Ashley grunted as she got up on all fours and coughed up some blood. She looked up with her one good eye spying Harbinger approaching with a blade in hand. As she stood, she gritted her teeth as pain surged though her body, but this was nothing to her. She spat out some more blood as her focus locked on Harbinger.

"Your race, has caused me enough trouble for the last time," he declared. "This time, I won't even use your race. Just exterminate you all!"

"You'd have to go though me first," Ashley said as a ship exploded nearby. "As long as I still stand, you won't harm another soul!"

Their eyes locked, then they charged at each other.

OOOOO 2 months earlier.

With the agreement met, the Qurrians were shipped out to the dockyards to make the upgrades along with the Geth. While they didn't like it, it was made clear that if they didn't want to work then they would be refused the immune booster and denied land on the homeworld. Nobutada was on Rannoch with a fleet to make sure that there were no hostilities between the Quarrians and geth. That was easier said than done given the tensions between the two groups that was born from 300 years of hostilities. Sometimes you just couldn't cure hate.

Ashley sighed as she leaned on the bar overlooking the docks watching both Qurrians and geth work on installing the Xia drives. The reports from the fronts were bad, Jack and Jane had to retreat from their respective fronts in order to re-arm and regroup. The problem was this allowed Reaper forces to get a foothold in several galactic regions. The longer Harbinger was allowed to live, the closer he got to wiping out the galactic population.

She leaned forward and rested her head in her arms thinking. Sometimes she wondered if this was all pointless, they had destroyed the Reapers once and now they were back. What if they would return after this mission? If that was the case, then she would make sure that they were ready. But she couldn't banish the thoughts of if they would keep coming back. This question just kept on rolling around in her mind, and no matter what she did she couldn't get rid of it. But there was one thing she was sure of, when she meets Harbinger and TIM, she will make them pay for taking John away from her.

The question of weather she would make it back alive never crossed her mind. All she cared about was getting revenge. She just stood there lost in thought uncaring about the world around her.

"Hey," a voice said next to her.

Ash shook her head and looked to Miranda who stood next to her with two cups of coffee and offered one to the Empress.

"Thanks," Ash said taking and taking a sip.

"What are you doing here?" Miranda asked.

"Thinking, just… just thinking," Ashley said shaking her head. "And wondering how this war will end,"

"With us winning," Miranda replied with tone making it clear she wasn't convinced.

But Ash didn't bring attention to it as she had the same thoughts. "Yeah," she muttered as she took another sip of her coffee. "How I wish we didn't have to fight again,"

"You, me and the majority of the galaxy," Miranda muttered. "But we have to take the hand we're delt with. We may not like it, but it's all we have to deal with,"

Ash gave a reluctant nod. "True enough, but what if one of those cards means I die?"

Miranda spat out some coffee and looked to Ash who was just looking at her coffee. "Don't you dare say that," she said making it clear he wasn't happy with that train of thought. "We, all of us are going to make it out of there, alive,"

"But what if we can't?" Ash asked. "This is reality not some soppy fiction. Not all of us are going to make it out. John not making it out is evidence of that. Like it or not, but one of us may not make it out,"

"Where is this coming from?" Miranda asked with a sense concern growing inside her.

"Nowhere," Ash replied and finished her drink. "Just be prepared if I die," she said before walking off. "Come on, we have to deal with Vega and Jacob's leaders,"

Miranda stood there for a moment, dumbfounded before following Ash unsure what to make of what her friend said.

OOOOO

Tali walked under the Normandy's hull checking the armour panels, seeing what needed to be fixed. The Normandy was one of the few ships that still had the Xia drive installed, but the problem was the armour. Going at such speeds wore down the armour then regular relay jumps. This was mostly due to the high impact of particles that hit the ship during transit. While the armour was made for high impact, that impact was meant for kinetic guns and mass drivers and not the particles of FTL.

Those were too small to deflect, but they didn't cause too much damage either. So regular checks on the armour were not only expected, but mandatory in order to keep the ship in fighting form. As she checked each panel her aunt, Raan, walked in. Tali ignored her as she continued her inspection.

"Tali," Raan said, but the young Qurrian interrupted her.

"Say what you want then get out," she said in an aggressive tone. "I haven't forgotten that I've been exiled, regardless of what agreement Ashley has made with you,"

"Tali," Raan started again. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry,"

That just got her a venomous look. "Sorry? Sorry?" she practically yelled. "I don't want your sorry, it didn't do much good when you were looking for a scapegoat to cover your ass. When I came back, I was trying to help you, but did you want it? No didn't, you wanted someone you could place the blame on. Since my father was dead, I was the only one you could place the blame on. Sorry is not going to cut it,"

Raan lust looked at Tali. She had heard that the qurrian didn't need a suit anymore due to nanites in her system. Seeing it for herself, getting exiled was probably the best thing that happened to Tali. But saying that, wouldn't be a good idea. Inwardly she smiled, but also regretted as to what she did.

"Your right, sorry isn't going to cut it," she admitted. "But we do have an offer for you. As an apology, we're offering land on the homeworld. If you chose to come back,"

"Is that all?" Tali spat.

"A few other things as well, your own company, lab, garage, whatever you like," Raan offered.

Tali just scoffed. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out," she said as she turned back to work.

Raan just hung her head and left. She knew that Tali wouldn't accept the offers, but she needed an excuse to see her one last time. Reaching up she unlocked her mask and pulled the plate off with a satisfied smile. The nanites worked and now the Quarrians no longer had to live in suits and could look towards the future.

OOOOO

Jacob and Vega stood in the main briefing room along with the two main leaders of their little kingdom. The first one was Dal'na Triss, an Asari and the other being turian, Arrius Protados. Soon Ashley walked in along with Miranda.

"Hi, I'm sorry to do this but we need to make this quick," Ashley said as she and Miranda took one of the seats.

"Understandable," Arrius said as his group also took their seats.

"So, what's this all about?" Dal'na asked.

"From what Jacob and Vega have told us, you guys where had little defences if someone were to attack," Miranda said.

"Yes, this is due to our mandate of highly limited use of technology," Dal replied. "We've discussed heavily about how to solve this, but we never came to an answer. Just bitter arguments about not wanting to be in the limelight,"

"That's understandable, but if the other Warlords got their eyes on you, then it wouldn't end well for you," Ashley said. "In which case, we wish to offer you protectorate status. You won't be part of the Empire, but you'll be under our protection if anyone comes knocking,"

Dal sighed, looking down at the table. "It's a good offer, but…" she looked toward her counterpart.

"We need to discuss with the others," Arrius said.

Ash just nodded. "I'll give you 10 minutes before the offer is off the table," she said standing and walking out with Miranda.

"Your being too hard on them," Miranda said.

"We have no time to waste," Ashley shot back. "The more we wait, the less time we have to plan and prepare,"

Miranda just sighed and nodded before Dal walked out of the room. "We accept," she said.

OOOOO 2 months later.

TIM looked out at the milky way galaxy puffing on his cigarette. "They'll be coming soon," he said absently.

"I know," Harbinger said as he worked on a terminal. "And I don't care, they will not make it far,"

"Don't be so sure," TIM replied. "Shepard and his family are people who take the impossible and spit in its face. They have luck on their side, and sometimes luck is all one needs,"

"They will fail," Harbinger insisted. "They will fall and the galaxy will be ours again,"

TIM's brow raised, while Harbinger was confident in his abilities, this reaction just seemed out of place. Normally he was clam, robotic, logical and calculated, but this reaction was emotional. Very uncharacteristic of him. This upcoming attack must have him on edge, something that wouldn't surprise TIM but then again Harbinger wasn't one for emotion. Before he could say anything else, little blue dots began to appear in the distance, making TIM smile.

"They're here," he said.

A shot echoed in the room making him turning to see Harbinger holding a pistol in his hands. "The your usefulness is at it's end," he said as TIM's body fell lifeless to the floor.

OOOOO

EDI watched from the CIC of the Normandy as the fleet exited FTL. Over 700 ships exited the jump from their galaxy to their destination. As the ships spread out, the Reaper fleet began to advance on them. But all they had were the orbs and a few Reapers. Her eyes narrowed as she smiled.

"All ships engage!" she said.

Oda's fleet split from the main force and advanced fast, facing the Reapers head on while Grunt's fleet held back taking pot shots. While the rounds hit, and did little damage it did slow them down allowing for Oda's faster ships to move around the Reapers and take them from all angles. Other fleets with similar speed focuses did the same and moved in. The heavier ships held back firing at the reapers while the fighters and medium ships closed the distance and supported the lighter faster ships.

The orb fighters tried to take out the fighters and the medium ships, but the support from both the light and heavy ships made it hard for them to manoeuvre around to take out ships. With the Reapers occupied several troop ships deployed their Kodiaks close to the station allowing them to land.

The ships landed on the hull of the station allowing Ashley, Miranda, Tali and Liara out. As they set foot onto the station, they began to move to their entry point. Occasionally they looked up to the battle in space to see how that battle was going. Soon they made it to their entry point and blew out an entry point with a charge. Once it was open the four jumped in and began to move thought the station. Other teams made their own landing and breached seconds of the station.

The mission, to locate and destroy black liquid vats, generators, anything that looked important needed to go before the fleet bombard the station with mass cannons and nukes. The use of Dark energy warheads was avoided due to how complex that they turned out to be. Tali couldn't make them due to the fact that the tech required was long gone during the Crucible firing. That didn't stop her and other engineers from trying, but in the end, they just couldn't replicate the weapon.

Their only chance now was to destroy Harbinger. That was Ashley and her team's objective, kill Harbinger, and destroy anything important that they could find. But the latter was secondary.