"Relax, Captain," said Commodore Hannah Shepard, arms clasped behind her back as she stood on the admiral's bridge of her flagship.

There were days that Hannah Shepard missed her days as a Flight Lieutenant - just her, her fighter, and her wingman's voice in her ear. She missed the rush of adrenaline when you pulled out of a dive in gravity, the simplicity of the hunt. Today, with the heavy cruiser Vancouver humming a war song beneath her feet and nine warships whirling to her commands, was not one of those days.

It was, however, one of the days that Hannah concentrated solely on the here and now - sank into the role of Commodore with her whole being - and shoved away thoughts of her daughter on yet another planet in yet another gunfight. Some might call it cold, but there were hundreds of lives relying on Hannah Shepard's ability to compartmentalise and operate with cold, precise logic. Beyond even that, she'd long ago realised that attempting to keep Emilia away from gunfights was like trying to keep a fish out of water. You either accepted its nature, or something would die.

Hannah Shepard had been called cold often. But she had never sacrificed a life due to her own selfish desires, and that could not be said of every naval officer the galaxy over.

Captain Theron Haddon looked dubious, something she would permit right now due to the lack of any junior officers or sailors in their vicinity. She believed that no one could think of everything, and thus the input of her subordinates was valuable - but she would never be questioned in front of any crew.

"Ma'am, this is well outside of our operating procedures."

"Operating procedures are for peacetime, Theron. In wartime we must sometimes take the lesser of two evils," she said crisply. On the screen in between them flickered the image of the gas giant Theshaca. Five years ago, the Systems Alliance had hidden sensors on the planet's moons, tracking the FTL exit vectors of pirates preying on the surrounding cluster. The data had led to the crippling of several key pirate groups and the destruction of eight major pirate bases - striking a blow against their masters in the Hegemony. Pirates hadn't been seen in this cluster since; Hannah, however, would trade geth for pirates any day.

Of course, that problem was likely to reoccur until the Alliance dealt with the Hegemony properly. She had no doubts that the war with the geth would leave tempting weaknesses for the batarians to strike against, but that was a concern for another day. Today, Theshaca would be a weapon for the Alliance again.

Theron's face twitched slightly. In truth, he was less aggressive than she preferred in her subordinates, but Hannah had been in a different fleet still learning the ropes of a dreadnought in preparation for the Orizaba until barely a month ago. Her promotion and reassignment had been sudden, with no time to tinker with her personnel roster.

"Commodore, with all due respect-" she hated when people said that "-there's a good chance that this manoeuvre could damage the flotilla, giving us a disadvantage if the geth respond."

"When."

"Ma'am?"

" When they respond, Captain." she sighed, "Listen to me, Theron. The geth will not take the attack on Solcrum lying down. They can't afford to. It necessitates a response, and we're what's standing in between the MEU and the geth."

For all that the geth were mustering in the Armstrong Cluster and the Fifth Fleet was loitering nearby, neither side had taken the relay. That would force a battle immediately, and she suspected neither the geth nor Hackett were ready for a stand-up fight yet.

"I know your daughter is on Solcrum-"

He cut off at the look of cool derision on her face.

"This isn't about my daughter, Captain Haddon. This is about the hundreds of Marines on Solcrum and their mission. If it fails, we will lose many ships - and more lives - when Hackett attacks. If we sit out here with our asses hanging out, visible to everyone within a light year or two, we lose the initiative - and potentially get smashed to pieces by a geth battlegroup before Hackett can respond. This is a risk, but it's one I am going to make. Get to your post."

Once he was gone, Hannah breathed in and turned to face the image of Theshaca as her staff began to file in and take their positions. Perhaps she had been hard on him, but Haddon had become accustomed to running the Vancouver on solo patrols against pirates. He was inexperienced in actual war. Hannah Shepard had never commanded a flotilla in a battle before, but she knew war. She had already bled because of war.

"Let's do this," her XO said. She'd taken Captain Varlam Bogomolov with her from the First Fleet, where he'd been the captain of one of the Kilimanjaro's escorts. They worked well together, and his experience as a destroyer and cruiser captain shored up her own weaknesses.

Slowly, the nine warships of the 50th Scout Flotilla began to dip towards the outer atmosphere of Theshaca, slipping apart to individually navigate their way through the bands of radiation that wrapped around the planet. As soon as they hit atmosphere, the entire ship began to rattle and shake, thrusters fighting the incredible winds swirling around it.

A nerve-wracking hour later, the ship's bridge reported that the Vancouver was in position, followed soon after by status reports from the rest of the flotilla.

" Ypres and Marathon are reporting damage, ma'am," Bogomolov reported.

"Can they stay in formation?"

"Yes, Commodore."

She settled into her chair and looked at the tactical readouts. The flotilla was now being cooled by the freezing, swirling clouds of Theshaca and ideally, their radiation - the greatest give away of a warship - would be lost amongst the gas giant's.

"Let's just hope Haddon keeps us out of those storms," muttered Bogomolov.

There was a myriad of issues to staying within a gas giant's atmosphere - one had to continually fly to avoid falling towards the core of the planet and quite literally melting, and avoid the savage storms that might tear a ship to pieces.

But the geth might guess the trick of turning off nonessential systems and active sensors to hide amongst orbital debris and moons, but she hoped they wouldn't guess that an Alliance commander would be reckless enough to enter the planet. She hated basing so much strategy on guesswork, but they knew so little about the geth! This wasn't like fighting turians and batarians.

And now, all there was to do was wait.

There was a sort of simplicity one could get in battle. Ashley Williams had experienced it a handful of times. A flow. Mind and body and environment as one. She leapt over a rock, armour a second skin as the servos whirred, sweat slicking strands of hair to her forehead. Her rifle was an extension of her hands. She climbed the ridge above her battered unit in what seemed like only minutes, body electric like she'd taken a hit of stimulant, exhaustion and heat forgotten or pushed aside to where they couldn't touch her.

Anger and adrenaline had combined and mixed into clarity.

Kill the AA team. Get her people out. Worry about everything else later.

She heard electronic clicking. She wondered what the geth spoke about, in code. Did you see those idiot humans? Blew themselves up! Hilarious. She rounded the corner, rifle raised. The explosion had left a lot of still fading heat and confusion - perhaps the chaos had hidden her because the geth were caught off-guard. She shot a red one right in the flashlight with a burst of automatic fire, finger on the trigger without a thought. Her momentum carried her into a second - she swung the rifle butt, knocking it to the ground in a puff of dust. She brought the muzzle down, right against its central processing unit and pulled the trigger. It died with a whine.

Ashley's lip curled. Not AA. Not her target.

They knew she was there now. Rifle shots raised puffs of shattered rock, closer and closer to her. She threw herself behind a rock, hands moving on her webbing, finding the familiar circular disk in its pouch. Thumbing the button and tossing it out.

A moment after the explosion, she was on her feet again. One of the geth platforms was still and the other attempted to drag itself towards cover, both chrome legs blown off - with a bulky shoulder-fired AA rocket launcher on its back. She put a burst into it and another until it stopped moving. She felt nothing but satisfaction.

Her shields stuttered blue. She swung around to find another geth unit advancing on her, withering her KB percentile by percentile. Williams took three running steps towards it and threw herself with all the force her genemodded muscles and hardsuit servos could give her. They both went down, human and machine. The geth clacked something at her and twisted on top of her, a rib-crushing weight. A metallic hand seized her by the throat and she heard something crack in the suit protecting her.

She didn't bother trying to pry the hand off, instead finding the hilt of her (new) combat knife and pulling it free. The first savage stab skated off the geth's pale white armoured plating. The second tore through conduits and electronics. It warbled at her, grip tightening until she thought her neck might give way and be crushed, and then the geth collapsed on top of her.

With a wheezing breath, Ashley shoved the geth unit off her, sheathed the knife and pulled out her pistol. She shot it twice for surety and then pulled herself towards the nearest rock formation.

Her suit readout showed that it'd taken some damage, but her med system didn't show an injury. She'd been lucky.

This was one of the things her mother was never, ever finding out about, she decided, and then keyed her comm.

"DUSTOFF, this is Stranger 7. AA team is down. Say again, AA team is down, over."

"Copy that, Stranger 7. Inbound to get your wounded now, over."

Ashley picked her way down the slope, back towards the CCP, ripping off a bit of plastic from her hardsuit that was constraining her neck movement and tossing it aside.

The shuttles had just landed when she made it back, rifle across her chest. Hodgins, Huang, Wong, and another Pathfinder with severe burns - most likely from the Sturgeon that had been destroyed - were already being loaded into the Kodiaks, with their red crosses blazoned across blue flanks.

Jaz was pulling away from Ling's grip. "I'm staying! I can still fight. Take T'Soni."

T'Soni looked mutinous as well. Ashley interrupted, pushing in between the corpsman and his rebellious charges, scowling beneath her visor.

"I don't have time for this bullshit. Get on the shuttle, both of you, before I drag you onto it!"

She grabbed an arm in each hand and marched the asari and the Marine to the Kodiak's door, glaring until they sat down, dejected.

The door clicked shut once the rest of the wounded were loaded. Williams stood beside Ling, and together they watched the Kodiaks rocket back into the sky, leaving behind only red splotches against the blue-white of the ground.

"I heard you went after the AA team yourself."

She shrugged.

"You're fucking crazy, Staff Sergeant." He was grinning.

"Don't forget it."

Shepard stared down at the geth base below, mouth a taut line. Eleven years of training and experience was all that kept her from raging. Down a vehicle. Down ten Marines and one asari. And it hadn't been the geth to do it - no, it'd been some trigger-happy idiot looking for glory.

She pushed it all away, banished it to a remote island in her heart, where it would wait for her. Compartmentalising had kept her and her men alive more than once. Grief was best left to when the bullets had stopped flying.

Colonel Lang's voice was in her ear: "Stranger, the assault is commencing." She could see the truth of that - the company of tanks leading the line in a steady advance towards the battered base. "I need your Ns' infiltration capabilities. Are you combat effective? Over."

"Affirmative, Overlord," she said shortly.

"Good to hear, Stranger. I have some bad news. The geth fleet is moving to stop us, so the Fifth Fleet is launching their attack early. We need the servers down ASAP, so get down here, over."

She bit her lip. Below her was a ripple of fire as the M-080s tore the remainder of the geth to pieces, flanks covered by cheap, wheeled drones that mindlessly drove in front of any return fire that threatened the tanks. Mako IFVs began to punch through perimeter fencing and stop, disgorging dozens of tiny blue dots like ants.

"Copy that, sir. We are oscar mike." Shepard hauled herself to her feet and went in search of Alenko, Alvarez, and Williams. She found them standing by the wreckage of the Sturgeon scout vehicle, still smoking. Alenko was frowning at Williams, a rare sight - he always seemed more amused than irritated by his platoon sergeant's sense of humour and irreverence.

"Ma'am," Alenko said.

The Pathfinder met her eyes, and her old friend's were vacant. Jules had gone to sleep, leaving Gunny Alvarez to go through the motions. "Sergeant Mitchell is dead. I'm down a full team."

Sergeant Lionel Mitchell had been the vehicle gunner for the Sturgeon. She hadn't known him very well but it still felt like a knife between her ribs. Shepard looked at Alvarez steadily, asking a question without words. What do you need from me, Jules?

Alvarez lifted her chin. "Orders, Commander?"

She could do that. "Overlord needs my Ns inside the bunker. If I give you both the vehicles once we get down there, can you take care of medevac? There's an infantry platoon setting up security for their battalion aid station and LZ, so it should just be assisting with transport."

Alvarez nodded. "Yes, we're up for that."

"We're going into the bunker?" Alenko asked.

She nodded. "Looks like. Get our guys ready to roll. I'm not certain what exactly the Colonel wants yet, but I have a feeling it's going to involve some fireworks, so get me a report on our supply status."

Williams nodded, "On it."

"We have the machineguns back up?"

Kaidan frowned. "Both Hodgins and Jaz have been medevaced, but Williams and I made sure the Typhoons got given to the assistant gunners."

"That'll do," she decided. "Dismissed."

The Vancouver groaned beneath Commodore Shepard's feet, the sound of metal twisting beneath force shuddering through her decks. Hannah ignored the sound, projecting only cool dispassion - the ship was Harrod's business - and focused on the tactical plot. On the solid dots of blue and red representing her warships and those of the geth, the flecks of fighters whirling in a chaotic dance.

The initial gambit had gone well. The Marathon had lost a sensor array when descending into Theshaca, but nothing mission critical when fighting in formation. The Ypres had taken worse damage, weakening her shields and crippling a thruster module. She'd had her climb back (carefully) into a more conventional position in orbit.

When the geth battlegroup had arrived - a division of destroyers escorting dropships - they'd spotted the Ypres quickly. As Hannah had hoped, two of the four destroyers broke off and rushed the lone frigate, which had promptly run for the relay in a not quite feigned retreat. She'd waited until enough distance had been created between the two geth elements and then sprung the trap. The geth ships had died in fire, crushed by torpedo dark energy fields or bisected by mass accelerator cannons. Divide and conquer, a core Alliance tenet.

Then, the geth had called for backup. The Ypres was gone, through the Relay to safety - and to get Hackett's fleet.

Now the five remaining frigates had formed a screen around the three cruisers Vancouver , Seoul, and Adelaide , creating an interlocked wall of point defence, slashing away the torpedos the geth ships spat at them, darting away from mass accelerator cannon rounds.

Across from her lurked a full squadron of insectoid geth heavy cruisers. The 50th Scout Flotilla wasn't meant for such engagements; the Vancouver was taking a pounding as they focused on her, the biggest threat - there was no way her ships could last for long against their combined firepower.

"All ships, follow new course," she said crisply.

The Vancouver groaned and swung, the flotilla folding around it and accelerating towards Theshaca.

"On our vector, ma'am," one of her techs observed, "All ships keeping formation." The Commodore nodded, pleased. She'd had little time to hammer the flotilla from a loosely associated administrative unit into one capable of battle, but the ships and their captains were keeping up thus far.

Engage the enemy and delay them until the fleet arrives Hackett had told her. But there were better ways to do that than a straight up slugging fest with someone a lot bigger than you.

The 50th Scout Flotilla hit the gravity well of Theshaca, curved around it gracefully and was thrown out, as if from a slingshot. Each vessel accelerated to roughly two percent of light speed, without barely a thruster burn between them, eating up thousands of kilometres a second.

The Flotilla was on course towards the enemy squadron once more.

"Launch torpedos."

A Hastings class frigate could launch eight torpedos in a volley. A light cruiser 12, a heavy cruiser 14. Altogether, the 50th Scout Flotilla launched 78 torpedos towards the eight enemy vessels.

Some were caught in flashes of GARDIAN lasers, dying in the deep void of space with their killing purpose unfulfilled. Twelve struck the leading geth cruiser, tearing its starboard to shreds, leaving it to spin in lamed circles. Another cruiser was struck by ten surviving torpedos and tore itself to pieces from the inside out as a torpedo struck a reactor or a drive core. Another found its bow ripped open in a glancing strike.

Seconds passed. The two flotillas sped closer together.

"All ships, fire main cannons."

The Vancouver rumbled. Eight slugs were tossed towards the geth at ludicrous speed. The crippled lead cruiser was cored right along her spine, unfolding almost unceremoniously. Another was impacted midships, bow and stern separating and spilling debris between them.

But quicker than any human could have reacted, the geth were replying with their own, deadly accurate accelerator fire. Hannah swore internally as the Mentaurus' shields flickered as she desperately tried to evade, then disappeared. Two mass accelerator rounds smashed into her bow. At this speed, a direct hit was a death sentence - it was as if she'd flown into a wall. The frigate crumpled and twisted, crushing her crew instantly. Debris spilt into the void, little bits of ship and crew spreading across the Vancouver's sensors.

The Commodore's fingernails dug into her hand, lips pulling into a snarl.

"Fire!"

More destruction, the kind the human brain couldn't fully comprehend, ripping through the geth squadron. Hannah Shepard didn't truthy know how many sentient beings she'd killed as a fighter pilot and starship captain. She wasn't even sure if she should count geth as part of that. Like deleting software, if you thought about it.

The Vancouver had slowed by now and soared in erratic, evasive movements in between shots, and that was what saved her. The entire ship jerked and shuddered violently as a geth round sliced through her shield, then crashed through bow compartments, killing ten crewmen at their posts and wounding others, smashing two torpedo tubes and a mass accelerator cannon to shattered pieces. The ship began to list to starboard, bleeding clouds of air.

Hannah was thrown painfully in her restraints, gasping for breath. She raised her eyes to the tactical screen as warning klaxons reverberated through the CIC and an announcement called damage control and medical teams to the hull breaches. The geth ships were dead, dying or crippled. A thin smile carved across her face, humourless.

"Bogomolov, report on fleet status," she said flatly.

"The Mentaurus is gone." Blood was trickling down his grim face where he'd caught his cheek on the edge of something. "Not reading any life pods. Doesn't look like they had time to evacuate. The Ypres has two severe hull breaches and is down four torpedo launchers. The Marathon has damage to its aft reactor and main thrusters; they're dead in the water and in the process of shutting that reactor down. As for us: the Vancouver is down one spinal cannon and two torpedo tubes; we have hull breaches on the forward third and fourth decks, and the starboard bow thruster isn't responding. Medical is reporting we have ten dead and thirty wounded."

"Get me a line to Admiral Hackett," she ordered her comms technician.

Some would call this a victory, one-sided in its casualties. Twelve geth ships destroyed or crippled for one destroyed frigate and damage to three of her ships. Funny, but it never felt quite as sweet as victory should. At least eighty families would be getting a knock on the door in the next twenty-four hours. When the screams of battle faded and the blood began to dry, Hannah Shepard would count their names.

"Ma'am!"

She lifted her head. "What is it?"

The young sensors tech swallowed. "We just picked up a lot of heat signatures coming out of FTL. At least sixty! I think it's the geth fleet."

"Launch reconnaissance drones," she ordered, rolling her shoulders with a grimace. "How long until the enemy fleet reaches engagement range?"

"Four hours, Commodore," Bogomolov replied.

"Ma'am, I have FleetCom on the line," reported Comms Technician First Class Jian.

"Sir," she acknowledged as Hackett's face flickered into being before her.

"Sitrep," he said curtly. Not a man to mince words was Admiral Hackett. When the Orizaba was launched, Hannah would be his flag captain.

"We've destroyed four geth destroyers and eight heavy cruisers. I've lost a frigate; I have three ships badly damaged, including my flagship. In addition, we have enemy contacts on screen - at least sixty geth ships including a dreadnought, though not the dreadnought." she gave a silent prayer to the Lord for small mercies. "Four hours until their dread is in range." At which point the dreadnought would dismantle them at its leisure. Hannah didn't intend to stick around for that.

Hackett nodded, steely eyes not revealing even a flicker of thought. "Can your disabled frigate conduct emergency repairs in time?"

Hannah looked down at the report the Marathon had sent through and shook her head. "Negative, sir. Most of the main thruster assemblies are simply gone, and her reactor has been shut down for safety. She's not going anywhere."

Hackett considered this. "Scuttle her and get out, Commodore. The Fleet is coming in - if the geth want to get to Solcrum, they'll have to get through us first. You've done well, but now it's our turn."

"Roger that, sir," she said crisply.

"Hackett out."

An hour later, Commodore Hannah Shepard stood with Commander Jeremiah Kingston and his surviving senior crew on the Vancouver's viewing deck, the younger man's jaw taut and his eyes gleaming dangerously bright. Pretending not to notice, she resolutely fixed her eyes on the helplessly drifting hulk of the Marathon .

"From stardust she came and to stardust she returns," Hannah murmured. Commander Kingston swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing and his finger hovered over his omnitool for a moment before pressing down.

And together they watched as the SSV Marathon died in silent splendour.

CODEX ENTRY:

Systems Alliance Naval Service Units:

Basic Structure of Marine Corps Units:

Fireteam: 4 Marines. An infantry fireteam is comprised of a team leader (Corporal) who also acts as the grenadier, an automatic rifleman and second in command carrying a light machine gun (PFC or Lance Corporal), assistant automatic rifleman carrying a rifle and extra heatsinks for the LMG (PFC or Lance Corporal) and a rifleman (PFC or Private).

Squad/Section: 9-10 Marines. Comprised of three fire teams and a squad leader, usually a Sergeant or Staff Sergeant.

Platoon: 19-44 Marines. Comprised of 2-4 squads or sections and commanded by a Second Lieutenant or a First Lieutenant, with a Staff Sergeant or Gunnery Sergeant as platoon sergeant.

Company: 100-150 Marines. Comprised of 2-5 platoons along with a headquarters element and commanded by a Staff Lieutenant with a First Lieutenant as XO and a First Sergeant as senior enlisted advisor.

Battalion: Roughly 400-600 Marines. Comprised of 3-5 companies. Commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel with a Major as XO and a Sergeant Major as the senior enlisted advisor.

Regiment: 3000-5000 Marines. Comprised of 3-5 battalions. Commanded by a Colonel with a Lieutenant Colonel as XO and a Regimental Sergeant Major as senior enlisted advisor. An infantry regiment with often form the 'Regimental Combat Team' of a Marine brigade.

Brigade: Roughly 14500 Marines. Comprised of a headquarters element, a ground combat element, an air combat element and a combat logistics element. Commanded by a Brigadier with a Colonel as XO and a Sergeant Major as senior enlisted.

Division: Between 10 000 and 20 000 Marines and made up of at least three regiments. Commanded by a Major General with a Colonel as XO and advised by a Command Sergeant Major. Divisions may have specialities, such as light infantry or armour.

Force: Several divisions, between 20 000 and 70 000 Marines. Commanded by a Lieutenant General.

Basic Structure of Navy Units:

Division: a subdivision of a flotilla or squadron, consisting of 2-4 ships. Dependent on the size of the ships in the division, commanded by the most senior captain or a commodore.

Flotilla: Any group of more than two ships, though most commonly of a single cruiser and 4-6 frigates, though composition can vary widely. Depending on size, commanded by a Commodore, Rear Admiral or Vice Admiral.

Squadron: 4-8 ships of the same classification (e.g., a squadron of corvettes or cruisers), commanded by a Commodore, Rear Admiral or Vice Admiral.

Task group: A temporary formation of vessels assembled for a purpose. Vary in size, commanded by a flag officer.

Strike Force: a significant formation based around either a dreadnought (DSF) or a carrier (CSF), consisting of said vessel and supporting escorts.

Fleet: largest formation, usually consisting of one hundred combat-capable warships and a variety of support vessels. In peacetime, fleets are largely administrative units, with individual groups and ships conducting independent missions. Commanded by an Admiral.

Definitions:

MEU: Marine Expeditionary Unit.
AA: anti-air
FleetCom: Fleet Command