Thane Krios is the best elite assassin in the galaxy. And he has less than a year to live. He decides to perform one last altruistic act by killing an asari mobster and just as he is about to embrace Kalahira's calling, Commander Shepard of the Alliance shows up with a suicide mission for which she needs him. Jane Shepard has returned from the dead. Her last memory is the Normandy SR-1 shattered in space by a Collector ship's beam. She has awakened on a Cerberus space station. Two years have passed since the attack and her former comrades, the Alliance and the Citadel Council do not take kindly to her supposed resurrection or her association with the Illusive Man's organization. Meanwhile, Collectors abduct human colonists in the Terminus Systems and no one seems to care. For Thane, death was his ten years of battle sleep driven only by his thirst for vengeance, while for Shepard, the two years unconscious while strangers did and undid with her body without her consent. Together they will find their way back to life and with their comrades venture into the bowels of the galaxy from where no ship has ever returned. This fanfiction is based on Mass Effect 2 and is the first half of a two-part story. Edited by Alixander Thompson. Find him on https://arthompsoncentral.com/editing-services/