Chapter 5: Kantian Revelations

January 23rd, 2211, 1921 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Elevator 5F, Currently en-route to Deck 7

2 hours, 21 minutes after Outbreak

"Fucking Korlus," Cade swore again.

As the elevator carried us further and further away from the hulking metallic monstrosity I felt the pressure begin to alleviate in my head and the whispers recede. Once they had both faded I let out a sigh of relief and raised one hand to pull myself up with the metal railing in the elevator.

My hands were trembling, probably a by-product of my extremely close shave with death. The memory of the gruesome forelimb that had once been Dr. Veers' brother, with its twin rings embedded in the horn, was seared into my brain. If I closed my eyes I could see it grasping, reaching towards me.

"At least there isn't any music this time?" I joked.

Cade cocked his mandibles. "What?"

"Nothing," I responded. I clipped my Snakebite to my back armor plate and dug both of my palms into my eyes, willing the memory of those whispers and that intense pressure into the distant past.

I had no idea what happened to me back in that hall. I had never had any hints of schizophrenia or any other mental disorder or even moderate or severe head trauma for that matter, and yet I had been suddenly hit with a headache that had literally brought me to my knees and ghostly whispers that had left me incapacitated. If Cade hadn't been there to pull me out I might have very well died, torn to shreds by that fucking monster.

"Cade, that thing, I think it's hunting us."

Cade grabbed my arm. "Forget that thing for a minute, what happened to you down there?" he rasped.

His faces was inches from mine and I could see that his eyes alight with concern. "Spirits, you started yelling out and just dropped, I thought you had been hit somehow."

I sighed and shook my head. "I don't know, my head started hurting mid-firefight and I started hearing these whispers."

"What kind of whispers? What were they saying?" he prompted further.

"No clue, I couldn't make out what they were saying. I'm not even sure I recognized the language…"

Sarah gently grabbed my shoulder and turned me towards her. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, but I don't think that that satisfied her because she detached the flashlight attachment off of her Avenger and turned back towards me.

"Mind if I check?"

I nodded again. She gently grabbed the side of my head and tilted it down so she could shine the flashlight into my eyes. She moved the flashlight back and forth, making note of my pupillary response. She must have been satisfied because after a few moments she stopped, her body language looking a little more relieved and the lines of worry on her face slowly fading.

"Any history of migraines? Mental Illness? Even bad headaches?"

I shook my head and answered honestly "No. This is the first time I've ever felt anything like that."

She pursed her lips and looked down for a moment before resuming eye contact. "Pupillary response seems fine, I thought that maybe you had suffered a concussion during the fight. You sure you have no prior history?"

"I'm sure. And don't you have a Ph.D instead of an M.D?" I joked.

She ignored my jab and continued her diagnosis. "Any recent gaps in memory?" she pushed further.

"I wish."

That seemed to satisfy her. "Alright, could just have been a sudden tension headache or an acute stress reaction, I can't have you going postal on me, Spectre," Sarah smiled.

She patted my arm and re-attached the lamp to her Avenger. Cade and I shared one more pointed look in which I wordlessly assured him that I was fully operational. He nodded, also apparently satisfied by Sarah's quick diagnosis. He needed me and I needed him if we were going to make it to the Data Archives and off this ship in one piece. I pulled my Snakebite back out while he checked the ammunition block on his Vindicator. With a light chime, the elevator display panel flickered to indicate that we had arrived at Deck 7 and the doors slowly opened.

January 23rd, 2211, 1922 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 45C

2 hours, 22 minutes after Outbreak

The elevator doors slide open and we stepped out into another dimly lit hall virtually identical to the one we had just come from. Long and rectangular, with half a dozen reinforced office doors on each side, this hall differed from the one we had just came from in one prominent aspect.

I surveyed the room, staring impassively at the gore, viscera and blood of all shades and colors that coated the floor and walls. Sarah stifled a retch while Cade and I tightened our grip on our weapons. I stepped forward, my boots leaving footprints in a pool of drying turian blood. I saw a bloody, green salarian handprint smeared onto the elevator buttons behind us.

A cleanly-severed head lying in the middle of the hall caught my attention. I walked over, taking a knee in a pool of purple asari blood and gingerly picked up the gruesome fixture. I closed her eyes—taking a moment to banish the sight of those blue orbs rolled slightly backwards into her skull—and flipped it upside-down to study the wound. Behind me Sarah gagged, but otherwise her and Cade moved up to take note of what I had found so interesting

The wound on the neck was cleanly, almost surgically cut, with no immense tissue damage that characterized the wounds that I'd seen Corpsers inflict. None of the appendages on the average Corpser seemed capable of severing a head from a torso, maybe their metal spines but I had yet to see those things be utilized as weapons of some kind. Both Crawlers and Changers lacked the capability to cause such wounds also, and I doubt the Chimera would have left such clean, precise wounds.

"Those don't look like it was caused by these creatures," Cade commented, apparently sharing my thoughts.

I looked up, following his sightline. Strewn around the hall were a few other severed limbs. I put the head down and made my way over to what looked like a turian arm, picking it up and observing the wound.

"It's cleanly cut… maybe some kind of new variant that we haven't seen yet?" I suggested.

"Maybe, but considering the menagerie we've encountered so far I'd hate to meet whatever could do that," he pointed at the severed asari head.

"Guys," Sarah interrupted, "Don't you think it's strange that there aren't any bodies here?"

I glanced around the hallway. Aside from a number of severed limbs and appendages, there were no actual corpses, just what appeared to be litres and litres of blood.

"Not terribly strange. I'm guessing the bodies were converted afterwards. The unchanged nature of these body parts suggests that the wounds were inflicted before the victims were transformed," I answered.

Cade nudged a severed human arm with his booted foot. "Hey, I'm going to go out on a 'limb' here and say that we probably want to keep moving, incase whatever did this comes back," he grinned. What an asshole.

We moved out of the hall and into the pedestrian corridor as fast as we could. Through the dried mosaic of alien and human blood on the wall I could make out the words "Data Archives" and a giant, blue arrow.

"I can't wait to get off this ship and go home," Sarah moaned.

"That is very optimistic of you," laughed Cade. She shot him a dirty glance at his response behind his back and rolled her eyes at him.

"Where's home for you?" I asked her.

"The Citadel. After I received my Ph.D I moved into a nice little apartment overlooking the Presidium with John and Paul. I haven't been home in eight months… haven't seen John in nine," she said sadly.

"The Presidium, huh? Swanky."

Sarah smiled and tilted her head to me. "Paul and I wanted the absolute best for John. He absolutely loves it there, loves meeting all the aliens and all the water and all the parks…"

Her eyes misted a bit as she continued on. "He once jumped into the Presidium lake, said he wanted to see if there was fish inside it. Paul had to wade in and rescue him. A passing C-sec officer caught them both lying on the edge of the lake, soaking wet and laughing their heads off. I managed to talk him out of giving us a ticket. We went back home, changed, then afterwards headed back out to this tiny little shoppe for hot chocolate," she reminisced.

"John loved water, loved the beach, loved lakes…," Sarah finished with a tiny, sad smile.

Cade and I listened silently, neither of us having anything to add or wanting share any of our own memories. If you were a Spectre, chances are most—if not all—your memories were not ones you wanted to remember, at least while sober. Cade was tight-lipped about his role in the Palaven Rebellions despite having turians line up in droves to shake his hand every time he visited Palaven, and I spoke even less than he did about my own past—even with my two best friends.

We continued silently, the blood and gore ending where the corridor leading to the Data Archives began. I took the lead with my rifle raised, Sarah a few steps behind me and with Cade to the rear. We cautiously pressed on, wary of any potential ambushes as we travelled closer and closer to our objective. We passed a few more locked doors and branching corridors before the doors came into view.

"There it is," Sarah pointed out. She tightened her grip on her borrowed M-8 Avenger and quickened her pace. Cade and I followed suit, weapons raised and alert for any potential ambushes. I strained my ears as we moved closer, trying my best to detect any footsteps that could belong to a stealthed observer. The door grew larger and more ominous as we approached it, a feminine, bloody palm-print on its activation panel.

We were now a few meters from the door so I gestured for Sarah to stop. Cade and I moved up, taking up flanking positions on either side of the door. We quickly double-checked our guns before I signed to him to enter first. He nodded and palmed the door switch. The hydraulics whirred and the door slid open with a silent, innocuous hiss.

January 23rd, 2211, 1934 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Pedestrian Corridor 45C

2 hours, 34 minutes after Outbreak

The doors slid open with a hiss and we waited for a count of three, just in case some trigger-happy saboteur decided to shoot as soon as the doors opened. Cade, possessing the better close-range weapon, breached first, silent as a serpent with his Vindicator out and legs bent in a slight crouch so that I could fire over him if necessary.

He did a quick panoramic sweep of the large room before moving off to the right. I followed next, padding softly into the room with my Snakebite out and my Predator loose in its holster. I shifted left, covering Cade's left flank and making mental notes of all the possible locations that a stealthed saboteur could ambush us from.

The room was a defender's nightmare. The Data Archives were essentially a raised, circular catwalk with a number of doors surrounding it. Data servers towered from the ground to the ceiling all around the edges of the room, the status lights on their servers casting a dim blue glow eerily similar to the light that Corpsers gave off.

The servers provided plenty of cover for potential assailants and threats and increased the number of attack angles we had to watch for. Four wide walkways branched from the circular catwalk and converged onto a central platform that contained a towering holo-terminal with a slew of buttons and dials on it. Around the central platform and the holo-terminal, the floor was sunk a few meters into the ground and was covered in a thick web of conduits, cables, and piping.

I de-cloaked first, waving Sarah inside while Cade stayed cloaked and hidden. I discreetly motioned for him to check in-and-around the servers, checking for hidden threats. When the saboteurs showed their faces, I wanted said faces to meet Meera again.

Sarah wordlessly nodded to me and moved cautiously into the room, doing her best to mimic a combat stance and keeping her Avenger up and ready to fire. I stayed close, my amp sizzling slightly at the base of my skull, ready to throw up a Barrier at the slightest sound of gunfire.

Sarah made her way down one of the four walkways towards the holo-terminal on the central platform while Cade and I began patrolling the perimeter of the room. I watched her produce a data drive from a lanyard around her neck and insert it into a port on the terminal. She entered a long string of codes, causing a panel on the terminal to open and a robotic scanner to appear.

It flashed red as it read her neural implants before pulsing a brilliant green. Immediately the holo-terminal began spinning up and emitting a low hum.

"The data is uploading now, it should be done in a couple of minutes," Sarah reported.

"Great, sit tight then," I answered. Sarah nodded and picked up her M-8 Avenger, scanning the room and protecting the holo-terminal.

I suddenly felt a slight electric jolt on my wrist. I looked down to see that my omni-tool had been shut down. I cursed softly and attempted to reboot it, but it was dead.

"Hey, is your omni-tool working?" Sarah called out.

Shit.

I keyed my comm. set. "Cade—," I whispered, "—I think we've got host-"

Before I could finish my sentence, half a dozen rounds impacted into my chest, bringing my kinetic barriers dangerously close to zero. I immediately dropped and rolled out of the way. The red-hot barrel of a silenced M-8 Avenger and the saboteur holding it phased into view as he dropped his tactical cloak.

Instead of waiting for my shields to recharge, I triggered my own tactical cloak and faded from view. The saboteur stepped out from behind the data center he had attacked from and began scanning around the room, rifle swinging back and forth.

I crept up silently behind him and with one hand around his jaw I jammed my Talon combat knife deep into his neck. A bright red geyser of blood erupted from the severed artery, coating my armored forearms. The saboteur gurgled and died in my arms. Unfortunately for him, kinetic shields were designed to deflect high-velocity projectiles, not titanium-carbon turian-designed combat knives.

"Cade! We've got fucking host—,"

I heard the sound of armor hitting metal behind me and instantly pivoted to face my rear. A second saboteur de-cloaked appeared from behind another Data center and unloaded her Avenger directly at me.

I lifted the dead saboteur I was still holding and shifted him between me and her, using him to absorb the onslaught. His kinetic shields whined as the Avenger fire shredded them while mine replenished themselves to full charge. I heard her rifle click empty and smiled.

My amp came alive and those familiar, biotic blue flames spun down my arms. I used my biotics and threw her dead buddy directly at her, knocking her down and disorienting her.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cade fighting another saboteur in hand-to-hand on the other side of the room. Two other saboteurs already lay dead around him, one of them with half his face blown off courtesy of an M-6 Carnifex armor-piercing round while the other had his throat cut.

I ripped my Predator out of my holster and squeezed off four shots, the first three shorting out the saboteur's kinetic shields and the fourth blowing out his brains in a fine, red mist that Cade would need to scrub out of his gear the next time we docked. He nodded to me and spun around just in time to block the upward-swing of a knife in the hands of another attacking saboteur with his armored forearms.

The female saboteur had thrown her dead compatriot off of her and was frantically trying to scramble to her feet. I turned back to face her and lazily waved my arm in a lifting gesture. Blue flames erupted from my hand and around her body and she was yanked into the air by my biotic Pull.

She dangled helplessly for a moment, arms flailing desperately, quiet, muffled screams coming from her helmet. Coldly, I made a gripping gesture with my hand and used my biotics to crush her neck and collapse her windpipe.

The blue flames rescinded and her body dropped limply to the floor. The dying scream of another saboteur echoed loudly in the Data Archives. I turned my head to see Cade clean his Talon combat knife on the dead saboteur's armor and return it to his shoulder sheath.

"Sarah, is everything okay?" I called out. Sarah stood up from where she had crouched in-front of the holo-terminal, having spent the fight watching silently and afraid of shooting either Cade or I as we engaged the saboteurs in close quarters.

"Fine," she reported "the data is about 50 percent downloaded, we just need a few more minutes."

I nodded, satisfied that the mission objectives remained intact. I rubbed my jaw with a bloody hand and eyed the dead saboteurs with distaste. Sloppy, they had decided to split their forces instead of concentrating all their firepower on one of us. Worse, the one who had first fired at me had clearly done so without alerting his comrades to his plans. Had there been another rifle, I might have very well been killed.

"Cade, are you okay?" I asked my friend.

He aimed a kick at the last saboteur he had killed. "Just dandy…" he reported.

Out of instinct, something compelled me to kneel down and take a closer look at the female saboteur whose neck I had snapped.

Just as I took a knee I felt a sharp burst of air pass directly over my head right where my neck had been mere seconds before, followed by a resounding metallic clang. I drew my eyes up just in time to see the torso of a female saboteur appear less than an arm's length away from me.

Her hands were wrapped around a long, pale monomolecular blade similar to ones commonly favored by Nightbringer assassins and reminiscent of the katanas wielded by ancient samurais and 21st century teenagers. My mind went back to the severed appendages that we had found after we had left the elevator.

I immediately launched a flurry of punches into her abdomen before finishing with an uppercut that sent her crashing into the metal railing that ringed the catwalk. She shook her head and vanished from view, activating her tactical cloak and rolling away just as I launched a biotically-powered stomp right where she had just been moments before, badly denting the railing.

She de-cloaked a few feet away and leapt back towards me, sword flashing and surging forward like a striking serpent. I slipped her first few stabs and deflected away a few others with my armguards, trying to back away so that I could bring my biotics into play. This saboteur was apparently much more skilled and intelligent than the rest that I had encountered; she kept close and used her sword to keep me constantly on the defensive.

I threw a forearm into her chest, causing her to stumble back a few steps. My eyes darted over to Cade. I could see that he was busy fighting with what appeared to be a turian saboteur—the first that we had seen. Cade was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a turian in sleek black and gold armor and losing.

Cade had his Talon out in one hand, making quick, snaking swipes at his opponent's helmeted head. I watched as the turian saboteur artfully slip under Cades' slashes, grab him by the armored cowl and driving his knee powerfully into his gut twice, knocking the wind out of Cade and sending him to the ground in a coughing fit.

I turned my eyes back onto the saboteur in front of me and decided to change tactics. The next time her sword lashed out, I stepped closer, bringing myself less than a foot away from her.

She made to reverse her sword-swing but I stopped her armored arms in their tracks with one outstretched hand. I threw my bodyweight into a vicious elbow strike that rammed straight into the side of her helmet, eliciting a pained grunt from the female saboteur.

With one arm still holding her arms at bay I brought my superior size and strength into play, driving my armored knee into her gut and winding her. Seeing that she was stunned, I whipped my Predator out and placed the barrel at the base of her chin but before I could pull the trigger she violently twisted away and turned on her tactical cloak, fading to invisibility.

I cursed and glanced over to where Cade had been fighting. Cade stumbled to his feet, head swinging back and forth around the room, but the turian saboteur was nowhere to be found.

A sound drew my attention, the sound of slow, almost mocking, clapping.

I spun around and saw four armored figures shimmer into existence around Sarah on the central platform. One of them was the black and gold-armored turian Cade had been fighting, his arms crossed leisurely across his chest and leaning casually on the holo-terminal. He had removed his helmet, revealing a face that was relatively smooth and young, with light-blue, simple clan markings on pale, white scales.

Another was the female saboteur that had tried her best to gut me. She had one arm wrapped around Sarah while the other pressed her sword against Sarah's quivering neck. The third was what looked to be a salarian in black armor with grey trim and what looked like dozens of different grenades clipped to his belt. He had been the one who had been clapping. His helmet was also off, revealing scarred, wrinkled grey flesh and a wide grin on his face.

The fourth and final saboteur was a tall, wiry man clad in black armor with a single red stripe running down his left arm and a crisp, white N7 emblazoned on his chest. The surface of his black armor was scarred and pitted, badges of honor that marked him as a battle-hardened veteran of lethal skill. He stepped forward and wrapped his hands around the base of his helmet, unsealing it with a slight hiss and pulling it off to reveal his face.

He was old, perhaps in his early-to-mid 50's. His features were sharp, his skin pale but weathered, contrasting deeply with his salt-and-pepper beard and thick hair. Even in the dim lighting of the room I could make out a pair of piercing, electric-blue eyes. They stared directly into mine, and even amidst the chaos of the situation I couldn't help but notice that they were a bit sad.

January 23rd, 2211, 1942 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 7, Data Archives

2 hours, 42 minutes after Outbreak

"You fight well," the man observed.

I raised my Predator and trained it squarely on his head. On the other side of the catwalk Cade unclipped Meera off his back and trained it at the turian saboteur. The turian saboteur sniffed dismissively, arms still casually crossed against his chest and his back leaning against the terminal, but otherwise kept his attention firmly on me.

"Who are you, what do you want?" I asked them quietly. Blue biotic flames began crawling up and down my arms. This prompted the female saboteur holding Sarah hostage to press her sword more firmly into her neck, drawing a thin red line of blood. Sarah's eyes met mine and I could see her fear reflected in them, but also more than a hint of defiance and a stern resolve.

At the unspoken threat, I quickly withdrew my biotics but nonetheless kept my Predator squarely trained on the rogue N7.

"It is not very polite to point a gun at your saviors, human," cackled the salarian. "I would have thought that your mother would have taught you better manners."

A cloud of rage darkened my face and I immediately swapped targets to the salarian. The rogue N7's piercing-blue eyes alighted with fury and directed their gaze from me onto to his fellow saboteur.

"Stay quiet," he harshly commanded. The salarian did not deign to speak further, although his condescending smirk never left his face. He grinned and clasped both hands behind his back. The rogue N7 turned back to me and began to speak.

His voice was rough but clear. "We have no intention of harming you, we are only here for the data." he calmly assured me.

My grip tightened around the handle of my Predator. "You're not leaving here with that data."

A pained look crossed the face of the rogue N7. "You have no idea what is going on, what we are trying to accomplish. We do not want to hurt you or your friends. Just put down the gun and let us go."

I chuckled quietly at that. "That is not going to happen."

"Let's just kill them and be done with it, we're wasting time," argued the salarian. The rogue N7 ignored him, instead holding up both hands in a placating gesture.

"This ship is not safe," he calmly stated. "There is no further need for anyone else to die. There are events going on that you do not understand, a plan decades in the making—"

"There are monsters running around this fucking ship, gutting and killing everyone," I interrupted him. "You sabotaged the ship and I'm betting you sabotaged the project too. By the authority of the Citadel Council I order you to lay down your weapons and surrender peacefully, this is your one and only warning."

The salarian howled with laughter and even the silent turian cracked a grin, "One and only warning!" he mocked, "the young pup has spirit!" he shrieked with glee.

The female saboteur hooked one hand underneath her helmet and removed it, revealing a shock of red hair and familiar dark grey eyes. "Spirit and good looks," she pursed her lips, "You should join us, I could make it worth your while."

My mind went back to the Secondary Engine Room where I had that wounded saboteur on his knees. I finally recalled where I had seen him. He had been one of the lab technicians that had nodded to the doctor that had escorted me to the Activation Chamber.

Dr. Olivia Flanagan flashed a brilliantly white smile and pressed the edge of her blade deeper into Sarah's neck. Sarah's eyes flitted over to her captor and grew alight with anger.

"You traitorous bitch, I'll fucking kill you—," Sarah vehemently spat, but her threats went unheeded as Olivia merely laughed and pressed her sword even deeper into her neck, eliciting a grunt of pain from Sarah.

"You did this, you sabotaged the project, you caused this, you killed Paul!" Sarah raged, but Olivia didn't spare her a glance, instead locking her eyes onto mine and licking her lips.

"Come with us, darling. Don't you want to know why these people died? What they died for?" She purred.

The rogue N7 stepped forward again, arms still held out in a placating gesture. The older man displayed all the signs of being the ringleader for their little cell, the red stripe and N7 insignia on his armor marking him as a combatant of significant lethality. But unlike the salarian, Dr. Flanagan, or even the quiet turian, he alone had yet to display any sign of hostile intent.

The rogue N7 kept his hands in plain view, well away from any of his weapons. "She's right, come with us," he further pleaded. "Give us a chance to explain what happened, a chance to explain what we came here for. I promise you that your friends will be allowed to leave peacefully. It'll all make sense, I promise. Just let us have the data and come with us."

"Don't listen to him," chimed Cade. He had slowly moved around the walkway to stand beside me, Meera still trained on the saboteurs. "Remember the mission."

"Why don't you just tell me what you want and why you're here, because I am not fucking going with you," I spat angrily. "Tell me why you sabotaged the project, why you're here, why you killed all these people!"

"Why?!" stormed the salarian, "WHY?! Because Shepard lied! Because Shepard doomed us! Because Shepard robbed us of what should have been rightfully ours! You will not halt our transcendence, if you will not join us then you can die!" he babbled manically, frothing at the mouth. The salarian pulled out a Scorpion heavy pistol with one hand and trained it directly at me while the other ignited an omni-blade. The barrel of the Scorpion began to glow blue.

"NO!" shouted the rogue N7. Quick as a snake, the N7 thrust an arm out to brush the barrel of the Scorpion towards the ceiling. Four bright, glowing blue orbs erupted from the barrel, impacting on the ceiling and adhering to it for a few seconds before erupting in a bright flash and blowing a hole in the ceiling.

"You moron!" the rogue N7 roared, losing his composure for the first time since the encounter started. With a gloved hand he backhanded the salarian who tumbled to the ground.

Low moans began echoing from the hole in the ceiling. The twisted, gruesome visage of a Corpser appeared in it, maw stretched impossibly wide in what appeared to be a rictus grin. It pulled itself through the ceiling, falling in a mass of twisted flesh and machinery onto the catwalk encircling the central platform. It shambled to its feet and began making its way towards us. Two more followed it, and then another, all of them moaning hungrily.

A slight chime emitted from the holo-terminal. The turian saboteur shifted away from where he had leaned against it and pulled out an M-97 Viper Sniper Rifle from his back armor plate. "Locke, the data is done downloading," he quietly reported.

The rogue N7—Locke—nodded and quickly pulled the data drive from the holo-terminal and placed it in an armored compartment on his belt. Nodding to the turian, he pulled out an N7 Valkyrie Battle Rifle and powered it on.

"We've got the data, prepare to leave," he ordered his subordinates. The turian nodded while the salarian scowled, shooting daggers out of his eyes at Cade and I but otherwise keeping silent. Olivia gritted her teeth and shot him an angry look.

"What about them? We can't just let them live," she argued.

"We can and we will," he shot back.

"They know too much, they know what we've done. If they survive they could run to Council and tell them—"

"We have our mission parameters, Flanagan!" Locke viciously snarled. "Our orders were to activate the Reaper Core and retrieve the data. They did not include the direct termination of Project personnel — something that you seem to have forgotten back at the fucking elevators—or the Spectres overseeing the Project. Let the doctor go and be prepared to move."

"But—,"she began.

"Now!" Locke roared.

With a grunt of disgust, Olivia shoved Sarah to the ground. Sarah immediately scrambled towards her M-8 Avenger, grabbing it and swinging around to train it on the saboteurs. Olivia suddenly looked at the hole in the ceiling and started laughing hysterically.

"Looks like I didn't kill your husband after all," she said with a smirk.

Sarah, Cade and I all looked up at the ceiling. We watched as the massive, metal-plated form of a Changer squeezed his way through the hole, landing with a loud, metallic thud amidst its smaller Corpser brethren, crushing one that had not moved fast enough out of its way. The other Corpsers in the room stopped to hiss at it for a moment before resuming their march towards us.

The Changer unfurled itself to its full height, towering over the other Corpsers. Bits of grey hair still clung to what was left of its skull, half his jaw had been torn away and huge metal spikes coated with dried blood and bits of skin. Menacing metal orbs sat in gaunt sockets and shone with crimson fury, the metal talons on his massive left arm brushed the ground, flexing and curling and carving divots into the catwalk as he began stumbling down one of the pathways towards the central platform towards Sarah.

Despite the extensive damage to the Changers' face, the missing lower jaw and the rough, ugly cybernetics snaking through his body, none of us had any problem recognizing the former neural engineer that he had once been.

Trembling and sobbing, Sarah raised her M-8 Avenger and trained it shakily on what had once been her husband.

Cade immediately began firing on the Corpsers, blowing off limbs with his beloved Black Widow. I watched as the salarian tapped a command on his omni-tool, opening a door on the other side of the room that the saboteurs began moving towards. Sarah stood rooted to the ground, her arms trembling, neither firing her weapon nor attempting to run as what used to be her husband slowly walked towards her.

Without thinking, I began sprinting after the saboteurs, firing my Predator at them as they ran through the door. Locke was the first one through, then the turian and the salarian, with Olivia at the rear. I ran, legs pumping as I fast as I could as I tried desperately to catch up to them.

Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough. I watched helplessly as Olivia passed through the threshold and the doors began closing. Winking, she turned around and blew me a kiss as the doors slid shut. I crashed into the closed doors and screamed in utter frustration, pounding one armored fist on the door.

I turned back around, eyes wide with fear as what had been Paul Messner shambled within a few feet of Sarah. Cade was yelling at her to run while he kept the Corpsers at bay. He shot two more before a third lunged at him. He ducked under its metal claws, drew his Talon and drove it up into the Corpsers' skull. I drew and aimed my Predator at the Changer but Sarah held out a hand to stop me.

"Please," she sobbed. "Paul, it's me, its Sarah."

She lowered her rifle and took a shaky step towards the hulking abomination. The Changer stopped in its tracks and leered down at her with its cold, red metallic eyes. On the other side of the room Cade's Black Widow barked loudly, drilling a hole through the head of the last Corpser and felling it. The room grew quiet as the last of the moaning faded away, nothing but the fading echo of that last gunshot, Sarah's trembling breathing, and the metallic rasp of the Changer shifting in place.

"Sarah, get out of the way!" I shouted. Every instinct screamed at me to shoot it but Sarah still had one hand raised towards me, wordlessly begging me not to take her husband from her.

Instead of listening, Sarah took a step forwards and held out one shaky hand towards what had once been her husband. "Baby, I know you're still in there" she desperately pleaded. "Fight it, please. Come back to me. We can fix whatever happened to you, just please come back to me. Come back to me and John."

For a moment the red light in its eyes flickered briefly, as if there was an internal struggle occurring in the very soul of Paul Messner as he desperately fought against the invader within his mind, against what the invader was urging him to do, urging him to harm the woman he loved. The Changer shrank briefly and began edging away, pulling its arms close to its torso.

Encouraged, Sarah took a step closer, this time with a smile etched on her face, shining through the tears that streamed down her cheeks like raindrops. Cade and I watched silently as the behemoth slumped towards her, bringing what was left of his ravaged face within arm's reach of Sarah. She held out her hand again and this time it didn't tremble.

"Come home with me," she whispered.

Paul shuddered and went still. A moment later, before either Cade or I could react, he lashed out with his massive arm and sent his long, metal talons scything across Sarah's chest.

A bright spray of blood jetted from the mortally wounded scientist, and Sarah slumped to the ground without a sound. My vision darkened and I heard a loud, piercing cry of rage coming from my own lips.

I sprinted towards the Changer, my Amp igniting to life and bathing me in angry, snatching blue fire. I heard three loud gunshots, each of them impacting the arm of the Changer and causing it to stumble forwards. They carved great chunks of flesh and metal from its arm, with the last one blowing it off in a shower of metal sparks and gore.

I threw my left hand forward and the largest, blackest Singularity I had ever thrown blossomed into existence, surging towards the Changer and ripping the massive abomination off its feet and into the air. It finally roared in pain as the purple, fiery flames of the Singularity licked up and down its torso began eating at what remained of its flesh.

Its cabled arm lashed out, trying to grab hold of me and to infect me but I dodged underneath them. I brought my hands together, as if I was holding a ball between my fingers.

With a furious yell, I ripped my hands apart. The Singularity flashed and exploded, ripping the Changer in half. With a pained groan, both halves of the Changer collapsed on either side of the holo-terminal.

Smoke began rising from torn metal and flesh as I calmly strode towards the half that had Paul's head attached to it. I raised my Predator and fired half a dozen rounds into his face, shredding it and obliterating it into a pulpy mass. I watched impassively as the light dimmed from its eyes and what had been doctor Paul Messner quietly died at my feet.

I looked back to where Sarah had fallen, her dirty, shredded labcoat covered in blood. I quietly walked over to where Cade knelt beside her, one hand holding hers while the other was pressed against her chest in a hopeless attempt to stem the flow of blood, an empty canister of medi-gel lie spent beside him.

Cade glanced up at me with heavy sorrow in his gaze and slowly shook his head as he removed his bloody glove and indicated to her wounds. I walked over to where she lay and I knelt down, gently taking her other hand in my trembling ones.

She was whimpering softly, her eyes glimmering with tears. I looked down, away from her eyes and at the bloody ruin of her chest and throat. Her husbands' talons had torn through her neck and her chest, causing damage that I knew no amount of medi-gel was going to fix. I drew my gaze back to her wide, staring blue eyes.

I felt a tear slide down my face as her wheezing became more and more labored, her ruined throat whistling as oxygen spilled from the terrible, jagged wound. Her whimpering had ceased and her breathing became shallower and shallower as oxygen leaked out of the gaping tear with each breath she took. Each beat of her heart caused more and more of her life blood to spill out on the cold ground around her. Shaking, she drew her hand out of Cade's and reached into the pocket of her labcoat.

She removed the photo of her, Paul and her son John from that day on the beach. Her trembling hand left bloody stains on the back of her photo. With the last of her strength she brought the photo to her lips and kissed it. She held it out to me then, her eyes meeting mine and making one last silent plea that her ruined throat prevented her from asking.

I gently took it and nodded, placing it reverently and safely into an armored compartment on my belt. She smiled as her eyes followed my actions. Satisfied that the photo was safely stored, I held onto her hand with both my hands.

"I'll take care and watch over him, I promise you," I whispered brokenly. My soul ached for the young boy who would soon find out that he had lost both his mother and father. In my heart I swore to every god that might have been listening that this was one promise that I would die to keep.

Sarah nodded and smiled at me one last time, satisfied. Her slowly eyes drifted towards the ceiling and I watched in quiet anguish as the light in them dimmed and slowly flickered out. Sarah had joined her husband.

I knelt wordlessly in silence, both hands still clasped around her slowly cooling hand. My head was bowed and my gaze unflinching as I stared at her body.

It was Cade who moved first. First he gently closed her eyes with his blood-stained hands, next he then gently took her hand from my grasp, taking it and her other hand and folded them reverently on her chest, hiding her terrible wounds. After he finished, he looked up at me, concern etched heavily in his gaze.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

I looked back at her body, trying to ignore the massive rends in her flesh and the copious amounts of blood staining her coat and pooling on the ground around her. Instead I tried to see her as she had been.

In my minds' eye I could see her standing tall, scarred by the sudden loss of her husband but refusing to let it consume her, determined to retrieve the data so that we could try and save countless others. That Sarah had known fear, but had not let that fear prevent her from doing what had to be done. That Sarah had seen monsters take away her friends and her husband but had still followed me unhesitatingly into the jaws of death itself because she knew that if she didn't, others would die.

That Sarah was not the Sarah who lay broken in front of me, cold and small. It couldn't be. Or maybe it was her, maybe it should be her. Maybe I was dishonoring her by remembering her how I wanted to remember her instead of remembering everything that she had been.

Or maybe it didn't matter what courage she had shown or what fear she had overcome or how I chose to remember her because in the end she was still dead, torn violently from this life by the one she had loved. I don't know, I don't think I will ever know.

I drove an armored fist into the ground, denting it. I'd had a choice, just like I'd had a choice back when I was escaping the lab, like I'd had a choice back when I let those monsters tear apart that poor, frightened maintenance technician.

I drove my fist into the ground again and again, desperately trying to feel something, anything, but the microweave fibers in my armored gloves were designed to withstand and cushion my knuckles from impacts far harder than my punches could produce, robbing me of self-inflicted pain, robbing me of my catharsis.

Cade leapt over and grabbed my arm with both of his just as I was drawing my arm back for another try.

"Spirits, Stop! Stop it!" he hissed. "It wasn't your fault!"

He ripped me to my feet, grabbed my upper arms and shook me sternly.

"It wasn't your fault," he said softly.

I refused to look into his eyes, refused to acknowledge that look of understanding and pain that he was currently giving me. Instead I kept my gaze squarely on Sarah's broken body, my eyes trained on the growing pool of blood around her that seemed to ring her like a bloody halo. Cade growled and shook me harder, the harmonics in his flanging voice deepening as he grew more and more angry.

"We still have a mission," he spat at me. "I know she's gone but we still have a job to do. We can't let these things get off the ship, we can't let these things spread. We might have lost the data, but we can still catch them, we can still get the data back and make them pay."

He turned to look at Sarah's unmoving form. "Don't let her die for nothing," he snarled. "We're Spectres, our mission will always be the galaxy, never just one person."

He relaxed his grip on my arms and the angry harmonics in his voice softened. "I can't do this without you. I need you to stay with me," he pleaded.

His plea lifted the haze from my very soul and snapped me back into the real world. The Sarah I remembered—brave and courageous— was gone and I was suddenly back in the Data Archives, standing over the body of our VIP, my Predator in need of a new heat-sink and our current objective in the hands of a group of skilled, mysterious saboteurs.

"We need to rendezvous with Percival at the Bridge," I stated. I twisted out of Cade's grasp and rubbed my jaw with an armored hand. Cade nodded, satisfied that I had my shit buttoned down , and inserted a new heatsink into his Black Widow. I did the same for my Predator before holstering it and unhooking my Snakebite from my armor, my mind racing as I tried to formulate a new course, a new plan of action

"The saboteurs are going to try and leave the ship," I reasoned. "They are probably headed right now towards one of the many hangar bays for exfiltration," I explained as I turned and began walking towards a door marked "Crew Quarters".

"As much as it pains me to say," I continued, "I don't think pursuit and retrieval of the data is a viable course of action. We're outnumbered two-to-one, two of the combatants possessing an unknown skill level with the third outclassing you and the fourth also of significant lethality. Eliminating the saboteurs and retrieving the data might be outside of the scope of our capabilities."

Cade nodded and followed behind me. "You're right. We're better off scuttling the ship, we should abandon data retrieval and shift our focus to asset denial," he conceded.

"We definitely need to first link up with Percival the rest of the survivors on the Bridge. Should the opportunity to retrieve that data from the saboteurs present itself, we're going to need assistance if we want to eliminate them and take the data back," I explained further.

l shook my head and smiled. "Can't believe that turian kicked your ass, he looked like he was 15" I smirked. Cade grunted in protest but otherwise declined to defend himself, refusing to comment on the ass-kicking he had received from the younger turian. The door to the crew quarters slid open and I walked out without a second thought.

Cade paused at the door, shooting one last glance to where Sarah's body rested on the cold polysteel of the central platform. His mandibles twitched as his eyes flitted over her body one last time. He pulled a homing grenade from his belt, activated the trigger and lobbed it gently towards the platform where she lay. It hit the deck beside her and rolled softly to rest beside her hand before erupting in a fiery blaze that set the platform on fire.

Satisfied, Cade turned on his heel and followed me out the door.