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.

11. Exodus Under Fire

Chapter 11: Exodus Under Fire

The Covenant had stopped throwing bodies needlessly at their defenses. However, they also took a good deal of Central Command's atrium for themselves. The Control Center for the Nexus was still out of their reach, but a line of sorts had solidified. Liara knew it was only temporary, the sangheili would reform and adapt. Even in their very narrow mindset concerning what that meant in the Covenant, that didn't mean they were completely devoid of re-strategizing when things didn't work out.

As he peered over the cover of the balcony's overlook, Alec surveyed the Elite lines. They were staying behind barricades, both erected by them and within the natural architecture of the atrium itself. Even if no one was shooting, that didn't mean one side or the other wouldn't take a shot if presented one. This wasn't a ceasefire after all, just a lull.

"They've taken substantial casualties," Alec surmised as he lowered his head back into full cover. "By now their primary concern is achieving at least one of their objectives. So that leaves two options, they wait to see if one of the other teams succeed and then pull out, or they trying establish if they should assist the engine room team instead unless they decide to divert those teams here."

"That seems like the most likely scenario," Cora claimed. "They have a greater foothold on the Command Deck. Meanwhile, downstairs they're dealing with a ton of angry krogan in close-quarters."

"It's what I would do in any conventional scenario," Alec agreed. "But these aren't your conventional combatants."

Liara agreed with that, which was why she didn't completely agree with Alec's choices for their options.

"I doubt they'll abandon this objective in any case," Liara cautioned. "Sangheili pride is extremely embedded into their culture, especially when it comes to war. From what I've seen and been told, it's far more likely they are trying to discern how to regain the momentum here. If their comrades fail, at least they'll succeed."

"Hmm, glory before death, I see," Alec reasoned. "In that case, they're not budging under their own power. I know I wouldn't if I had their belief system. So that leaves another possibility, they have an ace up their sleeve they've been saving."

"Huge death ray?" Scott asked. "Big old bomb? A big old bomb is a pretty classic problem solver for bad guys."

"A bomb would be at risk of being turned off before it detonates," Sarah observed. "Unless... well, unless they intend to stay with it until the big boom."

Sarah's horrified expression at where her thought had led her was warranted. Liara imagined that was something a sangheili would do without any other alternative. However, nothing in the notes from future Alec said anything about a bomb being used. She supposed it could be something he missed or couldn't have predicted, in the original timeline's attack, but something didn't feel right about that theory. She had one of her own, one born out of a growing belief that this raid wasn't disconnected from their greater mission. Vik had brought up some suspicions about just that after all. Amongst his distaste of the Andromeda Initiative was an evident belief that something felt off about the timing of this attack alongside what they had been dealing with so far.

Perhaps the quarian's conspiratorial personality was catching, but the idea had been planted all the same.

"I don't think the ace is a bomb," she cautioned. "These Sangheili, they've been getting cybernetic upgrades from our universe for a while. We've seen them off and on, it's not entirely widespread and we've de-commissioned a few of the projects in prototype phase. But they are using our own tech to a degree. They might have something like that in store for us."

"Whatever they're planning, we need to force them out of here somehow," Nel insisted. "Isn't there a way to flank their positions or something from here? Force them out of hiding?"

"If there was, I'd have used them by now," Alec admitted. "But we do have some heavy weapons I've been saving until now. If we wait until they make a move, we can catch them off guard. Right now, they probably suspect we're backed into a corner, pinned down. We can use that assumption against them."

It was then, almost as if on cue, that activity began to stir within the Covenant lines. The door at the very back of the atrium opened. Out of it arrived a single sangheili, but this one wore rather different armor from his brethren. It was less ornate than the officers, less colorful, more streamlined even. Dark grey with lines of white covered the sangheili from head to toe. His helmet covered his face, with a single sharp fringe pointing backwards along his head and dark black visor covered his eyes. In one hand was a plasma sword, but in the other he held something more akin to a cannon.

"What in the hell is that?" Cora asked.

"Another gift from VykurCorp I reckon," Nel whispered to Liara.

The asari didn't disagree. Apparently her prototype theory had not been so far off. Whatever this new suit of armor was, Liara imagined it hadn't been something the Covenant had cooked up on their own. More likely, it had been repurposed for them by someone else.

The questions the new suit raised had to wait, as the sangheili raised his cannon arm and fired on their position. A terrible plasma blast rocked the wall on the left side and signaled the other Covenant to begin the charge anew. The Initiative Security Forces returned fire, but the bombarding plasma blasts made that task difficult. Alec tried to use his biotics to knock back the Covie Commando, but the suits shields were more than a significant match.

"I think it's time to break out the big guns, pops," Sarah told Alec.

"Go, but be quick about it!" Alec ordered her.

Sarah took off running, while the rest of them tried to hold off the encroaching Covenant forces. Nel used her heavy assault rifle to knock down their shields before freezing them with cryoblasts. Cora then followed suit with sustained fire to break them apart. However, when the turian tried to take down the Covie with the power armor's shields, the bullets just seemed to bounce off, only doing minor damage.

"Bastard has some heavy shields on him," Nel told Liara. "I'm thinking that thing has some combined tech inside it."

Another plasma blast rocked their position, forcing everyone to go prone as bits of debris fell from the ceiling.

"If he gets inside the control center, he'll destroy the navigation array for sure," Liara warned. "Not to mention who knows what other sensitive equipment."

"We need to get past that shield to do any real damage though," Scott informed her.

"Maybe there's a faster way," Alec suggested. "That weapon of his, whatever tech he's got, the shield won't hold under all that intense heat. That's his weak point. We'll hit him there with the biggest gun we got."

"Let's hope Sarah picks out a good one then," Cora noted.

Liara poked her head out of cover long enough to fire a few clean shots on some sangheili, wrecking their shields. She then used her biotics to send both of the aliens hurtling into their Commando. That at least knocked him over. The heavy armor had at least one other weakness, but she knew it wouldn't stop him. He'd just get back up, which he was already scrambling to do.

Thankfully, Sarah soon returned from the weapons cache. She was carrying a large missile launcher of some kind with her. Rushing towards their position under enemy fire, she pressed herself into cover next to her father, showing him the weapon.

"Hydra Missile Launcher," she said. "One shot with multiple warheads."

"That will work," Alec told her. "Wait for my go."

Sarah nodded and prepared the weapon.

"We'll cover her while she makes the shot," Liara said.

"Good, just wait a second," Alec said cautiously.

He looked over cover once more and began firing on the sangheili Commando, agitating him. The alien powered up his weapon again and fired. The blast rocked the balcony, but Alec had pulled back into cover. He and the rest of the team were thrown about, but they survived.

"He needs time to recharge," Alec told everyone. "Get ready, keep up the fire on him while the gun cools down."

Liara wasn't sure how he knew that, but she trusted the man's judgment enough not to question him. Perhaps his HUD had detected an increase in heat every time the cannon fired. She'd have to remember to ask him later.

Sarah stood up as everyone else opened fire. They peppered the Covie with bullets, disruptor rounds if they had them. Sure enough, the alien, when he wasn't using his sword to block the shots, was pointing his weapon at their position again and preparing to fire. At the apex of his charge however, Alec shouted over to his daughter.

"Now!"

Sarah fired the Hydra and a furious barrage of missiles cascaded out of the tube. They raced across the breadth of the atrium and slammed into Covie's cannon directly. The resulting explosion enveloped the alien, the barrage utterly decimating him. It would've been a cause for celebration, had the fireball not dissipated.

When it did, the prototype armor was mostly trashed, the cannon seemingly destroyed, but the Covie inside the suit was still alive. He pulled himself back up, smoking, blackened, his weapon broken and sparking, but he was clearly not dead. He forced the weapon off of his arm, recognizing how it was now useless, wrenching it from his limb as wires broke and sparks flew. He then tore off his helmet, cracked visor and all, revealing a second layer beneath it, that only just covered his naked skin. With crazed eyes and snarling mandibles, he raised his sword at the Alec and Liara, screaming through a bloodied mouth.

Cora suddenly fired on him, hitting him in the shoulder. The alien dropped back into cover, but his fellow sangheili pushed forward. They swarmed the security positions, already shaken from their commando's barrage. Their guns chattered away, but the Covenant pressed their momentum all the same.

"We need to pull back to secondary," Alec ordered. "Protect the vital systems at any cost. Prepare for close-quarters."

"We're with you, dad," Scott said.

Alec led them back into the control room, firing all the way. Liara could tell this was getting dicey, but at least they had prevented the Covenant from getting any further with their secret weapon. When this was over, she'd have to get a look at that armor. But first things first, they needed to halt this assault, and soon. They didn't have much more ground left to fall back on.

---

Vik couldn't deny that the Keelah Si'yah was rather state of the art in comparison to every other quarian ship he had ever known. It wasn't exactly rusting and barely held together for one. So even if this was still essentially the Ark for all the "Lesser Races" and "hangers-on", at least the Initiative wasn't skimping expenses for them. Although he hadn't seen the insides of the other Arks, he could imagine they weren't so different. Maybe they had different artwork or plants in their little individual lobbies, perhaps even the cultural aesthetics of the ships themselves were dissimilar, but the tech would be the same. He could admit at least he had been wrong to briefly assume otherwise beforehand.

Everything else though still stunk. The deliberate segregation, the packing of everyone who wasn't of use to or part of the Galactic Elite, the fact that quarians were a part of this at all to begin with, it all still sat wrong. Maybe you could argue that the arks needed to be tailored to a singular species to reduce resource management and other complications, but then why shove several incompatible species with varying needs, both physical and cultural, onto a single craft? It just sounded like they only cared to a minimum degree and whether or not the quarians and the rest of galaxy's unwashed, unwanted species made it to safe harbor was in their hands alone. As if someone was hoping they'd fail somehow, die in space alone and no one would have to deal with filthy suit rats, stupid jellyfish, brutish batarians, ailing drell and dull elcors in Andromeda.

No, the council races couldn't be expected to SHARE with the filthy peasants. That was unthinkable. Better to wash their hands of the relative fates of the rest of races they hoped to leave behind anyway. Shove them all onto one boat, launch them all at the same time and see if they can somehow survive the journey and even if they do there won't be nearly enough of them anyway to establish any significant colony, allowing the usual cadre of races to resume to the usual power structure. New place, same people in charge.

Paranoid thoughts? Probably, Vik wasn't going to deny the fact it sounded more vindictive than his usual tirades. It was why he was keeping it all to himself. That and he had no real substantial proof to any of his complaints. Just a feeling that the Initiative didn't care. Or that they did, but only insomuch as the quarians didn't upset the status quo of their new galactic order in Andromeda. Perhaps it was ridiculous to suggest they were spending all this money just to shoot the vagabond races off into dark space and never be recovered as some cruel joke to keep them quiet or shut them up. Even he had trouble buying that and he was the one who had come up with it. What really set him off was Senna, if Vik was being truly honest. That a fellow quarian was this trusting of these people who had come out of the blue. Offering vague promises supported on nothing but abject hopes, prayers and maybe some naive optimism. And Senna, and all these other quarians mind you, trusted this group more than their own Fleet. Their own family and the safety and security provided by them weren't good enough for them.

Then again, given the name of this Ark, Vik suspected these weren't your typical quarians. They were a radical political group within the Flotilla. For them, it wasn't just enough to colonize a new planet, they had to completely forget Rannoch entirely. Forget the homeworld, leave all of their heritage behind and just restart anywhere they could. Why waste time dealing with Council roadblocks to colonization or a far-off dream of defeating the old synthetic enemy? Just put down roots somewhere, end the seemingly endless voyage and just restart entirely.

They weren't popular, mainly because their ideas involved getting around colonization rights laws by splitting up the clans and settling wherever. Easier to get a colony recognized as legitimate if it was only a few thousand or so scattered everywhere instead of one giant mega-fleet of refugees. But not many quarians were interested in dissolving their entire culture to become a bunch of disparate tribes across the Milky Way. They'd be no better than the krogan in the eyes of the galaxy that way, just a homeless race that didn't even have a central government anymore. They'd still have no respect in the wider Galactic Community and they'd still be ostracized for one reason or another. Finding a colony for the whole fleet would at least open the door to that, dispersing their people was not an option. Well, it was for Senna apparently. Enough that he and a whole bunch of other quarians felt abandoning their family was the better option.

Then again, as he kept coming back to over and over in his head the longer he was here, hadn't he done the same? He could spin the same justifications or reasonings or whatever other excuses he could cook up, but the facts didn't lie. He had abandoned the Fleet too. How was he honestly any better than Senna in that regard?

You couldn't fault Senna's leadership abilities though. Whatever position he used to have in the Migrant Fleet, Vik imagined it was in some kind of command position. Maybe not military-related, but certainly organizational. As they moved through the Ark, passing various teams of potential colonists, he gave them quick and decisive orders, not missing a beat on each.

"I need maintenance bay sections shuttered," he told some quarian techs. "They might be looking for another way in."

He then opened up his commlink as they kept walking.

"More security to the cryobay. I'll explain when I get there," he told them firmly.

He then spotted a few drell security officers as they walked by.

"Get on the airlock doors in the civilian quarters," he ordered. "Pass the word along to whoever you find. If they breach there, a lot of good people, our people, won't stand a chance on their own. Go."

The drell didn't question, they moved quickly. Although Senna was quick to spot a pair of Volus who seemed a bit lost and confused.

"Wha-what's going on out there?" One of them asked.

"Please, return to your quarters, it is not safe out here," he requested, he quickly spied a quarian officer nearby. "You, escort them to safety. Keep them out of harm's way."

"Yes, Commander," the quarian replied, quickly ushering the pair of Volus away.

Even with all the confusion, the alarms flaring and the thought of the whole enterprise of going to Andromeda resting on the fate of his Ark, Senna's calm demeanor was laudable, commendable even. He had clearly earned his rank and was respected among his peers. Vik had to admire that to a degree. How long had it been since he had seen any quarian derive any level of respect from anyone? Then again, for the longest time, his gauge of the galaxy's level of respect for his species was based solely on his own experience. So maybe it was just nice to see a quarian who didn't have that problem for once, even if it was in rather unique circumstances.

He wasn't only one who noticed of course.

"Always heard about how quarians ran tight ships," Peebee whispered. "Guess that's true even outside the fleet, huh?"

"It's in the blood I guess," Vik confessed. "Can't take that out of us no matter where we go."

"Probably the only thing in your blood that won't make you sick, I wager," Kalinda chided.

Peebee glared at her a little.

"Kalinda, please," she asked. "Could you not?"

"Don't get politically correct on me now, Pelessaria," Kalinda shot back. "Remember, I'm only doing this because you twisted my arm so much."

Peebee didn't shoot back at that, visibly retracting from Kalinda a bit. Vik grimaced under his visor at it all. He would've asked Kalinda to just leave if she didn't want to be here so much, but he didn't have time to play favorites. If Liara could tolerate Nel before she sobered up, he could handle a prejudicial asari with an abusive mindset for an hour or so.

They kept making their way through the Ark. From the looks of things, the kig-yar hadn't broken inside yet. Although it was possible they were just maintaining a low profile and simply sneaking their way to the cryobay. All the more reason to double-time it to that section. Although Senna obviously had more than a few questions concerning the situation as they continued.

"Can you tell me why these... kig-yar of yours don't want us going to Andromeda?" The quarian asked Vik.

"Not exactly," Vik confessed. "These bosh'tets aren't simple like that. All I can say is this attack probably has some sort of religious reasoning behind it all."

"The kig-yar probably don't care about that," Kayap cut in briefly. "All they care about is money. They were probably promised a big paycheck by Vorsa if they pulled it off."

Vik supposed that was just as likely, although the reason overall hardly mattered. What mattered was stopping them, something Senna agreed with. Even if he was confused by both Kay and Coda's appearances.

"What did you say these two friends of yours were again, Vik?" Senna asked as politely as possible.

"My friends, right now I think that's good enough," Vik replied firmly.

"I suppose, for now," Senna relented, although Vik suspected the subject would be broached again soon enough. "Let's stick to this virus for the moment. What does it do exactly?"

Vik needed as much help on this as possible, so he didn't see anything with letting everyone in on the reality. He pulled up the after-action report from Future Alec Ryder. A detailed analysis of how the virus functioned, little else as apparently most of its code self-destructed after its mission was complete.

"The virus is more like a worm than anything really," Vik explained. "Near as I can tell, it is supposed to copy the sync codes for the pods' internal functions, including security protocols. It then overloads the life support systems rendering them inoperable and the pod useless. This creates an alert in the main computer concerning all relevant data in an effort to correct the error, which it sends out to the other pods and that allows the worm access to everywhere else to continue the cycle."

"So how does it get off the Keelah Si'yah then?" Peebee asked.

"A catastrophic life support system failure in any cryobay while docked is a significant breach," Senna stated. "Our ark would send an alert to the others to lock down systems. Given how this thing spreads initially, I'm guessing that would give the worm another opening and it would repeat the process."

Vik just nodded. He was right on the money. Whatever Senna was, he knew his code.

"Pretty infectious bug," Peebee observed.

"Highly sophisticated at least," Senna agreed. "I never heard of a worm jumping ship to ship through the alert system."

"Neither have I," Vik asserted. "That's why I'm thinking this is something new and likely developed for this key purpose."

"These aliens really hate us, huh?" Peebee asked confused. "I mean, we've done nothing to them and they're putting in all this effort to wreck everything?"

"I'm starting to think this isn't entirely their idea alone," Vik argued. "But that's not important right now. We have to stop them, kill the bug before it can replicate and infect the pods."

"Then our best bet is the central databank in the cryobay," Senna informed him. "If they're attempting to upload, we can scan the pods for anomalies. The worm would have to pass through there in order to access the codes required to accomplish its function."

"Just get us there," Vik responded. "If Coda can connect to the network, we can flush it out."

Coda cooed affirmatively at the statement, certain in their ability to stop the worm. Senna gave a confused look, but not a dismissive one.

"Alright, I... I suppose as long as I'm supervising..." he said cautiously.

"You'll have to, you're more familiar with the system than I am," Vik informed him. "I'll need your help accessing it."

"Well I've done plenty of work on the computers already, so no problem there," Senna agreed, looking towards a door up ahead. "We're here, come on."

They quickly headed through the door, already there were few armed guards there, mostly quarian, but there were some drell as well as one elcor wearing a battle harness on his back. Vik had heard of this but never seen it. Elcor walked on all fours, but a lack of thumbs didn't make them fully reliant on brute strength for defense. They had specialized harnesses they wore on their backs, like turrets of a sort, they could use to engage hostile forces. As Vik understood it, they used sophisticated VI programming utilizing the accumulated military knowledge of past tacticians to make on the fly decisions for them. Not to say the elcor carrying the gun was completely removed from making decisions, just that their methodical nature was taken out of the equation.

Having at least one of them with some advanced firepower on their side eased Vik's mind at holding out against any siege. Senna thought the same, but clearly he had concerns about the firepower in a confined space. So he organized the group quickly, having them take up positions within the cryobay. He had the vacant pods pulled out of the potential line of fire and the elcor was moved to the back of the room to provide general support without endangering anyone. Although the weapon itself wasn't explosive in nature, this was probably for the best.

"Okay, why are we even here again?" Kalinda asked, looking around the area. "They got enough people to keep their asses in one piece."

"Never underestimate kig-yar," Kayap warned. "Numbers are never a deterrent for them. Trust me."

"And how the hell do you know that?" Kalinda asked.

"Because we've fought them enough at this point to know," Vik assured her. "Trust us, we know what we're talking about."

It was the easiest way to cover for Kay. He did not want to have to explain about how Kayap was a defector and have them question his loyalty and everything else. Not now, not when so much was at stake. Besides, he didn't want to have to explain to Kalinda why she should shut up and listen to her friend instead of being a bosh'tet about it.

Luckily, Senna backed him up.

"Listen, no one is asking you to stay," she told Kalinda and Peebee. "But if you are here to help-"

"We are, totally," Peebee assured him rather enthusiastically.

"Then I need you to hold this area for us," Senna explained. "If these aliens are as determined as Vik and his people say, then we need to be united on this. It's not just the quarian ark on the line here but-"

"The entire Initiative, yeah, yeah, whatever," Kalinda groaned. "Just tell me where to set up already so we can get this over with."

"I want to position biotics throughout the line," Senna explained. "If you could just spread out a little, that would help."

"Copy that, Commander," Peebee said with a playful salute. "We'll keep loose then."

"Then we best get started before the kig-yar do," Senna concurred. "Vik, you said Coda something about Coda being key to this. What does he need from me?"

"Just let him have access," Vik assured him. "He'll take it from there."

Senna nodded and allowed Coda to float over to the console for the databank. The huragok's tendrils stretched out and began plugging themselves into various open ports while others took charge of the console's commands itself. As the tendrils pulsated with light, Coda began searching through data files like mad. Screens seemed to speed by, one after the other, on the holographic display as the huragok began his anti-virus procedures. Senna was instantly impressed at the sight.

"How... how is he... is he interfacing directly with our systems?" He asked Vik curiously.

"I could explain how but you wouldn't really believe me," Vik laughed a bit. "Let's just say he's a bit of a master engineer. He probably rivals even our own people in technical prowess and skill."

"Cool," Peebee said grinning at everything. "So he's like a super hacker?"

"I guess that's one way of putting it," Vik confirmed. "Right now, he's searching for malignant code. I gave him the data signature for the Worm before we got here. He should be able to track it down or at least figure out where the kig-yar are uploading from."

"Sweet, think he can crack some stuff on the extranet for me?" Peebee asked. "There are like a billion holovision shows I'd like to record into my omni-tool before we have to leave."

"Priorities first," Senna told her. "We kill the worm then worry about everything else."

Coda suddenly jerked his head right, looking at Kayap and Vik and cooing.

"I think he's detected something," Kayap informed them.

"That was fast," Peebee observed.

"Yeah, even for him," Vik agreed suspiciously.

Coda brought up a diagram of the Ark and highlighted a data junction that was in the process of being accessed without authorization. The reason he had found it so quick became clear at once to everyone, the source of the hack was directly above them in a maintenance section.

"Keelah, you have got to be kidding me!" Senna growled, his head pointing upwards to a section of walkways and ducts.

Coda pointed one of his tentacles up anxiously, signaling out a lone part of the maintenance area. Vik switched his visor's extrasensory mode on and soon spotted the heat signature of a very shady looking bird-like alien.

"There! He's there!" He shouted aloud, pointing.

Kalinda wasted little time firing up into the catwalks, riddling the area with bullets.

"Careful! Don't hit anything mission-critical!" Senna pleaded urgently.

"Keep your suit on, quarian," Kalinda barked back. "I got the bastard."

A screech of anger soon followed as plasma fire struck near Kalinda's foot and soon traced over to assault Vik. Luckily, Coda had activated extra shielding, so there was little harm done. However, it was Peebee who ended the assault, using her biotics to pull the kig-yar over the side of the railing and cause him to plummet to the floor. The Covie cushioned the fall with his shield and tried to stand back up to continue shooting, only for Senna to fill him full of holes from his pistol. The alien screeched in anger from every shot taken before finally falling dead.

"They're inside," Senna snarled. "Keelah, they're already inside. Damn it!"

Coda suddenly chirped and cooed again, catching their attention once more. It was a panic cry from the Huragok, one of urgency and danger that Kayap quickly translated.

"He says there's more breaches," the unggoy rapidly explained. "Everywhere."

"What do you mean everywhere?" Peebee asked nervously.

Coda brought up the same diagram as before and began pinpointing various hacking points across the ship. The worm was being installed at every single one of the highlighted terminals. From what Vik could count at a glance there were at least eighteen intrusion points across the ship's systems, and more were to come.

"The hell are they doing?" Kalinda asked angrily.

"This is the backup plan," Vik stated. "All the increased security has forced their hand. If they can't get to the databank directly..."

"They'll just go for a widespread assault," Senna concluded. "They're uploading the worm into as many subsystems as possible. They're going to attack the databank's security protocols from multiple angles, overload it and get the codes through brute force."

It was then highlighted sections began going dark, one after the other. Coda just chirped happily.

"That's a good thing, right?" Peebee asked.

Vik could already tell what the huragok was doing.

"Coda is spiking the hacked access terminals, isolating the worm from the other systems so the anti-virus software can terminate it," he told the others. "But there are a lot of junction points and at least one of the programs is going to get into the system at this rate."

"Can he still stop it?" Senna asked.

Coda nodded in the affirmative with a cooing grunt. Vik understood the meaning and the danger they now faced.

"I think he can if we help," Vik assured Senna. "But the kig-yar are going to get wise to this fast. They'll know we're interfering with their hack. They aren't on Coda's level, so if they want the mission to succeed and the worm to get the codes it needs, they need to come here and kill us."

"And they're pretty much everywhere so they'll be coming at us from all sides," Peebee reasoned. "Lucky us."

"Wonderful," Senna sighed. "Get ready people, it looks like we're in for a fight after all."

---

The sangheili squads did manage to blast their way into engineering. Thankfully, the security forces inside had enough time to barricade the critical systems. Wrex knew, however, that they were going for the killing blow, not a thousand cuts. Any other attack was a feint, it was their section that was the true target. He and Drack had set up a decent defensive position around Energy Flow Control. With the sangheili currently attacking their position the most aggressively, he knew they had guessed right.

The fact they had zeroed in so quickly on where they had needed to go was disturbing though. He didn't want to give more credit than was due, but Wrex was starting to think Vik may have had a point of some kind. Somehow, someone had figured out how best to hurt the Initiative. Part of him wondered if it was someone within the group, but that didn't make sense. Why would they sabotage this endeavor? What was there to gain? He secretly wished that Shepard had bothered to ask Future Ryder about more specifics, concerning who might have authorized and assisted the Covenant in the attack. Of course, the obvious answer as to why he didn't was probably because Alec never found out that part. Hard to conduct a truly complete investigation when it gets interrupted by even more of the aliens who attacked you showing up to devastate several Council homeworlds.

All that aside, it was apparent the sangheili had not counted on security being so aware. They certainly didn't count on this many krogan being down here to begin with. If they had achieved surprise, caught everyone here with their pants down, maybe they'd have broken through by now. Instead, they were facing the full might krogan muscle aided by some strong support in Initiative security forces. It was conceivable enough now that they could win.

Wrex fired a carnage blast that tore one sangheili apart. His shields were down, so it had been easy. His friend beside him was not so unfortunate. The Covie managed to dodge the bulk of the blast and resulting shrapnel, vaulting over some consoles and throwing himself into cover. He fired as he ran, forcing Wrex to duck down.

"Nimble bastards aren't they?" Drack asked. "Like turians but with more blood rage."

"Yeah, they always offer you a good fight," Wrex agreed. "Still annoying though."

"And you're sure they ain't distant relatives?" Drack asked Wrex.

"Pretty sure," Wrex assured him. "They don't even share the same amino acids."

The sangheili popped up again and charged, this time with two plasma rifles out. The blasts forced Wrex to stay down, blindly firing past his cover. Drack pulled back too, but only just so far. As the sangheili hopped over the cover, Drack blasted him with his shotgun in the shoulder. Not enough to kill the alien, but the three-bladed bayonet at the end of the gun being shoved into the alien's guts that followed came close. The sangheili screamed in Drack's face as he ignited his plasma sword. Drack was forced to fire again just to get the crazy alien away from him before the sangheili slashed at his face.

"I'm kinda starting to like these guys," the old krogan claimed.

"Enough to stay and fight more of them?" Wrex asked slyly.

"Hmm, no, but it is a thought," Drack confessed.

Three more snagheili moved into position to open fire on the krogan barricades. Wrex and Drack returned said fire, but it only lasted so long. A blur started moving through the Covenant ranks, cutting and slashing at their sides. It was obviously Saya, Wrex knew that. The salarian moved quickly as his cloak vanished, cutting hard into the Covies and then moving to the next one. All three remained standing though. Wrex wondered why he hadn't finished the aliens off. That's when he remembered how special that ridiculous sword was.

Before the Covies could recover from the slashes, Saya pressed the trigger on his hilt and the explosive gel he had left behind in the cuts of the sangheili exploded. As strong and as relentless as they were, even they couldn't survive such an attack. Messy, brutal, but efficient, it made even Drack grin.

"Not bad for a salarian," he laughed.

"Yeah, he's like that," Wrex confessed.

Saya was soon back in cover with them, using his sniper rifle to pick off more of the sangheili from afar. The salarian had been out assisting the other security forces on Wrex's request. While destroying Energy Flow Control would succeed in killing the engines for the Nexus, they couldn't risk a breakthrough at other critical systems either. Saya was more useful in a mobile capacity in any case, krogan were built to defend and hold out.

"How we doing?" Wrex asked.

The silent nod from Saya suggested all was good, but his return to shooting at the enemy soon after was also an indication they weren't done just yet. Sure enough, more sangheili pushed up to fill the void that Saya had just made. The aliens didn't get too close though, they remained in cover. Wrex looked at it all oddly. Perhaps they knew trying to charge the krogan was a bad idea.

Then he saw one of them pop out with some kind of launcher and he ducked. A red concussive blast struck his barricade. Saya quickly popped up and shot the Covie down with his rifle, but it was clear what was going on. They had stopped with noble charges into the breach. Now, it was time to just blow everyone in the way up. When Wrex spotted one of them moving a bit closer, holding something in his hand, he turned to the one person who could stop what he knew was coming.

"Saya! Bomb!"

Saya spotted the sangheili now rushing forward with a large plasma charge in his hand. Saya fired on his legs to trip him up, but the shields held long enough for the sangheili to get into throwing range. He tossed the armed charge at their barricade. Saya pointed his gun upwards and fired at the charge as it spun towards them.

A huge ball of blue light seemingly blinded them all next.

---

The fighting was now up close and dirty, within the very confines of the actual bridge control room of the Nexus. Liara and Alec were using their biotics in tandem with another. Ryder priming some with warp and then letting Liara detonate them with a well-placed throw that sent the Covenant flying into their comrades for maximum damage. It was all they could do to keep them away from the Navigation Systems. That fact alone was enough to push everyone to their limit to keep fighting on. They were backed into a corner, yes, but the Covenant were clearly exhausting their forces. They just needed to hold on a bit longer.

At the time though, you couldn't exactly fault anyone for thinking that they couldn't hold for even that long. The sangheili were many horrible things, but you couldn't accuse them of lacking tenacity. Those were Nelanax's thoughts as she kept firing on the bastards. At this point, she had abandoned her assault rifle and brought out her heavy machine gun. Desperate times and all that, it had reached that part of the vid for her.

Nel sprayed shredder rounds across the field, more to suppress than kill anything. She was supporting Sarah and Scott's attempt to flank around some of the Covies that were dug in behind some consoles. Fire spat forth from her weapon in rapid succession, forcing the aliens to keep their heads down, but their threat level didn't go down with them. One of them popped out of cover with a Concussion rifle and fired it at Nel. The shot didn't hit her directly, but the red burst was enough to force her to the floor.

Luckily, Sarah and Scott had managed to reach their flank position. Scott dropped a turret down to keep up the fire while Sarah sent a Biotic Lance into one of the aliens. The alien was slammed into a far wall as the biotic attack pierced his armor. The Covenant quickly retaliated, firing back on the turret and destroying it. Sarah herself had to duck down to avoid a sustained plasma barrage from a Repeater one the sangheili had.

Forcing herself back up into standing position, Nel abandoned pretense. They wanted a straight-up fight befitting their lame-ass warrior race? Fine. They'd get one from her. She activated her Havoc Suit's jump jets and launched herself towards the enemy position. She jammed her omni-blades into the first Covie her sights crossed, forcing him to the ground. When she got up, she sliced open the nearest surprised sangheili and then shot her cryo-blast attack another, freezing him instantly. A fourth Covie was quick to react though. His plasma sword's hilt met her omni-blades as she crossed them over her head just seconds before he could connect it.

However, while the omni-blades were tough, the sizzling sound suggested they would last so long under the intense heat of the plasma sword. Nel kicked the alien off of her and pulled out her pistol to fire on him. The sangheili came at her again, slashing at her wildly. Nel dodged out of the way with her jets and kept firing, one of her shots shattering the frozen Covie from before. The still attacking sangheili roared in anger and renewed his strikes. Nel parried and blocked, firing alternately as they danced their deadly dance.

Thankfully, it ended before it got worse as a biotic lance slammed into the sangheili's side. It was good to know Sarah had her back. Nel quickly followed up the attack with one of her own, slicing deep into the sangheili's neck and ending his threat.

She barely got a thumbs up towards Sarah though before the shooting renewed. She ducked into cover as the big bastard with the power armor from before came back. Yes, it was still damaged and he had lost his huge arm cannon, but he was still moving and still just as dangerous. The big honking plasma sword was enough, but the plasma repeater in his talons added to the threat. As Nel readied her machine gun for another strike, she recognized there was probably a better way to take this guy down quickly. That way involved Coda or Vik or anyone probably hacking his suit somehow and fucking him over. They'd probably have had this squared up already if he was here with them.

Her thoughts turned the quarian in question now. They hadn't heard anything from him. She hoped he was alright. The bucket was annoying as hell, but he was a fellow squadmate. Not to mention if he was dead than this mission had already failed despite everything. Coupled with the fact she was wishing he was here to help out forced her to quickly check on him.

"Hey, Bucket," she said over the comms. "If you're almost done saving the deep freeze, any way you can hightail it over here now?"

---

"I'm a little busy, Nel," Vik said in cutting tone as he continued to work. "If I was done, I'd already be up there. Just... just hang on, okay?"

The kig-yar attacks were frequent, although their strength was sporadic. As predicted they did find out someone was trying to kill the worm before it could copy the security codes from the mainframe. Now they were doing their damndest to shut down the counter-hack from its source. That of course meant Vik, although it probably was more accurate to say Coda as he was doing the bulk of the anti-virus work.

The kig-yar's most recent attack was a five-man squad. Or five bird squad, it was hard to say exactly what they were dealing with. The aliens kept their shields up as they raced about the room, nimbly jumping among the defenders and spreading out the field of fire. Vik had pulled away as his omni-tool was running an automatic firewall boosting system to see throughout the various data pathways, that would at least slow the worm code down for a little while for their Huragok friend.

Using his shotgun, Vik fired on the nearest kig-yar rushing through the ranks. His shield was up, stopping the majority of the bullets, but the successive kick of each shot eventually pushed him to his knees. That was when Peebee used her shockwave to send the alien flying up high. She finished him off with a few well-placed shots of course and then quickly returned to cover.

Vik returned to his work, while Kayap moved to protect him. His plasma pistol's overcharge function was fairly effective in shorting out the kig-yar's shields. Every clean shot left the Covies virtually helpless, allowing Kalinda a chance to brutally gun them down with sustained submachine gunfire and a very devastating biotic attack that looked like some kind of javelin being hurled into an enemy's face.

Coda chirped at Vik as he kept working, an image of the internal systems scan coming onto the huragok's screen as he did. While the quarian didn't quite understand the gassy alien's language, he was able to discern what he meant just from the screen alone. It showed a number of pathways had been disconnected to try and funnel the worm into a single node before they could reach the mainframe, but they were moving quickly through the system.

"We can track the worm but it's moving too fast through the system," Vik warned Senna. "I can't stop its upload connection."

"Keep trying to close it off," Senna ordered, as he worked feverishly working at his console. "I still need time to go through the emergency protocol checks. If it can get the system to recognize the foreign code it can delete the worm outright."

"Just nuke the system or something!" Kalinda shouted, firing at one of the kig-yar hiding behind his shield. "That will kill the worm easy!"

A biotic shockwave hit the kig-yar from the left, sending him flying sideways into a cryopod face first. The attack had come from Peebee, who was now glaring at Kalinda.

"That will strand the quarians here!" she argued. "It will take them weeks to fix everything, they'll miss the launch window."

"Yeah, but the rest of us won't have to deal with this superbug, will we?" Kalinda said.

"That is a last resort," Senna stated firmly. "And if it comes to that I will nuke the system, but this is my ship and I will do whatever it takes to save it beforehand!"

Senna turned around just in time to fire a shot at a kig-yar with his pistol. The bullet struck the covie in his talons, forcing him to drop his plasma pistol. Senna finished him off with a second shot through the head as the alien tried to pick the gun back up. Once that was taken care of, Senna returned to Vik's side to continue assisting him.

"If we can just slow this thing down enough, we'll be able to quarantine it and neutralize it," the Commander exclaimed. "This thing has some pretty advanced VI if it's able to work this fast."

"Coda is on it," Vik assured him. "System shutdowns have at least cut off the most efficient download routes to the server. I think some of the kig-yar are trying to override your procedures to turn them back on though."

"Good luck with that," Senna laughed. "Our emergency shutdown is airtight. In a situation like this they'd need six separate codes to override a direct command like mine. One of them is secured inside the Captain's personal omni-tool and she's safe on the bridge."

So that gave them some time at least, good. However, Vik was now certain at this point the Covenant hadn't programmed this virus. Senna was right, the VI processes of this thing weren't in their field. Someone made this for them. He hesitated to say Reaper, as he presumed at first as a possible source. He quickly discarded that. Knowing what Liara had told him about the Reapers and what he had heard on the extranet conspiracy board, he would not be doing this well against a virus from an ancient synthetic god monster. As much as he prided himself on being good, he wasn't THAT good.

No, this had to be from a less horrifying creative source. He considered Balak, but what would he have to gain from doing any of this? Why would he care? For that matter, why did the Covenant? That was another thing that was bothering him. Future Alec may not have given it much thought because he had other problems to deal with, but Vik had the luxury of a less grim perspective. Why go after the Andromeda Initiative? Did the Reapers want to prevent any and all escape that badly? These colonists were not in any way, shape or form a threat. Once they left, yes, the Reapers missed out on some potential harvest victims, but these people were a but a raindrop in a sea of viable subjects to abduct. Why care? Who would care? Would Balak care enough to do this? There were batarians in this Initiative, did he not want them skipping out?

Vik had found connections to many a strange occurrence with one another. Secret Government Black Sites, missing persons cases, catchy show-tune jingles, funny smelly fabric softeners, what was really inside Fish-Dog Food Shack's special sauce, but this? He was coming up with nothing so far. He wanted to ask Senna about it, hoping his fellow quarian could fill in the blanks, but he feared coming across as loony. Not something he needed when he also required the Commander's help.

Speaking of the Commander, Senna suddenly interrupted his train of thought.

"I don't suppose you have a line to some fellow quarian hackers from the fleet that could help us out right now," he asked out of the blue.

"I probably would've done that by now if I did," Vik confessed.

"Right, I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised," Senna replied a bit despondently. "I mean, we did kinda leave them."

"Yep, you certainly did," Vik answered back rather bluntly.

Perhaps too bluntly, as it triggered Senna's next question.

"You... don't approve of us being here," he said, it was not a question. "You're not... happy about there being a quarian ark in the first place."

Vik briefly considered brushing off the comment, maybe even lying. He couldn't bring himself to do either. All he could do was soften the blow. The latest wave of kig-yar had died down for the moment, so it seemed as opportune a time to lay it all out before things started up again.

"We all make our own choices, you've made yours," Vik stated plainly. "But, the fleet isn't a prison, you're allowed to leave and... I don't have much of a leg to stand on in regards to arguing the matter."

That caught Senna off guard a bit it seems.

"Wait, did... did you leave too?" He asked curiously.

"Not entirely by choice," Vik answered dutifully. "I left because it was the only way to protect people I cared about. That's... probably enough to exile me in absentia anyway. Not that I'd know. I barely hear anything from the Fleet. I haven't contacted home in years."

To Senna's credit, he didn't pry too hard at that revelation. He was left with a few more questions all the same.

"So, you wouldn't know how they've responded," Senna asked. "To us leaving."

Vik finally just sighed.

"I know about your group, I don't approve of it, but I respect your right to go your own way," he said plainly. "I don't understand it. I think you're making a mistake. But... I've made too many to judge you at this point. So, I've concluded there's no good reason to get angry at you anymore. I guess it's just weird, I left of my own accord and I'm trying to find a way back. You left and now you're getting even further away. I just didn't think anyone could hate their home that much."

Senna didn't seem offended by the statement, but he was corrective and firm.

"I don't hate the Migrant Fleet. I hold no malice towards them. I disagree with everything they're pushing for though," he explained, a steadfast look in his eyes. "And as much as we all tried to get them to change, they didn't even want to listen. Not even other pro-colonization factions agreed with us. So, what other options are left when you can't change the system and they don't even think you're worth listening to?"

Vik had no response, but he had an answer. He just didn't want to share it, because he knew the implications.

"We all left some family behind," Senna continued. "I wish them luck. I hope things somehow turn out for them. I really do. But, we can't live with all of that anymore. I can't. We just want a chance to make something for ourselves and not cling to a bunch of old ideas and beliefs that, frankly, kinda put us in this position to begin with."

Vik wasn't sure what Senna was talking about specifically in terms of old ideas, but he could relate to some sort of similar sentiment. Not exactly concerning the Migrant Fleet, not entirely. He could at least correlate it to the outside world. How it reacted to quarians, how it judged and how the system kept people down. Not just quarians, but a lot of other races. He wanted to stick it out, he wanted to change it somehow. Could he really ask so many others to do the same though when they were just tired of it all? If you weren't welcome on the fleet or in the Galaxy at large, why stay? Why continue to put up with a toxic relationship with people who didn't even want you around?

Senna and his little group of ten thousand some odd splitters had an option to start new. All the old pains of the past would no longer matter. They wanted to let it all go. And while he couldn't, should he or anyone force Senna and his people to keep holding on? Was that fair to them?

"I... can actually understand a lot of that," Vik admitted. "Wanting to build something better at least. I want that. I want... people to be free to chart their own path through life in the end. It just hurts to know some feel that path requires leaving altogether."

Vik looked to Senna, who seemed appreciative of his statements for the most part. His firm silver glare has softened and become less stern. However, the moment was interrupted when Coda started shrieking aloud. Vik looked behind the Commander and saw why, pushing Senna down as a beam almost took his head off. Coda's shielding might have protected Senna, yes, but Vik wouldn't take any chances. Using his visor, he pinpointed the origin.

"Kay, sniper!" He shouted, pointing at the maintenance platforms above.

Kayap spotted the culprit, a kig-yar sniper with a beam rifle. The weapon was currently cooling down but the unggoy only had seconds to spare. Using a needler, Kayap fired a plume of pink shards at the assassin. The pointed projectiles stabbed into the kig-yar as he was lining up another shot. Moments later, they exploded. However, more beam shots hit kayap's cover in response. They were from the other platform across from the first sniper.

Knowing his needler would have little effect against them, Kayap went for his Avalanche. He charged the heavy weapon and then released the trigger. The gunshot forth its icy payload, freezing the attacking kig-yar in an explosion of cryofluid. Kayap then used a regular Carnifex to shatter the snipers one by one.

But while the snipers were down, there were more kig-yar undoubtedly on the way. There was precious little time left to stop the worm itself. The hope for these quarians and their travel companions had, to build something better than what they wanted to leave behind, was rapidly being snuffed out. If Vik still wanted to stop that from happening, he'd have to work fast.

---

The light eventually faded and he was able to see again. Pushing the debris off of him, Wrex slow rose to his feet. The shockwave of the blast had thrown him back and destroyed their barricade. It had done worse to the Covenant, however, as the small singed blackened crater where sangheili had once been could attest to. Wrex just snorted at it, but his mind went to other concerns.

He soon found Drack, laying on his side under some debris himself. Saya was nearby, although he was laying against a railing. He appeared to be breathing, but it was harder to tell how Drack was. Wrex kicked him lightly in the side before he tried again harder. Drack grunted in anger, forcing himself up.

"Damn it, what the hell?!" He growled.

"Oh good, you ain't dead," Wrex told him. "I was worried for a good few seconds."

"Very funny," Drack grumbled.

The old krogan slowly stood up and surveyed the area with Wrex. There was still some fighting, but very sporadic. The sangheili were suddenly pulling back, their numbers seemingly depleted. It would be a cause for celebration, but Wrex wasn't so sure. Even Drack seemed wary, as Saya joined them in watching their adversaries pull back.

"They throw all this crap at us and now they've decided it ain't worth it," Drack commented as he scowled. "Yeah, that ain't suspicious at all."

Wrex nodded in a shared grimace. It did seem far too easy. He contacted Liara.

"T'Soni, we've driven them back from engineering, the drive core is safe," he assured her. "Something doesn't feel right though. They might be coming back to you, but I can't say. Do you need help up there?"

---

"Negative, Wrex," Liara shouted over the comm as plasma fire streaked overhead. "It could be a feint. Stay where you are for now. I'll keep you updated."

Liara had good reason to be short and to the point with her orders. As far as Nel was concerned, they were pretty close to getting completely screwed. The big sangheili in the power armor was still kicking and his remaining minions had rallied behind him. They were trying to squeeze their position to finally destroy the navigation equipment.

The only thing holding them back were various security officers with deployable turret drones. It kept the sangheili suppressed for the most part and hindered their movement. They were compensating for that and their diminished numbers by spreading out their line of fire in an attempt to overwhelm their defenses. Alec was calling for reserves to help them push back, but Nel believed there was only one way they'd survive long enough to get here. Their leader, the asshole in the armor as previously mentioned, had to go. Too bad his shields had held up better than the cannon on his arm had. Plus he wasn't stupid enough to just come charging out and assume his honor alone would protect him. Nel preferred it when the fanatical religious types felt their gods would provide all the shielding they'd need. Why couldn't they get one of those guys to lead this attack?

Nel was currently behind some terminals with Cora. Scott and Sarah were off to the right, also using some consoles to protect them while they returned fire on the Covenant. From their current position, they were the closest to the sangheili leader, presently commanding what was left of his squad.

"If I can get over to that fucker I can take him down," Nel insisted. "This Havoc is at least equal to whatever is left of his little power suit."

"He's still got a bunch of friends protecting him," Cora warned. "You might kill him, but chances are they'll just take you out first if you rush in there."

"That's why I think I'm going to need your help," Nel explained. "Do you have any explosives on you? Grenades? Smoke? Something big and flashy?"

"A few yeah, but I didn't want to damage any equipment in here," Cora confessed. "Not unless we were out of options... which it looks like we are."

"Just toss some over to them, then you and the Ryder sibs can flank one end, drawing their fire," Nel explained.

"While you do what? Charge up the middle?" Cora asked. "Still sounds like suicide."

"Trust me, I got an idea," Nel assured her. "For now, take some pressure off Alec and Liara. It's better than nothing."

For whatever reason, Cora nodded, showing she did trust her. Which was good for the turian, because she didn't have time to explain what her plan was. She needed to get into the right position. All the same, Nel tried to reassure her.

"I'm not doing a suicide run here," she promised. "That's a point I'm working to avoid from now on."

Nel went right while Cora went to left to group up with Sarah and Scott. She instantly went into command mode.

"I'm going to toss a grenade into their group, split them up a bit," she explained. "Scott, lay down a sustained burst of fire. Overload their shields if you can. Sarah, hit any that respond with your Biotic Lance. I'll keep after the big guy."

"On your go then," Scott confirmed.

Cora tossed the grenade into the mess of sangheili. When it went off, the Covies did indeed scatter but quickly targeted the group of humans. Scott lay down a furious burst of fire, activating Overload to mess with their shields. When some of the Covenant responded, Sarah threw a Biotic Lance, right into the head of one Sangheili, taking him down hard.

This got the attention of their leader, who opened fire on the three with a frenzied burst of plasma. Cora slipped away from the suppression to another cover point, while the siblings ducked down. The Lieutenant than jumped up again and laid down a stream of fire on the Covie, using Armor-piercing rounds in an attempt to break through what was left of his power suit.

As the Sangheili Leader turned to face Cora though, moving up to close the gap between his target, Cora saw something out of the corner of her eye. Rocketing out of cover case Nel, her omni-blades out and ready. She slammed into the Covie Commando's back hard, impaling her dual melee weapons deep into his side. The force of her strike sent them both crashing into another console. The attack wasn't the real blow, it was just a means to close the distance. Nel quickly pulled her assault rifle from her back, one of her blades still dug deep into the sangheili. She then stuck the barrel against his back and pulled the trigger. She kept shooting for as long as she had bullets before the alien managed to throw her off.

Incredibly, possibly because the suit was holding him together more than anything, the sangheili was still standing. He raised his plasma repeater to shoot her, but Nel slashed it out of his hand with her omni-blade. The response from the alien was as expected, he met her blade with his own. Nel avoided his first slash, unsure of how to respond. Would her omni-blade really hold out against a full-fledged plasma sword? Suspecting it probably wouldn't, she opted to use her one advantage, the fact her suit was still in one hundred percent working order.

With her jump jets activated, Nel sped around the Covie's side. She slashed at her opponent's arm and then his side in quick succession. The alien turned viciously to try and slash her in response. Nel barely ducked in time and was able to cut the alien's tendon along his leg. The Covie dropped to a kneel and then kicked backwards, striking Nel in the face. As she slammed against the back of a console, the Covie turned to try and take her down, but a series of bullets started hitting him from the back. It was from Cora, coming in for a quick assist. Sarah added to the attack with a Biotic Lance that hit the alien in the shoulder.

The momentary lull in the Covie's focus was Nel's chance. She used her jets on her armor to force herself up and into the Sangheili once more. She stabbed him in the gut with one omni-blade and then jabbed the other into his neck. Purple blood spurted across Nel's visor as she and the dying alien collapsed into a heap with her on top. She expected his squad to soon retaliate for the death of their leader. She looked up to watch a beam of pure white cut across her field of vision. When she bothered to look to left and right side, she saw the sangheili around her had been frozen solid. Cora, Scott and Sarah were quick to shatter them as Scott yelled out something over the fighting.

"Nice shot, dad!"

Alec's cryobeam certainly came in handy in a pinch it seemed. However, if she had any illusions they had won the fight overall just by taking out the Commando, they were gone when she bothered to get a look at the battlefield at large. Yes, the sangheili that remained seemed to be faltering, pulling back from the field of fire. However, there was a greater concern. Namely Nel could see a big flashing warning screen on the huge window looking out onto the Nexus itself.

It was a simple flashing warning really. "Collision Threat Detected" with an outline of what appeared to be one of the Covenant Frigates. Nel got a better look outside the window and noticed that that was something on fire headed their way. Which could only be a bad thing. She didn't need to ask anyone what was happening, she already knew. The Covenant had decided to just screw it and blow everything up.

How ironic, she thought, that was usually her backup plan when things were going bad.

---

The kig-yar were back in force, going for broke to either reach the databank directly or kill whoever was trying to stop their worm. The security forces had pulled back to try and concentrate their defenses, but the Covie saboteurs were far smarter than they looked. To cover their own advance, they bunched up into a tight formation, shoulder to shoulder with one another. Their shields protected them from most of the defenders' fire, allowing them to close the gap sufficiently. Thankfully for them, their side had some creative thinkers as well.

"I need one of those shields down," Peebee said, shouting over at Kayap. "Does your green gun have another shot in it?"

Kayap nodded and charged his plasma pistol. He fired one bolt that overloaded one of them kig-yar's shields. With the gap in their lines exposing their advance, he tried to move back into safety so his compatriots could close up the breach in their line. Peebee was faster than they were though. She activated her omni-tool's Invasion attack. The strike hit the kig-yar and the nanotech burst spread to the kig-yar nearby. This widened the gap considerably as the Invasion tore through their ranks.

"Vik, they're exposed!" Peebee shouted. "Send your drone in!"

Vik understood her intent and activated his combat drone. He sent it into the fray. The little ball of light rushed into the Covie lines, getting among their formation. In the next moment, the drone exploded, scattering the singular spearhead attack.

"Ha, fucked them up, didn't we?" Kalinda said proudly.

She fired at the disoriented kig-yar with her assault rifle. At least until one of them rushed at her from the side. With some kind of pink serrated dagger in hand, he cut into the asari's side while she was distracted.

"Kalinda!" Peebee shouted in fear as she watched her friend drop to the floor in pain.

Kalinda was down, but she wasn't out. She used her biotics to punch the kig-yar square in the face, sending him flying backwards. She then crawled over to Peebee, firing her pistol off to protect herself. Peebee quickly administered medi-gel to the downed asari's wounded as Kalinda gritted her teeth in anger.

"You are going to owe me big time for all of this shit, Pelessaria," she growled.

"I know, I know," Peebee said meekly. "It's gonna be okay, I promise."

Peebee's distraction with Kalinda's wound, forced Senna to take up the defense himself.

"Vik, keep working!" He urged. "I'll hold them off!"

Activating overload, Senna shut down the shields of a few of the kig-yar attackers. He then sent an incinerate attack into their ranks. A burst of flame scorched the aliens and the quarian Commander fired on them in quick succession. All the while, Vik hurriedly tried to complete their work on his own, with only Coda to help him now.

But the worm was still squirming through the system, breaking through every firewall they had put down. Nothing they tried was deterring it. The worm was dead set on reaching its goal. Whatever path they closed or blocked off it just kept coming. It was locked onto the databank and it would not stop until the codes were found.

"Keelah! Damn it!" Vik screeched, slamming his fist on the server. "You're not welcome, bosh'tet! Take a damn hint already! How are you even still on track after all this? How do you know what routes are even open? This has to be taxing your processes, do you want to get inside this badly?"

That was when it hit him. This worm's VI was laser-focused on what it was after. More importantly, it knew how to compensate for every diversionary tactic. It weaved around or broke through firewalls, corrected its course, found subsystems to upload into and avoid anti-virus software scans and quarantine protocols. It knew where it was going, like if had some kind of navigation system. Or, more likely, a target vector to zero in on. It knew what it was searching for. It had detected the main source code for the databank's functions and was tracing it back through all the various systems the server ran through.

That was how he could trap it. He quickly sent one of his program runtimes into the system, downloading it into the ether of system. Then he sent a bunch of junk data into the worm's upload, to confuse and hide his next move.

"Coda," he said, picking his head up from his omni-tool. "Copy the main server's source code and disseminate to pathfinding node C-347Z!"

Coda didn't question. In fact, it began chirping as if to say it was already on it. Sure enough, within seconds the source code had been uploaded to the stated node. Instantly, the worm diverted course and uploaded itself into the node, thinking it had arrived at its primary destination. It would find no security codes there though, just an empty node that Vik had quickly quarantined and set up an anti-virus purge program inside it. The second the worm tried to scan for the security codes it wanted so it could wreak havoc on the cryopods, it activated Vik's purge protocol.

"You just wandered into a virtual world of pain, you little bosh'tet," Vik said mocking the worm.

In moments, the signal from the worm's upload pattern was ripped apart as the virus was quickly deleted from the system. Its own code corrupted by the purge program. Not before Vik inflicted one final indignity on it though. The purge program also sent back a full analysis of the broken-down virus to his omni-tool, along with what remained of its data. Now, whatever secrets that hid within it were his.

"That's what you get for messing with a quarian hacker, little worm," he snickered as he called up the others on his comm. His excited voice was practically cracking as he spoke. "Liara, I did it! I killed the worm! The Cryopods are safe from infection! We just need to do some cleanup and keep the kig-yar stragglers away for a bit longer, but we're in the clear down here!"

---

"Wish I could say the same, Vik," Liara cautioned. "Stand-by, we might have a problem."

Said problem was currently speeding towards the Nexus at persistently growing speed. Somehow, one of the Covenant frigates had broken through the defenses and had decided to take matters into its own hands. If its strike teams could not complete their mission, then it would do it for them by ramming the Nexus and destroying its command bridge. Alec quickly got on the horn to their remaining defense grid.

"One of the frigates is still engaged at the perimeter so we don't have to worry about it, but we still have this bastard coming at us," he told Liara. "I've radioed Garson, she's bringing what defenses we have aboard the Nexus online, but we're not sure they'll be enough."

"Then there's really only one option," Liara stated, her omni-tool already active. "Lucen, what is your current position?"

"We're in a holding pattern, ma'am," the Lucen's pilot replied. "We have the enemy frigate in sight, but our weapons systems can't seem to breach its shields. They've poured all remaining power into the backside to protect their engines."

"Then there's no other option," Liara informed them. "You need to get around in front of it and hit it with our heavy guns. If you can score a direct hit on their bridge you can rip them apart. It's located closer to the back of the ship but it's more vulnerable than most. Load up our intel on Covenant vessels into the targeting array, it should lock you on. It will take a few shots, but you can hit them."

"They're awfully close, ma'am," the pilot warned. "Are you sure?"

Liara looked to Alec for permission.

"The Nexus can take a little damage from the blowback, but if that thing crashes into us we're screwed," he informed her. "Do whatever it takes."

Liara nodded and looked back to her communicator.

"Do it, engage with everything you have and tear them asunder," she ordered.

Moments later, the Lucen flew into view and opened up with its heavy cannons. The already battered Covenant frigate took several sustained shots. It fired back, of course, forcing the repurposed turian ship to take evasive action. It flew around and under the Covenant vessel, avoiding the incoming fire.

Everyone on the Nexus' bridge, who weren't dealing with the few remaining sangheili stragglers, was enraptured by the fighting going on before them. Both frigates traded blows, although the Lucen was clearly superior at least in maneuverability, the Covenant Frigate could take a punch. A few more blasts into its starboard only seemed to cause the enemy ship to lurch slightly off course, but nothing else.

All Liara could do was watch grimly, as the suicidal vessel continued speeding towards them. It kept correcting course, seemingly in an effort to crash into something, anything. So long as it caused damage to the Nexus, then its mission would be complete. All the while it seemed to keep shifting power to its shields where the Lucen was hitting it the worst. It was desperate to stay alive, if only for a bit longer.

Finally, the Lucen soared into position beneath the frigate and let loose a barrage of cannon fire. Shot after shot, hit home in the same place, blowing through deck after deck. The blasts cut deep into the underside of the ship. Explosions erupted across the frigate's hull, but it still kept racing at the Nexus. It seemed a collision was inevitable, and the shields soon activated on the belly of the ship.

Watching the battle unfold, sensing what was to come, Alec quickly slammed his fist on a control panel and the holographic screen declared in bold letters that "Anomalous Debris Countermeasures" had been activated.

"That should prevent any debris damaging too much of the station," he said, as he watched the Covenant Frigate take several hits.

That was when the Lucen rolled around the enemy frigate to position itself near its top. It then fired a powerful blast from its nose, what Liara recognized as a Disruptor Torpedo. It smashed through the top of the frigate, detonating deep within the vessel. Moments later a fireball ripped the frigate apart. The shockwave traveled through space and shook the entire station.

The Lucen soon contacted Liara directly.

"Catastrophic failure of enemy ship's core. We got 'em, ma'am!"

"I can see that," Liara said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Close shave, pilot, but good work all the same. Help prevent any debris from damaging the station and send out a shuttle to collect Vik when he's ready. We have cleanup to do here ourselves. Liara, out."

It had indeed been close, but they had prevailed. The excited cheers of the Initiative Security forces more than proved that. The Nexus and the Arks were safe, more or less. They still had to clean up the remaining Covenant forces, but the enemy's plans had been thwarted. The future that Shepard had warned about would at the very least not come to pass in its entirety. The colonists of the Andromeda Initiative now had a chance.

---

It took another hour or so to round up the stragglers, a few kig-yar mostly who didn't want to die, a handful of unggoy who were too scared to keep fighting. No sangheili surrendered, any who were left were dead by the time the security teams found them. Death before dishonor, the only option you had when no rescue was coming and your culture put victory over every other outcome. It wasn't an ideal outcome for Liara though. The kig-yar and unggoy would unlikely be privy to any knowledge concerning Balak or Vorsa's plans, even less so Orukuri's. At the very least the threat they posed was dealt with.

Dealing with the prisoners was another matter altogether of course. Alec had explained they had contacts within the Spectres who, while not privy to the knowledge of the Initiative, would be willing to take the Covies into custody. They'd likely keep information regarding their existence a secret to all but the Council, who Liara knew would cover up their presence in this Galaxy like they did everything at this point. At least it wouldn't come as too much of a surprise, given the information she disseminated to the various Council Officials at this point. Liara wondered though if the Asari, Humans and Turians would be upset about how much STG and the Salarians knew about all of this already. Saya was likely sending his reports to Kirrahe as they spoke.

No one was going to be happy. Hopefully they'd get over it though and soon. The Council would need to be united when the Covenant and Balak made their move. The fact was, even though they had failed, the attack had revealed that things were escalating. The Covenant were getting bolder, more brazen. They wouldn't be standing idle for much longer. Liara suspected once Orukuri enacted his plan with the Separatists, the sangheili would be off the leash.

For now though, they had at least saved the Andromeda Initiative and all of this would soon not be their problem. Jien Garson seemed to be at least pleased with the results, even as she carefully trod about the damaged Nexus Command Center. The place was still littered with sangheili bodies after all, which made moving about without stepping in something a chore. Alec was with Liara on the balcony overlooking the atrium as Garson joined them both.

"Well, I'm glad we listened to you, Doctor T'Soni," she confessed. "This could've been so much worse than it turned out."

"Believe me, you have no idea," Liara informed her, trying to stifle a bit of a laugh. "How's the damage look?"

"I think we'll be alright," Garson claimed. "We're still crunching numbers, but a lot of the damage is superficial. I believe we'll be able to meet our launch window. And even better, we have a lot of new alien technology to analyze and repurpose. Each of these plasma guns is an individual treasure trove of tech. Something to give our computers time to research over the six-hundred-year trip."

"And don't forget those two destroyed frigates," Alec added. "I think there's just enough left over out there for us to salvage, maybe even make some improvements, within reason of course."

"Of course, Ryder, I was just thinking the same thing," Garson agreed, turning back to Liara. "Doctor T'Soni it has been a pleasure as always. I'd extend an invitation for you to join us, but... I imagine that's fruitless."

Liara had to admit, under any other circumstance, perhaps in a different life, she might have been eager to jump on. However, she didn't have the lack of knowledge concerning the future that afforded Garson to luxury to pursue this dream of hers. It was indeed a fine dream of course, the desire to explore and discover. She admired that passion, but she couldn't partake in it. Not now.

"Sadly, I have obligations in this galaxy, so yes, I'm afraid I won't be accompanying you," she informed Garson. "I do wish you all the best, but there are more Covenant out there and, well, my team and I are the best equipped to stop them."

"I completely understand," Garson accepted. "However, we shouldn't just let you go off empty-handed after you've saved everything, quite literally in our case."

Liara shook her head at that and waved her off politely.

"I could never impose," she claimed.

"I insist," Garson replied resolutely. "If we're leaving this galaxy while in the midst of a crisis such as this, then it is only fitting we share something to give you as equal a fighting chance as you gave us. What do you think Ryder?"

"I believe some weapons technologies and the like couldn't hurt," he concurred. "Especially given all the fun toys we have at our disposal."

"That is most generous of you, both of you," Liara told them humbly. "I... I appreciate your assistance."

"We'll finalize details and send the data packets to your ship," Garson assured her. "Again, thank you, Doctor, for all you've done."

Garson said her goodbyes and left Liara alone with Alec. The veteran explorer walked with Liara back to the airlock, where her team was already waiting. Along the way, they continued to speak about the day's events, among other things.

"To be honest, I never expected to meet you under these circumstances, T'Soni," he explained. "Though I can't complain. I mean, given the outcome."

"I'm just glad I could help," Liara informed him. "You and these people deserve a second chance, a new life, if at all possible."

"Here's hoping it's not all just one big fool's errand than," Alec said distantly. "After everything you did for us here, it feels like a big shock to the system, a demand that we get this right. That we don't screw up."

"With people like you leading I feel rather confident concerning your chances," Liara assured him.

Ryder chuckled a bit, but his tone soon became more serious.

"I need to know, how exactly did the Shadow Broker uncover this attack?" He asked again. "I'm still surprised you're working for him."

"Well, a lot can change in a few years," Liara confessed.

"Maybe, but forgive me if I'm still left with a few questions," Alec stated. "I don't see why the Broker would care this much about us. I can see why you would, not him... or her."

Liara just grinned a bit.

"Perhaps the Broker, whoever he or she is, has had a change of heart," Liara expressed confidently. "A more empathetic one."

"I'm a bit skeptical about that," Alec informed her. "Level with me, T'Soni. What's going on here?"

Alex deserved some kind of answer and Liara wasn't sure what to give him exactly. The best she could do was a certain degree of the truth. It was better than nothing at least. Besides, the way he looked at her, how he phrased the question, it was almost as if he had his own suspicions about something. He was looking for something specific, an answer to a question he wasn't sure how to ask. She supposed she should try and lead him down the right lane.

"The truth is, things might get worse in this galaxy before they get better," she admitted. "Way worse. I'm... privy to some information not everyone accepts or knows. What's coming... it's probably a good idea for some of you to leave while you can."

Alec's expression was one of intimate understanding. It was as if on some level, he knew what she was talking about. She believed she knew what it was. After all, why commit to such an enormous exodus of this size and scale if someone, somewhere at the top, didn't suspect something bad on the horizon?

And now, her internal thoughts sounded like Vik. Wonderful.

"Do you think there's... no hope you can stop this? Whatever it is?" Alec asked her.

"I believe there's always hope," Liara assured him. "However, not everyone has to fight it. Not everyone needs to go through what is going to happen here. You deserve a chance... in case the worst comes to pass."

Alec looked thoughtful at that, also content in the sense that something had been confirmed in his mind. Liara believed she knew what it was. She believed that because Alec looked grateful for her honesty.

"Thank you," he said. "I... I needed to hear that. Now then, let's set your crew up with some new toys for this fight of yours."

Liara knew she'd need them. They all would, very soon.

---

"So, that seems to be everything then," Senna said, surveying the docking area. "Glad we had you on our side today, Sajee."

"I don't hear that often," Vik admitted with a chuckle, returning Senna's handshake. "So, the same to you, Commander."

Senna had been the one to escort Vik out of the Keelah Si'yah, past most of the dead kig-yar being carted away and superficial damage to the interior structure. The Covenant had never intended to do much harm to the actual ship, just its system. Senna believed it would be quickly repaired, especially since so many quarians were on the engineering team. They had experience with making useless ships fly after all, one slightly dented intergalactic vessel was nothing in that regard. The real damage was more insular.

"It's going to take a while to reboot everything and make sure there are no surprises," Senna explained. "I'm going to get on that personally."

"If you want help with that, Coda was practically inside your computers for a long time," Vik informed him. "He got a good look at your system, a very good, prolonged look actually."

The Huragok in question was floating close by to them, chirping in corresponding agreement with his quarian friend. Senna was a bit surprised by the news, his curiosity piqued.

"How good a look?" He asked Vik.

Vik activated his omni-tool and uploaded the results of Coda's findings to Senna. When they came on the Commander's screen, he was taken aback by the swell of information.

"How... he did all this in the short time he was plugged in while fighting the virus?" Senna asked in astonishment.

"Coda's brain is like a supercomputer, I've just gotten used to this sorta thing by now," Vik confessed. "I'd feel jealous if I didn't think it was also really cool."

Coda seemed to warmly chirp in delight at Vik's words. He didn't need Kayap's translation to know what it meant, which was probably for the best as the unggoy had gone on ahead of them. For his part, Senna didn't seem to mind the full examination of his ship's systems from an alien third party.

"I'm starting to wonder why we never bothered finding more of your species for this, Coda," he remarked. "You'd probably make my job a lot easier."

"He also uncovered some kind of strange glitch in the systems you should check on," Vik intercut, reaching over to bring it up. "Some sort of additional power drain on a few cryopods. Probably worth a look. I also wanted to give you this, just in case."

Vik handed Senna an OSD, which the Commander eyed curiously.

"What's this?" He asked.

"Anti-worm program, personal design, I made it to kill any counter-hack attempts from government agencies," Vik explained. "Sometimes being obsessively paranoid about shadow corporations infiltrating your systems and planting false evidence on you yields some beneficial results. If there is any possibility of another worm or virus or anything, this will enable the system to recognize the oddities it's causing. Allowing your own security systems to hunt it down and kill it. It would've taken too long to install properly during the actual virus attack and may have distracted the security systems, so I couldn't use it then."

"You think there's still a use for it now?" Senna asked.

Vik paused for a moment, trying to manage his next words carefully. He wasn't sure how to express them, his feelings were still conflicted after all.

"I'd... I think I'd feel more at ease if I knew it was in your system protecting it," he explained. "I... would like to know I'm doing my part to protect my people and everyone else they're traveling with."

Only a fellow quarian could tell when another was smiling behind the mask. In this moment, Vik could tell Senna was.

"I think that's a very noble gesture, Sajee, thank you," the Commander informed him. "I honestly wasn't sure we still were your people."

"Hmm, I suppose that's fair," Vik confessed. "But, you are my people. No matter where you go, you'll always be quarians. Just because you're not part of the fleet, doesn't mean you're not family. And the other races, on this ark, they're the same. You're all risking so much for the slim chance of a better life. You're hopeful."

Vik looked off a bit, away from Senna.

"I... I was like that too a long time ago," he admitted. "You trust enough in something. You believe there's something wonderful and amazing out there for you. I suppose... I'd like to know that still existed out there and that I'm protecting it somehow."

Senna put a hand on Vik's shoulder.

"You don't have to do it by proxy, Sajee," he tried to argue. "You... could come with us."

But Vik quickly shook his head.

"I've run away too long," he told him with a subtle refrain. "Far too long. If I went with you, it would just be more of the same. I'd be tainting everything you're trying to do. You're running towards something, I'm trying to get back. There are people who... need me. And there are some matters I need to deal with. Some things left to bury."

"I understand," Senna said acceptingly. "Do you still think you can get back to the Fleet?"

"I don't know," Vik confessed. "But if I pull this off, I at least I can sleep easy for once. Even if they reject me, at least I'll know I tried."

"For what it's worth, the Fleet would be immensely foolish if they rejected you," Senna assured him. "If there were more quarians in power like you, people who wanted change, maybe we would've stayed."

Vik laughed at that.

"I highly doubt I'd be much of a leader of any kind," he informed the Commander. "But, I appreciate the sentiment, Senna."

As Vik began to leave, he turned once more, suddenly.

"Oh, and there's some extra stuff on that OSD," he explained. "A lot of classic songs from the old days, some popular films, a few controversial books. Just... you know, a little something to remind everyone where they came from."

"Appreciated, Vik'Sajee," Senna assured him with a laugh. "Very much."

Vik gave the Commander a small salute. Again, he carefully chose his next words.

"Keelah... Si'yah, Commander Senna," he said. "May you find your way forward."

Senna returned the salute.

"Keelah Se'lai, Vik'Sajee," he replied. "May you find your way back."

Vik left Senna with a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of common ground. More importantly a sense that for once he made a real difference. Not just for quarians, but so many others. It was a good feeling to have. It had been so long since he felt it, to just do something worthwhile. As he left the airlock though, exiting back into the docking station, his thoughts were interrupted by another voice.

"So, not staying, huh?"

It was Peebee, leaning against a piece of architecture with a cat-like grin. Kayap was close by, gathering up some weapons from the dead kig-yar. Coda floated off to help, leaving Vik with the asari.

"You sorry to hear that?" He asked.

"I've long accepted to let people go their own way," Peebee shrugged. "Still, would've been fun to have you in Andromeda. Guess it's not for everyone though."

"I'm long past wanderlust and all that, Peebee," Vik chuckled. "I just... want to go home."

"And the Fleet is home?" Peebee asked curiously.

A good question, one Vik could not answer given he wasn't sure if he'd be welcome there after he had left so suddenly.

"Maybe, we'll see, I won't know if I don't try," Vik stated. "I have to take care of some things here before I can though. I can't leave them unresolved."

"Oooh, mysterious," Peebee teased. "Like the tagline of some gritty detective vid."

Peebee was tactful enough to see at least Vik wasn't laughing with her. When she reasoned that, she quickly backtracked.

"Sorry, I didn't mean sound insensitive just there," she explained. "I'm not... great with people."

"Hmm, neither am I really, so I can't judge," Vik confessed. "It's not really your concern anyway."

"Maybe, but, I still hope you can resolve it," Peebee informed him. "Everyone deserves some peace of mind."

"And justice," Vik added firmly. "There are people who deserve justice."

Peebee opened her omni-tool and uploaded something to Vik's. The quarian noticed his tool chime and looked at the application that had been added.

"Invasion App?" He read.

"And a few other techy things too for you play around with," Peebee told him. "Might be worth a look."

"Why?" Vik asked her. "Why give this to me? You barely even know me."

Peebee just shrugged.

"If I'm gonna leave any lasting footprints in this galaxy, it might as well be helping someone who seems to need it," she explained. "I don't know much about you or what you need to fix, Vik. I know what you need is a little more hope, I think. Maybe something in there can give you some."

"Hard to hope for the best when so much turns out wrong," Vik said sadly. "Isn't that partly why you're leaving? A fresh start? Because there's nothing left for you here?"

"Perceptive, but I do a lot of things based on leaps of faith at this point," Peebee explained. "And for that to work you have to have some kind of hope, right?"

Vik found it hard to argue with that logic. Maybe if he had a few more seconds he could've come up with a good response, instead, a shrill voice interrupted everything.

"Pelessaria! Come on already!" Kalinda urged. "We've hung around this place long enough because of you!"

The asari had a bandage over her shoulder and a mean look on her face.

"One moment, Kalinda!" Peebee asked meekly.

Kalinda scoffed and walked off as Vik just glared at her.

"Why do you let her treat you like that?" He asked.

"Oh, Kalinda just gets testy at times," Peebee assured him. "She doesn't mean anything by it."

That was something Vik very highly doubted.

"I've seen this sorta thing before," he told her. "It's... it's not healthy to let it continue."

"I don't follow," Peebee said confused.

"Peebee, I'm not sure what you think you owe Kalinda or-"

"I'm telling you, she's just having a bad day," Peebee insisted.

"How many of these bad days does she have?" Vik asked sternly.

Peebee looked unsure of how to answer. That was really all Vik needed.

"You don't have to take it, you know," he assured her. "You're stronger than you look."

"I... I don't know," she said meekly. "I... Kalinda is... she's helped me. Been there for me when, well, when things went wrong. She... she had a point when she says I need her. I'm... I'm rather lost at times."

"Please, I've seen you in action today, you're hardly lost," Vik insisted. "I'm lost, you... you're just... you're just not sure what you need to find."

"That's sorta like being lost," Peebee argued.

Vik sighed. He wasn't good at this. Like he was in any position to give relationship advice to an asari far older than him. Especially given his luck in relationships in general. He had to try though.

"Look, you're more worth it than you think," he assured her. "When someone is treating you like that, they just want you to forget that you have value. You don't need someone to tell you what to do. You need someone... someone who completes you. Who's there for you in a real way, not in a 'you owe me so I own you' way."

"But without Kalinda I-"

"Without her, you're still you," Vik insisted. "You're still Peebee and from what I saw, she is a perfectly capable and wonderful person without Kalinda ordering her around. You don't need her. Deep down you have to already know that."

Peebee looked nervous at the thought.

"I... I know I don't want to be alone," she said. "Who... who else would have me? I'm... I'm not sure there is anyone else."

"You won't know until you try, same as me I guess," Vik confessed. "Someone out there is going to see you for who you really are and they are going to like it. Trust me, it happened to me once. Maybe... maybe you'll have better luck with it than I did."

Peebee still looked unsure, but there was nothing more Vik could do.

"Just think about it," he requested.

"I... will," she relented. "Thank you."

Vik nodded and began to leave, when Peebee called over to him.

"Hey," she called out. "If you ever somehow, someway, end up in Andromeda... well, don't be stranger, alright?"

"Sure, Peebee," Vik promised. "I won't."

With that Vik left the asari behind. He was soon joined by Kayap and Coda as they headed by to the shuttle bay to go meet back up with Liara on the Lucen. As he walked though, his omni-tool chimed again. He knew this alarm though. This was for his analysis of the worm's remaining data structure. Sure enough it was complete and it had some quite interesting information contained within.

"Keelah," he thought. "This might just be what we've been looking for."

---

Aboard the Lucen, most of Liara's were waiting for Vik's return as well as going over the new tech that Alec had given them. Nel was rather happy with her chosen upgrade, given to her by Sarah Ryder, the Cryo Beam. She was testing it out on a box in the corner, freezing it solid.

"So friggin cool!" She laughed. "That pun was totally intended by the way. Seriously, why didn't we outfit Havoc suits with these beams years ago?"

"Well besides the tech being fairly new your guess is as good as mine," Liara confessed.

It was at that point, Vik's shuttle returned and he quickly rushed out of it. Before anyone said a word, he quickly spoke up, rushing through his words a mile a minute.

"Guys, I know who ordered this attack now! I know! I knew the Covenant wouldn't have given a crap about any of this and now I know who actually did! It was so obvious I should've guessed from the start! It's just so-"

"Slow down, Bucket, you're gonna give yourself an aneurysm!" Nel shouted at him.

"Vik, what did you find?" Liara asked calmly. "And speak slowly."

The quarian began anew, breathing in and out a bit before he started.

"The worm was clearly designed by someone outside the Covenant," he explained. "There was no way they were capable of making something this sophisticated. So I ran the data fragments that were left to see what this thing actually was. And I came up with a result. This whole mission, it wasn't a detour at all. It gave us something we can use."

"How so?" Liara asked, somewhat impatiently.

"The worm was designed by VykurCorp!" Vik explained exuberantly. "I ran the analysis myself. Its VI patterns are similar to a program they developed for smart weapons tech they made for the Turian Military. The same code, the same basic structure, they retrofitted it to work with this worm."

Liara sensed the seriousness and pushed Vik to explain further.

"Are you sure?" Liara asked. "As in, absolutely positive about this."

"Completely," Vik said frantically. "Embedded in the code is a Military VI Data Packet. They tried to hide it, but my program ripped it open and left it exposed for us to find. It gave me a make, a model number, but more importantly it gave a programming manufacturer location to trace! I think it's some kind of records facility given the fact it's so deeply hidden, but if I can cross-reference it with what we know maybe we can confirm it and hunt this place down! Who knows what other secrets might be there?"

Like a certain bio-weapon maybe? It was as good a starting point as anything else.

"Vik, Coda, get on this," she ordered. "I'll give you access to the ShadowNet to help. This might just be what we need to get back on track."

---

AN: This took way too long to update, apologies. I've really fallen behind on a number of projects. But I'm getting back up to speed. This concludes all that Andromeda stuff for this story. I hope you enjoyed palling around with some of the characters from, what may be, the last Mass Effect game ever made. Still in my opinion, not as bad as a lot of folks thought it was. It could've been so much better though. At least I'm leaving my version of the quarians in this story a better chance at partaking in all the adventure and fun in that game as some of the things I've done in this chapter will probably negate the events of that novel that I'm not entirely fond of. If you like it I hope that doesn't offend you and may I say, more power to you.

Anyway, this marks the turning point for things. The next crop of chapters will see us transition into the endgame of this part of Liara's storyline, wrapping it up as we prepare to take on the next part of Balak's conspiracy. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and, don't worry, the main story with Shepard will also be continuing soon. I'm going to start more work on a few more chapters this week and the next in fact. See you then, and remember to leave your reviews and send me questions about this chapter, I'm more than happy to answer them.