Notes: Hey. Long time no update. So I'm sorry this took so long to write. I'm working on grad school things and currently looking to find a new job so I haven't really had a lot of time for this.

Honeycomb

Shepard was impossibly happy that her mission was not in any way, shape, or form a very obvious trap. A collector vessel floating like a bloated corpse in deep space was definitely not trying to lure them in. The Illusive Man would never dream of lying to her about the authenticity of the distress signal. There was absolutely no chance that the little buggers would pop up out of nowhere and ruin the very nice day she'd been having.

It didn't help that Lawson insisted on coming along. Shepard's earlier warnings about accidents in the field went ignored. Lawson had to have a really damn good reason for that. The Illusive Man wanted something more from this ship than he was telling and it was the only thing stopping said accidents from happening.

The ship looked almost organic, the halls twisting and coiling like arteries. Sharp, geometric doors and smooth, obsidian dark panels cut through the growth at too even intervals. Around them, the walls were honeycombed with more pods. Faint shadows hung in some, just out of reach. Always just out of reach.

Mordin's scans indicated they were dead. Likely perished soon after the ship lost power. She kept moving. They had neither the time nor the resources to check for survivors.

"Tali, send your drone on ahead," she said, crouched behind a fallen pod and checked her sidearm. No matter her suspicions, she had to make the crew think the situation was all under control. Keep them calm and ready for the inevitable ambush.

"Looks clear," Tali replied. The drone buzzed from around the corner and they followed the drone's progress.

Their footsteps echoed in the silent halls. The faint glow from the pods sent long, deep shadows flickering around them. Tali's video feed showed nothing more than empty halls and filled pods. Ahead, something hissed. Tali said it sounded like a pressure vent. Shepard thought it sounded like a voice.

EDI gave her a preliminary scan of the ship, so she had vague ideas about where to find a control node, but without more information she was leading them blind through the dark. The thought made her uncomfortable, but still, they carried on. Her only advantages was that the Collectors didn't know that she knew that this was a trap. She couldn't afford to tip her hand by being overly cautious.

"Fascinating construction," Mordin muttered. He stopped and scanned a branching growth twisting up from the floor. "Irregular formation shares characteristics with insect hives. Internal structure of ship possibly made of hardened organic polymer. Would like to take sample for further…"

"Thank you Dr. Solus," she said. Mordin was liable to be distracted, but she found that a quick check was enough to keep him focused on practical matters. "Anything on the scans that would be immediately relevant?"

"Like subject and tissue samples taken from Horizon, may be susceptible to thermal weaponry," he said. She caught Zaeed taking inventory of his incendiaries. "Found test subject unfortunately flammable."

"There's a door around the corner," Tali said. "I've got something on the thermals."

"Collector activity?" she said.

"The heat signature is consistent with biological activity, but I can't say more than that," she said, checking the scans again. "It looks big and it's not moving."

"Too small to be Praetorian," Mordin said, glancing at Tali's omni-tool. "Looks almost heat signature similar to that of compost."

"Possibly some kind of bio-reactor?" Lawson suggested.

They turned the corner and she felt along the door's smooth surface for a locking mechanism. She'd never worked on Collector tech before, it posed a unique challenge.

"Shepard," EDI chimed. "If you like, I can bypass the…"

"No thank you EDI," she said through gritted teeth. She could do her job just fine without help. The Illusive Man wanted to bring her back. He should have some faith in her capabilities. Instead, she was expected to hand anything that even started to challenge her to EDI. Sometimes, she felt like all she was nothing more than a trigger finger and a way to transport that AI.

"Shepard, it would be best if you were to let EDI…" Lawson started.

"Thank you for your input Dr. Lawson, but it will not be necessary," she said. "There will be more than sufficient opportunities to test EDI's capabilities when we've reached the control center."

The door was cool to the touch. Its sharp geometry reminded her of Geth construction. Going off the assumption that this was similar to Geth tech, there would be a panel nearby. She could short the door's system. It would either release the lock or Zaeed would have to get creative with the incendiaries. Grunt was far too excited about using explosives for that to be anything but plan Z.

Heavy footsteps came up behind her. After his Rite, Grunt was far more eager to learn from her example. He was still massive and slightly uncoordinated, but he was making good progress Although she suspected Zaeed would rather he didn't. He'd expressed displeasure at the thought of having to keep track of a Krogan who knew how to sneak around. She agreed that if Grunt ever succeeded in pickpocketing his credit chit, he was well within his rights to leave.

"Can I help?" he asked.

"I have it under control, but if you want to watch," she said, kneeling down by a side panel. She made quick work of removing it and talked him through what she was doing to unlock the door. Maybe she'd have him practice on the AI Core later.

A miasma of disinfectant and rot rolled through the open door. Grunt gagged behind her. Beyond, there were tables laid out for autopsy. Clean and clinical against the organic, irregular walls. At the far end, a lone Collector laid with its carapace cracked open in a neat line. The console beside it flickered.

There was a drop off along the side. A long way to the bottom and lined with pods the whole way down. And at the very edge, covered in an oily sheen of decay, were the missing colonists. Slick flesh sloughed from bones, mounded up in a jumbled mess.

"So," she said. She could almost make out a face in the gore. "That's a lot of bodies."

"Possibly discarded test subjects from experiment," Mordin said. "Can readily identify ten individuals based on bone structure and remaining tissue. If given more time, would differentiate more."

"Good to know," she said. "Speculation on what they were testing for?

"Not sure yet," he said, practically rubbing his hands together in excitement as he headed for the console. "Will know soon. Presence of Collector specimen indicates that they were also conducting experiments on their own."

She left him to his work and glanced at the corpses. She didn't know the colonists they discarded. She couldn't do anything for them. Yet she had to wonder. Before Miranda brought her back, what exactly were the Collectors planning on doing with her? Not that she would have cared, as she was at that point in time dead, but still. Winding up like this was less than ideal.

"I hoped we'd find a few of them alive," Garrus said, staring intently at one of the faces, trying to find something he recognized. Quiet rage boiled in his subvocals and his claws flexed slowly. She knew that cold distant anger. She could work with it. Get him fired up and then set archangel loose on the collectors when they sprung their trap. "Are you still getting messages from the colonists?"

"There's a lot of them," she said. "But there are worse things than dying Garrus. Just think of all the people we won't find."

"Their families still deserve closure," he said, circling the pile and taking photos with his omni-tool. His brow plates furrowed a little deeper, his teeth clenched. "I'll run it through facial rec when we get back onboard."

There was a scuttling noise from up above. She moved casually to keep track of it. Whatever trap the Collectors were setting, it was further in.

"Everything aside Shepard, I know seeing Kaidan wasn't great, but…"

"Better than here." She didn't mean to be quite so short with him, but she had other priorities. "Let me know if you find anything. And keep sharp. I've got a bad feeling about this."

"You mean the abandoned Collector ship floating in a convenient location isn't safe?" he shot back. "I was thinking of taking some shore leave here."

She turned away from the corpses to check in with Mordin. The colonists were dead. She had to focus on the living and she wouldn't let herself get caught up in her previous mistakes.

"Fascinating," Mordin said. "Collectors researching genetic compatibility with humans. Limited success so far, likely due to unique Collector genetic structure. Quad strand DNA, only seen similar structure in obscure paleontological papers. I believe one of them listed your colleague Dr. T'Soni as a contributor. Implications troubling…"

Shepard pursed her lips. Because she'd never needed to think of doing something more practical to keep the lights on and the rent paid, the entirety of Dr. T'Soni's academic career centered around research into Protheans and their extinction.

"So you're saying that the Collectors are related to the Protheans," she replied.

"After fifty thousand years of genetic engineering, hardly the same species," he said. He turned away from the console and peered into the Collector's chest cavity. "Would need further research, but given limited observations of Collectors, can make tentative conclusion that they are at this point little more than, metaphorically speaking, organic robots for Reapers."

There were worse things than dying. And it explained why she heard voices where the others just heard noise. Her knowledge of the Prothean language was limited and the Collectors were another species entirely, but some of the basics translated. She could use that to her advantage.

She told Mordin to wrap things up and let everybody else know to be ready to move on.

The labs opened to a cavern vast enough to fit that new ship and have more enough room for Joker to do a barrel roll. Every inch of it was covered in stasis pods. The crew gathered behind her as she stared into the abyss.

"They couldn't fill this many pods if they took every human in the Terminus systems," Garrus said.

"Screw the terminus system," Zaeed said, peering over the edge. "They're going to hit earth."

"No. They won't." Her steady voice, never raised above a calm, polite tone, filled the space with easy certainty and challenged anything that dared to stare back. "Go ahead. Try to prove me wrong."

X~*~X~*~X~*~X~*~X

Shepard ducked, shrapnel flying by her head. Even though she knew this was a trap, there was no way she could have anticipated the moving platforms. She, Garrus, and Zaeed were doing their best to pick off the Collectors before they reached the ground, but they were coming in fast.

Even so, they were ready for it. The Collectors were going to make them work for this, but they were ready. Jacob's barriers held through the worst of the enemy fire. Tali's drone harassed Collector teams and incendiary rounds burned through their exoskeletons. She'd watched with pride while Grunt simply pushed one of them over the edge. And for all her problems with Lawson, between her biotics and her marksmanship abilities, she was an asset on the battlefield.

"I am currently running algorithms on…"

"No time for details EDI!" she shouted. This was the hardest part. Giving EDI control of the Collector data. She was supposed to be able to do this herself. What the hell was the point of bringing her back if they were just going to have the damn AI do everything for her? "I need an overview!"

"Eighty four percent complete Commander," the AI said. "Proceeding to dismantle firewalls around the navigation…"

"Need to know only EDI!" she shouted. Internally, she winced. She did not raise her voice anymore. She just didn't. No matter how useless EDI made her feel. No matter how helpless EDI made her look.

She peered back over the wall, again surveying the new layout of the chamber. There had to be a way out. If there wasn't one now, she'd have to make one fast. As much as she would love another program running the ship, that damn AI had too much control over the ship to risk the Collectors taking control of its systems.

More platforms flew in. Too many to stop them all from reaching the ground. Tech mines kept more at bay, but the swarm kept coming. Jack's shockwaves detonated, ripping through the ranks, but it wasn't enough.

She took aim again. A Collector near the back. Unremarkable. Just another part of the swarm. Something to keep away from her team.

An unremarkable shot, placed perfectly between its compound eyes. It staggered back, twisting as it fell. She sought out a new target, deliberate and precise, not wasting a moment. She should have made sure that dead things stayed dead.

The Collector turned, its wings beating slowly, deliberately as it rose into the air. It twisted like falling through water. Its carapace turned ashen and glowed through the cracks, turning its skin to an old lava field. Like her face. Multifaceted eyes met hers and a pulse like cold lightning passed through her.

"Shepard," the glowing thing intoned. Her squad kept fighting. They couldn't hear it. Not the way she could. "You will know pain."

It advanced, its eyes never leaving her as the swarm parted around it. She ducked back behind the barrier and cloaked, darting around behind Garrus to get to new cover and took aim.

It came for her with the inevitability of the tide, its bug eyes boring through her cloak.

"You cannot hide," it said. "Face annihilation." Tali shot and it staggered, its chest a gaping orange maw. The Collector fell, but another rose from Grunt's hands.

"We fight as one," it said. Gunfire rang out and Grunt staggered back, bleeding. "Ours is true power."

It kept moving towards her, possessed, the swarm flowing around it. When Jack charged, it just wasn't there. She stumbled, but caught herself. She pushed the thing, slammed it to the ground where it shattered like a porcelain doll. Another took its place.

"We are the harbingers of your destruction." The arm hung at a sickening angle, half blown off by one of Mordin's mines. Garrus growled in pain and his next shot went wide. "You are obsolete."

It didn't care when it burned and the thing that came up from the abyss only had eyes for her. So she let the world fell away until there was nothing in it but her and her target. Time seemed to slow down. She breathed deep and easy, her heart beat calm. Fear flowed through her, cold and clear, telling her what she needed to do.

She needed to survive. The thing didn't.

Carapace chips flew and it fell. She didn't watch as it tumbled down past filled pods. She just found her next target before the transformation was complete. She hunted with disinterest. Removing the Harbinger from the equation was just a matter of business.

Whatever this thing was, it wanted her. If she had anywhere to run to, she could lead it away. Or just run. She could just run. But she had nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. Before long, they would be overwhelmed. There weren't enough of them to face an endless swarm of Collectors.

So while they fought, while she stopped the thing before it could get back on the ground, she searched. There had to be a way out. If there was, she would find it. She was Mira Shepard. She was good at everything, but surviving was the thing she did best.

She pulled EDI's scans of the Collector vessel. They were a lot way from where they started. The sleek, obsidian dark doors were locked down tight. She wouldn't have time to break through with the supposed Harbinger of Her Destruction after her and she sure as hell wasn't letting that damn AI pick a fucking lock for her.

"Download complete," EDI chimed. "Commander, I found something else in the databanks. You should know that…"

"Is that going to help us get out of here?" she said, reaching back to disconnect EDI from the main console.

"Lieutenant Moreau will disconnect me from the Collector ship remotely so I can continue mining the Collector databases and aid in your escape," EDI said. "However, the data I have already acquired is immediately relevant to this mission."

"Report as we go EDI," she said. "We need to leave. Now. Zaeed, inventory on explosives?"

"Enough," he snapped.

"How many is enough?"

"Trust me, he's got enough!" Jacob shouted.

"Zaeed, Jack, with me," she said. "Garrus, you're in charge. Fall back on my signal."

Garrus nodded uncertainly, then took aim at the Harbinger again.

Jack's barriers flickered around the door while they set the charges. Jack eyes flicked behind her helmet and she sank back into her heels. She was still unused to this. She wanted to charge. She wanted to fight. Decades of survival instincts told her to rip and tear through her enemies. Kill them before they killed her.

But Shepard told her to wait. Shepard told her to put herself in danger. Shepard said to let other people take care of it. So she did.

"Report EDI?" she said, almost by muscle memory wiring the charges together.

"While searching the databanks, I uncovered the Turian distress signal. It originated from the Collectors." There was frantic shouting behind her, Garrus hesitating and stumbling over commands.

"Anything less obvious EDI?" she said through clenched teeth. That damn AI was annoying enough when it wasn't treating her like she was an idiot.

"In this case, the standard secondary encryption was originally corrupted." Tali stepped in, shouting for Jacob to cover Grunt while he made it back to the platform. "However, by the time it reached the Normandy, it had been corrected so that it looked authentic."

She stumbled over a connection, but made another lightning fast. Mira knew exactly where this was headed and she had to cut it off before it went any further.

"EDI we're not on a private…"

"…The correction was performed with Cerberus protocols, written by the Illusive Man." The barrier erupted around them. Jack swore and the stink of ozone was so strong it made it through her filters. Over the noise, she caught Jacob asking what the hell was going on.

She could use this. She had to use this. Had to find some way to spin it to keep control of her crew. For now, she needed to get them focused on something else if she wanted to escape and there was no distraction like a big explosion. She and Zaeed finished wiring the door. Then she grabbed Jack and dragged her, cursing and power lashing over her armor, back from the blast.

X~*~X~*~X~*~X~*~X

Miranda's fingers hovered the trigger. All she had to do was pull and this nightmare would be over.

She'd been more cooperative lately. But simply meeting with Chambers a few times and easing up on the crew's busywork wasn't enough to convince Miranda that Shepard was loyal. Besides, Shepard had to know that Chambers was passing on their meetings to the Illusive Man.

The Illusive Man was just as enthralled to Shepard as the rest of the galaxy had been. He should have let her use the control chip. Shepard was smart. Shepard was rational. More than anything else, Shepard wanted to live. Given the choice between death and doing as she was told in order to save billions of lives, most importantly her own, she knew how Shepard would respond.

Without it, Shepard was already proving a liability, one she didn't think Cerberus could afford.

The Illusive Man didn't share details of other operations, but she spent too many nights going over expense reports from the Lazarus Project not to know that their resources were spread thin. They would need time to recover from it and if Shepard turned on them now, she could cripple them when there was so much depending on their organization.

Shepard was a danger not only to the Lazarus Cell, but to all of Cerberus. Without Cerberus standing watch at the abyss, the Reapers would descend upon Humanity with all the horror of the damned.

She could do it. Nobody would know. A stray bullet, nothing more. The Collector ship was a dangerous place. Accidents happened.

She'd given two years of blood, sweat, and tears. Bringing Shepard back should have been her greatest accomplishment. But she knew the woman too well to believe it. Instead, it would be her greatest failure.

The Illusive Man wouldn't see that he denied her every chance to place safeguards on Shepard. Only that he asked her to bring Shepard in line and every step of the way, Shepard fought. When she betrayed Cerberus, Shepard wouldn't pay for it. If it was only her life at stake, Miranda could live with the cost. But in the end, Miranda lost and humanity would pay the price for her mistakes.

Oriana would pay for her mistakes.

Still, she hesitated and Shepard faded again. Without the cloak, she was light on her feet and crazy like a fox. With it, she was nigh untouchable.

Hadn't she wanted to bring this Shepard back? The one who could make the galaxy turn on her word. Hadn't she spent countless sleepless nights worrying that she might not come back just the way she was? Hadn't she done the impossible? Did she really want to waste that?

She had the original Normandy wrapped around her fingers in days. Even with a rough start, Shepard inspired something in her crew. Slowly, surely, she was bringing them together. Making each one in turn put themselves on a string to dance for her.

A martyr's hands on the strings served Cerberus better than a living puppeteer.

She could pick off a mech's head at twenty paces, blindfolded. She could handle one smug revenant.

It would just be a matter of cutting down her mobility. Wait until she was deep in the horde, then send a stasis field her way. So she followed the trail of dead Collectors and waited for her chance.

In the interim, she picked off Collectors where she could and provided the team with biotic support. They already had what they came for. All that really mattered was disconnecting EDI from the ship. But the crew was full of assets and they would be expensive to replace. Even Subject Zero. As much as Miranda thought she was shortsighted in her view of Cerberus, if she could somehow get a control chip into her, she might be useful.

But right now, getting out was harder said than done. The Illusive Man must have had a bigger plan when he covered up the distress signal. But from everyone snapping and shouting, she knew that everyone else wasn't so reasonable.

She slammed a group into the wall, giving Jacob room to charge. He only narrowly dodged a biotic lance Jack ostensibly misaimed. Garrus snarled for her to pay attention. She shouted something unrepeatable back. Zaeed muttered something about not being paid enough for this.

She ducked back behind cover and swapped her heat sink. No matter how many Collectors they killed, more just kept coming. This mission was falling apart and Shepard refused to take charge of the situation.

Then she caught it. A faint flicker at the door. Shepard would sooner die a second time than let EDI perform its function. No matter that the AI would do it better and faster. That woman's pride would be the death of her.

Miranda breathed in and out slowly, steeling herself. She wouldn't do this if there was any other way to stop her from betraying them.

Biotic power surged at her fingertips. She picked a point to aim so that Shepard would not be the obvious target, but she'd be caught in the stasis field nonetheless. The Collectors froze. Shepard froze. She picked off a Collector, then a second -had to make it look like an accident- and took aim a mirage.