Author note: sorry this took a bit longer than usual, I had writer's block briefly, and it took me about a day to get back into the correct state of mind for writing.

Also, as much as it pains me to say it, it is likely that updates are going to become more infrequent due to the onset of my exams.

A Dangerous Game

The Five ran through the charred, desolate wasteland that had been the front line. Angel Eyes had point, with O'Reilly running alongside, the other three bringing up the rear. The area was quiet; the focus of the fighting had moved as the Alliance's forces had pushed in through the shattered and broken section of the batarian line. Morale was practically non-existent, but it didn't matter. The men weren't happy, but a kind of grim resolve drove them on, drove them to finish the bastards that had killed so many of their comrades. Drove them to finish what no-one else could.

Of course, that wasn't entirely true, strictly speaking. Shepard's squad were the only ones who had ascertained the location of the privateer Command, but that was more due to the dangerous game the man was playing than anything else. He needed to justify the murder of the squad's previous technically ranking officer, or cover it up. Either way, the best course of action was to bring his squad through hell and at the same time eliminate any remaining threat that the batarians represented.

Shepard found himself in a strange situation, worse, a situation that his actions had left him in. He had to trust someone. He had to trust that O'Reilly wouldn't turn on him, now that he had the means to destroy him. He had to trust that he had talked him out of having a motive. The irony was that most of the things that had happened to lead to this juncture were as a result of his chronic incapacity to have faith in anyone other than himself.

"Any Intel on what we'll find when we get there?" The Irishman asked in a voice that was beginning to run short on breath.

"They're above ground, and attempting to get an evac, from what I could tell, but they also seem to be indoors. Intel said that that district was mostly defunct industrial infrastructure."

"In English, sir?" one of the other marines panted from behind. Shepard turned, gave him a withering look, and opened his mouth-

"Abandoned factories." O'Reilly supplied.

"Just so, Private. The point is, if we're careful, we should be able to get ahead of them and set up a decent ambush before they can get off of this abysmal rock and do even more damage."

The Five left the desolate trench network and moved into batarian territory, entering the industrial district a short while later. They moved up the street, hugging the buildings on the right side, when Shepard suddenly gestured a halt, before signalling to slowly get into cover and out of sight-one of the things most likely to get someone detected is sudden movement. Up ahead at the end of the street was a small squad of batarians, a mixed group of six including a melee specialist and what appeared to be a sniper.

Shepard confirmed through his scope, and considered their course of action. The marines would doubtless find prudence unpalatable at this point in time, and it would hardly match up with the supposed agenda of eliminating the privateer threat entirely. No, they had to be killed, but in such a way that the Five didn't broadcast their approach; thus far, no Alliance personnel had been detected in the area, which would make an ambush easier and less risky.

"Alright." He said softly to his men. "We need to kill these quietly; no firearms, but at the same time it needs to be fast, and brutal; we can't give them the opportunity to communicate." His eyes brightened. "O'Reilly, with me. We'll advance quietly, staying in cover, until we can get close enough to kill them up close. I'll jam their comms when we're close enough, and we'll finish them."

The two men crept up the street, O'Reilly mimicking the Corporal, clinging to the shadows and staying out of their line of sight until they were watching the enemy squad from the doorway of a derelict building about ten metres away from their position. There, Shepard directed his Omni tool to emit a signal that jammed their communications equipment, before edging out of cover to get as close to them as he could-

A growl indicated that he'd been detected, and he sent a signal from his Omni tool that overloaded their weapons briefly, giving him and his companion the seconds they needed to close with the enemy. Shepard flung his knife at the melee specialist, and grinned with satisfaction as it pierced his neck, bringing him down with a groan and a gurgle. Then, he was meeting the charge of a mere grunt of a soldier who lunged at him with a shotgun capped with a bayonet, guiding the weapon aside, and spinning past it to deal a stunning blow to the batarian's ear, before seizing his head in both hands and giving it a sharp wrench to one side and then the other, breaking the alien's spine.

He snatched up the creature's weapon and, having no time to bring the blade to bear, smashed it like a club into a second charging batarian's shoulder, bringing him down to the floor, before impaling his chest on the spike attached to the muzzle. He spun to see how his Irish companion was faring-

To find himself staring down the muzzle of a high calibre sniper rifle, at point blank range. Shepard could almost feel himself freezing, but his body acted without his mind giving it conscious instructions. He lashed out at the gun, but failing to push it away even as-

The batarian sniper pulled the trigger.

The gun clicked. Shepard hadn't risked shoving the gun aside when the risk at that point was that the gun would go off anyway and tear a hefty chunk of flesh out of , he had lashed out and flicked a miniscule mechanism on the gun's barrel that only a sniper could have identified with such precision. He'd ejected the weapon's metal ammunition block. The weapon had nothing to fire.

The enemy sniper glared at Shepard in pure hatred, then in a second had dropped the gun and was clutching at its back, before it collapsed, dead. Behind the new corpse stood O'Reilly, breathing more heavily than Shepard but alive and apparently unharmed.

Shepard wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, he hadn't consciously been trying to get the Irishman killed, but on the other hand, if he died, it would solve some incipient problems after the mission was over. Shepard wouldn't have to bother trying to avoid a court martial that he had never had any intention of attending anyway. However, as the Irishman kept proving, he was a useful one to have around in the short term, increasing the odds that they would even complete the mission.

The other three moved up and rejoined the squad, and they continued to move through the district on an intercept vector with the batarian command. Shepard knew that his men would want to kill any aliens that they came across, regardless of the risks associated with such a move, so he did his best to guide them away from any opposition that his men didn't notice.

Finally, they managed to enter the group of interconnected buildings where they intended to ambush the enemy Command. They managed to reach the building three minutes before the aliens would enter, Shepard estimated; plenty of time to select positions. At that moment, however, he and his men found themselves under fire. The Five became Four before they could all reach cover.

Apparently the batarian escort's vanguard stretched quite some way in front of those they were escorting.