There was a loud bang on the bulkhead, followed quickly by another, and another, and continued uninterrupted. He didn't care, as he was busy setting up the charged while his partner set up the machine cannon, aimed at the door to take out the invaders the moment they got in.

"You may as well surrender you xeno loving sons of bitches." A voice over the intercom stated, addressing the pair in the chamber.

"They won't take us alive anyway." His partner stated, finishing her work on the machine canon. He continued his own on the charges. He'd be damned if he let the traitors get their hands on the station.

"Maybe, but it's not as though we won't be taking a few of them with us." He replied. He felt her hand on his shoulder. Turning his head, he felt her bring him into a kiss. He would have complained in a different circumstance, but being about to fight until an assured death was probably the last chance either would get.

Unfortunately things didn't play out like he thought it would, as the moment the bulkhead was breached no cannon fire was to be heard, and there was an odd feeling in his gut. Looking down, he spotted a knife deep inside of him, his partner's hand twisting it to deal more damage.

"Sorry honey, this was never about taking them down with us." She stated.

"Well, then I guess it's a good thing the charges are ready." He replied, taking joy in the look on her face as he lost his grip on the detonator, the dead man's switch detonating the charges and causing the station's power generators to go critical. With an Earth shattering explosion, the asteroid which housed the station was torn apart, trillions of pieces flying into the depths of space.

Chapter Five: Shadow War

The years after the Contact War saw radical shift in Alliance society, but it was a change which was generally perceived as positive. For Cerberus in this time, it couldn't be further from the case. The weeks after the secret agreement between the Alliance and Raloi governments was made saw the organization split in two down the middle between two opposing sides, one wanting to accept the help of the aliens in furthering the goal of protecting the human race, while the other wanting to use our current advantage over them to eliminate them and remove them as a potential threat, for both of the alien races.

Despite the best efforts to keep the organization together by the Illusive Man, his death at the hands of poisoning led to a succession crisis for the new Illusive Man to take his place, culminating in a war within the organization. While the Alliance was celebrating each new discovery that was made about our alien allies, Cerberus was torn apart from within.

The bloodbath in the initial month of the war saw more casualties then the rest of the conflict combined, as the fighting was within instillations, ships and stations, the halls bathed in the blood of three generations of agents. Though even as brothers and sisters fought each other, initially the line between sides being a blur, an unspoken rule arose in the opening of the fighting to avoid fighting the children, and avoid using the children. Win or lose there would be a need for a new generation of agents, more critical now as the older experienced agents where dropping like flies. By the thirtieth day of the conflict a full sixty two percent of the organization's personnel not infiltrating the Systems Alliance had perished. The battle lines had stabilized however, as the instillations and ships which remained operational no longer being battlefields as one side or the other had taken control.

The conflict was unseen by the outside universe, battles between small fleets of ships happening in the systems outside the Relay network in systems which housed secret Cerberus facilities. At different points in the conflict the balance of power shifted through tactical and strategic shifts coupled with repeated backstabbing at critical moments. It was not until the destruction of the Hyberon shipyard that the 'Unity' faction won a decisive victory, destroying much of the 'Firma' faction and causing it to lose its ship construction and maintenance facilities. The end was anticlimactic as whole facilities surrendered to what remained of the fleet of the Unity faction in the days after that decisive defeat.

One hundred an eighteen days was the length from the death of the Illusive Man to the last surrender of a 'Firma' facility. The new Illusive Man had a hard time rebuilding, the final casualties of the conflict being nighty four percent loses of non-infiltrating personnel, well over three quarters of the new generation of agents being brought up having been killed in the crossfire even despite the unspoken rules of engagement. The material loose was worst, with half of science labs, three quarters of mineral gathering facilities, all but one ship building facility, all of the cloning facilities and a full two thirds of the habitation facilities being lost. His tenure would be marked as one of reconstruction, one of the last of the first generation of Cerberus there since its foundation leading the organization through a period of rebuilding itself from the ashes.

2847 C.E. would see a radical shift within the organization as a result of the civil war. The old structure of decentralized facilities was deemed too prone to disunity, too easy for one facility to fall out of line with the rest of the organization. Because of this, a more centralized power structure revolving around the Illusive Man and the heads of different research or resource gathering subgroups was created, open lines of direct dialogue between counterparts within the organization opening up for the first time. It had been rare beforehand for the Illusive Man to make his location known or to be speaking face to face with anyone other than direct subordinates, now the new modus operandi was to for the Illusive Man to both lead through choices and lead a figure head. Whilst the old Illusive Man of the past would be someone members of the organization where aware of but knew nothing about, the new one became the face of the organization, his likeness becoming as much a symbol for Cerberus in the eyes of low level agents as the organization's actual insignia was. The Illusive Man became much less illusive to those under him.

Another major reform was the end of the organization's focusing on being a military power. One of the reasons it so easily and successfully ripped itself apart was how many of its agents and how much of its resources had been dedicated towards killing in the form of heavy arms and warships. With the Alliance navy already protecting humanity as a whole, the new Illusive Man judged such excesses to be a waste, as it would be easier and more economic to promote the Alliance to build its own ships to protect the species then for the organization to use its limited resources to do so. That wasn't to say production would stop, but it wouldn't be a focus any longer. What would instead be done is front corporations would be used to disseminate technology such as refinements to the one man frigate design into Alliance hands.

The new focus of the organization was shifted as a whole towards infiltration of the Alliance in every sphere of life, both public and private, in an attempt to influence it towards being a more militarized state which would openly commit the research and development Cerberus was, making the need for the organization obsolete.

With these new priorities being used as means to achieve their mandate, the long proses of reconstruction began with the rebuilding of cloning facilities to insure a new generation of agents would replace the current one. It was during the time of repairs to what was left of the organization and the construction of a new cloning facility that news which would shake Cerberus to the core was uncovered.

One of their agents within the Alliance government had leaked documents directly to the Illusive Man regarding information on a new threat brought to light by the Raloi. "Reapers" the machines were called. Little was known about them as the Raloi hadn't dealt with them first hand, but what they did know showed that if there was anything out there the organization was created specifically to deal with, it was them.

With the industrial base of the organization long gone and a new focus towards influencing rather than directly confronting events being their new focus as an organization, a new project was created to deal with the shifting state of politics within the galaxy. As a means to push humanity in the right direction in the eyes of Cerberus, the new project would influence politics and industry within the Alliance onto the path that was needed for the coming storm. The Illusive Man didn't know if it would be in a year, a hundred years, a thousand years or ten thousand years, but he knew the moment he learned of it that the Reaper threat would return, and that he would lay the foundation towards protecting humanity from it.

As 2847 C.E. came to a close, the eventful year ended with his signing off on the latest project the rouge science division was working on.

Project Sheppard.

Author's Notes

Well, this was shorter than I thought it would be, which is surprising since it was also longer to make then I thought it would be as well.

Sorry to any of you out there who have been waiting for this, but Brother's Betrayal is my flagship fic that I work on about as much as my other 4 active fics combined, so that's the one which will be getting the most regular updates. As for this one, I'm less likely to update it in a timely manner since I write it as ideas come to me, and lately they've been more towards other stories then this one.

I do have to say that something odd did happen which prompted me to finish this chapter. In an 18 hour period I've had around 40 people start following this story all of a sudden, the single largest leap in followers for anything I've ever written, well, ever. I have no idea what prompted this since I haven't updated in months and before posting this chapter this story was on page 26 of the Mass Effect fics page. Can someone please tell me what happened? I'd really like to know what the hell happened here.

Anyway, next chapter: Project Sheppard

Some heroes are born, some heroes are made, but all heroes come from somewhere.