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[Nord Ronnoc]

Main Series 
 
REDEMPTION IN THE STARS
In the years after the Courier's adventures in the Mojave, an experiment in Big Mountain has gone awry, trapping him in a universe where humanity goes on a different path. To fix his Transportalponder and find a way back home, he joins Liara T'Soni and Feron on a mission to recover Commander Shepard's body. However, they're not the only ones interested in her remains.
 
A NEW DAY
Eric Grimes has just graduated from high school and well on his way to MIT. However, getting transported to the Mass Effect universe changes that. The events of the trilogy haven't happen yet, since it is two years before the events of the first game. And so he feels powerless to change them. Unable to find a way back, he joins the Alliance, hoping to set his life back on track.
 
PART 3
TBA
 
PART 4
TBA
 
PART 4
TBA
 
Spin-Offs
 
ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE
After receiving a strange signal, the TARDIS brings the Doctor to an alternate Earth ravaged by nuclear war, where otherworldly and dangerous creatures have preyed on people in a ruined city. There, he encounters a lone wanderer with a troubled past. Working together, they travel from one universe to another to find the source of the creatures. Crosses over w/ Fallout and one other

It also has a page on TVTropes. It would be appreciateive if you contribute to the page and the site as a whole!  

[Nord Ronnoc]

Mass Foundations: Redemption in the Stars
Chapter One: A Stranger in a Strange Land

It seemed like a good idea.

After one too many near-death experiences, Ethan Sunderland, the Courier, decided to upgrade his Transportalponder. It should increase the device’s range, allowing him to teleport to Big Mountain from anywhere, anytime. He took extra precautions—calculations, numerous trials, and multiple prototypes over the last couple years. He was a scientist and an engineer. What could go wrong?

He should have known by now. Everything could go wrong on Big Mountain, and it always did.

He set it up at X-84, the facility in Big Mountain that manufactured his Transportalponder. There was the device itself in the testing room with a robot, a Mister Handy, as the test subject, and an alarm system. Not long after the New California Republic snatched victory for the second time at Hoover Dam, the X-84 facility had popped out of the ground like a mole rat during mating season.

Looking through the thoroughly cleaned window, the Courier observed as a Mister Handy used one of its claws to pick up the Transportalponder. With a press of a button at the console, the Mister Handy obeyed the command and squeezed the trigger.

The result was an outright disaster. Instead of the robot blinking out, the device shot out sparks. Ethan watched in wonder as what looked like a tear in reality, a gray and black miasma of swirling chaos, appeared in the room and started expanding quickly. He read about wormholes in science books and what they theoretically looked like. This one was clearly it.

In a swift motion, he activated the testing room’s force fields as the alarms blared out, hoping to contain the wormhole.

“Oh honestly!” the Mister Handy complained. The wormhole pulled it in along with the Transportalponder, almost like it disappeared in an instant.

The wormhole broke through the field like a hot knife through butter and tore everything around it.

He ducked as a piece of debris flew over him, missing him by mere inches, and held onto a nearby desk drilled tightly on the ground. It felt like bits of him were being torn from him as he was being pulled towards the rift. When he looked at it, it felt like the dark, starry abyss was staring right back at him, the stars themselves trailed in the deep black.

“Well, ****,” he groaned. He held on the desk as much as he could, but the wormhole was so powerful that he got sucked in. He slammed headfirst into the now flying desk, and consciousness failed him.

As he regained consciousness, he was met by a foul smell whiffing about. It reminded him of Brahmin **** mixed with gunpowder and rotten fish.

At first, he thought he was in an alleyway, somewhere in Freeside. Freeside was not known for its cleanliness. He was half-right.

He expected to see a starry night sky when he looked up, only to find that there was a ceiling far above him. Judging by the weak illumination of neon lights, he inferred that he was in civilization, but where exactly? One thing for sure was that he was neither in the Sierra Madre nor somewhere in the Divide. He never liked either of those places.

He stood up steadily, kicking off whatever particular pieces of garbage were on his black boots. Dusting off his armored vault jumpsuit, the Courier took a thorough, good look at himself. He knew that rifts in the space-time continuum can tear things apart at an atomic level, so he had to be sure.

He placed his hands all over a chiseled face that went well with his tall, lean and athletic body. His face. His rounded brown eyes and medium skin tone came from a mixed heritage in Vault 15, common among citizens of the NCR. His dark-brown hair was cut and combed neatly weeks ago while his anchor beard had just been trimmed.

So his body was still here. Hands, arms, legs, feet… everything was left intact. He let out a relieved sigh, taking in the comfort he was still himself, and he was still alive.

He checked his Pip-Boy 3000 strapped on his left wrist. With a whir and a beep, Ethan’s scratched face was bathed in its familiar green light. So it was intact too. The Lone Wanderer told him an old friend of hers always said you could drop a bomb on the Pip-Boy, and it would still work with nary a scratch. Even fully submerging it in water wouldn’t short-circuit it. If Ethan could get back, he would tell her to add a trip through a fucked-up wormhole to the list of disasters the Pip-Boy could withstand. These things were built to last.

The screen showed an incomplete map. It seemed he was out of the Pre-War satellites’ range. Much to his annoyance, he would have to wait for the Pip-Boy’s GPS to adjust to whatever new coordinates it would get. However, the date and time read 5:38 PM 10/19/2285. So that meant he wasn’t out for too long—unless he traveled through time, he thought with a wry laugh.

He then stopped and looked around, puzzled. “Wait a minute. Where are that Mister Handy and the Transportalponder?”

Conveniently, the Transportalponder was across from where he was. He picked it up and inspected it. The plastic container that contained the energy had cracked open. The vacuum tube at the front of the pistol-like device was burnt out from using enough power to create the wormhole. Without the specific rare materials to create the Transportalponder, he would be as good as stuck here.

He hoped the wormhole had only destroyed the X-84 facility. That wouldn’t go well with his conscience if it did more than that.

“At least I could play with it,” he muttered and put the now-broken device in his bag.

He checked his surroundings, only to find a small security camera mounted on a wall, tracking his every move. The sight of a stranger randomly appearing in a dark, dank alley would be suspicious as hell. That would prompt someone to check what the hell was going on.

When he got out of the alleyway, he squinted and covered his eyes from the sudden brightness. And then he found himself taken by the view, his mouth half-open. The architecture was dull, brown, and monolithic as if the buildings were interconnected. It felt like a scene from a dystopian science-fiction movie or a superhero comic book, like La Fantoma. Even the dimly lit storefronts and aging neon signs reminded him of his travels in the Mojave Wasteland, especially the Strip.

As his eyes adjusted, he saw people moving about—if he could call them that. Some of them were birdlike, each having a pair of mandibles over their mouths. Others were thin with large, horned heads and black, beady eyes. Some women who looked human had scalped crests instead of hair. A giant, slouching creature with thick arms and vertical slits for a mouth guarded an entrance to what appeared to be a nightclub. There were two long lines of people in front of the creature. As he stumbled by, he bumped into a large, reptilian creature with a crest on its head.

The guns the guards carried far outclassed his. Their suits of armor were sleek while their weapons looked either blocky or curvy. He spotted an orange, holographic light on one gunman with a pair of mandibles on his face. He wondered how they work, but he didn’t want to find out the hard way. Plus, he didn’t like how the creature looked at him, so he kept moving.

He wandered for hours. Every joint of his body ached. He couldn’t help but have this strong feeling of isolation and dizziness over him. He wanted to go back home. But how?

As he passed crowd after crowd, he listened in intently on every detail. It soon became apparent they weren’t mutants—they were obviously too different from humans, more like they were actual aliens. Another giveaway was the human inhabitants.

From what he could tell from the human inhabitants, he found out he was in an alternate universe, the year being 2183. Not only that, but he was on a space station called Omega, billions and billions of miles away from Earth, ruled for many years by Aria T’Loak. She had one rule for the residents here, one that no one should ever break under any circumstances: Don't **** with Aria. It was crude, but it was easy to remember.

Suddenly, someone dragged him to the alleyway. A thug preying on their next victim taking him away so there wouldn’t be any witnesses, he thought. Obvious and predictable. This should be easy enough to counteract.

Swaying left and right, the Courier quickly broke his would-be attacker’s hold. The Courier reached over his shoulder and grabbed the attacker by the back of their shirt. With a quick motion, the Courier slammed his enemy to the ground like a wrecking ball. The cracking sound should’ve done the job, but the attacker quickly recovered and stood up. The Courier whipped out his Bowie knife and lunged, giving the mugger a shallow but long gash across his chest. His attacker yelped in pain and stumbled a few steps backward, clutching his chest in a frantic but futile attempt to close the wound.

The Courier inspected and was taken back. This was a four-eyed humanoid with a thin layer of brown fur all over his body. He wondered what else this universe held in store for him.

Enraged, and terrified out of his mind, the four-eyed alien got out a strange-looking pistol. But the Courier, thanks to his implants, was harder, better, faster, stronger. In mere seconds, he drew his M1911 pistol and fired. The two shots hit the thug’s chest made him tumble down backward, dead before hitting the ground.

“At least it’s not like those three old ladies with rolling pins,” Ethan remarked with a sigh. He reloaded his pistol and holstered it.

He went through the alien’s pockets, finding what appeared to be an earpiece. It fitted the alien’s pointed ears, so it wouldn’t be comfortable for him to wear, but it looked like it might be worth something. He found a thin card with the same word in many languages. One of them was ‘credits’, and he guessed it meant a sum of currency, so he pocketed the card and the earpiece.

He picked up the pistol. From its shape, it looked like a semi-automatic but without a hammer at the back end of the slide. Instead of bullets when he unloaded the magazine, he found cylinder-shaped blocks, thick and big as his thumb. He wanted to tamper with it, but he needed to know how this pistol worked first.

As he put the magazine back in, he heard footsteps behind him. Was someone else in the alleyway? What were they doing while he was looking through the dead alien’s stuff? Without missing a beat, he stood up and slipped out.
 

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After walking around for an hour straight, the Courier found himself in a marketplace, looking for a trader that could understand him. The place hummed with activity. A red-haired man wearing coveralls crouched down and tinkered with a pile of scrap metal on a bench, welding two flat surfaces together with a ring around it. The clerk’s mask covered his face from sparks and the welder’s intense light, not to mention the smell of metal and wire.

Ethan approached the kiosk and knocked on the table, grabbing the man’s attention. The man placed his tool on the floor and turned as he lifted his mask. He was pale with green eyes and a soul patch on his thin chin. He looked like he was in his early twenties.

“Hey there. How’s it going?” The clerk looked tired as if he spent all day working.

“It’s been wonderful, really,” Ethan replied. “The sites are gorgeous, and the people here are friendly. What’s not to like?”

The clerk paused for a moment. “Well, this is the shittiest place in the galaxy. First time on Omega?”

“You could say that. I’m looking for something to buy.”

“What are you looking for?”

“A translator.”

The clerk blinked in confusion. He raised his finger before speaking. “You don’t have one? You got here without one?”

Ethan realized if he told the truth, the clerk wouldn’t believe him. “Actually, I got mugged. They took my stuff and gave me this nasty concussion.” He rubbed his forehead to give off the impression that he had a headache. “I got my stuff back, but I think I lost my memory.”

The clerk seemed to be surprised “Oh, okay. Happens to everyone on this station. Except for that ‘amnesia caused by massive head trauma’ thing. But you look like you can handle yourself.”

“Nobody’s perfect, believe me.”

“Anyways, you can use the terminal to buy what you need. Security reasons. You can see ‘em everywhere at the Citadel.” The clerk tilted his head to an orange screen at the Courier’s right.

“What’s the Citadel?” the Courier asked.

The clerk shook his head and pinched his nose. “You’re a ****** idiot.” He sighed, now realizing. “Oh, right. Concussion.”

“I had worse.”

The clerk rolled his eyes, going along. “The Citadel is the capital of galactic civilization. It’s like the polar opposite of this shithole. I’m sure you can figure out the rest. It had its own fair share of problems, sure. Pretty mundane, from what I hear.”

“So why can’t you leave, then?” Ethan asked.

“I would love to, but travel costs are high,” the clerk answered. “Plus, I’m under a contract. I hope I won’t get killed before it expired. Omega’s a pretty dangerous place.”

“Yeah. I get the picture.” The Courier gazed at the terminal and tentatively touched the screen. After discovering it responded, he browsed the selection. He found a translator of high quality and an orange light that fitted over his wrist. The same light he saw before.

“Hey, what’s up with that wristband?” He pointed at the picture of the object on the terminal.

The clerk turned away from the shelf. “Huh? Oh, that’s an omni-tool. They’re multipurpose handheld computers. Everyone has one these days.”

“So why would I need one?” Ethan had his Pip-Boy, so buying one of these things would be redundant to him.

“The omni-tool will also give you a kinetic barrier,” the clerk answered. “It’s weak, but it’s better than nothing. It won’t work against radiation and laser, temperature, slow-moving objects, like knives and sticks, and poison.”

“Like this pistol here?” The Courier showed the clerk his new pistol.

The clerk brought his hand up to his chin and investigated the gun. “That’s an M-3 Predator pistol. Heavy pistols like that pack a real punch against anyone with armor. They’re mass accelerators, so they use metallic slugs, not bullets. They’re accelerated by electromagnetic fields and enhanced by mass effect fields.”

“What are mass effect fields?” the Courier asked.

“They are fields used by element zero, which releases dark energy when exposed to an electrical current. It can increase or decrease the object’s mass, with a positive charge increasing mass while a negative charge decreases mass. But when a ship’s moving faster than light, these fields can create static electricity charge. If you don’t discharge that onto a planet’s surface or its magnetic field, depending on the size of a ship, it’ll go into the hull of a ship or a car instead and cause a lot of damage. Fusing bulkheads, destroying electronics, you name it.”

“So it’ll fry everything inside.”

The clerk shrugged. “Basically, yeah. Anyways, you can’t fire your gun like crazy. It’ll overheat. Older models have heat sinks built in, but they don’t pack as much of a punch as the newer ones. The new models use thermal clips instead so you won’t have to wait for the gun to vent out heat.” He took a deep breath. “Maybe I should’ve been a teacher. You follow?”

Ethan nodded, showing he listened. He turned to the terminal and picked the items he wanted. His eyes widen in shock when he found out they cost about 7,500. It would’ve greatly depleted his stolen funds from the money slip if he hadn’t sold the four-eyed alien’s earpiece. He expected something like a rare weapon or a suit of power armor to be expensive, not something like this omni-tool.

“All right, here’re your stuff.” The clerk handed Ethan an eyepiece and a small PDA. “One Logic Arrest omni-tool and a Rosetta translator. Enjoy.”

The Courier took the translator and the PDA, fitting the translator over his eyes. A holographic display appeared with shapes and lines flying when he turned it on. It allowed him to read and understand different languages. He looked at the PDA in his right hand with a confused look on his face.

“You'll have to turn it on,” the clerk reminded him. “Button’s at the side. It’s easy to find.”

The Courier did so, and an orange light appeared, reaching up to his elbow. “Nice!” Ethan’s smile widened in elation as he messed around with the omni-tool, bringing up a paper-thin screen above the device. “I should go. Bye.” He turned it off and pocketed it.

“Okay, see ya. Try not to die,” the clerk called out.

The Courier left the marketplace. He remembered passing by the nightclub earlier. It would be a great place to gather word.

As he looked up information on his omni-tool, he went to a nightclub, Afterlife. Its name appeared in giant white letters above the entrance.

A giant creature, an elcor, stood as the doorman. There were two lines, stacked next to each other, waiting to enter the club. The birdlike turians, the scalped head asari—their skin color ranging from blue to indigo—the horned, gray salarians, the giant, reptilian krogan, and humans.

A hooded man shuffled by, bumping into him. He muttered a quick apology and went straight to the club. The Courier wanted to cut past the line but thought better of it when the line went nowhere.

Instead, he walked away from the bar, somewhere else from here.

“Annoyed: No, I haven’t seen anyone like that here. Nor have I been looking. Joking: Who do you think I am, the bar’s informer?”

This is going nowhere. The blue-skinned asari with freckles on her cheeks pinched the bridge of her nose. Liara T’Soni’s patience with the rather sarcastic elcor was wearing thin. All she wanted were some answers regarding Shepard’s whereabouts.

“I didn’t mean to offend,” she sighed. “I just thought—”

“Miffed: You thought because I was an elcor. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be watching them dancing all day,” the elcor spoke, his voice lacking any emotion. “Pitifully: Elcors are good dancers, but nobody here gives us a chance.”

She looked at the display past the counter, amid the loud noises of the nightclub and its bright, colorful lights. The screen across the counter showed news of the repairs the Citadel took in the wake of the attack by Sovereign, a Reaper, and the geth. Last month, Shepard disappeared when the Normandy was destroyed. But it felt so long ago. Deep down, she missed Shepard.

“Mockingly: More than they could afford.” The elcor was also watching the news. “Mournful: If it weren’t for that station, living on Omega would be downright depressing.”

Liara would agree with that sentiment.

“You have to love the elcor,” someone spoke nearby. “They got all the expressiveness of a tree. If they didn’t explain the nuance of what they’re saying, it’d be like talking to one.”

Liara looked away from the elcor. “Oh, I don’t know. I—” She looked at the hooded figure who sat by the elcor. He looked at his half-filled drink. Upon a closer look, she recognized he was her contract. Her one shot at finding Shepard. “Wait. You have something to tell me about the Commander—”

“No, not here.” The hooded man shook his head and looked up, his dark eyes meeting hers. Under the lighting, his scaly skin had a warm set of colors of orange and green. He was a drell, a reptilian race rescued from a dying homeworld by the hanar. “Outside.”

“I… of course. If it’s for the best.” Liara and the hooded man stood up and walked out of Afterlife.
 

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The Courier leaned forward, resting his arms on a rail. Across from the balcony, down where the crates piled, there was a humongous window where distant stars blinking in and out in outer space.

The sound of gunfire snapped the Courier out of his thoughts. The noises were nearby, down a quick turn and twist of a hallway. Driven to investigate, he ran to the source. Moments later, he entered a large, circular hall. Metal slugs flew by, prompting him to duck back inside. The gunfire here was less noisy than the ones in his travels in the Mojave, meaning he wouldn’t get tinnitus. As he leaned against the wall to his right, the Courier held his Predator pistol with both hands.

He took a peek, hoping not to get shot. To one side, ahead was a large group of humans, turians, and the four-eyed batarians. They wore blue-and-white suits of armor, carrying guns like the guards by the nightclub. Some of them wore helmets, concealing their faces.

On the other side, behind Ethan was a hooded man in a suit of tan-green armor, taking cover behind similar crates as he fired his Predator pistol. He blinked, recognizing the man—he was the one who bumped into him at the nightclub. By the man was a young asari with freckles on her cheekbones. Her light purple armor appeared to be skin-tight, having less padding on her chest and limbs compared to her companion.

The asari stood up, frowning, and balled her hand into a fist. A dark-blue aura surrounded her as if some power welled up within her. She unclenched her hand and raised it above her head in a quick succession. A yelp brought the Courier’s attention to a batarian that floated mid-air, his four eyes wide with terror, as a blue hue appeared underneath him and pushed him up to the ceiling. His allies opened fire on the asari as she extended her arm, causing the batarian to fly backward. She ducked back behind the crate, unscathed.

Ethan blinked and stared at the asari on her ability to manipulate some strange energy. Before he could read what happened, one armored shooter, a pale man, saw him and turned to a helmeted woman. She carried a flamethrower, with a large tank full of gas on her back. “Take him out! We don’t anyone snitching on us!”

The Courier sighed and brought his chin up. Great. Another bunch of idiots to deal with.

The woman nodded and moved towards the Courier. Taking advantage of the tank’s exposure to gunfire, the Courier used his Pip-Boy. It activated VATS—Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. Peaking from cover, he aimed down the sight of his pistol. According to its calculations, he had a decent chance of hitting the tank. For each shot, the chances go up slightly.

Time slowed down around him. Adrenaline rushed through Ethan’s body as he fired three times at a rapid pace. Before the flamer realized what happened, it was too late for her to react as the last shot hit the tank. The tank exploded in a fiery blast, engulfing her and two of the shooters nearby.

“Holy ****!” one shooter, another woman, barked. “Someone needs to take him out! Now!”

“On it,” said a turian with white tattoos on his face and blue lights appeared on his chest and his head. He approached the Courier with a bulky shotgun. A shot rang out, taking out the Courier’s shields. He recalled from the clerk that the shields provided by his omni-tool were weak. In a fight like this, it would last for a few seconds. To survive, he had to be quick and resort to hit-and-run tactics.

He got out his Bowie knife and waited. When the turian was around the corner, Ethan threw him against the adjacent wall. A struggle ensued as he thrust his knife at the turian. The turian attempted to push the knife away from his neck and dropped his gun. Ethan dazed the turian with a headbutt and stabbed him in the neck, dropping him.

More gunshots went off behind him. He turned and saw the hooded man shooting back at their attackers with his pistol. “Hey!” the hooded man shouted. “Get over here unless you want to get shot!”

Ethan nodded, hearing the man loud and clear. As he looked around for another weapon, he found a rifle attached to the turian’s back. He snatched it off and found it forming in his hands, adjusting to his size. As he inspected it, he found it was blocky, its barrel triangular. He smirked, finding it convenient somehow.

Stepping out of the alleyway, the Courier turned and fired at another shooter, a batarian, in several three-round bursts. The batarian’s shields had been taken out, as seen with a blue blur surrounding him.

He slid behind a crate, next to the asari and the hooded man. As he did so, he heard something breaking like glass. His shields gave out, he realized. A sharp sting went through his right arm like someone swiped a knife at him, and it bled. The wound on his arm sealed on its own accord. Under most circumstances, the injury would be severe enough to be treated. But the Monocyte Breeder implant from Dr. Usanagi he bought years ago covered that, which sped up his healing process. 12,000 bottlecaps well spent, he told himself.

The two strangers stared at him, wondering why he showed up out of nowhere. While the asari seemed to be astonished by his regenerative abilities, he had other priorities to focus on, such as not dying.

“What are you doing here?” The man’s voice sounded digitized like he spoke through a mask. The Courier figured it was his translator’s doing. “You’re lucky your shields held up like that.”

“Lucky is what I’m good at,” Ethan smiled, nonchalant. He stood up when his shields refreshed and activated VATS again, shooting down more of the attackers in his direction. “You know, seeing the sights, killing people. The usual. You?”

The asari blinked after ducking back behind the crate. “I’ll be quick: we’re looking for a body of a friend. Feron’s my contact here.” She tilted her head to the hooded man.

The hooded man frowned, annoyed. “Liara, you sure that’s a good idea? We just met him!”

“He helped us so far, so it’s a good time as any.” Liara, the asari, looked back at Ethan. “We’re looking for Commander Shepard. Feron had some information on her whereabouts.”

“Who’s Commander Shepard?” the Courier asked loudly over the sound of slugs banging against the crate. He popped out of cover and grabbed an attacker that ran up to them, tossed him and slammed him onto the ground. Ethan pulled his knife out and cut the armored man’s throat, ending his life in an instant.

When he looked back at the two, he realized he wasted his breath as the two gave him incredulous looks. “You…” Feron said.

“How did you not know who Shepard is?” Liara asked.

“You think you’d know her by her reputation since you’re a human,” said Feron.

“I’m new around here.” Ethan poked his head out and found more troopers coming in.

“Aren’t we all?” Feron had shot another attacker.

“Yeah, sure,” Ethan retorted. “We can play Q&A after this if you like.”

A metal slug flew by, missing them by inches. “A wise idea, I might add,” Feron replied.

“At least we agree on something.” Ethan put his knife away and continued firing at the shooters. No matter how many they killed, two more entered the fray. Liara gathered the blue energy and formed it into a sphere in her hands. Within a second, she launched the ball at the group in question. It stood there, suspended in the air, pulling those nearby toward it and flew around the object as if they were like a string attached to a ceiling.

This gave Ethan and Feron the advantage. They focused their fire at the floating shooters as the Courier used VATS whenever he could. He ducked as one of them flew above him. He continued firing, with Liara firing her pistol at another new attacker running in on the scene.

One of the turians entered the fray with a large, bulky rifle in hand. Liara leaned out of cover and pulled off a new trick. A blue barrier appeared on the turian, preventing him from moving.

Without warning, one shooter dropped dead with a bloody hole in his head. “Sniper! Look out!" one other shooter, a dark-haired man with tanned skin, cried with fear in his eyes. Another shot pierced through his head.

Several of the attackers got shot down. Capitalizing on this, Feron ran first, dashing away. Liara came next, tossing away another attacker with her powers and grabbed Ethan’s arm, following the hooded man. None of them looked back as they ran.

“Which way?” Liara wondered.

“Anywhere safe, obviously,” Ethan answered. As they rounded another corner, the three stopped when they saw two huge men in hulking, white armor, carrying smoothly shaped rifles. A fair-skinned, dark-haired lady, clad in a dark-sleeved white uniform, led them. It was hard for Ethan to tell if she was beautiful or uncanny. “Or not.”

“Relax. We’re working toward the same goal: Finding Commander Shepard,” the woman stated.

“Shepard’s dead,” Liara pointed out.

“That’s what they say,” the woman scoffed. “But Shepard has beaten the odds before.”

“Who are you, anyway?” The Courier stepped toward the woman. “And what makes this Shepard so special?”

The woman and her men gave him confused looks. “I’m Miranda Lawson. Shepard’s a hero, a bloody icon. And yet you have never heard of her?”

Liara sighed. “I’ll try to explain to him. He has helped us so far.”

The asari turned to Ethan. “I’ll explain later. Shepard…” She curled her lips, finding it difficult to say the words. “None of us would be here if she hadn’t stopped an invasion on the Citadel and saved the Council.”

“Oh, okay.” Ethan nodded and turned to Miranda.

“I admit this wasn’t what we expected,” said Miranda.

“What do you want, then?” Liara asked.

“I’m here to take you to someone who’s interested,” Miranda answered. “He wants to meet you. Work with us and we might be able to resurrect Shepard.”

The Courier scoffed. He wanted to say resurrecting the dead was impossible, but he bit his tongue instead. If he can go from one universe to another, then he was sure resurrection could be within the realm of possibility.

Feron glanced at Liara, frowning as he folded his arms. “I don’t trust this set-up.”

Ethan looked at Feron. Under the hood, with what little lighting they had, he saw a scaly set of orange and green. He felt dumb for not noticing it earlier. At least Feron doesn’t look like a Mirelurk, but they were amphibians. “What are you talking about?”

“Cerberus is pro-human,” Feron explained. “They’re only interested in Shepard because she’s human. I doubt they’d mourn her if she’s a hanar or a krogan.”

“A bunch of racists, then,” Ethan huffed. “Good to know. Those people who attacked us… Who are they?”

“They’re Blue Suns. They’re a mercenary group consisting of humans, turians, and batarians,” Feron answered. “I think they were hired…”

“Hate group or not, we have similar goals as Cerberus do,” the asari butted in. “Let’s meet up with them.”

“Come with me, then.” Miranda brushed strands of hair off her face. “And you can bring your friends, too. We're not being choosy today.”

The woman and her bodyguards started off. Liara followed along, with Feron hanging back.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Feron, the drell, commented as the Courier caught up with him and the others.

“Let’s see. I got myself into a gunfight with you guys, and now we’re working with a human supremacist group to find a dead hero.” Ethan couldn’t help but smile, holding back his laughter. “Of course you have a bad feeling about this!”
 

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Somewhere else, after a long hike, the Courier looked around at the Cerberus facility workshop. It looked as if it was clean to the point he could see his reflection on the gray tile. There, he got pestered by several engineers about his Transportalponder when he asked for the right materials to fix it. He thought he would never get to hear the end of it.

Ethan sat on a bench in the lobby. While it was a large room, it was also empty and quiet, save for the other occupants: Feron and Liara. A logo of an elongated hexagon and two lines traced to the bottom were plastered on the walls.

Liara sat at the Courier’s right, her legs crossed. She smiled, her right hand glowing as she opened it, a bright orb flickering in her palm. Ethan placed the rifle at his side and glanced at the asari. “You froze that turian and summoned a black hole. Did you use dark energy?” He maintained his newfound rifle with a toolkit he found in the workshop.

“She’s a biotic. They can do that and create mass effect fields through electrical impulses in the brain,” Feron answered, standing in front of them. “She can pull that off because of her bio-amps, which synchronize their nerve system to make the biotics useful.”

“My people, the asari, are naturally adept at biotics.” Liara closed her hand, and the glowing ball disappeared. “Most other species can develop biotics through exposure to element zero in the uterus and enhance them with amps.”

“I’ve heard about element zero. If they’re a chemical substance, that means they only have neutrons,” Ethan pointed out. He paused before making a realization and snapped his fingers. “Oh, wait! Neutron stars! Wouldn’t they be really dense?”

“Element zero, or eezo, is a nickname. Rather, they’re an exotic material,” Liara replied. “They’re made by stars going supernova, releasing dark energy. Then they latched onto nearby asteroids. That’s how Omega came to be. It started out as a mining facility.”

Feron glanced at the Courier as he took his pistol apart. The internal parts of the pistol looked rather strange to him, resembling a cross between a recharger pistol and a ballistic gun, like his M1911, along with a computer system. He assembled it back together in a matter of seconds. The drell raised an eye ridge at Ethan’s repair skills.

“By the Goddess, that was impressive!” Liara exclaimed with awe.

“Thanks. It’s nice to be complemented every once in a while,” the Courier smirked.

The drell stood off to the side, crossing his arms in front of him. “Earlier, you said you can answer some questions.”

“That I did,” the Courier replied. “Fire away.”

“So what’s your name?”

Ethan paused. He wasn’t keen on sharing his real name with two strangers. Not since the time in the wasteland, his universe, where he almost died. Then again, he helped Liara and Feron this far so he could return the trust. “Name’s Ethan Sunderland, but people called me the Courier.”

“Courier… a messenger, I take it?” Liara stared at the floor and glanced at Ethan. “So people call you that?”

“Well, yeah. Your grasp of the obvious is inspiring,” Ethan rolled his eyes. “I used to be one till I got shot in the head. Twice, at point-blank range.” He pointed to a scar he bore next to his right eye. He felt tempted to tell more about himself so they understood, but he wasn’t so sure they would buy his story. Even if they did, it wouldn’t help him much. No one believed him about his time at Big Mountain, except for No-bark Noonan. No-bark believed in the craziest things, whether they happened to be real or just a figment of his imagination.

The asari gasped. “How did you survive?”

“I got better,” the Courier answered. “That guy in the checkered jacket, Benny, should’ve used a bigger caliber. Doc Mitchell patched me up afterward.”

“Mm-hmm,” Feron nodded, unconvinced. “And that device strapped on your left wrist?”

Ethan looked at his Pip-Boy. He guessed it wouldn’t hurt to tell since they were smart enough to see through his lies. “This? Glad someone finally noticed.” He showed them his Pip-Boy. “This is a Pip-Boy 3000. It came with a Geiger counter, radio, health monitor, data storage, clock, and calendar, and I can use the screen as a flashlight.” He shrugged. “Sort of like your omni-tools.”

Liara and Feron found themselves shocked. “Why do you need a Geiger counter?” the asari asked.

“There was a lot of radiation back on Earth.”

Feron gave him a confused expression. “Earth had massive levels of radiation? I heard the slums of most of its cities were bad. I’m surprised the Alliance dealt with enough radiation to provide a Geiger counter into that Pip-Boy of yours.”

“RobCo Industries made this thing,” the Courier corrected. “But that happened in another universe. RobCo, the Pip-Boy. Here, they don’t exist.”

“RobCo?” Liara frowned. “Wait. If you’re from an alternative timeline or perhaps an alternative universe, then when did humanity first develop the nuclear bomb?”

“1945, near the end of the second World War, when America developed and deployed it against the Japanese forces,” Ethan replied. “Now I know how the victims felt at the time.”

“Okay… how about the transistor?”

“I don’t see them, aside from Big Mountain and in robots.” Ethan curled his lips, thinking up of something else. “Here’s a short history lesson for you. In 2077, there was a two-hour war between two countries, the United States and China.”

Liara glanced at Feron, with the two exchanging confused looks, and back at Ethan. “There was a war between the United States of America and China little over a century ago? That… I don’t know what to…?”

After a second of thought, he pulled out his broken Transportalponder out of his backpack and showed it to Liara and Feron. He hoped it would help make them believe him. “It’s a shocker, I know, but it brought me here.” There was a wry, satisfied smirk on his face.

Liara leaned forward. “What is that? I saw it back at the workshop, but I have seen nothing like it…”

“You have now,” Ethan deadpanned. “It’s a Transportalponder, made from Big Mountain. It can transport me there to the Mojave and back. I tried to improve it, but anything can go wrong.”

Liara and Feron glanced at each other. “Goddess…” She turned to Ethan before looking back at Feron. “Feron, do you think what he said was true, let alone possible?”

“I… I don’t know,” said Feron. “He made a large assumption about himself.”

“Aside from him being mentally unstable, it’s the only explanation I can come up with.” The asari looked at Ethan. “Do you have an omni-tool?”

“Just bought it.” Ethan pulled out the omni-tool out of his pocket. His right forearm glowed an orange light momentary before putting it away.

Liara nodded. “So do you know about the Protheans?”

“No,” Ethan answered. “I don’t know much about them.”

Liara placed her fingers on her chin. “…Mass relays?”

Ethan shook his head after looking through the data on his Pip-Boy. “No, no references to the mass relays.”

“So the data in your Pip-Boy proves it.” Liara raised a finger after looking at the Pip-Boy to be sure. “I don’t know what happened, but you’re not in your own universe anymore.”

“That’s what I just said,” Ethan muttered, watching as the pair ignored him.

“I don’t know what to make of this…” Feron shook his head as he placed his hands on his hip.

“I got an idea.” The asari sat up. “I was an archaeologist, studying the Protheans’ history and their culture before I joined Shepard on her mission to stop Saren. Let me see if I could carbon date your jumpsuit and this Pip-Boy of yours.”

“Yeah, sure. Go ahead while I sit around like furniture,” Ethan replied.

Liara scanned his armored Vault 21 jumpsuit with her omni-tool. She lifted Ethan’s arm and studied his Pip-Boy for a moment. She entered a command, calculating the estimated age of his Pip-Boy.

Ethan looked over her shoulders to see her enter a series of algorithms and equations over an orange holographic screen. For once, he would like to find out how old his Pip-Boy was, exactly.

A perplexed expression appeared on the former archaeologist’s face when the numbers appeared. “That can’t be right… Was your Pip-Boy made in 1970? It’s amazing it still works today.”

Feron’s eye ridge narrowed as he frowned. “You still believe he came from a parallel universe? You can’t be serious, Liara!”

The light disappeared as Liara turned off her omni-tool. “It was that, or he had amnesia, or he’s insane,” the asari glared at the drell. “Think about it, Feron. He claimed ignorance about the relays and the Protheans. The Pip-Boy was made 213 years ago, which shouldn’t be possible here. With enough proof, if the Reapers exist, so do other universes.”

“The Reapers are one thing, Liara; we know they’re a threat.” Feron stepped forward and pointed accusingly at Liara. “You can’t prove it. Many people tried before, and it didn’t work. Besides, have you seen how humans made their movies? They sure love their ‘experiment gone wrong’ and transporter clichés.”

“You got a lot of nerve. Why don’t you stick your head in the sand, then?” Ethan stood up. “Want me to show you a stimpak? Maybe that would—”

“Enough!” The asari had stepped in between the two men before they got too close, her body glowing for a moment. “This is unnecessary.” She sighed as Ethan and Feron stared at her, then at each other. “The whole thing would’ve been solved already if I joined my consciousness with Ethan’s. That way, I can look into his memories and prove that he came from an alternate universe.”

Ethan arched an eyebrow curiously. “That sounds an awful lot like telepathy…”

“It’s a melding, a joining,” Liara explained. “As I connect my nervous system to yours, we can exchange thoughts and memories. Do you want to do this?”

Ethan paused. On one hand, it would make it clear to Liara and Feron that he wasn’t of this universe. But he shivered when he realized Liara would look through his memories, including the traumatizing ones; they were just memories, nothing more.

“Yeah, okay. I guess there’s no harm in doing it. Will it hurt? Have you done this before?”

“Only a tingling sensation, from what Shepard has told me.” Liara rubbed her chin, glancing aside. “Though she was the only one I melded with to decipher her vision of the Protheans. That’s all the experience I had.”

The Courier gave Liara a look nothing short of serious as he dropped his shoulders. “That’s good to know.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Relax, Ethan.” Liara approached him. “Embrace eternity!”

Her eyes turned black as Ethan jolted from the electrical impulses coursing through his body. Everything around him transformed into a mess of images and noises, incomprehensible, his mind resisting the melding.

Then it got easier, becoming clear images of his memories, flashing before his eyes. He saw himself shaking hands with an NCR officer at the Strip. He, alongside his companions, fought Lanius at Hoover Dam. He saw himself at the Sierra Madre vault, trapping Elijah in it. He saw himself approaching Ulysses at the ICBM facility, talking to the other Courier. He spared the Think Tank, banished the White Legs from Zion Valley with Joshua Graham’s help, and trained the Misfits.

He found himself tied up near Goodsprings. Jessup and McMurphy stood behind Benny, the man in the checkered jacket. Benny pointed his golden-plated Browning Hi-Power pistol and fired two rounds at his head.

Ethan blinked, finding himself back in the lobby. He was all right, but his head felt like jelly as everything came back together. This melding was like his and Liara’s minds had become one, their identities crashing together, splintered, and reformed.

“Goddess, that was… disturbing, intense.” Liara sat down on the bench. She looked tired, her eyelids slowly dropping.

“You okay?” the Courier asked. She was a complete stranger so far, but he had to be sure. He would blame his conscience for that.

“Yes, I’m fine. Sometimes a melding can be intense if the participant was strong-willed, like you and Shepard.” Liara looked up to him. “It’s a lot to explain.”

Ethan looked at Feron, who stood at the corner nearby. “Satisfied?”

Feron looked down at the floor, considering what happened, then at her. “Liara?”

She nodded wearily.

“Fine, I get it,” he grunted. “I’m sorry that I’ve been antagonistic lately. It’s not like you waltzed in here out of nowhere.”

“Regardless, we must get you used to the galaxy at large,” Liara remarked.

Ethan sighed, relieved, as he sat on the bench behind him. But he had questions about this Shepard and the Reapers. “Shepard, Shepard, Shepard. Who is she, exactly? What makes her so unique? All I know she stopped this galaxy from certain doom.”

“Yes. That’s the gist of it,” said Liara. “Her name’s Madison. She was a spacer, the only child in a military family. She signed up for the Alliance at eighteen to follow in her mother’s footsteps. She went on a mission on the planet Akuze where a thresher maw killed her entire squad. The Alliance reported her as the only survivor of the attack.”

“Reported? So there was someone else, then.”

“Yes,” Liara nodded. It looked like she didn’t have a fond memory of what she told him. “Corporal Toombs. Cerberus took him in and experimented on him. She found him when she searched for the dead scientists, but they were responsible for the thresher maw attack. Toombs wanted to kill one of the remaining scientists, Dr. Wayne, but Shepard talked him out of it.”

Ethan’s brow narrowed, suspicious. He remembered reading about the thresher maws on the Extranet. They were giant worms, borrowing from underground to attack their victims above. “If Cerberus was behind this thresher maw attack, then why did you have us turn to them in the first place?”

The asari glared at the Courier. “Right now, I don’t know who else I would turn to. The Alliance doesn’t have the resources after Shepard sacrificed much of the fleet to save the Council during the attack on the Citadel.”

“The Council?” Ethan asked, intrigued. “They’re the ones that led all of Citadel space? What happened at the Citadel?”

“A geth fleet, a race of synthetics built by the quarians, attacked the station with Sovereign, a Reaper, leading them. Before that, Shepard chased an elite soldier, a turian soldier named Saren, all over the galaxy. He led the invasion, but she put an end to his madness and saved the Citadel Council.” Her eyes watered from the tears. She tried to keep her composure together. “I was part of her ground team. And I saw her die on the Normandy…”

“Were you… close to her?” Ethan asked.

Liara hesitated for a moment and then shook her head. “No, we’re just friends.”

Ethan looked at Liara. “I know it’s hard for you, but sooner or later, the only thing you can do is to accept her death, dust yourself off, and move on.”

Liara let out a sigh and looked up to the Courier. “And I assume you want to know about the Reapers?”

“Yeah,” Ethan nodded. Now they were getting somewhere. “What can you tell me about them?”

The former archaeologist shrugged. “Unfortunately, we don’t know much about them. All we know that they’re a race of sentient machines that arrive every 50,000 years to wipe out galactic civilization. They destroyed the Protheans and created the mass relays eons ago.”

Their conversation came to an abrupt end when the two-part door to their right slid open as a green circle disappeared. Miranda walked through and looked at Liara. “Our leader wants to see you now.” She turned at the Courier. “And you as well.”

“So I got attention. How delightful of you,” the Courier responded with a wry smile. “Any idea why I had your leader’s attention?”

“He’s interested in that… Transportalponder of yours.” Miranda cringed as she uttered Ethan’s transportation device. “Such a ridiculous name…”

“Whaaaat?” Ethan dropped his mouth, faking a shocked expression. “You have a problem with it? It’s a cool name. You’ll grow into it.”

Miranda expressed her annoyance with a sigh as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “I suppose. Just come with me.”

Feron looked at the Cerberus agent and shook his head. “No thanks. I think I’ll stay.”

“I wasn’t asking you.” Miranda turned and exited the room, with Liara and the Courier following her.
 

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It didn’t take long to reach their destination as they took a quick right down the hallway. Because the trip was short, Ethan didn’t have the time to ask Miranda questions. Maybe her boss could give some answers instead.

As they entered the dark room, he turned and found the door sliding shut behind them. The room was small and featureless, save for a circle in the center. Liara and the Courier walked at a slow pace to the center. When they stepped into the circle, an orange, grid-like light emerged from the ground. They found themselves in another room with a window, showing a red giant star. In front of them was an old man wearing a black suit with a white collar, sulking in a chair. Smoke trailed into the air as he placed the cigarette between his lips.

Ethan stepped out of the orange light surrounding him and Liara, only to find the man had disappeared. Stepping back into the circle, he saw the cigarette-smoking man again.

“Huh, kinda cool.” Ethan smacked his lips together and looked around. “I take it this is a communication device, projecting us in two different places at the same time via particles.”

“Simply put, but yes. This is a quantum entanglement communicator or QEC for short. Expensive and difficult to produce, but well worth the price,” the old man replied. With a wave of his free hand, the chair turned. The old man was pale, his combed hair a lighter shade of gray, parting at the middle of his forehead. Apart from his hair, he doesn’t look too old, having few wrinkles on his face. If he had been sixty, he would look forty. His eyes glow a bright blue, probably from cybernetics. But there was something about those eyes made Ethan felt uneasy, but couldn’t point out why. “But let us get into the formalities, shall we? You may call me the Illusive Man.”

“Elusive?” Liara asked, her voice trailing off.

“Ill-lusive. Starts with an ‘I’,” the Courier pointed out.

“He’s right, Liara T’Soni.” The Illusive Man placed his cigarette in the ashtray. “I often need to be hard to find as well.”

Ethan stepped forward. “So what do you want with Shepard?”

“Shepard is unique—one of the greatest examples of our species. A symbol of all humanity.” The Illusive Man placed his hand on his chin. “Dead or alive, we want Shepard back in human hands.”

“This Systems Alliance is also interested in finding Shepard’s body,” the Courier replied. “That should be a common goal, motivate you to work together.”

The Illusive Man shook his head, frowning. “No. You should understand that Cerberus and the Alliance are not on good terms. The Alliance condemned us as terrorists because our methods are different. They aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to preserve our race, but we do things that matter. They may as well pull a well-decorated funeral for her, and then toss her aside, forgotten.”

Liara folded her arms in front of her. “So why would you want her, if Shepard’s dead?”

The Illusive Man sat up. “As an asari, I can’t expect you to understand our traditions. But our reasons are not important. What’s important is that the Shadow Broker wants Shepard, too—and sent those mercenaries to stop you. In some ways, the Shadow Broker is my opposite in the information-gathering business, always working from afar. But now, the Broker made a deal with the devil. Or, more precisely, devils.” With a tap from a holographic interface floating beside him, three insectoid creatures with four golden eyes and flat, elongated heads appeared, with spider-like arms twitching at their sides. “The Collectors.”

The Courier looked at these creatures with curiosity. “What are the Collectors?”

“Few know what the Collectors are or what they want.” The Illusive Man snapped his fingers together, like a god who controlled his world, and the images of the Collectors disappeared. “They make off with individual beings that had trivial distinctions. Volus middle siblings. Dyslexic krogan. Elcor who sings well.” His voice trailed off as he turned and sat back down on his chair. “Perverse but harmless in the grand scheme of things, or so we thought. Their interest in Shepard is alarming. We would want Shepard’s remains in any event—but it’s vital that the Collectors not have them. Whatever their reasons, it can’t be any good. That’s why we need you.”

“So why should I work with you, then? What’s in this for me?” the Courier asked at an angry aside, folding his arms. “You admit you’re terrorists. That’s more than enough for me not to trust you.”

“And why me?” Liara turned away from the Illusive Man. “You have all these resources, and Miranda, too.”

“It’s difficult for me to contend directly with the Shadow Broker out in the Terminus system. And while Miranda played her role…” The Illusive Man leaned forward, a stoic expression on his face. “Nothing beats having someone with a personal connection. You were very close with Commander Shepard. When I heard you were here, I knew I wanted you on my team.” He turned to the Courier. “As for you, Mr…?”

“His name’s—”

“You may call me the Courier,” Ethan answered.

Liara turned at Ethan. “But—”

Ethan turned at the asari with a grave look on his face. From what he could tell, she understood what he intended. He had gotten so used to his title it became second nature to him. He didn’t trust this mysterious man, now knowing what he wanted. “Just roll with it.”

“I see.” The Illusive Man grabbed another cigarette and smoked. One blow and a quarter of the cigarette turned to ash. With a tap, it fell into the ashtray. “It’s hard not to understand why you were mistrustful of us. But you need to judge us not by our methods, but by our goals. I’ve been informed about your run-in with the engineers. I heard it was quite a fuss.”

The Courier scoffed as he smiled. “I remembered them quite differently. What about it?”

“Miranda notified me on that device of yours, and how you came from a parallel Earth, devastated by nuclear war,” said the Illusive Man. “Perhaps this might persuade you: help us retrieve Shepard’s body, and we’ll compensate you. You’ll carry out whatever experiments you deem necessary. Or you can refuse, and we can go our separate ways. The Alliance may help you in your predicament, but I doubt they would believe your story.”

“No strings attached? You have your word on that?” The Courier wasn’t confident he could trust the Illusive Man. He couldn’t help but compare him to Mr. House. Both men shared a common theme: sophisticated men with a vast wealth of knowledge and resources, willing to do anything to secure power and place themselves above the rest. They believed they were doing for their people’s well-being at the expense of others. For Mr. House, his downfall was his pride, not counting on Ethan to turn on him.

He also saw similarities to someone else: Edward Sallow, who liked to call himself Caesar. A charismatic and visionary but merciless man. He established a brutal, fascist regime filled with misogyny, technophobia, and slavery. His regime had supposedly been inspired by the Roman Empire, but Ethan wouldn’t commend them for his historical accuracy. But he was a frail man, suffering from headaches, a sign of a brain tumor. It was convenient for the Courier to ‘treat’ that condition of his. He can only hope that the similarities with Caesar end with having a vision and nothing more.

The old man grinned. “No strings attached, I assure you.” With a snap of his fingers, he turned his chair around and faced the dying, red sun once more. “The drell, Feron, does seem to have a lead on Shepard. I suspect he may prove useful for an alien.” He tilted his head to his right. “Courier, Dr. T’Soni… Will you work with him? Can we count on you two?”

Ethan looked at the asari, who closed her eyes as she weighed her decision. She sighed and opened her eyes. “No, but Shepard can.”

He scoffed. He had every reason not to trust the Illusive Man, but he couldn’t see any other option. Maybe he would cut ties with them some day. “Fine. But I’m not doing this for you. By the way, try not to die from cancer. I heard smoking’s bad for you.”

The Illusive Man chuckled. “Good. That’s what I would like to hear. Find Shepard, stop the Shadow Broker from selling her body to the Collectors. Miranda will tell you more on the way.”

With a press of a button, the grid-like light descended, causing the cigarette-smoking man to disappear from view, leaving Ethan and Liara alone in the room. It seemed like they had a job to do.

[Nord Ronnoc]

Chapter Two: When Good Plans Go Wrong

Ethan sat, quiet and thoughtful, as the hovercar, they were in flew past the pillars in Omega. Feron and Miranda bickered about the details of their mission. Liara, meanwhile, sat beside him, also lost in her thoughts. As he looked through the window, his thoughts turned back to his home universe. Word in the Mojave said that someone hunted down strange creatures in the Mojave. It was Ulysses’ doing, no doubt. He made sure none of the Tunnelers made it to the Mojave.

While things were looking up for the NCR, people chafed at their presence in the Mojave, blaming them for taxes they had to pay. The Followers of the Apocalypse had helped the sick and the poor while the Brotherhood of Steel patrolled I-15 and Highway 95. Before he started on his experiment, the Think Tank remained ignorant, locked in a loop. He wasn’t sure if they knew of the incident at all.

His heart ached when it occurred to him what it meant. He wouldn’t see his friends again for a long time. After the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, many of them parted ways.

Lily left abruptly shortly after the battle and traveled west, saying she wanted to find out what happened to her grandchildren. Whatever she would find, he hoped it was for the best.

Boone re-enlisted with his old unit, 1st Recon, spending his spare time hunting down slavers.

Ethan heard reports of old equipment fixed and research notes mysteriously completed. It was likely that Veronica was responsible. After leaving the Brotherhood, she spent her days as a scavenger.

Raul took up his guns once more and soon, there were tales of a cowboy enacting justice on those who prey on the weak.

Rex had trouble adjusting his memories when Rey’s brain was transplanted into his body, but the cyberdog’s mind settled peacefully when the Courier returned him to his owner: the King.

Meanwhile, Arcade became a teacher of the Followers in NCR territory after tending to the sick and wounded in Freeside.

Cass, well, he hadn’t heard from her in years. Knowing her, he wasn’t surprised when he found out she slept with an NCR trooper and made her way out wandering in the Mojave wasteland. Whatever happened to her, he hoped she would be all right.

ED-E was the only one that stayed with him, being a loyal and vigilant companion wherever they went… until the day they got separated, when everything had gone wrong. He wondered if a trading caravan took up that beat-up old robot while he was gone.

Time changed everything and everyone, even him.

To distract himself, he looked at a datapad, which contained a dossier on Commander Shepard. It included what Liara told him. Following in her family's footsteps, she joined the Alliance at 18. On the planet Akuze, a thresher maw wiped out her whole squadron. Years later, she was assigned to the SSV Normandy. She wound up in a chase against Saren after an attack on Eden Prime. With the evidence against the turian, Shepard became the first human Spectre, a top agent working for the Council. She saved a space station known as the Citadel from Sovereign.

Four weeks after the battle, something destroyed the Normandy. While many of her crew had escaped, others didn’t—including Shepard. The Council pinned it as an accident, but Cerberus placed the blame on the Collectors. The Collectors had a ship advanced enough to detect the Normandy’s advanced stealth drives and strike it down.

Cerberus expected their mission to take a dangerous turn, so they provided the Courier with state-of-the-art weaponry and armor. He took advantage of this to secure for his use of the M-76 Mattock assault rifle, his Predator pistol, the M-97 Viper sniper rifle, and the M-23 Katana shotgun.

His new set of armor was plain with a dark shade of gray, having sleek paddings covering much of his body. An omni-tool had been implanted into the armor, saving him some time using it while his Pip-Boy fitted over the armor on his left arm. Compared to his old omni-tool, the armor gave him a much stronger kinetic barrier. He kept his backpack, along with the things he normally needed. Cerberus also provided him with a salve known as medi-gel.

Liara and Feron kept their previous equipment. Ethan identified Liara’s heavy, almost triangular pistol as an M-5 Phalanx. Her other weapon was the M-4 Shuriken, its shape more akin to the pistols back at the Mojave. Feron carried an M-29 Incisor sniper rifle and an M-9 Tempest submachine gun, the letters VTX inscribed on its barrel.

The hovercar landed at the docking bay, near the nightclub. Liara and Feron stepped out as the doors opened.

“Courier? They’re waiting for you,” Miranda called out. “Were you listening?”

The Courier turned and nodded. Looking around, he found the docks to be crowded, packed with activity. “Yeah. The Shadow Broker hired these Blue Suns mercenaries to stop us. We have to find Shepard’s body and take it back.”

“And we’ll pay for your expenses,” Miranda finished.

“But where would her body be, exactly?” Liara turned to the Cerberus agent.

“If the body had left Omega, I would know,” Miranda explained. “They haven’t made the final handoff to the Shadow Broker’s agent yet, which means we got a chance.”

“Neither Liara and I are familiar with Omega,” Ethan pointed out. “Any place we could look?”

Miranda smirked as she sat back in the driver’s seat of the hovercar. “Like the Illusive Man said, Courier—ask your drell friend. I’m sure he’ll have an idea or two.”

The door closed, and the hovercar took off. He heard the engines humming loudly until it was out of earshot.

“So Feron.” Ethan faced the drell. “Since you’re the brains of this little operation, mind telling us where we should go first?”

Feron scoffed, pacing around left to right. “You saw what happened the last time I tried to take Liara somewhere. What else could I give you?”

Liara frowned and glared at the Feron. “Quite a lot, I think. You work for the Shadow Broker. And they know it.”

Ethan found himself surprised at this revelation, but he wouldn’t turn against the drell for his past. “Wait, how did you…?”

The asari stepped toward Feron and pointed at him accusingly. “You were the only person who knew I came to search for Shepard, but those mercs found me, anyway! Either they knew what you were up to—or you sold me out!”

“I didn’t sell you out, Liara,” Feron replied. “For a while, I took some odd jobs for the Shadow Broker. He pays for eyes and ears everywhere. He knew her friends would come for her, so I was supposed to lead you away. Money’s good, I don’t get my hands dirty, and no one gets hurt.”

“Not directly, anyway. Wouldn’t want to lose sleep over it, would you?” Ethan crossed his arms in front of him. “So why help us?”

Feron paced away from the Courier and Liara, walking past a crowd on a walkway, but they followed him anyway. “Like I said, no one gets hurt. But the Collectors are nasty customers. They’re as rare as a violent hanar.”

“So how do you know the Shadow Broker’s working with the Collectors?” Liara asked.

Feron stopped and turned to see Liara. “Rumors—nothing substantial.” He lifted his arms for a moment. “Listen, you and Ethan are better off without me. I’m becoming a liability to both you and the Shadow Broker.”

Ethan snorted and stepped forward. “And leave us at the Shadow Broker’s mercy? I’m not expecting him to give us gifts. We need your help, Feron. You know more about him than either of us combined.”

“And I watched from my escape pod as Shepard died.” Liara stepped in. “This is my chance to redeem myself. It can be your chance, too.”

The information broker puffed his cheeks and turned his back. “Okay, okay. You made your point. C’mon, we better get going. I know the perfect place to start.”
 

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They stood at the front of the entrance to the nightclub, Afterlife. Music boomed in rhythm as the pink and purple lights shimmered in pattern behind the white letters. The elcor bodyguard was still here, keeping the crowd standing at the bottom of the stairs in a line. Two guards, though more like mercenaries hired by the club’s owner, stood on the balcony, keeping an eye out for any troublemakers.

“This—this is where we started!” Liara protested.

“So that’s where we start looking?” The Courier placed his hands on his hips. “They better not have any dancing corpses, or I’m gonna be upset.”

“This is where Aria’s throne is, yes,” Feron answered. “And if it satisfies you, then no, the club doesn’t have any undead dancers. That would be…” His face cringed. “…awkward.”

“Some palace for someone who called herself the Queen of Omega,” Ethan scoffed.

The information broker chuckled as they went up the steps. “It won’t be easy meeting her. Security’s tight, and she never lets anyone get close to her. Lucky for you, that won’t be a problem.” He approached the elcor and turned on a bright orange light on his left wrist and leveled it up to his chest. The elcor turned to him as a ping sounded from his omni-tool.

“Grateful: Thank you for your business,” the elcor bodyguard nodded. Ethan realized the elcor couldn’t express themselves in an efficient manner to other species, so they use prefixes instead.

“Your charming wit and some bribery. Like me.” Ethan had a wry smile on his face. “I like the way you think.”

“Thank you,” said Feron.

The three entered and found themselves in a circular hallway, filled with many shady characters. Holographic images of fire covered the walls, looking hot as the deepest pit of Hell. If there was a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, this was the place. And now he thought about it, the name of this nightclub, Afterlife, was fitting.

But something made Ethan curious about Feron. “Hey, Feron, mind if I ask you something?”

The drell turned to Ethan. “What?”

“You’re well-connected and in good relations with the Shadow Broker up till now,” said Ethan. “Great name for a philanthropist. How long have you worked for him?”

Ethan saw Feron tense a little. It seemed like his question had struck a nerve. “A few years. I should know a thing or two about the best information broker in the galaxy. I also know a few of his operatives. They don’t take much, but I know enough.”

“We’ll have to take Feron’s word for it.” Liara took a deep breath. “This is the best lead I’ve gotten to finding Shepard. I'm not letting this chance slip by.”

“Relax, Liara. We’re just looking for closure,” Ethan replied.

The room they entered was large, colorful, and bright, filled with people dancing on many floors. At the center was a glowing cylinder, depicting an asari in little clothing dancing in a seductive manner. Techno beats of music filled the room, but it was loud for the Courier. He wasn’t used to this type of music.

“You’re not going anywhere just yet, Hando Due.”

“Hi, Greedro. What brings you here to Omega?”

They turned their attention to a green-skinned batarian and turian with no markings on his face. The Courier knew a turian with no markings on their face meant that they can’t be trusted as they had no allegiance to any of their clans. The batarian leaned towards the turian, shoving him into a wall nearby.

“It's about the money isn't it?” the turian, Hando Due, asked. “Tell him I got it.”

“Sorry, Hando, too late for that.” The batarian, Greedro, pointed his pistol at the turian. “You should’ve paid him when you had the chance. Bet he’ll put a large price on your head. Large enough to bring every bounty hunter in the galaxy for you. But I found you first.” He shrugged. “Lucky me.”

“This time I got the money.” Hando gestured with his talons.

“Give it to me and I might forget about you.”

Feron and Liara gave each other confused looks. The Courier pinched the bridge of his nose, keeping himself from laughing.

“Don’t have it with me.” The scoundrel’s talons hovered over his pistol. “Tell him—”

“He’s through with you!” The batarian shoved his pistol at the turian’s chest. “He has no use for anyone who screws up on the job.”

The turian’s mandibles twitched. “Even I get boarded sometimes. You think I had a choice?”

“You can tell that excuse to him,” Greedro smirked. “He may apply red sand to your eyes. Or rip out your platings.”

“How about I gorge out each one of your eyeballs?”

“You may try.” The batarian chuckled, unfazed by the turian’s threat. “Oh, I’ll savor this moment.”

As if he came out nowhere, another turian in blue armor with white paint on his face approached the two. “Hey! If you want to kill each other that bad, take it someplace else, but not on Aria’s turf!” The turian pointed at the exit. “You can leave, or you can deal with me. Your choice.”

Though reluctant, the scoundrels left the nightclub, much to the turian guard’s satisfaction. As they left, the turian approached the three. “Smugglers. When things go sour, they betray each other to save their hide. Bad for business.”

“Deal went wrong?” Ethan guessed. He was no stranger to smuggling and delivering goods. He did a series of jobs for Contreras at McCarran to get his secret stash of goods.

“Something like that, yeah.” The turian guard shrugged. He beamed his eyes on the Courier. “Wait a minute… you’re that human Aria wanted.”

“Everyone wants me for something as usual,” Ethan smirked. “What for?”

“No idea. Aria just sent me to find you. Guess you made my job easier.” The turian gestured to the three. “C’mon. You don’t want to keep her waiting.”

The turian left while the three followed behind him. Liara stared at Ethan, confused. “By the Goddess, what just happened? That was… incredibly strange.”

“Be honest, Ethan. Does this happen to you a lot?” Feron asked.

“I take it in stride. I'm sure you’ll do in time.” A wry smile appeared on Ethan’s face.

Feron glanced to the side. “I see.”

Ethan scoffed. “Great, another fan.”

“Well, I have nothing else to say, aside from being granted an audience with Aria,” Liara commented.

“Yes,” the drell agreed, “that was much easier to attain.” They walked up the stairs. “Let’s see what she wants. Hope she has the coordinates for where the exchange takes place.”

At the top of the stairs, the three saw a purple asari, slouching down on a black couch. The surrounding guards watched their every move. Underneath her white jacket, she wore a black skin-suit, showing skin around her stomach. A string of tattoos traveled across her face like eyebrows.

“Here he is, boss, like you asked.” The turian approached the purple asari.

“Good.” The asari and sat up. “I think that’s all I need from you, for now, Preitor. Go back to your post.” The turian guard, Preitor, nodded and walked down the stairs, past the batarian in brown, bulky armor.

“Your friends here are better looking than your usual company, Feron,” she said. “It isn’t often that the Shadow Broker sends his minions to me for help. Something big and juicy, I’ll bet. But…” She gestured to the batarian guard. “Anto, scan them for weapons.”

Anto, the batarian guard in brown armor, nodded and approached Ethan and the other two. “Stand still.” He activated his omni-tool and scanned them, which displayed holographic projections of a human, a drell, and an asari, skeletons and all.

“FYI, I have a gun right here.” Ethan rolled his eyes as he showed his pistol to the batarian.

“Perhaps,” the asari chuckled. “But it’s a standard procedure. Nobody gets close until they get scanned.”

Ethan put away his pistol. “If I wanted you dead, I would’ve done so in the first place.”

The asari smirked. “That’s what I thought.”

A beep sounded from the batarian’s omni-tool. “They’re clean. No funny business.”

Ethan nodded. Before he could do anything, Feron stepped forward.

“Leave this to me,” the drell whispered to Ethan and turned at the purple asari. “We’re just checking on some merchandise, Aria—the body of Commander Shepard.” Ethan turned and saw Liara shivered when Feron mentioned that. Ethan assumed Liara didn’t like it when someone referred to Shepard as an object. “I know the Blue Suns are set to deliver it to the Shadow Broker. We need to know where.”

“You don’t know?” the asari, Aria T’Loak, scoffed. “I knew the Shadow Broker liked secrecy, but for his own man not to know what he’s up to.” She turned at Liara. “And you. I know you. You’re one of Shepard’s crew. Were you able to speak when she was alive?”

“You’re also interested in me,” Ethan stated. “Why?”

“One thing at a time.” Aria looked at Ethan. “But yes, I’m interested in you.” She approached him. “Do you know who I am?”

Ethan bit his lower lip. He thought Aria caught onto him. He wasn’t known for discretion, but he wondered why she had an interest in him. Perhaps some sweat-talk would convince her. He smiled, hoping to give out a good impression. “You’re Aria T’Loak, the Queen of Omega. Or boss, CEO, depending on the mood. Perhaps I could bow before you if it makes you happy.”

The ruler of Omega laughed. “Oh how flattering. I figured you know the one rule on Omega.” She smiled. “‘Don’t **** with Aria.’ But this has been complicated by a few things.”

The other guard lifted his omni-tool and broadcast what appeared to be surveillance video. In it, the alleyway was empty. A few minutes later, a flash of light overtook the screen, followed by static. The screen went back to normal after a few seconds, except with him lying against the wall, unconscious. The broadcast disappeared as the guard lowered his omni-tool.

“I contacted my tech specialist to take a look. He told me the camera was disrupted by what he would call an anomaly. This means you're dangerous. This is… rather sensitive information.” Aria frowned and crossed her arms in front of her. “And if there’s one thing I hate more than people ****** with me, it’s an anomaly appearing out of nowhere that could disrupt the balance of power.” She chuckled. “Lucky for you, we can come to an arrangement. One that would benefit both of us.”

“And that is?” the Courier asked.

“From the way you were, I expected someone left you for dead,” Aria answered. “A beating, then someone overloaded the camera to bring you here to erase any trace. Some of my men saw you making trouble for my station. I like your style, but it could do with some discretion. I can offer you protection on the condition that you work with me for a year.”

“Our client offered me compensation for finding Shepard’s body,” Ethan pointed out. He didn’t want to say his client was Cerberus. Aliens, like Aria, don’t take them well. “It’s quite a lot, I might add, but I can’t tell you about the big and juicy parts.”

Aria raised her eye ridges. “So you’re a mercenary? How much are they paying you?” She leaned in. “I can offer you much more.”

“More than enough,” the Courier replied. “Besides, I can take care of myself, but we need the location for the exchange.”

“Or I could hand over the footage to whoever wanted you dead and get rid of the problem,” Aria replied.

“I got enemies, but it won’t help when they’re… quite a ways away to kill me,” Ethan retorted.

“I’m giving you a chance here,” Aria growled. “You can either accept the terms or be left at the mercy of Omega. It’s your choice.”

“But the exchange—!” Feron exclaimed.

“The Shadow Broker is powerful, but this is my station,” Aria asserted. “I have eyes and ears everywhere. I know about the transfer, but why is he so interested in Shepard?”

Feron stuttered, but Ethan spoke out. “That’s we’re trying to find out.”

“Of course, you are,” Aria chuckled and shook her head. “If you want to find Shepard, you would tell me.”

Liara stepped forward. “Because the Shadow Broker is working with the Collectors! They’re the ones that want her body!”

The ruler of Omega glared at Liara, her left eye twitching in anger. “The Collectors?! No one said anything about the Collectors!”

“Huh,” the Courier scoffed. “And here I thought you had eyes and ears everywhere on Omega. What would happen if people find out?”

The ruler of Omega clenched her teeth, and then she sighed. “You have a point. Tell you what: I don’t like it when certain people leave out certain details for exchanges. Thanks to you, I think I can help you. The exchange’s at the lower levels of Omega—the old mining processing plant. The Blue Suns took your friend there.” She keyed a command on her omni-tool. “Here are the coordinates.”

A ping sounded from their omni-tools. Ethan transferred the information to his Pip-Boy and, to his surprise, it worked. As he looked at the map tab, a marker was near the lower levels of Omega. He didn't expect his Pip-Boy to receive data from something as advanced as an omni-tool, but it did.

“Much obliged,” said the Courier, satisfied with the outcome. “Guess we’ll be on our way.”

Aria sighed and nodded. “Just get out of here.” She looked back at Ethan as they started walking down the stairs. “Hey, do you have a name?”

“You can call me the Courier,” Ethan answered after a moment of consideration. “Better name than the Most Sane Man in the Galaxy, no?”

The queen of Omega chuckled. The three left, sauntering past the crowd as they left the bar.
 

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“Ethan, are you sure making Aria angry like that was a good idea?” Feron asked. “You realize she’s ruthless, and you were pretty damn close to breaking that one rule.”

Liara, Feron, and Ethan rode in a cab to their destination with Ethan in the back seat. Liara sat at his right while Feron sat in the front seat, driving the cab.

“Mentioning the Collectors already made her angry, Feron. I just happen to take advantage of that,” Ethan answered, dismissive. “I know her type.”

Feron shook his head and turned back to driving the cab. Liara turned to Ethan with a concerned look on her face. “Have you considered any alternatives if fixing your device didn’t work?”

“Yeah, I’ll obviously be trapped here.” Ethan relaxed and placed his hands behind his head. “All I need to do is gather the materials needed to fix my Transportalponder, do the experiments carefully, and I’m all set. I know what I’m doing.”

The three exited the cab as it landed, with Ethan following behind Feron and Liara. In front of them was the old mining facility. There weren't any Blue Suns outside, so they assumed the exchange was taking place inside the plant. Ethan looked at the plant, noticing a blue light glowing in a similar manner to biotics.

“Element Zero?” Ethan guessed. “It had to be Cherenkov radiation, judging by the blue light below.”

“Yep,” Feron spoke. “Omega has been built and rebuilt over this eezo-rich asteroid for generations. It also had some rich metals. Looks like the workers were in a hurry to abandon this place. Wouldn’t blame them.”

Liara looked at the plant nervously. “It’s strange to think Shepard’s inside.”

“We have nothing else to go on,” said Feron. “This is the closest we got to finding Shepard.”

Liara nodded. “You’re right. We can’t turn back now.” She took a deep breath. “So how we can get inside undetected?”

Feron stepped forward. “We can sneak through the wastewater pipes. The main entrance is likely locked. If we try to break in through there, they’ll know we’re here.”

Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Is there any other way we can get inside?”

“The pipes are irradiated,” Feron answered. “No one in their right mind would guard them without getting sick, not even a turian with their metallic exoskeletons. If we go through there, we’ll have to move fast.”

“My Pip-Boy has a Geiger counter, remember?” Ethan showed his Pip-Boy.

Feron nodded. “Good. Sooner we get inside, the better. Let’s go.”

The drell went on ahead to the plant. Ethan and Liara followed him. The three crouched down as they approached the entrance undetected and followed the pipes on the walls. As they reached a catwalk to their right, they saw that some of the pipes were fashioned into a set of stairs. Feron climbed on a series of pipes until he reached the top, where he pointed out to Ethan and Liara. They followed.

They walked on until they noticed a pipe large enough for them to fit through. A yellow sign read, DANGER: high radiation area. Do not enter unless you have adequate protection. TLD and supplemental dosimeter required for entry. Just below the sign was graffiti that read, **** like a krogan!

“Well, that’s sweet of them,” Ethan quipped.

As they approached the large pipe, the Geiger counter on his Pip-Boy ticked. He pulled out a large orange pill bottle labeled Rad-X out of his backpack, opened it, and poured out three small capsules. He handed two of them to Liara and Feron, who exchanged confused looks.

“Rad-X. It builds up resistance in your body against radiation. Here goes nothing.” The Courier tossed the pill to his mouth and swallowed it. He entered the pipe.

Liara looked at her pill and sighed. “Your world has made some strange inventions.” She swallowed hers as Feron did the same thing. The two entered the pipe, following the Courier.

Ethan’s Pip-Boy continued to tick. Outside the tube, Blue Suns mercenaries patrolled the factory. The trip was long, and they were lucky no one heard them. They exited the tube and found themselves into the plant’s control room. The room was small with a console nearby.

On the way, they saw a female turian clad in Blue Suns armor passing by, a shotgun identical to the Courier’s own hanging on her back. She looked different, lacking the crest of horns found in male turians.

Hiding in the shadows, the three saw the female turian walking down the hall, her hand placed next to a turian’s version of an ear. Two more mercs, biped in shape and male, followed behind, their faces hidden underneath helmets.

Liara raised her hands in front of her as she prepared her biotics. Feron stopped her, reminding her they don’t want any attention. Liara nodded and watched the mercs passed by without incident.

The three made it to a window after they climbed on a catwalk. Through it, they got a good view of the hanger. It had many floors, supported by railings, with boxes and crates scattered about the platform. The other two nodded back. After a second or two, Feron found a doorway leading right there. He took a huge step over the catwalk. “Hope you can land quietly.”

The drell dropped down, landing silently despite wearing a full trench coat. Liara followed suit, her fall being a little clumsier. She landed close to a wall, and so she grabbed a hold of it to steady herself.

The asari looked up at Ethan as he prepared to jump. She raised her hands up. A blue glow surrounding Ethan, she slowly lowered him to the ground.

“Thanks,” Ethan whispered.

Right as they filed in, they hid behind the boxes. There, they saw a huge group of Blue Suns mercs standing around a coffin-shaped box, weapons in hand. Ethan surmised that it must be where Shepard’s body was. It was too close to a Blue Suns vessel for Ethan’s comfort. Soon after they arrived, a strange ship flew and landed into the hangar.

They watched as an absolutely huge, horned man walked out of the ship. His red-and-gray armor was bulky like he was a walking tank. The weapon with a large barrel he carried supported that assumption. Everything about him was intimidating, even from their distance. The Courier thought it was unusual for a salarian of that size. They were usually weaker and more fragile than other races. The salarian carried a large gun as he walked towards the Blue Suns.

Feron tensed. His black eyes betrayed the slightest hint of fear as he breathed to settle his nerves. “Damn! I knew this wouldn’t be easy. That’s Tazzik!”

The Courier smirked. “Him?” He looked at the large salarian. “They sure grow him large in their neighborhood, do they?”

Feron shook his head, ignoring Ethan’s attempt at a joke. “This went from bad to worse.”

“What’s the matter? Who is that?” Liara asked.

Feron looked to the salarian. “Taz is the Shadow Broker’s one and only hitman for the rare times he wants something or someone took care of. The mercs are just hired muscle. Taz—he calls for results. Results he usually gets.”

“Compared to the others I fought, he’s nothing,” the Courier asserted. He glanced at the crates near the ship and looked to his right to see an unmanned turret. Then, he looked at the boxes down at the hangar, near the ship. “This could give out a nasty surprise. Liara, think you can use your biotics to haul these crates at them? You can take out large groups, given the size and weight of them.”

Liara squinted, looking at the crates. Some of them were filled with mining equipment and batteries. The other crates had processed element zero. When tossed at a high enough velocity, they can be deadly. After a second, she nodded. “Yes. I can handle the crates, but I do not like this.”

Feron nodded. “And I’ll handle the turret. It looks a little broken, but it’s easy to fix with some omni-gel.” He approached the turret in question. “I must say, Ethan, this is a dangerous business, disregarding a threat like Tazzik so casually.”

Liara nodded, agreeing with Feron. “That grenade launcher could cause a lot of damage if we don't move quickly.”

“Or he could hit those mercs or himself by accident.” Ethan saw two of the mercs trying to lift the casket.

“No. Put it down!” they heard Tazzik order. The two mercs pulled their hands away from the casket in an instant.

The three paused, not saying a word. After a few seconds, the mercs moved along. Liara turned to her two companions. “That’s a fair point. We need to move. I’ll handle the crates, Feron will shoot at the ship, and Ethan can help me with the mercs. Unless you had something else in mind, Ethan?”

Ethan didn’t answer. He positioned his Viper sniper rifle on the rails and looked through the scope, aiming at Tazzik. When he fired a shot at Tazzik, a blur surrounded his body. The hitman was no worse for wear. His presence attracted a Blue Suns merc’s attention as he turned in their direction. He thought luck was on his side.

“We got hostiles!” The female merc grabbed a Vindicator rifle.

“Ethan! Get back to cover!” Feron barked.

The Courier went for another shot, but the amount of gunfire focusing on him stopped him. He ducked behind the rail and switched to his Mattock. He popped back up and fire at the merc who shot him, taking a few seconds to kill the merc, no thanks to his shields.

“I like this gun!” The Courier grinned at the Mattock’s superior firepower. “Now, Liara!”

Liara stood up and turned to the crates at the side. She seized them with her biotics. Before they got up in the air, they exploded, scorching the floor and sending debris everywhere. Ethan ducked, having a stunned look on his face, and avoided a massive battery traveling just inches above his head.

When the explosions died out, they saw Tazzik with his grenade launcher smoking. The huge salarian haven’t moved a muscle since the crates blew up. He looked at where Ethan and Liara were at with an annoyed expression on his face.

“My turn.” Tazzik aimed his grenade launcher at where they were at and fired several times.

“Grenade! Get down!” Ethan pushed Liara out of the way and leaped aside as the grenades landed. The wave of explosions knocked them off their feet as Feron turned the turret toward the ship. He fired a few rounds, hitting the ship’s hull.

Tazzik wasn’t deterred. He launched grenades at Feron as the Blue Suns shot on the drell's position. With a slight shift in his expression, Feron abandoned his post, leaping off the seat as a missile from a Blue Suns heavy’s weapon landed at the turret. He rolled away when the explosion knocked him off his feet. Feron fell behind cover, but the drell’s body shook as he looked over to Ethan and Liara.

Tazzik fired more grenades at Ethan, but Liara threw a biotic barrier around him and her. She turned to Feron as the drell stood up.

“Careful, Tazzik!” a turian shouted below. “You could’ve ruined that stasis pod!”

“That platform wasn’t close to Shepard, you idiot!” Tazzik replied, irritated. “Now I remember why I work alone.”

“Feron, get over here!” Liara yelled.

The drell got up as he hobbled the rest of the way in a half-crouched position.

As his shields recharged, the Courier realized he had been hit by grenade shrapnel. He pulled a stimpak out of his backpack and stuck it on his right leg. The fragments fell from his body as his wounds healed. He dragged Feron toward the nearest crate and administered some medi-gel on the drell. The Courier turned and fired at the mercs, taking them out one at a time.

He realized the Blue Suns outnumbered them even if he took out many of the mercenaries. An Asian woman, carrying an M-76 Revenant assault rifle, led them. As they avoided Tazzik’s line of fire, she got all her troops behind whatever sparse cover there was. She made sure the weakest mercs got the best positions. Liara placed her into a stasis field, but the damage was already done.

The mercenaries maintained suppressive fire above the platform, going back to cover almost as soon as the trio re-emerged. The veterans shot at them in three-round bursts from their Vindicator rifles, their special ammo eating through the three’s shields at an alarming rate. A trio of mercs with missile launchers took cover and fired. Sections of the railing collapsed and rattled the floor. It was enough to send them off their feet, sending the rain of shrapnel down on them.

Ethan was running low on stimpaks and medi-gel. They took down several mercs at that moment, and that took their combined fire, with Liara’s biotics.

“What do we do now?” a nervous Liara asked.

Ethan found himself facing a tough decision. He could stay here and hold his ground with Liara and Feron, fight the Blues Suns until they either retreated or were defeated, but he wasn’t sure they could hold them all off. If Tazzik and the others flee, they will take Shepard’s body with them.

“We need to get out of here,” Ethan answered. Retreating seemed like a good idea. But the way they came in had been cut off by the Blue Suns, so that left another way out his Stealth Boy. But it was enough for only one person; it would mean leaving the others behind.

With seconds to spare as the mercs closed in on them, he realized fighting back was futile. There was only one option now: use the Stealth Boy himself. He wouldn’t have time to tell the others how to use it. If he escaped, then surely he could try to rescue them later. He knew that, even though Tazzik would most likely use Liara and Feron as bait, he would still try to save them. It would be the right thing to do after abandoning them.

Ethan took a slow breath and edged in closer to a shocked Liara. “I’m sorry.” He strapped his Stealth Boy on his wrist and activated it, hiding him from plain sight. The Courier leaped off the platform and landed with a roll. The adrenaline rushing through his body helped him ignore the pain.

“Get the body in the ship! Now!” Ethan heard the salarian ordering the soldiers.

He turned and saw two of the mercs quickly taking Shepard’s pod to Tazzik’s ship. Despite the damage caused by Feron, it was intact. For a moment, he considered going inside that ship but dismissed it as too risky. There could be sensors that wouldn’t be fooled, along with all sorts of security, and not enough space to go around.

He scanned his surroundings and found another opening. He dashed in the dark and narrow hallways, finding them to be empty of Blue Suns mercs or anyone else in the vacancy. When he got out of the plant, he saw Tazzik’s ship taking off with Shepard’s body, and his companions, on board.
 

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Liara was shocked as she saw Ethan disappeared before her eyes. He told he was sorry, and by the look on his face and the tone of his voice, he probably meant it, but with him outright attacking the mercs rather than waiting it out, she wasn’t so sure. However, if he escaped, then he might have the chance to get Shepard’s body.

A group of Blue Suns mercs burst through a door nearby, wielding Katana and Scimitar shotguns and even flamethrowers. Liara and Feron dropped their weapons and got their hands up. They would get shredded in seconds if they didn’t comply.

One of the mercs grabbed Liara from behind to prevent her from using her biotics. Another kneed her in the stomach for good measure. A wave of nausea hit her as the wind got knocked out of her. A batarian Centurion grabbed Feron afterward, holding up the already weakened drell by the arms. Liara and Feron were dragged downstairs before everyone else.

The Blue Sun commander broke free from the stasis field. Her eyes burned with hatred as she walked towards them. Tazzik emerged from the rear, his massive frame beside her. He seemed satisfied with himself in the most obnoxious way possible.

“Those were my people. Many of them are dead, thanks to you,” the commander spoke with anger. “We’ve tightened security, knowing what you are capable of. And you came, cutting through our defenses. You didn’t give us the option to surrender when you began your ambush. You don’t deserve any mercy from us.”

For a moment, Liara sympathized with her. She recalled the Blue Suns’ previous attempt on their lives and the importance of their mission. These factors made her feel less charitable toward the commander.

“You’re justified in this. What you can’t do to them, the Shadow Broker can do. They’ll suffer for hours and curse themselves for crossing paths with you. On the Shadow Broker’s behalf, I will compensate you for every soldier lost.” Tazzik’s tone of voice was warm but what those words meant terrified Liara.

The Blue Suns commander thought for a while. She looked away from the corpses on the floor to Liara and Feron and sighed. “Fine. Make sure they scream extra for my boys.”

“That I will. Gladly.” Tazzik chuckled and turned to the drell. “Have to be honest, Feron, I’m disappointed in you. I didn’t believe you would turn against us. Guess the Shadow Broker made the right call in sending the Blue Suns after you both.”

“I caught word that the Shadow Broker’s giving the body to the Collectors.” The drell faced against the hitman, but one of the mercs elbowed Feron hard in the stomach.

Tazzik shook his head. “You’re a businessman, Feron. Offer’s too good to pass up.”

Feron looked at Tazzik once again and chuckled. “So you’re selling out to the lowest of the low. Can’t say I agree with that, Taz. It disgusted me that the Shadow Broker’s willing to work with them. It was way beyond perverse. I had to stop it, one way or another.”

“Aw, that’s cute,” Tazzik sneered. “You know what we do to traitors who let their morals compromise their jobs.”

“And you assume I don’t know what he does to them,” Feron smiled. “There are risks that everyone must take, Taz. I took mine. I know the consequences.”

Liara turned to the drell with shock in her eyes. “Do you mean that—?”

“It won't be pleasant, that I could say,” Feron replied.

Tazzik nodded. “You’re right. It’ll be worse than what your asari friend will get. As for your human friend, I'm surprised he ran off, given his tenacity. Furthermore, he appeared on Omega with no known means of transportation. He had no form of identification, not even traces of DNA that matched with anyone.”

“What, you want to recruit him?” Feron stated. “Too bad that won’t happen.”

Liara shifted, struggling to move. “Help me understand why anyone would sell my friend’s remains. What could they offer you to be worth that?!”

“It was sound business.” Tazzik turned his attention to the asari. “Nothing personal against Shepard or any of her associates.”

“Shepard died looking for the Reapers. She killed one at the Citadel,” the asari retorted, her voice teeming with anger. “Are you even aware that the Collectors’ interest might be related to that? Do you know that they are going to do with her body once they have it?”

“And? You’re just getting worked up over this corpse.” Tazzik hid the smug tone under his voice. “What could they gain from it?”

“Closure, maybe,” said Liara. “Don’t you know that Shepard is listed as MIA? Someone would come for her.”

“Sure they will. The Shadow Broker will tell the Alliance to list Shepard as KIA, and everybody else will move on.” The large salarian took his attention two more mercs and nodded. Each got out a syringe and checked the dosage. Liara tensed at what they would do.

They struck the syringes at the side of Liara’s and Feron’s neck. Feron groaned as he fell to the ground, knocked out cold instantly from the potent dosage. Liara was next, feeling light-headed as her vision faded away.

“Put them in my ship. The Shadow Broker would be pleased to hear this,” Liara heard Tazzik spoke before she lost consciousness. “And find this human. He shouldn’t be far from here. I want him alive for questioning if possible. If he’s not… I’ll understand.”

[Nord Ronnoc]

Chapter Three: Responsibility

When Tazzik’s ship disappeared from sight, the Courier turned off his Stealth Boy to conserve its power, certain no one saw him. As he approached the gray cab he and the others arrived in, he considered tampering with the controls so he could drive it. He dismissed the idea since it would be too dangerous and impractical to pull off. He didn’t know where Tazzik went with his captives. Then it hit him: he could find out from his lackeys or from the Blue Suns.

He hid behind the hovercar and turned his Stealth Boy back on. Five plain-colored hovercars emerged from the opened main entrance, the Blue Suns’ insignia mounted on the roof like Old World taxi signs. The cars’ headlights shone on the vehicle. He feared they would overwhelm him, but only one of the cars turned to his location while the rest of the convoy sped off to the populated areas of the station. Ethan was ready to fight on his own.

The car landed a short distance away. A beige-skinned woman, a Blue Suns centurion, walked out of the vehicle. Behind her were a male batarian with a flamethrower and a male turian with a Katana shotgun. The car driver, a male trooper with an M-8 Avenger rifle, sat in the car, seemingly bored by the proceedings. The batarian was behind the others, obscuring the fuel tank so Ethan couldn’t shoot it.

“So why are we here alone again?” the turian asked.

“To find that human who was with the asari and the drell,” the batarian answered. “Tazzik ordered us to capture him. If not, we found an excuse to kill someone.”

“I don’t know,” the human trooper trailed off with uncertainty. “Not sure splitting up was a good idea.”

“Relax, Peter.” The female centurion tapped on her omni-tool and images of him appeared on-screen, collected from their helmets' cameras. “He has scars on his right eye and forehead and a device strapped to his left wrist.”

“Anything else?” the turian asked again, almost like he was sarcastic.

“Just that he’s armed and dangerous, so it’s best to be careful.” The woman glanced at Ethan’s cab and gestured to the turian. “Intel told us the Courier and the others arrived here in that car. Let’s see if they left anything behind.”

The turian nodded and headed over to the car. As he bent down by the trunk, the Courier struck. He grabbed the turian by the collar and slammed his head against the trunk. The Stealth Boy burned out, exposing him on sight. His best chance of getting answers was with the centurion. He got out his knife and stabbed the turian’s throat, leaving him to bleed out as he fell behind the car.

“Caius’ down!” the centurion shouted. “Jath’Kar, get him!”

“I don’t want to go in a fireball just yet! Peter, start the engine!” the batarian barked.

It looked like the batarian was going back to their vehicle. Ethan leaned out and aimed his Mattock at his fuel tank. He got set on fire as a long burst of flame reached over the corner. He ducked and rolled to the side to extinguish the fire, but to no avail.

Through the pain, he remembered the clerk’s advice. Kinetic barriers were useless against radiation, temperature, slow-moving objects, and poison. That weakness that made his Bowie knife efficient worked against him. Lucky for him, his armor had a greater heat resistance. He wished he had this when he fought Cook-Cook.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you humans like the smell of napalm? Or is 3 AM too early in the morning for you?” The batarian sneered and continued his advance.

Ethan smiled as the fires extinguished from his body, with burn forming around his body. He was surrounded, with the centurion getting him in her sights. He didn’t want to die. The batarian grinned, ready for a second burst. However, to his luck, the batarian slipped on the turian’s blood.

The centurion fired, but her three-round burst couldn’t get through his shields. Before she fired again, the Courier leaped at her with his knife. He pushed her rifle out of her hands with difficulty, but she grabbed his knife arm and a struggle ensued.

The centurion tried to kick him in the crotch, but he moved away and pushed her against the car’s frame, his knife at her throat. Ethan saw that move coming, like many raiders he had fought before. Peter started the car, arriving at the scene. The batarian jumped inside as the vehicle went up in the air. Both of them were about to fire, only stopping when they saw their leader being held, hostage.

“Tell me where Tazzik's ship is and you’ll get her back alive!” Ethan asserted.

“Like you have done so before,” Jath’Kar deadpanned. “How do we know you’ll stop once you got what you want?”

The Courier scoffed and rolled his eyes, too used to the retort of guilt. “And what can you do? It’s not like you would just open fire while your beloved officer is here. And if your ‘friends’ didn’t attack Liara, Feron, and me, I wouldn’t be here. Tell me the coordinates, or we can see how well that car fares as a funeral fire engine.”

Peter shuddered and looked up from his omni-tool while the batarian struggled with a response.

“That drell worked for the Shadow Broker! He knew they would give that coffin to the Collectors!” the centurion barked.

Ethan let out an exasperated sigh. “Good to know. Tell me something I don’t know, like where Tazzik’s going. Would that be so hard to ask?”

He looked at the car. The batarian waited for an answer while the driver went back to his omni-tool. He wondered whether the Blue Suns had any plan. He soon realized why the driver was using his omni-tool.

“You’re trying to distract me while you call for reinforcements.” he guessed. “You willing to gamble their lives just to take me?”

Peter froze. “What makes you say that?”

The Courier shrugged. “The tension. I made through ambushes like this before, and I can fight desperate better than you can angry. Are you willing to bet several more lives just to take me out? Call them off and tell me the coordinates. You saw what happened to your turian friend here. Don’t let it happen to your officer.”

The young, inexperienced driver breathed at a rapid pace, panicking at the thought of his comrades dying. “Alingon! Tazzik went to Alingon in the Faryar system!”

The batarian turned at Peter with a furious look on his face. “What are you—?”

“Saving our lives. I’ll rather not get us killed over this.”

“You better not lie to me.” The Courier glared at Peter as his knife pressed towards the centurion’s throat.

“I’m not lying! You can check for yourself!” Peter pleaded. “J-just let her go. I won’t call in reinforcements.”

The batarian frowned and looked at the Courier with chilling defiance. He raised his flamethrower at the Courier, ready to avenge his fallen ally. “Screw it! We’re killing him right here and now!”

“Jath’Kar! Do as he says!” the commander ordered, pausing on each word. “You sure you’ll follow through?”

The Courier nodded. He smiled, satisfied, as Jath’Kar lowered his weapon in defeat. “Bunch of pushovers,” he muttered under his breath as he released her when the hovercar landed. They didn’t hear his remark. The commando stepped inside her car and turned her attention to him, giving him a serious demeanor.

With that, the hovercar flew away, leaving him alone. Ethan sighed as he unstrapped the now-useless Stealth Boy off his right wrist and sat by the cab. The batarian’s flamethrower left behind a burnt, black mark on the cab’s hood. He used his last stimpak. It and the Monocyte Breeder implant had healed the burn marks off his body. He hoped Cerberus wouldn’t make him pay for the repairs.

The Courier rubbed his brows together, feeling the strands of hair. He sighed again, relieved his eyebrows weren’t burnt off. Now he had to see if Cerberus could rescue him.

He pressed his fingers against the headset. “Miranda? This is the Courier speaking. You out there? Anyone on this frequency?”

“Miranda Lawson here,” a voice spoke from his headset into his ear after a moment. “Status update.”

“It was quite a mess out there,” Ethan replied as he stood up. “Tazzik took Shepard’s body and captured Liara and Feron. Oh, and the Blue Suns gave me a warm welcome, but I managed to talk them out of killing me.”

He heard an irritated sigh. “Brilliant. Just brilliant. I saw him heading out to the Omega 2 relay.”

“To Alingon?” Ethan hoped the info he got was good.

There was silence on her end until Miranda spoke. “Yes. The relay leads to the Faryar system. I wanted to stop Tazzik, but the Illusive Man belayed that order. He wouldn't even let me track him down.”

“Belay the order?” His brows narrowed as his voice almost became a growl. “Fine time for that. Why the hell would he do that?”

“He wants to know why the Collectors wanted the body in the first place,” Miranda explained. “But he's resourceful. You’ll get some backup for the mission.”

The Courier raised an eyebrow. “My backup? Who?”

“David Stark. He goes by his codename Lynch,” Miranda answered.

Ethan scoffed. “Of course. How soon can he get here?”

Soon as he asked this, he heard a click. “I’m already here,” a man said, cutting into the frequency.

The wind howled as a large shadow had cast over the Courier. He looked up, seeing a large ship finding a place to land. Light-gray and gold-lined, it was arrowed-shaped with the blunt tip at the front. The tip had split into three, with the middle part shorter than the other two. At the back, the engine hummed loudly, showing off a bright, blue glow.

When it landed close to Ethan, the bottom of the ship opened, showing a man wearing a long black coat stepping down the hatch. He was in his early-thirties of medium height and athletic build, having a goatee, short dark hair, and a crooked nose. His eyes were light brown, matching the color of his skin. His armor had the same color as his coat, having enough padding to provide flexibility with some protection.

He gazed around, looking at the burned cab and then back at the Courier. “Not a body in sight.” He had a slight accent. German, perhaps. “So you’re the Courier?”

“The one and only,” Ethan smiled. “And you’re David Stark? Or do you go by Lynch?”

“If you’re going by Courier, then Lynch would do.”

Ethan nodded and looked up at the ship. “So we’re going in that?”

Lynch turned to the ship. “It’s a frigate, made by the Alliance. Cerberus captured this ship weeks ago and retrofitted it. It doesn’t look like much, but it can perform recon and get into firefights efficiently. It's armed with the Javelin weapon system for close quarter combat.”

“The Javelin? They’re torpedoes that use dark energy to magnify the space-time effects?”

The agent nodded. “Huh.” The Courier narrowed his eyebrows. “Why didn’t you help us sooner?”

“Feron, the drell, refused any further assistance from Cerberus, including mine,” Lynch grumbled. “I wish I didn’t have to wait this out.” He approached the Courier. “But that’s not the only reason why I’m here. Miranda gave me intel of the capture of Dr. Liara T’Soni and Feron. And you haven’t retrieved the body. Care to explain?”

Ethan rolled his eyes and puffed his cheeks, recalling what happened in the last hour. “Long story short, we set out an ambush, but it didn’t work out. There were too many of Tazzik’s men and Blue Suns on us, so I had to retreat.”

“And you left T’Soni and Feron behind, I take it.” With that statement, the agent pinched the bridge of his nose.

The Courier placed his hands on his hip and shook his head. “It was either that or getting captured by Tazzik, and we both know how that one would turn up.”

“But you miscalculated him, and that has led your friends to be captured. Next time, do a better job of not underestimating your opponents. Otherwise, it’s gonna get you killed.”

There was no way he could argue with Lynch on that one. Besides, Lynch was right: he had been reckless and thoughtless. He didn’t heed a similar warning before, and that nearly got him killed. “Noted. But what about that hovercar over there? I better not be paying for that.”

Lynch gazed at the hovercar. “You were attacked by Blue Suns?”

“Yep.”

“What happened then?”

“I talked my way out of it, and I found out where Tazzik’s going: Alingon, Faryar system.”

“Good. By the way, you won’t have to pay for the damage,” he chuckled. He seemed to be impressed by Ethan’s antics. “The sooner we leave, the better.”

The Courier nodded and walked up the wide hatch with Lynch. As it closed up when he reached the top, he felt a surge as the engines roared to life. The ship took over, accelerating at high speeds. Taking a quick look, Ethan was in a hangar bay, with a small shuttle hanging below the ceiling at his left. To the right were two shelves stacked with dozens of weapons and a workbench lying nearby. He guessed the workbench was used for modifying weapons or perhaps create things like in the Mojave wasteland. However, the gray, dull metals of the surrounding walls made the lighting low-key and harsh.

“Mind if I take some ammo and medi-gel?” Ethan asked. “I’m running low on those already.” He snapped his fingers, realizing that something occurred to him. “Oh right—grenades. Forgot about them. Do you have some?”

“Yes to both,” Lynch answered. “While you do that, I’ll be consulting the pilot, Jennifer, and see if she could take us to Alingon. I’ll tell you more of our intel once you’re ready.”

The Cerberus agent walked past Ethan to the end of the hanger. A double-set door opened, and Lynch stepped inside the elevator. The door closed, leaving Ethan alone in the elevator.

He grabbed several thermal clips, fitted them into his assault rifle, and replenished his medi-gel supply from a first-aid cabinet by the elevator. He grabbed some disk-shaped grenades and noticed a button at the side of each grenade, indicating that it activated the detonation process. The Courier then replaced his old sniper rifle and pistol with an M-29 Incisor sniper rifle and an M-5 Phalanx heavy pistol. As he finished, he heard a woman’s voice speaking through an intercom nearby.

“Initiating transmission sequence.”

He stepped into the elevator and pressed on the interface at his right, the up arrow flashing green. The elevator closed its doors and lifted upwards. He waited, tapping his foot in an impatient manner as the elevator progressed slowly. Finally, the elevator opened, and Ethan stepped outside. The immediate surrounding of the deck was large and round, with the seats stacked to the wall. The left door led to the airlock while the right go to the restrooms and the quarters. Ahead was a short, cramped hallway. People were working on each of the eight terminals, four on each side, the orange screens illuminating the deck.

As the Courier walked to the cockpit, he saw a man and a woman sitting nearby, inspecting their weapons. The woman wore a suit of white armor. She carried an M-4 Shuriken submachine gun, with an M-5 Phalanx pistol hanging down at the right side of her hip. The man sitting next to was larger than her, his black armor so bulky that he looked like a walking tank. His choice of weaponry, an M-76 Revenant light machine gun, and an M-22 Eviscerator shotgun, supported that assumption.

At the other end of the deck was the cockpit. There, he saw a gold-haired woman with a thin chin and large eyes in the pilot’s seat. Jennifer, the pilot, punched in commands on the interface as Lynch looked at the image of the galaxy, crossing his arms behind him. He turned to see the Courier approaching him, nodding in acknowledgment.

“Calculating transit mass and destination,” Jennifer said. The starship flew closer to a massive metallic object in question, which stood out among the stars. Its long arms stretched out in one direction, the giant rings revolving around a bright, blue core. That object was a mass relay, a transit device that transported ships throughout to each section in the galaxy.

Ethan felt his jaw agape, in awe by the view. He couldn’t help but think of Captain Cosmos, a Pre-War show. Never in his life would he imagine going to space and find the body of a war hero. On the bright side, Cerberus doesn’t treat their women like cattle, unlike Caesar’s Legion, but that gave him little comfort.

“Relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector. Board is green,” the pilot stated. “Hitting the relay in 3… 2… 1…”

As the frigate was very close to the relay, a bolt of electricity had wrapped around the ship. Outside the ship, everything became a distortion of colors. The ship accelerated at faster than light speeds, leaving behind a blue trail as it warped off to their destination.
 

------------------------------------------------------------

Liara’s eyes shot open, her head throbbing with a vicious headache as the drug wore off. Groaning, she sat up from her bed and looked around the small, white cell. The lights reflected off the walls and floor, making it look clean and orderly. It felt wrong, tranquil like all color and emotion were drained here. Ahead of her was the door with a red light on the panel. Locked, no doubt, she assumed.

She looked down to find gold-painted restraints strapped on her wrists. As she raised her arms, she found the restraints had negated her biotic abilities. A wave of panic swept over her, and she struggled against her bonds. She strained her arms, trying to pry them off her in a futile effort. The asari stood up from her bed, only to stumble onto the floor. Her legs felt weak as if she hadn’t used them in a long time.

She stood back up, using the bed’s smooth metallic frames as support. As she recollected her nerves, she wondered where she was and whether Tazzik had sold her friend’s body to the Collectors already. The cell was too large to be on Tazzik’s ship, so she was either on a station or a facility. A window could help her show where she was, which this cell lacked.

“Incoming transmission,” a male, monotone voice spoke out.

The voice brought her attention to a large video screen to her left. She approached it, taking it at a slow pace. Suddenly, the screen came to live, showing a large, green salarian in dark armor, surrounded by orange screens, each of them monitored someone’s health. His features were broader than any salarian she had ever seen in her life.

“So you’re awake,” Tazzik spoke. His smirk was cold, all-knowing. “Good.”

Liara felt a chill down her spine. “Obvious enough, but I doubt this would be good for me,” she retorted. “So where am I and where have you taken Feron and Shepard?”

“You're in a facility on Alingon. I doubt you can escape from her as this planet's crust is covered in a magnetically active periclase. It’ll cut off any outside communications, except for our channels,” Tazzik answered, matter-of-fact. “As for Feron, we are…” He gazed at his left, his eyes squinting. “…having a discussion of making the point about him betraying the Shadow Broker. It’s all part of the punishment process. And don’t panic; the corpse is still here. Our buyer’s almost here, though it’s taking its time.”

Liara heard the high-pitch whine of a machine whirring to life. A few seconds later, someone grunted in pain and then gasped for air. “I must say, Taz: I didn’t know you were into the kinky stuff,” a man gasped off-screen. His voice was raspy, worn out from the long sessions of torture. “Were you like this with the others?” She immediately realized it was Feron speaking.

“Just like you forgot what we do to traitors,” Tazzik shot back.

“Have you also forgotten that drell have perfect memory?” Feron responded. “I think I forgot my capture as much as you forgot what happened between us one time.”

Tazzik flicked the switch on nearby and pressed the button. The whirring intensified and, Liara could swear it, the lights flashed. Liara cringed and, following her instincts, looked away from the screen. It didn’t sound pleasant, with Feron screaming and the intensity of the whirring. When she looked back at the screen moments later

“Try testing my patience again, Feron, like you did with crossing the Shadow Broker. See what happens.” Tazzik frowned. “I can put you in a world of pain; tear you apart from the inside.” He narrowed his eyes and took a step to his left, away from the screen. “If I had a mind to it, I can tell the Collectors to see you will not see the light of day ever again!”

Feron spat on the floor. “Is it your nerve or your patience that you're losing? I can hardly tell the difference.”

“Feron, don’t provoke him!” Liara cried. It started to get obvious to her that the drell was barely holding it together, but all it did was making the Shadow Broker’s right man angry.

Tazzik clenched his mouth, his left hand hovering over the button. After a moment of hesitation, he dropped his hand and took a deep breath to settle his nerves. “You should listen to the asari, Feron. However, I’ll have to attend to more important dealings.” He turned to look at his end of the screen. “In the meantime, try to make yourself at home.”

The asari felt a chill down her spine. If she were right about the implications behind Tazzik’s statement, then she would be right to be afraid. “What? So you’ll do the same to me like you did with Feron?” she asked.

“No. Nothing of the sort,” the hitman reassured. Somehow, that didn’t comfort her. “Two of my men will be here soon. Computer: end transmission.”

Tazzik’s image went blank, leaving the former archaeologist alone in her cell. Taking a step back, she sat back down on her bed. Liara felt trapped and vulnerable, but she had to stay calm. If Ethan didn't come, she would have to find a way to escape and get Shepard’s body before they could bring her to the Collectors. She brought her head to her hands, still held together by the restraints.
 

------------------------------------------------------------

When the frigate jumped out of the mass relay and out of the red-blue light shift, Ethan noticed an asteroid field coming into view. “Thrusters are functional, internal emissions sink engaged, and all systems are online.” Jennifer looked at the analysis at her interface. “Drift is just under 1700K.”

“1700? That’s good enough,” Lynch grinned. “Are we in the Faryar system?”

“At least we didn’t turn into salamanders,” the Courier commented, pulling off a wry smile. “I mean, how dumb could that be?”

The pilot chuckled as she checked the calculations on the terminal and nodded, answering Lynch’s question. The Courier turned his head to the pilot. “Making sure we didn’t miss by slowing down halfway there?”

“That’s the gist of it,” Lynch answered. “Not a lot people know that. Nice to know that you do.”

“Anything you can tell me about Alingon?” Ethan asked.

Lynch approached the galaxy map and tapped on the interface as the ship entered the asteroid field. The map then showed a 3D image of a coral planet, covered in thick clouds. “Alingon means ‘deceptive’ in the salarian language. Years ago, their scouts’ probes malfunctioned soon as they entered the atmosphere. They later find that this planet has a high concentration of magnesia in its crust and core, interfering with scans and broadcasts. A perfect place to hide for someone like the Shadow Broker since they have the tech to work around that issue.”

“Great, just what we need,” the Courier snorted.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Ethan noticed a navy-blue spot floating out in space. When he inspected, leaning toward the window, the blue spot became a police box, spinning around with no inertia. He noticed the others didn't see the anomaly. It wasn’t even detected by the ship's sensors. He blinked once, and it was gone.

“Something wrong?” Jennifer asked him.

The Courier shook his head, dismissing the matter at hand. “No, nothing.” He curled his lips, wondering if this one was like the other strange things he saw in his life. “So are we expecting any trouble?”

The Cerberus agent chuckled. “Aren’t we all?”

As he said that, alarms blared out as the lights surrounding the three turned red. The ship shook, and the Courier and Lynch lost their balance. Lynch fell, face planted onto the floor. The Courier regained his balance as he grabbed the steel wall to his left.

“Wow. Your timing’s impeccable, Lynch.” Ethan stood up. “What’s going on?”

Jennifer tapped a command, bringing up an image of three double t-shaped ships firing at them. They flew in unison, almost in an autonomous manner. Looking at the numbers the ship’s virtual intelligence gave her, her eyes widen. “No signs of any lifeforms inside! They must be sentries!”

The Courier frowned as he stared at the sentries. “What is this, the Sierra Madre? Does the Shadow Broker attack anyone who works for him or does he not like unannounced arrivals?”

“More on the latter, Courier.” Lynch stood up, unfazed. “At this rate, I doubt we can fly to the planet with the sentries on our tail. We need to take the Kodiak shuttle.” The ship shook again, less intense this time.

“Shields are holding up!” Jennifer continued to issue a series of commands on the interface. The ship turned upward, hoping to lose them. The Courier held on to a holding nearby, half-expecting to slide down but didn’t, thanks to the artificial gravity made by the mass effect fields below.

“Jennifer, can you hold them off?” Lynch asked. The pilot turned to him and nodded with a determined look. With that, Lynch turned and rushed towards the elevator, beckoning to the Courier to come along. As Ethan caught up to him, Lynch turned to the two sitting nearby. “Alan, Christina, let’s move.”

The two armored troopers immediately stood up and grabbed their weapons. They followed behind him and Lynch as they entered the elevator. When the elevator started, the Courier stretched his neck while Lynch tapped his foot. Everything shook as the ship took more damage. He hoped the shields had held up this time. As the elevator descended, no one spoke until the Courier became curious.

“So tell me about yourselves,” the Courier stated. “What’re your names?”

“Christina. Christina Rosaline,” the white-clad woman answered. “Lynch and I were Corsairs before joining Cerberus. You could say we operate outside the Alliance’s jurisdiction.” She shook her head. “But even then, we still have to jump through hoops and the Alliance isn’t doing much these days, not after the attack on the Citadel.”

“You two were… together?”

Neither Christina nor Lynch answered. The man in black armor turned his head to the Courier. “Alan Cain. Used to be Gunnery Chief of Team Bravo. I was the muscle of the team, but I didn’t want to see the Alliance going soft on the aliens, so I resigned. No way could I hold up after…” His voice trailed off. “Nevermind. It doesn't matter.” The Courier couldn’t help but notice a hint of anger in his voice, something other than the excuse for racism, but he didn’t want to dwell on it.

He turned to Lynch, his helmet encasing his head. At a glance, Ethan saw Lynch had the same armament as his. The elevator opened, and the four stepped out and rushed towards the shuttle which descended from the ceiling. On the way, he grabbed a helmet that matched the pattern and color of his armor and put it on. The door on the shuttle opened of its own accord and a hatch landed on the floor. The four quickly stepped inside the room, large enough to seat twelve people. In front of them was a window, large enough to cover most of the wall.

They waited for the atmosphere to equalize outside the shuttle. Everything shook as the shuttle’s engine hummed to life and the hooks released the shuttle. The hatch of the hangar opened, showing the spiraling planet as the ship avoided the sentries. The shuttle took off to the planet as one sentry had crashed into an asteroid, creating a massive explosion that obliterated the asteroid.

Soon after, the shuttle entered the atmosphere, the massive clouds obscuring their vision. The Courier tapped his foot on the floor, ready to give the Shadow Broker some payback.

[Nord Ronnoc]

Chapter Four: Mission Impossible

The shuttle landed on the planet’s frozen, rocky surface near the mountains. To avoid detection by sensors, they landed about two miles away from the Shadow Broker’s facility. Ethan and Lynch, along with Christina and Alan, stood in front of the hatch.

Ever since they entered Alingon’s atmosphere, Ethan felt lighter, like he had lost half of his weight. As he put his helmet on, the hatch opened, and the squad stepped outside. Since the atmosphere was thin with carbon dioxide, they had to wear helmets to breathe safely.

A cold wave swept over the Courier, and he shivered in response. His armor made him warm, like a coat, but it was still cold. Massive clouds covered the red sky, making everything darker. Since the gravity here was lower, Ethan wanted to jump and find out how high he could go, but that would make him look foolish.

He followed Lynch and the others, leaving the mountain range behind as the shuttle lifted off.

No one spoke as they walked by a series of mountains, which was formed from dry ice. Only silence greeted them, except for the wind groaning and the heavy breathing among the group as they climbed up the mountain. While it unsettled the Courier, he guessed it was better than encountering something hostile. Thankfully, their armors protected their fingers from getting burned by the dry ice, since they were at very low temperatures.

As they reached the top, the squad spotted a large facility at the bottom of the mountain. Upon knowing this, Lynch turned to the Courier and ordered, “Check for any signs of activity.”

Ethan nodded and pulled out his sniper rifle, the weapon forming in his hands. He then lay on his stomach and looked through the scope. The rest crouched down, avoiding detection by the enemy, and observed the Courier.

The facility was large, roughly oval, with square corners. A long-range sensor array stood on the flat roof, pointing towards the sky. At the side was a smaller building with sharper corners.

At this elevation, he saw several entrances to the central facility. Some led to the hangars much like ones at the abandoned factory but were all locked. The few ventilation shafts were too small for them to fit through. What caught his eye was the sheer number of security cameras. Clusters of them hung at the corners, covering every approach.

He checked again and cursed under his breath. The only viable entrance was at the far side of the building, guarded by massive turrets, one at each side of the door. They mounted on cylindrical bases, taller and wider than any human.

There were also three guards, male and turian, standing at their posts. Their armors were colored in a pattern of black and red. Despite the heavy security, this was just a back door. The other side of the building had more turrets and guards.

“Yeah, there’s enemy movement, all right,” Ethan said and told Lynch of his findings.

The agent looked through his sniper rifle.

“So what are our options here? Do we take out the guards here? Disable the cameras and sneak in?” Ethan hoped these options wouldn’t be disastrous as the last time.

Lynch lowered his sniper rifle. “The Shadow Broker doesn’t hire idiots to guard his property. If they know we’re here, they’ll kill the prisoners and come here. These cameras are usually controlled by a VI, alerting the personnel of any disabled cameras.”

“Great. That doesn’t leave us a lot of options,” Ethan remarked, exasperated.

“Christina’s an engineer. She can deactivate weapons, shields, and other systems. Once we hit them, they can’t call for help.”

“What about the turrets?”

Christina spoke this time. “These turrets don’t have much support. The network receives alerts if they’re destroyed or taken offline. If we sabotage their weapons, the guards inside will be none the wiser.”

“Right,” Lynch agreed. “But we have to be quick. After 30 seconds, the turrets’ systems and the guards’ weapons will go back online. We need to get rid of the guards and be clear of the turrets by then. We can’t do it from here, so we’ll have to get closer.”

They climbed down the mountain, crouching and crawling to avoid being seen. The muted colors of their armors were now covered in mud. One of the turians almost saw them but got distracted by the repairs he did on the turret. Lynch signaled for a halt as they reached a large boulder at the bottom of the mountain, about 80 feet away from the entrance. They couldn’t get any closer without being seen.

“Once Christina launched the first mine, the VI will begin the countdown. It’ll send the timer to our suits,” Lynch told the Courier in a hushed voice. He turned to Christina and nodded. “Do it.”

Christina nodded back. She activated her omni-tool. After a few moments, she pointed her omni-tool at the turrets. She then launched a disk-like object from her omni-tool, which landed next to the Shadow Broker’s lackeys. Before any of them reacted, the disk detonated a green pulse. The blast had caught them and lingered on their armors for a while, disabling their support system inside.

The HUD in the Courier’s helmet showed thirty seconds, popping up at the upper-left corner of his peripheral vision.

“Ambush! Take cover!” The turian technician ducked behind a pile of crates a few yards away from the turrets and readied his assault rifle. The others were still dazed from the blast but followed suit.

Leaning out again, Christina fired the second projectile. It created an orange pulse, engulfing the guards and the turrets and overheating their weapons. The others left cover and advanced on Lynch’s signal.

Twenty-five seconds left.

“Spirits! Hey Crino, why aren’t our weapons working? I thought thermal clips are immune to this stuff!” One of the turians hid behind one of the disabled turrets and ejected a thermal clip from his sniper rifle. Christina began suppressive fire from her submachine gun, making sure he stayed there. The last guard sprinted backward towards the exit and dived for cover. But he got caught in the crossfire from Ethan and Lynch's assault rifles. It was a surprise his shields held out.

Twenty seconds remain.

“The thermal clips are first-gen models. The upgrades are due in a couple years,” Crino shouted at a quick pace from behind the crates. “I’ll make sure the turrets work again!” He moved backward towards the turret. Lynch, Ethan, and Christina fired at him, draining his shields. Crino ducked down and shot back with a projectile of his own. It produced a blue flash, this time, removing their shields.

And that was the last thing the turian ever did. Alan moved further than anyone else, in spite of his bulky armor. He opened fire on the Shadow Broker’s engineer as he ducked down. The tech-savvy guard never got up.

“About time. I had enough of these damn light shows.” The Courier smiled and switched to his Eviscerator shotgun from his spent Mattock.

Ten seconds left. Time was running out, and they had to move fast to get behind the turrets.

One guard went down, drawing fire from the others. Another turian emerged from cover, his rifle at hand, and fired at Christina, but she was too far away to lose her shields from the tech mine earlier. As the guard’s shields recharged, he ran for the door, throwing a grenade at Alan beforehand.

Alan couldn’t leave the blast entirely, but his armor and shields meant that he didn’t need to. He rushed forward, discharging the rest of his Revenant’s clip at the armored turian. His shots coincided with Lynch’s Phalanx pistol, giving the unfortunate turian no chance to survive. His mangled body collapsed not far from the door as the grenade detonated. Alan got hurt, but he was on his feet.

Christina returned the favor to the turian sniper with the fire from her Phalanx pistol, forcing him back to cover. The lone turian couldn’t fire another shot. Delaying them enough for turrets to cool down and lock on would do the job. Ethan turned around, circling the turian’s cover as he huddled down, firing from his Predator pistol. The turian sniper was desperate, trying to survive and avoid gunfire.

Five seconds left. That time came with the boom of the Courier's Eviscerator, enhanced by his Pip-Boy’s VATS.

That turian twitched and lay dead. Ethan turned back on the spot, realizing he had to cover the final yard. He saw Alan and Lynch were already there, and Cristina was just about to enter the dead zone.

Three seconds. Two seconds.

He dashed, almost out of the turrets’ sensors. He slid at the last second, much like pre-War baseball players.

One second left.

He made it as the timer reached zero. The two turrets whirred as their weapons came to life, but their re-activated sensors found nothing in range.

“That was close,” the Courier panted as he brought his head off the ground. He stood up and wiped the mud off his legs. “So what’s next?” He was eager to see what awaited them inside.

“Christina, check that guard’s omni-tool over here. He should have plans of the building and the patrolling schedule of the guards in the area,” said Lynch. He pointed at the bullet-riddled body nearby.

“Yes, sir.” Christina holstered her gun and connected her omni-tool to the one on the turian’s arm.

Alan groaned in pain as the adrenaline from the fight wore off, with shrapnel injuries sticking out at his side.

“Let me see that,” said Lynch. There was a rare show of emotion in his voice. He walked over to the black-clad trooper and applied medi-gel to his injuries. The Courier had never guessed that the stoic agent of a terrorist organization could also be a trained medic. He wondered what else he might see in this galaxy.

He jolted as everyone’s omni-tools beeped as the engineer extracted the relevant data. Ethan transferred the data to his Pip-Boy and looked at the map tab. The map wasn’t detailed, but it had the scale of the facility. As he looked at the arrangement of corridors and rooms, he wanted to ask something.

“Hey, what are the chances of not having any cameras inside?” Ethan smirked.

“None.” Lynch finished administering care to Alan and stood back up. “This facility’s spliced together with pre-made hubs, making it difficult to trace. They discard anything unnecessary to reinforce the rest of the facility. Typical Shadow Broker logic at work.”

“What about the cameras?” the Courier asked.

“The doors are opened through a console, like this one in front of us,” Lynch explained. “The internal console’s connected to the same VI as the cameras inside. Through it, we can hack into the network. Once we’re there, we’ll be able to loop the camera feed and find out where the body’s at.”

“Great, so now can we go in?” Ethan asked, feeling hopeful and impatient.

“Another thing.” Christina held a corpse’s shotgun in her hands. The Courier observed as she activated her omni-tool, which dissolved the weapon into a gray gel and drained into the omni-tool. The process uncomfortably reminded him of plasma weapons and the way they reduced their victims to slag.

Christina noticed him raising an eyebrow through his visor. “That’s omni-gel. It’s used with omni-tools to help you hack and do repairs. We have plenty of it with us, but you’ll never know how much hacking we might need to do. This is the Shadow Broker, after all.”

She stood up, and Ethan noticed the turian’s omni-tool and assault rifle were gone from the body. He followed the Cerberus agents as they entered the compound.

The air inside the airlock had its pressure equalized. Ethan felt heavier like he gained his weight back. He breathed in, basking in the fresh air inside. It was nice after taking his helmet off. Breathing artificial, filtered air inside his helmet wasn’t exactly thrilling for him.

They exited the airlock and stepped inside another room. The room was gray and empty, highlighted by harsh artificial lighting. As Christina applied omni-gel to the nearest console available, Alan looked around with a mixture of disappointment and respect.

“Huh. No medi-gel station or weapons locker here. Guy’s either smarter than pirates or just paranoid. When I served the Alliance, pirates and mercs never placed their supplies where they could use them in a fight.” Alan pointed at a bunch of red-and-white lockers at the end of the room, stacked side by side. “There. Usually, they placed their weapons here and their medi-gel at the back. But these ones look like ordinary lockers.”

Ethan smirked. That seemed like what the Vipers and the Fiends would do in the Mojave. He was glad he found something common in this universe. “Want me to check?”

“Yeah, sure,” Alan shrugged.

Ethan approached the lockers and opened one, seeing the green light next to it. Inside, he found nothing but a datapad lying on the middle shelf. The orange screen contained a brief message and an image of a figure. Picking it up, the message simply read ‘STILL THE BEST 2173.' Above it was a picture of a blue, winged creature, showing off a toothy smile. It imitated two guns with its talons as it gazed at him with its bare, red eyes.

“Find anything?” Alan asked.

“Nothing important.” The Courier closed the locker. “It’s just a datapad with a short message and a picture of a blue creature. You’ll… probably find it a little weird.”

“We’re in.” Lynch had interrupted their convocation as Christina applied the omni-gel. “Not only the cameras can’t see us, we now have footage, and the results are… mixed. The body’s at the North Portal. Small-ship hangar. The guards inside are congregated here, with few patrolling corridors as the result. We shouldn’t have trouble until we get there.

“But the troops take constant shifts. With the comm center, Tazzik could alert them at a moment’s notice. With the exchange scheduled taking place shortly, we have to split up and regroup at the North Portal. Alan and I will deal with the comm center while you and Christina will go free Dr. T’Soni. She knows you already, so it shouldn’t be complicated with you being there.”

Ethan nodded. It made sense to him, but he felt something important was being left out. “Wait, what about Feron? Should we try to rescue him as well?”

“No, they’re kept separately, far from each other,” Lynch answered. “Dr. T’Soni was a close friend of Shepard. If we succeed at resurrecting the Commander, Dr. T’Soni being left behind to save her would trigger survivor’s guilt. She already has enough psychological problems to deal with. Tazzik is alone with Feron now. Taking him out isn’t enough to justify that.”

Ethan felt torn as he considered his options. He told himself that it didn't matter, that he saw worse. But deciding between Liara and Feron proved to be harder than he thought. The fact that freeing Liara would mean Tazzik escaping unharmed only made it harder. He wanted to outright skip the comm center and try to free them both. But they might not survive this battle, let alone whatever ambushes the Shadow Broker would throw at them later.

Alan looked at him with an understanding gaze, mixed with hard-edged determination. “Both of these aliens know the risk. If we don’t get the job done, the Collectors will win. No matter how hard it is, sacrifices have to be made. That's what I learned in my service.”

The thought of getting Tazzik while he was alone was tempting, but Lynch was right—the price was just too high. He recalled that if he didn’t try to kill Tazzik back then, this wouldn’t happen. So he nodded in agreement.

The squad set off, leaving the locker room and into a large room filled with pillars supporting the base. So far, infiltration had gone to plan. Splitting off from Lynch and Alan, Ethan and Christina reached the short corridor that led to Liara’s cell. Ethan poked his head out. The two guards, who stood watch on the outside of the cell before, went to escort Liara out. One guard was a tall, bald, dark-skinned man. The other was a light-blue-skinned asari, her face covered in tattoos.

The Courier turned to Christina, who nodded. “We’re clear.” They approached the door and positioned themselves at each end. “We can deal with them like the ones at the entrance. Give an order now and we’ll do it now.”

Ethan thought for a moment and shook his head. “Nah. Liara’s restraints are locked. Probably with cybernetics. I wouldn’t be surprised if they self-destruct if we try to disable them.” He wasn’t confident if this was true or not, but it would be nice if Liara didn’t die while rescuing her. “Don’t fire ‘till I say so.”

She looked back. “You know what you’re doing? Our lives will be at stake here if they raise the alarm. Lynch have placed me under your command, but we know what happened at the factory. We all got a report on it.”

Ethan almost cursed again. Of course she would bring it up. In this day and age, news spread too fast for his liking. But it was just another aspect of this new reality. “We don’t know that. Would you want the squad to die because you disobeyed an order from Lynch and me?”

She swallowed nervously. Sure of her cooperation now, he punched the panel next to him. Their weapons ready, the door opened, and they entered the small, white room.

The man and the asari turned around from their captive, surprised at Ethan’s and Christina’s arrival. “What the…?” the man exclaimed in surprise as they pointed their guns at their heads.

Capitalizing on the distraction, the prisoner, Liara struck the asari guard shackles on her wrist. The asari fell with a dull thud, knocked unconscious from the hit. The other guard readied his assault rifle, only for the Courier to stop him by pressing the barrel of his Mattock against his cheek.

He glared at the Courier, a dark expression as he scowled. “What do you want?”

“My face on the dollar bill, but that’s another story.” The Courier smiled at his own wit. “I take it you're part of the staff? Top crew?”

“Yeah, you can say that,” the human guard answered. “So what’s stopping me from setting off the alarm and call in reinforcements?”

The Courier rolled his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. Kill more of your men? Or you can just surrender. Even the Shadow Broker would appreciate the gravity of this situation. You can die for the Shadow Broker for nothing, or you can live and set Liara free.”

The man bit his lower lip, cold sweat overtaking him. Seeing no other option, the man dropped his rifle on the floor. “****** psychopath. Guess I don’t have a choice here.” He raised his hands up and kneeled down. “Rayla has the keycard. It’ll unlock her restraints.”

Satisfied with how it turned out, the Courier put his rifle away, sticking it on his back, and grabbed the keycard from the asari guard’s waist. He approached Liara and placed it in the slot on the restraints, which made a clicking sound. After he had pulled the card out, the constraints made a clunking noise as it landed on the floor.

“Thank you.” Liara rubbed her wrists as her whole body shook.

Christina shook her head in disgust and issued a command on her omni-tool. The next thing he knew, a red pulse appeared that engulfed the guard. It lingered long enough for him to pass out and slam onto the ground.

The Courier reflexively jolted back as Liara gasped at the guard who was now lying on the floor.

“Neural shock. They’re paralyzed, not dead.” Christina turned her omni-tool off. “It attacks the nervous system. Don't worry; it didn't hurt him… much. By the time they recover, we’ll be long gone. Assuming no one else picks them up.”

Ethan stared at the engineer, giving her an incredulous look. “And he just called me a psychopath. Look at you. I assumed you Cerberus types go for the ‘take no prisoners’ approach. You going soft on me?”

Christina groaned and waved her arms, clearly annoyed at him. “Yes yes, we kill everyone wantonly.”

Liara looked at Christina, then at Ethan. “There are Cerberus agents with you, right? That means we can save Shepard’s body.” She paused and sighed, looking down. “But only for Cerberus to claim it.”

Ethan paused. He hadn’t considered the aftermath of his mission before now, focusing on staying alive and saving Liara and Feron. Now that Feron had to be left behind, it was worth thinking about the body’s fate.

Christina seemed to be insulted, but she recovered. “We have four, actually. Feron worked for us as well. You doubt him as well?”

Both Liara and Ethan were taken aback by this revelation. “…That’s how you found us on Omega so quickly?” Liara asked. “That seems far-fetched. He despised Cerberus.”

Christina nodded, holding back her anger. “That doesn’t stop him from working with us. The Illusive Man had the technology to resurrect her. He was willing to do it, even after everything she has done to us.”

Liara’s voice was firm, no traces of sympathy or regret. “Oh? Your researchers wiped out her unit on Akuze, with her barely escaping alive. You experimented on species like the Rachni and the Thorian creepers, killed Admiral Kahoku when he tried to intervene. And you wondered why she delayed her mission to kill as many of you as she could find.”

Christina was angry, her voice rising and falling. “Your own companies did illegal research on those same species to cut down labor costs when our scientists could have saved them from extinction! The admiral sold human secrets to the same person we’re fighting now! Akuze wasn’t ever meant to…”

The Courier went between the two. “What about the guards you just knocked out?”

Suddenly, alarms blared out from the speakers.

“The hell?!” Christina asked, surprised.

Her omni-tool pinged, and Lynch’s voice rang across the room. “Christina! I can see you freed Liara, but you need to move! The comm link had the prototype security upgrades against omni-gel use. Manual hacking failed to work, and the alarm was set off before we destroyed it. They didn’t realize we hacked into the cameras so get in before they reboot the system. Lynch out.”

“Guess we don’t have time for that,” Ethan commented as the Cerberus engineer stare out in disbelief. “Let’s get going.”

This snapped them back to action. Christina turned back to the camera feed on her omni-tool, finding an optimal route. Liara, her weapons confiscated by Tazzik, picked up the Tempest submachine gun dropped by the asari guard and looked around for a pistol. With some reluctance, the Courier gave her the Phalanx pistol he took from the frigate’s armory as they exited the room.
 

---------------------------------------------------------------

The next few minutes were spent frantically moving, their eyes glued to the feed on the omni-tool screen. They either sped up when it was clear or slowed down to avoid being heard, ducking into the side rooms and changing routes if someone was moving towards them. A salarian guard couldn't be avoided, so the squad gunned him down in seconds.

The system rebooted just as they were close to the North Portal. Their feed got cut off as they heard surprised yelps from the Shadow Broker’s troops. As soon as they shot out the nearby cameras and hid behind the crates in the nearby storage room, the door opened.

Ethan readied his weapon but was flung backward by a male adept in the group.

Christina collapsed to the ground in pain; her attempt to disable their equipment got countered by the jet of green poison launched by the salarian engineer. Despite the pain, she rolled behind a large crate nearby to avoid further gunfire.

Alone for the moment, Liara launched a singularity and went for cover.

The Courier threw a grenade as he got up to make the most of it. The explosion killed the salarian and another guard from the group of five, but the rest survived by spreading out.

“You killed Kenny! You bastard!” another salarian trooper exclaimed from behind a nearby pillar and used suppressive fire from his Avenger. The last two guards, a krogan carrying a brick-like shotgun and the human adept, moved to encircle their position.

Hurt from being thrown against the wall, Ethan switched to his Eviscerator shotgun. He wondered if he had time to use it before the adept use another biotic trick.

He didn’t have to worry. Christina overcame disorientation from the poison and shot another one of her projectiles. The adept, who had been gathering energy for another attack, cursed as a dark green glow had extinguished the blue light. He clutched his shotgun again and aimed it at Liara before falling dead to the floor by their combined fire.

The krogan advanced, his comrade’s demise buying him time. He fired back at the Cerberus engineer, the shotgun's blast tearing down her shields.

She ducked as the Courier and Liara fired back at the krogan, taking out his shields. Instead of firing again, he roared.

“****, he’s gonna charge! Get out of the way!” Christina barked.

The krogan charged forward at Ethan and Liara. Ethan dodged the giant lizard, but Liara stumbled in her footsteps in her attempt to avoid the krogan.

“Huh, quick on your feet.” The krogan showed a jagged grin as he faced them with his shotgun. “Too bad that—”

Liara used her biotics to lift the krogan in the air. They opened fire, taking advantage of the creature's vulnerability. The lone salarian tried to support the krogan with suppressive fire, but shots to the helmet from Liara’s gun taught the salarian the virtues of staying down forever.

As the biotic lift ended, the krogan fell and stumbled back onto his feet. It seemed like their legendary toughness was true, matching that of the super mutants. The Courier wondered what FEV would do to a krogan.

“Ethan, watch out!”

Before he knew it, the krogan used the shotgun to fire a ball of hot plasma at his allies, which they had little time to dodge. As it exploded against the wall, the krogan dropped his gun and charged at Ethan, slamming him against the wall. The krogan growled at him, his breath wafting on the Courier's face. He couldn’t breathe, with the krogan crushing his rib cage against the wall. Liara and Christina fired at the krogan, making him loosen his grip on Ethan.

Sensing a brief respite, Ethan pulled out his Bowie knife, struck it into the krogan’s brown headcrest, and began pulling on it. With his last ounce of strength, the krogan threw the Courier down several feet and pulled the knife out. Orange blood flowed down his face. As Liara threw a biotic warp, the krogan fell on the floor, truly dead this time.

Ethan was thankful that, once again, he was lucky to be alive.

Liara walked to the Courier and helped him to his feet. “Thanks,” he said. His injuries were healing thanks to the Monocyte Breeder implant, but not fast enough. Wincing, he applied a dose of his medi-gel supply. He hoped they wouldn't have to encounter anymore in here. He grabbed his knife from the krogan's hand. After cleaning it, he picked up the large M-6 Carnifex pistol carried by the adept. If he would face more of these elite troops, he could use the same gun against them.

Their omni-tools rang again as they received a simple text message:

Near the alternate entrance to the North Portal. The way is clear now, but Alan got killed. Collector's presence verified by ship’s intel. Synchronizing attack on the terminal with your arrival. Lynch out.

“Goddess! Do you have the map ready? We need to move now!” The panic in Liara’s voice was palpable.

Ethan followed his gaze to Christina, who stared in shock at the omni-tool’s screen for a few seconds. “We can’t let his death go in vain…” With those words, they set off.

The corridors to North Portal had awakened a familiar feeling in him. He hadn’t felt this since his travels in the Mojave. It was a deep, almost subconscious sense of conflict and uncertainty, but he wanted to get in there as soon as possible, defeat Tazzik’s underlings and the Collector. He was aware the Shadow Broker’s minions knew their presence despite shooting down the cameras.

They made it to the wide door that parted at the touch of a console and was greeted by the moderately sized hangar. It divided into the wide, clear landing zone and the cramped storage area, the walkways built around the walls.

The Shadow Broker’s troops were ready for them. Ethan noticed how the guards turned away and dashed to the side, into the open. Ahead, he made out with the light behind him at least a dozen guards, the pod’s position, and a large silhouette that could be the Collector near it. As the light disappeared, he noticed a red targeting beam near him. Turning around in shock, he spotted two snipers on the adjacent walkway. As he ducked, his shields were exhausted.

The door behind them opened, and a shotgun rang out a split second before the shot. The sniper missed, his aim thrown off. His colleague turned around to face the threat, and the asari guard nearby glowed blue. Ethan saw Lynch interrupting her with a jet of green poison and closed in for close-quarters combat before turning away.

He wondered why no one else had shot him, but he got his answer. Christina moved to the storage area and fought the opposition amongst the stacks of crates. Meanwhile, Liara ran out deeper into the landing zone with no ready cover so no one would risk standing in the open. The Collector was the sole exception. Ethan took in its large, insectoid body of great height. The cracks on the chitinous body showcased molten lava inside.

He saw the Collector approach Liara and the stasis pod containing the commander’s body. If he doesn’t do something about it, she would be done for. It also was clear the Shadow Broker’s minions expected the creature to prevail without any help. However, he did build his career on beating impossible odds.

“Hey! No wonder why you prawns don’t want the galaxy to know about you. You make feral ghouls look pretty. I have to say, that's quite the accomplishment.” Ethan approached the landing zone and fired a few times from his Mattock at the Collector. “I’ll cover you, Liara! Go!”

Liara’s eyes widen in elation, not expecting Ethan to risk his life for her. She set that aside and nodded. In a quick motion, she used her biotics to lift the stasis pod.

“INSOLENCE.” The Collector hadn’t flinched from his shots as sharp, blade-like appendages emerged from its wrists.

The Courier ducked, realizing what it meant. The creature launched an entire salvo of those blades. Most flew above him, but one glanced off his shoulder plate. The heat from the remaining lava had burned his skin. There was a distant rumble, but he didn’t pay attention to it.

Gritting his teeth, Ethan fired back through the pain and discharged the entire clip. Its barriers held on, not slowed down as it advanced further towards him. As he reloaded, the Collector threw a biotic warp. He felt its subatomic forces pulling his body apart, his implants losing an uneven fight.

He threw a grenade as he swore, determining the Collector moved far enough away from the pod to make this tactic viable. Ethan fought back the idea of the Collector brushing that off, but it was worse than he thought.

The abomination tossed aside the grenade with its powers. The grenade exploded among the crates in the storage area.

“LIKE A SPARK TO THE FIRE.” The Collector threw another barrage of its projectiles.

Ready this time, Ethan fell, still in shock at the Collector’s powers. He looked up and saw Lynch hacking the terminal while the others were busy taking the pod to a safe distance.

Once it was over, he ran and spotted a cabinet to the side of the wall. He slid behind it to avoid another biotic projectile.

“YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM YOUR DESTINY, HUMAN,” the Collector taunted and circled around him, sure of its success.

Ethan switched to his shotgun, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. He placed his last grenade on the floor and peeked out.

The Collector moved in closer, now about seven yards away.

He activated it and slid it out as far as he could. He heard the blast and charged out immediately. If that didn’t work, it would sign his death warrant.

The trick worked. The Collector shook; without its barrier, it showed new cracks by the grenade's fragments. Staggered, it raised its hands up in front of its face, the biotic energy building up again.

Sparks erupted in a bright shower, followed by the jet of lava from the shattered limb. The rock-solid surface of the creature’s body fell under the shotgun’s blasts. Without warning, the Collector charged forward, attempting to get him with its remaining claw.

Ethan ducked down at the side as it went for his neck, only to slash at nothing. As it turned toward him, he used VATS and discharged the rest of the clip at its knees.

The creature collapsed, leaving a viscous trail as it crawled forward. There was another rumbling sound.

The Courier put away the shotgun and whipped out the pistol he took. A machine gun burst rang out, downing his shields just as they recharge. The Shadow Broker’s guards had realized the Collector wasn’t so invulnerable.

Ethan pulled the trigger. The Collector’s head exploded as it was about to say anything else. Its body followed suit as a strange mix of solid metal and lava collapsed, leaving nothing but a slag mark on the floor.

Two more guards joined the original shooter, preventing him from his moment of triumph. He ducked, using two durable barrels as cover, and applied the rest of his medi-gel to his wounds. He needed help, but his allies were just as busy.

The rumbling sound intensified and the hangar door opened, bringing in a cold breeze. The howling wind brought crushed ice, burning some of the Shadow Broker’s men. And with it came a large shadow.

Ethan jumped and got out of the way. Almost half of the storage area was blown apart by shots from the cannons. The screams of the wounded and dying were drowned out by the noise of the engines as the frigate entered the North Portal and landed.

The guards on the ground were either dead or incapacitated. Liara and Christina ran out from their cover, the engineer’s armor battered. Lynch emerged from the terminal side of the room and jumped down onto the floor. Ethan noticed his armor was covered in purple blood as he landed. The shooters on the sidewalk all got down, suppressed by the ship's machine guns.

As the Cerberus vessel hovered down and landed near the pod, the Courier’s spirits soared. They all made it to within seven yards of the pod in seconds, eager to leave this wretched place. The ship’s hatch opened, and the ramp slid out. A wide door from the storage area opened with a clang. As Ethan turned around to face it, there was another flash of orange. The guns fell silent, cut off just as his pistol overheated.

“So, Dr. T’Soni, Cerberus didn’t abandon you and your friend after all. Perhaps you can give my regards to your goddess!” Tazzik approached the ship. “Would you agree, Feron?” he spoke to the drell dragged behind him by two guards. There were four guards with him, including the human and the asari they spared earlier. Ethan cursed, wishing they had killed them earlier.

“Can it. You can’t use your grenade launcher close to the stasis pod. How much would bet on your men’s marksmanship?” Lynch asked. They all edged closer to the pod and reloaded their weapons, but they haven’t fired at Tazzik yet.

Tazzik gestured to the two guards near him, both wielding rocket launchers. “Not much. Think you could get away with it?”

They were almost next to the frigate now. Ethan thought the ship’s shields and hull would hold. However, he noticed the cracks and burn marks on the hull. He recalled the frigate had fought the sentries, which explained the heavy damage. The mercs might as well bring it down at any moment.

“The envoy’s dead, and it could be weeks before the Collectors send in another,” Tazzik continued. “You ruined more than what they could pay us for that corpse, but the footage can be overwritten. You can take that body, and the Shadow Broker would never know. All you have to do is give me back Dr. T’Soni and this Courier. You already lost a man, Lynch. You want your crew killed as well?”

Ethan turned to Lynch. His face remained indecipherable, but it seemed he understood what was going on. Now he hoped the others did.

“So what’s it going to be?” Tazzik asked. “Don’t count on your guns to cool down. We know how to count. It’s obvious we have more engineers here.”

Ethan and Lynch fired at him. As Tazzik ducked down and before any of the mercs could shoot back, Feron escaped the guard’s grip and dragged Tazzik to the ground. A struggle ensued between the two before Ethan, and the others realized what happened. He looked down the ramp for Feron, but the drell was nowhere in sight.

“Feron!” Liara tried to step out…

…only for Lynch to grab her shoulder. Liara turned and glared at the field agent. “I’m sorry, but we have to go. There’s nothing we can do to help your friend.”

The asari closed her eyes as tears welled up and nodded weakly, now understanding what Lynch said. She joined the personnel in bringing the stasis pod to the cargo hold.

Ethan remembered what Liara told him about Shepard, that she fell to an uncharted planet from space. From his knowledge of physics and autonomy, it was a miracle her body was intact. The exposure to the vacuum of space and the impact of landing on a planet would have obliterated her body. He wondered why the Shadow Broker and Cerberus would be so interested in her body. But Cerberus did questionable experiments, something that wasn’t so different from what he had seen in the Wasteland, especially the Think Tank.

Just as the engines turned back on and the ramp had closed, gunshots from the machine gun rang out and Christina collapsed to the floor. Her helmet cracked open as blood stained her head and armor.

Lynch was at her side, applying medi-gel. He didn’t say a word as he carried her to the medical bay. Ethan was shocked at this turn of events, even as the ship took off from the hangar. There aren’t as many turrets to hit them on their way, so the vessel took off into space with no further difficulties. No doubt the mission was a success. But to Lynch, it didn’t feel like one.

[Nord Ronnoc]

Epilogue: I Need You

Lynch didn’t come out of the medical bay on the lower level until the ship was deep into space and close to the mass relay. When he did, his face bore grim news. “Christina’s in a coma right now. I’m afraid I can’t guarantee she’ll live.”

“Would she be able to recover?” Liara asked. The worry in her voice was obvious.

Lynch sighed, gathering his composure. His brows narrowing upwards, he frowned softly. “Not completely. I believe… I believe that the analysis said if Christina survived, she would have brain damage from the gunshot wound.”

“Goddess. I’m sorry.” Liara stepped forward. “Whatever grievances and differences I have with her and Cerberus. I hope she can fully recover.”

The Cerberus operative stood silent for a moment, and then he cracked a small smile. Another surprising moment of emotion from him, Ethan noticed, if only barely. “I… Thank you, Dr. T’Soni. I wanted to hear that.” He turned his attention to an intercom nearby. “Jennifer, how long until we arrive at the Minuteman station? If I recall, Miranda had Project Lazarus there.”

“ETA six hours and three relay jumps to the Horsehead Nebula from the Crescent Nebula,” Jennifer answered through the intercom.

Well, that’ll take a while. “So why Lazarus?” Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You comparing her to him in the Bible?”

Lynch shot at Ethan with a dubious look. “The name’s a parallel to a passage in Chapter 11 of the Gospel of John. And you need to understand this: Shepard’s unique, but not of what she accomplished. It was about what she represented: a savior not only of humanity but to the galaxy.”

“And that was being the first human Spectre?”

The agent nodded and stepped inside the elevator. “I’ll be at the bridge. I… want to take my mind off this. You two should get some rest. You deserve it.”

With nothing else to say, the elevator closed. Liara and Ethan waited for their turn. He felt rather drowsy as fatigue belatedly caught up to him like he hadn’t slept in days. Or, to be more accurate, hadn’t slept since they went out to Afterlife. When many things happened in a short span of time, anyone could be worn out.

The elevator opened, this time empty. As they stepped inside, Ethan gazed at Liara and noticed her troubled look. She hadn’t even given him a glance.

“It’s about Omega, wasn’t it?” Ethan gave her a sympathetic look.

Liara nodded as they left the elevator and took a right turn to the ship’s quarters. “And many other things.” It was almost like she scowled. “You didn’t listen to Feron when he warned you about Tazzik.”

Ethan sighed. Inside, there were 16 double beds, eight at each side. At the end in front of them was a window, encasing a picture of a black void filled with blinking stars. “I know. From the start, I thought I had it all figured out. If we had prepared more, it would’ve turn out right. But look on the bright side, we rescued you.”

“And retrieved Shepard’s body.” Liara’s tone was firm. “I appreciate that and helping Feron and me back before we met up with Cerberus, but I won’t let you forget what you did.”

Ethan crashed on the bottom bed and turned to look at Liara. He breathed in, basking in the comfort of the soft pillow and soft mattress. “And now we just gave her body to Cerberus.”

The asari let out an angry sigh. “I don’t think this is right. I don’t know much about human traditions, but… maybe they should let the dead rest.”

Except for Cerberus. They don’t give a damn unless it helps further their cause.

With Liara’s help, he took the battered chest plate, his helmet, and the arm plates off. He loosened the bolts on his Pip-Boy and the glove so he could get off the piece of the armor on his left wrist and hand. Sitting on the bed, he pulled the leg plates off and put his Pip-Boy and the glove back on. Meanwhile, the former archaeologist stacked his armor and weaponry nearby.

“Maybe we should hand her body over to the Alliance.”

“Why would we do that?” Ethan asked.

Liara turned to the Courier. “Shepard's gone and... and I think it's time for me to move on." She hesitated for a moment. “The Alliance can gather intel on the Collectors and the Reapers and defeat them without Shepard.”

"Sure, they can do that," the Courier replied. “Would you like the Alliance to declare her KIA? It'll help the Reapers more than the Alliance's. It'll put Feron's, Alan's, and Christina's sacrifices in vain. You want that, Liara?"

Liara paused. She lowered her head and took a deep breath. “I...” she spoke. “I need a moment to myself and to clear my head.”

"You did a hell of a job back there, saving my life. Besides, there isn't much we can do with the Commander's body," he said.

"I guess," she nodded and went to the door but stopped. “Oh, almost forgot. I should thank you for saving my life. If you didn’t stop that Collector, I don’t think I would’ve made it.”

Ethan shrugged and smirked. “All in a day’s work.”

Liara said nothing as she left the room, the door closing behind her. Alone in the quarters, Ethan laid back down on the bed, his Carnifex pistol holstered, and his knife sheathed. He always kept his weapons close to him, as he was used to the dangers of wandering the Mojave wasteland. He knew he was safe here, but old habits die hard.

He closed his eyes and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
 

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“Minuteman Station, are you there? Minuteman Station, this is the Cassino requesting permission to land. Do you copy?” Jennifer spoke. Not long after they jumped from one relay to another, she created a connection from the bridge to a secret Cerberus base. She sat in the cockpit, waiting for an answer while Lynch stood by. She turned and gazed at the field agent and noticed that he seemed troubled, like a dark cloud hanging over him.

“Permission granted, Cassino. Welcome ‘board,” the receptionist on the line replied, a slight twang in her voice.

“We’ve retrieved the Commander’s body and rescued Dr. Liara T’Soni but we received some losses,” Lynch said. “Alan Cain is KIA and Christina Rosaline’s critically injured in the fight. We’re unable to retrieve Alan’s body, but Christina needs medical treatment ASAP.”

“Noted. Dontcha worry, Lynch; she’ll be all right.”

Lynch nodded, feeling relieved as the connection had closed. Not long after the frigate had landed in the hangar bay, he headed out from the bridge before Jennifer could show concern for him and Christina. He wanted to head out to the med bay and see Christina one more time. Just as he entered the elevator, he received a pinging noise from his omni-tool. Turning it on, he read over the message:

Hey, David. Just to let you know that Christina’s already in the infirmary. She’s in good hands now. Also, that asari just left the ship with the body and is at the station at one of the labs.

—Jocelyn

Lynch sighed as he put his omni-tool away. If only he didn’t lose track of time… He shook that feeling off and exited the elevator, having pressed the console.
 

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“Wake up, Courier. We’ve arrived at the Minuteman station.”

Ethan’s eyes opened. He groaned and sat up from his bed, greeting the sight of Lynch. It looked like he cleaned off the purple blood like it never happened in the first place. “Where's Liara and Shepard? Any idea?”

“Dr. T’Soni’s with Shepard at the station.” Lynch turned to the Courier’s weapons and armor, stacked by the bed. He grabbed the pieces of his armor and his Incisor sniper rifle. “Let me help you with this. It’s the least I could do for now.”

“Can I keep them?” Ethan smirked, pointing to the rest of his weapons and armor and his holstered Carnifex pistol.

“Except for the pistol, no,” Lynch answered, blunt as usual. “They’re Cerberus property.”

After placing the weapons and armor back in the armory, Ethan and Lynch made their way off the ship and out of the hangar. It looked a lot like the North Portal, but with white, like the base back at Omega. They continued onto the hallway. Once again, Cerberus’ insignia was plastered on the walls. The Courier couldn’t help but think the Illusive Man as an egotistical person, craving for attention yet knowing the benefits of secrecy.

“So where are we going?” Ethan asked.

“To the labs where the Project will be carried out,” the agent answered.

“Any more you can tell me about Project Lazarus? How does the process work?”

“The project’s what you expect: resurrect the Commander, provide her with a crew and a ship, and task her on taking the Collectors out,” Lynch answered again. “If I understand correctly, the process involves experimental technology and organic reconstruction. But we want to make sure she is the same person before she died, in both personality and appearance.”

“What about her body? Was it well-preserved in stasis?”

Lynch grinned. “Thankfully, yes. The gel layer in her armor had negated most of the impact.”

“Thank God for that, but isn’t it a good sign of an experiment to test the project on animals first?” Ethan gave Lynch an incredulous look. “What about a backup or peer reviews or anything?”

“No need for those. We can do simulations in place of animal testing. However, she’s the only test subject and the first human being to be brought back from the dead, so we have no idea if it would actually work. No doubt his would be time-consuming and expensive.”

“Well, excuse me for asking,” Ethan responded.

He and Lynch took a quick turn to the right and saw Miranda and Liara looking through a window. From above, they watched men and women in white scrubs applying syringes to a charred-out corpse. Underneath the well-lit light, surrounded by orange monitors, autonomous arms from a machine applied pipes and needles to the body. The doctors seemed eager to carry out the project. From here, it was hard to determine Shepard’s gender, having been blown to hell and back. The two women turned, hearing them approach. Liara looked happy to see Ethan, with a small, soft smile on her lips.

“Hello, Lynch. I see you’ve brought the Courier here,” said Miranda. “Good. Now we can get down to business.”

Lynch stepped forward. “Mind if I take my leave? I’ve heard Christina’s being referred in one of the med bays. I know I wouldn’t be seeing her for a while, but I want to make sure she’s okay.”

“Of course,” Miranda answered, her voice showing a hint of sympathy to the agent.

Lynch nodded and turned his attention to the others. “Courier, it’s been a pleasure working with you. And you as well, Liara.” He offered a handshake. “I hope we can work together again one day. But I should go.”

“You too,” Liara replied. “I wish you luck.”

After Ethan had accepted his handshake, he set out and walked away from the group, down the hallway and taking a left turn. Ethan wondered if he would ever see Lynch again, let alone his predicament. But he was certain the agent would recover and move on.

“So… what exactly is this ‘business’ that you’re referring to?” Ethan asked, looking at Miranda.

“Oh, nothing out of the ordinary, if that’s what you’re worried about. Just the funds for the project to repair your… Transportalponder had been transferred,” Miranda answered. She still showed slight disgust in uttering his teleportation device. “In fact, the transaction was made by the Illusive Man himself.”

Ethan scoffed, remembering his earlier conversation with the Illusive Man “Right.” He gazed through the window. “So what’ll happen next?”

Miranda shrugged and placed her arms in front of the window. “Both of us already answered that question, Courier.” She tilted her head toward Liara. “If I were you, I would ask Liara about that.”

“Whatever it is, long as skintight suits are involved, I’m in,” Ethan joked. “Also, if you look so perfect, then why do you have buckteeth? They stick out like a sore thumb.”

The Cerberus operative chuckled. “Says the one wearing a blue jumpsuit.”

“Hey, at least it isn’t tight on my ass,” Ethan shot back.

Liara paused for a moment, considering her options. “I’ve put so much thought about getting Shepard back I haven’t considered what I would do next. But that’s what I will do, Miranda. I’ve got another friend to help, but I’ve made a new enemy of the Shadow Broker.”

“I’m afraid we all have,” Miranda agreed, trailing off. “Whether you want revenge or to rescue the drell, then I suggest you should be an information broker. That way, you can get back at the Shadow Broker at his own game, work your way to the top. Take out the competition. You’ll need every advantage you can get at the bastards.”

“I see. We’ll leave you to your work, then.” Liara gestured to Ethan. “Could we… go somewhere, Ethan? Where we would be left alone? I had something on my mind.”

The Courier nodded and followed her. They made to a bridge with a single window covering the entire room, save for the floor. He gazed onward, seeing the void reach out, far as his eyes could see. Liara stopped and turned, looking at him and he felt a sense of melancholy around her.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Liara pulled him into a rather gentle hug. Ethan blushed slightly, feeling a warm sensation in his chest. “Wh-wha…?” His mouth was agape like his jaw had dropped on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “There was a lot I can take before…”

Before she could finish her sentence, Ethan wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into an embrace. “No, you’re not sorry; I am,” he muttered in what he assumed would be the sides of her head where her ears would have been if she had any. “I didn’t mean to put you through this.” He had to admit, it felt nice to get a hug. It had been a while since he had gotten one.

Miranda was right. He made new allies and enemies, friends and foes. He had to be cautious, just like at the Mojave Wasteland.

Even though Cerberus would bring Shepard back, blood will still be spilled, fighting would continue, and many lives will be lost. And it was all because, as an old storyteller once told him, war would never change.

Though people do, through the roads they walk. And this was just the start for him.