Author's note: I threw together some quick sketches of Arian I've done over the past few weeks, the link is on my profile if you're interested.

"That was one hell of a display, Alenko. Humans never should have switched to the L3 implants if that's the kind of things you can do with the L2s." Wrex leaned forward in his seat, looking across the comm room where Kaidan was sitting.

Liara was sitting, somewhat tensely, between him and the turian, who had been properly introduced as Garrus. She'd also met the other member of the team: a young quarian named Tali, who was currently sitting on Garrus's other side. It was a very...interesting group.

Kaidan settled back, his fingers at his temples. "My headaches can get pretty bad, and I'm one of the lucky L2 implants. The L3s are safer."

Wrex snorted. "You don't stop using a gun because the kickback has a little sting."

"You do if you find a better gun that doesn't have a kickback," the female soldier, Ashley, retorted.

Tali was working earnestly on something with her omni tool. She'd introduced herself earlier, quite friendly, but beyond that she hadn't looked up from her data once. However, she nodded once as Ashley spoke. "I've never understood that kind of thinking. What good is using something that hurts you if you have a better alternative?"

"Because humanity will be judged by the sacrifices its people are willing to make," Garrus spoke up. It was the first time Liara had really heard him say anything since they'd come into the comm room. "The turians would have kept the L2 implants."

"Ah, well maybe switching to the L3s was the smarter idea after all." Wrex leaned back casually and Liara found herself, much to her discomfort, pinned between them as Garrus glared at the krogan.

She spoke up before she thought, uncomfortable with the sudden tension and sitting quiet while everyone else talked around her. "That really was an amazing throw, Lieutenant, you must have practiced a great deal to be so precise." She flinched a bit as all eyes in the room turned toward her.

"I wish." Kaidan chuckled. "I didn't even think about it. I saw he had a hold of Shepard and just reacted. Actually," his voice became quieter, "I've always held back a little when I used my powers on living targets. Fear of hurting someone I guess." He lifted his head and his gaze went hard. "But after what I saw on Eden Prime, I'm not holding back anymore. Not against the geth, not against anyone."

Silence followed that and now Liara was the only one in the room who wasn't uncomfortable. She felt too sorry for him to feel awkward. She'd only had a brief description of what had happened on Eden Prime but it must have been horrible for him arriving to find so much death and destruction. Apparently they'd lost a comrade as well. Poor man.

Perhaps luckily, the pilot's voice broke over the intercom as Shepard walked in. "Too close, Commander. Ten more seconds and we would have been swimming in molten sulfur."

Shepard rolled her eyes and moved to the front of the room.

"The Normandy isn't equipped to land in exploding volcanoes. They tend to fry our sensors and melt our hull. Just for future reference."

"Duly noted."

Liara found his attitude to be in extremely poor taste. "We almost died out there and your pilot is making jokes?"

"Bad jokes are his trademark," Shepard said dryly.

The comm buzzed suddenly. "Hey! My jokes are legendary, I'll have you know."

"Get off the line, boy wonder." The commander looked over at Liara. "It's just a coping mechanism, Doctor, you get used to it."

"I see." She didn't. "It must be a human thing. I don't have a lot of experience dealing with your species, Commander." Ashley raised her eyebrows and seemed on the verge of saying something. Liara, realizing how that must sound, hurried on. "But I am grateful to you, all of you. You saved my life back there. And not just from the volcano. Those geth would have killed me. Or dragged me off to Saren." Which was something she didn't want to think about.

"You know what the Conduit is, don't you? I saw you react when I mentioned it," Kaidan said.

Here was something she knew how to talk about. "It's somehow connected to the Prothean extinction. That is my real area of expertise. I have spent the past fifty years trying to figure out what happened to them."

Ashley was squinting at her. "Fifty years? How old are you, exactly?"

Liara looked down, embarrassed. "I hate to admit it, but I am only a hundred and six."

"Only." Ashley gave her an odd look and then smiled suddenly. "Damn! I hope I look that good when I'm your age."

"Well, it may seem like a long time to a short-lived species like yours. But among the asari, I am barely considered more than a child." She leaned back in her seat. "That is why my research has not received the attention it deserves. Because of my youth, other asari scholars tend to dismiss my theories on what happened to the Protheans."

"Well I, for one, would be delighted to hear them." The intensity of Shepard's gaze was unnerving.

Liara shifted in her seat. "Well, there are lots of them, the problem is finding enough evidence to support them. The Protheans left remarkably little behind. It is almost as if someone did not want the mystery solved. It's like someone came along after the Protheans were gone and cleansed the galaxy of clues. But here is the incredible part." She leaned forward. "According to my findings, the Protheans were not the first galactic civilization to mysteriously vanish. The cycle began long before them."

Shepard jerked a bit, bringing a hand up to her head. "The cycle." Her voice was odd, as if she was trying to remember something.

She hadn't exactly asked a question but Liara answered her anyway. "I have tracked down every scrap and shred of evidence. Eventually, subtle patterns start to emerge. Patterns that hint at the truth. The galaxy is built on a cycle of extinction. Each time a great civilization rises up, it is suddenly and violently cast down. Only ruins survive."

Shepard cocked her head. "Entropy? All civilizations fall eventually."

Liara shook her head, recognizing her tone as a request for clarity, not an argument. It was refreshing. She barely noticed the fact they all had their eyes on her now. It was so rare for her to be able to talk about this to people who were actually listening to her instead of just hearing her out with indulgence and condescension. "That's true, but this is different, Commander. It is not a slow disintegration of a society or a violent upheaval from within. This is something causing sudden, massive destruction on a galaxy wide level. The Protheans rose from a single world until their empire spanned the entire galaxy. Yet even they climbed on the top of the remains of those who came before. Their greatest achievements- the mass relays and the Citadel -are based on the technology of those who came before them. And, like those forgotten civilizations before them, they disappeared. And I don't have any solid reasons why."

"The Reapers."

Everyone in the room stirred at those two words, spoken so quietly Shepard almost seemed to be talking to herself. Liara looked from one face to another. "Reapers?"

"They're a race of sentient machines." Tali looked at her. "The geth worship them."

"You think they- but I've never heard of-How do you know this? What evidence do you have?" Liara looked around again. Everyone except Wrex, who never looked nervous as far as she could tell, shifted uncomfortably and looked at the commander. Kaidan in particular looked troubled.

"There was a damaged Prothean beacon on Eden Prime. It burned a vision into my brain. I'm still trying to sort out what it means." Shepard was still speaking absently and she was staring at some point in the middle of the floor, but Liara had the impression she wasn't really seeing it, her gaze somewhere faraway at something only she could see.

Her words sank in and Liara felt a thrill unlike anything she'd felt before. She looked at Shepard with new eyes. This woman had been touched by actual working Prothean technology. "Visions? Yes...that makes sense. The beacons were designed to transmit information directly into the mind of the user. Finding one that still works is extremely rare." She couldn't keep the excitement of discovery out of her voice. "No wonder the geth attacked Eden Prime. The chance to acquire a working beacon- even a badly damaged one -is worth almost any risk."

"I'm sure the people who died there and the people that lost someone will be happy to know they didn't die for something worthless," Ashley said, her voice cutting.

"Ashley." Shepard's eyes were focused on them once again and there was a note of quiet warning in her voice. Kaidan leaned over and said something quietly to the soldier.

The coldness in Ashley's voice had sliced through her excitement and Liara stuttered for a moment, fidgeting. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean..."

Shepard raised her hand slightly. "Eden Prime is still a very raw wound. You can help us, and the people who died there, by telling us what you know about the beacons. Because Saren came there specifically for it, so it's likely he used it too."

Liara pulled herself back on track, glancing at Ashley uncertainly. The human woman had subsided and stayed quiet but there was a tightness around her eyes and mouth that gave her anger away. And a pain in her eyes that the anger shielded. Liara cleared her throat. "The beacons were only programmed to interact with Prothean physiology. Whatever information either of you received would be confused, unclear."

"Yes. It's a bunch of random images I can barely make out."

Liara stared at her, doing some quick calculations in her head. "I am amazed you were able to make sense of it at all. A lesser mind would have been utterly destroyed by the process. You must be remarkably strong-willed, Commander."

"This isn't really helping us find the Conduit," Kaidan spoke up. He paused for a moment. "That's also an understatement."

There were chuckles all around and Shepard snorted.

"Um, right. Sorry. My scientific curiosity got the better of me. Unfortunately, I do not have any information that could help lead you to the Conduit. Or Saren." Inspiration struck. "Unless..." She paused, caught between curiosity to see what exactly the beacon had left and concern. Everyone was looking at her expectantly. "The message from the beacon is in your mind...you just can't get to it, can't translate it. I know a great deal about Protheans, maybe I can help clarify it." She stood slowly. "You...ah, you do know my species has the ability to...join with the minds of others?"

Shepard narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "You think you could help make the images clearer?"

"It's possible, yes. At the very least I can see what you see and help you try and make sense of it."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You're going to go digging around in her brain?" There was genuine alarm in Ashley's voice. "Commander, maybe that isn't such a good idea."

Liara was a little offended. "It's nothing so crude."

"We have no way of knowing she'll even find the vision."

Wrex snorted suddenly. "What, Williams, you afraid she's going to go digging around for Alliance secrets?"

The way Ashley's mouth tightened into a line told Liara that was indeed something she was worried about, which was more than just offensive, that was out and out insulting.

Wrex wasn't done, his eyes gleaming as he stared at Ashley. "Bad enough Shepard lets aliens wander around the ship freely, eh?" Ashley stiffened, surprise passing across her face. Wrex nodded once, his tone mocking. "You really ought to learn to keep your voice down when discussing Alliance matters with aliens nearby. You're more a threat to security than we are."

Ashley glared at him. Liara looked between them nervously without a clue what was going on.

"Enough."

That one word had everyone in the room tensing and turning their attention toward Shepard. She'd taken a few steps forward and stood straight with her arms crossed across her chest. Her face was utterly calm but her eyes were icy. "This isn't helping us find the Conduit either." She turned her attention back to Liara. "It's worth a shot."

Liara was starting to feel sorry she'd even brought it up, but again her curiosity got the better of her, her eagerness to see what Shepard had seen. She walked up to the commander slowly, a bit intimidated. She paused and looked over at Ashley. "As I said, Shepard has a strong will, I can't see anything she doesn't want me to see. And I won't hurt her."

She meant it to be reassuring but Ashley just looked away.

Liara took a deep breath to calm herself and stood in front of the commander. Shepard had several inches on her, she had to tilt her head back slightly to look her in the eye. She met those gray eyes for a long moment. Strictly speaking, she'd never done this before, but it wasn't that far from her training with her biotics. And it came naturally to her. "Relax, Commander." She closed her eyes, letting her mind open. After a moment, she was able to hone in on Shepard's as well.

"Embrace eternity..."

and she had a brief and blurred glimpse of violence that her mind shrank from and an instant later she saw the vision a bright spot in the twisting corridors of Shepard's mind

it hit her with a mass of blurred images overlaid by thoughts she could barely make out

deathsomuchdeath

and there were images that frightened her to the core strange machinery

nowaytofighthidewarnthe

for a fleeting moment she thought she saw the Citadel and as she prepared to press deeper she became aware on the highest level of instinct that trying to translate and see clearly with her limited knowledge of the Protheans' language was no problem for her but it was too much too much for the mind twined with hers and she

pulled back to a cry of alarm from behind her and her mind and vision cleared in time to see Shepard stumbling back, her legs giving out. Alarmed, Liara took a step toward her and found a furious Ashley suddenly blocking her way, a small pistol in her hand. "What the hell did you do?"

Liara tried to speak but there was a buzz of conflicting voices all around he and the strain of trying to make the vision out left her thoughts slow and awkward. She was vaguely aware of the large, threatening presence of Wrex just behind her and Kaidan trying to talk Ashley down. Sheer survival instinct had her freezing, afraid to move. She turned her head and saw Tali kneeling beside Shepard, who was still on her knees on the floor. She heard Garrus say something sharply but she wasn't sure who he was talking to. She opened her mouth to apologize, to try and explain but again nothing would come out and she wasn't sure who she should try and explain to first, she didn't think Ashley would listen to her.

Someone grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the line of fire.

"Ash, stand down. Now."

Shepard's voice sliced through the noise in the room and left silence in its wake. Ashley's hand dropped and Liara had the distinct impression she didn't even think about it. For a moment she was forcibly reminded of her mother; Benezia had that exact same tone of command that you obeyed automatically.

Shepard swayed for a moment and then straightened herself, those gray eyes burning as they swept the room. She kept Liara slightly behind her to ensure no one would come after her.

"Commander?" Kaidan took a step forward, obviously worried.

Shepard nodded to him and then Tali, who was still behind her. "I'm fine."

Liara wasn't so sure of that. "I'm sorry…"

Shepard held up a hand to silence her and motioned to all of them. "Sit down."

She stood until everyone had taken their seats again and cocked her head toward Liara. "I think it actually started to work at first."

"I'm so sorry, Commander, I didn't take into account the fact there was no real way to translate what the vision was trying to say."

"Are you all right?"

She was pale and strained and far from all right herself, Liara couldn't believe she was worried about her. She touched her temple. "Just a little worn."

"I think without a bit more information on the Protheans trying that again will leave both of us with our brains leaking out of our ears."

"I'm sorry…"

"Don't, Doctor, it was a good idea. You had no way of knowing how much of a strain it would be." Commander Shepard looked around to make sure everyone got the message and ran her fingers through her hair slowly and let her hands drop. "All right, look…once Saren learns we got Dr. T'Soni away from his troops he's going to know beyond a shadow of a doubt who is after him. So will the Matriarch, and all those geth at Saren's command, and the Reapers or whoever he's working for. That means things are only going to get harder from here on out." Her eyes lingered on each of them for a long moment. "You can't fight an enemy like that if you're looking over your shoulder at that the people who are supposed to be on your side. And no, Ash, I'm not targeting you, I mean everyone. Everyone in this room was thrown together by sheer, bloody circumstance and I'm asking a lot from you. I don't expect you all to become best friends like in some dumb ass adventure vid. I do expect you to trust me. I wouldn't have brought any of you onto this ship if I didn't think you were trustworthy. If that isn't enough…" She shrugged, "I'll drop you off wherever you want to go and I won't blame you a second for it."

Wrex snorted. "You aren't getting rid of me that easily, Shepard."

That got a tired smile.

"If I may, Commander," Ashley hesitated, and then looked at Liara. "You might be safer with us now that Saren is after you. There's nowhere safer. Anyway, you know more about these Prothean things than any of us do."

Liara knew a peace offering when she heard one. "You're right."

"Those biotics of yours will come in handy when the fighting starts too." Wrex nodded at her.

"I can't think of anywhere more safe for the moment and I'd be happy to help. Commander?"

"You'd be welcome, Doctor."

"I'm very grate…" A wave of dizziness swept through her and she swayed on her feet. Shepard grabbed her arm, alarmed. "Sorry….sorry….I feel a bit light headed."

"Kaidan, take her to Dr. Chakwas, will you?"

"Yes, she'll want to take a look at you, Dr. T'Soni. When's the last time you ate? Or slept?" Kaidan took a hold of her elbow gently.

"It's just mental exhaustion, I think, but I'm sure a look over from a medical professional won't hurt."

"She'll take care of you. The rest of you…dismissed."

"Commander, you ought to let her look you over too." Garrus rose from his seat, sounding concerned.

Shepard waved a hand. "After I give my report to the Council." She wasn't looking at Kaidan and Ashley so she didn't see the two trade exasperated looks.

"What do you think the odds are she actually goes to Doc Chakwas?" Ashley asked, falling into step beside them as Kaidan led the way to the med bay.

"Very good, since I'm not above telling Dr. Chakwas she needs to take a look at her," Kaidan said grimly.

"That's low. I like it."

Liara glanced back through the door of the comm room. Shepard had turned toward the holograph projectors and even as Liara watched, she straightened herself up, shaking off whatever fatigue was dogging her.

Garrus had also paused a few feet outside the door and was peering in. He caught Liara's glance as he turned and then looked away quickly, moving off in another direction.

Ambassador Udina wasn't sure if it was luck or if the Council had deliberately timed it so he was in the room when Shepard made her first report. Probably the latter, since they didn't ask him to leave.

Shepard patched through and her image shimmered into view on the projector in front of the Council. Udina moved so he could see the commander's face. Shepard would be seeing the three Council members on the Normandy but she had no way of knowing Udina was there. Which suited him fine.

The asari councilor spoke first. "We've received your report, Commander. I understand Dr. T'Soni is on the Normandy?"

"Yes, madame. She's decided to stay for now."

At least she was still being polite, Udina grudgingly acknowledged. He wondered if it would last long. After all, she didn't have to deal with the fallout. She could just blithely walk away and leave that to him the way everyone did. She didn't have to deal with the waves of outrage from every branch of the Systems Alliance over humanity's new Spectre. Neither did Anderson, or Admiral Hackett, or Admiral Kahoku, or anyone else who had supported her as a Spectre candidate without regard to how it would reflect on humanity. True, it had been Nihlus who'd chosen her, but in Udina's opinion she never should have been put forward as a possibility. She shouldn't even have been brought onto the Normandy! As far as Udina was concerned, Shepard had been perfect where she was; out on the Traverse keeping the colonies safe. Fighting the good fight for the good of the Alliance. Out of sight. Leaving such important positions in the limelight to one of the hundreds of possibilities who had just as distinguished a service record without the criminal background.

Damn her to hell for making sure that little tidbit was a part of her public record anyone could see. Any time someone tried to hide it, she simply put it back in either through official channels or unsavory ones. When he'd confronted her about it directly she'd insisted that eventually it would come out anyway, it was better to be honest about it. How a woman of her experience could be so naive and unobservant of the world around her was a mystery to him.

The turian councilor, the one Udina was most worried about as usual, fixed his sharp eyes on Shepard as he spoke. "I assume you're taking the necessary security precautions?"

Shepard turned her head to regard him and blinked. "If you mean for her safety, most assuredly. If you mean am I having her watched or locked up, no need. The geth were under orders to drag her back or kill her and weren't picky about which it was."

"Benezia would never allow Saren to kill her daughter," the asari protested. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself of it.

"Maybe she doesn't know," the salarian councilor said thoughtfully.

"Or maybe we don't know her." The turian made a slight attempt to soften that possibility for his asari compatriot in a way he would for no one else. Udina automatically filed that weakness away in case it would become useful later. "We never expected she could become a traitor."

Shepard said nothing.

The salarian bobbed his head a bit. "At least the mission was a success."

But… Udina thought, his eyes moving to the turian councilor.

"Apart from the utter destruction of a major Prothean ruin," the turian said.

Like clockwork.

The turian glared at the commander. "Was that really necessary, Shepard?"

"Unfortunately yes, sir." There was an expectant pause as they waited for more, but apparently that was all Shepard had to say on the subject.

The salarian slipped a hand out of the sleeves of his robe. "Of course, the mission must always come first."

The turian looked over at him, just the slightest move of his head but Udina could have sworn it was surprise. Apparently forgotten, he watched the whole thing avidly. Bringing Shepard into the Spectres was the first time they hadn't been completely in accord in a long while and he relished the opportunity to watch them interact with her. It gave him a great deal of insight that could be useful.

Then the asari glanced at him for a moment, just long enough for him to wonder if she knew exactly what he was thinking. Then, to add to his shock, Shepard turned her head and looked right at him. Oh, she couldn't see him, but it was clear she'd taken note of the asari's gaze and was aware there was someone else in the room. He didn't think she was capable of picking up on something he'd barely picked up on himself.

The asari nodded ever so slightly and smiled. "Good luck, Commander. Remember, we're all counting on you."

Shepard nodded and her image vanished.

Years of practice and training allowed Udina to hide his momentary confusion. There were too many undercurrents here, too many things unsaid beneath the words being traded.

The asari turned her gaze toward Udina and he didn't like how knowing those eyes were. Not at all. It was a sharp reminder that this woman had been playing this game not just for years, but for centuries. And she would be playing it for centuries after he was long gone. She smiled at him. "Sorry for the interruption, Ambassador, was there anything else you wanted to discuss?"

"No...nothing that can't wait." Until he had his mental balance back.

The asari nodded to dismiss him and gave him that cryptic little smile again as the Council rose and filed out. Udina headed back to his office, taking his time, trying to sort out what had happened. By the time he'd settled behind his desk, he'd come to a decision about what he needed to do to try and keep Shepard in line. However, he also had two very important questions and no answers to them.

The first had him looking back at all the times he'd thought Shepard had done something stupid because she was naive and a fool and wondering how many of those times had been an act on her part. If Shepard showed a different face to everyone she met, how in the hell did he know who he was dealing with?

Second, and more importantly, who had been observing who in that meeting?

It was late by the time Howard got up to the captain's office. The ship was quiet enough he could hear her pacing and muttering to herself through the open door even before he got there. He peered in and watched her for a moment. Her pacing circles around the office was not without purpose. She moved from the console at her desk to a datapad she had set down on a chair to looking down at her omni-tool, working on several minor things at once.

At first Howard thought she hadn't even noticed he was there but even as he raised a hand to knock, she turned to face him and motioned for him to close the door. He raised his eyebrows and turned to do it, thinking: Oh, boy...

He'd known Shepard almost since she'd graduated from the academy. When Anderson had offered him the position working under Engineer Adams, he'd accepted immediately half because it was an opportunity like no other and half because it would allow him to keep working with her. He knew her as well as she'd allow anyone to know her- more than she thought, even -and therefore was quite apt at figuring out her moods. She was pissed off, but not the scary kind of pissed off. Nothing to get worried about but it did pique his curiosity. "How'd your first meeting with the Almighty go?"

She went behind the desk and sat down, her gray eyes fixing on his. "How many of your old contacts are you still in business with?"

Now the closed door made sense. Alliance members who didn't spend a lot of time swaying in and out of the Terminus Systems might not like to hear exactly how many kinds of contacts the colonists along the Traverse might make in order to get the supplies they needed. And when and Alliance member made friends with the colonists, well...they could find those contacts useful too. Howard had many and since he knew the Alliance had inner workings and backroom deals ten times as shady, he'd never felt particularly guilty about it. "Which ones?"

"Supplies. More specifically weapons and armor and such."

More and more interesting. "Might I ask what this is about?"

Shepard silently pointed to the datapad on the chair next to his. He picked it up. It was a message from Ambassador Udina. He looked at Shepard, startled, and she simply motioned for him to continue. Howard scanned it silently. Predictable platitudes and politician jargon and pro-Alliance/humanity stuff that he imagined had as much effect on Shepard as it did on him. Udina was laying it on thick, even forwarding a couple angry messages he'd gotten from Alliance brass so Shepard would understand what he was going through. He got the idea where it was all leading which was confirmed with a few choice phrases toward the end of the letter: "...remember your crew are still Alliance members...sure you don't want to cause the Alliance alarm...even with Spectre status keeping a squad with proper armor and supplies is costly...Alliance is always happy to help its own..."

Howard set the datapad aside. "Didn't think he'd play this hand so early in the game," he said mildly.

"I'm fairly certain he was there at the Council meeting, which meant there was something about that meeting the Council wanted him to see. Maybe it made him nervous, I don't know, there was too much going on below the surface of things for me to really get a handle on it."

"What do you want me to do, Ari?" Howard felt very calm now, already making a list of messages in his head.

"How busy are you?"

"Not at all. With the turian...that boy's a hellraiser in the making, Ari, he really is...helping out with the Mako and that little sweetheart of a quarian revitalizing the ship single handedly, I have the time to take on a side project or two." Or three, or four, or however many she needed him to.

"I need you to up planet scanning as much as possible." Scanning and mining planets was a good way to make credits on the side, and an art many an engineer was apt in. "Find buyers for the scrap and such we've picked up so far...and will along the way. Every credit of official funds goes toward the ship and the crew through the Normandy's account. But the stuff we make personally...I want you to run most of it through the Daniels account with Sol."

Not pulling any punches, are you? Vin Sol was a volus he'd introduced her to several years ago and one he used for his own accounts. He operated along the Traverse, one foot in Citadel space and one foot in the Terminus and had a reputation for dealing straight and fair, which in turn made him very valuable to some very, very powerful people. Which made it a very bad idea to get on his bad side.

Technically, dealing with him wasn't a violation of anything since it was personal, but it was still something you didn't go about trumpeting. Likewise having an alternate persona wasn't...technically...illegal, but he and Sol were still the only people who currently knew Mrs. Nicole Daniels, trader, also went by the name of Arian Shepard.

Howard nodded slowly. Officially, nothing had changed, but unofficially he'd just become the Normandy's requisitions officer.

Shepard met his gaze again. "This isn't an order, Howard. It's a request."

Giving him a chance to back out, of course. Like he ever would. They'd played this game before, he and Shepard, to help people who needed it. Looks like it was you who helped her step up into the Spectre role, Udina. Shouldn't have put the welfare of her squad at stake. It'll be interesting to see if you're as good a player as we are. "I've seen some very interesting weapons and armor available on the market when the need comes up."

Shepard smiled.