I peered back into the black-flecked, mud brown eyes across from me. An inordinate amount of light seemed to glint off them, despite how dim the room was. Then they slowly narrowed, trying to shield themselves from my stare, in a futile effort to protect whatever secrets they held. Our eyes continued to be locked in this fashion, each party trying to outmaneuver the other, carefully reading each others' face, searching for any hint of weakness that might be present. And eventually, the duel came to an end. If I had blinked even once, I knew that I would have missed his quick glance down to the table. But that was all I needed. I got the answer I was looking for.

"All in."

Activating my omni-tool, I pushed the virtual chips in front of me to the center of the table. The pot located there doubled in size. His eyelids shut close and he reeled his head back in frustration.

"Dammit!"

"You're not foldin' are ya Ray?" Felawa asked standing over his shoulder, peering down at his hand.

"What?! N...Let me think," he replied with a surly expression. He slowly reopened his eyes and trained them on me again.

"Ha, you've got nothing Tanaka, give it up!" the balding engineer seated next to me said. I believe his name started with a T, I hadn't quite caught it when he introduced himself.

"Nah Tony, Shield's totally bluffing! I've finally figured out his tells! Call it!" requisitions guy Dan said next to him.

"Ah shut up Fantum! You say that every hand!"

"I just do that to throw you all off! But I'm telling you for real this time, he's totally bluffing!"

I didn't blink as Tanaka continued his stare down.

"We don't have all day," I said snidely.

"He's right. What's your bet Ray?" a bridge ensign named Gladstone asked on my left.

"...Dammit. Fine! All in!" Tanaka shoved his holographic stack into the center too. Chatter of excitement broke out around the table.

"Alright boys! Let's see 'em!" another guy from the bridge named Harry said, motioning for us to show our hands.

Tanaka clicked a button on his omni-tool to display his cards first. A couple of the guys let out whistles as the cards laid themselves out on the table.

"You were worried about going in with this!?" Gladstone said boggled.

He had the heart of the cards. Five cards of the heart suit that is. A flush. Dude was certainly cautious to have almost folded with that kind of hand. Everyone's heads now slowly turned to me. I did my best to keep a straight face as I poked the display button on my omni-tool, my hand suddenly showing itself on the board. Tanaka's caution was well warranted.

Roars of laughter and outrage erupted in the mess hall. Tanaka swore in frustration as the pot suddenly transferred itself to my corner.

"Four sevens?! How the hell..." Harry trailed off.

They called it Skyllian-five but it was the same as Texas hold'em. Or Primero. Or Five card draw. Just another variant of regular ass Earth poker.

"I honestly thought to the maker you were bluffing just now," the old balding engineer whispered beside me.

"To be honest, I might as well been. I do like to go all in. Sometimes when I don't even have a pair. Keeps ya guessin."

"I'll remember that," he muttered back, looking down at my winnings. It took some time for the ruckus of the table to die down, the conversations to trail off. A lot of the guys were checking their accounts to see if they could still afford to play.

"So...who's up for round five," Harry asked resetting the table, now that everyone had settled back down.

"Just thought I'd give you guys a fair warning...we're literally seconds away from picking up the Commander," Joker's voice boomed over the entire deck.

"Oh shit!" Harry shouted immediately shutting down the game. Everyone simultaneously jumped out of their seats in a panic and started hauling ass out of the mess hall. Into the elevator, up the stairs, to the med bay, and every other direction you could think of.

"Woah, what's going on?" I said standing up in alarm.

"Why didn't you tell us sooner!" Gladstone shouted back angrily at the disembodied voice.

"Thought I'd let you guys finish your game first."

"Uh...guys?" I tried to ask one by one, as each player began to disappear. In a matter of seconds, the mess hall had emptied, save for myself and Tanaka who still sat across from me. Some time passed before he decided to take it upon himself to answer.

"Not much to do aboard a spacecraft," Tanaka muttered. He had a cool, collected face on him, sharply contrasting with the others that had just split. "So you play a few games, watch a few vids, try to entertain yourself in whatever spare time you find. The Commander isn't too fond of what we consider 'fun'."

"Ah. So you do it when she's away?"

"Right," he replied before pausing and turning around to find Felawa back standing over his shoulder.

"Hey Ray, I, uh...forgot where I'm supposed to be posted on the ship this shift..."

Tanaka groaned. "It's like I'm never off duty around you."

"Please?"

"Okay okay, god, just stop making that face. You're supposed to be standing watch port side of the Command center, right behind the XO."

"Thanks!" Felawa said before sprinting off toward the stairs. The synthetic voice of the ship's VI suddenly came over the intercom. "Logged. The Commanding Officer is aboard. XO Pressly stands relieved."

I looked away from the ceiling where the voice had came and back to the marine sitting in front of me.

"So...why aren't you in a hurry to get back to-"

"It's not my rotation," he abruptly replied. "Now if you excuse me, I'm going to catch some shut-eye before it is." He pushed himself up out of his seat and started dragging his feet toward the bunk room.

Oh. Okay. I didn't want to talk with you either.

I watched his back as he slowly trudged away, past Kaidan's console, the small column of sleeping pods, and into the universal bed room of the crew.

Dude's probably just butt hurt about losing.

I looked down at my arm and tapped my omni-tool back online to see my new balance.

Just a butt hurt Beverly because I just won stacks on stacks on stacks. And grandma said gambling doesn't pay. So much moolah. I just made bank bro. I could buy a range rover right now.

I minimized my omni-tool's credit display of 529 credits.

...and its time I probably find out how the mission went.

But I didn't get up from my seat. Instead, I just ended up staring at the tabletop.

...actually, let's just wait here. I'm sure someone will come by...

I got a snack pack out from my pants pocket and tore it open. I had finished about half of the veggie chips in it when I heard the elevator doors finally slide open.

Knew it.

I saw Liara come round the corner a moment later with a despondent look on her face. We made eye contact and I waved her over to see what was up.

Joker snapped his head left to Rosey as alarms suddenly went off on the bridge. "What's going on?!"

She responded with extreme panic. "Joker! A Geneva-class cruiser just warped out of FTL three kilometers out! And it's headed right for us!"

That took him aback. "What? Why? What do they want?"

Rosey was just as confused. "We don't know! They're ignoring all our hails!"

"HEADS UP! They're powering up their main cannon. They're firing at us!" Gladstone shouted.

"Already saw!" Joker shouted back as he jerked the ship out of its trajectory.

"Guys get this! The identification number of the vessel matches the SSV Dubai. It was reported stolen from an Alliance shipyard years ago, same time as the SSV Geneva incident. The organization considered responsible was..."

Joker finished the sentence for him. "Cerberus." He pulled the ship up as another volley from the SSV Dubai sailed under them. "Tell the crew to brace for impact! I'm going in!" He cranked the ship's thrusters into overdrive.

"Joker wait! We can't-"

"Oh, but we will!" he retorted as the gap between the vessels suddenly began to close. The exchange was now a game of chicken.

Bring it on you bastards...

The ship fired once more. Joker jerked the figurative wheel of the ship as hard as he could. The Normandy rotated, turning upside down, and the Dubai's volley grazed the belly of it. "HAHA! WE GOT EM! Activate the GARDIAN systems!" Joker yelled, keeping the Normandy on course, now dangerously close to the Cerberus vessel.

"Danger," the VI sounded over the bridge. "Collision in 550-390-145-"

"Fire!" Joker shouted as they sailed under the ship. Simply put, it was no contest. The GARDIAN lasers were fatalistic at this range. They tore into Cerberus' hull, spacing the bastards that had just tried to get the jump on them. "Tell Officer Lowe to get the main gun ready!" Joker shouted. The Normandy was now several hundred meters passed the ship again and Joker was about to change that. He steered the ship back around for another attack, positioning the Normandy's nose right behind Cerberus' stern. "FIRE!" he commanded once again. In response, the Normandy launched several crackling blue torpedoes at the cruiser. Their ship was already damaged, limping away, too large to even properly outmaneuver the smaller and faster frigate. They most definitely couldn't withstand this next assault. And didn't. The Cerberus cruiser blew up in a spectacular fashion, chunks of metal hull spreading in every which way, and Joker watched as a magnificent ray of light enveloped the Normandy as they subsequently shot through it.

"Joker! You saved us again!" Rosey fawned. "How can we ever repay you?!"

"Just doing my job," he coolly replied.

"Are you?"

The voice snapped him out of his day dream. To his dismay, he looked up to find Shepard standing over him. "Oh, uh...hey Commander."

"You weren't listening to a word I was saying were you?"

"...how long have you been there?"

She stared out the Normandy's window letting out a sigh. "Great."

"Sorry, I was...uh...a little busy...minimizing the engine polarity of the Normandy before it caught damage from the drive core. There were abnormal fluctuations in our eezo core you see, and, I think it was due to the auxiliary charge not being inverted...because our FTL drive was affected by a ripple around our vacuum-field-gravity dampener. I might have to double check with Adams because that must have created some sort of anomaly in our auxiliary aligned power too. I'm pretty sure-" He stopped when he saw that she had that look of hers. "...are you buying any of this?"

"No."

"Keep going," Rosey said from somewhere behind Shepard. "I want to hear more about those ripples from the vacuum field gravity dampa-whatser affecting our FTL drive."

Joker chose to ignore her. "So...what's up?"

"The opposite direction your career will be going if you don't just punch in this navigation course." She tossed a data pad onto his lap.

"Hey, watch it! Brittle bones here!" He tentatively picked the data pad up and started examining Pressly's charts. "How'd the mission planet side go?"

"We found Cerberus performing illegal genetic experiments, sick ones. Studying freakish looking xenos."

"Ugh...did you get pictures?"

"No."

"Aw," Joker replied, still looking over the coordinates Pressly wanted to for FTL jumps.

"We also found the corpse of Admiral Kahoku in one of their labs."

That caused him to look up in shock. Her face was grim as the words left her mouth, a giant shift from the annoyed expression she had been sporting moments ago. "Kahoku?!"

"He was onto them, told information on where they were...so they killed him."

"You can't be...are we talking about the same guy? Admiral Kahoku of the SSV Ardenne? The Captain of the only ship orbiting Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz? The guy that knocked down a fourth of the pirate ships that-"

"Yeah. And they shouldn't have been able to. He was supposed to be in hiding, some where no one could find him."

"I thought that Shield's boss-"

"Apparently not. Or maybe not at all." She stared out the Normandy's window. Joker glanced down at the data pad in his hand then back to Shepard.

"...shouldn't we contact the Alliance about this?"

"Not yet. I'm having Alenko write a report, but I don't want to confirm what happened until we actually take down Cerberus."

"What...where are we going?"

"Like I said, they were just conducting sick experiments down there. After accessing their databanks, Tali found that their main base of operations is in the Columbia System, on a planet called Nepheron."

"Columbia!? Shepard, that's a day and half trip from this system. They'd be long gone before-"

"We're not just going to ignore this lead Moreau." She never called him by his real name unless she was pissed. Really pissed.

"...Of course Commander. I just wanted to warn you it's going to take some time before we're able to get there."

"Just get us moving in the right direction. I can wait." She pivoted and began to walk back towards the CiC. Joker exhaled, scratching his neck. He put the data pad aside and pulled the Normandy's haptics back up, beginning to punch in commands. He felt a tiny kick as he turned the Normandy to face its new course.

The ship's dampeners still needed fine tuning.

I sat there in the bathroom stall staring at the floor. I didn't really need to use the can, I just needed to a place to be alone. Except for Shepard's private quarters, every part of the ship was always occupied, from the bridge to engineering. I would have normally just chosen a cot in the bunk room and lay there in the dark if there had been one available. The bathroom stalls were the only place where I knew I wouldn't be bothered. Hopefully.

And the reason I needed time to think all by my lonesome? That was solely because Kahoku was dead.

I had just talked with Liara about what had gone down on Binthu. As I spoke with her, her face was just...it had a darkness to it. Like she had seen horrors beyond description. Seeing that face made me sick to my stomach. What she told me would be nothing good. But I thought she must had just been rattled by Cerberus' creatures, the Rachni, which I just couldn't wait to see for real, and those Thorian creepers, equally disturbing I'm sure. Green, eye socket-less zombies. Definitely couldn't wait to see those.

But then she just dropped his name at the end of the conversation. Almost as if was a small minute detail to be simply overlooked.

Kahoku. Dead.

I excused myself and aimlessly wandered around until I ended up here. And her I sat on this toilet, thinking of how the hell it could have happened.

I saw that Kahoku got protection. Personally. I gave him that info on Kai Leng. I mean, unless the Broker didn't accept that as payment and decided to instead help Cerberus by giving him up...but there's no way. The Broker had given Kahoku, and thus Shepard, information on Cerberus in the first place. They were enemies...unless the Broker got a favor from the Illusive man while backstabbing him at the same time...but the Broker wouldn't do that though...why?...because...

I tried to think of a reason why that was absurd. In the original game, Kahoku went to the Broker of his own accord and asked for information on Cerberus. And it was given to him...

Freely? Or did Kahoku trade him for that information and it just wasn't mentioned in the game. Would they really give him information on the empty promise that he would get them anything Shepard found? If they expected him to get them information on Cerberus from Nepheron...why would they let him die. Because Shepard would give them that info in his stead?! But then...did Kahoku try to hide himself without anyone's help in the game? Or did the Admiral ask the Broker for help hiding in that too?

There were so many variables. Too many unknowns. What was done and wasn't. What should have happened, had happened, and didn't. But really, there was only one thing that I knew for certain. I failed. The Admiral was killed. Cerberus had murdered him after he had tried to avenge his marines.

..and now his wife, his children, and his grand kids would go on without him. I was supposed to save the guy...and I failed.

I wiped my eye before choking back a laugh.

I sent him to the shadiest mother fucker in the entire galaxy for protection. And what did I give him? A tidbit on some douchebag? Motherfucking Kai Leng?...and the Broker would already fucking know that of course! He had all that stuff listed about Kai Leng in the first place didn't he?! You got that info from his own dossier on Cerberus.

I dropped my face into my hands.

I should have given him info on the Illusive Man. Then the Broker would have actually given a damn about him. Wondered how the hell Kahoku had such important info...but I didn't. I was selfish. I gave him a sentence worth of information on some third-rate goon to barter with and sent him along. Washed my hands of it as soon as I could. But what could...I could have invited him onto the Normandy. Shepard would've obliged to have the Admiral on board for safety. Cerberus wouldn't be able to touch him.

I stopped burying my face in my palms and looked back up to the bathroom walls.

I killed him. Indirectly but...no. I knew he was going to die. And I didn't do anything to stop it. In court that would be murder by...what is it...murder...murder by second degree...uh...aiding and abetting a crime? No, I was...an accessory. I was an accessory to murder. An accessory to the murder of Admiral Kahoku...

But then it hit me. Reality actually began to sink in. It was blatantly obvious to be frank, but it never really occurred to me until just now. I didn't even know the guy. I don't even know his first name. I talked to him twice, albeit barely. In fact, he was a video game character. He didn't even exist. And he was one scripted to die in the game too. I was hiding in a bathroom stall grieving for a fictional character destined to die. And for that second, I lost all remorse I had for him. He looked as real as any regular Human being but at the end of the day...was he really?

The train of thought ran its course. I entertained it, weighed its value, let it roll around in my head.

Stop being a fucking asshole.

The line of thinking abruptly ended.

What.

You're kind of being a dick.

...am I?

Yes. We've gone over this so many times now, it's not even funny jackass. Even if the man, Kahoku, isn't real...does it matter? Even if everything here or, hell, even if something in real life was fiction, solely a product of my mind, would you let it suffer? Let them suffer whatever horror or pain that befell them? If you were insane, and had an imaginary friend crying out for help...would you really just ignore them? Ignore them when you could help them instead?...Of course you would asshole! Real or fake or something in between. It doesn't matter. Again...we're going to do everything we can to make sure everyone lives, and that more importantly, the Reapers lose. End of story.

With a deep breath, I got up from where I was sitting.

But if he was a fictional character...if he doesn't exist...what does that mean for everything around you? Everyone you talked to and touched? Are they truly fictional as of now? ...are you?

I decided to leave that train of thought alone and unlocked the bathroom stall's latch.

"I'm sorry Kahoku," I decidedly muttered under my breath. "I really am...but I'll make it up to you."

I'll make it up to everyone.

I walked out of the bathroom and took a left, finding myself run headlong right into Kaidan.

"Ow," I said holding my forehead.

Kaidan was a little more melodramatic. "AGH!" He dropped the data pad he was holding to the ground and gripped his head like it was about to explode.

Wow. That's a little unneccess-wait.

"Oh shit, sorry, did I just give you a migraine?"

He held out a hand toward me as he turned away from me, still gripping his head with the other. I let him stand there like that for a couple more minutes.

"...Should I get some ice?"

He groaned. "No, just...just give me a second." So I did. Gave him several seconds...or minutes more like. Waiting for him to recover, I picked the data pad he dropped off the floor as he battled his demons. Waiting a while longer, he eventually recollected himself, slowly removing the palm from his fore head and straightened back up.

"Dude, I'm really really sorry about that," I said apologizing again.

"It's alright," he said turning back around to face me. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

I extended the data pad back toward him. "Neither was I. Still...sorry."

"Sometimes they just flare up like that. I think we both just need to...keep an eye out next time."

"I'll certainly try," I said rubbing my forehead again trying to milk my injury. Not that the action assuaged my guilt at all.

"Hey, while I got you-"

"Yeah?" I asked curious.

"Shepard and I talked in the garage after the mission. I think she plans to have you on the squad for the next mission."

"Really?" I replied. "What about Emerson?"

"He's staying on the roster. Shepard wanted to rotate you in for Liara."

"Really?" I found myself. "Did she...do something wrong down there?"

"What? No. It's just that...she's never seen combat like that before. And with the next drop we're doing, things are going to get rough."

I found myself agreeing with their call. "Ah, okay. Gotcha. Looking forward to it."

"Glad to hear it," he said with a faux smile. "Now then, if you excuse me..." He made a move for the bathroom behind me.

"Oh wait, did Shepard say where we're going next?"

What could it be? Feros? Noveria?...Am I actually even prepared for those? What else-

"Nepheron. That's where Cerberus' main base of operations apparently is. Got the coordinates of their location from one of their facilities on Binthu."

Oh right. UNC Hades Dog.

"Oh...well then, I'm glad there's still some of them left for me."

"We should get there in two days' time. Until then, why don't you get some rest." He patted me on the shoulder and then entered the john.

I brainstormed what I could do that would occupy me for two days. I mean...two days. 48 hours. That'd be like forever from now-

Two. Days. Later.

"Cliff!"

"I see it!"

"CLIFF!" Kaidan shouted from the back again.

"I SEE IT!" Shepard shouted again while hitting the boosters, sending the Mako flying into the air. It cleared the gap with ease, landing with a heavy thunk on the other side. She continued to jam the throttle of the Mako forward, moving full speed ahead toward Cerberus' hide out.

According to the vehicle's positioning system, it should just be over this-

She hit the boosters again, causing the Mako to spring off the top of the hill. The two missiles speeding at them sailed by harmlessly underneath them.

"Oh shit!" Ashley sputtered, returning fire at the missile array from the vehicle's gunner seat. Shepard swerved left as soon as they landed, just in time to avoid two more.

"They're hostiles on foot down there too!"

"I see them!" the chief replied, firing the mass accelerator at the compound's defenses. They exploded in a bright orange ball of flame, a mushroom cloud of smoke shortly erupting from it afterwards.

She jerked the wheel, causing the Mako to steer itself in direction of the base. As she did, the Mako ran over a gun man who had apparently thought to board their vehicle. The other three were as lucky as he was, getting gunned down by the Mako's axial mounted machine gun just as she parked it in front of the compound's entrance. The Mako's weapons were assuredly still hot when she gave the order for them all to move out.

Lined up single file, Shepard looked over her team once more before they entered. Wrex, Garrus, and Ashley looked almost eager, weapons cocked and ready for whatever they might find down in the bowels of Cerberus' lair. Turning to the next two, she could tell underneath both their helmets that Emerson and Tali were nervous at what they might find this time around. Alien bugs, horrific lab experiments, other dead officers- Shepard understood their fear. Emerson and Tali seemed to straighten up though when they realized she was looking at them. Glancing to the back of the line, she found Kaidan and Shield looking robotic, not showing any sign of emotion at all, their faces completely blank.

Kaidan was a disciplined marine, he knew how to hide whatever emotions he might find himself feeling during a mission. It was a surprise to her though that Shield was able to do the same, in spite of his usual faraway, absentminded look. Realizing she had been staring for longer than she had meant to, she looked back to Wrex at the front of the group. "We're going in hot! Weapons ready!"

As they stormed down the hallway and into the underground facility's anteroom, they found that Cerberus had decided to strategically abandon it, as not a soul was in it. Convenient for them, as this left Shepard and her squad able to make one last preparation before their assault. She had Emerson and Shield loot the containers and lockers in the room for useful equipment as she went over the details of their attack plan again.

"Remember, we're divvying up into two fire teams. Emerson, Tali, Shield and I will take the left. Kaidan, Wrex, Ashley, and Garrus will go right. Form a pincer movement, cross firing, and meet each other at the back of the room. Biotics create openings aggressively, soldiers lay down suppressive fire for them, tech specialists are relegated to support roles. Spot movement, locate enemies, use their abilities to help cover team. Any questions?"

They all shook no. "Good."

They then burst into the main room to execute her strategy. Or as well as they could in any case. Shepard found her team quickly mired by the room's openness. Her fire team immediately took cover behind the crates left in front of the room's entrance. As she attempted to peek over one and analyze the battlefield, a shot knocked her back behind the crate, her kinetic barriers stripped in one shot. Their position was accosted by rifle fire immediately after.

"Go go go!"

Behind them, Kaidan and Wrex had created barriers with their biotics upon first entering the room, allowing them to absorb the incoming fire and shield their team long enough to get them to safety on the far right side of the room. The cover they found apparently gave them a good view of the room because Kaidan subsequently shouted "They're moving up on your left!"

She didn't attempt to peek first this time. Shepard materialized a biotic barrier and leaned left from the crate, firing her pistol as soon as she did. The shots immediately found their mark upon a Cerberus gun man out of cover. He rolled away behind a column as soon as his shields went down. Not enough Shepard thought as she chucked a grenade toward his direction. After she heard the explosion, Shepard left her cover to advance, before immediately finding herself besieged by enemy fire again and rolling back behind the crate.

The fire fight went on in this fashion, being much longer than she had anticipated. The Cerberus commandos were training most of their focus on her position, giving Shield and Emerson little room to return suppressive fire. The Krogan would have been better in this scenario, as he could've taken more punishment in an exchange like this, barreling through.

Fortunately the giant lizard was still able to contribute to the battle. She could hear him charging down the right side of the chamber, which would clear a path for the other fire team to move into. In this fashion, the other team eventually reached the position of the Cerberus snipers, and subsequently routed them. And without their infiltrators, Cerberus lost their fangs. She popped up and had time to throw a singularity for the first time during the fight without losing her shields. Following her lead, Shield and Emerson now laid heavy fire on Cerberus' position, distracting them long enough for Wrex and Garrus to finish them off.

"Room clear Commander!" Ashley shouted as the last body hit the floor.

"Alright, good work!" Shepard shouted back as she got up, extremely grateful she could finally stretch her legs. Cerberus had made them dig in hard. Probably laid out the room like it was to delay what had just happened. In fact, they probably would still be pinned if it hadn't been for their Krogan Battlemaster barreling through their lines, shrugging off all their gunfire.

"Well...that wasn't so bad," Shield commented behind her.

"Probably didn't seem so bad because you were hiding behind cover the entire time," she replied.

"Hey! I totally killed a Cerberus goon! Hey Emerson, you saw it! Back me up."

"I don't know Shield, you were taking awfully long breaks between volleys."

"What? I was popping my heat sink dude!"

"Is that a Human euphemism for something?" Garrus asked approaching us.

"What? No. My gun literally-"

She decidedly tuned them out as she approached the door leading further into the facility, giving a short motion to Wrex.

"Shepard."

"Wrex. You're taking vanguard position. Get ready for whatever's on the other side. Tali, get this door open."

Several seconds later, Tali had already cracked it, and as the door hissed open, she stormed in after Wrex, finger tightly pressing against the trigger of her gun.

Empty.

She lowered it. "Fire Team two, hold this hallway. Emerson, Shield- you're on point on with me." She motioned for them to approach right before looking back to the rest. "I want the rest of you watch that room to our left. Make sure no one gets the jump on us."

"You got it Commander," Ashley replied.

Arriving at the door not moments later, Shepard got ready to conjure a singularity as the door slid open, only to find to her disappointment that no one was inside. They still checked the equipment left scattered about in the room, picking up whatever gear Cerberus might have left behind, but...this was supposed to be their headquarters. The nerve center for the rogue black ops operations. They're should have been more.

Emerson and Shield who were now significantly weighed down by the amount of fire arms slung across their backs, walked back into the forked hallway.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing," she replied back to Kaidan at the end of their approach. "Get ready. The next room probably holds the last of them." Again to her disappointment, they found it empty. Only a single console occupied the room, standing in front of a huge data hub attached to its back.

"Shepard...I think this might have been another outpost," Vakarian said from behind. "I've seen a lot of criminal hideouts. This was too sparse to be one."

"I'm aware of that Garrus. We're about to find the rest. Kaidan, get on that terminal. See what you can find."

"You go it Commander." He quickly rushed over and began typing away.

"What do you think's on it?" Shield asked.

"Outposts, projects, whatever they might have been trying to accomplish here," she replied. "I don't know what the hell they were doing with those creatures on Binthu but-" A shrill alarm suddenly came from the computer terminal. She wheeled back to Kaidan. "What the hell's that!?"

"It's flashing itself!"

Shepard cursed to herself as she realized her mistake. Tali was extremely talented when it came to retrieval of sensitive data like this. Dammit.

"I'm uploading every file I can onto my hardsuit's internal drive! Hopefully we can get something-"

The console screen suddenly flashed brightly before it stopped whining and shut down. The lieutenant dropped what he was doing and grabbed his head in response.

"Kaidan!" she blurted as she rushed to his side. "Are you alright?!"

"Shepard-" He winced in pain. "Just...just need a moment."

She turned to the rest of the group still standing out in the hall way. "Alright, we're done here. Get ready to move out." Then she activated her radio. "Normandy, this is ground team. We're ready for pick-up."

The wait had been short. Before she had realized it, the Mako and the rest of the team had already been picked up and were back on the Normandy. And as she climbed out of the vehicle, Joker's voice came on over her radio piece.

"Hey Commander, we just received an incoming transmission minutes before we came to pick you up. And I think you might want to hear it."

"Alliance? Tell them I'll be right up," she replied, wondering why he had contacted her over her ear piece and not the ship's intercoms-

"Definitely NOT Alliance."

With that, she double-timed it up to the CiC, coming to a brisk stop by the time she got to the star map. "Joker...put it through."

"Alrighty Commander."

The voice of a Turian came on seconds later, and she found it rather...slimy. "Greetings Commander Shepard. I represent a party interested in obtaining information on Cerberus activities."

"Who are you," she asked hostilely, "and who do you represent?"

"Who I am is inconsequential. Suffice to say, I am an agent of the Shadow Broker."

Shield must have contacted him as soon as we went down. If he's still in contact with them...

"You see, Admiral Kahoku contacted my employer, as he was looking for information on the location of any Cerberus facilities. We provided that information on the premise that he would turn over copies of all files gathered from Cerberus' systems to us."

"And why the hell would I do that? The deal was that you would protect Kahoku while we did this! And we found him dead."

It was still lingering fresh in her mind, the death of Kahoku, Cerberus' experiments, what role the Shadow Broker played in them all...what role Shield played in them-

"We deeply regret his loss. We found too late that an employee of ours was a double agent, and had informed their handlers of his location as we were transferring him to a safe house. Suffice to say, the Broker was displeased at this turn of events and appropriately punished those responsible."

"And why didn't you tell us?"

"I'll be honest, we weren't sure how you would react. We wanted to make sure you had the information first before contacting you. We regret his loss but we will be sure to recompense the ones he loved for our mistake."

His death's not going to be softened by credits.

"There's still the question of how you even knew where Cerberus was located in the first place. How did you know they were on Binthu? And if you wanted this information, why didn't you get it yourself?"

"Information is our business Commander. Through our contacts, we were able to determine the Cerberus group was active in the Voyager cluster. However, we don't possess the unique skills you possess Commander. That's why we asked for your help in acquiring these files. With them, we hopefully will be able to learn even more about their activities. Information that may be of help to you in the future."

"Well I got news for you, these are classified Alliance documents. You're not getting them. Especially not after you let the Admiral die the way he did-"

"Be reasonable Commander. Cerberus was operating outside Alliance jurisdiction. You don't owe them any loyalty."

"And I don't owe anything to you."

"Commander, the Alliance is just going to file this information away in some archive. But no secret stays hidden forever. Eventually, someone will deliver it into our hands. It might as well be you. Transmit the files to us and you'll be well rewarded."

"Like I care. My loyalty is to the Alliance, not the Shadow Broker. And if you think Shield's going to be able to get you those files instead, you've got another thing coming."

She slightly regretted mentioning that. They weren't supposed to know about his connection with them. But if she could drive a wedge between Shield and his employer, he'd be that much more-

"That is unfortunate Commander. My employer will remember this next time you need something from us. As an apology for our hand in the Admiral's demise however, we'll at least leave you this last courtesy. Contrary to what you may have heard, the one you refer to as 'Shield' is in no way affiliated with our organization."

"...what?"

Codex Entry:

Project Orthus

Input Command:

Entry B - 012:

Today we shipped the 'Suen' specimens offworld. We've sequenced enough of their genome to begin cloning our own and no longer need them. The Illusive Man apparently wants to do further tests on the subjects we received from 15 though and sent them to some depot for further study. As I've noted previously, we thought they just needed time to adjust to their new environment, but these things have proved to simply be feral animals, reacting to the most basic stimuli, showing cognition no higher than Earth Formicidae. I don't understand how they had ever been advanced enough to achieve space travel. In any case, we are proceeding with cloning. We have already created fertilized blastocysts that we will develop through IVF, as outdated as the procedure is. Hopefully these subjects will give us more promising results. (Close)

Input Command:

Entry D - 020:

After several weeks of study, the cloned Suen specimens prove to be unsuited for our designated objectives as well. They were too stupid to even be trained through basic operant conditioning. As I was bout to deem our division of the cell a failure, the Illusive Man relayed to us that he was sending a new batch of specimens from 15. They apparently differ from the others we've gotten, growing this time in proximity to something he referred to as the 'master control unit'. We are scheduled to receive them tomorrow. The cloned specimens have already been transferred to the Barn, where I believe the Depot had already sent theirs as well. I can only hope we're not wasting more of our time. (Close)

Input Command:

Entry E - 005:

Our newest arrivals have caused our division to move at neck-break speed. Though they are genetically identical to the original specimens we received earlier in every single way, down to every single genetic pair, they boast an exponentially different IQ. They aced the cognitive tests for xeno-organisms so well that on a hunch, we administered the test for alien sapience. They passed. This has caused our division to go into an uproar, and I believe this was the break through we were looking for. Upon hearing our report, the Illusive Man has already had a number of our specimens sent to the Depot in preparation for transfer to the Barn, which I strongly contest the decision of. I can only hope he can get us more as we could be on the verge of something great here. These creatures will respond much better to our experiments than the ones before...I don't believe Dirk's division has made nearly as much progress with conditioning those products of species 37. We might end up getting their funding if we keep moving as fast as we are now. (Close)

...Terminal Online.

Identification required:

Operative Banes.

Scanning card. Identification accepted. Experiment Log is E - 015. Input Command:

Transfer Files to - Orthus Cell Secondary Hub.

Registering Command:

Completed. Input Command:

Delete all records.

Registering Command:

...

...

Error. Command failed to execute. Input Command:

...

Input Command:

...

Input Command:

...

Input Command:

...Location of Orthus Cell Secondary Hub.

Registering Command:

Clearance Check...Completed. Orthus Cell Secondary Hub location listed as: Voyager, Columbia, Nepheron. [Coordinates delivered to handheld]

Input Command: _

Author's Notes:

Whenever I see the amount of time that's passed in a story, I like to read it in the voice of that french narrator from Spongebob. Always makes transitions ten times more enjoyable. And if Shield never gets around to mentioning it, the standard issue armor that Cerberus commandos wear is the Cerberus Assault armor. Matching uniforms always makes an organization ten times more threatening, and I think these would especially more so (more than the bland black armor they wore in the game anyway). In any case, thanks for reading guys and I'll catch y'all next time. A big thanks to NathanHale2 for beta-ing again too.

In the Next Chapter: ...what?

Tune in next time on Mass Effective: A Hero Made!