Traditional Disclaimer:

I do not own either the Harry Potter or Mass Effect franchises. This piece of fiction is being written merely for my own pleasure, and no monetary profit is intended.

Chapter 8

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Basics of War

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"Samesh, I need you to stay right here while I look for your sister."

"But mother!"

"No buts, son! Not now."

It was chaos, people all around them screamed and cried in fear, anger and pain. Terror shone from almost every gaze. Hundreds were now cramping together on the chamber, trapped by the collapsed tunnels on one side, and the fighting going on at the other. More came in all the time. Some people were covered in red dust and many had light wounds. A few sported much more serious lesions; deep lacerations and broken bones. All anyone cared about was to put as much distance between themselves and the aliens as possible.

"They are m-monsters! A-all… all spiked and, and… just monsters!"

"Please, God, don't let them come here. Please keep my family safe."

"Fuckers killed 'Dana! I'll fucking kill them!"

"You're going to die, that's what'll happen! Stay the fucking put!"

"It just, blasted that Marine apart with some blue energy! Is that… what was that?!"

"PSYCHIC POWERS! I TOLD YOU ALL, UNBELIEVERS! I TOLD YOU!"

"Grandpa! Please, sit down!"

Colonial Officials tried their best to keep the order, but it was a grim battle. They could barely keep people from lashing out against each other in their panic. Avani had managed to retreat with her son to a relatively calm spot. The Baumanns and the Flints were there too, along with many families with children. She hated the thought of leaving Samesh behind, but she was not going to take him in the middle of that terrified human mass. And she desperately needed to find her daughter.

"Mother, I want to come! I can look for Lucretia, too!"

Samesh was scared. His brown eyes spoke of that clearly enough. But he was not about to let fear stop him from helping to find his sister. A small part of Avani felt very proud.

A much larger part of her wanted to slap him.

"Son." she took his hands in hers. "Listen very carefully. You are going to stay here with Mrs. Baumann and you are going to do everything she says. Do you understand?"

"But…"

"Do… You… Understand?" she allowed the absolute terror she was holding in tight to harden her words. Her son faltered at the rarely used tone. After a few seconds of staring each other in the eyes, he lowered his gaze.

"I… all right."

"Look at me, Samesh. Give me your word."

He raised his eyes again, and very reluctantly gave her his promise. She nodded, kissed his forehead, and looked up at Mrs. Baumann. The woman held her own four-years-old daughter in her arms. "Lenna…"

The auburn haired geneticist just shook her head. "Go, Avani. We will look after him."

Mr. Flint stepped forward. "Avani, I know you have to find Lucretia but… if you see Jerod, please…"

She nodded to him. "I'll make sure he gets here, I promise."

"Thank you. I would go myself, but my wife, she…"

"I know, Hortan. Look after her."

With one last look at her son, she went to search for her daughter.

For a time she simply ran, screaming Lucretia's name and looking around frantically. But her voice was just one among hundreds; even if the young woman had been near, it was unlikely that she would have heard anything. Every time she found an injured person who looked calm enough, she would try to ask them about her girl. She did that because the injured people were the ones most likely to have been on the supply depot's chamber.

So loud was the noise all around her, and so focused she was on her search, that she had probably missed the first few times when a voice called her name.

"Avani Bhatia! Calling Mrs. Avani Bhatia! Respond, damnit!"

For a wild second, she thought the faint female voice might have been Lucretia's. Until she realized that it was coming from her pocket. Remembering just what she had inside it, she quickly fished the small datapad Harry had given her many days before.

"I said respond, your retarded meatba… oh, finally!"

Avani decided to just altogether ignore the half-finished insult. "Who is this? Where is Harry?"

The voice was young-sounding and had a slightly melodious quality. It was accompanied by the same words being displayed on the pad's screen.

"My name is Astrid, and I'm a friend of Harry's. Go to someplace quieter, Ms. Bhatia. We need to talk."

"A friend? Why are you speaking to me? Where is Harry?" she repeated, this time more frantically. It was bad enough that their shelter was under attack and her daughter was missing. Was the Voyager in some serious trouble, too? "Did something happen? Is he all right?"

"Please, lady, calm your horses down. Look, Harry is just dandy. But he is doing a mission far away from the Settlements right now, and he can't come to your aid. He doesn't even know anything wrong is happening, I bet."

Avani was walking quickly to a less crowded spot. She found a cut on the cave's wall large enough to fit her, and got inside. She split her attention between the pad in her hands and the looking out for her daughter.

"All right." she gave a suspicious glance to the screen. "And how do I know you really are Harry's friend? He never mentioned any… wait, do you mean 'Astrid' as in the name of Harry's ship?"

"A tribute," she answered quickly, "he and I go waaay back. Look, he never talked about me because I try to keep a low profile. I am a hacker by profession, you see. I've helped Harry during some of his trips, and I've been helping him fight the turians. Keeping tabs on the Alliance and the aliens, and all that crap."

Avani was not really sure how she should feel about all that. But she trusted the Voyager, if… "You still haven't told me anything to prove you are who you say you are."

"Right. This takes me to the reason I'm calling you. Harry gave you a yellow necklace and told you it was a device that could make you and others safe, after saying the passwords Activate Shelter. Does that follows?"

The mother blinked. Well, that was something her friend would not have told a stranger, all right.

"Believe me now?" she asked. Avani could hear just a trace of smugness.

"I suppose I do. What about the Harry's necklace?"

"I have access to the shelter's surveillance systems. Harry wanted me to keep an eye on you and your kids. I can't do much to repel the invaders, but I wanted to make sure you remembered that device. And honestly, I would suggest that you get your son now, and use it."

"What is it?" Avani asked. She believed Harry when he told her it would make her safe, but she needed to know exactly what it did. Especially if it could help her find Lucretia!

There was a short pause. When the woman spoke again, there was an audible reluctance. "All right, Ms. Bhatia. The necklace is a transportation device. It will take anyone touching it to a safe house Harry has prepared somewhere else on the planet."

Avani needed a moment to process that declaration. She spoke slowly. "Like… some kind of teleport? That's just... I don't doubt Harry's word Ms. Astrid, but... that's a little too much."

The voice had a healthy dose of sarcasm now. "Yeah, right. Because Mass Effect makes total sense. Look, it could be a magic portal generator, a tiny Mass Relay, or the damned TARDIS in disguise. Who cares, lady? Harry told you it would keep you safe; I'm telling you it does that by transporting people to a secure location. So you either believe Harry was telling the truth in the first place, or you don't."

The mother took a deep breath; she gave herself some time to think while looking over the throng of people once more. "Okay, I believe you." then, something the woman had told her clicked. "Wait, you are monitoring the cameras." her voice filled with hope. "Can you see my daughter anywhere? Is she safe?"

The voice was quiet. And that silence turned Avani's hope to cold dread. "You know, don't you? Where is my daughter, Ms. Astrid?"

If the voice had been reluctant before, it was doubly so now. "Your daughter is alive and unharmed, Ms. Bhatia." a pause. "But she is currently a hostage of the turian squad. She and four others are being kept inside the supply depot."

It was like being punched in the stomach. Avani's breath left her and her legs felt weak. Astrid was quick to continue.

"Look, the turians will not use civilians as meat shields. They are being kept in a back room and out from the line of fire."

Avani Bhatia took a deep breath and pushed all her fear away. She knew what she needed to do. "I'm going there." she announced, firmly.

"Excuse me?!"

"I said…" she repeated, already getting out of her wall entrance and looking over the exit tunnel. There were still people coming through, she was sure she could slip past the colony officials. "That I'm going there. If this thing is really some kind of teleport, I can use it to take my daughter away from danger."

"Are you out of you little organ… out of your mind, lady? The turians and the jarheads are going to go all out in that cave. What the hell do you think you can do?"

"My father was a soldier for his entire life, Ms. Astrid. I might not have followed in his footsteps, but he made it damn sure his daughter could handle herself." she found the nearest official who carried a pistol with him. He was directing people to the back of the cave, and was completely distracted. "And this will hardly be the first time I have to deal with dangerous men with guns."

She put the datapad away, Astrid's voice still screaming at her, as she approached the tall man. Skills learned a lifetime ago came back to her with disconcerting ease, and she joined the line only to suddenly slam into him.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, officer."

"Just get out of the way, Miss!"

"Of course, sorry."

She followed the other people only for long enough to lose the man from sight, then she went back to walking towards the exit tunnel. She secured the pistol inside her jacket, and took the pad out again.

"…is un-fucking-believable! Where does Harry finds these women?!"

Avani gave a sardonic smile. "I would say he is a man of luck, Ms. Astrid. So, are you going to help me?"

"Help you?!" she sounded so indignant, it was kind of cute. "To do what, take a headshot?! Get real, lady."

"Look, Harry told you to keep me safe, yes? I am going to get my daughter. You can't stop me from doing that. So the best way to keep me alive is to make sure I succeed, right?"

"Of all the stubborn… what about your son, Ms. Bhatia? You going to leave him behind?"

That made her pause. If Harry's necklace took her and Lucretia somewhere outside the shelter, Samesh would be left all alone. Who knew what else could happen? And she was definitely not taking him with her now. She was torn, but her window was closing; the officials were preparing to barricade the tunnel.

She made her decision. "My daughter is the one in mortal danger right now. If I can't bring her here, I will just give the necklace to her and come back for Samesh. I know what you're trying to do, Astrid, but you won't make me choose between my children. I will see them both safe."

She begun walking again. After a few moments, she heard Astrid sigh, and her voice came resigned. "All right, lady. Here's the plan; on the next chamber there is that deactivated water station, remember? There is a shaft connecting the water pipes and some power lines to the functioning stations next to the depot. The shaft is too small for most people, but you and your daughter should be able to squeeze through. I can unlock the inspection hatches for you. You might be able to sneak up a back window while the turians are busy fighting up front."

"See? We make a good team already."

"Harry is so gonna freak out about this."

Desolas raised his head from his command console, where he had been looking at all the data Saren and his squad had been able to send, before their communications blackout. "Launch the transports." he ordered.

"General?"

He turned to the hesitant visage of his First Officer. Felix was a skilled soldier, an excellent organizer and a fair tactician. But he was far too much ingrained to all the customs and traditions that plagued their race. He had been loath to break the 'truce' with the humans, and only his respect for the chain-of-command kept him from protesting strongly. Desolas trusted him to oversee the Fleet, but had little respect for the man. Too much deluded honor in his head.

"You heard me correctly, Commander. I want the 8th Company deployed. Unless there is a tunnel leading all the way inside the dome, there must be another entrance somewhere above those caves. I want it found. Armed shuttles and hunter drones will survey the entire region while the transports wait at a safe distance. When it is found, air support will clear any external defenses and the troops will secure it. I will leave the specifics to the Ground Commander. The 13th Company will be on stand-by to provide reinforcements, if necessary."

He tilted his head, eyes narrowed, talons scratching a mandible lightly. "I want the Ikthor to get in position above the area, as well." it was their last operational frigate that was not on border patrol. He would not use Vakarian's, as those were needed to maintain constant screening duties around the planet. "We will use it to counter any possible local defenses."

He still had no idea what was the status of Saren and his biotic soldiers; preventing all sorts of communication seemed to be a standard trick of humanity. But that did not mean his young brother's cabal had been neutralized. For all they knew, the plan had worked and Saren was on his way back from the first tunnel. But Desolas would not wait for news, he was done waiting. They needed to break this standstill with the humans and get this conflict moving again, and the first step was securing that entire civilian refuge. That would be a foothold the humans could not simply smash aside or ignore. The tunnel they had found was too narrow and tortuous to send large numbers in quickly enough, but the general was sure the humans had another hole hidden somewhere down there they could use.

He had played the cautious game from the beginning and it had not gotten him anywhere. He was not simply going to throw ships inside the dome, that would be foolishness, but he had almost two thousand soldiers and dozens of aircraft at his disposal; it was time to start using them. And if he lost a few more hundred legionnaires… well, it seemed that humanity was all too willing to give them back.

How very kind of them.

"Why, in the name of all that's good and bright in the universe, did you go for your bleeding battle rod, Potter? If you had just activated the shield array, you wouldn't be in this position."

Harry gave an internal sigh. Vakarian had surprised him. Truth was, he had been in very few confrontations in outer space, and his first instinct was still to prepare an offensive spell and trust his uniform's defensive enchantments to protect him. In space, he had to choose one or the other, and he chose wrong.

Ignoring the hard blue gaze that was trying to dig holes through his mask, he turned off his external speaker for a moment. "Harper, how are things looking?" he asked, calmly.

"I know how Vakarian alerted security." the Custodian answered promptly. By the sounds of frantic inputting, he seemed to be working furiously on the other side. "She activated her suit's distress beacon. The ship is on a general emergency alert and you have about twenty soldiers running to your location." he cursed. "Damn it! Should have thought of that!"

Well, it was better than an intruder alert, at least. "It slipped by me, too. Can you delay them without tipping your hand?"

"Working on it. Just do your thing." he grunted.

On top of his chest, legs pinning his arms quite securely and her glowing omnitool hovering ominously, Mavis Vakarian let out something very close to a snarl. "I'm waiting, human." she said, the grip on his gun hardening when he remained silent.

But Harry was distracted for a moment. Now that they were in physical contact, he could feel something… strange, coming from the woman's soul. Like an… echo. Well, a mystery to ponder at another time.

"I don't suppose we can sit down and talk this out over some tea?" he tried.

"No, we can't. You have three seconds."

Now he sighed for real. "All right, look; you're doing it wrong, Commander. We both know I'm not going to spill my secrets to you just because you have that gun pointed at my face. And I could still be dangerous. First, you need to make sure I'm properly subdued. The interrogation comes later."

She looked intently at him for a second, then nodded. "You're right, of course."

Faster than he thought possible, the fiery red light on her omnitool changed to an electrical blue, and she trusted her hand at his chest.

But he was prepared, this time. The moment her arm started moving, he had already activated the shield array. White lines and runes lit up over his black armor and her charged palm-strike splashed harmlessly against an invisible layer of arcane energy, throwing bright sparks all over. He didn't feel a tingle, and made no move to throw her off him afterwards. She did that herself, jumping away from him at the sudden flashing of the array with a speed and fluid grace that one would not expect from a hard and jagged turian. In a moment she was five steps away, gun's barrel never having left its target.

"Humm, interesting." she tilted her head, eyes scrutinizing him from head to toe. "That is definitely not a kinetic barrier."

Harry got up slowly, keeping his hands in sight at all times. "Perhaps. But now you know I have some protection against that kind of attack. So you can either have another go to see if it's something that can be used repeatedly, or you can try something else."

"My tech mine worked well enough." she pointed out.

"That it did." he nodded. From the corner of his eyes, he saw his battle rod laying on the floor to his left. His visor also showed him a second mine hidden next to some kind of dispenser, on the wall opposite the sinks. The sink where the first mine had been hidden was all bent out of shape, but no water was spraying out. Tough stuff. "You could try another one."

"I have a strange feeling it won't work while your armor is glowing like that. Actually, I have a feeling that by not finishing you off when I had the chance, I'm now at a serious disadvantage, human." despite that, he could see her mind working furiously.

He nodded again. The Thrice-Layered Mantle he had inscribed on his armor was better than the basic Protego, which usually would only block a single attack before needing to be re-cast, but nowhere near the overwhelmingly powerful Aegis full-body shield he had used at the turian base. "But killing me would not have told you if there are others still lurking around your ship, or what we might have messed with." he complemented her thought. She tilted her head in acknowledgement.

They were circling each other slowly. Vakarian watched his every twitch with the sharpness of a hawk. He disliked the 'birds' moniker many people used to refer to the turians, but it was an apt one.

"Ghost," came Harper's voice, mild relief coating it, "Vakarian's grenade might have been a blessing, after all. I used the explosion as an excuse to make the Emergency Procedures protocol put the whole arena on lockdown. Techs are trying to lift it remotely, but I can stop those efforts. That should buy you a few minutes."

"Thank you, Harper. Get ready to fly at any moment."

"I'll set things up so we have a clear path."

"You say you're not here to harm me or my crew?" Vakarian asked him, sounding for all the world as if they were just having a friendly chat. He was still surprised by how calmly she was taking the situation.

She was still ready to try and bring him down at the first provocation, though.

"That's right." he answered. "High Commander, I know it's almost impossible, foolish even, to believe. I know such a blatant security breach of your ship isn't something that can be ignored. I know you're worried about the implications of my presence here to the safety of the whole Fleet." he calculated the distance to his rod and to Vakarian. He calculated the time it would take to reach from one to the other. He knew she was doing the same. "But I really couldn't just ring you up to tell we were coming, you see. I needed to speak with you, and only you, personally, to make a proposal."

She could barely refrain from scoffing at that. "Having recognized hostiles stalking unnoticed inside my ship isn't going to get me into an agreeable mood, human."

"I understand." he gestured soothingly. "Truly, I do. But I had no other choice, as I did not want our conversation to be known by the rest of your forces." her eyes narrowed, and he knew she understood what he meant. "Again, I assure you this is not an attempt to take out or capture your cruiser. This isn't an attempt to strike a blow against your fleet. I'm not interested in some minor victory like that."

Her mouth and mandibles opened very slightly in sarcastic mirth. He was thankful for Legilimency, because he could match completely alien expressions to their emotions. "I would not call neutralizing a quarter of the invading force over your planet, or acquiring such a powerful asset a 'minor victory', human."

They had inverted their original positions. "It is a very minor victory, High Commander, when we think about all that is at stake."

"You don't want to liberate your colony?" if she had eyebrows, he was sure one of them would be high up. The left one, he waged.

He let his voice become hard. "I do. Never doubt that." then, he sighed. "But this isn't just about Shanxi, Commander. Suppose we destroy all your cruisers and frigates hovering over the colony. The planet is free, everybody is happy. Hooray for humanity." he clapped his hands; she looked confused. Obviously, the gesture did not translate. "But then, we will have to destroy your next fleet. Then the next, and the one after that. Here at Shanxi, in deep space, or even at our homeworld's skies." he shook his head. "When does it ends?"

"That is war at its most basic, human." she shrugged, shifting her stance minutely. "Strike and counter-strike, one battle at a time. Two forces breaking against each other until only one is capable, or willing, to keep fighting."

Harry scoffed, unable to keep the mild derisiveness out of his voice. "Oh yes, we will have a lot of broken things by that time, I'm sure; broken ships, broken bases, broken cities, broken planets." Harry stopped circling. Vakarian stopped, too. "And a bloody whole lot of broken people."

The High Commander observed him. Harry needed to be honest here; he had not felt so exposed by another's gaze since he was a teenager, sitting in the office of Hogwarts' Headmaster.

"I value diplomacy, human. Though I suspect you already knew that." she spoke slowly, eyes glinting. "I like to think I try as hard as possible not to engage in pointless violence." then, her mandibles pressed together and her voice sharpened. "But I would not have chosen to stay in the Legions if I didn't believe that armed conflict is not only necessary, but many times, preferable."

"She's stalling, Ghost. Humoring you until her soldiers arrive." Harper remarked.

"She is. But she is also listening, Jack. How is it going?"

"Everything is ready on this end. There are some eleven soldiers waiting outside the doors to the arena. They can't lift the lockdown, but it seems the highest-ranking acting commanding officer can locally override any system directive. With Vakarian's status uncertain, that power falls to a Lieutenant Adrien Victus. He should arrive there in two minutes."

"Understood." to Vakarian, he said. "That is true, Commander. So tell me, you believe this First Contact between our people is one of those circumstances where war is necessary? Preferable? You believe humanity is a barbarian horde that must be stopped? Or that we are children carrying guns? That seems like the Hierarchy's argument for this siege."

The woman kept her gaze locked on his amber visor. She was next to his discarded battle rod now, and carefully kicked the implement further out of his reach. "No, I don't believe so. I believe this has been a series of hasty and stupid decisions from the start, and I blame my superiors for most of them." she shook her head. "But whether I agree or not with this intervention is irrelevant. My duty is to serve and protect the turian people, first and foremost."

Harry opened his arms. "And how can you best serve your people, High Commander Vakarian? By waiting here to engage any human ships that may come to liberate the system, while your General blasts away the homes of innocent colonists? I know this is still little more than a police action to Palaven, but from Earth's point of view, war has already begun. All the people and leaders on Earth know at this moment is that the first alien species we have met has greeted us with fire and death. That turians are merciless monsters laying siege to one of our colonies. The people want payback. The Alliance will come looking for blood, and we both know how the Hierarchy will respond to the challenge."

"It doesn't matter which one of us is more advanced, or has more ships, or more soldiers, Commander. It really doesn't. Because if we go to war, one or both of us is going to cause a lot of death and suffering to people who will have no choice but to try and defend themselves. You might blast your way through our fleets and conquer our homeworld, or we might do the same thing to you. Forgive me if I don't see any glorious victors in either case."

The woman's eyes bore into his visor, and Harry once again felt as if she could see past them. He dropped his arms. "I don't care who is in the wrong and who is in the right here, Commander. I don't particularly care about who shot who first. All I know is that we need to prevent that war! I don't want more blood spilled on either side, and I think you don't want it, either. We need to find a way to stop this situation from deteriorating even further, and trading shots against each other will not help. That is the reason I came here."

The Commander just stood there. Thinking, considering. Harry was acutely aware of the seconds ticking by, but it was not as if he could hurry the woman.

"A worthy goal, human." Vakarian finally said. She tilted her head, and sent him a shrewd gaze. "But if that's what you want… why did you refuse General Arterius' proposal for a truce, after that little show of mettle? Why come to me at all?"

He felt the spike of distrust from her when she talked about her immediate superior. Well, that was good. Very, very good. "Honestly, I don't trust your General Arterius, Commander. Call it a hunch, if you will, but I don't think he is an honorable man by either of our species' standards. His invitation for 'peace talks' sounded just like walking into the viper's nest to me."

She gave the turian equivalent of a frown. "Viper…?"

"A snake. Long and legless reptile species from my planet. Some have the habit of hiding in wait for their prey, attacking them with a blinding-fast, poisonous bite." he shrugged. "Nothing wrong with the animals themselves, of course. Most of the ones I met were cool blokes."

"I… see…" she did not.

Harry shook his head. "Anyway, they have long been associated with scheming and treachery. I think your General would not be inclined to help my people, unless we could be of use to him. And I hate to think what kind of use that man could have for humanity." the mysterious 'alien artefact' flashed in his mind.

After a long moment, she nodded. "Let us suppose, just for the sake of argument, that I would help you. How do you propose we stop this almost-war, human?"

Yes! "Well, I…"

Harper interrupted him. The man's voice was deadly calm. "Ghost, I've just intercepted a transmission from the bridge. One of the other cruisers is deploying all of its transports to Shanxi. And it seems they are also sending a frigate down."

Harry felt his heart skip a beat. He looked at Vakarian, who waited expectantly, even if her grip on the pistol had not gotten any lighter. "No, no, no… not NOW! Arterius, you bloody WANKER!"

"It's your call, Ghost." Harper continued, as if reading his mind. "I have the coordinates and protocol data we need. We can do this by ourselves."

The wizard suddenly found himself facing a difficult choice. He was starting to break through to Vakarian, he could feel it. The first emotion he had felt from her, when they locked eyes just before her mine detonated, was pure aggressiveness; a fierce desire to protect her crew. But now, much of the cold fury was gone, replaced by a very cautious interest.

He could stay and finish convincing her, think about the big picture. Having a recognized officer backing them up would greatly expedite their contact with the people that could put a stop to this conflict. It could give their words more weight with either the Hierarchy or the Citadel. It could mean the difference between peace and war in the future.

But the colonists of Shanxi could be in danger right now. He knew Vakarian herself could do nothing to countermand any of the General's orders. Having her try to stop the attack would defeat the whole purpose of this meeting, anyway. Arterius would not risk sending more troops down unless the possible rewards were great, indeed. And if he was sending bleeding frigates to the atmosphere now, how long would it be before the Alliance responded and an orbital bombardment started?

No. In the end, there was really no choice at all. Not for him.

"I need to go." he told the High Commander. When she gave him an incredulous look, he elaborated. "It seems General Arterius decided to break our truce. He's attacking the colony again."

Her eyes widened, and he felt a spark of anger directed at the general in them. But then she suppressed her surprise at the news, and sent him an inscrutable gaze. Now he cursed passive Legilimency, which was all he could do in space. Identifying emotions was bloody useful, but did not tell him what exactly a person was thinking.

She slowly shook her head. "I don't think so, human. You were absolutely right, before. I really can't allow your breach of my ship to go ignored." she straightened imperiously. "Surrender yourself to my custody, please. You, and whatever companions you have inside this ship, will be my guests until we can finish our chat. I give you my oath that none of you will be harmed and that I won't report this to Arterius until I have considered your… proposal. If you can give me reassurances that my ship's systems are not compromised and provide details about the means by which you came here, I will even allow your party to leave in peace."

She meant everything she said. Of that, he had no doubt.

"I'm sorry, Commander. There is no time. If you're willing to speak again later, I will be more than happy to comply. You can even choose a time and place." he straightened, too. "But right now, I'll have to take my leave."

She tilted her head. "The other Ghosts of Shanxi should be enough to take care of Arterius, yes?"

"That bloody name really caught up? Merlin's beard! I knew letting Astrid use it was a mistake!" aloud, he said. "I need to go, Commander. Please, allow me to. Innocents could be dying right now. Those colonists need help."

She felt for the civilians and soldiers of Shanxi, he could tell. And that really surprised Harry. Very few in this woman's position would be concerned with phantom people from a species that they had never met before. But she was also unyielding.

"I'm sorry human, I must think of my own first. If what you say is true, there are now probably hundreds of Arterius' legionnaires descending to your planet. But those are my people, too. If you insist on fighting your way out, know that I have a lot of very skilled soldiers between this room and all exits, and they will shoot to kill. Do not force my hand."

The wizard sighed. Well, that seemed like a bridge that was about to be burned. Yet, his answer was simple. "Honestly, High Commander, you won't be able to stop me."

She shook the pistol in her hand slightly. "I still have your gun."

"Ah, yes. About that…" he shrugged his shoulders apologetically. All his muscles tensed for action. "That gun won't work for you."

She immediately pulled the trigger, aiming at his shoulder. When nothing but an empty 'click' sounded, she brought her omnitool up, palm now engulfed in frosty vapor. Harry was already dodging, and the small orb of super-cooled particles she shot at him passed only inches from his left side. As he advanced on her, he heard the metal of the wall behind him groaning in the snap-freeze.

Vakarian met his advance with a blinding-fast kick that he just blocked with an arm. A simple kick would never get past his shield. He then dodged her upwards thrust (using his own gun as a cudgel) and rolled beneath her following omnitool-charged strike. The universal fabricator suddenly sported a forked blade that once more crackled with who knew how many amps of electricity. Now this one could be dangerous.

But Harry got past her, and dove for his battle rod. As his hand closed around the handle, he heard the sound of another incoming attack. He managed to turn quickly enough to bat the incoming fiery red ball aside with the rod. The plasma round did note detonate against the blue crystal, instead ricocheting at the nearby stalls and exploding. The heat wave must have covered the whole room but he felt nothing, dragon hide being the most fire-resistant material known to wizard-kind. The metal of the stall was glowing-hot where the round had struck, and then it was hit by the fraying jet coming from a ruined showerhead, filling the area with thick steam and the sound of evaporating water.

Fire, lightning and ice. An ultra sharp, silicon-carbine blade crafted in less than a second. Really, he could start casting spells in public and these people should not bat an eye. Probably think transfiguration was done by nanomachines or some such nonsense.

Vakarian stood in a battle stance, looking a little wearily at the blue implement on his hand. She slowly put his gun at a clamp on her leg, and her freed arm lit up in the light of another omnitool.

"Really?" he asked in disbelief.

She shrugged. "Double the fun."

He took another look at the blackened wall. They were both becoming wet with the spraying water. "You're not holding any punches here, are you?"

"You looked like you could take it." she gave a challenging nod to him. And was that a turian smirk?

"Right."

He ran at her. She shot another cryogenic blast at him and he was too close to dodge, so this time he allowed the orb to explode against his chest. The impact of icy particles could not get past his arcane protection and he plowed through the white haze of vapor and the countless frozen droplets of water now falling to the ground, to meet the Commander's super-heated right fist. He caught her glowing, three-fingered hand on his own and held it, not feeling a thing thanks to his glove.

Again! That nagging feeling that something was wrong with Vakarian's soul.

The swift retaliatory strike to his ribs with the deadly omniblade on her left hand was almost enough to pierce the first layer of his shield. But before the runic array could take more energy to restore the layer, Harry deactivated the shield entirely as his Magic was needed elsewhere. Before Vakarian could get in another blow, or try some outrageous maneuver to escape him, he tapped her armored leg with his rod, Body-Freezing array charged.

A blue wave traveled through her whole body, and she was completely immobilized. Both of her omnitools powered down.

"Really sorry about this, High Commander." he said. He took his hand from hers and reclaimed his pistol, after a few seconds of looking for the manual release of her magnetic clamp. He went to face her and looked at her eyes. He felt shock and weariness, yes, but not the panic or rage that he feared. "I truly hope we can talk again. I hope you can still find it in yourself to help us. We don't need to fight."

"You're surrounded, Ghost." Harper called him. The man had wisely remained silent while Harry and the Commander had their little fracas. "Seventeen contacts." he sent the camera images to his visor. Yep, almost a score of half-panicky turian soldiers were entering the cruiser's Recreation Room. "Lt. Victus has lifted the lockdown."

"Got it." he prepared the rod's Stunning array and put his hand on her shoulder, intending to lay her on the ground after she was unconscious.

And that was when he finally understood what he had felt weird in the woman's spirit. He almost dropped the rod.

"W-what?" he stepped away from her, gesturing accusingly with the glowing-red implement. "You are…?" he could not finish.

She was very confused. Until she saw where he was pointing at and understood what he was asking. If she could, she would have blinked in utter surprise. Her eyes screamed 'how the hell do you know that'?

But Harry was no longer looking at her. He was too busy feeling sorry for himself. "Holy bloody kneazles! I can't be that unlucky!"

He was, of course.

Harry raised his head. Well, Stunning Vakarian was out of the question now. Stupefy was not a gentle spell; it caused a very harsh systemic shock that left a person unconscious and weakened for hours, unless countered. Repeated use in a short time-frame could easily be fatal. And he was really not experienced enough with turian physiology to risk knocking her out with brute force, especially now that he knew her… condition.

He had to hurry. At Shanxi, that Body-Freezing Charm would last for over a day. Here, where ordinary magic could not sustain itself, the effects would fade after only a few minutes. She could already move her eyes and the tip of her fingers. With a thought, he went out of sight.

"Get yourself to the hangar, Harper; we need to burn some serious leg. When Vakarian begins speaking again, everyone inside this ship will know about me."

"Why don't you just Stun her? That should give us some more time."

"I can't Stun her."

The man was baffled. "Why not?"

So Harry told him.

"How do you… you're sure?! All right… all right, I understand. Guess I don't need to bother being subtle, then. I'll meet you at the hangar, the path will be unlocked. Good luck, Mr. Wizard."

"You too, Harper." the holographic panel in front of the door turned from yellow to blue, showing that it was about to open. As a tall, dark-plated turian entered the room calling for his High Commander, he gave one last look at the frozen woman's back, and left.

"Mavis?! Are you all right?!"

Adrien Victus screamed as he almost punched the control panel to the door of the shower room. Even the couple of seconds it took for the metal plates to slide out of the way were too long for him, he wanted to blast the damn thing away! His Commander was in danger!

When he finally got inside, though, he stopped. The room was a mess. There was one large patch of frozen metal near him, a sink was torn, the air had the faint smell of ozone typical of large electrical discharges, and a section of the shower stalls was scorched black, a ruined pipe still blasting water over everything. And in the middle of the wreck stood his superior officer, stiff as a statue and in a pose as if she was struggling with some invisible enemy.

His surprise lasted only a second. The next instant, he was in front of the woman, patting away at her armor and looking for injuries. Finding none did little to quell his worries because she would not move! Only the fact her eyes were calm and conscious, sending him a reassuring gaze, kept him from fearing the worse. He paid no mind to the water drizzling over his head.

The High Commander was very slowly moving her neck and limbs, and her mouth and mandibles opened and closed minutely, little grunts coming out of her throat as she tried to speak. Victus took another look around the room; some of the legionnaires had secured the area, four standing guard at the corners and two at the door. A medical officer kneeled besides their Commander, omnitool doing a slow scan. An Engineering Corporal opened a panel at the wall and soon had the water stopped.

"What is wrong with her?" he demanded of the medic.

Said specialist shook his head, a growl of both frustration and bafflement on his throat. "Honestly, Lieutenant, that is just the problem; there's nothing wrong with the High Commander! Nothing that can explain this kind of paralysis! I wouldn't believe it if I could not clearly see her muscles pushing against some kind of invisible weight!"

With some effort, Adrien pushed down his alarm at those words. Mavis was alive and conscious, whatever force was upon her appeared to get weaker as more time passed. So he turned his attention to the next priority.

It was not hard to surmise that some kind of skirmish had taken place here. The damages around the room were not caused by some accident. They were the outcomes of a combat omnitool's attacks. Adrien looked at Mavis' eyes. "One of the soldiers attacked you, Commander?" it was almost unthinkable that a legionnaire would assault their Commander, but what else could it have been? "I'm taking the ship to hostiles' alert right now."

"N-n-no C-comms."

With how low and stilted her voice had been, Adrien was sure he had misunderstood her words. But her slowly shaking head and the look in her eyes confirmed them. "Commander?"

She shook her head more emphatically, and it was obvious the movement took great effort, judging by her very focused expression. Adrien had worked closely with this woman for almost a year now, and he could see the gears turning furiously fast behind the blue gaze. He had to wait two minutes before she was able to speak again.

"I-is the hu-human colony under a-attack?"

He blinked. How did she knew? "Yes, Commander."

Her eyes narrowed, and Adrien could see she had come to some kind of decision. "I w-want all outward Comms s-suspended." she said. She talked easier with each word, her voice gradually recovering the smoothness he was used to. "Every soldier is to a-arm themselves and be ready to engage Cloaked human intruders." he almost choked on his own spit at that. "They are to be taken in alive, if possible. Manually seal all airlocks and the fighter bays. Not lock, Adrien, seal. At least a squad for each one. Put the hangar in lockdown." suddenly, she regained enough movement to lose her balance, but he was ready to catch her. She sent him a quick look of gratitude, before turning serious again. "Get a squad to inspect each one of the Server Rooms. And get Heltus platoon in the hangar, full gear, and clear everyone else from it. I will coordinate things from the CIC."

The lieutenant suppressed the urge to retort sharply. For all that Mavis encouraged him to not just follow orders blindly, he did not think insubordination would be appreciated right now. Still, he wanted to know what in the Void was going on. "Commander, you can barely stand!"

"Then you'll just have to be my crutch for the moment, Adrien. Relay the orders." she waved the medic away and tugged him out of the room. Adrien had no choice but to support her. Grudgingly, he relayed her instructions as they went. While he did that, Mavis contacted the CIC and ordered their escort frigates to make a complete survey of the Shadow's exterior and immediate surroundings. By the time he was finished, they were out of the Recreation Room and Mavis was walking much better already, though she was still slow and wobbly.

"High Commander." the ship's Second Officer called back from the CIC, astonishment in his voice. "We just had an unknown vessel of about shuttle size break away from us! I… I have no idea how it came so close. It entered FTL before we could get a good look at it! Its entrance vector indicates it is heading towards the planet."

"Understood. Keep me informed if anything else happens."

"Yes, ma'am!" the man gave a small pause. "Are you all right, ma'am?"

"I'm fine, Lieutenant. Keep everyone tight up there."

"Of course."

Adrien looked at her sharply. "Humans inside the Shadow? A ship tailing us without us knowing? The vigilance systems compromised? That's just… right, I guess screaming that it's impossible would be pointless, but still… how, Commander?""

"That's the question, is it not? In any case, our guest is either gone already, which I doubt, or he is going to need another ship. Change of plans, Adrien. We are going to the hangar." then she told him the gist of the conversation she had with the human, and their short fight afterwards. They had just entered the elevator down to the hangar deck by the time she was finished, and the commander had almost completely recovered her movements.

The human had done that using some sort of glass baton? And his armor could just shrug off point-blank omnitool attacks without a barrier? What kind of tech was that? Still…

"How did you know?"

"About the human? Luck, actually." she shrugged while they watched the counter marking their way to Deck 8. "I caught a reflection of the doors closing on the ring's score panel. Then, I acted on a hunch."

Despite their situation, Adrien gave a short laugh. He doubted many other soldiers would immediately suspect that a Cloaked enemy was roaming around their cruiser. But then again, Mavis had been an infiltrator herself back in her field days. "So, by your orders of comms silence, I guess you are trying to keep this out of the General's ears, in case we can capture the humans?"

She nodded. The elevator opened and they ran down the corridor. They stopped at a nearby weapons locker so they both could get some weapons and helmets. Mavis was collapsing down a red-colored Reaper sniper rifle and attaching it to her armor when she finally answered.

"I'm very curious about hearing that man's plans, Adrien. His voice was different and he did not had sub-harmonics anymore, but I'm almost sure that was the same man that spoke with Desolas a week ago. He says his group is not interested in destroying our fleet, that they just want to stop a full war between our species. And call me crazy if you want, but I believe him."

He shook his head. Mavis had incredible instincts but this was stretching it way too far, in his opinion. Still, it was true that the human could have caused incredible damage to the Shadow without any need for such theatrics. "But we will still try to stop him, or them, from leaving?"

They were running again. "Of course." she said, simply. "Like I told the human, I can't just let him leave to fight our brothers and sisters, no matter his ultimate goal. But if we can capture him alive, I will honor my words and hear everything he has to say before deciding on a course of action."

"You think we can stop him?"

She looked straight ahead, gaze shrewd. "His suit is exceptional. It looks like what we would call light armor, but a concussion mine at point-blank only disoriented him for a few seconds. It still got him, though. Also, whatever he used to strengthen his armor even further seemed to deactivate just after my last stab. I don't know if it was overwhelmed, temporary or if he needs to direct energy to either his armor or his weapon, but it means his defenses are not perfect. Let's see how he fares against an entire platoon."

"That's assuming it is just one of them." he noted, and she nodded grimly.

"You're surrounded, turians! Drop your weapons and surrender, you will not be harmed!" came the loud, slightly mechanized voice.

"Well, well." said Asha, a sarcastic tilt to her flanging. Her left hand opened and closed compulsively, a clear sign of pent up aggression that was ready to boil over. "It seems someone has got a translator in there."

"Though it isn't nearly as good as what the humans that spoke with the General used. Those were absolutely flawless, from what I understand." Krelian remarked, as intrigued as their sister was angry.

Saren nodded, thoughts racing as he looked at the nineteen soldiers that had taken positions around the cave, covering behind rock formations and heavy crates. He could see they were roughly arranged in two lines, so the back one could cover the advance of the first. There was a female at the back carrying a long-barreled gun that was most likely some kind of sniper rifle. She would need to go first.

"Regardless, this confirms that these humans have access to at least some of the data from the soldiers of Talon." he said.

"So the 'Ghost' was lying." Asha scoffed. "They were Alliance operatives, after all."

Meera finished putting her leg armor plate back in place. Their medic could not do much besides injecting a powerful local anesthetic and dressing the wound. "It's not so hard to think that they may just be working together, sister." she told the younger soldier. Asha just scoffed again, clearly showing that it did not matter to her.

And perhaps she was right. Not at the moment, anyway.

"Still," Krelian spoke again, "interesting choice of words; 'drop your weapons'." he turned to Saren. "Are they just being cautious, or do they not know all our gear is useless?"

The Kabalim considered it. Did these humans not know? Could they try to use some kind of bluff? No, he decided. Too risky, and there would be little point, anyway. Best they stick to what would work. He looked at his Cabal; they were all huddled inside the depot, useless weapons stashed away. Krelian was the only one with his rifle in hand, really a bluff in this case, as he kept an eye over the human civilians in the back. Those people were the only reason they were not under a rain of gunfire, he was sure.

"You have nowhere to run!" the human with the translator said again. His voice lacked harmonics, but the impatience was clear enough. "Surrender, now!"

"Oh, just shut up already!" Asha hissed.

"The humans want us to come out, I say we oblige them." Saren turned to two of his brothers. Both dark-plated legionnaires could perform a biotic Charge. Saren was no fool; the humans had hacked into every single piece of equipment they had and they were surrounded by discarded cameras and microphones. He used a sign language that was exclusive to his family; a long time tradition of every Cabal, as they were the quintessential turian infiltration units. He quickly conveyed his orders and received two nods in response.

He did the same for the other seven turians inside the room.

Asha gave him a bloodthirsty smile. "Oooh, you bet I will, little brother."

Meera just nodded. "Yes, Kabalim."

He looked all of his people in the eyes. In addition to biotics, all Cabal legionnaires received training in both electronic warfare and infiltration techniques. Some, like the Cabals of the Armiger Legion, still adopted modernized versions of the traditional Poison Gauntlets, first used by turian biotics during the Unification Wars. They were powerful weapons but very specialized, and required a long time to master. The Vindex Legion preferred a more versatile training. Saren felt no reason to be modest; he was the most powerful biotic of his group. He had mastered a wide collection of moves, both for short and long range (as much as there was a 'long' range to biotics). His two brothers, who would be accompanying him now, were close-range specialists; popularly know as 'Vanguards'. Their training focused on charging inside the enemy's position and causing as much havoc as possible. The rest of his people focused on greater range and the use of cover. Some, like Meera and Asha, favored moves that controlled the field of battle. Others, like Krelian, tried to inflict as much direct damage as they could.

They could all summon biotic Barriers. It was a basic skill for any biotic worth its plates, and it worked much the same as an ordinary armor-generated kinetic shield. Except that it did not last for long, and needed to be replaced every time it was overwhelmed. Those truly gifted in the move could create barriers more powerful than any artificial shield, and even weave both defenses together. The only reason Meera got herself shot was because the sudden failure of her shields caught her by surprise.

He straightened. "These humans have no kinetic barriers. They can do nothing to stop our attacks, except to cower behind their rocks. Let's flush them out, and break them."

Saren and his two brothers got into place, crouched next to the depot's left door. Others got into position at the corners. With a sharp thrust of her arm, Asha sent a Warp at the closed right door, the blue sphere of chaotic dark energy hit the metal and started to tear at it rapidly. After the frame had been weakened, she blasted the door outwards with a Throw. Meera changed places with Krelian, her wound made it best for her to take up the civilian-watching duties, and he joined Asha at that opening.

"Barriers!" the lieutenant ordered. Every turian was briefly enveloped in a bluish wave that soon faded. Unlike almost all other biotic moves, there was no gesture needed to stimulate the correct Eezo nodes inside their bodies.

The humans had noticed all the movement, of course. The voice now screamed in alarm. "This is your last warn…!"

"Go!" Saren screamed, and Charged.

His vision filled with blue light. A blink later, he was two dozen steps out of their shelter and next to a large stalagmite to the left of the humans. Almost instantly, his two brothers burst out of their own Charges next to him. One immediately stepped forward, his proficiency with the biotic Barrier greater than even Saren's. Behind them, the rest of the Cabal began to hurl everything they had into the enemy's front line from inside the relative safety of the depot's walls. Some of the humans opened fire on the legionnaire in front of him, his body lighting up in blue as the rounds impacted, but his overpowered Barrier held. His other brother gestured towards the female sniper in the distance and yanked. Her body was lit and Pulled into the air. Saren threw his most powerful Warp at her suspended form.

To her credit, the woman managed to take aim and get a good shot out with her rifle, even while she floated and his Warp arched rapidly towards her, something that Saren did not expect. The high-powered round came straight at him, managed to break through his Barrier, and scratched the side of his chest, tearing a good chunk of his ablative armor. A direct hit could have very well killed him. But in the end, she missed and he did not. His attack hit the human and her screams filled the cave, over even the clamor of gunfire and biotic bolts. Having your body being torn apart by a Warp was a painful way to die.

And not a fast one, either.

That threat eliminated, the three of them jumped into cover behind the red rocks. The humans screamed to each other in their alien language. Rounds hammered against his cover, and also towards the depot. He could see Asha and Krelian at the left exit, stepping in and out of cover to hurl a new dark energy bolt into the human ranks. He knew they could not coordinate a proper offensive with how quickly they had to retreat back into safety. There were over ten guns firing into their position, after all.

Time to give them some breathing room. He restored his Barrier and turned to his brothers.

"We will break the rear line. You two will take the left side. One attacks, the other defends."

They gave a quick sign of acknowledgement. At that moment, a small grey object arched over their cover. Acting by more instinct than thought, Saren blasted it with a Throw, sending it far away from them. It detonated next to one of the many civilian tents, filling the thick fabric with holes and slashes. A fragmentation grenade.

"Now!"

Saren rolled to the right of their cover, while his brothers went to the left. Once they were in the open, all three Charged straight into the human's rear line. The lieutenant came out of the Mass Effect tunnel next to a burly human male, who was standing behind his low cover and still aiming his rifle at where Saren had just been. The world slowed as he punched the man in the chest with all his momentum, his closed hand glowing. With the biotic field enveloping it, Saren felt armor, flesh and bone crushing beneath his fist. Then he grabbed the crumpling body and used it as a shield for the incoming fire.

The other humans finished Saren's job for him before they could stop shooting their companion. It was the time he needed for his Amp to cool down. He threw the body aside as he sent a Shockwave at the nearest soldier. The linear blast of gravitational force lifted the alien up and threw him violently against another standing just behind. Saren ignored the fallen soldiers for the moment, as he rolled beneath the fire of his last two standing enemies. Near his position, his Vanguard brothers coordinated their efforts to eliminate their targets; never stopping with their movement, one would step forward to soak up enemy fire while the other Lifted the humans up, followed shortly after by a Throw to smash them into the ground with bone-breaking force. Charging into their midst had left the human soldiers in disarray; they obviously had never trained to face a biotic squad. They could get no help from the front line, as those humans were too busy sheltering beneath the constant attacks coming from the depot.

Saren dodged one burst of fire, letting his Barrier soak up the next one. It almost went out but not quite. When he was close enough, both humans went behind their cover. He suppressed the urge to scoff and Charged at an angle, coming out behind the humans' backs. He rotated on his axis immediately after and jumped at the soldiers that where still turning to face him. He grabbed their heads, one in each hand, and smashed them with all his strength against the low wall. Before they could get their bearings, he sent a biotic-charged hook to the woman's chin, and got to see her helmet crack almost all the way to the top of her head. He turned and kicked the recovering man's left knee, making him loose his already precarious balance. Then he grabbed his head again, this time in both hands, and twisted.

There was the thunder of a gun, and his Barrier died. He threw himself behind the cover the humans had been using. Saren did not need to look to know that one of the soldiers he had got with his Shockwave earlier had managed to pick himself up and was now coming at him screaming, wielding a shotgun. Blast after blast hit the rock at his back, but the lieutenant just waited, mentally counting the enemy's steps.

When he felt the human was about to break the corner, Saren Charged. The Mass Effect field that enveloped him while he dashed exploded when he rammed against the man. The lieutenant took no damage, while the human flew over ten meters before falling to the ground, a good portion of his armor shattered, his limbs twisted. His shotgun clattered to Saren's feet.

He surveyed the battle field. The ten soldiers on the first line where still pinned in place by the rest of his Cabal. His Vanguard brothers had finished their flank; one of them had a trail of blue blood on his right arm, but he signed that he was still good to fight.

Saren nodded and made sure that all the humans around him were unmoving. His entire body tingled with the feeling of accumulated static energy. His implants felt hot inside his flesh, but after three years in the Legions the sensation was now comforting, instead of unpleasant. Then he delivered quick instructions to his brothers, and they all Charged towards the rest of the humans.

Being a Sylphid meant that Astrid was very much like the infamous Artificial Intelligences of fiction. She might not have been a computer program, but she could do thousands of different stuff at the same time. If those tasks did not require the active use of her Magic, of course. Still, she was a very good multi-tasker.

Right now, for instance, she was monitoring thousands of data feeds, she was using her power to shield Alliance systems from the Shroud, she was messing with the turian soldiers' gear and she was even trying to convince that stupidly obstinate lady not to walk over to her death. She really should have kept her mouth shut about the daughter.

She was also dedicating a significant portion of her brainpower to cursing.

She had been doing it ever since the Elliot jarhead got himself gutted by one of the birds. She was currently speaking cuss words in the back of her mind in nothing less than 258 different languages, including prothean and turian.

Simultaneously.

And as if her day could not get any worse, the Alliance long-distance sensors were detecting twenty-one armed turian transports coming down to the planet. She observed as they all descended to an area a good distance away from both the Shroud and Shelter 05. So distant, in fact, that they went out of Alliance sensor-range, but she could still observe them through her own minions that flew high above the shelter. And that was how she knew that seven of the transports had just detached from the main force and were making their way swiftly towards the area over 05.

She was torn. When they were close enough, she could very easily hack into those shuttles and force them to land, as she could not just make them explode because of her damned restrictions! But the question was, should she? A Sylphid was the ultimate nightmare of any modern army, where even the smallest gun was also a computer. Harry wanted to keep the full extent of her power a secret for as long as possible, even more so after they learned about the harsh restrictions on Artificial Intelligence supported by the Citadel Council. That, and the need to put up a show for the turians, is why Harry destroyed their base personally. She spared no mind for the squad inside Shelter 05. Those birds would not be coming out of that cave with their memories intact. If needed, she would crash a couple of drones on the entrance to the tunnel they used, and trap them all inside. Either the Marines would be able to defeat them or Harry would come back in time to take care of the lot.

She decided to wait and observe. She could always disable the transports at any time.

Soon the shuttles were flying low above Shelter 05, each one a small bonfire to her sight, and the local sensors could pick them up again. She kept an ear on both the Alliance and Hierarchy comms.

"General Williams, what are your orders?" came from the Alliance side.

"Hold, Commander." answered the rough voice of the general. "We can only engage them after they have their own soldiers on the ground. Anything else and the cruisers could obliterate us."

"Understood, sir."

Conversation on the E.T. side was also going strong.

"Drones are away! No signs of viable insertion points as of yet."

"Keep looking, legionnaires." came a raspy male's voice. "Pilots, remember to keep evasive patterns and maintain distance from each other."

A chorus of 'Yes, Commander!' came from the seven shuttles. Astrid was curious what their game was. Surely just throwing soldiers at the problem was not Arterius' only plan? She would bet the frigate that was now hovering just above Shanxi's Kármán line had something to do with it.

A conversation going on inside one of the turian crafts confirmed it.

"Do you think they will try to attack us?" a pilot asked to his companion.

"If they are stupid. The humans fire at us, and the Ikthor answers it with a shot straight to their heads. Even if they use a weapon from inside that dome, all it takes are two shots in different directions to learn a static gun's position."

Astrid shook her metaphorical head. It really was a losing proposition to fight a ground war against an opponent with orbital support. At that distance, a round from the frigate's main gun would take less than a second to reach the target. It would also be much more accurate than a cruiser's, and would not be powerful enough to endanger the caves below. General Williams was right, the Marines could only fight by making sure the turians themselves would be danger close.

And still…

"Everyone keep down!"

"Sergeant!"

"Hold your damn fire, Garret! Do not use that RPG until I give the order! Da Silva, those guns ready?"

"Ready and smoking, sir!"

"Keep them steady."

The Marines keeping guard over Shelter 05's entrance were understandably freaked out. The cave mouth was hidden beneath large rock formations and some sparse foliage, but it would never have escaped such close scrutiny. Harry's protections were still standing strong, though. He had made all entrances Unplottable to electronic detection and non-human eyes. One of Astrid's job from the beginning was to 'simulate' those places on the Alliance sensors.

Of course, the jarheads needed to keep their cool and not try to attack the shuttles.

"What the fuck, Sergeant?! Them freaks screwing around? Second time that transport has passed close enough to spit. Are they blind?!"

"I… I don't get it more than you do, Private. But they don't seem to have located us yet. Until they do, we keep our heads down."

"Yes, sir!"

Just to make sure, Astrid decided to keep a tight rein on their weapons' triggers. No need to underestimate organic stupidity, after all.

For a time that pattern kept; the turian crafts went over and over the area, swarms of drones providing assistance. Many times they came within visual range of the entrance, but could not see past the Concealment Ward. The jarheads watched them with hearts in their throats.

"There's nothing here, Commander! Nothing but bare rock!" called one of the pilots.

"Unless we count those yellow lizards over there as humans in disguise." muttered a turian in another shuttle.

"Perhaps the entrance is located in another area, and connected to the caves by a tunnel? Or perhaps the entire system is much bigger than we estimated." noted another.

"Nothing from the humans yet."

"So much for promising to bring down any ships we sent to the surface." a sensors operator said with scorn.

"Should we widen the search field?" came a suggestion from someone on the larger group of transports in the distance.

A moment of ponderous silence. "Yes." agreed the Field Commander. "Rise the search perimeter by and additional five kilometers."

And it was at that moment that one of the hunter drones, flying so low as to raise a trail of red dust in its wake, passed exactly next to the entrance and went inside the ward lines. The Sylphid did not worry, the little guy would not be able to sense anyth…

With a bright flash and a scream of tearing metal, the hunter drone disintegrated, its smoking pieces falling to the ground in front of the astonished human soldiers.

…all right. That was not supposed to happen.

"We lost contact with a drone!"

"Send coordinates! Pilots check the area, watch each other's backs!"

Time stopped for Astrid, as she tried to come up with a reason as to why the wards attacked that drone when it was just a machine. Unless…

Unless the Virtual Intelligence that operated the drone, while not in any way self-aware, was still complex enough for the Retaliation Wards to consider its directives as an intent to harm human beings.

"Well, can anyone say 'backfire'?"

"WHO SHOT THAT DRONE?!" the senior Marine screamed in his radio.

"No one, sir! Fucking thing just blew up all by itself!"

A command came from orbit. And lo and behold, it was General Moron himself. "Check that area with care, Commander. I believe we have found our humans."

Astrid added another forty-two languages to her cursing list. It evened the number to three hundred. She really liked round numbers.

"A lot of people with guns in there, Ghost."

"No kidding."

Both men were inside a maintenance corridor that ran besides the hangar's 'upper floor', parallel to the left catwalk. Harry was once again using the Thief's Glass to watch through the wall, with Harper keeping track by the feed from Harry's camera. Beyond the metal, wires and pipes, they could see nothing less than 24 turians in full armor strew around the cruiser's largest room, carrying mostly automatic rifles. They were scattered, both on the ground level and on the catwalks, always keeping at least a dozen steps from each other. They were all facing the two interior entrances to the hangar, but were also positioned in such a way that every soldier had at least two others covering them. It ensured that no large groups could be disabled with area attacks and that everyone could respond swiftly to one man going down. It was a good way to face a camouflaged foe.

"Well, at least it is not three hundred." the wizard thought.

This time, Harry made a point to scan carefully for any traps, but could find no explosives hidden around. What he could see was a mean-looking machine gun turret that had been mounted by combat engineers near the large loading bay doors, allowing it to cover the entirety of the seventy-meter-long room. But the metal pillars surrounding the sixteen shuttle bays, eight at each side and four per level, provided plenty of cover, as did the many crates and equipment stations. Only the empty central lane was devoid of obstacles. He saw three soldiers bearing sniper rifles on the catwalks, and of course many likely had combat-optimized omnitools.

"Those lads sure work fast." he said softly.

Harper's grip on his rifle hardened, and he looked grim. "We need to borrow a ride, but we will need to lift that lockdown first. And there just might be enough firepower in there to bring a small ship down."

All transports were currently locked in place by some very big docking clamps, though it was more likely that their primary purpose was to keep the spacecrafts safe during harsh ship maneuvers. "I know. At least it seems Coré and Hislop made it out all right."

"There is that." the Custodian sent him a sideways glance. "You sure we can't convince Vakarian to just let us go?" he asked, only half-joking.

Harry laughed softly. "The High Commander has no wish to see humanity suffer, that I can tell you… but she won't jeopardize the lives of the turian soldiers on Shanxi. Can't say I blame her."

Harper nodded as he took another look up and down their tunnel. The Custodian obviously did not like one of them being exposed. "A shame, that. What now?"

Harry focused the Glass on a control booth that stood upon a raised platform at the end of the room, opposite the loading doors; a narrow space with large windows to overlook the entire hangar. He zoomed in. "Figure that is the most likely place from where you could lift the lockdown?"

He looked and nodded. "Most likely, yes. But they will know someone is messing with the local network the moment I slice in." he warned.

"I know. I see two more soldiers inside. Can you take care of them?"

"With your stylish cloak and this?" he patted his omnitool. "You bet."

The wizard tapped his free hand against a leg while he pondered. Really, there was just one way they were getting out of this ship now. "All right, Harper. After I open a path for you, get inside there and work on those clamps. Try to open the loading doors too, but I can take care of them if push comes to shove. When you are done with that, get a shuttle working."

"And you?"

He looked at the implement, green eyes narrowed. "I'll keep the ladies and gentlemen busy."

The other man scrutinized him for a few seconds. "Don't force yourself further then you can take, Mr. Wizard. You're no help to Shanxi dead."

Harry knew the Custodian was talking about more than just the number of enemies in the room. And he could feel a 'last of your kind' vibe hanging around that statement, as well.

"I'll be fine."

The man was not convinced, but relented. He checked his rifle. "Ready."

Harry took out his chalk. In a minute, he had inscribed a runic circle on the grey surface; seven larger runes surrounded by thirteen smaller ones. He checked the turians' position with the Glass one last time, before securing it and drawing his gun. "All right, Harper." he touched his left hand against the circle, channeling a good amount of power. And with a ripple the thick steel silently turned into a dense gray smoke. "In you go."

The man shot him an amused look, but shrugged his shoulders and stepped through. "Humm, interesting." Harry followed after him, and as soon as his hand stopped touching the wall, it solidified again. He looked at the soldiers, all of which had their backs to them.

"Wrong direction, fellas."

With a nod, the Custodian silently dropped down to the ground floor and started making his way to the control station, just walking past the clueless turians. The wizard gave him a little more time, then picked up one of the many small bottles he had on his belt. The glass had tiny symbols etched around it. Just holding the flask for now, he took aim at the first sniper on the opposite catwalk, and pulled the trigger. His pistol lit up in the familiar ruby lines, gold fire burned from the muzzle, and the man went down to unconsciousness with a red flash to his back.

And all hell broke loose.

"SOLDIER DOWN!" someone screamed.

The second sniper, also on the opposing elevated platform, got a Stunner to the head before she even begun to turn.

"They are on the back!"

He turned to his own side. The third sharpshooter was just ten steps from the wizard. Instead of trying to swing around, the man chose to vault over his cover. Harry got him in mid-air, and the bloke tumbled to the floor. That was when the bullets finally started to come. He threw himself behind a pillar, as shots rained around it.

"How in the Void did they get up there?!"

"It doesn't matter, keep the pressure!"

The many controlled bursts from assault rifles were soon joined by the loud, continuous scream of the automatic turret gun. Harry knew all that fire was meant to keep him in place and prevent him from Cloaking his way out, while the other soldiers on the catwalk moved in. He charged the alchemical rune-flask in his hand and the liquid within shone a pale indigo. The wizard calmly threw the flask around his cover, towards the turret on the ground floor.

"GRENADE!"

Two seconds later, the sound of electrical discharge filled the hangar as a large ball of lightning fried the deadly machine, to screams from the surrounding engineers. Harry took advantage of the momentary lull in the gunfire to gaze out of his cover. The catwalk he was on made for a long and open corridor where five legionnaires laid in wait. One of them was still in the open, moving over to his position. Harry swiftly put him into dreamland. Another one further along had just the tip of his shoulder peeking out from behind a crate. Harry got him too, and dashed over to the next pillar.

"Curse it!"

"Barriers don't work! Check your covers!"

Fire resumed from the opposing platforms; the soldiers on the lower level did not quite have the right angle to fire on him now. Harry took a quick look at the way those people were positioned, and then just as quickly shot at the metal wall in the middle of them. Instead of red lines, this time his pistol lit up in white-blue ones. The lingering Living Magic in his blood carried the runic-powered Reducto through the dead space, to hit the wall on the other side of the hangar and blast a good chunk of it apart. It made all four soldiers standing on that catwalk dive to the floor.

"Spirits!"

"What kind of gun is that?!"

With the lateral fire interrupted, it was time to clear this side. Harry checked his three enemies and stepped out of his cover…

"Crap!"

…only to receive a fireball to the stomach, courtesy of the nearest legionnaire's omnitool. The blast was like a heavyweight's haymaker and threw him to the floor. Just like with Vakarian, though, the searing plasma was no match for his armor. He rolled back into cover.

"All right, that guy moved faster than I expected." he thought, as he tried to recover his breath. He drew his battle rod.

"Is he down?!"

"Unconfirmed!"

Still, he decided against activating the Mantle for now. Instead, he nailed the roof above the catwalk with another Reducto shot. Two soldiers went back into cover, but the same man from before valiantly tried another fiery round at Harry. The wizard used his rod to deflect the new plasma sphere to the side, and then got the surprised turian right in the face. The last two soon followed. With the left catwalk now clear, Harry Disillusioned himself.

"Cloak!"

"Keep your eyes open!"

The wizard nimbly got down to the lower level. His boots had been made for stealth and he was silent as he crossed the floor, jumped to the top of a shuttle, and climbed up the right catwalk. The four soldiers there were closer together now, wearily scanning their surroundings. He got behind the first victim, and redirected his Magic to his rod, becoming visible again.

"Surprise!"

A hit to the back and the woman went down without hassle. While she dropped, he took aim and shot the farthest soldier of the group. The other two were still turning around to face him when he cleared the distance to the nearest one with a wall jump, shot the fourth on the chest along the way, and slammed the rod on the side of his helmeted face. A ringing 'CRACK' of crystal against metal had the poor guy spinning around once before finally hitting the floor.

Catwalks cleared. Twelve down, twelve more to go. The wizard had a huge advantage over the turians. Their barriers and armors meant nothing; all he needed to do was make sure his aim was true. And Harry seldom missed.

One of the doors to the hangar opened, and a single tall turian came in. Well, thirteen now. He hoped Harper could lock those down before more people joined this party.

Without wasting time, Harry dove behind a lifting crane. Shouts and orders flew around as he replaced his spent cartridge with a new one and heard the soldiers moving to get a line of sight to his position. Like before, no grenades came flying towards him, he was just too close to one fallen soldier or another for that, but no less than three cryogenic blasts impacted around his position in quick succession.

From where he was, he could see a little of the control booth that Harper had went to. And surely enough, he caught a glimpse of the two turians inside going down to bursts of electricity that, to them, had shot out of thin air.

Harry really was impressed with the Custodian. In less than a week, the man had learned how to hack alien systems, use their weapons and even pilot their shuttles. He was one hell of a combat engineer.

It seemed Harry was not the only one who noticed his actions, though. "There's another in the control station!" shouted a woman's voice.

"Sergeant, get there!" a man ordered.

"Oh no, you don't."

He had the high-ground now. Carefully moving along the catwalk, popping in and out of cover, he began hailing the moving soldiers. One went down, then another, and then a third one. He got a few stray rounds to his armor, but the shots from the turian assault rifles could not pierce the magical hide, and the tech mines a couple tried to use on him had no effect whatsoever, besides temporarily disabling his radio.

*BANG*

The wizard was thrown back violently by the force of the bullet that hit him in the right shoulder. He crashed against a piece of machinery and fell to the floor, gasping for breath. He was safe from any follow-up attacks, but his pistol had fled from his nerveless hand when the round impacted. As he had been leaning over the catwalk's side at the time, it fell down to the ground level and way out of his reach.

"Ghost!" called Harper, urgently.

"I'm fine!" he grunted through gritted teeth, pushing a hand against the wound. "Just keep working!"

A clear voice rang over the hangar, coming from the opposing catwalk. "Drop your weapons and surrender!"

Vakarian, of course. He and Harper were not the only ones who could turn invisible in that ship.

Harry focused past the rising pain beneath his right collarbone, and the warm blood seeping into his shirt. That had definitely been a sniper round. It was a testament to dragon hide's incredible toughness that a weapon designed to penetrate both kinetic barriers and heavy armor plates to kill in one shot had not just blew off his arm. From what he could see of the damage, it was what he would expect from an ordinary handgun. He grabbed a flask filled with a brownish potion, opened the lower portion of his mask, and quickly gulped down the contents. He also slapped a dose of medigel for good measure. The burning pain began to abate almost immediately.

He needed to wait for the potion to do its job. Like all other magical things in space, the concoction used his own Magic to power its effects. "I'm surprised that was not a headshot, Commander." he screamed to her, hoping to buy a little time. "You getting soft on me now?"

"We still need to finish our chat!" she screamed right back. "I see that none of my soldiers are dead. I don't know whether to thank you for the courtesy or call you foolish."

"Nothing is stopping you from doing both."

"Indeed. Trying to stay in my good graces, human?" he heard the heavy footsteps as soldiers moved below him.

"Just didn't want to leave our date in a sour note, Commander!"

There was a short pause. Was it his imagination, or did one of the other soldiers just gasp?

"I… think that expression did not translate right." she said, voice a little amused. "Did you just say that you came here to court me?"

Oh, right… he cleared his throat. "No, Commander. It really was just a mistranslation."

"Because you should know that I've got a Mate, already."

"I could have guessed that, yes." he said that last part to himself.

"Last chance, human. Surrender."

He felt a sharp throb and knew the tiny metallic fragments inside his flesh had just been disintegrated by the healing potion. The wound closed beneath the medical gel. Harry would need to take a very good look on that shoulder after this and he would probably not be able to avoid a new scar, but at least he could move his arm with only a little pain. His battle rod lit up in purple runes.

"Not today, Commander!"

He slammed the rod against his cover, and the large stack of crates was blasted over the catwalk's edge as if hit by a giant's hammer. The heavy containers crashed around the lower floor and turians everywhere threw themselves beneath the nearest cover, cursing all the time. Harry summoned his Mantle and jumped down for his pistol. While he fell, there was another thunder from a sniper rifle, but this time his Shield Charm easily stopped the shot. As his feet touched the ground, a more daring soldier nearby tried another of the cryogenic attacks at Harry, but the wizard just deflected it right back at him. The man's armor froze instantly.

There was Vakarian, up on the other side and with a massive blood-red rifle on her hands. Harry rolled over and picked up his gun again. He jumped for another cover and managed to get himself behind it just as she left a long gash on the terminal's side. He knew her gun would need a second to cool down, so he popped out and aimed a Reducto shot at the bottom of the catwalk a few steps away from her. The explosion forced her to seek shelter, and he used the opportunity to Stun two more turians, plus Mr. Frosty. He saw the last two soldiers that went to attack Harper standing very close together now. Close enough for another trick.

He readied another rune-flask, charged it, and threw it over to the soldiers…

…and the tiny bottle was promptly shot out by Vakarian's rifle, after having barely left his hand. The ice-blue liquid within splashed harmlessly over a control table, the magic he had channeled to the potion not having the time to manifest thanks to the delaying runes.

Damn, that woman could shoot!

Just then, all the lights in the hangar switched from white, to blue. A siren begun screaming as a mechanized voice made itself heard.

"Attention, Lockdown overridden by the local operator. All transports are now unsecured; repeat, all transports are unsecured. All personnel are to clear the launching lane and proceed to stations."

"Got it, Ghost!" Harper called.

The whole room trembled for a moment and the huge loading doors started to open. The kinetic barrier came to life over the opening to prevent the void of space from sucking out the compartment's atmosphere.

"Leave these two to me! You focus on the rest!" the Custodian told him.

"Understood!" the wizard activated the Disillusionment. He went out of his hideout to see that Vakarian, too, was no longer in sight.

And so the two of them begun a short game of hide-and-seek. Harry stalked the hangar, looking for any signs of the High Commander, while working to take out the remaining soldiers. The legionnaires had really dug in deep now, keeping themselves far apart and being much more cautious about exposing themselves. Two times he tried to quickly break his invisibility to down a soldier, and both times Vakarian seemed to appear at just the right position to stop him. He even got another glancing round to his armor for his efforts. So he changed his approach, and started hunting the soldiers and taking them out with his battle rod, instead. It was slow going, as he needed to get close to each target. If they had been clustered closer together, Harry could have taken then all with just one strike. He also really wished that the he had another non-lethal array on his pistol besides the Stunning Charm. It would have made neutralizing Vakarian a much simpler affair. Still, he managed to get three legionnaires, so that was only five left to go.

"I'm all done, Ghost!" Harper told him. "Need some help?"

"Sure!"

Time to change this game. Harry stepped into the open and traded his invisibility for his shield. Less than a second later, predictably, came the strike from Vakarian; and she was very close, this time. The other soldiers joined in.

Vakarian's Cloak needed a few seconds to recharge after it was interrupted. Being just as fast and accurate with a gun as she was, the wizard blasted her cover with a shot, rolling to the side to avoid the rest of the gunfire. As the woman jumped for another protection, Harry threw Reductos at the covers of her people, alternating between them and Vakarian. He kept her running and forced each of the others to expose themselves, nailing them with Stunners soon after.

But when Harry went for the last one he could see, the taller soldier that had entered with the Commander, he found that the man was perfectly content to remain composed while things disintegrated around him. He could see this guy was a whole notch above the other soldiers. Much like Vakarian herself.

So perhaps it was a good thing that the bloke's body suddenly seized in painful convulsions, as Harper got him from behind with his omnitool. He dropped down, twitching.

"Adrien!" the High Commander screamed. She took a blind shot that passed only inches from the invisible Custodian. Unfortunately for her, that second of distraction was all that Harry needed. Using the lowest power level he could, the wizard shot the sniper rifle in her hands with the Reducto array. The red weapon broke apart with a white flash, and Vakarian yelped.

"Harper, I have this! Shuttle!"

"Roger."

Harry ran towards the High Commander. She threw one of her tech mines at him and activated her Cloak again, but he was having none of that. Not now that the woman was truly out in the open for the first time and close enough for this. He shot the mine out of the air. Then he channeled a huge amount of power into his battle rod, to the point where it begun to throw actual sparks, and then slammed the implement into the ground. Streaks of blue light flashed around the point where crystal met steel and he felt the wave of magical energy expand to an almost five meter radius around him, the Body-Freezing Charm paralyzing anything that was in contact with the floor.

Including his invisible adversary.

A little while later, her cloak deactivated and he was not at all surprised to see that she had already been almost out of range, a SMG in hand and pointed at him. A second longer and he would most likely have missed her. And got some bullets to the face, to boot.

He sighed, feeling the adrenaline cursing through him still. The sound of a transport being powered on made him look and see that Harper was already at work. He gazed all around at the huge mess that had once been the hangar. At all the unconscious soldiers. Then, he realized something. There had been twenty-six legionnaires in the room to begin with, and the Commander came in with the Adrien bloke. He had taken down twenty-two soldiers in the fight, Vakarian included, and Harper took care of five others.

So, where was the 28th guy?

"Ghost, get in here!"

As Jack started the turian transport and disengaged the docking clamps, he saw the wizard standing in front of Vakarian's frozen form and had to shake his head. He might have taken care of five targets and helped a little at the end, but the mysterious man had still just taken on almost the entire platoon by himself. And he was ready to bet his favorite crate of bourbon back home that the man had refrained from using his more destructive resources.

He was also properly impressed with the man's shooting. He thought Eva was unsurpassed when it came to gun skills, but Mr. Wizard could easily give his teammate a run for her money.

"Remember all I said, High Commander." Jack heard him speak. He reloaded his eldritch gun and was scanning the area. "I will find a way to contact you again. And if you send a signal to the colony, we will pick it up."

He begun to make his way to the transport. Jack got the armed shuttle floating and…

…and then he saw another transport at the other side suddenly break free from its bay and float into the runway, just as the wizard was crossing it.

The operative's heart stopped. He screamed. "GHOST! LOOK OUT!"

The shuttle had its frontal weapons, twin missile pods, locked on the exposed man. The wizard realized the incredible danger he was in, most likely had heard it even before the operative called, but Jack knew it was too late for him to get out of the way.

The vehicle opened fire with both pods. Two blue streaks crossed the short distance between man and machine, just as he saw the wizard raise his arms in front of his face and his black armor lit up in glowing magic runes, brighter than any other time Jack had seen so far. The missiles exploded point-blank against the suddenly very fragile looking man, with a 'BOOM' that crashed over the walls of the whole hangar like a tidal wave.

But Jack had not stopped to look. He got his own shuttle out of its bay and just rammed the other transport with all the speed he could produce at this short distance. The impact made the enemy shuttle crash against the side of the hangar's loading doors. Both transports were still perfectly operational, but Jack had the upper-hand. He put some distance between them and let loose his own missile pods on the enemy's engine section. One, two, three, six rockets slammed into the craft until its stern exploded and it crashed back to the floor. It lost all power.

The mechanized voice of the ship's computer was heard again. "Attention, shuttle compartment compromised. Critical structural damage detected on the forward section. Risk of decompression. Initiating emergency containment procedure." Suddenly, blue lines shone on the hangar's walls at both sides, and a new kinetic barrier sprung to life right in the middle of it. It separated the last third of the room nearest the exit to space, where they were at the moment, from the rest.

Keeping a close eye on the vehicle to see if someone would step out of it, Jack turned to look at where the wizard had just been rocketed. He prayed to gods he never had believed in that a miracle had come to pass.

And it had.

Kneeling in the same place where he had been hit by the high-powered explosives, was the wizard. He had one hand on the ground and seemed to be taking deep breaths. A few crates near him were shattered and on fire, the floor at the point of impact was charred black and broken, and the man's entire suit was smoking softly.

"That was… Mr. Wizard, are you alive in there?!"

It took a second for the man to respond, and his voice was shaky and raspy when it came. "J-just… f-fine." he took a deep breath. His voice came stronger, and he slowly got back to his feet. "I'm good, Harper. My bones feel like jelly and I think I might have burned out a part of my shield array, but I'm good." then Jack saw the man turn his head to the side and start to run a second later. He slid to his knees in what the operative now recognized was the fallen turian High Commander. She must have been hit by one of the flying debris from when Jack rammed the other shuttle. "Crap! Vakarian is out! There's a crack in her helmet!"

"You can't help her now! We really need to go!"

"I know!" the man half-shouted. "Let me just…"

A flicker of light at his peripheral vision caught Jack's attention. He turned to look at what it was and was met with the sight of the original kinetic barrier that covered the open doors. It was the only thing that separated the pressurized hangar from the vacuum of outer space, and it was flickering like a lamp that was about to die. A part of his mind told him that the impact of the enemy shuttle against the side of the doors, or his own follow-up attack, must have damaged the shield's generators.

For the second time in so many minutes, the operative felt his heart stop. And for the second time he screamed. "GHOST! THE SHIELDS!"

He saw the man look at the dying environmental barrier, curse something in a language that Jack had never heard before, and throw himself over Vakarian's body. Just as the blue Mass Effect field went out completely and both human and turian were violently sucked into the void of space. Along with all the air in the sectioned-off part of the hangar and many other things.

Jack wasted no time. He accelerated his stolen transport out of the turian cruiser, desperately hoping to locate his wayward companion in the middle of all that emptiness. A task made difficult because the spaceship's radar was detecting multiple man-sized objects and he could not tell which one was the wizard.

He connected his radio to the shuttle's comms and sent out a broadcast. "Ghost! Talk to me!"

"I'm here!" the answer came swiftly enough. Of course, the wizard's words did not help with shit, but his radio signal allowed Jack to identify him in the middle of all the debris that had been thrown out of the cruiser. "You need to hurry, Jack! I've managed to hold on to Vakarian, but her helmet is leaking! She's losing oxygen!"

"I'm on my way! Don't go anywhere!"

"Very funny!"

The shuttle's radio came to life. He detected a frigate coming their way. "Attention, outward transport. Cease all movement and power down your weapons, or we will open fire!"

"CIC, belay that order!" came another voice. Well, it seems he was close enough to the cruiser that he was still picking up the signal from the internal network he had hacked into. "This is Lieutenant Adrien Victus! Tell all ships in this area that the High Commander and other legionnaires are floating around out there! She might be with one of the humans! Until this is confirmed, do not attack that transport! Get our own people out immediately!"

A moment of incredulity, before the answer came. "Understood, Lieutenant Victus."

"Well, well, Mr. Wizard. Some luck, at last."

"Thank Merlin for that. I can see you, Harper."

"I see you too. So, what will we do with the High Commander?"

The wizard sighed. Jack could understand all the frustration contained in that single sound. Things had really not gone as expected today.

"What choice, Jack? Guess she's coming with us."

It was tight. Like really, really tight. Astrid was not kidding when she said traversing the service pipe would be a 'very unpleasant, very wet experience'. It was less crawling than it was squirming around like a worm, even for a woman as slender as Avani. A thin coat of lime covering the metal walls was an actual blessing, as it allowed her to slide more easily. But the gun she had pilfered from the colonial officer pressed painfully against her ribs, and the smell was horrible. The only light came from the datapad's screen. Thankfully, it was only a twenty meters long shaft.

"It's over."

The somber voice of Harry's mysterious friend startled her. "What?" she whispered. Even if no sound could escape the confined space, it still seemed appropriate.

"The Marines have been defeated." she clarified. "You'll need to hurry, and be more careful than ever, Ms. Bhatia. I will try to distract the turians as best I can, but I can't give you any promises."

Avani suppressed the shiver that came over her. Astrid had explained, in excruciating detail, some of the mind-boggling abilities these particular turian soldiers possessed. These 'biotics' seemed like magic to her, even if her guide explained it was all trained applications of Mass Effect fields. That living beings could directly manipulate dark energy like that would have absolutely fascinated Avani, if that power had not just been used to take dozens of human lives and endanger her daughter.

Of course, she supposedly had a teleportation device hanging from her neck right now, so perhaps she was ahead of the turians on the 'space magic' department.

"I will be fast."

"That would be nice."

"Is the exit hatch unlocked?"

"Actually, the other hatch is completely broken, it doesn't close. You should know that is the only reason why I don't just leave you trapped inside there until Harry comes back."

"Well, thank the gods for that."

"I will only communicate with you by images from now on." the hacker continued.

"Got it."

Five more slow and painful meters after that, Avani reached the hatch. With some contortions that she thought were beyond her ever since she left her teenage years, she got out of the pipe and dropped to the floor below. She was inside the chamber, near the big water extractor and behind the supply depot that hid her almost completely from view. She quickly went to press herself against the back of the building, moving as quietly as a mouse, or so she hoped.

She could see the high rear window Astrid had told her about. A simple opening in the wall with no panels, almost too far from the ground to jump through. Before going there, she risked a peek from the corner of the depot…

…and immediately saw ruined tents, gunfire-marked walls, and over five tall aliens in dark armor rummaging through corpses clad in Alliance blue. She retreated.

These were the beings Harry had been fighting? They looked just… deadly. The softly blinking screen of her datapad caught her attention.

"They die just as well as any human." where the words displayed there.

"What now?" she wrote on the screen. Crouched against the cold wall, Avani tried to keep her breathing silent. Yet a small and scared part of her mind told her the aliens could hear every heartbeat.

"There's a single soldier inside guarding the hostages, I will try to draw her attention. When she gets out, I will lock the room's door. That won't stop her for long if she really wants to get back, though. You will need to be fast."

"Understood."

"Wait for my signal." then the screen started to display images from inside the depot. It surprised Avani, though it really shouldn't when she thought about it.

The first thing she saw was the tall turian female, standing inside a storage room with a rifle in her three-fingered hands. The next thing she saw was a group of five people sitting with their hands and feet bound on the floor.

And Lucretia! Her breath hitched, painful relief welling up in her heart until she felt like crying. She appeared unharmed, just like Avani had been told, and seemed to be glaring up a storm at her watcher.

Her foolish, brave girl.

Avani wrenched her eyes from her daughter's image when she heard a muffled voice coming from inside the building. She saw as the alien woman jerked slightly in surprise, twisting her body to look outside the room while still keeping an eye on the hostages. She saw her mouth moving.

"I'm using one of their discarded radios to pretend her superior is calling for her. You won't have much time, lady. Get in there and make sure your daughter is holding the necklace, then say the words."

Avani had no time to respond. The turian went outside the room.

"Go!"

Avani grabbed the ledge and jumped inside. Screams of surprise greeted her, she saw Lucretia's eyes widen in incredulous shock, and the sliding door to the room slammed closed. She heard heavy footsteps outside and an incomprehensible, flanging voice speaking.

The people were all bound with some black, thread-like ropes. Astrid had told her before that the material was created with an omnitool, using some universal material called, appropriately enough, omnigel. There was no lock or knot to open, the ropes were uniformly woven and meant to be broken.

"Mother!" Lucretia was the first to speak, she at least had the sense to speak quietly, even if it was useless now. The others were not so levelheaded.

"Help us!"

"Please!"

"There is no time!" she told them. She took out her necklace and thrust a piece of the chain into her daughter's hands. She would make her speak the password after everyone was grabbing it. She had every intention to try and get back to her son. Despite her shocked confusion, Lucretia still took hold of the chain. "All of you, grab this!"

"Are you crazy?!" screamed a terrified young man. "Cut these things, before they come back!"

"Grab the chain, it's the only way to set you free!"

Two others did it, but the rest were reluctant, screaming at her to break their bonds. There was banging on the door, a commotion could be heard from outside the depot, and Astrid spoke again through the datapad. "Just say the words, damnit!"

"I can't leave these people!" Avani screamed back. "Hold the fucking chain!" she tried to force the chain on the nearest one's hand.

"Of course you can't! You and Harry should open a frecking club…"

*CRACK*

Avani turned. The room's door was yanked from its sliding paths, enveloped in blue light. On the threshold, body also burning in the same ethereal fire was the alien. She was a head taller than Avani and covered in brown plates. Her predatory green eyes seared straight into the mother's. She took a step inside and raised her glowing fist…

"NO!" the mother screamed. She stood next to her daughter, all others forgotten, and opened her arms. But only slightly.

The alien paused. She seemed to take in Avani's attire; her supplicant face, her empty hands, her protective stance. Maybe she had even noted just how alike the mother was to the girl on the floor behind her. Her eyes seemed to soften a little. She took a quick glance at the window as her arm lowered just a fraction.

It was all Avani needed. Fast as lightning, just like her father had taught her all those years ago, she drew the concealed pistol and started shooting at the turian's head. The first two shots met some sort of shield, but Avani did not stop firing. The alien jumped back and threw a bright blue energy sphere that the mother dodged by millimeters, only hearing the sound of groaning metal and the frightened screams behind her. Her aim stayed true, and her third bullet broke the barrier and shattered one of the alien's mouth appendages. The fourth bullet went into the left eye and out of the back of her head, splattering blood, blue blood, into the wall behind. Her arms dropped, the dark energy halo snuffed out of existence, and the woman's body fell knees first to the floor.

The female's skin was soft, the light-golden color of a Lioth's leaf. She had a short covering of dark fur over her head. The curved lines of her face were frozen in a twist of pain.

Saren took out one of his gauntlets and gently closed the lifeless eyes of the human sniper, the one that had almost downed him. This woman had shown impressive skill and valor in her last moment, and the lieutenant would remember her. He got up when Krelian approached him.

"So?" he asked, still looking contemplatively at the fallen human.

"I'm sorry, little brother. We saw the bodies of Kerrick and Sahlia laid down just inside the human barracks."

After wiping out the rest of the human soldiers, a relatively simple task when attacking them from two flanks, Saren had ordered Krelian and Asha to try and ascertain their fellow legionnaire's condition. The report confirmed his fears.

"Understood." he said, simply. He finally raised his head, looking around at the carnage. All the humans were dead, and the turians were the only ones in the cave now, aside from their prisoners back at the depot. As far as wounds went, they had gotten out relatively well, if you considered the numbers they had been up against. Asha got a glancing round to the left temple that gouged her plate (just a scar to match Shiala's, she said), and a grenade had almost taken Nerik out. He was far away enough that the blast only gave him a mild concussion, but some fragments penetrated his armor and he had some worrying lacerations. He would live, but he was out of any fights for the near future.

They all had to admit, though; the humans never broke ranks and fought to the end. A normal salarian squad would have broken apart being flanked like that, and even an asari huntress pack would have faltered. Saren wondered what the elite human units could do. His legionnaires were now scavenging whatever digital device they could from the corpses. Perhaps not surprisingly, every weapon they picked up was just as dead as their own, but they would still take some with them for analysis. Meera was alone with the civilians.

"What now, Saren?" his brother asked.

The lieutenant considered their options. They could just retreat back up the tunnel they came from. Or, they could still try to salvage something from this mess by storming up those barracks and getting whatever data storage device they could. He already knew his decision.

"Gather everyone, we will assault the barracks. Meera and Nerik are too hurt, they will need to stay in the tunnel. But I'm not leaving this place empty-handed and I will not allow Kerrick and Sahlia to have died in vain."

Krelian nodded. "And the human civilians?"

"Put them to sleep and leave them. We can't afford to carry dead weight around."

"Understood. Might I recommend…"

"Saren!" came the muffled scream.

Saren turned around sharply to look at the depot. His eyes met the sight of his elder sister standing near the door, gesturing frantically at him to come to her. She had one of their discarded helmets clutched on a hand that she threw back to the ground, before turning around and going deeper inside.

"Something's happening with the civilians!" the lieutenant screamed. He was already running. "Asha, Krelian, stand guard! The rest of you, with me…"

Suddenly, there was an explosion, and then another. Between the turians and the depot, two grenades on the fallen human soldiers had just detonated. All the legionnaires instinctively summoned their Barriers and threw themselves to the ground.

"Void!" Krelian cried besides him.

"Stay away from the corpses!" Saren ordered. "Is anyone hurt?!"

He received negative answers from all. He was considering his options when a loud tearing sound came from inside the depot. Saren jumped to his feet. When the ensuing silence was interrupted by the scream of gunshots, he threw all caution aside and just Charged over the fallen humans.

In a second he was next to the entrance, running inside. In time to see Meera's body crashing to the floor just outside the prisoner's room, the left side of her face a mess of shattered plates and blood. Her one intact eye stared emptily at him.

Saren was aware of a distant buzzing in the back of his mind. He ignored the corpse of his sister…

"Strong, patient, kind Meera. She wanted to spare these people."

…and made sure his Barrier was in full strength before he went into the room. Inside he found a female human pointing a pistol at the door. She turned to him with the speed and steadiness of any seasoned soldier and fired.

Coolly, Saren stepped aside from the line of fire and in two long steps he was in front of the woman. His left hand was still gloveless, and he used the sharp talons now exposed to slash at the human's shoulder while he grabbed her wrist so hard there was the sound of snapping bones. The gun fell to the floor. He felt the flimsy fabric of her vest give away along with the flesh beneath, and her scream was accompanied by the feeling of warm liquid on his fingers.

He did not allow her to jump back or fall. He grabbed her thin, fragile neck in a choking grip. His eyes flickered for just a moment to the long and bleeding gash he had left on her chest, before he kicked the fallen pistol out of the room. The other humans cried alien words he had no use for, and he decided they would all just die.

He raised a glowing fist while he looked deeply into this alien's eyes. They were dark and defiant, even while the strength in her body left her. He wished he could take his time.

A body impacted with his mid-section. Another human female, the one he had taken notice of before, had just threw herself shoulder-first into him from the ground, rage ripping from her throat. He had to take two steps back to keep from losing his balance. His bloodied grip on the woman's neck slipped.

"Very strong for such a small thing." his brain told him.

He threw the smaller female into the older one, and both went to the ground. He sneered at them.

"Pathetic."

He prepared a Warp. As he expected, the rest of the humans just cringed back against the wall, leaving the females to their fate. Truly a race full of cowards.

Suddenly, he saw the older female grab some sort of fine-linked chain, with a yellow ornament at the end, which the younger one clutched in her hands. Saren threw his Warp at the same time he heard the female scream two pained words he did not understand. The two humans vanished, and his warp hit only the bare floor.

Saren was sure his astonishment was the same emotion mirrored on the other humans' faces. His brain struggled to understand what just happened. The females did not fade away, as if being Cloaked. They were… sucked up by some freakish vortex that distorted the very space around them!

"Saren!" came Krelian's scream from outside. "What… Spirits! Meera!"

The buzzing in Saren's ears got stronger. A part of him was absolutely perplexed by what he had just witnessed. The larger part of him, though, was burning with the knowledge that Meera's killer had just escaped him.

"Kabalim!" Krelian screamed again. "What happened here?!"

Before Saren could answer, there was a loud *crack* from outside the depot, and his legionnaires shouted. Saren barreled past Krelian, he no longer cared about the alien cowards left in the room, and got outside.

He was met with the vision of another human, entirely clad in strange black armor, holding a long and thin piece of wood in one hand. Just standing there, in the middle of the cave. And he knew instantly that this was the same human that had talked with his brother days before. The lieutenant did not hesitate, he just Charged. The world slowed to a crawl around him during his biotic dash, like it always did, and it allowed Saren to see as the human gave a wave of the stick in his direction.

It was like being hit by a speeding aircar. Saren had never felt such a great force colliding against his entire body. The Mass Effect field around him shattered, and where before he had been moving forward, now he was flying backwards. His mind barely registered as he crashed against a hard surface.

It was a struggle to keep himself conscious. Every single part of his body hurt. Each breath sent ripples of pain all over his chest, and his head felt like it was going to split open at any moment. He was lucid enough to understand that he had probably cracked at least a few bones, including his skull. He hoped none of his organs had been punctured. Large spots of black filled his vision, and he could hear many screams and shouts as if coming from a great distance. It would be so easy to let the darkness take him. But he had never went down without a fight, and he would not do so now. Struggling with all his will, Saren was able to push the encroaching black-out away.

What seemed like an eternity had passed before he was able to move his head and look around. He was on the ground near the depot. A small indent on the wall above told him that was where he had hit his back before. Painfully (he had definitely broken a few things) he was able to put himself into a sitting position, using the wall to support himself. His top-grade armor was cracked in many places. But his sorry state almost left his mind because of what he saw around him.

All eight of his brothers and sisters were suspended in the air. Not moving uncontrollably like in a biotic Lift, but just floating in the same position. And he saw they were also frozen, as no limbs moved anywhere. It was like they were all in a Stasis, too. The human was approaching him now. Saren noted that the wooden stick in his hand shot angry red sparks from time to time.

"Was it worth it?" the alien asked, in that perfect turian voice that he had no right of using. There was a cold fury in his harmonics, but Saren was not impressed. The being gestured to his paralyzed legionnaires and all the dead humans around them. "All this chaos. Some of your own soldiers gone. And what did it got you?"

Saren's scoff turned into pain-racked coughs. This human was surely not going to give him a moral speech, right? What were they, children?

Even still, he decided to answer. He had to spit a wad of blue blood first, though. "This… this was just a mission, human."

He expected the alien to spout more pacifistic nonsense, but he just shook his head. "No." the human kneeled next to Saren and took his left arm in an iron grip. The lieutenant was too weak to do anything about it. The alien brought the hand up so they both could look at it. His talons were still coated by the bright red blood of the human female. The amber glass of the human's visor seemed to glow. "This was a mistake."

He watched as the tip of the human's wooden stick came to press upon his forehead, green smoke coming out. And if he thought he was in pain before, it was nothing compared to the indescribable agony that now burned inside his veins. This time, Saren could not win the fight against the darkness.

"Wow! Did you just… disintegrate his biotic implants?" Astrid sounded properly impressed. "Nice!"

Harry did not share in her feeling. He only looked at the unconscious form of the silver-plated turian in disgust. There was probably some extensive internal damage from his impact against the building's wall, but the wizard honestly could not care all that much at the moment. He threw a Body-Freezing Charm at the man that would hopefully slow down his wounds long enough for him to receive some medical attention. Then he Obliviated the last hours of the man's memories.

He quickly went around doing the same thing to every one of the other frozen soldiers. Then he let them fall back to the ground, unconscious. He had no interest in more prisoners; he would let the Alliance keep these ones.

His rage at the man that had killed Elliot Hughes and almost killed the Bhatia women was burning out, and now he was left feeling a little numb. His shoulder hurt something fierce, his mouth still tasted of blood, his Magic felt stretched, and he just felt tired. So very, very tired of that wretched day.

"How is Ms. Bhatia?"

"I've told you, Harry; Action Lady is going to be fine. I'm instructing the Lucretia chick in how to use the potions. She's already got a Blood-Replenisher in her mother and she's applying the Essence of Dittany right now. She probably won't even have a scar."

He sighed in relief. At least not everything had gone wrong.

"And besides, you have more important things to worry about."

Indeed. With a last look around, shaking his head at all the dead Marines, Harry went invisible and Apparated to the top of Shelter 05. The morning sun was rising and the wind brought the smell of earth and smoke. He could see the streaks of the shuttles flying all around, the gunmetal grey transports still circling around the invisible entrance to the caves almost one kilometer from where he stood.

"Those troops you told me about are still waiting to deploy?" he asked.

"Yeah. Arterius wants the entrance confirmed and the area cleaned before landing anyone. And Williams will not respond until that happens."

"All right. Let's see if we can still salvage this situation. Contact the general's cruiser."

"Sending a hail now."

Half a minute passed before he got an answer. Harry took out the golden control sphere of the Resonance Orbs. He really hoped there would be no reason to use it, but he had not been making empty threats when he told Arterius that he could destroy any ship the general sent down to Shanxi.

"You are on, Harry."

And there was the cold voice of Desolas Arterius, absolutely dripping with his customary politeness. Did his soldiers really fall for that? "Ah, my friend from the Ghosts of Shanxi. I was wondering if we would be speaking again."

Harry was in no mood to humor the man. "General Arterius, I believe we had an accord?"

"Did I gave you that idea?" and damn if he did not sound genuinely regretful. "I am terribly sorry for that, but you must realize that we still have a task to fulfill here. I have sent word of your… proposal to Palaven, but until the Hierarchy reaches a decision, I must abide by my original orders."

Harry doubted that very much. But it seemed word had not yet reached Arterius about the mess with Vakarian's cruiser, which was good. "Well, your last push failed, General. The Cabal you sent down has been neutralized. Your soldiers are under Alliance custody now."

"Indeed?" another note of regret. "They are brave men and women. I hope they did not cause too much bother to you."

"For real?" Astrid exclaimed.

"But now we find ourselves in another situation, do we not? I must say, your facility is in a very vulnerable position right there, outside the protection of your Shroud. You will understand when I tell you that I cannot allow such a chance to pass us by."

"That's an entirely civilian structure, General. Innocent people trying to stay out of the way. I believe your regulations forbid an attack on such a target?"

He could hear the faint triumph in the man's voice. "Not an entirely civilian area, no, according to my legionnaires' reports. We will find out soon enough, yes?"

Harry gritted his teeth. "You are looking for an entrance, but there is none to be found, General. Your drone was simply a warning shot. Recall your shuttles or we will be forced to attack them."

There was silence for almost one minute. "It truly seems like there is nothing for us there." another, brief pause. "But just to make sure…"

Astrid screamed. "Harry, all the transports are clearing the hell away from the entrance!"

There was a blinding flash, followed by a mighty thunderclap. Harry felt the very air tremble around him and his bones shake beneath his flesh. All in the blink of an eye. It took much longer for the wind to clear the cloud of red dust over the entrance to Shelter 05, to reveal the bright dome of silvery light that shone around it. One side was filled with spidery lines like a cracked glass. And near it, gouging the red surface of the Plateau, were dozens of long fissures. Giant claw marks on the planet's floor.

A ship-grade Mass Accelerator round had just impacted against the Shield Ward and scarred the earth after it was broken down and deflected. The slashes on the Shield's surface begun to vanish, but not quickly enough.

"It was the frigate, Harry!" his companion told him, voice frantic. "That ward won't take much more before it breaks! There are almost thirty Marines inside the first chamber."

"Can you…"

"That ship is out of my range, Harry. Even if I focus entirely on it." she interrupted his question.

Time stopped for Harry. There should be over seventy souls inside that frigate, but he knew what had to be done.

"Is it still in range of the Orbs?"

"…yes."

Harry begun turning the control sphere's sliding sections to form the appropriate pattern. "Harper!" he contacted the Custodian. "Talk to Williams, I don't care how! Tell him every person inside that cave must move into the deepest chamber possible! I don't know what will be the answer to this, but I will make a thousand Portkeys if I have to!"

The man did not even stop to question. "Understood." he simply said.

"Well, well." Arterius was… politely smug. "You are hiding something, after all. Very interesting barrier you have over there, my friend. So incredibly powerful for its size. Another piece of your 'ancient science'?"

The sphere was set. Harry took out his holly wand.

"I wonder how much it can withstand. I understand your civilians, and my legionnaires, are safely ensconced deeper underground. So this should not be any problem."

Another flash, another stroke of thunder. The other side of the Shield was cracked, too, and there were more gashes upon the earth. The damage on the first side was only half-way healed.

Harry put his wand to the sphere. There was a time, before the Sundering, when Earth's Living Magic reacted much poorly to any form of electronic device. Wizards had long realized that and someone decided to copy that effect with a spell, the same one Harry had used a lot some days ago. He was powerful enough to disable turian transports entirely with it.

The creators of the Resonance Orbs incorporated the same magic within their craft. Only hundreds of times more powerful than any lone spellcaster could ever accomplish.

"Negatio Machina" the wizard whispered. The many symbols etched on the golden sphere lit up. Another round hit the Shield Ward, and it was now entirely cracked. It would take perhaps two more shots.

By design, there was no blue flash of light, unlike with the wand-version of the spell. Only Harry felt as the power concentrated beneath the purple dome of the Shroud and then shot into the morning sky as a lance of magic. The frigate's next round never came.

Astrid's voice was somber. In respect to him, if nothing else. "Hit."

Soon, there was a burning streak in the heavens, as the powerless ship could no longer deny gravity and begun its final, deadly journey through Shanxi's upper atmosphere. For a time Harry watched it fall, before once again speaking on the channel with Arterius' cruiser. His voice was tired.

"You were warned, General. Take the rest of your ships out of here, or they will suffer the same fate. You have ten seconds."

There was no answer. Harry readied the control sphere again. But after eight seconds…

"All the shuttles are retreating, Harry." his companion called. "And all three cruisers are pulling to an even higher orbit than before."

The wizard took a deep breath. "Good."

"Mr. Wizard." Harper called. His voice was firm. "They left us no choice. Those Marines are alive because of you. I've talked with Williams, everyone is retreating deeper into the shelter."

"I will be fine, Jack, really. Let's just hope they don't answer in the worst way possible. You got down safe?"

"Yes. I'm making my way to the clearing we left from. Ben and Eva are there already."

"And Vakarian?"

"She is breathing fine. I think she only has some mild concussion."

He could see little pieces being torn out of the doomed frigate as it spiraled down. It was breaking the distant clouds, now.

"Girl, how are things in the shelter?"

"No one that would benefit from your help, if that's what you're asking. The wounded will do fine with medigel. And the Bhatia kid is safe and putting up this sickeningly cute brave front."

Ahh, yes. Harry would need to pick up Sam before going to see Avani and Letia.

"Astrid, keep a close eye on those cruisers. Send me the coordinates of the frigate's crash site. Harper, I will be with you as soon as I can."

"Got it."

"Understood."

A more cynical part of Harry pointed out how ironic it was that he went to such great lengths not to kill anyone up in Vakarian's cruiser, and now he did this. But he shook his head and banished the thoughts. He had known this could happen from the beginning, and had been prepared for it. Still, he was going to check if there would be anyone alive in that wreckage, even if the chances of such were ludicrous.

It was the least he could do.

Author Notes:

And another one. Exactly one month, as I feared. Hopefully in three weeks time I will have a break from University and will be able to return to at least a bi-weekly update period. Thank you for all the reviews to the last chapter. Don't know how to feel about this one; the length of these chapters is getting way out of hand, I think. Still, give me your thoughts.

Remember to log in for your reviews, or send them via PM, or I won't be able to answer any questions you might have.

For those who don't know, the Kármán line is the widely (but not universally) accepted boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space. It is an arbitrary definition, and stands at 100 kilometers (or around 62 miles) above sea level. For comparison's sake, the International Space Station orbits at around 400km (250 miles). It varies.

Anyway, in the next chapter: a wizard comes clean (somewhat). We talk a little about Living Magics, Sunderings, Custodians, Sylphids, and the past.

Also, zombies.

Until then,

Fish