14th February 2188 – Crucible Pulse + 17 months

Shepard was still combing his hair as he quickly headed downstairs to the basement. During his entire military career he had always kept it very short, keeping the standard marine look with an almost skinhead style. He had let it grow since the end of the war however, and he had found a style that suited him. About an inch and a half in length and with a little bit of gel to keep it up at the front, he felt it looked rather smart. And Miranda liked it too.

He passed the swimming pool and entered the gym, looking for Miranda. She was on the treadmill, as he guessed she would be. Miranda had been desperate to get back into shape after the birth and, even though she had her superior genes, she still required some time in the gym. Elizabeth was in her baby carrier/seat – Shepard didn't know what it was actually called – thing, smiling happily to herself.

He looked back to Miranda, she still hadn't heard him enter. He stood watching for a few seconds, he couldn't really help himself. She always wore the same attire in the gym, completely skin tight short shorts that cut off just below her buttocks and left nothing to his imagination. Her back was pretty bare too, she only wore a training bra on her torso and that revealed the perfect porcelain flesh of her lower back. He stared for a few more seconds as she ran, before realising that he was being stared at in turn. Elizabeth was watching at him with disapproving eyes.

"Hey Miri," Shepard gave her another look over, grinning to himself. "I'm off."

"Oh," Miranda put a hand to the controls, gradually slowing the treadmill. She was out of breath, though not exactly overexerting herself. "I didn't realise what time it was."

"Actually, I'm running a little late," Shepard squatted down next to Lizzie, giving her a wide smile. The glare dissipated and the baby gave him one of her almost smiles, she was indeed learning quickly. "Don't want to keep the Council waiting."

"Suppose not," Miranda came to stand next to him, resting a hand on his head and stroking his hair absent mindedly. "Are you sure you don't want us to come with you?"

"It's OK," Shepard gave Elizabeth a quick stroke on the cheek. "Elizabeth is brave, though I think space travel is a bit too much as of yet."

"The Citadel is in orbit still, not exactly far away is it?" Miranda sighed. "Though I suppose you're right. I'll miss you, you know?"

"It's only a day Miri, I'll be back this evening," Shepard gave Elizabeth a kiss on the forehead, provoking a squeal from the baby. "See you later Lizzie."

Shepard stood back up, pulling Miranda into his arms with a smile.

"I know it's only a day," Miranda gave him a grin. "What can I say? I'm attached to you quite a bit now."

"Almost as attached as I am to those gym shorts." He quipped.

She gave him a playful slap. "Oi."

"I love watching you run," Shepard smirked. "Especially from behind."

She gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Suppose that's a complement."

"Of the highest order," Shepard gave her a kiss in return. "Love you."

"Love you too," Miranda gave him a pat on the cheek. "Now get a move on."

"Aye aye," Shepard gave her a playful slap on the backside, accompanied by a wink. "See ya."

He jogged out of the room quickly – grinning at the muttering from Miranda – and left the basement, grabbing his small bag on the way out of the house.

XXXXXXXX

"Sorry I'm late," Shepard said the apology as he walked into the private Council chambers, interrupting the other Councillors who seemed to have started without him. "Long story."

"Councillor Shepard," Tevos greeted him with a smile as he sat down next to Wrex. "Congratulations for your child."

"Thanks," Shepard pulled a data-pad and some files out of his bag, placing them on the table in front of him. "So, what have I missed the past two months?"

"Not too much of great importance," Councillor Sparatus answered. "Until we received an unusual report yesterday evening."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"A mixed fleet of Alliance and Turian cruisers are currently stationed in the Exodus cluster of the Utopian system." Sparatus began to explain to Shepard, leaning forwards and folding his arms.

"That's the system Eden Prime is in, right?"

"Yes," Sparatus nodded. "Two days ago a small fighter patrol from that fleet caught a blip on their sensors over the planet Nirvana. A combat team of twenty men were sent down, with air support, just to investigate."

Shepard could tell where this was going. "I'm guessing they went missing?"

"Sadly, yes," Sparatus nodded grimly. "So an alert was sent out back to the Citadel, and we sent an N7 special operations team to get us answers."

"And?"

"The results were...interesting," Tevos pulled up a selection of pictures and placed them on the main projection screen on the wall ahead of the Council's table. "The second team found a secret facility, containing the bodies of the first team, but that was otherwise empty. The logos around the base indicate it is a Cerberus base, but it isn't on the lists of facilities that was recovered on Chronos Station."

"As Councillor Tevos says, the facility was pretty much empty," Sparatus continued on from Tevos. "Some odd bits of scientific and military hardware were left behind. There were also some servers there, and the technicians in the team are taking a look at them."

"I see," Shepard frowned as he perused over the photos, it didn't look like an extraordinary Cerberus base. Instead it looked like many others that he had seen before. "What do we have on this planet? I dimly remember orbiting it once or twice, but not much else."

"It is an ice world, containing nothing of particular note," Tevos made a disappointed face. "Though the Alliance did create an automated facility in secret to produce deuterium fuel for their fleets without anyone else knowing. Still, that doesn't matter."

"So, it's a world of no note with a Cerberus base that – according to their old HQ – isn't there. And this is the first post war base of theirs that we have found deserted, the rest have have a garrison force there, but the ones who were here ran," Shepard summarised slowly. "Well, we need to find out who they are, and what they're up to."

"Yes," Valern shared a rather significant look with the other Councillors before speaking, giving Shepard a sneaking suspicion that the issue had already been discussed. "We had hoped for some help on this from Miss Lawson."

"Miran...Hang on a second," Shepard gave the Salarian a glare. "She's been officially acquitted of any ties with Cerberus."

"We're not saying that Shepard," Admiral Raan spoke up for the first time. "Miss Lawson has a detailed knowledge of Cerberus and how they operate. If she took a look inside the base, then maybe she could find something our teams may miss. It is the first base we have found without any extensive evidence to follow up on, after all."

Shepard sat back in his chair slowly. He couldn't quite believe what they were asking of her, of a mother with a two month old baby.

"Are you being serious?" Shepard scoffed. "No way, I'm not having Miranda going into anything dangerous, not when Lizzie needs her. No, it's out of the question."

"Councillor, think rationally," Valern spoke calmly. "It is important to find out what is happening, Cerberus cannot be allowed to become a threat once more."

"What about SPECTRE Williams and the Normandy? She's been heading up the operations against Cerberus for the past six months."

"She's been in pursuit of a small Cerberus fleet across the Terminus systems." Sparatus answered.

"Well send another SPECTRE then, or find some other ex-Cerberus operatives," Shepard shook his head. "Miranda is not being involved."

"Then you come up with an alternative!" Shepard could see that Valern was beginning to get irritated, and the other Councillors were noting that too. Tevos was looking rather surprised at her Salarian colleague. "Cerberus are a threat to everyone and anyone, they need to be dealt with and your partner is an absolute expert in their operations."

"Well...well..." Shepard stopped, looking for an alternative. Before he realised it he heard himself speaking once more. "I'll go. I don't know as much as Miranda, but I have shut plenty of their bases down in the past. I can have a look around, I'm sure I can find something."

"If you are sure you won't let Miss Lawson do this," Shepard shook his head at Tevos. "Then I suppose it is a compromise. Thank you for your offer Councillor."

"Well, I think you have successfully backed me into a corner once again. Despite the fact I'm a bloody Councillor and equal to you all," Shepard shook his head, sighing and taking a deep breath to prevent himself from getting too annoyed. "When do I need to go? I'm assuming it needs to be soon."

Valern answered. "We were hoping that Miss Lawson could have gone today."

"Today?" Shepard took another deep breath, taking a look at the small Galactic map on one of the tablets in front of him. Nirvana was only about half an hour in FTL travel from the Sol system, after all it was the closest star system to Earth. "Well I suppose it...Fine. I'll go today."

"Thank you Councillor, I know this isn't an ideal situation for you to be in," Raan spoke kindly. "But it is necessary to get to the bottom of this."

"If that is all, then we are finished," Valern stood up, prompting the others to follow. "Councillor Shepard, if you go to the SPECTRE offices then you will be escorted to your transport."

The Councillors broke apart, Valern hurrying off on his own. Shepard watched him suspiciously, there was something not quite right with him today. Tevos, Sparatus, and Raan left together afterwards, with the Geth Councillor standing up just after them. The Geth Councillor had not said a word since Shepard had arrived, but it did give him a slight nod of the head before it turned to leave on it's own through another door. Shepard took this for a nod of respect, clearly the Geth were getting the hang of emotions.

Shepard was accompanied out of the door with Wrex, and he felt another hand on his shoulder as Balak came up behind them.

"Shepard," The Batarian acknowledged him with a respectful greeting. "You have more balls than all of them put together, I would have turned around and told Valern to go and do this himself."

"I know Balak," Shepard turned as they exited the door, checking he was out of earshot of the other Councillors. "There's something up with him."

"He's been an absolute shit for the past couple of weeks."

Wrex chuckled. "He's a Salarian, he's been an absolute shit for his entire life."

"Wrex, stop it," Shepard shook his head. "Look, this job can be a bit stressy, and I know that Salarian politics are going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment. I don't like this, but I need Miranda to stay safe."

"I can understand that," Balak considered him for a moment longer. "For a human, you aren't too bad. Of course, you have too many eyes."

"Very funny."

"I'll be going."

Shepard stood next to Wrex as they watched Balak leave, heading for a skycar. The two were now alone in the public gardens of the Council chambers, right where Saren had been defeated. Shepard shook his head.

"Something wrong Shepard?"

"Yeah, very wrong Wrex." Shepard began to walk, Wrex following him.

"Care to share?"

"This isn't a good idea Wrex, this base."

"You think it's a trap?" Shepard nodded his assent as they descended a flight of steps. Wrex chuckled again before speaking. "Don't worry about it, Grunt is leading the N7 team there along with a bunch of Krogan commandos that survived your little Rachni mission during the war. They're backed up by Quarian and Geth engineers and Turian snipers with human close fire support. Things are pretty safe."

"That's not the point, and it's not what I mean," Shepard walked over to a skycar at the rapid transit point, gesturing for Wrex to follow him inside. "I mean about going back into action, it puts both myself and Miranda in a difficult position."

Wrex pulled the doors closed, giving Shepard a raised eyebrow. "It's not as if you're going back into full service, and your mate can handle herself you know. From what I saw, when you brought Grunt to Tuchunka for the first time, she's tough."

"I don't want her to be in any danger, not at the moment. What would happen to Elizabeth if anything happened?"

"A Krogan baby would be brought up by the Krantt, or it might get killed."

"I know I should give her a choice, but she would go," Shepard cursed. "And I promised her I wouldn't put myself in any more danger, she would hate it if she found out. And to stop that I have to lie to her, and that is gonna kill me."

"You humans have far too complicated relationships, she should be proud that you go to these lengths for others. That you're such a powerful warrior."

"Doesn't work like that Wrex, and this has nothing to do with my skills as a soldier."

"Like I said," Wrex grinned. "Humans have it too complicated."

The rest of the journey was completed in silence as Shepard flew the sky car around the Presidium ring. He descended the vehicle, rather skilfully despite everyone who claimed he couldn't fly, and landed it near the SPECTRE offices. He exited with Wrex and walked up the short flight of stairs to the back entrance of the officers. Wrex stopped by the door.

"I have to go Shepard, you know the kind of workload I've got," Wrex grinned. "But it's good to have you back."

"Back?" Shepard shook his head. "This is a one time only thing Wrex, I'm not going into service."

"I didn't mean that, I meant to have you back off your leave," Wrex extended a hand which Shepard shook. "Be safe Shepard, and once you're done get back to that baby sharpish."

Shepard nodded as Wrex walked off, turning to face the entrance of the SPECTRE offices with a rather nervous look.

XXXXXXXX

"Are you satisfied with the armour?"

Shepard nodded to his companion in the pilots seat, adjusting his left gauntlet as he did so. He had been assigned a SPECTRE to accompany him for his work, and the Salarian Jondam Bau had been selected. Shepard was pretty happy with the choice, Bau was a great investigator and had a very high success record. And if he almost managed to track down Kasumi Goto, then he could probably help track down a Cerberus cell.

"It's fine Bau, though I'm surprised that my measurements were kept in stock."

"Well, there's a bit of an admission to be had on our part Councillor," Bau gave a smile. "It's actually the armour removed from your body when you were being treated after the battle on Earth. It has been fully repaired and remodelled, and it was meant to be presented as a gift some time soon."

"Oh," Shepard looked down at the armour, grimacing slightly as he remembered the time when he had last worn it. "That kinda puts me off it now."

"Why, it's a suit of victory no?"

"Yeah, but I almost died in it. All kinds of weird stuff happened in it," Shepard pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's just not me any more. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just any old suit of armour, but this just feels weird."

"I suppose I can understand."

By this time they had entered Nirvana's upper atmosphere, and the shuttle was beginning to descend rapidly. They broke through the clouds and Shepard had a good look at the world below. It was as it had been described earlier, a barren ice world of no note. Of course normal people would find an uncharted world like this exciting, but Shepard was used to uncharted worlds. He had been to dozens of Nirvana's type.

The landscape seemed to consist of a mixture of mountainous and icy terrain, broken up with occasional pockets of flat, snowy land. It was to one of these expanses of ground that the shuttle headed towards, touching down on the large snow drifts. Shepard took a look out of the window to his left, noting a well camouflaged concrete structure next to the shuttle. The visible part of the structure was another common sight to Shepard, circular, about a metre and a half in height, and topped with radio antenna's.

Shepard exited the shuttle with Bau just behind, double checking his equipment. He wasn't as armed as usual, only carrying a Mattock rifle, Carnifex hand cannon, and an Escrivator shotgun. He grinned, it was still an impressive arsenal for any normal person. Though Shepard was hoping there wouldn't be any fighting.

The door on the side of the bunker was flanked by a pair of Krogan commandos gripping shotguns, and he noticed several marines of varying species armed with sniper rifles atop the structure. It was clear that no one was taking any chances with Cerberus, and that relieved Shepard. Despite being severely weakened during the war, they were still a threat.

As they approached the door of the bunker opened, a fully armed Grunt exiting. The young Krogan grinned at Shepard as he approached.

"Shepard," Grunt extended a hand that Shepard shook. "Good to see you again."

"You too Grunt, though it's not been long."

"No," Grunt turned to Bau. "Who's the Salarian?"

"Jondam Bau, a SPECTRE," Shepard gave him a significant look. "He's a good one Grunt."

"Right," Grunt nodded in Bau's direction, about as respectful as Shepard could hope for from the Krogan. "Let's go on in."

They walked on into the base, passing through the entrance and straight into a lift. Grunt pushed a button, starting up the lift and beginning their descent. They stood in silence for a while, before Shepard broke it.

"So Grunt," The Krogan looked over to him. "Got anything interesting to share about your race or culture?"

"Erm..." Grunt scratched the back of his head. "What are you going on about Shepard?"

"Oh, of course!" Shepard had a realisation. "We never had any elevator chats, did we?"

"Oh no, the Turian mentioned about those once," Grunt pointed at himself. "We used to have sky car conversations."

"Yeah, that's right," Shepard grinned. "We only talked about tourist attractions in the sky cars right?"

"Yeah," The elevator stopped with the doors ahead opening, revealing the base beyond with a group of operatives within. "But there's nothing to see here."

They walked out of the elevator, Shepard taking a look around the place. They were in an entrance hall that was pretty empty. There was a couple of tables pushed up against the far wall, but nothing else of note was visible to him. The walls did bare Cerberus insignias, however.

"Show me around Grunt."

"Right," Grunt gestured for them to follow as he proceeded through a door on the left. They walked through a small tunnel before passing through another door, emerging into a much larger rectangular space. "This is the biggest room."

"Yeah, I thought it would be this kind of set up," Shepard glanced around. "It's pretty much identical to loads of facilities I saw when chasing Saren."

Bau spoke up. "I have been in similar places as well Councillor."

The room was again pretty empty like the entrance hall. A couple of bare bunks were over in one corner of the room, and more tables were next to them. Shepard noticed some racks on the wall above the bunks, and he walked over to them to have a look.

"Weapons racks?" Shepard peered closely, they were all empty but he guessed that his assault rifle would fit perfectly. "I assume they were empty?"

"Aye."

Shepard walked on from the racks, stopping in the middle of the room. Twenty body bags were lined in the middle of the compound in neat rows, all sealed and ready for transport.

"Grunt, what kind of injuries did the bodies have?"

"Majority were gunshot wounds, one or two with close combat related injuries," Grunt narrowed his eyes. "I reckon it was a brutal fight, but over pretty quickly. It's likely the team were ambushed, and from the way the bodies were distributed they were outnumbered and fighting a desperate rearguard action."

"No dead hostiles?"

"None."

The rest of the room was literally empty, so he decided to move on. They passed through another tunnel, arriving at a T junction as he expected. He took a left through a door, emerging into a far smaller room lined with servers. A trio of technicians were working around a lap top in the middle of the room.

Grunt spoke up. "These are our techs, they've been having a look at the mainframes."

"Great," Shepard approached them. "What have you got?"

"We're not quite sure Councillor," A Quarian stood up to answer him. "We don't actually know at the moment."

"I assume it's encrypted?"

"That's correct," A human spoke up, turning his head from the lap top. "Pretty heavily too, as per usual Cerberus standards."

"You can crack it right?"

"Not here, but it can be given to intel for decryption," The human explained. "They can use their special programs and hardware, it'll be a far quicker process. We're just checking the intel for any virus' or hacking programs before we send it, just to be safe."

"Good plan," Shepard peered down at the text scrolling across the lap top screen. "Do you have any idea about what's here?"

"That's a negative sir," The Quarian replied. "Though it's strange."

"What is?"

"This is a pretty standard mainframe, capable of holding a lot of data, but hardly any of it is occupied. I mean there's a lot of actual data here, but it's only a tiny percentage of the hard drives potential storage space."

"Yes but that could be for a number of reasons," Bau turned from inspecting the servers to face them as he hypothesised. "They may have started a data wipe that hasn't entirely finished, or perhaps this is a new base that hadn't yet been set up. Or maybe it's just the nature of what this facility is being used for, it is rather small after all."

"Exactly, but to me it adds to the overall feeling that this isn't actually a currently operational base," The Quarian folded his arms. "The other Cerberus bases that I've been to have been stocked full of all sorts, lab equipment, weapons, fully loaded mainframes."

"That's a point," Shepard turned to Grunt. "I was told there was some lab equipment here."

Grunt jerked a thumb back at the door. "Yeah, it's back this way."

Shepard nodded at the technicians to carry on as he followed Grunt out of the room, back to the other door of the T junction. Entering that room Shepard saw a much more familiar set up. The walls were lined with tables and cupboards, high lab chairs set up behind the workbenches. There were various pieces of equipment along the desks, a few microscopes, a couple of scanners, and some larger machines that he didn't know the function of.

"The cupboards are all empty, like the rest of this place," Grunt folded his arms. "It's weird."

"Maybe, but someone was down here. Someone took out that first team and left before you got here," Shepard furrowed his brows. "If we're going to find traces of the cell that did this, or what they were doing, this is the most likely place to find any traces of them."

"I agree," Bau opened up his omni-tool. "I will begin scanning for any traces of DNA or for any chemicals from experiments. Maybe we can discover the purpose of this base?"

"Lets get to it."

XXXXXXXX

Shepard sat in the sky car for a few seconds after it touched down outside the house. He was wearing normal clothes once more, having deposited the armour and weapons at the SPECTRE offices. He was considering exactly what to do in the next few minutes, should he come clean to Miranda? Or was it better to stay quiet? And anyway, it wasn't likely that he would have to go out on a mission again, their investigation had turned up nothing. He had spent hours with Bau and the technicians going over the entire base for any shred of evidence, and they hadn't even found one piece of DNA – there weren't even any blood stains from the fight that had occured. It had been a significant waste of his time, it hadn't required any sort of expert. Maybe Miranda could have found something else, and she wouldn't have been in any danger, but now any chance of pursuing Cerberus rested with the encrypted data and no one knew what it contained.

He sighed before grabbing his bag, opening the door of the sky car. It was pouring down with rain so he ran to the house door, trying not to get too wet. Shepard slipped inside the entrance, being greeted by an enthusiastic Legion. He gave the Saint Bernard a scratch behind the ears with a little smile before passing it, looking into the living room.

"Hey," Miranda was watching him from the sofa with a smile. "You're back later than I thought."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Shepard looked up, noticing the vid program that was on with a smile. It was a cartoon of sorts for children, featuring a human singing along with a whole group of vegetable puppets. He raised an eyebrow at the show with a grin to Miranda.

"It's really appalling isn't it?" Miranda stood up with Lizzie in her arms to walk around the sofa. They shared a kiss that was interrupted by Elizabeth as she began to make a whining noise. "Oh really? Just watch this John, she's been doing it all day."

Miranda moved back around, allowing Elizabeth to see the vid-screen. She stopped crying immediately, happily watching the program.

"That's ridiculous!" Shepard chuckled, giving Lizzie a stroke on the head followed by a kiss. "Definitely a prima donna."

"Tell me about it," Miranda placed Elizabeth down onto the sofa and rested her up against some cushions, the baby was content to sit still and remained fixed on the vid program. Miranda walked towards Shepard again, this time wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a passionate kiss. She pulled back after a good few seconds with a smile. "I've been waiting for that all day."

"Me too." Shepard placed one arm around her waist and tucking back a loose strand of hair with his other hand. He smiled at her as the two maintained eye contact. After a few seconds Miranda frowned.

"Are you all right John?" She placed a hand on his cheek, rubbing lightly. She could always tell when something was up, and at this moment he cursed that insight of hers.

He paused before answering, keeping his face with a small smile. Inside he was arguing with himself however, still trying to make his mind up. He could tell her right now, he should tell her. But the words wouldn't form in his throat. He looked over at Lizzie, she was the reason why he had to do this though. If he told Miranda, if she decided to get involved, if something happened to her, he could never forgive himself.

"I'm fine, just a bit tired is all," He gave her another kiss and pulled her closer. "I'm gonna go take a shower, OK?"

"Sure," Miranda gave him a kiss in reply. "Dinner in twenty though."

"Then I should go."

He gave her a final kiss before heading out of the room, followed by a pair of concerned eyes.

A/N So I'm trying something a bit different with the next few chapters, just to get a bit more variety into the story. As ever, thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts.