THE LAST CHANCE: Chapter 11

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Sa'lisa lent back in her pilots chair and snarled in frustration "Damn Shepard... these guys are no ordinary pirates"

They had been shadowing the massive human freighter for 3 days now through the dense asteroid field looking for its port of origin, Shepard getting increasingly worried about Tali. He knew she could take care of herself- in all his battles he had never met anyone as smart and brave and determined as her – but so much had been left unsaid in Garrus's Tomb. He desperately needed an untraceable ship to get back to her, and this freighter looked like it would do nicely despite it reminding him of a flying brick compared to the svelte bird of prey that was his Normandy. The Athena's long range scans revealed a small fortune of military upgrades and modifications. 'It would have cheaper to have bought a decommissioned cruiser from the Alliances Arcturus shipyards then spend the enormous amount of credits that had been wasted refitting this clunker' he thought. Whoever had done it clearly wanted the ship to remain anonymous, a wolf in sheep's clothing. 'Which is precisely why I must have if'

They had watched as the converted freighter had purposely avoided open shipping lanes instead keeping close to the densest part of the asteroid field. That in itself was remarkable. Other than Joker few pilots would be skilled or desperate enough to risk such a dangerous manoeuvre especially in something which was clearly as agile as a drunken krogan. Only once did the ship approach another freighter, a slow moving turian cargo vessel with only light shields and a single phase canon, easy pickings for a ship armed to the teeth like this one, but instead of boarding it, the ship made deliberate effort of avoiding it, hiding in a crater on one of the asteroids for nearly 3 hours until the other ship had completely moved out of sensor range. Despite flying something which despite its looks was pretty close to the size and armament of a cruiser, her Captain was taking no chances in being detected. Only the Athena's state of the art sensors and tactical cloak not to mention superb piloting by Sa'lisa allowed them to follow at all and then only at a considerable distance.

"Maybe they are smugglers rather than pirates?" Shepard said doubtfully

"Maybe" she replied doubtfully "but why would they need a battleship? Smugglers tend to go for speed and maneuverability " She peered at her display once more "They have to have a port around here somewhere; it's the only explanation for all this cloak and dagger stuff."

Shepard nodded "That would be my guess too. They are going to…Wait! What the hell!"

As they watched in astonishment, a spherical asteroid at least a hundred kilometers across suddenly appeared dead ahead of their position. The converted freighter fired its thrusters and swiftly turned towards it on a landing approach. After a few seconds as improbably as it appeared, the asteroid quickly vanished along with the ship.

"A tactical cloak" Sa'lisa whispered

"Which can cloak an entire asteroid?" Shepard said incredulously "Kasumi told me that it was hard enough cloaking a person effectively and those devices cost a fortune"

Sa'lisa smirked "That was three centuries ago… " she said "but…" she continued more seriously "but still… a tactical cloak that could cover an asteroid?" she shook her head "I suppose it's just possible but I don't want to think about how much it cost or what it would take to run it continuously."

"Not that is done them much good" Shepard snorted "we can follow them through it, right?"

"We know where it is, sure" she said slowly "I'm betting if we follow them in we will get past the cloak eventually, hopefully in time for us to avoid crashing into the surface but…"

Shepard raised his eyebrows "but?"

Sa'lisa was uncharacteristically grave "Commander I know you're the best and I'm pretty good myself but there are just two of us. The amount of credits this operation must have cost to put together… Whatever we have stumbled on here is big, clearly too big for just the two of us."

Shepard sighed leaning back in his chair "Normally I would agree with you Sa'lisa but we don't have choice. We need a ship that can't be traced. We need to get back to Palaven. We need to find out what's causing all of this and there is only us. You said it yourself; we can't contact anyone without bringing down that thing on us"

"This is true" she sighed in return

"Besides" Shepherd continued with a smirk "It was always like this back in the old days, me and a couple of my friends against impossible odds"

Sa'lisa grinned "I did always love Uncle Wrex's crazy stories about the heroic Commander Shepard when I was a kid like the time when you went charging in with Mother and Garrus towards a Reaper on Tuchancha armed with just your old Vindicator and a bad attitude. I mean seriously what was all that about… "

He shuddered slightly. Oh yes… the heroic Commander Shepard who that day came within a whisker of betraying Wrex who had called him a brother and murdering Mordin one of his closest friends and shipmates in cold blood.

"I am no hero Sa'lisa" he muttered looking down at his hands "I just do what I have to do to save people, the way I always had to do"

Concerned, she touched his arm affectionately, smiling as he turned to look at her "I understand Father… and I'll be proud to fight alongside you whatever we have to face" she said simply.

"OK then" Shepard said more cheerfully "once more into the breach…" laughing at Sa'isa's confused frown.

Gingerly the Athena approached the region of space where the asteroid had appeared on one quarter thrusters and with her own tactical cloak engaged, Sa'lisa intently focused on her instruments. They gradually closed in on the last recorded position of the asteroid but still all they could see was empty space.

"Goddess please do not let the cloak reach all the way down to the surface" she hissed to herself "or this is going to end very badly"

Suddenly, the rocky surface of the asteroid came into view only a thousand meters away and rapidly approaching. With a colourful string of asari curses that completely defeated his translator Sa'lisa managed to just fire the forward thrusters in time to pull the Athena up out of its precipitous dive.

"Phew" she smirked in his direction recovering her abundant sense of humour "That was... interesting. I can honestly say that in over two centuries of flying around the galaxy I've never done anything like that before"

Shepard grinned "See" he chuckled "nothing like a little quality father daughter time together"

Sa'lisa snorted humorously and quickly scanned her workstation "Ok I'm picking up an energy signature about 30 clicks from here; want to take a look… say hello?"

"It's the only polite thing to do considering how much effort we took to get here.

While Sa'lisa parked the Athena in conveniently deep crater 2 kilometres from the base, Shepard suited up in his white Circe heavy armour and selected a rifle from the armoury. The long trip from Tuchanka to Palaven had at least allowed him to catch up on the last three centuries of the evolution of the tools of his trade. The mass accelerator weapons he had originally trained on and wielded with such finesse during the Reaper Wars had been consigned to history along with gunpowder and shot. Energy weapons were now the instruments of choice. Hefting the bulky yet ergonomically designed rifle, Shepard was reminded of the particle rifle Jarvik wielded to such devastating effect

"You'll love it Shepard" Sa'lisa said suddenly coming up behind him "deadly accurate, long range and you don't have to worry about those ridiculous 'thermal clips' you old guys had to use back in the day. You just have to make sure you don't overload it so short bursts are the thing. In case you do overload it you better take a pistol as a backup since you don't have any biotics to fall back on. "Thanks for the advice" Shepard said picking up an energy pistol "I assume you are as talented as your Mother?" She smirked and arched an eyebrow suggestively "In what way Shepard? "she replied in a playful tone of voice with a hand on her hip.

"Err.. biotically that is" Shepard said slightly flustered "When Liara and I went into combat together I naturally took point since I was always armoured like a tank. She used to mainly enjoy throwing bad guys around from cover as well as spraying them occasionally with her trusty Tempest submachine gun"

She smiled at his obvious embarrassment "Don't worry Shepard. I am a skilled biotic and can throw people around at least as well as Mother but you're quite correct I am not a tank" she gestured to her close-fitting black asari commando armour which revealed her lithe figure to devastating effect "so if we do go in as you humans say 'guns blazing' I will be more than happy for you to take point even though I can out shoot you with any weapon any day be it assault rifles or sniper rifles."

"Ha!" Shepard grained "That sounds like a challenge T'Soni" fitting the rifle to his back.

"Certainly it is… but let's try a little finesse shall we rather than just storming in which you have a reputation for… its less fun I grant you but we are going to be probably outnumbered a gazillion to one"

Don't worry" he chuckled snapping on his helmet and entering the airlock "They never stood much of a chance back in the day with just one Shepard and these guys are about to get two"

'Besides nothing like a little warranted ultra-violence to get over a bruised heart' he thought quietly to himself and then ' I hope Tali is OK"

A/N Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for your comments and reviews