James flew the shuttle south, back to Vancouver. A red circle pulsed around the city's old shipyards. The sight of batarians on Earth generally raised eyebrows, but at the shipyards, everyone stuck to their own business. James had picked up all kinds of packages from the shipyards in San Diego as a kid, none of which he'd been allowed to know anything about.

Shepard sat in the co-pilot's seat next to him. He glanced at her. Her posture was rigid with barely-controlled anger. In the main compartment behind them, the body of Hornby—no, Aaron—was wrapped up in a blanket. He wanted to ask what she was going to do with the body, but another look at Shepard's glowering face made him change his mind.

"We'll be there in less than half an hour," he said.

"And you'll be good to fight?"

"Might be a pretty short fight if I'm not."

"It'll be a short fight anyway."

James pressed his lips into a hard line. She'd probably go in without him if he wasn't ready. He flexed his fingers, trying to rid them of the searing sting of blood rushing through frozen flesh. Medigel's mild anaesthesia could only do so much to dull the pain.

Shepard pulled up her omnitool and scrolled through her information again. "There aren't many guards, but mercs and slaves are in the mix. Incapacitate everyone and we'll sort them out later."

James nodded. He had a stunner mod for his shotgun in his pack—yet another thing he picked up on Omega that wasn't Alliance standard issue. "What are we going to do with the mercs? We don't have cuffs."

"We're not arresting them."

James's head snapped around. The skin around Shepard's eyes was tight as she glared down at her omnitool, still scanning the data. James's general tactic was also to go in with guns blazing and clean up the mess later, but fighting angry was a bad idea. Anger forced good soldiers to make bad decisions.

"This isn't the Skyllian Verge ten years ago," he said as he frowned at her. "Executing people who've surrendered on Earth is kind of a big no-no."

She looked up and gave him that withering raise of her eyebrow that he'd always hated. "I'm already in custody for killing an entire colony. What's a few more?"

James huffed and ran a hand over his hair in frustration. "Blowing up the Alpha Relay is one thing, executing unarmed people in Citadel space is another. The Council will force the Alliance to lock you up and throw away the key."

"This is Alliance space, not Citadel space."

James snorted. "Even I know that's just a technicality."

Shepard shrugged and looked back down at her omnitool. Apparently, she was done with the conversation. James wanted to land the shuttle and refuse to take her further, but then she'd probably kick him out into the snow and fly off alone.

He looked away from her, annoyed. This was not the Shepard he knew. The Shepard he knew had nightmares about the people she'd killed. She wrote threats on her food but shared it freely once she saw the crap other people were forced to eat. She hugged the slave girl and tried to hide the tears that made her eyes shine in the Vancouver morning sunlight. She was a hardass and a smartass and a badass, but she'd never been heartless.

"I thought Commander Shepard might throw her life away for something better than revenge."

"I guess that's why people tell you to never meet your heroes," she said as she stood.

James wanted to retort, but Shepard had already turned and walked off into the main compartment.

That wasn't fair. This wasn't about Shepard being a hero. It was about not wasting her second chance at life, something which she'd been finally willing to embrace just a handful of hours ago. How the hell he was going to talk her out of killing any merc they incapacitated, let along the person who was behind everything?

Shepard didn't come back to the co-pilot's seat. James was still too angry to look over his shoulder to check on her. Part of him wanted to say to hell with her plans and take them straight back to base. The other part of him—the selfish part—didn't want to lose whatever trust she'd put in him since they met.

The shipyards were a sprawl of long warehouses near the water's edge. The squat buildings looked out of place with the surrounding skyscrapers, repurposed relics from a bygone time.

James scanned the warehouses for human and alien heat signatures before setting the shuttle down atop an apparently empty building on the opposite side of the shipyard from their target's location. He stretched and shook his limbs, testing them for any slowness or pain that might hinder him in battle. His fingers still burned, but they had their dexterity back. He'd be dead if he couldn't handle his weapon properly.

He powered down the shuttle and finally stood, checking over his shotgun as he walked into the main compartment. The door was already open and the smell of the sea assaulted his senses. Shepard was standing just outside the shuttle. Even when he was annoyed with her, he couldn't help taking a second to admire how she looked in the moonlight: fierce, dangerous, beautiful, and definitely not someone who he'd want to go up against in the middle of the night.

Jumping out of the shuttle, he tapped a few buttons on his omnitool to shut the door, before following Shepard down the stairs that snaked up the side of the building. They crept through the shipyard in a winding path to their destination. They avoided the warehouses where muted light spilled out the dirty windows and ran from shadow to shadow. Sometimes James led, but mostly he watched Shepard's six.

When they reached the warehouse with the batarian, Shepard held up her fist. James stopped and hunkered down in the shadows, scanning their surroundings. She tapped a few commands into her omnitool. He glanced at what she doing and realised she was tapping into their comm chatter. That kid had really gone all out with his intel. This might just be a cakewalk after all.

"There're only six inside: five guards and the leader." She tapped the side of her helmet and the HUD glowed blue across her eyes. "Too much steel and reinforced concrete. I can't really make out where in the building anyone is."

"Well, at least we're not completely blind. Five isn't bad. We could take them on even if we stormed the building." She looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "Which we're not going to do because we want to incapacitate, not kill. Don't give me that look. I didn't forget."

Her lips twitched upward and for a split second he saw the old Shepard. She looked away, focused once again, and motioned for him to follow her. Even though he could see a row of open windows above, they avoided the outside stairs this time. Their boots would clank and the metal with creak no matter how careful they were.

Instead, they went to a side door. James switched to the thermal sensors. Through the wooden door, he could see the outline of a single person, half cut-off by another wall inside the building. Shepard hacked into the electronic lock and, with a soft snick, it opened. She went in first. James walked in after her, backwards as he scanned for any danger behind them. A buzz and a soft thump made James turn. Shepard had stunned the first guard and was dragging them into a little room. He went to the door, looking through the thermal imaging for the next target.

"Slaver," said Shepard, and James turned.

She was crouched next to the merc, unclipping the merc's helmet. Now that he got a better look, he could see it was batarian. Shepard pulled a knife from her boot.

"What the hell?" he whispered furiously, rushing over as silently as he could.

She looked up at him, knife in hand. "They deserve it."

"You don't get to be judge, jury, and executioner."

"You going to stop me, Lieutenant?" Shepard glanced pointedly at his shotgun.

"I'm not going to pull my weapon on you." He frowned at her, hurt that she'd think he'd actually shoot her. "He'll be out cold for at least an hour. He's not a threat."

"Not a threat?" She looked at him wide-eyed, hermouth open in disbelief. "Tell that to anyone who was ever taken by slavers."

"That's not the point," he said, crouching next to her and wrapping his gloved hand around the blade. "I won't let you throw your life away for killing some lowlife nobody, Shepard."

They crouched there, staring at each other. He wondered what was going through her mind. He couldn't see her eyes clearly past her HUD, otherwise he'd at least know whether she was about to deck him or not. He tugged the blade and, to his surprise, she let it go.

"Don't talk me out of killing the leader."

He didn't respond. He'd do what he had to when everything came to a head.