"Cerberus again, bosh'tets," Shepard muttered under his breath.
"Just when I thought we were going to settle down, I'll get my shotgun," Tali said as she walked to the back.
"No you won't, I already sent a message to Garrus. He's already on his way."
"So what your going to go risk your life and not let me back you up?" By now Tali was flustered over what he was saying.
"Tali do you really feel risking the life of our child is necisarry? Please, if not for me then for our child. I promise I won't go anywhere untill Garrus arrives."
Tali froze, she knew he was right. Her being pregnant meant she had no room to take risks.
"Damn it Shepard," She started to say before he embraced her, she held on tight knowing he wasn't going anywhere and he would be safe.
"Tali don't worry so much, all you need to worry about is what we name our child." He removed his visor and she did the same, they kissed as a voice crackled over the comms.
"Archangel reporting, Shepard whats the situation?"
Shepard was pleased to here the oice of his closest friend after their run-in on Illium.
"Come on board and I'll debrief you."
"Will do, I brought a friend along I think youll wanna meet."
Garrus closed the channel and docked with Shepard and Tali's ship. As he started down the docking tube he beckoned for a Salarian to come with him. It was Dr. Solus and he was in STG uniform.
"Good to see you again Garrus, Dr. Solus I wasn't aware you were in the STG," Shepard shook Garrus hand and nodded at Solus in greating, he nodded back.
"Turns out he has a new toy built to make Cerberus equipment safeties go off prematurely, whoever isn't killed has no comms, no air, no electronics. When they wanna protect something they go above and beyond the call of duty."
"Indeed, as subject flatlines, explosives detonate destroying equipment. Most painful, often lethal, not one hundred percent lethal however," Solus quickly replied.
"Whats the range on it?"
"In current form, fifty yards. However, if we hook it up to the communications relay it will spread across the planet."
"So then, our objective is to secure the relay and activate Dr. Solus' device. Then we need to find and assist Ashley in cleaning up the rest of the surviving troops."
"What can I do from here?" Tali piped in.
"Keep an eye on us from orbit, you see anything near us tell us. If you can try to identify friend or foe so no civilians get shot."
"Better than just sitting here doig nothing for the next couple hours," Tali got the view set up and monitoring Cerberus signals, the one thing that gives it's soldiers away.
Garrus threw Shepard his old rifle and nodded to him as they prepared for contact. As the ship dropped into the lower atmosphere they immediately spotted multiple hot zones and began plugging the cordinates into their omnitools. One of the planetary defence battaries stood in the center of the colony.
"Garrus, we need to secure that battery, you can perch up there and give us sniper support."
"Sounds like a plan, does the ship have any weapons on it?"
"Yes I had the Geth install some modified guns from the Heavy Fleet on the belly of the ship."
"You mean the rail cannons? Those are far too big though," Tali began.
"The Geth refitted them with smaller barrels and fit a Mass Effect Core into them. It'll be less punch but it's good for orbital support."
Garrus imediately went into the small maintanence hatch to check calibrations on the guns and came out after about a few minutes.
"There, the guns should be able to hit a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy from orbit now," Garrus chuckled.
"Alright we're over the drop zone, be careful Shepard. That goes for you two as well, if anything happens to him. Well, just hope nothing happens to him, trust me."
Garrus shuddered at the thought of an angry Tali, he already knew what she was capable of in a clear state of mind.
"Tali I'll be fine, we need to go," He went over and touched the side of her helmet and touched visors and then jumped out of the hatch, rifle in hand.
Tali took the ship to a low orbit and deployed the guns and readied the 'Eye in the Sky'.
..
Shepard took point and began running towards an intersection, a small squad of Cerberus troopers were just ahead. He took cover and signaled for Garrus to crouch behind a planter on the opposite side of him parralel to the troopers. Dr. Solus was covering the rear flank as they slowely moved in.
Shepard got up and took aim, three shots rang out and two of the troopers fell to the ground. The rest of the squad immediately took cover and began firing.
"This is squad Alpha, contact confirmed requesting ground support," A distorted voice came over the comms.
"Tali, keep an eye on our flanks."
"Will do."
As they continued firing Tali came in over the comms.
"Shepard you have 42 hostiles converging on your position, I need you to tag them for the guns."
Garrus heard everything and immediately broke into a building he was next to and headed to the roof. As soon as he got to the roof door he busted through it and set point near the edge marking the enemy force moving in.
"Shepard, I don't think that distress email was real. Cerberus is far too well armed to just have been attacking the colony," Garrus said over the comms.
Shepard tapped into the ship's cam system and saw what Garrus was talking about.
"Im counting 8 ATLAS mechs or more. Garrus is the targeting laser working?"
"Yes I'm painting the targets now."
A few seconds later and large explosions echoe out from the streets where the force had been from the rail cannons. Shepard immediately headed to the street corner and started firing at the survivors of the bombardment. Smoke filled the air of the roadway as they moved forward. Garrus kept to Shepards rear as he picked off any troopers behind them. Dr. Solus kept to the buildings, eradicating any troopers trying to ambush.
As they came up to the battery Dr. Solus started scanning for a communications array.
"That battery has the most powerful comms array, must go there soon and deploy transmitter."
With that they immediately headed to the entrence only to be greeted by several heavily armed squads. They hadn't seen Shepards squad yet so that gave Shepard time to formulate a plan. he sent Garrus up to the roof of a building with a clear view of the main entrence to the battery. He sent Dr. Solus forward to deploy the transmitter on its own, Solus informed him it had only one stand alone charge in it.
Shepard moved up to get behind a vehicle and crouched down behind it, he started listening to radio chatter and recognised a voice.
"Ashley your attempts to save these people is futile, you need to accept that they are aready dead."
The Illusive Man, but something seemed off about his voice, it was more synthesized.
"Tali can you get a lock on the signal going to the battery?"
Tali began running several signal tracing protocols and began making an attempt at finding an origin point.
"It will take a while, but I was able to get through the encryption."
"Solus, Garrus. Hold for a few minutes and get a good baring on field. I'm working to get a trace on a signal."
"On your mark Shepard," Garrus said as he homed in on a an ATLAS operator sitting inside the cockpit.
"Shepard, I see your still trying to thwart my plans," The Illusive Man came over the comms.
"You know I'm only doing this for the good of mankind, without the research we are performing, we may never have another chance to force humanity into evolution."
"Shove it, I killed you on the citidel I'll kill you again."
"You never fail to amuse me Shepard, you realise you can never truly kill an AI right?"
"Lucky for us, the Geth are more than capable of doing it."
The Illusive Man popped up on a holographic projector inside the ship and Tali jumped.
"N, no, you're dead."
"I'm afraid not you Quarian suit-rat, and now I'm going to prove my dominence."
The ship jerked roughly as its orbit was altered. Tali immediately made a run for an escape pod as the Illusive man set course for Shepards location. Tali secured the hatch and ejected from the ship. They had about ten minutes before the ship would hit the surface.
Tali hit the boosters and came to the ground with concrete shattering force, she got out and and checked the scanner for Shepards signal. She immediately began sprinting to his location.
"Tali come in, damn it we lost contact."
Shepard signaled Dr. Solus to activate the transmitter and immediately began firing as the Transmitter began transmitting its signal, slowely Cerberus troops began falling for unknown reasons.
"It's working! Keep firing!"
They pushed forward, Garrus was on the street now with Shepard as they made their way to the battery.
..
Tali was just now coming to the street she had bombarded, bodies lining the roadway and pieces of ATLAS mechs littering the street. She sprinted to the intersection and turned to the battery sprinting.
She saw Shepard and immediately began yelling, she tried her comms and noticed that the unit had been damaged in the pod. Her voice synthesizer was damaged as well, she finally caught up to them.
Shepard noticed as Tali ran up the stairs out of breath. He immediately caught her and picked her up to relax her muscles.
"The Illusive Man, hes going to destroy the colony. He took control of our ship and is flying it directly onto our position," She said completely out of breath.
"Ok change of plans, we extract Ashley and then make a run for the shuttle port. According to the scanner we have approximately six minutes. Lets Go!"
The ran inside and worked their way up to the control room where Ashley was being held captive by Cerberus operatives. Shepard pulled his pistol and shot each of them in the head as he walked towards Ashley. He shot the bindings on her hands and feet off and carried her out.
"Three minutes to impact," the timer reminded Shepard as they ran to the shuttle port. The ran through rubble filled streets and entered the shuttle port stopping as they saw bodies all over.
"This must have been the final stand against Cerberus."
"It was," Ashley said as she slowely came to.
"Keep moving!"
"Sixty seconds to impact."
They ran to the nearest shuttle and started the ignition sequence. As they began lift off they saw their ship coming down through the atmosphere in a flaming ball of molten metal. As soon as they hit the upper atmosphere they saw the Reaper core detonate.
Tali removed her visor and looked at the voice synthesizer noticing the problem. Shepard looked over and saw what she was looking at. A single shard of metal had gone through the synthesizer just barely missing Tali's throat. She pulled it out and opened the casing, the power unit and the air filtration system had been fully severed.
Shepard removed his visor and gave it to Tali, he took hers and put it on.
"You need it more than I do,"He said as he patched some suit breaches.
Tali sighed, she went to Shepard and whispered in his ear. "When we get back to Rannoch, I'm chaining you to the house."
He laughed realizing what she was talking about.
Garrus set course for the Mass Relay and relaxed along with the rest of the group.
..
Admiral Hacket was having a field day reading new reports revolving around Cerberus' activities, he sighed as his mind went to Ashley. He hadn't had a sitrep from her in over ninety-six hours and was becoming concerned.
"Admiral Hacket sir, we have a transmission from a civilian shuttle requesting to dock."
"Have them dock at bay 31 I'll be down to greet them."
He put down the datapad and pushed himself away from the desk. As he rode the elevator down he had a feeling in his gut something horrible had happened.
..
Shepard hopped out of the shuttle and caught Tali as she jumped out. Hacket walked down the walkway towards them.
"What happened on Horizon, Shepard? Where's your ship?"
"Sir, Cerberus attacked us. The Illusive Man, he's not as dead as we'd hoped," Ashley said as she climbed out of the shuttle.
"He gained control of our ship and detonated the Reaper core in the center of the main colony. The colony was completely obliterated by the neutron blast from the Reaper heart."
"Shepard you've done enough, I'm putting Ashley on this. You need to go back to retire, you've saved the galaxy more than once," Hacket said.
"You have my address if you need me, thank you Admiral."
Tali walked up to Hacket, "Thank you if anyone could get him away from this it's be you."
Hacket smiled and nodded to Tali.
"Ok I guess it's time to head home, Garrus."
"Yes Shepard?"
"Make sure Ashley doesn't do anything stupid."
Ashley gave Shepard the middle finger without looking at him and Garrus busted out laughing.
Before they left for Rannoch Ashley looked over to Shepard, "Stay safe, if anything happens to you or Tali I don't know what I'd do."
"Same to you and Garrus, see you when we see you."
With that they left for Rannoch. The shuttle reminded them of the shuttle they had on the Normandy only smaller. Shepard set the auto pilot and then put his arm around Tali, they both relaxed and fell asleep.
.
..
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From time to time I'll be switching between Tali/Shepard and Garrus/Ashley. Not too often but I will be tieing the story together with a loose cord. Any ideas feel free to PM me or just leave a review.