The Kodiak shuttle carrying Shepard, Ashley and Zaeed was making its final approach towards Terapso's moon. Ashley and Zaeed were in the back checking their weapons while Shepard was in the co-pilots seat putting through a call. His fingers were drumming on his knees as he was impatiently waiting for an answer. The person he was calling was normally quick to answer but for some reason they weren't this time. Eventually the call was answered and a person appeared on the vid screen.

The person he was calling was his old friend and Shadow Broker, Dr. Liara T'Soni. Shepard noticed when she appeared on the screen that Liara seemed a bit out of breath. It was almost as if she had to run to answer the call. Before Liara spoke, Shepard thought he heard a voice in the background. The voice sounded familiar to him and he distinctly heard the voice calling out "I'll be waiting." When he realized who the voice belonged to, he silently chuckled. He now understood why Liara took a long time to answer.

"Shepard!" Liara said surprised, "I wasn't expecting a call from you. Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine Liara," Shepard replied, "I'm on an assignment and…"

"An assignment?!" Liara interrupted, "Shepard your wedding is in less than a week and you are on an assignment?!"

"It couldn't be avoided. We're trying to intercept a meeting between the Blue Suns and a client at a base on Terapso's moon. I need you to get us some map layouts for the bases there so we can pick out observation points."

"Now?"

"Yes Liara. That's not a problem is it?"

Liara looked off towards something off screen as she seemed to be debating over how to answer Shepard's question. After a few seconds, she sighed.

"I'll have the layouts sent to you before you touchdown."

"Thanks Liara."

"By the way Shepard, does Ashley know you're on this assignment?"

"She certainly does," Ashley called out from her seat.

"Ashley?" said Liara. "You're there too?"

"I'm just here to make sure we get this assignment done in time for the wedding."

"Well I hope you do. It's not every day I get the chance to be a maid of honor."

"Thanks again Liara," said Shepard, "we'll let you know if we need anything else. Oh and tell Feron we said hello as well."

Liara gasped and started to blush just before Shepard ended the call.

The base the shuttle was heading to was located inside a large dome shaped barrier. The barrier was used to create a breathable atmosphere so everyone could walk inside without breathing masks. The shuttle touched down outside the entrance to the base in a spot for passenger pick-up and drop-off. Ashley was the only one who stepped off the shuttle. Shepard had decided that since she was the only one that Vido had never seen before, she would be able to blend into the crowds easier. Once she was inside, she would locate a member of the Blue Suns and secretly plant a microphone on them so they could listen in on the meeting.

The biggest risk of her job was that she would be unarmed once she was in the base. For the safety of all negotiating parties the base hosted, no one was allowed to bring firearms inside. Normally Ashley's Spectre status would have allowed her exemption from any rules like that but they were in the Terminus Systems where the Council had no jurisdiction. Spectres were treated the same as anyone else.

When Ashley finished checking in her weapons, she entered a large oval shaped lobby area. The way the furniture was arranged it almost looked like a waiting area for a spaceport. But the people in the room were not waiting to board a flight. Instead they were waiting to be called to enter one of the five meeting rooms at the far end of the lobby. The doors to each room were marked with number ranging from 1-5. A lot of the people in the lobby looked impatient like they had been waiting for hours to go inside. Ashley wondered how many negotiations happened at this base every day.

After taking in the sights of the lobby, Ashley started scanning the crowd. The uniforms the Blue Suns wear would make them easy to spot. To her surprise however, there was no one in the crowd wearing a bright blue uniform. She started to get a bit nervous that she might have been too late and all the soldiers were already in the meeting room.

Then a voice came over an intercom asking for members of the Blue Suns negotiating party to meet outside the doors to meeting room #4. Within seconds of the announcement, some people in the crowd got up and started making their way to the door. They were a mixture of humans, turians and batarians. They were all dressed in formal wear and not the uniforms Ashley was expecting to see them in. Based on the description Shepard and Zaeed gave her, Ashley saw that Vido wasn't among them. Fortunately for her it didn't matter. All she had to do was plant the microphone on any one of soldiers she could see.

Ashley pulled up her omni-tool to send Shepard a message informing him which meeting room the Blue Suns were using. Once it was sent, she quickly walked over towards the crowd of soldiers waiting outside the meeting room door. The tiny microphone was carefully concealed in her hand. Just before she walked past the soldiers she pretended to misstep and bumped into one of the humans.

"Oh my I am so sorry," she said, "I am such a klutz."

As she was apologizing, she was using her hands to dust him off. It was during that time she placed the microphone on his outfit. The microphone was tiny but as an added precaution it had the ability to change colors so it could blend into a person's outfit a little more. So it came as no surprise to Ashley when she put the microphone on that it almost seemed to disappear when it changed colors. Shortly after she put it on, the soldier grabbed her arms and moved them away from him.

"Just watch where you're going next time," the soldier said trying to hold his anger in.

The doors to the meeting room opened and all the Blue Suns soldiers went inside. Once they were gone, Ashley pulled up her omni-tool to test the levels. She heard no static and the conversation the soldiers were having was coming through loud and clear. It might have come through a little too clear as they were talking about Ashley and calling her a few less than complimentary things. Ashley just ignored it and sent a message to Shepard asking if he was picking up the microphone as well. When he responded that he had, Ashley determined that her job was done and she headed for the exit.

An announcement over the intercom stopped her in her tracks before she made it to the door. It was asking for another negotiating party to head for meeting room #4. When Ashley heard whose party it was, she just couldn't move another step. She knew who the person was and realized that the stakes had just been raised several levels. She quickly began to type a message for Shepard. This time when she tried to send it, a message popped up saying that her message was being blocked. Even after trying two more times the message still wouldn't go through. Her answer came when one of the base's security guards came over to her. He was a krogan and probably one of the biggest ones Ashley had seen. It was no wonder a base would employ someone like him for security.

"Who are you sending messages to?" the krogan growled.

"Who's asking?"

"I'm this base's chief of security. We don't allow anyone to send electronic messages here. It's a security risk. Now I'll ask you one more time. Who are you sending messages to?"

Ashley didn't respond.

"Okay then," the krogan said as he grabbed Ashley's hands and handcuffed them behind her, "you and I are going to take a walk and you are going to tell me what I want to know."

A Few Minutes Earlier

After the shuttle dropped Ashley off, Shepard and Zaeed remained on board and took the shuttle out towards some hills about 500 yards from the base and right on the edge of the barrier. The layouts Liara gave them indicated that they would be the ideal observation points. When they touched down, Shepard could see why. All five of the bases negotiation rooms had windows that looked out towards the hills. Once Ashley gave Shepard the room number for the Blue Suns meeting, he and Zaeed could move quickly to a spot on the hill that would allow them to see into the room.

Before they reached the hills, Zaeed took a few seconds to check that all the mechanisms on his sniper rifle were working properly. As he worked, he noticed that Shepard seemed to be watching him uneasily. He put the rifle aside once the final mechanism was tested.

"Relax Shepard," he said, "I know the plan. I'm not going to take my shot at Vido until after we find out what he and his client are up to."

"I know," Shepard replied, "it's not that I don't trust you Zaeed. It's just that we're dealing with a lot of unknowns and that means anything can go wrong."

"We'll be fine Shepard. There were a lot of unknowns when we went through the Omega 4 Relay but we managed to get out all right. Compared to that, this mission is a pushover."

Zaeed's reassurance made Shepard smile. Just as they finished speaking, the shuttle had touched down on the hills. Shepard and Zaeed stepped off the shuttle to the sight of nothingness. If it wasn't for the sight of the base, they would have thought they were in the middle of a desert far away from civilization. They couldn't make out any of the people at the base with their naked eye. This was good because that meant no one at the base would be able to see them.

Shepard's omni-tool beeped to indicate a message was coming through. Ashley had sent them the room number for the Blue Suns meeting. They had gotten to their destination just in time. They didn't have to move too much further to get to a spot that gave them the perfect sniper view of the meeting room. While Zaeed got himself situated, Shepard started picking up the audio from Ashley's microphone. He sent her a message confirming that the mic was working and he could hear the Blue Suns clearly.

"I have a visual on the Blue Suns soldiers," Zaeed called to Shepard.

Looking towards the base, Shepard pulled out a pair of binoculars and saw that Zaeed was right. They may not have been wearing the Blue Suns uniforms but the fact the group consisted of the different species the Blue Suns recruited confirmed there was no doubt who they were. He counted seven soldiers total entering the room. Unfortunately Vido was not among them. Based on the audio Shepard was picking up, they were grumbling about a clumsy woman they bumped into in the lobby. Shepard figured it must have been Ashley's way of planting the microphone. The soldiers grumbled for a few seconds more when they suddenly looked towards the entrance. Shepard focused his binoculars on the meeting room doors and saw what had gotten their attention. Zaeed saw it too and it caused him to make a small growl.

Stepping into the meeting room was none other Vido Santiago. He too was not wearing a Blue Suns uniform. Instead he was wearing a blue colored formal tuxedo. He gave a quick nod to his men signaling them to relax. Everyone in the room took a seat around the round table in the center of the room. Nobody spoke for a while after that. If it wasn't for the fact Shepard could see the meeting, he would have thought that the microphone had gone dead.

The silence was broken when the meeting room doors opened once again. The people that stepped in were definitely not Blue Suns soldiers. Shepard could tell because they were salarians and the Blue Suns never hire salarians. There were five salarians and four of them formed what looked like a protective circle around the fifth. Two of the four were each carrying something that looked like briefcases. Shepard tried hard to get a look at the fifth salarian's face but between the hooded outfit they were wearing and the circle of guards around them it was almost impossible. He watched as guards escorted the hooded salarian to a seat at the table that faced the window. Once they were seated, Shepard was finally able to see their face. What he saw made his eyes shoot wide open and left him breathless. What Vido said next only confirmed that it was who he thought it was.

"Shall we get down to business Dalatrass Linron?"