Chapter 55 – If Heroes Were Real

March 31st, 2211, 1452 hours – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 2, Cockpit

Apien Crest, Legatia System – Just outside Relay 1779

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

The Excalibur snapped out of the Relay just a few thousand kilometers from a massive maroon gas giant. Ribbons of blue-ish silver light dominated the viewport as they wound their way around the ship. Looking straight at them or into them always made me a nauseous. It felt like I was staring into a pair of overlapping mirrors – you know, the ones where the object ended up being reflected back an infinite number of times? Apparently they were dilations of matter. I would have needed an advanced astrophysics degree to even begin to further comprehend them.

"Stealth protocol is green. No issues. Temperature is still well within the optimal range. We're hidden, Cloud," Val reported.

I didn't expect anything other than perfection from Val's flying. As long as they didn't leave any fighters or anything like that at the relay that could eyeball us then we still had the element of surprise. An orange light lit up on a nearby display as an icon of a ship appeared on it. Second Lieutenant Lee tapped it.

"Sir, ladar is painting a ship in orbit just above Latibulum," he reported. The navigator tapped another button and pulled up a set of schematics. "It's the Exeter. We should have visuals in sixty seconds."

I clenched my teeth and squeezed the back of the pilot's chair. Behind me, Garrus was observing silently, content with letting the flight team do their job. This part of the operation was all up to them. It wasn't our turn yet. Cade, Percival and Elektra were sitting in one shuttle while Murgen and Accer's team were in a second, fully armed and ready to board. Once we had disabled the Exeter, we'd all move in to begin phase two.

"Val, take us in. Second Lieutenant, warm up the T-cannons," I ordered.

Val nodded and flipped a couple of switches. "You got it. Stealth systems still engaged. We'll be in effective weapons range in two minutes," she replied. Under Val's steady hands, the Excalibur began to drift towards the Exeter, silent as a ghost.

"Try ninety seconds," Garrus nudged me. "I spent the last two hours calibrating the living spirits out of your Thanix cannons."

Soon we had visuals on the Exeter. The ship was in what looked like high orbit around Latibulum. The planet itself was like any other garden world – very green and blue. It was small though, and it didn't look like there were any polar regions. Probably a hot garden world like Zorya, if I had to say.

The seconds passed by with agonizing slowness. The whole cockpit was dead silent, as if we were all collectively holding our breaths. Understandable. The Exeter, being a heavy cruiser, was almost quadruple the tonnage of the Excalibur with better armor plating and kinetic barriers. With its state-of-the-art Thanix cannons, it could kill or cripple the Excalibur with a single well-placed shot.

The Exeter grew larger and larger on the viewport with each passing second. "Thirty seconds until effective weapons range," Val reported.

I was tense as hell, even if my outward composure was still intact. Garrus however was as cool as a cucumber. XM28's must have seemed like pea-shooters compared to the MHTD cannons that Reaper capital ships sported during the war.

"Ten seconds."

Suddenly there was a flash of light. My heart lurched into my stomach. Maybe there was a God after all.

Too bad they weren't on our side. Either that or Murphy was real, a god, and a huge dick.

The light had come from the Exeter's aft. Its engines had suddenly spun up and it began to move straight towards us.

"Shit, its rabbiting!" Val cursed.

"Are our stealth systems still up?" I snapped.

The flight lieutenant nodded her head. "They're still active!"

Fuck, had they somehow managed to eyeball us? No, they hadn't, or else they'd be moving into an optimal firing position. No. The Project had gotten whatever they had come here for.

My fingers dug into Val's headrest, causing the leather to squeak. The Exeter wasn't on an intercept course with us. No, they were headed towards the relay. "Guns are hot. Do we fire?" Second Lieutenant Lee asked.

I shook my head. "Negative. We do that and they'll definitely know we're here. They'll take us out in an eye-blink."

Garrus stepped up. "Wait until they're past us, then take the shot lieutenant," he ordered. The Primarch turned towards me. "We can't pass up this opportunity."

I nodded reluctantly. So far it didn't seem like they had noticed us, but that could change at any moment and it would certainly change the second we fired our cannons at them. I didn't like Garrus' plan, but I had to agree. If we had a chance to end the Project here, we had to take it.

The Exeter was ten thousand kilometers from us, and then five, then just one. My heart was beating louder than the firing of a mac round.

Then it had moved past us. "Take the shot," I echoed. We only had the one. After that there was nothing stopping them from turning around and blowing us to kingdom come.

Beads of sweat were dotting Val's brow. The pilot deftly swung the Excalibur on her axis so that our nose was now pointed at the Exeter's aft.

The Exeter was a mere thousand kilometers away from the relay now. Any longer and they'd be in jumping range.

"Now!" I ordered.

The firing control officer nodded and tapped a button. The Excalibur shuddered and out came twin beams of silver light from just beneath our bow.

The beams slammed into the rear thrusters of the Exeter. The first one caused its kinetic barriers to flash and then disappear and the second one caused one of its thrusters to erupt in violent, blue light. A number of small fires blossomed around the stern and bits of debris could be seen flying outwards.

"Direct hit!" the firing control officer crowed. Our bridge erupted into cheers.

Garrus pointed out the viewport. "Wait, look!"

Okay, there absolutely was a God and not only were they not on our side, they also were actively trying to fuck with us.

The Exeter's other three thrusters were somehow still active despite the hit and it was still flight-capable. We hadn't managed to disable it. That was it then, we were dead. We needed at least a full minute before the T-cannons were ready to fire again. The Exeter needed maybe ten to warm its guns up and another two to gut us. Not even Val would be able to dodge them at this range.

But that was not what happened. Instead, the Exeter resumed its dash towards the relay

"They're not even going to bother with us!" Garrus hissed. "We need to take them out now! Fire control, fire everything!"

The viewport erupted in streaks of golden light as our mass accelerator and all of our bow-mounted GARDIAN lasers fired simultaneously. We were slightly off-canter and as a result the mass accelerator round only ended up carving a large divot out of the Exeter's starboard side. The GARDIAN lasers were completely ineffective against the Exeter's heavy armor plating.

It wasn't enough. The Exeter managed to reach the safety of the Relay. Within seconds it was enveloped in a web of silvery-blue light. Before I could swear, it was gone.

A strange feeling flowed through me then. It wasn't one that I should have been feeling at that moment given our failure, but I suppose it was still quite a natural one to feel after narrowly escaping what had been certain death. I let go of Val's chair and squeezed my eyes shut with a sigh.

Val blew a few errant strands of blonde hair out from in front of her face. "They're gone, Cloud. They could be headed to any one of the destination relays."

"Yeah," I agreed. I turned to Garrus. "Garrus, you need to involve your navy now. Send battle groups to each of the destination relays and have them begin searching from there. We have time, the Exeter will need time to repair itself."

The cool, calm aura that Garrus was exuding earlier had completely evaporated. All I could feel flowing out from him now was fatigue. "Yes," the Primarch agreed with a disappointed sigh. "I'll give the order. They may make it into dark space before we get there though. If that's the case we will have a hard time tracking them."

I grunted. We may have been unsuccessful here, but our inability to capitalize on the damage that we had done was Garrus' fault. He could have had a battle group at each destination relay two hours earlier if he hadn't been such a secretive ass and hadn't wanted no questions asked about the system. The delay now was completely his fault.

Garrus turned around and was about to leave but I grabbed his arm. "Garrus," I whispered to him. "I know you know what's down there on Latibulum. You have secrets – fine – but I need to know what's down there. I need to know what they took."

To my surprise, the turian just nodded. He seemed remorseful. "I know, Spectre. This screw-up is all on me. There's a lot down there that I don't want getting out. As for what they took… let's go find that out for ourselves, shall we?"

March 31st, 2211, 1511 hours – Hammerhead Shuttle B12

Apien Crest, Legatia System – En-route to the Planet of Latibulum

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

"Remind me to kill Lieutenant Macleod. Dying in a space battle is not how Cade Kitiarian is supposed to go out."

I sighed and checked the panel in front of me. I adjusted the controls and the Hammerhead shifted ever so slightly. We were currently flying above an ocean headed towards a set of planetside coordinates that Garrus had sent me. Floating alongside us was another Hammerhead carrying Murgen and Accer's team. Flight Lieutenant Chan was piloting that one, giving me the rare opportunity to fly the other. It was nice to be flying again. The last ship I'd flown had been the M-88 Tiger that had taken us off the Hippocrates.

"It wasn't her fault," I told him. "It was a direct hit on the Exeter. We were just unlucky."

My friend grumbled from his place in the co-pilot's seat. I wondered how diligently Cade could be checking the scans for any leftover bogeys when he had been non-stop bitching and moaning about the spacefight ever since I'd told him what had happened. I tried to be a little understanding. Dying in ship-to-ship combat was something that both him and I feared terribly. Percival too. The three of us had a gentleman's agreement that we would all die in nothing less than a really cool, fate-of-the-galaxy-deciding battle. That meant no dying in space battles and no dying to simple space pirates, slavers, or gangsters. Warlords, corrupt authorities and renegade assets were allowable only if they had access to weapons of mass destructions.

I opened the team comm channel. "Garrus be advised, I'm beginning my descent. We're gonna be planet-side in thirty seconds."

"Affirmative," Garrus replied.

"Hey, look at that," Cade pointed outside the viewport.

We flew into an enormous caldera half-ringed by gorgeous, tree-laden mountains that were maybe two kilometers high at most. The mountains began not two-hundred feet from white, sandy beaches. It was probably the most scenic destination I'd ever been to, somehow looking both tropical and temperate at the same time. I couldn't help but wonder if it was artificially designed.

That wasn't the weirdest part. The destination was what looked like an odd military facility-slash-resort sitting on a small island that couldn't have been more than a mile wide. The facility itself was a wide and squat three-story steel structure with a large satellite dish situated on its roof. It was hard to tell from this height but there looked to be a shooting range out back as well. There was also a large pool with a small beach-house and what looked like a couple of beach chairs strewn around it. Anti-air batteries lined the perimeter of the facility. Those had been fired recently, if the wrecks lying on a nearby beach were any indication.

"Buddy," I turned to Cade. "This looks like a goddamn resort. What is this place? Garrus' summer home or something?"

"I don't know, but I sure as spirits never saw any of that while I was training here."

"What, you telling me the Blackwatch didn't give you any training on how to sip Pina coladas? That's a dirty lie. I've seen you."

"No, I spent most of my time in a bug-infested foxhole hiding from asshole instructors or in a shitty training prefab course. Besides, we're strictly a mimosa outfit."

I chuckled quietly and put the shuttle down on a landing pad. The other shuttle settled down beside ours and we all filed out, weapons raised.

Cade had his Black Widow out but I just had my Predator pistol in hand. In spite of Jaelen's warnings I wasn't going to hold back with my biotics. My Snakebite and Murgen's Avenger were slung on my back as well. It was a heavy load, but who knew what we might find on the island. Could be a nest of Chimeras for all we knew.

Oddly, right beside the landing pad was a single-occupant atmospheric re-entry pod, the kind the Jaegers used. Percival signaled to Cade and my friend approached it. We all watched quietly as Cade searched the pod.

"It's Cor's," he reported. Cade pulled out a printed photo from the pod with a trio of turians on it. "Remember these? Corribus always kept printing them off and bringing it with him on missions. His three kids I think."

"Must be here already then," I mused. He must have had a personal stealth vessel up in orbit/ "Percival, wanna try him?"

He tried him on his private channel, but we couldn't connect at all. "There's some shielding in certain parts of the facility that make communicating impossible without special radios," Garrus explained. "Your friend might be there."

Percival, Cade and I all shared a look and decided that was reasonable. There was no doubt however that the same, unspoken question had ran through each of our heads. Why the hell did Garrus have a comm-shielded facility all the way out here? Was this place some kind of weird escape-from-work kinda deal?

But now was not the time to raise that. Better to let it mature first.

The facility was a short distance away from the pad. A set of steel doors leading into the facility had been blown wide open. Garrus headed straight towards them, flanked by Murgen and Percival. Elektra, Cade and I trailed behind them.

Murgen turned to the other Jaegers. "Lieutenant Burton, stay here and watch the shuttles. Be on your guard, if we flush anything out they may be headed straight for you."

"You've got it, Captain," saluted Accer. He waved to his team and they began to take position around the perimeter of the landing pad while the rest of us prepped for entry. Rake and Jay both gave me a thumbs-up for luck.

Garrus had his Mantis out and ready. "I'll take point. Follow my lead."

We all stepped through the ruined doors. Strangely enough, there were no bodies whatsoever. Even more strange was the interior of the facility itself. Garrus seemed to be quite familiar with the facility given the confidence with which he navigated the branches and forks within. We entered none of the rooms we passed by, but from what I saw they were almost all recreational. There was a large kitchen with all the amenities, a lounge with fancy couches and a TV screen covering a whole wall, and even a room with a pool table.

Cade sniffed the air. "Is that… do I smell cookies?"

I inhaled as well. Damn, it actually did smell like cookies. I supposed I should have known better than to doubt my diabetic friend. The smell was coming from the kitchen. It was the first sign we had that this place was presently inhabited. Or had been presently inhabited. The Project could be a real ruthless bunch.

More odd was the fact that nothing seemed to be disturbed. It didn't look like they had searched the facility. There were no bodies, no bullet holes – nothing. This was strange seeing as the facility looked like it was fit to be occupied by a decent-sized group of people.

Either the Project was extremely professional and excelled at covering their tracks, or they knew exactly what they were looking for and where they would find it.

"Sir, what is this place?" Cade asked.

"You'll see," Garrus replied cryptically. That was enough for my friend, who was ever the good turian. I however was half-tempted to put a slug in the Primarch's ass.

My irritation must have been written plainly all over my face, because Murgen set a hand gently on my shoulder and gave me a soft shake that I think was meant to reassure me. It was a weird feeling. Percival and Cade did that from time to time, but it always felt brotherly. Murgen's felt kind of fatherly.

"Trust the Primarch, kid. I know what's down there. It's not what you're thinking."

I looked at the Jaeger in surprise. "You do? Can you give me a damn hint? The Primarch said there were 'relics from the Reaper war' or something like that."

To my surprise that description caused Murgen to let out a light laugh. "Yeah, I guess you can say that."

I looked at him expectantly, but he didn't volunteer anything else. "Is it a Reaper superweapon? At least tell me if whatever's down there can kill us all."

Murgen looked me over. "Probably. Yeah, I'd say so. Whatever's down there can probably kill all of us. It shouldn't though."

He must have known that that wouldn't assuage me one bit. I continued to fume. "Trust Garrus," the Jaeger repeated in a more somber tone. "I know it might be a difficult thing for you to do growing up how you did, and I bet you don't trust many people other than your three friends, but you should try. It doesn't make you weaker like you might think. Quite the contrary actually."

Murgen jerked his head towards Garrus. "He'd die for any of us here you know? Primarch of Palaven and a hero from the last war, recognized by billions, and still he'd take a bullet for you – some random kid he barely knows. Yet he'd do it because he believes you're a good person. He isn't trying to put you guys in danger here – believe me."

I pondered what Murgen told me. The Jaeger sped up his pace after that, taking position near Garrus and ending our conversation. Would he die for me? A person that he barely knew and a Spectre nonetheless – one who had ended their fair share of lives?

Garrus was a hero no doubt. He was also an excellent shot, a seasoned tactician, and a courageous kind of guy. But he sounded like he might also be a bad judge of character. Who in the galaxy would die to save me? Goddamn…who in their right mind would die to save Cade?

He was right, trusting people was hard. Maybe it was easier for those who hadn't grown up the way Elektra and I had. I couldn't count the number of times that her and I had been screwed over by someone. Such was the norm when you were an orphan living among other orphans in a world full of people who had been messed up by the war. There had been no one to take care of us. No one to put us first. Everyone we had met back then had used us for their own interests. It wasn't until I met Cade and Percival that I finally felt like I had found people who had my back.

I never knew how to properly react to people like Garrus and Murgen. Both were, by most standards, good and honorable men. Murgen in particular had been nothing but good to me. I just couldn't help but fear for the other shoe to drop. I guess if I had to learn to trust someone that wasn't Cade or Percival or Elektra it might as well be him.

It wasn't lost on any of us that our progress through the facility was eerily unimpeded. It was currently the primary source of tension aside from Garrus' secrecy over the contents of the facility.

"Damn it, I'm half-expecting a shitload of cyber-zombies to come running at us any moment now," Elektra shivered.

"I think that if the Project had compromised the facility with those creatures we would have encountered them by now."

"Don't put it past the Project," she countered. "Did I mention that they crashed a massive, friggin' transport filled with them into the spaceport we were holed up in?"

I had to admit that that had been a stroke of tactical brilliance from the Project. We had been prepared almost entirely for a ground assault from the things. From what Cade and Percival had told me, the transport had torn straight through our perimeter, leaving us vulnerable to an assault from a wave of those things from the city. Meanwhile, it had disgorged its own murderous contents into the spaceport itself.

I was just as uneasy as her, but it wouldn't help her to know that. "You might have. Stay on your toes, we'll be alright."

Elektra muttered a few other choice comments and pressed the stock of her N7 Hurricane harder into her shoulder. Percival and Cade were still trailing obediently after Garrus and Murgen. My two friends were certainly as uneasy as I was given the strange circumstances, but they were more willing to place their faith in our two impromptu leaders for now.

Close to what I figured to be the rear of the facility we came upon an elevator its doors blown out. I peaked out over the edge. It looked like it was a straight three-hundred foot drop down a near-pitch black elevator shaft. There was however some light at the bottom.

Garrus glanced up and down the shaft and then turned to us. "We go down in ten meter intervals. Murgen and I will go first."

"Roger that. The order will be Me, Cade, Elektra, with Percival bringing up the rear," I replied. My friends nodded in agreement.

Without a moment's hesitation Garrus leapt into the shaft, grabbed hold of one of the thick elevator cables that ran down the middle, and began to slide down. Murgen followed a few seconds later. The old timers were certainly spryer than I gave them credit for.

I went down next. The light at the bottom of the shaft turned out to be coming from a hallway that the elevator opened up into.

The carnage that greeted me was a stark contrast the lack of damage that we had seen above. The hallway looked like a security checkpoint. A one-way mirror spanned one entire wall and there were decontamination vents in the ceiling and. Notably a dozen Project troopers lay dead inside the hallway. Percival toed the nearest body. Most of them looked like they were former Systems Alliance marines from the 9th fleet, but there were a few salarians in the mix.

Garrus and Murgen ignored them. Instead they both passed through another set of ruptured doors at the other end of the hallway. I quickly followed after them.

We passed into a large room with several broken doors leading elsewhere that may have been a nice, open-concept office once upon a time. Now it was a mess. bullet holes covered every inch of the room. Broken display panels flickered and sputtered dimly from their place upon the walls, every desk and filing cabinet in the place looked as if they had been turned over for cover, and papers lay scattered everywhere.

The battlefield was filled with dead Project troopers. There were at least fifty of them if not more. Many of them were just… god, they had been annihilated. Half of them had what looked like biotic burns and large slash wounds. There were bisected bodies and severed limbs everywhere. I had never seen those kinds of wounds before, and it didn't look like anything those creatures were capable of. Some even had gaping holes in their chests. The smell of burnt flesh and spilled blood filled my nostrils and threatened to overwhelm my senses.

A single figure was standing in the center of the bloody carnage. It was a woman with a kinetic barrier unit attached to her waist wearing civilian clothing. She had a Predator pistol in her hand levelled at my chest. Lying at her feet were several turians wearing the same black commando armor that we had seen in Anhur, back in the bank. One of them however was wearing gray armor. He had the Spectre insignia stenciled on his pauldron.

I instantly grew furious and raised my own pistol at her. "What did you do to him!?" I shouted at her.

The woman cooly ignored me and instead turned to Garrus. "Garrus, this one's still alive," she said, pointing at the turian in gray. "He needs immediate medical attention. Now!"

Garrus nodded and turned to Murgen. "Elias, go!"

Murgen rushed over to the turian and pulled out a med-kit. Cade and the others came in next but stopped short, shocked at the destruction around them.

When Cade saw the gray body his mandibles immediately fell. "Corribus…"

"Who are you?" I asked the woman.

She didn't reply. Instead she turned to say a few things to Murgen that I couldn't hear. The Jaeger injected Corribus with a localized coagulant and began applying medigel.

Frustrated, I walked over and grabbed the woman by the shoulder. The instant my fingers touched her I felt the barrel of her Predator pistol pressed up beneath my chin. I did the same to her.

Instead of withdrawing she pressed closer, unafraid. The woman was tall, maybe only four or five inches shorter than I was. Her emerald-green eyes were cool and filled with irritation. They clashed sharply with her hair – a brilliant crimson streaked with a few gray hairs here and there. She looked to be about Murgen's age. Early or mid-fifties, but still fit and looked as tough as nails.

"Don't touch me," the woman said flatly.

Blue flames began to sizzle and dance between the fingers in her right hand. She was a biotic.

That was a good sign. Anyone wanting to actually do some damage wouldn't tip their hand like that unless they were real stupid. She was doing it to scare me off.

I refrained from making a similar display. I wanted it to be a surprise if things went south.

"Don't ignore me then," I whispered coldly.

The woman narrowed her eyes at me and dug the barrel of her pistol deeper into my chin. "Let go. A kid like you should know better than to make a lady ask twice."

I released her, not because I was scared but because I clearly had her attention now. "And a geriatric like you shouldn't be wearing that much eyeliner, so I guess we're both not very good at following the rules."

It wasn't a great comeback but for some reason she hesitated after that. Her eyes left mine, drifted across my face, and then went back to my eyes. Her brows contracted and her eyes had this far-away look in them, as if she was trying to remember something.

Before I could ponder her reaction I heard the tell-tale crackle of a deactivated tactical cloak as another figure suddenly appeared to my left a few feet away. She pointed a pistol directly at my head as well. "Drop the weapon, unless you want me to ruin that pretty little face of yours."

Her actions and her command didn't really match up to the tone of her voice, which was a shade too cheerful given the situation we were now in. Cade, Percival and Elektra immediately all aimed their weapons at her.

"You first, bitch," Elektra growled.

The other woman cocked her head at my friend, her eyes glimmering with amusement. She looked at Elektra as if she was a petulant child, and then produced a grenade in her other hand. She was smiling underneath her black cowl. "That's not very polite of you."

Garrus finally intervened. The turian stepped between the cowled figure and Elektra with his hands raised. "Kasumi, that's enough! Shepard, they're okay!"

The four of us immediately looked at the red-haired woman.

What did he say?

Cade was the first to regain his composure. "Did you say 'Shepard'?"

Garrus gave a nod. Shepard removed her pistol from beneath my chin and re-holstered it.

"The Shepard?"

"In the flesh," Shepard sighed.

My hand shook a bit as I lowered my weapon as well and holstered it. My friends all did the same, as did the woman Garrus had called Kasumi.

I took a better look at the woman who just seconds ago had a pistol pressed to my chin. That was Commander Shepard? Hero of the Reaper War? Rumor was that she had died. No one had seen her in more than twenty years.

A weak gurgle tore all of us out of our states of shock. Cade, Percival and I immediately rushed over to Corribus.

"What the hell happened to him?" I demanded.

Corribus was in a really bad shape. He had four chest wounds tinged green that looked like they had come from heavy-caliber polonium rounds — the standard ammunition of choice for the turian commandos serving in the Project and the same rounds that Elektra had been hit with on Anhur.

Shepard shook her head. "He came in from behind them out of nowhere. It was some white turian with red eyes and black armor. Fast as hell. Your friend fought bravely, but he was no match. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him."

Cade knelt down and grabbed Corribus' hand. "It was that Severus!" he spat angrily. "Hang in there Cor!"

Percival took a knee as well and examined the wounds. "We need to get him to the Excalibur's medical suite, it's his only chance. Is there anything we can use as a stretcher to get him up the elevator?"

A tremor of pain ran through my heart when I saw the expression on Percival's face. Murgen gave my friend a sad look.

"It's his only chance!" Percival repeated desperately, but the veteran Jaeger shook his head.

Elektra and I knelt down as well and we each wrapped an arm around my friend. Elektra was distraught as well. Though she had not known Corribus as well as we had, she recognized the wounds. This could have easily been her.

Shepard placed a hand on Murgen's shoulder. "Elias…" she whispered.

Murgen looked at her, then at Corribus, and then nodded. He produced two syringes and injected Corribus with them.

The Spectre stopped let out a sigh as the morphine flooded through his system. He then beckoned weakly for Cade to get closer.

My friend leaned over. Corribus whispered a few things that I could not hear. "I will Cor, I will. Rest easy, you don't need to worry about them," Cade promised.

Corribus' mandibles fluttered and he let out a smile. Then he was gone.

Percival abruptly rose, stomped over to the nearest dead commando and gave the body a hard kick. He raised his Avenger and fired a burst into the body beside it.

"Percival!" Elektra yelled. She rose and went to comfort my friend. The outburst was uncharacteristic. I'd seen Percival angry before, but I'd never seen him go so far as to disrespect a corpse. Percival was usually the rock of our little trio – always the sure and steady hand, ready to reel Cade and I in whenever we let our emotions get the best of us and we acted up. It never occurred to me that the mission might have been getting to him as much as it had gotten to me. I suppose mountains can be worn down as well. Elektra spoke a few words to him and Percival seemed to calm down.

Cade and I shared a wordless look. He didn't have to say it. I knew what Corribus had asked of him in his final moments.

Garrus, Kasumi, Murgen and Shepard all just watched silently as we worked through the death of our friend. There was nothing but sympathy in their gazes.

I took a deep breath, and then pushed Corribus out of my mind. I turned to Shepard. "Do you know what were they here for?"

Shepard didn't answer. Instead she looked at Garrus. "It's okay," Garrus replied. "They're the ones I told you about, the ones the Council tasked with stopping the Project."

"You're working for the Council?" Shepard asked. On its surface it seemed like a normal follow-up question, but the way she said it was odd. It sounded judgmental, and her tone was edged with just a hint of contempt.

I wasn't in the mood for any attitude, not after having just lost a friend. "I'll work for Aria T'loak if it meant stopping these guys," I said icily. What the hell did it matter to her if we did? "But yes. We're all Spectres."

Strangely that seemed to appease her. Clearly she wasn't a fan of the Council, even though if my memory serves me Shepard was also once a Spectre herself.

Shepard nodded. "I sent someone from my team to check the rest of the facility. She should be back momentarily, and she should know what they took."

"Great."

I got up and walked over to Percival and Elektra as Cade began to scrub Corribus' omni-tool and search his body for any sensitive and personal items. "Hey, check these bodies you two. Standard sweep – omni-tool, datapads, physicals… anything that might tell us where they're headed next," I ordered.

"No need, I know where they're headed," a new voice interjected.

A third woman walked into the room from one of the broken doors. She had long, black hair and she was wearing a form-fitting black and white catsuit. All of us recognized her immediately. It was Miranda Lawson - the woman from the video that Olivia had given me.

"What did they take, Miranda?" Shepard asked.

"Those bloody idiots grabbed the IFF," Miranda hissed in frustration.

Shepard cursed. "Then that means they're headed to Erebus."

I looked at both of the women. "Erebus? Where's that?"

The four of them looked at me again, and then the three of them all looked towards Shepard without answering my question. Maybe this was the pot calling the kettle black, but their co-dependency stopped being cute after the first four or five times. I was getting frustrated.

Shepard let out a tired sigh, picked up a couple of bullet-ridden chairs and set them on the bloody ground.

"Take a seat. We have a lot to talk about."

March 31st, 2211, 1543 hours – Apien Crest, Legatia System, Planet Latibulum

Facility 108 – Codename "Haven"

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

"Twenty-five years ago, the Reaper war ended," Shepard began.

The four of us were arranged in a semi-circle, facing Shepard and her four friends. Three of them except for Murgen as I understand it had been part of the crew of the Normandy, and had flown with Shepard at one time or another. All of them had been on Earth during that final battle. It was unsettling, to see such legendary figures in the flesh.

To be honest, I didn't know much about them other than that they had been these larger-than-life heroes that everyone in the galaxy all owed their continued existence to them. I had never gone to school and I wasn't a big movie-guy, so I never watched any of the film adaptations that had come out about their lives. Hell, I barely knew what they had really looked like prior to today. I didn't even know Kasumi had existed.

"While everyone else was celebrating, my crew and I… we knew our job was far from finished. The Reapers were an enemy we hadn't had the time to fully understand."

"We were too busy trying not to die," Kasumi chimed in.

"Quite literally the day after Shepard woke up after the battle at Earth, we were back in the game, dealing with the aftermath of the war," Garrus added.

Shepard nodded in agreement. "Anyways, when I destroyed them a lot of their technology was left behind. I was afraid of what hidden dangers might still be found in their artifacts and in their bodies. So, Miranda and I established Project Watchdog to study and police Reaper tech. We were looking for anything that might be dangerous. Anything that might be active. We had a hunch that the Phenomenon on Earth was somehow related to the Reapers and we were afraid that it might be the first of these new hidden dangers."

"One of the artifacts we were investigating was the Omega-4 relay in Sahrabarik system. Turns out, it wasn't just a primary relay like we originally thought, but a secondary relay. We had captured an IFF Reaper tag during the war, and so I led an expedition through it."

That was big. A new secondary mass relay? And one that could jump from Sahrabarik to a place as far as the galactic core no less? It was unprecedented.

"And where did it lead to? What did you find?" I asked.

"We found a system with one habitable planet on it – or should I say, formerly inhabited."

"We found a world that had fallen to the Reapers ages ago," Miranda jumped in to explain. "It was a dead world – heavy climate change from Reaper bombardments. Nothing but ruins and old Reaper husks."

"Yes," Shepard nodded. "It was the world on which we found the Reaper cores containing Cris'paii DNA. Project Transcendence was established under Dr. Alice Anders to study them. Once we realized the dangers that the DNA posed, I tried to seal the system away. I destroyed all evidence of its existence and had the relay declared off limits."

All of this lined up with what Astrid had told me, so at least Shepard wasn't lying to us right off the rip, but that shoe could drop at any time. I was about to say something when all of a sudden I felt a sharp pain lance through my head. My words became a gasp. My right hand flew to the side of my head.

"Cloud, you okay?" Elektra asked.

I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. The instant I did, I began to see my mother's face and I was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of longing.

Go, a familiar voice said in the back of my brain. Go there. Find her.

Fuck you, I said in my own head. Who the hell did this dead alien girl think she was?

I took a moment to collect myself and to force down my feelings. This new development wasn't good. Shit, I'd have to speak to Jaelen again and get another biopsy done.

"Sorry, just a migraine," I said. My friends seemed to buy that. "And do you know why they might be headed back there?"

"No clue," Shepard answered. "Honestly, I have no idea what they might be going back there for, but to be frank we didn't search the entire planet. It's possible that Alice discovered the existence of something else on that planet and is going back for it."

I rubbed my chin and looked Shepard carefully in the eyes. Her gaze was steady and she met my gaze without flinching. She might have been rude, cranky, and a bit jumpy but she didn't strike me as the deceitful type. In fact, if I had to bet I'd bet that she was terrible at lying.

"So they're headed to the Omega Nebula then," I said.

"Yes. The most direct path would take them three jumps and a few days. If they need to go around, it could take them two weeks."

"We crippled the Exeter pretty badly on our way in. I'm no expert, but I'll bet it'll take them at least a week to be battle-ready."

"And they won't take the most direct path," Garrus added. "I have battlegroups at the Serpent Nebula and Eagle Nebula Relay."

I crunched the numbers in my head, trying my best to recall the galaxy map. "So they're likely looking at anywhere from six to ten jumps then. We have plenty of time to get to Sahrabarik."

Cade raised a hand like we were in pre-school or something. "What are we going to do once we get there though? Sahrabarik's the heart of the Terminus Systems. By now word has likely reached them of the renegade fleet. They'll be more than happy to let them go by simply to spite the Council, but if they see even a single battlegroup flying Council colors they're going to shoot them on sight."

We all fell silent. He had a good point. Even if we could get there first, we wouldn't have the power to stop them from taking the relay. In all likelihood, the Project was going to bring the Ninth to Sahrabarik and they were probably going to be expecting us. The Excalibur barely had a chance against the Exeter in an ambush. In a straight-up fight, she'd tear us to shreds in seconds. With a whole fleet we'd be a lit match in a rainstorm."

"Revak's ships aren't going to be enough to stop the Ninth," Percival mused. "Do you guys think Aria would let us bring a fleet into Sahrabarik? Or help us stop the Project?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow and turned to Percival. "Your friend mentioned Aria T'Loak before — Do you know Aria? Is she still around?"

"Aria T'loak, the Pirate Queen of Omega? Yeah, she's still around Commander," Percival replied. "Still has her fist wrapped right around it. The Spectres don't have anyone in her network though, so we don't have any reliable intel on what she's been up to."

"I see," the Commander nodded. "Well, she won't help if any of you guys were to simply ask her. Me, maybe. I know Aria. She won't help you for free. You'll need to sweeten the pot."

"So what do we do?" Elektra asked.

My team all looked at me. I didn't return the look. Instead, I looked over at the tarp-covered body placed gently off to the side of the room. Just another victim of the Project in a long line of victims. I thought about Corribus' kids, waiting at home for a father who would never return. I thought about John and Nat and all the parentless children I'd seen back on Anhur. Their lives had been destroyed by the Project.

The odds were against us, but giving up was not an option. It never had been and it certainly wasn't going to be one now.

I stood up. "We're going to play this by ear," I said confidently. I gave them a little shrug as well. "We'll go to Sahrabarik first and meet with Aria. We find out what the price of her assistance is and see if we can pay it. If we can't then we'll bring a fleet. Garrus, can we count on your assistance?"

"Yes," the Primarch said without hesistation.

Whatever my earlier thoughts of Garrus had been, I was now thoroughly impressed at Garrus' mettle. He'd likely pissed off a lot of people when he brought a fleet to Anhur at Cade's request and yet he had done it anyways to save us and the planet. He had risked the lives of his turians and had risked a war with the Terminus Systems. Now he was willing to do it again, except this time a war was certainly going to happen. If it did, he'd have a lot of angry people looking to put one in him for the rest of his days. At the very least, he risked being impeached by the Heirarchy.

He knew all of that of course. I was grateful for his courage and his support. I suppose that was the kind of stuff real heroes were made of.

"Good. Thank you, Primarch. Truly."

"Don't worry about it," Garrus said with an airy wave. "Shepard has been asking me to retire early for years. Now I'll have a reason to. I can see it now, 'Primarch Vakarian forced to abdicate after igniting a war in the Terminus Systems'. Brings a tear to my eye. Al-Jilani would love that."

Percival grabbed me by arm. "Cloud, Anhur was one thing, but if a turian fleet shows up again in the Terminus Systems – and at their capital no less – war is definitely going to break out."

"Then let it," I told him. I looked my friend dead in the eyes. "We thought they'd go to war with us over Anhur but they didn't. If the Terminus wants to start a war over something as stupid as a few of our ships in their backyard, let them. Once I've dealt with the Project I'll deal with them too."

"Hell yeah," Cade agreed.

"But hopefully it won't come to that. Hopefully Aria will give us the help we need."

"We have no idea if she will and even less of an idea as to what she'll ask for it. It might be more than you are willing to pay. Are you prepared for that?"

"We don't have a choice, Perc. If they manage to get into the relay then its game over. We won't be able to follow them."

"Your friend's right," Shepard said. "Our best bet is to stop them before they can even get to Erebus."

The four of us looked at Shepard. Did she say 'our'?

The logical part of my brain knew that the odds were stacked clearly against us, and yet I couldn't help but feel a bit eager. Invigorated even. I looked forward to when we'd cross paths with the Project again. We had a serious score to settle with them.

Besides, we had the legendary Commander Shepard now. For her, fighting the Project was going to be just another Tuesday. She could do anything.

I was about to get up and leave when I caught the sound of uneven footsteps coming down a nearby corridor. The hairs rose on the back of my neck and I immediately trained my pistol at the sound. My three friends did the same.

Another middle-aged male hobbled through a shattered doorway, wearing khaki shorts and a baggy sleeveless button-up with little palm trees on it. He had a cane in one hand and leg braces on both legs.

He wasn't the least bit phased at the sight of four Spectres with guns trained on him, but he didn't seem like a threat, so I lowered my weapon. "I was getting real tired of waiting around in that closet, Shepard, I thought you were going to come get me," the man grumbled.

He halted when he got in the room and surveyed the bloody carnage with an expression that told me that this was nothing he hadn't already seen before. "Christ, Shepard, you really did a number on these guys – and in the middle of summer too. Well, the freezer's full and I'm not picking up a shovel. We're going to need a few dozen air fresheners down here."

April 1st, 2211, 2332 hours – En-Route to Sahrabarik System

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

SSV Excalibur, Deck 2, Officer's Lounge

(Spectre Operative 10082181-Elektra)

Tendrils of acrid smoke rose from a humongous cigar hanging from the edge of Garm's wide mouth, smelling like dead leaves and wet dirt. It was three times as wide and twice as long as any human-made cigar and its stench managed to completely overpowered the two-dozen open cocktail bottles lying around the room and on their poker table.

The krogan's good eye flicked back and forth between Elektra and Teewin. Garm's face was an undecipherable mask as always. She wasn't too worried about Teewin who would play just about anything. Garm on the other hand was a bit of a harder read, but ultimately it wouldn't matter. The odds were simply too far on her side on this one.

"Alright, flip them." Camilla ordered.

The gunnery chief laid out his hand. "Two pair, tens and sevens."

That was one down, but that had always been a sure thing given her hand.

"Flush, clubs," Garm growled with a toothy smile. Not bad. If Elektra had been him she would have probably tried to bluff more out of the table.

She loved it when she beat the krogan. "Full house, aces and fives," Elektra said with an even bigger smile.

Teewin groaned and buried his head in his hands. Garm let out a frustrated howl and immediately raised a meaty fist high into the air over the poker table.

Before he could bring it down, Elektra pointed an angry finger him. "Hey! Don't you dare!"

"Dad, please!" Camilla pleaded.

Accer flicked a potato chip at the krogan. "Yeah Garm, geez! Didn't you learn from last time?"

The krogan looked around at the room full of angry glances. He let out a grumble and instead dropped his hand into the potato-chip bowl lying next to him. Garm fished out maybe thirty or forty chips, tossed them all into his mouth in one go and began to chew loudly.

Rayla grabbed the nearest cocktail bottle and then chugged the rest of it. "By the Goddess, you'll wake half the crew like that. Gal, can you hand me that bottle?"

Galen rolled an unopened bottle across the table. Rayla flashed him a smile.

"Bite me," Garm growled.

Camilla collected the cards and began to shuffle them again.

Accer sipped from his own bottle and gave a happy sigh. "You know, it's nice to finally be able to play some poker with all of the trimmings," he gestured at the food and drinks around them. When they had all played on Anhur they'd had nothing but water, protein bars, and a few candy bars that some of them had looted from vending machines.

Camilla began to flip cards out once more to each of the six players. Rayla took a split-second look and immediately tossed a few chips into the pot. "If you boys want a real poker game you should come to Illium with me. I know a little place that'll serve you thousand-credit sushi and saké from an Ardat-Yakshi monastery. The saké is made out of fermented rice that they chew up and spit out into these little gourds."

"I'll take your word that that's a good thing," Teewin said with a shudder. He frowned and then matched Rayla's bet. Elektra followed suit. "And no sushi is worth a thousand credits."

"We'll have to disagree on that one, buddy," Accer shook his head. "And what exactly is the buy-in at this table Ray? Do pray tell."

"A hundred thousand credits," she said with a grin. "But that's easy to come up with on Illium if you've got a gun, good aim, and half a brain. There are so many gangs there that are flushed with credits and are always targeting one another. You show up masked, hit one of their shipments, drop some hints that you're from a rival gang and boom. There's your buy-in."

"So you'd lead your thousand-credit sushi and asari spit-wine with a few felonies that may or may not involve murder? Nice."

The asari commando just chuckled. Accer folded pre-flop but Galen raised it three-fold. Garm and Teewin both groaned and looked angrily over at the turian.

"I'm going to rip your scales off one at a time, plateling," Garm threatened from beside him. The battlemaster must have had over two hundred pounds on the turian but Galen was unfazed. He simply stared into Garm's eyes without blinking or saying a word. Electra loved it. That move had kind of become the shy, young turian's calling card of late. Weaponized social anxiety at its finest.

The krogan buckled first and tossed his cards angrily into the pile. Everyone else followed suit, making Galen Verus the chip-leader once again. Galen had won the last two games they had played. He was the best better and the best bluffer among the group, and somehow every time someone got it in their heads to take him on he came out on top. It couldn't possibly have been all luck either, so the kid was also an expert at baiting a fight when he had the upper hand.

Camilla collected the cards once more and began to shuffle. "So El, where's Cloud?" Teewin asked.

Elektra took a sip from her own bottle of alcohol. She watched in morbid fascination as Rayla downed yet another bottle. That was her fourth for the night. Were asari particularly good at metabolizing alcohol?

"I think he's asleep already. He's still recovering from the beating he took from Locke. The gash on his thigh's mostly healed, but he needs a bit more time for his shoulder and ribs."

"He's also been acting a bit differently since he got back from Anhur," Rayla pointed out. "Your friend has two modes. He's either glacially cool or he's mad and has a pistol or a knife in his hand. Usually that's a ninety-ten split. Nowadays it's looking more like fifty-fifty."

Actually, he was pretty much always angry or upset at one thing or another. Cloud was just more 'cold-angry' than he was 'hot-angry'. He was also very bad at expressing his feelings, but Elektra couldn't very well tell that to his crew.

"He's been stressed I think," Accer said with a sigh. "I mean, think about it. Cade comes back with him all bloodied up not two days ago with a dead Project scientist in tow. No one knows exactly what happened down in that prison other than the fact that he was the only survivor. And to top it off, Cloud comes back with this insane-sounding story about how the Project is cranking these creatures out so they can learn how to resurrect the dead. If I were him I'd be off the rails."

Everyone at the table nodded in agreement and they all sat silently for a moment. The poker game had caused them all to temporarily forget the higher-stakes game they were currently playing, but the lieutenant's words had brought that burden back into the forefront of their minds.

"So, Cam," Teewin continued. "What are Cade and Percival doing right now?"

Everyone let out a collective sigh, grasping gratefully at the out that the Jaeger had presented them. "Well after Cade and I had a small birthday dinner the two of them went off together. I think they are hanging out right now, watching some vids and probably toasting a few too many to their fallen friend," Camilla replied.

Elektra shook her head at the engineer. "You deserve better Cam. Cade's pretty, but he's got the same amount of brain cells as he has fingers. I'm also pretty sure it can't be fun sharing your boyfriend. I bet if we walked in on those two right now they're spooning one another. I caught them in that position like half a dozen times on Anhur."

"Percival's the least of my worries. Earlier I caught Cloud helping Cade pull up his pants because Cade was holding two soda cans." Everyone grimaced at the mental image and it became yet another memory added to the large catalogue of weird, co-dependent behavior that they had all witnessed between the two."

"Cade really does have an interesting relationship with his friends. He's very close to them. Doesn't keep a lot of boundaries," Rayla observed.

"Cloud would never make a move on your boyfriend, he's too honourable. Too noble," Garm interjected empathetically with a shake of his massive head. Camilla rolled her eyes. Garm was always ready to step in to defend her friend ever since they had fought in the Serenity, after the krogan had mistaken him for Cade. In typical male fashion that had won him some major brownie points.

Accer rubbed his temples. "All three of them are bad!" the biotic moaned. "Did you see that halloween picture of them that's been making its way around the ship? The one with Percival as Santa Claus, Cloud as the presents, and Cade as the sack?"

There was a chorus of groans in the affirmative. "I've also seen the one where they went as a tricycle," Camilla replied. The engineer squeezed her eyes shut and stuck out her tongue. "It's not funny to anyone but them."

"Oh god," Accer shuddered. "I have nightmares about being put in a fireteam with those three. Hasn't happened yet, but still."

Elektra laughed. "Tell me about it. It's not as bad in a fight, but it's still pretty bad."

"When you went into the facility down on Latibulum with them we all said a prayer for you."

"Speaking of Latibulum - where's Shepard right now?" Teewin asked.

The table immediately perked up. Everyone was keen on hearing about their meeting with the legendary Commander Shepard.

"She's on the Archangel's Wrath with the Primarch and the rest of her pals right now," Elektra told them. "She asked us all to fly up there tomorrow. Said she's getting something special set up for us."

"I can't believe we're going to meet the Commander Shepard!" Accer gushed happily. "Man, I've read every single book ever written about her! Did you know she lost her whole unit on Akuze and single-handedly held off a horde of pirates, slavers, and batarian warlords during the Skyllian Blitz on Elysium? Badass!"

"She's a biotic as well. Rumor has it that when Cerberus brought her back in eighty-five they made her as strong as an asari matriarch," Rayla added.

Camilla dealt a new hand. Teewin glanced at his cards and checked. Everyone else followed suit.

"I wonder what happened to her all those years ago," the heavy gunner grunted as he twirled his two cards round and round. "I remember seeing her in some old press conferences back then when I was a kid. I was maybe seven or eight. One day she was there and the next – poof. Gone."

The flop came out and it wasn't looking good for Elektra. Evidently she had used up all her luck. "I always thought that she had been assassinated by Cerberus remnants and that the Systems Alliance had covered up her death," Accer voiced.

"You think a bunch of Cerberus remnants could have offed Shepard?" Teewin scoffed at the biotic. "She literally mowed through hundreds of them during the war. Thousands even."

"Maybe, but I mean she never turned up again. Every year that went by without her turning up again made it more and more likely that she was actually dead. Even after she was supposedly killed over Alchera, she still turned up not two years later in Omega."

"You met her Elle, what is she like?" Galen asked quietly.

The whole table suddenly looked at Elektra. It was strange. Old her would have loved the attention and would have fed only bits and pieces to them to keep them all on her line. New her found the barrage of glares taxing. Besides, these were people that she now considered her friends. For the longest time she had believed that Cloud would be the only friend she ever had. Now she had a table full of them.

"Honestly? Kind of cold and a bit of a bitch. Like not five seconds after we met her she had a gun barrel jammed under Cloud's chin," she replied.

The table all looked at one another, taken back by her less-than-flattering anecdote.

"That seems a bit out of character since she sounded like such a paragon of virtue during the war," Accer said while rubbing his chin. "Like during her hunt for Saren, she managed to subdue every Thorian-controlled colonist on Feros. No casualties. When Sovereign attacked the Citadel she sacrificed dozens of our ships to save the Council even though they had treated humanity like garbage up to that point."

"During the war she undid the Genophage and saved the Rachni," Teewin added. "Not sure if I would have done the same even if I had a fleet of Reapers breathing down my neck. Have you seen the Rachni? All their tentacles? Freaks me the shit out," the gunner shuddered.

"Well, she did punch out Al-jilani though. I must have watched that old video clip like a hundred times."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that."

The lieutenant turned to Rayla. "Hey Rayla, you were there at the battle of Earth. Did you ever fight with Shepard? Did you see her?"

"No," the commando replied with a shake of her head. "I was in a different battalion than she was. We were decimated right out the gate. Barely made it three hundred meters from the staging ground before we were finished."

"That sounds tough," Accer nodded. "Garm? How about you, big guy?"

The old krogan huffed and set his cards down gently on the table, his good eye darting back and forth as he began to call up old, painful memories. When Garm spoke, his voice was soft and devoid of the usual, gruff shortness that Elektra had come to associate with him. Now there was only respect.

"I saw her just once, during the final push to the Citadel. The Reapers had brought the Citadel groundside. There was only way up. A single gravity beam guarded by a Reaper capital ship. The only way to get to it was a suicide run through three hundred meters of open ground. The Reaper had you dead in their sights the entire time."

Garm looked up and sighed. "I never thought we could win the war…" he said, his voice heavy with remembered pain. "The Reapers… you should have seen them. Weapons that could wipe out an entire company in seconds. Legions of twisted, metal monstrosities crafted from the flesh of your fallen brethren – people you'd known, fought beside, grown up with…"

His eyes grew cloudy as he traversed the inner pathways of his own mind and found his way back to his memory of that fateful day. Camilla saw her father struggle with the pain of that memory and set a hand gently on his shoulder.

"I saw her just the one time. It was during that run," he continued. "When that Reaper beam hit the ground beside her and erased a file of men I thought that was it. I thought it was all over and that the Reapers had won.

Garm shook his head. "But there she was… running out of all that smoke and fire and ruined earth like she was Kina the Destroyer herself. And when the Reaper hit again – when I felt again the despair tearing through my heart there she was. Still standing. Still running."

Everyone listened with rapt attention. No one moved as much as a muscle as they listened to the old krogan speak. Solemn silence hung like a heavy curtain over the table and the group.

"When her squadmates were injured by a third beam, she went back for them. She gave up hard-earned ground to do so. She even called her ship down to pick them up and guarded them as they got out. Then, she ran alone."

A single tear rolled out of Garm's eye. "I'll never forget the moment I saw her rise up that beam of light. She looked like an angel, ascending up to the heavens and ready to battle the gods for the fate of our galaxy. It was at that moment – that moment right there – that I felt hope for the first time. That was the first time that I felt that we might actually win this war. That was the one and only time I ever saw her. Commander Jane Shepard."