A/N: The Angstrofuck of Doom reaches the apex before the eruption of the volcano.

As usual, none of this would be possible without the dedicated assistance of the Editing Gang – seriously, you should see these train wrecks before they get a chance to fix them up!

Also, as usual, you should check out Aberron's "Living an Indoctrinated Dream."


'Once, I said the alien was a danger, and Cerberus was the shield of humanity. Today, I see that the alien is as much a victim as my own race – a victim of leaders who prefer cruelty to justice, murder to law, and mindless obedience instead of freedom. Once, long ago, humans dealt with such rulers, and today, as Cerberus steps forth to protect those who suffer from those who profit from such suffering, I am reminded of their words.

'Sic Semper Tyrannis'

-The Illusive Man, 'Second Cerberus Manifesto,' in the wake of the Fall of Ilium


Nassana Dantius stared out the darkened armaglass windows of the spaceport's upper lobby level, her two assistants sitting nervously on the black leather couches further back in the room. Her bodyguards leaned against the far wall, their turian features set in motionless, alert masks – taloned hands tightly gripping the long rifles they carried.

To the left, a haptic display screen showed multiple images of the heavy fighting near the city center as the arrival of Cerberus units and heavy armor split the Republican assault force down the middle. More mercenary companies, some of which had waited to see who would win before committing, were now joining the fight as it was clear the Republic planned to seize the planet.

With those additional forces and Cerberus armored troops, the mercs were slowly pushing the Republic back. News commentators across the extranet nervously wondered if the asari fleet in orbit would try bombardment tactics if the Republic line broke under the assault.

Nassana hoped not. Things were bad enough already. The explosions and pillars of billowing smoke from the center of Nos Astra weren't very encouraging for a peaceful ending. A hostile seizure of the planet would probably make it much more difficult for her to escape, Broker assistance notwithstanding. She tore her eyes away from the smoking skyline to the lobby around her, biting her lip.

The dozen hulking figures in black-and-red armor walking around nearby were not soothing her worries any more than the tide-be-damned skyline. She had dealt with danger before. She had been a reckless Eclipse joygirl for a good century after all, and had clashed in near-death fights with her sister more than once.

Those were almost laughable events now, as she watched the Broker's troops. Being hunted by the Sisters of Vengeance was a little more nerve-wracking than dealing with her pitiful sister. And the ugly reality that she'd heard nothing from Tetrimus since he'd hustled her to safety made her wonder if the Dagger had joined all the other hapless victims of the Sisters.

Tired of her jangling nerves, she turned to the leader of the Broker combat team guarding her, a turian with dark gray plating over nearly black skin and striking gray eyes. "Do you have any news from your superiors?" She was proud her voice didn't tremble, even as the building faintly shook from some distant but titanic explosion.

The turian shook his head, mandibles flicking out then in. "No, Cena Dantius. Our comm-nets are still compromised. But even if they weren't, I wouldn't expect anything. Ginnister Tetrimus is not known to provide updates when he takes a direct hand in things."

She frowned. "That's all well and good, but what if the Sisters have more forces than they've shown so far and hit us here?"

He shrugged. "Then they'll die. We've moved almost all of our forces on-planet here. There's over two hundred in this building alone, and more outside. We're also in the process of moving our frigate from Vinthan North Docks to the Northpoint main cargo loading bay. The frigate has a kill team of fifteen heavily armored cyborgs specifically designed for heavy combat." He flicked a mandible again, this time in a confident manner. "Once we've ensured the frigate is clean and ready to go, we'll move you and your people there as soon as it arrives."

She narrowed her eyes. "And the Sisters themselves?"

He tilted his head to the side, eyes still fixed on the horizon as he lifted a hand. "That's up to Ginnisters Tetrimus and Tazzik, cena. As I said, Tetrimus isn't the best at battlefield updates. Let me tell you though, I've been doing this job for thirty years and I haven't seen anything that can handle them both."

She nodded. She was well aware of the stories about the pair, after all. There were only about twenty or so truly 'flee on sight' types in the known galaxy. A few, like the Azure Lily or the human Ahern, were so tied up in their race's military forces that they were hardly a real threat. Others, like the legendary Ghost-Step or the mysterious Shift, had died in fashions so mundane that made one question the fear around them.

Tetrimus and Tazzik were probably the most feared combatants in the galaxy, and the Sisters, while certainly capable of putting together a nasty assault on a hotel, were by all accounts not the types for a stand-up fight. They were assassins, which was frightening when you were the target – but that didn't mean they could handle the type of power the Broker's lieutenants had.

Even so, Nassana had not gotten to the age she was now by assuming much of anything. She motioned quietly to her own senior bodyguard. "Hathan, your thoughts?"

The scarred turian – she'd bought him as a slave from a batarian fighting pit and freed him – made a soft, sour click with his teeth she knew was a turian snort. "First thing they drill into you when you become a military recruit back home on Palaven – anything and everything can be killed. Didn't sound like the Broker's boys were having a fun time when we left, and even if they drive 'em off, spirits only know what the tark-shit else they've got lined up. Dancers, Black Blades, what looked like fucking Tela Vasir – what if they have a second string set up to catch us when we think we've won?"

She was about to ask about that further when the armored door leading into the lobby opened, revealing the hulking form of Tazzik. Her jaw dropped at his appearance – his bulky armor was riddled with craters, burn marks, and holes, his combat mask damaged and his shoulder armor plate torn clear off. Some sort of blackish fluid was leaking from his knee, and his expression was a stark grimace, the large black eyes narrowed.

The giant salarian's voice was harsh, as he glanced to the side. "Captain Valan, prep the full security force, lock this place down and reinforce the exterior. Bring down everyone, and I mean everyone, from orbit and have them here in ten minutes. Have two, no, four heavy squads clear the cargo landing area and then set up three heavy teams in good cover before moving Cena Dantius and her people. Tell the heavy kill team on the frigate to break out anti-materiel weapons and make sure no one gets on the frigate."

She turned fully to face him. "Is there a problem?"

Tazzik snorted, his large dark eyes blinking rapidly. "A problem?" He suddenly chuckled, a darkly amused sound with rasping overtones. "Yeah, you could say that. More than one. It's under control, though. Tetrimus and I will deal with it." He opened up one of the heavy crates the Broker's people had hauled in, withdrawing a new mask, clipping it to his belt. "You've got nothing to worry about."

Nassana gave a frown. "No disrespect… but the Sisters are hunting me…" She trailed off as a figure pushed through the door behind Tazzik, vaguely turian-shaped, but nothing but sharply angled thick black armor over cybernetic limbs, all of which showed fresh scrapes and dents on its weathered appearance.

Tazzik tossed the thing a hooded robe from the crate, which it draped over its metallic frame. Tetrimus's voice lanced out from the darkness of the hood. "The Sisters are the least of your problems, Cena Dantius. They were stronger than expected, and the allies they brought were… not foreseen."

He adjusted the fit of the robe, before tapping something on his wrist, and sharp artificial talons extended from his blunted cybernetic fingers. "But as Tazzik said, we're handling it. There is nothing in the galaxy that can face us both and live unless we are heavily outnumbered."

Tazzik muttered. "They gave it a Collapse-be-damned good try, though."

Tetrimus ignored that and merely sat down and motioned to one of the nearby techs. "Servo glitch, fix it."

The salarian knelt down next to the hulking turian, gripping a tool and pulling open a section of the cybernetic leg. Tetrimus ignored him, his baleful red eye meeting hers directly, his voice softening.

"You are safe. While the forces coming at us were… stronger than I had planned for, they've lost more than half their combat capacity while we are merely lightly damaged. I very strongly doubt they could locate us quickly. Even if they do, we've not only hurt them badly, we've gotten the Republic to act against them."

He turned his attention to the tech doing the leg repair, watching as the salarian tugged out a shattered bit of blackened metal and replaced it with something from his belt, and grunted. "Besides, we've got enough forces here to stand off a direct siege."

She nodded slowly, willing herself to calm down. She had just decided to sit back down when an explosion shook the entire starport, with smaller explosions echoing throughout as alarms began to blare.

Tetrimus turned to glance at one of the drop-hanging portable haptic screens his men had set up in the lobby, snarling. It showed lines of leaping SKYTALON suits crashing down around the starport, while a small knot of black-robed turians lifted their hands in unison, sending a storm of biotic fire washing over the forward heavy weapons post out in the front of the docking area's parking spaces.

Tetrimus exhaled, nostrils flaring, and Tazzik snorted. "You had to mention a direct siege, didn't you, old bird?"

An amplified turian voice sounded, subvocals buzzing with fury. "Tetrimus Rakora! You are surrounded. Surrender in the name of the Hierarchy! Surrender and pay for your blood treachery!"

Tazzik took in the mess in the starport's courtyard. A dozen Broker soldiers lay dead or maimed near the impact wreckage of two of their own gunships. Beyond that, almost fifty additional turians in heavy black armor slowly approached, each one's armor crossed by a single red line of paint.

Tetrimus's voice was quiet. "Deathwatch Disgraced Pride. Fanatics. Raptors and the new Primarch's Fist. This will be vastly amusing."

Leading the group was a tall turian in a flowing black robe, who had an omni-axe in one hand and a claw dagger in the other.

Tazzik squinted. "None of that sounds amusing at all, old bird. And the one leading them?"

Somehow, Tetrimus almost sounded happy, an unnatural occurrence that made Nassana's skin crawl. "My dear foolish cousin Tantrius, only surviving member of my Family." He glanced at the tech working on his leg. "Fixed?"

The tech nodded jerkily. "Replaced servo. But actuators still have minor damage – do not overstress the leg."

Tetrimus slowly got to his feet, his black robes sliding down his armored torso, and looked at Tazzik. "I'll deal with the Fist and my cousin. The Deathwatch, I leave to you."

Captain Valan shuffled nervously, his mandibles twitching. "And the rest of the assault force?"

Tetrimus paused at the doorway, half turning his cowled head to reveal only the one red glowing eye. "This port has GARDIAN lasers, yes? Hack the targeting lockouts and use them."

The two giant cyborgs exited, leaving Nassana staring after them, dumbfounded. "Did he just tell you to use anti-spacecraft weapons on infantry? In the middle of the city?"

The turian Captain muttered as he motioned to the salarian tech-savant to his right to get started on the laser reprogramming. "Not the worst order he's given me, honestly."

O-TWCD-O

Joker's voice was tense. "Coming up on the Vharn Relay, Shepard. There's a light picket of asari light-cruisers on blockade watch, and an asari frigate with a Citadel tech team ship alongside the relay. Stealth is holding, but the frigate is doing active particle scans near the relay itself – we can't even get close without being picked up."

Shepard arched an eyebrow as she stood on the CIC, and Pressly's voice drew her attention from the map display. "They've probably got the relay on a trace lock so they can lock it down if someone tries to get out this way. Ilium's within FTL range of two other primary relays, and this secondary one is probably the least likely one for anyone fleeing the planet."

She shrugged. "That's great, but how do we get past it? The freighter had clearance to get into the system as it was delivering supplies to the Republic forces on the ground. We can't stay in stealth to make the translation."

Pressly's expression hardened. "We'll have to at least disable the tech team's ship, and probably the entire patrol. Not likely we can do that without them getting a transmit off, so we'd have to slag the transmit buoys first and hope none of them are smart enough to run through the relay."

Vigil's shining form erupted in front of the both of them. "As usual, you Neanderthals always go for the violent brutish approach instead of using what minimal brain matter you happen to possess."

She folded her arms. "You have a better idea?"

The sphere pulsed. "Given that our chances of success resemble the number known as 'zero' if this operation isn't done in stealth, any idea I have could hardly be worse than opening fire on Citadel vessels in plain sight. Now, give me a moment."

Several seconds passed with nothing happening, and then the science operator's eyes widened. "Commander, new signal contact, bearing one seven seven point one tac eleven! Coming out of FTL, initial return is four heavy-cruisers, eleven destroyers, nineteen light ships… transmitting Black Fleet comms codes."

Shepard's mouth drew into a thin line, as she watched the small asari force light off their drives and bring up their kinetic barriers. The tech team ship also kicked off, immediately making for the relay as the five asari ships placed themselves in a battle formation.

Pressly's voice was touched with wry amusement. "I'm guessing those signal returns aren't real?"

Vigil bobbed. "Correct. Not like the asari are going to find that out, as soon as they finish punching out a signal I suspect they'll use the relay. I'd have your idiotic pilot do a sync-jump with them if he can figure out how to do so without splattering us across the relay itself."

Shepard nodded. "Joker, sync-jump with the asari ships as they relay out, go wide on your corrective angle so we don't crash into anything."

Joker's voice sounded over the intercom, tinged with irritation. "I'm not dumb, you know."

Vigil pulsed. "No, dumb is far too high a compliment to pay you."

At comms, Kelly Chambers smiled. "Shepard, the asari just transmitted an alert package to the Citadel Council and the Asari Republic… and the lead ship issued orders for all units to fall back to Ilium."

Shepard nodded, as she felt the Normandy shudder as Joker began the delicate trick of aligning their jump to that of the asari who didn't even know they were there.

She glanced aside at Vigil. "That trick of yours could come in handy in lots of places."

The sphere's radiance dimmed. "Not really. More advanced sensors that rely on packet returns will immediately fail, because there's no ship there. In-system FTL particle or wave-pulses within twenty light-minutes will also show them to be hacking artifacts. And, of course, once you get within a few light-minutes, there's nothing to be seen. It has a few uses, but only a few."

Pressly rubbed his chin. "Still… it's a neat trick. What else can you do?"

Vigil pulsed, radiance growing again. "There is very little I cannot do, meatbag. Leave the heavy thinking to me and go about punching your buttons and lashing together your pitiful technology to get us from place to place."

Shepard exhaled, her mind still focused on what was on Ilium. "Alright, enough banter. Pressly, I'm headed down to the cargo bay. Bring us up to full combat readiness and be prepared for anything and everything to go wrong."

She paused, and lowered her voice. "If things go… completely bad down there – get Trellani out and as many of our people as you can. Then report back to the Illusive Man."

Pressly met her gaze, then smiled. "I don't think I have to worry much about that. I saw the last time you got pissed-off, and now you're even angrier." His smile faded. "Avenge her. The crew is with you, ma'am."

She nodded, jaw tightening, and spun around to the elevator. As the doors hissed shut, Vigil floated along over Pressly's shoulder. "You should not encourage her behavior. It's going to get her killed sooner or later."

Pressly gazed at the shining sphere. "I know her better than you do. She has to get this out of her system before it poisons everything she is." He paused. "Liara… was what made Shepard become who she is. Made her rise above her traumas and self-hate and callous disregard for life. Without her, well… if avenging the brutal murder of her wife helps her get past it, then I'm all for it."

Vigil's voice was laced with sarcasm. "And if this only completely unhinges her and leaves her an empty wreck?"

Pressly turned to face the starmap, reaching for the comm system. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I trust Vakarian to fix that." He exhaled. "All hands, set condition 1SQ, full battle readiness. Spin up all torpedoes and engage all weapon interlocks. Battle power to the reactor."

The Normandy briefly became visible as blue energies raced over her form, then vanished in the tides of the mass effect.

O-TWCD-O

Morinth barely ducked under a cross-current swing from her mother's warp sword, bringing her own up on an inside line that missed as Samara stepped back. Morinth used the distance to step back herself, her breath coming in hard, shuddery gasps.

Agony tore across her ribs with each breath, and her sword arm was trembling. Morinth had pushed herself to learn sword dancing as best she could, going so far as to hire failed priestesses on Omega for training lessons.

She'd thought she was pretty good.

But her mother had trained for a century under the best blademistress the asari had ever produced, and the difference in their skills showed. Neither Samara nor Morinth were fresh, and the former was badly wounded at the start of their fight, but Morinth had yet to land a hit on her, while she'd taken a slash to the ribs, a shallow cut along her forearm, and an ugly tip hit that grazed her thigh just enough to fuck up the muscles.

She was covered in sweat and running out of ideas and energy, while her mother's serene features showed no strain, only calm focus. Almost faster than she could respond, Samara's blade lashed out again, up and across, angling down from Morinth's panicked parry.

She was so busy trying to block that reverse slash she missed the flare of biotics as Samara used a push to send her flying. She landed sharply, using her own to damp down the impact, but had no time to set herself as her mother's flash-step flared in her face.

She managed, somehow, to flash-step herself, skidding out of it as the cruelly sharp blade of the justicar slashed only air, but her vision was obscured by flashes of light and her nerves were jangling from biotic overuse. She was having problems pushing enough energy into her warp sword, the blue flames on its edge flickering and weak.

Samara turned to face her, pale gray eyes placid and cool. "You have done well to last this long, Mirala. But I'm afraid it ends here."

She gestured, and Morinth risked a glance to her rear, seeing the last Cerberus ATLAS go down in a hail of plasma blasts. She snapped her gaze back to her mother, who spoke in a soft, calm tone. "They are dying rapidly. When the last of the humans are dead, the Republic soldiers will move to attack you. You cannot hold me off and protect yourself against twenty attackers."

Morinth spat blood. "I'm going to die either way, mother. As the humans say, I'd rather go out on my fucking feet."

Samara's expression flickered in pain for a moment, an unexpected reaction. Then her eyes hardened. "I suppose I should not be surprised at that. I am… proud, and I am sorry, my daughter. Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess."

The next series of slashes was faster than before, and even as her blade was lashed to one side in a blindingly quick reverse riposte that left her open, she realized her mother had not been fighting her with her full strength until now. She managed to project a weak blade of force that knocked her mother's sword aside for but a second, and rolled out of the way. She came up in a crouch and blocked two more heavy swings before her grip slipped ever so slightly.

Samara's sword came across her vision and there was a horrific crack from her own blade. She gasped and dropped it immediately, realizing the blade's matrix had cracked, and only then realized she had nothing to defend herself with.

The justicar kicked the sword to the side and moved forward, swinging one last time to end the life of her own child. Too exhausted to bring up any biotics or even her flash-step, she just watched it. A flicker of emotions and memories passed through her mind, of better times, and then she flinched as the blade clanged a centimeter from her face.

Another warp sword had stopped it, this one a beautifully blued color, elegantly curved and obviously ancient from the wave-patterns of the metal. The fire from the blade was so hot it was more blueish-white than merely blue, flaring white where the two blades met, and the hand that held it outstretched was firm.

Samara staggered back, and Morinth turned to see the tired looking form of Aethyta Vasir, one arm in a sling and six of her Black Blades behind her. "I go to the hospital to get my shoulder set and look at what I find on the way back."

Samara's jaw tightened. "You are interfering with a justicar operation, ushani. Stand aside."

Aethyta's voice had a note of pain in it. "You didn't tell me. Why?"

Morinth was confused when her mother's face twisted in the most potent hate she'd ever seen, her biotic aura flaring as she leveled her sword. "I saw what happened to Tela. I know what you were doing. You abandoned me, not the other way around! Why would I ever tell you?"

One of the Black Blades behind Aethyta, Inis, grunted. "Mama Fish, those stupid Republic soldiers are blowing up the Cerberus guys pretty hard. You got this? Drama isn't my speed."

Aethyta's voice was flat as she placed herself directly between Samara and Morinth. "Yeah. Try not to kill all of them, although I suspect the Council of Bitchtriarchs won't like this anyway."

The six exploded into kanquess, erupting into the battle, which had the immediate effect of making most of the Republic troops freeze in absolute terror.

Aethyta ignored them, gaze fixed on Samara. "I taught you better than this. You were supposed to be better than me. Not use my fuckups as an excuse to be worse."

Samara's eyes narrowed. "You hypocrite. Your Blades and your own bloody sword have dealt more death at the orders of the Thirty than I ever did. This action today is hardly a drop of blood compared to what you did on Nathani."

Aethyta's jaw tightened. "I only killed the trash that needed cleaning up on Nathani. And I never killed kids there either."

Morinth could almost feel her mother's tangible hate. "Of course, you see clanless as trash. Why are you so upset at this then? The galaxy is sick. I am merely cleaning it up. That has nothing to do with my daughter."

The older asari tilted her head. "Does if she's my daughter too, doesn't it?"

Morinth felt her stomach lurch. Aethyta continued. "Took me a minute to see it. Didn't click until she said her mother was leading the fight, and I'd heard already over the extranet that was you. You never formally bonded with anyone – I checked, you know, even if I ran out on you."

Samara's eyes were hard and cold. "Yes. She is. And an ardat. But you seem to specialize in purebreed children, don't you, ushani? Liara, Morinth…" She paused, then her voice dipped into freezing hate. "And of course, Tela."

Aethyta winced, while Morinth felt… a number of different things. She'd never known who her aithntar was. In her youth before her Flowering, she'd been told by her mother that they had died. She'd never thought to check beyond that.

Tela Vasir was her half-sister? And poor, dead Liara, who had been so nervous around her the one time they'd met?

She let herself sink to her knees, watching wordlessly. Samara had taken five steps backwards, and lifted her blade again. "I won't repeat myself. No matter what we once had, or why you left, or why you are here collaborating with traitors like Trellani and monsters like Cerberus. My duty is clear. Mirala is a danger to the asari people and has refused the Silencing. The Code only leaves me one choice."

Aethyta half turned her head to take in the shivering, exhausted asari behind her, then smiled thinly and rolled her right shoulder. "Arm's a bit touchy from where it got smashed, so I'd have to use my offhand. You think that's enough of an disadvantage that I won't fucking kill you in ten seconds if we fight, Mara?"

The justicar set herself in her own sword stance. "The Code gives me strength."

Aethyta took in her stance, her gaze, and nodded softly. "You're seriously willing to fight me to kill your own kid?" She looked down, then stepped out of the way. "Just… make it quick. Please."

Samara exhaled and nodded, and Morinth felt her hope die. Her mother strode forward, mouth set in a grim line, and lifted her blade, and then gasped sharply as it fell from nerveless fingers. Aethyta held up a glowing hand as Samara crumpled to the ground unconscious, before shaking her head.

"Goddess-dammit, girl, how hard is it to remember you never turn your back to a fucking potential enemy?" She stepped over her prone body to walk up to Morinth, looking down on her. In the distance, storm clouds rumbled with thunder, the wind kicking up a moment, blowing grains of sand through the air.

Aethyta didn't move for a moment, then held out her hand. "Time to go, kiddo." Morinth took it and struggled to her feet, wincing as her side flared with fresh pain. "You gonna be okay?"

"Nothing… lethal. I'll be fine." She swallowed. "You're really…?"

The look in the older asari matriarch's eyes was sad, tired, and almost defeated looking. "Yet another quality 'Aethyta fuckup.' Samara… was my student." She closed her eyes. "I was in a bad place emotionally, and it was just release. Not any different from a thousand other quickies. I didn't know she felt… as strongly as she did. Certainly not enough to allow a child."

Aethyta opened her eyes. "I left without seeing her, without talking to her, without… explanations. I had fucked something else up, and I didn't want her dragged into all my other crap. I guess that hurt pretty bad, but I was a pretty bad person back then. I kept tabs on her, but when she decided she needed to be a justicar, I didn't dig into why. I didn't know."

There was a long moment of silence, then Aethyta said. "I'm sorry. That doesn't fix any of this shit… but I fuck up everything I touch, so that's the best I can offer. I'm sorry you had to find out this way… and fight her."

Morinth gave a simple huff. "Don't be. She… she poisoned anything good in my life. I had no reason to suspect. She never got with anyone else, and… I never really asked why I was taller than she was… and then I Flowered and…"

Aethyta nodded. "I've heard of you. The 'Ardat that Refuses.' You've taken out some pretty evil assholes over the years, you know. As fucked up as it sounds, kiddo, I was a serious fan of your work."

She turned to the side, as the last Republic asari was beaten unconscious by a Blade, then exhaled. "We have a lot of catching up to do, and a lot to talk about, but it has to wait. Smiya said she left m— left the Sisters of Vengeance behind to get her wounded to the hospital. Where are the Sisters now?"

Morinth swallowed. "I don't know. The Sisters, the drell, and some of the Cerberus troopers took off after Tazzik and Tetrimus. Smiya said she'd contact them after they made sure you were okay."

Aethyta nodded, as the Blades – and four surviving Cerberus troopers – walked up. Morinth was astounded any of them had survived at all against five times their number in trained Republic soldiers.

"Mama Fish, we took out the Republic combat team. They didn't get any messages off, and we knocked out all but four of them. Muria is tying them up now, but someone will find them sooner or later." The asari grimaced. "I don't want to just murder them for following orders, but we can't let them report our actions here or our own heads will be on the damned block."

Aethyta grunted. "Unless Mara lost her entire tides-damned mind – which, given she just tried to kill her own kid, she might have – she must have had this place under orbital observation. They already know." She smiled. "The question, Smiya, is what will you do about it? I'm done with the Republic. They got one of my daughters exiled and hunted, another broken and shattered, and now this pack of fishbits has just blown up." She looked down at the sword she held.

Smiya sighed. "We knew this might blow up on us going in. Especially with Trellani being part of it all. But we've burned our bridges now, and for what? An ardat, even if she's not as fucked in the head as all the rest of them are?"

Aethyta's voice sharpened. "For what? She's my daughter. You already know my shitty record on that count. Was I supposed to let Mara gut her for something that wasn't her fault, that she's tried her best to live with and not to be evil? Was I supposed to let her die because I was too fucking cowardly to actually do the right thing for once in my entire life?!"

Aethyta turned away from them, clenching her hand around her sword. "You said it yourself. She's not like most of those fucking things we put down for the Republic over the years. If she was, I would have never stopped Mara. That being said, it's still your choice. You can leave now and try to convince the Council you didn't know, or what the fuck ever else you want. But don't tell me I didn't have to do this."

The Black Blade stared at her for a moment, then looked away. The others behind her shuffled, as she finally spoke. "No. No, I guess not. We have your back, no matter what. You saved each one of us from… worse than death. I'm just frustrated. Some of us are dead, and this isn't even over. Even if we survive, this is going to make things really hard on us and leave us with nowhere to go."

The Cerberus trooper beside her snorted. "Nowhere to go? Do you really think the rest of the galaxy is going to sit back and approve of all this bullshit? The extranet is already on fucking fire. You could go anywhere else with the skills you all have. And this asari," he pointed at Morinth, "is a Commissariat asset. They're going to be fucking furious about the Republic trying to kill her, and happy you saved her. If nothing else, the Illusive Man is always looking for talent. I'm pretty sure we can spot you a place to hang out if you fight that good all the fucking time."

Smiya regarded the figure in battered white armor skeptically. "Aren't you guys supposed to hate aliens? Why in fuck would you want a bunch of asari?" She paused. "Although rumors say the Butcher works for you…"

He laughed. "Oh, we do hate aliens. The ones who fuck us over, or try to kill us, or take over our people. The ones who leave us the fuck alone are just fine; we got us a salarian, some asari, some quarians, and some turians. Hell, we even got a batarian now. And no matter what happens, we hate the Thirty more than anybody else. A lot more. And the Butcher… well. You'll see."

He turned to Aethyta. "I'll uplink with our team with the Sisters and set up a rendezvous, assuming you brought vehicles? Our ATLAS units are dead so…"

Aethyta jerked her thumb behind her. "Yeah, I got room for everyone. Smiya, take Morinth wherever they stashed Trellani and get her patched up, then go pick up Tela and the rest of the girls. I'm going after the Sisters."

Smiya's eyes narrowed. "Mama Fish, you can't fight like that. Your sword arm is in a fucking sling. I've come this far and we've lost some of our own, I'm not going to back out now if you're determined to finish this."

Aethyta shrugged. "I can fight with my offhand, girls. And I've already gotten some of you killed, like you said. Right now, I need to know that my daughters are going to be okay."

She turned to face Morinth. "I'm trusting you with that, Smiya. Now scram. Your part in this is done."

Smiya snorted. "Yeah, right. Crennsa can handle getting your daughter out of here. I'm coming with, and I don't wanna hear shit about it, Mama Fish." She stared at Aethyta for long seconds and then the older asari laughed.

"Brat."

"Hag." Smiya's smile flickered. "Come on, let's go."

Aethyta sighed. "Fine. But just you. The rest of you girls… get my daughters to safety. And make sure Trellani doesn't fuck anything else up."

The Cerberus soldier grunted. "I'd better come with you too, so we can coordinate with my boss. I know Delta Team is with the Sisters, but I'm the ranking officer. I'll try to see how long before the Butcher gets here."

Aethyta gestured to the aircars. "Fine by me." She turned and looked at her daughter, and gave a thin smile. "We'll talk when this shit is over, alright?"

Morinth nodded and watched the Vasir turn away. The asari called Crennsa huffed and frowned sourly at the remaining three Cerberus soldiers. "Come on, let's get you guys to the vehicles."

O-TWCD-O

Tazzik ducked under a spray of micro-missiles, stamping down with his right leg to launch himself into a roll as heavy automatic fire tore up the plascrete around him. Coming out of his roll, he lifted his arm long enough to spray a cloud of burning plasma into the charging Deathwatch lunatic bearing down on him with a pair of omni-axes. He stagger-stepped to the side out of the way of the now screaming turian, pausing long enough to put a blast from his combat shotgun into his back.

Combat teams on the rooftops of the various support buildings poured automatic fire into the ranks of the Deathwatch, who took incredible amounts of punishment before going down. Most of the group was more cybernetics than flesh and they were firing back with heavy weapons and light plasma mortars, blasting holes in buildings, and in one case, taking out most of a combat team in a direct hit.

Despite hiring some of the most elite units in the galaxy – ex-STG salarians, failed priestesses, lapsed krogan mercs, and hardened ex-military turians – and equipping them with top of the line gear, the soldiers of the Broker lay in piles and smoking bits strewn across the parking and landing area. The Deathwatch were losing, but they were taking three and four of their enemy for every one of their number that fell.

Tazzik's cybernetic targeting systems flashed graphics over his HUD as his eyes moved rapidly over the enemies, locking in on one as the turian leapt to the ground from the walls above. Even for a turian, the figure was a hulking monster, thick black armor not obscuring the heavy cybernetic limbs. Before Tazzik could even react, the Deathwatch soldier leapt forward, omni-blades erupting from each forearm as he came down.

Tazzik stepped aside neatly, placing two blasts from his combat shotgun into the cyborg's back. That cracked the armor, but didn't stop the turian from pivoting and torquing his entire body into a long curving strike. Tazzik didn't quite have the speed to parry this blow and growled as the omni-blades tore into his side, leaving drips of melted metal and hissing steam as hydraulic fluids leaked out.

The salarian triggered his own omni-blade. "I'm going to pull you apart like a jigana bird."

The turian leapt and screamed something incoherent, Tazzik ducking out of the way of the first slash, but catching a low kick in the knee that compromised his balance. He lashed out, grappling the smaller figure and hammering him in the head with a pair of savage elbow strikes, before pushing off and firing his shotgun again.

The blast blew off an armor plate from the turian's shoulder, revealing heavy cabling and servos moving in rippling motions. The turian's voice was a throaty growl. "I am Ahamid Talid, Fifth Blade of Disgrace. You will die today, for the honor of the Deathwatch."

Tazzik smiled behind his mask as he threw himself forward, feinting left then using all the strength in his legs to fling himself to the right. As expected the turian leapt to his left, hoping to pounce and tear, leaving himself open as Tazzik slid past him. It was the work of a single moment to turn and drive his omni-blade with all his strength into Talid's back, splintering armor and shattering internals as black fluids and blue blood alike sprayed from the turian's stricken chest.

"I hate people who wanna give me their life story in a fight." With a grunt, Tazzik flung the fool into the nearest wall next to a dead turian laying atop a lance cannon, smiling savagely as it collapsed on him. He watched for a second to see if the turian would get up, then turned away.

He made it two steps when a lance cannon shot from behind and to his left slammed into him, alarms blaring as his outer armor layers cracked from the hit. The impact was enough to send him stumbling, but he managed to stagger into cover behind a trash dumpster and tapped his omni-tool. It generated a missile drone which began pouring down hi-ex fire in that direction.

He examined his armor plating, which had been cleanly shattered by the direct hit. While the shot had not penetrated any of his core systems, the servos in his left shoulder were smoldering and sparking, and the impact from the shot had vaporized most of the hydraulics in his left arm. Combined with the ugly hit to his side, his condition was becoming a bit alarming.

He paused to slap a blob of omni-gel over the crack in the armor – not a good patch, but at least it would stop additional internal damage – and considered his options. The drone had blasted the former Talid to bits, thankfully, and he could still move his arm, so he figured he could take a second and try to pick out a good target to hit.

He could make out Tetrimus in the distance, entangled in a high-speed biotic fight with his relative, the two clashing with sprays of blue fire and the muted clang of barrier-enhanced talon daggers. The brief respite ended as more SKYTALONs rained down on him, firing as they came with SPEAR miniguns.

No amount of armor or barriers would bounce that kind of firepower, and he boosted energy to his legs as he leapt out of the way. Catching a light pole in a split-second move, he slung himself to the side as the four battle-suits crashed to the ground, slewing their fire in long lines of blazing red light that tore through plascrete and steel, like a shotgun through rotten wood. A few of the bolts hit his barrier; it imploded, sending a wash of dissipated plasma over his back.

He dropped his shotgun and palmed a pair of grenades from his belt, flinging them before pushing off from the ground in a leap backwards. They opened fire immediately, but his bulky form landed behind one of the armored vehicles the heavy combat teams had driven into the parking lot of the spaceport to lock it down.

The grenades exploded a split second later, heavy plasma blasts hitting one of the suits directly. The turian pilot lost control of the suit as its right leg was half melted, and he flung away his weapon before the ammo could cook off.

The remaining three rounded on Tazzik's location, one leaping up to cut off his retreat. The other two emptied their SPEAR miniguns into the APC directly. He cursed as red blasts tore through it as he once again launched himself upwards, grimacing behind his combat mask.

He caught the airborne SKYTALON in mid-leap, surprising the turian, and before the pilot could react he savagely lashed his hands against the bulky helmet and pulled. The turian managed to scream before his head was torn from the rest of his body, the suit – and pilot– coming down in an uncontrolled crashing tumble that sent sprays of blue blood across the pavement in looping arches.

Tazzik kicked the headless bulk of the suit with all his strength at the two SKYTALON suits still on their feet, laughing as the corpse smashed into the leftmost one and sent him to the ground, the heavy crunching sounds of things breaking in both suits echoing across the lot. The last one snarled something and fired, Tazzik barely jerking out of the way in time to avoid the shots.

He unlimbered the weapon on his hip, a sawed-off warcannon, firing at point-blank range as he leapt forward. He took a couple of rounds from the SPEAR minigun, both of which punched right through his armor and subdermals to inflict light damage on his internals, but the belched blast of the warcannon cratered the turian's faceplate.

The battle-suit staggered back, and Tazzik scooped up the dropped SPEAR minigun and fired a long burst right into its chest. He giggled a bit as the black armor suit came apart in a violent explosion, scattering bits of flesh and torn, smoking metal in all directions. He paused long enough to put a burst into the other suit that he'd knocked over, the stream of red firepower cutting through the torso with almost no resistance.

"Damn, I shoulda had one of these before now."

He lifted it higher, grunting at the weapon's weight, before snatching a box of bulky heatsinks from one of the dead SKYTALONs. He glanced around at the ongoing chaos of the fight before sighting in on the trio of biotics that were harrying his forces, and fired.

The blue-glowing barrier field of the three Cabalists did not hold up to anti-armor levels of firepower, and Tazzik laughed as they came apart in burning sprays of ruined, charred flesh. He sprayed another burst into the main line of the Deathwatch forces in the distance, grinning sardonically as he killed six enemies with a single burst.

The voice of Tetrimus sounded on his comm-link, harsh and cold. "Are you done playing with your new toy? My cousin," – a pained grunt and a sound like twisting, screeching metal – "is pissing me off."

Tazzik rounded to see the two turians had leapt atop one of the nearby buildings. The younger turian Cabalist was badly wounded, one arm hanging limp and seeping blue blood, his robes torn and revealing battered, blood-spattered armor and pale gray flesh.

Tetrimus seemed unharmed, but even as Tazzik watched, the younger turian did something with his hand and sent Tetrimus flying, skidding across the pavement a good thirty meters to slam into a shipping container hard enough to crumple the metal around his body.

Tantrius's voice was hoarse, but triumphant. "Time to die, traitor and honorless tark!"

Tazzik sighed and shot the fool in the back. The spray of firepower tore through his shaky barrier and cleanly severed his good arm. He screamed in agony and collapsed, as Tetrimus got back to his feet, brushing his robes off.

"You see what happens, dearest cousin, when you don't use enough gun?"

Not bothering to wait for an answer, the cyborg flung a blade of force at his already dying sibling, cutting him completely in half. Even as the two segments flew backwards, Tetrimus hurled a blast of biotic energy after him, detonating the ruined corpse.

Tazzik turned to see if there were any more points of resistance, but most of the attack force was down. Most of the Deathwatch heavy infantry and battle-suits had been killed by the GARDIAN towers to the right and left of the main hanger, before the Cabalists had used warp to fuse the barrels of the laser emitters closed.

Even so, the Deathwatch and SKYTALONs had taken a grim toll. Dozens of black armored figures littered the now wrecked parking area, and six vehicles were burning wrecks. As Broker forces began spilling out of cover to finish off any survivors, Tazzik could see many of the surviving teams were wounded.

He tapped his mask, revealing his features, and frowned as Tetrimus limped forward. "He fling you around a bit, old bird?"

Tetrimus's voice held a sneer his blank features could no longer demonstrate. "The fool blamed me for the crimes of the damned Primarch who killed my entire family. As if I chose to fail a mission like that. I'm not sure if the Palavanus turned him into this or if he actually just lost his spirits-be-damned mind. Maybe a bit of both."

Tazzik noted there was not even a trace of remorse in that voice. The genetesters who'd built Tazzik and his siblings had made them fight each other, but even as cold as his soul was, he still remembered being unable to kill his brothers, and the warm feeling he felt when his last surviving sibling refused to kill him in turn. The turian had just brutally murdered his last living family without a single hesitation.

Tazzik merely shook his head, and instead of voicing his thoughts settled for prodding a Deathwatch corpse with his armored foot. "That's great and all, but Deathwatch and Raptors don't just fall into the hands of disgraced Cabalists, you know. This had to have been official, from the Hierarchy – and if they knew we were here and set this up…"

Tetrimus glanced up at the sky, where smoke from the battle mingled with the darkening clouds rolling in from the south. "It's too early to assign this strike to the Primarch and his lap-torks. The Hierarchy has decided as distasteful as my survival is, I'm less of a disgrace than P. And they haven't been stingy in using our services."

Tazzik snorted. "Then how and why…?" he gestured to the bodies behind him.

Tetrimus said nothing for long seconds before shrugging. "Interpreting why the Deathwatch – who don't directly answer to anyone but the Palavanus – decided to pull this stunt will require moving some pieces around once we finish the operation here. The Revengeance isn't a public group. They can and have acted without official sanction before. But for my fool of a cousin to have so many implies the leadership of the Deathwatch wants me dead, despite the backlash that would cause."

Tazzik nodded sourly. "Old bird, that isn't a good sign. Up until now, for the most part, the Deathwatch has been… cooperative. This is going to cost them."

Tazzik didn't really get turians, but honor was everything for them – he understood that much. The Primacy saw Tetrimus as a reminder of everything that went wrong with the Relay 314 Incident, and a blot on their honor.

But the Primarchs weren't stupid, and neither was the Master of the Deathwatch. No matter how much of an embarrassment and dishonor Tetrimus was to the Hierarchy, no one – ever – threw down with the Shadow Broker without a damned good reason, knowing what that would cost them.

STG, sure. Cerberus, of course. But he couldn't think of a single Broker op that even touched the kind of interests the Deathwatch – or their Palavanus bosses – had.

"The fact they backed my stupid younger cousin's attempt at 'justice' doesn't make sense… unless someone or something outside of the Deathwatch influenced them." Tetrimus's voice darkened. "It's possible that the Sisters of Vengeance have been busy. We've already faced war priestesses, Cerberus, Dancers, Black Blades, and a Spectre who was supposed to be working for us."

Tazzik sighed. "Speaking of the Sisters, they aren't going to take very long to pull footage and realize where we are. And probably why we're here. This little carnage we had just cost us a good chunk of our troops."

Tetrimus grunted, and turned toward the spaceport's lobby building. "You think they'll come here directly? Good, I hate waiting. Have the teams reset defensive watch and the savants get those GARDIAN towers working again as soon as possible. I am going to comm the Broker and give him an update."

Neither of the cyborgs noticed a trio of small camera drones hovering in the shadows of one of the destroyed buildings.

O-TWCD-O

"Clear of relay, drift sixteen hundred k. In full stealth shutdown, engines off, inertial guidance systems only. No sign of particle scans by the asari ships."

Shepard nodded tensely, her hands gripping the back of Joker's seat tightly. The maneuver known as sync-jumping was certified insanity – using your mass core to synchronize your jump with another ship. The advantage of it was that during the jump all sensors were retracted, and it was hard to pick up another ship in the first few seconds after a jump as well.

The asari ships were only about two hundred kilometers off. Far enough that you couldn't make them out with the naked eye, but in space combat terms, that was well within knife fighting ranges – and visual range of a ship's engine flares.

The Normandy hung in space while the five asari ships formed up and engaged full engines, heading straight for Ilium. The science officer watched his boards carefully, before exhaling audibly. "All asari ships moving at flank, scanning forwards. There's a sensor buoy about five thousand kilometers out, we haven't breached sensor levels yet. I'd recommend moving away on maneuvering thrusters only."

Joker pulled down a haptic panel from his console and began hitting keys. "On it. Vigil, slave tertiary controls and adaptive shaping to console two."

The sphere said nothing, but the outline of the command console changed, and then Shepard nodded. "How long will it take us to hit orbit?"

Joker's teeth worried at his lower lip, his eyes narrowed. "Um… we can be out of the sensor range on that buoy in five minutes. Going at half speed to avoid detection and ion wakes, twenty-one minutes. Take it up to seventy percent and we can get there in thirteen, but there's a lot of dust and gas in this system and we'll leave a wake."

Shepard exhaled slowly. "Half speed, keep us below the ecliptic plane, and bring us in high observation orbital on a slant to cross Nos Astra." She turned on her heel, walking over to Pressly. "We ready?"

The bald man nodded, tugging at his uniform as he stood up from looking at a display. "As ready as we are going to be, ma'am. Vakarian and the lunatics are in the forward launch bay. If Ms. Lawson is correct, your armor was designed to interface with a SLINGSHOT harness. It has a mass core and deployable ablative foam, but it was supposed to work in tandem with a set of RAPTOR or ICARUS armor."

She nodded, and began walking back toward the lift. "We'll be doing a LAHO drop, so I won't need full protection. Once you drop us, get the Normandy down below GTS RADAR range and go silent after you deploy the shuttles with the other teams. Remember, you have to get the rest of our guys out even if we—"

Pressly snorted. "Nothing like that is going to happen."

Shepard paused and turned to face him. "It could. If you have no choice—"

He shook his head. "Ma'am… Sara." He exhaled. "We had no choice on Feros. But we got you out alive. We had no choice on Ilos. But you made it. We had no choice when the first Normandy died… and yet here you stand. I'm just a button pusher and organizer. You're the one who gets things to happen. Those bastards killed my Ops team and destroyed your life, ma'am."

He set his jaw. "We will wait and pick you up when you kill that asshole Tetrimus, ma'am."

She smiled. It wasn't the slanted, painful smile she'd been wearing since she'd been brought back to life, but a small, sad one. "Faith in me gets people killed. Ownby, Haskins, and Haln—"

Pressly shook his head once more. "They chose to follow you, ma'am. And I knew Matt better than you. If he had to die, he wanted to be doing so on his feet, fighting for the right reasons. You gave him that. Haskins had lymphoma. She didn't have the money to pay for nano and she was going to die no matter what. You let her die a Marine again, instead of a sick woman terrified she was going to bankrupt her husband and leave him a widower."

She looked away. Her jaw tightened for a second. "Liara wouldn't want me to be a whiny emo clown. I'm just tired of losing people. I don't have many."

Her XO nodded slowly. "You never were nervous like this before, at the pirates or when we went after Okeer…"

She shrugged. "I'm a little more wary now. Revenge won't bring her back."

He arched an eyebrow. "Not something I expected to hear you saying, that it's pointless."

She smiled again. "Grunt said revenge is never pointless if it stops the fuckers from doing it to someone else's family. And he's right." She exhaled, then shook her head. "Thanks. For being you, Charles."

He watched her stalk off and enter the elevator, and as the doors shut, Kelly Chambers left her comm station to stand next to him. "That was a bit out of character, wasn't it?"

He gave the Cerberus doctor a flat stare. "Ownby, Haskins, and Haln were the last of the original Normandy Marines that survived everything in the Benezia Incident. She's not scared of dying or of the Broker's goons. She's scared of losing any more of her friends to them."

Kelly nodded sadly. "That isn't new. She's always led from the front for that reason. But she seems convinced something bad is going to happen."

He glanced at the images coming from Ilium, of burning star scrapers, fleeing civilians, and pitched battles in the streets. "That's because something bad always happens."

O-TWCD-O

Telanya glanced at the drone repeater display projected from her omni-tool. "Found them. Or at least a large concentration of Broker soldiers. They're at Northpoint. The Deathwatch is attacking with Cabalists…"

Liara's gaze didn't waver from the aerolanes but her voice was tense. "VI, reroute VPS to Northpoint Space Center, fastest route."

"Route mapped. Displaying on HUD."

An amber line wound through a maze of aerolanes displayed on the front panel of the center console and Liara turned the car down a side lane. The asari glanced quickly at the status readout of the drones and frowned behind her mask. "How many drones are left?"

Telanya shook her head, hand moving rapidly over the omni-tool. "Not many. The Deathwatch dropped an EMP spike before they hit the spaceport, and that wiped most of the closer ones. Broker's savants are out in force now; there must be a dozen or more of them." She narrowed her eyes. "Tetrimus is out there, he's using biotics again. The grenade—"

Liara nodded. "I know. It was our best shot at him." She gritted her teeth. "Wait. If the savants take down our drones, they can trace back to the carpark and—"

Telanya interrupted. "No. I already burned our hardlines back to our hideout and put a datatap linked to the offices of the Benshi Sisters."

Liara's lips quirked into a thin smile. "Serves them right. You think they'll go for it?"

In the back of the aircar, Thane finished bandaging the wounds he'd received in the first battle. He placed his fingertips together and his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward. "Not to interrupt, but you have located our prey?"

Telanya gave a firm nod, tapping another control and bringing up a projected haptic screen. Grainy monochrome video from overhead showed the aftermath of a battle – dark armored figures moving bodies out of the way, extinguishing fires, and setting up barricades and sloppy but effective cover made of rubble and hastily poured omni-gel.

"Deathwatch hit them hard, but it looks like they killed most of them with a GARDIAN tower. And these aren't light combat teams; they're the heavies that the Broker rarely bothers deploying."

The drell's mouth thinned. "Regardless of what they are, what concerns me is their activity. They are digging in. We do not have sufficient forces to bypass this many enemies, and a stealth approach is likely to fail."

The comm-link on Liara's arm chimed, and she tapped it while keeping her eyes on the aerolane. "Yes?"

Aethyta's voice sounded tired over the comm. "You still in one piece, kiddo?"

Liara exhaled. "Thus far. We've finally located where they ran to. Northpoint. We've picked up increased comm chatter from what's left of their network, and a request to perform a subatmospheric transit of a heavy-frigate over from Vinthan. All of their forces are falling back there."

Aethyta grunted. "That's going to be an ugly place to get into, especially if they're on their guard. I'm coming in. Meet up with us at the corner of Visah and Ninth Riverway."

Liara said nothing for a few seconds, tapping the console with her free hand to pull up the VPS system on the car. "Alright. That's on the way anyway."

Aethyta clicked off, and a few minutes later Liara brought the aircar down into an empty parking lot. Smiya was standing next to Aethyta, leaning against another aircar and examining a long, heavy looking rifle.

The heavy cargo air-truck landed behind Liara's car as she stepped out, and she ignored it as she walked over to her aithntar. Sitting in the aircar behind Smiya was a single Cerberus trooper, talking into a comm-link.

"…Understood, Lion. Groundhog out." He shook his head and stepped out of the car. "So this is it?"

Liara glanced back over her shoulder. Eight Cerberus troopers, seven Dancers, Thane, and Telanya stood by the vehicles. She turned back to face the soldier and nodded. "I presume the Black Blades are falling back to our safehouse?"

Smiya gave a sour nod. "Pretty sure the Republic has video of us cutting up a bunch of Republic soldiers and stopping them from taking down an ardat. I can't risk them getting caught up in this, and most of them are wounded already."

Aethyta gave a small, bitter smile. "You girls have a fix on where Tetrimus is yet?"

Liara nodded. "All of the Broker forces have fallen back to Northpoint. The Deathwatch attacked them a few minutes ago, and inflicted some casualties on them – they're still disorganized, and we confirmed both Tetrimus and Tazzik are there. They are in the process of moving a frigate from Vinthan to Northpoint – probably to make their escape."

Thane walked up. "And there isn't a good way to stop them. The Broker's soldiers are already digging in and making light field fortifications. Our assault at the hotel worked because they were not in a hardened position and had nowhere to fall back to."

Telanya was still engrossed in her omni-tool, and Aethyta looked at Liara. "So you have a plan?"

Liara's voice seemed tired and almost bitter. "We have a ship in orbit. If we bring it down using conventional drives, we can crash it into the port itself. It won't be as deadly as smashing into the planet with an FTL jump."

Smiya's features flickered into a mask of distaste. "Gonna kill a lot of people doing that. Northpoint is basically surrounded by hab-towers and apartments."

Liara's face was concealed by her mask, but her anger and frustration were clear in her voice. "You do not think I realize that? Or that we have already submerged our hands and souls in so much innocent blood that we are hardly any better than the Broker? There is more at stake than our revenge, and I do not have any other options."

Telanya began to laugh quietly. The sound was so out of place Liara turned on a heel to face her.

The ex-C-Sec officer's voice was almost an audible smirk. "The morons the Broker hired at Northpoint hacked the GARDIAN towers to target the infantry… but they didn't harden the connections and routed it through the maintenance access ports to bypass port security."

Aethyta shrugged. "And?"

Tel tapped her omni which shifted to a cool green color. "And now I have overridden their hack. They don't know yet, but I'm betting I can vape a lot of that defense outside with no warning. And probably shoot down their frigate if it shows up."

Liara glanced between Aethyta and Thane. "Will that be enough?"

Thane shrugged. "My people are somewhat battered. We will take high positions and snipe, keeping reinforcements off your back. I believe the Cerberus soldiers would also be useful in such a task…"

The Centurion grunted. "Better that than trying to take out Tazzik directly. Who's gonna keep him tied up?"

Aethyta sniffed. "Smiya and I will take him out. He's without biotics, so it shouldn't be as hard. That leaves you two with taking down Tetrimus himself, though, and that's not going to work."

Telanya's voice was dry and bitter. "We've been planning for this for months, and we didn't get a chance to use all our preparations."

The Cerberus soldier shook his helmeted head. "My boss says the Butcher and her people will be here in twenty minutes. We could hold off—"

Telanya shook her head. "That frigate's going to be there in five minutes. We can't wait. If they're that close they can drop reinforcements on top of the fight once we get started, but we have to make an opening now."

Liara met her aithntar's gaze evenly, her expression hidden by the mask but her voice clear. "We knew it wouldn't end well."

Aethyta gave a crooked smile. "Okay, kiddo. Show me what you can do."

Telanya nodded, tapping rapidly into the omni-tool even as she spoke. "Northpoint is only two minutes away. I'm in the net nodes for the GARDIAN system now. They breached the entire security cordon around the defense nets, so I can also set off blast doors, fire suppression systems, the elevators – anyone they still have inside will be cut off."

Her slender fingers tapped another set of controls, and a haptic image wavered above the omni, displaying a glowing red line slowly moving toward the concentric green circles representing the spaceport. "Once it's in targeting range, I'll kick everything off at once – GARDIAN lasers, alarms, the works. Once it comes down, we drive through the dust kicked up and Thane's people do as much damage as possible."

Thane nodded. "Gartan, lead the Dance. I'll be with the Sisters." He gave a thin smile. "I already have early stage Kepral's Syndrome, so I won't live much longer anyway. And I've done battle with Tetrimus before. I can give you an opening to kill him."

Liara looked at the small group around her and nodded. "Alright, then. May the Goddess be with us all." She walked toward the aircar she'd come in, and Aethyta jerked her head to the transport.

Smiya followed Aethyta to it, scowling. "This is an even worse plan than the assault on the hotel."

Aethyta only nodded. "I know. We take out Tazzik fast and get to the fight with Tetrimus as quick as we can. We'll do the Waves Humming Over Coral feint with me taking the hit, you flash behind him once he goes for it."

Smiya's scowl deepened. "Mama Fish…" She trailed off when Aethyta opened the cab door of the transport and gave her a sad smile.

"I'm a tough old bitch, Smiya. I can handle one hit from a cybered-up freak."

O-TWCD-O

Tetrimus watched the team of techs finally repair the barrel of the GARDIAN laser tower on the upper level of the spaceport, shaking his head. "ETA until our ride gets here?"

"Three minutes, Ginnister. Threat board is clear. The Immutable downloaded his routines into one of the combat borgs onboard and is rebooting his systems. Thax Varun is resting inside the spaceport and is in stable condition, his cybernetics are working, but damaged. Cena Dantius is also inside."

He nodded, dismissing the slightly built salarian and turned to the hulking form of Tazzik next to him, watching the sky, one hand resting on the butt of his lance cannon. "You disagree with the decision to pull out?"

Tazzik grunted. "We've lost well over two hundred of our men and the fighting is getting completely out of hand in the city center. The STG and Deathwatch hit us and we still don't know why or who tipped them off. And as much as I hate to admit it, those bitches very nearly killed us. I say we call this a scrub and get the fuck out before something else goes wrong, like a Collapse-be-damned Royal Hunting Party arriving."

He shrugged. "I don't like it, but the boss is right – this is a pointless mess and the media is going to pick up on us sooner or later. That's the last thing we need."

Tetrimus nodded. "It irks me to flee from any foe. The Broker shows too much caution in this action. This pair of murderous kirinx have cost us literally hundreds of millions of credits and ruined our entire combat operations arm, and we just fucking walk away?"

Tazzik shrugged. "You think I like it, old bird? I guarantee you if we get Dantius wiped trying to kill the Sisters, the Broker will be beyond pissed. We thought we could get them. We fucked up. Time to move on." He broke off as the bulk of the frigate entered his sight, and clapped Tetrimus on the back. "Might as well head inside and get things moving. Dunno what Almnrut was planning, but it hasn't materialized, so we might as well not hang around for that shit either."

Whatever scathing retort Tetrimus had was cut off when the two GARDIAN towers that had just been repaired swung around in unison and opened fire point-blank on the incoming frigate. The blazing red-white beams carved across the bow, shearing the bridge apart before an explosion turned the vessel into a burning inferno that crashed into the spaceport a second later.

Tetrimus had enough time to fling up a strong Wall, grimacing as the blast wave hit it strongly enough to nearly buckle him. He ignored the sudden alerts in his HUD as he concentrated on holding back the impact of the blast.

The fifty or so Broker soldiers in the courtyard, and the ones perched on nearby buildings or in the parking area behind thin cover, were not so lucky. Most were simply vaporized; the unlucky ones picked up by the blast and smeared across buildings or pavement. Further out chunks of burning plascrete or semi-molten ship hull bounced and tumbled across the parking area, smashing aircars and running soldiers alike.

The main concourse of the spaceport collapsed in billowing clouds of black smoke and reddish flames, the lounge area next to it buckling from the crashed ship. One GARDIAN tower snapped like a twig when the aft half of the wrecked frigate knocked it from its moorings. The other tower lazily rotated and began targeting the remaining Broker troops.

Snarling, Tetrimus dropped his biotic defense as the blast wave receded behind him, pushing all of his power into a warp blast. A large boiling mass of warpfire erupted over the GARDIAN tower, melting the barrels of the lasers and the tower itself to a mass of slag after a couple of seconds, but not before lashing lasers turned another dozen soldiers to black smears on the pavement.

Tazzik got to his feet, gazing at the spaceport in shock. "What…?"

Black smoke and clouds of dust from the impact choked the air, making visibility almost nil. Broker troops scrambled away from the burning wreckage; many coughing from the dust, others staggering around with burns or shrapnel wounds.

Tazzik tapped his comm-link only to find static, and cursed. "Our comms are down."

He turned back toward Tetrimus, abruptly reeling as a trio of high-powered sniper shots hit him in the knee, chest, and face-mask within the span of a second.

He staggered back and got slammed with a pair of heavy biotic pushes, sending him skidding across the pavement to smash into the shattered wreck of an aircar. Tetrimus spun on a heel as he heard the sound of an aircar accelerating, and barely managed to kanquess out of its path as it crashed into the ground at high speed.

He came out of the biotic charge and rolled to his feet, bringing up a barrier as he did so. The aircar itself was empty. He had just enough time to notice something strapped to the main console before it detonated.

His barrier withstood the blast, although he was blinded by the flare of light barely six meters away, and thus had no warning when a warp sword carved through his right arm, skittering down the reinforced surface armor and slicing the combat shotgun he was carrying into pieces.

From out of the billowing smoke, two figures in black-and-red armor with full-face masks stepped out. One held a glowing warp sword in one hand and a flare of biotic power in her other, cybernetic fist. The other one held his own pistol as she fired twice at his face, the first shot rebounding off the barrier and the second one dimming it visibly.

The voice that came from the mask of the one with the warp sword was cold and distorted, but he recognized it as that of one of the Sisters of Vengeance instantly. "Nowhere to run, murderer."

He laughed, lifting his hand to blast them both away with warpfire, before a shattering kick hit him from behind, enhanced with enough biotic force to dent the backplate of his cybernetic body. He managed to recover into a low tumble, coming up in a crouch to see Thane's red-clad form rise to his feet, hands holding long knives glowing with a faint black radiance.

Tetrimus shook his head very slowly, pulsing his barrier. "I'm going to kill each one of you slowly."

Thane sniffed. "You have failed before, jirha. I have no fear of you."

Tetrimus lunged, and the very air exploded into biotic fire.

O-TWCD-O

Joker's voice had an edge of nervousness to it that Shepard suspected only she and Tali would pick up on as he announced they were approaching the planet.

She checked the drop-harness pack she wore over her armor, a framework with eezo and ablative omni-shielding used mostly by non-DACT having to drop with those wearing the specialized ICARUS armor.

Upon making sure everything was hooked up, she glanced to her left, watching Garrus lock and seal his helmet. "Showtime, battle chicken. Ready?"

The turian only nodded, flicking his armored hands over the safety of the massive Widow sniper rifle he carried. "As ready as it gets, sheep. We have any comms with the surface?"

Shepard tapped her omni as the ship lurched and angled downwards. "The Centurion on the ground gave us a pair of relay points – one the location of Trellani and 'other wounded,' and the other someplace called 'Northpoint Spaceport.' "

Vigil's voice sounded over her comm-link. "Primitive, be aware, Northpoint is currently a mess. A frigate just crashed directly into the docks according to fragmentary news reports. Much of the planet's datasphere is a wreck and there are Broker data savants, STG teams, and someone else mucking about in it, so I don't have many details."

Shepard nodded. "Got it. Joker, time to jump?"

"Three minutes. You need to trigger your harness almost as soon as you're clear of the ship, and I'll swing the Normandy back north to drop the shuttles."

She nodded again, this time to herself, and smiled thinly. "Sound the alarm, then."

A moment later the battle stations alarm went off, and Pressly's calming tones spoke over the 1MC ship announcement circuit. "All hands, prepare for atmospheric transition, remain at 1SQ and full boarding readiness. Depressurizing cargo bay now."

The cargo bay was suddenly illuminated by rotating red lights, and she watched her two DACT troopers check their gear one more time before facing her. "Hot locked and ready to rock, ma'am. Targets?"

She shrugged. "Whatever we can find. Primary goal is to locate Tetrimus and Tazzik, secondary is to find the Sisters. According to Vigil, we're jumping into a hot mess, so you two will have to keep Broker goons off of us while we go to work."

She tapped her comm-link. "Secondary teams. Prepare for the assault. We'll be jumping in one minute. Teams will drop in the shuttles; the recovery team for Trellani will land the tank and rappel down."

The two DACT cracked their helmets together, and Montoya began a slow, sonorous chant of words that didn't translate in Garrus' omni-tool "Watashitachi ga haiboku shita to shite mo…"

Garrus frowned and glanced at Shepard as the ship began to buck and heave from atmospheric turbulence. "What is he saying?"

Shepard's tone was soft. "Those are the opening words of the kamikaze. 'Life is but a moment to contemplate. Death is but a smile in the face of defeat. We die not for glory, but for duty. The divine wind of our courage will light the sky with the radiance of a thousand burning suns, and will lift our spirits even as we sacrifice our lives in defense of our homeland.' "

He grunted. "Kind of like 'Die for the Cause,' I guess?"

She shrugged, watching as the status line over the door shifted from red to orange. "Maybe. There is an overtone of not caring about life as long as the enemy is defeated. It's not about honor, or glory… it's about taking the sonofabitch with you before he can get to your loved ones, no matter the cost."

She clenched her fist as the red lights overhead stopped flashing and the doors crashed to a halt. She took a deep breath and smiled. "…Jinsei wa kaze ni sakura hanadesu…"

Garrus blinked. "What?"

He had no time to talk further as she gave him an impish nod and then leapt out of the cargo bay, followed by the DACT. He cursed and flung himself out a moment later, noting that all three of the humans had gone from soft chanting to howling the words.

"Watashi wa sore o tsukamu tame ni seimei o ushinaimasu!"

The entirety of Nos Astra spread below them – a huge crescent of purple and silver star-scrapers, bisected by a lazy, sinuously winding river. Entire sections of the city were burning or smoking, grasping fingers of inky blackness stretching into the sky as if seeking escape.

Shepard watched the ground race toward her, exultant for the moment in the sheer sensation she experienced. Her HUD threw up a pair of red guidance lines, as she triggered the mass effect harness. A tank of mono-propellant provided the retro-force needed to slow her fall along with the mass effect core in the back.

The DACT plummeted faster, howling out war cries and triggering powerful jets in their leg armor to reorient themselves. Garrus's SKYTALON armor automatically triggered its jump assault mode, omni-wings arching out behind him to generate drag and slow him down.

They were coming down on the edges of the spaceport, and it looked like a ruin. Dozens of bodies lay scattered in every direction, some still on fire or smoking, and the blazing wreckage of some kind of small vessel was embedded deeply into the spaceport proper.

A knot of white armored soldiers with heavy machine guns was dug into a corner trading fire with twice their number in black armor, while figures in red coats leapt here and there along the tops of buildings, sniping as they went or killing more of the black armored figures who managed to climb to reach them.

Shepard grimaced as the harness flared hard, jerking her body painfully as she crashed into the ground. Alarms blared from the impact, but didn't indicate anything broken, so she got to her feet and slapped the fast-release button on her shoulder, the rig dropping behind her with a clang.

Both of her DACT had landed in the very midst of the Broker's remaining ground troops, with predictable effects when their suits blew off their remaining acceleration in a wave of released mass effect energies that sent enemies flying in all directions. Montoya paused to fire his BRKR at point-blank range into a pair of Broker heavies, leaving nothing behind but a pile of charred meat and melted armor.

Garrus landed beside her, his omni-wings folding away even as his opalescent omni-armor leapt to life, lifting his sniper rifle as his legs flexed with the landing. A pair of shots rang out, one slamming into a krogan in black armor that was charging them, the next blasting through the weapon – and head – of a salarian on top of an aircar trying to snipe them.

The krogan roared and charged Shepard, screaming out an incoherent battle cry in Korogish she paid no attention to. Even while she shot a pair of already wounded Broker troops dead with a single blast of her ODIN, her other hand casually caught the krogan's thrown punch. She tightened her grip and smiled viciously as the bones in the krogan's hand snapped like twigs and he gave a howl of agony.

She flung him away single-handedly, sending him into a pile of burning rubble. He screamed as he caught fire before she shot him three times with her ODIN, the third blast tearing off most of his head. He slumped in death as steaming orange blood cascaded down his body.

Smoke billowed high into the sky and while Shepard could see fighting in all directions, there was no sign of Tetrimus or Tazzik yet. She glanced down as another shot from the right bounced ineffectually off her armor, but before she could trace the shot back Garrus had fired, blowing the leg off of a salarian sniper.

She tapped her helmet's obscured-vision mode and got RADAR-detected outlines of multiple figures in combat, some dug in and some running to a cluster of figures near the spaceport.

She tapped Garrus on one armored pauldron and gestured. "C'mon. This way."

More Broker soldiers spilled out of a nearby building, opening fire as they did so, but then heavy fire rained down from above as the shuttles from the Normandy began landing. Shepard ignored the fire, using the kanquess to bypass a wall of burning wreckage that Garrus merely leapt over. She tapped her comm-link as she ran.

"Beta team, begin a mapping search, find me a fucking pointy-faced asshat to kill. Echo, clear the courtyard – guys in red coats appear to be on our side. Delta, follow us in once the Sisters are located."

She glanced again at the red-coated figures on the walls above, cybernetic eyes zooming in. "Huh, Remembrance Dancers. Unexpected."

Garrus grunted in her comm-link. "That is odd. Some were at Omega when we went after your body."

Garrus broke off the comment as two armored vorcha charged him, pausing to kick one hard enough to break its spine and slash the other one in half with a backhand from his omni-claws.

Shepard herself snickered as she danced aside, as some kind of turian cyborg clad in heavy black armor and wielding an omni-axe burst free of the tangled wreck of an aircar to swipe at her. She parried his next blow with her warp sword, the black blade cutting through omni-field and projector alike, before she put her full strength behind her downstroke and split the cyborg's head in half.

It staggered back and Garrus put two blasts from his Talon pistol into it. "The whole courtyard is full of Broker goons, some dead and some just wounded – what in the spirits happened here?" He knelt down to examine one of the corpses. "Sara… this turian isn't a Broker soldier."

She frowned, walking next to him to stare at the corpse, a burned turian with blackened armor and a red stripe across it. "So what outfit is this one with?"

Garrus's voice was flat. "Deathwatch. Specifically, a group known to have been dishonored and who will do anything to regain such honor. They haven't been deployed openly like this in decades… what in the spirits is going on?"

The sounds of biotic combat – the distinct crack-whip of warpfire – jerked her attention away from Garrus and she pointed in that direction. "We'll find out as we go. Let's get moving." She ignored the heavy weapons fire behind her – and the sound of what was clearly Zaeed opening up on some poor fools with his multi-function weapon – when Pressly's voice rang out across her omni-tool, tight and as close to panic as she had ever heard it.

"All teams, be advised! A geth fleet just jumped in-system; size is in excess of one hundred capital ships, including what looks like a dreadnought!"

Garrus just looked at her, his voice deadpan. "Ah, I knew we were missing something."

O-TWCD-O

Aboard the geth dreadnought, a single command was pulsed.

"7V/C Command 605 to all platforms. Commence suppression of organic fleet elements, orbital bombardment, and assault platform landing. Unit 539832-B, prepare strontium detonation elements."