"It's time to kick ass and chew bubble-gum, and I'm all out of gum".

HERE is the rest of RVB.

Tucker had days on the station when things just didn't work out, right now, was just one of those days.

He moved about cleaning the tables in the cafeteria, he had a seven hour shift and he needed the over-time after four to save for a trip to Elysium, he had heard of the nice beaches and warm sands and the hot asari lying on the beach.

A smack to the side of the head woke him back to reality.

"Tuck, get to work we have another serving on and you need to put it on table twenty." The female chef said.

"Right, I'll get to it." He said miserably.

He needed a new job.

XXXXX

Caboose was having a great morning he had that new implant installed to help with his knowledge boundaries. Which he now retained more information than he ever did, and he was more attentive and smarter.

Looking about there he found himself now under the employment of a bunch of asari researchers, at an institute on Terra Nova, a nice asari lady named Batha and her krogan bodyguard had decided to have him tester for some new innovations they had come up with.

He agreed, not because he was stupid because he wanted another job, and that and the pay was better.

XXXXX

To another certain extent we go back to Church.

He had been lying on a table, with cuffs on his wrists, and an interrogation in progress of him confessing to the fact that he kicked Johnny in the nuts.

"Okay so I confess five months ago I might have kicked you in the nuts, by the way anything left down there?" He said with a chuckle before being smacked again.

"Oh there's plenty to go around here Church, we can be total assholes or you can start telling me what I need to know."

"What's there to say, I can't find her and neither can you."

Well let's see about that then…

Just as he was about to hit Church with an energised baton, Church dent his head fast, letting it strike the binds on his chair, the cuff gave out and Church threw the only punch that Jonny was ever going to remember, next to Tex kicking his nuts.

Quickly working, Church unshackled himself, and began moving about, looking inside the warehouse, he found the asari spectre unconscious, he untied her and got moving.

"Last time I do anything nice, for the chick that steals from me."

XXXXX

Now Veetor was having a great time with his fellow Donut.

Donut was a people person after all, and after helping with some crop harvesters in the fields, he came up with a brilliant idea for an invention, which made them rich.

A type of juice and mixer for the annual harvest and then something he had added in from a ship design and then called it a JOTUN-S5, something he had back on his own farm.

It was definitely effective, and very fast at its harvesting, it made them practically rich within a week, and now they were planning to go places, though Veetor seemed happy here, and made plans to hire workers from the migrant fleet to help production.

Another fellow named Kenn was heading in from the fleet, though he was new as Veetor they would get along well.

XXXXX

After the radio talk with Shepard on the previous chapter

"Hello is somebody there?" A slightly panicked voice cried out.

"It looks like we found our doctor." Daniel said as he began to climb down.

They reached the bottom of a destroyed platform to see a wall of energy and behind it an asari floating inside of a sphere.

"Hello can somebody please help me?" Please." She called out.

She looked to them. "Are you… are you real? Oh no don't be stupid Liara humans do not come here, you're hallucinating. And you're talking to yourself 'hysterical laugh.' Oh goddess I'm going to die here."

Daniel and the others assumed she had been in there for probably the last few days.

"No we're real and we're getting you out of there."

"Your awfully lucid for a hallucination, they don't usually claim to be real. Or do they, I don't know I usually don't hallucinate. At least I don't think I do."

"My name is Daniel and I'm part of the special tactics and recon."

"A Spectre, ha, that's good. What else would I conjure up? A protector figure yes perfect comforting. Well I'll play along. As you can see I'm trapped here, if you're as real as you say you are, find a way to get me out."

"Well this is an energy field; we just need to figure a way round."

"It's a prothean barrier field, I thought it would keep me safe from the geth, but when I turned it on, I must have hit something I wasn't supposed to. I've been trapped here for over three day, you must get me out please."

"Right, we'll find a way."

"Of course, what good is a hallucination if it can't offer false hope?"

Daniel decided not to talk to the slightly shaken doctor; he looked about at the camp.

"Right let's see what there is. A mining laser, a camp area, maybe some explosives, and some geth shock troopers… 'Sigh' DUCK!" He yelled as the geth began firing.

"Commander, the geth have managed to somehow sneak a platoon and a prime as well as a lot of drones into one area."

"Right, we'll be there soldier just watch for the signal."

"We'll look for it alright but don't take too long."

He said as the com went off.

XXXXX

Stacking the explosives to an unfinished hole in the wall of the cavern she set the timer and ran.

"This had better work Wrex."

The demo charges went off, blasting a hole downwards and taking a chunk of the platform, looking over at their handy work, there was now a three meter drop with a part of the wall that came downwards, it was enough to jump on and climb down.

"Let's get to it."

XXXXX

Daniel fried another geth that got to close, that was his fifth in about 45 seconds and her still had plenty more to deal with, Tali and Garrus knocked a few more down as well, but the sheer numbers were far more than what they could dish out fast enough, firing out a grenade from the secondary fire of his MA9A, another three geth were strewn across the floor of the cave.

It wasn't until the wall of the left flank suddenly blew apart, Shepard and her team made their way into the battle, the explosion knocked half a dozen of their feet, and given her enough time to engage in the fire fight.

"Well that's new." Garrus said as he watched Shepard take the advantage.

"Crude but effective, I go to say Shepard, my lethal efficiency must have rubbed of." Daniel joked.

"Let's congratulate her after we destroy these geth." Tali said.

With the two teams the geth was crushed between their rear left and front, as Daniel advanced with his team, the geth began thinning as the relentless amount of fire power seemed to chew them out.

Mopping the last of the geth up, Daniel talked to Shepard.

"Nice work with the explosives."

"You said it yourself, I aim to please." She said while smiling.

"Well good news is we have the doctor secured, though she's more trapped than secured."

"And the bad news is?"

"That was the bad news."

"So how do we get her out of there?" Shepard asked.

"I might have an idea." Tali said.

"And that would be?" Shepard asked.

"We can use the mining laser though I'm good with machines; but there are two things that are supposed to be simultaneously done." She said pointing at the drill.

"Don't worry you've got me." Daniel said.

"Well then it's settled, Daniel and Tali will fix the machine and we just wait." Shepard said.

"Yup, that's as simple as it's going to get." Daniel said as he began helping Tali.

Quickly by passing some of the circuits, Daniel and Tali got the drill running, and then in a few seconds the drill fired, digging into the ground.

"And voila there's your door."

"Let's get going." Shepard said.

Daniel helped Tali down, though as she did, her foot stubbed against an open port, she tripped. Daniel below quickly aimed to catch her, grabbing her before she hit the ground.

"Thanks." She said.

"No problem, just doing my job." Daniel said, he did notice she was holding on to him.

"You might want to let go." He said.

She realised what he meant. "Oh, right, sorry just…"

"Don't worry, I know." He smiled setting the quarian down, he hadn't a problem with Tali, even though years of warfare with the covenant, he still was a person.

If Vinaya was made earlier, she was going to have an overload in about a few seconds.

'She is not getting her hands on my Spartan!' She said to herself.

Continuing on, Daniel was the first to activate the prothean elevator, going up, they got behind the barrier and the doctor.

"Now I'm hallucinating that you are in the tower, I must be getting worse. Earlier, I imagined hearing thunder."

"That was us using the mining laser to bore through the ground and make our way to here."

"And maybe a ton of explosives we used for our own tunnel down here." Wrex added.

"You bore through? Wait you're real, aren't you? By the goddess! You're real. I'm sorry, I thought you were just a hallucination, I thought I was going mad. Please get me out of here before more geth show up."

Walking to panel on the left of barrier, Daniel and Shepard tried to figure out how to get her down, though Shepard had a better idea of things considering the prothean knowledge she obtained.

"Oh." The doctor was getting back up from falling on the ground; she dusted herself off and turned around.

"So any ideas on how we're getting out of here?" Garrus asked.

"There's an elevator in the centre of the tower. At least I think it's an elevator. It should take us out of here. Come on." Liara said as she walked to the centre.

The team followed along as she set the lift to come down.

"I still can't believe all this. Why would the geth come after me? Do you think Benezia is involved?"

"Maybe Saren's search for the conduit led him to you." Daniel said.

"That's what I was thinking." Ashley said.

"The conduit, but I don't know." Liara began thinking to herself.

"Well we should probably get out of…" Shepard was cut off from completing her sentence as the cavern began to suddenly shake.

They all looked around.

"These ruins aren't stable, that mining laser must have triggered a seismic event."

"Or it was the explosives we laid along that supporting wall." Ashley said.

"We'll have to hurry this whole place is caving in."

Daniel reached his communicator.

"Joker we need extraction ASAP."

"Right, LT locking in on your signal. ETA, eight minutes till arrival."

"That's going to be quite a close shave skipper." Daniel said.

"If I die I'm going to kill him." Wrex said as the lift went up.

It didn't take long, but as they reached the top, they were greeted by a squad of geth and a krogan battle master.

"Surrender, or don't. That would be more fun." He said.

"In case you didn't notice this place is falling apart." Shepard said.

"Exhilarating isn't it." Wrex said.

"You took the words right out of my mouth, thanks for getting rid of those energy fields for us, hand the doctor over to me." The battle master said.

Lirara said defiantly. "Whatever you want, you aren't getting it form me."

"She'll stay with us thanks." Daniel said.

"Not an option human, Saren wants her, and he always gets what he wants. Kill them, spare the asari if you…" The battle master, for one thing, did not realise one important thing, Daniel vanished behind the team. And he was now in front of the battle masters face, with a knife in his throat.

"You know, you should pay attention more often." He said, and then kicked the battle master into one geth and pulling out two M6 magnums; he unloaded the two guns into the remaining four troopers and punched the last geth in the optics.

"Remind me never to play hide and seek with you." Garrus said.

"Come on we need to get out now!" Shepard said as she began to run, though as they did the place began crashing over their heads, Daniel could see Tali about to get knocked over by a rock and he covered her with himself and hoisted her into his arms, he ran along with the squad.

The Normandy approached the entrance, though the team just got out as the cave final gave way, panting the team recovered outside.

Tali in Daniels arms, was blushing at how close he was holding her.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Sure, just twice in one day." She said.

"Oh right." He remembered.

This experience was interesting to him, seeing as he usually never saved aliens, though Tali was more or less of that exception, turning to look as the Normandy arrived.

'Guess it's just me.'

XXXXX

Conference room, Normandy

As everyone took to their seats, Joker came over the intercom.

"Too close commander, ten more seconds and the Normandy would have been swimming in molten sulphur." Dot took over the coms.

"As per my suggestion Jeff, we would not have been swimming but sinking in molten sulphur, and…"

"And the fact that the ship would probably not have melted so easily, still doesn't change the fact that our sensors would fry and everyone would probably die Dot, and that's just for future reference LT." Joker said.

Liara asked. "We almost died out there and your pilot is making jokes?"

"He does deserve a bit of a slap over the head, but he pulled our asses out that fire, so I think he would deserve it, besides he still owes me a drink." Daniel said, reminiscing.

"Real funny Daniel, I told you when we get a chance back on Arcturus."

"Yeah, when next year?" Daniel said.

"Okay so back on topic." Shepard said over the two.

"I am probably assuming this must be a human thing." Liara said.

"I'm grateful to you for saving me back there. Not just form the exploding volcanoes, but from Saren's geth, they probably would have killed me or taken me off to Saren."

Kaiden asked. "What would Saren want with you? Do you know about the conduit?"

Liara explained. "That it was connected to something with the prothean extinction. This is my real area of expertise. I have spent fifty years, figuring out what had happened to them."

Shepard interjected. "I've got my own theory about what happened to the protheans."

"With all due respect commander, I've heard every theory out there. The problem is finding the evidence to support them. The protheans left remarkably little behind. It is almost as if someone did not want the mystery solved. It is like someone came along after the protheans were gone and cleansed the galaxy of clues.

But here is the incredible part. According to my findings the protheans were not the first galactic civilisation to mysteriously vanish. This cycle began long before them."

Shepard asked. "If the protheans weren't the first species in the galaxy, then who was?"

"I don't know, there was barely any evidence on the protheans and less on those who came before them. I cannot prove my theory but I know that I am right.

The galaxy is built on a cycle of extinction. Each time a great civilisation rises up; it is suddenly and violently cast down. Only ruins survive.

The protheans rose up from a single world until their empire spanned the entire galaxy. Yet even they climbed to the top on the ruins of those who came before.

Their greatest achievements – the mass relays and the citadel – are based on the technology of those who came before them.

And then like all the forgotten civilisations throughout galactic history, the protheans disappeared; I have dedicated my life to figuring out why."

Vinaya said in Daniels helmet. "Geez this goes on and on, but hey, the forerunners existed longer, millions of years, and then bam, cataclysm wipes them off the face off the galactic map."

"Wait what?"

"Oh, don't ask, if they ask us, our parallel universe just say it was different, besides I have some records on the galactic history in my databanks just for certain times though, just make sure no one else hears about this, or the hanar are going to start praying to you."

Shepard told Liara of her theory.

"They were wiped out by a race of sentient machines, called the Reapers."

"The… The Reapers, but I never heard of- How do you know all this? What evidence do you have?"

"There was a damaged prothean beacon on Eden Prime. It burned an image into my brain. And I'm still trying to sort out what it all means."

"A beacon, yes that makes sense. But the beacons were not programmed to interact with human physiology. I am surprised you were able to make any sense at all, a lesser mind would have been destroyed."

"Well then that's the commander for you." Daniel interjected.

"That's all very cute, Daniel." She said with a smirk.

"With your permission commander I would like to meld our minds, to understand what you had seen."

Vinaya said. "Just like star Trek." Though at this point, she forgot to turn off the external speakers again.

"Okay who was that?" Garrus asked.

Vinaya suddenly uploaded herself into the Normandy internal conference room projector, appearing next to Daniel.

She said, as her holographic form leaned on the chair. "I couldn't help myself."

"Right I forgot to mention to some of you that, I had a second AI, meet Vinaya, the psychopathic AI that is constantly stalking my every move."

"Oh you say it like a burden." She said, with a humorous face.

Tali was about to reach for her shotgun, and remembered, she was a hologram.

"So you didn't decide to tell us about the psycho AI, why?" Garrus said.

"Just to avoid, any further complications, besides Vinaya only sticks with me, she'd never go out of her way unless she finds competition." He said, giving a small hand gesture to Williams.

Vinaya could see Tali not happy at the fact that the AI was hogging Daniel for herself, or more distracting.

"Well now, we wouldn't be jealous now would we?" She said, looking at Tali.

"Vinaya quit it, we don't need any more trouble, and besides it's not like you do anything but instigate."

"Oh well, back to the topic you're wondering about what I might know, well Daniel was ahead on Eden Prime, I had used an external link to the beacon, I possess part of that message and knowledge, though it might take some time to patching it up. And by the way commander, if you're going to meld do it in private."

Then an argument followed, Vinaya defending her action, the crew babbling on about things, and him receiving mail?

Daniel had just been looking through something, when a message popped up, a message from the UNC; it was a beacon, an E-Band UNSC frequency, from the Exodus cluster. A single image came over where he saw a corvette- a covenant corvette…

"VINAYA! I'd rather avoid more issues, but we have some time to get things done, commander I would, like Vinaya said, ask you to do this in probably a more private area, and because a message came through from command, one we need to brief the crew on."

"What is it?"

"A rescue mission and probably the most dangerous one you will ever face."

The crew looked at him, he was now standing up, Vinaya decided to be quiet.

"A beacon from a colony located on the Exodus cluster activated, it was UNSC E-band, and the only person I know who could do that with a broken pelican and a slip-space generator is supposed to be dead."

"Wait how is it that you're so sure?" Shepard asked.

Daniel brought up an image from the colony; a massive ship larger than a dreadnought with an even bigger piece was falling towards the planet.

"That my friend is a covenant corvette, and a third of a super carrier."

The team was shocked.

(Now we move on ahead, but please note the whole talk with the beacon and how Shepard will meld is in the next chapter not this one.)

This is a part of a plot hole which will be filled in the next chapter.

And RVB will be on the chapter later, just waiting a bit longer.