Five beings sat around a table in a darkened room high in the Imperial Halstead's tower, their faces lit only by the datascreens set into the table in front of each seat. Beyond the picture window that dominated most of the back wall, the sprawling grid of this piece of Halstead's pole-to-pole worldcity stretched off to the horizon, gleaming in gold and red, but its nightglow was too feeble to penetrate far into the room. Above, like a strange reflection of the citygrid, the colossal latticework of Halstead's orbital shipyard complex twinkled with its own lights, so vast it filled the sky at this equatorial latitude.

"Are we sure this is the right guy?" asked the tall, unusually slender figure at the far end in a low, faintly metallic voice.

One of the others, as squat and broad as the first speaker was tall and thin, snorted. "Does it matter?" he replied, his tone deep and gravelly. "They're all scum. Whichever one we take out, we're doin' the galaxy a favor."

"It matters to me," the first replied. He tapped fitfully at the table with the talons of his two left fingers. "I didn't come all this way through Corporate Sector security just to commit random mayhem."

"Bah," said the second dismissively.

"An admirable sentiment, if perhaps impractical," said a third man's voice, this one filtered through the audio processor of a quarian environmental helmet, from the other end of the table. He added with dry humor, "I don't have to ask you where you got it. Regardless, you needn't worry. I verified this information myself. We are on the trail of the right man." The quarian manipulated a holographic omni-tool on his left forearm, causing the image of a hatchet-faced, middle-aged human to appear above the table's central projector. "GENOM's own records confirm that, on September 11, 2288, Captain Lorth Needa was in command of the Star Destroyer Avenger... a posting in which he remains today."

The first man leaned forward, revealing the deepset eyes and masklike face of a turian. "What do we know about him?"

"He's a career line officer," the quarian replied. "Has been with the company his entire adult life. He has several commendations and one black mark on his record."

"Black mark?"

"Not officially, but it shows in the pattern of the data. Immediately after it destroyed the Normandy, Needa's squadron was tasked with capturing any Wedge Defense Force fugitive who sought refuge on Cybertron. When Optimus Prime refused to turn them over, Needa was prepared to invade the planet, but was driven off by the arrival of a far superior Zentraedi battle fleet. It was the right move. Even Largo had to admit not only that Needa's force would almost certainly have lost that fight, but also that making the attempt would have sparked an open war between the company and the Zentraedi Alliance. Needa wasn't reprimanded for fleeing... but his squadron hasn't received a meaningful assignment in over a year. They've been here, on Corporate Sector patrol, since retreating from Cybertron, and Needa, while still ostensibly in command, has spent most of that time in an office planetside."

"Yeah, that reads like he's on somebody's shit list, all right," said a woman who hadn't spoken before.

"That may have changed today, however," the quarian went on. "Avenger received encrypted flag orders this morning. The squadron has been preparing to depart since that time. I don't know what was in those orders... " He hesitated fractionally, and a note of faint smugness crept into his filtered voice as he added, "... but I will. In any event, I'm delaying them as best I can by interfering with their automated maintenance and resupply orders, but their system operators will work around me soon enough. If we are going to strike, it has to be now, before Captain Needa returns to his ship and leaves the sector."

"Before we do that," said the woman, "we need to decide exactly what our intentions are. This deep in the Corporate Sector, we all need to be on the same page before we commit or there's liable to be trouble when the time comes to get out."

"That's easy," said the second speaker in his voice like crushed rocks. He leaned forward over his datascreen, lighting up his broad, brutally scarred face with its two wide-set, bright red eyes under a beetling brow of bony red plates. He smiled, baring rows of flat, uneven teeth, which didn't make him any better-looking, and went on, "We get this Needa guy into a corner and I rip his guts out. And then we all go home."

"Is that really necessary?" asked a fourth man. "I mean... don't shoot the messenger, here, but don't you guys think this has gone a little too far? Whoever this guy is, he's just a soldier like us. He was doing his job. Killing him in combat would be one thing, but you're talking about assassination. Maybe what we should do is concentrate on his bosses - see if we can find some evidence that will convince - "

The sixth member of the group, a slim woman who had stood silently by the window gazing out at the city during the discussion, suddenly spoke, her quiet voice cutting off the man's objections with a single cold syllable:

"No."

Everyone at the table turned to look at her. She ignored them for a moment, still looking out at the street grid. Then she turned, her eyes glinting in the reflection of the dim datascreen lights, and said in a voice filled with scorn, "This man Needa is not a soldier. He led a force of two dozen corporate starships that ambushed and destroyed a vessel one-tenth the size of their smallest member, without transmitting any challenge nor giving any quarter. He fired on the lifeboats fleeing from his victim. He kept attacking until the Normandy was destroyed and no one left aboard her could possibly be alive. He knew exactly what he was doing. That was not war. That was assassination, part of a galaxy-wide spree of assassinations that happened that day. And what we are here to do is what the rest of the galaxy appears unable or unwilling to do - exact justice, if only for our little part of it all."

"You know what she'd say," the man replied. "Killing this guy isn't going to bring her back. Maybe... maybe we ought to let it go."

The woman by the window gestured, the air around her rippling with a faint blue-white glow, and the speaking man was suddenly jerked from his seat to hover in midair as she stormed into his face.

"Let it go? Let it go?" she demanded acidly. "Our commander was murdered, Mr. Alenko. Exactly how do you suggest that I go about letting it go? This is an aspect of human psychology I am eager to study in greater depth."

Alenko scowled as if concentrating and broke free from the force holding him up, then stumbled as his boots hit the floor and steadied himself against his chair, which was now behind him.

"Shepard was murdered by a corporation, Liara. Not an individual. You don't think I hate them just as much as you do? She was my commander, and my friend, long before we ever met you. I'm just saying we should focus that hatred on the real culprits, rather than risk our lives for the sake of taking personal revenge against one man."

"No," Liara replied flatly. "I want this man dead. I want the last thing he ever sees to be my face. And I want him to know why."

There was a short, ugly silence; then the burly reptilian chuckled darkly and said, "I gotta say I'm with the asari on this one."

"And that's not something you'll hear a krogan say very often," quipped the other woman.

The krogan chuckled and reached across to bump fists with her. "You got that right, Williams."

"I can speak only for myself, of course," said the quarian, "but I'll tell you this. After I return to the Flotilla, I intend to have grandchildren one day. And I plan to tell them that yes, I served on the Normandy with the great Commander Shepard." He inclined his helmeted head, his mild voice taking on just the slightest edge, and went on, "And I will not have to tell them that well, yes, we did know who killed her... but of course we did nothing about it."

Alenko shook his head, looking pained. "Ash... Wrex... all of you guys are in this too deep."

"Too deep to back out now, that's for sure," said the turian. He leaned forward, folding his taloned hands in front of his chin, and spoke gently. "Look, Kaidan, if you want out, nobody's going to stop you. We've been through a lot together and we owe you that much. We're not demanding that you agree with us. Just... don't try to stop us. Okay? No hard feelings."

Alenko looked from face to face around the table, saw his former shipmates looking back at him with nearly identical looks of blank expectation. He turned to the sofa in the corner of the room, where a seventh person had been sitting silent in even deeper shadow this whole time, and asked,

"What about you, Joker?"

"What about me?" the man on the couch replied. He sat forward, elbows on knees, and tilted back the ballcap he wore so that he could regard Alenko face-to-face. "I say if Kevirin's sure this is the guy that killed the commander and the Normandy? I'd give 20 years off my life for an arm strong enough to break his goddamn neck myself. This guy we're talking about, I mean. Not Kev. I don't wanna break Kev's neck. Kev's my buddy."

"If I wasn't sure," said the slender quarian in his soft, dry voice, "I wouldn't have broadcast the go code."

"Well, there you go. Sorry, Kaidan. Gotta say I'm good with the petty-personal-revenge plan." Joker shrugged. "Way it goes. Win some, lose some."

Alenko sighed and turned to go. "Okay, fine," he said. "I know when I'm licked. Just... " He hesitated at the door, opened it, and turned back for one last look. "It's not what she'd have wanted." Ignoring the others, he looked straight at the asari and said flatly, "You know that, Liara."

Liara stared hard at him for a second, then two, and it seemed to some of the others as if she might lash out at him again... but then her flinty facade cracked, crumbled, and she resembled once more the mere centenarian she really was as she sat down hesitantly in an armchair and buried her face in her hands.

The young asari's breakdown seemed to dispel in an instant the tense, combative atmosphere that had come over the room. The others sat and watched her silently for a minute or two; Alenko let the door close and crossed back to the end of the couch, where Joker moved over to make room for him without a word. No one spoke until Liara had regained at least some of her composure and looked up apologetically.

"I... I am sorry," she said. "You are right, Kaidan. She would not wish us to be the aggressors. That was never... her way." She shook her head ruefully and added with a wry half-grin, "I should not have tried to duplicate her tough-guy act. I am not very good at it."

That got a laugh, slightly strained though it might've been, from all her shipmates, for they had all seen what their late commander had called her tough-guy act in person. Commander Virginia Shepard had been fun-loving and big-hearted almost to a fault, but when the situation called for it, she'd been capable of terrifying fits of badassery - terrifying to those poor saps on the receiving end, at least, the ones who had never seen her choke up at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

"So... " said Wrex dubiously. "We're not gonna whack this guy?"

Garrus sighed. "No," he said. "Alenko's right. I mean, imagine the hell we'd catch for it when we get to the afterlife."

Wrex snorted. "Yeah. Okay. I just hope nobody finds out about this back on Tuchanka." He shook his head. "No one who didn't know her would understand."

Williams sat back in her seat and regarded the matte-black blade of her RSMC combat knife with a detached, thoughtful expression. "I guess I could just challenge him to a kanly duel," she said, half-serious. "That wouldn't be very sporting either, though." She gestured to the holo of Needa's face that glowered from the table's central projector. "He doesn't look like he's held a weapon since Basic, and that was a long time ago."

"All right, well... if we're wimping out on the revenge thing, what do we do now?" asked Joker.

This sparked a brief discussion that was less acrid, but no less lively, than the one that had come before it. Thus engaged, none of Kevirin's shipmates noticed the soft pweep the quarian's omni-tool made, nor paid much attention as he disengaged from the debate to consult it. They all took notice a few moments later, however, when his voice, raised as Kevirin's almost never was, cut across all of theirs with a single sharply gasped word:

"Keelah!"

At this they all stopped talking and turned to him, startled.

"Uh... something wrong, Kev?" asked Joker.

Kevirin stared into his omni-tool's display field for a few moments longer, the curvilinear characters of the quarian alphabet reflecting backward off his helmet; then he looked up, the reflections of his eyes glinting just visible behind the duracrys, and said, "I've just finished decrypting Captain Needa's orders. I know what his squadron's next mission is."

"Well, don't keep us in suspense," said Williams.

"Task Force Avenger has been increased to full battle group strength," the quarian went on. "Needa has been provisionally promoted to rear admiral... pending the outcome of his new assignment."

"Somebody's giving him a chance to make up for the Cybertron thing," Alenko mused.

"But what is the new assignment?" Garrus asked. The quarian didn't answer; he'd gone back to reading the fast-scrolling display. "Kevirin?"

The masked face looked up sharply after a few more seconds of absorbed concentration. "I'm... sorry, Garrus. I was re-reading. Trying to convince myself I'd made some kind of mistake... but I haven't." Kevirin shook his head. "Avenger is to rendezvous with the rest of its new fleet in the Orron system, then proceed out of the Corporate Sector to an uninhabited system in the Centaurus sector. There, they are ordered to carry out what Needa's orders euphemistically term a 'recruiting operation'."

Kevirin sat back in his chair, letting his omni-tool's holoshell wink out as both hands dropped into his lap, and said in a flat, toneless voice,

"They're sending him after the Migrant Fleet."

"They call that 'recruiting'?" Williams asked.

"It means they intend to enslave the quarian people," said Liara.

Wrex snorted appreciatively. "That's blatant even for GENOM."

"Oh, they'll call it an offer of resettlement or some such, but the truth is, they don't think anyone will care," Kevirin said. "And they're probably right. Most of the United Galactica's members barely tolerate us as it is. Don't look at me like that, you know it's true. Even the Earth ambassador once called us 'space trash' in an unguarded moment. If GENOM seized the fleet and forced us to work for them, most of the UG's good people would say, 'It's about time they got a proper job.' They might even be looked on as doing us a favor," he added bitterly.

"Ambassador Udina's a prick," said Alenko. "You can't take his remarks for the sentiments of all the people of Earth."

"Yeah, most of us don't issue our statements from that far up our own asses," Joker agreed.

"I know you mean well, my friends, but let's not sugar-coat the facts," said the quarian bleakly. "You are favorably disposed to my people because you've come to know us through me, but most of the galaxy only notices us at all when one of us is caught stealing, or working illegally, or in some other way contributing to our reputation as a blight on the galaxy. The only reason something like this hasn't been tried before was because GENOM knew, after the Battle of the Cron Drift, that the Flotilla was under the WDF's protection. With them gone, this was only a matter of time."

"There are something like 50,000 ships in the Migrant Fleet," Garrus protested.

"Most of them are transports - all armed, but many not very well. Besides, Needa doesn't have to defeat our entire navy. A significant threat to one of the agro-ships and the Admiralty Board will fold." Kevirin sighed. "We can protect ourselves from pirates, but not a proper military force. Our standard doctrine if threatened by the latter is to flee."

"And GENOM's new Interdictor technology can prevent that from happening," said Williams.

"Precisely. Needa's new fleet has three of them. Even if they can't pin down the entire Flotilla, the best those who escaped could hope for would be to end up hopelessly scattered. That would condemn my people to slow extinction rather than enslavement." Kevirin shrugged. "Which is worse? You tell me."

"We have to warn them," said Liara.

"How?" Wrex asked. "We can't just phone them up from deep inside the Corporate Sector. 'Hey, thought you should know, GENOM's comin' for ya.'" He shook his head. "Even if we could get through they wouldn't believe us."

"We'll have to go there in person," Garrus said. "The Avenger has to go assemble the rest of its fleet. If we go straight there, we can get there ahead of GENOM."

"Uh... Captain Needa kind of blew up our ship, G-Man," said Joker. "That's sorta why we're here, I'm just sayin'."

Garrus pointed out the window at the shimmering grid of the orbital shipyards above. "Does it look to you like this planet has a shortage of starships?"

Everyone stared at him.

"Are you seriously suggesting we steal a ship?" Alenko asked. "From GENOM's main military shipyard in the Corporate Sector? Right out from under their noses?"

Garrus would've been grinning if his facial structure had allowed for it. "Yeah."

"That's insane."

The turian shrugged. "It's what Shepard would've done."

Alenko laughed. "That's true. Okay, I'm in."

Garrus eyed him sardonically. "I thought you were leaving."

"'Cause we were all in too deep," Williams added with a wry grin.

"That was different."

Wrex gave a tectonic chuckle. "Yeah. We're a lot more likely to get killed doing this."