The Einstein arrived at Mindoir within two hours accompanied by two frigates and a cruiser. More ships were en route, but Maddock and the other captains didn't want to wait for their arrival. Six batarian ships orbited the planet, the largest number Hannah had ever seen for a slave raid. Usually slavers showed up with one or two ships, descended as fast as possible, grabbed what people they encountered and zoomed off before a rescue could be attempted planet side. This raid bore the marks of extensive planning.

The frigates and cruiser engaged the batarian starships immediately as the Einstein scrambled its fighters, who took to space, joining in the fight. One of the batarian ships fled immediately, leaving the Alliance Navy to battle it out with the five remaining. Distress calls kept streaming in on an Alliance frequency, the colonists below pleading for help. The worst calls were the ones cut off by screaming.

Maddock paced back and forth in the CIC, issuing orders and grumbling. Everyone in the center knew that Mindoir was a simple farming colony without large cities and protected by minimal security. To the slavers, Mindoir must have been an easy target. Hannah listened to Maddock muttering under his breath, blaming the Alliance Parliament for letting the colonists settle in the first place. They should have been denied access until more security had been arranged. In his opinion, the Parliament gave in too often to starry eyed colonists without a sense of the dangers from the Terminus Systems in their haste to settle outlying planets before the batarians.

Maddock eventually gathered his officers, including Hannah, strategizing how to mount a rescue utilizing the marines and N7 forces onboard his ship. He didn't want to wait any longer to rescue what colonists they could. They decided to send two squads of marines down first, dropping them as near to the main city as possible. They would report on the status of the city, then Maddock and his officers would decide where to deploy N7.

All went smoothly in the beginning. The shuttles evaded the space battle still ensuing. Major Templeton kept in constant contact with the Einstein, communicating the squads' every step towards the city. They made it within a hundred yards when the comm chattered to life again, Templeton checking in.

"We're a hundred yards out. City's almost silent. We found a lot of dead colonists on the outskirts. A couple live ones. The batarians are dragging the survivors to a landing spot on the east side, rounding them up and putting them in cargo pods."

Maddock listened intently. Hannah could see the wheels turning in his mind as he studied the map of Mindoir that shimmered in the center of the CIC. "I want the N7 units deployed here," he said, pointing at the map, "just beyond this range of hills so their entry is disguised. We'll sandwich the batarians on each side."

Hannah put her hand to her ear, issuing orders to the N7 units while another officer contacted the marines on the ground. Twenty more minutes passed. N7 reported in, stating it had hit the ground. They were making their way around the foothills, keeping a low profile. They would be in sight of the east side of the city in five minutes. The CIC had gone silent as everyone held his breath, waiting to hear that N7 was on the offensive.

Two minutes passed, then three. Suddenly, the center sounded with a plea from Major Templeton. "We're pinned down! We can see two ships loading colonists. The batarians must have snuck some of their number in behind us. We're being attacked in front and behind!"

Maddock thrust his right fist into his palm, eyeing the map angrily. "We're not letting these scum off planet! Inform N7 they'll get no help from the marines. Have them split up and come at the shuttles from the north and south."

Hannah heard the officer next to her speaking to N7 and receiving confirmation of the orders. Her heart pumped as she stared at the map. Their people were down there, trapped. Maddock turned to her and put an uncharacteristic hand on her arm.

"I want you down there, Commander."

"Sir?" Hannah asked.

"We've got to rescue our boys. You're still the best shot I've ever seen, my best leader when it comes to strategy. I want you to take the remaining marines onboard down there and get our men out."

"Yes, sir!"

"Go."

Hannah marched towards the elevator, thinking of what she needed to do: suit up in her armor, grab an assault rifle and shotgun, and meet the last two squads of marines in the bay. She had long ago made the transition from marine to exclusively navy. She hoped she remembered enough of her marine training to get their people off Mindoir.

Eight shuttles bounced their way through the Mindoirian atmosphere. Hannah assessed the marines in her shuttle. They hadn't been happy that she had usurped leadership of their units. Their leader was Lieutenant Griffin, a spirited young man. Hannah estimated he was at least six years younger than she. He was full of spit and fire and obviously didn't appreciate her presence. Still, he was a soldier and as such, he kept his mouth shut, obeying Maddock's command to follow her orders. He stood next to her, both of them hanging onto handholds bolted into the side wall of the shuttle.

Hannah heard the helmsman speak into her ear. "We're one minute from touch down, Commander. We've been able to get you to the middle of the city. Activity to the east."

"Acknowledged," Hannah answered back. Soon she felt the rise and fall of the shuttle as it landed. The door slid open and Hannah jumped out followed by Griffin and the marines carried in on her shuttle. The other seven shuttles landed almost at the same time, their contents spilling out. She had about eighty marines at her disposal.

The comm in her ear came to life again as Maddock contacted them. "Commander, Lieutenant, good news. We have two more frigates and a cruiser inbound. Expect the batarians on the ground to start scrambling to get above. They'll be desperate."

"Aye, sir," Hannah responded, hearing Griffin next to her also utter an affirmative. She glanced around their landing site. They were in the town square. She recognized the buildings from the map she'd memorized of the area.

"Let's go," Griffin urged her, turning to walk to the east.

"Wait."

"For what?" he asked.

"Taking a direct route over land is exactly what they'll be looking for if they suspect reinforcements."

"What do you suggest?" Griffin asked, a slight challenge in his voice.

"There's a tunnel under the city, used to transport supplies out to the farms, like a tram. It can ferry us right to the batarians. Then we can take them by surprise."

Griffin cocked his head, seemingly shocked he found Hannah's idea a good one. "Alright. Let's find it."

The marines scoured the area until they located the entrance to the tunnel. They descended into the tunnel which was lit by artificial light that had dimmed in the attack. When they reached the bottom, they found several cars on rails. They weren't made to carry people, but each did have buttons to operate a start and stop. Most likely only one person was needed to move the car along until it reached the farms. The marines piled onboard several cars, Griffin assigning soldiers to pilot each one.

The ride through the tunnel was a bumpy one. The colonists hadn't seemed to put much thought into comfort, which didn't surprise Hannah. They were adventurers willing to take on the wilds of far flung planets—they had to be hearty folk. Hannah rode in the car at the front, recalling in her mind the length of the tunnel and where they would need to stop. When they reached the last reported location of the marines, Hannah called out to halt. A signal was sent back and the cars slowed. Hannah put her hand to her ear, hoping being underground wouldn't inhibit communication.

"Major, come in! Can you hear me?"

A voice stunted with static replied. "…Hite here…Templeton dead…pinned…batarians right in front…men down…"

"What is your current location?"

"Near…bays…"

"Repeat."

"…hangar bays…shelter inside…"

"We're coming." Hannah looked to Griffin. "At this point, we're maybe two hundred yards from the hangar bays."

Griffin nodded, gesturing to the squads. Hannah and Griffin took the lead. As they exited the tunnel, they heard the unmistakable sound of gun fire to their right. The squads moved forward through the buildings. Hannah and Griffin both crouched down and peered around a corner when the sound of gunfire made it apparent they were close. A group of batarians was firing towards the city hangar bays, ducking every so often, making it clear the marine squads sheltering in the hangar bays were firing back as able.

Hannah turned to Griffin. "Send a man up on the roof," she commanded, pointing above the building they crouched next to. Griffin called a man over and spoke with him shortly. The soldier immediately disappeared into the building. After a minute or so, Hannah's comm cracked to life.

"Commander, Lieutenant. There are two groups of batarians, about the same size, the one down the street and another fifty yards to their north."

Hannah nodded and eyed Griffin. "We'll need to divide the men, attack each group simultaneously, give Major Hite the chance to move in and join the fight."

"Agreed," Griffin returned. He began issuing orders to his soldiers. Griffin took half the group and moved out. Hannah stayed with the other half, waiting for Griffin's signal. After five minutes or so, she heard Griffin's voice in her ear. "Commander, we're in position."

"Attack on my signal." Hannah held her hand up, eyeing each soldier, the adrenaline of the coming battle pumping through her blood. "Now!" she commanded through the comm, lowering her hand at the same time.

Hannah found herself part of a mighty rush forward punctuated with the sound of rifles firing and soldiers yelling. She'd positioned men on top of the buildings to snipe the batarians the moment the squads moved in. The batarians in front of them turned, their four eyed faces wide in unbelief. Batarians fell right and left, the snipers doing their jobs. Hannah's assault rifle pinged out rhythmically, batarians falling before it. In mere moments she found herself right on top of the batarians. Some were already fleeing toward the hangar bays, trying desperately to get away. Most of Major Hite's squads had evidently exhausted their supply of bullets; as the heat was removed from them, soldiers came streaming out of the bays, fighting hand to hand with the fleeing batarians.

Hannah was soon surrounded by dead batarians. The enemy had been repulsed within minutes. Some kept fighting, but several were surrendering. She heard a sudden, angry cry and turned to see a batarian speeding towards her. His gun was apparently out of ammunition as he slung it like a club at her head. Hannah pulled out her shotgun and fired. The batarian rolled out of the way, sliding into her legs, knocking her to the ground. He was on top of her in seconds, screaming and cursing in his own tongue. Hannah then perceived he held a long knife in his hand and was raising it to plunge into her throat.

Hannah saw a brief vision of Jane in her mind. There was no way she was going to leave Jane an orphan. She flicked on her omni-tool, grateful for the newest upgrade that added a bayonet. She thrust her arm upwards, watching her blade slice through the batarian's stomach and sensing it exit his back. She pushed back on him with her knees and he slipped off the blade, collapsing to the ground, the knife falling out of his hand. She stood up, breathing quickly.

"Commander!" she heard a voice call out. Major Hite was running towards her. "I saw him rush you. He came out of nowhere, hiding in that gully." Hite pointed behind her.

"I'm alright, major," Hannah assured. "How are your men?"

"We're not good. I've got dead and injured both. We need to get the wounded back to the Einstein ASAP."

Hannah put her hand to her ear, speaking into her comm. "Jeffries, you got a location on us?"

"Affirmative, Commander," the helmsman replied.

"We need the shuttles here ASAP."

"Roger that."

"Shepard out." Hannah creased her eyebrows, concern still clouding her features. "What about the colonists?" she asked Hite.

"N7 attacked almost the same time you did. One ship got off, but the other was halted."

Griffin had appeared, his face sweaty and streaked with dirt. "I've contacted the Captain. He's aware of the ship. If I know the Captain, he won't let it get out of the system."

Hannah nodded. "Good work, Lieutenant."

Griffin returned the nod, respect reflected in his eyes. "You, too, ma'am."

"I think I'll willingly go back to staying onboard ship during actions like these," Hannah commented.

Griffin grinned. "Not your cup of tea?"

"I've just got a daughter to worry about."

Griffin nodded. "Understood, ma'am."

Hannah heard the sound of engines roaring overhead and the shuttles from the Einstein began to land outside the hangar bays. As they loaded the wounded into the shuttles, Maddock's voice sounded in Hannah's ear. "Commander, reinforcements have arrived. The planet's secured."

"Aye, Captain."

"Maddock out."

Hannah sensed someone standing close to her. Turning, she saw Ernesto standing behind her. His head bore a blood streak and his eyes were glazed over.

"Ernesto?" she asked. "You alright?" She placed a hand on his arm.

"The colonists…You should have seen them…They…" he stopped speaking and put his head in his hands.

"It's alright, Lieutenant."

"Yeah." Ernesto stumbled onboard one of the shuttles. Hannah regarded him with concern. She'd seen battle shock before. She hoped Ernesto's would fade quickly.

Once she was back on board the Einstein, Hannah was handed the unenviable task of accounting for all the colonists. She communicated with officers down below as they identified bodies and checked in with the Alliance ships that harbored survivors. When all was said and done, about fifty-six colonists remained missing. It was possible they had fled into the wilderness on Mindoir and would emerge once they realized the threat was gone. But Hannah knew otherwise. With such a large number of colonists missing, she knew they had to entertain the idea that the batarian ship that had fled upon their arrival carried off the missing colonists. The worst of it was that at this point, there wasn't anything they could do. The ship was long gone. The only outlet was the human ambassador on the Citadel, who had already filed a complaint with the council. The council, however, had stayed as distant as possible from the human-batarian conflict and Hannah didn't think much help would come from it.

The batarian ships that had orbited Mindoir fled once they realized they were outmatched. The batarian ship that had made a last ditch effort to get off planet had been stopped in its tracks by the Alliance ships above, forced to land again and met by waiting Alliance soldiers. They'd taken the batarians into custody. Luckily, Hannah didn't have to deal with the political fall out from that action. The cruisers took charge of the prisoners until it was decided what to do with them.

The refugees were to be ferried over to a neighboring planet for medical treatment and assessment. Hannah spent a little time with the colonists on board the Einstein as she tracked down survivors. She was horrified at the accounts they gave and the way they had been treated. Many had been killed outright when they resisted the batarians. Those that survived were beaten into submission and caged for transport as if they were nothing but animals. Some resisted even then, and if they did so, a batarian "doctor" sliced into their brain stems, implanting cranial control devices, carrying out the procedure without anesthetic. This vicious "surgery" caused many more colonists to die from shock.

Hannah was most disturbed by a woman she spoke with whose eyes appeared vacant of any emotion at all. Her niece was one of the missing colonists, a little girl of only six. The last time she had seen her niece, the little girl was in a cage, being carried across the town square, screaming for help and crying. The woman's story produced fiery anger in Hannah, who'd had to excuse herself. She'd gone to her quarters and sat quietly, keeping tears at bay.

Hannah lay back on her bed. Mindoir had been her first actual combat against a sentient species. Most of her marine duty had been spent protecting explorers from the wilds of untamed planets. She recalled Daniel's return from Shanxi and his guilt when he realized turians were aliens with families and lives outside of their military. Hannah felt no guilt whatsoever over the batarians she'd shot nor the one she'd stabbed through with her omni-tool. To her, they weren't batarians with families back on Khar'shan. They were the dregs of the galaxy, aliens without conscience. They had deserved to die.

Once the refugees had been dropped off, the Einstein resumed its regular patrol, but the events on Mindoir had shaken the entire crew. A memorial had been held for the deceased marines and their bodies were loaded onto one of the frigates for transport back to Arcturus Station. For weeks after it felt like a heaviness pervaded the ship, people trying to pretend all was right in the world when it wasn't. Slowly, time managed to heal the emotional scars and little by little, Hannah found the crew recovering—all that was except Ernesto.

Several weeks after Mindoir, Hannah found herself once again on duty in the CIC, tracing out sightings of a batarian ship, the Einstein shadowing it from a safe distance. She glanced over at the door that was supposed to be guarded by Ernesto. He hadn't shown up on time for work for the fifth time that week. Hannah and those on duty with her covered for him as best they could. Everyone knew he was suffering from what he had seen on Mindoir. They pitied him and didn't want to cause trouble for him.

However, Hannah thought, staring at the post that should have been filled, Maddock won't be patient forever. I'm sure he already sees through our posturing for Ernesto. Ernesto's career was at stake. She turned to a fellow officer, Dobbins, and asked him to take over for her while she tracked down Ernesto.

Hannah normally didn't go out of her way to speak informally with the crew. It wasn't that she didn't want to be friendly, she just wanted to maintain respect for the chain of command. But Ernesto was different. She'd gotten to know him. He was a good man and he deserved a chance not to lose his job.

Hannah found him in the bowels of the ship, hidden away in a quiet section of engineering. Hannah recalled for herself her own cubby that had been her haven on the Avian, so many years ago. But she had never done what Ernesto had. She found him sitting on the floor, several empty bottles surrounding him. As she sat down next to him, he looked over at her. She could tell he was sober, which was good, but bothered her nonetheless. That meant the empty bottles were from previous binges.

"Lieutenant," Hannah began quietly, "You've got to stop this. You need help."

Ernesto snorted. "An Alliance shrink? No way. They'll mark down that I'm crazy in my file and I'll never be a soldier again."

"Who cares if it goes in your file? Your life is more important."

Ernesto shook his head, pulling a bottle out of his shirt. "Cook hid it. I found it." He began to fumble around, searching the floor. Hannah spied the bottle opener in front of her and deftly reached out, sliding it out of view.

"Where's my opener?" Ernesto asked, eyes darting all around the floor.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of," Hannah asserted. Ernesto said nothing, avoiding her eyes, but sighing and placing the bottle on the floor. "Everyone in the military has to learn how to deal with the things we see. Sometimes we need help thinking through our experiences."

"Yeah?" Ernesto challenged, "What did you need help with, Commander? Bet you never needed any help your entire life."

"You're wrong," Hannah spoke pointedly.

"Oh," Ernesto muttered. "What? First Contact War?"

"No," Hannah answered. "My husband fought in that one, not me. He needed me then to set him straight and keep him from going where you're headed."

"He make it?"

"He stopped himself from drinking his life away."

"Strong man," Ernesto mumbled.

"Yeah," Hannah agreed.

"Then what did you have to get over?" Ernesto asked, his eyes curious.

"Before we were married, my husband, Daniel, lost a leg on Demeter. I was the solider in charge of the mission."

Ernesto's eyebrows knit together. "How'd you get over it?"

"Captian Maddock told me not to let the guilt tear me apart. To talk about it. He was right."

"Maddock was there?"

Hannah nodded. "Captain of my first ship."

"Well, I'll be. Didn't know you knew the captain before now."

"Ernesto," Hannah spoke, using his personal name for the first time, emphasizing the importance of what she was about to say, "Mindoir can destroy you or make you stronger. You can drown yourself in anger and guilt or you can redouble your efforts to help other humans in the galaxy, let this experience propel you forward."

Ernesto sighed again, then pulled his legs into his chest, and linked his arms around his knees. "It's…the colonists, you see…We couldn't save them…"

"We caught the last ship," Hannah said, hoping to satisfy the broken man sitting next to her.

"We got that one, but what about the missing colonists? I know what's happening to them, you don't." Hannah opened her mouth to protest, but Ernesto angrily shouted. "You don't know! You didn't see it. You didn't watch what happened. And I'm not going to tell you."

Hannah shut her mouth. She didn't know. She knew vicariously, not because she had been present. "Okay, I don't know and I'm not going to force you to talk to me. But it will destroy you if you don't tell someone. Get some help, please." Hannah stood and reached down a hand. Ernesto let her help him stand. "We'll get you the help you need. For now, let's just get you back on duty today, alright?"

As Ernesto began to walk back through engineering, Hannah quickly leaned over and swiped the bottle still on the ground. Somehow she'd manage to secret it away and maybe some day, when Ernesto was better, they could share it.

But Ernesto didn't get better. He stopped coming to his post altogether. Multiple members of the crew tried to talk to him, but to no avail. Maddock himself tried to convince Lieutenant Zabaleta to take some leave and see an Alliance psychologist. Even that didn't help. Maddock eventually was forced to file discharge papers right before their return to Arcturus Station.

Hannah felt sorry for Ernesto, but she had done all she could. Her focus returned to Jane. She sent her a message, letting her know she'd be back home in a couple days. She received an unsettling response.

Mom, so glad you're alright. The bodies of the marines killed on Mindoir arrived here several weeks ago. I wondered if you were involved. You'll have to tell me about it when you dock.

Oh, and I met this guy, he's nice. He's a marine. Now, don't freak out, but he's twenty. But you said I could date at sixteen and it's only four years difference. You'll like him, mom. Love, Jane.

Hannah couldn't tell which part of the e-mail caused her to worry the most: the fact that Jane wanted her to discuss the horrors of Mindoir or the fact that an argument with Jane waited on the horizon when she refused to let her date a twenty year old.