It had been well over a year since they started their work out in the Terminus systems. He wasn't satisfied, not really. Liara said he would never be, and maybe she was right. They had made progress. It wasn't exactly an army, and he knew damn well they'd never be, but they fell in line and followed orders. That's all they needed to do. They had also had their share of setbacks. Couldn't be any other way. In the Terminus, those that stood above the rest always attracted attention. Those who openly tried to take him down were one thing, but the ones that did it from the shadows were a different matter. He could never be sure about the groups which joined them, but that's what it took. One thing was clear, there was always a target on his back these days.

He didn't care.

"Shiala says the weapons were delivered on schedule," Liara said.

He looked away from the instruments to look at the asari. He sometimes wondered what was it that brought and kept them together. Maybe it was the feeling that they had no one else.

"They better, with what it cost us," Nihlus replied.

"It's not like we're ordering Relay Rob's at the Citadel," Liara said, turning to him and offering a smile. It felt forced. It always did.

"So we're heading for Micah next," he said.

"Not yet, there's time," Liara replied. "You need a break."

"I don't," he replied flatly, turning his attention back to the instruments. "But you probably should."

Liara didn't answer, and soon they were on their way down to the planet. They kept a semi-random rotation through their bases, trying not to get in a routine. He was used to that. Spectre work was always quiet work. Or used to be before Shepard, at least.

Shepard.

The alert barely preceded the impact from the rocket. He barely had a moment to react before the shuttle shook and nearly spun out of control. A second rocket forced him to dive, a dangerous thing during re-entry. Someone had timed that perfectly.

"Where are they coming from!" Nihlus yelled over the blaring of the alarms, keeping his attention on the controls.

"There are multiple heat signals," Liara replied, her voice less loud despite the obvious stress. "Twenty seconds for the next one!"

"Find us a place to land!"

He kept his eyes on the controls, reading through the information Liara passed him. Visibility was low, and in situations like that, one had to rely completely on the instruments to make decisions. They were hit a third time by a rocket, the shields taking a significant beating out of that. They couldn't risk any more damage, he wasn't a fighter pilot. Finally, a marker appeared on the VI. The terrain around them was rugged and hard to traverse, one of the reasons they had a base in that spirits forsaken moon, but Liara had found a spot. He had to wait until their speed had reduced enough to allow the engines to take control, instead of turning them into a ball of molten slag. Then, he banked sharply, not managing to avoid a fourth hit to the shuttle. It was enough to take down the shields, and do some damage to the hull. Luckily, it missed anything vital. They needed to land, and land soon.

With a groaning of metal, the shuttle turned and reduced speed as they approached the surface, and finally came to a crashing stop on an almost flat plateau in the middle of the rugged lava field. They shook and jumped for several seconds until, with a sad whine, they stopped moving.

"Liara, are you all right?" Nihlus said. "Liara!"

"Ugh... I'm fine..." she muttered.

She didn't sound all right. However, they didn't have time to wait. He gave her a quick once-over, found no obvious sign of injury, and made the decision to bolt. This was the only landing spot for miles. Whoever was attacking them, if they weren't already waiting for them, they would find them soon. He undid Liara's restraints, put her over his shoulder and, grabbing an assault rifle on his way out, bolted out of the shuttle.

Automated fire greeted him as soon as he stepped outside but, even before he could step back, the gunfire stopped. He didn't have time to wonder, she needed to be put out of danger. As he ran across the field and away from the shuttle, he found a narrow gap with good cover. He moved a few yards inside, set Liara down, then made back towards the entrance. He was the target, of that he had no doubt. He just had to make sure he came out on top.

A shot rang through and took a sizeable chunk out of the rock wall over his head, about a foot too high. He ducked into cover, trying to figure out the angle. A second shot, hitting a foot below the previous one. Gauging the drop perhaps, but that was odd. Atmosphere was present but thin, and gravity was low. Any second-rate targeting VI would be able to deal with that. Either the shooter was doing it raw, or more likely, was just taunting him.

But he had a clear idea of where that was coming from.

He set into position, and put his worries about Liara behind him. She was safe, they weren't here for her. He took several quick breaths, and bolted away, heading for a nearby outcropping. The shot he had expected rang, but hit his leg, and came from a completely different angle. Damn. He had been right, they must have been laying in wait. He kept running, feeling a second shot hit his kinetic barrier, and pushed hard for the cover. He landed with a roll and put his back against the rock. Just another moment and his shields would kick in again.

They did. He needed more information, how many enemies and where the shots were coming from. He pushed out towards a different opening. spraying automatic fire as he ran in the direction of one of the possible enemies. A shot rang back from that spot, but it flew wide, hitting the ground behind him. Another shot, this time from a third position, but he had expected it. The angle was too obvious. The shot bounced off his shields, but he kept pushing. There was a good opening ahead, and wouldn't be the one they'd expect him to take. Second shot hit his shields. And as the third one rang, he rolled away and came to a stop in the small alcove.

There was a loud bang, and felt as if a splash of water hit him, covering him from head to toe. His vision went dark, and as he furiously wiped at his helmet visor. It was blue paint of some sort.

"I expected more, Spectre," a voice came through the open comms.

He turned to see someone standing at the opening of the small alcove. Turian armor. Only one, though.

"In that case, you should have tried harder to make me believe you were serious," Nihlus replied. "You shouldn't have stopped when I came out with the asari."

"I couldn't be sure her barrier would be stable," the turian said. "How is Liara doing? She didn't look too hurt."

"... who are you?"

He had been trying to place the voice. He didn't quite recognize the armor. Black and blue set, it had seen some use, and not gentle at that. The turian raised one hand, fingers spread, and slowly, reached for his helmet. He didn't take it off, couldn't in that moon's thin atmosphere, but removing the front shielding let him see the face behind the transparent cover. The face paint, the cocky expression. He recognized him immediately. Eyepiece was different, though.

"Vakarian," Nihlus said.

"I go by Archangel these days," Garrus said, lowering the facial shield again.

"Youre Archangel? From Omega?" Nihlus said. Garrus nodded. Several questions immediately came to mind, but he started with the obvious. "Why tell me that? I would have thought you'd rather keep it secret."

"Call it a show of good faith. You've been drawing attention to yourself, Spectre."

Nihlus finally stood, shaking his arms angrily to get rid of the blue paint. Fake explosive, of course. Had seen his share of those during bootcamp. He thought he heard a low, rumbling laugh from Garrus, but let it slide.

"If you've heard that, you know what I'm doing," Nihlus said.

"I can imagine. It's not going to work, not like this."

"I'll make it work."

Garrus laughed again. It grated on him, there was something oddly off-putting about that rumbling, low laughter.

"The Council won't let that happen, you know that. Who do you think sent me? The Terminus can't be allowed to unify. That's their game.."

"The Council has no right to complain when they've abandoned their duty," Nihlus retorted hotly, taking a step closer to Garrus. He tapped his chest plate as he talked. "You know what's coming. We don't know when, we don't know how, but the Reapers will return."

"Sure they will. Do you want to be alive when that happens?" Garrus said. "This is an assassination, Spectre. After this, you're dead. I can't have you ruining my reputation."

Nihlus was about to retort with an angry response, but something stopped him. Garrus didn't look like he was bragging. He sounded serious. Sure, they could give it a real go. He liked his odds if they did. But he was right. If not Garrus, someone else. Eventually Spectres would start coming themselves instead of sending assassins. It was always risky to operate in the Terminus, specially for a mission like that. Leaving the Council's footprint, so to speak, was risky. But they would.

"You have a suggestion?" Nihlus said.

"Yes. Stop trying to control everyone. Put people in charge who will follow if and when the Reapers come, but let them be. They'll screw up and fight each other, but that's not your concern." He paused for a moment. "You know as well as I do you can only trust yourself."

Nihlus thought about it. He wasn't wrong. He knew it. And in a way, he had already been doing it. Put someone in charge who'd fall in line. He was thinking about building an army, but even now, they could barely be kept together. Once there was a threat, once the Reapers came, they'd fall in line properly. So maybe that really was all he could do.

"Also," Garrus added, and brought up what looked like a blood extractor. "I'm going to need proof of death."

"Blood?" Nihlus said. "That's not going to work."

"It will, once it's been used to clone some body parts," Garrus replied.

Body parts?

Organ cloning was one thing. Body parts, however, was only done with full body cloning, and was quite illegal. Moreover, he couldn't imagine Vakarian, of all people, going with that. But he seemed rather unconcerned. He wondered for a moment what had happened to the turian, given everything he had heard about Archangel, but figured pretty quickly it couldn't be much different than what he was going through. Life never went back to being the same after learning about the Reapers. Or after Shepard's death.

"This isn't going to make you any friends, Archangel," Nihlus said, taking the gizmo.

"I can handle it."

"And tell me," Nihlus said, "who put you up for this? Did a Spectre really come sniffing all the way to Omega?"

At this, Garrus chuckled again, and this time, the laughter seemed to have more humor than the dark laughter he had shared so far.

"You're going to love this," Garrus said. "The job and the solution have both been set up by the Shadow Broker."

Nihlus felt his jaw go slack in surprise, stopping mid-gesture as he was about to put the gizmo to his arm.

"The... Shadow Broker?"

"Yes, apparently he's not a fan of the Reapers either."

Garrus and Nihlus looked at each other, and this time, the understanding was wordless. They didn't need to speak at all. The Broker, of all people, was not an altruist. Either there was something else behind the scenes, or there was going to be a bill to pay in the future. And with this deal, he had both Nihlus and Garrus in his grasp. Knowing Nihlus hadn't been assassinated, and that Archangel hadn't done as requested. The real question is, what was his real game?

They'd have to wait and see. For now, Nihlus - or, rather, General Terrius - was dead. And Archangel had done the deed. Omega was going to become hell for him, but for some reason, it didn't look as if Garrus much minded.

It had been a year and a half since the attack on the Citadel and the business with Saren had concluded. This story about the "Reapers" had, fortunately, largely gone away, although the story could still be found out there, largely relegated to fringe groups and the dark corners of the extranet. It had taken considerable effort to restore normalcy to the Galaxy. The Destiny Ascension had been doing tours through the Council space non-stop. The Hierarchy had been parading with it and showing every last bit of improvement done to the fleets to anyone who cared to listen. Not his favourite ting, that. Showing the capabilities of the fleets so openly, but it put people's minds at ease. They had even had to agree with the asari to start a classified program to evaluate the possibility of an invasion by a fleet of "Reapers", which he had sold to the Hierarchy as a way to prepare for a new Geth attack. Which in a way he knew was true. That super-dreadnought was indeed powerful, he'd be a fool not to recognize it, but it was unlikely that the Geth possessed an entire fleet of them. Even for machines, the resources it'd take to create a monstrosity like that were immense. The eezo core alone was incredible.

Regardless, normalcy had been re-established. More so after the latest news. The final and ugliest chapter of it all. The Hierarchy had lost another good Spectre, but this time it had happened quietly. Most people didn't even know Nihlus had been the one going under the General Terrius alias, but some did. He only adopted the alias after he had already started his silly crusade through the Terminus.

"Are you sure it's real?" Sparatus said, looking at the Spectre.

"Quite sure," the salarian replied. "About half a head was provided, including brain matter. DNA is a match. Despite appearances, I wouldn't expect a turian to survive without half his brain."

Valern chuckled lightly in response. Salarian humor. He didn't get it. Tevos smiled and nodded.

"It is regrettable that it had to come to this," the asari said, "but the risk to galactic stability was too great. Even if the Terminus is not under our purview, we cannot turn a blind eye to dangers we might encounter which threaten them."

It wasn't the Terminus that was in danger, not really. Sparatus knew it. But let the asari spin their tales. In a way, she might even believe it to be true. If a large part of the Terminus unified under a strong leader, they might spark conflict with others. Perhaps. It was a weak excuse, one the asari would take. Not that this would ever become public knowledge, but the right people would. Asari loved nothing more than finding an excuse to lie to themselves.

"What about this vigilante. This... Archangel?" Sparatus said.

"A human religious figure, but he is a turian. We didn't meet directly, but seems capable."

"As an asset?"

"Hard to tell. Didn't take any payment, but wanted a promise for a favor at a later date. Given his attitude and conversation, he was pretty sure there was Spectre involvement."

"How?" Valern said. "Source unreliable?"

"Possible. Might have deduced and simply acted with confidence. He seemed unconcerned, however. Or he might need extraction at some point. This job has made him a lot of enemies."

"What about Aria?" Tevos said. Her tone was casual, but Sparatus suspected there was something else. She was always the one to bring up Aria. Sure, the so-called Queen of Omega was an important figure in the Terminus, but she was always the one to mention her when the Terminus came up. Well, most of the time.

"Hard to tell. Archangel has kept well clear of Aria and her people. My information indicates he used to run with a crew, but started to operate alone about a year ago. I can continue to gather information."

"Please do. I'd like to know who this turian is," Sparatus said.

"Of course, Councilor," the Spectre said. "Is there anything else?"

"No, thank you Spectre," Tevos said. She waited until the salarian left, and turned to the others. "Ugly business, but had to be done. It is a shame Nihlus couldn't be reasoned with."

"The results might not change," Valern said. Let a Salarian be the one to jump to the worst case scenario. It was a wonder he had seen reason about these supposed "Reapers". "We should monitor his chain of command, ensure no other leader emerges to take his place."

"His forces were barely kept together, they are more likely to dissolve into infighting during a power struggle," Sparatus said. "Still, it will be worth it. It could be a chance for someone like Aria to move in and consolidate even more power."

He looked at Tevos carefully as he spoke, but there was little change in her demeanor. Not unexpected, she did know how to keep a cool head when necessary. He would let them worry about Nihlus' forces, and concentrate on Omega himself. That Archangel intrigued him. They had lost two of their best Spectres in just as many years, he needed someone skilled that could be brought to the side of the Hierarchy. A disgruntled turian with, as the humans said, an axe to grind was a perfect candidate for that. Ironic, but an easy psychological trick to play on turians. Agree to the injustice done to them, provide a remedy and place them in a position to prevent it from happening again. Once they were in the system, they'd fall in line.

Sadly, it wouldn't be easy. Too many people went through Omega. He'd need to get the Hierarchy's Intelligence services to take care of it.

New Year had come and gone, and life was back to normal. Or at least as normal as it could be. We now had Tela on board with the Broker, at least as far as the Reapers went, and we were still trying to clear up indoctrination anywhere we could find it. I didn't expect we would necessarily save the galaxy, but making things somewhat easier for them by removing indoctrinated elements was a worthy enough endeavor. Of course, it wasn't exactly removing indoctrinated people, it was more removing assholes who we suspected had been in contact with Reaper technology long enough to possibly be indoctrinated.

It felt a bit like pre-crime from Minority Report, but to be honest, I had decided that I was okay with crossing that particular line. The people we were screwing over, so to speak, were only screwable because they were dirty, corrupt, or both. Not that the replacements in the pecking order were any better, but it was about what would happen when shit hit the fan and the Reapers invaded the galaxy. Local politicians and their ilk were one thing, but some of the people were large corporation executives, conglomerates, bankers, we're talking the people who control the flow of money and goods through the Galaxy. Definitely not the kind of people you want thinking "all hail the reapers, resistance is futile!".

The downside of all this was that the Broker pulling that kind of crap didn't go unnoticed. The fact that the Broker had moved to alter the balance of power in the Galaxy wasn't something that flew under the radar, but so far all it had done was confuse everyone. There was no clear pattern to what the Broker was trying to accomplish, because everyone was looking at it in terms of power. Sometimes, Gee had screwed over direct competitors just to make sure balance stayed in place when removing potentially indoctrinated elements. But as a result of that, there was a sort of lukewarm war brewing under the surface. With the Broker no longer neutral, lines were being drawn. And the side effect was that information exchanges had to be a bit more... forceful, so to speak. People are less likely to offer exchanges of information if they suspected said exchange could be used against them.

Gee didn't care. Neither did I. In fact, it was a lot like killing two birds with one stone. Dismantling the Broker network was too big a job for anyone, but let the market decide, so to speak, and if everyone moves to smaller but independent information networks, well...

I never quite liked the Broker and what it represented. Too much power sitting in the Shadows. Not that the Galaxy in general was particularly democratic, but there's degrees of it. Essentially putting in charge anyone rich or unscrupulous enough to pay the Broker fee, so to speak, was a step too far for me.

And Gee was just worrying about the Reapers. He had found Reaper artifacts all over the freaking galaxy. We're talking over a hundred of them so far, and counting, not including the little indoctrination devices that were being passed around by the rich and powerful. There was what appeared to be a very, very obvious processing plant on Armeni. Official reports had the structures as elaborate crypts below the surface from a long dead spacefaring civilization. Landing and exploring the place was forbidden by Citadel Law, because it was considered a sacrosanct graveyard.

That one traced back to a resolution by the Salarian Union almost two decades ago, not long after the First Contact War. Everyone involved was already dead of old age, so it was hard to tell if they knew the truth or not. If they did, the Broker had never found out, but Gee was determined not to leave any stone unturned. Next was, according to him, getting either some nukes in place, or a Dreadnought to blow up the structure to smithereens.

And of course, he had found the dead Reaper around Mnemosyne. I hadn't been surprised, but I was glad I had been keeping up with him. I explained absolutely everything I knew about the derelict reaper and how we actually would need it to get to the Collectors. So he had left it alone, but had also used remote probes and a science team to go in there, get a reading off the IFF, and start working on reproducing it.

Why? Because the Omega-4 Relay wasn't the only relay from which no ship had ever returned.

That one scared the shit out of me.

But the overall result? This was going great. The Broker network wasn't going to fall apart at the seams before the Reapers arrived, but would be on its way there after the fact. It would remain useful against the Reapers. If we could remove indoctrination from positions of leadership, things might come together better. And Gee had a lot of information to take back to the consensus. If we could get the Geth on board early, we might save ourselves a LOT of trouble. I had prodded Gee repeatedly, but he was still gathering information. According to him, the consensus had split before over the matter of the Reapers. He knew a minority of the consensus was on his side (thirteen percent according to his latest calculations), but as of today, a split was substantially more likely than a full consensus.

We didn't have a lot of time, and he did believe me on that. And despite the AI having finally disappeared off my life, I still remembered her face when I asked her about the Crucible. It didn't work. Didn't work? Not enough? What was about it that failed?

Maybe the idea of space magic that would end everything was just stupid to begin with.

Maybe it was there because the real end was not one that would sell videogames. If it ended in failure, that's not an ending you can sell.

But for now, we were in Joab. A formerly garden planet with a civilization that had been reduced to dust via orbital bombardments thousands of years ago. Prime candidate place to find some Reaper-related shennanigans. But so far the information we had received didn't pan out. There were archeological digs all over the place, true, but so far nothing Reaper-related.

"So what now?" I said over the comms. All I had been doing so far was observe from a distance.

"There's three more sites to check," Tela replied. "But you're right, it doesn't look like any of the other sites we've checked. There was nothing from the Spectre database."

"What do you want to do?"

"Let's call it off for today, we can finish tomorrow. Don't want to draw too much attention."

"Copy that. Where do you wan-" My question was interrupted by a burst of digital noise as the comms suddenly dropped. "Tela?" No response, only noise. "Tela, do you copy?"

I kept trying, but was getting nothing. Crap. It could be nothing, it was likely nothing, but for the comms to drop like that was very unusual. About maybe a minute later something broke through. I only caught a fragment of Tela's voice, not enough for the translator to pick up, yelling something. And definitely the sound of guns.

Shit.

Caution to the wind, I stepped out of my hiding spot and rushed towards the site. This part of the continent had beem bombed to hell and back, so it was all broken, barren terrain. I gave the shuttle a wide berth as I rushed through, submachine gun in hand. The dig site was deserted, I couldn't get a signal through, it all stank of a trap. Tela could handle herself, but whoever had set her up might very well know that.

I was still thinking about it when I stepped through the airlock, and a moment later found myself frozen in place. The tingle of biotics was instantly recognizable. I had been there before. A stasis.

Fuck.

There was nothing I could do as someone came behind me, throwing something to cover my face. A moment later something was jabbed between the plates of my hardsuit and I felt a prick on my neck, and everything went dark for good.

They weren't after Tela.

Entry 96:

Reactivation is proceeding on schedule. Shepard has already gained full motor control, although we still have her heavily sedated. Cognitive tests will follow and, barring any unforseen circumstances, she will be fully operational by the end of next week.

Failing to remove the Collector implants has been quite jarring, I will admit. I was confident it could be done, and I still am, but the timeframe has proven too short for me. Thus, we've had to work around them. The fact that Cerberus had resources for dealing with the implants which weren't shared until recently did also gall me a bit. But that is the price one has to pay for decentralized cells, I suppose.

So far, no colonies have been attacked by the Collectors, but our intelligence suggests they have been intercepting human convoys and kidnapping crews and passengers. No confirmed sightings, however. An abandoned convoy of ships with no active signals is a hard target to track. Disappearances have, however, substantially increased through the Traverse. It is playing different from what Morgan said was the most likely scenario, which raises questions about potential leaks.

The fact that I'm putting so much stock in Morgan's information is certainly a surprise for me.

Miranda Lawson signing off.

Author's Notes: Here you go, have a cliffhanger! Sorry, but worry not, it's not going to leave you hanging for long. First thing, we've got a bit of a setup going on with Nihlus, Garrus, and even Liara. As many of you have mentioned, unifying the Terminus is not something that can simply be done without consequences. You either have to be extremely secretive, or change your objectives. Don't think of getting everyone together under a single command right now, think about setting it up so they can be set under a single command once the time comes. Also having some fun with the Shadow Broker. And because everything was going so well, throw a curveball because why not!

Actually, it's not a "what the hell" thing, it's pretty much the way I had planned to start Mass Effect 2 since the get go. This will tie it all together over the next couple of chapters. I just have to be careful and make sure everything is timed perfectly to make it work. I hope you like it, although in some ways it's going to feel a bit like a step backwards.

BUT!

You, dear reader, will know my reasoning for it, what's actually happening behind the scenes, and I hope you go with the flow.

As always, if you'd like to give me a bit of support, I'd appreciate it greatly!

tinyurl (period) com (slash) y2q9cop6

(Still think FFnet sucks at hyperlinks).

Reviews time! The double update before the end of the year was fun, and honestly I was between two minds between elaborating more on that with this update or not, but I felt like the New Year update will be more special if it's as self-contained as it was. I can leave to your imagination how the rest of the break went for Roy and company ;)

Guest: Thanks for the suggestions! The SR2 will likely be as is to start with, but with changes through the galaxy I am planning some more upgrades for it.

Rainsfere: Yeah, Talitha is definitely not doing great in her headspace. We did have Kasumi's PoV during that scene, but she does remember it very differently, doesn't she? And Garrus, well, right now he doesn't think highly of anyone. But he's going to have a second go at it come ME2. I mean, it's not a surprise that I intend to have Garrus and Roy both with the SR2, right? :D And yeah, I do think that at some point Roy's going to have to come to terms with being somewhat famous. I mean, Gabby and Kenneth already recognized him, just not by face. I think I have an idea of where I can have some fun with it.

maesde: Everything is going to be complicated. Everything! You'll soon know why haha!

BJ Hanssen, Tom712, RIOSHO, AJAX087, SpecterXCove, general-joseph-dickson, thanks for the support!

Next time, on My Effect: Convergence! The Eleventh Hour approaches, and an unlikely hero - if we get to it. Until then, thanks for reading, reviewing, and all the support!