Author's Note: Two more Shepards. For those of you keeping track, it means only one Shepard, Z, remains. I look forward to every review I get, I love them all! Thank you everyone for keeping up with this crazy fic. For now, enjoy sunny Feros.

The new Shepards had settled in fairly well. Her room was now overly crowded, what with eight female Shepards crowding in, and the entire wall where Ashley's weapon bench used to be was now filled with a row of double lockers. Whatever freaky infiltrator-hiding-shit Waldo did extended to his locker, because despite having his name on it she still missed it when she went to check everyone's gear the last time.

"Feros ETA, five minutes," Joker informed her, and Angela tried to gather her thoughts together.

"All Shepards and ground team, you should be armored up. Beyond a sketchy report of geth sightings, we don't know what's going on here at the colony. The nearest landing dock is near Zhu's Hope, but we still have a bit of a walk to get there." She considered her troop layout. "Williams, Victor, you're first out, Waldo and Deirdre flanking for support. After that, we'll go balanced groups." She would be in the second group with Havok, Neville, and Garrus.

Joker pulled them into a nice, sheltered little niche on one of the crumbling towers that covered the planet. They disembarked quickly, her lead gunslingers quickly moving up the path from cover to cover. Waiting for them was one colonist, who raised a hand peacefully. Before he could say anything, both Waldo and Deirdre fired in unison, sending a geth platform dropping to the floor, headless. The poor colonist ducked for cover as twelve other guns and biotics opened fire, quickly taking out the two remaining geth.

"I'm Commander Angela Shepard," she told the guy. "What's going on here?"

"The geth are attacking the colony! We don't know what they want, but they've cut us off from everyone else around here! Fai Dan can tell you more, he's our leader." He gestured in the direction the geth had come from. "Up those stairs to the colony."

She nodded, signaling the first group, and they all moved out. There were a few more geth in the stairs, quickly defeated by massed, accurate firepower, and then they were at the colony. "Alliance soldiers? We're sure glad to see you," Fai Dan said, "but we weren't expecting quite so many." Angela glanced behind her at the almost thirty of them. "We need help getting our colony safe again, before," his next words were cut off by a sudden burst of gunfire from the nearby tower.

They all responded in unison, blasting away at the geth attempting to reach the center of the colony. They moved up through the tower, splitting off to cover all the various passages before the first two groups reached the top, blasting apart the geth jumping from the dropship above, finally starting to pour fire into the open troop bay when it blasted up and away from the colony.

Returning down below, Angela cornered Fai Dan, with Charles and Neville to back her up. "Alright, what's going on here? Why are the geth so determined to get in here?"

"We're not sure," he said, and she glanced at her counterparts. They both gave her the subtle signs that said they thought he was lying too. "But, if you can spare a few soldiers, we do have some things to help us shore up our positions. The main geth encampment seems to be at the ExoGeni headquarters, down the skyway a few kilometers. There should still be a vehicle in the garage upstairs, if the geth haven't overrun my people up there."

He detailed a few other niggling problems they had, like food and water supplies, and she called together a few more Shepards to discuss it. "Neville, you take care of the transmitter in the tunnels. Eric, take down those varren. I'm going to take Marid, Robo, and Jared with me. Charles and Victor can help the colonists rebuild their defenses more effectively. Split up everyone else as you need them."

"I don't think we can trust this Fai Dan," Charles said grimly. "He definitely knows why the geth are attacking them."

"The colonists are more than a little creepy," Eric agreed, "ask them anything more complicated than what their task is, and it's 'Speak to Fai Dan.' Like they're all pod people or something."

Bradley nodded. "Something weird is going on around here. Be careful up there. I'll take Polarity and Garrus up with me, guard the garage while you're gone, just in case."

They split up, grabbing their assigned teams, and entering the tower together. Up above, Angela reached the garage after another interminable elevator ride, and left Bradley to assist the three surviving colonists in setting up their defenses. Moving to climb into the Mako, she paused halfway inside, staring at the shock of crayon orange hair in the driver seat. "Oh for crying out loud," she said, causing him to turn around.

"Well hello, nurse," he said, starting up the Mako as the others climbed inside. "Fancy meeting a stunning," he paused as she started up her omni-tool. "Ah, why are you etching my initial into my armor? Have we met?"

Robo looked down from the turret. "You are another Shepard-analogue, corresponding to the letter 'X'. Two more remain."

The new one looked up at him, then over at Marid and Jared. "Someone want to put that a little closer to English?"

Jared clapped him on the shoulder. "Welcome to the Shepard collective, X man. You're now in an alternate universe, hers to be precise, and other than now being part of a lovely collection of twenty-four of us, most everything is the same."

"Oh good! So I still have a shot to sleep with Chief Williams?" Anything else he might have said was cut off by Angela reaching over and gunning the accelerator. "Hey, hey, I'm driving here! Get your own Mako!"

They cruised down the skyway, blasting geth apart and stopping in a few places to pick up salvage before driving on. They stopped when they received a radio message, popping out to confront a small group of survivors. "Don't shoot them, you idiot!" one of the women shouted at a man in a suit.

"They could be geth!" he said back, trembling and sweating as he pointed his pistol at the thoroughly unimpressed group.

"Error: this unit is no geth. Geth do not infiltrate, meatbag," Robo declared firmly, causing all of the guards to twitch nervously.

"Has anyone told you that silence is golden? Even if you are silver?" Xander asked rhetorically.

"I'm Commander Shepard," Angela said. "Who are you people?"

"We're what's left of ExoGeni," the woman said. "There might be some more survivors left in our headquarters. My daughter's still out there."

Sighing, Angela nodded. "We'll keep an eye out. In the meantime, stay hunkered down in here, and don't draw attention to yourselves until we can get rid of the geth."

Jared motioned towards their cover. "Be prepared to move, though. Zhu's Hope is still better defended than this place."

"The colony is still intact?" suit-man asked hopefully, instantly twigging Angela's paranoia.

"For right now, you should stay here. There's still too many geth for you to try evacuating there," she informed them, already moving back up the ramp. "Let's move, people!"

"Yes mom," Xander replied snarkily. Marid nodded to the blond man he'd been discussing something with, and they crowded back into the wheeled tank, heading forward.

Meanwhile, in the tunnels below the city, Eric and Wrex stood shoulder to shoulder, wrestling the two krogan mercenaries working with the geth. "Doesn't this ever get old?" the human asked.

"You have no idea," the battlemaster growled. "My species has no shortage of extra stupid people who need removing from the gene pool!" He headbutted his opponent, sending him staggering backwards long enough for Deirdre to put a sniper round into one shoulder.

"This is all a fascinating look at krogan culture," she said acidly, "but can we just kill these losers and get on with it?"

Without a word, Wrex promptly shattered the other krogan's knee, driving him to the floor before putting three shotgun blasts into his neck and face. "Take all the fun out of it," he muttered. Eric flared his biotics, driving the other krogan to the ground as well before simply crushing his head inwards with one armored boot.

"You want to go first?" he asked calmly, making the infiltrator scowl. "I didn't think so."

"Why did we change jobs, anyway?" she asked, making a poorly placed container of volatile something explode on the charging mercenaries.

"You really want to kill varren?" Wrex asked. "They're pretty boring. Just gnashing teeth, sharp claws, and about your size. No challenge at all." He headbutted another merc, kicked him in the balls, and slammed the muzzle of his shotgun into his mouth before pulling the trigger. "This is fun!"

On the other side of the tunnels, Neville watched three varren spinning lazily in circles around his singularity. Sachiko and Inara watched them, occasionally putting a pistol shot into them to watch the contortions. "Why did we switch jobs, anyway?" the Indian sentinel asked.

"This might not be playing by the queen's rules, but I daresay it's a sight easier than facing down several geth," Neville said, popping up another singularity right as the last one failed. "Wrex and Eric are probably having the time of their life turning their opponents into scrap metal."

"I found the power cells!" Havok cried from the trashed vehicle above them. "Aren't you guys done yet?"

"It's kind of relaxing," Sachiko said, watching the madly writhing varren. "Except for the smell."

Xander stopped in front of a narrow door. "End of the line. This stop, ExoGeni headquarters, hordes of geth, lots of corporate secrets, and maybe a survivor or two." They climbed out quickly, glad to be free of the tank confines, and moved forward. Several geth went down easily, and after clearing the area, they dropped down into what had probably once been the parking garage before the geth blew stuff up.

A pistol shot rang out, and Angela looked down at her shields. "Why do people keep doing that to me?"

"It's your winning personality," Marid said with a grin.

"I'm so sorry," the civilian said, "I thought you were one of the varren!"

"What varren?" Xander asked. A moment later, one of them bounded up from the rubble and latched its jaws into his armored legs. "I'm sorry I asked!"

They let loose with the gunfire and biotics, dealing swiftly with them. "Alright, miss," Jared said, "we need some information. Why are the geth here?"

"They, um," she hesitated, obviously torn. "You realize that's a big corporate secret, right?"

Jared's smile got darker, as did the ball of biotic power he was playing with. "Dear girl, I don't really care right now. That corporate secret has gotten hundreds of people killed." His other hand reached out and caressed her cheek. "What's one more?"

She swallowed loudly. "They, uh, are here for the Thorian, I think?"

"Good girl," he murmured. In a few minutes, she had spilled her guts to them, and they moved forward into the complex. They paused at the krogan attempting to interrogate the VI. "I wasn't aware krogan knew how to use a computer," the adept muttered.

"Obviously, they can't," Xander agreed as the merc whirled around. "I think their training ends at which end of a gun spits bullets."

"I'm not certain he got that far," came another accented voice, and they all opened fire, blowing the lone krogan away. "Now, who are you people, and what did you do with Alenko and Williams?" She glanced down. "Why are you etching my armor?"

"Only one more to go, Angela," Jared said happily. "Now let's get in there and blow up some more geth!"

After a quick round of introductions, they did exactly that. Three engineers and two adepts made quick work of the synthetics, especially with a sentinel to back up whichever side needed it more. They crippled the geth warship, sending it plummeting down between the towers, downloaded the data for the ExoGeni guy, and headed back to the Mako.

"Angela," Marid said, "I just had a terrifying thought."

"What's that?"

He gestured around. "If we count the civilian, there's now seven of us. And only five seats."

All of them stopped dead and stared at the tank, then at each other, then back at the tank. "Anyone want to walk back?" she asked hopefully.

"It's something like eight kilometers back to Zhu's Hope," Yvette complained. "Not a chance."

It took several minutes to get things arranged properly, but finally Angela was seated in Jared's lap, with the civilian in Marid's. "Acceptable. Please hold tightly to handgrips, as safety protocols are now disengaged," Robo said.

"What does that mean?" Yvette started to ask, only to have the last word turn into a shriek as Robo gunned the acceleration to maximum, sending them all rocking backwards in their seats. There were almost no geth reinforcements, so their drive back was fairly quick, even with the stop to tell suit-man to back down before Robo introduced him to a brand new world of hurt.

In the garage, Bradley, Polarity, and Garrus all stiffened when the colonists turned in unison towards them. "I thought you Shepards had the monopoly on creepy stuff," the turian said nervously.

"So did I," the adept said, lifting the three of them off the ground with a singularity. "Anyone know what's going on?"

"Pretty sure it has something to do with them being pod people, like Eric said earlier?" Polarity added, giving the three colonists a hard shock with her horn, enough to make them drop their weapons.

"Alright, we'll knock them out for now, hopefully we can figure out what the hell is going on when Angela gets back," Bradley instructed, and wielding their gun butts, they did just that. He was about to say more, when the garage door opened. Only instead of the Mako, it was a crowd of vaguely humanoid monsters crowding in. "I hope this isn't happening downstairs," he shouted as his gravity slam took out the leading two creatures.

"Man, I sure hope this isn't happening upstairs!" Charles shouted, gunning down another of the creatures. They seemed to be coming from all around them, in the buildings. The colonists had already been knocked out, with a few minor wounds dealt out for good measure, and the remaining Shepards and ground crew were now sheltered between the cargo ship and the outer wall.

"Any Shepard out there, I've got a dozen colonists banging on the hull right now, demanding entrance," Joker came over their omni-tools. "What the hell is going on out there?"

"We'll let you know," Kohana shouted, punching a creeper in the face hard enough to rip its head off. "In the meantime, I suggest you lock the doors and roll up the windows!"

"That sounds real helpful," Lilitu muttered, blowing another one apart. "How many of these fuckers are there?"

Quistis paused in shooting to slam her rifle butt into another one before it could grab the infiltrator. "Until we run out of bullets, we keep shooting!"

"How long does it take one of these things to run dry, anyway?" Talya asked.

Victor grinned, lecturing loudly as he continued to fire. "A standard M-8 Avenger ammo block is good for seven thousand rounds," he said, "high-grade aluminum-tungsten alloy for minimum weight and maximum firing power. We'll probably burn out the barrels before we run out of ammo." Even as he said that, his assault rifle clicked. "Williams!"

"I don't have a weapons bench anymore," she complained, her shotgun taking out two more creepers in one blast. "It's been replaced by your damn locker, remember?"

Sighing, the Russian soldier switched to his own shotgun. "Nichevo. We kill them anyway!"