We made the rendezvous with Aria's fleet and boarded a hijacked Cerberus cruiser. I kept an eye open for models as we made our way from the shuttle bay to the CIC but I didn't find any. Too bad. The new boss on Omega reminded me of that insufferable p**** Donovan Hock, and I couldn't wait to take him down a peg or two. He really knew how to push Aria's buttons though and she told Bray to ram the station. Wait, what? I doubted TIM would spring for another lazarus project at this point so I made sure to get a seat on the escape pod this time.
Now that I thought about it, it'd actually been awhile since we fought some Cerberus mooks. Their new 'mechs were a little tougher, but overall they really hadn't gotten any better at not dying. Aria's biotic flare worked well in concert with my cryo mod, and my fire mod, and my hacks, and... gee, I wondered if she could teach me to do that? Nah, it seemed to drain her a lot. She couldn't use any other biotics for quite awhile after one of those blasts, and I preferred a tech solution to the people-that-need-killing problem anyway.
We made it to Aria's not-so-secret top secret bunker, and picked up one of her old girlfriends along the way; a female turian named Nyreen. She was a very capable soldier and she didn't take any crap off Aria. I liked her. I got her to give me an autographed picture just to make Garrus jealous. Since most of Aria's army didn't survive long enough to reach the bunker we had to find some other allies. Story of my life. She mentioned a group of mercs so we set out to recruit them. Nyreen showed some independence and went on ahead to scout things out without Aria's permission. I liked her even more. Wondered if I could talk her into joining me on the Normandy after this was over.
Turned out Nyreen was the leader of the new merc army we were trying to recruit. That should have made things easier, but she really had a hate on for Aria so we had to rescue them from Cerberus before she agreed to help us out. After seeing the way TIM's new reaperfied soldiers spooked her, I decided that a) I didn't really want TIM to do another lazarus project on me...ever, and b ) Maybe Nyreen wouldn't make a good squadmate after all. Good thing she already had a gig.
We disabled Petrovsky's undisableable forcefields without too much difficulty. Thanks to my old faithful Savant X omnitool I made short work of bypassing the power from the generator without killing anyone else. Shut Petrovsky up in a hurry, impressed Nyreen, and even Aria flattered me a little. Damn it's good to be an engineer.
Petrovsky threw a tantrum and decided to blow up the way to afterlife, so we sent Nyreen off to lead the frontal assault and divert attention away from us so we could take out the bombs. Aria and I got swarmed during that part of the mission, but I managed to take out three of the bombs easily enough. One to go. A cerberus turret that I'd hacked decided to blow up just as I ran past it on my way to that last bomb, though. Damn. I knew that somehow it was all Grunt's fault. Second attempt went without a hitch, and we were ready to enter the Gozu district and catch up with Nyreen. As soon as I opened the door though, a batarian crashed into me and we were both blown up by a grenade. Crap. Next time Javik mentions that four eyes are superior I'm gonna blacken two of 'em.
We could see Afterlife in the distance, and then Nyreen blew herself up with her own grenades. Grunt thought I was the only one who blew up like that and I told him to mind his own business. Aria ran headlong into the general's trap and I wondered if she was a quarter-krogan too. So it was up to me to free her. Me and my drones and turrets, heh. We did a passable job until three adjuntants flanked me and wiped me out. I was starting to see why Nyreen hated them so much. Second attempt I never stopped moving long enough for anyone to get a bead on me, and I freed Aria pretty quickly. After that, we made short work of the leftovers. What an intense fight! Almost, not quite but almost, as bad as those three geth primes on Rannoch.
Afterwards, the general surrendered and as much as I wanted to let aria choke him out, I didn't. He might have useful intel. I told him he'd have to spend the rest of his life in prison, and I took his chess set away from him too. That showed him.
Number of reloads: 3.
Back on the Normandy, no one even noticed I'd left. Figures. I do everything for them and this is what I get. Oh well, Miranda still loves me. Next up: Time to return the asari councilor's calls.