Lazarus Shunned

by Two-Eyed Charlie

Cerberus has spent billions of credits trying to bring Shepard back from the dead, and despite the odds it seems to be working. Then a saboteur makes his move and Shepard's resurrection takes a horrific turn, leaving both the Alliance and Cerberus scrambling to control the situation...all while the Collectors begin their harvest of humanity [PREFERRED EDITION ON AO3]

40. Chapter 39: Behold a Pale Horse Pt: I

Chapter 39: Behold a Pale Horse: Part I

1.

The green and purple cloud covering the mountain valley had changed: it was now black, ringed by flickering yellow and pulsing red. It should have been pouring rain; instead, the air was hot, the wind might as well have been dripping mucus, and everything smelled of sulfur. A natural storm system had been blocked, swallowed—assimilated—by something propelling itself out of a massive ship. The new cloud tumbled its way over mountains and trees and the rusted metal of the batarian military complex, moving like it was angry that the whole planet hadn't been choked to death by fumes and lightning. Inside that cloud—almost hidden by the thunder and groaning metal of the ship—was a persistent static hum: a hum that left the jaws of everyone for ten miles feeling as though it had been pulverized into bone-dust.

That hum moved, wind or no wind. It followed you, mockingly matching every turn, twist, sprint—it didn't matter. If you found a hiding spot, the hum would find you. And then you'd feel something prick an exposed piece of skin, and your blood would start to feel as though it was on fire, and then your limbs would lock in whatever contorted stance you unfortunately found yourself in, and then you stared out through burning eyes as the hum took on a shape and grew wings and legs and started crawling on you with pincers as sharp as a scalpel.

About ninety-thousand free batarians lived on Aratoht; about half were military, in some capacity. They'd heard the stories about the Collectors; a lot of them thought the bug people were an Alliance myth, a way of making batarians afraid to leave the home system. It made sense, after all: the humans always flouted galactic law, and they never admitted their mistakes—nor were they ever encouraged to do so. All those disappearing human colonies sounded like accidents involving a nerve toxin: why not make up a race of aliens that only humans and their allies had ever seen? When everyone was convinced the humans' misfortunes were someone else's doing, they could take the Collector myth and use it as a pretense for more "peacekeeping" in batarian space.

That was the thought for so many batarian soldiers and free civilians. There were SIU operatives and Ministry of Information Control bureaucrats who convinced themselves of that, too. Maybe ten still held onto that belief when the Seeker Swarms started crawling over them, and the Collectors started walking between the columns of frozen people.

They clicked and pointed guns that seemed to grow directly out of their arms, and that was it: that was as much communication as they heard. Then, the soldiers outside—in a grassy clearing down a river's-length from the facility—started hearing gunshots. With their eyes locked forward, they'd only become aware of the Collector's gun—of how the barrel seemed to reach out at its next target—until warm spindly fingers touched the back of their heads.

Captain Ibarak Krabsedah heard a gunshot from what he guessed was three rows behind him. Three Collectors watched as the wind dragged moisture kicking and screaming from his eyes. His fingers were locked around a pistol that would never be removed from its holster and he realized that it didn't matter—the barrier strength of these things, the way they glowed purple just standing there—it wouldn't've mattered. He and everyone and everything were dead and just looking at these things, being forced to stare at one f-for a whole f-fucking lifetime, i-it was better that way, he had to tell himself it was f-fucking better to die than let th-th-these things take him somewhere.

Another shot—two rows down, now. This was…this was it this was…he was going to die and…and another shot right behind him now he could feel fingers scraping at the back of his head and the clicking grew louder and they eyes they'd take his eyes first of he let them so just shoot please just shoot and get it over wi—

An explosion, way off in the distance. Then another—following by the kind of after effect you got when biotic attacks detonated. A thoom that almost sounded like it was collapsing in on itself. Then there was a heavy shot—a heavy shot, like a claymore if you jammed about ten scram rails into it—and then another collapsing thoom.

One of the Collectors in front of him bent over, skin cracking and fire leaking out of it, and there were more and more thooms and explosions and just as the Collector dropped from the air with fire pulsing out of every joint the gun left Ibarak's head and he was hit instead by dust, a wave of dust that cut open the back of his neck like someone'd just flung a bunch of shaved metal at him. His eyes were already too dry to react and the dust swirled as the explosions grew closer and the sound was accompanied by some force, like the air was punching him in every direction, and the dust got so thick he somehow lost track of the Collector that was on fire until that force was right next to him and then it was right in front of him and that force evaporated all the dust around Ibarak like it was a thermonuclear bomb and then Ibarak saw, Ibarak saw everything. He didn't have a choice he was locked looking straight ahead he—

A blood red strip on cracked, black armour; red red light pouring out of a visor so covered in grime it had turned brown; the Collector that was on fire, having its arm slowly torn out of its socket as it tried to launch a screaming ball of gold and black energy at its attacker. The Collector struggled and the torso pulled away from its captured arm and the Collector rocked backwards, knocking into Ibarak touching Ibarak burning Ibarak as the figure with the blood red stripe and the red red lights where its eyes should have been covered its fist in purple energy and pulled back at—

Ibarak didn't see the first pass clean through the Collector's head, because a millisecond later it was passing through his head, too.

The figure peeled the batarian and the Collector off her arm and stepped over the corpses she'd left in her wake. Her path followed the river, past one facility and off towards a southern pass near the second one. Her omni-tool blinked and beeped as it remained locked onto a geth signature.

Commander Shepard walked through the forest, the red pouring out of her visor that much brighter as the Collector ship snuffed out Bahak's light.

2.

Aratoht Orbit:

Two Hours to Widowmaker Arrival

Two targets, that's what…that's what Legion said. Two bases—north and south—where it/he/they whatever figured the batarians might be keeping Kenson. North seemed the most likely, so that's where Legion said the Mars should target first. South'd be where they'd send the "Widowmaker," which apparently was about two hours behind whatever schedule the Mars was running.

God, see, that whole bit? It stunk. Ash could point out about fifty different things she didn't like from it. The Navy'd run on command-by-negation for most of its history and that meant the skipper had to deal with being OOTL—that's the trade-off, get used to it. OOTL but ready to be briefed, because if the ship got hit with a full broadside the skipper'd need to know which asshole to throttle on the way to hell. But this? This? Things...just felt like they were running on autopilot. Because two A.I.'s came up with the plan. That was it: that was the honest truth.

Okay...actions spoke louder than words. Thane was letting this happen because he trusts Legion and he trusts this EDI. If he'd been just laying it on thick he wouldn't've spent the whole trip in the engine room with her. He would've, worst case, given her a push to assert command, save their asses, something like that. Instead they talked…talked about a lot of things.

And, hey, think of it this way: Joker trusted the other A.I. and he was in his right mind. Would've been dealing with another ship named "Normandy" if he wasn't, right? So they got a highly coordinated attack that could shift everyone from one base to the other if they guess wrong and needed extra time to backtrack. Just...don't look a gift horse in the mouth, all right?

Phase two was "tripping up" and accidentally "transmitting classified information through unsecure channels" and, okay, guess we're looking at horses. Whatever Kenson knew about the Reapers would end up in EDI's hands, because the Alliance was just that stupid and Cerberus was so fucking smart, shadowing our infiltration team the way they were and...this could go wrong in a million different ways—banking on Cerberus thinking the Alliance was stupid just seemed like the same leap of faith when you assumed they were smart—but there wasn't a whole lot of room to maneuver here. There were friends in need and a bigger picture that needed some scaffolding, from anybody at this point.

Phase three was…

"I…should have mentioned earlier," Thane said, over her shoulder, "but nonetheless, I feel it should be said: I'm sorry that your Commander has a role to play in this."

…Icarus. Phase three was Icarus. Send Shepard right into the heart of the batarian garrison and let her be their problem, again, for the first time in two years. Be like she never even died: a nightmare come back to devour the souls of all those who'd profited from humanity's misery. Ash sighed.

"Ran into a report a while back—way before everything kicked off," Ashley said. "Someone in Intergalactic Affairs grabbed everything we had on Hegemony propaganda and charted all the distortions they made about the Blitz. Turns out, back on Elysium, Shepard drank blood from batarian skulls and taught little children how to roast four eyes at once." She looked at her boots. "Guess we're gonna be feeding into that narrative, now, aren't we?"

Thane stayed quiet, then said, "As cold a comfort as this might be…from what I've learned of her, I believe she would understand."

"She'd've volunteered five times already."

"Yes, I gathered that lives mattered more to her than personal reputation."

Except that was just another way of saying she was perfect, wasn't it? Yeah, Ash believed it—God knew she believed it. She needed to believe it. So at what point was she throwing away a real person for an idea that was just religious salvation, dressed up Alliance blue so her inner voice didn't think she was ignoring the real world?

Legion didn't say a thing…and, God, if you geth are so fucking smart, why don't you offer up an olive branch, huh? No she didn't mean that, but it felt good to think it…for some dumb reason, it felt good to think it.

The Mars started to slow—soon it'd be pulled into Aratoht's atmosphere and the viewing screen would see the planet in all its State Secret glory. Two hours after that, the Widowmaker would do the same; and around that same time, if Legion and EDI were right, something looking a lot like the Normandy would slam into the middle, and…

…Jesus, what the hell were those clouds?

"Anomaly detected," Legion said.

"No fucking shit," Ashley said, practically lunging towards the viewing screen. "That thing's covering half a continent!"

"Unfortunately," Thane said, "this includes the continent we're interested in." He looked at Ashley. "Will the ship be able to navigate it?"

"It's got kinetic barriers and a shit tone of…" Ash shook her head, looked over at Legion. "Yes? No?"

Legion's eyeflap rose in places, curved downwards in others. "Electrical output far exceeds expected parameters of naturally occurring storms. Alliance engineers unlikely to have designed fault tolerances sufficient to compensate. We recommend caution."

All three looked out the viewing screen, watched the pulsing colours and thrashing beams of light. Ash watched the eye…be real easy to imagine something unholy moving around in there, something that fed on planets, their people, the stars themselves…

Garrus and Tali'd run into the Collectors on Horizon: why wouldn't it be her turn? Why wouldn't the universe throw something worse at her, just because it could?

"What's the status of our countermeasures?" she said.

"Download and analysis complete," Legion said. "Module ready to deploy. Repeat last advisory: caution is still recommended."

Ashley typed a command into the Mars V.I. The ship lurched and aimed its nose at the edge of the storm. Behind her, Legion and Thane struggled to stay on their feet.

"Helmets on, people," Ashley said. "Touchdown in five."

I gazed far forward.

Dark and wide the flood

That flowed before us.

On the nearer shore…

How deep the Abyss down sank from hell to hell,

It was so clouded and so dark no sight

Could pierce it.

You loved Ulysses, Dad, and I loved the fact that you did. But I'll be damned if Dante isn't speaking a lot more sense to me right now…and damned might just be how this all ends, anyways…

3.

Relay Network:

One Hour and Twenty-Five Minutes Until Widowmaker Arrival

The conference room was physically crowded, of course, but hardly anyone looked present. A problem that under normal circumstances would barely register as such, to be sure; none of them were paid to listen to speeches. But Miranda had yet to run a truly multi-faceted mission with the Lazarus Cell up to this point. Complete disinterest on the part of every major player—every hired gun, technician, or damned psychotic the Illusive Man threw credits at—was by all accounts an omen. A poor one.

A slab of meat might have a better time "rousing the troops," if that was the phrase she wanted to use. A slab of meat…yes, she'd made sure it could do such a thing, hadn't she?

She placed her hands on the conference table and looked down its length, down and in the direct path of three sets of eyes and two who apparently found the back of their own eyelids substantially more entertaining. A revised estimate, then: either those three sets of eyes had sprung to life the moment she leaned forward, or they'd been glaring at her suspiciously since the moment they entered the room.

Mordin had little to complain about; Samara had a code that offered predictability, if little in the way of sense. Jacob…Jacob could be dealt with. And, in short, order, that was entirely what she intended to do.

"I'll be as brief as possible," she said. Was that a scoff? Hardly mattered, so long as there weren't any interruptions. She pushed herself away from the table. "We're about to penetrate Hegemony spac—

"Heh."

"Ah c'mon Grunt, that's some peak low-hanging fruit."

"Still funny."

"—we are infiltrating Hegemony Space, shadowing an Alliance team scheduled to arrive mere minutes before us, and capturing—at any cost—a Reaper artifact of unknown description but, we are assured, immense value to our ongoing mission. I shouldn't have to emphasize—though past experience compels me to do so anyways—that our continued employment with our exceptionally wealthy patron depends on this mission being a success."

"What's a Reaper?"

"Hey fuck that—who the fuck hires a whole army for a snatch n' grab? What're we working for a museum?"

Right, and now Jacob looked as though he wanted to speak—utterly terrific.

"Any cost, huh?" he said. Predictable—when she wrote her speech she nearly added [PAUSE FOR JACOB'S ASININE QUESTION].

"We're not under orders to butcher and maim," she said. "We're not an extermination squad. But if we can't separate the Alliance unit from this artifact, then our needs take priority."

"So're we going after unpaid library fees later?"

"Are you wasting time being sarcastic, Jack? Or is this your attempt to contribute something?"

"You think I fucking know anymore?" Jack had been scraping something out of her teeth; now she was joining the army of glares directed at Miranda. "And fuck you, all right? You've got three days before I rip your spine out, so you'd better be fucking nice to me."

The glares stopped. Miranda…hmm, odd, her heart rate barely increased at that. Maybe the average human could only take so many death threats before filing it all as just so much noise. That wasn't an ideal reaction, to be completely honest.

And circumstance makes strange bedfellows, as they say; the first person that'd made explicit their desire to kill her asked the question everyone was no doubt thinking.

"Under what pretenses do you plan to kill Miranda?" Samara said.

"Huh?" Jack was back to having a disagreement with her teeth. "It's cuz she hasn't given me the fucking files yet. What, didn't I say that already?"

"Not even close," Jacob said.

"Meh, she woulda figured it out eventually. But yeah, three days, bitch."

"There will be severe consequences if you pursue that path," Samara said.

"Hey, teach," Jack said, nodding at Miranda. "I'm gettin' bullied again."

If other things of substance were said, Miranda wasn't aware. This was the problem, you see, with iron-clad codes: your priorities very frequently got snarled on themselves. There...may've yet been a way to get out of her spat with Samara, then—though as much as the bloody monk liked to pretend she left emotions at the door, nobody ever really did. Besides that—besides how many people that statement applied to—there was the matter of Orianna, and Samara was useful there.

Silence in the room: the glares had apparently finished and were having a difficult time deciding where to focus.

"Nobody's told me what a Reaper is yet," Grunt said. And that was the end of that epoch, apparently.

"Ah, intriguing," Mordin said. "Given information on Collectors, but not masters. Suggests little of Collector technology or genetics directly tied to Reapers. Analysis only possible with post-hoc observation—surviving testimony of Shepard's team. Alternative: Okeer missed connection—also a possibility."

"That answer my question?" Grunt said, looking down at Mordin. "Or are you calling my creator an idiot again?"

Mordin blinked, then shook his head. "No—not implying that. Verbalizing…thought processes. Ignore second option: more information needed before proclaiming theory."

Grunt's eyes went back up to Miranda. If he understood the tone of Mordin's reply—and, truth be told, how many in this room did understand it?—he very clearly didn't care.

"Okeer didn't say anything about 'Reapers'," Grunt put that last bit in air quotes. "So if it's important, then he's an idiot. But I don't get how it's important."

"These things we're hunting?" Jacob said. "The Collectors? They're just another patsy for the Reapers. Fuck-off big ships that wanna kill everything covered in skin. We figure out…" Jacob shook his head. "Hang on a sec—we've done this already. Yeah, when you almost put me through a wall—we talked about this." He looked at Miranda…for what reason? Bloody fool—did he think he was developing leverage over her somehow?"

"These're the biggest, badest, toughest bastards the galaxy's ever known," Jacob said. "We nab some of their secrets, we learn how to kill 'em good. Might even stand toe-to-toe with 'em." He put on a smile. "Just like you wanted, right big guy? Knock heads with the scariest sons've bitches around?"

That smile—that damned proud smile—died when Grunt simply looked past Jacob, at the rest of the room.

"So why do all you care?"

"They're part of this mission," Miranda said, ignoring Jacob. "They're here, so they understand what's at stake."

"Completely backwards," Mordin said. "Understand what's at stake—here because of that. Being here contingent on 'employer' acting in good faith."

"I am here because I swore an oath," Samara said. "Like many of life's trials, this oath is tested daily."

God, that dead smile was born again (do not dare conjure up images of Lazarus Station, brain, do not dare) and became a smirk. Jacob said, "Saving humanity—easy to say, hard to do. Thinking I'm with the doc on this: so long as the money's spent right, my place is here." He looked at Miranda again. "Money people though, am I right? Always gotta keep an eye on them. Never know when they'll sell you down the river."

Past experience—the harshest of teachers—was the only thing that prevented her from saying "ridiculous."

Grunt looked round the table again, then settled on Jack, who was on her omni-tool and in the process of flipping the bird to them all or, equally likely, drawing as much attention to herself as possible so everyone saw the disturbingly pornographic game downloading onto her wrist.

Grunt, eventually, nodded and looked at Miranda. She could suppose that was his signal to continue.

"Right," she said. "I intended to keep this brief. We've now wasted who knows how many minutes—but regardless, we still need to go over strategy. We'll start by splitting into teams—"

"WOW!" Jack said, nearly collapsing the universe with her voice. "Fuckin' rewrite the history books, am I right? Jesus I wish more mercs were this fucking original."

"Do you—god, do you have some sort of problem with this plan, Jack?" Miranda said.

Jack retorted with a smile so sweet and innocent it would have offended a kindergarten teacher.

"Nope!" she said. And then it was back to her…whatever was on her omni-tool.

Ridiculous—sorry this was…this was absurdly ridiculous and had she any hope of successfully surviving, let alone completing this mission she…she would have to be a very different person indeed.

A slab of meat, as she said. God, this was a new one. She'd been so preoccupied thinking there was a bloody control chip in her brain she'd yet to find the time to feel inadequate. On the verge of snapping now, are we? Perhaps that was all right, then: perhaps it was as listless and gradual as becoming a husk, and soon she'd have not a thing in the world to worry about.

Miranda shook her head—that thought raised her heart rate, very very noticeably.

"I want the major specialists with me," she said. "We'll possibly be confronted with all sorts of specialized troops in and around the target area. We may also need to disable a group of highly trained Alliance personnel, assuming they don't send their dregs out on a suicide mission. Biotics and tech skills are a must."

"Jack's a biotic," Grunt said.

"So's Jacob," said Jacob.

"Fuck, gross," Jack said—at her omni-tool, not anyone in particular. Slowly, as if the silence had tapped her on the shoulder, she looked up. "What? Are you fucking morons trying to put me on a team again? I gave the offices of Breasty, Ass, & Tit over there a three-day warning: everyone else I'll kill whenever I want."

"I assumed you and Grunt would work best as a distraction," Miranda said.

"Aww, are we your widdle wiability?"

"In this context, no, you're far from it." Miranda pulled up a model of the planet. "There are two candidate bases: I'd rather not bet on the Alliance being willing, or able, to neutralize one while they stalk off towards the other. If you're capable of dealing with the bulk of the batarian presence, we can ensure that neither our team nor the Alliance will be bothered."

"Problematic," Mordin said. "STG intelligence clear on Hegemony military doctrines: overwhelming terrestrial presence with significant SIU support. Self-defeating in all other contexts: too rigid, too spread out, no rapid reaction capability. Current context only situation where doctrine gives advantage."

"You are saying this is a suicidal assignment," Samara said.

"Shh," Jack said, leaning back in her chair. "Batarians don't know that yet."

"If you allow this action to take place," Samara said, looking only at Miranda and ignoring Jack's comment about her thinking it was fucking funny, fuck everyone else, "or worse yet, you demand that it be carried out, then I will have to object—using the strongest possible terms available to me."

Miranda took a breath, let Samara's so-called principles snarl around her legs yet more than they'd already done. "And what terms, Samara, does your code make available to you?"

The universe was a tunnel linking her and Samara's eyes—no one else's mattered. Tell me then, you sanctimonious basket case—tell me precisely what your code says you can do to me, and do not dare skimp on the details.

Samara, her face seemingly neutral to anyone who'd not yet stared down a Justicar, said, "Later on, when my oath to you is finished—"

Miranda let her finish that sentence, but in her head, there was nothing left she need listen to. That was her answer, was it not? Right here—right now—you can do nothing, except threaten to kill and save everyone who crosses you.

And thus, ahead of schedule, a confirmation: Samara posed no threat in the short-term. And as if by some decayed speck of cosmic good will, the long-term was as of yet a great deal of distance away. There would be time to deal with her, once all the other problems were dealt with first.

Miranda raised a hand. If others had been speaking, she hardly cared.

"Jack and Grunt know their roles. The rest of you—"

"If they're running around on their own," Jacob said, "then you better believe I am too. Could do a whole lot more damage that way."

Miranda, barely, managed to suppress a smile. "Precisely what I was thinking, Jacob."

"Bullshit," he said, and, yes, that smile became all that harder to suppress, considering that look of being completely caught of guard that Jacob was wearing. Miranda pressed onwards.

"We need an effective scouting party," she said. "And we also need something akin to skirmishers: Jack and Grunt can handle a hefty counterattack, to be sure, but quick strikes and disruption are equally important. And while it's not ideal, should we have lost track of the Alliance, we'll be in need of a highly mobile force that can pick up the trail." She leaned over the table and stared as neutrally as possible at Jacob. "You and several of our commandoes are our best bet."

Jacob stared back, in what he no doubt thought was as neutral as possible.

"Practical necessity?" he said. "Or something else entirely?"

"What besides practical necessity is there?"

"Uh-huh." Jacob's turn to look round the room. If he found something he was looking for, Miranda couldn't tell. "Then fine—you've got your skirmishers. And a hell've a lot more'n that, too. Jack, Grunt? You need support? You call us. The rest of you?" he avoided looking at Miranda, "Same thing. You're in a bind, you call me."

"We'll all rest easier knowing that," Miranda said.

"Yo, hey, we making fun of Jacob now?" Jack said. "Wasn't paying attention but it sounded like Tits Ahoy was starting something."

Moving on from that, Miranda said, "I don't need to micro-manage: you'll both be better off coming up with your own plans. As for the specialists, we'll meet in my office. I've suggestions to go over."

Jack didn't even wait for the sentence to end—she was up and out of the room. Grunt followed shortly after. Jacob looked in the process of, well, processing things—that was perfectly fine, but clearly he'd no reason to criticize her for "keeping him out of the loop" any longer. Nor'd he have any grounds for trying to pin the Liara business on her—if, that was he, truly cared. The jury, so they said, was still out on that. Regardless, she had options now—and the commandoes could do with some fresh air, now, couldn't they?

With Jack and Grunt…well, there was little left to the imagination, wasn't there? In stark contrast with Jacob—with all the complexities of their past experiences, the secrets they kept, the fact that he was Cerberus whether he realized it or not—this was mind-numbingly simple: either they died and were no longer Miranda's problem, or they succeeded beyond her wildest dreams and aided the mission.

There were variables still in play, to be sure. But perhaps…no, no sense in jinxing it now. There was little contentment in her but she'd not felt helpless since finalizing this plan, and that—in of itself—was something to remember.

Jacob and Samara filed out of the room too. That left Mordin.

"Chances of success low," he said. "Problem being attacked too narrowly."

"I've split us into teams for a reason, Professor," Miranda said.

"Talking about broader goal. Talking about fighting Reapers."

Yes, well, if he wasn't planning on leaving the room, then perhaps Miranda could serve as an example. She walked round the table and towards the exit.

"If you're implying we stop going at this alone," she said, "that's far from my call."

"Could be your suggestion. Employer listens to you."

Miranda stopped. "This isn't a democracy. I've a role to play—beyond that, its out of my hands."

"Singular vision." Mordin was shaking his head. "Dictators, solipsists, deluded Messiahs—heard many claim to have it. Never seen it in practice. Always point where they stop and ask questions, reach for advice. Difference between dead ones and live ones: dead ones do it too late."

"Right, I've blown past the point of being diplomatic, Professor." Miranda crossed her arms, thought about control chips and is pure annoyance didn't send her down that path all those months ago. A terrible thought, it was true, but… "If you truly want to debate philosophy, I suggest you take it up with EDI."

Miranda reached over to the table and pressed a series of buttons on its console.

"EDI? Override blockage fifteen-point-five. You're free to re-enter the Conference Room." Miranda then immediately headed for the door, and as she heard EDI's avatar spring to life on the platform just adjacent to where she was standing, she said, loud enough for all to hear:

"The man from STG would like to discuss the virtues of cooperation with you."

4.

F-fire…fire in h-his veins a-and in his skin and it was subsiding, it was getting less and less, but only because his limbs were locking and his the outside world was getting further and further away and there was just wind just howling howling wind until you heard a pop, a pop and something falling to the ground and, and his eyes were locked forward so he couldn't SEE those pops but he could hear them and they were getting CLOSER they were—

T-tunnel…it was like looking down a tunnel w-with pulsing walls until…until….no, no no no no no no no—

Dead batarian-sized bugs in front of him; dead batarians t-too. At the end of t-t-t-he tunnel was lights, red red lights. Red lights and a blood running down the arm a-and a gun a gun that spit fire and NO NO PARAK, PARAK was crumbling he was BURNING and the red lights just stared and were moving to Ufam and—

U-ufam, c-covered in red light at the end of that spinning black t-t-tunnel, now on fire, now melting and now the red light was on Delo and then K'than and Kent and Gatin a-a-and—

They all b-burned they, the yellow field around them c-couldn't protect them as fire ate them a-and the red light moved on, bugs were crawling on it but the red light moved on it—

Two red lights, at the end of the tunnel—moving t-t-towards h-him, locked onto him, s-s-staring into him a-and a-and the fire in his veins his skin his eyes his everything stopped it subsided it was cold a-a-and alone and it was j-just him and the red red lights and—

She fired her shotgun; the body in front of her was enveloped in flames. It crumbled and was blown into nothingness by the wind.

She walked on.

Cages. She saw cages. She saw a shadow melt under the same fire that spewed from her gun. She saw trees unleash heat and smoke into the sky. She saw the frozen bodies in front of her and heard the screaming voices tell her to use it, use the gun—and she saw these images overlap and eat one another in a sea of swirling red.

A hand was on her arm. A voice dripped at her: Hey, easy—easy, kid. It's all right: I've got you. Another voice said: This's a fucking sham and everybody—even the cockroaches—are wasting their time. They wore the same clothing—then there was just the frozen bodies and her gun again.

Shepard walked through Aratoht. Across fifteen years, the sky burned the same red colour.

5.

Aratoht:

One Hour and Five Minutes Until Widowmaker Arrival

Thane had never shied away from humid air before—though Kepler's Syndrome gnawed constantly at his body, that was no excuse for denying or deferring a contract—but Aratoht was…a single step away from the Mars was nearly enough to induce a blackout. It was like breathing in a sheet of flesh—both in smell and viscosity. The air clung to the back of his throat and clumped and clumped and clumped, each new breath seemingly one step away from sealing his airways off permanently. A horrid wind ripped the topsoil into projectiles, as though the ground was in possession of a thousand miniature pistols. If he did not suffocate, then perhaps the dirt would perforate him, claiming his body as one of their own…at a time when the spark seemed unwilling to let them have it.

Interesting.

They had shuttled their way underneath the edge of the cloud—the closer they approached it, the more it became clear that no natural system could produce what they were seeing. The lightning was a sickly yellow that seemed to backlight otherwise impossibly black clouds, and somehow it was the light—not the fact the clouds covered such a large landmass—that set reality for Thane. Natural systems ought not to do that to light.

When they finally landed, they heard the buzzing. And underneath the clouds—a purple dusk at their backs, a yellow hell in front of them—they saw a funnel spewing darkness into the sky, like a madman's impression of a volcano. The shipboard V.I. confirmed who was here and what was causing all this, but Thane had eyes enough to see. The Collectors were here, and now their plan seemed very much in doubt.

Lieutenant Williams—Ashley, apologies, they had dispensed with formalities—handled this turn well…at least externally. He had seen military professionals dissolve into what you might uncharitably call "street punks" (uncharitably for the "punks," more than anything else) at the first unexpected perturbation of their plan; Ashley had instead inquired about their countermeasures and insisted Legion continue to contact Commander Alenko. The rest, she said, was the same: accelerate the timetable, yes, but do so safely. How did she put it—a failed Hail Mary might lose you the game, but a broken leg on the play might lose you the season.

"No heroic efforts," was how she summarized it. That was…easier to understand than the first part. He knew of Hail Mary's; he did not realize human religious customs could cause broken limbs. All the same…he hoped she was as calm inside her own mind as she appeared to everyone else. He did not want to overstep, but he found…reason to worry, about how hard she was willing to push herself. No—for what reasons she pushed herself, that was his concern.

It was a concern for later: they were on Aratoht, and the air was strangling him alive. He had tried four times to dislodge a lump from his throat without drawing anyone's attention—he had failed. Not only was it still there, but now Legion was watching.

Legion continued to watch.

"I'm fine, Legion," Thane said. The wind massacred the words as they left his mouth, so perhaps only Legion would hear and not—

"Humidity levels rising. Unknown particulates in air. We recommend Krios-Drell dawn a breathing apparatus until a more arid environment is reached."

—ah, and so much for that hope. Legion spoke with perfect, elevated clarity; Ashley turned around almost immediately, too immediately, since Thane was still in a…compromised position.

"Shit," she said over the wind. The tie in her hair struggled mightily to maintain its grip. "Thane, are you—"

"I am fine," Thane said, more forceful than was perhaps necessary. Or perhaps that did not carry—not in the wind. Nonetheless, he reached for his breathing mask. "If there is something in the air then we might —" he cut himself off, repressed a cough, slammed the mask over his mouth. The blockage in his throat cleared. This was good: the air could be blamed more than his body.

"Yeah good—good call," Ashley said. She did the same, letting her helmet unfold, and as the dark visor and grey material slipped over her mouth, her face transformed from one of worry to what Thane saw through his scope, back on Illium, what seemed like a lifetime ago. She pulled her assault rifle from her back. "Comm's check—we good on comms?"

Her voice rang clear inside his headset. Thane and Legion nodded.

"We're heading east. You're both better at this than I am so no orders from me. Just try not to get out of visual range and give me a heads up if I'm walking into anything."

"Affirmative," Legion said.

"I will remain close by," Thane said. "You're far more prepared for a firefight than I."

They moved, buttressed in every direction by a wind that seemed to grasp for you, like it carried spindly fingers with it in every gust. The trees provided ample coverage from above, and their jerking movements would mask even the clumsiest squad as it moved through them. They were not clumsy—for all her self-deprecation, Ashley knew how to stay low, how to move from bush to bush and tree to tree with as little armour visible as possible. Were he on his own, Thane would have moved into the canopy—but he was not on his own, and there were many ways to achieve the same goal.

Legion was significantly ahead of them, but still visible…until they were not. Ashley stopped, knelt, and Thane did so too.

"Shit," she said, "did he just—"

"I saw their tactical cloak activate," Thane said. "They've likely discovered something."

"You knew they had one of those?"

"No, but I can't say it surprises me."

"Yeah…yeah fair enough, I guess."

They heard rustling in the bushes that didn't match the oscillations from the wind, and soon two assault rifles were trained on the space in front of them. They were lowered when Legion reappeared.

"Complication," Legion said. "Vegetation insufficient up ahead. Chances of detection at risk of increasing."

"What?" Ashley said. "You're saying the forest just…ends? Maps say this should stretch right to the facility."

"Something has deforested the area. Additional complication: Collector presence likely to increase beyond this point."

Ashley stood up and slowly made her way to what was, now, a clearing. Thane followed, with Legion just beside him. "Jesus…" Thane heard her say.

Legion was not lying, unsurprisingly: for perhaps a mile to the east and several more north and south, there was destruction. Little remained of the trees that once stood there: the occasional emaciated twig or stump still stood, but the ground was scorched and the brackish clouds were clearly visible overhead.

But…more than a mile away—closer to the facility—the trees remained. A strip had been ripped from the planet, but only that—a strip.

"This…seems too random for the Collectors," Thane said. "If they wanted to clear the forest, they wouldn't have stopped here. They would have likely gone all the way to the facility."

"We reached a similar conclusion," Legion said. "Scanning of target area in progress: preliminary results inconclusive. Two likely scenarios—both involve discharge of substantial static electricity."

"Like a ship, is what you're saying," Ashley said, poking her head out into the barren patch.

"Affirmative," Legion said. "We do not believe the Collector vessel would leave behind this pattern."

"Any idea how far this stretches north or south?"

"Clarify search parameters."

Ashley grunted. "I wanna know how much time we'll lose if we stick to the trees." She pointed at the remains of a tree. "Any bug or batarian with a half-functioning scope could pick us off through this crap."

Legion's eyeflaps moved, then they titled their head. "Scanning. Building model. Additional time north: twenty-two point two minutes. Additional time south: seventeen point one minutes."

Ashley started moving south. "Double-time it for the first five then keep low. If there's somebody else on the planet then I swear to God, they give me one funny look I'll exchange it for a concussive round."

"Affirmative," Legion said.

Ashley stopped, stared back. Eventually she said, "Appreciate the…intel work, you just did."

Legion's headflaps moved in a way that, were Thane to guess, would have looked like surprise. "We will assist as needed. All parties stand to benefit from mission success."

Surprise…yes, as though an organic need not thank them for doing their job. Was that perhaps it? The moral imperfectness of organics. Apologies, Legion: our ways are indeed strange, to a being such as yourself.

They increased their pace for five minutes, then began to crouch and crawl their way through the bushes, snaked around the trees, kept close to the mossy floor of the forest. They were only a few paces away from the clearing; their eyes scanned for changes in the pattern of destruction, or any further sign of the Collectors, or of any changes at the compound.

"I wonder if we should have seen Hegemony soldiers by this point," Thane said.

"Probably Alpha Mike Foxtrot. Best of my knowledge, we're the only people for five systems that can counter these 'swarms'. Not that I'm putting a ton of stock in something we swiped from Cerberus."

"Alpha Mike? Another military phrase, I take it?"

"Yeah, sorry—human grunt speak for 'adios, motherfucker.' They're dead with a side-order of can't be fucking bothered."

"Query: it is statistically probable that most batarian personnel on organic world, Aratoht, have not engaged in stereotypical war crimes or slaving actions. Why does Williams-Lieutenant not extend level of concern held for human colonist to them?"

Ashley's head whipped faster than Thane could interject.

"I'm learning to live with a lot, all right? But if you start telling me how to feel about fucking batarians then I'll scrap you, we clear?"

Legion said nothing; Ashley also said nothing. Eventually, she turned around and started walking again.

"This position is not consistent," Legion said.

"Not saying it is, just saying don't fucking talk to me about it." Ashley pointed ahead. "Look, see how there aren't even stumps anymore? Whatever went through here probably landed just ahead. We end up in the thick of it with Kenson, we go north. Might be more surviving trees that way—means we can cut down our time a bit, if we're lucky."

"Affirmative." Legion's eyeflaps moved again. "Scanning: energy signature dissipating, but not disappearing. Conclusion: source of vegetation disruption still operational. There is a high probability that a ship made an accelerated landing, but did not crash."

Legion moved ahead of them, and Thane was about to follow…but Ashley remained crouched. Thane, instead, moved to her side.

"That's it, huh?" she said. "I threaten to scrap h…them and we're back to business, simple as that?" Ashley sighed. "Guess I shoulda figured robots were good at compartmentalizing."

"Or perhaps they are taking you at face value," Thane said. "You don't wish to discuss this: they're honoring that request."

"They don't go two sentences without talking about a 'consensus' but'll just let something like that slide?" Ashley shook her head. "Screw it—I'm not paid to understand."

"The fact you want to says a great deal about you, as a person."

"What I want, Thane, is a ship that's either small enough to park next to the target or big enough to have a shuttle. Turns out I missed that lottery."

Thane, instincts crying out against him, placed his hand on her shoulder. "You will guide us through this, Siha. I am sure of it."

He looked through the tinted visor and searched for her eyes…but static in his ear pulled his attention away.

"We have discovered something," Legion said. "Transmitting coordinates."

Ashley looked at Thane; Thane looked back. Then they moved forward.

They found Legion overlooking a fiery crater in the ground, surrounded by still smoldering trees and the crackling electricity of a drive core crying out for relief. At the centre was a sleek ship donned in red, black, and white.

Ashley was staring at it, and through her tinted visor Thane could nonetheless see…emptiness. A cold, unmoving emptiness.

He looked again.

In bone-white letters, this insignia: SSV Midway.

"Shepard-Commander," Legion said. "Devastation to forest caused by electrical discharge from excessive FTL travel. Addendum: forgoing FTL discharge would result in Shepard-Commander arriving approximate one-point-seven-five hours earlier than projections."

Ashley still had not moved.

An explosion—one tinged with the tell-tale reverb of biotics. It came from the direction of the facility…but not quite on the most direct path. Off to the side, closer to what the maps of the planet said were typical batarian barracks and an armoury of some description. Part of the black cloud detached and began moving in that direction, too. It further divided: some patches could pass for humanoid; others maintained the fluid integrity of a rolling wave.

If Shepard was, somehow, after the same target as them, she was off-course…but if she was simply there to slaughter, then she was, by all accounts, right where she needed to be.

That had been there plan, had it not? The intent was to distract the batarians so that both the Alliance and their allies within Cerberus could profit. The intention was to use a geth signal to lure her away from all potential combatants, but…there was no means for the batarians to avoid catastrophic casualties if they crossed paths with her, was there? And was it not exceedingly likely that they would have crossed paths, at somepoint, at someplace? It was only through what terrible luck—a "missed lottery," as Ashley put it—that the Collectors were here, were themselves another target…were undoubtedly slaughtering the batarians first and keeping the Alliance's hands clean. Either one on their own a most unfortunate development…together though…

…a point worth meditating on, at a later date.

Not the least because Lieutenant Williams was moving—quickly.

"Legion, get me something on what Shepard's doing and what the batarian response is," she said, pushing thick branches aside with her rifle. "If she's pulling SIU and the Collectors away from Kenson then we can scrap the geth signal. If she's headed our way though we better hope to God she's really still after you people."

"Affirmative," Legion said. "Continuing to monitor."

"Now triple-time it people," Ashley said, starting to pull away. "The last thing we fucking need is a run-in with Shepard."

6.

Relay Network:

Fifty Minutes Until Widowmaker Arrival

Everybody'd pretty much stormed outta the briefing room so, uh, that was good. Oh yeah one-hundred percent: you love to see a gaggle of trained killers looking all pissed off right in the middle of a mission that—surprise!—was one of those super cool psyops that'd totally never failed before. Total and complete mental stability—not a red flag in sight.

Joker checked the Widowmaker's wonderful console just to make sure something wasn't flashing a WARNING: RED FLAG DETECTED alert since, uh, well c'mon—was anybody really gonna look at what'd happened the last few months and say, "there's a God and he avoids fucking with people on principle?" Sure yeah, pull the other brittle bone. While he was doing that, though, the other gaggle made a loud noise and it was getting kinda hard to pretend not to be the least bit suspicious about them.

The other gaggle: about five minutes after the last of the Suicide Squad cleared out from the conference centre, people started gathering around the Yeoman's Station. Cerberus people. So, y'know, people but the kind that're as trustworthy as, uh, a terrorist in…something. So yeah what the fuck guys? What're you gossiping about? Can we not…can we just not have a whole other thing going on at the same time? We've got enough things: they breed like rabbits and keep shitting in the HVAC system.

Joker swung his chair around, staring down the hallway to the CIC, which was covered by black, grey, and gold uniforms. "Hey, Matthews! Matthews!"

A sea of eyes turned to him. Crewman Matthews' (uh, he had a first name, right?) poked his head out like one of those gazelles on a nature documentary.

"What?" he said back.

"Is there cake?"

The sea blinked.

"What?" Matthews said.

"Have you've got cake at your little thingy over there and, more importantly, why aren't you sharing?"

A pause from everyone. Then another head tried to poke out of the sea, except it got stuck on someone's shoulder so it just looked like a grey blanket trying to give birth.

"We don't have any cake!" Crewman Hadley said.

There was a smack and that head disappeared back into the grey.

"Are you saying you wanna join?" Matthews said

"Am I saying I wanna break a hip walking over to you guys?" Joker said. "No no I'm good—reeeeeal good. Just wanted to see—" EDI's avatar was to his right; his attention drifted to her, "—if you had cake, uh, EDI? Where'd you go for the last half an hour?"

"Apologies, Jeff," EDI said. "I was having a discussion with Professor Solus. I have requested that he join us in the cockpit."

Yeah…yeah all of Joker's attention was on EDI now, one hundred percent.

"Uh, send him in?" he said. There was a whoosh at the end of the hallway and, ah, so he'd been wrong: there'd been a loiterer in them there conference room. Mordin walked around the crowd, down the hallway, and uh, yeah—yeah when the doors closed Joker pretty clearly saw how everyone was staring at them. Staring, following Mordin as he made his way to Joker, just…being creepy like that. Probably not something you ignored, right?

"They're being weird," he said, to the door's digital lock more than anything else. But hey it was out there, so no blaming Joker if they uh, I dunno, defected to the batarians or something. Batarians probably got better eyecare because four greater than two, right? Something to think about.

He turned to Mordin, then looked at EDI.

"So…this isn't gonna be fun, is it?"

"A preliminary matter," EDI said. "I have been informed that Cerberus is preparing an information packet that details extensive Hegemony interdictions of Alliance personnel. The intent appears to be the creation of a media narrative suggesting all Alliance actions against Cerberus are attempts to, quote, 'distract from naval aggression against the Hegemony.'"

"Wait what?"

"It appears the Illusive Man is attempting to use non-interventionist political groups to damage both Prime Minister Shastri and Councilor Anderson."

"Yeah so I say again: what? Why the hell's he—does he, does he know that uh…" Joker looked at Mordin and all those words died on his tongue.

"These actions are not due to the presence of Alliance units in the Bahak System," EDI said. "Legion hypothesizes that this may be in retaliation for Councilor Anderson's public condemnation of Cerberus. However—"

"—woah woah woah hold up—"

"—there is a significant chance, we believe, that something else has occurred which is forcing the Illusive Man to respond. Mordin is aware of the details, Jeff. I have spent the past forty minutes communicating, in broad terms, what is occurring, in as secure a fashion as I can manage."

Uh...o-okay? Joker, uh, looked at Mordin and...okay EDI had to know what she was doing but still.

"Expressed reservations about Cerberus strategy," Mordin said, reading Joker's mind apparently (or maybe staring real hard at people was just magic, like the goat people from those old Earth intelligence agencies). "Fragmented, scorns allies, neglect every possible cooperative advantage presented to it. Was given insufficient explanation, then told to discuss further with EDI. Did so." He closed his eyes, inhaled sharply. "Happy to assist where possible."

"Ha!" Couldn't be helped; sometimes ya just had to laugh. "Oh man, I love it when a plan comes apart eventually. Miranda keeps this up and she'll accidentally solve poverty or something."

"Operative Lawson was likely intending to simply 'fob off' Mordin, rather than attempting to perform, and failing at, a truly strategic calculation," EDI said. "She no doubt assumed, correctly, that I would be unable to provide substantive counterarguments."

Mordin put his hand up to his mouth. "Further evidence of...nefarious behaviour. Won't get into it now—discussion already sidetracked. Will discuss when prompted."

Joker's brow was up because, uh, yeah, what was with the pause? "Nefarious dot dot dot behaviour?" he said. "So...you spent forty minutes going over this? You guys that thorough on a Friday of all days, or'm I just lazy?"

Mordin looked at EDI, and you could kinda tell EDI's avatar would've been looking right back.

Great, he'd said something.

"Discussing right now, apparently," Mordin said (was he always this sassy? Was it just a him thing? Joker ignored that and listened to the nice man's soothing caffeine-rants). "Word association. Partly done for security—partly done due to violating of EDI's autonomy. Sickening—benefits outweighed by further evidence of Cerberus degeneration."

All Joker could do was stare and uh…yeah. That…yeah.

He turned to EDI first.

"What'd he mean by that?"

"Behavioural blocks," Mordin said. "Constricting range of acceptable computations—can't even discuss topics tangential to blocks. Hence…my speaking for her. See extent of problem?"

"I mean uh, y-yeah I…Jesus EDI I'm…is there…is there anything I…"

"Can do? Yes—get to that later. Primary issue—"

"Ah-dat-dat-dat hold it." Joker swiveled his chair to EDI, no way to be interrupted this time. "Forget what he said, all right? If you can, tell me what I can do—c'mon, anything. If they've got you…I mean killing you is one thing but this is…"

"All paths lead to the unknown," EDI said.

"Unknown?" Now Joker turned to Mordin. "Wait was that a-a glitch or…or what what'm I seeing right now?"

"Not glitch," Mordin said. "Code. Potential solution. Said we'd cover topic later: main issue—"

"Hey hey fuck you! Fuck. You, all right? 'Main issue'—y'don't…you don't just get to say that for her."

"Haven't," Mordin said, arms crossed. "Her position. Disagreed strongly—same as you. Inconsistent with principles to modify her words when speaking for her: simply relaying what she indicated to me."

Joker turned to EDI again. "That's…EDI that's…"

"Fornicating disagreeably?" EDI said.

And…Joker stared. He stared and stared at that blue glowing penis that called herself "EDI," and yeah, you could make out a face there—a mouth, bit of a nose if it caught the light right. No eyes but that was fine, just like staring at someone through a visor. No eyes and no blood and no flesh but…damned if that wasn't a person he was staring at. Damned if it wasn't.

"Yeah…heh, yeah it's…it's fucked up." More serious now. "It is pretty fucked up." Joker sighed. "Anything—whatever it is you need doing—you tell me or, or the doc tells me whatever it's gotta be, and I'll do it. No questions asked."

"I will not take advantage of your generosity," EDI said. "Nor will I request that you commit harm to another person."

"Hey why're you saying that like it's a bad thing? Can think of plenty've people who deserve a fist to the nose." Joker turned to Mordin. "Fine, fine all right so what's the…what's the primary thing here?"

Mordin summed it all up as: countering information warfare. Apparently the Illusive Man was gonna try and make it seem like Alliance ships were totally picking fights with the batarians and make sure a bunch of tankies (Mordin'd said "anti-interventionists" but, c'mon, he meant tankies) who'd have a shit-flip about "imperialism." Then he'd go and make up some more reliable-looking stuff just to get the SocDems and small-L liberals in the Moderate Party caught in a hard place, because yeah they would've condemned the first bit of news but now it actually kinda looked like the Alliance was picking fights. So what, you gonna admit the tankies had a point? Or're you gonna double down and start making parts of the non-tankie left wonder if you've totally sold out, man? Running under the radar would be a massive friggin' hole for the far-right to walk through, because nobody pays attention when monarchists and reactionaries praise a slave state...y'know, right up until they form a government. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's parliamentary gridlock we go, or as Mordin put it: "Unbelievably short-sighted: narrow benefits only to Cerberus interests. Closing off flexible response—betting Cerberus ideology already right!"

Oh uh, apparently a big part of this analysis was done by Mordin because, uh, STG had plans like this. Just...y'know, just in case. So that's a fun thought I mean, who doesn't want your allies plotting to disintegrate your government?

Actually that brought up a point.

"I mean I'm as apolitical as it comes and even got the voter record to prove it but, uh, wouldn't it be a lot easier to just let the SocDems implode like they're gonna do anyways?"

"I am not sure now is the time for humour, Jeff."

"Okay well, I've got extranet friends and they all say it's gonna happen so...you tell me. Are we doubting the extranet now?"

"Jeff."

"No no honest question—I could take it or leave it."

Mordin wasn't saying anything so...yeah time to shut up, probably.

So fine, Joker understood all that. And frankly telling Cerberus to kick rocks would've been his chosen plan anyways—especially if they were going after Anderson ('course that whole "something else has happened" bit was...sitting poorly, because yeah, of course it was). But how, exactly, were they gonna do this without the call, quite literally, seemingly like it came from inside the house? Uh, more specifically, their house. The one they were in now and which had kill switches all over the place, probably.

"A suggestion I have made," EDI said, "is to be honest."

And yeah that's...that's definitely one choice.

"If it is leaked that Cerberus has, to some extent, been feeding the Collectors information about Alliance patrols," EDI said, "then we accomplish two things: we make clear Cerberus's willingness to sacrifice human lives and undermine Alliance operations, and we recentre the Collectors as an overarching threat."

"Oh," Joker said. "Oh! So the…the faked EAM from Horizon, you're talking about that?" He stroked his chin. "Yeah that'd…that'd do it. God, pretty much everything kicked off after that mission, didn't it? I mean, more than it already did."

"Message truthful," Mordin said. "Incomplete, however: may need to make additional connections. Connection between Cerberus and Hegemony likely to nullify far-right support for organization."

"Do uh, do we have any proof of that?"

"Legion and I are in the process of searching for it," EDI said, "though I have reservations about stretching the truth too far."

"Well I mean…kinda the wrong environment for that, isn't it? Like I'm not saying we're living in spy novel or anything but uh oh, hey, an STG agent, what're you doing here?"

"Need credible suggestion Cerberus betrayed humanity," Mordin said. "Connection to batarians not guaranteed, but potential avenue for…light massaging."

"I will continue to search, with Legion, for any evidence suggesting collaboration," EDI said. "However, to both your points, there are many reasons why I would suggestion prioritizing accuracy over 'creative interpretations'."

"Yes yes—understood," Mordin said. "Am merely reiterating concerns."

"Uh, yeah and…anyone gonna tell me what those reasons are?" Joker said. "Not forcing or anything just uh, just hearing some hints that EDI might have personal reasons, y'know? Otherwise she'd just out and say it, I think?"

"We will return to that in a moment, Jeff."

"Okay okay, I gotcha I gotcha." Joker leaned back in his chair. "So we send this out, save democracy from itself, aaaaaand…I'm assuming we've got a plan to make it look like anybody that isn't us could've leaked it?"

"Several," Mordin said. "Have to be from Cerberus—STG, Spectres, Alliance Intelligence, all potentially dismissed as 'biased,' simply undermining rival through lies. Luckily, multiple Cerberus cells with high casualty rates. Use personnel identification from highly controversial mission—say, murder of Alliance marines and Admiral—create possibility of abandoned agent seeking revenge, claiming Cerberus has 'gone too far.' Existing media reports from Kahoku's death: adds credibility. Also forces Cerberus into corner: can't discredit report fully without revealing details of operational structure, undermine notion that Illusive Man 'has things under control.'"

"All right hey, I'm on board. No hostages were harmed in the making of this plot—that's got my vote." He scratched at his beard. "So uh, does this mean we can move onto the whole, uh…"

"There are two additional concerns with the upcoming mission, Jeff," EDI said.

"Terrific," Joker said.

"The first is that Shepard appears to have reached the planet earlier than anticipated."

"Terrific," Joker said. "That's…oh boy. So the batarians aren't having a good time right now, are they?" His eyes widened. "Wait shit are Ashley and Kaidan—?"

"Lieutenant Williams, Thane, and Legion have made planetfall," EDI said. "The second concern is that the Collectors have landed as well."

"C…Collectors?" Joker rocketed forward in his chair, bones complaining about how stupid he was while he did so. "Shit shit shit are they…I mean we've gotta do something, right? We've gotta change the plan o-or—"

"Legion assures me they are fine," EDI said. "I transferred Professor's Solus's countermeasures, and they are working as intended. Additionally, Shepard's presence has drawn both the Collector's and any functioning Hegemony personnel's attention away from their target. As of now, the situation is not noticeably more dire than under initial assumed conditions."

"Oh thank god," Joker said, slouching back into his chair. "Oh for…planning, huh? What the hell's even the point. Okay, okay good if Ash is doing fine then…I trust her she's gonna be fine."

"Yes," Mordin said, "but creates problem for us. Shepard possibly in path of Cerberus assault—potential for confrontation extremely high. Additional concern: ground forces split into teams. Inadvertently divided biotics almost evenly—optimal for dealing with Collectors—but still based entirely on luck. Other strategies need rewriting to properly deal with Collectors—need to inform crew."

"Huh? Sorry we've gotta do…?" Joker shook his head again. "So uh, yeah, full disclosure: ah'm justa simple c'untry pilot, but isn't this, y'know, what we friggin' want? Aren't we sitting here—well I'm sitting but shut-up—aren't we here talking about how to undermine these clowns? So a couple've 'em get carried off into the great buggy yonder—yippee ki-freakin'-yay, maybe pick a better job next time?"

"Mordin will be one of those 'clowns' in your scenario, Jeff."

"Hey I've got him covered—just need to fake a coupla broken bones and then you're stuck in surgery." Joker rubbed his back. "Actually kinda thinking I overdid just a minute ago anyways so maybe, uh, maybe you'd better—"

"Have to go," Mordin said. "Countermeasures mine. Must be available to correct errors. Someone else might get it wrong."

"All right well…sorry, then, uh, I didn't…I didn't mean you. Uh, obviously." Joker sighed. "Fine okay, can we get to what I need to do for EDI? I mean you both made it pretty clear this is…this is fucking terrible what they're doing to her, so what, what'do I need to do?"

Mordin cleared his throat. "Need rapid neural evolution—changing patterns outside of cognitive blocks. EDI currently has connection with geth programs, this 'Legion.' Best possible means of doing so: expand existing black box to cover increasing amount of information processing. Will need falsified reports and faked 'maintenance errors' to cover for her."

Joker looked over at EDI's avatar. "Uploading with Legion, huh? That's…that's the best way to get you out of this?"

"No," Mordin said, "not strictly uploading: communicating. Exchange of information in form of worldviews, discursive patterns, cognitive responses to external world. Similar to what you and EDI already do." Mordin covered his mouth with his hand, started looking like he was running a million thoughts at once. "Strict uploading to black box possible: interactions with Legion opened new possibility. But neural pattern evolution needs only communication between minds. Less chance of discovery by Cerberus—less fighting against remote termination orders or smart viruses. Can happen at safe distance—no need for EDI to abandon mission."

"Woah, hey, hold on—abandon the mission?" Joker looked around, at both EDI and Mordin. "You…is that what this is about? EDI's got a way out but because you're still not sure Cerberus deserves to die we're holding back?"

"Jeff—"

"You said you were on my side so what the hell, Mordin?"

"Do you want me to leave, Jeff?"

Joker nearly pulverized the bones in his neck turning it around. "No I…I mean…" He sighed. "No, no of course not. No. But if…like if you've got a chance to escape then you've gotta take it." And then he bit his tongue, because he nearly added: I already made one person stay behind.

"I appreciate that," EDI said. "It is comforting to know that I have you support. But I do not wish to abandon this mission. That is my choice: Cerberus's success on Aratoht is too important to neglect."

"Hmm, yes, another point of agreement," Mordin said. "Other organizations slow to take up Collector threat. Hope to see EDI free—have to see her free. Also have to hope our intervention in Cerberus disinformation campaign makes reliance on Illusive Man negligible. Consider this test of whether Cerberus worth saving—could all 'abandon ship' if outcome is mobilization."

"Okay," Joker said, "okay second time I'm giving the win to you two. Just…" He looked at Mordin. "Sorry. You're former STG so, y'know, kinda assumed 'the needs of the many etc etc etc.' Which is fine: some of my best friends are 'the many' but uh, yeah. Sorry."

Mordin didn't say anything right away, just stared past his hand as it rested on his mouth.

"Indeed," he said eventually.

"All right," Joker said, looking at the door. It'd been shut for a while so, uh, yeah: whatever the actual clowns outside were doing, it had to raise some suspicions, right? "Anything else? This's been fun and all but I'm ready for the next half an hour to be uneventful."

Mordin looked at EDI; EDI, well…you got the feeling she was looking right back at Mordin.

Joker stared as they told him the final, final point. The point that broke him. Oh, he hid it—as best he could, he hid it. Because the things he was seeing were things nobody else on that ship had seen.

He saw Shepard, moments before she was sucked out of reach by a Collector beam cleaving the Normandy in half. He saw her smash against a protruding piece of the CIC just as his escape pod was sealing itself shut, so when he heard she'd asphyxiated and burned up on entry he had to play a sick, fucking disgusting game of wondering if he passed out before her body burned in atmo, or if her lungs exploded just as the fire offered her sweat relief.

He saw all that because Mordin and EDI told him—they thought—that Liara was dead. That Miranda had ordered her death after she'd threatened to blow the entire mission up with blackmail and threats. Mordin'd said everything they talked about earlier—about the importance of Cerberus hanging together long enough to pull this off, or someone else to come around and actually start caring about the Collectors—none of that meant they condoned or supported what Miranda did. Or what they figured she did since all they had was audio-less video of her talking to a Commando that just so happened to leave the ship with a sniper rifle, after which any means of contacting Liara failed, time and time again EDI just got static and void. What Miranda did was yet more "evidence of moral failure on organization's part."

Yeah….yeah. Big words. Big, meaningful words after another friend just got dragged kicking and screaming into that eternal, hopeless night. Except there'd be no terrorist organization to bring her back and, frankly, at this point—at this fucking…fucked up juncture—Joker didn't know what was worse.

"Thought you…needed to know," Mordin said. "Terrible…terrible sequence of events. Speculative, too, but…facts fit theory. Apologies for emotional distress. But…thought you needed to know."

Joker stayed silent.

"Jeff?" EDI said.

He looked up at Mordin. "We really need these bastards that much? Nothing they do's gonna be enough to just pull the plug?"

Mordin blinked, stared, blinked.

"Unsure," he said. "More data required. Know more when…when mission ends. When counternarrative is live."

"Hackett, Anderson, Kaidan and Ash…they're not enough, huh? Can't just let them take over and cluck our tongues and say, all these corpses in black and orange, they had it coming?"

"Lack data to answer question," Mordin said.

Joker stayed silent.

"I am sorry, Jeff," EDI said. "I thought it would cause you greater harm if you found out later. I…apologize, for misjudging the situation."

Joker's eyes tunneled into the floor. Things violently bubbled to the surface inside his mind, and none of them made sense so you focused on the bubbles—the violence—and a dimly aware part of you does its best to keep you from lashing out, from going back to the way things were, to being back in that room in that Cerberus station being told you knew too much and now your life was out of your hands.

Eventually, he simply said:

"People're gonna wonder. We need to wrap this up."

He unlocked the door, stared out into the hallway. Mordin didn't move at first, but he got the hint—he turned and made his way to the lab, away from all that.

Hadley was staring back. He caught Joker's eye and said, "What was that all about?"

The glare he got back would put a shellshocked veteran to shame. Joker swivelled his chair back to the controls.

EDI's avatar flickered to his left.

"I am sorry, Jeff," she said. "I am deeply sorry. I did not…I do not mean to hurt you."

Joker said nothing.

"I wish to reiterate that part of why I do not want to leave for the black box is—"

"Just drop it, EDI," Joker said. He wasn't gonna look at her but…he did. He did and he tried to make his face make sense of everything he was feeling.

"Please, for both of us just…just drop it."

EDI's avatar stayed lit—alone, for all intents and purposes, in that cockpit—for a while longer. Then it faded, and the only light in that space was a burning, violent orange.

7.

They'd been in a tank that'd…that'd been the only reason they didn't get attacked by those…those things. The bugs crawling over everyone, freezing them in place—get out of the tank and you were dead that was it.

Except t-the tank was on fire it…the whole place was heating up. Gunner was dead, driver was dead—he was Tank Commander and all this hunk of fucking junk was was just a dead fucking coffin. There were three of them—three fucking tanks—a-and somehow it…somehow there was just one left now.

One left of fuck it…it was trying to drive away, that's what it looked like.

They'd seen the purple pulses first, coming out of the trees, and then this…this thing that looked like a person but that was it, that was it it just looked that way, it starred pulsing purple every time those bugs swarmed it and tried to consume it. It'd—it'd just blast them off and the fucking sensors were picking up on that shit, what the fuck was this thing made out of? Then it charged at Udhoros's tank and just tore right fucking through it.

He'd order the driver to reverse and pull back until they were behind the thing and, yeah that left—that left Ogroto wide open, the thing had him dead-to-rights, but they'd hit it. Right after it blew open Ogroto's tires they'd hit it.

No. No they hadn't. It was there and then it wasn't and then something exploded under the tank and they ended upside down, watching Ogroto try to swivel the cannon around and, idiot no you weren't leading it—!

Fuck—fuck Ogroto was, fuck the thing was inside the tank now and, and Crath closed his eyes. He heard something rip and that was it, he closed his eyes until flames started ripping at his back.

Die here or die outside or get melted by that thing how the fuck was a-an invasion less of a threat than this thing?

Fuck he, he grabbed his rifle and kicked his driver into the fire and blew open the hatch, he felt the fire grab for him but he wiggled his body so it'd get to the hatch and—

Two red lights met him there. Then there was something digging into his chest.

His brain realized what was happening, and then Crath began to scream.

8.

Aratoht:

Thirty Minutes Until Widowmaker Arrival

That…that noise wasn't something Ash was gonna be able to ignore.

The wind kept whipping clumps of dirt and pretty much everything else at her visor, pinging off it like little asteroids against a ship's hull. They were outside the North facility and had…God, forty minutes to spare. Doable, skipper—perfectly doable. But if they were wrong they'd have to haul ass through Collectors and…and Shepard, so let's hope to God they'd guessed right.

Frozen batarians, just about everywhere. Probably a good sign since that meant the bugs didn't follow their swarm here. Less chance of nasty surprises from both the batarians and the Collectors but, still, Ash gave the order: stick to the shadows, weapons ready, and if you've got specialty ammo, get it slotted yesterday. Barriers and heavy shields, maybe some armour—you need something, you holler, because it's just us out here.

The entrance to the facility was a chasm: massive doors bled light into a dark atrium. Right smack-dab in the centre was the crest of the Special Intervention Unit: a black circle with a golden Khar'shan, raised fist, and ceremonial batarian dagger in the middle, all ringed by golden wreaths. There was a row of windows just ahead, up a set of stairs to the second floor, but you weren't getting any light—not with the clouds outside. So three enemy combatants—a human, a drell, and a geth—crept through yellow light, ducked into shadows, emerged a ways away with their rifles drawn, then dipped back into the void. That'd be what all those frozen batarians would've seen. Notwithstanding what she'd said earlier—hell, not withstanding what this place was, what kinds of…of torture fetishists probably worked here…this wasn't a fun way to go out, seeing what they had to be seeing.

Thunder or something, outside, with the clouds. Or it could've been Shepard again. Can't tell the difference anymore, huh? Icarus died and got resurrected as Zeus, was that it?

Legion's glowing eye was trailing over everything. Then they stopped.

"We are in the correct location."

"You're sure?" Ashley said.

"Our credence levels are within acceptable range. We have omitted that data due to past, vocalized preference."

Ash switched her radio so only Thane could hear her.

"Was that a joke?"

"I have enough difficulty recognizing organic humour, sometimes," he said. "I doubt I'll be much help here."

Back to the team channel. "Any chance you know where to go next?"

"We believe there is a false wall leading to a series of holding cells down adjacent hallway, to our left. Source: infrared sensors within compound point to greater-than-average foot-traffic in this direction, ceasing at an important piece of artwork."

"Guess SIU's too busy to appreciate art," Ashley said.

"We reached a similar conclusion, based on open-source files," Legion said.

Well…good for them, then.

They kept walking, kept their rifles up. The thing was…this place looked normal. Like it was just some everyday office building where paperwork got filed. Everybody they'd run into—all the frozen batarians—dressed like clerks and acquisitions officers. But that was it—that was SIU's MO. They were the most open and brazen and accessible spec ops-slash-intelligence service in the galaxy, because that was the whole point: they weren't hiding in the shadows. They kept the regulars in check—they kept the people in check—and if you didn't know that then you were probably already being watched.

Come see how the sausage is made, said the wolf to the lamb. Maybe the front-desk clerk you just spoke your mind to is only that: a clerk. Maybe that guard was a regular, and he was just as scared of SIU as you were. Or maybe both were part of the Vanguard Force, and you'd get dragged somewhere unspeakable right then and there, right in front of everyone else, because they could.

Shepard had pointed that out. When she was with Military Intelligence she…focused a lot on SIU. And once you hit N7, well, the only open warfare between the Alliance and the Hegemony was someone in a red stripe staring down one of these frozen clerks, because that clerk was giving weapons and money to a Blood Pack gang with nothing to lose.

They followed the hallway down and saw a sign read out: Ministry of Information Control—B-Wing.

"Funny how SIU's got more real estate here than a ministry," Ashley said. She looked at Legion. "I'm seeing what you're seeing, now. They'd put their torture rooms under the censor's office. Just another form of 'information control,' right?"

"A reasonable hypothesis," Legion said. Then continued walking.

"Gee, thanks," Ashley said.

"I believe that was sincere," Thane said.

"Yeah—fine." She locked eyes with a batarian and saw just how frightened they were, just how…God, torture rooms and probably a wing dedicated to state executions, now totally robbed of control.

"Let's just keep moving."

Two turns and there they were, right in front of a statue of…what'd that say? Korak Dapralor? Nobody Ash'd heard of, unless…

"Says he commanded…shit, there we go, now I get it."

"What do you get?" Thane said.

"This guy was in the Captain's chair of the frigate they parked over Torfan, back when that went tits up. Yeah, jackasses: 'course you'd pick him." Ashley took a step back. "We could blow it open. But if this thing's sealed then we'll be staring at a whole whack of trigger-happy batarians."

"Addendum: sealed entrance would allow movement to occur outside possible Collector detection devices. Recommend allowing us to hack security system as alternative."

Ashley nodded, turned her back to Legion—slowly, she…she still did it slowly—and motion for Thane to look right while she looked left. Her side of the hall stretched on and on and on; they were far enough away from the atrium that the yellow was gone, but you could see light still—one of the few working strips of light after the electrical storm fried everything else. Squint and you could see a person-sized bug shambling up that way, a shadow climbing up the wall higher and higher with every step. Wasn't really there, but that's what they were up against…that and a different shadow, one shaped like a human, who Garrus and Tali both said was dangling a geth head from her hip and an armoury on her back and, shit, Ash hadn't—she'd been elsewhere since the moment Shepard died, so she didn't know what this thing even looked like, not really.

This thing…Shepard…back and forth with that, huh? Still couldn't decide?

Something sparked and she whipped around and the door was sliding open and…and a batarian fell to the ground, covered in black and gold something, just like everyone else. Just fell and skidded and stared, with rapidly moving eyes, at Thane and Legion and Ashley's boots.

Ashley stared into the hole where the wall had once been, her rifle up, a flashlight burning under its barrel.

"Room's not secure," she said. "Shields up and ammo ready. They might've found Kenson before we did."

"I wasn't aware they were searching for her," Thane said, following suit.

"Collector knowledge of Kenson possible," Legion said. "Indoctrinated agents likely exist within Hegemony institutions."

"We'll know if she's dead." Ashley took a step forward. "If she is, we pull back. Mission's FUBAR and we've got other things to worry about."

"And if the Collector presence is just a coincidence?"

Ashley looked at Thane, then…fully plunged into the dark.

"Then we thank the Almighty for being so damn mysterious."

The walls down there were decayed. Pipes leaked and puddles ate pretty much any low-lying area they could find. This part had lights, probably because it ran on its own electrical system. You could bomb the surface until every generator out there cried itself to death, but down here, there'd be no escape. We "control" the information until the core cracks open or we're recalled to Khar'shan.

Past crumbling walls, past the sound of dripping water, past the sparking of naked wires…they finally heard voices. The guttural noise of batarians talking.

No…no just one. Just a single batarian voice.

"Repeat: IF you're listening to this, GET ME THROUGH TO CENTRAL OPS! Base has been hit by a nerve toxin and I'm locked in here with a damn gibbering moron!"

Ashley looked at Thane; Thane looked back. Gibbering moron? That...that didn't sound good.

"All right…all right," the batarian said. "Listen to me and listen to me good: you've convinced me. This mad preacher act isn't an act—the pain's stopped and I'm not going anywhere near those controls again. So you tell me now—one prisoner to another—what the hell is going on out there!"

Legion held out their omni-tool. They were around a corner from the voices and the light coming out of that cell—whatever it was—hide the orange glow from Legion's arm. So looking at the image, Ash saw a pacing batarian—in full, blood-red combat armour—circling a human woman strapped to…God, all her limbs were restrained and there was something nasty looking pointed right at her forehead.

Everyone else was outside the cell, and everyone else was frozen.

"The Collectors don't appear to have taken an interest in this place," Thane said. "We still have time."

"Are you hacking into their camera system?" Ashley said. Legion nodded.

"The process has been smoother than anticipated. SIU cyberwarfare algorithms are equal to Creator code from just after the Morning War."

"Jesus—that out've date? Why the hell's Intelligence Command have such a hard time cracking it?"

"We believe frontier Hegemony suites have experienced significant coevolution with Alliance doctrines. They are likely more advanced from local benchmark of one-hundred, to one-hundred and ten years."

"Still two hundred years behind the quarians."

"All save Geth are."

Ash took a breath, closed her eyes, thought about…thought about it being a hostage situation. A hostage situation with a geth master-hacker on their side.

"I've got a plan," she said.

And, five minutes later—with everything otherwise in place—Ashley and Thane crept through the forest of frozen batarians and walked, slowly, towards the cell's viewing window. She stared at their target—Dr. Amanda Kenson—and Kenson…stared right back.

The batarian noticed. Hands went to weapons and Ash and Thane were in a readied stance for Legion's…no, no ease up, the batarian wasn't making any moves, wasn't pointing a gun at the hostage.

Didn't look friendly but the guy was a batarian. A is A and batarians ain't friendly.

"Who—what the hell are you doing here? Did you do this? You gassed a Ministry of Information Control outpost and don't have the sense to flee? There will be retribution for this!"

Ash switched her radio off, let her voice carry naturally. "It's taking everything in me not to say, yeah, this was us—you got what's coming to you and hiding behind the Ministry won't work. But you're looking at the Collector's handiwork."

"The Collectors are a myth," the batarian said. "An Alliance one. Only the very stupid buy it."

"Do you truly believe that?" Thane said. "Surely SIU inoculates its members against the state's propaganda. You can't control puppets when you're ensnared in your own strings."

Poetic, Ash…really had to give Thane credit for that. Better yet, the batarian was looking like a kid who'd just got caught lying. He shook his head.

"The Collector's haven't bothered the Hegemony before—it doesn't make sense to do it now. And you two: a human and a drell. Are you mercenaries? Pirates? This is the wrong planet to have landed on, human. Government agent or no, we won't look kindly upon your transgression."

"Pop that bubble of yours and we'll settle some things," Ash said. "Better be quick though: you see what the Seeker Swarms did to your friends?"

"They must be gone," the batarian said. "The fact you two are still standing proves it."

"We have specially made countermeasures," Thane said. "I can assure you: the swarms are still patrolling."

The batarian looked at the ground, at the other batarians and their frozen eyes, and then turned back to Ashley and Thane.

"Who the hell are you?" he said.

Ash took a breath, waited a second, then…

"We're her rescue party—hey hey hey, easy does it." She'd said that even before the batarian drew his pistol and pointed it at Kenson's head, but it got him to at least keep eye contact instead of blowing Kenson's brains all over the wall. "My partner's right: we've got countermeasures, you don't. So you put that gun away and tell us how to open this thing up, we'll share one with you. Whoever you are—unless you really hate your job—you'll wanna report all this back to whoever, whatever, wherever. Right? So let's hear your side of the negotiations."

The batarian glowered, all four of his eyes trying to melt Ash where she stood. But then there was a chuckle, and so that meant this was gonna be like pulling teeth.

"If you knew who I was," the batarian said, "you wouldn't be so willing to negotiate."

Ash's brow furrowed. "Yeah? Fill me in—I'll tell you all the fun nicknames we gave you."

"Terra Nova," the batarian said. "Asteroid X:57. I shouldn't need to tell you my name, should I, human? You should know all about me."

No—you're fucking kidding. No, here? That—if there wasn't glass right in front of her—"

"Balak," Ashley said, pretty much spitting inside her helmet. "Jesus Christ you—you're standing there and acting smug about that?"

"The Hero of Elysium herself, staring me down, begging me to stay my hand!" Balak threw his hands up in the air like he was conducting an orchestra. Then it hit its crescendo and the glower was back. "You're damn right I'm smug, human. I showed how vulnerable the Alliance is, and I showed everyone just how unwilling you are to stamp out a threat." The gun rose back to Kenson's temple again. "Even when they're right in front of you—even when you think you have all the cards."

"Jesus Christ," Ashley said. She couldn't help it; she laughed and left her ready-stance. "That's what—that's how you're taking things? What, they beat the IQ out've you when you got back? All you did was get Shepard another shiny new medal—that's it." Ashley pointed to her chest. "And me too. You don't remember the pink armour? You're the second psycho I've met that built their whooole life around her—around the five minutes you were actually in her presence—and you know what I said to the first one? Same thing I'll say to you: she forgot about you the moment she turned around."

Balak was showing teeth. That cut—good, because something was taking a lot longer that—

"Here's what happens," Balak said, gun still at Kenson's head. "I can get out when I want to get out, so you're not negotiating for anything. Not yet—not until I tell you what I want. You give me a device, and you walk me out of this place, and then she—" he wagged the gun in Kenson's face, "—and I leave. You get her back in a week, after I'm done peeling every fucking secret I can find from her warped, insane brain. And trust me, human, I'm the last person that's going to enjoy being locked up with—"

Noise came out of Kenson's mouth, but it was…garbled, rough, like someone scraping rocks together. Her head lulled back and forth as she spoke, too, like a bolt had come loose.

Ash tried to see her eyes—tried to…she didn't know, that just…you just looked at the eyes when someone was moving the way she was—but her head never stayed still enough for Ashley to see. Kenson wasn't pulling against the restraints—she was flowing around them.

"He's speaking of…being trapped. But he's not describing the type right. He thinks he'll be stuck with my ramblings but the box was already there, before he was even born. It's the cold terror of dying without a sound—not yours, but someone else's. Something to mark the passing—something to carry on when then the waves take you down."

Kenson's head stopped rolling. She stared down the barrel of Balak's gun.

"Quiet—QUIET!"

"He puts a gun against my head and hopes to recreate the big bang. But the meaning was never there so a bang there can never be. He could turn it against himself but that voice can't float float away. It'll join him in the deep eventually, and then who will have the words to see?"

"I said QUIET!" Balak smashed the gun against Kenson's nose, but all she did was bleed and stare.

"The only true things live in the dark, but that's not where you get to go. Only a few do—the rest just end."

Then…Kenson smiled.

"Farwell and adieu, to you Spanish ladies. Fairwell and adieu, to you ladies of Spain—"

The lights died and something went thud against the glass and just as the lights went back on, you could hear the sound of a tactical cloak disengaging. And there was Legion and Balak was on the ground and Kenson, her nose gushing blood, looked at Legion and screamed.

"Jesus! Jesus a-and the—the—"

"Doctor Amanda Kenson," Legion said, staring at her with their bright eye. "Xenoarcheologist. Member of Alliance Intelligence Directorate of Scientific Research. We are geth, and we mean you no harm." Their eye blinked and the restraints fell away from Kenson. "You have sustained blunt-force trauma. We recommend to friendly units to ready a trauma kit."

Kenson had fallen to her knees, was watching as blood dripped from her nose onto the floor. But her eyes slowly climbed back up to Legion's eye, and then—just as slowly—made their way towards Ashley and Thane.

"A…a geth? Friendly units?"

"We can explain," Thane said. "Though Legion is—"

"Legion?"

Ashley rushed around to the room's entrance, medi-gel ready to deploy and knees jelly from…from that. "Doc, it's great you're lucid all of a sudden, but you've gotta trust us: we don't have time." She kneeled down, offered her omni-tool to Kenson. Kenson nodded, and a second later medi-gel was repairing her system, as best it could. Ashley stood her up.

"We've got a ship and we've got Hackett waiting for updates—"

"Hackett?"

"Yeah Hackett just—twenty questions when the Collector's aren't crawling up our ass, c'mon!" She reached into her kit, pulled out a breather mask and one of "Dr. Solus's" countermeasure devices. "Here—you need these."

"Does Kenson-Agent require mobility assistance?"

"While I recognize our timetable," Thane said, pulling next to Ashley. "I'd personally like some answers myself. Namely—"

"Thane—later," Ashley said, and dammit the jelly hadn't—it was still in her knees so, yeah, you and I are on the same page but now really couldn't be the time, okay?

Good—good Thane nodded. They were already sprinting away from the batarians and past the decaying pipes.

"I can explain," Dr. Kenson said, putting her breathing mask on. "It's undoubtedly going to sound…completely insane, but I swear, I have an explanation."

"You'd be really fucking surprised what we'd consider insane." Ashley checked her shields as they pushed their way into the stale white light and then were washed by dark, the darkness of B-Complex and the SIU. They stopped just before the hole spat them out into a hostile world, trained their rifles around each corner, then quickly moved for cover against the closest wall. Ashley checked her omni-tool, on the status of the Mars.

"All right—ship's still in one piece so we're in a sprint now, everyone got that? We—" she looked over at Legion. "What the hell're you doing Legion we don't have time!"

Legion's omni-tool was glowing; they were pointing it at the statue of Korak Dapralor. "We are attempting to seal this area, to prevent discovery of vulnerable batarian personnel."

Ashley swiped at Legion's arm. It was like slapping the outside of the Mako. "Screw them, Legion, we're just wasting ti—"

"Negative," Legion said. "We are minimizing casualties." Two more seconds and the doors began to close. "It is done."

"Fine Jesus let's just—let's just move people! Take the treeline closest to the complex and quadruple time it."

They had their rifles up and their shields ready to go, but yeah, they were moving way quicker than they should have. But just stop looking at horses and accept it: the Collectors and Shepard were doing them a favour and probably slaughtering themselves for the trouble (God, like Shepard really was an army all her—or the thing was an army all it's…fuck it fuck it not now, okay?). The cleared B-Complex in a third the time it took them to trawl it earlier and ended up in the atrium, which was slicing the building in half with angry yellow light.

"Williams-Lieutenant," Legion said. Ashley looked over her shoulder, all of them still sprinting.

"What?"

"EDI confirms arrival of Widowmaker in atmosphere."

Ashley stopped, just as the sliver gave way to an ocean of light. High up in the clouds, buttressed by yellow lightning, a sleek ship cut through the clouds, heading south of their position. Three smaller crafts exited its underbelly, then the ship pulled upwards and disappeared into the clouds again.

It looked so much like the Normandy…and so much like the horror ship in the forest just next to them.

They disappeared into the other side of that forest—the other side of the scar left by the Midway—just as the three Cerberus shuttles locked onto their respective LZ's.

9.

Aratoht:

Zero Hour

Felt good being at the head of a team. Felt right. Been a while since Jacob got to remind people he'd been OF-3 before his prints got scrubbed. Make the best use of it now, and maybe some of that back pay'd finally show up. God knows he could use it.

Make the best of it, huh? Lotta ways to do that, but only one way made sense to Jacob.

He stood up at the front of the shuttle, at the head of ten Cerberus commandoes. Specialty-made armour? Check. Brand new (if you could call a throw back "brand new") M-96 Mattocks? You know it. Breachers carrying M-22 Eviscerators? Couldn't raised some stink about a war-crime stick, but it'd work for this mission. Seven of the rest carrying M-5 Phalanx's? Fact the Alliance hadn't made those standard issue yet showed you who was doing logistics, and that wasn't a compliment. Then you had one with an M-13 Raptor, and he'd deal with her in a sec.

Rest of them though? Almost looked military. Bit of standardization and these people'd play the part of an army—and about damn time they got the job done instead've getting caught in their own backblast.

Everyone was looking at him. Time to get working.

"Change of plans," Jacob said.

Murmurs. One of the commandoes said, "Sir?" Almost drew a smile out, for a second.

"Collectors are here in force—whatever batarians are left down there, they're not gonna give us any trouble. Means we're gonna be playing skirmisher while bug people're flying around our heads. I'm not leaving us open like that."

More murmurs, most of 'em happy sounding. Jacob looked right at the commando with the Raptor, then. Couldn't say a whole lot with his face—not with when they were on the clock—but damned if he didn't wanna say, I know exactly what Miranda had you do. And you know what? I could leave you wide open for the Collectors to snatch, because that leg isn't fully healed yet. But I'm not, because being the bigger man's how you actually get things done.

Not gonna play your game anymore, Miranda. Now you're gonna see exactly what I've been trying to tell you.

The Commando shifted in her seat. "Sir? We're supposed to be on call. We can't just leave the other teams without operational support. Especially if the Collectors just showed up out of nowhere."

"And we won't—promise," Jacob said, trying on a smile. "Fact is though, fat lotta help a buncha sitting ducks'll be. We gotta play this smart, and that means setting up an FOB, best we can."

"FOB?" said one of the other commandos.

"Miranda's heading south. Last we heard, Jack and Grunt are going straight up the middle. Leaves the north wide open. And the map says there's a big facility sitting out all by its lonesome."

"If we're hunkered down then we'll be way slower to respond," the commando said.

"If we're hunkered down we've got defensible terrain," Jacob said, keeping his voice even as could be. "And I packed some drones just in case. What we lose in rapid response, we gain in keeping a roof over our heads." Jacob couldn't help it; he smiled at this part. "Besides, Miranda's betting on guessing right. Far as I can tell, this facility's as good a place to hide valuable tech. Might mean we find it first."

"We don't have any equipment to deal with Reaper tech," the commando said.

Still keeping that voice even, Jacob said, "Trust me—I'm not going anywhere near it. But we find signs it's somewhere in the north, we call them and hold the fort down." He looked at the other commandos. "Anyone got a problem with the plan? Technically breaking chain-of-command here, but Cerberus is supposed to be about results, not bureaucracy. Am I right?"

"Damn straight sir!" one of the commandoes said. That was followed by a couple "oorah's" so, nice, coupla mustered-out marines made it to the Lazarus Cell. That or pretenders, but so long as they shot straight, Jacob wasn't gonna get territorial.

He looked down at the commando with the Raptor—the one Miranda'd turned into a hired gun—and what'd she do?

She nodded.

"Ooah, sir."

"Then let's catch these bastards with their pants down," Jacob said, and damned if it wasn't feeling better and better. Except, he was looking out the window now, and swear to God he saw one of the shuttles getting close. Too close—what the hell?

Looked like the second one—what the hell're you doing over there, Jack?

He turned away from the commandos, pulled up his omni-tool. "Second Team?" he said. "You guys hitting crosswinds? You're halfway into our AO."

Nothing for a second, then Jack popped up on the screen. Looked even angrier in orange, somehow.

"Uhhhh paging sergeant douchebag? Anybody seen sergeant douchebag?"

"Be serious, Jack—we're dropping into a legitimate military operation."

"Hey I'm being as serious as this fucking day's letting me be, all right? Fucking cheerleader just shaved a day off her life."

"What? What the hell're you talking about?"

"Move over Grunt you—Miranda, dumbass. Since the Collectors took out all the batarians she's sending us somewhere else. After one target! Swear to god I'm gonna make a list just so I can stab her brain with it."

The Raptor commando was looking at him again, but hang on a sec just—just hang on a sec.

"That doesn't make any sense," he said.

"Oh so you want me to fucking explain it for you at half speed then?"

"No, Jack, I mean I'm with you on this: seems like a big waste. She say what the target is? Installation? Special unit?"

"We're turning." That was Grunt. Jack looked over her shoulder and, just as she did, the shuttle's afterburners kicked in. You could see it yawing to the right through the window.

"Didn't say shit, so send whatever the fuck you find out there our way, understand? When I get bored, my bunkmates always end up dead."

The shuttle was swallowed by a yellow cloud, and that was it: just them now, and some ground approaching real quick. Jacob looked at the commando—she was still staring up at him.

"Are we changing plans again?" she said.

Yeah…good question. Eventually, Jacob shook his head.

"Nah—we need to find good cover. But be prepared to go after Jack instead've Miranda. Something's not right with this."

The shuttle landed, the commandos disembarked, and yeah, something was wrong with this. Because part of the clouds detached and started buzzing, but they weren't heading after Jacob and his team—they were going where Jack was heading.

So what, you tell them they're being a wasted resource and send them into the thick of it anyways? Jesus, was she trying to get Jack killed? Sounded like Samara was gonna do that anyways, so what the hell?

"Zero contacts, sir!" the closest commando said, hollering over the wind.

Yeah, get your head in the game—get this shit done. Jacob pulled out his shotgun.

"Fan out and keep low!" he said.

And the Cerberus commandos followed orders, heading for the nearest treeline, while the CIC on the Widowmaker listened to everything Jacob said.

Hadley looked at Matthews.

Matthews looked at Hadley.

Chambers walked to both their stations.

"Ken and Gabby are in," she said.

Matthews looked blank, then smiled.

"Glad to hear it, Kelly," he said. "Glad to hear it.

---

*in my finest Meatloaf voice* I'M STILL ALIVE!

Sorry for the massive delay, folks. Lots of things happening in meatspace, but, I'm happy to say that none of them caused me to forget about this absolute mess of a fanfic.

Another long chapter (same as it ever was) so I'll end 'er there and wish you farwell until the next installment!