In the Hero's Shadow Chapter 2: Red Ones Go Faster, a mass effect fanfic

Chapter 2: Red Ones Go Faster

Smoke billowed from the shattered windows of the Dracon Trade Centre, where at least four bombs had just gone off. As the squad slowly picked themselves up, we saw countless civvies who had been caught in the blast. Some were bent in unnatural positions. Others were pinned down underneath debris. Scraps of burning material rained down on all of us, a grim highlight to the unexpected development.

Miranda and I exchanged looks. "This could be a problem," she offered with admirable understatement.

Most of us agreed with her. Well, except for Grunt. "There, now it's getting fun," he grinned.

Ignoring him, I activated the comm. "Vasir?"

"Above you," she replied. Looking up, I saw her skycar hovering overhead. "Looks like they took out three floors to make sure T'Soni's dead!"

"Don't count her out yet," I said. "Liara's tougher than she looks."

"Then we better start searching," Vasirsaid. "I'll park my skycar on the roof and seal off the building from the top!"

"We'll start down here and work our way up," I replied.

"Just leave some for me," Vasir called out before cutting the comm.

"Where do we start?" Tali whispered. "I know we have to find Liara," Tali explained when we looked at her, "but there are so many wounded here. Don't they need help too?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Mordin replied. "Uploading basic triage program now." A beep chimed from our omni-tools when the upload was complete. "Scan potential patients with omni-tool," Mordin instructed. "Light will appear. If green; patient fine. Move on. If yellow; tell me. Will assess and stabilize. If red; patient dead or dying. Beyond help, move on."

"Good idea," I approved. "Let's move out."

The civvies in front of the Dracon Trade Centre were mostly green lights. Some wondered what was happening or who we were. Some were aware enough to comment on how they got knocked off their feet. Everyone else were red lights.

Inside the Trade Centre, in the foyer of the ground floor, was another matter. (1) All the lights were out or flickering. Smoke blanketed the air in a thin haze. Everyone I saw was a red light. Dead. Whatever.

I managed to scrounge a bit of loot, from a locker whose door was blown clean off by the blast, before I finished sweeping the floor. The conclusions weren't pretty: every other possible exit, with the exception of the one we'd just come through, was buried underneath a heap of debris. Elevators were offline. Any security—automated or otherwise—was offline. And did I mention all the dead people?

Shaking my head, I activated the comm. "Vasir? Ground floor cleared. Looks like everyone inside was caught in the explosion."

Heading up the stairs now. "Understood," Vasir said. "I just landed on the roof. If the damage down there is as bad as it looked... well, even if T'Soni is as tough as you say she is, I wouldn't take any bets on T'Soni's informant surviving that blast."

She had a point, but I couldn't afford to think that way. "It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings," I admonished. (2) "We assume they're both alive until we find out otherwise. Meanwhile, we're heading up the stairs—elevators are out. And it looks like building security is down too."

"I can confirm that," Vasir agreed. "I tried tapping into the local network. No alarms triggered, no calls sent out to the police. Very professional."

She was right. Aside from the local VI reciting some automated alert messages, the poor lighting and all the dead bodies, you would never know that a couple bombs had gone off. We reached the second floor, swiping some medi-gel along the way. The lights were still flickering, but at least most of the light panels and computer displays were still intact. I was about to tell the squad to spread out again when I heard someone. "Mercs... came from the smoke..." he gasped. "...set the bombs... killed everyone..."

We ran towards the voice. But we were too late—he'd already died by the time we got there. Mordin's omni-tool program confirmed he was dead. My eyes saw something else: "Garrus, take a look at this."

Garrus crouched down. "Looks like he's got bullet wounds," he said. He activated a program on his omni-tool and scanned the body. "Caliber's consistent with military-grade weapons."

"Which means that whoever set off the bomb's looking for survivors as well," I realized. "And giving them a free bullet or two. Let's hurry up and finish clearing this floor, guys."

As we searched, I relayed our findings to Vasir. All we found were dead bodies, another medical station with spare medi-gel and a PDA that I quickly hacked for credits. (3)

Third floor started off more dead bodies and a couple power cells. On a whim, I hacked into a nearby terminal. Nothing worth noting, but I did access the ATM functions and downloaded a few more credits.

"Shepard!"

I joined Zaeed by a large bulky object consisting of two cylinders and a blinking light. "Is that—?"

"A bomb? Yeah," Zaeed nodded. "Military-grade. Don't worry: it ain't armed."

Jacob gave a sigh of relief. "Good to know."

"Sloppy work, using bombs," Zaeed sniffed, getting to his feet. "You use that kind of hardware when you don't have time to plan... or when you don't give a shit about collateral damage."

"I fear that either option would explain our adversary's behaviour," Samara pointed out.

"True enough," I agreed. "Let's go on."

No more stairs—yet—but there was a door. We'd only taken a few steps inside before I realized where we were. "Vasir," I called out, "We just arrived at the Baria Frontiers office."

"Anything?" she asked.

"Checking," I replied, fingers flying over the receptionist's computer. "Looks like Liara signed in a few minutes ago. It's possible that she avoided the explosions."

"Understood, Commander."

The front part of the office was dimly lit, though the computer monitors were still working. Water covered the floor—possibly from the overhead sprinklers. Motioning for the squad to follow me, we moved towards one of the corridors. A split second before we entered, a sharp tingling feeling tickled the back of my neck—

—and then the world exploded in a blinding flash of light and sound.

I staggered back from the flashbang grenade—which had also hit me with a wave of concussive force. As my vision began to clear up and my hearing came back, I saw shapes moving around and gunfire breaking the silence. "Vasir!" I yelled, getting out of the line of fire. "We're taking fire and are pinned down! Mercs, I think!"

"White and black armour? Red highlights?" Seemed my hearing had recovered faster than my sight.

Squinting through the haze clouding my vision, I tried to ignore the random shots that ricocheted off my shields. I only ducked back to avoid a rocket that whistled towards me. "Yeah, I think so," I replied. "They're well-armed, too! Recognize them?"

"You could say that," Vasir laughed. "Say hello to the Shadow Broker's private army, Commander!"

Great. I blinked away the last few stars from my eyes and consulted my HUD. "Team One; we're gonna tackle the mercs," I ordered. "Team Two will provide covering fire until we're in position. Then we'll distract them while Team Two moves around to flank them."

Team Two started things off with a barrage of EMPs and gunfire. Then I led Team One through the corridor and into a room full of desks and computers. Garrus had done such a good job coordinating things that we managed to take out one or two mercs before finding a couple desks to hide behind. There were only two more mercs in here—one of whom was toting that rocket launcher. "Team Two: go!"

We fired off a couple shots to distract the mercs while Team Two made their move. It didn't take long before we heard more gunfire. Problem was: my ears told me the gunfire wasn't coming from in front of us. "Garrus?"

"More mercs. We got it covered."

"Understood." I cut the comm channel before filling Team One in. "Team Two's got their own mercs to play with. These guys are all ours."

Samara promptly used her biotics to yank one of the mercs out from behind cover. Grunt tagged him with a concussive round that sent him flying into the wall on the far side of the room. I used that distraction to move in on the last merc. Kasumi dropped an EMP on her just before I arrived, knocking out her shields and temporarily scrambling the firing controls of her rocket launcher. Before she could do anything, I was right on top of her, fists flying and guns blazing.

After the merc dropped to the ground, I peeked around the corner. Any hopes I might have had that the coast was clear were dashed by the asari sneaking my way. She paused for a moment, perhaps debating whether to shoot me with her shotgun or hit me with her biotics.

Miranda didn't wait for her to make up her mind, sending a sizzling biotic blast at her. I ducked for cover behind the wall and checked my HUD. Sure enough, the asari was heading our way. Now if she could get a little bit closer...

The sudden hail of bullets told me that the asari, so intent on unleashing a world of hurt on us, had walked right into Team Two's line of fire. I held up three fingers so Team One could see, then silently counted down. On 'one', we wheeled around the corner and opened fire. Seeing that two more of the Shadow Broker's mercs had joined the asari, I quickly activated my cloak and pulled out my sniper rifle, double-checking that my disruptor mod was activated. While the squad took out the asari and started dishing out the damage to one of the remaining mercs, I lined up a headshot on the last merc and took him out.

Now that we were in the clear, I could afford to restock on thermal clips. I bent over to pick one up...

...only to feel the back of my neck tingling again. I quickly dove into a somersault, rolling along the floor—and managing to scoop up the thermal clip in the process. My quick move saved my ass—or at least my shields—from getting blasted by another rocket. How many of these guys were there?

I quickly checked my HUD. One more merc at 12 o'clock—the one who's best friend was the rocket launcher—and at least half a dozen at 10 o'clock. (4) "Team Two will lay down covering fire again before moving up to deal with the mercs on our left," I decided. "Team One will take out the merc up ahead, then move up and try to flank the other mercs.

I waited for the cover fire to start before leading Team One in a mad dash. Grunt overtook me in his eagerness to reach the merc and, well, let's just say she wouldn't be getting out of the wall any time soon. While Grunt was doing his happy dance, we started creeping towards the mercs. One of them was in the process of deploying a combat drone. That would be the last combat drone he'd send off, I decided. Activating my cloak, I centred my scope on his head and squeezed the trigger. The sniper round went right through his shields and blew his head apart like a nice, ripe melon. Kasumi shorted out one of the merc's shields. Legion started harassing him with a freshly generated combat drone of their own before firing their sniper rifle at another hapless merc. Miranda and Grunt tag-teamed yet another merc while Samara helped Kasumi finish off 'her' merc.

Looking around, I spotted a merc sporting tech armour along with the usual shields. He was trying to poach on my turf by mixing in a bolt of plasma along with the usual round of bullets. Using my HUD, I got Garrus and Tali to take out his shields before cloaking and firing off a shot from my sniper rifle. Didn't quite finish him off, but I did shatter his tech armour and leave a nice big dent in his helmet, one that Zaeed promptly turned into a gaping hole with a concussive round.

By that point, there were only two mercs left. "You're outnumbered by over six to one," I yelled out. "Wanna surrender?"

The mercs replied with a burst of bullets and a rocket. "Well, at least you offered," Miranda said, knocking out the latter's shields with an EMP.

"Yeah" I agreed, setting the merc on fire. "No one can say I didn't try."

"Very considerate of you."

"I thought so."

While Miranda and I were chatting, Team Two was finishing off the last merc. I checked my HUD again, but there were no more hostiles in the area. So I took the opportunity to double back and search for goodies. Found another pack of medi-gel and some more credits—always welcome treats in my book.

When I rejoined the squad, they were clustered in front of a flight of stairs—and the raging inferno that was blocking them. Looked like a couple pipes running along the ceiling had ruptured, and whatever they were carrying had caught fire. "That could be a problem," I observed.

"Working on it." Turning to my left, I saw Tali in another room, tinkering with some valve controls. She tapped in one last command. "Well?"

I gave her a thumbs up as the flames abruptly died off. "Good job, Tali. I knew you could—ooh! Eezo!"

For some reason, Tali sighed as I squeezed past her to scoop up some refined eezo that was lying around. I managed to salvage some of the machinery in that room as well. Never know when it might come in handy—or when you could sell it off for creds. (5)

Once I was done, I raced up the stairs. I was rewarded for my haste with a barrage of bullets that took out my shields. Three mercs, armed and looking for a fight. They moved towards me, no doubt hoping to take advantage of my weakened state. I let them acquire a line of sight on me before activating my cloak. They stopped and gawked at my vanishing act. Big mistake—the rest of the squad had caught up at that point.

Once the last merc had collapsed, we continued on our way, eyes peeled for bad guys, loot and, most importantly, Liara. We didn't see any more mercs, but we did manage to pick up some more thermal clips. I also found a schematic for a heavy pistol upgrade—I decided to download that instead of questioning why the heck a company specializing in star charts had a weapons schematic lying around.

We followed the corridor to a sealed door. I cracked a wall safe while the rest of the squad was getting into position and loading fresh thermal clips into their weapons. I was just about to join the squad when a shot rang out. Then another one.

Uh oh.

Slapping the door controls, we charged into the room. Vasir was there, smoke still trailing from her pistol. Another one of the Shadow Broker's mercs lay dead at his feet. To my left, a blood trail led from a messy splatter on the wall to a salarian on the floor.

"Damn it," Vasir cursed, holstering her pistol. "If I'd been a few seconds faster, I could've stopped them."

The back of my neck started tingling again. I wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because Vasir seemed a little too casual and nonchalant. Maybe it was because I didn't hear an honest note of regret or chagrin in her voice.

Or maybe my gut was trying to give me a hint. Keeping one eye on Vasir, I crouched down by the salarian and felt for a pulse. There was none, not that I was surprised. "Is this Sekat?"

"Must have been," Vasir replied.

I quickly searched his body. "No sign of that data Liara talked about," I sighed. I was batting zero-for-two here. "Looks like a dead end."

"Speaking of which," Vasir asked, "did you find your friend's body?"

"You mean this body?"

Liara stepped out of the shadows, drenched to the bone from the sprinklers, heavy pistol pointed squarely at Vasir's head. I wasn't sure how successful she'd be at a headshot, given how much her body was quivering. The look on her face told me she wasn't shaking with fear. "Liara? Something I should know?"

"This is the woman who tried to kill me."

Interesting.

"You've had a rough day, so I'll let that slide," Vasir laughed, slowly backing up towards a window as Liara advanced. "Why don't you put that gun down?"

"I saw you!" Liara cried. "I doubled back after I left. "I watched you break into my apartment!"

The tingling at the back of my neck coalesced into a firm jab. I pulled out my heavy pistol and aimed it at Vasir. The rest of the squad immediately followed suit. "So, what, you were just using me to find the message?" I asked.

Vasir shrugged. "Nothing personal, Shepard. Just needed a little help tracking down T'Soni."

"Once she had my location, she signaled the Shadow Broker's forces," Liara added. "They bombed the building in an attempt to take me out. She found Sekat, took his data, and killed him. I'm guessing she's still got the disk on her."

"Good guess," Vasir smiled, lifting her right hand to reveal the OSD she'd palmed. No doubt that move was meant to distract us from the left hand that she casually put behind her back. "Not that you'll ever see what's on it..."

A flare of biotics flashed out from Vasir's body, cracking the window.

...you pureblood bitch!"

With another biotic flare, Vasir shattered the window, sending hundreds of shards flying towards us. I instinctively ducked, along with the rest of the squad. Liara quickly waved her arms, creating a biotic sphere that rapidly expanded from her hands to cover the squad. The field flickered like a kaleidoscope as it absorbed the multiple impacts from all the glass.

Vasir gave us a look before turning around, clearly about to take advantage of our distraction to make her getaway. I knew I had to stop her. If she escaped, it would be next to impossible to track her down again—look how long it took me to find Saren. Besides, even if we found her, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't stash the OSD somewhere else. And since Liara was still generating her biotic field and the rest of the squad was still covering their eyes, it was up to me to stop her. Again.

Before my sense of self-preservation could assert itself, I ran through Liara's biotic field towards Vasir. Urgency must have added a bit of speed to my step, because I quickly closed the gap between us. I took one, two, three more steps, propelled myself in a flying leap...

...and promptly realized that I had way too much momentum.

Instead of tackling her to the floor like I'd intended, I rammed her straight into the window. Naturally, the whole thing shattered. We rolled across the windowsill and straight off the ledge.

As we plummeted towards the ground below, we rolled over and over, each of us striving to get the upper hand—or at least get on top. I noticed that Vasir was bathed in a glowing blue biotic field. At first I thought she was trying to slow us down so we didn't hit the pavement at terminal velocity. Turned out I was half right: after two or three rolls, she braced a foot against my gut and pushed, breaking my grip and sending me crashing to the ground.

I tried to get up, but I couldn't. Did I just have the wind knocked out of me? Or had that landing paralyzed me? I mean, I did kinda bellyflop against hard concrete.

Struggling to move, I managed to lift my head up enough to see Vasir slowly levitate to the ground. She turned around to face me, generating another blue biotic field in her hand. I watched as the biotic energies surged from a few blue wisps to a miniature maelstrom, the cold light only matched by the smile spreading over her face. She opened her mouth as if to say something—

—only to jerk her head up as another window shattered overhead.

Vasir's eyes widened briefly before she spun on her heels and bolted. A split second later, Liara landed.

I don't blame Vasir for running. The biotic field encasing Liara's body was positively crackling with energy, almost blinding in its intensity. Her fists were clenched so tight, I thought she'd break something. And her face...

...her face was contorted in a mask of pure rage and hatred. I'd never seen her that angry. Hell, I couldn't remember the last time anyone was that angry.

Liara took off after her without even pausing to see how I was doing. I managed to prop myself up to watch the chase—partly relieved that I hadn't gotten paralyzed after all. It was only then that I realized where we were: we had fallen all the way to the second floor, where I'd found the PDA full of creds and the first medical station full of medi-gel. It was kinda surreal watching Vasir and Liara sprinting through the area that I had just passed through.

Vasir sprinted through the plaza, arms pumping, but Liara was hot on her heels and gaining fast. In desperation, Vasir vaulted over a potted embankment before racing down the stairs, passing a pair of Shadow Broker mercs on their way up. Seeing Liara, the mercs raised their assault rifles. Liara didn't even pause. She thrust her right hand forward and released a biotic blast, smashing one merc into the ground. With a wave of her other hand, she swatted the second merc with the biotic equivalent of a flyswatter, smacking him back into one of the support columns. Neither of them got back up.

As I stumbled to my feet, the rest of the squad arrived, having taken a less suicidal method of reaching me. Miranda grabbed my arm and helped me stabilize myself. I would have said thanks or something, but that was when six more Shadow Broker mercs arrived.

Garrus managed to drop an EMP on two of them while I activated my cloak. Miranda and Kasumi quickly followed suit, rendering all but one of the mercs without shields. That last one wasn't able to enjoy his status for long, not with a quick shot to the head from my sniper rifle.

As I decloaked, I noticed that Jacob and Jack were in the process of levitating the mercs. Thane let them float helplessly in the air before detonating Jack's biotic field with his own biotics. Grunt and Zaeed tagged the other mercs with concussive rounds. Mordin and I promptly set the whole lot of them on fire.

The charred bodies had just collapsed to the ground when another wave of mercs arrived, this one led by an asari. Legion generated a combat drone right in front of them while I switched mods on my sniper rifle. That distracted the mercs long enough for Tali to drain the shields from one of the mercs. Miranda and Garrus hammered the asari's barriers. Then I delivered the coup de grace with my sniper rifle.

The rest of the mercs dropped within a minute, thanks to a sustained barrage of gunfire from the squad, mixed with the odd concussive round, biotic attack or fireball. Once the last merc was dead, we ran after Liara and Vasir, barely pausing to grab a spare thermal clip. "Liara," I yelled over the comm, "we're coming. Just hang on!"

"Hurry! She's getting away!" was all she said.

We ran down the stairs and found ourselves back on the ground floor of the Dracon Trade Centre. This time, however, not all of the bodies were dead. Nope, there were a few more mercs waiting for us, courtesy of the Shadow Broker. And by a few more, I mean a full dozen. Almost one-to-one odds.

The squad didn't need to wait for my orders before acting. While I cloaked and lined up a shot with my sniper rifle, five mercs had their shields zapped by EMPs. While I squeezed the trigger and blew someone's head off, one merc was getting fried to a crisp while four others were suddenly taking a break from gravity. While my cloak was shutting down, the floating mercs were suddenly getting their bodies riddled with bullets and their innards crushed like sardines.

That still left seven mercs. Seven mercs that were too busy gawking at the sudden demise of half their team to react while we found cover.

A rocket whistled through the air as I ducked behind a fallen support column. Guess they got over their temporary paralysis. I was just about to give the order when the only intact entrance to the Dracon Trade Centre opened. Four more mercs stormed in, guns blazing. That pretty much evened the odds. Again. To make matters worse, one of the newcomers was also toting a rocket launcher.

"Shepard, where are you?"

"Pinned down," I replied. "Eleven mercs. Would've been seven, but they got reinforcements."

Several gunshots rang out before Liara responded. "I know. I heard Vasir order them to ignore me and go inside."

"Don't suppose you were able to slow them down," I observed, selecting targets with my HUD.

"I could only take out three of them without exposing myself. Hurry up and finish them off. Liara out."

Yes, ma'am. Right away, ma'am. Aloud, I told my squad "You have your targets. Weapons free!"

Team Two promptly focused on the four newcomers. Garrus aimed his EMP at the merc holding the rocket launcher. Mordin and Zaeed took him out with a fireball and concussive round, timing things so their attacks landed at the same time. Tali drained the shields from another merc so Jacob and Jack could tag-team him with their biotics. Zaeed amused himself by taking on the other two mercs.

The other seven mercs were getting some TLC from Team One. (6) Miranda, Samara and Grunt took out the last merc with a rocket launcher. Another pair of mercs was getting harassed by Legion's combat drone on one side and a constant barrage from Legion and Thane on the other.

Kasumi and I were sneaking off to the right, courtesy of our cloaks. Our target must have thought he was out of danger, up until we seemingly materialized right in front of him. Once he had fallen, we made ourselves comfy in our new hidey-hole. Now we had three fronts from which to attack the Shadow Broker's goons. Only five of them now.

"Scratch one!"

Make that four.

"More hostiles coming in from the left!"

Make that eight.

"Combat drone!"

Make that nine. Well, maybe eight and a half. "Team Two, contain the party crashers!" I ordered. If we let them spread out, it would be even harder to deal with them, and things would go from absolutely annoying to potentially problematic. Or, with my luck, some bit of alliteration like delightfully deadly. "Team One, we have a few guests who've outstayed their welcome."

Miranda, Samara and Grunt dealt with the nearest merc while Kasumi and I handled the merc closest to us. Then we all ganged up on another merc who, up until that point, only had Legion and Thane to deal with.

Not to be outdone, Team Two had taken out a salarian merc, his human friend and his little drone too. As I watched, another merc doubled over and collapsed. That left two mercs inside the building. Three more were coming, according to my HUD... no, wait, make that two. Liara must've dropped one of them. We had a brief window before the reinforcements arrived. Might as well make the most of it.

With a quick command, I got Grunt to move a little closer to the entrance. As expected, the mercs took advantage of what seemed like a golden opportunity to eliminate a big, lumbering target. Little did they know that Grunt was surprisingly difficult to take down. That was kind of the point, you see. While they were distracted, we could take out the last two mercs. A second later, the door opened. Two mercs charged in, expecting to see their buddies under siege. What they found were a lot of dead bodies, twelve thoroughly peeved adversaries, and a roaring krogan charging towards them.

Suffice it to say, it was a short fight.

When we burst out of the Dracon Trade Centre, Liara and Vasir were busy hiding behind skycars and shooting at each other. Pretty even odds, thus far. Neither of them could step out and advance without opening themselves up.

Vasir looked up and saw us. I could just see the wheels turning in her head: now that the squad had arrived, the odds had drastically turned in our favour. Her only options at this point were to fight or flee. Crouching down behind the skycar, I saw her pull up a menu on her omni-tool and enter some commands.

A soft whirring sound came up from overhead. Our eyes instinctively shot skyward, just in time to see an orange-yellow skycar—just like the one Vasir was driving—fly by overhead. While we were distracted, Vasir made a run for it, shooting wildly in the process. Naturally, she missed. I mean, all she could hope to accomplish was forcing us to keep our heads down. Running and gunning with any degree of accuracy only works in the vids.

By the time we lifted our heads and raised our weapons, Vasir was already jumping off the ledge, a faint blue glow indicating her use of biotics to slow her descent again. A second later, the skycar swooped away with Vasir in the driver's seat. Liara fired a few futile shots after the skycar. "Damn it!" she cried out before running for the nearest skycar. "Son of a bitch!" she cursed before running for the next one. "Fuck!" she spat out before running for the next one.

Liara's curses got increasingly lurid and inventive as she went from skycar to skycar to skycar. The reason soon became clear: Vasir's shots weren't so wild after all. Every single shot had hit the propulsive drive of a skycar, which meant that turning it on would either get a gurgle and a lot of noise... or the whole thing would blow up. Very impressive, not to mention scary—if Vasir could do this on the run, I didn't want to think about what she was capable of when she actually turned to fight. But that thought would have to wait: Liara had finally found one skycar that wasn't busted. She hacked the door open, got in the passenger side, glared at me and made a "hurry up" motion.

"I'm fine, by the way," I told her as I got in the driver's seat. "Thanks for asking."

She shot me another glare. (7)

"Miranda, Legion; get in," I said, motioning to the back seats. (8) "Everyone else, repair the other skycars or find alternate means of transportation, and follow us as soon as possible."

"Come on, she's getting away!" Liara snapped.

"Let me start the skycar first," I replied, fingers already flying over the skycar's computer panel—and my omni-tool. A couple more keystrokes overrode the skycar's security systems—and selected a song from my collection. One more tap started the song. The drum was beating and the guitar was wailing as the skycar lifted off and we flew off in hot pursuit.

"I'm a constant sinner,
A conscience killer.
I'm a righteous heartache,
Never gonna let you get close to mine.
I'm a punk every time.
Give a little room and I'll spit in your eye."

It took a moment to find Vasir—even at night, there was a lot of traffic. Thankfully, Vasir was in a hurry to get away with the OSD she's swiped from Sekat's body. All we had to do was look for the skycar going over the speed limit. That narrowed it down to... um... two thirds of the traffic? "Keep your eyes peeled," I said. "One of us is bound to see Vasir sooner or later."

"There she is!"

And the prize went to Liara.

I hit the accelerator, hoping to catch up to Vasir. She already had a big headstart and—

"Gah!"

—and that headstart got a little bit bigger thanks to my sideswiping a skytruck that got in the way. (9)

"Hang a right," Liara said urgently. "No, wait, left!"

"I'm on her," I soothed, banking the skycar left around a building covered in a lot of neon. It had a couple giant screens as well, displaying advertisements—a volus trying to sell a popular beverage and some action vid, if I remember correctly. (10) Vasir's little fake jink didn't fool me, after all. I followed her as she flew out of sight behind a building. We saw the rear lights of her skycar just as it disappeared again—she'd hugged the building's facade and went around another corner in the hopes of losing us.

"Hang a left!" Liara yelled.

"I'm doing that!" I yelled back. Yeesh.

Vasir flew over a light post and between two skyscrapers on a downwards vector. I banked the skycar so it would skim underneath the light post, hoping to close the gap—

"Shepard!"

"There goes the light post!"

"I'm sure Illium doesn't skimp on traffic maintenance. Bad for business."

"Uh huh."

"'Cause it don't mean all that much, does it?
But we never really had a choice.
No it don't mean all that much to us.
But we never really had a choice.
We're conscience killers."

"She's around the corner," Liara cried out, just as Vasir's skycar—surprise, surprise—went around the corner. I shot Liara an irritated glance. "Gee, ya think?"

With that, I stomped my foot on the accelerator pedal.

"Wait!"

Another stomp pressed the accelerator pedal all the way—

"We're not going into the construction site, are—"

—and kept it firmly pressed against the floor.

"—oh, goddess!"

Vasir flew right through the construction site Liara mentioned, located smack-dab in the middle of a skyscraper. (11) So did I. She swerved around a support column to the left. So did I. She dodged a stack of construction supplies to the right. So did I. She dropped down until she was just barely skimming over the floor. So did—

"Gah!"

Okay, maybe I skimmed a little too low. Hopefully the owner of the skycar I'd borrowed had a little bit of insurance.

I followed Vasir's skycar as it flew out of the construction site and took a sharp right into a tunnel, ignoring the screen perched on top of the tunnel entrance advertising some hotel. Another skycar veered off in an attempt to avoid us. It wound up making an alternate entrance in a nearby shopping mall.

"I'm not letting her get away with that data," Liara seethed.

"Don't worry, we'll get her," I reassured her.

"How do you know?"

"Because we're in a red skycar," I replied.

Liara looked confused. "So?"

"So red ones go faster," Miranda said.

"Really, Shepard?" Liara asked.

"Really, Shepard-Commander?" Legion asked.

"Really," I confirmed.

"I wasn't actually serious," Miranda clarified, rolling her eyes for some reason.

"Really, Miranda? I was." (12)

"Why am I not surprised?"

"I'm a red-blooded sickness.
There was no way around it.
I'm a fine line teaser.
Never been nothing but a cheater.
I'm a son of the night.
Give a little room and I'll spit in your eye."

While we were debating the merits of red skycars, I'd managed to make up for Vasir's little headstart. We were only a couple hundred metres behind her now.

"Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!" Liara urged as we blasted out of the tunnel and started weaving between skytrucks.

"I'm going," I snapped. Yeesh, she was starting to get annoying. I did know what was at stake, thank you very much. "Liara, anyone ever tell you that you're a backseat driver?" (13)

"But I'm in the front."

"Look it up the next time you're searching your information network."

"Only if you hurry up—traffic! Oncoming traffic!"

"We'll be fine," I said airily, zigzagging around skycars and skytrucks. It was actually quite picturesque, all the bright neon lights of the buildings, all the vibrant colours from the vid-screens… if only someone could mute all that honking of alarmed drivers, it would be perfect. And watch where they were going—a lime green skycar bumped into us. At least, I thought it was a bump. For some reason, the skycar lost control and crashed into a vid-screen. On the bright side, thousands of locals and tourists were spared from watching yet another advertisement for that really bad vid that was coming out next week. Very civic-minded of me, I thought.

"'Cause it don't mean all that much, does it?
But we never really had a choice.
No it don't mean all that much to us.
But we never really had a choice.
We're conscience killers.
Don't want no conscience at all."

Vasir seemed poised to drop into another tunnel before taking a sharp right into some maintenance corridor. If she was hoping to lose me, she was sorely mistaken. I think I was now a hundred, maybe a hundred and ten metres behind her now.

The gap between us was starting to close even more when the skycar's sensors suddenly detected an obstacle in our path. A very small obstacle that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere… or had been dropped off by Vasir. Listening to the sharp tingling at the back of my neck, I swerved to the left…

…just in time to avoid the sudden explosion.

"She's dropping proximity charges!" Liara belatedly realized.

"I noticed!" I tersely replied, dodging another charge. And another. And another.

Fourth time was the charm, unfortunately, as I didn't quite clear the last mine. The subsequent fiery explosion sent us careening off a nearby skytruck, snapping off its antennae like dry twigs off a tree. That unexpected detour saved us, however, from a pair of rockets that blasted right past us, detonating right beneath a wanted vid for Jack (or some other bald woman with a similar amount of ink).

Of greater concern were the rockets, though. "She's got reinforcements," Liara cried out, looking at the sensor readouts. "Two skycars, armed with rocket launchers."

"I don't suppose this thing has any guns?" I asked.

Liara looked at me helplessly as we entered another tunnel. "It's a taxi!"

"So... no guns?"

"It has a fare meter!"

"Wonderful," I sighed. Without any weapons, I was forced to start dodging in and out of traffic to make it harder for Vasir's buddies to shoot at me. At least they weren't trigger-happy: no doubt the prospect of running into a pile-up caused by their own rockets was less than appealing.

"Now, now," Miranda chided. "Not everyone has your particular brand of needs, Shepard."

"Was that a joke, Miranda?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh huh."

"Truck," Liara interrupted.

"I know." I wasn't the only one driving—or flying—recklessly. Vasir had alarmed some poor skytruck driver enough to pull out of his lane. Unfortunately, that driver didn't check the rearview or sideview vid-cams, resulting in a crash that sent several skytrucks and skycars flipping over and over.

"Truck!" Liara shouted as at least one of the skytrucks burst into flames.

"I know!" I shouted, driving up onto the tunnel wall to avoid the worst of the conflagration. I watched out of the corner of my eye as a skycar bounced past—not into—us.

On the bright side, we'd lost Vasir's reinforcements. "There we go!" I said cheerfully as we flew out of the tunnel.

"You're enjoying this," Liara accused me.

"Maybe just a little," I admitted.

"I'm surprised this hasn't alerted the cops," Miranda frowned.

"We took the liberty of disabling all incoming and outgoing transmissions to local authorities in the immediate vicinity," Legion informed us.

"Good thinking, Legion," I approved. An obnoxious honk from a passing skycar got my attention. "Get out of the way!" I yelled. "Where'd you learn to drive?"

"Pot. Kettle. Black," Miranda muttered.

"Shepard's style of driving is... unorthodox," Liara agreed.

"You know, I've been meaning to find some driving and flying sims for Shepard," Miranda mused.

"I could help you with that," Liara offered.

"My driving is fine, thank you very much," I said.

"Of course."

"Whatever."

I don't think they believed me.

"I'm nails,
I'm a knife.
I'm a preacher with a gun,
I'm a one man lie.
I'm a king,
I'm a ruse.
I'm born again with no life to lose."

Vasir and I flew over a bunch of corporate buildings, scattering birds and smashing through a couple billboards. Well, Vasir scattered the birds and I smashed the billboards—there were only two of them. Maybe three. (14) Hopefully, the owner was up to date on the insurance.

Vasir abruptly veered into the next lane in her ongoing effort to shake me. The skytruck that was abruptly cut off by her movements tried to jam on the brakes, only to lose control. I was forced to slow down as it started to bounce off buildings, skytrucks, monuments and pretty much everything between us and Vasir. Kinda reminded me of a skipping stone over water.

"A head-on collision at this speed..." Liara observed as the train wreck continued to unfold before us.

"Yeah, I hear those can be bad for you," I agreed.

At last, the skytruck lost propulsion and dropped out of the sky. All I could do was hope the driver was able to recover or bail out before it was too late. Now that there were no more obstacles—the skycars were being very cooperative in getting out of my way—I could try and catch up with Vasir.

"Gah!"

Oh right. That plan wouldn't work if I got held up by, say, a head-on collision with another skycar. Which was entirely possible since all the other skycars were going in the opposite direction. At least we hadn't crashed yet. Though it was entirely possible that the skycar we appropriated would lose its original coating of paint by the time this chase was over.

"Truck!" Liara yelled.

"Again?" I asked in exasperation.

I adjusted my vector to avoid the skytruck. Vasir did the same up ahead, though her vector sideswiped a skycar in the process—which wound up crashing into the skytruck.

"Watch out!" Liara warned, pointing to a heavily-laden skytruck. I don't think she trusted my driving. Couldn't imagine why—I was nowhere near the skytruck. I mean, it was several centimetres away, at least. Besides, it was driving a lot more aggressively than I was.

That gave me an idea.

Flying underneath the skytruck, I moved until it was directly between us and Vasir. Given how fast the skytruck was going, it wasn't long until we'd caught up. Then I moved out from under the skytruck's shadow, speeding around to Vasir's left. Her eyes widened as she spotted us. I took a hand off the control panel and gave her a jaunty wave.

She looked away, frowning in concentration as if thinking through her options. Having come to a decision, she jinked to the left and rammed into us.

"Gah!"

"Not my fault!" I declared.

"So defensive, Shepard?" Miranda asked.

"Hey!" I snapped. Spotting an incoming skycar, I let the skycar continue drifting to the left.

"We can confirm that Shepard-Commander is not at fault," Legion stated as we narrowly missed the skycar.

"Thanks."

"This time."

"Hey!"

Before the character assassination of my driving skills could continue, I swerved the skycar and rammed it into Vasir's skycar. (15) Payback's a bitch, after all.

The skycar bounced off, wobbling to the right before Vasir regained control. Shooting us a hostile glare, she drove the skycar towards us. Having some forewarning this time, I was ready. Our skycars crashed into each other, sparks flying as we flew together.

Shooting a quick glance up ahead, I assessed the battlefield and made a decision on the fly. (16) I eased up on the accelerator, letting Vasir shove me aside, before tilting my skycar, jamming on the accelerator pedal and slamming into Vasir's skycar. The impact sent her careening into the next lane...

...and crashed into another skycar.

Vasir quickly lost control, her skycar spinning round and round, with fire bursting out from the sides. After a couple dizzying seconds, she finally crashed on one of the terraces of a nearby building.

As I took a more controlled descent, I opened a comm channel. "Garrus? Gimme a sitrep."

"There were some parking lots full of skycars, but we decided to skip them," Garrus said. "Believe it or not, they have YMIR mechs at all the entrances."

Everyone winced—well, everyone except Legion. Out of all the hostiles I had the dubious pleasure of meeting since getting spaced, YMIR mechs were definitely at the top of my 'aw, crap' list. I didn't blame Garrus for wanting a pass.

"Why the hell is parking enforcement beefing up security with heavy mechs?" I wanted to know.

We heard a snort over the comm. "They want to guarantee that they can gouge their customers?"

"That operational doctrine seems counterproductive to long-term economic objectives," Legion stated.

"Whatever the reason, we decided to repair the skycars that Vasir shot up instead. Tali's almost finished fixing one of them. We'll load it up and send it your way while Tali starts on another one."

"Understood," I replied. "We just forced Vasir to crash land on some building. Transmitting coordinates now."

"Wait. So Vasir crashed and not you?"

"That's right, Garrus," Miranda called out before I could reply. "Somehow we're still flying. We're not even on fire."

"That's surprising," Tail chimed in.

"There was a low statistical probability of this outcome occurring," Legion agreed.

"Damn it!" Zaeed cursed. "You tellin' me I lost the goddamn pool?"

"You and everyone else," Jack grumbled.

Traitors, I thought as we descended towards Vasir's crashed skycar. I'm surrounded by traitors.

(1): 'Ground floor' is a misnomer, since the Dracon Trade Centre was built on top of the Notron Multimedia Metroplex. This means that Shepard and his squad landed ninety-seven metres above ground.

(2): A human colloquialism cautioning against assuming the outcome of some activity until it has actually concluded.

(3): It's a testament to Shepard's unique method towards battlefield operations that he was able to search for the PDA and crack its encryption, in a matter of seconds, without significantly delaying the search.

(4): A simplistic method used by humans to denote direction, based on human analog clocks that used physical "hands" or pointers to signify the time in hours, minutes and seconds. In this case, "12 o'clock" would be right in front of them, while "10 o'clock" would be to the left and slightly ahead.

(5): I must confess to laughing when I read this part. Further evidence, if it was actually needed, that some things never changed.

(6): An acronym for Tender Loving Care, used ironically in this case.

(7): I'm ashamed to admit that Shepard's description of my behaviour—and the preceding language—was entirely accurate, though perhaps the latter can be excused given my paternal ancestry.

(8): When asked for the rationale behind his choice, Shepard offered a simple answer: "Because." I sympathize with readers and historians who found that response entirely uninformative and unhelpful.

(9): Actually, the skytruck was parked in a stationary 'hover' position, so it did not 'get' in the way of Shepard.

(10): The beverage was 'Red Janey,' an energy drink purported to temporarily combat fatigue and restore mental alertness. I cannot recall the action vid, as I had not been following such media developments at the time.

(11): The sixty-seventh and sixty-eighth floors, to be exact. While the 'renovation' gutted those floors until there was nothing left but support columns and a small amount of construction material, Shepard still managed to find a way to hit something.

(12): Believe it or not, this is an actual, albeit unofficial, literary trope that occasionally occurred in various forms of human media.

(13): Another human expression, referring to a vehicle passenger in the backseat who is uncomfortable with the driver's skills, seeks to provide unsolicited driving instructions to the driver, or both. If readers aren't already aware of Shepard's penchant for archaic colloquialisms, they will be by the end of this collection.

(14): By my recollection, it was five.

(15): 'Character assassination' implies that any questions towards Shepard's driving skills were baseless and had no foundation. This was not the case.

(16): In this case, calling the traffic a battlefield was not an exaggeration.

(17): 'Conscience Killer,' a rock song released by the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in 2010. This was the first time I was exposed to Shepard's habit of playing twentieth and twenty-first century human music at the oddest times. It was… an interesting experience, to say the least.