Chapter Eight

Clara took deep breaths as she stared at the monitor, running her fingers through her hair as she tried to prepare herself for…whatever it was she was going to see. There had been talks about doing this, about setting up a link and actually seeing them, hearing them, but now that she was sitting here waiting to make the call she was completely and totally panicked.

The decision was made for her when the computer registered an incoming call, the sharp trill making her jump. Meriones glanced at her from her bunk and chuckled before returning her attentions back to her data pad. Clara pressed the green answer button, and waited.

An instant later, Aelia's face appeared on the screen, the white walls of the hospital behind her. She smiled a wide, turian grin. "Hey, Clara. Glad to see you finally got some time off."

"Not a lot, but, enough," she responded, trying to return the gesture and failing slightly. "Iovita said in her messages that he was doing better?"

Aelia shrugged, scratching at her neck. "I mean, he's doing the same. They've kept his vitals going, they're all stable and everything. There isn't really much we can do without a cure."

That pressure that had been lurking on Clara's shoulders ever since she stepped onto the Actium came back full force, weighing her down almost as if it were a physical force. She tried to put it aside, focus on the call at hand, but all she could really think about was Cerberus. It was always Cerberus.

"How are you doing?" Clara pushed, giving her friend a cursory once over. She couldn't tell, not through the video, but she looked about the same.

"I'm doing well. As well as I can be," she responded with a rough laugh. "My brother is stuck in a coma until we find some mystery cure. Mom and Dad left me in your apartment while they headed back home to deal with business there. Hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all, just stay as long as you have to, as long as you want," Clara interjected. "Tito needs someone there. I would be, but…"

She trailed off awkwardly, not certain how she was supposed to explain where she was and what she was doing. Aelia hadn't asked – none of them had – but it was obvious they wanted to know what was more important than staying and making sure Tito was alive. Making sure he stayed alive. She wanted to just blurt it all out, tell them that she was hunting down the people who had done this, but that wasn't really an option. That came with too many strings, too many explanations that would run dry. Not everyone would believe her, and just because Tito had didn't mean his parents would.

"Look, I, ah, have some work to finish up," Clara finally said, rubbing her ear awkwardly. "I'll call again when I have some time, but, until then keep him company for me, yeah? Let him know I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Right. Well. I'll talk to you later. Mom'll keep sending you the updates."

"Later."

Clara closed down the link before anything more could be said, her heart in her throat while guilt niggled at her stomach. She pushed the computer aside before climbing up on her bunk, more than prepared to just lay there and pass out. She could feel Meriones' eyes on her, but she pushed the sensation aside in favor of getting comfortable.

Six weeks since she left, and this was the first time she'd called in. Why hadn't she just stayed on a little longer? Why hadn't she just sucked it up and talked with the poor girl, who was now alone on the Citadel, her only family either in the hospital unconscious or on Palaven however many light years away?

As she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, she knew what the real answer was. She was afraid. She was so horribly afraid. And now she was here, trying to save Tito and in the mean time taking steps to save the world. She hadn't had much time that wasn't spent training with Nihlus or Creion, whoever was available that day, or getting tech lessons from Lycia and Astyanax. What spare time she did have was spent thinking; a dangerous hobby indeed, and for once she didn't mean that as a joke.

What would happen if Nihlus succeeded in taking out Cerberus, in hitting them so hard that they weren't even a player in Mass Effect? The first answer was obvious: Shepard would never get revived and would wind up dying permanently out in space. That wasn't allowed, because no matter what Clara managed to change about this universe she honestly believed that only Shepard could save it. She was their only hope.

So, there came the line, the question she wasn't sure she wanted to answer: save Tito, or save the world.

Maybe things weren't as black and white as that, maybe there was some middle road she could take to make things work out happily ever after for everyone. Maybe she could work everything just so, play between the rules. She could use Nihlus to get the cure, point him in the right direction, but simultaneously keep off course just enough so Cerberus still had enough power to bring Shepard back to life.

She pressed her hands against her eyes, as if that could rub away the impending headache. She couldn't do that, she couldn't sabotage these people who dedicated so much of their life and their time to taking down an institution that was honestly wretched.

These thoughts assaulted Clara's mind hours into the night cycle, and it seemed no matter what she did and no matter how many angles she looked at it, things were still as confusing as they were the first damn day she found herself on the Citadel.

...

"Suit up, Johnson, you're on the drop team."

Clara sat up, cursing as her head slammed against the underside of the console she was busy rewiring. There was a muffled snicker from Astyanax as she rubbed the injured area, pushing herself up to face Nihlus. "Sir?" She asked.

"We've been contacted by the Hierarchy for an undercover mission, which will take advantage of your specific skill set," Nihlus barked, keen eyes on her as she stood. "We're infiltrating a Blue Sun's base to recover intelligence regarding the positions of several turian carrier vessels."

"I'm not sure I understand how I will be an asset to the mission, sir," she said slowly.

"Your training has progressed nicely," he countered, and it looked as if saying those words physically hurt him. "Creion and I both agree that this will be a good trial run. If you survive, you will be put on the roster for regular drop missions."

Clara's heart took off as the information sank in, and she was suddenly and very keenly aware that if she didn't live up to the expectations her trainers had, it was very likely she would wind up severely injured. Or worse. She swallowed down her complaints and nodded. This was her chance to prove herself – if she refused to go, she was disobeying a direct order and admitting that she wasn't worth the spectres time. If she accepted, she had the potential to prove that everything she promised him was right, and to prove that she could be a valuable asset to this crew (and later, to the Normandy, if things progressed as she planned).

"I'll be ready in five," she said.

"Good, we drop in ten. Move out."

Nihlus turned and exited the engineering deck. Clara hesitated only a moment before scampering away, stopping by her room to pull on her under armour. She jogged downstairs to the armory – a fancy name given to the back corner of the cargo hold. Among the various sets of turian armors sat one lone human set. She had only approached the armory a few times, and each time was spent choosing the weapons best suited for her style and making sure her shields were as strong as she could possibly manage without diverting too dramatically from her medigel despisers. It had taken some advice from Astyanax but eventually she had reached an arrangement she was satisfied with.

Her armor was blue, though. That wasn't something she had decided upon. Meriones stepped up, already decked out in head to toe armor, and noticed her curious look. "It's a Blue Suns base," she explained. "We had to detail your armor."

She blushed, nodding, and dammit why hadn't she thought of that. She didn't waste any more time, pulling on her armor and latching everything into place. She had gone over the procedure several times, until the configuration was burned into her mind. She was fairly certain she could have applied her armor in her sleep, but that didn't stop her from murmuring the steps under her breath as she went. She saved her helmet for when they got in the shuttle.

She watched as Creion and Boreas stepped into the hold, decked out in matching blue and white armor. Creion looked most off-put by the change in designs, but Boreas just looked…bored.

It took a certain kind of person to scare Clara, and Boreas made her feel like a little kid staring up at a homicidal clown. She thanked God he was on their side.

"The plan is simple," Nihlus barked, making her lurch slightly in surprise. She faced him regardless, praying that even if one of them saw her they would refrain from mentioning it. "The Blue Suns base is heavily guarded, but Palaven command gave us an in: in 10 minutes the guard will shift, giving us a minute to sneak in through one of the side entrances and begin infiltration. Do not engage enemies until extraction is complete or identities are compromised. Understood?"

After a quick nod of agreement, Nihlus fixed his attention on her. Clara's stomach twisted and she steadfastly ignored the nervous twitching of her eye. If Nihlus noticed the subtle fluctuations, he said nothing. "Johnson, you're in charge of retrieving the information and ensuring its safe return to the ship. No matter what happens you get to the shuttle and return the information. Leave the heroics to someone else."

"Sir," she agreed, slightly begrudgingly. She didn't think she had what it took to keep running to base when one of her squad was down for the count.

"Boreas, keep Johnson covered," he ordered. "If her shields are down I want you there with a barrier. Understood?"

The biotic nodded. Clara wondered if he ever spoke.

"Meriones, Creion, standard procedure. If I abandon formation, Creion is left in charge of formation," Nihlus finished. "Any questions?"

There was a moment of silence, which was all Nihlus needed. He nodded them towards the shuttle. Clara was the last to the shuttle, but when she made to embark Nihlus clasped his hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. His voice was soft in her ear.

"I don't want any mistakes, Clara," he murmured. "Creion swears up and down that you will hold your own. If you fail, it's his ass on the line."

...

There was nothing Clara loved more than being able to someone wrong; some may have called that her "tragic flaw", her equivalent to the standard Greek hubris. She figured with Nihlus on board the Actium's crew had more than its fair share of pride, and so her flaw was channeled into something else.

When Clara was young, her aunt had told her exactly how her life was going to go: she was going to go to school, graduate, find a good man, marry him, pop out a few kids, and die surrounded by a huge family. A nice picture, if you were interested in that sort of thing. Clara only deigned to give her the first two. Instead of entering a stable, loving relationship Clara had entertained an arrangement with a fellow undergrad who she found relatively pleasing to the eye. They dated on and off for years, both knowing that the relationship was little more than a standard "friends with benefits" scenario. Instead of getting married, she got a dog, and instead of having kids she helped create various Virtual Intelligence's for various government projects.

It seemed that, if her luck was going as far south as it usually did, today she would be denying her aunt her final wish. Getting shot down in an intelligence mission was not in any of the cards her aunt had laid out for her.

"Fuck, they've got a gunship!" Meriones yelled. "Duck for cover, go go go!"

The initial infiltration had gone smoothly – they approached the drop point, Ajax letting them off about 20 klicks from their entryway, and made it to the door just in time for the guard rotation. The men watching the door moved, and the team slid into place. No alarms went off, no sirens, no screaming men demanding for identification: just silence.

Nihlus abandoned the group roughly 10 minutes after initial contact, as expected, and Creion stepped up as temporary squad leader. He was good, effective, and managed to get them to the information terminal right on schedule. Clara stepped up, walking as if she were supposed to be here, and started the arduous process of hacking the terminal open and downloading the information onto this handy dandy OSD.

That was when things started to get tricky.

Clara ducked into cover, cursing up a storm as a barrage of fire hit her shields, taking them down to 40% capacity. She closed her eyes, breathing in deep through her nose and waiting for a lull in fire, letting her shields recharge. She loaded her sniper rifle, and the moment the fire stopped she flipped out of cover, stumbling slightly as she zeroed in on the ship, taking as much time as she dared to get a clean shot.

The information had just completed download when alarms started going off, blaring and yelling about a breach on this side of the complex, and an instant later all weapons were focused on the team. Boreas managed to get them out of the small divot they were stuck in, projecting a powerful biotic shield that made her murmur in awe. Unfortunately, the sheer numbers surrounding them were quick to put a damper on his shield. They barely had time to make it towards a more open and more fire-friendly room before his barrier dropped and they all dove into cover.

Clara had killed three men already. The adrenaline and the knowledge that these men were all mercs more than deserving this end were the only things that kept her from puking. That, and vomit was a sure way to block her vision.

"Meriones, get Clara to the shuttle!" Creion demanded over the crack of her rifle, the shot slamming into the glass of the gunship and slamming into the pilots shoulder. "Go, now! Boreas and I have your backs!"

Meriones followed her orders, snatching Clara up by her shoulder and shoving her towards the momentarily clear entrance. Clara didn't need telling twice – she ran, abandoning the rifle behind her, Meriones easily keeping stride with her smaller legs. Slugs nicked at their shields and anxiety kept her eyes glued to their strength.

60%.

The door began sliding closed and Clara's heart lodged itself in her throat. The duo cleared the metal barricade with ease, and she dared turning to see if her fellow crew mates succeeded in clearing the blockade.

50%.

She stumbled slightly, but allowed a smile as Boreas sent a warp at the heavy metal and bent it out of shape, keeping it from closing. The soldier and the adept slid through the gap, chasing after the two. The barrage of decidedly unfriendly fire began anew, coming at them from both sides while their fronts remained mercifully empty.

30%.

"Go go go go!" She screamed, her throat raw as her legs burned and the shuttle finally – finally! – came into view.

20%.

A human sent a biotic wave her way, and in her scramble to avoid the hit she tumbled to the ground, rolling to a stop. A red-plated hand snaked out and grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet and dragging her with him into cover behind a fragile crate. The break in fire was enough to give her shields a little time to recover, but she knew their cover wouldn't last.

"We run on three," Nihlus ordered, and where he had come from she had no fuckin' idea but she had never been more thankful to see the bastard than she was right then.

"Three!" he yelled without preamble, completely skipping one and two as he grabbed Clara's arm and began dragging her towards safety. The rest of the squad was ahead of them now, safe in the tree line and just waiting for their final two party members. The slugs were never ending as Blue Sun's closed in on them from behind.

10%.

"My shields aren't going to make it!" Clara screamed. If Nihlus heard her, he ignored it and just prompted her to run faster. Her calves were burning, and suddenly she was incredibly thankful for the regular laps around the Presidium. The shuttle was in sight, so close, Meriones standing in the door and waiting to pull them in to safety.

0%.

Shot after shot slammed into her armor, feeling like God himself were punching her over and over as punishment for making stupid-ass decisions, like getting her ass trapped in a video game.

10 feet away and suddenly her shoulder felt like it was on fire. She cried out, a litany of curses filling the air. A round had slammed into her shoulder, punching through the protective casing and lodging itself stubbornly in her flesh. She gritted her teeth, tears leaking from her eyes.

An instant later Meriones was pulling her into the shuttle, Nihlus elegantly hopping in beside her.

"Get us out of here, Ajax!" the spectre demanded. The shuttle roared to attention, speeding off and homing in on the awaiting Actium.

"Let me see your shoulder," Creion ordered, pressing his hand to her unwounded side as he inspected the hole. He grimaced slightly, or at least offered the turian equivalent. "We're going to have to get her to Hierax. There's no exit wound."

Moments after the shuttle docked Meriones was guiding her to the med bay, helping her up onto the bed while Peleus puttered around, preparing for surgery. Clara felt as if she were going to be ill.

"First mission and I'm already in the med bay," she managed to quip, mostly for her own sake. "I make one hell of a squad mate."

"Hierax will get you fixed up in no time," Meriones informed her with a proud pat on her uninjured shoulder. "Be lucky we have some levo sedatives on board, otherwise you would be in for one hell of a painful extraction."

Clara whimpered. Peleus seemed to take pity on her, stepping up and shooing Meriones from the room. He helped her out of her armor, mandibles set sympathetically as every move jarred her shoulder. He was pulling away at her under armor when Clara realized that the OSD holding all the information they had worked to recover was still clasped tightly in her hand.

...

Surgery was something that Clara never wanted to experience again. Unfortunately, she knew that she would find her way to the med bay several times over throughout the course of her stay on the Actium. Maybe, if she was lucky, they would just be simple bullet extractions and broken bones. Anything worse and she may not come out on the other side in one piece.

"Did we get the right information?" Clara murmured as she woke from her medical-induced sleep. Sorthem was the one there this time, strange salarian eyes blinking rapidly at her.

"Yes, Kryik seemed very pleased with the result," he agreed before holding up a dish. "Would you like to see the slug that hit you?"

Her gut instinct was to say 'hell no' as vehemently as possible, but curiosity got the best of her. She carefully pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked down at the bit of metal.

"Huh. Not as scary looking as I thought it would be," she admitted.

"You should keep it," Sorthem recommended. "Humanity is inclined to keeping inanimate objects as pet, yes?"

Clara looked at him slowly, wondering if he was joking. The answer never came to her – Nihlus strolled through the door, his face situated in a begrudgingly pleased expression.

"Was the information useful?" she asked, before he had the chance to speak. He nodded shortly.

"Yes. While you and your squad gathered the information the Hierarchy needed, I managed to find our first major lead on Cerberus. Two birds with one stone, I believe the saying goes."

Clara barely heard the end of his sentence, focused instead on the giant 'c' word that suddenly made everything else he said completely and utterly inconsequential. "Cerberus?" she asked.

He nodded. "We've got the shipping logs regarding some experimental technology the organization shared with the Blue Suns at that specific location. Hopefully, the logs should be able to lead us to the outpost they originated from."

She struggled to respond, her mind racing away with the implications of his words. "So, what, is this a major outpost or just one of their side projects?" She asked eagerly.

The look Nihlus fixed her with could be best described as: 'Seriously?'. "There is no feasible way that Cerberus would leave any casual trace back to a significant resource," he said slowly, feeding the words to her as if she'd hit her head – and maybe she had. "The information likely just leads to another independent sector, working on their own budget and own sources. They're likely just supported by Cerberus, nothing more, nothing less."

"So what good is that?" she snapped, pursing her lips together. "So we know how to stop Cerberus from selling illegal goods to the Blue Suns, that's great, but how the hell are we going to hit them where it hurts?"

"You're not seeing the big picture here, Clara!" Nihlus scolded. He began pacing as he dove into his explanation. "If we take out this sector, we have access to all their files. We've already got a leg up on them – they have no idea we're coming. If we plan, learn the layout and use it to our advantage, we can not only salvage any information they have on tap but we can use it to trace them to another sector. We could take out Cerberus, one well-aimed strike at a time. This is the biggest break we've had yet."

Clara didn't want to be the one to burst his bubble, but Sorthem seemed content staying out of it. She shook her head. "Look, this is great information, and we did a lot of good today, but – I mean, God, this one branch isn't the answer to all our problems. Cerberus is a complicated web of connections and sectors and outposts that don't even know what each other are doing: all that matters is their goal and their research. Even if we do take them out, at least three other outposts are going to take its place. It's like fighting a hydra: no matter how many heads you cut off they just keep coming back."

Nihlus bristled, his mandibles fluttering so quickly she almost didn't notice them move. She could only imagine what his subharmonics sounded like. "This is the best lead we have, and while it is a small move, just taking out one outpost is more than we've ever managed to accomplish. This is going to take time, and if we have to mow down fifty outposts then we will."

"I just don't think-"

"You aren't here to think!" Nihlus snapped, shocking her to silence. "You're here to help. If you don't want to take down Cerberus we can drop you off at the Citadel tomorrow. Am I understood?"

Clara looked at him for a long moment, and if she was honest a large part of her was yelling at him, begging her to take her chance – and her life – and return to safety. But then she thought of Tito, thought of all the good she could do finding this one cure, and she submitted.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I need to rest."

Nihlus nodded sharply, "Sleep. I need you in top shape as soon as possible – Cerberus is coming down. We can't take them out without you."

He turned to walk away, and Clara wondered how much he believed his own words.

...

A/N: Hey! Next chapter is a woozy - it's the end of Act One! So, expect a good 5,000 words. A lot happens, and we even have a special guest cameo! I hope you're as excited about it as I am. Chapter 9 is a huge turning point for Clara, or at least the first step, and I hope I do it justice.

And yes, Nihlus is still a jerk. That's going to change though! I promise you. I mean, he's still gonna be a jerk, that's just kind of...him. But he isn't going to be as assholish. He'll cut Clara some slack after all she does...

Lots of Love;

B.E. Nomads