The conference room was absolutely quiet, so much so that the distant hum of the engines was the only thing that could be heard. Shepard had his eyes glued to the map of the galaxy. He was reading the notes on the Widow Nebula, called the Starwind by the drakat, over and over again. There was nothing there. It seemed to be a point of puzzlement, given the number of expeditions that, according to the notes, had been sent to the relay over the years. A relay in the middle of an empty nebula, there had to be something there. But there wasn't.

"I think the AI has malfunctioned," Ma'limie said, shaking his grizzled old head.

"Where is the Citadel?" Shepard said, speaking to himself more than the others.

"What is this Citadel?" Ine said, boyish curiosity breaking his calm mask for a moment.

"As I said, it's a massive space station. You can't probably have missed it." With an annoyed gesture, Shepard reset the map back to the wide galaxy view. With another pointless deep breath, he straightened up and looked at the prince. "It is the centre of the relay network. The heart of countless civilizations that came in every cycle."

"Cycle?"

Oh dear, Shepard thought. There it was. The boy had a small smile on his face, well controlled, but it was there. He was looking at Shepard with wondrous curiosity, without any real care. He was so not ready to hear all sentient life in the Galaxy was about to be wiped.

"Have you ever found remains of my civilization? The humans?"

"Well..." he hesitated. "It is not an area of knowledge I have mastered. Precursors and their technology are a rather touchy subject."

"My civilization ended a bit over twenty thousand cycles ago."

"So you mentioned. What caused the downfall?"

"An ancient race of machines called the Reapers."

"Like the merch?"

"No. Not at all." Shepard chided himself mentally. He was dancing around the issue, and there was no point. Eventually he'd have to squash the boy's wonderment with the hard boot of reality. "The Reapers... Well, we do not know when or how they were created. They are a race of sentient ships, whose only purpose in life seems to be to appear every fifty thousand years, a little over twenty thousand of your cycles, and wipe out all organic life. They are the ones that created the Mass Relays, and left behind the technology we all use. The citadel was... is at the heart of the Mass Relay network. It controls everything, it can open it up, and shut it down."

Shepard definitely had the attention of everyone in the room. Abharei looked surprised, Ma'limie was unmoved but had his eyes fixed on him, Nie looked slightly less collected than usual, and Ine, the young prince, had lost his smile completely.

"That is..." the boy muttered, not finishing his phrase.

"Most of our technology came from the civilization of the previous cycle. The protheans. They were extremely advanced, so much so that the civilizations of my time had barely scratched the surface of all their technology. They unlocked the secret of the mass relays, and even broke the code of the citadel, stopping it from working for the Reapers."

"How so?" Ine said.

"The citadel is not only at the center of the relay network. It is also a gigantic Mass Relay itself. It connects to dark space, where the reapers lay in wait between cycles; waiting for a signal to come from the citadel that the next cycle is ready to be attacked."

A dense silence settled, everyone apparently looking at the galaxy map.

"Shepard," Ine said, his expression serious. "You said your civilisation fell twenty thousand cycles ago, same as the reaper cycle. When are the reapers returning?"

"I cannot be sure, I never knew how exact the numbers were. But we are seven years from the fifty thousand mark, which is about three cycles."

"Do you have any proof of all this?" Ma'limie said, the old drakat looking at him with a distrustful eye. It was a little much to believe, the council had denied it even as they watched a reaper dock with the citadel and try to open the relay to dark space.

Then again, the council was where all incompetence in the Galaxy came to die. And be eaten by those three idiots. No wonder Anderson looked like he had aged half a century in the two years Shepard had been out of commission.

"I had proof," Shepard said. "Back when I was found and activated, the hideout. It had a recording by a friend of mine, with the chronicles of our war with the reapers. Unfortunately, I don't know where the hideout is, Dho'klee does. And for what he told me, the system fell to the merch soon after they found me, which is why they ran away."

"Dho'klee?"

"A scientist from an exploration vessel," Nie replied. "He is in the medlab, his condition is serious but we managed to stabilize him."

"We?" the old drakat said, and even with the cultural differences, Shepard easily picked on the derision. Nie stiffened in place, but didn't say anything else. He turned to Shepard. "So you have no proof."

"Until I get it back."

"You cannot possibly hope to recover whatever it is the merch have taken!" the old man spat.

"Really?" Shepard replied, with a healthy dose of sarcasm in his voice.

"There is no need for that," Ine interrupted, his young voice speaking with a finality that stopped the old man on his tracks.

"Your highness, you cannot possibly believe such a tale without proof," Ma'limie said, his voice firm but not aggressive.

"No, I believe you are correct. For something as large as this, we require some kind of proof." He kept his eyes on Shepard, and the former Spectre had to admire how quickly the boy had recovered. He looked like he could believe it, and that he was ready to do whatever he could about it.

Not that I have any idea what he can do, I'm going to have to ask.

"However, if these Reapers truly destroyed a galaxy-spanning civilization, there must be evidence of their actions."

Shepard shook his head. That had been a hell of a puzzle during his time, just ask Liara about it. "The reapers have been doing this for millions of years. They are very thorough. They always leave some gifts from the previous cycle, as a way to direct the technology of every cycle, but evidence of their existence is a different matter." He faced up and started thinking. Probably start with the core worlds. Earth, Palaven, Thessia.

He turned to the map again. There were few places he could find without any effort, VI assistance, or asking EDI. Earth was definitely one of them. He zoomed onto the local cluster, and was greeted with a big block of nothingness.

"Unexplored," he muttered. "Earth is in there somewhere."

"Earth?" Ine said.

"Humanity's home planet. Let's try Palaven." Same result. "Sur'Kesh." Nada. "Thessia."

That got a response. The mass relay had been discovered, but nothing else was there. Only long range information about the star, nothing on the planets around it. They weren't even there. Shepard opened the information tab, and started skimming reports.

"Ships lost, probes not giving anyting back, nothing but failures! What the heck is all this?"

"Hm?" Abharei muttered, looking at the map. "Oh, that's... What did they call it?" He flicked through the reports himself, until he found the one he was looking for. "The Sea of Despair. There seem to be some old spacer legends of countless treasures hidden behind the relay. Nothing has ever been verified. Is that a place of importance?"

"That's where Thessia is. Was. Well, the planet should be there I guess." He looked at the prince. "The homeworld of the Asari."

"Interesting!" Ine said, perking up. "Perhaps we should explore-"

He didn't even finish the phrase before every single drakat in the room practically jumped at him.

"Your highness!" Ma'limie shouted.

"My prince, that's not a good idea!" Abharei protested.

"No," Nie said simply, giving her younger sibling a very stern look.

The look on the prince's face made it very hard for Shepard to contain his laughter. It seemed like no matter what civilisation, what cycle, what species, the look on a child that's told he can't have his favourite toy was always the same.

"More importantly," Abharei continued, zooming the map out, "the merch have taken over the paired relay sector. I will be honest with you, Shepard. I'm not sure I believe all that about the reapers, but it may not matter. By the time they come, they may find nothing but merch all through the galaxy."

Shepard shook his head, looking down at the map. "Rogue AI. You know, I spent years in my previous life fighting rogue AI. Then all of a sudden, I'm teaming up with AIs. And now I'm one." Nobody answered to his ramblings until he looked up again. He gave Abharei a glance before turning to the young prince. "I will be honest too, your highness. All I care about is the reapers. They took everyone I knew, everyone I cared about. I don't really remember it because I was created before everything went to hell. I closed my eyes, and next thing I know, I'm in a completely different galaxy and I'm stuck inside a computer terminal. But they will pay."

Nobody answered. There was no need, they were simply waiting for him to get to the point he was circling around.

"But this," he gestured at the galaxy map. "If you can't even hold back a simple AI force like the merch, then how are you even going to deal with the reapers?"

"The merch are anything but simple," Abharei said. He waved over the glass surface of the map, and several areas of the galaxy were highlighted. A large area was blue, and several smaller areas scattered around the edge of the blue portion were highlighted green. The larger part of the galaxy was white, and then there was a whole arm marked yellow. "The Merch have managed to work through the whole distal arm of the galaxy in what, less than ten cycles? They are ruthless, numerous, and have been using our own weapons against us. Throwing forces against them only means having whatever losses we sustain during battle turned against us."

"Where did they come from?"

"Nobody knows. The Empire claims the Federation created them, and the Federation says the exact opposite. Wherever they came from, it doesn't matter."

"Well, a whole horde of synthetics doesn't just appear out of nowhere..." Shepard stopped and replayed what he had just said in his mind. "Except the reapers. Jeez. My point being, how did they manage to become numerous enough to hold that much of the galaxy in just ten cycles?"

"They don't really retain territory. They clear out the outposts, salvage everything they can, and just move on. They don't leave much behind."

For a few minutes, Shepard stared at the map, looking at the annotations of all known systems. The larger ones were clearly marked, but then there were scattered little outpost sprinkled all around. "Still," He finally said, and gestured at the non-yellow parts of the galaxy. "They haven't hit any of the major planets, right?" Abharei nodded at him. "You're telling me the rest of the galaxy can't stand up to them?"

"If they mustered the will, perhaps." The drakat looked at the young prince, who took over the explanation.

"It is sadly true," Ine said, doing a sideways nod in assent. "They have been more worried about blaming each other than protecting their citizens." A flash of anger seemed to cross the young drakat's face. "As such, they expect the other side to be the first ones to risk their forces. Yet whoever suffers the first heavy losses will be vulnerable to the other side. The two sides are in a delicate balance."

Ine was leaning forward now, eyes fixed on the galaxy map and hands holding his chin up. It was an almost human gesture, but he didn't look like he was so much thinking as just trying to contain a very palpable bout of anger.

"Are they really going to stand by just in case the other side attacks?"

"There is no just in case," Ine replied, his voice stiff over the alien turn of phrase. "There is no case. If one side is weakened, the other side will attack."

"Unbelievable."

"We have tried, Shepard. We have used our forces to evacuate the smaller colonies, raided the merch fleet back when they only had a few salvaged ships, but it's not enough. We don't have enough ships, or troops, or-"

"Your highness," Ma'limie said, his voice soft and full of concern.

The prince stopped talking and took a deep breath. "Yes, I understand. It is useless to dream of what could have been." For a moment, the weight of responsibility made the young drakat look much, much older than he was. But he shook it off quickly, a practised mask of collected calm falling into place. "That is the reality, commander Shepard. Those who can stand up to the merch, are too worried about each other to do something. The rest of us, we are not enough."

"Who is this we?" Shepard inquired.

"We, the Dau Drakat." He looked at Shepard, but couldn't get a read on the AI's expression. "We are the drakat who were exiled a thousand cycles ago, after the Star War."

"The Star War?"

"It is old history, not important," Ine replied, dismissing the topic easily. "You can read the history texts at your leisure, commander. The important thing is that our fleet is not as big as that of the Empire or the Federation. We cannot oppose the merch by ourselves. And to take any of the two sides... It would be more than problematic, one doesn't trust us, the other hates us."

Shepard put his hands on the table, and leaned forward, looking at the galaxy map. "So the only chance to beat the merch, and possibly the reapers, is to get these two to work together." He looked at Ine. "And to do it soon."

"Perhaps," Ine replied. The unspoken thought there was good luck with that.

For a while, nobody spoke. Shepard was looking at the map, trying to decipher the issue of the merch. Where they came from, why they were destroying organics like they were. Why the Empire and the Federation were both ignoring them so markedly.

"It doesn't make sense," Shepard finally said.

"What doesn't?" Abharei said.

"The Empire and the Federation. Why are they so fixed on blaming each other and letting the other side take the first step? If it's been ten cycles, and for what you said, they're not closer to working together than they were then... It's just too irrational. Have they been bolstering their defenses, increasing their fleets, anything?"

"No, nothing at all. All they do is blame each other," Abharei said.

"It doesn't make sense," Shepard replied. "Maybe that's where we should start."

"Huh? What?"

"The merch. Figure out who made them, where they came from. If they're so obsessed with that, maybe we should solve it and go from there."

"Just like that."

"Yes. Just like that. Six impossible things before breakfast, that's me." Shepard chuckled at the confusion on the drakat's face. He looked around, and saw they all had a similar mix of curiosity and confusion on their faces.

"Where would you start?" Ine inquired, pushing the issue of the odd human's phrases aside.

"If it was up to me me, I would go and ask whoever is in charge on both sides. Straight to the top. There's something fishy here."

"Fishy?"

"Yeah," Shepard tapped his helmet where his nose was supposed to be. "Doesn't smell right."

His explanation didn't seem to cross the language barrier. The silence that followed dragged on, and was only broken by a faint groan. Everyone turned to look at Nie, who seemed to be struggling with something. The fact that she was looking away, and her lower jaw was twitching, was not enough of a clue for Shepard to figure out what was wrong with her.

"Perhaps we could reconvene at a later time," Ine offered. "Some food and rest would do us all some good."

He stood up, and the rest of the drakat quickly stood at attention before bowing, so Shepard took it as a cue to snap a salute. Ine simply nodded and left the room, followed closely by Ma'limie. Abharei gave Nie a small smile, and followed after the others.

Shepard was almost sure the good doctor was just embarrassed. That noise? She was probably hungry, he thought, chuckling softly.

"Going to get some food I take it?" Shepard said, trying to sound as nonchalant as he could.

"Yes. If you will excuse me..."

She was about to turn when Shepard stopped her. "Care for some company?"

"Do you require sustenance?"

"You could call it that, a little conversation can go a long way," he smirked.

With a sideways nod, she started walking off again. "As you wish, commander."

"Thank you doctor," Shepard replied. Nie seemed to miss a step when she heard doctor, but recovered quickly and kept walking.

A quick trip to the mess hall, and soon they were both seated at a table, completely alone. After the excitement of the new arrivals had died down, the place had become deserted, since they were in the middle of the sleep cycle of the ship.

The food on Nie's plate looked decidedly alien. Some squiggly things that could be plant or animal, blue and soft. They were a preserve of some sort. It had a side of grainy stuff that looked like couscous, mixed with seeds, some boned blue meat cutlets, and no sign of vegetables anywhere.

"High protein food?"

"Yes," Nie said, taking the five-pronged fork lookalike. It was sharp on one side, which was how she was cutting the food. She took a bite, and although she seemed to be controlling herself not to wolf it down, she chew through it quickly. "Our dietary requirements are high on protein. Was it different for your species?"

"Humans are... were omnivores. Grains, vegetables, fruit, with a side of protein. Usually animal protein, but humans have been known to live on vegetables only."

Nie nodded, taking another bite.

"So, doctor," Shepard started. Nie stopped the fork mid-way and looked at him fixedly. "I didn't mean anything by that, but I have noticed it's making you uncomfortable. Is there a particular reason?"

She didn't answer, merely went back to her food. Undeterred, Shepard kept talking, more to himself than to Nie.

"Some titles don't really stick. I remember Captain Anderson, he was the captain of the ship I was in before the whole reaper thing blew in our faces. A bit of a mentor, if you will," Shepard shook his head, a smile forcing itself to his synthetic face. "He earned himself a promotion to councillor, and the title never sat well with him." He chuckled, which got Nie to look at him again. "Although maybe it was the company, he was at the galactic centre of incompetence."

Talking about Anderson brought back memories. Getting picked for the Normandy crew under him, taking it out for a spin for the first time... He was one of the people who pushed for him to become a Spectre, something he really never thanked him for. It wasn't a favour, not really. It was a necessity. The first human to make it to Spectre was going to be pulled apart by everyone, it was like throwing him to the lions in a Roman circus.

But Anderson, at least, understood. He had been in his place, twenty years before. Saren had thrown a wrench in the works, but after all Shepard had seen, maybe the fallen Spectre had done his friend a favour, after all.

"It is not a title I earned," Nie said suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Shepard said, after a short pause to get his thoughts back to the present.

She took a deep breath, and finished the last bits of food in her bowl. She had worked quickly through her meal while Shepard wasn't paying attention, and even now, seeing her calmly scoop the last morsel with her fork, he couldn't quite tell how she had eaten so quickly.

Then again, biotics were famous for putting plenty of food away whenever they used their abilities hard.

"The title of doctor..." She paused again, trying to gather her thoughts. "It is complicated."

"If it helps, I am quite familiar with complicated," Shepard said, smiling.

Nie didn't react to that, but she did start talking again. "I never received any formal training as a doctor. I was not welcome to learn."

"You were barred from studying?"

"I am a scryer, Shepard. I do not know whether that carried any weight during your time, but for someone in my position, in the royal family... It made things complicated, to be mild about it."

"Scryer."

"Yes," Nie said, and raised her right hand, open palm facing up. She started glowing blue, and a small ball of dark energy swirled over her palm. As quick as it had started, it stopped.

"Ah. We used to call that biotics. Why scryers though? It's not like you can see the future or get visions or anything, is it?"

"Old superstitions. We now know better, but the name did not change."

"I see. And I take it biotics are not liked? There were issues back in my time with human biotics, but they were a very recent development."

"No. Not just that." She stopped again, and took a deep breath. "I was exposed to- Are you familiar with how scryer abilities work?"

"Yes, exposure to eezo. Element zero," Shepard added when Nie gave him a strange look. "In a small percentage of humans, it lodges itself in the nervous system, making nodules that can be used to create dark energy fields."

"Element Zero. Curious name, descriptive," Nie said. "Yes, I was exposed to eezo when I was still in the egg. My mother did not survive, but I did. When I was through four cycles, my abilities manifested. That was the real problem."

Shepard just nodded, not saying a word.

"The only child of the royal ruler, a scryer," she chucked softly, a dark sound with no joy behind it. "My father couldn't simply allow that. So, against a thousand cycles of tradition, he remarried, even though he had a living heir. And Mali'ine was born soon after. A healthy boy to take the throne when the time came."

"I see. It must have been hard," Shepard said, getting a sideways nod from Nie. "But your brother-"

"I love my brother, Shepard," she replied, all too quickly. She looked at him directly in the eye, and her whole posture became subtly aggressive, threatening. Shepard didn't flinch, but it was a sight to see. "It, he, was the reason why it was not hard to step away from everything. It was for his sake. I'd do anything for him."

Shepard smiled again. "I didn't doubt that. But looking at the two of you, I'm guessing you would have preferred to stay with him. And he'd prefer to have you at his side."

Nie gave another nod of assent, and her eyes strayed down towards her empty plate.

"I don't get it. Everyone here seems to have welcomed you back with open arms," Shepard said.

"With open-"

"They are happy that you are back."

"Not everyone is," Nie said pointedly.

"Other than the grumpy old man," Shepard said.

"He is merely one of the old guard. The drakat in this ship are those closest to my brother. They know we were happy together, but even they know it cannot last. I rather my brother not learn how most of the court consider my presence. Not yet, at least."

Shepard nodded, and they fell silent for a few minutes, both of them lost in their thoughts. He was the one to break the silence again.

"How does that relate to your title, doctor?"

As he had expected, that got Nie's attention again, but this time it wasn't an angry look at all. Somehow the doctor title had lost its sting between the two of them.

"As I lost all claim to the throne, I wanted to do something with my life. Helping others with my condition became my interest. But I was an inconvenience. Nobody wanted to have any responsibility that involved me. Because I was a scryer, and a disgraced member of the royal family, and I was a problem." She paused, and a strange faraway look came to her face, together with a smile. "Except for Kalye." She looked at Shepard again. "My old nanny. She had a kind heart, taught me to always do well by others no matter what they thought of me."

"And you became a doctor after you left," Shepard said.

"Yes. I studied by myself, as much as I could, from texts. And from others who didn't know or care who I was."

"Well, for what is worth," Shepard said, and got another curious look from Nie. "I saw the way the others down at the clinic looked at you, followed your instructions. You may think you are not a real doctor, but what I saw down there told me you are. That was real respect, Nie."

"I don't know, Shepard." Nie paused again, and Shepard couldn't quite tell what she was struggling with. It was quite a story, but she sounded like she had come to terms with her past. She was calm and collected. "When I found the clinic in my travels, they were desperate for help. Do you know what the clinic was set up for?"

"No."

"Scryers. That is, those who suffered side effects from the Federation's experiments to create scryers. All my life I struggled to see anything worse than being born with these abilities, only to be shunned by most everyone I came across. Then... Then I found something even worse; to be made into what I was, only to be used and discarded at someone else's leisure."

After that, the two of them sat in a comfortable silence for a while. The ship ran very quiet, perhaps not as quiet as the Normandy used to, but then again, Shepard's hearing was a lot better now than it used to be. After a while, Nie stood, taking the empty bowl.

"Thank you, Commander. For listening."

"No need to thank me," Shepard replied.

"Perhaps next time you will tell me about yourself." She looked at Shepard fixedly for a few seconds, and smiled. "Although, I wonder if it would be possible to speak to you face to face. It is a little unsettling to talk into the darkened visor of your helmet."

"I'll ask Sprockets, maybe he can finish my body," Shepard said with a chuckle. "I have to admit it would be good to have my old appearance back, or as close as possible." He stood up, wobbly on his damaged legs. "I'm going to go to the medbay and check on the others. Want to come?"

"It would not be wise for me to walk into that hall," she replied. "The medlab is one level below. Have a restful sleep, Shepard."

"Good night, Nie."

Shepard made his way down one level to get to the medbay – medlab, Shepard corrected himself – and looked through one of the windows. It was mostly dark inside, a few pilot lights and the glow of monitoring equipment managed to turn the darkness into a soft twilight but that was it. It was almost full, Shepard saw not only his team but others too, hurt during the merch attacks, or possibly some of the inhabitants of the clinic.

There was no way he could walk discreetly into the lab without making a racket, so he just looked from the window. He found Fuusley first, the drogn was not laying down, but sitting next to another bed – Fus', he noticed – and fast asleep. Fuusley was bandaged and patched up, but didn't look too bad. Fus, on the other hand, was a lot more heavily bandaged, and was hooked up to an IV and some monitoring equipment.

Of course, that wasn't half as much as C'ie. The ar'alee was hooked up to an IV, had three different monitors on her, and had a tube coming out of her lower ribcage. And possibly oxygen too, as she had a mask hooked up to her face.

Lann was on another bed, patched up and monitored but fairly healthy looking. Humley was nowhere to be seen, but he was uninjured as far as Shepard knew.

"It's too bad they don't have medi-gel," Shepard muttered.

Unsure of where to go next – not needing sleep or rest – he decided to make his way down to the hangar and see if Legion was still around. He hadn't seen the geth coming up from the depths of the ship, so he had to be down there somewhere.

He wasn't hard to find. As soon as Shepard made it to the hangar, he found the geth patiently sitting down in one corner, his back propped against the wall with his outstretched legs on the ground... And Sprockets laying across on Legion's legs, fast asleep like that was the most comfortable spot in the whole ship. He was even drooling a little.

Legion had his flashlight eye fixed on the fuquee, and given how his eyeflaps twitched every so often, he was rather puzzled.

"Legion," Shepard greeted him, speaking in a low voice.

"Shepard-commander."

Oh, we can steal speak like this? Shepard thought.

"Affirmative, wireless link is still active."

Good, no need to wake him up. There were several bits of electronic components strewn around Legion, crushed, burned, or otherwise rendered unusable. Did Sprockets find all the bugs?

"No merch processes are present in current prime platform." He sounded genuinely happy about it. Well, as happy as Legion could sound.

Great.

Shepard put his back to the wall, and slid down to the ground, sitting right next to Legion. Even through he was trying to be careful, the fact that he was in his armor, and with a full weapons load made his manoeuvre rather noisy. Sprocket stirred in his sleep, opened one lazy eye and, upon seeing Shepard, closed it and went back to sleep.

"Get some sleep. You definitely earned it buddy," Shepard muttered.

He looked up at Legion, and chuckled as his puzzlement over the sleeping fuquee.

You okay Legion?

"We are forming a consensus."

Over what?

"Sprockets-creator."

S- Wait, what? Creator?

"Affirmative. Fuquee creators have achieved harmony with their synthetic creations. Creator title is deserved and appropriate."

I guess. Well, he seems quite attached to you. Shepard waited, looking at Legion puzzle over the sleeping fuquee on his legs. And you have no idea what to do with that, do you?

"No data available."

Shepard chuckled at that, his synthetic body mimicking the movement perfectly. How are you holding up otherwise? You got your head sorted out?

"Our optical and auditory sensors are functioning at full capacity."

No, I meant your brain, well, your processors. Is your memory still jolted?

"Affirmative. Data recovery on corrupted memory is under way."

Looking around, Shepard saw that Sprockets had taken the omni-tool off, and it was laying down on the ground. Without having to stand up, Shepard reached for it and put it on, flicking it to life with an almost automatic gesture.

"Damn, Sprocket's really changed the interface," Shepard muttered. He started flicking through options, looking for the scanning menus. Instead, he ended up at the comms.

Then he saw it. Unread messages.

What the...

He opened the incoming messages menu, and found himself looking at nothing but garbage. Lines and lines of garbage. Except for one message. The most recent one.

It was from Tali.

How long it took for him to finally open the message, he didn't know. He just stared at his omni-tool until Legion took him out of his reverie.

"Shepard-commander," Legion called. "We have detected a closed loop in current simulation process."

"I'm fine," Shepard muttered. Then, without another word, he clicked on the message.

The omni-tool's screen flared up, and Tali's face appeared right away. The video was shaky, and the sounds of battle were unmistakable. She seemed to be behind cover, while everyone around her was shooting and shouting undecipherable things.

"Shepard. John. I... I don't know if you'll get this. Garrus said you made it to the conduit. That you made it to the Citadel. But... But just in case..." She stopped talking, and the video shook with a nearby explosion. When she looked at her omni-tool camera again, she took a deep breath and, without warning, she pulled her mask off. Her beautiful violet eyes looked straight into his synthetic soul, and there were a couple of tears making their way down her face. "I wish I could have seen Earth with you, before all this." Her voice rang vibrant and clear without the suit filters. "You told me so much, and it sounded like such a beautiful place, and now the reapers- Shepard, we'll give them hell. They won't just take your planet like that, I won't let them. This was our planet, this was going to be where we would live together. I never told you that, didn't I? I was going to make it a surprise, and you wouldn't be able to say no, and-" Another explosion stopped her confused tirade, and this time the sound of gunfire wasn't coming from just around her. There were guns getting closer to her position. The next time Tali looked at the camera, Shepard saw she was holding her shotgun in her other hand, propped against her shoulder. "Goodbye John. I... I love you."

With that, the message ended.

Shepard didn't even have to think about it, he pressed play again, and watched Tali's last message a second time. Then a third. A fourth. He would have kept going until either the omni-tool or himself ran out of battery, but was stopped when a small gloved hand landed on his arm.

Sprockets had been woken by the very loud message, and was looking at Shepard with genuine, unmistakable concern. He looked at the screen, Tali's unmasked face frozen as the message paused, and then back at Shepard's face.

"That's... That's Tali," he muttered. "She's... She was..."

He hadn't been at a loss for words since the first time he saw Sovereign, and even then, he could at least articulate something. This was different. This was something his AI programming was struggling to cope with.

"How did she even manage to get a message through in the middle of a reaper invasion?" Shepard said. "A freaking warzone. The comms... Is there anything you can't do Tali?"

With a swipe, he went back to the message list, and hit the next one. They were sorted in chronological order, so it was the one right before Tali sent hers. As he had suspected, they wouldn't even open. The data was corrupted beyond belief.

"Dammit," he said, hitting corrupted message after corrupted message with increasingly erratic movements. When his frustration peaked, he ripped the omni-tool off and threw it across the hangar.

Sprockets jumped back as soon as Shepard made his first jerky move, and took a step back, tripping over Legion's legs and falling back. The geth caught him before he could hurt himself, so the fuquee ended up simply falling on his butt on Legion's legs.

He hesitated between Shepard and the omni-tool. The tool laid discarded on the ground several meters away. Shepard was frozen in place with his face looking down to his lap. When Sprockets seemed to have finally made up his mind, and was about to go for the omni-tool, Shepard stopped him.

"Let it be. Just go back to sleep little guy, sorry I woke you."

With a lingering look at Shepard, Sprockets shook his head, and nested again over Legion's legs, much to the geth's puzzlement.

Dammit. What the hell happened? The conduit? The reapers on Earth? There was nothing but questions for him. The only thing that was not a question, that was a certainty, was the most important truth.

He had failed. He had failed everyone, everyone who had put their trust on him. And worst of all, above Earth, above the entire damn galaxy, he had failed Tali.

And the last thing she had done was getting through heavens know how many blocks, firewalls, military grade comms protocols, and freaking reapers, just to say goodbye to him.


Codex Entry: Fuquee.

A species of rodent-like mammalian humanoids, the fuquee were the first species to achieve Space travel, even before the drakat, discover the mass relays, and explore the galaxy. Inquisitive by nature, twitchy in general, and far too curious for their own good, they didn't really care about conquering, expanding, or creating an empire. All they really set to do was to discover the wonders the galaxy had to offer.

They were also the first ones to dabble into and create Artificial Intelligences, much earlier than the typical fifty thousand year mark that guides the reaper cycle. However, unlike what happened in the vast majority of cycles before them, their AIs never rebelled against their creators, never attacked or tried to overthrow them. The fuquee like their AIs just fine, and the synthetics, in turn, seem to genuinely care about their organic creators. They are an integral part of fuquee society. It is said, and only partially in jest, that the fuquee created synthetic life as a way to have some semblance of order in their chaotic goings.

The fuquee have no home planet. While the details on what happened to their planet exactly are murky, it was destroyed in a massive implosion that converted their beautiful garden world into an asteroid field all over their star system. Most fuquee wander from place to place, usually not settling in any one world as they are constantly pushed away by most other sentients. They organize into extended clans, very territorial and protective of their own, and very distrustful of outsiders and those who are different from the clan. That includes fuquee with opposable thumbs, the result of a somewhat uncommon but not excessively rare mutation.


Author's Notes: Not much to say here. A bit of downtime, a bit of background, and setting up the stage for the next chapters! As usual, and still as heartfelt: Thanks for reading and reviewing!

So, Kira Kyuu, Nas4a2, yes, the Citadel. Earth is a good bet for where it may be, but I'm personally still not sure. That's because I do have a couple of options on how I'll handle it, and I haven't decided yet. Earth is one of the options, for obvious reasons :) And remember, Shepard doesn't remember the reaper war! He was backed up before the suicide mission in ME2 and never upgraded since. So he doesn't even suspect Earth... yet.

Samariffic, it's probably safe to bet Shepard (and Legion!) will be getting fixed in the very near future!

Guest, it was unclear at first because Shepard didn't know what happened during the suicide mission, but the fact that his gear was all there waiting for him is the clue that he had survived the suicide mission. If he hadn't, then his gear would have been lost on the other side of the Omega 4 Relay.