The shuttle was a damned mess. It seemed like whoever was flying it had crashed, rather than landed it, causing significant damage to bodywork. Most of the physical repairs had already been completed, but Lieutenant Steve Cortez hated seeing a craft beaten up like this. It was functional, sure, but it looked like a second hand skycar fit for a kid, not a piece of military equipment.

He slid underneath the raised vehicle on his creeper, and began filling in the numerous scrapes and dents and gouges with a liquid composite that quickly solidified when exposed to air, and was careful to smooth the repairs over with a scraper before it set.

The work was both exacting and ultimately futile, as the same pilot would probably rough it up next time he or she landed, but it kept his mind clear and focused, and the commander of the flight deck did not mind Steve working here in his off hours.

Finally satisfied the worst of the physical damage was repaired, he holstered the applicator on his tool belt, and pulled out the spray paint, careful to ensure his face mask was secure before setting to work. A brilliant navy blue mist filled his vision, covering over the yellow repair compound, drowning out the wounds of the vehicle. Up close, he could still see them: nearly imperceptible lines giving the damage away, and he knew if stress was placed on them they would be the first places to falter.

But from a distance, everything would be perfect. Clean. Functional. Nobody would know the damage.

'Admiral on deck!'

The call rang out through his headwear, across the subtle hiss of his spray paint gun, but he did not heed it: on a busy flight deck, Alliance personnel were largely excused from some of the usual rules of etiquette around senior officers. Properly functioning craft were far more important than stiff salutes.

After several more minutes, he was satisfied by the even navy blue across the bottom of the shuttle, and decided to take another look at the thrusters. There, at least, the pilot seemed to know what they were doing: slightly modified from Alliance standard to give greater thrust. But they were also a little lax on upkeep: there was a significant build up of scorch marks he was sure he could clean with a few hours of hard elbow grease and a heavy duty scrubber. It would keep him busy, and exhaust him before bed.

Perfect.

Steve slid his creeper from under the UT-47A Kodiak, surprised to see a pair of clean, polished, black boots fill his vision. Whomever they were attached to was proud of them: they were old, and he could see signs of extensive use, but rather than buy new ones the owner had chosen to maintain these. Steve approved.

He pushed up his mask, and saw Admiral Steven Hackett looming over him with the commander of the flight deck, Major Rohit Mitra, standing to the side.

Cortez immediately stiffened, and stood, saluting cleanly.

The admiral saluted in return. 'At ease, Lieutenant Cortez.'

As Steve shifted to a parade rest, the admiral turned. 'Thank you, Major, please give us some privacy.'

The dark skinned man saluted and left, leaving Steve alone with the admiral, sounds of the busy flight deck surrounding them. Hackett seemed to assess Steve for a moment, eyes lingering on his tool belt, then shifted his gaze to the shuttle. After several uncomfortable moments, the older man spoke again. 'The major tells me you spend a lot of time here, doing work most would say you are overqualified for. That's aside from your regular duties, I might add.'

Steve wondered where the admiral was going with this. He was unlikely to be reprimanded for working too much... right?

'He also told me you recently suffered a personal loss, and have not taken any of the leave you are entitled to.'

The line of questioning suddenly made sense, though why an admiral was interested was still a mystery. He was nobody special: not interested in advancing his career beyond where he currently was, happy to use his skills and work as part of a team, rather than lead.

'I prefer to work, sir.'

The grizzled admiral nodded. 'I can understand that. It's not my place to tell you how to grieve.'

Maybe one day he could allow himself to...

He bit back the rush of emotions, forced himself back into a work mindset. He was still not ready.

'I've come to you because I have an unusual assignment, and after putting out a few feelers, Major Mitra suggested you might be willing to take it.' The admiral handed Steve a datapad.

Steve saw a long list of responsibilities, and suddenly understood what the admiral meant by "unusual". At the top of the list, was to pilot a combat shuttle in hostile territory, deploying and extracting a small squad of commandos on high-risk assignments.

At the bottom of the list, was cleaning the plumbing on a frigate.

Many pilots who operated in combat environments like that were arrogant, expecting their skills behind the controls of a vehicle to be the only ones used, and would refuse to get involved in maintenance beyond looking after their own ship... their skills making them too valuable to lose through disciplinary action. Steve had no such qualms: he had grown up and lived in an environment where everybody was expected to fill in on every job. Colony life left little in the way of choice for those who wanted their communities to prosper.

The list of responsibilities was extensive: it would keep him far busier than his current assignment, where he often found himself looking for extra ways to make himself useful... such as performing unnecessary aesthetic repairs to a shuttle.

'I'd be happy to perform these jobs, sir. Though...'

Hackett nodded, anticipating his question. 'Speak freely, Cortez.'

Steve continued, 'I've never heard of a position like this on an Alliance vessel. Even the smaller frigates have multiple personnel carrying out this range of duties.'

'That's right, Lieutenant. But this job won't be on an Alliance vessel. It's a special assignment, outside the normal command structure... and you'll be under the command of a non-Alliance officer.' Hackett spoke without emotion, watching Steve intently, clearly to judge his reaction.

'I'm not sure I follow, sir?'

Hackett suddenly turned, and looked away, stiff posture dropping almost imperceptibly. 'The Alliance handled the Collectors badly, Lieutenant. It is something we should have dedicated more resource, more attention to.'

Steve did not say anything. If the Alliance had done something, perhaps his Robert would still be alive. He tried to banish the bitter thought, but it proved stubborn. He had joined the Alliance to protect people... but they could not even protect their own. He could not protect that which was most precious to him.

Robert...

Steve still missed him. Strong arms wrapped around him. Soothing voice in his ear. A sense of humour that just made Steve laugh and laugh until it hurt.

All gone.

'And though I can't apologise for the whole of the Alliance, for what it's worth, I'm sorry.'

The admiral turned back to him, and Steve avoided the gaze, determined that the admiral not see his weakness. Hackett continued as if he did not notice. 'This assignment is to serve under the one who did something about the Collectors.'

Steve had heard the rumours. How she came back from the dead, to save the human colonists in the Terminus systems by leading a suicide mission through the Omega 4 Relay... only to come back again. 'Do you mean Commander Shepard, sir?'

Hackett nodded. 'Former Lieutenant Commander... Spectre... Shepard is outfitting a crew. If you accept, you will be immediately assigned to her ship with the responsibilities listed on that datapad.'

'I accept, sir.' There was no hesitation. Shepard had avenged his loss, and though the consolation was tiny, it was just about all that kept him going. The ones who took Robert were dead because of her. Whether she needed him to fly her into combat or to clean the pipes on her ship, he would do it.

Hackett raised an eyebrow, but did not question his enthusiasm. 'Do you have any other questions, Lieutenant Cortez?'

'Where do I need to be, and when, sir?'


Faith's mind was clear. There was no indecision, no worry, no guilt, in the realisation of what she needed to do.

She grabbed Kenson's shoulder as the woman made her way to the communicator.

'No.'

Kenson jerked her head around to look at Shepard. 'What?'

'We can't do that. There's no way the batarians would actually believe an anonymous message that their system was about to be destroyed. Also, if you send that, there's a chance it will come back to bite us. It's proof that somebody planned this. We can't allow the batarians to start a war over this, and we need to figure out a way to blame this on the Reapers, to kick the galaxy into action.'

The silence that followed that was oppressive. 'You would deny three hundred thousand innocents a chance, for that?' Kenson ventured after several seconds.

'Innocents?' Faith snarled, anger flaring up. 'The only innocents on that planet are the slaves, and do you think they'll be the ones escaping? It'll be their slaving masters, leaving them to die, so they can live on and ruin thousands more lives!'

Kenson frowned. 'Is that why you're so eager to do this? I'm no apologist but there's more to batarians than slavers and slaves!'

'No!' Faith forced a lot more certainty into the word than she felt in her heart. If she were standing here, ready to wipe out the colony, and the Reapers weren't coming... would she do it anyway? She honestly did not know. That the answer was not immediately no...

'You know as well as I the batarians won't listen. We can't risk a war to send a message just to make ourselves feel better! This is to stop the Reapers.'

Faith looked to the ground. 'When they arrive, there'll be that many people dying by the hour. More, even. This gives us months of time to prepare. It's worth it. It has to be worth it.'

Because, if it isn't... what will this be for?

Kenson paused, then jabbed a finger at Shepard. 'This is on your hands.'

Faith's temper flared again, but she did not allow it to touch her face. So this was how it was to be... the Alliance send her on this mission, the Alliance plan to destroy a batarian colony with a thoroughly unsatisfactory way to make themselves feel better that warning had been issued... and she pushes the button, gets the blame, takes the responsibility.

She wanted to spit the retort back at Kenson, but did not. She suspected Kenson agreed with her deep down... but she had just lost her entire team to indoctrination, to Faith's weapons, and the burden of three hundred thousand souls was a huge one to bear. She would allow the elder woman her anger.

'Fine,' said Faith finally, 'I'll do it.' She crossed to the Project console, and entered the final activation command, a simple control that was flaring it her in a pleasant green, absurdly cheerful for the death and destruction it was to cause.

There was an immediate, almost imperceptible lurch, before the dampeners build into the base kicked in again, and Faith knew the Project was now active. 'We need to get out of here. The batarian shuttle would be better, in case anybody's monitoring the relay.'

Kenson glanced again at the communicator, but the gaze that caught Faith's was blank. Kenson had packed away her feelings, just as she herself did so often. 'Then let's move, it'll take about two hours for the asteroid to reach the relay. There's a VI installed to guide it.'

Faith nodded, and after briefly stopping to tend to the gunshot to Kenson's thigh, the pair silently made their way over the grim pile of torn flesh that used to be a full Alliance team, through the tight corridors of the base, now eerily silent without anybody occupying it.

Determined to break the grim silence, Faith's mind latched on to a possibility, and she turned to Doctor Kenson, whose arm was wrapped around Faith's shoulder as she hobbled on an injured leg, and asked, 'You are a doctor: what is your speciality?'

Kenson looked at her curiously, but spoke quickly. 'I graduated in aerospace engineering on Earth, before we had even discovered the Mars archives.' Faith quickly calculated that made Doctor Kenson at least sixty years old. She looked in remarkably good shape for somebody who had not grown up with some of the alien medical techniques humans now used to slightly slow the ageing process.

'I was part of the team that ended up exploring the tech we found, and was fascinated by it. Since then I've specialised in mass effect technology, and its application from the relays to small arms. I do a lot of my work by adapting what we know about ancient cultures, mostly the Protheans, into something we can use today.'

Faith felt a tug of affection: no doubt Kenson and Liara would be able to discuss the ancient civilisation for days. But... small arms... She had a position still vacant on her ship. Mordin had done excellent work researching and applying upgrades to their armour and weapons, and she wanted somebody to fill that gap. She had planned to have Liara scour the galaxy for somebody suitable, but Kenson was right here, she had already proven her toughness beyond a doubt, and she clearly knew as much about the Reapers as anybody could. She was not limited in her field of expertise, and could add a lot more to the crews' skillset than just weapon research. She was also clearly a keen strategist: having set up an operation like this, mistakes regarding indoctrination procedures aside (which, Faith supposed, could be attributed as much to herself as the doctor, seeing how little was known about it,) was an impressive feat for a single woman, doubly so one trained as a scientist, not a soldier. She would be a great asset in planning missions and operations.

Hackett would not be pleased.

Faith nodded slowly. 'I am... in need of specialist help, to outfit my ship. I could use somebody like you.'

Kenson turned her head towards Faith again, and raised an eyebrow. 'You just slaughtered my entire team. What makes you think I would want to work with you? Never mind that I am still an Alliance operative.'

Shepard was briefly taken aback, shocked at herself for how she had approached the situation. Had death become so normal to her, that she could just forget it had happened?

'I'm sorry I had to do that,' she muttered, before strengthening her voice. There would be tougher choices ahead. 'But I won't apologise for doing it. We both know the dangers of the Reapers, and I need the best. Is that you?'

Kenson slowed, Faith slowing with her so they did not fall, before setting off again. 'I'll speak to Admiral Hackett.'

Faith simply nodded, satisfied with even that response from Kenson. The woman was clearly in need of a few days to simply absorb everything and rest: the torture, her team lost, her project about to annihilate over quarter of a million lives. If she was to build a working relationship with the woman, Shepard could not press her too far now.

They reached the docking bay, still eerily empty, and again boarded their batarian shuttle.

Technically, the mission would be a success, but Faith felt only a hollow pit in her stomach. In a couple of hours, the entire system would be wiped out. But those causing it, were strolling slowly through an empty base, discussing what would amount to one woman's career plans.

As they boarded the shuttle, Faith tried to think of the batarians on the colony. Living normal lives, extinguished in seconds.

She found that she could not. She grew angry every time she imagined a batarian cooking a meal, or holding hands with another, or cooing over a child.

The image morphed. Slavers, standing around the naked, shivering form of Doctor Kenson. Brutal soldiers, dragging her sister out to the roof of Torfan's base, executing her. Hundreds of dead slaves, eyes bleeding, in the mines. That was easy to imagine. More comfortable.

She grit her teeth as she gently guided the shuttle away from the base, slowly overtaking the huge, rocketing asteroid towards the glimmer of the mass relay at the limits of her vision.

She had overheard one of the batarians on the base say he did not like having sex with his slaves. Did that mean he made love to his wife? She found it difficult to imagine the creatures having any sex, even if consensual, other than a rough, grunting, angry pounding, leaving the female quivering as he got up and left. Did the batarian who was about to die hold his wife as they fell asleep together, as she did Liara?

He had not denied owning slaves.

Having somebody he treated like property, able to order them to do anything from tend his garden to strip naked and bathe with him.

Monster!

Whether he did that or not, mattered little to her.

Slaving scum. They were all culpable, all responsible, through direct action or passive complicity. She could not feel anything but anger, despite knowing it was unfair to judge them all.

She could not imagine them as doing anything other than harsh, negative acts. Killing. Shouting. Fighting. Any number of worse things. The thought of them doing something positive, building, loving, laughing in any matter other than cruelly simply could not strike her as real.

The pair of women stayed in grim silence as the shuttle soared towards the mass relay, which Faith pulled up the remote activation screen for, noticing with a frown that it was quite different from any she had seen before. She still had to enter the ship's mass as usual, but the destination calculations looked like those of a secondary relay, able to reach any of the relays in a short distance... but the list of destinations was far greater than any secondary relay she had seen before. It had the range of most primary relays, which typically had only a single destination.

She realised with a sinking gut that the Reapers, if they took this system, could launch an attack anywhere in the galaxy.

'We call it the Alpha Relay,' Kenson spoke quietly, noticing Faith's hesitation at the readouts ahead of her. 'the Hegemony must have kept its immense utility a secret for all of these years.'

It was no wonder. The batarians could launch an attack on the Citadel from the Alpha Relay; it would be too much of a risk for the Council to leave unattended. She realised that if the Council had presence in the system, they might have found the Reaper artefact years ago.

Faith felt again the burning anger at the batarians, despite that little knowledge that all species would probably have done the same thing... but this time it was the batarians, and they had hidden something that could have given the galaxy years to prepare! Her mood fouled. 'I bet it's how they hit most of our systems for slave attacks.'

She punched in the co-ordinates for the Arcturus relay with an ugly grimace across her face, wishing she could just get back to Hagalaz and melt into Liara's arms. 'Or used to, anyway. It saves us some time though. I should be able to get my own shuttle back to my ship from Arcturus, if the timing is right.'

She felt strange, talking like this.

Like there should be something more dramatic to do, to say.

Instead, she was soaring a shuttle gracefully towards the mass relay, which would be followed shortly by a huge asteroid.

The relay would break apart and release enough energy to vaporise the entire system. The batarians would probably have a few minutes to appreciate the beautiful light, before growing concerned, then terrified, scrambling uselessly to their ships.

Knowing the end of their days was at hand.

And leaving their slaves to burn as they try to escape.

As they finally hit the relay, Faith cast one final thought back, that grim knowledge of her life for so many years. There was a whisper, breaking through cold anger at the batarians, breaking through the harsh reality of what she had to do to delay the Reapers.

A whisper, that may have been guilt.

Killer.


Councillor Tevos, representative of the Asari Republics on the Citadel Council, matron of over five centuries, was tired. Exhausted.

She looked around the small table, and saw the same could be said for her fellow politicians. Turians did not show it so obviously on their face; tough plates not giving any hints like darkened, wrinkled skin like her own might do. But she knew turians - her father was one - and Sparatus' crest, usually proudly sweeping behind his head, was drooping. His mandibles seemed to drag rather than flicker. His dark eyes were dull.

Valern's tiredness was perhaps the most obvious. Salarians spoke fast, moved fast, thought fast. But their heightened metabolism also meant they needed much more frequent breaks for rest and nourishment than other species. Whilst asari, turians and humans could work on roughly the same working schedule, salarians simply could not - stims could only be relied on so far before the body and brain demanded real rest. In truth, all of the councillors were grateful for the breaks Valern's biology demanded.

Anderson was the enigma. His physical exhaustion was etched into his features. Tevos had noticed almost straight away when his hair had began thinning: Ambassador Udina had undergone a similar metamorphosis when his duties became more demanding; the months after Shepard's promotion to Spectre had caused more trouble than any of them could have expected. What was left of Anderson's hair had changed colour to a steely grey, contrasting interestingly against his dark skin. He suffered a similar affliction to asari in that he bore shadows beneath his eyes when exhausted, however unlike her the human seemed uninterested in covering them with cosmetics.

But his eyes... they were more awake and alert than they had been for the two years previous. The man was not built for peacetime politics, and it seemed peace was something that might soon be a distant memory. Physical weariness aside, he was clearly more interested in the politicking than he had ever been before.

'Have you heard back from the Hierarchy?' Anderson prompted Sparatus, voice anticipatory.

'Yes, Anderson, and as always the answer is the same. They are nervous that humanity has built so many dreadnoughts in such a small space of time. Even though you technically have broken no laws because of your acceptance into the Council, that you are so eager to reach the limits of the Treaty of Farixen is of great concern.'

'So are the turians going to build more in return?'

Tevos could cry at the foolishness of this. Warlike species engaged in an arms race, tentatively hoping Shepard's threat of the Reapers was real... all the while building tension in the militaries of both species, and fear amongst the others who would be dragged into any war, a war that could be sparked by a single stupid act on either part.

'They say it would be futile: humanity would just catch up, and would rather I make it clear to you that any expansion beyond what the Treaty allows will not be tolerated.'

'But the Reapers-' Anderson began,

'Are not here!' Valern interrupted, agitated. 'You're arming up a galaxy in a time of peace, Anderson, and people are starting to get nervous! My government is agitated by this; we need to keep up our physical strength on the galactic stage, but each dreadnought built diverts resources away from our specialist operations!'

'Then we tell them!' replied Anderson, equally inflamed, 'We stop this ridiculous farce of half-accepting the Reapers, and tell people what's really going on!'

'We still do not know what is going on, Councillor Anderson,' Tevos ventured, forcing her voice peaceful. It was frequently her place to calm the passions of the shorter lived species. 'We still do not have any proof of an invasion like Shepard warns us of, and with the arms race you have so hastily propagated, passions are so inflamed that any warning like that could cause a war to erupt before the Reapers even arrive.'

Three alien faces turned to her, three different distinctive features curled into three different expressions of curiosity. 'You believe they will arrive, though?' Anderson was the first to speak, and Tevos replayed her last words.

Did she? Did she honestly believe that galactic civilisation was about to be wiped out?

No.

But... evidence was mounting. What the scientists were still pulling from the Collector Base, including the ruins of the horrific creature Shepard destroyed, combined with the attack nearly three years ago, had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that these machines - if they could even be called that, knowing their composition - were real. If they were real, where were they? What was their purpose? Their intent?

And to make things worse... she was concerned about her own people. The top matriarchs were acting uncharacteristically nervous whenever they asked for updates about these "Reapers". It was not something she could provide any proof for, beyond a deep feeling in her gut, but whenever she revealed a new piece of information that had been discovered, the matriarchs grew uneasy. As if they did not want to know.

Surely it was in her people's interest to know as much as possible? Perhaps it was because another issue had just reached the forefront: the culmination of Matriarch Benezia's posthumous trial, now over two years in process. Being one of her people's oldest and wisest meant a huge amount of debate and discussion had taken place, centuries of evidence and past conduct considered... and new evidence of the Reapers constantly made any allegations against her more serious.

Being culpable in the attacks on Eden Prime and Feros, breeding a rachni army, curing the genophage to clone an army of krogan, and assisting the one who led an attack on the Citadel, were all serious enough allegations, but to include the fact that she wanted to bring back these "Reapers", who may be intent on galactic genocide... and that she may have been a hapless victim to so called "indoctrination" - every new piece of evidence meant this politically important trial would simply be dragged on and on, beyond even her species typically long-term and considered justice system.

Yes, that had to be the reason for the matriarchs' unusual behaviour. If Benezia was decided guilty, the political and economic ramifications would be huge: she held, and her estate still did, massive, long term investments in many galactic projects. Her words and opinions would be soured, discrediting those who used to follow her and emboldening her opponents. The truth of the Reapers would be a deciding factor in the trial.

She looked up at the three expectant faces, aware she had been silent for close to a minute, and began, 'I-'

Without warning the door to their private meeting opened, and a very harried looking salarian messenger looked, wide eyed, around the group. 'C-councillors, I'm so sorry, but this is an emergency! I just got a call from C-Sec, who said they'd been contacted by the technicians at the central relay control system, who were trying to figure it out themselves but C-Sec said-'

'Good god man, take a breath!' an irate Anderson interrupted.

The salarian started, then took a second to visibly calm himself. 'A relay deep in batarian space just went offline. It's simply... gone.'


A/N: Thank you to my extra eyes :-)