The elevator ride up to the Arc Monitor's bridge level was a slow and agonizing one for Siana.

It'd been years since she'd served in frontline combat. And while she was proud to say she'd handled herself more than adequately in the firefight near the sealed hangar, being all alone in a dreadnought full of hostiles was something entirely different. All she had was her pistol, her omni-tool, and the codebreaker the human, Cole, had given to her. Match that with the heavily armored, heavily armed security officers swarming along the rogue ship's corridors and her odds became ever slimmer.

But it wasn't just her life that was in danger, it was the other crewman of the Palaven's Fire as well as the two intelligence agents who'd made their way aboard. Nearly a dozen lives were depending on her providing them their one chance at escaping the doomed ship. She was their one and only hope, which brought a significant amount of pressure that was just now beginning to sink in.

Siana sighed to herself.

A part of her wished that she'd never opted to go with the Palaven's Fire. Their psychological exams could've very well been completed at a later date and damn to the Hierarchy big wig who'd committed the highest of turian crimes in bungling the Fleet's nearly flawless record of orderly planning. Then maybe she wouldn't have found herself in the middle of such a mess.

She promptly shook the idea out of her mind. There was no sense in wishing for the past to be any different. It had already happened after all and was something she couldn't change no matter how hard she tried. She'd just have to keep a level head and ensure that things would turn out for the better in the present.

A growing rumble sounded out somewhere on the ship, shaking the elevator cabin and causing the interior lights to flicker briefly. Siana gripped the small space's guardrails as the elevator halted in its ascent, holding a breath as the lift's internal motors sputtered against one another. After a few brief seconds that felt like hours, the elevator continued in its path upwards.

There were more rumbling and even the distinct groan of metal from sections she passed. It appeared that Ardarius had been correct in his projection at just how long the ship had. From how fast the damage was progressing (from what she could tell anyway), the ship was already showing chinks in its once formidable armor. She cursed herself for not setting her omni-tool's timer to figure out how much longer until the vessel's reactor went critical.

The very thought of being aboard the dreadnought when its mass effect drive collapsed in on itself was a kind of death that no sane individual would ever pray to befall. Instant incineration by element zero waves, followed by a literal scattering of her molecules, every single atom ripped apart and thrown into the desolate vacuum of space. There wasn't a unit of measurement small enough to measure any remains that had the possibility of being recovered.

She jolted as the elevator suddenly came to a halt, the lift doors sliding open sharply as if she was an invited guest aboard the ship. With a hesitant, but determined certainty, Siana poked her head out of the lift to see just where she was.

The elevator had left her off in a very wide-spaced corridor, a hangar catwalk by the looks of it, one designed for transporting heavy loads of supplies or personnel. At the moment, it was mostly just the personnel.

Crewman and security officers, all adorned in either black service suits or combat armor, were jogging orderly but anxiously towards a moderate fleet of escape ships. A warning klaxon wailed overhead, supplemented by a chorus of orders being barked by a choice select of commanding officers (all of which were a mish mash of different species) and the resounding tremors shaking the ship ever so violently.

Nobody seemed to take notice of her as she stepped out of the elevator, crowds of sentients rushing to the escape ships without any concern for her presence. She narrowly dodged a krogan security officer hefting several crates of supplies in his arms, not even casting her a second glance as she weaved out of the way.

So it appeared the crew of the Arc Monitor were aware of their situation and were following a military style evacuation that she couldn't help but admire. The efficiency they were operating under, especially with an assortment of turians, humans, krogans, salarians, and even quarians, was an impressive feat even by Hierarchy standards. It was a shame such talent was going to waste.

But back to the task at hand. She stepped back from rest of the ground and brought up her map display of the dreadnought. According to the screen, the bridge was just a short ways away from where she stood.

Siana grinned to herself. At least something else was going her way.

Or so she thought.

Despite her easy jog through the empty hallways leading to it, Siana came to realize as she arrived at the pair of doors leading into the bridge that they'd been locked from the inside. Cursing to herself, she unstrapped the codebreaker from her belt and pinged Cole on her comm link.

"Cole, I've run into a situation. The bridge has been locked down from a terminal inside. How can I get the breaker to open it?"

The human's voice crackled in reply, the connection turning spotty but still understandable enough. "Okay, first you need to place the back of the device onto the door's center."

She did just that. "Now what?"

"Select the designation code 'alpha two three nine' on the front console. Then hit the center command key."

As her finger compressed the command button, an electronic chirping began from the device, a small circular notch along its top beginning to spin with a uniform spontaneity.

"Now you'll just have to wait. The process shouldn't take more than a minute."

Siana grunted at the news. "How much time do we still have then?"

"Eight or ten minutes at this point. We're all prepped and ready down here once you're finished. Do you remember the plan?"

She nodded even though there was no way the human could see it. "I remember."

"Keep in mind that it may not even be necessary. Maybe this Captain of there's actually jumped ship too to save his own skin..."

"As much as I'd like to believe that Cole, I doubt that'll be the case. Either way, I'll call you back when the time's right. Siana out."

The comm connection was closed from her end before Cole even had the chance to reply, which had been her intention to begin with. Her nerves were already sending shockwaves down her spine while she could feel her breathing becoming increasingly short. It felt like the very walls of the ship would close around her the longer she stood in place, second's slipping by with each passing moment.

The codebreaker still chirped away against the door's internal locking mechanisms. Another tremor, this time, feeling like the shock wave from an explosion, rattled the ship from below and knocked a nearby fire suppression cylinder off its hinges. A section of ceiling paneling followed the suppressor to the ground as something cumbersome and metallic collapsed on the floor above her. The breaker's notch continued to spin.

It took the span of fifteen more seconds for a loud clunk from the bridge door's lower section to be heard. Siana could only assume that that was indication that its magnetic locks had been disengaged by the handy little device. Swiping the boxy piece of hardware off its perch, Siana pinged the door's opening key without preamble.

It swished open.

Only as her body stepped past the threshold that she noticed the imposing figure standing with its back to her. The entire berth of the Arc Monitor's bridge stretched before them, an angled horizon of monitors and blinking computer terminals, devoid of any sentient operators save for the single bipedal figure.

The bridge door swished shut behind her.

"I knew I hadn't seen the last of you," Captain Samuel Larris rasped through his scorched lungs, turning his hellish face around to face Siana. "You're more resourceful than you give yourself credit for."

"Thank you for the compliment," Siana replied as she unholstered her pistol and pointed it straight at the man. "Now drop your weapons."

The Captain chuckled to himself as he raised both of his bandaged arms into the air. "I am unarmed. Besides, if I wanted you dead I wouldn't have ordered the bridge's security detachment to the escape ships."

"Which I assume is where you're going after all of this is over, huh? Once you slaughter dozens of innocents for your own twisted means."

"In exchange for the Galaxy to finally be made a safer place," he corrected. "But I doubt you came all this way to argue the morality of my plan. Are you here to kill me then? The deliberate destruction of my ship not good enough for you?"

Siana grit her teeth. "I was only here to get the hangar doors open. But it looks like you still haven't realized you've already lost."

"Have I?" Larris gestured up at a monitor to his left. "I don't think so."

The terminal display showed a moderately sized passenger vessel with several indiscernible numerical readouts beside it. The ship was of the diplomatic sort, expensively designed, bearing the regal white color scheme and silver insignia of the Council. Siana could as well clearly recognize the atomic timer clicking away at the screen's far end, showing minutes, seconds, and milliseconds all the way down to the line.

There were roughly ten minutes left on the screen.

"I know it wasn't just you and your crew who set the reactor into meltdown," Larris continued. "Those two agents, the turian, and the human were the saboteurs I never got my hands on. Shame I wasn't able to meet them in person. They managed well enough with the situation that was given to them. How they were able to find me on the other hand, well...I guess I'll never know."

"You're coming with me," Siana said with a step forward, the gun still clutched in her hands. "You deserve to stand trial for what you've done, the lives you've taken and the peace you're trying to derail. It isn't right."

"Oh? And so this aforementioned 'peace' is justified when it's off the backs of lobotomized slaves owned by the batarians or civilians caught in the crossfire of a warlord border dispute? Yes, this peace, this status quo is tranquil for the established nations of the Galaxy, but what about the unheard innocents crying out for a different way of life, an escape from the horrid existence they've been dealt?"

Larris gestured to himself. "Myself, my crew, and my generous benefactors are the ones offering a second chance to the people of the Terminus Systems. For too long the masses only sit back and watch as the world around them changes into something it was never meant to be. But when a small group of outsiders begins to work their magic...anything can happen."

"In less than ten minutes, the mindless bureaucrats light years away from where we speak will be destroyed by the Arc Monitor's particle beam. There will be a war between the Terminus and the Council, and the first step towards a brighter future will finally be undertaken."

"Even if it means sacrificing your own life and those of everyone from the Palaven's Fire, including myself and those two agents?" Siana countered.

The Captain shrugged. "I've always been willing to die for what's right. As for your crew, I already hold an animosity for any who've deliberately put the lives of those I care most about in danger. And the two agents," he spread his palms, "it's a tragedy such talent goes to waste. But they got themselves into this mess after all."

"That might be true, but what about your crew? Would you sacrifice them for this 'greater good' of yours?"

The human's soulless white eyes narrowed at the allusion, his posture stiffening slightly. "What are you talking about? They'll already…"

The sudden ping of an incoming call came from Larris's omni-tool. With a quick glance to the wrist-mounted device and another to Siana (her weapon still raised), he accepted the haled communication with the slightest touch of hesitance.

"Sir," came the heavily accented voice of a male quarian from the other end. "We're having some trouble getting the hangar shields open. There seems to be something wrong with the auto-lock system."

"W-What?" The Captain replied in queried anxiety. "Are you sure, Sergeant? My console says that the doors should be working on your end."

"They aren't, sir. We're stuck down here in the loading bay, prepped but trapped at the time being. Is there anything you can do from up there?"

"Yes," Larris growled as he closed the comm link, casting a savage glare at Siana. "There is."