A/N: Just a quick note about the IHC vessels. When ever I think about them, I like comparing them to the WWII U-boats, so that's one of the reasons that I'm having the IHC ships start to forgo names and just go by their registration numbers. Their limited cloaking ability, which the chapter will touch on, is also a reflection of that. The Citadel races have not come up against cloaking before and, therefore, have no way to detect even the earliest models, like the kind the IHC are coming up with. Someone also pointed out that there is no way a 200 year old ship will still be functional, but I'll touch on that later- if not in this chapter then very shortly afterwards. (after all, why do you think I have Kaidan leading an away mission onto the Crete? *wink*)

By the way, remember that I have changed Citadel tech to better fit in the Star Trek Universe. The Citadel species use disruptors and photon torpedoes too.

By the way, go check out *Jetfreak74656 on deviantART. DABDA put me on to him and *Jetfreak74656 has an amazing collection of starships.

Mass Trek

Chapter 10: The Skyway

Shepard closely eyed the armed guards at the entrance to the colony from around the corner. "They're a bit jumpy, aren't they?"

"What was you first clue, Shepard?" Wrex asked. "The barricade or the fact that one of them took a potshot at us?"

"Hold your fire!" Shepard shouted. "I am Commander Shepard of the Normandy! We are responding to your distress signal!"

"You heard her. Hold your fire!"

Shepard waited a few moments then stepped around the corner. "We clear?"

A man handed his disruptor to one of the guards and stepped in front of the barrier. "Commander Shepard, I am Fai Dan. I'm the leader of this colony." He glanced at the Starfleet arrowhead on her chest. "What is the Federation doing here?"

"My crew and I are part of a joint Citadel and Federation task force on a mission to bring down a rogue Spectre," the Commander explained. "This is Officer Vakarian of Citadel Security and Urdnot Wrex."

Fai Dan nodded and gestured the trio to follow him. After they passed the barricade and into the colony, Fai Dan began to explain the situation. "We've only been here for a short time, Commander. "Exo Geni made a lot of promises to get us here, including to protect us. The mercenaries they hired were taken down in the first wave of attacks. That cruiser shot at them from above and the foot soldiers finished them off." He pointed at the small, damaged vessel in the middle of the colony. "We've put the sole survivor in the cargo ship."

"Mind if we look him over?" Shepard asked.

"He'll be okay. We've already treated his burns and sedated him. Doc Eve has done a bang up job." Fai Dan lead them around the ship.

"Have you received any outside communications?" Shepard asked.

"No, not since the attack began. We lost contact with the ship patrolling the system, the Crete."

"She's been destroyed," Garrus told him. "We found her carcass out by the Relay."

Fai Dan shook his head. "Damn it all. There was a lot of good people on that ship."

"Do you have any idea what the geth want?" Shepard asked.

"So that's what they're called? 'Geth'? No," Fai Dan answered. "They haven't communicated any demands. All they've done is shoot at us."

Suddenly, someone gave a shout from above. "Another dropship coming in!"

Fai Dan flipped open an old communicator. "Fai Dan to all teams, find cover." He closed the channel and gestured the away team to join him. He jogged to a door at the edge of the colony. "The 'geth' have been dropping in on top of the tower. We also think there might be a transmitter in the tunnels."

Shepard nodded and hoisted her compression rifle. "We'll take care of them. Wrex, take point. Garrus, bring up the rear." Wrex nodded as he yanked his shotgun up to the ready. Garrus made a final check on his sniper rifle before he moved in behind Shepard.

Geth had already begun to move in on the barricade in the tower and the defenders had their hands full, firing at the mechanical beings with disruptors or 23rd century era type-II phasers. When Shepard's team arrived and pushed back the geth, the colonists gave a hearty cheer. Shepard directed her men to follow the retreating hostiles.

The fight at the top of the tower turned out to be a nasty one. The dropship was unloading geth by the tens and the team was hard pressed to keep up.

Garrus gave a frustrated growl as he ducked behind cover again. "We have to take down that dropship!"

"Got any bright ideas, Turian?" Wrex asked.

"I do," Shepard cut in as she tapped her comm badge. "Chief Williams! This is Shepard."

"Commander, Williams here. Go ahead."

"Chief, there's a geth drop ship at the top of a tower. See it?"

"I've had my sights on it in case it tried something. Want it taken down?"

"If you would be so kind."

"Going loud."

For a split second, nothing happened. Then the dropship was hit by the disintegrator's discharge once, twice, and three times before an explosion from the inside ripped it apart.

Shepard ran a quick scan on the dropship as it came hurtling down on the geth below it. "That last shot hit the fuel tank. Apparently, their dropships use Hydrogen-3 in their fuel."

Wrex's scars waved as he gave them a sour look. "Why would a non-Citadel race use the same kind of fuel as the Citadel races?"

"Gross availability," Garrus answered him as he blew the head off the last remaining geth. "Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Galaxy."

Shepard put away her tricorder. "Chief, I'm going to keep this channel open. We may need a bit more fire support."

"Understood, Commander. Bear in mind that I can't arch these weapons over the buildings, only fire on what's in my line of sight."

"Roger that, Chief. Let's move boys."

~Mass Trek~

"Can you get close the Therum?" The general asked over the line.

"With the cloak, yes," Jarvis answered. "But the Icarus will have to decloak to begin any sort of action, combative or otherwise. The best we can do is locate Dr. T'Soni and wait until the Geth drop their guard."

"Can't you use your transporters while cloaked?" The general asked.

"Too much drain on our power," Jarvis replied. "We can manage impulse on the cloak, but if we go too fast we could overload it." He eyed the general on the monitor. "Perhaps if Command had given us a newer cloaking device or a more powerful reactor at our last refit-"

"You know full well that the Daedalus-class is being phased out of service," Udina interrupted. "It was decided during your last refit."

Jarvis gritted his teeth. "They're good ships, Ambassador."

"They're old Federation ships," The general reminded him.

"Yet we're keeping Klingon wrecks and long abandoned Romulan ships, some of those are far older than the Icarus!" Jarvis argued.

"The Colonies need to rid themselves of any apparent relation to the Federation. That includes retiring all salvaged Federation vessels."

Jarvis took a deep breath. "I just hope we are not shooting ourselves in the foot, General."

~Mass Trek~

"Exo Geni set up in a building a few klicks up the Prothean skyway," Fai Dan explained as he pointed out the location on the map. "Our guards in the garage up there say they can see geth in the distance. They've also mentioned that our mutual enemy has deployed artillery in the form some kind of walking tank."

"The Geth haven't attacked the garage?" Garrus asked.

"Not yet," Fai Dan replied. "But I don't think the geth are going to send out more dropships with that rover of yours in the area, so I suspect the next attack on the colony should be coming from that direction."

"Is there a way to get the Mako up there?" Shepard asked.

"There's a freight elevator half a klick down the highway," Fai Dan suggested. "But the geth would be able to tell that you were coming up it."

Garrus clicked his mandibles in thought. "What if we tried using the thrusters on the Mako? They're powerful enough to get us into orbit, right?"

Shepard blinked. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

"You would have, but a dastardly handsome turian beat you to it."

"Vakarian, you do know that 'dastard' means 'nasty, mean, treacherous, or cowardly', right?" Ashley asked over the communicator.

The landing party glanced at each other for a second before Shepard started to laugh.

"I do now," Garrus muttered. 'Damn English."

Shepard managed to still her laughter. "I get what you meant, Garrus. Damn. That was hilarious how that backfired on you, ugly."

"What do you mean, 'ugly'?" Garrus demanded.

"You have to ask, turian?" Wrex interjected. "I think it fits you perfectly."

Garrus just shook his head.

"Anyway, seriously now, that wasn't a bad idea, Garrus," Shepard declared. "It should be a cinch."

"Should be?" Garrus asked.

"I don't think the Mako has ever made a several kilo jump onto a skyway," Shepard admitted.

~Mass Trek~

On Therum, the geth were advancing, but the mine's defenders were making them pay for each inch of ground. The anti-air guns were strong enough to punch through a geth cruiser- a lesson learned during the only attempt to bombard the defenders from the air (as the plasma weapons would only be disapated by the atmosphere), so the synthetics were forced to fight their way on the ground.

The Warlord looked over the battle and itched to get out there to participate in the fight himself. However, the krogan stayed himself. Saren had only sent one organic to secure Doctor T'Soni. Only one organic to lead the geth. So the Warlord waited and directed the cannon fodder.

He had three cruisers at his disposal when he began this mission, and the loss of one irked him to no end. However, he was confident that Saren would forgive him one cruiser once he brought the asari wench to him.

A colossus exploded under heavy disruptor fire, which made the krogan grind his teeth. Damned humans. No wonder Saren wanted them gone.

~Mass Trek~

"That was fun," Wrex laughed. "Let's do it again."

"Maybe we will," Shepard replied. "As soon as we can get the Mako untangled from the geth tank."

Garrus looked at what was left of the geth armature under and tangled around the wheels of the Mako. "What are the odds..."

"That we'd land right on top of the geth tank?" Ashley asked as she used her type-II phaser to cut away at one of the legs. 'I'm pretty sure the Commander didn't do it on purpose."

"Less talk, more cutting," Shepard ordered over the sound of her own type-II. "The sooner we get the Mako unstuck the quicker we won't be sitting ducks in the middle of a damn highway."

Garrus secretly eyed Shepard's rear end as she stood on a wheel to get at another angle to cut. For some reason he couldn't put a finger on, he found it attractive. "Maybe I have a fetish I didn't know about before?" he wondered. He shook his head and returned to his work. "No, that can't be it, otherwise I would have checked out other human females."

Roughly ten minutes later, the Mako was once again free and barreled down the skyway towards the Exo Geni building. Shepard kept a keen eye on the road, as did Ashley as evidenced by the amount of fire she laid down range and the geth debris Shepard passed. As they approached the Exo Geni building, they encountered more and more geth that were desperate to stop the rover's advance.

Garrus spotted something odd. "Shepard, the cruiser is arming its weapons."

"What?" Shepard almost shouted. "Do they have a line of sight on us yet?"

"They're firing!" Garrus warned.

Shepard pushed the rover's engine to go faster. There wasn't a lot of room on the skyway to avoid ship-mounted weapon systems, therefore she needed all the speed she would coax out of the Mako. The skyway behind them erupted into flame and debris. "Hold on!"

Garrus worked furiously over the sensors. "They're getting ready to do it again!"

Shepard noticed that the skyway entered a building that looked like it could still take a beating, but the gate was closed. "Garrus, can you hack that door?"

Garrus started to type and really fast. "On it, but I can give no guarantee because-"

"Citadel and Federation tech aren't exactly compatible," Shepard finished. "But we're dealing with Prothean tech rewired to work with IHC tech and-"

"Got it!" Garrus called out as the gate opened. "Good call, Shepard. IHC tech is somewhat compatible to Citadel tech."

Shepard brought the Mako to a grinding halt. "Everyone okay?"

"Fine here, though I could use a bigger seat," Wrex replied.

"Fine up here, Skipper," Ashley called from the gunner's seat.

Garrus waved off Shepard's wondering glance.

Shepard looked out of the Mako's viewport. "Options, people."

"If we continued on foot we'd be sitting ducks," Ashley pointed out.

"And that doesn't bode well with me, either," Wrex agreed.

"Garrus?" Shepard asked.

Garrus traced his colony marks for a few seconds, deep in thought. Then he looked at Shepard. "Militaries from all over the galaxy have utilized camouflage. Is there a way to camouflage ourselves against the geth cruiser?"

Shepard thought for a moment. "If we adjust the shield harmonics, we might be able to fool the geth sensors. I can't say for how long, but I can't say how long it will last."

"What are we waiting for?" Wrex asked. "Let's get to that tower and knock down that cruiser."

A/N: Another chapter done. I didn't realize how much writing would go into the Feros arch and I am kinda regretting even adding it to the story, but what is done is done. I might as well finish the damn thing. I'm actually kind of anxious to advance the story to the Therum mission, but I've always played the Feros mission first.

I wanted Liara to have a bit more maturity to her in the story. The galaxy is a harsh place and she knows it, though she still is a bit naive about some things.

Looking at what I have planned for the next two games, which will be posted as separate stories, I have a lot on my plate, not counting all the stuff I have to do in my life. I'm told I will be expecting twelve hour days at work soon, then add commute and overtime... ugh. Anyone got a spare time machine?