SPECTRES AND ASSASSINS

CHAPTER 2: Thane and the Huntress

Thanks in old age-thanks ere I go,

For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air-for life, mere life,

For precious ever-lingering memories,

of you my mother dear-you,

father-you, brothers, sisters, friends,

For all my days-not those of peace alone-the days of war the same,

For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands,

(...)

As soldier from an ended war return'd,

As traveler out of myriads,

to the long procession retrospective,

Thanks-joyful thanks! - a soldier's, traveler's thanks.

Simplified excerpt from "Thanks in Old Age", by Walt Whitman

- Thane Krios. Huerta Memorial Rehabilitation Center -

40 Minutes before the attack

His favorite doctor had given him 3 months to live... about 11 months ago.

In sharp contrast with a quite extended belief, a drell like Thane Krios was not necessarily a very representative member of his species. Most drells found outside Kahje were not. There was a misconception of this species' members as innately adventurous, entrepreneurial and tremendously martially skilled. This erroneous idea was rooted in the perception of some particular qualities which made some of them extremely successful in different trades outside the hanar homeworld. There were also widespread rumors on how the hanar trained many drell youngsters to become bodyguards or assassins.

As such practices had become known to Council species, drells were usually respected and somewhat feared wherever they went, for fear of the lethal career path the individual in question may have potentially taken.

Thane was the epitome of the Hanar-trained assassin, a trait that had led him to live a life of dangers, full of nearly impossible challenges. A job he grown accustomed to, in order to provide for his family. His training had started at age 6, and Thane had his first kill when he was 12. Any drell entering this lifestyle, by virtue of the 'Compact' agreement with the Hanar, also had to turn his back on enjoying the careless innocence of childhood, the prospect of a real family life, and the tranquility of anonymous retirement. Non-active assassins that grew as old as he was, at least for drell standards, had often collected enough enemies along the way to quickly switch from being the hunters to becoming the prey.

Perfectly aware of the galaxy's predicament, Thane Krios was never unarmed, and he would never be, not even on the Citadel with its strict regulations on weapons. As he had told Shepard more than a year earlier, the average C-Sec controlled access port to the Citadel had a number of fatal flaws that a professional could exploit. However, out of respect for the promises he made to Kolyat, his only reason to carry a concealed weapon nowadays was for protection, nothing more. At this stage, he intended not to take any more lives unless it was unavoidable; he had failed his son in more ways than he could fathom, he realised. But Thane would try to be there for him as long as his degrading body permitted, spending the little time he had left with his son whenever he came to the station to visit.

He could not help to consider the irony of how his death was more likely going to come from within his own body, due to the implacable progress of Kepral syndrome. He had always expected his demise to come from a well-placed slug shot by an actual foe. The most common fate for contractors in his line of work.

Thane visited Huerta Memorial training and rehabilitation installations most days, not that 'day' and 'night' cycles mattered much in space, but his gut told him he would still have a role, maybe small, to play in this war.

The promise made to a true friend, Commander Shepard, was another reason for his last visits to the hospital rehabilitation wing: "As long as she is here, consider her under my protection" Thane had stated in regard to his dark-haired female companion.

Shepard had not expressed with words that Ashley Williams meant to him more than just what a valued friend or soldier under his responsibility would. But a drell trained in certain skills from age 6 had caught a glimpse of something else in his facial expression. She meant something that far exceeded a professional camaraderie, typical of those soldiers who had fought side by side in excruciating circumstances and seen through it. Thane would have fulfilled his promise in any given scenario, but in cases like his son and people held so dearly by friends like Shepard, they deserved even more.

In his last months of life, he wanted his legacy to be more than one of death. He wanted to be remembered by Kolyat and others in a different light. He could not be the father he never was, there was no going back. He could only atone for what others perceived as crimes by becoming a protector.

The human female arrived at the usual time. She had her hair collected in a bun and wore an Alliance issue navy blue training outfit. Alliance Navy standard P.T. outfits did not have any markings identifying personnel as soldiers, NCO's or commissioned officers, he had observed. Her confident demeanor in rehabilitation and gym training sessions was thhat of a person of a certain responsibility, who seemed to have a burden on her shoulders. Generally, Alliance personnel in civilian facilities like this one did not salute one another unless they actually recognized the other member as a superior officer, either because they had actually identified each other as military personnel from a certain hierarchy, or because they were wearing an actual uniform.

The respect the young woman had garnered was apparent. Despite not wearing any particularly distinctive outfit or emblem in the fitness and rehab center, most servicemen saluted Williams without hesitation. Thane did not just detect a deeply rooted sense of respect, he also noticed admiration in the eyes of her fellow corpsmen. It was tue he did not know Williams' complete service record, but Shepard used to surround himself with anything but common people. She had to be a formidable soldier and a capable leader, no doubt.

Williams had certainly noticed his attention with an edge of mistrust. She had recently been released from intensive care, it did not mean she had become oblivious to her surroundings, or that she had become naïve enough to ignore that they were at war. They had exchanged looks at times, Ashley seemed to be weary of his interest. If she had recognized him as someone close to Shepard, she had never said or asked anything about that connection. There had been no real conversation between them except for a courteous "Hi", a "thanks" or simply a nod of her head. Not even when they had sparred together. The facilities were small enough for civilians and military personnel to run into each other and ask for assistance when sharing the equipment and the training mats often, but the officer had certainly realised his frequent presence was not a coincidence.

Thane had become fond of humans. He had not had much real interaction with them until he met Shepard, Miranda, Jacob, Zaeed, Kasumi and the other people on board the Normandy SR-2. He had never disliked them, but he trusted very few people, regardless of species considerations. In his former trade, it was more than just a precaution, it was a life-insurance policy.

Drells generally did not have war vessels they ran independently from the hanar, so seeing how a Cerberus Hi-tech ship had incorporated talented aliens in different capacities, such as a quarian engineer and a salarian chief scientist, felt just as unexpected as it was wise. These choices could be traced directly to the ship commanding officer's leadership and strong moral sense. Then again, it was not just any captain and he was not a real Cerberus agent, as he soon realized.

- Ashley Williams. Huerta Memorial Rehabilitation Center -

40 Minutes before the attack

Ashley Williams had changed into more comfortable clothes in Huerta Memorial training and rehabilitation center, she always kept a set of clean Navy workout fatigues in her locker. There was a secret she had never mentioned to the physicians, something she had never told anyone, not even Dr. Michel. She could barely sleep lately. Most nights, she had nightmares and it was very hard to go simply calm down after how vividly those dreams replayed her last memories of Mars. She saw a strong, synthetic hand griping her head by the helmet breather mask. While that thing was holding her, she could feel its overpowering strength, as she struggled desperately to get loose, to no avail. She could see it, the ghastly Cerberus machine, mumbling a few words with her half-burned metallic lips and then it would smash her head against a solid surface. In her dreams, she would always feel going limp like a rag doll, her vision would go go completely dark... then she would wake up in her temporary living quarters, sweating and breathing heavily. This problem seemed more psychological than physiological, which was not the area of expertise of Dr. Michel. She did not know whether someone would help her getting better quality sleeping time, but being up-front about another issue would definitely force her to stay in the Citadel longer.

Last night had been one of those, she tried to erase the memories from the vivid dream, she started with a soft warm-up jog on the treadmill. The treadmill had traditionally been a personal fitness staple to her training sessions, except for when she could run in the outside like in Macapá training camp. Alliance Navy standards required all NCO's and CO's to pass a strict physical aptitude test yearly. If the Alliance military as a whole had been 'progressive' in some aspect was in reducing the differences between the standards expected for female and male soldiers and officers. She was mostly held to the same standards as men, and she expected no less. Also, running had evolved in military training in the XXI and XXII centuries. She had read how many top tier military units and corps, expected their members to run 3 miles in 28 minutes or less more than a century earlier. Studying a little of military history, which was one of her passions, she had learned that military training evolved for the necessities of new war scenarios: crack military units would be deployed with heavy, mission-specific equipment in addition to their regular operational gear, sometimes in hostile territory, and expected to cover a technically short distance within a very short period of time. This had modified the scheduling and design of grueling running sessions and they had evolved to include more rushed marches for shorter distances with heavier payloads, including heavy combat armor.

She remembered her legs going numb at the end of those intense drills and passing out in bed as soon as they got back to their base when she first joined the military. Running 10-12 miles in comfortable sportswear was not going to cut it anymore for most late XXI and XXII century war deployments, particularly on planets which had very little in common with Earth's atmosphere or gravity forces.

The first time she had tried she had tried to complete the 3 mile run on the treadmill after her partial recovery, Williams had collapsed out of exhaustion.

In the good ole Williams tradition, she had pushed herself too hard, and she had paid for it. The long time she had to spend in intensive care, with a partial body shut down like the one she had experienced after having her head repeatedly smashed against the hull of a shuttle by that frightening Cerberus infiltration unit would necessarily take its toll. She had not felt this tired in a long time. Another Alliance serviceman, a turian and a drell had all come to help her, she had appreciated it. She had been silly not take her training and rehabilitation therapy more slowly, but she was eager to prove she was ready. She was not trying to impress anyone else, she only wanted to prove it to herself.

Ashley hadn't seen many drells before. Spending so many years as part of planetside garrisons did not expose her to too much interaction with non-humans, and was not the best way to get noticed for promotions or to be selected for better units. Even after an unexpected galaxy-wide traveling opportunity opened up to her, upon joining the Normandy crew in 2183, she had rarely seen drells. They were rare even in the Citadel. Most days ever since she was allowed to resume light exercise in Huerta Memorial physical therapy and fitness center, the mysterious humanoid had been a regular. At times he used to just sit down, apparently lost in his thoughts. His black eyes, without pupils, did not allow you to determine whether he was looking at you or somewhere else, but Ashley had the impression he would sometimes look at her for extended periods of time. It was her gut feeling, she could not really know for certain. Other times, he punched and kicked the bag with the speed and strength on impact of a true martial artist. Ashley had sometimes taken turns holding the punching bag for him, and the hits were so powerful that she had to stand strong on her feet in order not to lose balance. To the stranger, it did not seem to be a great effort. Ashley suspected he was not a regular drell civilian, and had heard the rumors of many members of his species were hired as hitmen outside their world.

After the warm up, she headed to the mat to throw a few punches at the bag to blow off some steam. To her surprise, the drell immediately seemed to get out of his lethargic or meditative stance, stood up and walked to the mat at the same time she did.

Williams had to admit he had piqued her curiosity, and would be happy to talk to someone about all what was going through her head. The problem was that it was all either classified information or so extraordinary that nobody would believe her. The things she had seen in the last 3 years, first with Shepard and the Normandy crew, and then in the Terminus systems as Operations Chief, directly under Anderson's command...

"I will hold the punching bag for you, Williams" said Thane, with his soft and guttural voice tone. His drell voice had that special resonance that carried words with depth and wisdom.

The Lieutenant commander was surprised he knew her last name, but tried not to show she had been caught off guard."How did he know it?" She cleaned the sweat from her forehead with a towel.

"Thank you... May I have your name, so you don't keep me at a disadvantage?"

"Thane, I am glad to have a chance to talk to you, Williams"

Williams threw a few warm-up punches at the bag, not even fully extending her arms.

"How do you know my name?" Ashley was not adopting a confrontational tone, but she went on the defensive this time, as she kept punching the bag and her eyes fixated on the alien. She did not feel totally comfortable with a stranger knowing her name and talking to her with such a familiar attitude, like he had known her for a long time. As if the drell had read her mind, he said:

"I'm sorry, I didn't try to startle you. I've been observing you when we happened to be in the same rehabilitation shifts. We have a friend in common, that is why I know your name. That is why I wanted to talk to you"

There was a collected sincerity in his tone, he did not seem uncomfortable or awkward talking to a supposedly total stranger, who was starting to punch a gym bag with increasing intensity. She threw seven punches, one after another, she was starting to loosen up while becoming more and more intrigued by this person named Thane.

"I'm not sure who you are, but I'm having a bad day, not exactly in the mood for riddles."

"You speak the truth, I should have been more direct. For a time, I travelled through the Terminus systems with interesting companions, including your former commanding officer, Shepard.

Ashley was caught by surprise, she stopped her training. This drell knew the commander?

"I accompanied him after he asked for my help. It was a high-stakes mission most people have never heard about. This was before he turned himself in to Alliance authorities. I consider him one of the very few friends I have. I know you have been through hell and back at one point, when you both served together in the Navy".

Her cheeks were flushed from the effort, and her Alliance navy synthetic fiber shirt was getting uncomfortable with her accelerated heartbeat. This person seemed to have been in close contact with Shepard in that dark period of which most people did not seem to know anything about. To her, finding Shepard alive but as the C.O. of a Cerberus vessel, in the company of some Cerberus operatives, had been an extremely painful discovery, especially psychologically.

"You know... Shepard?" Her voice was a mix of polite disbelief and realization of what might have motivated the Thane's fixation with her. She could confirm her gut feeling, he had probably been observing her with those black, impenetrable eyes. "Is that why you have been watching me?"

All of a sudden, this conversation made her feel vulnerable and exposed, she tried to hide her insecurity as much as she could. She did not talk about her more than professional connection to Shepard to other people, almost never.

"I would say I have been watching over you, Williams. I hope I have not made you feel uncomfortable in any way, I didn't mean to intrude."

"I can see you have been well trained in hand-to hand combat. I wasn't afraid you posed a threat to me, but I've to admit it made me feel a bit uneasy. Why haven't you told me you knew Shepard until now? What is your business in the Citadel?"

"I made a promise I would look over you, but I suspected you wouldn't feel too thrilled to learn someone was keeping an eye on you while you were 'the weakest' version of yourself, Lieutenant Commander. I know you wouldn't have liked knowing Shepard asked me to, as humans say, 'babysit' you during recovery. But now, I need to talk to you".

Thane turned around a headed for quiet corner in the fitness center. They both sat down, about 2 or 3 meters away from each other. Ashley was slowly recovering her normal breathing rhythm, and even she looked calm in the outside, she did not trust this man yet. Despite his cool demeanor and soft voice, he seemed like a dangerous subject, she had witnessed his training ways and he was impressive in close-quarters combat.

"Williams, there is a reason I find myself at Huerta Memorial, spending all my days in the Citadel and I why I made that promise to Shepard.

"What is it?" asked Williams

"I will be very honest. I am a freelancer, I was often hired for wetwork, but I'm not active anymore". Ashley frowned and her facial expression and physical stance clearly showed readiness for a possible confrontation. She was indeed a fast and intuitive soldier. The drell continued:

"I have spent my life taking others', although I was never asked or accepted a contract to kill an innocent person. I'm not saying I had a special 'gift' to distinguish those who deserved to live and those who deserved to die, but when I became an independent contractor I tried to follow a personal code".

"Why are you telling me all this? I'm not just an Alliance soldier, I'm a Spectre. Whatever your assassination contracts were, for whomever your worked, those are serious crimes you're admitting to. I could bring you in under the authority given to me by the Council." At this point, Ashley wished she had a gun handy, as a precaution. As a Spectre, many exceptions permitted her to carry weapons in areas where regular people and off-duty military personnel could not. But bringing a weapon to a rehabilitation and training facility was, in theory, absurd. Since she had to be on call as a Spectre, she had carried a gun, which was safely secured in her locker.

"This fact was known to me. But an assassin is a weapon, a weapon doesn't choose to kill, the one who wields it does. If you tried to apprehend me, I would not resist. I do not work for anyone anymore. Lieutenant Commander Williams... I'm don't mind your knowing about my past, because I'm dying".

Ashley's expression changed, she was still on edge, a normal attitude when having a private conversation with a confessed professional hitman. She could not help but to feel some compassion for a dying man, who had no problem to admit who he was and face a potential arrest with a shocking inner peace. She also wondered why would he have joined Shepard and Cerberus in first place. Shepard had told her about the Collectors, and all the evidence they had gathered at the time pointed to Shepard being right about those mysterious disappearances of complete human colonies. Williams and Anderson had made sure Shepard's warnings reached Alliance High Command. James Vega data from Fehl Prime's lost colony emphasized the magnitude of this threat. The problem had always been that there were so many restrictions as to what they could do in the Terminus Systems... Even a small Alliance team like the one she took to Horizon to assess the locals on how to improve their defenses was regarded with suspicion and mistrust by the colonists, and the Alliance only committed to that operation because Horizon had actually requested the installation of several GARDIAN turrets in exchange for limited and secretive collaboration with a branch of the Alliance Special Operations division that would be assigned to this region of space.

"I'm sorry, Thane. I didn't know...I'm not planning to arrest you... I don't think I'm in any shape to fight a professional assassin right now, anyway..." she added with a smirk.

Thane chuckled. "You may have to fight your share in the near future, Shepard is going to need all the help he can get... My sickness, Kepral syndrome, it's something I have come to accept. I have had a full life, with many regrets, very few happy moments... I lost my wife to the very violence of this lifestyle I embraced when I was young, and the promise I made my son is the only 'contract' I wanted to fulfill before I leave this body. I am done with that life".

"This war may shorten all ourlives regardless of promises or plans that we may have considered", she said.

Ashley had also lost people, and she missed her father the most until she lost Shepard as well. It had been torturous, to miss a man she had known for a relatively short period of time as much as she missed the man who had helped her to temper her character from childhood and grow into the woman she was... But the truth was she did. She had felt overwhelmed by the loss of most of the 212 on Eden Prime, a good group of soldiers she had cared about, then the loss of the Normandy. Even if most of the crew had successfully escaped the ship on time, she had lost Shepard and like with the 212, she had often blamed herself. It was huge lingering issue she and Joker tried to avoid every time they met, until she just avoided him altogether.

She could relate to Thane's son, who was seeing his father die one day at a time... she had tried to remove those sad thoughts and memories from her mind when the reaper war started, but she had just felt a sympathetic connection to this drell. Everybody was going to lose a lot of beloved ones, whole families would be destroyed in this conflict, fighting for the survival of the species was the only hope they were going to have against the Reapers. It was impossible to save everyone.

"Alright, I will trust you, Thane, so why did you want to talk to me? Since you accompanied Shepard during his unsupervised activities in the Terminus systems, I would really like to ask you a few questions myself."

"That is understandable. The lack of trust in Shepard has clearly affected the deficit in war readiness. If the Alliance or the other goverments had heeded his warnings more attentitvely... I have prayed to Amkira, Lord of Hunters, that he stays on track for his mission. I predict that all our fates depend on his success as one of the spearheads of the human military. But this is not a mission a single hunter can take on, he will need others like him. He will need allies like you, Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams".

Ashley could not believe this drell seemed to know so much about Shepard's current mission. It was true, Shepard was just one man, and human, while many other Council races were acting solely motivated by their particular interests right now, out of fear. Still, he had not fully explained why he had joined Shepard years earlier, what was Cerberus connection to Shepard at the time, or if he had suspected... She dismissed these thoughts. Williams had been trying to cope with his official death for two years, and then his reappearance made her very confused; the whole Cerberus connection, whatever that relation had been, was eating her from the inside. While she had spent days in bed, she had realized she had got out of line on Mars, she was addressing a reinstated superior officer, after all. If Anderson trusted him, she had to trust him as well. But there were so many unanswered questions... And Shepard had always been reluctant to give details as to what transpired in those 'dark' years.

All of a sudden, Ashley's wristband communicator started blinking and emitted a short, sharp noise . This wristband was not Alliance issue, it was given to all Spectres assigned to the Citadel security taskforce. It only came live in emergency situations, there was no way she could ignore the call, despite all what she wanted to ask Thane.

"Williams here." Ashley took her left wristband closer to her mouth, it had a small voice recognition system which allowed her to answer the comm line as soon as someone tried to contact her.

"We are trying to reach all Spectres present in the Citadel. We have an emergency, code Sigma 1". Ashley's Eyes went wide open. The first thought was this could be some kind of drill; then she realized that due to the declared state of war in Council space and due to the relatively small number of Spectres currently assigned to the Citadel, there was no way they could be having a drill at a time like this. Not when using a code reserved for a hostile action and a direct threat to Council members.

Williams voice went all serious and confident, she had no choice but to ignore Thane's presence at this time, this had to be a really serious call "Instructions?"

"Williams, you have been assigned to the Council security detachment. You must contact Tenora, she is the senior operative who was working Council security near the human embassy. You should coordinate with her and any C-Sec personnel assigned to this task. Where are you?"

"I'm in Huerta Memorial training facilities, I'll get my shield generator and my weapon"

"You do that, we need..." The communications broke off for a few seconds, then came back, but the voice was distorted and interrupted with crackling sounds "... Presidium Tower, head for the R.V. ... escort to evac...". She knew the evacuation security protocol she had to follow, so all the instruction details were not important right now.

Thane's usually calm and unexpressive face was starting to look concerned, he stood up, as if he was intently listening to Ashley's communications, but there was something else, he was listening to their surroundings...

Ashley's serious face morphed into a greatly surprised one when she heard the first shots. They were not coming from afar. Then she realized Thane had heard them before she did, probably had better honed senses, or maybe it was innate to the drell, there was just no time to figure it out. Her Special operations proficiency training on all weapons, Alliance and non-Alliance, allowed her to recognize the hammering percussion of a M-96 Mattock heavy rifle in the distance... a Cerberus weapon.

"Those shots are coming from one of the hospital wings!" Ashley cried out loud, she needed to alert and get everyone moving. There was military personnel and maybe some C-Sec agents in the training facilities. Even if they were lightly armed, the most sound strategy was to try to organize a small, improvised task force and get the wounded and hospital staff to safety, somewhere close to where they were."All military and security personnel, get your weapons and gear, join me in locker room 6". That meant rushing to the rooms, she could only hope some of them had brought their equipment.

Thane had been calm all this time, listening, thinking, probably assessing dozens of possible actions.

She was in a much more emotional state, with a glimpse of unavoidable fear. "Thane, we could use your help, I need to get you a weapon." To her surprise, Thane just took a blade from a hidden folding in his clothing. The material it was made of was something Williams had never seen before. "How did you...?"

"I smuggled this weapon for protection. It's an alloy the scanners can't detect". Thane answered, in his usual calm voice

Obviously, it was not the time to ask him about this any further, he had managed to pass a weapon through the ports undetected. All she cared is that it could help. He ran to the locker rooms with Ashley and the others. There were a few humans, not all were in fighting condition. There were a couple turians who looked like they could be working in security, an asari who seemed like they may have had some military training, but there was just not enough time to ask for their service records. Ash got to her metal closet, opened it, all the while hearing more gun and rifle shots. She recognized the noise made by standard issue C-Sec weapons, there was some kind of fighting going on, but there was no way to know the number of hostiles.

While she took off the sweaty Navy t-shirt, she came to the conclusion that a Level Red 1 alert would only be called if the opposition had managed, somehow, to acquire a clear strategic advantage over Citadel security forces. It would be impossible to attack the Citadel with a fleet without previously engaging in space combat. Moreover, the Citadel arms would have been closed in a situation like that, and there had been no Citadel arms movements, those would have been felt by everybody despite the mass effect fields around the wards. An enemy insertion could have created pockets where they could literally destroy all unalarmed defense forces in order to take control of key areas. Too many variables and suppositions, but it seemed a likely scenario.

She got her blue Spectre vest on, she attached the shield generator around her waist... She was aware this gear was far from ideal for combat against well trained and equipped enemy units. She had a reliable Carnifex pistol, and now they all had to work as a team. She was a Spectre, and they were going to look up to her, for leadership and to stay alive.

More shots, people crying, shouts for mercy, then mostly silence or screams coming from other directions. It took less than 5 minutes to get ready, then the improvised group got ready to come out. They told the rehabilitation patients to stay there. Thane had remained next to the door to the locker room, kneeling down, just listening. The others had rejoined them after getting their gear, mostly simple Predator guns and one Phalanx, but no armor.

"They are getting closer, Williams. As much as I hate to say this, we can't take everybody with us, the chances are we will be shot at in minutes. If we bring the civilians and the wounded, they will be massacred."

Some of the people were starting to look scared "Those bastards..." said the asari security officer. "I can' believe C-Sec hasn't contacted us. Did you hear anything from Commander Bailey? Or from Captain Ianna Mao?". Her human colleague shook his head.

Ashley frowned, she obviously felt the same disdain and contempt for the extremist organization, but in a position of command she had to keep it cool "I agree, we must first open a path to get out of this hospital wing, figure out a way to get out of here. There's barely any cover, we are mostly surrounded by civilian bystanders, some might be used as hostages or as human shields. By my calculations we are probably outnumbered and outgunned in Huerta. If we can clear a path, they could follow us when it's safe. As soon as we get out, I must reach the Council. The instructions are clear, they are in immediate danger "

Thane seemed to approve her appraisal of the situation "Yes, but we don't know if the access to the Presidium or the Wards is under hostile control. I think you have all recognized the weapons we heard as Cerberus gear. We must assume they have taken control of the elevators, but perhaps not all emergency exits or some shafts."

"There are certain tunnels for rapid transit only accessible by high clearance personnel. They are an alternative route in case of power shutdowns or when an enemy force has taken control of the Citadel." Added Williams.

"What are we going to do?" Said one of the wounded, a salarian who had had one of his legs amputated.

Ashley's expression was serious, and getting more worried by the minute, but she didn't let it affect her commanding voice "Thane is right, you will stay here, don't make any noises. Detach the glass from the mirrors an carefully cut them into smaller pieces, they could help you as improvised knives if you get the jump on them. But remain hidden and in cover, do not attack unless they find you"

One of the turians, a male with his head heavily covered in bandages said "You are right, we will hide here for the moment and will use anything we have here until you tell us there is a way out" One of the C-Sec agents, a human, gave him his short-range communicator. "Keep this, we will be in touch."

Ashley looked at Thane, the way a soldier would look at another soldier who was going to face the same life or death scenario.

"What is next?"

Thane stood up, walked over to Williams and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, while looking directly at her brown eyes "Now, Lieutenant Commander, 'you' become a huntress".

Next chapter: Lockdown

Trivia: The Greek letter Sigma is a rough equivalent to our letter "S", the first letter in Spectres. It represents a statistical feature used indirectly to estimate possible "significance".