Shepard sipped her coffee gratefully, enjoying the rare moment of silence that she stolen for herself. The last two months had been a rollercoaster of activity that she had been wholly unprepared for. She had gone from her post on Terra Nova which only involved a few anti-pirate operations, seeing action perhaps twice a month. The entirety of her time spent there she was under the command of Rear Admiral Kohoku, and most of her days had been spent training. Now, she was the sole officer in charge of the Normandy, a Spectre, and on a high risk mission that taken to the far corners of the Traverse. Every day she was either being shot at by geth, or mercenaries. Only Kaidan seemed to be the one of aware of the pressure she was under, and if had not been for him, she may very well have cracked.

Shepard sighed, leaning forward to rest her head on the cold metal of her desk.

Sadly, even Kaidan was getting a bit overwhelmed by recent events and Ashley on Virmire had shaken him to the core. She wondered idly if there had perhaps been something between him and the gunnery chief, but it was unlikely. Kaidan was a stickler for the regulations. But Virmire was past them, and they seemed now to one more obstacle ahead of them in the mad chase to stop Saren. But after that? She had an ostracised Matriarch to deal with. That whole affair had almost proven to be the last straw. What was the Council thinking?

Oh, let's just put the war criminal on Shepard's ship, the commander will definitely know what to do, and she most definitely knows how to handle an asari matriarch! Shepard sighed heavily; she would have to turn to Liara for help there, and she regretted that. The young asari was also dealing with a lot right now, and Shepard hated that she had to put this on her as well.

Benezia at least seemed like a normal person, and not the aloof stereotype that most would picture an asari matriarch as. In fact, in their brief chat while Shepard had shown her around the Normandy, she did not seem like a bad person either. She was unnervingly quiet though, and seemed quite distant, but then again she had just experienced the trauma of being possessed by an eldritch machine and being thrown out of her home, so Shepard could not fault her that.

If this all pulled through, she would love to get to know the Matriarch better. From what Liara described her as, she seemed like an amazing person. And, she was quite attractive. While she looked like Liara, obviously, Shepard would dare say that she looked like a handsomer Liara, with a stronger chin, higher set cheekbones and jaw that could probably slice marble.

Shepard sighed, again. She was grateful at least for the distraction thinking about how attractive Benezia was provided, but she knew that it was not entirely appropriate. She was one of her friend's mothers after all.

Well, distraction over, much like her coffee. She had to think of their next move, which was Ilos. After a good deal of headbutting with the Council and the Alliance, Shepard had managed to convince them that she would not start a war with the terminus. She was not even sure how that was even possible since the Terminus Systems was not one entity. They could probably piss Aria of but honestly, that was hardly going to start a war. Hopefully.

"Commander?"

Shepard stiffed, "Yes Joker?"

"We're about two hours from Ilos."

Shepard let out a long breath that did nothing to ease the tension in her shoulders. This was it, they were finally going to find the conduit… and Saren. She grinned darkly; he was going to pay for Ashley.

"Good, tell the crew to meet in the comm room."

She stood with a dark determination; he was not going to get away this time.

Shepard let her gaze slide over the assembled crew. Everyone looked anxious and ready to jump; Shepard felt the same. "This is it, crew; the final stretch. We'll be dropping on Ilos, where we will find, and kill, Saren and find the Conduit."

"Are we going to destroy it?" asked Tali. Shepard's lip twitched involuntarily, "Depends."

She cast her gaze onto the figure seated closet to the door. "What is it?"

Benezia shifted uncomfortably as everyone suddenly realized that she was there. "It is a relay directly onto the Citadel…"

"What!?" exclaimed Garrus.

"It was built by the Protheans. The Citadel… is a relay into dark space, and the Protheans disabled it, now Saren needs to get back onto the Citadel in order to 'fix it'."

Shepard waited for that to set in. Everyone in the room's expression darkened as they realized the true extent of what Saren was doing. "Saren, or more accurately, Sovereingn, is planning to attack the Citadel with the Geth Fleet. We discovered this from those data banks on Solcrum. The Council fleets are moving now to defend it. But our priority is to find and kill Saren on Ilos… and let the Council decide what to do with the Conduit."

There were many things that the Alliance did sloppily but this was not one of those things. Benezia gazed down at her armour, rifle and gear that had been retrieved from Thessia. Everything was there, in perfect working condition. She thanked whatever deity was looking down at her when she decided not to take her stuff with her when she went with Saren.

She rolled her shoulders, the leather beneath her armour plating creaking delightfully. It felt good to finally be back in control, and even better now that she had some sort of nutrition in her body and fresh clothes.

She was also standing alone, the rest of Shepard's team were all hanging around the Mako. They all looked a lot more intimidating – with the exception of Garrus who was still wearing the same TITAN battlsuit.

Out of all the though, ironically, the most intimidating was the Quarian, Tali.

Now, yes. Next to her stood a nearly 9 foot tall Krogan Battlemaster wearing a suit ancient Tuchankan Power Armour, which to someone who wasn't Benezia, would look the most intimidating.

But, Benezia had faced Quarian's in battle before, and Tali most likely had at least ten functions on her omni tool that could render Wrex's armour useless, destroy his weapon – A Wriath, interesting- and she wasn't wearing cardboard. She was wearing COLOSSUS battlesuit for Athames sake! Kassa Fabrication had only made so many of the things, before they became too expensesive. Normally, you would only see Spectre's strutting about in that. And it was Quarian! Best guess, there were only two in existence.

So yes, Benezia was more than a little intimidated by the quarian mechanic.

The elevator from the CIC opened and Shepard marched in dressed in full armour. She looked nearly as hulking as Wrex.

Flanking her was Kaidan and Liara, both dressed in light armour. ''Garrus, Tali, Benezia and Liara get in the Mako. The rest, you're in the Kodiak with Kaidan."

And that was when Benezia promptly learned how Alliances forces dropped into battle. They did from a tank, which plummeted down onto the ground. Only Benezia had any reaction when they hit the ground, she started at Liara, who shrugged, "You get used to it."

They just missed Saren, who disappeared behind a bunker door with an infuriating look of smugness on his plated face.

Shepard got out of the tank and appraised the door with a dark scowl.

"There's no way we're getting through that with brute force…" said Liara.

"Saren found a way in. Come on." Said Shepard, and she turned, unholstering her HWMA Rifle. "Garrus, switch to assault rifle, Benezia, hang back."

They started walking in the opposite direction of the bunker; a wall with a small gap obscured anything from further vision. All around them vegetation grew wildly over the ancient prothean structure, and, most unnervingly of all, there was not a single sound to be heard. Shepard hoised herself up just to see what was over it and cursed. "There's a bunch of geth on the other side, and what looks to be a compound, looks like we're going to have to explore the entire area."

Shepard tapped her omni-tool and her already bulky armour was covered in bright tech-armour. Then without another word, she stepped through the gap in wall, through up her arm, and a biotic barrier shielded her from the geth onslaught. Garrus followed behind her and then Liara, both stretched their arms out, their omni-tools glowing bright and the sound of shields exploding carried over the sound of gunfire for a moment.

Then Liara used Throw, and the geth, around five in number, went flying. Two crashed so hard against a far wall that their protective plating shattered from the impact. The other three did not get a chance to get up, they were reduced to scrap metal by tungsten rounds fired from Shepard and Garrus.

Benezia stared at the ruined bodies, not noticing the squad moving until more gunfire was heard further ahead.

Shepard was running forward, Liara tossed and group of geth into the air with Lift, Garrus' omni flashed and another group of geth exploded, Shepard flashed blue and in one huge geth armature smashed into a another, rendering both a useless pile of metal.

Benezia would be lying if she said that had not taken her breath away.

Shepard was a like Kurinth in human form, proud, powerful and awe-inspiring. Benezia blinked, shocked at herself. Normally, she would try to process what she had just thought but the squad was already moving on. She needed to keep up she would worry about her developing fascination with the human soldier later, right now she had an insane turian to help kill.