Hidden in the outer edges of the Collector's massive salvage yard, they had lain in wait for what felt like nearly an hour. Kelly, and the rest of her squad, had watched a few small Collector patrols move along large piles of scraps and various stripped down spacecraft. Most were on foot, while others moved on what looked like bigger versions of the hover pads used transport the colonialists.

Through the dim lighting that this station seemed to favor, their dissection and salvaging operations hadn't slackened in the slightest. If they were concerned that the redhead, along with the rest of her friends, was going to make an attempt to infiltrate, then they didn't show it.

All four of our heroes were spread out in four very different positions that offered commanding views of the battlefield, while being able to stay in good cover and concealment. The Collectors were either oblivious, or just plain dumb… more than likely, they never expected anybody to ever try and assault this area. Kelly looked out over the main path, and she knew that the plan was pretty strait forward. They were going to have to move fast, and hit hard. Take them out before they had any chance to call in any reinforcements.

Almost second nature to her, Kelly checked her weapon and was satisfied that it was charged and ready. "This is Red Phoenix to all units, prepare to engage enemy on my mark." She said into her omnitool. The Yeoman raised her weapon, and sighted the nearest of the Collectors. The rest of her squad squawked in, and Kelly gave the order "Operation is go. Take! take! take!"

Streams of automatic weapons fire lanced out from the darkness, and began to strafe along the exposed Protheans. They were rewarded by seeing them drop dead, and while some made it into cover, others stayed and tried to lay down suppressing fire. However, without knowing where they were, they only became favorable targets and were brought down as such.

One of them began to twitch and writhe, his body glowing…

"This is Red Phoenix to Delta 1-9, Harbinger spotted 2 o'clock of my position, 100 meters out. Target deemed priority, I repeat, target deemed priority!" She said, and without actually seeing them, she heard and felt the distinctive 'thoomp' of anti-personnel grenades launching out of their tubes and streak down to Harbinger. The Reaper incarnate didn't even get to finish announcing himself, when the high explosive shells began detonating right on top of him…

Ken Donnelly and Khalisah both glanced at each other in worry, before turning back to Kelly as she continued to make explosion noises with her mouth. Conrad probably would have joined their moment of WTF-ing were he not trying to hold up his hands to cover his face. Kelly's verbal booms had real shrapnel, in the form of little droplets of spit.

"W-Wait" he said, partially to get her to stop spitting on him, and also because he had a legitimate question. "We're going to launch grenades at Harbinger when he shows up? Miss, do we even have any grenades?" Conrad turned back to the others. "Do you guys have grenades?"

"Kelly, sweetie…" Khalisah inched forward, and placed a gentle hand on our hero's shoulder. "…for the past 15 minutes now, nothing you've said has in any shape, way, or form, resembled anything sounding like a plan… In fact, that was probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life… I'm now that much dumber for having heard it."

Kelly's visibly deflated, and she looked like she was about to cry. "I'm sorry; I'm just so hungry that I can't even think anymore."

Ken, smirked "heh… You should have a Snickers bar. You're not you when you're hungry." He said, having never been able to resist a poor joke, at an inappropriate moment. He would have smiled at his clever reference of a 200 year old commercial, were it not for the sudden look of brittle hope the yeoman gave him.

"You have a Snickers bar?" she asked, like… well… like a starving woman was being promised a Snickers bar.

"Er, uh…" the Scotsman stammered "no, it was… it was a joke…"

Kelly's eyes began to water "Why would you lie to me like that?" she quavered.

"Hold on, Hold on… do we have grenades that nobody's telling me about? Because we could really use some grenades-"

"Moving on!" The loudmouth said loudly "Kelly, I know you're not feeling to up to it right now, but we need you to focus for a minute, okay?" she asked, and Kelly nodded. "Now you said that there are Collectors roaming around this 'salvage yard' you keep talking about?"

Kelly nodded. "Yea, but there's only, like… 15 of them, at the most, and they're mostly busy taking that stuff apart. The rest of it is just stuff they haven't gotten to yet. Small ships, shuttles, hover cars… lots of big shipping containers."

"Aye, that sounds about right" Ken said with a thoughtful look "they need to get supplies and materials, somehow. Wouldn't surprise me if this place was just a big patchwork job by now. It would explain why everythin's so ugly."

Kelly replayed the time that she spent in the yard back in her head again, "They all pretty much stick to that area, and if we can manage to not bump into one of them, when they're coming out to get more stuff, then I think we should be okay."

"Well that's great, and all" Conrad said, and he gestured to the front door "but how do we get through the door though without them killing us."

Being exiled from the ventilation system had presented many, many problems, for our 4 heroes. One of the biggest was that they had to move out in the open now. The primary corridors were huge, highway sized, and offered little to no cover should the need arise. Their only saving grace were the smaller structural or maintenance items that were placed along the side of the road, at regular intervals. Things like electrical boxes, support beams, or even random shadows cast by whatever, were the only things that kept them from being spotted.

And it sure wasn't fun either. Some big platform like vehicle, hauling whatever, would hover by and all 4 would have to dog pile themselves into an area the size of a foot locker. The awkward silences that followed were something you wouldn't believe, as everybody has at some point, hit second base with everybody else by now.

However, all of this paled in comparison to their current challenge; getting in the front door.

Doesn't sound that bad, does it? It was unlocked; they could easily walk right in. Unfortunately, the Collectors also used the front door and unlike Kelly's first encounter, they had orders to shoot-on-sight now.

"hhmmm… That does present a problem…" Kelly said, and chewed her fingernail as she watched the Collectors transit the large gate like door. Some of them were just flying with their wings, while most were moving on what they used for platform vehicles, just oversized variations of their pods that they used to carry colonialists. There didn't seem to be a pattern, sometimes it be 30 seconds before anybody came through, sometimes it would be 10. Once, it was a whole 2 minutes before anybody came through.

Either way, trying to time it out and wait for an opening seemed like a bad idea.

Ken Donnelly huffed in impatience, "Well we canna just sit here forever. We got guns; ah say we just punch our way throu-"

"I'm dumb, and unimaginative," Khalisah said, adopting a Scottish accent that was just passible enough to be offensive "and I have no concept of the fact that we're facing a literal army, so I want to go in 'GUNS-A-BLAZIN' to see how many assholes I can bring down upon us." She said, and gave Ken a look. "Does that summarize your plan, right there?"

"No, I think you're forgetting the part where you trip, and fall into a dahmned pod, where we leave your sorry ass!"

"Oh, hell no!" She said, and for a moment, it looked like she was about to fight Ken right there and then, when Conrad put himself between the two.

"Guys, c'mon," Kelly groaned. It was bad enough that Kelly was already having regrets about not taking the deal, but now it seemed like her own squad was going to kill themselves if the Collectors don't get to them first. Their entire moral was at an all-time low, and Kelly was willing to admit that hers was too. For the umpteenth time in a row now, Kelly wished she had something to eat.

Stupid Collectors, she thought angrily, and watched them stream though the door. She just wished that they'd just… take a break, or something. Maybe go find something better to do, and give them a little breathing room. Or maybe something to preoccupy themselves for a few minutes… like… like a…

"What if we distracted them?" she asked, and turned to her friends. She found that she was interrupting Kenneth and Khalisah in the middle of a slap fight. Conrad was in the middle, trying and failing to maintain as much distance between the two as possible.

"Focus!" she said, and finally she had their attention. "If we can keep them occupied at this gate for a second, we should be able to sneak right by."

"Aye" Ken was the first to speak up, while rubbing a sore spot on his face from where the loudmouth had gotten a good hit in "It sounds like a plan, but I dunna think we have anything that would really grab their attention… Not unless you can cause another one of those big fires, again."

If only. Kelly thought. That would be great, but unfortunately there weren't any pipes nearby.

"W-What if I use myself as bait?" Conrad suggested. Everyone turned to him with equal parts shock, and Khalisah looked a little horrified. "I mean. I could take a few shots at them, and try to run as far as I can… I'm probably just going to get myself killed anyway… might as well do something helpful before that happens."

"Oh, Conrad…" Kelly frowned. What he was suggesting was suicide with nowhere to fall back to. And by the way he said it, it sounded like he knew it too. The poor man was having some serious self-esteem issues. Kelly was about to say something, however though, the loudmouth beat her to it by smacking him upside of his head with a resounding 'whack!'

"No, you moron, we're not going to use you as bait!" she said, and looked at Kelly "We're not using anybody as bait, right?" she asked warningly, and Kelly shook her head in agreement. Satisfied, Khalisah turned back to the pretender and called him a 'goddamned idiot' for good measure. Nobody commented on the fact that her harsh words lacked that 'bite' that she usually had.

Kenneth shrugged, and looked at everyone for conformation "So, is this it? Are we not goin for it?" Kelly frowned and began to chew her fingernail again, realizing that they really might not be. They desperately needed stuff, but it wasn't worth making a suicide run at the Collectors for it. And God help her, but she wasn't going to let anybody sacrifice themselves, for any reason, if she could help it.

She sighed. They'd have make do without "No, I guess we're no-"

"Wait!" Khalisah said, and everyone turned to her. Kelly noted her reluctance, and the way that she protectively cradled her Holo-recorder "I might have something."

Everyone watched as she brought up the interface of her camera. She fiddled with the little touch screen, and scrolled though all of the footage that she'd accumulated so far. Kelly didn't know what she was doing, but she assumed it had something to do with the editing features, and finally, she pointed her camera at a nearby spot and hit ON.

"Oh, that's cool!" Kelly said. She found herself looking at a 3D projection of the loudmouth standing there.

"It's a little grainy, cause I had to expand the shit out of the image, but I think it will do." She said sourly "If we place it within 100 feet of the door, then I can set it to project on a 2 minute timer."

"It's perfect!" Kelly said happily "That'll give us just the window we…" She stopped and thought about it for a moment. "Wait, we'd be leaving your camera behind…"

Khalisah gave her a look that said that she was distinctly aware of this fact

The loudmouth's issues were pretty clear to Kelly, really. Her interviews with Shepard were actually included into his psyche file. Kelly also noted that she'd never pressed any charges (not that it would have mattered, as Shepard is a council SPECTRE), nor did she try and sue for any medical bills. This had prompted Kelly on a small journey though the extranet, thinking maybe that she'd been intimidated not to pursue anything.

She remembered being saddened to find that the reason she didn't raise any problems, was because this sort of thing happened to her all the time. Her career was in the gutter. Kept only afloat by her shock journalism methods, which more than often ended with her getting pounded in the face. People loved this (much to Kelly's disgust) and Wusterland news made an entire show out of it. They were actively forcing her to interview the most volatile celebrities that they could think of, in hopes that Khalisah's abrasive personality will push them over the edge.

It was a vicious cycle.

Judging by the way she was acting, that camera, and the story that was building within it, was her ticket out of that life. Now that she thought about it, Kelly was actually pretty touched that she was willing to risk that ticket on helping them stay alive.

"Khalisah" Kelly said, her memory bringing up the map before her eyes "that salvage yard only has one door leading into it. And since we can't use the ventilation ducts anymore, that means that we only have one way out. I promise that we will pick it back up, on the way out."

The loudmouth only glared at her with a look of mistrust. She was clearly a woman who's heard her share of false promises. Probably comes with the life in show business, Kelly thought.

"I swear it" she said, and met her eyes "I don't care what is going on, we will not leave your camera behind. Okay?"

She only stared for a few seconds before she finally spoke "You better not be jerking me around." She warned.

"I promise you, Khalisah, I'd never jerk anybody around like that" she declared.

X

Harbinger seethed, as the reaper was positive that this sack of human garbage was just jerking it around.

Having possessed a slave, Harbinger was now all the way down in Deck 72, taking care of the latest mess that the redheaded rat had made: the thousands of dead swarmers that were stuck in the air conditioning filters.

Technically it was kind of the reapers own fault for having released them, knowing that this was going to happen. But what choice did the Harbinger have? This thing, that Cerberus let loose on its base, was clearly not to be underestimated anymore. Commander Shepard was still the number one threat of the human race… but man, this little witch…

Harbinger watched as a drone hefted a heavy looking filter, which was almost as tall as the Collector itself, and turned it over. Hundreds of dead wasps poured out, but for every 2 that fell, there was at least one still stuck inside. They were going to have to be handpicked, and this filter was one of, like, 180 others; all of them clogged.

She was making a fool out of Harbinger, and quite frankly, the reaper has had enough.

One of the drones lifted a vent to shake out the swarmers, however, there was still a little bit of nanobot gel inside and it splashed on its face. Harbinger turned just in time to watch it flail around in pain, only to bump into the barrel they were putting the dead swarmers in, and watched as it teetered and finally fall over, spilling its contents all over their stack of clean filters they'd just got done cleaning. They will now have to start all over again.

Had Harbinger had a set of working lungs, it would have sighed.

X

It was the waiting that killing Kelly. It was unavoidable, but that didn't mean that she had to like it.

Khalisah needed time to set up her camera. That part was easy; the hard part was putting in a relatively close spot near the door. Kelly worried for the loudmouth, as she had to go about that particular endeavor by her lonesome. There was just no other way to do it, all four of them would just be asking for trouble.

She was at least able to reassure Kelly that she'd made an entire career out of sneaking around, and putting cameras in places they had no business being. The yeoman was still chewing away at her fingernails, but at least she was able to have some faith that she wouldn't hear the sudden 'crack' of a rifle, marking the death of Khalisah.

…and so she waited.

Now, while they waited for her to return, Kelly could only sit with the rest of the squad and watch the Collector traffic from their hiding spot. Just wait, watch, and wonder what might Collectors used to be like. What might happen to their own race one day, should they fail to stop the reapers.

Looking around, Kelly thought about what Ken said, about this place being a big patchwork job. The space station was in pretty bad shape. Like, really bad. There was not 3 feet of this station that wasn't somehow corroded, malformed, or unclean. The base LOOKED 50,000 years old, and though she was no expert, it didn't look like it could make it another 50 millennia.

…It all kind of gave Kelly a little theory.

She was willing to bet that when the reapers finished killing off everyone in Citadel space, that whoever was left was going to come back and replace the Protheans. Like… like, maybe they might someday become the Collectors.

The whole idea was absurd, but in its own way, it kind of made sense. Though she still didn't know what purpose this station served, or why they had to process humans to do it, it was evidentially important enough for the reapers to maintain this facility, in secret, for an entire cycle.

However, unlike the Citadel, which has gone many cycles and was in pristine condition, the Collector base was falling apart in one. It made her think that this place was disposable. From what Kelly's seen from the reports, the reapers never did anything without reason. Everything was perfectly timed out, galactic extinction on a perfect schedule.

Maybe… when it was all said and done, humanity would get themselves a shiny new base to hide in, only to come out 50,000 years from now, and start collecting the next set of races that ruled the stars. What they're fighting here and now, might not just be their enemy… they might be fighting their future.

"wow..." Kelly quietly whispered to herself. She had to be careful not to let the breeze give away their position, because this whole thing is just blowing her mind.

"Hey."

Kelly jumped, just barely managing to stifle what would have been shrill 'eek!'.

"Khalisah, you scared me!" she whispered harshly "I didn't even hear you, when did you get back?"

"Like, two minutes ago!" She whispered back "I already explained how this thing works to these two chucklefucks, weren't you even listening?" She said, and pointed to her wrist, which was aglow with what could have been mistaken for an omnitool. However, Kelly could see that it only had a few buttons on the interface, so more than likely; it was just a remote control for her holo-recorder. She then looked over at Kenneth, and Conrad, and they seemed to be checking their weapons, obviously getting ready to move.

"Uh…" Kelly stammered for a second "Yea… I totally was… but just in case, I think we should go over it again." She lied.

Obviously not buying it, Khalisah rolled her eyes and began to explain. "Okay, I've got the camera set up in a pretty safe location. This thing on my wrist is a remote, and as soon as we're ready, I'll push play and it will project an image. We gatta move fast, though, cause I don't think it'll take those assholes long to figure out it's a fake. You got that?"

"Got it."

"Good"

Kelly looked to the others "You guys all ready?" she asked. They nodded, looking as ready as anybody could look, when they were about to do something really dangerous, on an untested plan.

"Ah hope this plan doesn't go all tits up…"

"y-yes ma'am, I'm ready."

"Okay, when we get in there" Kelly almost said 'if' "I want us to stay away from the entrance, that's where most of the drones are probably going to be. I want us to split up; there are lots of shipping containers, boxes, and even a couple of small ships I remember seeing in there." She said, and then began addressing each of them individually.

"Kenneth, I need you to find some kind of transportation for us, a hover car, a shuttle, something, anything really."

"Are you sure that's a good idea, lass? Won't that just make us kinda obvious?"

"Probably, but as it stands, we're at their mercy out here with no cover." She said, and gestured to the massive corridor they were in. "A lot of the vehicles I seen were stripped down, but some more than others. If you think you can fix it, go for it. If nothing else, I'd rather be a moving target than a sitting duck."

"Aye, lass, I'll find something good."

"Conrad" she said, and the pretender perked up "I'm putting you on weapon's detail. Poke around the shipping containers, maybe some of the boxes, anything you can find that's better than what we've got. Can you do that for me?" Conrad shook his head "Yes ma'am!"

"And just call me Kelly, okay?"

"Yes ma- er, Kelly." He stammered, and Kelly only gave him a sweet smile, before turning to Khalisah.

"Khalisah, you're looking for the miscellaneous stuff, anything we're not thinking of." Kelly said, and the loudmouth harrumphed, and crossed her arms at her chest "well that sounds really fucking important." She said sarcastically.

"I'm serious!" Kelly said "Khalisah, that thing with the hologram was a great idea! I didn't know that those holo-recorders did that, and there's so much stuff just lying around this base. Heck, I randomly found an omnitool with a shields and a combat drone, who knows what else there is out here."

"… My hologram thing was a pretty nifty idea…"

"And you're saving our butts, because of it." Kelly reaffirmed "So can I trust you to do this for me?"

"Fine, but what are you going to be doing?" She asked.

"I'm going to try and see if I can find us some supplies. Medigel, heatsinks, that kind of stuff…" she said, and left out food. That was actually at the top of their list, before 'Medigel'. Kelly was so hungry, that she would seriously consider eating a turian ration, should she find one.

A few minutes, and a little bit of sneaking later, they were as close to the door as they dared. Completely oblivious to our heroes, the Collectors continued their stream of steady traffic. They were so close, that they could actually hear them chitter amongst themselves. Hidden mostly by the shadows, Kelly wordlessly looked to Khalisah and gave her the go-ahead.

The loudmouth nodded in return, raised her right hand and began a silent countdown from three.

Soundlessly, a perfectly proportioned, three dimensional Ken Donnelly winked into existence, not 15 feet from the Collector line.

…and nothing happened.

Well, that's not accurate, almost nothing happened. The Collectors that were moving though all slowed to get a look at the man. For a second, Kelly wondered if this was like her first time coming through, and allowed herself to hope that maybe the Collectors would just let them walk in unmolested.

Unfortunately, that wasn't meant to be, as one of the drones finally deviated from its course. Hefting its arm full of spare parts, its body language made it almost look like it was more annoyed than anything else.

Our four protagonists could only watch in mute fascination, as the Prothean carefully set its heavy load down, pulled up its rifle, and put a single round through "Ken's" head. This caused the real Kenneth to shiver unconsciously at watching what should have been his own execution.

Khalisah turned, and looked back to the others 'That's it!? Do they know it's a fake?' she wordlessly mouthed the others.

Conrad shrugged 'I don't think so, they tried to shoot it.' He mouthed back, and the loudmouth turned to Ken with an accusatory look. 'You fucking suck as bait!'

The maintenance man only responded with one finger, but the message was pretty clear.

Uninterested of the wordless bickering behind her, Kelly continued to watch the Collector that'd shot the hologram. It merely looked at its own gun, the fake Scotsman, and shrugged its shoulders in a 'welp, I tried' fashion, before it picked up its load and resumed its journey.

…It didn't look like it didn't fool them, it almost kinda looked like they just didn't care. Like they were busy, and couldn't be bothered to put that much effort to kill what they probably ranked just slightly above a cockroach.

Maybe, just maybe, the plan was solid and they were just using the wrong bait…

Kelly frowned, and she had to look of a woman who was about to ask a question that she severely didn't want to know the answer to.

She turned back to Khalisah and tapped her shoulder, who was busy flipping Ken off with both hands in response to the his one. She turned back to Kelly with an irritated 'what do you want?'

Undeterred, Kelly mouthed 'Make the hologram look like me.'

'What, why?'

'Just do it.'

The woman grumbled, and began to fiddle with her remote. The Ken hologram winked out, and after a few seconds, it was replaced with one of the Yeoman…

I'd like to say that Kelly waited to see what would happen next, but in reality, there was no waiting.

Every Collector, all of them with any sort of visual range of the new hologram, instantly and literally dropped what they were doing and drew their weapons with the speed of a spaghetti western film.

Kelly barely had time to raise their eyebrows in shock as they all opened fire on her visage, all of their weapons on fully automatic. The hail of death, which they managed rain down, was so thick that it actually caused the hologram to flicker.

"Oh my god!" Conrad said. He didn't even try to keep it down, their firestorm was so loud he could barely hear himself, let alone them. Ken was outright speechless, and Khalisah slowly pulled her sight away, and turned to Kelly with a look of awe.

"…Holy shit, Kelly, they have a real big hard-on for you."

Kelly watched in utter despair, as her decoy look-a-like now had several particle beams streaming through her "Aww, man, I am gonna diiieee…" she sobbed, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.

Kenneth shook his head. This was most definitely the opening that they were waiting for, and began to herd the younger redhead by her shoulders "O-Okay, they look pretty distracted to me! We should really get… what the bloody hell?!"

One of the Protheans came running up with a large wooden club, with a bunch of rusty nails in it for good measure, and began to viciously swing at hologram Kelly's head.

"Why!?" Kelly cried "where would they even get the wood, or nails, to even make something like that?!"

"We're moving now!" Khalisah said, and they all quietly crept through the side of the gate that nobody was looking at. To be honest, they could have snuck in a marching band with how focused they were on what they thought was the Yeoman. Kelly risked one last glance, just in time to see one collector dump a bucket of green liquid on her decoy. Being that it was just a hologram, it went right through and splashed on the ground. To her horror, it became obvious that it was acid as it began to bubble, and eat through the panels of the floor.

"Is that even necessary!?" she wailed, and was pulled away by her friends.

X

Kelly Chambers stared straight ahead, and walked the walk of the damned. The normally perky young woman had made a career, hell, an entire lifestyle of being the nicest person that she knew. She's made it this far in live without anybody ever wanting to kill her, and now everybody wanted to, in the worst possible way!

"Aww, don't look so glum, lass, we're here to watch yer back. Things aren't as bad as they seem." Ken said from behind her.

Kelly wiped her eyes, and found that the kind words from the Scotsman did lift her heart a little. "Thanks, you guys." She said, and turned around "If I'm stuck here, then I'm glad to at least have such wonderful friends like y…" Kelly paused, and noticed something wrong. They were all standing next to each other, like normal, but were maintaining at least 15 feet from Kelly herself.

"…Why are you guys standing so far away for?" She asked, and they instantly looked uncomfortable. Ken found a sudden newfound interest in the floor, while Conrad 'uuhhh'd' and rubbed the back of his neck. Khalisah's eyes darted left and right, like she was looking for something to dive behind.

"w-well you see" Conrad began slowly "we just thought that we saw you… sneeze…" He lied, and Khalisah nodded quickly in agreement "Yea! What he said! We just thought that you looked a little sick and we don't want to catch a bad case of… screwed..." She finished, lamely.

Kelly's lip began to quiver.

"Riiggghht" Ken dragged out "we're just gonna go ahead and get to findin that stuff you asked for." He said awkwardly.

"You know what, fine!" Kelly said, and turned around with an angry huff "just leave me here, all alone, for the Collectors to find, I-I don't even care!" she said, and turned back to face them again "But if I find any food, I am not gonna sha…"

Kelly blinked and realized that there wasn't anybody standing there. They'd all managed to vanish in the one second that she'd turned around.

"You guys are jerks!" she cried, but was only met with the sound of crickets.

Aww, poor Kelly. Anyway, speaking of tremendous jerks…

x Meanwhile x

Being assigned the post of 'Greeter', on the planet of Bakenstein was probably one of the safest, easiest, and least desired jobs in all of Donavan Hawk's private army. The planet's atmosphere was lush, hot, and very humid, which made standing in one spot in heavy armor absolute torture.

And worse than the heat were the people that he had to deal with.

All of them were self-important pompous assholes, who practically expected him to bow down before them, as if they were the single most important being in the entire galaxy. And god help him, and today was going to be the worst, because today was Donavin Hawk's big party.

"Mwah mwah mwah mwah…" An old woman, probably in her late 60's, continued to prattle on while sounding suspiciously like a teacher in a Charlie Brown cartoon. The assigned guard was sure she was making actual words and stuff, but to be honest he didn't really care. Years of combat training, and all of his experience with the Alliance Marines all boiled down to two simple words.

"Yes Ma'am" he said, when there was a brief pause in the random sounds she was emitting. She seemed satisfied, so he figured he'd responded in the correct context and let her though. All he needed to know to know was that her name was on the list, and that she was unarmed. Days like today, he sometimes wished that some heavily armed terrorist actually would try to come through.

"Scuse me, bitches. Pardon me; playas gotta play his play, on a schedule after all…" The greeter looked up from his list and around the line of guests to see what the sudden commotion was.

What he saw promptly made his jaw drop.

"…Wut?"

Warlords, crime bosses, top profile assassins, and multibillion credit corporate tycoons were being roughly shoved aside like they were cannon fodder at a Wal-Mart Black Friday sale as Commander Shepard, along with a tiny Japanese woman, were blatantly cutting the line and making their way to the front. The Commander himself was dressed in an expensive tuxedo, and on a hover pad, was dragging along the single ugliest statue the guard had ever seen in his life.

The private security officer looked up at the man, who looked severely uncomfortable in his suit, and raised an eyebrow.

"uhh, hello sir, can I have your name please?" he asked, brought up his list, and eyed the young woman who followed quietly behind him.

"My name? Oh, right! My name is Solomon Gun, and this here is my lovely young assistant…" he said gestured toward Kasumi and paused when he realized that she'd never actually told him her cover name "…uh, Kasumi Goto?" The smaller woman, having her true identity been so casually exposed, facepalmed with an audible 'slap!'

"I see. And I presume that this giant statue of… Saren Artuis… is your gift to Mr. Hark?"

"Why, yes, yes it is."

"Right, and tell me, Mister Gunn, what is your middle name?" he asked, and Shepard began to sweat.

"Uhhhhh… I don't… know…"

The guard put his list away, and began to massage the bridge of his nose. God, he was not being paid nearly enough to deal with this shit. "Okay, let's just get this out in the open. You are not Solomon Gunn."

"I- Uh, well, you see-"

"No, you're not. It is painfully obvious that you are Commander John Shepard."

The Commander looked to Kasumi, and she could only shrug in response. They both looked back to the guard, and he felt the need to explain. "You do realize that putting on a tuxedo doesn't actually make you look any different, right? What, did you think that you were gonna 'Clark Kent' your way in here?"

"Well, kinda…" Shepard said lamely. "I mean- Hey, wait a minute! How do you even know who I am, anyway?"

The guard looked gob smacked, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing "Dude, are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how famous you are? You're a goddamn war hero! You were the first, and so far, only human to ever be inducted into the specters. Do I even need to mention that you are the literal savior of the Citadel?"

"Huh… I guess I never really thought about that…"

"I once ate a box of Wheaties with your face on it." The guard declared.

"Really?" Shepard asked, and scratched his chin thoughtfully "I don't ever remember seeing any money from that…"

"Not to mention all of the news you're making for punching that reporter lady again, and flying around on an evil Cerberus version of the ship you died on… and… did you blow up a planet recently?"

"Damn it!" the Commander swore, and turned to Kasumi. "You see, I knew that this was going to happen! You blow up, like, one planet, and suddenly everybody turns into a bunch of whiny hippies!"

"Dude, you destroyed a garden worl-" the guard stopped and shook his head "you know what, it doesn't matter. Just tell us what you want, and we'll bring it up."

"…Just like that?"

"Well it's either that, or I go toe-to-toe with the man who's literally lowered the population of Citadel Space by about 1.3%. All by gunshot.

"!.3%? I don't think I've killed that many people…"

"They confirmed it during the last Census. I've got a family to think about. I'm the sole provider of a wife, and 3 kids. Bob over there…" The man pointed to a lone soldier that was patrolling the upper taris of the massive mansion "is like a month away from retirement. Been saving his entire life for a nice little spot on Eden Prime.

Hell, we've got, like, 3 asari vanguards that are members of the Big Sister foundation for orphaned colonists. Most of them orphaned because of you!"

"Wow… I'm sorry… I didn't know…" Shepard said, and looked down at the ground in shame.

"Yea, I bet you never think about stuff like that, when you're goin around 'Killin Badguys'… you jerk."

XxX

It's form ablaze, Harbinger casually strode up to the gate of its own salvage yard. That insect, the Kelly Chambers, had made a very grievous error, and because of it, she would die. To her credit, her little distraction had worked and gotten her past these mindless drones. The reaper honestly didn't expect these morons to know the difference between the her and a mere hologram. They were just workers, after all.

However successful her clever ruse was, she'd given Harbinger the very card that it was hoping for: her exact location.

And even better, was that that short sighted filth had gone into the salvage area which, while very big, also only had one way in. And with a little work on the reaper's part, it now had no way out. Minutes after the timer on Kelly's hologram had run out, Harbinger's assembled strike force had swooped in and set up a defensive barricade. High powered shield generators were quickly set up, and now the entire threshold was aglow with hexagonal energy barriers, with well over a 2 dozen Collectors on standby.

And that wasn't even the strike force…

Behind them were a little over thirty of Harbingers finest Collector Guardians, Scions, and even a goddamned Praetorian for good measure. As soon as they fully assemble, they would be the ones going in to hunt the redhead. Harbinger had made the mistake of underestimating Cerberus's warrior, and it was not a mistake it intended to make again. More than likely, she was a tactical expert, and would be treated as such.

…As her filthy kind would say; the gloves are off.

=Public Service Announcement=

"Hi, I'm Kelly Chambers, star of TAMV, and I'm here to talk about a very serious issue which may even put yourself in danger.

…Pissing off reapers.

Reapers are giant immortal starships of immense power, and are very dangerous when provoked. So the next time you find that your potted plant, pet, or even a loved one is possessed by a reaper, be respectful, decline any dubious offers it gives you, and get a parent.

The more you know!