“Is that the last of them?” Hendel asked, nodding toward the dead Cerberus troopers on the ground. He figured the fight was over, as he didn’t hear anymore gunfire.

  “There might be one or two left,” the captain answered, “falling back to the Cyniad.”

  “They had us on the run, when all of a sudden they broke into a full retreat,” Lemm added.

  “Why would they—” Hendel began, then stopped short. “Where’s Kahlee? Where’s Gillian?”

  Nobody answered.

  “Cerberus has her!” Hendel shouted. “That’s why they’re pulling out!”

  As a group, they broke into a run, heading for the landing bays.

  “Should I shoot her?” Golo asked.

  Grayson looked at Kahlee, still lying facedown on the ground in her enviro-suit. The quarian had his pistol pointed at the back of her head.

  “No,” Grayson said. “Keep her alive. She’s an expert in biotic amp configurations. Cerberus might want her to help with Gillian’s new training.”

  “I’ll never help you with your sick experiments,” Kahlee spat out from the floor.

  “Quiet,” Golo warned, kicking her hard in the ribs. Grayson winced.

  Kahlee grunted and rolled over onto her back, her hands clutching at her side. “Gillian will hate you for this,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath. “She’ll never forgive you.”

  The quarian hauled off and kicked her again, causing her to pull her knees up into a fetal position to try and protect herself.

  “Enough!” Grayson snapped.

  “How can you let them do this to your own daughter?” Kahlee asked through gritted teeth, still balled up from the pain.

  “Did you see the forklift out there?” Grayson demanded. “Do you see what Gillian is capable of? That’s because of what Cerberus did!”

  “They want to make her into a weapon,” Kahlee countered, panting behind her mask. Grayson guessed several of her ribs were broken. “They’re turning her into some kind of monster.”

  “They’re transforming her into a savior of the human race,” he countered.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Golo warned.

  “They’re destroying her,” Kahlee snarled, her words filled with pain and anger. “Those drugs made her condition worse. Without them, she has a chance to be almost normal!”

  Unbidden, the memory of Gillian actually hugging him outside the airlock filled Grayson’s mind. He remembered her words, and her surprising defiance.

  We have to wait for my friends. I’m not leaving without them.

  “Gillian was happy here,” Kahlee continued. “Have you ever seen that before? She was actually happy!”

  “Shut up!” Golo shouted, kicking her again.

  This time he didn’t stop, but continued to beat on her until Grayson snapped, “No more! That’s enough. It’s over.”

  Golo looked over at him, panting slightly from the exertion, and shrugged. On the ground Kahlee was rolling feebly from side to side, moaning and whimpering from behind her mask.

  Grayson’s eyes flicked away from her and over to Gillian on the bed. She looked so small, vulnerable and helpless.

  Salvation comes with a cost, he seemed to hear the Illusive Man saying in his head. His mind flashed back to the mutilated quarian in the cellar of Pel’s warehouse.

  Judge us not by our methods, but by what we seek to accomplish.

  “We’re almost out of time,” Golo reminded him. “We have to leave now. We can’t wait for the others.”

  Grayson was suddenly struck by the similarities between the quarian and his former partner. Both were sadistic and cruel. Both had no compunction about torturing or killing others for personal gain.

  And both were traitors to their own people. It sickened him to think about the kind of individuals he had allied himself with.

  We take terrible burdens on ourselves for the greater good. This is the price we must pay for the cause.

  “Get the engines fired up and get us out of here,” Grayson ordered.

  As the quarian turned to leave, Grayson calmly bent over and picked up the pistol Kahlee had let fall to the floor. He stepped up behind the quarian and jammed the barrel against the back of his helmet, too close for the kinetic barriers to save him. And then he shot Golo once through the head, the bullet exiting through the front of his mask and lodging itself in the shuttle’s bulkhead.

  As the quarian toppled forward, Grayson let the pistol fall from his hand. He turned and looked down at Kahlee, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking behind her mask.

  “The ship we arrived on is filled with explosives,” he told her. “We have about two minutes before they detonate and rip a hole in the side of the Idenna. I’ll need your help if we want to stop it.

  “Can you walk?” he asked, reaching down and offering a hand to help her to her feet.

  She hesitated for a split second before grabbing it and hauling herself up with a groan.

  “I can damn well try,” she answered.

  Hendel and the quarians were running at a full sprint as they burst into the loading docks. The Cyniad was in bay seven, on the far end past all the other ships. The former security chief’s long strides had pulled him slightly ahead of the others, but they caught up when he stopped to stare in amazement at the two figures coming out of the airlock in bay three.

  Kahlee, still in her enviro-suit, and Grayson, wearing Cerberus armor, were exiting the shuttle. She had one arm wrapped around Grayson’s neck, and he appeared to be holding her up, as if she couldn’t stand on her own. Neither one of them was armed.

  “Hendel!” Kahlee shouted, but her voice was cut off in a gasp of pain and her free hand clutched at her side.

  “The Cyniad,” Grayson called out to them. “The ship in bay seven. It’s filled with explosives!”

  Hendel, bewildered by the scene before him, could only shake his head. “What’s going on? Where’s Gillian?”

  “She’s safe,” Grayson answered, speaking quickly. “But you have to get to the Cyniad. Disarm the bomb before it detonates!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Cerberus. We never intended to escape on the Cyniad. We were going to take my shuttle. The Cyniad is filled with explosives and set to go off on a timer to provide a distraction as we escaped.”

  “How many explosives, and how much time?” Hendel demanded.

  “Two minutes, and enough to rip a hole in the Idenna’s hull.”

  “Watch him!” Hendel said, pointing at Grayson as he turned to go.

  “Wait!” Grayson shouted, freezing him in his tracks. “It’s a dual sync arming system. You need two people to enter the code simultaneously or it’ll detonate.”

  “What’s the code?” Mal demanded.

  “Six two three two one two.”

  “Everyone else evacuate the loading bays,” the captain ordered, then turned to Hendel. “Let’s go.”

  It took them less than thirty seconds to reach the Cyniad’s airlock. The bodies of Isli, Seeto, and Ugho lay just beyond it. The airlock itself had been sealed.

  “Wait,” Mal said, grabbing Hendel by the arm. “What if it’s a trap?”

  The security chief had been thinking the same thing. “That’s a chance we have to take.”

  They opened the airlock and raced up into the quarian shuttle. The cargo hold was filled with enough explosives to blow apart a small asteroid. At least fifty drums of liquid rocket fuel, each as high as Hendel’s shoulder, were clustered in the center of the floor, held together by a mess of wires. From somewhere in the middle of the canisters, completely inaccessible, he heard the rhythmic beep-beep-beep of a timer counting down.

  “Find the overrides!” Hendel shouted, and the two of them split up, one going clockwise around the ring of explosives, the other counterclockwise.

  Hendel tried to sync the high-pitched beeps with the imaginary clock ticking down in his head. He figured they had maybe thirty seconds to spare when he finally found what he was looking for: a small keypad attached to the side of one of the drums. Two wires ran from the base into the cords woven around the explosives. Hendel had no doubt that detaching either of the wires would set the whole mess off.

  “I’ve got mine!” Mal shouted from the far side of the canisters.

  “Me too,” Hendel called back. “Enter the code on three? Ready? One … two … three!”

  He punched in the numbers, knowing there was a lag of only a couple seconds for Mal to do the same. If they weren’t in sync, if either one of them hesitated or made a mistake, they’d both be instantly vaporized.

  The steady beep of the timer suddenly changed to a single long, shrill whistle. Hendel instinctively closed his eyes as he braced himself for the boom …

  And nothing happened.

  The shrill whistle slowly faded away, and Hendel reached up to wipe the sweat from his brow, only to have his gloved hand bump against the mask of his enviro-suit.

  “Hell of an all-clear signal,” he muttered to himself. And then he began to laugh.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  In the aftermath of the battle, the quarians had taken Grayson into custody. For nearly a week his fate hung in the balance as the Admiralty, the Conclave, and the civilian Council of the Idenna weighed in on what was to be done.

  He had saved dozens, possibly even hundreds, of lives by warning them about the explosives. But Kahlee, along with everyone else, knew that the only reason their lives were ever in danger was because of what he had done. And there was still plenty of blood on his hands to be accounted for. Over twenty of the Idenna’s crew had been killed in the attack, along with eleven Cerberus soldiers and Golo, the quarian traitor. The cost was high, but it was far less than it could have been.

  Mal understood all this, and he took it into account while passing the final judgment on Grayson, as was his right as captain. Kahlee had feared there could be consequences for her and Hendel, as well; none of this would have happened had the quarians not taken them in when they first arrived. However, she had underestimated the value quarian culture placed on community and crew. They had been accepted as guests on his ship, Mal had explained to her. They were part of the Idenna family. He wasn’t about to cast them out now, and he wasn’t going to hold them accountable for the actions of Cerberus.

  In the end, the captain even agreed to allow Kahlee to take Grayson back to the Alliance as her prisoner, giving them Grayson’s own shuttle for transportation. Lemm agreed to accompany her as the pilot, and to help her keep an eye on their captive.

  Hendel and Gillian, however, would not be going with them.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked Hendel as they stood in the landing bay, saying their good-byes.

  “Gillian needs this,” he said. “You saw how far she’s come since we’ve been here. I don’t know if it’s the ship, the enviro-suits, the lack of drugs … all I know is that she’s happy here on the Idenna.

  “And soon she’ll be beyond the reach of even Cerberus,” he added after a moment.

  Kahlee nodded, accepting the fact that she couldn’t change his mind.

  The news of an enemy force infiltrating the Migrant Fleet had shaken the quarian society to its very core. Faced with the shocking realization that they were vulnerable even within the flotilla, many of the ship captains had changed their views on the idea of sending exploratory vessels out into the depths of space on extended missions.

  The Conclave had fiercely debated the matter, but in the end those who favored the exploratory missions, like Mal, were the majority. The Admiralty could have overturned the Conclave’s ruling, but they, too, seemed to have had a change of heart. They acquiesced to the decision, though they did impose strict rules and restrictions on how many vessels could go, and when they could leave.

  Not surprisingly, the Idenna was chosen to be the first of those vessels. In three weeks it would set off through a recently activated mass relay in an uninhabited system, heading into parts unknown. Even now it was being refitted with new technology to allow it to survive on its own for up to five years without any outside contact or resources. To make such a journey feasible, however, the crew would have to drop from its current population of nearly seven hundred to just over fifty, all handpicked by Mal himself.

  The captain had already given Hendel and Gillian permission to go.

  “Do you really think Cerberus will stop looking for her after five years?” Kahlee asked.

  Hendel shrugged. “I don’t know. But at least it’ll give her a chance to grow up some before she has to deal with them again.”

  He glanced over at the shuttle, where Gillian was inside saying a last, private good-bye to her father. Hendel had opposed the idea initially, but Kahlee had worn him down. Grayson deserved that much, at least.

  “What do you think he’s telling her in there?” the security chief wondered.

  “I don’t know.”

  She couldn’t even imagine what Grayson was going through. Everything he had done in his adult life—every action, every decision he had made—had been in the service of Cerberus and their so-called great and glorious cause. But in the end he had finally chosen his daughter over these nebulous ideals. Unfortunately, that choice meant it was impossible for her to stay with him.

  “What are you going to tell Gillian if she ever asks about him?” she asked Hendel.

  “I’m going to tell her the truth,” he said. “Her father is a complicated man. He made some mistakes. But he loves her very much, and he only wants what’s best for her. And in the end he did the right thing.”

  Kahlee nodded again, and pulled Hendel close for a hug. “You two be careful out there,” she whispered.

  “We will.”

  They broke the embrace when they heard the familiar clump of Lemm’s boots coming toward them.

  “Are we ready to go?” he asked her.

  Kahlee knew the young quarian was eager to take her and Grayson to the nearest Alliance colony so he could drop them off and get back in time to rejoin the Idenna. Like Hendel and Gillian, he had also been selected by Mal to be part of the long and dangerous journey.

  She’d already said her good-byes to Gillian, and as much as she hated to take Grayson away from his daughter it was time for them to go.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  They were only a few hours away from decelerating from light speed in the vicinity of Cuervo, the nearest Alliance colony. Lemm had already programmed their destination into the nav systems, and Kahlee had sent off a comm message: there would be a security patrol waiting when they landed to take Grayson into immediate custody.

  Now the quarian was taking a quick nap in the bedroom, while Kahlee and Grayson sat in the passenger cabin, facing each other. Grayson’s hands were cuffed in front of him, resting in his lap. As a further precaution, Kahlee was armed with both a stunner and a pistol just in case he had a change of heart.

  She could tell he was getting scared. His eyes kept darting around the cabin as if he was looking for an escape, and his fingers fidgeted nervously in his lap.

  “You realize this is a death sentence for me,” Grayson told her.

  “The Alliance will protect you,” Kahlee assured him. “You have valuable information on Cerberus. They’ll want to keep you around.”

  “They can’t protect me,” Grayson answered, shaking his head. “It might take a month, or maybe even a year, but sooner or later one of their agents inside the Alliance will get to me.”

  “What do you expect me to do?” Kahlee asked him. “I can’t let you go.”

  “No,” he said softly. “No, I suppose you can’t.”

  “You had to know this was going to happen,” she told him. “But you helped us anyway. I think you wanted to atone for your past.”

  “I’d like to think I can atone without dying,” he said with a grim smirk.

  “Remember why you’re doing this,” Kahlee said, hoping to improve his mood. “It’s for Gillian.”

  The mention of his daughter brought a forlorn smile to the thin man’s lips.

  “You were right,” he said. “What you told me before I killed Golo. Gillian’s happy now. I guess that’s all I can really hope for.”

  Kahlee nodded. “You did the right—”

  Her words were cut off as Grayson suddenly threw himself at her. He moved quick as a snake, throwing his head forward to strike at her unprotected nose. Kahlee ducked to the side at the last possible instant and he butted her in the shoulder.

  His weight was bearing down on her, pinning her in her seat. His cuffed hands were trying to grab at her, until she jabbed her fingers, held flat and stiff, sharply into his windpipe.

  Gasping and choking he fell away from the seat, then curled up in a ball on the floor. Kahlee leaped out of her chair and stood over him, her muscles coiled in case he lunged at her a second time.

  “Try that again and I’ll shoot you,” she warned, but there was no real venom in her threat.

  Her heart was pounding and her blood was racing with adrenaline, but he hadn’t actually hurt her. She’d been expecting something like this for some time now; he was getting desperate. If anyone was to blame it was her for not recognizing he was still dangerous.

  “Come on,” she said in a softer voice, taking a step back from him. “I didn’t hurt you that bad. Get up.”

  He rolled onto his side, and Kahlee realized he had something clenched between the fingers of his still-cuffed hands. It took her a second to realize it was a stunner—he must have torn it from her hip during the scuffle!

  She tried to shout out a warning to Lemm, but Grayson fired and everything went black.

  When she woke Lemm was standing over her, looking concerned. She realized she was in the shuttle’s bed, but the effects of the stunner had left her feeling disoriented and confused.

  “Where are we?” she asked, struggling to sit up.

  “Daleon,” Lemm answered. “A small volus colony.”

  “I thought we were supposed to land on Cuervo,” she said, her foggy mind still putting the pieces together.