Intercepted Message chain between The Illusive Man and Miranda Lawson. 2169, 5/27

I'm disappointed in you Miranda, not only have you failed to retrieve Operative Aries, you failed to stop him from taking Omega from us.

I'm sorry sir, I won't let it happen again.

I would hope not. I expect him to be in front of me the next time we see each other, or reading his obituary in the news.

You're changing the order to dead or alive?

Yes, we don't need Aries, just his DNA. I'm starting a new project, it involves recreating someone with their fighting ability and giving them a history we want.

Sir, isn't that a little unethical?

Nothing is unethical when it comes to the survival of the human race. Aries has special abilities that I want to unlock. I know you can do it, only someone with your knowledge of him can.

Sir, I'm not sure if I do know him. When he worked for us, he seemed to be a one man army, incapable of working with others, but from the data from Omega suggest otherwise.

Everyone has something to hide, even you Miranda, but you know him better than anyone else. If you fail, I will send him in.

Then I won't fail.

[Message chain ends]

Kyon took a deep breath when he heard the elevator doors open, he turned to see both commander Shepard and Aries walk out, one looked extremely agitated and the other as if he didn't have a care in the world. When the two separated from each other, Kyon walked over to Michael and raised an eyebrow, "So, what happened in there?"

Michael shook his head, his composure slipping a little to show his agitation, "She is pissed that I took Kaiden off of this mission because he was having a little trouble with his migraines," he grabbed a trench coat out of his locker and dropped it onto the work bench.

Kyon was surprised by the loud thud that came from the trench coat and went to pick it up, "God damn, this must weigh at least fifty kilos," Kyon said as he looked at Michael, "You wear this into battle?"

"Yes, it is better than a one-twenty kilo battle armor and it offers decent protection since I installed a Kinetic barrier module in it. The only problem, no air conditioning, and it is hot as hell if I get shot at." Michael removed his glasses, keeping his eyes closed until he put his visor on, "MARS, activate Visor OS."

"You have an OS in your visor?" Kyon asked as he gave Michael his trench coat, "Don't tell me you are going to play Tetris while we are in the middle of battle."

"Nah, I'll do it while Shepard is driving the tank," Michael replied as he threw the coat on as if it weighed nothing, "Besides, you won't be able to tell since you'll be in the gunner's position," Michael activated the magnetic clip in his coat and put his sword onto it, then started walking towards the Mako.

Kyon followed Michael his eyes widening, "I"m doing what?" he grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around.

"Don't worry, it's just like an arcade game, except you don't get three lives. You'll do fine," Michael told Kyon as he smiled confidently, "Don't worry," Michael patted him on the shoulder before turning around and getting in.

Kyon stayed outside of it, scratching the back of his head. He winced as he pulled out a few of his hairs and saw that they were caught in some of the helmet gyros, "Great, now I'm going to have to cut my hair when I get back," he said as he sat in the chair in the middle of the tank. He sighed as it went up into the turret, "Spiffy," he said out of surprise.

After a few minutes of trying to learn what the turret could do, not actually turning the gun so he didn't alert anyone that he was inside of it, Kyon heard the sound of argument. He pressed the button to lower the seat and saw Ashley and Tali fighting over where to sit.

"What's the problem?" He asked as he saw that there was only one seat left, "Well, that's the problem." He looked at them and frowned, "I'm going back up," he pressed the button again, and the chair slowly went up, "God damn, go slower please..." he muttered, suddenly the seat went even slower, "Really? That's voice activated?"

"Just sit on someone's lap!" Shepard shouted through the tank as she got into it and climbed into the driver's seat.

Kyon laughed until he felt the chair going back down, "Damn it, I just had to laugh, didn't I?" Before the chair got down, Kyon pressed the button to cover his head in the helmet, and saw Tali wringing her hands, "Yes, you can sit with me," Kyon said before she could ask her question, his voice sounding less exasperated because of the helmet filter.

Without a word, Tali climbed onto Kyon's lap and held on as the chair went back up, "Thank you," she said after the chair stopped, "I'm sorry if-"

"Don't be," Kyon said as he smiled, "Not every day a nice girl like you sits on my lap," he was trying to make light of the situation, but he was never any good at things like that, at most he could make himself look like an idiot, "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that," he said as he scratched the back of his helmet.

"Hey, lovebirds," Michael said through the speaker, "hold on tight, we are about to drop to the surface."

"Drop!" Kyon shouted as he threw his head back, hitting it on the back of the seat, "We aren't landing?"

"Nope, there are Geth signatures all over the place, there is no good LZ in the area of the dig site," Michael responded, his voice cracking a little as the Mako lurched forward, "Hold onto something, Shepard isn't armor certified."

Kyon took a deep breath as he felt his stomach shoot up into his throat, "Just great," he said as he grabbed the straps of the seat and put them around both Tali and himself, sandwiching together.

There was a small reprieve from the the stomach wrenching feeling of the fall before the jolting of the two from the Mako hitting the ground, "That was... fun," Kyon said as he took the straps off of them, "Are you okay?"

"A little breathless," Tali answered before visibly taking a deep breath, "but otherwise completely fine. Though I wish I had a chair as a cushion now."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Kyon said as he took a deep breath.

"Shepard," Grant said through the comm system, "There are some strange energy signatures emanating from the ruins. I mean, like off the fucking charts strange. I'm going to run some diagnostics on it, see what I come up with."

In the background, Joker could be heard mumbling about how it was his turn to tell Shepard something, but that was interrupted by Michael giving a brief status report of what they were going to expect. There were quite a few Geth signatures along what seemed to be a near direct path to the ruins and that we should spend as little time outside the tank, to limit heat exhaustion, "Is that everything?" Shepard asked after he was done, the tone in her voice suggesting that she was itching to run something over.

Kyon couldn't be sure if it wasn't Michael, him, or the Geth that she wanted to run over more, but that didn't matter to him, "I'm good, just tell me where to shoot," he said simply, trying to avoid her throwing him out of the tank and into the lava pits around them. Kyon could feel Shepard's smile as she put her foot to the gas, making the tank accelerate at a ridiculous speed.

"Oh, I forgot to mention, Shepard is not Armor certified," Michael said through the com, filling everyone's head with dread.