AN: Before anything else, I'm writing in reply to the long review posted by a guest reviewer.

Firstly, yup, this is pretty much the canon storyline with a Trek twist. Yes, it probably should be a little more different, but when I was planning out this first segment it didn't occur to me (this was an entire year ago mind). Fortunately, this is something I have been able to rectify somewhat with the planning of the sequel segments - however the point of this crossover always was "Mass Effect with a Star Trek twist," so that's still what those stories are going to be.

Secondly. You mentioned the Dominion War, and its been mentioned before, so I've addressed it (very briefly, as it isn't major to my storyline) in this chapter. It should at least partially explain any issues/queries anyone has there.

Thirdly. As a more general note, on the grounding of the Normandy. As you point out - the Federation has an appeasement policy: that is why Udina was happy to publicly go along with the Council, that is why he was nervous about Shepard's plan.

Anyway: on with the story.

Chapter Twenty Four: Ilos Bound.

Commodore Anderson, stood in his ready room on the USS Excalibur, a ship almost identical to the USS Normandy save for having a few older systems than the more up-to-date ship, checked over his data PADD again, convinced that this was just a bad dream.

He had ordered the old Seventh Fleet to assemble at Starbase 14 almost three days ago. He had been under no illusions: it was an order that he had always thought would be difficult to accomplish, despite - hell, because of - the ongoing Borg threat, since the Seventh had been assembled as a formation for a war with a hostile power called the Dominion that had ultimately never happened, although it had been a close run thing, and many of the ships - mainly the Excelsior class cruisers and the Miranda class destroyers - had been specially speed-constructed or retrofitted for the fleet and didn't have official duties, or even in some cases full time crews, meaning they spent most of their time effectively mothballed. Still, with the ongoing threat and the resulting mad scramble to get operational fighting ships together, he had hoped by now that at least half the fleet would have arrived.

When he arrived at Starbase 14, however, only one hundred ships had arrived, instead of the near three hundred he had hoped for. While still more than double the numbers of the three forty-plus ship task forces the Federation had assembled in past conflicts with the Borg, it wasn't going to be enough: Anderson could just feel it.

Still, despite that he had more pressing worries. He didn't know how long he had before Shepard's call, and it was beginning to worry him that he might not be able to get this fleet to the either Ilos or the Citadel in time.

He wasn't technically in command of this fleet, despite his being the man to go to for Starfleet's Citadel space operations - that responsibility fell to Admiral Hackett. Hackett was a good man - reasonable, thoughtful, a man who made it his business to consider every option and every angle. He was also an expert tactician. He had reviewed everything Anderson had forwarded to him and agreed wholeheartedly that it was entirely the right choice to assemble a fleet. He had also agreed that sending Shepard to Ilos was the best option they could possibly have had, if only because it would confirm one way or another what exactly the Borg's plan was. Maybe Shepard would even be able to stop it.

Anderson's thoughts now turned to Shepard. The Captain had made good his escape, that much was clear, and the Normandy was surely on it's way by now - they were going to report to Enterprise when they were definitely on their way to Ilos itself. Anderson couldn't help but want to send them some help, but he knew it was unwise to divert even a handful of his ships without knowing whether the true force was going to hit there. If the Borg were at Ilos in force, one or two ships would last approximately six or seven seconds. If on the other hand they weren't and were instead attacking the Citadel in force (Anderson felt certain that they would attack there in force at some point, he just wasn't sure when), those ships would serve better helping the main fleet attack the Borg head on.

Nonetheless, Anderson was worried about Shepard, worried about the possibility that his former XO might well be en route to his death.

The Commodore was jolted out of his thought processes by a chime at the door.

"Come in," he said.

The door opened, and in walked Jean-Luc Picard, grim faced but determined nonetheless.

"Commodore," he said. "Another six ships just arrived. At this rate we might be up to one hundred and fifty soon."

"Might," Anderson repeated softly. "But there's no guarantees, and against the Borg you know as well as I do that we need guarantees."

"Better than you do, I think," Picard said, his eyes haunted. He walked to stand next to the Commodore. "I just received word from Normandy. They're on route to Ilos. No estimated time of arrival yet."

"Any word on Council pursuit?" Anderson asked. Picard chuckled slightly.

"Nonexistent," he said, a smile on his face. "They don't appear to want to 'put their money where their mouth is' as it were."

"Doesn't surprise me," Anderson growled. "Idiots."

He turned around and leaned against the wall, deliberately shutting out the view of the too-small fleet out there, and instead focused his attention on Picard.

"Honestly," he asked, trying to be as quiet as possible, as though the question itself might tempt fate, "how ready are we?"

Picard leant against the back of Anderson's desk, frowned, and then shook his head.

"I couldn't say," he murmured after a moment. "We have more ships than the average task forces we've sent. But that might just mean more ships to lose..."

"Not optimistic?" Anderson asked. Picard gave him a look filled with a mix of dread and fear.

"When dealing with the Borg?" he asked rhetorically. "I can never be."

As Normandy raced towards Ilos and her destiny, Captain John Shepard walked the corridors of his ship. He didn't immediately go to his quarters, instead taking the opportunity to tour the ship and find out the mood of the crew. Most of it was optimistic: they felt like they were on the right track with this mission, even if they were risking an incident with the Citadel in the meantime. A few expressed concern that they might not be able to stop the Borg. Shepard tried offering comfort, but whether it worked for the crew or not (and somehow it seemed to), it rang hollow in his ears.

In this manner, he traversed the entire ship. He spoke to his crew, shook hands, wished luck, congratulated hard effort. He offered comforting words. All the while, he tried to prepare himself mentally for what was about to happen - and he couldn't.

After a long while, he returned o his quarters. There, he sat down in the floor, back leant against the wall, and wondered whether he had ordered his crew on a suicide mission, whether they were marching only to their doom.

He then got up, went to his personal computer, and spent half an hour running simulations, making certain that he was completely familiar with the tactical difference between Normandy's tactical abilities and those of the average Borg ship. The statistics were... somewhat unsettling, to say the least, but he could (at a pinch) live with unsettling. Reasonably, their hope lay in beaming a small ground team to Ilos before the Borg noticed them, and then the ship would have to disengage. From there, Normandy could pull away and rendezvous with Excalibur and Enterprise at Starbase 14 with the Seventh Fleet.

He sighed. He needed sleep, more desperately than he had ever thought possible. Joker had yet to get a solid fix on an ETA for him - though he had sent a guesstimate of about six hours - far too long. And yet he had six hours in which to wait, in which to run calculations, plan battle tactics, plan his funeral arrangements...

An involuntary snort. Yup, planning his own funeral would certainly come in handy, since he was probably about to die and he just knew everyone would get the bastard totally wrong.

He sighed, and stood up, pacing his room. If he was being honest with himself - something he was not normally very good at - he was simply afraid again. His adrenaline rush had gotten him through the legwork of escaping the Citadel and getting them en route to Ilos, but past that, his fear had reasserted itself.

"Courage," he said to himself in an undertone, trying to remember some comforting platitudes he had once heard, "is acting despite fear, rather than not having fear."

All well and good telling himself that, but it didn't prevent the fear from existing and feeling really bad.

Shepard sighed. He had no doubt he'd somehow conquer his fear and pull through, he usually did. Nonetheless, he would have been happier if he had some certainty of that, or some way of making the fear go away.

The doorbell of his quarters chimed, and sighing, he pushed himself to his feet, walked over, and opened the door. To his surprise, Tali was standing there, wringing her hands slightly.

"Captain," she said softly. "Can I come in?"

"By all means," Shepard replied. He stepped aside and let her pass him. She walked into his quarters and sat down, clearly preoccupied.

"What can I do for you?" he asked her, sitting next to her.

She looked up at him, face as invisible as ever behind the mask. Sometimes Shepard found himself wondering about what a quarian facial expression looked like. He knew they looked pretty much like humans, except for the eyes and limb structure, and a seem what tougher endoskeleton, but that didn't mean he knew what Tali's face looked like. It would have been interesting to see.

"You can tell me honestly if you think we'd going to die," Tali said bluntly, interrupting his thoughts. He laughed - now that was a question! - but the laugh trailed off when he saw she was deadly serious.

"What's prompted this?" he asked.

"I've been talking to the engineering staff," Tali said quietly. "And they think we're flying out to a suicide mission. They trust you as a Captain but they all seem convinced that our number is up. I want to know what you think."

There was a moment's pause as Shepard considered the question. Ultimately, did he think they were doomed?

"I don't know," he said after a moment. "I honestly don't know."

Tali seemed to mull over that answer for a moment before continuing.

"Then answer this," she said, as bluntly as before. "Are you content to just not know?"

"No," Shepard said at once, certainty filling his voice for the first time. "But I don't see how I have a choice - we don't know whether this is it. It's a fact that we might die. That's just how it is. You put on the uniform, it comes with the risk of death. You hope it won't come to that - but it can, and you know it. If you're lucky, you survive and get a cushy desk job in your later years, maybe get to retire."

"And if you aren't lucky?" Tali asked, folding her arms.

"Then you die," Shepard said. "You die young, and you die serving the Federation, hoping you made a difference."

"Like we might be about to," Tali finished, quietly.

"There are worse ways to die," Shepard noted, leaning back in his chair. "And even if we fail, I like to think that we've done some good. We saved Palaven. We saved Feros. We've fought the Borg on planets, driven them off."

"Yeah, we have," Tali nodded, her voice almost inaudible.

The two of them sat in silence for a long while, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Do you... regret anything?" she asked, her voice soft and sounding a lot younger than Shepard had heard in a while. It was easy to forget that she was much younger than him, but right now, it was easier to remember.

"I regret many things," he replied, frowning off into the distance as he recalled some of them. "I lost friends on the Enterprise. I have lost friends on other posts. Jenkins and Nihlus on Eden Prime."

"I mean..." Tali interrupted, and then paused, as if she were trying to figure out exactly how to express what she was thinking. "I mean, do you regret that there's no one waiting for you back home?"

Shepard blinked. The question was a personal one, to be sure, and yet he didn't mind so much. And it was true, he didn't have anyone waiting for him, no family. Did it bother him? He smiled slightly, as he realised that it didn't. Not really.

"I may not have a family back home," he said after a moment, "but I think I can live with that." He out a hand out, open palmed. "I've always thought of the people I serve with as being my family, and right ow my family is marching into hell with me. At least I know that we're all together."

Tali looked up at him. He smiled. Then she looked down at her lap, and slowly, hesitantly, placed her hand in his. She leaned on him slightly, and he let her, resting his head slightly on hers. They sat like that for a long time.

A few minutes later, Shepard marched onto the bridge, Tali walking behind him. Joker was busy piloting, but Kaidan and Garrus turned to look at them, nodding in greeting.

"Captain," the Ops officer said softly. "We now have a definite ETA on Ilos."

"Hit me," Shepard told him, eager to hear this information.

"At current speed, we'll be there in the next half hour," Joker told him, not bothering to turn around in his seat. "Sorry, I know I should have warned you sooner, but Ilos was a tricky bitch to pin down. There were lots of systems around here."

"Any sign of Borg presence?" Shepard asked, ignoring Joker's lax discipline - he felt the man had earned it.

"Nothing on long range sensors," Kaidan replied, frowning at the readings his console was giving him. "Which is worrying."

"Because if they aren't here, where are they?" Shepard finished, already way ahead of the Lieutenant. "Garrus, raise shields and arm weapons."

"On it," Garrus replied efficiently, quickly inputting commands into his console. "You have them."

"I'll assemble a ground team in transporter room 1," Shepard continued. "Pressly, you have the bridge. Drop shields only momentarily to let us out. Once my team is down, head for the fleet at Starbase 14, and warn them that the Borg fleet isn't at Ilos. Chances are they'll be headed for the Citadel."

"What makes you so certain?" Pressly asked, looking slightly puzzled. This bit of deduction had sailed over his head, clearly.

"They threatened to do exactly that, in the Council chamber," Shepard replied grimly, remembering the assimilated Saren. "Once they have whatever they want from here, which they might already, there's almost certainly nothing stopping them from heading straight there in force."

"Aye sir," Pressly nodded, accepting this explanation. "Who's in your ground team?"

That was a difficult one. Garrus and Kaidan had to stay up here to help run things. Tali should have too, by rights, but Shepard wanted her t come along in case he needed tech support. Liara wasn't particularly crucial up here and her biotics would come in handy. Equally, Wrex had no formal duties up here and was primarily a ground soldier.

"Wrex, Tali, Liara," he said after a moment, already turning to head for the armoury - Tali was already waiting in the turbolift. "Have the other two meet me in the transporter room."

"Aye sir," Pressly nodded. "Good luck."

"Thanks, Pressly," Shepard smiled as the doors closed. "You too."