"Hot damn…" Shepard muttered, shaking herself. "What a rush…" she felt wobbly, dizzy, and generally odd…but it wasn't an 'odd' she could describe in words.

"How're you feeling, Shepard?" Liara demanded, her tone indicating readiness to warp Legion into a paperweight at the smallest hint from her.

At another time, Shepard might have been amused, but not right now. Her stomach and throat burned, her mouth dry, her lips felt desiccated, as if someone had stuffed her mouth full of cotton before she climbed into the pod.

"Thirsty." That was what bothered her most. Her head only hurt a little…no, it wasn't even pain, just a buzzing pressure near the base of her skull. But the thirst…no one warned her that the pod was going to siphon off what felt like most of her body's water…

She found her canteen and, knowing she ought to save some for later, tossed it down in one long pull that left her out of breath, but remaining thoroughly dehydrated.

"Are you okay?" were the first words out of Alenko's mouth that she truly processed. She knew he'd said something else, but it hadn't really had meaning.

She turned to look at him, her eyes bright with the liveliest geek-nerd interest. "Yeah. Great. That was…weird." Weird, but good, and she hoped she'd have time to try consolidating her thoughts. Alenko, fellow geek-nerd that he was, would appreciate a look into the Geth Consensus—or a part of it—even if only vicariously.

There were lines of worry and strain on his face, she realized.

Her reciprocal concern must have shown, for he shook his head, forced a smile. "See? Now I'm a little jealous."

"We'll talk it over later," Shepard promised, moving towards the still-inert geth. That and more, she was sure. She hadn't considered whether waiting for her to 'come back' would be difficult or not. What had they seen? Had she mumbled in her sleep, or just reposed there like a corpse?

That would explain the lines of tension on Alenko's face. A corpse in a coffin…he'd lost her once already. That couldn't have been easy.

She forced herself to pay attention to Legion, who still knelt, slouched over where he'd crumpled when he'd joined her within the server. "Legion?" She placed a hand on the cold cables in the geth's shoulder. Legion did not respond, but Liara suddenly cried out, her biotics flaring.

Shepard turned to find that inert geth were, somehow, activating, stepping away free from other pods in the room. Not small geth units, either, but the big primes, two, four, eight… Shepard drew her rifle, but got no further. As soon as the nearest geth seemed to have come on line—and before she or her crew could start shooting—it snapped to attention and saluted.

"Hold fire…" Shepard said slowly as the units behind it followed suit.

Suddenly, Legion lit up, then got slowly to his feet. "There is no need for weapons, Shepard-Captain."

"Are you sure?" Shepard asked tensely, though she forced herself to at least lower her rifle.

"Yes. We downloaded programs from the server into these platforms."

"…any particular reason?" Shepard asked edgily. She trusted Legion, but she detested surprises like this…though if she considered the matter, she could see why Legion might not have wanted to tell her about this…whatever-it-was.

"They wish…to join us," the geth answered patiently.

"Shepard…?" Liara asked, her voice low and taut.

Legion looked at Liara. "While Shepard-Captain removed the Reaper infection, we judged we could persuade hostile geth programs to reunite with ours. We were correct. These geth have renounced the Old Machines and will oppose the Reapers. They are now us."

Shepard exhaled slowly. Then did it again. It had been hard enough accepting that there were two factions of geth. It was harder to accept geth behaving in a thoroughly organic fashion. "Legion…you know what? Weapons down," Shepard waved it her marines before turning to Legion. "Everybody, weapons down. Legion, you know I hate surprises like this. Someone could have gotten hurt."

Legion shifted from foot to foot. "We did not doubt you." He glanced over at Liara and Alenko. "We doubted your allies. They do not know us." She knew he meant 'us' in reference to himself as a single unit. "The Creators' actions have placed their species in danger, but they are unsympathetic to what it has done to ours. The quarians sanctioned this operation to save their people. They would not have done so if they had known we wish to preserve geth as well."

Shepard looked away from Legion. If in his position…she would have done the same thing. Arguably, she had done the same thing before, over and over again: perform the operation, save who she could. "I understand not wanting to leave anyone behind."

"You accept our actions?" Legion asked cagily.

Shepard looked into his bright LED eyes. "Yes. Mission accomplished, and we have more allies. I'm sorry, Legion…I do trust you."

Legion shrugged his shoulders, "We know you detest surprises. But we judged you would understand. "

Shepard chuckled dryly at this…and the thought 'dry' made her feel terribly thirsty again. "Let's call Cortez and get out of here. It's kinda creepy…"

"These Prime units will be available once the Reaper signal has been located and destroyed," Legion declared.

"Someone write me a sticky note reminding me to warn Admiral Hackett he'll be seeing a few friendly geth," she chuckled, but she was the only one who did.

She understood why: Legion had an amusing lack of a sense of humor (to quote Joker), but Alenko and Liara only knew geth as mortal enemies, machines to be feared and destroyed so they would not destroy organics.

"Cortez, this is Shepard—"

"Captain! Aw, dammit…"

"What? What is it?" Shepard asked sharply. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! Sorry, Captain, I'm in the middle of a rescue mission…" his voice was wrung, as if his worst fears had just been realized.