The Adventures of the Lucen: The VykurCorp Conspiracy

by General Rage

Liara T'Soni continued her mission to protect the Galaxy while Commander Shepard is in another dimension. She must stop the Covenant and the allies they've gathered from wreaking havoc in a Galaxy without it's greatest hero. While she's had some success, there's a gathering storm on the horizon and one of her crew of misfits will be forced to confront her past before it clears.

8. Cat's Cradle

Chapter 8: Cat's Cradle

Liara was in the middle of a message from Shepard, detailing their latest adventure over in the other universe, along with some rather interesting information concerning the relic they had found. Tali had certainly been through an ordeal. Thankfully, she was alright. The situation had clearly revealed though that these artifacts were more dangerous anyone could've predicted.

"I thought you should know, just in case the relics the Covenant are hunting over there are any more dangerous," Shepard explained.

"We're narrowing down a possible location," Liara informed him. "Kahje is looking more and more likely to be a repository for what we're looking for. However, there's no indication of where to start looking and the Hanar are very protective over their Prothean temples."

"Even if one turns out to be made by the Forerunners?" Shepard questioned.

"I don't think it would be that simple," Liara warned. "I'm not sure how the contact between the Protheans and the Forerunners went. All I can do for now is chase some other possible leads. I have my people scouting possible sites now. Maybe for once we can beat the Covenant to the punch on something."

"Worth a shot," Shepard reasoned. "We're about to get our hands on another relic, assuming everything goes well. Once we have it and know what does, who knows, maybe it can help you out a bit."

"I won't hold my breath, but here's hoping," Liara replied. "I'll talk to you again soon, Shepard."

Not even a second after she said goodbye to Wade, did the door to her room woosh open. Nel rushed inside, looking behind her for a moment, waiting for the door to close. Liara would've asked why she was here had she not come out and said it in the next instant.

"Doc, I need your help," she said desperately.

"Help?" Liara asked, rather befuddled. "With what?"

"A personal matter, but it might be related to our mission," Nel suggested. "So... yeah, it might be something. Look it's really important and very big and I have to do something about it and I gotta do it now."

"Nel, slow down," Liara insisted. "What is wrong?"

She pointed to a seat for the turian to sit down in and let her catch her nerves. Her face was a panicked bereft expression. The only time she looked more alone, more scared looking, was when she had gone into withdrawal. It was a solid twenty seconds before the turian finally calmed herself enough to speak.

"My dad's gone missing," she finally blurted out.

"Your dad?" Liara said, pressing for more information. "Colonel Tiveriux Hygilius Catonis?"

"Yeah, same one who was running the program for War Spirit's Blood," Nel reminded her. "The thing I was on when you recruited me."

Liara remembered, that drug has caused them all nothing but grief while Nel was on it. It made her reckless, dangerous and unstable. She also remembered something else about the turian's father.

"You're not close anymore, as I recall," Liara said plainly.

"We never were, but that's not important," Nel exclaimed. "He went on a mission, highly classified. One of his former lab buddies got snatched or something. He left with a whole team to look for him. Liara, they think it was CLC that took him."

Liara was already ahead of Nel at this moment. Given what she already knew, how frantic Nel was, there was little doubt as to reason this was important.

"Your father's friend," she began to devise. "He worked on the Spirit's Blood project too?"

"Decius Octasius, he was my dad's direct subordinate," Nel elaborated. "He was in charge of overseeing all aspects of the project. Practically wrote the formula alongside my father. If the CLC has him, then they have to be trying to recreate the experiment. Hanilex is probably leading the charge on this to boot."

It would make sense if he was, he was her commanding officer during the field tests in the project. He had probably tipped the Colonial Liberation Coalition and Xeltravius from the get go about the drug. Weird they had waited until now to snag the scientist. Perhaps they were accelerating the schedule of their attack.

"And now they may have your father," Liara concluded.

"Decius may have been bait to draw him out so they could snag him," Nel informed her. "It's what Han would do, it was a typical strategy of his in combat. During long range sniping, he wounded enemies and forced their allies to try and rescue them. Brutal tactic, but it worked. This is just that in a different form."

Liara had to admit that seemed likely. However, she was the Shadow Broker and she was only hearing about any of this now. Nel knew more than she did and that was strange. It wasn't like she didn't have sources inside the Hierarchy, but they hadn't heard anything about this kidnaping or this secret mission. They would've told her, especially if it involved the Separatists. This had to be highly secretive, yet Nel knew about it.

"How do you know all this?" Liara asked. "You can't have access to the military's files and you cut ties with your family."

Nel reluctantly shook her head.

"I said I hadn't seen my father in years," she corrected tepidly. "My mom's a different story."

Liara looked at the turian suspiciously.

"Your mother?"

"She's in C-Sec, and... currently on a break from my father," Nel explained. "Well, as in they don't live together. Haven't for years. And they don't hate each other enough to bother with divorce. I've kept in touch with her because unlike my father, she never discouraged my dreams of staying in the military. She supported me. Even... even after the incident."

"She came to your court martial?" Liara asked.

"She was at least woman enough to look me in the eye and talk to me about what had happened," Nel sneered. "Dad never even showed up. I told you, he wanted me gone and he used an accident his worthless labcoats caused to get me thrown out."

Nel calmed suddenly, taking a breath. Liara didn't have to be a mind reader to know what she was remembering. The way her lower mandible jaw seemed to quiver, hands shook, her mind was recalling how her career in the military ended and why. Because of one bad batch of War Spirit's Blood and the poor civilians plus a fellow squadmate who had appeared in her crosshairs while she was out of her mind with rage.

"I'm sorry, it's... it still hurts," she confessed sadly. "Look, that drug fucked me up bad. I see that now. And what I did under its influence... I've been trying to make up for it ever since. I can't deny I played a role in it, high on that shit or not I did that stuff, I'm not blameless, but that doesn't change what happened. My father abandoned me when I needed him most. Because he hated I was in his precious army. Mom stood by me, I cut him out of my life, but never her. We call each other on special events, holidays, birthdays, that sort of thing."

"Does she know you stole your father's research?" Liara asked.

"She expressed a ton of times she wanted me to quit it, given that it had destroyed my dream job," Nel admitted. "I was going to tell her next call I was clean when she dropped the bombshell about my dad today. She got the call he was MIA a day ago, pulled some strings with some friends to find out why. Then she told me, because... well, she had to."

Liara could understand, but only to a degree. She had issues of her own concerning her parents, so she could sympathize with Nel's rather "complex" situation. In her lifetime, she had gotten used to the idea that no family was perfect. Her turian squadmate's issues weren't the most extreme case she had encountered, but the more she learned the more of a mess it became. This conversation had just raised a new wrinkle in the asari's mind.

"Given how much you hate your father, why are you concerned?" She asked bluntly.

"I hate the bastard, but I don't want him dead," Nel stated defensively. "My mom still loves him, even if he's never around. Besides, we can't let what he knows fall into enemy hands. If he and Decius are forced to complete their work, then we're looking at Seppies with some really crazy badass murder machine skills."

Given how Nel acted on the Spirit's Blood, Liara was not interested in being on the other side of it. However, that was enough motivation for her to chase this lead. For Nel, it just seemed like an excuse to drag them along.

"But why do you want to help rescue him?" She asked once more. "What's in this for you?"

"Simple, I get to prove to my father I was worth being in the military," she declared. "I get to rub it in his face that I'm clean of the garbage drug and that I rescued his sorry ass. I keep my mom from having to worry sick for more nights than necessary. I put an end to the Spirit's Blood demon on my back for good. And if my luck holds, maybe I can finally confront Hanilex on his betrayal."

Obviously this mission was personal for a number of reason to Nel. However, Liara wasn't going to head off to fight this battle just on that alone. Mainly because of how personal it was. Nel was off the drug that made her a violent killing machine, but she wasn't any less volatile. She was still her, just not as amplified to the extreme. Confronting her past would bring to boil a number of issues and Liara knew what happened when Nel had to think about things beyond finding the next bad guy to shoot.

"Nel, you can't go into this with so much baggage," she cautioned. "Whatever issues you may have with your father, you can't see this as a means of getting back at him. First and foremost in your mind should be stopping the CLC Separatists from getting that formula and rescuing your father."

"Look Liara, I get it," Nel assured her, sounding fairly sincere, especially for her. "I can't go into this clouded. I'm trying to think clear enough, but... I just need to find my dad, Doc. I... I can't let how I feel about him affect things, I know. My mom came to me with this because she probably hoped I would do something. That I'm the only one who can do something in time. Whatever else he may be, he's still my dad and I have to find him."

Liara exhaled heavily. She had to admit, Nel's desire to confront her father was something she had in common with the turian. In all honesty, she was concerned about her mental state, but she could also tell Nel wouldn't be able to work as effectively while worrying about this matter. Besides, it seemed to be mission critical to their own interests as well.

"Alright, do you have a place we can start?" Liara asked.

Nel nodded, quickly heading over to the Asari's intelligence terminal.

"I know where my father was headed to last," she stated, punching in a number of commands. "A small planet on the fringe of the Traverse and Turian space. It's a dust ball, not much there, save for reports of separatist activities in the area. If he followed the trail there, it's probably where he's being held now. Along with Decius too."

Liara looked over the intel, grasping her chin in thought.

"I can have some of my operatives nearby look into the matter and set a course for the system right away," she assured her turian teammate.

"Thanks, Doc," Nel sighed gratefully. "That's... this is a big help."

"We'll do what we can to find your father," Liara promised her earnestly. "At the very least, you deserve closure. The chance to confront him, own up to everything that happened."

"It's been overdue for a long time," Nel declared. "I'm going to save his ass. Then we'll see what he has to say about it after."

---

During the Unification War, Deplenus was a hot bed of Separatist activity. The once somewhat habitable planet had an abundance of natural minerals back then and every faction wanted a piece of it. So many groups tried to colonize and control the planet, however, that they virtually exhausted the very rare elements they had been desiring to seize in the first place. It made them an easy target for the Hierarchy once they got involved near the end of things. It was one of the first rebelling planets to be subjugated back into the Palaven government's control.

For all it was worth to them now, of course. With little reason to stay on the barren waste of a world, many turians who had originally settled there moved on, abandoning the colony and the planet. Deplenus now served as a stark warning of the cost of war and how disastrous the pursuit of resources could ruin an otherwise vibrant planet. The only evidence left to prove that the turians had ever lived on the world were the broken, rusting and scattered remains of both the original colony's structures and the various war vehicles left behind. All of it sinking into the sand, slowly disappearing forever.

There was little to look at from either orbit or flying over the surface in a shuttle, as Nel soon realized. Besides the odd rock formation or dried up lake, the turian was left with little to do but think. Mainly about her father, as it was impossible for her to think of anything else. She wished she could. Dear old Dad was the last person she ever wanted to have stuck in her mind. She had always preferred to drown it out with beer or vids, anything to keep her mind off the bastard. Now though, she was stuck with him in the forefront of her thoughts.

She didn't want to be here. Part of her kept saying she shouldn't have bothered. Who cares if he's dead? He never cared if she was alive to begin with. She should just leave him to rot. Mom would get over it. She'd be happier finding a man who didn't stay away from home for months at a time. Who didn't have some project or experiment he was running somewhere for some extended period of time. He may have been retired from active duty until this mission came up, but that hadn't meant he stuck around.

Perhaps she was being unfair, but it didn't change how she felt. She had owned up to a lot of the shit she had done. She wasn't going to lie to herself anymore, Liara had convinced her of that. The juice hadn't made her a hero, it had made her a junkie. She would've preferred if it had been her choice to get off the stuff to begin with, but now that she was, she was sticking with it. The biggest hurdle had always been the pain of withdrawal and that was long gone. That didn't change the fact though that her father hadn't once tried to help her. How long he had tried to make her quit the military. How much he seemed to resent her for every little thing she ever did.

All the same though, he was her father, as much as he failed to live up to that title in her eyes. She couldn't just let him die over all that. How could she? Not when she knew he was connected to their mission. Not when she suspected who had taken him and Decius. She had too many reasons to go down to this dustball and find him. She couldn't turn away with all of it hanging over her head. There was no way. Besides, she had run from this for too long.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Wrex asked, slightly growling. "I mean, there's nothing here."

"We're looking for my dad's shuttle," Nel explained. "He and his team would've hidden it when they arrived to keep the Seppies from finding it. If we can locate it, we should be able to access their mission logs and maybe work out where they went from there."

"Assuming the Separatists haven't found it yet themselves," Wrex cautioned.

"Then we have people we can shoot, which I'll more than welcome right now," Nel assured the krogan. "Anything of value in that's shuttle's logs will be encrypted, and I don't think they have the same hacking prowess as we do in our crew."

Nel was of course speaking about Vik, who was just across the walls from her, sitting close to Kayap. When the quarian had first heard about the situation, he had been uncharacteristically quiet. He hadn't really said anything derisive or cutting in regards to Nel's situation. He had looked sad though, which was just as unnerving. Apparently being mentioned in passing was enough to break his silence though. A few moments after Nel finished talking to Wrex, the quarian spoke up.

"So... do you still think your dad is alive?" He asked cautiously.

"Alive yes, probably not doing so hot, but alive," Nel stated bluntly and seemingly apathetic. "They need him, remember. He's the guy who made the juice, without him they can't make more or even improve on the original formula. It's all in his head."

"So you're not worried at all then?" Vik asked, sounding concerned. "I mean, what if he's being tortured to force him into giving up what he knows."

Nel just scoffed at the very notion.

"Whatever," she grunted. "Not like I wouldn't give him a few swift punches if I had the chance honestly."

Vik could only shake his head, while Liara, emerging from the cockpit looked on concerned.

"You don't have to pretend you feel nothing," she told the turian. "Whatever his faults, you're still here for him. That has to say something."

"No it doesn't," Nel claimed rather quickly. "It says I don't want my mother to blame herself for not being close by to talk him out of going. She's the only reason I'm here, because she came to me with this, she trusted me to find out what happened and unlike that asshole, she always believed in me to begin with."

"But he's still your father," Vik said tepidly. "That had to factor in somehow."

"A father is supposed to be there for his child when she's facing the worst possible moment of her life, Bucket," Nel snarled back. "Where was he? Nowhere. He said nothing while they railroaded me to protect their own asses for their experiment gone wrong. He didn't even show up. Not even as a witness for the prosecution! He couldn't look me in the eye at my own hearing and be bothered to either defend or condemn me. He was just happy I was getting booted out at last. So he doesn't factor into any of this beyond being a shit parent who now needs me of all people to save him."

Nel turned back to the window, not really wanting to continue this conversation. She suspected it would though, Vik and Liara weren't content to let it go. Sure enough, it didn't take long for them to press the issue further.

"You're hurting, I understand," Liara assured her. "Believe me, I do. But you can't deny that, despite your hatred for him, you're here to help him."

"I'm here for a lot of things," Nel claimed curtly.

"I just can't understand hating your own father so much," Vik explained. "I mean, I don't even know what mine thinks about me anymore after I fled the Flotilla. He could very well hate me. Which hurts to think about. I mean, I love my dad. He's probably the best man I've ever known. He's kind, selfless, giving. All things I've ever wanted to be. I only left to protect him and I'd give anything to see him again without fear. Even if he was angry at me, I'd still love to be near my family once again."

"Well not every family is like yours, Bucket," Nel said solemnly. "Not all fathers are worth it. Whatever I've done, I've had to own up to in one way or another. I stole secrets to an experimental drug. I became an addict and nearly got killed for it. I... I'm responsible for what happened to those civilians. I wasn't in my right mind, but I still did what I did. I know I can't deny that anymore. What has he had to face up to? How has he paid in any way? I'm not innocent, but no one in this story is."

She sensed they would've said more, but the pilot up in the cockpit spoke up to Liara.

"Ma'am, we've picked a turian military transponder," he reported. "It's broadcasting on a very low frequency, but it's there."

Liara nodded, turning to Nel as she spoke her orders.

"Take us down close then lift off into a holding pattern," she stated. "We'll investigate the signal directly. If you don't hear from us, assume trouble and send reinforcements to our last known location."

Nel got her rifle ready. It was time to get this family reunion under way.

---

After they landed, it took about forty-five minutes of walking to locate the shuttle. Colonel Catonis had hidden it in a small cavern under a large rocky plateau. From what they could see, there were no enemy combatants nearby. All the same, they approached the shuttle cautiously. There was no sign of either the original Hierarchy Special-Ops team or any Separatist activity. It was just the shuttle, seemingly abandoned within the outcropping in the rock.

"Good hiding spot at least," Liara observed. "We've probably beaten the Separatists to it."

"Yeah, wouldn't expect any less of dad," Nel confessed. "Any mission logs should be recorded inside on the computer."

"Vik, get to work on it," Liara ordered. "Nel, go with him, you're familiar with Hierarchy military procedure. If he gets into trouble, you can help him better than any of us. Wrex, Saya, Kayap and I will stay out here and keep watch."

For once Nel didn't argue. Being stuck with Vik for however long it took him to get into the shuttle's logs was better than standing out here. At least when the quarian would inevitably bring up her father again, she could be more curt with him than Liara. It would also sound less like a probing interrogating lecture if the questions came from him.

To Vik's credit, he didn't speak up first. Standing inside the shuttle for several minutes got tedious fairly fast and the quarian's fingers clicking on commands and buttons didn't exactly help ease the tension. Nel couldn't retain her patient demeanor for very long.

"How's it coming?" She asked, taping her foot incessantly.

"Decrypting Turian Military code takes time," Vik informed her. "You should know how difficult it is from experience."

She did, but it didn't make the waiting any less maddening. However, she broken the silence and that gave Vik his opening.

"Do you... want to talk about your father?" He asked tepidly. "It would help keep your mind off this."

"What more could I possibly say?" Nel curtly responded. "I told you, I hate the bastard."

"I get that and I'm not saying you're wrong," Vik explained. "I'm just wondering if you have only bad memories. He can't be all bad if your mother is still with him despite being separated."

"Maybe, what good would remembering that shit do though?" She bluntly asked.

"You're here to save him," Vik reminded her. "I think it would do you good to remember a time when you didn't hate your dad. There has to be something."

Nel sighed at the thought. It made sense, but again, what could she say? The only times she ever thought about her father were when she was angry at herself. When her doubts crept in and his words came to mind. How the military was no place for her. How the idea of her staying past her required active service was wrong. That he should aspire to something else, anything else because her being a soldier was a bad idea. Pushing through all that muck to find a sliver of good didn't seem worth it in light of all that.

Nonetheless, she did hit upon one memory.

"I remember when he taught me how to shoot," she said shrugging. "Not some lame BB gun either, a proper rifle. I didn't wear mufflers to quiet the sound, he wanted me to hear every shot. And I did, it rung for a full minute the first time, but I got over it. I didn't hit much honestly, I was all over the place. But, well, I was five... that's expected."

"A bit young for rifle training," Vik noted.

"Yeah, even for a turian," Nel confessed. "Still, it was a good day. I got to try out a gun. I got to play soldier for a bit. And he let me, he let me indulge in the fantasy for the moment. He even corrected my aim a bit so I could hit one target he set up. That was a good day. I liked that day."

Vik gave a warm look, but Nel's own smile soon soured.

"Then I remember how young I was and what it was really about," she said, scowling as she spoke. "He was trying to scare me."

"Scare you?" Vik asked, confused.

"Yeah, I was five, remember? Firing a high-powered rifle," Nel clarified. "He wanted me to feel the recoil and hear the crack of the shot and freak out. When I told him how good a time I had, I was hoping he'd be proud. Instead, all I saw was a frown and a disappointed nod. He had failed to scare me off of becoming a soldier, of staying in the army past my required service come age fifteen. He did stuff like that all the time."

"What stuff?" Vik asked, still trying to parse through the facts.

"Age ten? He showed me pictures of dead turian soldiers," Nel growled. "Made me look at them. First when they were alive, then when they were riddled with bullets or blown to bits. Mom gave him a right piece of her mind, I had fucking nightmares for weeks. I didn't let that stop me. I didn't let him stop me."

"I'm sorry, Nel," Vik apologized. "That... that sounds harsh. But, maybe he was just trying to show you the cost of war up close. Get you ready for it."

"I wish, but every so-called lesson was like that," Nel informed him. "He kept trying to scare me out of staying in the army. He ran me through a damn obstacle course designed for full fledged combat soldiers when I was eight! He yelled at me, screamed at me, made me do it in the rain! He tried to convince me that what I wanted was hell, told me I wasn't made to fight for the Hierarchy!"

Nel turned her head away in disgust.

"He... he made me feel worthless," she snarled, holding back the pain best she could. "That I was nothing and all the while acted like he was doing me a favor. Not once did ever even act like he believed in me. When I turned fifteen and I got on the shuttle to head to boot, he was there. He just glared at me, didn't even say goodbye. 'You'll see I was right', he said. His exact last words before I left. I gave him he finger and promised to prove him wrong. That was my liberation day, Bucket. The military got me away from him at last. At least until the damn Juice came into the picture."

Vik found it hard to speak after that, turning back to his work. However, Nel knew he had just been trying to help. She hadn't wanted to snap at him like that, but this what her father did to her. Every single time she thought about him, she just couldn't help but let it all pour out like this.

"I'm sorry, like I said, it's hard to remember the good things," she confessed earnestly. "In a lot of ways I envy people like you, Vik. Even if you're worried your whole family hates you, at least you have some good memories that aren't tainted in some way. I wish it was different for me, believe me, I do. I can't change how I feel though, not about that."

"I just can't imagine a relationship between parent and child being so... broken," Vik explained sadly. "It's... it's not fair."

Great, here came the pity party. As much as Nel appreciated the quarian being sympathetic to her for once, this was the last thing she needed. What happened had happened, no sense in dwelling on what if or what could've been. So she decided to put an end to it.

"Why? Cause I probably would've turned out better if he had given a shit or some other garbage?" Nel snorted. "Maybe I wouldn't have gotten on the Juice to begin with and I wouldn't be such a mess?"

"No," the quarian said sincerely. "Because you deserved a supportive parent, no matter what road you went down in the end. I may not particularly like the Hierarchy Military's many practices, but your father should've been there for you all the same."

Nel was surprised by the show of support, she honestly thought Vik would've gone the other way. Then again, the quarian was rarely that predictable.

"Do you... do you think saving him will help?' He asked next.

"With what?" Nel pressed for clarification.

"Your relationship," the quarian replied. "You're here to confront him, settle matters. What does that mean for you?"

If she was being honest, Nel wasn't sure. Repairing the bridge with her dad would probably make her mom happy. There was so much bad blood though. So much resentment. She wasn't sure if she could let go. Or if her father would give her an opening to do so.

"I guess I'll have to figure that out when this mission ends," Nel shrugged. "We need to find him first though."

At that moment, the shuttle's computer shifted its screen, as Vik's hacking saw fruit. A flood of mission data soon poured forth from the terminal's memory.

"Well we got a decent enough place to look now," Vik informed her. "Seems your dad's team located their target, the CLC's main base of operations for this sector. They're operating out of the remains of the old colony. According to these recon reports, the place is practically crawling with them."

"That's gotta be where they're holding dad and Decius then," Nel reasoned. "Along with their little War Spirit's Blood Redux project."

"It's a few dozen miles away from here," Vik cautioned. "A bit of a walk but if we start moving now we-"

Vik's comm chirped to life, silencing him mid-sentence.

"Nel, Vik, get out here," Liara's voice called. "We might have trouble."

The pair left the shuttle, finding Saya near the edge of the cavern's exit, gazing through his sniper scope into the distance. Liara was with him and pointed to said trouble she had mentioned. A cloud of dust, approaching fast through the arid wastes. It was still a ways off, but when Nel looked through her own rifle's scope, she could see what Saya did. It was definitely a vehicle, an armored truck or something. As for the drivers and passengers, they might have been hard to make out, but Nel could tell they were turian. They weren't Hierarchy though, that was a given.

"Seppies, they're heading our way," Nel declared. "They've probably zeroed down the shuttle's location."

"Or someone on your father's team gave it up," Wrex suggested.

"If he's on my dad's team, they'd die before they give that shit up," Nel insisted. "Trust me, I grew up with him. He's very strict concerning discipline."

"Regardless of how they found it, we can't let them report back to their base," Liara stated. "We need to deal with them when they arrive."

The asari looked to Saya.

"You know what to do," she told him.

The salarian simply nodded.

---

The armored truck rolled up to the cavern, stopping just short of the entrance. As the three Separatists inside piled out, they looked up at the shuttle nearby. Nodding at each other.

"Well, it's where they thought it would be," one said. "Okay, we need to load this thing up and get it back. I'll fly it, you take the truck back."

"So you get the fast track and we have to roll through the desert for another hour?" Another asked. "No way, that thing can hold three people."

"We need to bring the truck back, we can't just leave it here," the first one claimed.

"I thought we were going to use the truck to tow it back," a third asked. "Not that you got to fly back in the shuttle."

"It's just bigger than I expected," the first seppie claimed. "This seems like less hassle."

"No, screw that, we'll just drop the top on the truck," the second seppie declared. "We land the thing on it and then we head back that way together, like we planned."

"Oh sure, and you'd fly it into position?" The first turian asked. "You'll just fly off with it."

"You're the one who suggested that, not me," the second turian reminded him.

"Alright, alright," the third cut in rather quickly. "I say we pull straws, whoever gets picked has to fly the shuttle onto the truck. Sound good?"

"Alright, so where's the straws?" The second asked.

"Well, all I have is a deck of cards," the third confessed. "So... more like whoever draws the highest number I guess?"

"Then why didn't you just say cards?" The first asked incredulously.

"Straws were the first thing that came to mind, okay," the third grumbled, pulling out the deck. "Here, we all pull one see who's flying the shuttle. Alright, just go."

As the three seppies started pulling cards from the deck though, something rushed from the shadows. It sliced into the back of the second seppy, before slashing at the third and first. They all fell to the ground, a shocked look on all their faces, the cards in their hands. Saya's form soon appeared in the middle of the carnage, his cloak dropping. He bent down, picking up one of the cards and looking it over.

"I kinda wanted to see who won," Kayap spoke up, as the others emerged from cover.

"I didn't," Wrex growled. "Couldn't you have attacked sooner and stopped that whole inane conversation?"

Saya only shrugged as the team approached him. He tossed the card over his shoulder as Liara looked over the bodies.

"They may not have been very smart, Wrex, but their argument did give me an idea," the asari confessed. "Hide the bodies in the cave. Vik, get the shuttle in the air. We'll ready the truck so you can land the ship on it. Nel, take one of the uniforms off those Separatists."

They had needed a way into the CLC controlled colony ruins Vik had found out about. Now one had been fortuitously provided to them. Unknowingly by the very people they were trying to infiltrate.

---

There wasn't much to say concerning the remains of the colony. It was a mess of dead buildings, husks of a bygone age, rusting and falling apart in the sun of this dead world. The CLC had made it semi-livable though, rebuilding old structures or creating new ones among the remains. From the looks of the place, it had been a good hiding spot up until now. No one had bothered to come looking in this corner of the galaxy. Who would bother with a long dead settlement from centuries past? Even the most desperate Separatist cell would surely consider hiding out anywhere else. Maintain a rusting chunk of buildings on a world with no viable food or water sources was certainly more trouble than it was worth.

Not to the Colonial Liberation Coalition it seemed, they were perfectly happy with the grueling work to keep this place alive. That commitment showed itself fairly clearly in every corner of their little base of operations. They had anti-air positions covered by camouflage tarps, a full fledged training camp and a number of administrative buildings, repurposed from the original colony. Not to mention the various armed guards, rebuilt walls and automatic turret positions. The latter were no doubt donated by Orukuri and Balak. At least there didn't seem to be any Covenant plasma weapons around here, not yet anyway.

Sneaking inside would've been difficult for any team, even Colonel Catonis' group. Luckily, thanks to a truck and a stolen uniform, Liara's team had an advantage the Colonel didn't. After a good hour's drive, Nel had driven up to the front gate of the base with the shuttle being carried on its back. With Nel dressed up like one of them, they didn't have many questions. She explained the rest of her team were inside said shuttle, trying to see if they could get anything off what appeared to be a fried data log. They had attempted to check at first, but Nel had impressed upon them not to. Reminding them that they needed to get this thing to the tech people quickly and that any hold up would just make them angrier.

It had been a good thing the guards at the gate bought that, as Liara and the others were hiding inside the shuttle itself. Now they were in the very heart of the enemy, the Separatists unaware to their presence. However, finding Nel's father would still be no easy task. Given the size of the CLC's base, he could literally be anywhere. As could Decius and whatever progress they had made on their version of the War Spirit's Blood. So even though they were in, the hard part was still ahead of them.

Nel had been directed to pull into small warehouse, where tech staff would come by shortly to look at the shuttle themselves. Two guards were there waiting. However, as the truck came to a stop and they approached, Saya made his move. He had ridden atop the shuttle for the last leg of the journey to the colony, keeping his cloak active. He now leapt from the top of the shuttle and slashed at his opponents below, cutting them down with deadly and silent precision. A simple double slice through both their necks ended them quickly. As the salarian dealt with the bodies, Liara's team scrambled out of the shuttle. The warehouse seemed clear for the moment, but that could change at any time.

"Say what you will about these Separatists," Wrex commented, "they sure know how to rough it."

"That will make our job harder though," Liara reminded him. "We need to find out where they're holding Colonel Catonis and Decius if we hope to save either of them. Their communications hub might have the answers we need."

"I hear ya, we find where their comms are, hack their systems and figure out where they keep the prisoners," Nel reasoned. "How do we manage that?"

Saya provided the answer, coming back with one of the radios from off one of the guards he had dispatched. He handed it to Vik, who already suspected his plan.

"Right, hack their feed and zero in on the hub from there," the quarian declared. "Good idea."

Saya simply nodded, turning to Liara for more orders.

"You'll be able to move more freely than any of us," she told him. "Stick to Nel closely, we'll stay behind in the shadows best we can."

"Stick to me?" Nel asked.

"You're turian and wearing their armor," Wrex reminded her. "You can blend in where we can't. Between you and Saya, you can give us a heads up on what might be in our way."

It made sense, better to have some eyes and ears out and about you could trust while you were sneaking around a heavily occupied enemy base. Nel was a bit apprehensive though, after all, there was at least one person here she knew wouldn't be fooled by her disguise.

"What about Hanilex?" She asked. "If he's here, he could recognize me. Hell, he could be on the look out for me right now."

"It's a chance we'll have to take if we have any chance of finding your father," Liara told her. "Don't worry, if something goes wrong we'll be right there to help you out."

A small comfort, but better than none. Besides, it was nice to be reminded someone had your back in a place full of traitors. Nel took a breath and then fit the helmet for her disguise onto her head more snugly.

"Alright, I'll play Seppy for a bit longer," she promised. "Just figure out where I need to go and fast, Bucket. We can't keep this ruse up forever."

"I'll work as fast as I can," Vik promised, already tuning the radio in his hands.

"Let's be quick and quiet," Liara warned. "I brought the silenced pistols just for this occasion. Until further notice, stick with those and only use them if we have no other options. Good luck everyone."

With that, Nel exited the warehouse and headed into the streets beyond. Saya close behind her, his cloak already active.

---

The CLC hadn't rebuilt the whole colony, much of it was still a crumbling disarray. They had seemingly only rebuilt or replaced the buildings they needed. Most of the buildings remained abandoned, with shacks or tents. Nel imagined these were the lower ranked recruits, not the veterans and officers. They got to sleep in wherever the barracks were. Not that the foot soldiers seemed to mind, in fact, they seemed to treat it all like an extended camping trip. The fire pits and discarded beer cans scattered about the area suggested as much. They also liked shooting off their guns at makeshift targets, chortling like idiots as they shot at images of prominent Primarchs and the Hierarchy flag. Bunch of idiot yokels, Nel thought, the Seppies deserved recruits like them.

At least their outdoorsy obsessions would give Liara and the others a way to move through the base seemingly undetected. The buildings were generally abandoned, so the others could slink through the shadows there. She imagined Saya was closer than them though, even if she couldn't see him. Part of her kind wondered if he could wipe this entire camp out himself. Or at least kill all these idiot backwater morons the CLC had saddled itself with. Just looking at most of them she could tell that half were drunk off their asses, stumbling around like undisciplined morons.

It made her wonder how the hell had her father been caught so easily. He was smarter than any of these assholes, she would allow herself to admit that much. He had a dual degree in advanced chemistry and biology, not to mention being the top of his class in the academy back in the day. He was a tactical genius as well as a miliary scientist. Him getting caught by these people just didn't make sense to her.

Had Hanilex's trap been just that perfect? Maybe these idiots among the refuse were just a small portion of a far more disciplined and skilled force of Seppies. It was possible these were just militia recruits that were hired on as extra muscle, fresh meat that still needed proper training. They probably hadn't even gone to basic back when they turned fifteen like her. She had heard stories of some Seppy sympathetic folks who went off he grid completely, where the Hierarchy couldn't find them, so their kids didn't have to get "indoctrinated" by the people who crushed their stupid rebellion centuries ago. A lot of Seppy militas were formed from the ranks of such turians. Which explained why most Separatist groups were more nuisances than legitimate threats. How did they expect to reclaim their glory days when they didn't have proper training? Which made turncoats like Hanilex so much more dangerous. He could teach them what they had missed out on.

Still, even if Hanilex knew he was coming and had crack shock troops trained to fight off his spec-ops, that was no excuse for her father to get caught. Not after all the shit she got put through by him. Not after all the lessons about how she wasn't going to fit in with the military, that she was too free-spirited and independent. That she could never follow orders because she never listened to his. The asshole had a million excuses as to why she didn't deserve the uniform and then he gets himself captured by these lowlifes? Fuck him, she was going to lord this over his head forever when she got him out of here. That was for certain.

As she walked through what used to be the colony's village square, a few of these very Seppy lowlifes spotted her. Even in full armor they could recognize she was female. One of them approached, blocking her way forward as he sauntered into frame.

"Hey, I didn't know they recruited ladies too," he said, his voice slurred. "Where you from? Inner or outer systems?"

"Why? Is there really that much of difference?" She asked.

"Nah, I just want to get to know ya is all," he said. "I mean, we're going to be fighting Hierarchy stooges together soon."

"Unlikely, since you're probably going to get your drunken ass shot off before you get five feet off the transport," she informed him. "Now do you mind getting out of my way? I have more important places to be."

He didn't relent, blocking her again as she tried to leave.

"You got some fire in ya, I like that," he said. "Come on, why not visit my tent? Party room enough for two."

"I only party with real men," she declared. "And there are none here."

She had wanted to call them what they were, traitors, but she held her tongue to maintain her cover. When she tried to push past the idiot, he grabbed at her arm.

"Hey, no one calls me-"

She smashed her fist into the side of the moron's face and watched him go down. The Seppy tried scrambling to his feet, but he was so drunk to begin with he ended up smashing his face into a barrel on the way up. His friend got a good laugh from it all, but he was decidedly less than pleased with the situation.

"You fucking whore! You think you're better than me?!"

"I know I am," Nel informed him curtly.

The surly turian tried to get up and he probably would've gone to fight her, had something not interrupted the proceedings. Appearing from a what was apparently some kind of holographic projector set up in the middle of the square, a blue light suddenly shot up into the sky. Appearing from it was the image of the CLC's leader, Xeltravius Desaulux himself. The old traitorous bastard loomed large over the square, dwarfing them all. Everyone, even the asshole who Nel had punched to the ground stood at attention. Apparently they had some modicum of discipline, enough to respect he big boss at least.

"Members of the Colonial Liberation Coalition across the galaxy," Xeltravius began. "I bring good tidings. We are drawing ever closer to our moment of glory. Our final and complete revenge against the Hierarchy. Years ago, they believed our cause snuffed out. Our army destroyed. But we have risen from our ashes and now stand on the cusp of delivering the greatest blow to the Hierarchy it has ever experienced!"

The assembled yokels cheered and hollered, some shooting off their weapons. Nel played the part, punching her fist into the air, even as she backed away from the dipshit who had tried to hit on her. As soon as this speech was over he'd remember what he was mad about.

"The defeat of our forefathers in the War of Forced Unification was one of the greatest injustices in turian history," Xeltravius claimed. "Where the colonies were forced to surrender to a fiendish and cowardly series of attacks by a government that had abandoned them, only to swoop in when they were vulnerable and return them to servitude. And where did that road lead us in the end? Turian interests placed as secondary. Alliances with aliens who influence and dilute our noble culture. Our colonies enslaved to a whole, treated as vassals for the exploitation of far off Primarchs who care only care about their own pockets. Who take our hard work, our toil and blood, and hand it over to the asari, salarians or... humans."

The collective of angry turians growled and hissed at the mere mention of the race. As expected, xenophobia always drove the Separatist cause more than anything else. The other grievances? Just a smokescreen, a way to obscure their racism. A poor excuse to betray the Hierarchy, just because they didn't want to be enemies with most of the galaxy.

"But the Colonial Liberation Coalition will right these wrongs," Xeltravius claimed. "When we strike, it will be a blow to the Hierarchy. One so great it will spur the other colonies to break with this outdated and backwards government. Every colony will become it's own nation, it's own people. We will be free once more!"

The Separatists cried out in hollers and joyful screeches. More gunshots rang out in the air and Nel did her best to imitate it. Even though she knew what it all really meant. Freedom to fight among each other, freedom to attack other colonies wholesale. Freedom to dig up old grudges and tribal rivalries. Freedom to just revert to abject chaos. What Xeltravius wanted wasn't freedom, it was anarchy. Complete and total anarchy. It was short-sighted, stupid and regressive as fuck. The galaxy didn't work like that, not anymore. The Separatist cause was about disseminating all turians had built, burning it to the ground and, more or less, becoming no better than the krogan and their current civilization.

That was no future for their people. It was another reason she couldn't understand why Hanilex was working with these idiots. He didn't strike her as racist. He certainly never seemed to care all that much about how the Hierarchy won the Unification War. He had problems with authority at times, sure, but he never once seemed like he was a Seppy sympathizer. Why was he working with this lunatic? How had Xeltravius turned him? Or had all that shit from before just been an act. He had said she didn't really know him. Perhaps being a biotic wasn't the only secret he was hiding.

Xelravius' speech continued a bit longer, but Nel had heard enough. She headed away from the crowd while their backs were turned, moving into an alleyway not far off. As she did, her comm chirped to life with a friendly voice.

"Nel, it's Vik," the quarian began. "Did you catch Xeltravius' speech?"

"Yeah and then some," she replied. "Where are you guys?"

"On a roof of an old apartment complex," he explained to her. "I needed better reception for the radio frequency hack and that racist bosh'tet's pre-recorded nonsense just gave us the perfect signal to trace."

She had figured it was pre-recorded. It didn't seem like a live broadcast, probably something meant to be played at CLC bases around the galaxy as a morale booster. Suspecting Vik didn't mean he was trying to trace the terrorist leader, but the communications hub, for the base, she asked the obvious question.

"Did you find something?" She asked.

"Yeah, the comms signals are all routed to a single building near the east end of the colony," he informed her. "I cross referenced it with your dad's recon photos. I think the signal is comming from an old radio station the Separatists have taken over. Makes sense, it's got most of the equipment they would need already installed inside. I'm sending you a nav point to help you find it, should be on your helmet's hud."

The nav point came in soon after, pointing Nel to the east end of the base.

"Okay, I'll head there now and try to get inside," she replied.

"We'll keep as close to you as we can," Vik promised. "Saya has one of my hacking modules. Just help him get inside and he can get me into the system. From there, finding out where they're holding your dad will be easy."

"Thanks, Bucket," Nel told the quarian. "I'll contact you once I'm inside that radio station. Over and out."

She terminated the call and kept to the alleyway for sometime. At least until she spotted some Separatists who didn't look like they came from the backwoods of some podunk planet. The less she had to deal with the dregs of their movement the better. She couldn't afford more distractions, not with her father still in need of rescue.

---

The radio station was one of the refurbished buildings in the compound. The new transmitting and receiving dish attached to the archaic superstructure was evidence enough of that. There were a few guards outside the front keeping watch, but Nel had no intention of sneaking past them. They'd probably ask for a password or papers or written authorization or something along those lines. She wasn't going to take chances and assume they'd be easily fooled, even if a lot of these soldiers were backwater wannabe rebels. She would head around the back way instead.

She found her entry along the side of the building, a small door leading to an alleyway. The only problem of course was that it was locked. A nuisance to her forward progression to be sure. She wouldn't let that stop her though. She attempted bypassing the lock at first, it was not as easy as she had hoped it would be though. She had never been the best at hacking after all. Eventually she got fed up and activated her omni-blade. Slicing it into the lock, she pushed the door aside and moved in. Lucky her, it was just a side room and no one had noticed.

Although she did hear a cloak dissipating behind her. She turned to see it was Saya. Even with his helmet on, Nel could tell he didn't approve of her infiltration skills.

"We can't all be super spies like you," she growled at him. "Do you got Vik's little hacker thingamajig?"

The salarian handed an OSD to Nel and vanished once more into his cloak.

"Stay close," she told him, not being able to see him but knowing he was still there. "We need to be in and out fast."

She exited the side room and entered the radio room proper. It wasn't much to look at inside, most of it was just the old radio DJ room, but with some walls hastily knocked out to create more space. Nel could tell from the way a lot of the edges and corners in the room were rather jagged. As well as one the support beams standing out in the middle of the room, completely naked, surrounded by communications equipment in an attempt to hide it.

Said equipment was a mix of the old and new. Much like the new dish on top of the building, Nel could easily point out what had been here before and what had been recently installed. The larger, bulkier transmission set for one was clearly here when the Seppies moved in. The crusty look of it was evidence enough of that. The decently sized server near it though was clearly new, and connected to many of the terminals strewn about the station. No doubt it was compiling all relevant data concerning CLC activities. At least you couldn't say they didn't keep proper records, Xeltravius wasn't hiring complete amateurs that was for sure.

There were about three Separatists operators working at various stations. They were monitoring communications traffic, both from within their own ranks and outside. Nel could tell at least one of them was monitoring Hierarchy comm buoys in the area, as he was feverishly typing down reports while listening into a set of headphones. More of the mix of new and old tech the Separatists had to make due with. They were resourceful, Nel would give them that, but cunning did not equate with brains. Not in her mind anyway. They were after all still bitching about a dumb war they lost centuries ago after all.

There was thankfully one terminal free of use. The operators also hadn't noticed her, or weren't paying her any mind. Even if they had, she was dressed similar to them, why would they bother? So long as she wasn't caught doing anything suspicious, she would be okay. That was her hope at least, as she headed to the free station and began turning it on. She plugged Vik's device into the system and pretended to keep working. The quarian soon contacted her once more.

"Okay, I'm in," he reported. "Keelah, they've got a lot of data on hand. Might take me a bit of time to sort through it."

"Make it fast," Nel whispered. "I can't keep up the unassuming technician act forever."

She did her best to look busy as Vik continued his search. Every now and then she looked over her shoulder to see what the operators were doing. They were still hadn't seemed to notice her, too involved in their own work. With any luck, that would be her saving grace here.

Vik soon called in again.

"They've been here for a while," he informed her. "It's one of their main bases of operation on the fringes of Hierarchy controlled space. Basic Training for new recruits mostly, also a launching point for raids on Hierarchy installations and colonies. Oh, and they've been running advanced drills for biological warfare. No prize for guessing why, it's consistent with what we've found so far."

"What about my dad?" Nel asked, trying not to alert the operators. "What about the juice?"

"Sorry, I was parsing through a lot," Vik apologized. "There's a lab in the compound, they repurposed the old clinic to suit their needs. It had most of the equipment they needed to run experiments in after they cleaned it up. If the War Spirit's Blood is anywhere, it's there."

"Along with my dad," Nel presumed.

"No, according to what I'm reading he's refused to work," Vik explained. "He's held out against all their coercion techniques. Notes from the chief interrogator claim he's very stubborn."

That sounded like her dad. Point was he was alive and he hadn't given up his secrets just yet. Good, they weren't too late.

"So where is he now?" Nel asked.

"The old police station," Vik informed her. "Inside the prison section in the basement, solitary confinement. I can't into their camera feeds to see what his condition is, but that should be where he is. There's nothing on Decius or his men in the files, but they're probably close by as well. The police station isn't far from your current position. I'll mark it on your heads up display."

"We'll head there now," Liara's voice cut in next. "Nel, we'll meet you there and enter quietly. With any luck, we can get your father out along with the other prisoners and then quickly deal with the War Spirit's Blood."

Nel just nodded, pulling the hacking device from the port. She had a location on her father, that was good enough for her. As she turned to leave though, one of the operators stood up from his desk and looked over to her.

"Hey!"

She paused in mid stride, unsure of what to do. Run? Attack? If he hadn't realized she wasn't meant to be here, she'd only draw more suspicion onto her if she tried either of those. If her cover was indeed blown, she was screwed either way. She decided her best option was to take a deep breath and hope for the best.

"Uh, yes," she asked.

The operators handed her a datapad.

"Take this to Commander Boudicas in the officer's quarters," he ordered her. "It's a compiled list of today's intercepted Hierarchy transmissions so far. He'll want to see it."

Boudicas? That was Hanilex's last name, it couldn't be anyone else. He was here, he was behind her father's capture. And she literally had been handed the means to directly confront him, maybe even take him out. However, she maintained her cover and simply saluted the operator.

"I'll go right away," she said.

She began to leave once more. However, as tempting as it was to get some closure on Han, to finally figure out why he was with the Separatists, let alone the CLC, she had a more important objective. She was done running off half-cocked. That was the juice's doing and she no longer wanted anything to do with it. She had to find her father, she'd deal with Han later.

---

The old police station was much like every other building in this place, decrepit, falling apart and held together with jury rigged construction recently added. The Separatists had only fixed up what needed to be rebuilt in order for it to be structurally sound. Letters were falling off the front entrance sign and the colony's old symbol for their police force, complete with their tribal colors, was fading. The walls had been patched with sheet metal and the front door replaced. Other than that it was jus a decaying old building. Although Nel imagined the inside was a bit more refurbished.

Getting inside would not be an easy task. She didn't exactly have a good reason to go in there after all. She considered some options to get by the guards at the front. Say she had food for the prisoner? No, she had no food period. Say she was there to relieve the lead interrogator? Was there even a session going on and would they buy that? She probably should've thought about this more before she got right outside.

However, that was where a certain Salarian came in. He appeared in an alleyway and motioned her to follow him. Nel did so, finding an old fire escape that led up to the top of a nearby building adjacent to the police station itself. It was worth a go at least and a better plan than any of hers.

The two climbed to the top, finding themselves looking down on the slightly shorter building below. It was still a bit of a jump and there were at least three guards on the roof. Not an easy entry.

"Ideas?" She asked the salarian.

Saya walked back across the roof and then took a running start. He leapt from the edge of the roof, gracefully turning through the air, before landing behind an old venting unit and hitting his cloak. Nel grumbled at the display.

"Yeah well, not as graceful as you, jerk," she growl under her breath.

Far be it from her to be outdone by the damn frog though. Maybe she could ask Liara for a better way in, surely she had found a less physically trying entry point. She contacted the asari over the comm.

"Doc, I'm at the police station," Nel told her. "Saya has found a way inside... it's requires being airborne. You mind giving me some options that won't put me at risk of shattering my exoskeleton?"

"We're near the garage entrance on the other side of the structure, Nel," Liara informed her. "We can get in if you open the door from the other side. I'm afraid you joining us here might take you some time."

Nel sighed, like she really needed this crap. Fine, she'd use Saya's stupid way in. Surely it was shorter of a jump than it actually looked. She took the same running start, heading just a further bit back across the roof. Taking a deep breath and clapping her hands together.

"So much easier on the juice," she glowered. "Practically eliminated inhibitions. Also pain."

That was why she had stolen it in the first place. It was also why she was still here in a way. For so long she believed she could only be the soldier she wanted to be if she used the juice. Being a part of this team though had shown her she could be better without it. Still, it was hard to get over the lingering fear, that she wasn't nearly the big action movie star come to life as she once had been.

It reminded her of her father. How often he said she couldn't do these things. That she would fail. That she would fall. That she couldn't be what she wanted to be. Not then, no now, not on the juice, not ever.

That memory was all she needed.

She ran full tilt for the edge of the roof, resisting the urge to scream. She launched herself from the roof and towards the police station, holding her breath to keep herself from panicking aloud. She dipped further and further down as the station's ledge came up. She slammed into it, her waist hitting the ledge hard. She gripped onto the crumbling side of the police station and scrambled to get up onto it. Her jump had been off, not at all perfect, her armor had probably weighed her down as well. As she pulled herself onto the roof though, she couldn't help but feel a tremendous sense of pride.

She had done it, she had actually pulled off a crazy stunt of hers. Something the juice would've made easy for her. She hadn't needed it at all. It almost made her laugh, but she remembered this was still a stealth mission. Clasping her mouth closed, she sat up and saw Saya across the way from her. The salarian was dealing with the last of the Separatist guards, stabbing into his back before slicing his neck, keeping his hand over the man's mouth as he laid him down.

Nel got up off the floor and walked over to the salarian. He was sheathing his weapon once more, his gaze slightly less condescending and demeaning. Not usual for him, considering how he always seemed to think he was better than them at everything. So she couldn't help but rub it in his face.

"Ha, bet you thought I wouldn't try that, didn't you?" She asked. "Like, I was going to wimp out or whatever."

Saya pressed something on his omni-tool, typing something. It soon appeared on Nel's helmet's visor in text. Three simple words; "Knew you could." Nel was a bit taken aback by the response.

"Did... did you do that to try and push me to make the jump?" She asked. "Why?"

Saya shrugged, typing something else out for her to read. "Need to be at best," the words said as they scrolled across her visor. Perhaps he sensed her indecisiveness on ground level in front of the police station. Nel admitted to herself she was a bit touched, but she wasn't about to let the frog know that.

"Yeah, well, next time be more honest about your confidence in me," she informed him. "I already know I'm badass, don't need you to remind me."

She could tell Saya was rolling his eyes even though she couldn't see them. He pulled his sword out once more to slice at the lock, giving them access to the stairwell. He then activated his cloak again and Nel entered in first. She walked carefully down the steps until she came to the first door and opened it slowly. She could see more guards parading around the halls, at least two. She was currently on the upper most level of the station by her guess, she needed to get down to ground level and over to the garage to let Liara and the others in.

"Saya, clear out baddies as you go," she told the salarian. "I'll get Doc and the others inside."

She couldn't really see the salarian, but she presumed he agreed to the idea. After all, taking out bad guys silently was his sort of work. Nel went down the corridor to the right, where she soon found herself walking along a bridge that overlooked the lobby below. There wasn't much to look at of course, save for the CLC banners hanging along the walls. Two rifles crossed together, a towering monolith of blades in the background with the image of a turian face etched atop it. A symbol of a desire to elevate the turian race to glory through violent upheaval of the current government. It was based somewhat on Xeltravius' ancestors' colonial insignia, because of course it was. And Vik complained about Nel's nostalgia-laden obsession with turian action vids. At least she wasn't making flags with Slyvestrix Stalaxian's face on them. She drew the line where before it got to that point.

She crossed the bridge and the fixed machine gun position in its center, currently unoccupied, finding herself in a hallway of former offices. There were stacks of equipment, mostly ammo mods it seemed, scattered everywhere, both in the corridor and the offices themselves. It made an already desolate ruin even more of a cluttered mess. She spotted one of the guards lugging a crate out of a nearby room as she walked past.

"Hey, give me a hand with some of this stuff," he called out. "Guard Captain wants this office cleared out for himself."

Nel played along, not willing to start another fight and potentially blow her cover.

"Where are we taking it?" She asked. "Doesn't look like there's much room up here."

"Yeah, we've been using this whole building as a damn armory for way too long," the guy admitted. "Evidence locker will have to do for now until they can get us more space somewhere more secure."

Nel grabbed the other end of the box and helped the guard carry it down the steps.

"One good thing about this," he said as they walked. "They're storing so much hardware here, obvious enough we're going to be in for some major action soon."

"You think so?" Nel asked.

"Yeah, I mean, we got bases poising to strike as we speak," he claimed. "That's the rumor anyway. I hear there are even some cells setting up on the core worlds."

"Huh," Nel shrugged, careful not to sound put off by the idea. "To think everyone thought the CLC was dead."

"Shows what they knew right?" He asked laughing. "They thought they killed the bossman, but he was just recruiting all this time. Building up for the big day when we teach the Hierarchy a lesson they'll never forget. They can't control every colony out there, they can't control us. Not for much longer anyway."

They finally got downstairs, nearing the evidence locker. Nel noticed the garage wasn't too far away from them, if the faded directional signs suggested anything of note. They entered the locker proper, setting down the box on top of a stack of them. As she did, Nel noticed something hanging in the back of the room that made her eyes go wide.

"Whoa," she said stepping off close to it.

Before her was a full suit of Havoc Soldier Armor. Dual omni-blade projectors, titanium alloy plating with tungsten layers for light but durable protection and, best of all, a built in jet propulsion pack for lightning strikes and maximum battlefield maneuverability. It was the premiere front line combat gear for any turian soldier. What they all strove to be.

She knew about it so intimately because once she had a set just like this. Her own Havoc Suit, back when she was in the military. She had earned it through dedication and service. Kept when she was transfered into the War Spirit's Blood program. Lost it when it all went to hell. Now here was another one, right in front of her. A symbol of how high she had risen and how low she had fallen. Held in the same building her father was a prisoner in. This was the kind of stuff Vik made conspiracies about.

"Yeah, pretty cool, right?" The Seppy guard cut in. "Got it off one of Hierarchy assholes who tried to break in here a few nights back. Had to strip him out of the armor of course before we plugged him, didn't want to damage to merchandise after all."

Nel held her tongue, as much as she wanted to cuss out this traitor for the murder of an honorable soldier. She couldn't break her cover just yet, she had to catch him unawares.

"They haven't decided which officer is getting it," he continued. "Probably Commander Bodicus, he is the one who caught them after all."

That was not happening. Not while she was here. Han had besmirched the colors they flew under when he teamed up with these bastards. He didn't deserve this armor. None of these traitors did.

"Anyway, lets get the rest of those crates," the Seppy told her, moving back towards the door.

That was her moment, the second he turned, she pulled her silenced pistol and aimed it at his head. When he turned around to see if she was following, Nel fired, plugging him in the face with a clean shot. When he fell to the floor, she rushed over, grabbing him by the heels and pulling him into the room. She hid him behind a stack of crates before taking one last look at the armor.

"I'll be back for you," she said.

Holstering her weapon, she headed out the door and made a beeline for the garage. There were some old police shuttles rusting there, along with two more guards patrolling the area. She needed to get through them if she was going to reach the door and let Liara in. She pulled out her pistol again and moved silently through the rusting hulks of metal. She managed to get behind one guard as she turned the corner of a shuttle and plugged him in the back of the skull. As he fell back, Nel grabbed his body and gently lowered it to the ground.

The second guard was closer to the door she needed to reach. She quickly moved across the floor, rushing to the side of another of the rusting shuttles. The guard turned and gave a quick look around, likely noticing his partner was gone. He kept his gun raised as he searched the area, moving past Nel ever so slightly. She jumped up as he did and fired two shots into the traitor's head. He plopped to the floor like a sack of rocks, freeing Nel up to get to the door.

Nel checked the guard to see if there was anything on him to do just that. As she suspected, there was a keycard on him. Suspecting it was for the door, Nel rushed over and slid it through the reader slot. It unlocked instantly and the turian slid the door open. She looked outside, peering through the darkness before taking off her helmet. She didn't want her own squad thinking she was one of the bad guys after all.

That was enough to convince both Liara and Vik to come rushing out of the shadows of a nearby alleyway. They quickly moved through the door, which Nel shut behind them.

"Where are the others?" She asked Liara.

"Kayap and Wrex are keeping watching on a nearby roof," she explained. "Just in case they spot someone coming or things change. It's best to have a backup plan of sorts. Where's Saya?"

"Knowing him, probably halfway through the station leaving several bodies in his wake," Nel informed the asari. "He's efficient like that."

Liara nodded in acknowledgment, activating her comm.

"Saya, we're inside, meet us near the entrance to the cell blocks," she said.

The trio headed out the garage and over to the doors leading to the basement. They kept cover over each other's flanks as they went, but there was no sign of any enemy movement. When they reached the door leading down, they found Saya in the process of deactivating his cloak.

"Have you dealt with security?" Liara asked him.

Saya nodded, before typing something that appeared in text on their omni-tools. "All rooms cleared," it read.

"Good, take Vik to the main security console," Liara ordered next. "We'll need his eyes on the cameras. Nel and I will head into the cells below. If there's anyone else down there, help guide us to them."

"Copy that, ma'am," Vik acknowledged.

The team split up from there, Nel and Liara venturing down the stairs to the cells below. As they neared the bottom, Liara turned the turian with concern.

"How are you holding up?" She asked.

"Being stuck playing Seppy makes my skin crawl," Nel replied. "It's going to take so many showers to get their traitor stink off me."

"Not what I'm referring to," Liara corrected her.

Yeah, Nel had figured.

"I just want to get him out of here right now," she said, referring to her father. "Once dad is safe I can give him a piece of my mind. Just don't expect me to not share a little bit when I first see him."

"I understand," Liara acknowledged. "All the same Nel, I hope confronting your father helps more than hinders."

"He hasn't exactly helped regardless of his position or mine," Nel informed her. "At this point, I don't see how anything will change. Save for the fact I'll finally get to tell him off for everything he ever did."

"Maybe, but you can't let your father's dismissal of you haunt you forever either," Liara told her. "Sooner or later, you have to move on. Both of you do."

Could they though? Did either of them want that? Nel wasn't even fully sure. She respected yet hated her father. Cared enough to not seem him get tortured and killed, but not so much that she wanted to see him by choice. Maybe this would close a chapter, maybe it would just keep festering. She honestly couldn't say. All she did know was that today was reminding her of a lot of things she would've preferred to just forget. That much she did miss about the Juice, even if everything else that came with it was a price she no longer wanted to pay.

"Then we might as well get him out of here quickly then," she concluded at last. "The sooner we do, the sooner we don't have to see each other again. Who knows, maybe I'll even get a thank you before he bolts."

"Would that be enough?" Liara asked suddenly.

Nel paused, but she shook off the question. She opened the door to the cells and moved in first, her pistol drawn. There was a pair of guards stationed along the hall. Liara moved into a small alcove to hide as Nel approached them. One of them moved to stop her.

"Hey, what are-?"

He never finished the question as Nel plugged him in the skull. His partner moved to engage, but Liara stepped out and fired as well, taking him down with ease. They searched along the cells lined up along the walls, but found no one inside. Nel growled openly as switched on the communicator.

"Bucket, what gives?" She demanded to know. "The cells are all empty."

"Relax, he's here, at least I think he is, I don't know what you dad looks like," Vik confirmed for her. "I'm in the security room with Saya and I have him on camera. There's a turian in the interrogation room in the next corridor. Someone is going to town on him. It looks bad."

Nel would've apologized to Vik for snapping at him, had her feet not already started moving. She dashed across the hall, Liara trying to keep up. They both soon came to the pair of doors leading into the interrogation room. Looking at the signs, they opted for the viewing area first, opening door silently. No one was there, save a camera recording the interview on its own. While a Separatist in the other room kept smacked another turian tied down to a chair.

"We can keep doing this all night, Colonel," the Separatist claimed. "It's not going to get any easier. Submit and start telling us what you know."

The Colonel just spat at the ground near the Seppy's boots. That would've earned him another punch, had Nel not fired first. Three rounds penetrated the one-way mirrored glass, penetrated the interrogator's head and back. He fell to the floor dead as Nel smashed through the rest of the glass and rushed over to the prisoner's side. She lowered herself down to get a look at him, seeing the same facial tattoo as hers on his face. She recognized his eyes and the color of plates instantly.

It was him.

"Dad," she said, lightly tapping him along his face. "Dad, can you hear me?"

Colonel Catonis' eyes suddenly focused, even tough his face was battered, bruised and scared. Eventually he finally managed to raise his head up enough that he could see Nel and his mouth went gaped open in shock.

"Nelanax? Wh... what are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass because mom still gives a shit about you, old man," Nel informed him curtly. "Guess someone has to."

She used her combat knife to cut the colonel's bindings. He reached both his hands in front of him and rubbed his wrists, grunting as he did. He coughed slightly as he readjusted himself and wiped the blood away from his mouth.

"Can you walk? Cause I'm not carrying you," Nel informed him.

"I'm not dead, yet anyway," her father replied. "I'll be fine. Just... help me up, okay? They've been going to town on my knees for a while."

Nel sighed, she supposed it was the decent thing to do. She helped her father stand, it was then he noticed Liara. He was a bit perplexed to see her.

"This one part of your little merc rescue team?" He asked, his gruff, authoritative voice somewhat returning as the pain subsided.

"My boss, actually," Nel informed him. "I had to convince her to come here to get you. You're lucky she said yes."

"Liara T'Soni," the asari greeted. "I've been working with your daughter for a while now. We've most recently been dealing with the CLC directly."

"She takes orders from you?" The Colonel asked. "That's a new one. Nel has never been one for orders. Partially because she never listens."

"I listen when it's worth listening to, old man," Nel snarled at him.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," The Colonel mused rather expectantly. "Anyway, I've heard about you, T'Soni. You're one of that Commander Shepard's crewmates. Rumors have it he's still kicking after all. I assume he's nearby."

"Sorry, Colonel, just me and my team," Liara informed him. "As well as yours once we free them. But they're not here as far as we can tell."

"You won't find them, they're dead," the Colonel informed her, his face contorted into a disgusted grimace. "Damn Separatists ambushed us almost as soon as we infiltrated the compound. They were waiting for us. More specifically, me. They saw the rest of the squad as dead weight, shot any who didn't surrender in the head and killed the rest anyway. They just wanted me."

"For the War Spirit's Blood," Nel finished for him. "They want you to perfect it."

The Colonel somewhat snorted at her.

"Yes, but if you're thinking of getting your next fix here-"

"I'm off the stuff, dad," Nel informed him bluntly. "Quit it, cold turkey. Liara... helped."

Colonel Catonis seemed surprised at first, before his gaze became more skeptical. He turned to Liara for confirmation, who merely nodded.

"She's clean and she wants to stay that way," she assured him.

The Colonel again seemed surprised, his gaze at Nel softening somewhat.

"Well... good to hear," he said gruffly. "I... I always hoped you'd get over it with the right help."

"Yeah, whatever," Nel replied just as gruffly.

For once, the Colonel just nodded, his snarl did not return. He just seemed to accept Nel's dismissive response to his words. Clearing his throat though, he got back to business.

"Regardless, this isn't the same drug the project we worked on," he informed them. "How much has my daughter told you about the War Spirit's Blood, T'Soni?"

"That you created it to give your own soldiers an edge over enemy biotic users, specifically Separatists using biotic enhancing drugs," Liara recounted. "It made them hyper accurate, faster, stronger, tougher, they didn't even feel pain, their minds sharpened enough that enemies slowed to a crawl under its influence."

"Yes, but it was never designed for all turians, just those without biotic enhancement," the Colonel explained. "The effects were always tuned to physical attributes, they had no effect on biotics. They're trying to make a new strain of the drug that enhances even more physical attributes, for longer more sustained periods of time. As well as triple biotic abilities in battle. With no side effects, save for an even greater increase in aggression."

As bad as they feared, but all the more reason it was good they got here when they did.

"Well, they can't be far along," Nel suggested. "I imagine Decius has held out on any secrets he has for as long as possible and you clearly didn't crack."

But the Colonel shook his head.

"No, Nel, you don't understand," he said sadly. "Decius isn't a prisoner. He's working for them."

Nel stepped back in shock.

"What? He's... why?"

"I don't know," the Colonel growled, confusion gripping his words. "All I do know is they stuck me in the same cell with him. He tried to convince me that the only way out was to work with them. When I refused to follow along and insisted on us trying to escape or signal for help, he called for the guard, who loosened his bindings and walked out with him under his own power. Said he was disappointed, that now they had to try it the hard way."

"The bastard," Nel snarled. "For the love of fuck, was there anyone in that stupid project who didn't turn out to be a traitor?"

"We can put a stop to this," Liara promised them both. "We just have to reach the clinic and destroy the drug samples inside."

And they had enough ordinance inside the building to pull it off. All they needed to do was...

"That is not happening."

The voice on the intercom was familiar and it soon had an image to go along with it. One of the monitors attached to the ceiling turned towards them. Moments later, Hanilex's picture appeared on it glaring down at them.

"Hello, Nel, good to see you again."

Nel acted before she thought, pulling out her pistol and firing several rounds into the monitor, shattering it to pieces. In the next moment, a holo-projector installed into the wall lit up, and Hanilex appeared again, this time as if he was standing there. Nel fired at him again, until her gun ran dry and her father forced her to lower it.

"Are you quite do-"

"Traitor!" Nel screamed. "Fucking traitor! Fuck you! I'm gonna fucking kill you! You hear me? Fucking kill you like the rabid varren you are, motherfucker!"

Even Han seemed taken aback by the threat, as were her father and Liara. Although the Separatist turian's gaze turned on he Colonel soon after.

"This was probably not the best time to cut in, I can tell," he confessed. "But you need to know... you're not leaving that police station."

It was then Vik contacted the team.

"Liara, we have a problem," he warned. "The outside camera feeds have got several armed guards, including a few armored vehicles amassing outside. I think they have the place surrounded."

A fact Hanilex confirmed.

"I have teams taking up positions right outside the station as we speak," he explained. "So you're going to listen to what I have to say or they are going to move in and kill you. All I have to do is give the word."

Nel could only think of how this day had gone from lousy to worse. Now she was stuck in a building with her father while her traitorous former CO held her besieged within its walls. That was bad news for Hanilex though, not her. She'd let him talk, they had no choice, but he had forced them to change more than their current attack strategy. At first she was just going to kill Han. Now she intended to make him bleed for every second he dragged this bullshit out and then kill him.

---

AN: This chapter and the next one are, personal in many ways. They deal with a lot of things concerning family, and it took a while to get right and more importantly for me to feel it was okay to upload. But, I feel its time. Nelanax has been in need of some more development and closure for a good long time and this story is more about her than anyone else on the team. So, here it is. I hope you enjoy it and that you feel good enough to leave a review.

But please don't ask me about the Annihilation book that just came out. Not right now. I'm not in the mood to discuss it. I'd appreciate if you tried to do that for me. Thanks in advance.