I jogged to keep up with Shepard's walking pace, wondering just how she had so much stamina.

"But Shepard…."

"The answer is no. You have NO combat training, and you don't have any skills I need down there."

"But you won't know what I can do until…"

"Zel, no. We still know nothing about you, and how full Geth will affect you. Now move out of my way so I don't have you sent to the brigg."

"Yes, Shepard" I was sure I sounded like a whiny kid. Such a great impression, I'm sure. I backed off slightly, tailing Shepard.

"You're gonna need biotics down there." I offered. She wheeled on me.

"And you don't have any. Not exactly helping your case."

"I know. I just thought...I thought I could still help from up here."

"Fine. Keep your comms on. If you 'know'" She looked at me skeptically there, "Anything else, let us know." She turned away from me. "Twilia, Wrex, Kaidan, Tali, gear up and meet in the airlock in five." She barked out. The team was on their feet remarkably quick, Twilia, who never seemed to leave her armor, much like Garrus, jogged over to Shepard.

"Mite's coming too."

"No way. He'll be crushed!"

I had to agree, but did have enough sense of self preservation to not get between two Spectres in an argument.

"We've never been on a mission without each other!"

"And how many of those missions involved Geth?" Shepard looked completely unimpressed.

"None. But that's beside the point."

"Twilia, Mite is an infiltrator. He's not going to be useful down there, and we'd have to be careful not to trip over or step on him."

Mite rolled over to add his two cents. "Yeah, I've never been great with combat situations. And I don't think you'll need anyone who can fit in small spaces down there. I'll be safer up here."

"Alright, you win. Mite can stay here."

The little being smiled. "Can I help the engineers then?"

Shepard smied in amusement. "Sure. Having you and Tali around seems to have boosted morale down there, and any rate."

The furball rolled off, and with nothing more to distract Shepard, she noticed I was still standing behind her. She frowned slightly.

"You got something to add?" She raised an eyebrow.

I hurriedly shook my head. "I...um...can I steal Ash to help me with weaponry?"

"That isn't a bad idea. But don't bug her is she's already busy."

I nodded, hurrying to the other side of the cargo bay, trying to ignore the fact that I was now the only one making noise as the ground team assembled in the elevator. I walked over behind Ash, waiting until she finished putting the pistol she was perpetually working on back together before speaking.

"Hey, Chief?"

She turned, her face unreadable. "What?"

"Could you help me out with target practice?"

"What do you need help with? Just pick a simulation and start shooting."

"Erm...I never used a real gun before. Only air rifles."

She sighed and shoved a pistol into my hands. "Alright. Get moving."

She tailed me to the range and watched from afar as I shot at the stationary targets, only coming close to make suggestions and adjust my arms for me.

"Hey, at least I hit that one!" I snapped back at Ash's sigh.

"Barely. I swear, you are the worst shot I have ever seen. Did the geth put any targeting help in that head of yours?"

"I keep telling you, it's not the targeting, it's the recoil!"

"Uh huh. Deffiinintly."

"It is!"

"I have modded that thing to have the least recoil a pistol possibly can in the last few hours of shooting. I don't believe that for one second."

"Fine! But I do line up the targets just fine."

"If you were…" She took the pistol out of my hands and fired a single shot, hitting the bullseye perfectly. "You would be able to do that." She shoved the pistol back into my hands.

I turned back to the targets, firing off another shot. It went wide, whizzing past the target by several feet.

"Alright, if your left eye really is dominant, you're holding it the right way. Just out of craziness, try dominate arms."

"Right." I changed my grip, my Geth arm now holding my other arm steady. I awkwardly tilted my head to sight the pistol, and let a bullet fly. Remarkably, it hit the target.

"I call that luck. Try again."

I fired off several rounds, once again missing the target, but hitting or clipping it about half the time.

"You still are a terrible shot. But better." She smirked, and walked off. I switched my grip back to the proper way and fired off shots until I had gone through the entire ammo block. The projector showing hits in each ring only showed 20 hits in the outer ring by the time I finished. I slumped down to the floor. At this rate, I would never be useful enough to go on a mission.

I must have dozed off, as I awoke to Shepard screaming into the comms, laying flat on the floor. I groaned and pressed my earpiece to answer the comms.

"Zel Auborn, you better not have known about this!"

"What? Shepard?"

"What are you even doing?"

"I um...Was on the range. And fell asleep after?"

"Zel! We've got a big evil plant down here, and could have saved a bunch of time if someone had known about it. Like suggesting Biotics?"

"Um…"

"You did know, didn't you?"

"Yes?"

"And why didn't you think to mention this?"

"Because Geth?"

"That. Is. A. Terrible. Answer." I could hear her fuming through the comms. "I need ALL the information my team can give me before going anywhere."

"Alright. Sorry."

"If it helps, we did get rid of all the Geth, and probably would have missed quite a few if we got to the Thorian first." Twilia pointed out.

"We could have dealt with them after we had gotten rid of the plant!"

"I didn't think of that." I managed to get out.

"Obviously not. Next time, I want to know everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. That way we can plan ahead."

"Alright, alright. I get it. Two brains are better than one."

"Good. Shepard out." The comms cut out abruptly, and I stretched my tensed muscles. I couldn't decide if this Shepard was supposed to be Paragon or Renegade anymore. But I did know that I had just messed up. If I hadn't admitted I knew something, she wouldn't be mad. If I had given them the info ahead of time, well...that could have been a whole different story. The future could be totally messed up, or it could have done nothing at all. I thought back to what Nihlus had told me, about different types of events. It did seem that the same point in the timeline would be reached, regardless of how we got there. And if it wasn't meant to change, would I be able to to begin with? I really hated time. I hated time travel. I hated trying to make sense of the universe. With a sigh, I cleared my head and grabbed the pistol, figuring I should go find it a new ammo block.

Mite crawled out of the tunnels eagerly, his fur coated in dust.

"Seriously, when was the last time one of you went down there?"

"Well... we had to fix that thermal regulator the other week…"

Mite groaned, then perked right back up. "So what now?"

"Shepard requested you in the conference room while you were down there."

Mite jumped up to activate to door sensors. "I better not keep her waiting then."

He rolled into the hall, weaving between the feet of people heading to sleeping pods and wobbling around stations until he got to the conference room. He found everyone was there already, or at least all the seats were taken.

"Sorry, Spectre Shepard. I was down in the engineering tunnels…"

She smiled at him, making him perk up slightly, guilt at being late washing away. "I'm glad you made it."

"So what are we talking about?" He asked, trying to get caught up as he climbed onto Twilia's shoulder so he could see the whole room.

"We received a transmission from the council about a squadron of salarians going missing on Virmire. We are debating how we should proceed."

"We should get them right away! What if the Geth are involved?"

"On the other hand, we do have several other requests from the Alliance to check into."

Zel's voice drifted from the corner. "Virmire will magically wait until we are ready to go to it. I vote we take care of other business first."

"And you're sure of this?"

"Every scenario I have seen, Virmire magically waits. I think we take care of those space pirates, or the hostage situation, first."

Shepard seemed skeptical of Zel. "And you aren't hiding something?"

Mite noted that Zel suddenly seemed nervous, biting her bottom lip. "Shepard," He interjected "I think we should go get the hostage first too. Never know what could happen."

Shepard nodded, seeming to relent. "Alright, tell Joker to set a course. I'm hitting the showers. Dismissed."

Mite rolled over to Zel as everyone trickled out of the room.

"Hey. You know something, don't you?"

"Why does everyone keep asking that?"

"You tend to look nervous when directly asked if you are hiding something."

"I'll work on that."

"Zel…."

"Alright! Yes, I am hiding something."

"And that is?"

"MIte, if you knew someone had to die, but couldn't do a thing about it, what would you do?"

"Tell someone else. Maybe you're overlooking something."

"On Virmire, Shepard has to choose. It doesn't matter how it goes down, one crew member will get spit from the group. Shepard has to choose if she wants to save them, or go save the group she is with."

"And you don't see any way around this?"

"Only one, where the victim lives out their life in crippled agony. Is that fair either?"

"You need to tell Shepard" He prompted gently.

"But wouldn't it just distract her? Make her agonize over it as well?"

"Zel, I can tell her if you won't. She deserves to know. She can plan ahead that way. Find something you didn't."

"I see. I thought you were a friend."

"I am! I just want what's best for the crew. For everyone else on this ship as well."

"Mite." Tears formed in her eyes. "I'm never going to be a useful part of this crew. But...If I can get Shepard to send me instead, I...I can save them."

"Zel." His high pitched voice was harder than normal. "What are you doing?"

"I can't tell you. You'd try and stop me."

"Zel…" There was a note of menace and alarm in his voice.

"Don't tell Shepard. Please."

"Zel, If this half baked plan of yours is going to get you or the crew hurt, I have to at least tell Twilia. And you can bet Shepard needs to know if someone on her crew is gonna DIE!"

"I can't let you tell them." He missed the panic in her voice

"Then tell them yourself."

"I can't. I need to do this. I can change the who."

Mite knew this conversation was going nowhere. Zel was being irrational. He jumped onto her arm and scrambled up onto her head, effectively slapping her with his small paws.

"Zel, focus! Do you even hear yourself?"

Her Geth arm closed around his scruff. He felt himself being lifted, and clung to her headset to not be moved. It slipped off of her head in his grasp, and he found himself flying across the room, thumping against the wall. Zel moved to tower over him.

"Well, little thing, It seems I have you to thank for my freedom. Because of this, I will spare you. For now. Eventually, all organics must cease to exist."

Mite looked up at the glowing red eyes in terror.

Alright, time for an OOC authors note. My wonderful Beta, Mags, and I decided we needed to address a few things. So...Sorry if the A/N is your favorite part of the story.

Anyhow, a few things about this story:

-Being an SI, I wanted Zel to share my physical characteristics. However, I wouldn't survive in the ME universe without the use of both arm, so I had to do something to fix this problem. Having a Geth subplot just seemed a fun way to pull this off.

-I use the term 'Hybrid' as opposed to 'cyborg' because I consider hybrid to be a mix of two or more living species, which I include the Geth in. Cyborg is a mix or living species and computer.

-All characters are how I envisioned their personalities when playing the games. Sorry if they seem wrong to you.

-Shepard is played like I play my Shepards: wildly swinging from Paragon to Renegade for the first ME, then settling in on one for the other two.

-Mite is a random species insert, I like to think of him as part niffler, part tribble. And then given humanoid intelligence.

If you have any questions feel free to leave a review or PM me. As always, none of what you have read above or is to come belong to me besides my OCs and SI. Please feel free to review, even if you didn't like the story. I just ask that you keep it partially constructive to help me improve.

Thanks everyone!