Mass Effect: Knight of the Old Republic

“Careful, you fall off here and you're a goner.” Garrus commented as the team moved under the facility.

Revan idly looked over the edge of the abyss that all of them were currently walking above.

A dense fog covered most of what was below them but every once in a while she could see openings where the fall seemed to go on forever and where large machines plunged into the core of the planet. Probably a form of geothermal generators powering the facility in her opinion. Still, a fall like that would almost surely be fatal for anyone unlucky enough to fall in.

“This is massive. How many Krogan are they keeping in this place?” Miranda wondered aloud.

“They did mention building an army. I’d imagine they’d need a lot of space for the completed clones. Well, if they could ever control them.” Shepard said with a shrug.

Perhaps Revan’s own experiences were coloring her perception because she didn’t consider the facility all that impressive. It was good enough for a small lab on a junkyard planet like this one but compared to the immense complexes she had visited in the past, this one barely rated. Especially since it was being used for something as mundane as cloning a bunch of Krogan.

Not to misunderstand the threat Krogan posed. Revan had met only a small handful of races that were more naturally threatening than the lizard-like aliens but… spending this amount of time and effort on clones just seemed like a waste to her. Clones were often plagued by developmental issues after a small amount of time because they failed to adapt to new stimuli or properly learn once the programming stage ended. They were so conditioned by the download of information that dominated their developmental period that they simply failed to manage the way normal people would.

It was part of why cloning was such a specialized business back home. Creating an individual that could function outside of lab conditions was so prohibitively expensive that only the incredibly rich looking for a form of pseudo immortality by the way of a cloned heir regularly made use of them. Even then, the clone needed years of development before it could survive in a non regulated environment.

Revan wasn’t sure there was a group in either galaxy that had the ability to create the level of adaptability a soldier would need in a timeframe that it wouldn’t be simpler to just use combat droids instead. If there was, Okeer certainly wasn’t among that number. She had slipped a glance into the mind of the Krogan clone when she had tried to influence it to stand down. It was far too easy because the clone’s thoughts were far too simple to resist her influence. Even a youngling would’ve been more resistant to her probe.

“Unless Okeer has been holding back I don’t think we need to worry about a Krogan army anytime soon.”

Shepard looked over at the Sith. “What do you mean?”

“That clone back there had the same mental flexibility as some of your VI assistants. The first time it runs into an unknown situation it will fall back entirely on its instincts...and I think we all know how that will turn out.” Revan explained as she sidestepped past the mauled body of a Blue Suns trooper.

“Careful there's more Krogan up ahead.” Miranda warned as a group of clones came into sight. The clones caught wind of their team and roared in challenge. A few of them armed with guns took potshots with whatever they had on hand while the ones that were unarmed screamed mindlessly and charged at the group.

“Damn. Garrus, pick off the ones in the back! Miranda, give me a hand!” Shepard began to organise her squad but Revan was in no mood to play with cloned rejects and was going to make sure the clones knew it.

“Don’t bother, Commander. This will be over shortly.” Revan raised a hand and reached for the Force. It responded eagerly to her will and gathered around the Krogan as Revan focused. With a small scooping motion all of the clones found themselves levitated a few feet off the ground. Before any of them could respond to this new situation, another dismissive gesture sent all of them flying over the edge of the walkway and falling down into the abyss where they were quickly swallowed by the fog.

Chasms like these were so useful for disposing of annoying enemies. You didn’t even need to clean up after yourself either!

“There,” Reven stated, lightly brushing her hands together for a job well done. “Now we can keep going.”

Revan continued walking into the facility but thanks to the audio enhancers in her helmet she was clearly able to hear Garrus comment behind her. “Damn... Shepard, remind me never to get on her bad side.”

The Sith Lord smiled. First step to ensuring people wouldn’t try to mess with you? Show them how very lucky they are to not have you as an enemy. Maybe now Miranda would stop trying to slip cameras into her part of the ship.

A smack echoed out from behind her. “Hmph, better keep your mouth shut then.” Shepard replied dryly.

-o-

The further the ground team pushed, the clearer it was that something interesting was going on between the Krogan warlord and the leader of the Blue Suns. Intercepted radio traffic from the mercs told them that not only had there been a schism between leadership, Okeer was actively releasing and arming as many clones as he could and was sending them against the Blue Suns. And it looked like the mercenary group was not exactly doing well based on the number of bodies the group had passed or the angry ranting coming from Jedore.

“No more! I want them dead! What is so hard to understand about that!”

Speaking of, Jedore was now simply screaming over the loudspeaker rather than comm channels. Revan was almost embarrassed that this was the woman she was fighting. She was acting more like a youngling throwing a tantrum rather than the leader of a sizable mercenary force.

The lack of leadership certainly showed the longer they fought against the Blue Suns. Initially after breaking through the line of Krogan they knew were converging on this location thanks to the stolen comm units, they had come across a few squads of mercenary troopers. They each might have only been slightly bigger than the Normandy ground team but they had cooperated together in a way that forced Revan to rush ahead and draw fire off Shepards team.

Multiple times she had needed to cut down an entire squad just to relieve enough pressure that the others could return fire. But after some time the enemy’s unit cohesion rapidly broke down. There were no more troopers dedicated to pinning down the Sith Lord, no more covering fire as squadmates advanced or retreated, certainly no more cooperation between squad leaders as the Blue Suns seemed to be taking a ‘throw everything at the enemy and hope for the best’ approach.

And it was failing.

“This is just embarrassing.” Revan commented as around a dozen panicking troopers were picked apart by Shepard’s squad of three. She herself was simply defensively blocking and occasionally Force Pulling the occasional trooper out of cover.

“I’ll take this over an organised enemy!” Shepard replied, her shotgun tearing into another trooper. “And shouldn’t you be fighting?!”

“If I did this would go from embarrassing to pathetic.” Another trooper was yanked out into the open and sniped by Garrus.

“Yeah, this is almost too easy!” the Turian cheered.

Shepard shook her head at the enthusiastic sniper. “What do you think is going on? Even without their leadership they shouldn’t be this disorganised.”

“I think Okeer might have done more sabotage than just releasing the clones.” Miranda spoke up. “Cerberus never confirmed that he wanted to be here, so he could have just gotten what he wanted and is trying to escape now.”

Suddenly their stolen radio crackled to life. “What do you mean Jadore’s holding the mechs? She’ll lose all her toys if we don’t get some backup!” Unintentionally, the merc reinforced Revan’s opinion of the mercenary leader acting like a youngling.

“Sound’s like their leaders aren’t doing them any favors either.” Garrus added.

The ground team kept moving through the facility at a decent pace. The groups coming at them now were better armed, but they were unorganised and demoralised as well. Not only were their companions screaming over the radio about how they were being overrun, their leader was also lambasting them from the loudspeakers.

“There are four of them. Four! Anything can be killed if you just do your damn jobs!”

“Jadore! Damn it, someone get her off the speakers and out here!” one of the remaining squad leaders cried over the radio, apparently unable to actually get a hold of his leader.

’Hmm, it seemed like a few of the less higher ranked officers were at least starting to get organised’ Revan mused. What should she do about that?

“I’m moving up ahead.” She announced. “Catch up when you’re done with the foot soldiers.”

“What?! Revan, wai-!” Shepard started to protest but the Sith was already moving.

The red and blue glow of her lightsabers spun in complex patterns as she ran through the enemy, though quite a few were left behind. Shepard’s group would manage just fine though.

The troopers unlucky enough to run into the lone Sith however, were completely unable to handle her as she cut a path towards the densest gathering of mercs. Armor and shields did nothing to slow down the energy blades and whenever a trooper managed to aim long enough to fire a rocket at the armored figure, she simply redirected it with a wave of a hand.

Pretty soon the mercenaries started to get desperate and run rather than keep fighting but were mostly unable to escape in the face of Revan’s merciless assault. The ones that did would be mopped up by the other team following behind her.

Soon enough Revan found what she was looking for. A Baterian trooper with hardlight shields covering his armor was screaming into a comm unit. This was the officer trying to coordinate what Blue Suns were left in the area. Without him the rest of the units would be completely unorganised and easy prey for her own group to eliminate.

“Trespassers are topside! Tell Jedore we can’t hold them and -augh!”

His report was cut short by a lightsaber through the chest. The glowing sections of his armor sputtered and died as the blade damaged the suit itself. With the main target killed, Revan turned her attention to the remaining troopers frozen in fear.

“Well...better make this quick then.”

-o-

Shepard pulled the trigger on her shotgun and grimaced as the trooper infront of her burst in a small shower of gore.

A rifle barked off to her right and the last trooper’s head snapped back before he fell over.

“And that's the last of them!” Garrus crowed triumphantly.

Shepard carefully looked over the site of their latest fight and saw that the Turian was correct. There were no more Blue Suns mercs alive to even try and sneak up on them. She took the lull in combat to have her team salvage anything they needed from the fallen mercs and make sure there were no issues or breaches in her armor.

While she was doing that, Miranda sidled up to her with an apprehensive look on her face. Shepard was actually a little surprised to see the other woman nervous. Miranda had been completely cool under pressure before now, even through the most bizarre events they had gone through.

“Something wrong Miranda?”

The Cerberus agent looked like she wasn’t sure if she should actually say anything but eventually spoke up.

“Commander, I know that you have an agreement with Revan… but is it really a good idea to let her keep running off?”

That was a rare amount of concern from her XO. Normally Miranda seemed to accept that missions could be dangerous but it was on the individual to mostly see themselves through even if they did need a hand now and then; and Revan had consistently proven she didn’t really need anyone looking out for her in combat.

“Oh? Worried about our Space Elf running into trouble?” Shepard teased.

Miranda just huffed in response. “After seeing her fight, hardly. But she does represent an unprecedented opportunity scientifically. It would be tragic if we lost that because we decided to keep letting her run into danger.”

“Tragic for her...or for Cerberus?”

Miranda shook her head. “For humanity. Revan is a fountain of knowledge that has the potential to improve countless human lives. That’s all Cerberus wants, Commander. To ensure that we as a species don’t get left out in the cold in the galaxy.”

That wasn’t Shepard’s experience with the group. Miranda seemed...oddly naive about the rest of Cerberus at times though. Was it just an act? Or did the Illusive Man just keep her shielded from the worst of it?

“So, what? Just lock her up and force her to do what we say; keep demanding more and more from her? And what do we do when she says no? because we both know Revan has no intention of just handing anything over, something I’m not sure whoever gets put in charge of her would like.”

Oddly Miranda seemed to pale slightly at Shepard’s words.

“No, that’s not what I’m suggesting.” She said quickly in a tone Shepard couldn’t quite place. “Maybe I’m getting a bit too eager to see what she has to offer. I just don’t want to lose that chance because she ran into something alone.”

...There was definitely something Shepard said that struck a nerve. She made a note to ask about that when they weren’t in the middle of a mission. The good news was that her impression of Miranda improved a bit, since her XO was proving she was at least better than most of the Cerberus personnel she had run into.

While Shepard was considering this a voice cut in from the merc frequency they were listening in on. “Trespassers are topside! Tell Jedore we can’t hold them and -augh!” And was cut short with a scream and the sound of something being cut.

“Squad Four? Outpost? Report!” Jedore’s voice rang out from the speaker system again since the merc leader seemed incapable of using anything else. “Damn it. Have to do everything myself.” And then she was gone.

“Looks like we don’t need to worry about Revan for now.” Shepard said, a bit of humor in her voice. “And I don’t like a teammate running around alone either. At the very least I’ll bring it up with her after the mission.”

Miranda nodded and dropped the conversation for now.

The three-man squad began quickly moving in pursuit of their crewmate where they found her standing outside of a door. Shepard was immediately on guard. If Revan of all people had decided to wait until the full team was here, then something dangerous was behind that door.

“Shepard.” The Sith greeted them when they got closer.

“Revan. What’s going on?”

Revan’s armored visor tilted towards the door, “If I’m correct, I found Okeer through here. But there is something else.”

‘Of course there is.’ Shepard groused internally. “Like what? More mercs or a trap?” she asked aloud.

“No. There’s only one more person through here, but that’s not what I’m concerned about. Whoever they are, I can sense something wrong with them.” Revan turned to face Shepard fully. “I can sense the Force affecting them.”

Shepard didn’t know exactly how to react to this information. Revan had displayed abilities that would be hard to match for the best biotics she knew, the thought of fighting someone else who could do the same…

“So they’re like you?” She felt she needed to ask.

Revan was already shaking her head. “No. They are affected by the Force, not using it. But that means that someone or something else out there can and you aren’t necessarily protected.”

“How bad are we talking here?”

The elven woman considered for a second. “We probably shouldn’t have anything to worry about.” she hedged. “Your galaxy has so little on Force use that I doubt anyone has the potential to overpower me; but I don’t know what methods they might use so you will have to be careful if I need time to defend against something unexpected.”

So be on guard for anything strange, and just stay alive if something happens. Not exactly a comprehensive battleplan in Shepard’s opinion.

“Is there anything we can do to defend ourselves ahead of time?” Miranda asked.

“Not likely. Being aware of something wrong is usually enough to hinder weaker techniques. Everything else is up to either preparation or building up a natural resistance, neither of which we have time to explore.”

“Let’s get on with it then.” Shepard was done with unique surprises for now. The worst that could happen is that she died. Again.

Her team stacked up on the doorway and at her signal they breached the room.

Three guns swept the room and Revan kept an eye out from behind them. A dark shape stood up from one of the desks, Shepard’s shotgun lined up on the target and-

“Shepard, don’t shoot! You know me!”

-she stopped with her sights dead center and her finger on the trigger.

Revan’s warning was still fresh in her mind but that wasn’t an excuse to just gun anyone down without verifying they were a threat. Revan would probably let them know if they were under attack anyway… or just cut them down herself.

“I shut down the security cams as soon as I saw it was you,” A light blue Assari said as she approached the group. “Never thought I would say it, but I’m glad it’s you shooting up the place.”

Shepard looked at the blue alien trying to place her but nothing immediate came to mind. Something that she seemed to pick up on.

“Sorry. Rana Thanoptis. You let me go when you destroyed Saren's lab on Virmire.” She smiled wryly. “Had to outrun a nuke in a utility pod, but it’s still a second chance.”

The introduction brought back bad memories. Ones the commander would’ve been happy to not remember if she could help it. Of course she could also remember letting a researcher run off during that unfortunate mission since she was unsure how aware the Asari had been of what she would be working on before being unable to leave the rogue Spectre’s employment.

But that she was here working on another project regarding Krogan…

“I assume you have a good reason for being at this lab?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not wasting the chance you gave me. My work here -- strictly beneficial.”

“Not for the mercs.” Rana hurried to elaborate. “Jedore’s on a standard power trip. But Okeer is trying to do something good, I can tell. Even if his methods are a little… extreme” she looked at one of the remains laid out on a table for examination.

“Everyone deserves a second chance, right?” Rana said with a small smile. “And sometimes giving one pays off. I take care of my debts.”

That was the kind of talk that usually made Shepard feel all warm inside. That a moment of mercy could make all the difference. Then again, she usually didn’t hear this while in the middle of a rather unethical lab after fighting through a bunch of clones created for God knows what purpose.

She pushed aside her feelings for a second. “And what exactly is Okeer trying to do here?” she asked instead. Best get all the information she could before she started making judgements.

“It’s complicated,” because of course it was. “Jedore wants her own private army, but Okeer mostly ignores her. He’s running the project for his own reasons.”

“Which are?”

“I’m not certain.” the Asari admitted. “I created the mental imprint routine to educate his tank-bred, but most don’t make it through it. He dumps them for some reason.”

“He wants to help his people, but he’s not looking for a genophage cure, and he’s not going for numbers. That’s all I know.”

So absolutely nothing. That was fantastic.

Shepard stood aside and nodded to Revan. She had nothing left to ask.

Without a word the Sith stalked silently forward, much to the obvious discomfort of Rana.

“Um, Shepard?”

No one said anything as Revan placed her hands on either side of Rana’s head and concentrated.

The room was silent as Revan did...whatever it was she was doing and Rana fidgeted under her grip. Eventually the Sith hummed and pulled back.

“Well that’s interesting…”

“You know what’s affecting her?”

“W-wait affecting me? What are you talking about?”

Revan ignored the now slightly panicking Asari. “No actually. I can recognise some similarities but this is a technique I’m not familiar with.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Can you describe the effects?” Shepard asked, similarly ignoring Rana.

“It's subtle, whatever it is. It seems to be slowly influencing her thoughts but at the same time overwriting certain ones?” Revan shook her head. “I’d need more time to investigate. This level of mental affliction is outside my specialty.”

Ice replaced the blood in Shepard’s veins.

Behind her Miranda turned to Garrus and whispered, “Doesn’t that sound a lot like…?”

“Indoctrination.” Garrus agreed.

Indoctrination. The near completely unknown ability for Reapers to brainwash and control organic lifeforms to their will. It could manifest anywhere from turning the victim into a mindless puppet or bending the strongest of wills so that they happily believed they were doing the right thing by inviting genocide to the entire galaxy. And from the look of things, the influence could linger for years.

“What? No! I stopped working with Indoctrination technology after Virmire and I’ve never touched the stuff since!” Rana protested, not that any of the Normandy crew were giving her any consideration.

“Can you do something about it?” Shepard asked Revan.

The elven woman shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve always focused on either defensive or offensive mental techniques. Control or healing ones were never my focus.”

Shepard worried her lip in thought. On one hand they were going on one woman’s word that there was something wrong with Rana. And even then they were stumbling in the dark because even their mystic expert had no idea what they were dealing with. On the other hand the Asari could be an unwitting pawn for a genocidal army and serving them as a sleeper agent.

She sighed and looked at the ceiling, considering her choices.

“Would trying anything hurt her?” she had to ask.

Revan shrugged again.

Before the Normandy, Shepard would never have considered experimenting on someone because of ‘what-ifs’. It was one of the reasons she had let the Rachni Queen escape even though many would question her sanity on the decision.

She closed her eyes. Hard.

But that Shepard had believed far more in people stepping up because it was the right thing to do. Now she found herself two years later and possibly several steps backward trying to prepare for a threat no one seemed to want to admit was real.

She made her choice.

“Do it.” She stated simply to Revan.

At least this way there was a chance.

“What are you doing?! What’s going on?!”

“W-wait...what are those sounds?”

“You're hurting my head...please...stop…”

“The voices. I don’t...please…”

“...they’re...gone...what did...you...do...to me?”

Rana initially tried to struggle but Revan easily held the smaller woman in place. As Revan tried to undo whatever was affecting her she slowly stopped thrashing but Shepard couldn’t say it was going well.

By the time the Sith was done Rana was staring blankly ahead.

“What did you do to her?” Miranda preempted Shepard in asking.

“I tried to force the presence I felt out.” Revan explained in an annoyed tone. “But the more I pushed the more it dug in. As you can see, it looks like removing it had some side effects. It seems I will need to practice.”

“Why didn’t you stop when it was clear you were hurting her!?”

“Because whatever was affecting her started to get stronger when I touched it. Either I succeeded in removing it or she would be taken over.” Revan dismissed with a wave of a hand. “This shouldn’t be unexpected. Playing with the mind rarely goes well.”

Shepard felt a surge of guilt as she met the vacant gaze of the Asari.

“Can we do anything for her?”

“I’m sure an actual mental specialist might be able to help her recover; the presence has been removed. But perhaps we should get back to what we came here for?”

Shepard grit her teeth. She could feel guilty later, and this did confirm that Rana had been Indoctrinated.

“Make sure we grab her on the way out. We owe her that much.” she ordered.

With nothing else they could do for the Asari, the team moved through the lab door into another room where a Krogan in dark green armor was busily working at a terminal.

Despite that, he was clearly expecting them since he was unsurprised at their entrance.

“It’s about time. The batteries on these tanks will not wait while you play with these ideotic mercs.” The Krogan Shepard assumed was Okeer said gruffly.

She crossed her arms under her bust and glared at the probable warlord.

“I take it you’re Okeer. You don’t seem particularly caged...or grateful I’m here.”

“You claim to be here to help,” Okeer chuckled, “but the formerly deceased Shepard is not the sign of gentle change.”

Shepard blinked. It was one thing to be recognised by a human. For better or worse, she had essentially been the face of the Alliance when she was made Spectre. A Krogan recognizing her right away was much more rare.

“Surprised? All Krogan should know you. I’m sure Rana has already revisited your actions on Virmire.”

Virmire. She scowled. If there was one planet Shepard wished she had never stepped foot on, it would be that one. Kaiden’s face briefly flashed in her mind before she banished it.

“I’m sure you’re eager to retell the story.” She ground out between gritted teeth.

Okeer spread his arms wide and grinned.

“Such a tale!” he boomed theatrically, “Saren, the Spectre traitor, threatens the return of the Krogan horde by curing the genophage, undoing the gentle genocide of the Turians and Salarians.”

“But before he can deliver his endless troops, in rides Shepard, securing victory through nuclear fire.” He turned and stared at her with a near crazed gleam in his eyes. “I like that part. It has weight.”

Yeah...the nuke. Once again images flashed. Kaiden again, the Salarians being butchered by Geth defenses, arguing with Wrex over the genophage cure…

She could see why the Krogans might take an interest in that.

“I didn’t have a whole lot of options. If there was another solution I would have considered it” she defended herself.

“Oh, but I approve.” Okeer crooned, “Saren’s pale horde were not true Krogan. Numbers alone are nothing. The mistake of an outsider, one that these mercenaries have also made.”

The warlord walked over to the large window dominating one side of the room where they could see rows and rows of cloning tanks ready for use.

“I gave their leader my rejects for her army. But she grows impatient. It’s time for you to take me out of here.”

“We’re here about the Collectors. We couldn’t care less about your problems.” Miranda caustically stated.

If Okeer took offence, he certainly didn’t show it though. “I see. Yes, Collector attacks have increased. A human concern.” He dismissed. “My requests were focused elsewhere.”

Shepard stopped listening for the most part and started asking more questions more on autopilot that out of any real desire for an answer. If needed she could watch her helmet cam’s recording later. Right now Okeer’s zealotry at creating a ‘pure’ Krogan wasn’t worth her full attention, they needed his help so she would have to swallow any personal reservations for now.

What was worrying her was the easy and frequency she was starting to compromise her moral code. Cerberus, Rana, and now a warlord that literally proclaimed the future of Krogan was to crawl over mountains of their own dead? And what she allowed Revan to do! They couldn’t have just secured the Asari and waited till they were back on the Normandy?

Simple stupid mistakes. And she kept making them.

She couldn’t even blame the Sith for what happened because she was the one who decided to do an untested operation in the field when even the expert didn’t know what would happen.

As such, she was almost glad when Jedore, the Blue Suns leader, announced that they were terminating the whole facility and in the process about to ruin Okeer’s work.

It gave her something to shoot.

-o-

“Garrus, Miranda! Focus on those clones!” Shepard shouted as another rocket screamed overhead.

Jedore had picked the worst time to suddenly become a competent military tactician...or she was just really damn lucky. But when she showed up with a pair of YMIR heavy mechs and started releasing more clones, Shepard had been expecting a tense three way firefight, not for the clones to turn around and solely focus on her team!

“Working on it!”

The sound of a heavy cannon revving up made Shepard curse and sprint out of cover before the weapon began chewing through it like cardboard.

“Revan, kill that thing already!”

“Focus on your job Commander!”

One of the mechs was a sparking wreck covered in gouges where Revan’s lightsabers had torn into it, but the second one was targeting her as a primary threat and only shooting at her team when it managed to drive the Sith away for a moment. In the meantime, Shepard was busy trading fire with the mercenary leader, and she was at a hefty disadvantage.

Her own weapons were focused towards mid to close range combat and Jedore favored a long range multi shot rocket launcher. The best she could do was pick at the mercenary’s shields while trying to get closer.

The YMIR turned to track the now vulnerable Commander, it’s left arm opening up to fire a rocket point-blank, when the entirety of its arm below the elbow started crumpling like tinfoil. The loaded rocket exploded, knocking the massive machine off balance as Revan charged it, sabers blazing.

“Go now, Commander!”

Shepard didn’t bother replying as she sprinted the few meters across the lab to where Jedore was hiding. The woman in question popped out from behind one of the cloning tanks with a deranged smile on her face and a launcher pointed right at her. A close enough hit at this range would smear Shepard across the room.

There was no time for though. Shepard reacted purely on her well honed instincts as her entire body pulsed with Biotic energy. She charged the merc leader just after she pulled the trigger, the rocket flying just over her shoulder in her altered perception of the world, and slammed into Jedore in an impact of pure Biotic fury.

The crazed woman shrieked in pain as Shepard unloaded into her with her shotgun, unfortunately Jedore’s shields and armor were enough to hold out until the Katana’s thermal clip was automatically ejected.

“You fucking bitch!” Jedore screamed in her face. “You ruined everything! I’ll enjoy pulling you limb from limb!”

Shepard responded by catching her across the face with her gun and following up with a Biotically infused punch.

“You aren’t getting the chance!”

Jedore sprawled on the floor and went for her side arm rather than try and get up. Unfortunately for her, the first human Spectre was faster. Shepard’s Carfinax barked as quickly as she could fire the mechanism, tracing rounds up the merc’s body and a final shot to the forehead that ended the fight.

Shepard reloaded both guns automatically as she kept an eye out for the next threat. But the only thing still standing was her team.

Before she had a chance to relax, Miranda’s omnitool sprang to life.

“Alarms in the lab! Damn it, what’s Okeer doing back there?!” the Cerberus agent cursed as the four of them began running back the way they came.

Shepard ignored the automatic announcements coming from the lab and only vaguely acknowledged EDI gaining access when she burst through the door to find Okeer lying on the floor. A quick vitals check later confirmed it. He was dead.

“Damn it.”