Citadel Docks-Zakera Ward

September 14th, 2186

Though she'd been aboard during the blast, getting to see the damage the Citadel had sustained was surreal for Shepard. She had been the one that caused this, in the simplest of terms—she had physically pulled the trigger of her pistol and shattered the energy conduit with the intent of firing the Crucible. The decision had been made for her by the Reapers and the Catalyst, and firing the Crucible had saved trillions of lives, but the gun had been in her hand nonetheless. The memories of that horrific night were still seared onto her psyche, though not clearly. According to the marine doctors who'd treated her injuries back in London she'd been concussed when they found her (no surprise), and everything after Harbinger's blast was like a blurry dream to her. She remembered shooting Anderson, she remembered killing the Illusive Man, she remembered the Catalyst appearing to her like the little boy from London, and she remembered the blast—but trying to call up any of those memories left her head uncomfortably swimming.

The Citadel port that Dunkirk had docked at was near the Presidium, so Shepard and her marines had little ways to travel to reach their destination. Navigating the IFV through what'd once been the most prestigious avenues on the Citadel was uncomfortable, but that paled in comparison to the sights. She'd known that there had been extensive damage to the Wards, but it wasn't until now that she saw Tayseri Ward was gone, with only a mangled limb of what'd once been its supports left behind. A closer look revealed the Ward floating in the distance, high enough that it'd been trapped in orbit. The Ward hadn't ever truly recovered from Sovereign's attack in 2183, and she doubted many survivors would be found by rescuers.

Shepard had expected the damage to the Citadel, but what surprised her was seeing patches of clean repairs. However many keepers died in the blast didn't seem to slow them any, and already the strange green aliens were at work maintaining their station. It was unknown exactly where their source of repair material was, or how sizeable it was, but it seemed yet to have been replenished. The keepers had also removed almost all the bodies that were no doubt strewn about during the blast, as they always had in the Citadel's operation to be dissolved in protein reclamation vats.

"Mother of Christ..." exclaimed Sergeant Rishi Snider, though Shepard wasn't familiar enough with the marines to identify him, "The Presidium took the blast hard, there's hardly a surface here that isn't charred or warped."

His fellow marines chimed in with a mixed note of agreement, and the IFV was engulfed by another painfully still silence. She silently wondered if anyone on the Presidium had survived, knowing the only way she'd done as much was to evacuate the station. She had half-walked half-crawled back to the beam, while dragging Anderson behind her. It'd been one of the most painful experiences of her life, and each passing moment had been filled with a certain doom that the station would finally blow and take her with it. She'd known even at the time, with one arm wrapped around Anderson, that he was dead. She'd known that dragging him to safety with her would do him no good, and that it very well may have cost Shepard her life, but she'd do it all the same even now. David Anderson had been a friend, a father, and a comrade to her at different times during her career. He'd been a pillar of support in her most chaotic hours, and he deserved to find his rest on Earth.

She could tell they were getting close to the Conduit, and the thought brought a nervous tension to her stomach. She'd cleared all possible hurdles so far, but one remained: the Conduit could fail to work, or kill them in the process. With one final turn she brought the IFV in front of the Conduit, now is the time. She pulled the OSD from a pouch on her belt, pushing aside the anxiety in her gut, and shoved it into the Mako's console. A soft chime brought her attention to the Mako's central screen that showed fast moving lines of text which she assumed represented the running processes.

For long minutes the Conduit remained unchanging, even while the exploit scrolled away in front of her, and her fears that the plan might fall apart began to return. Is this it? I succeeded in getting a team, getting a hack, and getting all the way here only for it not to work?

Without warning the entire platform began to tremble, and what water was left in the decorative pond beneath them was rippling. A bright light washed over her as the Conduit itself came alive, and a brilliant blue glow flashed inside its spinning core. Tendrils of purplish energy cracked around the Conduit like lightning, though with time it settled into more of what she was used to from a relay—though still rather clearly less stable. In front of her on the Mako's screen teh text had stopped with a single line that read 'Complete', and Shepard sighed. "It's now or never..."

She'd only meant the words to be heard by herself, but from behind her came "Not the kinda thing that makes me warm and fuzzy when it comes from the woman about to drive me into a fuckin' space slingshot, ma'am." Despite the tension in Romez's voice she could still hear the typical humor in his voice.

Shepard floored the Mako's accelerator, and felt the IFV kick and lurch underneath her as it roared to life. Just as they were about to reach the Conduit she fired the boosters and carried them up into it, unsure how it would react if she just drove into the artifact. The Conduit wrapped its tendrils of energy around them and then they were gone. Suddenly it felt like the Universe had no bottom. She was still in the Mako, but it felt like she and the Mako might drift forever if they fell from the Conduit's grip. She was simultaneously freezing and nauseous, and it was hard to tell how long she'd felt like that. Luckily for her she'd been through the Conduit once, and knew what to expect from it, but it hardly lessened the impact. The feeling was similar to certain drugs she'd experimented with in her youth, stretching time out so that experiences that were only a few seconds old felt like distant memories.

As abruptly as the transition into the Conduit had been, they were suddenly thrown from it. In an instant the surreal experience was over and the Mako was tumbling through the air aimlessly. Already she could feel her head being thrown into the interior compartment, and she threw up her hands wildly in defense. With her mind imagined the barrier she needed, around both her and the marines. With the speed the Mako was taking on, if she wasn't successful in her barrier there could be serious injuries when they hit the ground. It'd been weeks at the minimum since she'd used biotics, and she was terrified the control might not come back to her, but her performance didn't disappoint.

An old familiar bluish-purple field took hold of her, and she hoped the marines behind her as well, not a moment too soon. Seconds later she felt the Mako smack into the ground with a bone shaking crash, and then begin rolling. It'd kept enough momentum from its flight that the IFV flipped up into the air a few times during its roll, coming back to crash painfully against the ground each time. The energy required to hold her and the others in place grew with each crash, and her body was growing increasingly weary, but Shepard found energy deep within her to hold on—she couldn't let go yet.

Finally the tumbling stopped with the Mako still rolled onto its side, and Shepard was able to slowly release her barriers. Her breath was ragged when the biotic hold was released, and she could feel sweat covering her forearms. "Sitrep!"

"Big bird here ma'am." Donnel.

"Little bird alive and well ma'am." Romez.

"Grizzly one here ma'am." Snider.

"Grizzly two here ma'am." Rees.

"Grizzly three here ma'am." Jensen.

From their voices Shepard wouldn't have known the ordeal the marines had just gone through, and she wondered if she too gave off that sense of false calm. More importantly though, they were alive and awake. The hard part was over—killing batarians was the easy part.


The Conduit, Ilos

September 14th, 2186

This operation is a shit show, mused Amina Faunce, and she wasn't ever sure what was coming around the next corner. Finding batarians on Ilos had been a surprise, finding the salarians cornered had been a surprise, and getting corned themselves had been a surprise—Amina was sick of things not going according to plan at this point. She was one of the few original Marines from Shepard's time commanding the Normandy, most of the other 8 had died during the fight for London. There were a few others that'd survived besides her, Worbaar and Chadwell notably, but most of the marines that surrounded her were fresh faced kids that she'd never seen before.

Amina was settled onto a crate near the Conduit at the very end of the Prothean tunnel complex, she'd taken most of the salarians back to this point where they could continue their research and be as far from the attackers as possible. A few more of her men had set up sentry posts along the tunnel but were prepared to fall back at a moment's notice. Presently she had her Typhoon resting across her lap while she scrubbed at a patch of grime fused to her barrel that wouldn't seem to come loose. The young marine Sergeant had a metal tool in her right hand, scraping as hard as she could against the offending debris, while her left hand steadied the light machine gun.

Without any sort of warning the ground beneath her feet started to rumble ominously. With each passing second the tremors became more intense, and the stone floor began to visibly shake. "What the fuck?" The voice belonged to the young Coleman Corbridge nearby her. He'd been seated at a prop up table with a few other marines, the group of them playing a card game to pass the time. Corbridge was on his feet now, backpedaling away from the Conduit as fast as he could. Corbridge was only dressed in his blue BDUs and armed with his sidearm, which was now in his hand and pointed back towards something behind her.

The commotion and fear in the young man drove Amina to her feet to investigate, only to see that the Conduit had come alive with some kind of vibrant energy. Terrifying tendrils of energy cracked all around it like distorted lightning, and she saw the salarians who had been studying it nearby fleeing as fast as they could. "What the fuck did you guys do?"

"Nothing Sergeant!" this from a salarian woman in the white coat of a technician. "We weren't even interfacing with the Conduit presently, it just came alive. It's similar to the way a relay would come alive when receiving a transmission but..."

"But?" Amina's voice was sharp with fear, and she too had her sidearm aimed at the Conduit now.

"But the Conduit isn't supposed to be able to transmit this way. The Conduit was only ever mono-directional, from here to the Citadel."

"This would be the fucking day, wouldn't it?" A second later something came flying from the Conduit at breakneck speeds, twisting and flipping through the air like an angered child had thrown it. As it drew nearer she recognized the incoming object as an M35 Mako, though the information barely had time to register as she ran for cover. "Get clear!"

"Is that a goddamn Mako?!" The award for most obvious exclamation of the day went to PFC Aldrick Evans. The young green marine had pressed to the cavern's floor behind a supply crate, but was peeking out to watch the vehicle fall. To the marine's credit, Amina herself was still trying to figure out how and why the Mako had come flying out of the Conduit—and a cold terrifying thought crept into her mind. Was it their Mako?

The hapless IFVs flight came to an end when it smacked against the stone floor, only to kick up in the air and tumble further. The clanging of the Mako's metal armor against the ground slowed, and then finally halted. When Amina peeked her head up to look at the battered vehicle, she was taken aback by the swath of damage it left behind. PIeces of armor plating, turrets, and tires were left strewn about. The right side of the Mako's front axle had been completely severed and the remains, tire still attached, lay a couple dozen meters away near a burning piece of armor.

Without thought Amina was immediately in disaster response mode, her body finding speed she hadn't seen basic training to reach the crippled IFV. The 25-year-old marine climbed atop the Mako and began trying to free its emergency hatch. Its latch had been crushed during the crash and she couldn't pry the hatch open without tools. Amina pounded her fist against the hatch, "Can anyone hear me in there? This is Alliance Sergeant Faunce, Chadwell are you in there?"


A trickle of warmth ran down the side of Shepard's face, and the marine reflexively reached to dab it away. Her fingers came back from the edge of her exposed helmet red with blood, drawing a muttered string of profanity from her. She didn't feel any pounding pain in her head, but thought she might recognize the stinging sensation of a minor cut alongside her cheek or brow—it could be dealt with later. There was no time right now for an injury, no time to worry about cuts or bruises that she'd likely taken during the crash, right now she had to rescue her people. Her bones ached as she pulled herself from the driver's seat, and her back threatened to cramp up from the twisting and pounding it'd taken. She'd lived a hard thirty-two-years, and her body had only recently been repaired from the blast.

Shepard had to partially crawl on hands and knees to pass from where she'd driven the Mako to the troop compartment, and all the way she was assailed by the thick acrid smoke pouring from countless fires inside and outside the IFV. Her ears still rung from the trip through the Conduit, and the ensuing crash, but she could still hear the chaotic symphony alarms going off around her. Each alarm detailed its own category of serious damage to the vehicle, and she hardly doubted more alarms were supposed to be going off from systems that'd been outright destroyed. "Yeah girl, I know shit's fucked up—I don't think you'll be driving away from this."

"Damn Commander, you're talking to the IFV now. We might have to get a doc over here to check your head out after all." She hadn't intended for the marines to hear her, but Snider had caught the comment and thrown it back at her with a mischievous grin.

"Keep it up Sergeant and I'll give you a real head wound to worry about." Howls of delight came from Snider's peers, none of quite adjusted with the Commander's camaraderie and banter. To his credit, Snider's grin was undeterred by the sharp retort.

All the marines, Shepard included, had to stand with a slight stoop to avoid hitting their heads against the roof of the damaged vehicle, and her back was beginning to ache from the strain. Not right now. I can collapse later, right now—Ash. Her eyes were searching for the Mako's emergency hatch, though she wished she'd equipped her helmet's breather so the thick smoke around her wouldn't sting her eyes and burn her throat. Finally she located what she'd been looking for, at least she thought—the IFV's roof was crumpled and deformed beyond recognition in many places. A dull shouting could be heard from beyond the hatch, but it was largely drowned out by the alarms and sirens around her.

Shepard placed a hand on the hatch, and mentally began to recite a mnemonic that she'd developed years ago to channel her biotics. The hatch bulged and groaned, its latch and hinges holding on desperately to the crippled IFV. Finally it gave, its crumpled metal remains sailing away from her alongside the sharp sound of shearing metal. Her heart was beating out an upbeat march in her chest, but at least she was getting gasps of fresh air from the new opening.

The shouting from before was clearer now, and she could see it came from a familiar faced woman in Alliance armor. Before her onlooker was able to clearly identify Shepard she began to call into the Mako, "This is Sergeant Faunce, Chadwell you in there?"

Shepard could feel her heart swelling at the sight of one of her marines again, it was the first of them she'd seen since the blast. "Got the wrong Mako, Faunce." She was already pulling herself out of the Mako and onto its crumpled hole. Faunce's face went from worried to alarmed, and Shepard couldn't help but feel a little amusement at the reaction—this wasn't the first time she'd come back from the dead. "What's the situation?"

"Commander Shepard? Ma'am!" Even through her surprise, Faunce's marine training kicked in, her hand shooting upward to form a crisp salute. Shepard waved her away with a warm smile and took a second to just breathe and let her heart slow down some.

She held onto her amusement at Faunce's alarm, not letting herself feel the crashing wave of emotions that'd hit her the first time she'd been thought to be dead. "In the flesh."

The surprise on Faunce's face had faded some, but she could tell that the Sergeant still wasn't entirely over it—Shepard imagined her arrival through the Conduit hadn't done much to help with the surprise. In her periphery Shepard could see more marines gathering around her, though she recognized few. None of them were given time to react to her return, nor was Shepard allowed a chance to try and introduce herself. Faunce stood firm next to Shepard, her voice commanding respect in ways only a marine could. "Look alive marines! Commander Shepard is with us now." Faunce nodded towards Shepard, signaling that she was handing over the marines to her.

The four gathered marines, plus Faunce who had moved to stand beside them, were all at attention and saluting the Commander. "At ease marines. I'm sure that a lot of you have questions, and I promise I'll answer all of those as soon as I safely can, but right now we have a lot of work to do—and I need your full attention on the mission at hand. Sergeant Faunce, allow me to introduce Lieutenant Donnel and Staff Sergeant Romez both of the 10th Frontier Division, they've brought with them fireteam grizzly." She turned to motion to the marines, and allowed them to nod their greetings. "What's our situation, sergeant?"

"When Normandy entered the system we were blocked by a picket of mixed ships, believed to be a group of surviving batarians. We knocked the bulk of them out, landed the 103rd, and we've been on ground for roughly seventy-two hours, ma'am. About twelve hours ago Normandy caught sight of inbound hostiles of the same make as before, but they were overwhelmed by the number and size of the ships—we didn't expect them to have reinforcements that close by. We lost contact with Normandy shortly afterwards, but we expect that is because they activated the IES and went dark to avoid detection. Our Mako is further up the cavern, towards the entrance—we had to abandon it due to a blockage in the path. The X' had left a fire team behind under Sar'nt Haight to keep watch. Damn blinks managed to land ground reinforcements so the X' took the LT and Worbaar to reinforce them. STG'd already sent their top two operatives that way, so it's gotta be a hell of a fight up there."

Faunce didn't call her by name, but she didn't need to—Shepard had made Ashley Williams XO in the event of her death, and 'X' referred to her. Ashley was headed towards, if not already engaged with, the enemy reinforcements. "Understood, thank you Sargeant."

"Aye Ma'am!"

Her mind began trying to unravel the situation, and formulate a plan of attack given the assets she had ot work with. She had five marines from the Normandy, and five from the Dunkirk, a Mako further up the tunnel, and over a dozen salarian scientists she'd need to protect. "Alright Faunce, I want your two best marines, and grizzly team, here with the salarians, make sure they pack their shit up. I don't care how many more calculations they have left, they pack their shit up and store it or have your marines do it for them. I'm taking the remainder of your marines, yourself included, and as well as these two." She jerked a head towards Donnel and Romez. "We're going to relieve our troops up the tunnel, and recover our fucking Mako. When that IFV makes it back here these salarians need to be prepped to mount up. Get whoever is the specialist on the Conduit's operation to get that thing warmed up, we're going to need to fire it up quickly when the time comes."

"Aye ma'am. Let's give 'em hell."

"I fully intend to, Sergeant. I'm going to remind them why I was called the Butcher of Torfan."


Ashley's body had been consumed by an aching pain, and her left shoulder felt like someone had lit a fire underneath the skin. She didn't have time yet to look herself over, but when she did she imagined she'd find the armor there mangled if not gone. The air coated with dust from the collapse, and her hearing was pierced by a sharp ringing, but she thought she could make out the faint pop of small arms fire.

She hunched forward and began to sprint, her profile as minimized as possible to avoid being shot during the momentary lapse in cover. She came to a halt behind a large piece of rubble that Vega was also using for cover, half a meter further down. His lips were twisted into a scowl, and though he wore gloves she could tell he was white-knuckling his rifle. "I'm going to skin that son of a bitch when we get out of here. He'll be lucky if there's enough of him left to scrape together and make a pair of butter bars."

Ashely nodded silently, her anger a white hot flame in her chest. She understood why Englewood had fired the cannon, he was young, inexperienced, and had panicked. His mistake had fucked them all over, though he seemed to have slowed the stream of enemies. She wasn't sure if that was because the cave-in had blocked them further, or because they were dazed from the hazardous explosion. "Sabre-six here—check in! Over."

"Six, one here, over." The voice was Worbaar, between clenched teeth.

"Six, three here," Chadwell's voice was winded and hard, "three-three is fine but three-two is unresponsive. I'm trying to get him to some cover to do what I can but I can't find a pulse, over."

Fuck, Woodland was down.

"Six, four here, over." This from Vega right next to her.

"Six, five here, over." The final check in was Haight,

"Six here, copy sabre—does anyone have eyes on the Mako? Over." Ashley had lost sight of the beastly IFV in the blast, and this was going to get a lot shittier if they'd lost it.

"Six, three here, bitch is sitting a couple meters from me unharmed. Over."

"Six here, copy three—get your man to safety and do what you can. Everyone else do what you can to hold them back until I can develop half a plan. Over."

A series of clicks over the line signalled their affirmative, and she could hear the popping of rifles in the distance—followed by the gasping cries of dead batarians and vorcha. Ashley let herself breath for a moment, her hands working over her body in a methodical check for injuries. She patted and felt each plate within her reach to make sure she hadn't taken an injury she didn't know about. Her right hand came to her left shoulder and her fingers quickly sank into jagged rough ceramic, what was left of the shattered armor on the back of her shoulder.

She twisted around so that the injured area was facing Vega, "James, what's my back looking like?"

"Lookin' worse for wear, Ash. Hold still I'll put some medi-gel on it as best I can."

"How come you never have any nicknames for me, Vega?"

"I figured if the Commander ever caught wind she'd kick my ass for flirtin' with her woman."

Ash started to turn around in protest but Vega steadied her with a hand. It was pointless to argue with him, but she still felt a sharp stab of pain in her heart at the mention of Shepard. "That doesn't explain why you still called her by nicknames. Didn't think I'd do the same?"

"There's a difference." Though she couldn't see his face she knew he was smirking right now.

"And that is?"

"I gave the Commander at least fifty-fifty odds of taking me in a fight."

"You saying you could take me hand to hand, LT?"

"With my eyes closed." He finished applying the medi-gel patch and smacked it playfully, sending a wince of pain to Ashley's face. If they weren't in combat she'd have kicked his ass for it.

"Worbaar I need a fucking LMG trained on that mound of rubble. When they start coming over I want a river of blood."

"Aye ma'am. On the move." She saw the young filipino marine dart across the smokey clearing, Typhoon in hand and head ducked to avoid potential snipers. A moment later a burst of static came across the comms followed by Havens' voice.

"Cowboy here. Sorry for the comms silence, Commander. I had to kick Englewood's ass and get our backup comms back online at the same time. Fucking debris took out one of our antennas, and did a number on the KBs but they're holding for now. Over"

"Copy that Cowboy, get Englewood on those MGs ASAP, we need cover when they recover from his stunt, but let him know if he pulls some shit like that I'll drag him out of the Mako and let the batarians have at him. Over"

"Copy ma'am, we're pinned at the moment. Got some debris down on a few of the wheels—I don't think anything's damaged but we can't move presently. Working on getting clear, but until then we don't have much of a shot. Over."

"We've got movement coming over the mound!" The voice was the frantic cry of Frain, the Lance Corporal could be seen a few meters away, rushing to get better cover from the new hostiles.

"Damnit, fucking damnit!" Chadwell's voice cut in, the woman had been doing frantic compressions nearby on Woodland but Ashley could see she'd sat back in defeat. "Lance Corporal Woodland is KIA."

"Fucking A." This from Vega who had moved to cover Chadwell after he'd finished patching up Ashley. "Englewood you're fucking dead, you hear me? I'm going to choke the shit out of you when we're out of this."

"Vega." She was irate with the gunner for the reckless shot, but as the marines' superior she had to intervene and maintain professionalism on the battlefield. Englewood seemed to understand at least how badly he'd pissed them off, because the marine had been oddly silent this whole time. Ashley wasn't sure the status of Kirrahe and Vaewan, the two had been fighting alongside the Mako to hold off the batarians but weren't a part of the Alliance Marines' battlenet. "Anyone got sight on our STG pals? Over."

"Affirmative, at least one of them is still standing. Other one looks down but I can't be sure from here."

Ashley strained to locate where Frain was referring to, but her eyes weren't able to spot either of them—I'll just have to hope.

A handful of new corpses were already littering the mounded rubble, and the rest of the hostiles had scattered to cover—though their position could be inferred from where the other marines were focusing their fire. Suddenly to the left of where the others were focused, she sawa trio of mechs firing to relieve pressure on their comrades.

Ashley's sniper rifle snapped off three bright shots, the first two hitting home center mass on each of their targets, the mechs dropped satisfying to the ground. The third shot caught its target in the right shoulder and shattered it, spinning the mech but leaving it still standing. The droid scrambled for its weapon but a second round caught its head, dropping the mech alongside the others.

"Pyros up top!" She frantically called out to Frain and Haight, the two closest to the pyros' range. She tried to fire a shot at the flametroopers, but flinched as the rubble she was taking cover behind exploded a few centimeters from her head—a missed sniper shot at her. She shimmied down the cover a bit, but something must've given her position away because another explosion of stone erupted to her right.

She was about to call the support troops to Vega or Chadwell, thinking perhaps one of them could hit or pin down the sharpshooter, but she wasn't given a chance. A voice that chilled her to her bones called for a cease fire through the comms, and then the cavern was filled with an ear splitting crack. The whole battlefield was illuminated by a bright blue light, a streak of which cut directly across the room towards the pyros. What the shit?


Refuge System, Near Ilos

September 14th, 2186

"What do you mean you don't understand the problem? You initiated a cold jump in atmosphere! Do you know how much strain that puts on the Tantalus Drive?!"

"Look Adams," began Joker, "what I know is that you and I were both in the SR-1 when she got swamped by the Collectors, and I wasn't looking to go through that again!"

"Did you even calculate where we were headed when you jumped? Or did you just activate the drive and hope?"

"We survived, didn't we?"

"That's not the point Joker! It's my job to maintain the fusion plant and drive core, we have our safety procedures for a reason! You don't have EDI to watch your ass anymore."

"Joker, Commander Vakarian is coming!" the nervous voice came from Ensign Dobbe, his co-pilot on duty at the time.

"Hear that Adams? Gotta go. Nice chat! Come by the cockpit sometime!" He clicked off the line before Adams could respond and leaned back in his chair, lazily throwing a glance at Dobbe. "Nice one Dobs, I like that quick thinking." Joker buried the sharp knife that Adams had plowed into his heart by mentioning EDI, at least until he was alone again.

"Erm sir, Commander Vakarian is actually here!"

Joker let out a groan and spun his chair around, shooting a glare at Dobbe for her use of formalities. "Garrus! What brings my favorite, and only, turian onboard the Normandy to our humble cockpit?" Joker's voice was glazed with sarcasm, drawing an amused snicker from Dobbe before the young Ensign managed to smother it with her palm.

Garrus's mandibles flared in amusement as he drew closer, eyes scanning the deep black horizon for any sign of where they were. "That was quick thinking Joker, though I heard Adams is less than pleased with the stunt."

"Ahh yeah Adams is a little wound up, but we survived."

"That we did. What's our current status?"

"I saw there's a couple dozen damage reports floating around, everything from hull breaches to a fractured stabilizer."

"Is our IES up?"

"It was when we jumped, and when we emerged, but engineering brought it down once we saw no one out there so we could vent heat... I don't like leaving our people back there, Sir."

"I don't either, Joker. I'm going to see what our damage is looking like, and how long repairs are going to take. I'm planning to take us back as soon as I can with the IES up so we can drop in silently. I'll give you a heads up so you can start plotting approach vectors."

"Copy that boss." The turian was already turning back towards the CIC when Joker stopped him, "Aye Garrus! Grab some of the paint thinner from the marines' still down below while you're out. Dobs here could use something to relax 'er. She still gets jumpy when you come up here, and she keeps calling you 'Commander Vakarian'."

Joker wasn't sure how to describe the sound that Garrus made in response, but he was pretty sure it was the turian equivalent of a chuckle.


"Erm—try toggling on the circuit now Tali?"

From a nearby pit in the floor came the young voice of Specialist Donnelly. The Cerberus defector had pried open one of the Engineering Deck floor compartments in order to diagnose the cause of their current systems malfunction. The whole deck looked like a disaster zone, with small burn marks along the walls and floor from electrical fires, and there were cracks weaving through the cosmetic glass windows around the deck.

The Normandy's most recent firefight had left a number of systems damaged, the most devastating of which had been the kinetic barriers. Normandy still had functional KBs, but damage to the hull had melted surface-level fuses and caused several internal circuits to blow. Donnelly and Tali had tried bypassing the fuse, but they still couldn't get the circuit back online—which had led Donnelly to his current hypothesis about a blown circuit somewhere.

Tali toggled a holographic switch on the terminal in front of her, and watched as a visual representation of the system's power flow materialized. "I have activated the e-seven shield circuit, do you see anything Donnelly?"

"Nothing yet... looking... looking..."

She couldn't see inside the pit from here, but Tali still stared distantly in hope that she might spy some clue as to their problem. Silence lingered over the deck for another few moments and Tali feared that Donnelly might have been wrong—that was when a loud pop sounded behind her. The quarian shrieked and jumped away, turning to face whatever had just happened.

A cable bundle running along the ceiling was spewing sparks, one of the wires slowly beginning to glow red hot. Donnelly shot up from the pit as fast as he could, scrambling towards the source of the crackling wires. "I picked the wrong circuit!"

The incident had nearly scared Tali out of her suit, but she could feel her heart beginning to come back down to her chest as Donnelly feverishly worked to climb now into the ceiling. Close behind him was Daniels, forever his partner for better or worse. Tali was about to join the two and ask if they needed assistance, but was interrupted by the sound of the door behind her opening. Spinning around once more she saw Adams, his body language portraying some of the anger she'd overheard in his voice earlier.

"Are we still stuck on KB e-seven?"

"Yes sir..." She began, glancing back down at the computer to confirm what she knew, that Donnelly had not repaired E-7. "It seems Specialist Donnelly has another hypothesis about it though, he and Specialist Daniels are working on it right now."

"How about the tantalus and our reactor? Are they still stable—no damage from the strain put on them during our 'maneuvers'?" The way he bit off the last word reminded Tali of how irate the normally calm man had been about Joker's tactic.

"They seem to be operating within normal parameters, the reactor's output is up a bit, though we are certain that is due to electrical shorts causing increased power draw."

"Right, I've seen it do that before. Start prepping the core and the reactor for another FTL jump, but keep at the KB problem. We took a beating, but we're still in relatively good shape. Our tiger-stripes took a some damage from the hull hits, but maintenance has them working relatively efficiently—they're venting our heat out right now. After that, Garrus says we're going to jump back in with the IES on and stay low orbit to avoid detection. We'll be able to finish repairs, including the KB problem, but we can keep an eye on our marines down below."

"I see... I will get to work right away!" Tali busily turned back to the terminal and pretended she was doing something that might aide Donnelly. She was nervous about having left their friends behind on Ilos, and she was nervous about the toll that the mission had taken on Garrus. She'd hardly had a moment alone with him since they'd reached Ilos, and the normally laid back turian was irritable and aloof.


STG Facility, Ilos

September 14th, 2186

Shepard's marines were at the tunnel blockage now, and already she could hear the sharp popping of mass accelerated weapons beyond it. Without hesitation she laid herself flat against the stone wall to slide past, even as one of the marines behind her protested her taking lead. I will be damned if I get this close only to have something happen.

The N7 slowly shimmied through the opening, wincing each time a sharp stone jabbed or pinched her still-sore body. Her passage was scored by the shrill scrape of ceramic plates against stone wall, only slightly covered by the increasingly loud sound of small arms fire. With only half of her body left in the opening she could see the fight that was waging on across a makeshift battlefield, and it wasn't pretty. There were multiple cave-ins, scattered dead batarians, vorcha, and varren, and she thought she saw the gut wrenching sight of a dead Alliance Marine. Further into the cavern she could see the team's Mako, partially buried by one of the cave-ins, as well as multiple spots where Alliance Marines had taken cover and were desperately firing at the sporadic enemy.

Icy terror spread through Shepard's heart in an instant, catalyzed by the sound of a voice she could have never mistaken. "Pyros up top!" She'd heard the voice before, on Eden Prime delivering a level-headed sitrep after watching the Geth execute the rest of the 212th. On the Citadel defiantly snapping back at the Council when they withheld support Shepard desperately needed. She'd heard the voice aboard the Normandy in their moments of downtime, in moments of rare intimacy, and in the life or death throes of battle. There wasn't a time or place that Jessica Shepard wouldn't' recognize Ashley Williams' voice, and right now she was crying out to warn a her fellow marines even as a sharpshooter pinned her down.

Shepard could see the troopers that she was referring to as her right leg cleared the cramped opening, and she could see that those flametroopers were growing uncomfortably close to two of the marines. There was no thought of the frail repairs to her body, nor the warnings she'd received about straining herself. She took a quick second to call out on the comms, hoping they were still using her frequencies, "Sabre this is Eagle, hold your fire." Shepard closed her eyes, her mind going through the old exercises she'd instilled in herself to harness her biotics. When she opened her eyes she was covered in a thin bluish corona of energy, her body seemed to elongate, and then she was gone. The cavern was filled with a thundering boom, and a streak of bright energy traced from where she'd been standing before to where the flame troopers were harassing her marines.

Her arrival was marked with an explosive wave of biotic energy that toppled the four batarians unceremoniously. Shepard had drawn her shotgun as soon as she'd rematerialized, and without hesitation she fired it now into the nearest of the batarians, two incendiary blasts of the Crusader ripping apart the support trooper. A second had staggered to his feet and was moving towards her, though he was caught in the grip on an invisible hand as Shepard swept her arm through the air. The batarian was lifted into the air, his arms and legs flailing, and then he was thrown savagely against the ground at breakneck final pyro was on his knees, staggering upward but not quite fast enough. Two blasts of her shotgun caught the side of his head and dropped him back down.

That left her with one remaining opponent, and a full heatsink in her shotgun. Shepard dropped to a forward roll just as her opponent fired, his shots flaring harmlessly over her. She came up from the roll with forward momentum and an extended onmi-blade, which she buried into his chest. With a pained groan the alien in front of her dropped to his knees, and as he did Shepard pulled her blade free and slashed out at his throat to finish the job.

The entire fight had been like a dance for Shepard, none of it truly thought out. She'd fallen back on the reflexes and instinct developed from years in the military. Now that the fight was over, she was left unsure how to proceed. She could feel loose locks of hair slicked with sweat and plastered against her face beneath her helmet, and her heart was racing from the sudden exertion.

The fight was over, but Shepard had been standing over the last batarian for a silent few seconds longer. When she turned around she saw that Ashley was closest to her. Though she wore a helmet Shepard was able to see enough of her face to read the expression on it. There were a hundred emotions flashing across her face, and in them Shepard thought she saw pain, grief, and anger. Ashley idly raised one of her hands to cover her mouth in shock, eyes locked with Shepard's.

"Skipper..." There was no hint in Ashley's voice that implied she feared a mistaken identity. "You were dead... you had died again, but you're here..." It sounded for a minute like Ashley was blaming Shepard for all this, but she wasn't surprised. Ashley had been almost angry when Shepard had come back the first time, and it'd taken a year for her to stop questioning her loyalties. "You died... the Presidium exploded, we all saw it... We... we..." The marine started to crack, and the anger that Shepard had heard was shifting. "We saw the explosion... we couldn't hail you... we left you." The pivot was complete, Shepard could see that Ashley's anger wasn't directed at Shepard, but rather herself.

Shepard crossed the distance between the two and tentatively placed a hand on Ashley's shoulder, "Hey I'm here, I'm alive. It's okay."

"We left you... You were alive and I left you... I let you go up there alone..." Ashley's eyes were pinched closed and Shepard could see the glistening tears leaking out of them.

"Ash." Shepard's voice was hard, unwavering, but coated in love, "You know that if you had been able to raise me I would've ordered Joker to leave." Ashley was silent now, and Shepard could see that behind her Vega was staring in disbelief. His bewilderment gave way to an amused grin.

"You're one tough pendejo, Lola." The return of Vega's nicknames, and his casual way of talking to superiors, both drew a thin smirk from Shepard.

Her attention shifted back to Ashley, and the younger woman seemed to sense it through closed eyes. Defensively Ashley pushed Shepard's hand away from her shoulder with a shake of her head, "I'm alright skipper. We.. we can talk about everything when we get out of here." Her eyes were open now, and though she had stopped the tears they were bright red with irritation.

"Commander Shepard?" A thin energetic voice cut through the teary reunion from further to Shepard's right. Approaching her from behind some of the rubble was a spindly salarian, his head concealed by one of their oddly shaped helmets and his hands coated in thick green blood.

Shepard still recognized the voice and grinned at the sight, "Major Kirrahe. I wish we could meet under better circumstances sometime, but it's a pleasure nonetheless. Are you alright...?"

"The feeling is mutual, Commander, though it would seem our attackers have stalled for the moment. Perhaps they are trying to preserve units—our intelligence did suggest the batarians were few in number after the Reapers raided their systems... Oh and erm yes, I am quite fine.. Though my superior, Colonel Vaewan died in the fighting."

Shepard nodded slowly in agreement, her eyes flicking back to the mound of rubble separating them from the hostile forces, "I'm sorry to hear that. But yes, it seems they think they have us backed into a corner, but I have a way out for us. I'm still working a few things out in my head though—has anyone made contact with Normandy since they went dark?"

Ashley shook her head somberly, "It's been all quiet."

"Very well, I have a plan for that too. Major, I'm assuming STG has a way to transmit signals using the different encryptions of council races?"

The salarian stood perfectly still for a moment, as though he were silently musing whether that was something he was supposed to keep to himself. Finally his contemplation resolved and he looked up at her, "Theoretically, yes."

"Good, that includes turian encryptions?"

"Again, theoretically yes we could."

"Would I be wrong in assuming whatever surviving batarians are out there would not recognize such a transmission as turian encryption? Especially were the transmission to lack any metadata."

"You are correct... They would likely mistake it as static for a time. How long is hard to say, even still they wouldn't possess the ability to break it—batarians are not known for their intellect, and turians are known for their focus on military."

"Perfect." She turned so that she could address Ashley and Kirrahe at the same time, "Kirrahe, get a broad spectrum transmission ready on the lowest level of turian encryption. Ashley, when I give the signal use Kirrahe's equipment to send out a message."

"Err ma'am, why use turian codes? There's no way the Hierarchy would receive it in any kind of reasonable time." This from Worbaar.

"I'm not trying to raise the Hierarchy, I'm trying to raise the Normandy."

"...and she doesn't want the batarians to know she's sending out a message—they've been fighting us long enough to recognize our encryption as at least that." This from Ashley.

Worbaar didn't seem to understand the plan any better after Ashley's explanation, "We're raising an Alliance Warship with turian codes... do we even have a key for those? I— don't answer that, comms aren't my specialty anyways." Kirrahe was already away to his gear, working on setting up a transmitter with the appropriate encryption parameters, Ashley standing over his shoulder the entire time.

Shepard left them to it and went to inspect the Mako. Havens and Englewood had managed to clear enough of the rubble away now, and the Mako was slowly crawling out of its hole. Now that the IFV was in the open Shepard was able to see what kind of damage it'd taken from the impact. The armor where the stones had fallen was dented in and crushed, but it would still do the job.

"Worbaar, start setting charges on that blockage to clear it. We need to get the Mako through there."

"Erm... ma'am the reason the X' didn't have us do that originally was fear the tunnel might collapse from the blast." Shepard just shot Worbaar one of her trademark silent stares until the marine grew uncomfortable. "I'll get right on it ma'am."

"The rest of you load up into the Mako. We fall back as soon as the path is clear to do so. Williams, how is that comm looking?"

"Ready when you are ma'am."

"I'm going to draw their attention on me for just a minute, do your best to make contact while they're distracted. The hope is that they see your transmission as background static, but don't press your luck." Shepard withdrew her own transmitter from her belt, set it to transmit unencrypted on all available channels, and began.

"To any and all batarian forces currently engaged in hostilities, this is Commander Shepard of the Systems Alliance Marine Corps. I imagine you're some remnant of Ka'hairal Balak's surviving forces, and as you may know he attempted to kill me—he then bled out on the decks of the Citadel. You have killed innocents today, scientists who were trying to repair the damage done to the relays, and you endangered the lives of my crew. There is only one mercy I will offer you: evacuate the system before I reach you. If you choose to not heed my warning, and remain on this planet, you will die."

She let the transmission hang on dead-air for nearly a minute, until a guttural reply came from the comm in her hand, "This is Captain Ghr'thak of the Batarian Hegemony, and I know your name Butcher of Torfan. The Terminus Systems belong to us, and your time of slaying our people has ended. I will take honor in being the warlord to oversee your death."

For another thirty seconds the line was dead, but when Shepard's voice came back it was hard as steel, "I took the best you had on Elysium, followed you back home and put what was left of your army down like a sick dog. In my experience though, you batarians are all bluster until you're on your knees begging for surrender. Do you know how many prisoners I took that day, on Torfan?" The line was silent for another half minute, and it didn't seem Ghr'thak intended to answer her question, "Zero."