Firstly, thanks to WardenPrincess for pointing out that I had somehow demoted Maj. Alenko to commander… I'm honestly not sure how that happened… but it did, and I think I've fixed it. So thanks for the catch and for bringing it to my attention.

Secondly, I was made aware that I forgot to say I was doing a 12 Days of Christmas run for this fic, which is why there have been so many chapters over the last week and a half. I apologize to everyone for forgetting to say as much. -_-; Call it being in a holiday tizzy?

-J-

"EDI, clear the war room of our people: I want a word with Gerrel in semi-private." Shepard almost couldn't think. It had been ages since she felt in this sort of temper. She hid it as best she could, but wasn't as successful as she might have liked.

That lack of success helped cover the fear and shame, all the horrible things her episode of…whatever that was…had left simmering in the pit of her stomach.

"Of course, Captain."

"Legion, wait here," Shepard motioned to the room with the meeting table. She was about to tear Gerrel a new one—verbally, though she rather wished she was given to extreme displays of physical violence against a potential ally—and didn't want shock over the geth to interfere.

Consequently, when Shepard arrived, the crew usually staffing the room were most likely down on the crew deck. She entered the strategy room like water blowing out of a pipe.

"Your unilateral strike endangered us all!" To say Raan was snarling was a few steps removed of the truth, but clearly Gerrel was squarely on her shitlist. He could not, Shepard thought grimly, depend on Raan falling in line with a plan again. The Heavy Fleet could burn, if he wanted to be stupid. "I should charge you with treason."

Raan faced the entryway, and so saw Shepard and the team arrive, but Gerrel did not.

"Kh—about time someone did," Tali growled, joining the rest of the ground team in filing onto the walkway surrounding the tactical display.

"I was within my authority as admiral of the Heavy—" Gerrel began.

Shepard cut him off with a slicing motion of her hand. "Bullshit." She wanted to demand a reason she shouldn't shoot him right now…but knew that was unstable behavior. No, she needed him alive, needed to retain some of her logical calm…

…but it incensed her. It was not that he had almost killed her, but he had almost wiped out her team: six people. Six. She was a soldier, they all knew the risks…but for this…bureaucrat (it was the worst slur she could come up with without resorting to further profanities) to deviate from the plan like that, to take a killing blow at the expense of the people the mission was supposed to save…

The dreadnaught was down, but the geth were still hammering the civilian fleet, the softest targets, like a farmer selecting the ripest portion of his crop.

"And what of Shepard?" Raan protested, her voice gaining strength, "What of Tali'Zorah?"

"They escaped unharmed, as evidenced," Gerrel waved to the sweaty, flush-faced ground crew. "The mission parameters changed," Gerrel appealed to Shepard. "You're military, you underst—"

"I understand that you nearly wiped out my entire unit," Shepard snapped, her cheeks burning. "And for what? Your civilian fleet is still being hammered! We achieved nothing! Your people, your joint responsibility, are still dying!"

"The dreadnaught—"

Admiral Gerrel never got to finish the sentence. Shepard came across the gap between them and planted her fist into his guts with a single, powerful blow that sent him staggering back into the tactical display. "You jeopardized you mission! You jeopardized your people! And you jeopardized my crew: volunteers who went over to that hulk to try to help you! I think Raan's right, you know. I'd like to shit-can your ass right damn now!"

There was no doubt that Shepard, had she been in Raan's place, would have relieved Gerrel of duty as soon as she realized how unstable he was, before the attack on the dreadnaught could fully coordinate. Shepard was in too narrow a gap between a rock and a hard place to have any tolerance for maverick behaviors that perverted the stated plan. She needed the quarian fleet, yes, but in order for the fleet to be of any tactical use, it needed to be in strength, not whittled down to a few ships and an unsustainable genetic pool.

It was the lack of results, as well as the unnecessary placing in jeopardy of her team that had her so angry! She sensed their shared anger and disappointment, as they sweated and tried not to shove elbows in each other's ears during the trip back, that the mission had not succeeded.

Tactically speaking, the mission failed.

Shepard stepped back, her eyes gleaming overly bright in her face. "Mr. Vega."

"Ma'am." This was no time for 'Lola', or even 'Shepard.' This was the first time Vega had ever seen Shepard truly furious over the treatment of her crew. She could tell that it was leaving a mark—a positive one. She was asking them to fight and probably die, but she wouldn't do it recklessly.

And the recklessness of others would not be tolerated.

It helped to have the firm tone of great dislike for the admiral to back her next order. "Get this asshole the hell off my ship. Hold his shuttle. He may have company." She did not feel the need to point out that Gerrel had not only opened fire on an Alliance officer (she resisted the urge to curl a lip at the title) but a Council Spectre. Two Spectres.

"My pleasure." Vega lumbered down the stairs, stood glowering at Gerrel, clearly ready to wrangle the quarian none too gently if the Admiral didn't get moving before Vega's mental ten-count.

"If you want to talk," Shepard continued, tone frigid, "use a radio."

She waited in silence until Vega returned. He nodded, once, to indicate her orders had been carried out. She had never seen him stand so stiffly at attention as he did just then. "All right, crew: you did good. Better than most would have." She meant it: they'd all come back alive.

Shepard noted the vibes being thrown off by her ground team toward Admiral Raan, culminating as a warning that if Shepard said 'no go' to any proposal, then that was that. No appeal would move them, and Shepard was grateful.