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 Mal 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.
She could tell he was getting scared. His eyes kept darting around the cabin as if he was looking for an escape, and his fingers fidgeted nervously in his lap.
“You realize this is a death sentence for me,” Grayson told her.
“The Alliance will protect you,” Kahlee assured him. “You have valuable information on Cerberus. They’ll want to keep you around.”
“They can’t protect me,” Grayson answered, shaking his head. “It might take a month, or maybe even a year, but sooner or later one of their agents inside the Alliance will get to me.”
“What do you expect me to do?” Kahlee asked him. “I can’t let you go.”
“No,” he said softly. “No, I suppose you can’t.”
“You had to know this was going to happen,” she told him. “But you helped us anyway. I think you wanted to atone for your past.”
“I’d like to think I can atone without dying,” he said with a grim smirk.
“Remember why you’re doing this,” Kahlee said, hoping to improve his mood. “It’s for Gillian.”
The mention of his daughter brought a forlorn smile to the thin man’s lips.
“You were right,” he said. “What you told me before I killed Golo. Gillian’s happy now. I guess that’s all I can really hope for.”
Kahlee nodded. “You did the right—”
Her words were cut off as Grayson suddenly threw himself at her. He moved quick as a snake, throwing his head forward to strike at her unprotected nose. Kahlee ducked to the side at the last possible instant and he butted her in the shoulder.
His weight was bearing down on her, pinning her in her seat. His cuffed hands were trying to grab at her, until she jabbed her fingers, held flat and stiff, sharply into his windpipe.
Gasping and choking he fell away from the seat, then curled up in a ball on the floor. Kahlee leaped out of her chair and stood over him, her muscles coiled in case he lunged at her a second time.
“Try that again and I’ll shoot you,” she warned, but there was no real venom in her threat.
Her heart was pounding and her blood was racing with adrenaline, but he hadn’t actually hurt her. She’d been expecting something like this for some time now; he was getting desperate. If anyone was to blame it was her for not recognizing he was still dangerous.
“Come on,” she said in a softer voice, taking a step back from him. “I didn’t hurt you that bad. Get up.”
He rolled onto his side, and Kahlee realized he had something clenched between the fingers of his still-cuffed hands. It took her a second to realize it was a stunner—he must have torn it from her hip during the scuffle!
She tried to shout out a warning to Lemm, but Grayson fired and everything went black.
When she woke Lemm was standing over her, looking concerned. She realized she was in the shuttle’s bed, but the effects of the stunner had left her feeling disoriented and confused.
“Where are we?” she asked, struggling to sit up.
“Daleon,” Lemm answered. “A small volus colony.”
“I thought we were supposed to land on Cuervo,” she said, her foggy mind still putting the pieces together.
Lemm shrugged. “All I know is that somebody knocked me out with a stunner. When I came to we were sitting here at the Daleon spaceport.”
“Where’s Grayson? What happened to Grayson?”
“Gone,” Lemm replied. “We could search for him, if you want. It’s possible he might still be here on Daleon.”
Kahlee shook her head, realizing what had happened. “He’s long gone by now. We’ll never find him.”
“So what now?” the quarian asked.
“Take the shuttle and head back to the Idenna,” she told him. “You’ve got a lot of preparations to make for your journey.”
“What about you?”
“Just drop me off at the Grissom Academy,” she said. “There are a lot of kids in the Ascension Program who still need my help.”
With a smile, she added, “I’m pretty sure I can convince the board to take me back.”
EPILOGUE
The vid screen beeped to indicate an incoming message. The Illusive Man looked up from the report he was studying at his desk and noted the call was coming over a secure line.
“Answer,” he said, and an image of Paul Grayson flickered into view.
The Illusive Man blinked in mild surprise. He had assumed the mission to infiltrate the quarian flotilla was a failure, simply because two weeks had passed and he hadn’t heard anything. With most Cerberus assignments he could get general updates by watching the news vids, but with no media coverage of what went on in the confines of the Migrant Fleet, it had rendered him as clueless and ignorant as any ordinary, average citizen.
“Paul,” he said with a slight tilt of his head. “Has the asset been recovered?”
“Her name is Gillian,” the man answered. The hostility in his tone was unmistakable.
“Gillian, then,” the Illusive Man conceded, his voice cold. “What happened on the mission?”
“The team’s dead. All of them. Golo. Everyone.”
“Except you.”
“I’m as good as dead,” Grayson replied. “I’m a ghost now. You’ll never find me.”
“What about your daughter?” the Illusive Man asked. “How long will she be able to survive as a fug
itive? A life on the run is no life for her. Bring her in, Paul, and we can talk about what’s best for Gillian.”
Grayson laughed. “She’s not even with me. She’s on a quarian deep-space exploration vessel out in the middle of some uncharted system beyond the edge of the galaxy. You’ll never find her.”
The Illusive Man’s jaw clenched ever so slightly as he realized the girl was beyond his reach. The fact that Grayson was willing to taunt him with the information was clear evidence of how impossible it would be to track her down. He relied on a network of Cerberus informants throughout Council Space and the Terminus Systems to supply him with a constant flow of information. Out beyond that network he was literally blind.
“I thought you were loyal to the cause, Paul.”
“I was,” Grayson answered. “Then I saw the kind of people who share your vision, and I had a change of heart.”
The Illusive Man sneered at the screen. “I’m in the business of saving lives, Paul. Human lives. You used to understand that. Now it seems you’re suddenly trying to save your soul.”
“I think my soul is too far gone to save.”
“Then why are you calling?” the Illusive Man demanded, the smallest hint of frustration creeping into his voice.
“I’m giving you a warning,” the man on the other end of the vid screen answered. “Stay away from Kahlee Sanders. If you come after her, I go to the Alliance with everything I know.”
The Illusive Man studied the image on the vid screen carefully. He noticed the familiar signs of Grayson’s red sand use—the bloodshot pupils, the faintly luminous sheen on his teeth—were missing. And he realized the man wasn’t bluffing.
“Why is she worth so much to you?”
“Does it matter?” Grayson countered. “She’s hardly worth anything to you. Not compared to all the dirty little secrets I have. I figure my silence in exchange for her safety is a bargain.”
“We will find you, Paul,” the Illusive Man promised in a menacing whisper.
“Maybe,” Grayson admitted. “But that’s not why I called. Kahlee Sanders—do we have a deal?”
After taking a moment to weigh the offer, the Illusive Man nodded his acceptance. Gillian’s loss would set their biotic research back a full decade, but Cerberus had too many other projects on the go to risk them all for this. On the screen Grayson smiled. An instant later the image went blank as the call was disconnected.
He didn’t bother trying to trace the call—Grayson was too smart to slip up on something that simple. Instead, the Illusive Man just stared at the blank screen for a long, long time, slowly clenching and unclenching his jaw.
By Drew Karpyshyn
BALDUR’S GATE II: THRONE OF BHAAL
TEMPLE HILL
STAR WARS: DARTH BANE: PATH OF DESTRUCTION
STAR WARS: DARTH BANE: RULE OF TWO
MASS EFFECT: REVELATION
MASS EFFECT: ASCENSION
Mass Effect: Ascension is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Del Rey Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2008 by BioWare Corp. All rights reserved. Used Under Authorization.
MASS EFFECT © 2008 BioWare Corp. Mass Effect, BioWare Corp., the BioWare Corp. logo, BioWare and the BioWare logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of BioWare Corp. in the United States and other countries. All Rights Reserved.
Microsoft, the Microsoft Game Studios logo, Xbox 360, and the Xbox 360 logos are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and other countries. All Rights Reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-50775-4
www.delreybooks.com
www.bioware.com
v1.0
Mass Effect™: Ascension Page 27