"What are our finances like, Kelly?" asked Shepard.

Kelly stood up. Donnelly thought she looked a little like a deer in the headlights as she looked around the conference room. All of the senior staff were there, including Miranda. The latter didn't look quite as crumpled as before, but she still kept her eyes down on the table. After all, Kelly was now doing a job which the former XO used to do.

The yeoman took a deep breath. "Well, we were able to get quite a bit of hard currency thanks to EDI and Miranda. As of this morning, we have three million, twelve thousand, and six credits at hand. I have done a survey of the crew, and we are all willing to forego the salary that Cerberus was paying us. That helps quite a bit with our burn rate, since then our only recurring costs are food, air, and fuel. Of those two, fuel is by far the big one. Based on our past usage, our cash on hand should be sufficient for five months of operation. That assumes no large unexpected expenditures, of course." She sat back down.

Shepard tapped the table absently. "Okay. Marcus, what is the ship's status?"

Now it was his turn to feel on the spot. Donnelly stood up. "The new shields are in place and working up to specification. We took some minor hull damage when we scarpered out of Illium, but it's all cosmetic. Our stores of spare parts and materials should be adequate for another four to five months. After that, we'll need to start buying parts. And in the meantime we have to hope that nothing big and expensive unexpectedly breaks." He took his seat again.

"Right," said Shepard, "Let's assume, for the sake of planning, that we have a good four months of operation before we run out of cash. I might be able to get some operating funds out of the Council or at least out of Councilor Anderson. But I don't want to go to that particular well unless we really need to."

The Commander stood. "So. Four months to figure out how to deal with the Omega Four relay and, oh yeah, stop more human colonies from being kidnapped. Miranda, what can you tell us about Cerberus' plans for getting us through it?"

The former Cerberus officer finally looked up. For a moment, Donnelly saw a little flash of the old Miranda as she got to her feet. But her voice was still somewhat hesitant.

"EDI and I were able to reconstruct this out of the data we retrieved from Cerberus," she said. She tapped a control on the conference table and a hologram appeared in the middle. It showed a large and intricate web of crisscrossing lines. At every point where the lines intersected was a small nodule. Each nodule had some even smaller and unreadable text next to it.

"This is a representation of Cerberus research cells," continued Miranda. "This does not map out their locations in space. Rather, it shows how each cell's area of research connects to the other cells." A constellation of nodes on the map lit up. "These are cells that are working on Reaper technology in general."

Another smaller constellation took its place. "These correspond to those cells working on the Omega Four relay problem." Another, still smaller constellation appeared. "But this is the most worrying subset. They're working on Indoctrination."

"Of course they are," said Shepard. "I guess Saren's fate wasn't enough of a warning." His face was set in a frown. "I swear, sometimes I think 'Cerberus' actually stands for 'Let's go poke that dangerous thing with a stick.'"

Donnelly decided to speak up. "For those of us who weren't in on the original Saren pursuit...just how dangerous is Indoctrination, exactly? I mean, I think I know the basics. If you're around a Reaper long enough, it can take over your mind and make you its puppet. And it doesn't need to implant you to do it. Is that the extent of it?"

Shepard shrugged. "We don't have a lot of data to go on. After all, our Reaper sample size is one. We do know that Sovereign was able to Indoctrinate both Saren Arturius and Matriarch Benezia, who were two of the most strong-willed people in the galaxy." He looked down at the table. "Benezia claimed that it was Saren who had turned her, but it must have been Sovereign who was the real culprit."

"The problem is, we still have no idea as to the actual mechanism of Indoctrination," added Chakwas. "I performed the autopsy on Matriarch Benezia. We found no evidence at all of any implants or nano-scale cybernetics. There may have been some oddities in her deep brain structure, but I'm not an expert in asari neurology. Saren's Virmire facility seemed to be able to reproduce some of the effects of Indoctrination, but any data or tech they had developed was lost when we blew it up."

"When Ash blew it up," added Shepard. He wasn't frowning anymore. Now he looked just sad.

Chakwas looked down at the table as if remembering as well, then shook herself slightly. "Of course, after the Battle of the Citadel I handed all of my autopsy data over to the Council, and of course I never heard anything further. I may as well have thrown it into a star for all of the good it did."

"I still don't understand the Council," said Kelly. "Why blame it all on the geth? Surely you had plenty of evidence."

"I spoke with Anderson, back when they kinda-sorta reinstated my Spectre status," said Shepard. "They were never able to gather up all the pieces of Sovereign after the battle." He sat again. "And one big worry is that Indoctrination doesn't require an intact Reaper. It's suspected that individual Reaper parts can 'turn' people. That's why simply reverse-engineering Reaper tech is so dangerous."

"The Council wanted to prevent a general panic, and so they suppressed the Reaper story," said Miranda. "And over time, when nothing else happened, they probably convinced themselves that the danger was over."

Garrus stood and looked closer at the map. "There are other cells here, that aren't doing work on anything Reaper-related."

Miranda nodded. "These are more mundane areas of research. Improved shields, better manufacturing methods, more powerful energy sources."

"No biotic research?" asked Chakwas.

Miranda looked down at the table. "No. The Teltin facility was their big effort in that area, and it was considered an utter disaster. There were several biotically gifted children who survived after Jack's breakout, but they were all covertly transferred into Alliance custody. Cerberus as a whole gave up on direct biotic experimentation after that. Their current strategy is to just steal anything coming out of Alliance research."

"But Cerberus didn't give up chasing Jack," said Donnelly. He didn't bother to conceal the anger in his voice. Shepard might have buried the hatchet, but the engineer was still not willing to let Miranda forget her past crimes.

Miranda shrugged. "It was a risk versus reward consideration. Jack was a single amazing success out of a sea of failure. They wanted to get their money's worth." She looked up and met Donnelly's eyes. "It was not my call, and I never had anything to do with pursuing her."

"We're getting off track," said Shepard. Donnelly could tell that the Commander was deliberately keeping his voice mild. "Regarding the cells working on the Omega Four problem...do we have an idea of their approach?"

Miranda rocked one hand in a 'maybe' type of gesture. "Sort of. We were only able to retrieve basic information for most of them. It appears that the general strategy is to try to send various armored probes through the relay in different configurations. The goal was to try to get any data back as to what's on the other side of the relay."

"That's too passive," said Garrus. "And pointless. We know that the Collectors can come and go through the Omega Four relay at will. So let's just capture one of their ships and figure out how they do it."

"Just like that, huh?" said Shepard in a sarcastic tone. But he was smiling. "I like the idea, but in practice trying to intercept them is going to be tough."

EDI's voice filled the room. "If I may suggest something, Shepard? Jeff has been working on this exact problem. I would get him involved in your deliberations."

Shepard nodded. "Let's be the mountain going to Mohammed. I'm sick of sitting here anyway."

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The staff all crowded around Joker's chair. The pilot opened up a larger display over his control station. It showed the Sahrabarik system, with both Omega Station and the Omega Four relay highlighted. Joker zoomed the display closer to the relay and began rapidly sketching on top of it as he spoke.

"The main problem is we don't know exactly where the Collector ship will pop out. Even if we spot it, it'll be gone into standard FTL flight before we can get close. And tracking them will be difficult. We might be able to get a general sense of where they're headed, but that's all." The display showed a single blue point near the relay. A red point blinked into existence, and a thin blue line connected the new red point with the blue point. "The blue point is us. The red point is the Collector ship," explained Joker. The red point on the display started to move out of the system, with a red line trailing behind it. The red path rapidly expanded into a large conical swath.

Joker held up one finger. "But that assumes only one ship and one vantage point on our part. If we can get four or more eyes on them before they skedaddle, we can triangulate the Collector ship's heading and get a much better plot of their path." The display now showed multiple blue points near the relay. When the red point appeared, there were now multiple blue lines that stretched out to it. As the red point moved off, its track remained a thin red line.

"So if we can track them," said Shepard, "we can get ahead of them and intercept before they hit a colony. But we need more ships."

"What we need is something more like drones," replied Joker. "They just need to have a minimal stationkeeping ability as well as a good sensor and communication package. I've got the specs figured out. And we have the radiation signature of the Collector ships' drives, thanks to the data we got when they took off from Horizon. Once we get the network set up, EDI can interface and run it all. She'll be able to bag 'em no problem."

"Go ahead and send me the drone specs," said Donnelly. "I'll see if we can manufacture them on board. I suspect we're going to need some external resources. It could cut into our cash reserve."

"Just figure the technical portion out," said Shepard. "I'll worry about the money. We need to take the fight to them for once."

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"I need to know. Is there going to be a problem?"

Donnelly had been expecting the question. After they'd broken up the meeting, the Commander had followed him into the elevator. For now, they were the only two in it. He kept his face impassive as he turned to face Shepard.

"What problem, sir?"

Shepard shook his head in irritation. "Come on, Marcus. You know damn well what I mean. Is there going to be a problem between you and Miranda?"

"No sir. Ye tell me to work with her, I'll do it. I won't like it, but I'll do it."

"That may not be enough," replied Shepard. "We have to work as a complete team. We can't have the slightest bit of friction, not with what we're facing. This mission is too important..."

"Sir...with respect. I know the importance of the mission." Donnelly felt his jaw set in anger. "But yer not the one who has to deal with Jack in the middle of the night after yet another nightmare."

Shepard looked honestly stricken at the news. "Is it bad? Maybe she should talk to Kelly."

"Kelly has enough on her plate right now. This isn't something that we can all just hug out." Donnelly looked down. "Jack almost fell back into Cerberus hands, not to mention that whole...whatever-it-was with Samara brought up some long-buried memories of Pragia. A lotta shite got stirred up after she thought she'd made peace with it." He took a deeper breath as the elevator door opened on the Engineering level. "I'll do what I can to help, but her forgiving Miranda isn't in the cards."

"If you need anything, let me know," said Shepard. "For now, I guess we just make sure they keep out of each other's way."

Donnelly nodded as the elevator closed. There was something else he hadn't told Shepard. He was pretty sure that, once the Collector mission was over, Jack was going to do her very best to kill Miranda.

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Oriana looked through Joker's files. "So we have to make something out of this? This is just a list of capabilities for the the drones. We don't have any guidance as to where to start." She and Tali were standing in front of the main display in Engineering.

Tali nodded and placed a big three-fingered hand on her shoulder. "Welcome to the world of engineering. Here's a list of components we have in stock. Go through it and make a note of anything that looks like it would be useful for sensors or communication. We'd like to use as many on-board items as possible. I'm going to sketch out a possible structural framework for the drone and see if the ship's printing facilities can make it."

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The next few hours passed in a blur for Oriana. By the end of it, they were staring at a holographic display of something that looked pretty much like a packing crate with a rocket motor jammed into one end.

"Not the prettiest thing I've ever made," said Tali. "But it should work."

Oriana looked over the parts list. "And it looks like we have most of this, except for some FTL communications components." She looked up at their creation and felt a little glow of satisfaction. Once, there had been nothing. And now there was something. "Wow. I like doing this," she said aloud.

Tali laughed in her quavering way. "Just be careful, it's like a disease. One day you find you're designing a little drone, and next thing you know you're overclocking the shields on a cutting-edge stealth frigate."

Oriana smiled. "There are worse addictions, I suppose. Is it all right if I head out? Mordin had a few assignments for me as well."

"Sure! Thanks for your help, Oriana."

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She almost made it to the elevator without incident. Just as she was passing by the stairs into the Engineering subfloor area, her way was suddenly blocked by a tattooed and glaring woman. Oriana had avoided Jack as much as possible. She had heard second-hand what had happened to the biotic on Illium, and had heard how Miranda had colluded to some extent. It had freaked Oriana out, mostly because what Jack had gone through was very similar to what had been in store for Oriana herself.

"Um," she squeaked out. "Hi. I'm-"

Jack leaned closer. Oriana was very aware of her large brown eyes and smelled the faint musk of the ex-convict's body odor. Jack's lips pursed as if to deliver some vicious harangue, and Oriana steeled herself to bear whatever abuse might get thrown her way. Jack drew in a deep breath, and then spoke in a soft voice.

"Boo."

In spite of herself, Oriana flinched.

Jack gave a huge barking laugh. "Yeah, you're definitely not She-Bitch. I hate that cunt like nobody else, but I'll be the first to admit she doesn't scare easy."

"I never met Miranda until two days ago-"

"Yeah, yeah, I got all filled in on the fucked-up-edness that your, whaddyacall, 'father figure' was getting up to. I know you've been avoiding me. It's 'cause I'm the crazy bitch who'll just as soon kill ya as fuck ya."

"Well, I wouldn't say that." Actually, Oriana would say exactly that, based on her conversations with the crew. The general consensus had been For the love of all that is holy, do not piss Jack off. Her questions about what exactly constituted 'pissing her off' had not led to much enlightenment.

Jack snorted. "You're a diplomatic one, ain't ya?" She looked Oriana up and down. "Don't worry, Ennesby, you're safe from me. I'm not stupid, I'm just crazy."

Oriana couldn't resist correcting her. "Um, my name is Oriana, not Ennesby-"

The biotic cut in. "I don't give a shit. Right now, you are Not She-Bitch. Enn. Ess. Bee. NSB." She reached forward with one finger and gently poked Oriana in the forehead. "And you should be very grateful I'm just gonna call you that. If all this shit had gone down six months ago, the old me would have cut up one of you just so's I could tell you apart." Jack paused in thought. "Though I guess I woulda maimed She-Bitch instead of you."

----------------------------------------

Oriana's elevator ride up to the CIC was almost calm in comparison. But then the door opened on the mess hall level and Miranda walked in. The older woman stopped a little upon seeing Oriana, but then continued into the elevator. She turned around. Miranda didn't say anything during the ride up, but Oriana could see the tension in her 'sister's' neck.

She realized it was going to be like this for the rest of the Normandy's mission, unless she did something. Miranda had lost whatever initiative had possessed her, and she was certainly not going to make the first move.

The elevator door opened, and Miranda began to walk out. Oriana grabbed her elbow before she could walk two paces. Miranda looked back in surprise, but Oriana didn't meet her eyes as she towed her 'sister' towards Mordin's lab. There was a little alcove area just before the lab with doors on either side. It wasn't ideal, but at least she could talk to her in private.

As the doors to the alcove closed, Oriana turned and glared at Miranda. "I'm not having this. We are not going to keep creeping around this ship while not talking to each other. Just so you know...I'm still really, really mad at you. But I don't hate you."

Miranda looked at her steadily. "I'm glad to hear that. I never meant to hurt you or cause you any pain. Everything I did was for you."

"So why not contact me? This whole mess came at me out of the blue. It would have been nice to have some warning."

"And how was I supposed to phrase it? 'Hi, Oriana, I'm your long-lost sister and genetic twin. Oh, you want to know about your father? Well, he's a megalomaniacal twit who wanted to make a perfect female out of his own genetic material. Oh, wait, did I forget to mention you're a clone? How careless of me.' Can you at least appreciate that it would be hard for me?"

Oriana shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. But I thought you were all about doing the hard things. You managed to pull off Shepard's resurrection, after all."

Miranda waved one hand. "That was just technically difficult. Emotionally difficult things...I don't do as well with those. I guess I thought that I knew better. I thought I could keep you from having to deal with any of this craziness. You could just...live, have a normal life. I thought I could control the situation, and I wouldn't have to have that conversation with you."

"You can't control everything, Miranda."

"I know that now. But I was made to be perfect. And I thought I was perfect, for a long time. I thought I knew better than everyone." Miranda gave a bitter, despairing laugh. "And I am perfect. Even my screw-ups are perfect. Everyone on this ship now hates me. I'm at the epicenter of one of the largest failures in Cerberus history. And I nearly let someone on this ship fall back into Cerberus custody after they brutalized her during her entire childhood." She looked down and sniffed. "Just...thanks for saying you don't hate me. That's something, at least." She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Oriana hesitantly reached out with one hand, and cautiously touched Miranda's shoulder. "Jacob doesn't hate you. I've seen how he looks at you."

Miranda shook her head. "I burned that bridge a long time ago. I told him I didn't love him."

That puzzled Oriana. "So you said a stupid thing. So what? He's loyal to you, you know that. He sure seems like a good guy. And, as shallow as it sounds, he is really handsome. Why not at least try to make it work?"

Miranda rubbed her eyes again. "I can't...I don't know if I'm capable of loving anybody." She looked up at Oriana. "Even you. Did I do what I did out of love for you? Or was it because of some kind of twisted sense of justice? Did I just...not want my father to succeed? I don't know. I get so far up into my own head...I should have known better. The whole mess with Jack, I should have been able to look at it and know that it was wrong. That Cerberus was wrong."

Tears ran down Miranda's face now. "I just didn't think about it. I should have..." She put her hands over her face. Oriana acted without thinking and hugged Miranda.

That intimate touch seemed to break whatever control Miranda had left, and she sobbed aloud into Oriana's shoulder. Oriana felt the tears soak into the shoulder of her uniform. She didn't say anything, not for a good long while.

Eventually, Miranda pulled her head up. She looked like a wreck. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, and her face was smeared with snot and tears. But her voice was much calmer. "Thank you, Oriana. I..."

"Shut up. You overthink everything too much, you know that. You can't keep going like this. You need to at least have at least one person on this ship that you can let your guard down around. Go to Jacob. Just be with him. Okay?"

----------------------------------------

Simons touched the door control to Shepard's cabin with a little tingle of fear in her stomach. She'd been suddenly asked by EDI to report to the Commander 'at her earliest convenience'. Simons hoped this wasn't some kind of clumsy seduction attempt, and then kicked herself mentally for even thinking it. The Commander had been nothing but polite and professional towards her, and besides it was pretty well known on board that she didn't swing that way. Even for a hunk like the captain. The door opened, and she heard Shepard's voice. "Hello, Pat! Please, do come in."

The table in front of Shepard's couch was covered with various printouts and a few crude pencil sketches. The sketches showed some kind of winged shape on top of a circular base.

"Hi, Shepard," she said. "Er, you wanted to see me?"

"Yeah. Please, have a seat." Shepard motioned to the other end of the couch. She sat a little hesitantly. So far, at least, this didn't seem like a seduction attempt.

Shepard rubbed the back of his neck. "I wanted to ask this in a more private setting, since I didn't know how sensitive you were about it. I asked EDI to do a little digging into everyone's background. I was looking for a specific skill set."

Simons crossed her arms. She now realized where this was going. "And this skill set isn't to do with piloting, I'm guessing."

Shepard looked embarrassed. "No. I knew you were ex-Alliance, but I didn't know why you joined the Alliance in the first place. Until EDI found out. Please understand, she and I are holding this in the strictest confidence. We're the only ones who know about, um..."

"About my checkered past," Simons finished. She sighed. "I don't have anything to hide, really. I was just a dumb kid. And where I grew up, you were either in a street gang or you were meat. There was no third option. And I got caught by the Bronze. I was given the option to go into Alliance service rather than into prison, so I took it."

Shepard nodded. "That's a sensible decision, certainly."

"But I don't get why you care," said Simons, "I mean, all I really did was theft and some very minor assault and battery. You've got people on board who are a lot more capable than me in those areas."

The Commander looked up and smiled. "You were also the most capable tagger in your gang. EDI was even able to find some pictures of your handiwork. It wasn't just scribbling, it was genuine art. I was amazed, especially since you were working covertly and just had some spray paint."

Simons shrugged and smiled. "You get good at working fast, especially if someone could shoot you at any moment."

He leaned forward and picked up one of the pencil sketches. "This is my crude attempt at the logo of the Spectres. I'm sure you can find much better representations on the Extranet. Do you think you can paint this onto our hull over the Cerberus logos?"

Simons took the sketch from him and leaned back. "Hmm, this is pretty simple. No faces or anything. Yeah, I can do it. It would be better to do the painting in atmosphere. I know there are some vacuum-compatible spray paints, but I'd have to do a lot of practice runs with them to get a sense for how they lay down on a surface. You want this to look good, after all."

"Okay. Well, we need to do some shopping on Omega anyway. I can look into getting a drydock set up. How long do you think it will take?"

"Eh...call it two days. I'll do some practicing on a smaller scale down in the hangar beforehand. And I may need to recruit a couple of the crew to help with laying everything out."

"Get whoever you need. And let me or EDI know if you need anything. I want that damn hexagon fucking gone."

----------------------------------------

Garrus was now almost satisfied with the way the Normandy looked. Yes, she still had the Cerberus color scheme. And there was a bunch of long, ugly-looking scrapes along the top of her hull. But the Spectre logo now adorned the front of the ship instead of the Cerberus hexagon. It said louder than words that, underneath the skin, the ship now had a crew and an AI that were truly Shepard's to command.

He leaned against the window as he took a closer look at Simons' handiwork. She had done a really first-rate job. The logo almost looked as if it was chrome-plated, but that was just a trick of the artwork. The only downside was that they'd had to buy some drydock time, which ate into their cash flow. Garrus wondered if they could have maybe done a favor or two for Aria T'Loak instead.

He heard someone walk up behind him. From the gait, he knew it was Donnelly.

"Damn," said the engineer, "That's a really good paint job. I didn't get a chance to look at it earlier."

"How did your shopping go?" asked Garrus.

Donnelly made a disgusted sound. "I found two of the FTL comm units we need. But we need at least two more. Also, what they're asking for 'em is highway robbery. I tried to haggle 'em down, but no luck."

"How much are they asking?"

"Enough to reduce our operating time from four months to three."

Garrus shook his head. "I'm guessing word has gotten around that Cerberus and Shepard have parted ways." His earlier thought came up. "I'm wondering if we should get Little Miss 'I Am Omega' involved. She could help out."

Donnelly leaned on the window next to Garrus. "I'll leave that to you and Shepard. Me, I've never met Aria, nor do I ever want to."

----------------------------------------

"Aria T'Loak, let me introduce you to our Chief Engineer, Marcus Donnelly."

Donnelly plastered a huge and hopefully sincere-looking smile on his face as he shook hands with an asari gangster who could have him drawn and quartered with a single word.

"It's a pleasure, ma'am." He was proud that his voice didn't crack.

Aria didn't stand up as she shook his hand. She did give him a little smirk of a smile. Well, he supposed that was better than the alternative. She twitched her head at a nearby couch, apparently ordering him to sit. He did so, and felt Shepard settle his weight beside him. The Commander's presence was about the only thing that was keeping him from running screaming from the Afterlife Club.

"You were here on Omega up until about six months ago, right?" asked Aria. Her voice was a little bored as she sized him up. "Ex-Alliance, as I recall."

"That's right, ma'am." Donnelly almost started babbling about his working with Bartock, but figured volunteering less information was more prudent in this situation.

The crime lord in charge of Omega gave Donnelly a wider but still predatory smile. "Weren't you the one who told Admiral Hackett to his face that he was a fucking..."

"Um, yeah, that was me. I was a little upset at the time, ma'am."

She laughed. "You have a quad, as the krogan would say."

Shepard cleared his throat. "So, Aria, thanks for seeing us. We need..."

"You need FTL comm units," said Aria. She sounded bored now. "Your engineer here has been asking around. Why not ask your sponsors for them?" Aria turned her head and gave Shepard a searching look. "Unless the rumors are true. Did you really tell The Illusive Man where to stick it?"

Shepard shrugged. "In so many words. Suffice it to say I'm off his Christmas card list."

Aria tilted her head. She didn't look bored any more, now she almost looked gleeful. "So what was the reason? You decided you didn't have enough problems on your plate?"

The Spectre smiled back at her. "Their past sins were too much to bear. Not to mention what they had planned for our future. By the way, if they've made you any promises, you should be aware-"

"Oh, Cerberus tried to get me to impound your ship," said Aria. "They offered me a pretty good chunk of change for my troubles."

Donnelly felt his guts clench, but Shepard just leaned back and casually crossed his legs. "Maybe you should take that money," said the Commander.

Aria gave Shepard a withering look. "Maybe I would, if I was a complete fucking moron. I think you were about to say something about Cerberus promises? Word has also gotten around that they're about as trustworthy as a krogan fertility drug. I ignored their request."

Shepard nodded. "I tried to tell them about the virtues of playing nice. But I guess Timmy has chosen his path. All the same, I appreciate you giving them the brush-off."

The asari gave another laugh. "It's not entirely due to Cerberus's reputation. Frankly, I don't want to piss you off. Things tend to get all explodey when you get mad, Shepard." She leaned back, mimicking Shepard's relaxed posture. "So let's talk business. What exactly do you need?"

Donnelly spoke up, even though he felt a little like a kitten at an alligator convention. "It's the tachyon coils, ma'am. If we can get four of those, we should be able to put the rest of the comm units together ourselves. There are plenty of them around Omega, but they're being used by others."

Aria raised one eyebrow. "And if I get you these units, what are you willing to do in return?"

Shepard spread his hands. "Let's find out. I'm sure you have some intractable problems which need fixing."

She considered his offer for a moment. "Well, there is one thing I need help with. It's not a simple leg-breaking operation, or I'd do it myself. It's more...political. You see, there's this krogan named Patriarch. He's an old, heh, acquaintance of mine from my early days on Omega. He's in danger, and I need him kept safe."