Shepard's mighty team marched forward, destroying the vorcha and the krogan in their way. Shepard was in a bad mood, again. Nothing was ever easy.

He shot one vorcha with his assault rifle, kicked one in the groin and now he grabbed one from the throat. He began bashing the poor vorcha's head against the wall: "Why…do…I…have to…handle…everyone's…crap?"

"Crap…?" the vorcha muttered weakly, and Shepard head-butted it, rendering the vorcha unconscious.

"Pent up feelings…" Jacob remarked, poking Shepard to the ribs "You know what I'm sayin'?"

"Shut up."

The vorcha were now dead, and the team heard a human shouting "It's medicine!"

"You're trying to poison us, scumbag!" they heard a batarian voice.

The voices were coming from a room, and Shepard's team took positions at the either side of the door. Shepard peeked inside, and saw a few batarians, along with a single human. Apparently the batarians were very angry at the human about something.

"Shepard," Shepard's radio came alive.

"Who the hel—"

"Doctor Mordin Solus. Have something want to ask of you."

"How did yo—"

"Took a note from the pocket of the dark human," Mordin answered.

Miranda turned at Jacob, scowling: "You wrote our radio frequency on a paper note?"

"Yeah!" Garrus exclaimed, pointing at Jacob fiercely. Everyone turned to Garrus, puzzled at his reaction. Garrus lowered his hand and shrugged "On the second thought; I don't even give a crap. What's paper?"

Jacob tried to defend himself: "C'mon girl, those numbers are so damn hard." He began digging his pockets, and took out a huge amount of memory tags. He began reading them one by one: "Cerberus bases…the amount of personnel…Illusive Man's favourites…" he stopped at that particular tag, looking at it approvingly "Nice…"

The Illusive Man's favourites… Shepard wondered what those would be…But then he decided not to.

Miranda slapped Jacob in the face, making him drop the tags. They spread across the room. "Stop this immediately, you fool!"

Jacob rubbed his cheek, and Zaeed turned to Miranda: "You're bloody mental, lass. Not everyone sleeps with the Cerberus handbook in their Khyber Pass."

Miranda turned towards Zaeed, scowling "It's Operative Lawson."

"More like Operative Stuck-up Bitch."

"I am not a bitch! I'm just protected!" Miranda snapped. She opened her omni-tool, still growling angrily. She tapped a few buttons on it: "Interesting. Looks like that ten percent of your reward just went mysteriously missing."

"Hey! That's a low blow miss!" Zaeed protested, taking a step closer, but stopped when Miranda raised her omni-tool hand.

"I wonder if that's all that's missing…Maybe I should check?"

Zaeed bit his teeth together and his scarred face looked like that it was just about to explode. "No…need."

"…Miss Lawson," Miranda aided him.

"…Miss Lawson," Zaeed muttered angrily.

"Well done."

Mordin began speaking again, interrupting the bonding moment of the team: "Hmm. Team quite dysfunctional."

"Tell me about it," Shepard sighed.

"Don't think have much time, but will be quick: The lady, insecure—"

"I am not insecure!" Miranda snapped.

"Interruptions, interruptions, interruptions! As was saying: the dark one, lack of intelligence; Vakari—"

"No, not tell me 'tell me about it!" Shepard snapped, annoyed at the salarian's smartassery. "I meant that I agreed."

"Hmh. Could be interpreted the other way also. A simple mistake. No need to get upset."

Shepard frowned "Did you actually have something to say? This ain't Santa's goddamn hotline."

"Yes! My assistant, Daniel. Went behind vorcha lines. Tried to reach some batarians."

Shepard peeked inside the room again. "Let me guess: a dark haired human with a bag?"

"Yes-yes! Exactly the one. Have found him?"

"Yep. I'll get back to you," Shepard answered, and cut off the comm. Shepard turned towards Garrus, and signaled for him to come closer. Garrus, along with Zaeed, came with Shepard, while Miranda remained to lecture Jacob, both oblivious to the outside world.

Shepard, Garrus and Zaeed stepped inside the room, guns pointed at the batarians. "Knock, knock!" Shepard exclaimed, causing the batarians to turn towards them, their weapons drawn as well.

One of the batarians, apparently the leader, however kept his gun pointed at Daniel's head. "Nobody moves or the human gets it!"

"Put the soddin' gun down, Herbert, or you're leaving in a bag," Zaeed informed the batarian.

"Shut up, old fart!" the batarian leader retorted. "If you want the human alive, you'll do what we say!"

"You better say your prayers," Garrus chimed in and enabled the incendiary ammo "Could be your last chance."

"Shut up!" the batarian shouted, and pointed his gun at Garrus. Shepard reacted immediately, and shot the batarian to the head.

"Anyone else wants to negotiate?" he asked, pointing his gun at the remaining batarians. The batarians looked at each other in confusion, and then raised their hands to signal for their surrender. Shepard grinned, that was pretty well done.

"Oh my god! You murdered him! In cold blood!" Daniel whimpered, causing Shepard's grin to disappear.

"Take a lesson, kids; that's gratitude," Shepard mocked, gesturing at Daniel.

"Wait until Doctor Solus hears of this!" Daniel retorted and tried to storm out of the room, but Zaeed tripped him.

"Whoops! Sorry about that mate," Zaeed said fake-apologetically.

Daniel hissed, got up, and ran away.

The team entered the central faculty. Immediately a vorcha greeted them: "Leave! The Collectors want plague! We shut down machines! Break fans!"

"Me break you," Garrus retorted, and shot the vorcha in the head.

The rest of the vorcha didn't like that, so they opened fire at Shepard's team. That was, of course, a very bad move and after a few moments all the vorcha lay dead. The team walked to the air system controls and very conveniently there was a hole where the cure-tube fit perfectly.

"Why does the air system have this sort of an import system? So someone could infect the air with something?" Miranda asked, frowning.

"You're a scientist. Figure it out," Shepard remarked dryly.

They now approached the first fan control room. A couple of krogan, along with grenade launcher –armed vorcha tried to stop them. The vorcha shot their grenades towards them, but Miranda and Jacob changed the direction of the grenades biotically, making them hit the krogan. The krogan died, and the team mowed down the vorcha easily.

One of the vorcha was still alive, and Garrus walked to it, pointing his pistol at the vorchas head: "The Archangel says: You look dead-tired," then he pulled the trigger.

Apparently the 'breaking of fans' was limited to simply pressing a button that turned them off…Shepard pressed the 'turn on' –button, and the fans turned on.

"The fans are on, Shepard," Jacob remarked.

"Thanks, didn't notice," Shepard retorted. The humming could be heard easily.

The route to the second fan room was pretty much the same; vorcha, krogan, and rockets. The team handled them with ease, and turned the rest of the fans on.

"That's it? Don't these guys have a leader for us to fight?" Shepard asked, frowning.

They arrived to the clinic again, and saw Doctor Solus, along with his bitchy assistant.

"Very well done Shepard. Plague levels are dropping throughout the sector," Mordin thanked them, as he noticed their arrival.

"Professor! How can you thank these monsters? They killed that poor man in cold blood!" his whimpering assistant chimed in.

"That 'poor man' was pointing a gun at your head," Shepard remarked, pointing Daniel with a finger pistol.

"And mine," Garrus complemented.

"Shepard and Vakarian are right. The batarian threatened to kill you. Was right to kill him," Doctor Solus agreed, nodding.

Shepard raised his hand to silence him "Wait, how do you know our names? It's not like we told you…"

The salarian gave Shepard a look, like he was very stupid: "Saved the Citadel. Photos everywhere."

"Oh," Shepard muttered, embarrassed. He gestured with his hand for them to continue: "Don't mind me…"

"Professor, how can you say that? You're a doctor, you believe in helping people," Daniel replied to Doctor Solus.

"Lots of ways to help people; sometimes heal people, sometimes execute dangerous people. Either way helps," Mordin replied softly.

"Cool line," Garrus said, bowing approvingly.

Mordin's eyes narrowed as he looked at Garrus "Yes-yes. Have a weird fascination with saying curt things right before killing someone. Hmm…"

Garrus nodded, but then seemed to have realized something: "Oh, you mean me? Thought you meant yourself…Weird fascination?"Garrus scratched his head, confused.

But Mordin's attention was on Daniel: "Please attend to the other patients. Consider what I said."

Daniel looked very stumped, but followed Mordin's order. He quietly moved towards the door, carefully avoiding Zaeed's another tripping attempt.

"Will wrap things up here, then meet you at your ship."

"You know…" Shepard begun "You could have turned those fans on by yourself easily."

"Yeah, we didn't even get a bossfight…" Garrus complemented again.

"Probable, yes. But felt a strange sensation to stay here. Like was paralyzed," Mordin answered and turned to Shepard "Have felt something like that yourself?"

"Nope, but he has," Shepard pointed at Garrus.

"Interesting," Mordin muttered, looking contemplated.

…

Jacob, Shepard and Mordin were now inside the Normandy's briefing room.

"Looking forward to working with Cerberus. Anti-alien sentiments, secret experiments and now alien cooperation. Illusive Man branching out maybe?" Mordin babbled.

"You know the guy?" Shepard asked arms crossed.

"Only know of the name. Have still contacts in the STG. Sometimes hear things. "

"You're lucky that you don't."

Jacob cleared his throat, and began reading from a data pad: "Welcome aboard the Normandy, Doctor Solis. Your expert ice in biom…biotology will make you a real asset for the team. As the fight against the Collectors rages on, we must stay vig—"

"Please don't read that," Shepard snapped, interrupting Jacob.

Jacob shrugged, and tossed the pad away: "You probably wanna do the sciensy –stuff, Doctor Solus. Can show ya the lab."

"Yes. Wish to do the….sciensy stuff."

As the duo left the room, Shepard could faintly hear Doctor Solus asking Jacob whether he had ever tried vorcha gene therapy, and if he was willing.

Poor Jacob…

Shepard decided to let Mordin get comfortable with his brand new lab, and to visit Joker. He entered the bridge, and Joker greeted him: "Hello, Commander."

Joker was watching something from the ship's monitor.

"Whatcha watching?" Shepard asked, crossing his arms.

"Oh, just some ancient movie; it's called Austin Powers. It's an old James Bond parody," Joker answered.

"Any good?"

"Pretty funny, but this one guy is pretty annoying," he muttered, pointing at a spike-haired young man in the film. "Seen the guy in a couple of these old vids. His name's Seth Green or something..."

"Well, he's just one guy…"

"Yeah, but he sucks anyway…"

There was a short silence, and Shepard glanced around the cockpit; it was much larger than the old one, and only had one chair. Guess Cerberus didn't want to offend Joker's feelings of superiority by having him share the cockpit…

"So, how's the Normandy?"

"Bigger, better. Shinier," Joker replied, shrugging. "A second version. Like you," he then pondered his words for a moment "Except that you're not shinier. Or bigger. Or better."

"That's what I keep telling myself every morning."

Joker turned his head towards Shepard: "You do? That's depressing."

Since this one was quite the conversation-killer, Shepard decided to change the subject: "How are your legs?"

"They were broken, thanks to you. Did you scoop slam me on the escape shuttle's floor?"

"Threw you, actually. You should learn how to take a bump."

"Good advice, Captain America," Joker retorted. He paused, then continued: "So, you wanna continue this awkward man-to-man, heart-to-heart, talk-about-your-feelings –thing, or are you just stalking me?" he paused again. "Because if you are, should probably tell you that there are better targets to stalk than me…"

Shepard didn't answer immediately, but looked at the different flying instruments for a moment. "What do you think about the Team? Second version, like you said."

Joker shrugged "Jacob is weird; it's like somebody matched his personality and skills with no logic, and then put them into a randomly selected body… I mean; he looks like a bodybuilder, but has the skills of an elite assassin…and his personality…I think I could have more exciting conversations with this chair than him."

"Miranda?"

"Not gonna say anything against Miranda…She'd probably turn me into a toad or something…"

Shepard chuckled: "Zaeed?"

"You know the saying; you can make a mistake and get caught in something?" Joker asked, and Shepard nodded. "Well, it looks like Zaeed made a mistake and got caught in an explosion. His face is a mess."

"Constructive criticism. What about Garrus?"

"On the old Normandy…" Joker did a crying imitation "The C-Sec kept me down! For all my time there they kept me at the bottom of the barrel! I never got to do things my way!" The crying imitation vanished from his face. "But on here…" now he wrinkled his brow, and gave Shepard an intense look "I'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. And I'm all out of bubblegum!" That expression vanished as well: "And if that's not disturbing enough, he sometimes speaks in third person…."

"You mean the 'Archangel says' –thing?" Shepard asked, and Joker nodded. "I've only seen that once…"

"Good for you…"

Shepard figured that Mordin must have settled in by now, so he decided to pay him a visit. He walked through the ship, several of his crew saluting him. Shepard saluted them sloppily back.

He noticed Kelly working at her terminal, and carefully tried to sneak by her.

"Commander!" she greeted him cheerfully. Apparently his sneaking skills were a bit rusty.

"Hello, Miss Chambers…" Shepard muttered a greeting, looking for a way out of this.

"I told you to call me Kelly."

"Told you to call me Shepard."

She chuckled cheerfully and covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes seemed fixated on him. "I apologize…Shepard."

Her stare felt incredibly uncomfortable, and Shepard started shifting on his feet.

"Have you enjoyed the new Normandy?" she asked him.

"I'm not crying."

She raised an eyebrow. "Out of sadness or out of joy?" she asked with her 'psychologist-voice'.

Shepard bit his lip in annoyance. "Did you want something?"

"You're avoiding the question."

"Please stop trying to analyze me."

"Are you frightened?"

"Maybe…" Shepard put his hand on his chin, and looked contemplative: "…because this morning I had the strangest feeling…"

"Yes?" Kelly encouraged him to continue. She took out a data pad, and began writing him up.

"Well, I got up and found out that my big toe was itching…" Shepard continued, and Kelly lowered the data pad in disappointment "First I thought that it was just athlete's foot, but it wasn't. Wonder what that was…"

"You're making fun of me."

"I said you shouldn't analyze me."

She chuckled "That you did."

Damnit, she wasn't giving up easily…

"Actually, there was something I needed you to see. I arranged a poll for the whole team, but your answer is still missing…" Kelly informed him.

Shepard pointed at the lab's door: "Well I was just about to see Mordin."

"Pretty please…" she asked, staring at him with puppy-eyes.

"Argh! All right," Shepard grumbled, defeated.

Kelly gave him the data pad:

Subject ---------------------------------------------------------Likes ----------------------------------------------------------------Dislikes

Garrus --------------------------------- Kicking ass, taking names. Throwing one-liners.----------------------------------- Cold. Getting my squad killed…

Jacob----------------------------------- Taking big risks with priiizes. Chicken. Giving Collectors all kinds of hell. ----- My pa, mercs, politics.

Miranda-------------------------------- Cerberus, people who like Cerberus.------------------------------------------------- My father, people who don't like Cerberus.

Zaeed---------------------------------- Jessie. Rucks. DoOL. Money. ----------------------------------------------------------- Vido, Miranda.

Mordin---------------------------------- Biology, singing, nephew, art, helping the helpless, rationalization. ---------- Ridiculous complaints that 'insane' experiments are dangerous. Interruptions.

"Very thorough…" Shepard muttered, giving the data pad back to Kelly.

"Thank you, I simply try to do my best," she smiled and then looked at the pad. Her eyes traveled through it, and then she raised her head, looking at Shepard again "You didn't give your answer."

"Those are some very hard questions. I'll have to think about them," Shepard answered, walking towards the lab.

Kelly just stood there, confused: "But they are just about what you like…"

The door to the lab opened, and Shepard saw Mordin already working feverously. "Shepard," Mordin greeted him. "How can I help?"

"You got a moment?"

"Yes. Have managed to settle in, although EDI keeps interrupting. Says that my grammar is horrible. Fragmented sentences. Hmmh. But still refreshing to work with limitless resources again. Resources very limited on Omega."

"Again?"

Mordin gave him another of those 'you're stupid' –looks: "Yes. STG. Used to work there."

"Doing what?"

Mordin looked around carefully before he began speaking: "Probably better to tell you anyway; worked on the genophage."

Shepard frowned and repeated the question: "Doing what?"

Mordin started to pace around: "Few of years ago, the genophage started losing its effect. The krogan birthrates were rapidly rising. Would have been catastrophic."

"So you put an end to this sacrilegious thing?" Shepard asked sarcastically.

"Sacrilegious? No, merely natural," Mordin corrected him.

Shepard growled angrily: "It's sarcasm. Do you even know what humor is?"

"Yes, know of humor; slapstick, parody, satire, toilet, sarcasm, irony, dry humor, banter, exaggera—"

"Forget I asked you that…" Shepard brushed him off.

"Cannot do so, cannot make the brain forget things merely because wish it so. Unless the wish is very strong. But in this case it's not."

"Continue with the damn genophage or I'm leaving!" Shepard snapped.

"Hmm. Ultimatums. Not usually the best way to make a first impression."

"See you later Mordin…" Shepard muttered, and turned to leave.

"Yes-yes. Will be here if you need anything."

Zaeed. Shepard hoped that he wouldn't piss him off any more… The door opened, and Shepard saw Zaeed sitting in the front of the security monitors.

"You stupid muppet. Can't you see she doesn't love you?" he muttered to the monitor. Apparently he didn't know that Shepard was there as well.

Shepard decided to make him pay for that mistake. "Having fun?" he asked loudly, and Zaeed jumped up from his chair.

"Shepard! Damnit!" He breathed heavily, a hand on his chest. "You gonna make me have a heart attack or what?"

"That's the plan," Shepard retorted, then he pointed at the monitor "What are you watching?"

Zaeed sat back down: "What does it look like?"

As the show he was watching went to a commercial break, Shepard saw the title screen: "Days of Our Lives? That crap's still on TV?"

Zaeed turned towards Shepard quickly: "Hey, watch it! It's a quality series."

"Bad quality."

Zaaed muttered incoherently and something flashed through Shepard's mind; Zaaed had written DoOL, as something he likes on the Kelly's report…

"Now I know what the d-o-o-l on Kelly's poll meant…"

"Aren't you a smart one? Maybe you should go to Miranda and ask for a Cerberus cookie as a reward?" Zaeed asked snappily.

"You really don't like her?"

"Don't like anyone. Some people I just hate less."

"But her more?"

"No, I goddamn love her! What the hell do you think?"

"I think you might be right…"

"Go hump a pony," Zaeed growled.

Next was Garrus' turn to enjoy of Shepard's most entertaining company. The door to the Garrus' lair, formerly known as the main battery, opened and Shepard stepped in. It was a small room, only a couple of meters wide, and in the middle of it stood Garrus. He had his back towards the door, and was working on something at the room's terminal.

"Howdy, partner," Shepard greeted him.

"Shepard," Garrus nodded, but otherwise didn't move. He still kept working at the console.

Shepard tried to peek over his shoulder to see what he was doing, but unfortunately Garrus was very much taller than him, so it proved to be impossible.

"What are you doing?" Shepard decided to ask him.

"Nothin' major…You need me for something?"

Shepard frowned "No. I just came here to ask how you are, what are you doing and so on. What do you think, moron? Yes, I wanna talk with you."

"Oh, right!" Garrus exclaimed. He turned the terminal off, and turned to Shepard. "What do you wanna talk about?"

"The weather, of course. What do you think about it?"

Garrus looked puzzled "The weather?" Shepard then lighted a cigarette, and Garrus frowned "You do know that that's not allowed in here?"

"Do you care?"

Garrus shrugged "Not really."

Shepard took out his pack of cigarettes again, and offered it to Garrus. Garrus took one cigarette, and Shepard lighted it up for him. After a few moments, the whole room was full of smoke.

"Didn't know you smoked," Shepard said to the turian.

"Don't all the tough guys?" Garrus asked, raising an exoskeleton-brow.

"Guess I'm the exception," Shepard muttered.

"You're not a tough guy?" Garrus asked, again the brow raised.

"I'm a nice guy."

"Tell that to all the people you killed today."

"Tell that to all the people I didn't. Besides…" Shepard paused, inhaling the smoke "Saved your sorry ass."

"Nah, just got shot to even the odds. Else it would have been too unfair for the mercs."

"How did you even end up in there?" Shepard asked.

"Well, it involves a story about betrayal and retribution."

"Do share," Shepard said, crossing his arms.

"All right," Garrus begun. "Once upon a time, there was a tough guy called Garrus. But see, Garrus had a huge problem; his life was boring. He was training to be a galactic super-agent, a SPECTRE, but even that was not badass enough. So, when his good friend, a badass asskicker as well, John Shepard took and died, Garrus got even more bored. He traveled to Omega, and started a one man war against all three mercenary groups on the station."

"His war went well; his already proficient skills with weapons improved drastically, he learned new catchfrases and oneliners, and his militarily gifted mind became a mind of a tactical genius. So, this all went on for a while, and his war started to attract others; old C-Sec officers, old mercs, former special forces members. And after a while; he had a team of his own, like his friend Shepard. The team wreaked havoc on the station, and the dwellers started calling Garrus the Archangel. Archangel was a religious human figure, a protector of some kind. The name pleased Garrus, so he kept it."

"Everything went well, until one member of the Archangel's team betrayed them. He was called Sidonis. Sidonis gave away the location of the team's hideout to the mercs, and lured the Archangel away. The mercs attacked, and murdered the team, leaving the Angel alone. The Archangel wanted to avenge the deaths of his men; so he attacked all the mercenary bosses at once. It backfired, and Archangel was trapped in his fortress, waiting for the inevitable death," When Garrus stopped speaking he closed his eyes and slammed his fist at his chest.

"So Sidonis betrayed you?"

Garrus slapped his hands together and pointed at Shepard "Ladies and gents, we have a winner!"

"You know where he is?"

"Nope, but I will find him," Garrus replied darkly.

"What are you gonna do?"

"Well, I thought that I could meet him, discuss what happened, why he did it and how do we both feel about that. Then we could figure out a reasonable way for him to repay for his actions."

Shepard was, and looked, surprised: "Really?"

"No," Garrus replied, with even darker tone than before. "Well, the repay-part's gonna happen, except that he won't have anything to say about that."

Shepard nodded. "You find him, and we'll deal with it."

Garrus nodded back "Thanks Shepard."

Shepard and Garrus then did an incredibly complex fist bump, and a street handshake.