Taking a moment to focus his mind and body, he rounded the corner alone, moving with an easy but determined pace.

The turians noticed him as he drew near, but they didn't draw their weapons or seem alarmed in any way.

"What's the matter?" one of them taunted. "Get kicked out of the party?"

"Forgot something," he muttered, still moving toward them.

He was ten meters away-easily close enough to deliver an accurate kill shot. But the guards were wearing combat suits; their kinetic barriers would easily deflect a round from this far. He had to get up close and personal for either of his weapons to be effective.

"If you leave the district, it'll cost you to get back in," the other warned.

He didn't bother to answer. Five meters. Just a few more steps and it would all be over. He was close enough to read the expressions on their avian features; he recognized the exact moment they realized he was a threat.

Had either of them taken a few quick steps back while he reached for his weapon, he wouldn't have stood a chance. Fortunately, they both held their ground.

Moving with blinding speed, Kai Leng lunged toward them, his left hand reaching back to grasp the knife in his belt as he closed the gap. He whipped the blade out and drove the tip into the throat of the nearest guard. Twisting his wrist as it penetrated the leathery skin, he severed both the trachea and the turian equivalent of the carotid artery.

The second turian had his gun drawn, but as he extended his arm to shoot, Kai Leng slapped it down with his free hand, causing the weapon to discharge into the floor at their feet. He let go of the knife and went for his own pistol. In a blur of motion he yanked the gun from his belt, brought his hand back in front of his body, jammed the nozzle against the turian's temple, and squeezed the trigger.

There was a wet pop as the back of the turian's head exploded, spewing bits of skull and gray matter out the opposite side. Kai Leng was staring into his enemy's eyes at the moment of death; he saw the pupils dilate as the synapses from what was left of the brain ceased firing and the turian slumped to the floor.

Kai Leng turned his attention back to the first guard. He was down but still twitching, his hands feebly pawing at the knife jutting out from his larynx. Kai Leng stepped forward and finished him off in the same way as he had his partner: one close-range shot through the head.

Looking back, he saw his team was already moving, doing their best to run while carrying Grayson and Darrin. He didn't see anyone else; if there had been any witnesses, they were smart enough to make themselves scarce.

Moving at a quick jog and switching off the burden of the bodies every few blocks, the six of them made it to the spaceport in under ten minutes. Five minutes after that, they were aboard the ship and safely off the station.

Only then did Kai Leng allow a satisfied smile to cross his face.

"Call the Illusive Man," he said to Shella. "Tell him Grayson's coming home."

FIVE.

Kahlee tossed and turned all night, constantly glancing over at the glowing clock by the bed. Each time she was surprised to see that only a few minutes had passed since she'd last checked; it seemed as if morning would never come.

She never slept well after one of Grayson's calls. She couldn't help but think about where he was, and what he was doing. And thinking of Grayson inevitably made her think of Gillian and Hendel.

She cared about each and every one of the students she'd treated, but Gillian had always held a special place in her heart. She knew Hendel was watching over the girl, but it didn't make her miss Gillian-or Hendel-any less.

The stoic security chief had been one of her closest friends on the station ... one of the few close friends she'd had in her life. Despite her outgoing personality, she tended to keep others at a distance, a trait she'd probably inherited from her misanthropic father.

It was strange to think how much influence Jon Grissom had had over her life. She'd taken great pains to conceal the fact that the man the Academy was named after was in fact her biological father. After her parents' divorce he'd vanished from her life, so she'd taken her mother's name. As she grew older, she tried her best to keep her relationship to one of Earth's most honored-and misunderstood-heroes secret.

Despite these efforts, her father had been thrust back into her life some twenty-odd years ago, when she had been on the run after being framed for the massacre of her fellow scientists at the Sion research facility. He'd hidden her at his home on Elysium, then later helped her and David Anderson-an Alliance soldier and the only other person who had believed Kahlee was innocent-escape off world.

Nearly two decades later Anderson had helped Commander Shepard expose Saren, the rogue turian Spectre, as a traitor to the Council. Kahlee had become a leading researcher in the field of biotics and the head of the Ascension Project. Her father, on the other hand, had stayed on Elysium. He had lived a lonely, isolated existence, refusing all interviews and doing his best to hide from a legendary reputation he never learned to bear.

She'd kept in regular, if infrequent, contact with her father up until the day he died. He had passed away from natural causes six months ago, at seventy-five: shockingly young by modern standards. But then her father had always been a relic from a bygone era.

There were hundreds of dignitaries at the funeral, all coming to pay their respects to a man they idolized, but never really knew. Kahlee had attended not as Grissom's daughter, but rather as a member of the Academy faculty: obviously she valued her privacy as much as he had.

The death of her mother when she was a teenager had shattered her world. Grissom's passing had had a much smaller impact. She never did feel close to her father: the two or three clandestine visits each year to his estate on Elysium had always resulted in uncomfortable conversations filled with long stretches of bitter silence. And yet, now that the surly old bastard was gone, she actually missed him. She still felt a small lump in her throat whenever she passed the memorial plaque in the mess hall that bore his name and likeness.

In an effort to turn her churning thoughts away from the people from her past, she tried to think of a way to smooth things over with Nick. She didn't want him to feel ashamed or embarrassed about what had happened, but talking to him directly might only make things worse.

If Hendel had still been here, she'd have asked him to handle it. But he was gone. Just like her father. And Grayson. And Anderson.

Why do all the men in my life tend to disappear?

That wasn't a question she wanted to mull over in the middle of a long, sleepless night. Fortunately, at that moment her terminal chimed to indicate an incoming message, giving her an excuse to jump out of bed and check it out.

She couldn't help but feel a twinge of apprehension as she flicked on the screen. At night the terminal was set to receive messages silently and store them until morning; it alerted her only when something tagged as Urgent came in. Seeing it was from Grayson made her even more anxious.

Unlike his call earlier in the day, this wasn't a live feed. She could see from the formatting that it was a prerecorded message and an encrypted data file. Her throat was too dry to swallow as she tapped the screen and watched it play.

The instant Grayson's image appeared she knew the message had been recorded months or even years ago. His face wasn't as lean; the bags under his eyes weren't as pronounced.

"If you're watching this, that means Cerberus has found me."

He spoke the words with cool, almost clinical detachment, but that didn't keep Kahlee's heart from jumping into her throat.

"I don't know if they'll come for you, too. They might not; the Illusive Man is practical enough that he might decide you are inconsequential to his plans. But he can also be vindictive and petty. It's a chance you can't afford to take."

She tried to focus on what Grayson was saying, but her mind was having trouble processing the words. She couldn't disconnect the recording from the man behind it. Was Grayson dead? Had they taken him prisoner?

"There's a file attached to this message," the recording continued in the same calm voice. "Everything I know about Cerberus is in there."

Grayson's monotone delivery was a sharp contrast to the chaos crashing down on Kahlee. Her head was spinning, her stomach churning. The whole thing seemed surreal, a nightmare from which she couldn't wake up.

"The Illusive Man is smart. He's careful. He only tells his operatives what they need to know. But I know far more than he suspects.

"Over the last several years working for Cerberus, I was gathering intel. Maybe some part of me knew even back then that I would turn on the Illusive Man. Or that he'd turn on me. Maybe I was just smart enough to want an insurance policy.

"Names of agents inside the Alliance. Locations of key facilities and safe houses. Shell companies owned by the Illusive Man. Whatever information I could gather, no matter how small, is there.

"Some of the information might be out of date-locations move; new operatives are brought in. But in the right hands what I know could do real damage to Cerberus."

A spark of hope flickered inside Kahlee. If Grayson was still alive, she might be able to use the files he'd sent her to figure out where Cerberus had taken him.

"Don't try to rescue me," the message continued, as if the recording could read her thoughts. "If you're seeing this, then I'm as good as dead."

Kahlee shook her head in an instinctive, unconscious refusal.

"You have to protect yourself. Get this information to someone in authority. Someone with the power to go after Cerberus. You have to destroy the Illusive Man; it's the only way you'll ever be safe."

The message went silent for several seconds, and Grayson's brow furrowed on the screen. Then he barked out a grim laugh.

"I don't know who you can go to," he admitted. "I wish I did. Cerberus has people at nearly every level inside the Alliance. Anyone in a position of power could be working for the Illusive Man.

"But you're smart. I know you'll figure something out. Just be careful who you trust."

The message ended abruptly, catching Kahlee off guard. There were no last words; no sentimental goodbyes. Grayson had told her what she needed to know, then simply ended the recording.

For several minutes she just sat in her chair, staring at the frozen image of Grayson's face on the last frame of the recording as she tried to absorb the horrific news.

Once she felt more in control, she muttered, "Replay," and watched the recording a second time to make sure she hadn't missed anything important during her first emotional viewing.

When it was done, she loaded an optical scan disk into her terminal and copied the information from the attached file. Then she got up, went to her closet, and began to pack. She wasn't panicking, but there was a definite sense of urgency in everything she did.

Despite the emotional shock, she was already thinking about a plan of action. She couldn't stay at the Academy; it might put the children and other staff at risk.

There were a number of people she could go to. She was recognized as one of humanity's most brilliant scientists; over her career she'd come in contact with any number of politicians and military liaisons who would listen to-and believe-her story.

But could she trust any of them? These weren't friends; they were acquaintances at best. Any one of them could be working for Cerberus.

If her father had still been alive she would have gone to him. If Hendel had still been here she would have asked him for help. But they were gone, just like Grayson.

There was only one person she could turn to. Someone she hadn't seen since her father's funeral, and only a handful of times in the decade before that. But Kahlee trusted him absolutely. And she knew she had to get Grayson's information to him as soon as possible.

Aria T'Loak stood motionless beside the bed, staring down at Liselle's naked, blood-soaked body. Two salarian technicians crawled around on the bedroom carpet, collecting samples of blood, hair, and fibers. Another was processing the room's extranet terminal while four more scoured the rest of the apartment, looking for any shred of evidence that might help reveal what had happened.

The signs of a struggle were obvious, though how many had been involved in the battle-and who they were-was impossible to tell. All they knew for sure was that the man known to them as Paul Johnson was gone, and so were the drugs.

That wasn't his real name, of course. As the enterprising human had worked his way up the ranks of her organization, Aria had had him checked out. It hadn't taken long to discover that Paul Johnson was an assumed name, but that hadn't alarmed her. He was hardly the only person in her organization using a forged identity.

A few months of careful surveillance assured her that he wasn't working for a rival gang or some law enforcement agency looking to move in on Omega, but she never had figured out who he really was. She'd had her people take biometric samples: fingerprints left on glasses at the club; retinal, facial, and morphology scans from the station's various security cameras; skin, hair, and even blood samples gathered by Liselle while Paul lay sleeping beside her. None of it came back as a match to any known database.

Aria didn't like uncertainty. Her first instinct had been to have Paul eliminated, just to be safe. She'd even ordered Liselle to do it. But the younger asari had pleaded for Paul's life. He had skills Aria could use, she'd insisted; he was valuable to the organization. Whatever his past was, he had left it behind when he'd come to Omega. He was loyal to Aria now, Liselle swore ... as loyal as anyone who worked on Omega could be, at least.

In the end, Aria had let herself be persuaded. And now Liselle was dead.

Over the centuries, Omega's Pirate Queen had seen thousands, if not millions, of bodies: both those of her enemies and her allies. She'd stood over more asari corpses than she could remember, many of them slain by her own hand. But it was rare she had to face the death of one of her own offspring.

At her mother's insistence, Liselle had kept their relationship hidden. Aria didn't want her enemies to use the knowledge against her, and she didn't want Liselle to go through life with a target on her back. Yet in the end, it hadn't mattered.

Despite the seething rage she felt over the death of her daughter, Aria wasn't about to jump to any conclusions. There were too many possibilities in play. This could have been a retaliatory attack by the Talons, though that didn't seem likely. Why come to make peace with her, only to start the war up again? They were smarter than that.

Plus, the Talons had no reason to take Paul with them. If they were responsible, his body should have been lying beside Liselle's. In fact, she couldn't think of anyone who would want to take Paul prisoner ... which meant there was a good chance he was in on it.

She turned and strode quickly from the bedroom, her face an emotionless stone mask as she left her daughter's body behind.

Sanak was somewhere in the hall outside trying to find out if the neighbors had seen or heard anything useful. She'd sent a pair of krogans to accompany him-a not too subtle message that when Sanak asked a question, he expected a very thorough answer.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much chance of his learning anything new. Omega First Security had already offered a five-thousand-credit reward for any information that could lead to the apprehension-or elimination-of those responsible for killing their district guards. So far they had no significant leads. Aria's reputation was known to everyone on Omega, but if five thousand credits couldn't make someone come forward, neither could the legendary wrath of the Pirate Queen.

She crossed the kitchen and entered the living room just in time to see Sanak returning. From the batarian's expression she could tell his report wouldn't please her.

"We spoke to everyone in the building," he said, tilting his head to the left in an unconscious gesture of respect peculiar to his species. "A few shots fired; a group of six or seven seen running from the apartment. All of them human. Nothing new."

Aria could have lashed out at him for his failure, but there was no point. She would use violence and intimidation to get what she wanted; they were valuable tools in negotiation and in motivating those working for her. But she knew Sanak was doing everything he could.

Although not her most intelligent employee, he was loyal and relentless in the pursuit of her goals. Getting angry at him served no purpose. She didn't berate her underlings without cause; it only led to resentment and eventual betrayal.

"So we still don't even know if Johnson is a victim or a traitor," she mused.

"My money's on traitor," Sanak offered. "You can't trust humans."

Rather than respond, Aria fixed him with a penetrating stare.

"Look at the evidence," he continued quickly, realizing she needed more than just his personal hatred of a species to be convinced. "Liselle's throat was slashed; she trusted her killer to let him get in close. And what about the drugs? I wanted to take them to you at the club. Johnson insisted we leave them here with him. Seemed kind of strange."

"Bringing the sand to the club would have been a foolish risk."

"It wasn't what he said," the batarian insisted. "It was how he said it. Seeing all that sand affected him. He kept staring at it. His lip was twitching. He used to dust up. It was obvious.

"And he left the club alone," Sanak added. "I saw Liselle there by herself."

"Obviously you think that's relevant," she noted, impressed by how much thought he'd given this. "You have a theory?"

Sanak blinked his uppermost eyes, collecting his thoughts before he spoke.

"Johnson couldn't resist the sand. Felt that old craving deep inside. So he called some old friends on the station. Invited them over for a party. Liselle showed up to surprise him. He knew he was caught. Had his friends hide in the bedroom. Invited her inside. Cut her throat. Grabbed the drugs and took off with his friends."

Aria considered the explanation briefly before discarding it. "It doesn't make sense. Why was Liselle naked?"

"Humans are sick, twisted animals. Probably raped her before they killed her. Or maybe after."

"You said the neighbors heard gunfire," Aria countered quickly, eager to push away the mental images of her daughter being violated. "Explain that."

The batarian blinked all four eyes this time, struggling to come up with a plausible answer. Before he could, one of the salarians emerged from the bedroom hall.

"Extranet terminal. Wiped clean," he reported in the staccato manner of his kind.

Sanak pounced on the new information. "Bastard was covering his tracks. He had to be in on it."

"Get a trace from the network. I want copies of every message going in or out of this apartment for the past month."

The salarian shook his head vigorously from side to side. "Human was smart. Scramblers. Encryption. Impossible to rebuild messages."

"We have nothing?" Aria exclaimed, her anger and frustration seeping into her tone for the first time.

"N-no m-messages," the suddenly anxious technician stammered. "Identify callers, maybe. Find where messages sent. Best we can hope for."