"Mama, wake up. I had a bad dream."

Shepard groaned, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, before opening them, blinking a few times, trying to adjust them to the darkness of her room. David peered over the edge of her bed at her, his mouth twitching anxiously, blue eyes eager, his hands resting hopefully on the mattress as he waited for an invitation to join her in the bed. Lifting the edge of her covers up, Shepard yawned, indicating with her free hand for him to climb up next to her, and she watched with quiet, bated anticipation as he pulled himself up with effort over the edge of the bed before snuggling in next to her, tucking his warm little body in close to hers. Despite her son getting slightly stronger every day, he still needed a bit of help sometimes, but it seemed this morning was not one of those instances. Letting the covers fall back down again, Shepard tucked them securely around his form before reaching across him to her nightstand and turning on the little silver air filter, listening to the familiar whir and hum as she pulled her son in closer towards her, making sure he was safe and secure.

"You know what your father once told me about bad dreams," Shepard murmured, nestling her nose and mouth into the soft, downy hair on top of his head. She leaned down, kissing his cheekbone gently, before lifting her chin to rest it on top of his head again, letting out a soft, tired sigh as she did so. "He said we worry enough as it is while we're awake," she told him. "So having bad dreams is just a waste of good sleep."

"This one was about monsters," David answered, screwing up his face as he pulled her arm more closely around him, his tiny fingers barely managing to wrap all the way around her wrist. The shape of his mouth caused him to lisp faintly through his soft English accent, and her lips curled up gently in adoration as he went on. "They were very big," he told her. "And I was very small. And they wanted to eat me. But I couldn't call you to hear me."

"That is a bad dream," Shepard agreed, closing her eyes and letting out a soft sigh, half-asleep. "But you don't have to worry about that happening. No matter what monsters there are, I'll be sure to rescue you."

"Even a great big monster with two heads?" David asked, turning his head to look back at her, intent. "These were very big, and they each had two heads. They were very scary."

"Even if it's a great big monster with three heads," Shepard assured him, kissing his nose, causing him to wrinkle it up in response before turning back around again with a noise of protest. "Nothing scares your mama. Now go back to sleep." Snuggling in closer to him, she curled her knees around his form, creating a secure cacoon around him as he yawned again, drifting slowly off back to sleep. "I'll be right here, David," she told him, gently. "Nothing can get you as long as I'm here."

"Not even monsters?" David asked, sleepily.

"Not even monsters," Shepard returned.

It was several hours later before Shepard woke up again, now fully rested and ready to work, only to find David still fast asleep in the bed beside her. Frowning a bit, she reached down gently with two fingers, checking the side of his neck for a pulse. Then, satisfied that her son was still breathing, she slid carefully out from under the covers, pulling on her socks and picking up her boots before starting quietly for the door of her cabin. She made as little noise as possible as she let the door close behind her, hoping that if she managed not to disturb her son, he might continue sleeping for another few hours yet. Even though he was no longer an infant, sleeping through the night was still a rarity for David, as between the breathing problems and persistent bad dreams, it was a miracle if he managed to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Waiting at the door for a moment, Shepard listened for the sound of David's voice, but then, hearing nothing, she turned towards the elevator, pressing the button going down and beginning to pull on her boots as she headed towards the lower floors of the Normandy.

The Normandy SR-2 had been gifted to Shepard shortly after her retirement from the Alliance, though not without any small amount of conflict on the matter. Admirals Hackett and Anderson had both put forth recommendations for the Normandy to be retired from service after Shepard was no longer in command of her, and the Alliance had agreed to the suggestion on the terms that the Normandy be either preserved for use in an Alliance museum or destroyed for its parts. The parts, they said, were to be used in the building of other warships, as materials for ship-building had grown painfully scarce after the War, but after a hard-fought, long-winded argument, Anderson finally managed to convince them that the Normandy was not actually Alliance property, but rather a replica of the original Normandy, created by Cerberus and commandeered by Shepard. It was only then that the Alliance officials finally agreed that Shepard would be able to keep the ship, provided it be stripped of all outward appearance of affiliation with the Alliance.

The ship looked oddly bare for a while without the familiar Alliance symbols adorning it, but it had been allowed to maintain its handsome blue and white colours, making it seem not quite so plain as it steered smoothly through open space, searching assiduously for its next source of reliable income. It also helped that blue just happened to be David's favourite colour, making him think that the ship had been painted specifically to please him, a fact which Shepard had not bothered to correct him on, and did not plan to anytime soon. Making her way around the starmap in the middle of the navigation floor, Shepard headed towards the cockpit, making sure not to startle Joker as she came up to stand behind the pilot's chair, leaning her elbows amicably on the edge of the headrest. "All alone up here?" she asked, good-naturedly, causing Joker to glance back towards her at the question. For a moment, he seemed surprised to see her, but then, with a light chuckle, he turned around to his computer spread again, returning to the task at hand, undeterred.

"Only momentarily," Joker answered, his second hand moving to shift the fuel gage meter more easily into view, showing that their current fuel stores sat at around half a tank. "My co-pilot will be back any second, I think. She's just off powdering her nose, or whatever it is she does when I'm not looking."

"Oiling her joints," Shepard joked, glancing over her shoulder to check if EDI were coming up on the two of them, before turning her attention back towards the navigation screen and watching as Joker directed the components around with almost astonishing ease. Tapping a small box in a corner of his holo-screen, he expanded it enough for her to see the display, a small digital map of a far-off star system with a long string of tiny numbers tucked into a corner of the frame. "Is that how much time is left until we reach our destination?" Shepard asked, pointing to the string of numbers, careful not to touch the monitor.

"Yeah," Joker agreed, letting out a soft, tired sigh as he tapped the map again, causing it to collapse back to a corner of the navigation screen. "It counts down by milliseconds, which is about as painstaking as it sounds when you've got trips lasting for days… or, god forbid, weeks. Apparently the Alliance didn't think to program the timer to take trips only using intermittent FTL travel into consideration." Dragging another small gage into view, Joker tapped it twice, expanding it, before pointing to it, frowning now. The digital gage showed that their FTL core was running critically low, the alarm symbol in the corner of the screen having been set to silent, presumably so it would not keep going off every time it hit a low spike. Shepard let out a short, soft huff, crossing one foot over the other as she chewed her lower lip, considering their predicament. "I've been forced to only use the FTL in spurts," Joker explained, tapping the gage again to collapse it. "If I use it for too long, the system goes critical, and the entire ship will go into power save mode. It's gonna take us forever to get places unless we can stop by one of those fuel stations and pick up more Eezo for the FTL core. And you can just forget about travel outside this cluster."

"You know we can't afford that right now," Shepard sighed, shaking her head, straightening from Joker's chair as she ran a discouraged hand back through her overgrown bangs. "You can't just buy Eezo anymore, you have to… jump through hoops, fill out paperwork, and even then it's…" Letting out another frustrated huff, she crossed her arms, frowning again as she stared at the flashing digital gage, as if challenging it to give her an answer to an impossible dilemma. "We'll just have to make do with what we've got," she finally said, turning her gaze to the floor of the bridge. "Maybe later, when we've got more money… after this mission. After we do this mission, then maybe we'll have more credits to spare."

"Yeah," Joker agreed, offhandedly, dragging his navigation control back to the forefront of his monitor. "Though, y'know, it's kind of nuts that the price of everything is still so high. The Reaper invasion was… over three years ago, damn." Letting out a horse-like huff of breath, he shook his head, turning his attention towards a digital wheel in the corner of his screen, which he reached up, turning to one side, before returning his attention to the navigation control. "You'd think they'd start to come back down by now."

"Recovery takes time," Shepard reminded him, propping her hands wearily on her hips as she turned her attention up towards the expanse of space visible through the broad, panoramic windows of the cockpit. "Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither was Illium. The Reapers destroyed damn near everything. It's not going to be easy to recover from that."

"But still, over three years?" Joker returned, turning around in his chair to glance back towards her, sceptical. "Even after the Reaper invasion, that's still a lot of time. You'd think they would have gotten something done."

"Well, they fixed the mass relays," Shepard offered, shrugging her shoulders, helpfully. "Isn't that something?"

At this, Joker scoffed, turning back around in his chair again. "Sure," he answered, darkly, returning both hands to the navigation console, starting to steer once more. "If you can call them fixed. With the waiting lists on some of them, they might as well have just stayed broken." Shepard frowned a bit at this remark, allowing the conversation to lapse into momentary silence as she lifted her attention from the back of Joker's head to the observational window, her fingers curling thoughtfully into the headrest of his seat as she stared out into the sea of stars. Despite the cynical nature of his observation, she had to admit that Joker was almost right. Since the final days of the War, the galactic relays had become choked with interstellar traffic, with everyone trying to get home or fly supplies to planets in need of relief, and it had eventually gotten so bad that the Council had instated a queue system that only allowed a certain number of ships with preapproved clearance to pass through each relay in set time periods. This newly instated system meant that ships without prioritized clearance, like the Normandy, often had to wait anywhere from hours to days to be able to use the relays to reach their destinations.

Letting out a short, sharp exhale of breath, Joker shook his head again, causing Shepard to look down at him once more as he typed something into the navigation console with one hand, barely needing to pay attention to know what he was doing. "It kinda sucks that you don't work for the Alliance anymore," he told her, almost as an afterthought, causing her to falter, taken aback. "I bet they'd be more than happy to pay for this stuff if you asked."

"I can't be dependent on the Alliance anymore, Joker," Shepard answered, letting out a soft sigh as her hand curled into a half-aware, anxious fist against the headrest of his chair. "You know that. I can't risk putting them through a conduct investigation on my behalf after everything they've done for me." Frowning deeper, she looked up again, staring out into the expanse of space as she tapped her fist thoughtfully against the material of his chair. "If anyone found out the Alliance was still supporting me, knowing I was pregnant during the last few months of the Reaper War, they'd be caught up in punitive red tape for years," she added. "I couldn't do that to them."

"What about the Corsair program?" Joker suggested, looking up towards the observational window as well. "Wasn't Jacob a Corsair? You could ask him about that, maybe."

Shepard shook her head, shifting her weight as she unclenched her hand, before crossing her arms over her chest again, watching the starscape streaking by outside the panoramic windows. "I already looked into it," she answered, honestly. "The Alliance eliminated the Corsair program after the end of the War. Not enough funds to support independent mercenary endeavours." Shrugging then, she turned her attention downward towards the floor of the bridge, giving a soft sniff as she dug her toes into the metal flooring. "Plus, they didn't have as much use for that type of work after the War," she added, frankly. "Now most of their extra funding and efforts are going towards relief programs."

"You could always just say you didn't know you were pregnant at the time," Joker suggested, clearly facetious.

At this, Shepard looked up again, letting out a short, sharp, incredulous laugh. "I think it's a little late for that," she returned, moving her hands to prop on her hips again.

Joker shrugged, still smirking, before letting out another soft breath and returning his full attention to the navigation controls. "True, I guess," he answered, fairly. "But, hey, I mean, you're still a Spectre. That's something, at least."

"That's true," Shepard agreed, giving an absentminded nod in return.

Another pause fell over the conversation, this one a bit more optimistic than the last. Then, after a moment, Joker suddenly twisted around in his chair to face Shepard again, raising his brows and knocking the bill of his cap away from his face a bit as he took a sharp, eager breath. "You could always take the Khar'shan job, you know," he told her, as if he had been waiting this whole time for an opportunity to bring it up. "Then we'd have plenty of credits to go around. We wouldn't have to keep living job to job like we're doing now. We could apply for some Eezo to refill the FTL core, buy some new armour, maybe get some repairs done—"

"I'm not taking the Khar'shan job," Shepard told him, sharply, cutting him off short.

Joker frowned at the quick retort, momentarily thwarted, before letting out another sigh and holding up his hands in surrender. "Fine, fine," he told her, shaking his head as he turned back around towards his navigation console again. "I'm just saying, you're turning it down pretty quickly when you don't even know anything about it. For all you know, it could be fun!"

"The chances of a job based in batarian space being fun are exceptionally slim, Jeff," EDI informed him, taking them both by surprise as she moved up from behind them to reclaim her position in the co-pilot chair.

Glancing over towards her, Joker let out a defeated, good-natured huff of breath, before returning his attention to his navigation screen once more. "Spoilsport," he muttered, quietly, but even so he could not keep a fond grin from spreading across his features as he reached up to tug his hat a bit further down over his eyes.

Shepard smiled at the show of affection, still not quite over her satisfaction at being back with a handful of her original crew. Then, patting the headrest of the pilot's chair, she began to move out of the cockpit, pointing towards EDI as she began to walk away backwards, still facing the two of them. "EDI, get started on the Eezo forms," she instructed. "Don't submit them until we have the funds to cover the processing and handling fees as well as the element cost. We should have just enough to cover all the expenses after I get through with this job. And Joker…" She paused, pointing at him, trying to suppress a pang of guilt as he stared at her, waiting eagerly for instructions. "Keep doing what you're doing," she told him, shortly. "Push the FTL core as close as you can. Hopefully, if we play our cards right, we can make it to our destination and a fuelling station right after before it lets out completely."

"Aye-aye, Commander," Joker conceded, offering a cheeky little salute in her direction before turning back to his seat at the controls.

Nodding again, satisfied, Shepard turned away from the two co-pilots, finished with her checkup on the status of the cockpit, before starting to make her way back towards the navigation deck. She had barely made it to the end of the walkway before she found herself suddenly approached by a frazzled-looking Samantha Traynor, who pressed a hand to her chest, trying hard to catch her breath, before flapping a reassuring hand in Shepard's direction and swallowing hard, regaining some semblance of her composure. "Commander," Traynor addressed her, breathlessly, causing Shepard to frown a bit at her yeoman's seeming sense of urgency. Straightening her posture, Traynor began to offer Shepard a quick salute, before abruptly remembering that they were no longer Alliance and letting her hand drop swiftly back to her side again, clearing her throat gently to cover her faux pas. "Commander, I found David wandering the ship unattended," she informed Shepard, frankly, looking concerned as she returned to the issue at hand. "I had hoped you might know something about that. Do we need to upgrade the Normandy's safety measures?"

"No," Shepard answered, quickly, shaking her head as she tucked her hands patiently behind her back. "No, no need for that. He just had a bad dream, and he… he was in my cabin. I didn't lock the door, so I guess he got out." Glancing over Traynor's shoulder towards the navigation deck, she frowned as she looked over the limited crew manning the computer stations around the starmap, barely one attendant to every six computers. "Safety aboard the Normandy is fine, as far as I know," she added, letting out a soft, put-upon sigh. "And we can't really afford any upgrades right now either way. We'll just have to make do with what we've got."

"Understandable," Traynor returned, agreeably, offering a short, concise bob of her head, causing Shepard to look over towards her again, attentive. Traynor fidgeted under Shepard's gaze, her hands shifting anxiously at her sides as if unsure what to do with them when she was not holding a datapad or inputting figures into her work station at the starmap. "Either way, that's been taken care of now," she added, returning quickly to the subject at hand. "I've gone ahead and put him in his playroom. I hope you don't mind. I figured it was the safest place for him to be under current circumstances." Folding her arms self-consciously over her ribcage then, she raised her dark brows, looking suddenly more concerned. "I didn't think you'd want him wandering the ship unattended," she added, twisting her lips thoughtfully to one side. "Especially after what happened last time."

Shepard frowned, stiffening slightly at the vague mention of the previous fiasco, before clearing her throat in return and offering a short, approving nod. "Right," she answered, just as cagily, not wanting to talk about it any more than necessary. "Good call, Traynor."

"Thank you, ma'am," Traynor answered, quietly, a small, satisfied smile curving across her lips.

Shepard returned the smile, glad to be finished with the conversation, though her smile was a bit wearier than the one she had received. Then, waving a hand, she indicated for Traynor to follow behind her as she made her way out onto the navigation deck, starting to head around the starmap towards the elevator at the far end of the floor. "I'm about to be heading out on a mission shortly, FTL drive permitting," she informed Traynor, causing the young yeoman to nod firmly in understanding, taking strict mental notes. "I guess you can start David on his lesson for the day. If I'm not back before he finishes, go ahead and put him down for a nap. I don't know how much sleep he got, but I figure he can always use more." Reaching the elevator, Shepard stopped, turning around to face Traynor again, causing her to stop short as well as she found her pathway suddenly interrupted. "I appreciate you following me when I retired from the Alliance, Traynor," Shepard told her, sincerely, reaching out a hand to gently clasp her arm. "Not many people were willing to do that."

"A few people were," Traynor returned, offering an embarrassed little smile and shrug of one shoulder. "I'm not the only one."

"Hm," Shepard answered, patting her arm, before letting her hand fall back to her side again, tiredly. "Very nearly. You, Joker, EDI, Karin…" She paused, making a face, her gaze drifting upward as she lifted a hand, counting her returning crew on her fingers. "Gabby, Kenneth… Gardner… and Cortez," she finished, taking stock of the full count on her hands before letting them drop back to her sides again. "That's about it. Everyone else went their separate ways after the War."

Traynor frowned a bit at the low crew count, tilting her head thoughtfully to one side. "The Alliance just wasn't the same without you, Commander," she told her, sincerely. "At least for me."

"You probably would have been paid better had you stayed," Shepard reminded her, honestly, tucking her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.

Traynor shrugged, her mouth twisting idly to one side, chewing distractedly at the inside of her cheek, before she shook her head again, more firmly this time. "Money isn't everything," she answered, frankly. "I enjoy working with you, Commander." Pausing then, she considered Shepard, before adding, a bit more intuitively, "And besides, where else can I get room and board for spending all my time with the person I admire the most and her adorable son?"

Shepard faltered for a moment at this addendum, taken aback, unsure if Traynor were being facetious or not. Then, allowing herself to smile, she gave a soft, amicable little laugh, reaching out to pat the young woman on the arm again before tucking her hand back into the pocket of her hoodie. "Flattery will get you everywhere, Traynor," she told her, good-naturedly. "You know that."

"I know," Traynor answered, offering the Commander a cheeky little smile of her own.

The Kodiak whined as its thrusters rotated downward, lowering it gently towards the ground for landing, kicking up rocks and dust as it settled down with a slight rattle against the planet's surface. Shepard's hand clenched tighter around the overhead handlebar as she waited for the door to open to let her out, her free hand tapping anxiously against her thigh as she glanced over towards the landscape screen, making sure no one had heard the shuttle and was coming to see what the racket was about. She had asked Cortez to drop her off a fair ways from the shipping yard where her upcoming assignment waited, not wanting to draw too much attention to herself before she even had a chance to go in, but she still could not help but feel antsy at the amount of noise the outdated model made every time it came in for landing. Turning her attention back to Cortez, she offered him a wary, rigid half-smile, before turning her attention back to the shuttle door as it finally lifted with an audible hiss, drawing her Marauder quickly from its maglock and gripping it tightly as she jumped down onto the rocky ground. She knew full well that this was just another routine assignment, just like every other mercenary undertaking she had gone on in the past three years, but it still made her nervous every time she went in to do these jobs, knowing full well that the Normandy's entire financial situation depended on her successful completion of the mission.

Terra Nova had grown economically unstable after the War, with a majority of its population leaving not soon after the first attacks on Earth to seek shelter in other systems, leaving the planet an open target for drug runners and other criminal activities. With this increase in drug activity, Terra Nova had quickly become the most common selling ground for a new batarian synthetic designer drug called TMX, said to be compatible with every species' physiology and even more effective than red sand in delivering a biotic-stimulated rush of adrenaline. It was an untested drug, illegal even by drug trade standards, said to have an even greater chance of paranoia, hallucinations, terror, and even death as a side effect than any other drug on the market. It had become increasingly popular in underground nightclubs following the end of the War, with young people feeling almost invincible since surviving the Reaper attacks, meaning that the sales of it were on the rise, making it difficult to track down and stop every shipment. As a result, smaller shipments and sales of the product that could not be prioritized by law enforcement had been farmed out to mercenary workers like Shepard, who were given limited civilian authority to bring in sellers and buyers to be punished by the actual law.

Despite retaining her rank and title as a Spectre, Shepard still had to work with the local authorities on cases like these, a fact which made her miss her sense of freedom and authority more than anything else. However, she could not argue with the paycheck bounty hunting brought in, no matter how meagre it happened to be – the money from these jobs bought quarian formula for her son, food for her crew, and paid for their fuel to get to the next job. Crouching low at the edge of a large warehouse, Shepard hugged her Marauder close to her chest, trying hard to keep her breathing nearly silent as she crawled in a crouch from one end of the line of crates she hid behind to the other, barely daring to peer around the corner to see what was going on in the assembly. The meeting was much larger than the message she had received had made it out to be – while her constabulary contractor had estimated the dealer and the buyer might turn up with one or two bodyguards each, he had done nothing to warn her about the ring of watchdogs they had brought with them, bringing the number in attendance closer to ten or fifteen. It was difficult to tell exactly how many thugs prowled the warehouse, as they all wore similar dark garb, and the fact that they kept moving made it hard to know who had been in one place and was now in another.

Activating her omni-tool, Shepard made a quick, discreet scan of the group in the middle of the warehouse, running each face through a database of wanted criminals, and was satisfied when the two in the middle came up as the individuals she had been sent to track down. Closing out her omni-tool again, she peered around the corner of the crates, watching as the human buyer attempted to barter with the batarian seller, but it was clear from the seller's face, as well as the faces of the batarians standing around him, that he would not be having it today. "It's not negotiable, Rosell," the batarian seller answered, shaking his head, firmly. "I've been informed we can't go any lower than what I already told you. If I try to undercut the higher-ups, it'll be my head on a pike."

"That's a bit extreme, don't you think, Gorm?" the human buyer, Rosell, answered, doing his best to sound amiable, despite his obvious mounting frustration at the stubbornness of the price. "I'm sure they won't kill you for going a little lower. Come on. We can help each other out."

"You know the last guy who had my job?" Gorm insisted, taking a step forward, causing the two goons flanking Rosell to stiffen, their hands inching towards their guns. "He went a little lower on the price than the higher-ups said, and you know what happened to him? He disappeared. Nobody ever heard from him again." Giving a derisive snort, he took a step back away from Rosell again, causing the guard dogs on either side of him to relax a bit, if only barely. "They say they cut him up and fed him to the boss' pet," Gorm added, giving a jerk of his chin in his associate's direction. "I don't know how much truth there is to that, but I don't want to find out for myself. You pay what I told you, or you get out. That's the deal."

Shepard frowned at the gruesome story, ducking behind her line of crates and glancing down at her weapon again, making sure she had remembered to put in a fresh heat sink before heading down. She found it hard to believe that someone would have an employee cut into pieces and fed to what she assumed was a varren, even for something like price skimming, but she pushed this thought aside as she peered out from behind the crates again, continuing to listen, waiting for an opportunity to strike. As it was, there were still too many guard dogs hanging around near where she crouched, making it difficult for her to get a clear shot at either of the main thugs without being noticed, or getting shot, herself, in the process. Rosell seemed just as mortified by the tale of brutal consequence as she was, and he made a face, crossing his arms, before frowning and taking a deep, thoughtful breath in. "Fine," he finally conceded, holding out a hand for Gorm to shake. "You got a deal. You drive a hard bargain, Gorm."

Gorm smirked at the confirmation, shaking the hand offered him, before letting out a short, self-satisfied grunt and retrieving his hand again, crossing his arms over his chest. "Just doing my job, Rosell," he answered. "No hard feelings." Rosell huffed at this, noncommittal, before starting to reach for the pouch on his belt, pulling something out of it and starting to hand it over to Gorm. Gorm watched intently as Rosell prepared to pay, indicating for his two bodyguards to bring the product forward before holding out his own hand to take whatever it was Rosell had.

"Hey!" a deep voice suddenly shouted from behind Shepard, causing to turn quickly, feeling her stomach drop out at the sound. A batarian thug stood a few feet behind her, his Carnifex raised, ready to fire, the red lights blinking along the side as he trained her in his sights. "What are you doing here?" the thug insisted. "You're not supposed to be here! Are you with the cops?!"

"The cops!" another thug shouted, hearing him, causing every head in the vicinity to turn. "Run! It's the feds! Every man for himself!"

No sooner had this shout filled the warehouse when panic broke loose, the sounds of shouting overwhelming as every present being scattered for safety, knocking over shipment crates in their haste to escape the proverbial authorities. The thug with his weapon trained on Shepard fired, his shot making a loud, ringing ping as it ricocheted off the crate nearest Shepard's head, and she took the lucky opportunity to spring to her feet, rushing him before he could aim again and knocking him to the ground. Bringing her gun up, she cracked him across the face, smashing the butt of her gun into his skull until she was sure he was out cold. Then, jumping to her feet again, she leapt over the top of the line of low crates, firing her weapon at a few remaining guard dogs who had opened fire at the first sign of movement. One went down almost immediately, a spray of blood bursting from a wound in his neck, but the other took two shots to take down, both in the chest, before he finally fell. Rosell was already sprinting for the door by the time she found him, and she quickly took aim, spraying a round of bullets at his feet, until he suddenly stumbled and fell, letting out a shout of pain and grabbing for his wounded leg as his credit chit went skittering across the warehouse floor.

Now all that was left to take care of was Gorm, who she easily found trying to collect up his cargo before starting to make a run for safety. Catching up to him quickly on foot, she tackled him, taking him down to the floor, before yanking him over and kneeling on top of him, pinning him to the floor with her knee as she pressed her arm into his throat, choking him. "Who's supplying the product?" she insisted, her face barely inches from his as she shouted. Gorm gurgled, baring his teeth, his black eyes lit up with rage as he thrashed, refusing to answer her question, before he suddenly started to reach his hand down towards weapon at his belt, straining to reach it. Realizing what he was trying to do, Shepard ripped the Carnifex from his belt, throwing it away across the floor before striking him with the butt of her Marauder, opening a bloody cut across his cheek and forcing him to pay attention. "Don't get cute with me," she growled, pressing harder with her arm against his throat. "I don't have patience for you today. Who's supplying the product you're selling?"

"I don't have to tell you anything," Gorm answered, giving another thrash, this one notably weaker than the last. "You're just a mercenary. You have no authority here!"

Shepard could feel her face burning at this, and for an instant she considered correcting him, telling him that she was a Spectre, more qualified to deal with scum like him than any authority he had ever met before. Then, thinking better of it, she instead lifted her Marauder again, striking him across the face with it once more, causing him to give a shout of pain as his nose gave a sharp crack, spraying bright red blood across the butt of her gun as she pressed her arm more firmly into his throat. "Who's supplying the product, Gorm?!" she demanded, barely letting up even as he gave another sputtering choke, blood from his nose starting to drip into his open mouth as he struggled to breathe against her weight.

"I don't… know…!" Gorm insisted, taking a deep, ragged breath, before coughing up a bit of blood that had started to pool in the back of his throat. "It gets dropped off… at a local drop point… we never see the suppliers… we just get instructions… on the sales…! I swear, that's all I know…!"

"Who handles the money?" Shepard insisted, shoving her gun more forcibly against the side of his head, causing him to give a shrill, gurgling keening noise as he tried to lean away from it. "Do you keep it? Does it go in your personal account? Or does it get transferred somewhere else?"

"I don't know!" Gorm answered, louder this time, turning his black eyes back onto her, desperately. "I don't know anything… I swear!" Letting out another cough, more desperate this time, he writhed in her grip, taking in another, sharper breath, and she let up a bit, not wanting him to suffocate to death before he finished telling her all he knew. "We only get paid a f… fraction of the sale cost," he insisted, exhaling sharply to clear his nose of blood, causing more of it to spray onto her gauntlet. "Why would I tell you any of this… if I were afraid of my profit being taken away…? We get next to nothing… compared to the amount the drug sells for…!"

"Then who does get the money?" Shepard asked, sharply, giving another pressing thrust with her knee into his stomach, causing him to grunt in pain at the motion.

"The money… the money is transferred to a dummy account," Gorm panted, giving another bloody cough. "And then… it gets drained from there and sent all over the place… I-it's impossible to trace, I have no idea where it ends up, but…" Shaking his head, he coughed again, louder this time, spraying bright red blood onto his lower lip as he did so. "Please, you have to believe me," he begged. "I don't know anything. I'm just a pusher, a-a-a fall guy. The money… it's being used for something else. I don't know what. I'm just doing my job – please…!"

Shepard scowled, gripping her gun, staring at him for a moment as she thought, her arm still pressed against his throat, her knee still digging into the soft flesh of his stomach. Then, letting up on her arm, she let him take a deep breath in, finally able to breathe for the first time. Glancing over towards Rosell, she watched as his legs began to slide away past the doors of the warehouse, a wide swath of crimson following behind him from where he had dragged himself across the floor after being shot. Letting out a shout of frustration, Shepard gripped her Marauder, giving Gorm a good crack across the face, knocking him out cold, before getting to her feet and running in the direction of the human buyer, who was now trying to struggle to his feet against the wall of the warehouse. "Officer Garner, this is Shepard," she panted into her in-ear comm. "I've got the two suspects pinned, ready for arrest. I just need backup to come collect them." Coming up to stand behind Rosell, she trained her weapon on him, taking a few steps forward towards him until her gun was pressed into his back. "Weapon on the ground, asshole," she instructed. "Hands where I can see them."

Rosell paused a moment at the instruction, seeming to be weighing his odds. Then, before she could stop him, he reached for the gun at his belt, drawing it, only to have it knocked from his hands by her own weapon, followed by a swift punch to the face that left him bleeding on the ground. Rosell groaned as he gripped his broken nose, writhing in pain as blood continued to pool around his wounded leg, the blood-stained chit he had been carrying in his hand lying on the ground beside him. Shepard bent, quickly picking it up, before straightening again to aim her weapon at him, keeping him pinned securely in place as the faint sound of sirens began to approach. Rosell looked up at his captor over his blood-stained hands, letting out another wounded huff, spraying blood from between his fingers, before his expression began to change, and he paused, his brow furrowing as he stared at Shepard. "Hey," he panted, out of breath, his voice muffled through his cupped, bloody hands. "Hey, I know you. Hey, yeah. Aren't you Commander Shepard?"

Shepard frowned, unsure how to respond, before glancing up to check on how close the police hovercars were. Seeing the flashing lights settling down barely a few yards away, she finally allowed her weapon to drop, taking a step back as two armed asari officers ran up to them, grabbing up Rosell under the arms and dragging him painfully onto his feet. "I used to be," she told him, frankly, stashing her gun at her belt again. Then, turning to one of the asari officers, she pressed the blood-stained chit into her hand, before pointing back in towards the warehouse interior. "There's another one still inside, officer," she informed them. "Gorm. He's the seller." Having said this, she let out a tired breath, taking a step back as she turned her attention to Rosell again, watching as he was dragged away, unable to help but notice the disappointment in his pockmarked face at what she had become.