Author's Note: So I know I've been gone awhile but I'm back and trying to update as often as I can. As a point of curiosity, do you guys think that I should change the rating on this story? Although there's still not any mature rated sexual content, Jack does tend to use a bit of profanity. What's your opinion?
From Across the Galaxies
Chapter VIII: The Warlord
Operative Miranda Lawson sighed as she stepped out of the Normandy's medical center, tossing her bloodied gloves into the adjacent incinerator as she did. Stepping into the galley, the young woman took a seat and massaged her temples idly. The last few hours had been stressful. The medical procedure carried out on Commander Shepard had been an experiment. Sure, both Alliance and Cerberus scientists and doctors had carried out similar surgeries in the past. When the biotic programs first started and combat implants were being developed, patients had originally been outfitted with L2 units. While powerful technology that had seen some spectacular results with viable military application, the side effects had been severe. The eezo draw had put too much strain on the synaptic relays in the brain, resulting in consistent and extreme migraines at best. Less fortunate subjects had experienced neurological breakdown, resulting in insanity and death. When the L2's had been phased out and replaced with the safer but less powerful L3 implants, some patients had desperately sought out a transplant, replacing the older units with a new one.
The results varied. Since implants were rooted so integrally into the brain during the initial implantation process, removing one was complicated and required the utmost precision. Moreover, there were no known cases of failed L3 implants, such as Shepard's, and therefore there had never been a need to extract one. Though unlikely, there had been a possibility that side effects not seen in L2 removal may have been present with the newer models. Fortunately, it didn't appear that any such problems had cropped up. She and Dr. Chakwas had successfully removed the defective biotic device and replaced it with a more advanced Cerberus L5 model. When he regained consciousness and put it to the test, Shepard would likely find a vast improvement in his biotic abilities.
Miranda silently thanked any listening higher powers that may have been listening, though she didn't really believe in such things. Before she could get comfortable or relax at all, one of EDI's holoprojector's activated and the spherical shape of the ship's artificial intelligence system popped up.
"Operative Lawson, there is a situation with the mission," the mechanical voice replied.
Miranda swore under her breath and turned to face the projector. "What is it, EDI?" she asked. Even the inexperienced AI could tell that the interruption was less than welcome but the report that she had received from Jacob hours prior seemed urgent. If Miranda had not been involved with such a delicate surgical operation, the machine would have spoken with the acting commanding officer much sooner. She would not wait any longer now that it was unnecessary.
"Operative Taylor reports that Revan has stolen the Kodiak shuttle. Operative Taylor, Subject Zero, and Archangel are at a strategic disadvantage."
"Damn it," the Cerberus operative cursed as she slammed her hand on the metal table. Shaking her head, she stood up and started walking towards the ship's lift. "Tell Joker I want the ship in the air in two minutes. We're going to cover them."
"Yes ma'am," the computer replied.
Just outside the Kaibur Recycling Facility, Jack unleashed a slew of four letter expletives as explosions overhead rained debris down on the Cerberus Fire Team. Using a biotic field to deflect some of the falling rubble, the biotic woman stood up straight, glancing back at her two companions with something that couldn't even generously be called concern. Both were hunched over, shielding themselves from any potentially falling material. A thick coat of sweat had broken out over the trio. The last few hours had been harsher than they had expected, especially with Revan abandoning them with their only escape vehicle. Unlike Jacob and Garrus, who kept whining about their tactical disadvantage, Jack just wanted to take out her frustration on something. They had come across several Blue Suns and augmented Krogan. What she had done to them had not been pleasant. Both men had made mental notes to stay off of her bad side in the future. Jack was pissed.
"Come on you pussies!" she shouted at them as she pressed forward towards the facility.
Running forward, Jack spotted two Krogan augments, each wielding black market shotguns. The azure aura of a small mass effect field surrounded her as she charged onward and the two brutes found themselves being lifted off of the ground and into the air. Jack left at one of them, grabbing its gun and spinning it around on him. She pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation, blowing straight through the armored suit her target wore and spraying yellow blood across the ground. Shifting the focus of her field, the bald woman tossed the now dead Krogan at its companion before shooting him as well.
The minor skirmish didn't slow her down in the least. Jack simply tossed the shotgun aside and kept running. Garrus and Jacob, who were having trouble keeping up with her to begin with, sighed as they quickened their pace. This charge of Jack's had been going for quite some time and the two experienced combat veterans hadn't logged a single kill in that time. Jack had been doing all the work for them, unless one counted all of the damage that Revan was doing in the sky with his stolen shuttlecraft.
As the trio progressed onwards towards the facility, Revan knew that he needed to finish up with the shuttle as soon as possible. After circling the island for a couple of hours and making pinpoint strikes on vulnerable locations, he was running low on fuel. He needed to get in as close as possible and ditch the vehicle so that he could make his way to the objective marker with as little resistance as possible. Using the grid that was sprawled out before him on the shuttle's navigation system, he picked what looked like an open spot in the Blue Sun base. He would just need to clear the landing area of any hostiles and then he'd be on his way.
Making the strike took less than a few minutes. The vessel banked down towards an open catwalk where only a few soldiers stood guard and they were too busy firing at the rebelling Krogan forces below to notice the Kodiak coming towards them. Two precise shots from its cannons were enough to blow away a large section of the catwalk, taking the mercenaries with it and providing him with a clear space to park. The shuttle set down and the door lifted open, allowing the Sith Lord to exit. He pulled his submachine gun from his belt and held it defensively as he approached a door into the Kaibur plant. Using the Force, he simply ripped it from its frame and proceeded inside. A few Blue Suns along the way needed to be dispatched, though that hardly took effort. Once their lifeless forms had crumpled to the floor, the Dark Lord proceeded onward. The Krogan forces didn't seem to have penetrated the building, which made his job simpler. His only obstacles were mercs and automated defense systems, neither of which concerned him. Most of the men were too busy dealing with the Krogan rebels and he sincerely doubted that any turrets would be set to target humans. Why bother with specific friendly fire coding when the enemy force had a single biological signature?
Revan slowly made his way up the flights of stairs, dealing with any opposition that came his way. Eventually, he reached what looked like a scientific lab office. The main reception area was wide open. Apparently personnel had already evacuated. When he moved into the next room, he found another locked door, which he removed from his path with a simple flick of his wrist. The force with which the door ripped away caused part of the wall around it to crumble as well, kicking dust and rubble into the air. A shrill shriek pierced the air, catching his attention. He took a cautious step into the hole in the wall, gun raised, and frowned. Standing hunched over in the corner was an Asari woman dressed in a green lab coat. Revan cocked his head at the woman.
He didn't sense the same vile or vicious intent coming from her as the rest of the Blue Suns. Moreover, he hadn't seen anyone of her species until this point. Her presence was a curiosity to him. Distant explosions and gunfire urged him to shoot her and be done with it but he stayed his hand. She looked up, glancing at him in fear. The alien watched as he lowered his gun and bid her come forward. Nervously, the blue skinned woman approached, hesitant to get close to the strange man.
"What do you do here?" he inquired softly.
"I'm a programmer," she replied with a twitch in her voice.
"For what? What is this installation?"
"We're trying to clone Krogans," she explained. "I created the mental imprint program that Okeer used on his tank breds."
"Artificial conception," Revan mused. "Your program seems to have a few flaws."
"They rushed production," she defended. "I said I needed at least another two weeks before we began imprinting but they didn't listen. All they could think about was money."
"How did you get involved in all of this?" he wondered aloud.
"I worked on a project to cure the Krogan genophage two years ago. Warlord Okeer heard about my work and had me brought here. Forced me to work for him. I never wanted any of this to happen!"
Revan sighed. If he had felt any pity a moment prior, it vanished in an instant. "You would have let your work be used like this?" he demanded as he took a single paralyzing step forward.
"No, I didn't- please no!" she stammered as she felt something poke upward into her stomach. A single bang rang out and the Asari's eyes went wide. She looked down, only to see the barrel of his gun buried in her belly. Her knees went limp and she collapsed to the floor, bleeding profusely from the injury. The small round had penetrated her gut, passing through some of the minor organs before proceeding to knick her spine. Though her injuries were probably not very severe, the damage to be nervous system sent her into a state of paralysis. The alien woman probably remained entirely aware of her surroundings and of the agony of her wound. She would bleed out in time and live long enough to experience all of it. Revan felt no remorse for the cruel act. As a scientist, she controlled her own work. The fact that she chose to let it fall into dangerous hands just to avoid dying disgusted him. In his mind, the poor woman got exactly what she deserved.
Stepping over her limp form, he proceeded into the main laboratory. This door slid open as he approached and he found himself in a very spacious area filled with heavy grade technology. Empty aquatic tanks lined the glass walls of the room and the only person inside appeared to be a hulking Krogan, far larger than those with whom he had squabbled until this point. Revan recognized the man from the briefing aboard the Normandy. This was the famed Warlord Okeer.
The Krogan looked up from the computer console where he typed and scoffed. "Took your sweet time," the warlord snarled. "The batteries on these tanks won't last long."
"Our intel said that you were a prisoner," Revan stated as he stepped into the room.
"A Krogan warlord is never a prisoner. They attacked. I fought back. I'll die before they put me in a cage." The statement was so matter of fact that it caught the Revan's focus. The Dark Lord couldn't argue the point. In all honesty, he respected it. It was a policy that he himself had adopted back in his own galaxy. The fact that a Jedi strike team had managed to take him prisoner long enough for the High Council to reprogram his mind was a black mark on that record though. Revan reached Okeer and extended a formal hand in greeting.
"Darth Revan," he said firmly.
Okeer seem surprised by the gesture but accepted it with a chuckle. "And why have you come to my aid, Darth?" he inquired as he went back to typing.
"I'm part of a team. A strike force. We're recruiting."
"And you've come to me?" the Krogan mused. "Interesting. And what is the purpose of this team?"
"We're going after the Collectors."
It took a moment for Okeer to mull this idea over in his head. "The Collectors are a concern," he acknowledged. "A human concern. My concern is for the Krogan."
"Name your terms," Revan ordered, not particularly fancying the idea of drawing this conversation out any longer than necessary.
Okeer smacked a button on his computer and a motorized sound filled the room. Revan looked in the direction from whence it came and saw that the metal cover shielding one of his cylindrical tanks was rising up. Slowly, the floating form of another Krogan was revealed inside of the tank. Revan approached it with an interested look.
"Another one of your clones?" he asked.
"Clone?" Okeer repeated with a grim laugh in his voice. "No. Purity. This is the first of a new breed of Krogan. Perfect Krogan. He was bred from the data of a hundred life times! His DNA is not based on any one template. It's the culmination of every Krogan trait in its most perfect form!"
Revan reached out and touched the glass of the tank as he examined its occupant. It didn't appear to look any different from any other Krogan that he had met, though his experience with the species was still minimal. He also knew that looks could be deceiving. If this figure was a perfect Krogan specimen, the Sith Lord was interested. His own engineers had looked into a process of using the Star Forge, an ancient space station powered by the radiation drawn from local suns, in order to create genetically perfect clones. They had never quite succeeded. The clones in his galaxy had always gone mad or degenerated. It was one point where he had to admit to the superiority of this point in space. If Okeer had created a truly original life form with an enhanced genetic makeup, he had succeeded where some of Revan's best minds had failed.
"What about the other Krogan out there?" he asked as he turned back to the warlord. "Prototypes?"
Okeer simply nodded. "This process was as much trial as data and luck," the alien stated proudly. "There were hundreds of rejects. I gave them to these mercenaries in exchange for the money to finance my endeavor. But the leader, Jedore, wants this specimen. A perfect Krogan. Free from all weakness. Gah! Not meant to work for some human."
"Cured of the genophage?" Revan asked.
Okeer let out a triumphant laugh upon hearing the inquiry. "No!" he barked at the Sith Lord. "Perfect in spite of it. I have inflicted the greatest insult to the genophage that any opponent could. I've ignored it!"
"Well done. So this is what you want in exchange for your help? Protect your progeny?"
The warlord nodded. Before Revan could say anything, the doors slid open again and a trio of figures swarmed in. The Dark Lord recognized them as his Ceberus companions. The three looked a little worse for wear but overall didn't seem to be in bad shape. Their armor had sustained in damage and Jack appeared to be covered in blood, though Revan couldn't identify a source and assumed that most of it was not hers. Upon glancing at him, all three looked angry. Jack snarled and balled her hand into a fist.
"I'll kill the son of a bitch!" she screeched as she approached him violently.
It was Okeer who stopped her. The hulking Krogan threw himself between Revan and the young woman, extending a warning hand towards her. "Not here!" he growled.
Though not particularly afraid of any one Krogan, the sudden movement was enough to surprise Jack into stopping. Jacob and Garrus came up beside her, with Garrus putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Jack snorted and shoved it off before turning to Revan.
"When we're done here, I'm going to peel the flesh from your bones," she hissed through grit teeth.
"Looking forward to it," he returned without so much as a hint of nervousness in his tone. "Call the ship for evac. We need to load Okeer and his equipment and get out of here."
"What equipment?" Jacob asked the warlord.
Okeer simply turned and gestured towards the tank where the tank bred Krogan floated. The Cerberus Operative's eyes narrowed. "Who is he? Your son?" the man asked.
This caused the Krogan warlord to chuckle. "You could say that," he replied. "I won't be joining you on your mission if you do not evacuate him."
Jacob sighed but nodded. "Prep the tank for transport. I'll hail the Normandy. Revan, you're to stand down until the mission is completed."
"I won't be doing that," the Dark Lord spoke as he crossed to the viewing area and looked down into the facility. "We have a problem."
Garrus followed him over and nodded in agreement. Coming towards their position was a small army of Blue Sun forces. Just doing a quick count, the Turian would have guessed that there were at least thirty troops coming towards them, flanked by a dozen or so mechs. At the rear was a single heavy mech exoskeleton, which was being piloted by another Blue Sun. "Damn," Garrus swore as he ejected the spent thermal clip from his sniper rifle.
With a simple thrust of his arm, Revan punched a hole in the glass, shattering it and providing an opening between the enemy forces and the Cerberus group. He turned to Garrus. "I hope you're good with that thing," he remarked to his companion. The only response the Turian provided was to take quick aim and pick off one of the Blue Suns in the front row. Revan raised an eyebrow as he watched the mercenary's body collapse to the floor and the men and women around him scramble.
"Cover me as best you can," the Dark Lord ordered. He turned to Jacob and Jack. "Jack, you and I are going to hit the ground and throw as much chaos at them as humanly possible. Jacob, stay here with Okeer. Get that tank out of here!"
Before his commanding officer could protest, Revan climbed up onto a computer console and threw himself out the broken window. He plummeted down approximately twenty-five yards before flipping himself upright and using the Force around him to provide a soft landing. A moment later, Jack landed beside him. The blue aura around her indicated that she had used a warp field to achieve the same effect. The pair dove in opposite directions. Revan took cover behind a nearby metal pillar while Jack ducked beneath a pile of technological junk. The Suns had seen them land and were certainly aware of the threat.
Simply to test their response, Revan stepped out of cover and unloaded a thermal clip's worth of rounds from his submachine gun. There was little effect. His rounds were not as high caliber as the one Garrus had used to snipe one of their men and didn't immediately penetrate their advanced shielding or barriers. He needed to go bigger. He considered hurling his lightsaber into the fray and telekinetically controlling it to dispatch as many of them as possible but that technique required a great deal of concentration. In the middle of a hot zone where a stray enemy could round the corner and pick him off while his guard was down, it seemed less than wise to proceed.
"I could turn their own power against them," he mused as a dangerous plan formed in his mind.
Ejecting the spent thermal clip from his weapon, Revan waited until he heard a new one slide into place and took a deep breath. With speed granted to him by the Force, he ran out into the midst of the Blue Sun crowd, firing off stray shots to keep them distracted. As he went, he watch biotic fields snatch a stray merc here and there, from which he could infer that Jack was already thinning the ranks for him. As he continued to run along, a high impact rounds hit the enemies closest to him. Garrus was laying down some impressive cover fire. It didn't take him long to break into their ranks, sending them into a frenzy, and approach the large heavy mech that approached him.
He leapt into the air, towards the mech, and landed on the pilot's canopy. With a heavy handed strike, he shattered the glass and grabbed the Blue Sun woman sitting inside by the throat. Revan lifted her out of her seat, breaking the safety belts in the process, and tossed her aside. Given her slightly more advanced armor and use of the heaviest weapon, he could only assume that this woman had been the leader. Jedore if he recalled the briefing correctly. Slipping into her place, he took control of the mech and opened fire on the Blue Suns. Using the minigun built into its right arm, he ripped through their shields and watched as spurts of blood and organs went flying through the air.
Up above, Garrus Vakarian raised an eyebrow as he watched Revan gun down the mercenaries with their own mech. He had to hand it to the other man. His style may have been reckless but it yielded results. The Turian vigilante briefly considered what good a man like Revan could have done on Omega before shrugging off the thought and picking off another foe with his sniper rifle.
The mech moved slowly. Its frame was large and clunky. It vaguely reminded the Dark Lord of the Basalisk war drones used by the Mandalorians by their invasion of the Republic, though the Neo-Crusader exoskeletons had been far more advanced. This machine was its own worst enemy in terms of speed. Whatever it was using as a power source couldn't compensate for the immense weight of its hull and this quickly became a problem for the Sith Lord. A lone Blue Sun, desperate and stupid in the heat of battle, pulled the pin on a frag grenade and hurled it towards the mech. Revan saw the oncoming projectile out of the corner of his eye and tried to compensate with his vehicle. Throwing his weight against the controls proved fruitless. As the heavy machine started to turn towards the mercenary who had attacked, the grenade's eezo core ignited and sent shrapnel flying in every direction. The small explosion hit Revan indirectly, causing flying metal to bypass his armor and striking him in the stomach and chest. The short burst of flames also passed over him, burning his face and singeing the short stubble on his cheek.
It took a moment for everything to properly register in his mind. When it did, his thoughts raced at a breakneck speed. He cursed his own mistake. By breaking the canopy of the heavy mech, he had left himself vulnerable and exposed. That grenade wouldn't have reached him if the glass had been between them. Instead he had been to cavalier, believing himself to be invulnerable against these less advanced peons. As the sharp pain reached him and his breathing started to labor, he realized his mistake.
Glancing down at his chest, he saw the small jagged piece of metal embedded there. Between the hardsuit itself and the shard sealing the injury, no blood was visible to his eye but he could feel the injuries quite well. Given the location, he could assume that it had missed his heart but it was probable that his lung had been nicked. The second appeared to have ruptured his stomach sack. Digestive fluids and acids were probably spilling into the rest of his body and it was probably that bacteria and toxins from his organs may have spilled in and started into his digestive stream. He needed medical attention sooner rather than later. Within a short time, his body would go into shock and he would become worthless in this fight.
A normal man would have been taken out of the fight at that point but Revan was no normal man. The Dark Lord possessed the resolve of Mandalorian Warlord and the drive of a Krogan looking to breed. He steeled himself against the pain and fixed his eyes on the man who had thrown the grenade. Although he probably didn't have the strength to lift the mech's enormous arm and use the canon, he did have enough energy to withdraw his hand from the mechanism and grab his submachine gun. Revan took aim and pulled down on the trigger, sending a barrage of ultra-fine grain rounds at his assailant. The sheer number of rounds broke through the man's energy shields and ripped his armor apart. Bursts of crimson blood sprayed from the entry wounds and the man collapsed to the ground, dead.
Revan pulled himself from the cockpit and fell out of the Blue Sun mech. There were still at least a dozen mercenaries that had survived his onslaught and they were aided by a few humanoid sized drones. Hitting the ground with a thud, the Sith looked at his enemies and saw his dilemma. He didn't have time to swap out the thermal clip in his gun and his breathing was compromised by the damage to his lung. Engaging them with his lightsaber didn't seem practical. Instead, he looked to his side and used his mind to lift the broken form of a downed light mech into the air. Gesturing towards the group of Suns closing in on him, he threw the metal form at them. It didn't strike any but it did cause them to dive every which way, scattering them.
Jack snorted when she saw the kind of trouble that Revan had gotten himself into. She muttered an insult beneath her breath before mentally juggling the idea of leaving him to his fate. He had stabbed her and the others in the back when he had stolen their shuttle before. With a shrug, she discarded the notion. If anyone was going to kill the bastard, it was her. Tapping into the power of her L5 implant, she began to glow with a pulsating blue aura of light. The psychotic woman ran out into the open, charging towards one mercenary woman. Without even using her biotic talents, Jack grabbed the woman and snapped her neck with minimal effort. She then turned and flicked her wrist towards two of the small mechs. A mass effect field erupted between them and started pulling inward with impressive force. The two mechs smashed into one another within the field and were crushed against each other's frames. The bald woman turned next to a Batarian that was approaching Revan with an assault rifle raised. She used her foot to kick up a fallen pistol from the ground and snatched it with her bare hand. With two precisely placed shots, she executed the alien and was onto the next. Before she could kill another target, sniper fire from Garrus rained down, killing another two enemies. In less than a minute, the Cerberus team had executed four mercs.
Revan's vision began to blur as oxygen starvation slowly came upon him. Using the Force, he tried to stabilize himself. He had learned how to survive without breathing for periods of time in the past but that ability seemed lost to him now. He needed to concentrate and that seemed impossible when crippled by pain and suffocation. He watched as his teammates continued to fight their opponents but there was little he could do. Eventually, he simply collapsed to the ground and passed out.
"You son of a bitch!" was the last thing he heard before falling into unconsciousness. No doubt it had been Jack to say it.
Upon seeing their companion fall, everyone in the Cerberus group panicked. Jacob in particular, who had stayed out of the fighting to this point, cursed violently and slammed his hand against a control console. Tapping the comm. link on his ear, he barked "Miranda, where the hell are you!" There was a thick buzz of static before a reply came.
"Hold your position. Normandy in bound in two minutes!"
Two minutes was too damn long. The former soldier turned to Okeer and pointed. "Let's go. They need our help!"
Okeer chuckled and shook his head. "Not without my prototype."
Jacob scoffed at the sentiment but Okeer simply stalked away and walked over to his tank-bred. He began to disconnect the power lines and the Cerberus officer could tell that it was pointless to argue. With a groan, the operative ran towards the nearby staircase and headed down to join the fight. He pulled his M-22 Evicerator shotgun from the back of his belt as he burst out onto the terrace with the others.
The rest of the skirmish took less than ten minutes. Between Garrus's sharpshooting, Jack's biotics, and Jacob's military efficiency, the group managed to dispatch the remaining mercenaries with only a moderate amount of effort. Once they were all down, Jacob ran to Revan's position and slid down beside him. He rolled his teammate onto his back and leaned in, listening for the sound of his breath. Sure enough, he could faintly hear and feel air passing from the Sith Lord's nose.
"Miranda, we need medical evac!" he shouted into his comm. The dark skinned man looked up at Jack, who approached slowly. She had an angry sneer on her lips and her hands had balled into fists. "Back off!" Jacob cried out to her as he put a hand out to start her.
"I'll kill him!" the bald woman growled.
"You can kill him when he's awake and can defend himself. I won't let you hurt someone who's out cold!"
Jack folded her arms and grunted. She turned and looked up to the balcony where Garrus was standing. "What's going on up there, scar face?" she called up.
The Turian turned back to the lab and shrugged. "Everything seems fine!" he yelled back. "And I think I see the Normandy!"
"Tell the doctor to get a gurney down here. I want Revan in the medical wing now!" Jacob ordered. He looked up at Jack. "Go help Okeer!"
"Oh for fuck's sake," the woman sighed as she rolled her eyes and started up towards the lab.
Alliance Lieutenant Ashley Williams stepped into the Citadel Council chambers, flanked by two C-sec escorts, and approached the large bench at the far end of the room. It stood elevated about twelve feet above the ground and the four council members stood behind it. Each had a computer console in front of them and were typing idly. As she crossed the long room and moved towards the large open area in front of the bench, an Asari secretary standing to the side of the councilors stood up.
"Lt. Williams, thank you for coming," the violet skinned alien stated.
This brought the attention of all four councilors to the new Spectre, who felt uncomfortable standing in front of them on her own. Though she had stood before the council as a part of the Normandy crew more than once, the majority of their attention had been set on Shepard at the time. The young woman never considered how much pressure that her friend had endured by just talking to the main governing force in the galaxy.
"You summoned me?" she said shakily to the politicians. Ashley looked up to Councilor Anderson for support and was relieved to see a reassuring smile in return. This calmed her enough to face the others with something resembling confidence.
"Lt. Williams, we have information related to your mission," Councilor Sparatus, the Turian man in the center of the group, stated gruffly as his mandibles flared. He clearly wasn't in a good mood, which didn't bode well for the soldier.
"Yes sir?" she asked.
Tevos, the Asari councilor, spoke next. "The Normandy has been spotted. We have word that it was on Omega eleven days ago and witnesses and security cameras place it at the scene when the Purgatory penitentiary was destroyed six days ago."
"It's a cold trail, Williams, but it's all we've got," Anderson acknowledged. "We want to send you into the field."
"Do we know what he was doing on Omega and Purgatory?" Ashley inquired, trying to figure out how they wanted her to track down the Normandy with nothing but a lead that was six days old.
"Word from the local leadership on Omega says that he took two of their key players and recruited them onto his team. You already know Garrus Vakarian. The other was a Salarian doctor named Mordin Solus."
"Garrus is with Shepard? Have we tried contacting him?"
"Negative," Valern, the Salarian, replied. "Vakarian's been a rogue element for months. He wouldn't help us."
It made little sense to Ashley that the council wouldn't at least consider the possibility of contacting the former C-sec officer but she didn't say anything. Instead, she logged the info away for later and decided to reach out to her old friend at the next opportunity. When she did speak, all she said was "Is there anything else that you can tell me to find the Normandy?"
Anderson nodded grimly. "We found out who traded Shepard's body to Cerberus after the attack on the first Normandy," he replied. "The information broker on Illium."
"Who is it?"
"Brace yourself, Williams. It's a friend of yours. Dr. Liara T'soni."
Somehow, that information didn't surprise Ashley very much. After the first Normandy's crew had been broken up, Liara had been distant and the Alliance soldier had heard that the Asari had made her way out to the information capital of the galaxy. The fact that Liara was operating as an information broker didn't seem that strange. Even selling Shepard's body made sense. Although they had never been returned, Liara had possessed feelings for her commanding officer. She had never been vocal about them but everyone aboard had been well aware. Unfortunately for her, Shepard hadn't shown any mutual interest. He had started a relationship with Ashley and the two soldiers had been happy for a while. Liara had quietly kept to herself from that point on but the young alien had taken Shepard's death very hard and had insisted that it wasn't over. If Liara had believed that Cerberus had even the remotest chance of bringing Shepard back to life, she would have committed just about any illegal act to do it.
Nodding, the Spectre turned and looked up at her superiors. "That makes Illium my next stop then," she stated resolutely.