. "I know. It's just…hard. And sooner or later one of the people I know and care about is not going to believe me. Who will it be? Ash? Jackson? Jiong? Wrex?" She grimaced.

The Cerberus officer gave a careful shrug. "I would say that it doesn't matter if they believe you or not. You are Sara Shepard, and anyone who won't admit to that is not likely to be on your side in any event. Not to put too fine a point on it, but frankly the threat of the Collectors and Reapers is more important than if certain people don't wish to face reality."

Shepard chuckled. "You're a bitch sometimes, Miranda."

The black-haired woman suppressed a tiny flash of hurt and sniffed. "So I have been told."

Shepard turned to face her squarely. "But you're also right. I'm just not… handling this well."

Miranda's features softened slightly. "And I'm sorry if I came off as insensitive. I know that the few people you trust and hold faith in are important to you, and I don't want to make it seem as if this issue, and your feelings on it, are trivial." She tried for a small smile. "But if these people really are your friends… you may simply be worrying about an event that will never happen."

She glanced around the cavernous hangar bay. "As for this transfer…are you sure you trust Kuril? Capturing you would certainly give him a lucrative bounty once your identity was revealed."

Shepard laughed out loud. "What, is he gonna take away my guns and invite me into a cell? He's not nearly that stupid, even if he was inclined to sell me out. I saved the lives of some of his family, and turians place a high importance on that kind of thing."

Miranda frowned. "But is he not also an outcast?"

Shepard shrugged. "Yeah, but from what I understand that was his choice. His wife and his father were killed by slavers and the Hierarchy did nothing…he couldn't accept that."

Miranda nodded. "I see. I don't mean to sound doubtful, it is just this entire operation… well, it's somewhat risky, in my opinion. Jack is unlikely to be overjoyed to work for Cerberus, given her background."

Shepard gave her a sidelong look. "You think I'm happy 'bout it either?"