The excitement of seeing the Prothean ruins on Ilos was overshadowed by her fear of death. Liara sat next to Shepard, looking terrified and squeezing the woman's hand as hard as she could. She was beginning to regret insisting that they try to land the mako.

Nihlus hoped their trust in Joker's ability to pull this off was well placed. He glanced over at Sonya as she sat across from him. He locked eyes with her as the rover rolled out the the loading bay for the long drop to the surface. He found the steel of her resolve in the depths of her gaze, as well as the warm, soft comfort of her love for him. If they did die, he wanted her face to be the last thing he saw.

In a moment of familiar weightlessness and vertigo the mako went sailing thorough the air. Nihlus whispered a prayer on his breath to the spirits of all life to spare their lives, at least long enough to stop Saren. His heart pounded hard in his chest, his lungs held captive the last breath he'd gleaned from the air. He felt he could hear the thoughts of his mate through their bond, the whispers of her love for him through her gaze.

"Brace for impact!" Garrus shouted from the driver's seat mere seconds before they hit ground.

The mako landed with a hard jolt, skipping across the terrain, like a stone on the surface of a lake, just as Saren ran inside the Prothean complex with his geth. A large stone wall closed down behind him. Garrus employed all his strength to pull on the breaks to avoid crashing into the stone wall directly ahead of them. They were on the surface. Survival of the team was now in his talons. He could smell smoke from the break pads, likely red hot with the strain and friction against the drums. They were fast approaching the stone wall. Garrus kept his eyes open and on the viewer, intent on looking death in the face if it should come for him.

The mako skidded t a halt a few short meters from the entry to the complex. It took a few seconds for Garrus' grip on the break handle to relax after locking the wheels.

"Good job on those up grades, Garrus!" Shepard congratulated him as she pried Liara's fingers from her arm.

"I knew they'd save our lives one day," He called back to her. "I just didn't count on being the one behind the controls." He teased.

Shepard glared across the mako at his playful smile. His since of humor was never shaken. She couldn't help a grin. She had no doubts that he probably would have had something cleaver to say even if they were laying on the ground dying instead of exited the mako.

"Thank the goddess..." Liara breathed when her feet touched earth. "We're not dead!"

"It's not over yet." Kryik said sternly. "Hold your thanks until after we've stopped Sovereign."

"We have to get inside this bunker before Saren reaches the conduit." Garrus interjected as he jumped down out of the mako.

"There's no way we're getting past that door with brute force." Liara pointed out, collecting herself.

"Saren found a way to open it." Garrus added. "There must be some kind of security override somewhere in this complex."

"We have to find it and get it operational." Shepard said.

She was checking her weapons and loading them with tungsten rounds, except the sniper. That she loaded with explosive. Whatever she intended to hit with it she would only need one shot, even if she missed the head.

The team went in the only other direction available. It didn't take long to encounter a geth squad with armature back up. The geth fell to their gunfire. It was becoming a rudimentary task to take out the synthetics after the hundreds they'd faced in the past. The novelty of seeing the geth beyond the Veil had died quickly after the first few skirmishes.

Vakarian took down their shields with a overload signal from his omni-tool. Kryik took cover behind a large stone block, taking out the targets as their shields failed. Liara used her biotics to lift the crates and smaller stone blocks that littered the area. In a joint effort Shepard employed her own biotics to throw the debris against the geth, smashing them against the walls of the ancient structures around them. It was almost fun to crush the geth to bits like insect pests.

The armatures were more difficult. One blast from the ion canon would cut right through their shields. They might as well have been battling in the nude for all the good their armor would do them against that kind of fire power. Shepard took cover behind a large stone block next to Kryik. Vakarian and T'Soni took similar cover across from them in an attempt to flank the large geth.

Kryik stood with his back to the stone. Shepard was at his side, preparing to lean out and fire on the enemy.

"We'll fire in teams, Liara and I will fire the first round to draw their attention. Vakarian and Shepard, you fire while they're distracted. We should be able to take them down quickly. This must be seamless. I'm will not accept losses." Kryik ordered over the com.

Sonya looked up at Nihlus, waiting for the signal. He bent to nuzzle his forehead to hers. The silent communication between them as their eyes locked needed no words to explain. The message was as simple as it was powerful.

"On my mark..." He kept his head pressed to hers as he counted down. "Three, two..."

Her gaze steeled as she looked up at him. The fire in his own eyes igniting a flame in her own resolve. A blue glow rippled over her form in the last second.

"Mark!"

Kryik rolled to the opposite corner and fired on the nearest armature. He saw Liara's biotic blast hit the other followed by her gunfire. The armatures repositioned their legs and prepared to fire their canons.

"Keep firing until the canon fire leaves the barrel!" Kryik shouted into the com. "Vakarian, Shepard, fire now!"

The blue glow of the enemy blast grew in size and brightness just before it was released from the 'face' of the armatures. Shepard and Garrus leaned out of cover just as the blast shot through the air and Kryik and T'Soni put their backs to stone.

It took a few passes, but the tactic succeeded in taking down the threat. They found a path behind them and took it. The team was set on edge when they were not met by more geth.

"Maybe we're going the wrong way?" Liara asked. "Surely there should be more geth here."

"You're the expert. How did the Protheans typically lay out their installations?" Garrus asked her.

"None of the other sites were anything like this. The status, the designs carved in the pillars... I wish I had more time to..."

She was cut off by a geth trooper's fortunate, however unlikely, missed shot of her head.

"There's you're geth!" Garrus commented before dropping to one knee and returning fire.

It took a few rounds, but he was a good shot. The trooper was unable to return fire while Garrus pummeled it's face with tungsten rounds.

A small platoon of synthetics later they found an elevator. It was active so they took it. The lifts slid at an angle down a steep incline, then opened to a tunnel. Like everything else, it was heavily overgrown with old vegetation. At the end of the hall they could see that it opened up to a much larger room.

"This must be the command center for the entire complex." Liara commented. "Saren's troops must have sealed the doors from here after he went inside."

"We must hurry." Kryik said, distractedly.

This would be the third time he had the opportunity to stop Saren, and possibly the last. If he was going to stop him, if he was going to deliver justice, he could not loose Saren again.

The command center was crawling with geth and troopers. Shepard noticed dormant armatures next to the same mobile geth consoles they had seen on Feros. There was little cover behind short stone pillars. The four of them were shoulder to shoulder on the ground behind a column that had fallen. Kryik lifted out of cover long enough to fire blindly over his shoulder before falling back to the dirt.

"Those consoles, if someone can access them, I think we may be able to activate those armatures!" She shouted over the din.

"Why would we want to create more enemies!" Vakarian shouted. He was looking at her like she was nuts.

"If we can override the control, they might take care of the geth for us!" She explained.

"Or they might finish us off!" Vakarian retorted.

Shepard narrowed her eyes at him and tightened her grip on her rifle.

"It's too dangerous." Kryik told her.

"Since when has that ever stopped you!" She said. "Cover me!"

Shepard didn't wait for a reply. She left cover, firing her pistol into the nearest geth and ran for the console to the right of them.

"Shepard!" Kryik called after her.

His heart leapt into his throat. If she was right, it could save them. If she was wrong... they might die anyway. She wouldn't live if she did it alone.

"Cover us!" He ordered and left cover, firing his rifle into the geth as he took the console on the left.

"They're both nuts!" Garrus grumbled as the set his rifle over the top of the fallen pillar and fired.

Liara ignited into a blue glow. She stood up and pushed a wave of biotic energy into the onslaught of attacking geth, knocking them to the attack gave Shepard and Kryik enough time to find the override code and activate the armatures . They immediately took cover, just in case the override failed. Fortunately, it didn't. The two armatures was all it took to finish off the platoon of enemy geth. Shepard exhaled a sigh of relief as Kryik jogged over to her.

"You weren't convinced this was going to work, were you?" He asked, a knowing look in his eye.

Shepard simply grinned up at him. She wasn't about to admit she was unsure of anything on a mission, least of all risking everyone's lives. Besides, she could tell he pretty much knew anyway.

Nihlus nudged his forehead to hers just before Garrus and Liara joined them. He activated his omni-stool and started a scan of the ruins.

"You two got the crazy out of your system?" Garrus teased.

"Let's go." Kryik ordered, ignoring Vakarian's remark.

He lead the team to a ramp of hidden along the side of what looked to be a command deck. When they entered the room it was disappointingly empty. Three old Prothean thermals lined the far wall. Kryik approached the middle one. It wasn't likely to be functioning, but...

Suddenly the terminal came to life. Kryik took a quick step back. A series of lights focused into a circular shape, then lost continuity, appearing as flashes of lightening in a pinkish orb.

"I think it's some kind of hologram." Shepard said.

She stepped up beside Kryik as a message accompanied the image.

"... too late... unable to... invading fleets." The groups of words were broken static. "... no escape..."

"It sounds like some kind of message, but I don't understand the language." Kryik said.

"It's probably in Prothean. This recording must be 50,000 years old. No wonder we cannot understand it. If the message was written I might be able to read it, but I've never heard it spoken before." Liara added.

"I can understand it." Shepard stated. "It must be because of the beacons and the cypher, but the message is badly damaged. I can only make out a few words. It sounds like a warning against the Reaper invasion."

"...ot safe... seek refuge... side the archives..." the hollo continued.

"Can you make out anything useful?" Vakarian asked.

"... alled Reapers... the Citadel... overwhelmed... only hope..." Then the voice on the recording changed.

"... act of desperation... the conduit... all is lost... cannot be stopped... cannot be stopped!"

"It said something about the conduit and the Citadel, but it's too broken to help," was all Shepard told them. She didn't have it in her to tell them the rest. They'd heard it enough from Saren.

"We should go." Kryik decided. "We have to get to Saren before he reaches the Conduit."

Kryik left the room. What good had any of it been if it could not help them? Why did she have to suffer through the beacons and the cypher transfer if there was no useful gain? He hated the waste.

Seconds later they took an elevator to the surface. They were right back where they started and there had been no control console, no system to override. Frustration began to eat at their determination.

"Perhaps in activating the hologram, other systems were activated. The door to the bunker may open upon our approach." Liara suggested.

"We've no other choice." Kryik conceded.

They path to the mako was littered with the fallen geth and spent heat sinks. They trampled over their own foot prints to climb inside the rover. Kryik and Shepard were the last to climb in. Just before she got in, Shepard stopped in front of Kryik. She studied his face for a moment. He hadn't displayed any agitation or other change in mood or demeanor like he had on Virmire or Noveria, but she wanted to be sure he was okay.

"We're going to stop him." She said. "He won't get away with anything he's done."

"No, he won't." Nihlus said. He knew her concern. He'd worried about it himself. But he was not Saren and he would not let Saren's teachings corrupt him now.

"We will make sure of it."

Shepard nodded her satisfaction and her confidence, then climbed inside. He followed her in and took his seat after securing the hatch. He would not fail because she was there to balance him. He was strong on his own, but she made him stronger. His chest puffed up with pride and confidence that they would accomplish the goal.