A/N – Please read for important information

Hey loyal readers. Here is the latest update. I am very glad that so many of you seem to enjoy the movie reviews. I do take suggestions and I will continue adding them at random. I will also start including other species so if people have requests, send them through in the reviews.

THERE WILL BE TIMESKIPS. Sorry to puts that in caps. This chapter marks the first of the timeskip chapters. The timing for this chapter and the next (probably) two chapters are going to deal with events that are happening for the crew in the lead up to reaching the start of the games. I apologise in advance if I don't really put the proper times in these events but just know that they do happen sequentially, that is, in the order they are written. As I don't use a beta, there will likely be mostly minor mistakes or lack of clarification on the times for these events. Don't let that bother you because really, I am not letting it bother me. But just assume that this chapter begins about 4-5 months after the events of the last one.

Anyway, on with the story!

CHAPTER 24 - WOOF

The last few months had been hectic. We had finally moved our chief staff from the trusty Hidden Enterprise to the larger asari cruiser, which we had renamed Balrog. I have always thought that the demon from Lord of the Rings was badass, so naming the ship that was something I was happy to do. The new MAC cannon had been installed in what was once the massive cargo bay and we were now getting ready to field test it.

I had already delivered two of our new orbital defence platforms to the Vol Protectorate for placement around their home world. The systems were heavily encrypted and protected by law so that no one would be able to just steal the concept from us, but there is only so many legal ways to stop someone stealing technology here. I am mostly gambling that no one would think that using so much eezo for a single ODP would be a smart investment. Despite the ease which I had been ablet o find it, and the money that I had sitting in my accounts, eezo was still one of the most expensive commodities in the galaxy. I was using a lot of money on it that most businesses would not waste if they didn't have to. It was the nature of a business after all; keep the costs down and maximise profits at all available opportunities and avoid spending more money than you have to.

Luckily for me, I didn't really care about the profits.

Still, it was taking a large amount of our resources to do what I am doing with these ODPs. Now we need to see if the ship version was worth it.

We had travelled in the Balrog to an empty system nearly fifty light years from a relay. Standard Citadel traffic doesn't go any further than twenty from a Relay system and only the rarest of surveys go beyond thirty. Having a heavy cruiser sized starship with a cargo hold that is basically empty meant that we could take extra fuel with us and go further.

"System checks are all green," Nelathie called out from her weapons station. The asari was clearly nervous, wringing her hands as she looked intently at her display. "Charge is set at 100%. Minimum firing charge is 70%, just so you know."

"Thank you," I said. I already knew that part; she had said it no fewer than six times in the last hour.

"Everything looks good down here," Ely's voice said over the intercom. She was based down in the cargo bay looking over the physical structure of the MAC, controlling a dozen maintenance drones to take care of any issues.

"Roger that," I called out. "Aleria, is our target lined up?"

Said target was a large planet body that was completely devoid of life. No atmosphere, too far from the sun to sustain anything other than ice, it was a good enough target to use for this test. I had named it Bullseye for the purpose of this little trip.

"Roger," she said from her pilot's chair. "Ready to go whenever you are."

"Then let's do this," I said. "Fire on my mark. Three, two, one, fire!"

A soft rumble came from through the deck as the MAC fired, the three-hundred-ton projectile leaving the barrel at slightly faster than lightspeed. The time to reach the planet was less than ten seconds. I couldn't see it with my bare eye, but I could follow the trajectory on the display as it tracked towards the planet.

The collision was… intense. The planet had been nearly twice the size of Earth. Three hundred tons smashed into it… and through it. The planet's surface shattered.

I stared in awe at the damage that was imploding on itself in front of me. There was only one thing that came to mind that seemed appropriate.

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," I muttered into the silent bridge, everyone else around me speechless as they stared at the destruction still unfolding on the planet.

"We have confirmation that the MAC round has been completely destroyed in the collision with the planet," Nelathie called out. "Sensors also indicate that the planet's core has been penetrated and destabilised. It looks like the safety features on the projectiles worked this time."

The safety feature we had gone for was an internal plasma charge that would completely destroy the MAC round after a certain distance. If the MAC round impacted anything then the round would disintegrate a few seconds afterwards. It wasn't completely perfect, but it was better than having an out of control MAC round

"If we had that during the wars, then I am almost scared to think that we might have used it," Jurt said, his face very intense as he focussed on the dying planet on screen.

"Good thing that neither side had it then," I replied. "I am also glad that Nelathie was able to put in the safety switch to make sure that the MAC rounds won't go further than a star system before they self-destruct. Speaking of which, time to test that. Bring us about to the secondary firing position and take aim at the second target."

Aleria complied with the direction and moved us to a position at outer edge of the system and turned us about to target a planet at the far side of the system. It was a large ice giant, nearly the size of Jupiter. It was chosen so that if the MAC round failed to dissolve on its own, then at least there was a large planet in the way to stop the round going on indefinitely and possibly going on to cause an extinction-level collision on a garden world. The safety planet was on the far side of the system, nearly a light hour away from our current position. It would definitely be enough of a distance to test our safety device.

"Secondary target marked," Nelathie called out. "Checks are green, charge is at 95%."

"Sensors in the vicinity of the planet are responding and reporting on QEC channels," Hectar called out from his station. "If anything goes wrong, we should know before the projectile hits the planet."

"Good," I said. "Firing on my mark. Three, two, one, mark!"

A slight shudder through the deck as another round blitzed out of the MAC.

"Successful firing," Nelathie called out. ETA to round dissolving, thirty minutes. Time for round collision with planet, one hour."

We stood around for thirty minutes, talking casually. Finally, Hectar spoke up from his station. "We have confirmed loss of signal from sensor stations. Projectile appears to have broken up and is no longer visible on scopes. Just waiting for confirmation from the planet sensors."

That was very promising. Half an hour later we had our full confirmation.

"Sensors on and around the planet confirm that there were no further particles from the fired MAC round," Hectar declared. "Dissolution was complete."

A small cheer echoed throughout the bridge. Nelathie looked ecstatic. I reached over and squeezed her shoulder.

"Well done," I congratulated her. "You have given us our best chance now against the reapers. I doubt any of them would be able to put up much of a fight against this weapon."

She grinned at me, looking like a massive weight had been taken off her shoulders. "Thanks so much, Boss," she exclaimed. "Thank you for believing in me."

"Think nothing of it," I replied. "You have earned every bit of the reward I am giving you."

She gaped at me for a moment before her grin returned with a vengeance.

"Now," I continued, turning back to Hectar, "let's make sure we have this right. Prepare to fire the next round for test three."

My much more enthusiastic crew got back to work.

.

The Citadel was the centre of all commercial interest in the galaxy. That was true no mater the species. It was a common belief that if any company wanted to test a product's viability, they would do it on the Citadel for maximum exposure to all species. From there, they would be able to determine likelihood of success per species, depending on their sales, which would then determine which species the company should focus expansion on so as to maximise sales.

Not that Wrex cared about any of this, as he walked through Bachjret Ward's commercial district. He was just killing time before his transport to Illium was due to leave in a few hours. He was not really looking for anything specific, but if he was going to go on long journeys, he would rather have something to do instead of just standing around doing nothing except polishing his gun and grumbling about how bad things were for the krogan.

"Gotta catch 'em all!"

An advertisement caught his eye, and ears, so he turned his head. It showed some weird looking creatures and… did that one just shoot lightning and dodge a living flamethrower?!

"Journey through the story mode, catch these Pokémon, train them for battle and fight your way to the top. This immersive and interactive game lets you make friends with these realistic VI creatures in this adventure-and-battle simulator game. Explore the world of Kanto, discover every type of Pokémon, trade with your friends, or build your team and battle your way through the Pokémon League and prove yourself to be a Pokémon battle master."

Now this looked like it might be an interesting way to kill a few hours.

With that in mind, Wrex made a beeline for the store.

"CHEERS!"

Everyone clinked glasses in the middle of the table, making only the smallest amount of spillage on the bar surface. I took a swig of my non-alcoholic juice and just enjoyed the ambiance of my happy crew as we celebrated. We had just had the launch of the Pokémon games to the general public only a few weeks ago and the response had been far better than even I had hoped. The sales among salarians, krogans and humans especially were fantastic. The turian market had been steady and the asari sales had been as projected. The advertising campaign had done its job and we had managed to be able to break nearly all records on opening day. It hadn't slowed down for the next two days and we had more made a profit of nearly four thousand percent already.

Our missions were still going strong as well. We had expanded our ground teams with full time trainers. We now had three ships fully retrofitted and flying with Shieldstar colours, with the new MAC cannons and shuttling around the Terminus systems, scouting around planets away from the relays, looking for planets, resources and doing clearances of small-time pirate and slaver bases. Two more ships were finished retrofitting and now were just needing crews. They were doing good work and any time they were able to free slaves that had been taken from small time warlords in the Terminus, they were taken to either Bekenstein or an asari world that had less attention paid to it, usually Cyone. They were doing good work under the field command of their ship captains, each of whom were extremely loyal to me, having been rescued by me and rehabilitated into regular citizens. Never underestimate the loyalty of the recently desperate.

I had given the game company ten million credits as a bonus for their staff and for a party. I had decided to go to a lesser known restaurant/bar on the Citadel and decided to have a small party with my core crew, who I had reunited for this celebration. Not that we really separated from each other for long, but Persei had been off the ship for a couple of weeks for negotiations with a few of our contacts with the elcor for heavy metals and with the salarians for getting a contracted line for the ultraviolet GUARDIAN weapons. With a bulk order we had really been looking for a discount, especially as we were going to be doing the installations ourselves. It turns out that I had really overpaid for the first few GUARDIANs and Persei was doing a great job threatening the company to provide the weapons at a cheaper price.

This was possible due to the expansion of our shipyards, which we had parked in very remote system, nearly a week away from the nearest relay. The system didn't have a name when we found it and the crew had just taken to calling it 'the Dock'. There were no living planets in the vicinity, literally the only thing was a single frozen rock orbiting a red dwarf. We had everything set up to be run by drones after everything was checked out at our public waystation in the Exodus Cluster. We had a large facility that I had bought and moved there where teams of technicians went over every single item and checked it for trackers as well as performed system tests and upgrades before being shipped out to the Dock for assembly and fitting, supervised by the twenty or so quarian pilgrims I had managed to rescue during the slave raids.

Beau had also come back with Octavio, both of whom had been training ground teams on our newer ships. Bolart had died on a mission against a batarian slaver in the Terminus two months ago. His was the first name engraved on our Wall of Remembrance, which I had had installed on the Balrog. It had shaken the crew up, him being the first death we had suffered in our missions. I had been lucky enough to not have planned that one, as I was dealing with some contract negotiations and Beau, Aleria and Persei had thought me being seen in public during the mission would be a good way to make it seem as if I was not involved.

Bolart had gone down in a blaze of glory though, holding off a batarian squad on his own as the slaves were loaded onto shuttles in a hot zone. He had been heavily wounded when the batarians received reinforcements and he had sacrificed himself to get everyone else out. Octavio had just given a sad smile and said that it was the best way that Bolart would have chosen to go. Two other names had joined his from the newer crews since then, both ground team casualties from other fights against mercs.

"Hey, none of those said thoughts, skipper," Aleria chirped from next to me. "If you aren't going to even get drunk about it, then just stay focussed on the positives. This is a celebration!"

I gave her a small smile. She had come a long way back from the depression she had suffered shortly after her dalliance with Carlos. I was happy to see her smiling properly again.

"You're right, you purple pixie," I said. "And just because I don't drink anymore, doesn't mean I can't have fun."

"No one said you couldn't," she countered with a smile. "But you had that same look on your face that you have every time you think about the people we lost from the ground teams. I know that they sure as anything wouldn't want you to be moping over them. Bolart would have smacked you as hard as Liserias does!"

I laughed in agreement. Bolart had always hated the idea of people being sad. "Well then, another round, specifically not in memory of the fallen."

The crew cheered as the bartender made another round with the drinks that people had called out. Aleria grinned and made her way over to Ely, sitting down and playfully taking over the straw for the quarian's drink to help her get it in the 'induction port'.

The seat was quickly taken by Torrin, who slid onto the stool. "Hey Brock," the young turian slurred slightly. "Sssoooo good to be allowed into these places now. I used to look into them from the vents and wish that I could be one of the people that eat here. Now look at me!" He waved his arms around slightly erratically. "I have more money than I ever dreamed of and can be a VIP a thousand times over in places even better than this."

I grinned at my seemingly drunk friend. "Sure thing buddy," I said. "But I think that you should probably cut out the alcohol for a little bit. I ain't going to carry you around if you pass out."

"Pfffft. I think I'm fine but you're probably right, like always," he grumbled.

"Besides," I grinned, "If you have a hangover, you just know that Beau is going to make you run it off in the morning."

"Damn straight," Beau said from my other side, where he was drinking a light beer.

Torrin's face dropped in horror. "Noooo! I'm stopping, I promise! Bartender, I need water!"

Beau and I laughed at the antics of our turian friend. Then, in the reflection of a metallic walls behind the bar, I saw someone enter the restaurant that I clearly recognised from my hours of playing Mass Effect 2.

Miranda Lawson had entered the building.

As casually as possible, I turned back to the bar and took a big swig of my juice, finishing it in one go, then reaching for a bottle of bourbon just in range. Without the pretence of pouring it in my glass, I took a massive mouthful. I swished it around in my mouth and let some of it dribble out the side. I really made sure that I stank of alcohol.

Beau looked at me in concern. "Don't think that having your first drink since I have met you is going to get you out of your hangover run either," he snarked.

I spat the entire mouthful out and laughed loudly. I threw my arm over his shoulder and pulled him close.

"Someone just entered the bar. Run the Martha routine," I said in a low voice, with a massive grin on my face.

I snorted and cackled, as if I was drunk and laughing at my own joke. I turned back to face forward and went to take a swig of my empty glass, only to act surprised when it was empty.

"Bartender, another!" I declared. "Same as before."

As the bartender shuffled over with a bottle of the juice I had before I turned to give a casual look around to my crew, scattered around the bar. This let me see Miranda Lawson coming towards me in all her glory. If anything, the games had short-changed her on her beauty. Her face was angelic. She had glossy raven black hair that flowed in gently waves down her back, a figure that was to die for, with gravity-defying boobs that were certainly more than a handful, long legs that were easily discernible in her tight-fitting pants. She was a walking dream.

For a fleeting moment, I wondered what Henry Lawson had in mind when he created a daughter like her.

I froze as I saw her. Showtime.

"Hey, hey!" I tapped Beau on the shoulder and whispered so loudly half the bar would hear me, including Miranda. "Check her out. She's gorgeous!"

Beau looked over his shoulder at the approaching woman and murmured his agreement, turning around to see her more clearly.

"And check out her rack!" I gave a slightly hysterical giggle. "You would need a snorkel to motorboat that!"

Beau snorted in laughter. I didn't miss Miranda's face tightening ever so slightly for a moment before smoothing out and she gave a gentle smile as she got closer.

I gave her my best drunken leer. "Well hello there, pretty lady," I slurred out. "What's a hot building like you doin' in a girl like this." I frowned as if I was trying to think about what I said before nodding like I was satisfied with it.

"Oh, I am just wanting to get out and have a good time," she said back, her Australian accent clearly coming through.

"Ooohh, you're from home!" I cheered.

"I'm not sure where home is but if you are asking if I am Australian then yes, I am," she said with a clearly fake smile.

"Well I'm… I think I could show you a good time," I turned up the lecherous leering as I very obviously looked her up and down. "I'm fvery rich." I slurred that one on purpose.

"Sounds good to me," she said, keeping that fake smile.

"Hey, hey!" I gestured to one of the booths along the wall. It was right behind the one that Jurt and Polisa were sitting in and was currently empty. Let's go sit over there. We can get…" I look at her boobs openly, "comfortable."

She gave a nod and I led her over to the booth. I gave an over the top bow and gestured for her to sit with her back towards Jurt and Polisa. "My lady," I said in an overly pompous tone, then giggled at myself.

She gave a giggle of her own and sat down in the seat I had indicated. "Oh my, a gentleman."

"Why thank you," I said in a snooty voice. "Now why don't we get to know each other." I moved around the booth until I was sitting opposite from her. My action clearly confusing her for a moment as I sat heavily in the booth then dropped the act. "Let's start with, who are you and who sent you," I finished in a completely sober voice and fixed her with a hard stare.

The sudden change in behaviour caught her off guard for a moment. "What?"

"Oh please," I scoffed. "No woman with an ounce of self-respect would have stayed within ten metres of me with that hammed up behaviour unless she was wanting something, either to steal or take advantage or to pass on a message. So who sent you? Microsoft? Sony? Elkoss Combine? Elanus? Kassa Fabrication? I doubt it would be Armax because they are hardcore turian. So who was it?"

I had to give it to her, for someone who was so clearly caught off-guard, she gathered herself very quickly. "My name is Miranda Lawson and I represent a group called Cerberus."

I immediately give a thoughtful frown and sit back slightly as if thinking hard for a long moment.

"Skunkworks," I said suddenly.

She blinked. "What?"

"Skunkworks are a small arms company that are registered under the umbrella company Cerberus," I said. "What is notable about them is that they have not yet put so much as a single pistol on the market, despite being registered for five years."

Her face tightened noticeably. "You are very well informed."

I gave a casual shrug. "I started a weapons company. If I didn't have at least some background on my competition then I wouldn't be doing a very good job. So, for the last time that I am willing to repeat myself," I hardened my tone, "what do you want?"

She stiffened and sat up a little taller. "As I said, I represent a group called Cerberus," she said, her tone now all business. "We are a pro-human group with the goal of promoting the equality of the human species to the galaxy. We have been working for quite some time to be able to ensure that humans everywhere are able to walk through the Citadel without the sneers of the turians or the condescension the Alliance faces from every government in the Citadel community."

I sat for a moment, just looking at her. "You still haven't told me what you want," I deadpanned.

She winced slightly and her face pinked in embarrassment. "We are reaching out to certain individuals who would be open to becoming involved with our organisation or would be open to providing funding to allow our organisation to accomplish our goals."

I looked at her with a flat expression. "So, not just a weapons company."

Her eye twitched ever so slightly, making me want to smile at her annoyance. Sometimes being a troll was actually quite fun.

"Weapons manufacturing is only an incredibly small part of what we do," she said though stiff lips. "The majority of our work is based in learning and acting in ways that would promote humanity to the galactic community through a variety of way, outside of Alliance jurisdiction."

"Odd," I said casually. "You would think that any organisation that was claiming to represent human interests would be acting with the human government to be able to maximise their potential and advertisement."

Miranda shook her head. "Unfortunately, the Alliance is more short-sighted than humanity needs to progress to the top of the galactic community, and they are hamstrung by agreements that were forced on them by alien governments. Cerberus is a non-government organisation which allows us to move without such restrictions."

I leaned back in my chair and stared at her without blinking for a long moment, just to see if she would fold. To her credit, she was able to stare right back at me without flinching.

"Miss Lawson," I said, changing my tone to make me sound more annoyed than I was, "all you have done is tell me who you claim to be. If you can't show me the decency of answering my question and telling me what you want, then we are done here." I made to stand up.

"Wait!" she not-quite-yelled. "I'm sorry, I was getting to it."

I gave her a hard look for a moment before sitting down in my chair. I made sure that I kept all signs of my amusement off my face. I was having too much fun leading her around by the nose.

"Thank you," she said sincerely. "What Cerberus is hoping is that you would be willing to partner with us and possibly provide financial aid, in the unlikely event that we would require it. We are aware of your actions in the Terminus and batarian space and believe that you and your… crew, would be a great ally and potential resource for Cerberus."

I had to admit, she was good at trying to find the best way to put lipstick on a pig. But at the end of the day, the pig is still a pig.

"So, to summarise your pitch," I begin with a drawl, "you work for a human supremacy group who are currently working outside the law and committing crimes to be able to support your agenda. Now you want to either blackmail me with knowledge of my so-called actions in orders to convince me to either give you money and maybe perform missions for you, or just hold my actions over my head so that you can get favours out of me for as long as possible. Evidence of my shameful misdeeds that would be useful to hold against me and convince me to toe the party line. Did I get that right?"

Miranda blinked. "That's not what I said, Mr Nielson," she objected.

"No but that's what it comes down to," I countered calmly. "You let me know that you want humanity to be able to be on top, you told me that Cerberus works outside the law, you told me that Cerberus claims to be aware of some alleged actions that people have committed in the Terminus and batarian space and hoped to pin on me in the hopes that I will be more amenable to giving you the money or whatever support you need of me at whatever time you ask." I sat back in my chair comfortably and gave her a slight smirk. "You can pretty it up with as many words as your fancy private school education can think of but that doesn't change what the goal is."

Her lips tightened and her eyes flashed angrily. A few wisps of blue biotic energy were let loose as she tried to rein in her anger before I saw Jurt turn in his chair and put his pistol to the back of her head, freezing the Cerberus agent.

"You might want to think about calming down," Jurt rumbled.

The wisps of biotic energy faded away and I gave her a curious look.

"Interesting," I said. "Clearly not an L2 implant. I haven't seen any of the tell-tale signs that they give off, but the L3 wouldn't allow any leakage like that unless it was completely deliberate, it doesn't allow the user to draw enough biotic energy subconsciously. Another privately funded device? Cerberus tech?"

Miranda visibly pulled herself together. "Cerberus does have access to revolutionary technologies that don't find their way to the market."

I snorted. "You'll have to do better than that," I said. "I've bandied words with the asari councillor and the queen of Omega. Answering a question by not answering a question as a misdirection is just sad. Just put your big girl panties on and say you don't want to tell me."

I took no small amount of pride in the twitch I saw in Miranda's left eyebrow and the tension in her hands that lay folded on the table. She opened her mouth to respond.

"Of course," I interrupted, "not telling me also tells me far more than most people would believe. It tells me that you got them from someone you don't want to talk about, which would suggest either it is top secret or you are ashamed, disgusted or hold a hatred towards the person you gave them to you."

Her face twitched again. I leaned forward and focussed on her face intently.

"Oooh, it's someone you hate? Interesting. I would then wonder if it was your boss…" nothing, "but you likely wouldn't be working with him if you hated him. Now, you clearly don't work for the government and don't seem to trust them, I have to wonder if they were the ones to push you?" Nothing again. "Or maybe it's more personal? Someone closer that you feel a personal hatred or disdain towards, or even just a grudge. Most likely a parent figure, like your father or mother." Jaw clenched, eye twitched. "Oh, the parent. Which means you are from a wealthy family. If you could afford to have something like a privately developed biotic amp then you clearly don't lack for cash. And it would have to be significant amounts of it to put purely on designing a single amp that they haven't put on the market…"

"Enough!" Miranda shouted, a few stray wisps of biotic energy leaking out of her again. Jurt merely reached over and placed his gun against the back of her head again. I gestured to him to wait.

Miranda took a few calming deep breaths and managed to gather herself. Before giving me a slight glare. "I no longer wish to talk about this and ask that you be silent," she bit out.

I gave a slight nod. "And I shall respect your request," I replied. "Besides, if you are as smart as I think you are, you will know why I did what I did."

The corner of her mouth twitched as she looked irked. "Yes," she admitted, "though I haven't seen many people who are as effective as you about it."

I grinned. "Don't feel bad. You have been the consummate professional. I am just good at annoying people."

"I've noticed," she snarked.

"Not my fault that angry people tend to be more forthcoming with information. Now to business," I said, turning serious again. "You say you represent a non-lawful, non-government, human supremacy organisation called Cerberus. Who is in charge of Cerberus? If I theoretically worked with you, who would I report to?"

"The name of our leader is not publicly known," she said. "We know him as The Illusive Man. You would report to a supervisor and receive assignments from them."

I blinked at that before turning my head to share a look with Beau, who was standing near to booth just behind Miranda. His expression was far less than impressed as he gave a single negative shake of the head. He brought up his omni-tool and started looking for something.

"Yeah… I can already tell how this is going to go," I said with a shake of my own head. A few seconds later, my omni-tool lit up with the information Beau sent me.

I opened it up and saw some information that I already knew about Cerberus that Beau passed on to me.

"Hmmm," I mused. "Seems that you haven't been completely honest with me, Ms Lawson."

She tensed visibly, her eyes trying to read through my display, unsuccessfully. "I am not sure what you mean."

"How about we start with the fact that Cerberus is not just a non-lawful organisation. It says here that you are officially listed as a criminal organisation by the Alliance, with murder of Alliance citizens being part of the deal. Not exactly something that a smart person would actively tie themselves to."

"You should know that all information is subject to propaganda," she rebutted stiffly.

"Including yours?" I countered. She remained silent.

"Alright, I think that I understand your proposition clearly," I stated, ready to finish up with the dark-haired beauty. "I thank you for your time and appreciate the effort of reaching out to me. However, I would rather say no at this time for a few reasons. The first being that, as you can see, most of my crew are non-human. These are people that I would trust with my life and I hold them of equal worth to myself. This runs counter to the aims of a human supremacy group.

"Secondly, I would rather not put myself in with a group who would be open to my secrets, any more than you clearly believe you are, while holding their own from me. Not that I have anything against you or your leader, but my business is just that: mine. I am proud of my accomplishments, something I am sure you can appreciate.

"Thirdly, and here is possibly the main point." Leaned forward over the table, closing the distance between us. "I don't like humanity, or any human lead organisation. At all. Most of the hell I have gone through in my life is a direct result of humans or my employment in the government. I don't hate easily but I hate, with a burning passion, far more humans in high places than any other race combined. Your boss is not included in that, but it has tainted my views enough to not want to get involved with one again if I can avoid it.

"So, for those reasons, I would rather say no right now when I don't know anything. Especially if eliminating Alliance citizens, who I assume either got in the way or knew too much, is one of your modus operandi. I don't know anything about your organisation and I would rather it stay that way. It stops me being a target, especially in light of the previous point."

She sat there, her face a mask of curiosity and comprehension. "I can understand. As long as you aren't competing with Cerberus' interests then it is not likely to be an issue."

"And to be honest, I would rather not know what those interests are," I said. "But unless you are planning on working on planets in the Terminus, or moving into the videogame market, I don't see us competing on anything major."

"I see," Miranda said simply. She didn't look happy but she didn't look unhappy. "Well, in that case, I will leave you be."

She stood up and made to leave.

"Oh, and if you think that hitman squad you have parked around the corner is going to be of any use to you then you should probably give up your day job," I said casually.

Miranda froze, coming to a complete stop before whirling around. "What are you…?

"Oh yes, the six-man team that you have sitting around the corner from here," I continued casually. "We made them the moment we hit Ward. Did you really think that someone like me and the people I have here would be that amateurish that we wouldn't realise we were being followed? Why else do you think none of us are drunk?"

"Buh…" Sure enough, looking around at the group, who were completely focussed on our conversation, none of us were the slightest bit drunk. All the drunken actions from earlier were just the crew having fun pretending, even Torrin.

I stood up and walked closer to her. "So, tell me, what was the plan? Seduce me, lure me out of here and have them pick me up where I would be threatened with pain or death to become a member of Cerberus? Or was it just my money you are after?"

She took a half step back as I approached, her hands raising to a defensive position.

"Oh don't worry," I said stopping short a couple metres away. "Unlike you, I don't plan to hurt the other party in this conversation." Her cheeks flushed slightly in embarrassment. "But your mistake was thinking that you know anything about me, my abilities or my actions. It makes me wonder who told you anything about my travels through the Terminus."

She didn't say anything, just pursed her lips defiantly.

I looked at her before giving a small bittersweet smile. "You know, you clearly have forgotten what it means to be Australian."

Miranda frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"

My smile became a smirk. "Australians have a tendency to be far more focussed on other Australians. We love to take note of the success of other Australians and make it our own, even when we have nothing to do with it. Now, I haven't been there for a while myself, but I still read the news. And one thing that I have seen is the Australian news. Even these days, Australians tend to focus on the accomplishments of other Australians. And while sports are still the prevailing news item, I do also focus on business news. That means reading about other Australian billionaires."

Her confusion fled from her face and she immediately tensed up. Clearly, she realised where I was going.

"Now, Lawson isn't really an uncommon name, but the real clue was the custom-made biotic amp that you obviously have. The research and development on that would have cost more credits than the average citizen can spare. When added to the accent and a quick background check of every other billionaire, something that all business leaders should do in case of competition or funding applications, it is easy to come up with an easy assumption." I leaned forward slightly, narrowing my eyes intently to seem more serious. "You're the missing daughter of Henry Lawson. I wonder if he would be interested in knowing that you have tried contacting me…"

"Carlos!" she shouted. "It was Carlos Santini," she continued in a calmer tone. "Your human mechanic."

I leaned back into a neutral stance and put my hands on my hips. "I see. Well, Ms Lawson, thank you for your time. Please convey to your… Illusive Man… that I do not wish to support Cerberus at this time, but I also do not oppose them, nor am I attempting to compete with them. If there are actions that we undertake that cause difficulties, I would appreciate notice of it so that we might make adjustments. Would you find this peace between us acceptable? Would your boss?"

The attractive Cerberus agent stood stock still for a moment before letting out a long sigh. "I believe that would be acceptable," she said. "I will inform the Illusive Man of your stance at this time and if we have any conflicting issues then we will inform you through your contacts here on the Citadel."

"Splendid," I said. "After all, not having any conflicting interests will help us work together at a later date if it is required. Now, I believe that you have someone to report to about this and we have to relocate to have an actual celebration that won't be interrupted."

I reached out a hand. She looked at me suspiciously for a moment. Finally, she stretched forth her own hand and shook mine. Her hand was very soft.

"You won't…" she started hesitantly.

"No, I have absolutely no inclination to contact Mr Lawson," I reassured her. I leant forward conspiratorially. "No offence, but your old man seems like a new level of arse."

For the first time she gave me a real smile. It was a tiny thing, just the smallest raising of the edge of her luscious lips, but it was real.

"In this thing, I am in complete agreement with you," she said. "Until next time, Mr Nielson."

"And you, Ms Lawson."

I watched her walk away, deliberately avoiding looking at her rear. Beau sidled up next to me.

"Don't have to like them to appreciate them walking away," he said, his tone amused.

I grunted in amusement. "Maybe, but I know better than to stick my dick in terrorist crazy."

That got me a few looks. "Terrorist?" Beau asked, his voice softening dangerously.

I nodded. "Despite what I told the young lady, I do know quite a bit about them. Cerberus is a former black ops group from the Alliance formed after the Shanxi invasion, which went rogue not long afterwards. The Alliance has declared them a terrorist group, though that is not public knowledge because of the embarrassment the Alliance heads feel it would cause them. As their targets are not usually human, the Alliance don't tend to worry about them too much and they have a lot of supporters in the Alliance military, particularly. I don't know specifically who but I have heard rumours of sympathisers among the higher ranks, generals and admirals."

Beau's face hardened at this information but Aleria replied before the former soldier could.

"So, are we working with terrorists now?" she asked.

"No!" I said emphatically. "But, as they have quite a lot of money, a large number of spies and some very good assassins with little to no moral restraints, it is better to not have them as an open enemy until they start showing the public their true colours. But when the time is right, we will do our best to make sure to oppose them with whatever we can spare. But the reapers come first, or no matter what we do it will all be for nothing."

A few murmurs of assent were heard as my crew started to pack up our gear and prepared to head off to the Balrog, where we could continue the party in the large common areas. It was going unsaid but I think everyone felt that this place had been spoiled for now.

But hey, screwing with Miranda already? Always a win. The uptight ones were always the most fun to mess with.

Now, I just had to deal with Carlos…

Jack Harper, more commonly referred to these days as the Illusive Man, sat back thoughtfully as he mused over the report Miranda had sent to him on her meeting with Shieldstar leader, Brock Nielson. While Miranda was a very talented asset, she had clearly been played by Nielson from the moment that his troops appeared on their radar. The man was good. If only he had agreed to sponsor, or even better, join Cerberus then Jack knew he could make great use of the man's ability to read people and gather information.

The negative history that Nielson had referred to was a mystery that had been missed in the background check that his people had run on the man. Whatever had happened had clearly soured the man's desire to work under a human banner. Not particularly a major issue at this time. The man had declared that there was no issues or conflicts between their organisations and Jack was of a mind to believe him. After all, he was attacking pirates and batarians. Jack had no issue with that sort of work being done against the alien slavers and Jack had no inclination to move into something as mindless as video games, though he couldn't argue with the commercial success that Nielson had achieved.

Still, there was a possibility that they may work together in the future. Maybe Cerberus to lend some resources to Shieldstar as a gesture of good faith. He doubted Nielson would go for it, but it would also be a good way to train some of the ground team, not to mention it would put Cerberus in a positive light, which could have a positive effect on recruitment. It bore thinking about.

A light blinked on his terminal, indicating a new message. He opened it up and read, his mood brightening considerably. Successful mission by some of his Alliance infiltrators. They had managed to gain the designs and technical specs of their special joint-turian project, Project Normandy. He would have to get it sent over to his own team to analyse it before they made improvements. He would likely have to wait for the test flight of the completed project to determine how successful it is, but they could at least make a start on the break downs.

So much to do. Brock Nielson could wait. It wasn't like he was a threat anyway. There was plenty of time to come back to him later on. With that in mind, he turned to send out more assignments. There was, after all, no rest for the wicked.

Program #00061332

Subject: integration.

Interesting point raised in human vid media regarding successful integration of AI and organic species. Playing vid file.

[Commence Vid file] 'I, Robot'. Organic is standing with a firearm pointed at inorganic non-geth platforms.

"Why do you give 'em faces? Try to friendly 'em all up, make 'em look all human?

"These robots are not susceptible to intimidation."

"I guess if you didn't we wouldn't trust 'em."

[End file].

Program #80011182

Counterpoint: aggression shown by organic to platform runs counter to integration hypothesis.

Program #00061332

Not the point raised. Point being that other organics trusted their platforms due to having recognisable feature, aesthetically similar to their creator species. Counter to counterpoint: aggression shown to be lack of trust and apparent dangerously malfunctioning platform. Aggression reasonable in circumstances.

Program #73073302

Do you seek for us to add faces to non-combat platforms to seek higher chance of integration?

Program #00061332

Integration means peace. Peace means Creators can recommence dialogue with geth. Does consensus believe that adding faces could increase trust between geth and organics? Would this lead to peace with Creators?

Seeking consensus…

A/N Please Review/Follow/Favourite as you please.

So I went with something a little different at the end here. I was going to do another movie review, but I thought it would be good to see how Project: Hearts and Minds was working with another species. What do you all think? Should the geth get actual faces? Or would that be too weird?

Already have events for the next chapter mapped out. It may end up being two chapters. Not sure when it will be done but hopefully not too long. Until next time!