I was startled out of my boredom when Pia suddenly yelped and reached over to take hold of the driver's wheel.

The car swerved exactly as I thought it would. Attempting to drive a car from the passenger's side seat isn't exactly the height of safety.

"What are you doing?" I asked as I slapped Pia's hands away, the girl resisting all the way.

"That's dangerous," she huffed, "I don't trust the car to drive itself!"

Oh. This again. I tried not to roll my eyes; I had learned my lesson after the last time this conversation came up. I stared at the dashboard as the self-navigation symbol started blinking before fully turning solid. "Pia, self-driving cars have been a thing for thousands of years now." Frankly, I found it odd that some people, my sweet Pia included, preferred driving on manual. "We are safer in the hands of this advanced computer software than we are in mine."

Pia growled at me. "I'm a better driver than you."

"And the car is a better driver than both of us." I sighed before going back to manual. I knew when I was defeated.

No man ever really won an argument with his woman.

But driving for another hour would be so boring.

Pia fiddled with the console, checking in on Narg and Det in the car behind us and the Templar in his private car ahead of us. "How are you guys?"

"Tired," I heard Det announce though a yawn. Kid couldn't sit still for more than a few minutes. "Why couldn't this mine be closer to the city? Narg fell asleep."

"I admit, this trip is tedious," the Templar added, "I am also tempted to sleep."

"You guys on manual control?" I ask, Pia frowning beside me.

"No."

"I don't even know how to drive," Det reminded us.

"We'll check in again when we get there," Pia quickly shut off the console, ending the conference call. She glared at me before pulling out the car's passenger seat display screen, the alien voice of some human newscaster chattering on about the weather; not that there was any need to, the weather on Lluvia was either "rain" or "chance of rain'. Right now it was rain, later on we'd get lucky with a chance of rain. After that I heard Pia switch over to one of the Citadel news networks; I'm amazed that this planet could even pick up Cit transmissions like that. Through the odd moments of buffering and loading I was able to hear some snippets of the new Volus Councilor's swearing in ceremony.

"You know there were protests," Pia murmured, "When they swore in Jotan Kur."

"I heard about that," I muttered, wondering if a politics discussion as going to make this ride any more boring and tedious. Well, there was only one way to find out. If I was lucky Pia would fall asleep and I'd get to chill on autopilot the rest of the way. "I think they argued that the volus don't deserve a Council seat because they haven't contributed enough to Citadel space. Or something like that."

Pia bristled, that wonderful anger on her face whenever she heard or saw an injustice. "Not enough contribution! They're bankrolling the military buildup against the Terminus! It's only because of their economic models that we even have a galactic economy in the first place." I still remember the headaches I got from the CB when I was trying to figure out our expenses on Lluvia; exchange rates had never been so confusing. Pia continued on, "You know what this is don't you? It's those fucking shitheads who perpetuate this idea that only military races can join the council. And it's disgraceful that the protests are being led by turians. Us!" She gripped my arm, something she always does when she wants to make sure I'm listening. "In fact, it's a shame that they are only getting a seat because they are bankrolling the current buildup since it still perpetuates the idea that military service…"

I really should have just kept my mouth shut. Not because I disagreed or didn't care for her opinion, but because we'd gone over this discussion so many times…

"We're here!" I said a little too enthusiastically as we reached the mining complex's front entrance, itself plastered all over with Gaian signs. No doubt they all said "Keep Out" or "Condemned" or "Private Property" or "No Trespassing". Those didn't apply to me because I couldn't read them. The only sign that I recognized was the giant IMM sign.

"Oh, already?" Pia asked, her voice hoarse from recounting all major political failures in the past 80 years. "I was just getting to the Keeper Neutrality Act…"

There was a heavy looking front gate, chained up every which way possible. I guess this was for the heavy wheeled vehicles, cargo haulers and the like. But even the Gaian cars could easily fly over the gate. Which we did.

Thank you flying cars.

Then we did what we do best, poke around and let our omni-tools find clues for us. Well, not really. Omni-tools were incredibly useful, but they couldn't do our jobs for us. Yet.

Turned out there wasn't much up here in the surface world; the nearby prefab offices were all empty and stripped bare of everything, only some forgotten slabs of concrete, shipping containers and a few dumpsters filled with random teardown sat out in the rain. Investigating the car turned out to be a real pain. I had thought to check the hood to see if the engine was still warm, but Anima power sources were pretty ubiquitous in Gaian space and those things could never really be turned off. So a car sitting in an abandoned forest for days would be just as warm as a car that just pulled up from a long drive. While I wanted to search the car, none of us wanted to risk setting off the car's alarm. Luckily we didn't have to deal with those security issues after Klein pointed something out to me; I followed his finger's gaze towards the ground. It wasn't raining that hard, just that near constant drizzle that came before and after the really big waterworks, so I could still see some footprints in the mud. At least a few humans and two salarians by the looks of things, all heading over to a mine shaft which was suspiciously well lit.

"The lights are still on," Det mumbled, "Which means someone's home."

Kid was right. "Everyone, get your gear on." I motioned over to Pia by our car, who started handing out the heavy ordnance we'd brought along. "We've fought Gaian nasties before; let's not make the same mistakes. Shoot until the corpse is shredded and then shoot some more. Shoot them in the head if you can." We'd gone in half-cocked on Samhain and didn't learn our lesson on Krampusnacht and Florilea was in the hospital for days. Not again. So I put up the money and bought my entire crew some nicer equipment. Swapped the armor plates on all our hardsuits for something better, boosted our shield capacities, networked the suits together so we could all keep tabs on each other. Integrated powered frames. Recoil stabilizers and better heat sinks for our guns. Inferno rounds. Rifle-to-Shotgun variable barrels. We looked more like mercs going into some of the conflict zones along the Terminus than honest detectives.

But the new equipment made us feel like badasses. And after the big morale hits we'd taken we all needed to feel like as badass as we could.

We were all gearing up when I turned to look at the Templar. He reached into his fancy suit and pulled out a silver gun, an old six-shooter. With a flick of his wrist the cylinder flung out, empty. Another flick and it was back where it belonged, the cylinder spinning in place.

Very cool.

"Wow, that's an antique," Det whistled, admiring the gun.

That's an understatement. Outside of some specialist equipment most firearms used ammunition blocks instead of bullets. And the one revolver I'd seen that did use bullets was much larger than that one, high-explosive rounds can't be scaled down that far yet, and had all the modern amenities. The Templar's gun looked like it had no electronics in it. It was probably just metal, screws and springs inside!

"When I was little," Klein began, twirling his gun, "I fell in love with the great Westerns."

What the hell are Westerns? "I see," I said, not actually seeing. "Here, take this," I handed him a spare headset, "It's meant for turian heads but I think it might fit you." He managed to fit the thing on his head with the aid of some tools he had in his suit. The high tech solution of clips and hair. A quick mic check later and we were good to go.

"Well, let's get to it," Pia interrupted, her gun lighting up and extending into combat configuration in her hands as she started walking towards the mine shaft.

Man. I scored big time. Look at those hips sway back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. That hardsuit was snug on her in exactly the best way possible. My powered armor clad beauty. What could I do butt follow?

We made our way over to the mineshaft as I drew my eyes away from that sweet piece of Pia and got my head in the game and readied my rifle. Det and Narg were keeping their heads and eyes preoccupied as they swept the area for any potential hostiles. The Templar looked most at ease out of all of us, but I could tell he was still on high alert. The rain started picking up along with some incredibly strong winds, made it hard to see or hear anything around us. Eventually we ended up at a huge tunnel that went down at a pretty steep angle, several huge streams of rain water rushing down into the darkness below. There were some stairs and guide wire along the left side of the shift, right next to a lift system that we all hoped was still operational, none of us wanted to take the stairs. Det pointed to a nearby portable power generated that had been hooked up a computer console, probably the one that controlled the lifts.

"They might notice us coming if we take the lift," Klein offered as he tested it with a foot. "Quiet enough, but if there is another console at the end of the tunnel they may see the lift in use."

"Either that or we walk," Det countered, "We don't know how deep this mine is, we don't want to go into a potential firefight exhausted."

"Det's right," I said, amazed at myself for admitting something so terrifying, "Risky, but the lift is the fastest way to get down there. Everybody in the lift. Go. In." We went in, each of us taking cover behind the covered railings, Narg's massive body sticking out from behind cover no matter how hard he tried to hide himself.

My hand hovered over the giant red button that'd take us into that deep dark mine, no doubt filled with horrible monsters, fanatics and dead salarians. But also huge sums of cash.

I pressed the red button and we started our long trek down the shaft.

I've grown up around space travel. I live on a spaceship. I've been in deep space with only a meter of spaceship between me and the cold void. I'd have thought that going a measly 200 meters in the opposite direction, underground, would be no problem. One of the leading theories on our evolution puts as prehistoric cave dwellers, huddling together underground to shield ourselves from Trebia's radiation baths. I'm no biologist but I think we developed our famous silver luster because of all the thulium we ingested during our cave days.

But none of that real or imagined evolutionary history kept me from being a little terrified at all this. Being underground is scary. It's dark and cold down here. Poorly lit and so incredibly silent. I felt like my breathing was thundering in my ears; I almost wished that the lift was a traditional horror movie lift with metal groans and squeaks and occasional stutters. If only because then we'd be hearing something. You don't know how much you'll miss sound until it's gone. Shit, I really wished Pia would start her political rants again.

"Everyone alright?" I asked, breaking this weird silent spell that had fallen over all of us. Surprisingly Narg jumped a little. That made me smirk.

"Tired of hiding here," Pia answered, voicing the other problem we were encountering. "How much further is this? We've passed three stops already." She groaned as she started rolling her shoulders.

"Only one more level to go," the Templar whispered, his voice much lower than the rest of ours. We could all talk as loudly as we wanted in our awesome helmets. So long as we weren't on broadcast mode no one could hear us. Not him, he had to whisper into his communicator.

"They're down here," Det groaned, turning around and sitting down. I would reprimand him for relaxing in an unsecured area but I wanted to sit down too. How long had I been crouching here? "We didn't see any lights on the last three floors. Makes sense too, if you wanna hide why not hide at the very bottom of the cave?"

"Mine."

"What?" Det asked our krogan philosopher.

"Caves are natural, mines are artificial."

"So? Who cares?"

"We are detectives, young Det," there he goes again, acting like the wise grandfather, "We hunt the truth. We must describe the reality as best we can, else-"

I tuned them out and instead thought about this lift ride. I know as much about mining as Det knows about women, but I think the shaft spiraled around the main mineral deposit. That's probably why this lift was so slow. Or maybe it was because the generators didn't supply enough power for full speed.

I glanced back over the edge of our metal basket and saw a dim light below us.

"-always already mediated," Narg went on, "And therefore-"

"Quiet," I ordered, "End of the line."

That snapped them out of it. I snatched my crew back from the jaws of boredom, all of them immediately taking firing positions as best as we could.

"I don't like this," Pia whispered as we approached the final level of the mine. "There's no cover in here."

"We'll have to hug the walls," I answered. "We can take some punishment out on our new shields if we have to. Worst comes to worst, we'll just shoot faster and aim better than any hostiles we meet here."

"Kill them before they kill us." Det clarified as the lift stopped, all of us immediately fanning out and taking up positions along the sides of the tunnel, dust and rocks beneath our feet.

"There's another generator over to our left powering a few lights down a tunnel, everyone see it?" Quick glances, then nods. "We head that way. Make sure you've got your auto-navs on. Alright, ready?" We all looked ready. I felt ready. "G-."

"Wait," Pia interrupted. "Lower muzzle velocity? We don't want to start a cave in."

Fuck. I heard Narg groan and saw the Templar frown.

"I don't think that'll happen," Det didn't sound so sure.

"You want to test that? "I pointed up at the ceiling. "See all that metal shit up there? Support rods. We mess up enough of those and we're all fucked. So, can you all guarantee that none of your bullets will hit the ceiling?" No one answered, Det's eyes widening as he considered my words. "Thought so," I added, already turning my gun over and fiddling with the settings. "Lower muzzle velocity. Our Inferno rounds are already deadly enough; we don't need hypervelocity bullets in here. Alright, ready?" Nods all around. Except Det. "Kid, calm down alright? You're not the best shot around, but you're good. You worried about your aim? Then aim better. We need your fringe on straight if we get into shit, you clear?"

He sighed and calmed down.

"Alright, let's move."

We advanced slowly and cautiously. These mines were a nightmare from a tactical standpoint. As far as I could tell they mined this place out in a grid pattern and that meant that every 20 or so meters we'd reach another four-way crossing. Perfect ambush spots everywhere. Honestly I felt naked without sweet Florilea on overwatch with her marvelous sniper rifle. Beside Pia she was the only other woman I trusted. I hoped she was doing fine. The Templar decided to take point this time, a job that usually fell on Narg. But if he wanted to put himself between my crew and danger I'd let him.

We followed the power cables deeper into the mine, guide lights here and there illuminating our way. The path started simple enough, just straight forward but then started going in odd twists and turns. At some points we had to turn on our helmets own night visions or magnification settings to find the next path of lights. Presumably the Institute goons who were hiding down here had some map that led them straight to… wherever they were. We had to guess. We would have gotten turned around several times if it weren't for our auto-nav systems making a quick and dirty map of our surroundings as we went. Money well spent.

Advance. Check corners.

Repeat.

Advance. Check corners.

Nerve wracking.

The motion tracker in my helmet wasn't picking anything up except our own assholes, so if anyone down here heard us they weren't showing it. Hopefully they were all intimidated by the sight of several armored and armed individuals and were just hiding somewhere and would eagerly surrender once they were caught by us.

I could only hope.

Eventually my motion tracker did pick up something just as Narg's voice filled our helmets.

"Dead ahead, 100 meters."

We all immediately took a knee, making ourselves as small as possible. We'd been sticking to the unlit sides of the mine tunnels and making as little noise as possible so I don't think we'd been seen. I brought my rifle up, scope extending and integrating with my HUD. There were two of them walking deeper into the mine at a leisurely pace. We haven't been spotted yet.

We advanced, keeping low and to the ground, sticking to the shadows and taking cover at the intersections whenever we could in case these two, a patrol maybe?, turned around and headed back our way. We started picking up on their conversation, though they were still too far to understand clearly.

"-out of here soon-"

"Well, it's not happening until-"

Advance. Check corners. Stay low and hidden. We were closer, but most of their conversation was whispered among themselves. They only occasionally raised their voices.

"-us out of here until he's got someone to overlook all our cargo. This isn't like-"

"They getting restless-"

"- planning this one for years. You can wait a few more days!" one of the humans hissed, the conversation finished between the two as they kept walking. We'd caught up to them, only trailing them by about 20 meters or so. They neared a third human who was asleep at a chair, a small table set up next to him, a rifle and drink within easy reach. "Look at this, wake this fuck-" the taller one began.

"Let him sleep." The other began, "We've been down here weeks, no one is going to come looking." The angry one hesitated before stomping off, both of them disappearing around a corner. I glanced over to my left, the tunnel not splitting into a four way crossing like the rest of them did. I'm guessing we were at the edge of the mining grid here.

We advanced, staying as far as we could from the guard. Except Pia. She went straight for him and gave him some sleeping pills, courtesy of Dr. Bluntforcetrauma. Quick and quiet. Meanwhile I was in position at the edge of the tunnel. Turning on my helmet cam and broadcasting to my team, I peeked around the corner. There were the two humans we'd followed here. They'd set up a small camp at the end of this tunnel; sleeping tents, cots, a portable stove. I wondered if they also snuck toilets down here. This path didn't branch off to the right or left and I could still see some rubble near the end of the tunnel, maybe this was the last part of the mine built? Either way they were trapped in there, the only way out was through us. We had them surrounded, which was good. Unfortunately I also saw two salarians huddled together at the far end of the tunnel and a sleeping asari next to them on a makeshift cot. Potential hostages? That was bad. At least one of the humans was armed with a pistol on his hip, and there were guns within easy reach of the other. If a firefight broke out in here we might hit the hostages. This was horrible.

What was worse was the crazy looking monster thing that was standing guard near the hostages. It looked like… well, I didn't' want to think about what it looked like. But it looked pretty dangerous.

"Flash and storm?" Pia suggested, Det and I already readying our dazzling presents.

"I'll excise the familiar," the Templar stated. Nods all around. I glanced at Det, primed flashbang in his hand.

One.

Two.

Three!

Det's aim must be worse than I remember because I distinctly heard one of the humans cry out in pain and surprise as the flashbang knocked him on the head. Then it went off. That was my cue. I rushed in and within seconds it was over. It all happened so fast. 90% training and skill, 100% luck. One second there was two stumbling humans and a charging monstrosity, the next there were two cuffed criminals and one monster salsa seasoned with bullets and marinated in gore. The Templar walked up to it, his feet making terrible noises as he started trampling all over its organs. "Clear."

I started heading over towards the salarians and the asari who had woken up during the gunfight. They were outside the range of the flashbangs so they weren't too shaken up. One of them was probably starting right in our direction when it happened though, the way he… she? was holding her eyes. The asari looked incredibly startled, which was understandable. She was sleeping and suddenly she's woken up by the sounds of gunfire and she's fucking reaching for a gun!

It suddenly flies out of her hand as I hear the Templar's revolver go off again. The shock gives me enough time to raise my rifle at them just as the salarian reaches for something in his pocket.

"Drop it! On the ground now! We're detectives here to rescue you!" I yell at them. Telling someone you're here to help them at the same time as you point guns at their faces and tell them to lay down is probably counterintuitive, but I lost all patience when they tried pulling guns on me. Pia and Det rush past me and knock their pistols out of the way before cuffing them too. Frankly, I wasn't sure it was legal to do so but I wasn't about to stop them.

Once they were disarmed and surrounded by heavily armed officers they complied.

"My eyes, they hurt!" The salarian female began as Det checked her over. "Damn."

"Fuck you," The asari spat, a tempting offer if she wasn't covered in dirt and grime. She reeked. "Show us your badges if you are detectives."

Sigh. I really hate uncooperative victims. We trek all this way to rescue them and this is the thanks we get? Whatever, if it'll get her to relax I'll do it. "Here," I said, my omni-tool lighting up and displaying my credentials. Oh shit. They expire next month. "See? Tier Seven Citizen Detectives certified by the TEC. All of us are." Well, not really. Narg was technically a "deputized affiliate" and I was the only Tier Seven citizen among my turian party. Pia and Flori were Tier Six and Det was Tier Five. But those were boring technicalities that only ever interested me during random moments like this one. "So shut up and get rescued."

The asari relaxed after that but the salarians got all fidgety.

Odd.

I noticed Pia was about to release the asari, probably content that she wasn't going to cause more problems.

"No, cuff them." I ordered as I stood up from my crouch. "Standard procedure ma'am," I lied. Luckily both Det and Pia caught on fast and commiserated with her, apologizing but also saying it was standard procedure. I quickly switched to the internal comms channel and told them to keep an eye on our "hostages". It could just be firefight jitters but I wasn't about to trust them with free hands after what they tried pulling.

I noticed Narg looking over the creature's remains and he called me over. Does it smell horrible because it was dead or what this the natural flavor? Hey, what a minute! I knelt down alongside Narg, who pointed at one of the faces on the thing. "That looks like Bayora."

"That is Bayora." I said, my stomach turning.

"Found our guy?" Det called out from his place near the salarians. "He got monsterfied?"

He was a little too gleeful for my tastes; no one deserved this. Bayora's face looked like it was stretched out in a scream. I don't know if that was what he felt when he got turned into this or what he felt when we killed him. Made me sick. Det was probably just trying to keep his mind off things, trying to make light of the situation.

I sighed.

"Yeah, we found him." I answered back as I activated my omni-tool's facial scanner. A few minutes later and we confirmed that this was indeed Bayora's face. Narg and Pia ran their scanners for double and triple confirmation. We rechecked our helmet recording software and reviewed the battle; we were now in some weird legal limbo where we had to prove that this was Bayora and not just some other monster. Had to make sure we had enough legal ground to stand on to consider our mission complete. Det ended up removing Bayora's face from the thing and placing the entire disgusting skin mask into a specially sealed container. I don't know what freaked me out the most, that the thing just had faces stretched over its skin like that or that Det knew how to surgically remove faces. We recorded all of it to keep our bases covered.

Was secretly hoping that we'd end up rescuing Bayora. Sure, I hated his guts for nabbing that blue bombshell and bringing him in alive would pay substantially less than bringing him in dead... But still. I really wanted one successful mission on Lluvia. One with a relatively happy ending.

We all needed at least one good mission here.

Oh well.

The other human looked familiar too. Smith. Two for two. "We're done here, found Smith and found Bayora." I announced, ending the recording on my helmet. We had enough evidence. "Templar, what about you?"

He'd been searching the camp while we did our thing, occasionally looking over the hostages and prisoners when we couldn't. He was looking over some datapads and equipment they had smuggled down here. Looks like his investigation was far from over.

"That's wonderful news," he cheered, a smile on his face. "Unfortunately, what I found here is troubling. The Institute was kidnapping Dr. Iessara for her medical expertise. Same with the brother and sister duo over there, Zenall and Asoln Furan. All lab techs at LlMRC."

"Sounds like you've still got lots to do then, huh?" Det added, stating the obvious.

"Such is the life of a Templar. Evil never sleeps because we give it nightmares. I'm sending a report to the local enforcement agency now. Requesting they send some officers to help transport all of this." He muttered as he activated his Codex. Could he get a signal down here? He glanced around at the two humans and hostages, "I was wondering-"

"You need some help with all this?" I finished, gesturing around the tunnel.

"Please and thank you."

We ended up making our way back to the lift after some wrangling. Klein found a luggage bag that he stuffed all of his evidence into and we scrounged around for some rope and straps to restrain the Institute goons and Smith. Narg, the big religious lizard, ended up dragging the three behind him, the three of them sedated with some concoction Klein poured out of a flask. He didn't even seem bothered by their extra weight; made it seem effortless. "I hardly notice them," he said, though I could tell he was slightly slower. He was getting up there in his old age.

"You alright miss?"

Oh, that was Det trying to put the charms on the asari. Probably hoping for a gratitude lay.

"Doctor." The asari replied coolly. "I'm fine."

I caught sight of Pia rolling her eyes; she smiled as she caught me looking at her. She always found great humor in seeing Det try and inevitably fail to get a date. What a savage woman. Not me. I had more sympathy and respect for the kid. Sympathy because I remember how hard it was at that age. Respect because he kept trying.

The lift suddenly stalled. The lights went out.

We all cursed and groaned, the asari and salarians gasped and whailed. Of course it was too easy. We'd only been here a day, did we actually think we were going to get rich off of a day's work? No. Lluvia was going to make us work for it. We all activated our helmet night vision mode, readied our weapons and took up positions on the lift.

We could hear the sounds of something screaming and shouting from somewhere way above us. The entrance.

I sighed, drawing my crew's attention to me. They probably wanted a rousing speech about impossible odds and heroism. Shame on them, they know I don't do that.

"All that's standing between us and a luscious busty bombshell widow with heaving piles of cash are mobs of terrifying nightmare monsters and fanatic whack jobs that want us dead."

I glanced to my left, Narg was the very representation of the religious warriors he hoped to revive and Det was Det. I glanced to my right, Klein standing impeccable with his six-shooter and Pia beautiful and amazing and dangerous.

I'm not even sure they were listening to me. That was fine. We were all thinking the same thing.

"Joke's on them because we're poor and horny."