Ascension

itself had been sealed.

'Wait,' Mai 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 cried 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!' Mai 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 Mai 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.

Mai 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, Mai 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 Mai, 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 Mai 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 Mai 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.