Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.

Author Notes: Here's part two of the Taetrian Nights arc, please enjoy.

Episode 32: Taetrian Nights [Part II]

Shepard watched as Nihlus put the OSD into his terminal and brought up the files on it. "Did you know she worked in information security back in the day? Now this marriage to the viceroy… she knows how to run this shadowy stuff, who to ask, and has the connections to boot."

"Are you really surprised? She did track me down. When she finally needed to." Nihlus said.

Shepard was thankful that she stood behind his seat, that way he did not see her shake her head. Nihlus would probably not stop the bitter commentary unless something made him talk to his mother. "Well she got a file on Nerion. She began looking for him immediately after he sent her the first threatening message. The Bureau of Immigration logged his arrival as seven years ago."

Shepard had looked up the unfamiliar institutions. The Bureau of Immigration was part of the Laudatix, responsible for keeping and maintaining the records of non-vacation comings and goings of the colony's citizens, those individuals permitted to bear the Taetrus markings. The Laudatix itself functioned as the body in charge of records, in the interest of keeping the Hierarchy's multiple tiers of citizenship functioning. The records were vital to maintaining the meritocracy, as the government could not afford merits, whether good or ill, going unnoticed. The existence of such records would have made the average human chafe, because they bordered on police state surveillance, but for turians it was just the way things were.

"There's a permanent residence address," Nihlus said.

"An assumed one. We could verify it, but at best it would only net us Nerion himself. We want him and his buddies. Who knows how many know about Camilla. I think the more interesting bit is his employment record, which says he's the administrator of a meat product manufacturing plant. It's a potential base of operations."

"Do you think it is a Facinus front?"

"Could be." Shepard replied. "If a bunch of low-level sham patriots wanted to surreptitiously skim resources for their cause, food manufacturing is a good place to start. There's less scrutiny than ammo or weapons, but it's just as needed. The plant has a certain acceptable waste margin, allowed for spoilage, errors of manufacture, etcetera… but if they minimize it, whatever is up to that acceptable margin can be skimmed off and diverted elsewhere."

"It would not be a lot."

"No, but this plant produces cheap pre-packaged cured meat products. They keep almost as good as rations. I don't think I need to tell you that a hungry soldier will eat near anything. Then, would Facinus even have a full army to feed? They strike me as the guerrilla types. If so, fewer numbers require fewer resources. Also, this could be systemic, not the only plant being skimmed."

"Those are good points. Well… this plant is regulated; we can request the employee list and check their records for potential Facinus sympathizers."

"The employee list is already in the file. As for Facinus sympathizers… if there is a skimming operation happening, the average floor worker would not know. We are looking at the management, quite possibly just one of the shifts, and of course the shipping department. The product needs to move on the low-key, so only some of the shippers, and likely the foreman." Shepard went on.

"Suspect the accountant and inventory master as well. The books would have to be fixed to hide the skimming. No honest accountant or inventory master will stay silent about losses always being at the acceptable limit despite all attempts to reduce waste. Even the shoddiest program ought to have a slight effect." Nihlus added.

"That goes without saying." Shepard replied. Such an operation was basically a racket, something straight from a mob's repertoire. The mob would of course target a more lucrative product, but the framework was the same. Classically it would have been the night shift too, because that was when the plant would run with the smallest, most isolated crew. The night shift would be the one with the least unexpected witnesses. Day shift workers might trade schedules if one of them had somewhere else to be, but few would ever wish to shift from day to night.

"Once we are done here, we will need to make sure the right people know about this. A general review and purge would hamper Facinus supply chains even more." Nihlus went on.

"Sounds like a plan, now we just need to do the leg work," Shepard said.

"The boring part of being a Spectre."

"Boring it may be, but it's in the job description. To stalk one's target, learn their capabilities..." their mannerisms, routines, and idiosyncrasies, it was the very basics of a job for an assassin. She was looking at Nerion as a mark. Research of this sort would do much to identify weaknesses, from which she could create an opportunity to strike. Military planning had much in common there, but it used different numbers, and the plan had to account for the abilities of everyone involved. Here it was just her and Nihlus, and Shepard had a pretty good idea of what they could do together.

"It will probably take a few days, but we will have our information, and when we do… Nerion had better be ready for what has been seventeen years coming. I never liked him. Self-righteous load of varren shit that he is."

Shepard smiled, "Your mother did say you almost got into a fight with him once."

"I only regret that I let her hold me back." Nihlus said darkly. "If he did have a hand in my father's death…"

Nihlus was thinking about revenge. Then and there Shepard almost regretted mentioning that part, but there was no use crying over spilled milk. She would just have to make sure that revenge did not blind him, nor cost them more in the end.

The next day, at the factory…

He knew going in that Camilla Aurelia was nobody's fool. He knew all about her history in information security. She had handled a lot of sensitive data in the past and was used to keeping secrets. He knew she would look for him with everything she had, and she would find him too. He knew he would have to break her resolve before she gave him what he wanted.

That was why he had a trusted man inject himself into the ranks of the residence's staff. It may have taken months of waiting, biding his time until the agent gained the family's trust, before his plan could proceed, but he was glad he had taken the precaution. Without the inside source, he would have never had a warning that the plan required adjustment to work around an unforeseen problem.

The plan had been to watch and be ready when Camilla finally made her move. The three-twelfth meat product plant made for a convenient site for what was bound to be a bloody affair. No one would notice a few extra bloodstains on the floor and the offal disposal system would handle the bodies. Camilla would not dare expose herself after her team failed. She would never prove he had her agents' remains dumped with the Pariki innards. More so he had expected Camilla would reach out to her oldest whelp to oversee what she would deem her masterful attack on his factory. In the end he would have the troop deployment information and the ultimate satisfaction of utterly destroying Camilla once and for all.

What he did not expect was for said whelp to have become a Spectre. When his agent had reported that, he initially thought it a joke, or a misunderstanding. He had been willing to accept that maybe he had been a failed candidate. Still, he inquired into the brat's records at the Laudatix, and "failed candidate" was hardly the terms to use with the facts at hand. The whelp's record listed his last transfer of service in 2175; he was pulled from active duty by order of none other than Saren Arterius, the Council's most ruthless attack varren. Since the brat did not return to Hierarchy service, it was a foregone conclusion that he indeed became a Spectre.

That singular thing complicated everything. A Spectre had no limits to the means and methods he could use. The whelp could blow up the whole factory, with everyone still inside it, claim them all to be Facinus, and no one would question him. The only way the situation could have been worse is if the whelp had brought in Arterius himself, because while the brat might not go that far, the mentor would have.

With that, he had no real explanation for the whelp's choice to bring in a human instead. His inside source told him about the female, about her calm, chilled, but polite manner of carrying herself, an attitude so atypical for her emotion-driven species. He did not know what to make of her. The only thing he knew for certain was that she was not the type he could use against the Spectre.

The agent reported that she had arrived with a mobile locker, so she was active military. He had looked up her name on the extranet. There was a story of her having handled a rather impressive number of batarian slavers during their attack on the Alliance colony on Elysium. The female was a sniper, a skilled one, but that was all. His second-in-command saw her as nothing more than the Spectre's harlot and help, catering to the whelp's taste for the exotic which was unsatisfied with some asari stripper.

The details ultimately did not matter, his instinct told him to be wary, and so he turned to a contingency plan. They would not give the Spectre time to set up, as they could not hope to predict what he would try to do. A Spectre was not one of the Hierarchy's claw-boots, the sort that only knew direct force. He would not bust into the factory from the front door, guns blazing, and bumble into an immaculately laid out trap. They had to give him every reason to rush, to make mistakes.

Thus why he was sitting in his office, in front of the normally concealed bank of communication equipment on the back wall, waiting for what ought to be a broadcast of his perfect turnabout. Right now, his agents were in position to ambush the car that took Octavian Pallas home from the academy he attended. Camilla's youngest whelp would be his way to lure her oldest into a trap, and then he would have both.

The radio cracked to life, "I have visual on the target vehicle."

Nerion smiled to himself. Camilla would beg him for mercy for her brats. Then, maybe if she amused him enough, and gave him the data he wanted, he might actually spare the younger one. After all, enjoy it as he would, he was not a complete monster.

An hour later, at the viceroy's mansion…

It was their second day on Taetrus, and Shepard found herself in Nihlus' room, up to her eyeballs in personnel files on the factory's employees. Analysis of this sort was hardly her forte; normally it would be done by someone who had a psychology background. Shepard only had her training in reading people as marks, and her instincts. Yet this was already more than what Nihlus had, or was willing to use. He said he had trouble seeing those on the list as anything other than at least guilty by association. Her personal ethics would not tolerate that level of callousness. With such thinking she knew he would have a confirmation bias, so it fell to her to be the impartial one. She would not be happy unless she could say she had genuinely tried to separate the guilty from the innocent.

The factory employed one hundred individuals across three shifts. So far she had powered through around thirty records, and no one had jumped at her as an obvious Facinus agent. Still, there were one or two individuals who had a few markers, hints in their past that painted them to be more individualistic than the average turian. Her first choices were those who had records of disciplinary problems and actions. A record of questioning the little things hinted at someone who would not take orders because they hated the thought of being ordered. Turians education emphasized obedience and discipline, insubordination of that sort was basically a turian version of anti-social behavior. Shepard thought those types would be more likely turn to the rather anti-social rhetoric of Facinus.

She had just laid aside another profile when the room's door opened behind her. Shepard looked up to see Nihlus step in as soon as the gap was wide enough. By the urgency and the way his mandibles were drawn up against his chin she knew something had gone wrong.

"Shepard, Nerion made his move."

"What did he do?" she asked as she got to her feet.

"The car that should have brought Octavian home from the academy appears to have been attacked. Camilla got a distress signal and she was unable to contact the driver or any of the three bodyguards assigned to Octavian."

Shepard had to quell the instant surge of anger she felt. "That spineless coward..." As if she did not have a reason to kill him, Nerion went and gave her the guilt-free one. "Where did they take him?"

"The factory, where else? Camilla traced Octavian's omni-tool; he managed to keep them from taking it, somehow."

"When do we hit the factory?" It was the only question that needed to be asked right then, the only question Nihlus would probably accept.

"Tonight."

Shepard nodded.

"I should have killed that mongrel when I had the chance. I let Camilla stop me then… no one will stop me now." Nihlus hissed, his eyes darkening, like the sky just before a really nasty thunderstorm. He turned and moved toward his gear locker. "Go suit up!" he ordered.

In any other situation Shepard would have protested his tone, but here she knew better, "Easy, Nihlus. We'll get Octavian back."

"I know we will, but if they hurt him in any way…" Nihlus replied. "I will kill every single one of them."

Shepard had never heard Nihlus threaten violence quite like this before. He had to be utterly incensed, and she suspected there was nothing she could say that would calm him. She turned and exited the room, and was not surprised to hear the door close behind her with a beep that indicated the lock engaging. Their discussion was over; Nihlus was not going to give her room to talk him down. It left Shepard feeling rather very helpless and uncomfortable. She could not help but hate Nerion all the more. He was making Nihlus turn into someone Shepard did not recognize.

"Commander," Camilla's voice carried.

Shepard paused in the doorway of her room and glanced to her side. "Yes?"

"He is planning to storm that factory, is he not?" Camilla asked.

"We are raiding that plant, yes." Shepard replied as she walked into the room, fully aware that Camilla followed right behind her. "We will get Octavian back, safe and sound." She would make that promise, even if she knew that realistically there was no guarantee. Still, she could be a little considerate to what a mother must feel right now.

"I am worried for them both," Camilla admitted. "They are both my sons…"

Shepard paused at her gear locker and looked over her shoulder, "You do not need to worry about Nihlus." She hated herself for lying, because she worried for him just as much. "He is… angry, but he's been trained by the best." At least that was not a lie. Shepard hoped that whatever Saren drilled into Nihlus would allow him to keep level-headed. "He knows what he's doing." They could not afford to rush into that factory half-cocked.

"Yes, I know," Camilla said. "He is a Spectre…"

"I've seen Nihlus in action. I've seen him take down geth like they were nothing. Nerion and his cronies are nowhere near as fearsome. Nerion himself is nothing more than a base coward who thinks kidnapping a child will get him what he asks for." Shepard tapped at the front panel on her armor case, which caused a panel to slide aside, revealing the pad of a biometric scanner. "What he's really asking for is a bullet to the head." She would happily oblige, if Nihlus did not beat her to the punch.

"And what about you, Commander? Will you be alright?"

Shepard glanced over her shoulder; did Camilla think she was the weakest link? "I am not a stranger to fighting lopsided odds." She could not be sure Camilla knew what the ICT or its graduates were, so she would not say anything there, but that was not her chief experience. "During the Skyllian Blitz, the mercenaries and slavers had the upper hand in numbers and malicious intent. I did not flinch then, and I will not flinch now. Locker controls, confirm biometrics."

"Authorization code required," the case's VI stated in that mechanical voice they all seemed to have.

"Authorization code five-nine-two-three, Alpha, Charlie, two-eight-two-six."

"Voice print recognized. Palm-print confirmed." The case's lock VI replied. The biometric reader flashed and Shepard lifted her hand away. The panel closed and the lid split, one half rising on actuators, the other lowering to the floor, revealing her armor, separated into parts, embedded into foam padding, and below that lay Vincent, the twins, and her knife.

In the end Nihlus timed their departure to coincide with sunset. To get to the factory they borrowed one of the vehicles at the mansion, a non-descript state-provided sedan Skycar with windows that tinted almost entirely black. It would do for a roof-top insertion.

Nihlus surprised Shepard with how far and how fast his clearance got them access to certain records. The Hierarchy considered food production capacity to be essential infrastructure, like roads and bridges. This meant food production facilities were commissioned and constructed by the state to exact standards. As a result, the plant's original blueprints were on file within the archives at Vallum's Bureau of Infrastructure Planning. It was merely a matter of Nihlus verifying his Spectre credentials with the bureau's system to get instant access to the blueprints.

Shepard spent the ride studying the layout. By the time they got within sight of the factory, the night had fully settled. With the planet having no natural satellites, there was no moonlight to break up the shadows. Nihlus disconnected all external lights three blocks away before he made a crawling approach, to reduce the car's engine noise.

The yard around the factory was fenced in with a chain link and barbwire fence. The grounds were all bare concrete paving slabs, with a couple shipping vehicles standing at the waiting zone, ready to be backed into the loading bays. The presence of wheeled trucks was expected. Some companies made it their policy and an advertising point that they did not risk contaminating the food with eezo from a flying truck's core. For the Hierarchy it was the basic norm. What surprised her was that the yard was absolutely devoid of activity. Normally loading the day's production onto trucks should have been done at night, but not here, not now.

The factory itself was a rather nondescript grey rectangular block of concrete with two large smoke stacks. There was nothing coming out of these, so it seemed like production had stopped, another sign of something weird going on. The pre-fabricated panels that lined the building's external walls were massive; the blueprints indicated the plant could withstand artillery shells and most conventional explosives. The windows were tiny, set with bars, and the doors were likewise reinforced. Overall the place looked like a budget fortress.

"They would use the factory floor for the cover of all those conveyers and machinery. These sorts of facilities have tremendous echoes, so sneaking around will be trickier." Shepard said. Ideally she would have taken out the power, plunge the whole place into darkness, but she was hesitant to do that here. They could have backup power, but she would lose her element of surprise. It would endanger the hostage unnecessarily.

"Finding Octavian and ensuring his safety is our top priority." Nihlus said.

"That goes without saying," Shepard had a feeling that Nihlus would pretty much cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war once his half-brother was out of harm's way. She would not blame him, but she wanted to prevent him from going in half-cocked and reckless. The operation had to be executed with surgical precision.

She also had ideas about where they could be keeping Octavian. There were only a few places where they could secure someone; unfortunately the list included the enormous cold room where the carcasses of butchered animals were kept prior to processing. Would these bastards put a youth in there to freeze? For a turian, being stuck in the freezer would mean a rather swift and painful death. Octavian's only hope would be the emergency blankets that were there in case someone was locked in accidently. Assuming they were not removed. She knew better than to mention that to Nihlus, she did not want him focusing on the idea.

Nihlus steered the car over the empty roof. The lack of guards up here was mystifying, but Shepard would not look a gift horse in the mouth. It could be that it was a tactical choice to keep them inside. If Nerion only had a few goons, spreading them out too thinly would have made getting past them easier. It is much easier to stealth-kill individuals. A pair already posed more of a challenge. Her theory was that not everyone in that factory was Facinus, and bringing in outsiders would have raised suspicions. Facinus would not want to blow their whole operation, assuming there was an operation. "I'd love it if you could set us down as gently as possible. Now's not the time to announce our arrival," she said as she did up her helmet. She would not be caught because someone heard her whisper into her comm.

The car's engine pitch changed as Nihlus began their landing, and Shepard unbuckled her seat belt. Nihlus set the car down with all the care of a precious piece of super fragile pottery going on display, and the passenger side door slid open. Her suit's sensors lit up with the environmental readings almost instantly. The air was a warm thirty degrees, relative humidity at a muggy eighty-three percent, with a quiet five kilometer an hour land breeze heading north, out over the ocean.

She turned north, toward Vallum's city center in the distance. This far away, the central districts were nothing more than a glimmering mass of skyscrapers and gossamer streams of flying Skycars. The ocean was invisible, but she knew it was there. Her eyes drifted up to the sky. The city's light pollution scattered and reflected on the underside of the thick, dark mass of clouds slowly rolling in on the land breeze's high altitude return flow. She reached up to the side of her helmet and tapped her comm, "There are heavy clouds moving in from the coast." It would do as a comm check as well.

"That is normal; the start of monsoon season is a week away." Nihlus replied calmly.

Shepard hummed, "If you ask me, monsoon season looks to be coming early this year." Those clouds looked like they were ready to dump a torrential downpour of biblical proportions. She turned toward the rooftop access hatch, but before getting to it she needed to handle a trifle detail. There was a light aimed directly at the hatch. Once it was open, the light would flood right through and be visible inside. A flick of her wrist brought her omni-tool up, "Overload charge," she commanded. The tool began to hum, and when the humming reached the right pitch she laid her hand on top of the light fixture, dumping the pulse. The lighting element inside burst with a loud pop, problem solved.

Nihlus was suddenly right there beside her. Shepard turned to the locked hatch itself and brought up her omni-tool to get to work. The lock panel turned green in less than a minute and she tapped the pneumatic override. She was not taking the chances that anyone would hear it open. Digging her fingers into the recess between the panels, she braced her feet, and pulled the two halves apart.

Now she could see a narrow metal ladder that led onto an equally narrow catwalk three meters below. Beyond that there was a precipitous twenty-five meter drop to the factory floor. Shepard leaned over the hatch and peered through. The internal lighting was quite bright, eliminating many of the shadows. The factory lines were an invariable maze of conveyors, machinery, cables, ducts, and pipes. The biggest machines were the enormous cookers that rapidly cured the meat. She could also see ten armed figures patrolling amidst it all, every single one of them wearing a hardsuit. She would assume there must be a few more elsewhere.

The factory was aligned with the narrow sides east and west. Shepard now turned to peer to the north wall, where the cold room was. The freezer was the size of a small apartment, with two entrances, allowing meat to pass through from the receiving area and gutting floor in the factory's east wing. The plant produced cured meat products from the tough-skinned six-legged animals that turians treated as cattle as well as farmed fish. The former came in as pre-slaughtered and gutted carcasses, ready to be cut up, cooked, and packaged on the main floor. However the fish came frozen whole, which meant it had to be cleaned and gutted before it could be prepared and packaged.

There were no guards stationed outside the freezer's doors, which made Shepard wonder whether Nerion had been in fact so cruel as to put Octavian in there, but they would have to check nevertheless. She turned her gaze westward, where the factory's administrative center was. The factory manager, accountant, and inventory master offices were all there. Any one of them would be enough to lock someone in, without being too cruel.

The south side of the building was dominated by a rather large shipping area, where finished product was prepared to go on the trucks. The doors that separated the main floor from the shipping department were locked and guarded. Given that their car was still on the roof, the shipping bays would be one of their egress options. It would be highly uncomfortable, but Shepard was sure that if needed, she could hot-wire one of the trucks and de-couple the trailer, damage be damned.

"Any sign of Octavian?" Nihlus asked.

"No." She replied. Nihlus' tone told her he was one errant twitch away from losing his temper. "My line of sight is limited. We will not know where they're keeping Octavian until we check all the possible places. First we need to get down onto the factory floor. There is a ladder on the south side that's only guarded by one individual. We take the catwalk west and south. After that there are two more guards by the offices, and we'll have that whole side to ourselves." Shepard silently bemoaned the fact that Nihlus did not have a cloak of his own.

"Are you going down or not?" Nihlus asked.

Shepard sighed and swung her legs over onto the ladder. The reality was that Nihlus did not seem to have the patience and control required for stealth, and right now he barely seemed to have any patience at all. She took the rungs one at the time, minding her foot-falls. At the bottom she dropped into a crouch and peered down, watching the guards for any sign of them having heard anything.

Nihlus followed less than quietly, she could hear his heavy footfalls on the rungs, and to her they sounded kind of like explosions. She had to suppress her urge to tell him to mind how he put down his feet. Right then he was so wound up that he might actually snap, and make things much worse.

She sat there for a good thirty seconds, just watching the guards. Only when she was satisfied that they had not heard them, she turned toward the building's west side and began to move, staying low as to present the smallest possible shadow. At the branching turn she paused to peer down; moving up here, under the roof, she could still hear her own footsteps, and that was a problem. Her hearing was not as good as that of the people below. Did the sound carry that far? There would be no cover from the bullets up here.

She turned and made her way south, toward the end of the catwalk and the ladder that would take her down to the floor. She would have loved to avoid ladders, as they were perfect bottlenecks. However there was no other way down. If she was to jump down onto the highest-set pipes or machinery, it would make noise, and the drop was still too much to be safe.

Once at the end, she peered down again. The guards still did not seem to be aware of them. She turned to look at the one just next to the ladder itself. "I need to handle that one on my own. Stay up here for a moment, and no that's not a suggestion." she said.

"Shepard-"

"Going geist!" she said. As soon as the cloak settled, she was on the ladder and making her way down as swiftly as stealth would allow. It was a bit touch and go, given that the cloak worked both ways, she could not see her own feet, but that was something one had to get used to.

Halfway down the ladder she paused to look down at the guard. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot, as if he had been standing there for a long while and was beginning to tire. The casual manner meant he did not know she was above him. Shepard descended, putting each foot down as gingerly as possible. She was on the third rung from the bottom when he finally stiffened and turned, looking at the ladder. Their eyes would have met, were it not for her cloak. She froze and waited, wondering if he would do the obvious thing and come closer, or shrug it off as a figment of his imagination. It depended on whether he heard or smelled her, but the distinction only really mattered for how the final moments of his life would go.

Then he raised his rifle and Shepard knew that it was probably the scent of her suit. This was an issue of trying to out-maneuver an apex predator. Cloaks really did not work for concealing the inherent scent of things. Just as he swung the rifle on the ladder, Shepard jumped down and landed in a low crouch.

"Who is there?" the guard demanded.

"Nihlus, don't you dare. I have this under control." She warned, knowing he would hear her over their suit comm. Her left hand slipped down to draw her knife and she lunged. An instant later she had the guard by the front of his armor and her knife buried in the side of his throat. He uttered a single indiscernible sound, but Shepard had aimed for his larynx. A moment later she yanked the knife free. The guard's rifle dropped to the floor as he grabbed at his injury, but it was the last, desperate effort of someone who had seconds left to live.

"Spirits." Nihlus breathed.

Shepard sighed. It was bound to happen sooner than later. She could not conceal that facet of her skills indefinitely. The dying guard's legs gave way under him, and Shepard grabbed him with both hands. His eyes locked on where he knew she was for all of a split second before they lost focus with death. Shepard closed her eyes and eased him down to the floor. "You can come down now, but quietly." She said into her comm.

Nihlus replied with a rather inarticulate rumble.

Shepard waited and watched, keeping an eye on the corners. It would not do for some guards to come at her right now. She kept a particularly close eye out in the direction where the ladder would be visible. If any of the guards around the offices looked up, they would see her partner climb down.

She knew she had only a few moments to decide how to get Nihlus to do this her way, instead of his, which would involve a lot more rushing right then. Her mind lingered on the thought of the cold room, but they were closest to the offices, so it would be logical to start there, as not to double back. There was also the vague possibility that Octavian was being kept in the fish processing wing. That would have to be the third location they would check, as it was on opposite side of the plant from their location. Shepard heard footsteps behind her and shook her head to return to the matter at hand.

"Shepard, I can not see you, but I know you are here."

"I think I want to keep my cloak engaged for now," she replied. It would allow her to keep the element of surprise; after all, no guard could possibly expect to be shot literally out of the blue. "We will make our way past the offices toward the cold room, and then to the fish processing part of the plant. Those are the only three places I could think of where they might keep Octavian."

"The cold room?" Nihlus hissed.

"Yes. Nihlus, listen, I hope they did not put Octavian in the freezer, but there is a possibility that they did. Now, that's not as bad as it sounds. There should be emergency blankets in there, so he'll have protection, and even… if they removed them, Octavian is clever… he'll figure something out. I can tell you ten different ways someone could buy themselves some time in there." That was a bit of a lie, off-hand she could only name two, but she was sure if she was locked in there, she could cook up eight others after getting a good look at what she had to work with. Octavian was thirteen, practically an adult in turian terms, he could probably work something out, especially given that they let him keep his omni-tool. She would have faith in him. "For now, we sweep the offices. C'mon."

Nihlus reached behind his back and drew his assault rifle; its powering up whine was almost as loud as a gunshot. Shepard could not ignore the odd rumble coming across their comm link. It sounded like a low pitched rolling growl. Nihlus was very much angry at this point, and she had contributed to it. Shepard ghosted her fingers over the power switches of her pistols, though she was not above racking up a few more knife kills.

Nihlus did not say anything more as he rounded the large machinery nearest to them and made a beeline for the offices. Shepard followed, but then decided to overtake him. Last time she had looked, there ought to be two guards along this corridor, which meant one of them was for her to take down. It was not going to be pleasant, but she would have to use Nihlus as a distraction.

The passage that led past the offices was straight through and through, and they saw the first guard a moment before he noticed Nihlus in turn. The double-take cost him, as Nihlus raised his rifle and opened fire. The guard's shields flared, and yet his instinct was right on the money as he rolled out of the way. The movement was enough to throw Nihlus off, and the tail end of his burst sprayed past the guard. Meanwhile the moment of distraction allowed the guard to bring up his rifle and return fire. Shepard saw her partner's shield flare, but he had his target and fired again, laying down a rattle of disruptor fire that brought down the guard's shields before he could bring down Nihlus' own. After that, the bullets from the Spectre-grade rifle made short work of armor and bit into flesh.

Shepard knew that the gig was up. She burst forward, arcing left along the office wall, as to be clear of Nihlus' trajectory if he needed to fire down the corridor. The other guard came running, and skidded to a halt when he saw Nihlus. His rifle rose and he pulled the trigger even before it was fully in position. But he was aiming more along his left, along the line of the conveyors, at Nihlus, utterly unaware of her being on his right. "Get to cover! I got him." She called for her partner's benefit.

She heard Nihlus' rifle return fire, a distracting burst, encouraging the guard to tunnel vision on the Spectre down the corridor. The guard side-stepped the burst with only a little flicker of his shield, but he also lifted his finger off the trigger, and his gun went silent. A moment later he stiffened like a pole, and Shepard knew he must have noticed her coming up on him. Instantly his rifle whipped to her side and opened fire. Shepard heard the bullets whistle right past her as she veered right hard.

The guard must have realized that much as well, as suddenly his rifle was barking full-auto as he swept chest-high across. Shepard knew she had no other choices. She vaulted onto and over the conveyor belt, where she dropped into a sitting position and pressed her back to the conveyor's support legs. The guard must have heard the difference in her footfalls and knew what she did, as a hail of bullets flew right over her head. Then the rifle began to click, thermal clip spent.

"Shepard!" Nihlus called.

"He missed." She replied, breathing hard. Vaulting over machinery was hardly easy. Her exo-frame helped, but nothing would make jumping the mother of all hurdles on the fly easy. She stuck her knife back into its sheath, drew Sin, and turned, rising to her knees to bring the gun right over the conveyer belt. Nihlus was right there on the other side, and then his rifle opened fire into the guard's shields. She took careful aim, and when the kinetic barrier collapsed, fired a single shot into the guard's head. The cold thermal clip he had been trying to jam into his rifle fell from his grip and tumbled to the floor as his body collapsed backwards.

"Are you alright?" Nihlus asked.

Shepard rose to her feet, slipped her gun back into its holster, and brought up her omni-tool to disconnect her cloak. "Yes. But that was a close shave." She climbed onto the conveyor again, and to the other side shakily. For the first time in a good while she was actually a little winded by exertion. She would give Nerion's men some respect; they made her work for it. Then again, they were turian. "By now everyone must have heard all that. We're officially on the clock. Go check the office down at the north end; I'll hit the south and middle."

Nihlus nodded and Shepard turned to walk jog back the way they came. The two offices she elected to check were locked. As she approached the door of the southern-most office she brought up her omni-tool and fired up her decryption program. It took a few seconds for it to identify the lock, but after that it was a simple matter of mucking with the innards to cause it to spring open. Once the door opened, Shepard stepped inside, whipping up Sin in the process. She turned to check the corners and even behind the desk, but it did not take long to be absolutely sure that there was nobody else in the room. Shepard sighed and lowered her gun. "This office is empty."

Nihlus' reply was a huff of annoyance and frustration.

She exited the room in time to see that only now did Nihlus manage to get his to unlock. She was not going to comment on that, he was worked up enough. She jogged toward the other office and brought up her omni-tool and started on the lock. It was maybe thirty seconds before the door opened for her. Shepard drew Sin and stepped into the room, instantly sweeping the corners. Still, just from the fact that no one shot at her the instant the door opened could have been enough to tell her that the room was indeed empty. Nevertheless she checked behind the desk for a huddled youth, and was entirely unsurprised not to find Octavian there.

"Nihlus, how's your office?" She asked.

"Empty." He replied gruffly.

"Same here."

Nihlus growled against her ear, "If Nerion put my brother in the freezer, I swear, I will break off his mandibles and feed them to him."

"That'd be painful…" Shepard replied, knowing that it was probably the understatement of the millennium. She could remember her hand-to-hand instructor back in ICT say that breaking a turian's mandible was worse than stomping a human male in the privates. Nature's this-for-that at work, given that kneeing a turian in the privates did not work. They were internal until needed, an evolutionary adaptation meant to protect their reproductive system from Trebia's radiation; since Palaven's magnetic field was too weak to do it for them.

"Oh yes." Nihlus replied, "And I know how to make it hurt a lot more."

Shepard had no doubt about that, but she worried for the sadistic glee suddenly present in the undertone of his voice. She moved toward the doorway of her office and almost stepped out when she heard rushing footsteps from somewhere on her right. "Stay inside; I think the shipping bay guards have caught up to us."

Nihlus grunted, "You can handle them, right?"

"Of course I can," Shepard replied.

Shepard turned and pressed her back to the doorway as she waited and listened. It stood to reason that they would check the first office before they came to her current location. That gave her a moment to think. She knew she could not sneak out, even under cloak; they would definitely either hear or smell her. They could not afford to have two guards behind them either. So that meant she had to end the threat here and now.

Shepard slipped Sin into its holster and reached behind her back for Vincent even as she passed from one side of the door to the other. The darkened office provided a convenient realm for her to hunt from, she only had to avoid sticking Vincent's white-painted muzzle into the light. A moment later she had her rifle up as she backed deeper into the room and assumed a steady shoulder fire stance.

The angle allowed her a narrow view down the corridor, but that was enough. Shepard could see a turian in a hardsuit, and he was not Nihlus. The other one was nowhere to be seen, probably in the other office, but Shepard knew an opportunity when she saw one. She ghosted her finger over the ammo selector, switching Vincent over to disruptor mode, even though it would be overkill at this range. Then she let her oft-unused auto-ranging feature adjust the scope for her and leveled the crosshairs on his temple even as she lowered her finger onto the trigger and slowly squeezed.

The rifle gave a loud bark and the slug pierced right through the guard's kinetic barrier, helmet, and entered his skull. He jerked, but it was the reflexive sort of jerk, mostly the kinetic energy dispersing through him. He was dead on his feet and within moments down on the ground. "One down," Shepard said as she lowered her rifle, raked the receiver, and reached behind her back for a cold thermal clip. There was still one more exceptionally foolish individual to handle.

People often assumed snipers were limited to distance, but up close like this, from even the littlest bit of cover, the kinetic energy imparted by a round from a sniper rifle was absolutely devastating. The real limitation was that it was a rather situational use for the weapon, as it lost effectiveness readily when facing multiple opponents in an all-out firefight, but for her needs here and now, she had the element of surprise.

With Vincent reloaded, Shepard raised it to eye level again and peered through the scope. The first guard's body was still on the ground, but the other guard had not materialized. She grinned; he was clever enough to realize his enemy had a hyper velocity rifle, figures. This was going to become a game of cat and mouse.

Suddenly she heard an assault rifle came to life somewhere right in front of her, but at a distance. The sound had time to echo and reverberate. A second, more familiar rifle replied in kind, beating a short tattoo before falling silent.

"Nihlus, what's going on?" She called over the comm. "Who did you just shoot?"

"I am alright, Shepard. Focus on what you are doing." He replied coldly.

Shepard blinked, stunned, as far as replies went, that one gave her nothing. The sound of the gunfire had come from the wrong direction for him to have been firing at the guard who should have been somewhere on her right. It took a moment for her to figure things out, but she was instantly not amused. Nihlus had gone ahead toward the cold room without her.

Her annoyance had to be put on the back burner when she saw a faint shadow move along the floor right on the other side of the office door, the other guard from the shipping bay. She powered Vincent down and plastered her back to the wall in the deepest, darkest shadow.

A moment later the other guard stepped into the room, sweeping the corners with his rifle. However he chose to sweep the opposite corner first, which gave Shepard a split of a second to edge closer to him. When he turned the rifle her way she grabbed the barrel and forced the muzzle down to the ground. His finger closed on the trigger reflexively and the rounds sprayed into the hard floor, ricocheting every which way. Shepard saw both their shields flare, but she dove forward and raised her arm to drive the heel of her right palm into his nose-plates with her momentum. The rifle went silent as he staggered back two half-steps, one hand rising to his nose in surprise. Shepard reached for Sin and whipped it up, firing a bullet into his skull near point blank. His look of surprise turned to shocked realization for all of a split of a second before life left him and his body hit the hard floor.

Then somewhere deeper into the factory the assault rifles started barking again. Shepard stepped over the body and stormed out of the office. She would find her errant mentor and let him have an earful for ditching her. She turned left, half walking, and half running. Nihlus would have gone for the cold room, she knew that much. At the end of the corridor she made a right, and found herself in the lane that separated the machinery from the north wall and the cold room. "Nihlus. I know you can hear me. I'm not happy." She said, not bothering to keep her anger at bay.

"You handled those two. I heard your rifle and pistol from here. One shot, one kill. No?" He replied.

There was another dead turian on the ground in front of her; the front of his armor riddled with bullet holes from a tightly-clustered assault rifle burst. The tight formation told her that Nihlus had probably shot him very close up. Her partner was rushing, probably making it up as he went along, and it was only a matter of time until he got himself in trouble. "Damn you. Wait for me!" Shepard knew that moving too fast now would be playing into their enemy's hands, but she could not help but worry for Nihlus. She did not want to lose him to his own impulsive nature. She did not want to ever lose another someone she cared for, ever again.

She was at the aisle between two separate assembly lines when she heard Nihlus grunt over their open comm. The sound was followed by a thud somewhere from her right. Shepard drew and raised Sin as she rounded the corner. There was one more dead guard on the floor here, but ahead of him she saw Nihlus grappling with another. This guard was doing his best to force the Spectre backwards against and onto one of the conveyor belts. Nihlus was doing his absolute best to arrest the fist blows aimed at his head, but the guard was as relentless as he was vicious.

Shepard raised Sin and had just dropped her finger to the trigger when she saw Nihlus' left hand land on the grip of wicked-looking knife at the meat-processing station the guard had been careless to force him against. The blade was at least twenty centimeters long and serrated like a saw. This time when the guard threw a punch, Nihlus grabbed his fist at the same moment as he brought the knife in from the side and into the guard's waist with all the speed his limited leverage would allow. There was a loud crack, but the guard jerked and froze on the spot. Nihlus growled, and let go of the knife, the handle clattered to the floor.

"Where is the child?" Nihlus hissed the demand coldly.

The guard collapsed against the Spectre, a stream of blue flowing from his side, despite the knife half still in the wound.

Nihlus groaned with great distaste and pushed him off and onto the floor. "This makes what… six now?" He asked as he moved to retrieve his fallen assault rifle.

"You giant idiot!" Shepard replied as she holstered Sin and dashed forward to his side. "Why didn't you wait for me?"

"I worked alone for years before I met you!" Nihlus snapped as he turned his head to face her.

Shepard blinked, stunned and the harsh tone. He probably had a glare set on her as well, one that she could not see due to his own helmet being in the way.

Then as if he realized what he had done, he shook his head, "Alright, that was harsh. But really, I am fine."

Shepard would have believed him if he did not have cracks spreading over the ceramics on his right arm, nor the liquid gloss oozing down the visible weave of his undersuit sleeve and the side of his rib cage. Due to the dark colors she could not see how bad the damage was, but he was definitely bleeding. "Fine my rear end. You were shot."

"Grazed." He replied. "Shepard, save the lectures for later. We do not have time for this. We have to find Octavian."

Shepard opened her mouth, but then Nihlus walked right past her as if that was it, end of discussion. The rebuff died on her tongue, she could only follow. She knew he was right, now was not the time to lecturing. She cursed her own stupidity. This was not the time for her to tunnel vision like a corporal either. She could yell ears off when all was said and done, when he could go back to cracking jokes in her face. Sure his flippancy could be annoying, but she would take it over this cold, angry, ill-tempered Nihlus. Flippancy meant he was being himself. The true himself she was used to. The true himself she did not want to lose.

Worse yet, this angry, violent version of Nihlus manifested from the mere fear of Octavian being hurt. What if Nerion actually did hurt Octavian? How much worse would Nihlus get? Nihlus had developed an instantaneous soft spot for his half-brother, a shocking difference to how he was at best indifferent, at worst outright cold toward his mother. Now he was fixated and oblivious to everything else, up to and including the fact that he was bleeding.

She did not want to see worried anger become righteous vengeful rage. She shuddered to think what he might do if he was driven by something so toxic. He had snapped at her too, and Shepard knew without a doubt that if he got really angry, he would snap again. Her ability to stop him from doing anything was limited. There would be no line that he would not cross if he turned to revenge. He could very well attempt to demolish this factory and say he deemed it necessary.

Even worse, she highly doubted anyone would care if he did blow up the factory. Only she could see how such an action was the first step along a very dark road. Viceroy Pallas would not bother to condemn any overkill committed by the Spectre who had been trying to protect his son. He might even go papa-wolf himself, and Facinus would be in his crosshairs. Camilla would definitely be on the warpath, and she was not without her resources. As for Councilor Sparatus, Shepard did not expect trouble there either. This was something he assigned to Nihlus; it was internal, and seemed even more off the books than the average Spectre operation. Shepard would not be surprised if Sparatus shrugged, said 'good riddance to bad rubbish', or something similar, and went on with business as usual. Nihlus would walk away without even a slap on the wrist.

Shepard watched Nihlus' back as he stormed toward the cold room, and she could not help but fear for him. She did not want Nihlus to become a vengeful monster like she had once been. Revenge was a horrible thing. Though best served cold, it was a fire that billowed mind-clouding smoke and consumed indiscriminately, starting with the fuel closest to the spark. The longer one remained in its haze, the less of one's better nature would remain. She had been lucky in that she only claimed one innocent life before she woke up. There were those who never woke.

She did not want Nihlus to experience that haze. It would change him irrevocably. Foremost she would not wish that sort of change on her worst enemy, but more than that, as selfish and as narcissistic as it might be, Shepard did not want Nihlus to change like that. She liked her foot-loose, loutish, prickly, arrogant, cocky partner just the way he was. She may have failed at protecting him from physical harm already, but wounds healed. A few bullet grazes were nothing on the sort of soul-crushing change that a vengeful haze would cause. Moreover, it was not the sort of thing that people could easily protect their selves against.

If it came down to it, she would keep Nihlus from becoming a monster, from changing like that, even if she had to gut Nerion herself to do so. Nerion was not an innocent, nor was he a nice guy. If he was going to try to drag Nihlus down to his level, she would kill him and not bat an eye. She would do it even if Nihlus' anger turned on her because he thought she had interfered. She would prevent the vengeful haze from settling around and freezing his heart at all costs.

Suddenly Nihlus stopped, a scant five meters short of the large doors that led into the cold room. A silent moment passed and then Shepard heard two sets of footstep coming toward them. The cadence was far too calm and even to be more of Nerion's goons rushing to confront them.

Shepard looked past Nihlus in time to see a figure materialize from the direction of the entrance to the fish processing part of the factory, an area that had not been visible from the catwalk above. The arrival of just one figure surprised her, as she had been positive that she heard two sets of footsteps, both in heavy boots, but still distinct, one heavier than the other. She looked past him and saw the tip of a shadow from around the machinery, and suddenly it made sense. Someone was trying to play hide-and-seek with them. She was not going to let them know that she realized that. Really anyone would realize that. Nihlus had to know, he had even better hearing than she did. She turned her attention back to the figure that was out in the open and there stopped cold.

This turian was barefaced, his plates being earth-brown, and his eyes a rather plain shade of ochre. Shepard would not have paid much attention to his appearance were it not for his disfigured right mandible. The little missing chunk was all it took for Shepard to recognize him. Her blood froze, and then suddenly flashed straight into a hard boil. His strange, silver-toned Taetrian markings had been temporary! "You bastard." She hissed. "You're the driver who picked us up from the spaceport. You drove Octavian home from school, didn't you?"

The turian smiled, flicking his mandibles at her. "You got me, Commander. I am nothing but the… faithful driver of the Pallas household. And here I thought humans could not tell us turians apart."

"Oh I can tell you apart just fine. Though, in the end it won't matter, seeing as there's only one way people look like when they're dead." Shepard hissed. His presence slid a little errant piece of the puzzle into place. Shepard had idly thought of the curious timing. Nerion's previous willingness to wait, then their arrival, and suddenly he was not waiting any more, there was no coincidence there. Nerion having an insider explained everything. She really ought to have thought of that sooner.

"Charming, is not she?" he said blandly as he looked back over his shoulder to the other turian, the one hiding around the machinery.

"Quite," the other replied, as he finally chose the moment to appear.

This turian was of a slimmer build, and wore a hardsuit somewhat lighter than the traitor, but more than that, Shepard noted how he seemed to keep his weight mostly on his left leg. There was slowness in the movement of his right, like a very old limp that had become more of a habit than a handicap. All of this suddenly explained the difference in his walking cadence. He was barefaced, older, and his fringe was outright damaged; the central three spikes did not have their points. Shepard knew that while the male's fringe might vary in length, it should never be blunt-tipped. Losing the tips indicated the turian's health was compromised, which at best meant he was seriously ill, or that he had worked at the lowest, most health-damaging sorts of hard labor. She would say he looked frail, how old was he exactly? Or was he even that old?

Shepard's frame of reference for older turians was negligible, she could only think of Sparatus and Saren. The former always appeared well put together, like a dandy, in a turian manner of dandyism. Sparatus looked like he was in his mid-life prime. As for Saren, he showed the effects of his career more, but he still did not look this sickly. His roughness was of the intimidating 'I could break you with one hand gesture if you irk me' sort. She had seen him warp a geth's plating with one hand gesture. She did not want to know what that ability would do to someone's bones.

"Nerion." Nihlus hissed.

"Do not take that tone with me, whelp." He hissed back.

Shepard blinked, surprised. This tired-looking turian was the mastermind of this whole thing? She glanced up at Nihlus, and it was then that she noticed how tense he was. His hand was on the shotgun at his lower back.

"Where is Octavian?" Nihlus demanded, his voice bristling with rage as he shifted his weight forward. To Shepard he looked like he was coiling to pounce. Like a large predatory cat with its eyes on its prey.

"Which one? Do you mean your mongrel father or your mongrel brother? One is dead, and the other is… probably dead."

"Shepard… Stay out of this. Understand?" Nihlus hissed. "This is between me and this sorry waste of existence."

Shepard opened her mouth to tell him off, that he could not possibly deal with both Nerion and the traitor, but just that was already too long. Nihlus took her silence as acquiescence and dove in, uttering an absolutely vicious growl that reverberated in her ears over the comm, sending a chill down her spine. That singular sound was definitely not something that ought to be made by a sapient being.

Before Nihlus could close in, Nerion took a half-step back, and the traitor stepped in. The next instant the other turian grabbed Nihlus by the front of his armor and swung his fist right into the Spectre's gut hard. There was a loud crack, Nihlus groaned, and doubled over.

"That was easy," the traitor said calmly, much too calmly.

Nihlus hissed, but Shepard could only see red. The haze settled like a fog over her mind, and her arm moved on its own as she drew Sin, brought it up in a single snap motion, and fired into the traitor's head. The traitor's shield flared and his head snapped up. Nerion shifted his weight and reached for his own weapon. Shepard did not care; she fired again, and this time the traitor's kinetic barrier collapsed. Suddenly a periwinkle glow erupted around his body. The surprise of that took a moment too long to process, but when it did, Shepard knew that they were in trouble.

"Shepard…" Nihlus groaned, the ceramic plating covering his stomach raining to the floor in shattered fragments. "Get away." He breathed.

Shepard's rage howled like a hurricane. The traitor was smiling with all his teeth on display, like a shark that was about to bite its prey in half. Oh she was going to knock those teeth out, one at a time!

"This farce has gone on long enough," Nerion said. "I underestimated your abilities, and you killed a few too many of my troops, but your mission ends here and now. Iulus-" He did not even bother to finish his order.

The traitor did not bother to acknowledge the order with any word or gesture either, but his whole body ignited with a periwinkle corona that seemed to swirl like an eddying wind. Shepard felt the hair at the back of her neck rise. Dark energy was gathering in the air around her, generated by the traitor.

"This is nothing personal, Commander, just business. You only had the misfortune of associating with the wrong individual," Iulus said calmly. There was a saccharine sweetness to his voice, even if it did not flange over the translator, void of undercurrent sub-vocals, emotionless. She raised her gun, but before she could pull the trigger his hand snapped up and her world titled and spun as what felt like a truck hit her in the gut. The air whistled past her helmet, and her stomach slammed into her throat.

Then Shepard hit the wall back-first hard. Her whole ribcage compressed, expelling the air from her lungs violently. Her ears erupted with a carillon of tinnitus. Her vision swam and dimmed around the edges. Her stomach, lodged in her throat, roiled with nausea. Suddenly her nervous system caught up, and every single rib seared with the most excruciating pain she had ever felt. She felt herself slide down the wall, her feet hit the floor, but her knees folded and slammed down hard. Whatever signals her brain sent to her limbs were not received. Her front hit the concrete next, sending a new wave of pain through her ribs. Her helmet came down last, as if whipped. The visor shattered into a billion pieces on impact, sending tiny splinters across her cheeks. The world swam and the carillon rang ever louder. It felt like forever before her body remembered needing to breathe, inhaling sharply, sending even more pain through her ribs.

She heard something, but it was hard to figure out what, past the bells ringing in her ears. She felt something brush against her head. "Oh. Still breathing?" a sickly saccharine voice asked, impossibly close to her ear. A cold chill rushed down her spine. "I can definitely fix that…" There was no reason for someone to sound so giddy while saying something like that.

"No!" Nihlus' roar of rage cut through the bells in her ears. There was a familiar thunderous crack, and her ears only rang louder.

Iulus shouted something, but that was drowned out by the thunderous sound of shearing metal, and then a loud low-pitched rumble which reverberated through the cavernous factory. Vibrations passed through the floor, powerful enough to make the visor shrapnel dance, she could hear the fragments tinkle like crystal. Alarms erupted, and the cacophony overwhelmed her senses.

All Shepard could think right then and there was about Nihlus. She could not let that soft-spoken bastard get the better of her. If he had used a biotic shockwave to toss her into a wall and called it nothing personal, what would he do to Nihlus? No. The thought was unacceptable. She would not let that honey-voiced sadist hurt Nihlus.

Author Notes: The dreaded cliffhanger attacks! This arc's plot line basically ran off on me, what I planned as a two-part, mutated into a three-part. It is all the better for it though, at least I think. Unfortunately I do have a bit of bad news, at the moment I am still writing part three (it is about three quarters done though). This is where my streak of weekly updates breaks down. I really only produce one episode a month, on average. As I said in the first chapter, the story was started in 2015 and I finished 26 chapters before I started putting it up online to begin with.

General Notes:

Nothing this time…

Chapter Notes:

Nothing this time…