Chapter 29: Folly of the Admiralty

If you're a quarian, here's some things you might have missed or conveniently ignored: three hundred plus years ago, your ancestors were too damn lazy to do their own work, so you created sophisticated VIs to do it for you. Three hundred years ago, those VIs evolved into full-fledged AIs, which was—and still is—a big galactic no-no. Your ancestors reacted to this development in a mature and responsible manner—that is to say they panicked and tried to wipe out the AIs, thus sparking a war that drove your people away from your home and turned you into scavenging exiles. And now you decided to try it again, because your leaders were a bunch of idiots.

With one exception. "Glad you could make it," I greeted Tali warmly. "Admirals, I'll ready a team to hit that dreadnought."

"Thank you, Commander," Admiral Raan said.

I covertly ordered EDI to keep an eye on them and make sure they didn't do anything stupid before walking over to Tali. "So… Admiral, huh? Congratulations."

Tali walked out of the War Room. Following her lead, I joined her. She relaxed ever-so-slightly as soon as the doors closed behind us. "It's mostly a formality." If I looked hard enough, I swear I could see her roll her eyes. "I'm an expert on the geth. That's all."

"That you are," I agreed.

"I'm glad you're here," Tali told me.

"If I'd known it was this bad, I would've come sooner."

"You've had your own troubles," Tali said quietly. "I'm sorry about Earth." .

"Thanks," I smiled wanly.

"We've got the largest fleet in the galaxy. If you can help us, we'll hit the Reapers with everything we've got. Or… however much is left from this stupid war."

"You know, there was a time when you might've supported the invasion," I remembered.

"I might have," Tali agreed. "But after talking to Legion, I thought maybe there was a chance for peace."

"So why help them?"

"I'm an admiral. People look to me for guidance. Public disagreement would divide the Flotilla."

Gerrel, Xen and Koris chose that moment to leave the War Room. They walked past us and disappeared out the other door of the conference room, still bickering away like children. If the rest of the quarians knew how the Admiralty Board was behaving, that internal strife would be all but guaranteed.

More importantly, the one thing I knew about Tali was that she would always do what she thought was best for her people. And if she thought the risk of internal discord was great enough, that might have been enough for her to put aside her own personal reservations. "I'll get your people out of here safely, Tali," I reassured her.

"Thanks, Shepard. And just so you know, I need to keep things strictly business in front of the admirals. If you'd like to catch up, let's talk somewhere… else."

That last part came as Admiral Raan came out into the conference room. Clearly Tali had something on her mind, but couldn't say it out loud in public. All right. We could play nice in front of the other admiral… for now.

"Sure thing," I nodded.

"I'm ready to hit that dreadnought whenever you are."

"Shepard, the fleets are under heavy fire," Raan echoed. "We need to hit that dreadnought."

Apparently the Admiralty Board believed that keeping things strictly business involved repeating the same things over and over again. No wonder they were in such a mess. Rather than roll my eyes, I settled on something slightly more satisfying. "Fleets? You've got more than one?"

"The Flotilla is broken down into a couple fleets," Tali explained.

"Do tell," I invited.

"I command the Patrol Fleet," Raan said. "In peacetime, it manages navigation, internal security and intership conflicts or crimes. Now, it guards the Heavy Fleet's flank. It's mostly light frigates and fighters."

"I'm guessing Admiral Gerrel oversees that."

Tali nodded in confirmation. "It was our main military force before the war, consisting of all quarian vessels suited for sustained combat—usually heavy frigates and squadrons of our more advanced fighters."

"Admiral Koris mentioned that your civilians were involved in this war," I said. "Do they belong to a fleet of their own?"

"The Civilian Fleet," Raan nodded. "It consists of civilian ships, medical vessels and our liveships. Admiral Koris coordinates them, though individual ship captains still have power. During peacetime, they made up the bulk of the Flotilla. Now, with all the upgrades we made, even the turians would think twice before attacking."

Shame the quarians didn't do any of that thinking. "Really?"

"The turians have more dreadnoughts," she conceded. "Their overall military force is larger than our Heavy Fleet by far. But before we began this war, we jury-rigged every quarian ship in the Flotilla for battle. Even our liveships have cannons."

"Yeah, I read a few reports on that." I shook my head in dismay. "You do realize that you converted them into dreadnoughts, don't you? That violates the Treaty of Farixen." (1)

"While the liveships have firepower comparable to a dreadnought, their primary purpose is food cultivation," Raan stated, with a rote precision that came with a memorized response.

"You really think the Council will buy that technicality?"

"If need be, I'll apologize once this war is over."

"And in the meantime, you're putting your civilians in danger," I pointed out.

"Not casually, Commander," Raan insisted. "We keep them off the front lines, but we'll do whatever we must to win."

Including dragging all the quarians into a single system, getting them trapped and potentially becoming the first species in this cycle that were not wiped out by the Reapers. All to win a war that never should have been fought in the first place. I had to grind my teeth before I said something undiplomatic. "Which fleet does Admiral Xen command?"

"Special Projects. It's not a fleet per se… just a few 'research vessels'."

Raan felt the need to qualify that phrase with quotation marks. I had a feeling that they had a wider assortment of equipment than typical research ships. Stuff like operating rooms for childhood toys. (2)

"Her technical breakthroughs have put us within striking distance of the homeworld."

Oh boy. So that's how this disaster began. "I see," I said. "I'll let you get back to work."

Raan went back into the War Room. I followed, mostly to keep an eye on her. Hard to believe I was this distrusting of a potential ally but, well, lately they had been full of disappointments. Tali tagged along. "I'm guessing you went back to the Flotilla after I turned myself in," I said to her.

"I did," she confirmed. "When the war preparations began, the Admiralty Board asked for my help. I had more recent contact with the geth than most of my people. They hadn't filled the spot on the board left by my father. I was invited in."

Right. Her father. The guy who'd sent his own flesh and blood out to look for geth parts to send back to the Flotilla, used them to cobble together new geth like some kind of quarian Frankenstein and experimented on them to find a weakness that his people could exploit to retake their homeworld. (3)

"Like I said earlier, it's just a technicality. I'm far too young to be a real admiral."

Raan overheard that part. "Don't sell yourself short, Tali," she chided. "The board needed your expertise, and you needed the authority that comes with rank."

I almost wish she hadn't said that. It was so easy to be angry at Raan for cheerfully going along with this disaster, happily risking and wasting the lives of her people—and the geth—on a stupid war, one that would make both sides less able to fight the real conflict that was being waged in the rest of the galaxy. But then there were moments like this. Moments that showed a more compassionate side. The part of Raan that had been friends with Tali's father for years. That had synchronized suit atmospheres with Tali's mother so she could be in the same clean room and help deliver Tali. That had schemed to manipulate Tali's hearing to give her her best chance of exonerating herself. I mean, there was a reason Tali called her Auntie Raan.

Stuff like this made life so complicated. It would be so much easier if I could just hate her. But for Tali's sake, I couldn't look at her in such black-and-white terms. Speaking of Tali… "I guess being back with the Flotilla this time's a little different," I guessed. "How're you doing?"

"Right now, I'm exhausted. I'm an admiral in the middle of a war. I just want us to get out of this alive," she said wearily. "Everything else can wait."

"Not too long, I hope," I said. "There's another war out there against the Reapers. I could use your help."

Tali hesitated. "I… I can't, Shepard. If we survive this, we'll have a homeworld. We'll have Rannoch back for the first time in three hundred years. We'll need to figure out where everyone will go, assess the ruins for their suitability as shelter, construct new buildings for homes and storage, start planning crops… my people need me."

"There won't be a point in any of that if the Reapers sweep in and wipe away all that progress—along with your people," I pointed out. "You want to help secure the future of your people? Of your homeworld? The best way to do that is to join us and fight the Reapers?"

"I don't know. Like I said, I'm not thinking that far ahead yet."

She seemed remarkably more non-committal, a far cry from our earlier talk. I wondered if this had anything to do with Raan's presence and 'keeping things strictly business,' or if this was what Tali honestly felt. Probably both, knowing her. "All right. Fine. Let's focus on the here and now: how did this war with the geth get started, anyway?"

"Admiral Xen developed a scanning countermeasure that interferes with geth active scans. Sort of like a flashbang grenade. It effectively crippled the geth ships in combat. My people couldn't pass up the chance to attack."

"Could we use it to fight the Reapers?" I asked hopefully.

"It only works against the geth, unfortunately."

Of course it did. Story of my life.

"The geth AI lets them use extremely detailed ladar pings. (4) Xen's countermeasure overwhelmed their sensors with garbage data. Unfortunately, it's useless now that the Reapers have upgraded their processing power."

"What about Legion? I lost track of them after I turned myself in."

"It returned to geth space."

"And you haven't seen them since?"

"I…" Tali glanced at Raan—or at least I think she glanced at her. Stupid helmets. Anyway, Raan was engrossed in whatever her datapad was telling her. "Legion and I sent a few messages," Tali admitted. "I was hoping we could try negotiation. But I was outvoted three to two. Admiral Koris was the only other one who believed it would work."

Of course. Because he staunchly believed that the quarians had wronged the geth from the get-go and was one of the few people who wanted peace with them. "Any idea where Legion is now?"

She shook her head. "No. In our last message, it told me that the geth were having trouble reaching consensus."

"And there's been nothing since?" I pressed.

"Nothing. Maybe it was fighting the Reaper takeover or maybe it didn't want to give intel to an enemy." She paused uncomfortably. "I could have warned it about the invasion, but… I didn't."

There might have been a hint of shame in her voice. Shame that she'd hadn't put up enough of a protest against this idiotic plan. Shame that she'd gone along with this whole suicidal endeavour in the name of preserving the unity of her people. Shame that she'd condoned the war against the geth despite having gotten to know one of them—or, technically, 1,183 of them.

Or maybe there was something else going on. Who knew? "You'd have been betraying your own people," I said sympathetically. "That's a tough position to be put in, Tali. There's no good choice there."

Tali just shuffled back and forth. Finally she looked at me helplessly. "I never wanted to be an admiral," she whispered.

"I know," I said sympathetically. "Look, why don't we take your mind off things. Just for a minute. I never got to show you my cabin, did I? It's got a display case of ships and everything."

"No you haven't. What kind of ships do you have?"

Her love of starships and technology was genuine. And we had served together before. Everyone knew that. Which made this the perfect excuse to get away from certain idiotic admirals and have that private chat that Tali had hinted at earlier.

We left the War Room, got into the elevator and entered my cabin. "Thanks for asking me up," Tali said once the doors closed. "I couldn't talk freely in front of Raan."

"You okay?" I asked.

She let out a choked sob. "No. No, I'm really not."

I had a feeling.

"Seventeen million lives are riding on me… and I don't know if I can save them."

My heart went out to her. This was the exact situation I was in. Well, maybe worse when you consider I was trying to take back my homeworld and figure out a way to win a galaxy-wide war. But she didn't need to hear that right now. "You're doing everything you can," I said instead. "If the Flotilla fails to retake Rannoch, it won't be because of you."

"Isn't it?" she asked. "I helped my father retrieve those geth parts last year for his research. And Xen's ideas? The new tech that made an invasion too good to pass up? That's based on my father's work."

Oh God. Yeah, that's right. Xen had mentioned getting some data from Tali's father in an e-mail she sent after Tali's farce of a trial. The gift that kept on giving…

"If they die because of me… if… if I don't…"

"We'll get them out of there safely, Tali," I said gently. It was a bad promise to give. There was no guarantee that we could pull it off. It gave some incredibly, maybe even impossibly, high expectations. But it also offered hope. And right now, that's what she needed.

"I couldn't do this without you, Shepard," she admitted. "I feel like I'm bluffing. Trying to convince them that the admiral's daughter knows what she's doing."

Boy, did that sound familiar. "Not the admiral's daughter," I corrected. "The admiral. Big difference."

"I know. And at least now, I can push back against the worst ideas."

You mean this current debacle wasn't the worst idea? Hoo boy.

"That's why I accepted the position. And… because of you."

"Me?"

"When they offered me this position, I asked myself what you'd do. I thought you'd take the chance to make things better."

Um. Wow.

She laughed in embarrassment. "That probably sounds stupid. It's just… I know I'm not really qualified for this…"

"You're doing fine, Tali," I reassured her.

"Really?"

You should've heard the hope—and relief—in her voice. "Really. Look at me. The Alliance put me at the forefront of figuring out a way to retake Earth, which means there are billions of lives weighing on my shoulders. Because I couldn't figure out a way to stop the Reapers earlier. But hey, third or fourth time's the charm, right? All I have to do is run around the galaxy and sweet-talk allies into following my plan. Because everyone's too wrapped up in their own concerns to bother with silly things like getting together and coordinating their efforts, aside from some 'war summit' that didn't really generate any ideas other than the one I provided. Oh, and get this: I'm a diplomat now. Yep, I got diplomatic powers to authorize any clusterfucks I create. And I probably will create one or two because I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I never did. I just make it up as I go along and hope for the best. But this time, that might not cut it."

I had to take a deep breath by the time I finished that rant. "By the way, I'm not really qualified for this either."

"You've never really told anyone this, have you?" Tali realized.

"Nope," I shook my head. "Well, I might've let a bit slip to Liara. And Miranda probably figured it out a long time ago. But that's about it. Gotta pretend to be in control and have all the answers, even when you don't. Especially when you don't."

"What do you do when it gets too much?" Tali wanted to know.

"I'll let you know when I have an answer," I groaned. "Right now, venting to a friend helps."

"Agreed." Tali let out a sigh. "I should get back before the admirals get into trouble again. I'll talk to you later."

"Later," I nodded. "And Tali?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"Thanks."

It took a day or so, but we eventually made it to the Tikkun system, deep inside the Perseus Veil. Home to Rannoch, the former quarian homeworld. No one other than the geth had been there in centuries. Until now.

I was suited up and in the cockpit during the final stretch, the better to get any progress reports face to face. Knowing that, Joker turned around. "We're approaching the quarian home system," he told me. "ETA to Rannoch: five minutes."

"What've you got from the comm buoys?" I wanted to know.

He pulled up the telemetry and expanded it. "Pretty much a big ol' shitstorm, Commander," he shrugged after a moment.

EDI was able to provide a little more help. "I have detected several hundred unique ship signatures engaged in active combat."

"Yeah, like I said," Joker chimed in.

"Take us in, Joker."

He cracked his knuckles, something that might not have been all that wise, given his Vrolik's Syndrome. "Stealth drive engaged. Only way they'll detect us is if you all start singing the Russian national anthem." (5)

"Then it's probably a good thing that none of us speak Russian," I replied, "much less know the national anthem." I paused and thought about it before adding "Miranda probably would, but she has more sense than to belt it out."

"Yeah, that's a safe bet," Joker agreed.

About four minutes and forty-nine seconds later, we dropped out of FTL and into, as Joker put it, a big ol' shitstorm. Quarian and geth ships were flying everywhere, blasting each other to pieces. Except for our target—that sucker barely had a scratch on it.

"My cyberwarfare suite has accessed the dreadnought's docking protocols," EDI announced.

"Great," I nodded. "Transfer control to Joker and suit up." I reached over to the comm controls and went shipwide. "This is Shepard. Red alert: we've just entered quarian space. All squadmates report to Deck Two."

Despite the many changes that had been made during the retrofit, some things stayed the same. Like the fact that the one and only docking bay on the Normandy was on Deck Two, right behind the cockpit. Old human design feature for some reason or other.

Miranda, Tali and Kaidan were the first to arrive. "Good to see you again, Tali," Kaidan said.

"You too, Kaidan. How's the omni-tool? Still using the Logic Arrest?"

There was a slight, but good-natured challenge in Tali's voice, as if she questioned his choice. Kaidan immediately took the bait. "It's the best model out there," he staunchly proclaimed.

Tali shook her head. "Not for running multiple attack processes simultaneously. You need a Nexus."

"Nexus shield enhancements are years behind the curve!"

"That's why you overclock the microframe."

"Sure, if you don't mind losing your data, having your programs crash or the entire omni-tool wiping itself clean. There's a reason why Armali Council had to release that Day One patch. Boy were they embarrassed!"

"That was just one time, which is more than I can say about the number of times the Logic Arrest freezes up. I mean, you'd think Ariake Tech would've realized they need a little more processing power in their omni-tools by now."

While the two of them bickered, Miranda sidled over to me. "Are they really arguing about the merits of different brands of omni-tools?" she whispered.

"Not just any brand," I replied. "Their brand. Sounds like an old argument." (6)

"Would you care to pitch in with your opinion?"

"Nah," I shook my head. "If I had to pick a choice, I'd go with the Savant."

Miranda made an approving sound. "That is the best model out there in all categories."

I know. I had a Savant omni-tool, once upon a time. Before the Collectors ambushed us and sent me to an early grave. "But if I mentioned that, then it would end the argument—and their fun—here and now."

"You're probably right," she sighed. "It just seems so pointless."

"Better this than something more important," I shrugged.

We sat back and listened to Kaidan and Tali debate the finer points of the Logic Arrest and Nexus omni-tools. Once the rest of the squad arrived, we walked into the airlock. "All right," I said after the doors were sealed, "once we're aboard, we find whatever's broadcasting the Reaper signal and shut it down. Tali's our expert on geth software. She'll be handling hacking and security. She'll also be joining Team Three for the duration of this mission."

"Good to have you back, Tali," Garrus said. "Maybe with another dextro aboard, they'll get better turian food."

"As long as it's sterilized," Tali replied.

"Dr. Michel did get me some dextro-amino chocolate. You're welcome to it once we're back."

Tali started. "She got you turian chocolate?" she asked, a hint of something—nervousness? Surprise? Jealousy?—in her voice.

"She said she saw it and thought of me," Garrus shrugged. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing," Tali said in a deceptively casual tone that I'd heard far too many times from Mom and Ellie. The tone used for a 'You're eating all that junk food before dinner' nothing. The 'You're goofing off when the big test is next week nothing. The 'my birthday is tomorrow and you clearly forgot' nothing. The 'you promised to help me with [insert topic] and you never showed up' nothing.

The blank look on Garrus's face—obscured somewhat by the helmet he was wearing—told me he hadn't figured it out yet. "Did I miss something?" he asked.

I simply shook my head. Miranda wasn't quite so reticent. "So much," she sighed. "So very, very much."

Maybe putting Garrus and Tali on the same team wasn't a good idea. Before Garrus could open his big mouth again or I could reconsider the wisdom of my squad arrangement, EDI butted in. "Shepard, there is a problem. All docking tubes except one are physically secure."

Translation: all the cyberwarfare magic in the galaxy couldn't override some simple physical locks.

"I see the free one," Joker said over the comm. "Pretty torn up, though."

Tapping on my omni-tool, I pulled up the data EDI and Joker were looking at. "Too risky for the whole squad," I decided. "Change of plans: I'll secure the docking area. Everyone else can follow me over."

"Roger that, Commander," Joker said on behalf of the squad. "We'll just stay here, you know, quietly."

"Hang tight," I said. "It'll just be a minute."

Joker wasn't kidding when he said the free docking tube was torn up. Only the first couple metres were intact. After that, it was just warped metal, bare scaffolding and lots of twisted cables, interrupted with the occasional burst of sparks or release of pressurized gas. It quickly became clear that a straight route across would be impossible. So I had to walk partway up the wall before beginning my trip to the other side of the tube. Thank God for magnetic locks.

"Shepard, this is Miranda. Report."

"It's gonna take a while to walk around all the damaged sections of the docking tube," I replied. "Standby."

The one upside of walking through the damaged docking tube was that I got a firsthand look at the dreadnought, up close and personal. "No wonder the quarians were having trouble," I said over the comm. "That ship is enormous."

"It is 30% larger than an Alliance dreadnought," EDI told me.

I took another couple of steps before coming to a sudden stop. Turned out there were two upsides of this walk: "Tali," I said softly, "I can see Rannoch through the docking tube. You're gonna love the view."

"Better than a vid," she asked, almost hiding the sudden longing in her voice.

"Way better."

I continued on my way. With the docking tube so badly damaged, it was open to the vacuum of space. Which meant I couldn't hear the intense battle raging on outside. The only sounds that reached my ears were the whine of my suit's servomotors and the dull thumps as my mag-boots adhered to the tube.

"How are you doing, Shepard?" Tali asked.

"The lack of gravity is a little disorienting," I admitted. "Been a while since I did any zero-gee travel."

"Probably haven't done any of that since, what, the time we fought Saren and the geth on the Citadel?" Kaidan guessed.

"Sounds about right," I agreed. That intense fight had involved walking along the outside of the Citadel before we could access the Tower.

"The dreadnought has artificial gravity," Tali informed me. "You should be okay once you're on board."

"Until then, I'll make do with mag-boots."

"Hey, take your time, Commander," Joker said casually. "We're fine until they, you know, look out a window."

That reminded me of something Legion once said. "Geth don't use windows, remember? Structural weakness."

"Like the geth are just sitting there saying 'Those organics would never try the no-windows thing twice!"

Well, for my sake, I hope that they were saying that. Otherwise, this could end very suddenly and—I stumbled as the metal underneath my boots suddenly shifted. Instinctively, I knelt down and pushed off. Silently, almost helplessly, I floated through the vastness of space. I resisted the urge to wave my arms, knowing that would only rob me of my desperately-needed momentum. Closer…

...closer…

…my left foot touched a segment of the docking tube. Hardly a firm landing, but enough for the mag-boots to clamp on. Using that secure foothold, I pulled myself to safety.

"Shepard?" Miranda's voice came in sharply. "Your vitals just spiked. What's going on?"

Yeah, my heart was pounding for a moment there. Actually, it was still pounding. I turned around and watched as the other half of the docking tube—with the Normandy still attached—slowly drifted away before answering. "The docking tube took more of a beating than we thought. It just tore apart. Good news, I'm okay. I leapt across before it was too late. Bad news, I don't think the rest of the team can follow."

"So I'm guessing you'd rather not solo the dreadnought," Joker said after a moment.

"And deprive the rest of the squad of all that fun? Not if I can help it."

"Very kind of you," Garrus put in.

"I thought so. Tali, would you kindly get on the dreadnought schematics? If you can point me to another docking tube, I'll override the controls and let the squad on. Cortez, better get the shuttle warmed up just in case."

"Stand by."

"Understood, Commander."

Thankfully, the worst part of this harrowing journey was over. The portion of the docking tube I had managed to leap to was completely intact, so it didn't take long before I was making my way through the airlock and came aboard the dreadnought. "I'm inside," I reported, "and I've got gravity again."

"Great," Tali said. "I'm still looking for… got it. There should be a hull breach not far from your position. The nearest undamaged docking tube is on the other side."

"We're already on the move, Commander," Joker added. "Stop slacking off and hurry up."

"Says the guy who's lounging around on the Normandy safe and sound while I…" Anything else I was gonna say died in my throat. "Tali," I said instead, "I think I found that hull breach you mentioned."

Tali's reply was mixed with bitterness and anger. "Admiral Gerrel tried a frontal assault. We lost six frigates. That tiny hole was the only damage we did."

"I wouldn't call it tiny," I offered, craning my head to try and take it all in. From my angle, it looked like a giant gaping hole. "Not the way you'd have done it?" I asked as I began looking for the docking tube she'd mentioned.

"No, he was too aggressive. I argued against his plan, but as admiral of the Heavy Fleet, it was ultimately his decision."

"What about the other admirals?" I asked, gingerly making my way over a support beam and scooping up a weapons mod.

"Xen backed the invasion, largely as a chance to test her toys. And so she'd stop voicing her more… eccentric ideas?"

"Care to elaborate?"

"She mentioned something about making the geth dance to her tune and serve her refreshments."

"Xen's… not all there, is she?" Kaidan asked rhetorically.

"Raan gave provisional support," Tali continued. "Only Koris opposed the war with me. I never thought I'd ever agree with him, but he was right. We could lose the entire Flotilla, Shepard."

By that point, I'd made my way along various columns and over to a ladder. "We'll get your people out of here safely," I promised.

Scaling the ladder, I looked around. There was a ramp over on my right that stopped at a door. Based on the directions Tali had given me, that was probably what I was looking for. The dreadnought suddenly shuddered, and a piece of the ramp fell away, disappearing into a virtual abyss. A few more seconds…

I quickly made my way to the door. It was locked, of course, but I managed to bypass the controls. Ditto with the next set of doors. That brought me to a dimly lit passageway with a door at the end. Based on the configuration… "I've found another airlock," I reported. "I think we're good to go."

"Verifying your position… great. We're already docked. If you override the controls from your end, we'll be right there."

It didn't take me long to open the doors. All I had to do was liberate some salvage for more credits, climb a ladder and hammer a few commands into one of the computer consoles. "Got it," I said at last. "You're clear to board."

Below, I saw the door open and the squad walked in. Everyone slowed down and looked around, taken aback by how damn huge this ship was. I waited to see who would recover first.

Naturally, it was Miranda. "Three minutes and fifty-six seconds," Miranda told me.

"Huh?"

"You said it would take a minute to secure the docking area. In the end, it took three minutes and fifty-six seconds."

"Funny."

"I thought so."

Garrus coughed. "Much as I'd love to see this little skit, I gotta know: didja run into any trouble, Shepard?"

"All quiet so far," I replied. "They haven't detected us yet."

Tali climbed up the ladder and joined me by the computer console. "Here. Let me see if I can get this open. In the meantime, take a look at this."

She put down a pistol next to me. I scooped it up and began examining it. "Looks impressive."

"I call it the Arc Pistol. It's Admiral Xen's design, based off the Arc Projector schematics that Cerberus sent you last year. It uses a non-visible laser to ionize the air, creating a path to transmit a high-ampere energy pulse. On contact, it can disrupt shields and synthetics."

"That is much like using polonium-tipped rounds against organics," EDI pointed out, "which is illegal."

She had a point. Polonium-tipped rounds were one of the ammo mods available to me, back when I was hunting Saren. Their radioactive nature meant that every hit effectively gave the hostile a dose of radiation poisoning—which was a big deal if said hostile was organic. As a result, the Citadel Council declared them illegal. This Arc Pistol would have a similar effect against synthetics like EDI.

Or the geth, which Tali was clearly thinking of. "Against the geth, we need every advantage we can get," she argued.

"This'll be handy," I admitted. "Provided everyone watch their fire. We don't need any friendly fire incidents. Got it?"

"Sure thing," Garrus agreed, "but I got a question: how come I don't have a new gun?"

"Couldn't find one in your size," Tali teased. "Hang on… there! It's open. We're clear to go."

Sure enough, a hidden door… well, it didn't so much as open as it folded down and became a ramp. I led the squad to the floor below. "Okay, so where are we headed?"

"We're looking for an operations centre," Tali said. "I can disable the Reaper command signal from there."

"Where's the closest one?"

"Over there," Tali pointed down the corridor. "Past their defence network and through a sensor cluster."

We walked down the corridor and into a brightly lit room. Now geth don't exactly need things like mood lighting or anything like that. The only reason this area was lit up was because of the computer display situated in front of a piece of machinery. The way its parts rose and fell, accompanied with pneumatic hisses and venting of gases, looked very familiar.

Garrus confirmed my guess. "GARDIAN anti-fighter lasers. (7) Looks like they're using ultraviolet frequencies… like the salarians."

"So?" James frowned.

"Most races prefer infrared frequencies for mechanical reliability," Miranda explained. "Shorter frequencies—like those in the ultraviolet range—would offer superior stopping power and range."

"Up to six times the range," I chimed in. "UV frequencies are more expensive—apparently because using them degrades the focal arrays and mirrors a lot faster. But I guess it gives them an edge in close combat."

"I'll say," Tali said ruefully. "When the fleet rushed the dreadnought, those lasers carved right through our ships."

"Maybe we should consider adjusting the Normandy's weapons," I mused. "Give us a little more punch."

"Are you trying to give the engineering staff more work?" Tali asked.

"And me?" Garrus groaned. "I've already been told I do too many calibrations as it is, you know."

"It's not like we regularly get into ship-to-ship combat," I said. "Besides it's just a thought." I bent over and scanned a nearby weapons mod. "We'll talk about it later. Let's get to the op centre before the quarians lose anyone else."

The peace and quiet lasted for about half a minute. That was how long it took for us to continue our walk, find a console to extend a bridge, and a greeting party to show up. "Watch out!" Tali shouted. "Geth incoming!"

Ducking down behind a computer station, I launched a fireball at one of the geth troops. EDI ignited the plasma while Miranda hammered a second one with her biotics. Garrus and James fired off concussive rounds simultaneously. "Stay sharp," the former warned. "More on the way!"

"I don't hear an alarm," I observed, shooting some plasma at a rocket trooper.

"They're geth!" Tali replied, spawning a drone to stall the newcomers. "They sent alerts to every unit on this ship! We need to get to the operation centre before they box us in!"

By that point, I'd set two more geth on fire. One of them blew up after getting hit by Liara's biotic barrage, the other one suffered an overload from EDI's EMP. So I sidled over to the other side of a support column and dropped a geth with one shot from my sniper rifle. Javik knocked a geth over the side of a railing with a contemptuous flick of his wrist.

"More on the way," Miranda said. "One floor down."

"Teams Two and Three, hold position up here," I ordered. "Team One, with me."

We barely made it down the ladder and into position before the next wave of geth charged in. And by charged, I mean charged. If it wasn't for the barrage of EMPs from EDI, Miranda, Kaidan and Garrus—plus another drone from Tali—we would've been swarmed. "They're throwing their lives away," I cried out as I set one of the geth on fire.

"Networked intelligence!" Tali shouted down. "As we kill them, their attacks become more aggressive!"

Good thing we could react accordingly. A flurry of concussive rounds and biotics, plus a sniper round from your truly, took out three of the geth. "Keep up the pressure," I shouted. "Team Two, better get down here. Everyone, take out their shields!"

"And don't give them time to recharge!" Garrus added, dropping another geth with his own sniper rifle. I did the same before reloading. Meanwhile, Kaidan took my advice by draining most of a rocket trooper's shields. Miranda finished the job with her biotics and a well-aimed burst of gunfire. I checked my HUD. "Clear!" I shouted.

After getting confirmation from everyone else, Team Three came down the ladder to join us. While I was waiting, I scouted ahead. Good thing too—the geth planted a couple trip mines along the way. Easy to identify and safely detonate if you knew to look out for them.

We went down a path consisting of bare metal plates, stepping over the occasional proliferation of cables and moving around the random support beam. I managed to restock my thermal clips and scoop up some credits along the way, but other than that, there was nothing of note.

Then we entered a room full of computers and found something interesting. "Hey, check this out," I said, stopping at one of the consoles. "Is this what I think it is?"

"At a glance, it looks like the Reaper signal that the Admiralty showed us," Miranda said. "And it's hitting all geth processes simultaneously. The Reapers have them completely under their control."

"Tell me about it," Tali said, her voice filled with frustration. "We've tried jamming it, hacking it, piggybacking garbage data to corrupt it. Nothing worked."

"Well that's why we're here."

"Over here!" Kaidan called out at another terminal.

We hurried over to join him. I was the last one, as I was busy scanning an armour mod. Tali motioned for Kaidan to step aside. "Sensor data," Garrus realized as her fingers flew over the keyboard. "Any sign of how the quarians are doing?"

"We're taking heavy losses," Tali replied tensely. "The geth appear to have a planetary defence cannon. It's ripping through our fleets."

"Is there anything we can do to help them from here?" I asked.

"Just make their sacrifice worthwhile."

We headed out of the room and into another. Nothing other than yet another couple of computers. Which brought up another point: "Tali, why do we need to find the operations centre? Wouldn't any access console do the trick?"

She shook her head. "No. Anything we do here, the geth could counter. Too many fault-checks and redundancy levels for what we need to do."

"That's too bad, Sparks," James sighed.

"Sparks?" Tali asked blankly.

"Yeah. You know, 'cuz you've got lights on your… uh… I mean you're kinda small and jumpy, like… uh…" James fumbled around for another second or two before his shoulders slumped. "It just came out," he finished lamely.

"If you say so."

"Look on the bright side," Garrus said, saving James from further self-humiliation. "He keeps calling me 'Scars.' And Shepard, well, Shepard's 'Loco.' It means 'crazy'."

I don't think Tali had to laugh quite that hard. While she was doubling over, I scanned the inner workings of a geth pulse rifle. Then we went to the door.

"The dreadnought's operation centre is just ahead," Tali warned.

"Good," I nodded. "Let's cut the Reaper signal and get the fleets out of here."

Of course it wasn't quite that easy. Nothing ever is. As we hastily took cover, the geth hunters lay down a barrage of cover fire before cloaking. "The hunters are moving in!" Tali shouted.

"How the hell are we supposed to shoot something we can't see?" James cried out in frustration.

"That is why you should have four eyes," Javik suggested.

"Not helping."

Well I might not have four eyes, but my upgrades did allow me to see the telltale shimmering of someone moving under cloak. I lifted my sniper rifle, focused it on the centre of a shimmering mass and fired. "Couldn't hide from that!" Garrus laughed.

Using my HUD, I quickly assigned targets for each team. The locations were only good for a second before the hunters moved, but at least it would allow them to focus their fire. Meanwhile, there was a trooper that needed barbequing. And shooting.

As the trooper dropped, a couple more hunters flickered into view, unable to maintain their cloaks in the midst of some relatively successful shooting. One by one, they began collapsing. "Watch your six!" Garrus warned. "At least one hunter still active!"

I lifted my sniper rifle and fired. "Not any longer," I grinned.

"That's the last of them," Tali confirmed. "Let's see if that console is still operational."

We slowly headed towards the console, pausing to scoop up fresh thermal clips and clear the area of geth. Miranda paused by one of the computers. "Fascinating," she breathed.

"What?"

"This appears to be the central processor for the dreadnought. Look at how much data it's handling."

"I think it's processing data from all geth… everywhere," Tali said.

"Can we use it to stop the signal?" Kaidan asked.

"No. I'm afraid not."

We had even less success when we finally entered the operation centre and activated the consoles. Tali pulled up a schematic of the dreadnought while I scanned another weapons mod and looted some salvage. "Damn it," she cursed.

"I don't like the sound of that. What's the problem?"

"They've locked down the Reaper signal. We can't shut it down from here in the operation centre."

"Where is it coming from?" Miranda asked.

"Searching… there! The Reaper signal's coming from the drive core!"

"That could be good," Kaidan speculated. "If we get there, we could shut it off and power down the dreadnought's systems."

"Right, but how do we get there?" Tali asked. "The geth have sealed emergency bulkheads to block us off. We need a route to the drive core that can't be blocked. A path that runs the length of the ship."

"Hang on," Garrus said thoughtfully. "This is a dreadnought. By definition, her main guns run the length of the ship."

I took a look at the holographic schematics. "Not only that, but the main battery runs right by the drive core."

"That could work," Tali conceded.

"But?" I prompted.

"But the geth still have us locked in here. We need to get these doors open."

"They've sealed off all high-level processes," EDI said. "I may be able to use my cyberwarfare protocols to hack through, but the chances of succeeding before the geth track the signal back to the Normandy and attack are approximately 8.2%. What we need is something more basic. A low-level process that hasn't been sealed off, but would supersede all other priorities. A ship-wide emergency like…"

"Like a fire?" I suggested.

"That could work," Miranda nodded. "There's enough of us who can generate plasma. A fire in the right place would—"

"Wait!" Tali burst out. "We don't need to do that. All I have to do is access the protocols for the heat diffusion systems and fake a thermal warning. That would force the dreadnought to automatically open all maintenance tubes for emergency venting."

"Would that be enough to override the lockdown?" I asked.

"Yes!" Tali busied herself with a flurry of commands and coding. "Okay, I've got it primed. But…"

"But?"

"We have to be ready. I'm reading hostile geth on the other side of the doors."

James scratched his head. "Uh, Sparks? Hate to break it to you but, so far, all the geth are hostile."

He had a point. "Everyone, get into position," I ordered. We clustered by the door and readied our weapons. "Tali… hit it."

The good news was that the room we entered had a lot of computers and equipment to hide behind.

The bad news was that there were a lot of paths for the geth to take as they responded to our intrusion. "Watch out!" Garrus said. "They're coming in hot!"

"There could be cloaked hunters as well!"

"Team Three and I will handle the hunters," I decided. Javik and I could see them, and Garrus could probably see them with whatever upgrades he made to his visor. "The rest of Teams One and Two can handle everyone else."

I snapped off a shot at one of the cloaked hunters. Hoping I'd at least slowed it down, I moved to another firing position and assessed the battlefield. Liara was busy yanking a pair of troopers into a singularity while EDI was preparing to set them on fire. Miranda and Kaidan were firing off EMPs. James had just fired a concussive round. Tali deployed a drone in the middle of the room between some troopers and, judging by the weapons fire, some cloaked hunters. Garrus and Javik were amusing themselves by helping the drone out.

Things seemed under control… except for the hunter that had just decloaked a couple metres from my position. I set it on fire, fired point-blank with my sniper rifle and launched some more plasma. That did the trick. Reloading, I scanned the battlefield. All teams were finishing off the geth they had begun attacking… ah! I fired at another cloaked hunter, rolled to the other side of a stairwell and fired at a trooper that thought it was under cover. I was about to fire at another trooper, but a flicker out of the corner of my eye changed my mind. Snapping off a fireball, I dove forward, rolled to my feet and lifted my sniper rifle. "Garrus: duck!"

Garrus immediately dropped to the ground, giving me a clear line of sight to the shimmering distortion in front of me. One shot dropped the hunter in a spray of metal and hydraulic fluid. "Thanks," Garrus nodded, picking himself up.

"Anytime," I nodded. Spotting a nearby trooper caught in the grips of Miranda's biotics, I reloaded, fired a shot and then sent some plasma streaming over to finish it off. That just left two more troopers—until Tali hacked it. Then it was just a matter of sitting back, catching our breath and waiting to finish off the survivor.

"Let's get to the maintenance shaft before more reinforcements arrive," Tali suggested.

We did that as soon as we restocked on thermal clips. James kept craning his head and looking around. "Is it just me, or does this ship look weird?" he wanted to know.

"It's not just you," Garrus reassured him. "I've served on a lot of ships, but nothing like this. The contours are all off. It's not built for organics."

"Well we don't have to be thrown off by geth interior design for much longer," Liara said. "It shouldn't be too much farther to the main battery."

"It's not," Tali said, pausing to eject a spent thermal clip.

The sight of that raised an interesting point. "You know, Tali, I'm surprised they'd send you on this mission."

"Why, because of my promotion? Even admirals are expected to serve. Besides, I'm better at hacking than I am ordering ships around."

"Yeah, against an enemy dreadnought, your combat drone would just float there making that… noise," Garrus agreed.

"I missed you too, Garrus."

I looked at the two of them, shrugged, then turned my attention to bypassing the door in front of me. That didn't take too long to crack. Then we entered a circular chamber of sorts.

The next minute or two were spent alternating between running around half of the chamber and sliding down a ladder. The only thing that broke the monotony was some more salvage.

"Damn it. Priority message: that planetary defence cannon just hit Admiral Koris's ship."

And that. "How bad?" I asked Tali.

"It sounds like the Qwib-Qwib is going down. The order's been given to abandon ship. Admiral Raan's trying to establish a secure link."

"Put her through." I waited for Tali to give me the all-clear before beginning. "Admiral Raan, this is Commander Shepard. What's your status?"

The sitrep was short and to the point: "Shepard, the Heavy Fleet is collapsing. I don't know how much longer we can hold out."

I led the squad to another ladder and descended to the deck below. "We'll have the Reaper signal deactivated shortly, Admiral. Shepard out."

Thankfully, there were no more ladders. Just a door that led to another door that led to…

…

…um. Wow.

Okay. So I'm a spacer brat. Spent my life around starships and space stations. I'm hardly a stranger to crawling through maintenance shafts and squeezing through cramped quarters. But if I was honest with myself, I'd have to admit that I'd never actually wandered through a dreadnought's main battery. Imagine a really long, enormous shaft that ran as far as the eye could see—that's the barrel of the dreadnought's main guns.

Then imagine a couple corridors that ran parallel to said shaft. That's where the gunnery officers and engineers work. Normally, they'd be pressurized and insulated, because organic bodies aren't exactly suited to working in the vacuum of space or highly ionized areas.

Apparently the geth weren't concerned about stuff like that. I only realized that after I entered one of the corridors and the main guns fired. My helmet speakers automatically kicked in before I was permanently deafened.

At first, I thought the tingling on the back of my neck was a sign of impending doom. In a sense, it was. But it might have been a more literal warning of the electrical discharge from the gunshot. It manifested as a floor-to-ceiling shockwave that swept down the corridor. We ducked down behind some bulkheads as the wave swept over us. "Watch the shockwaves!" I belatedly shouted. "That's a big gun!"

"Hate to be in front of that bastard!" Garrus chimed in.

"We should be okay if we just stick to cover when the gun fires," Tali shouted back.

Miranda, however, had more immediate concerns. "Geth incoming! I think they've figured out what we're doing!"

Naturally. I quickly selected targets for the teams and we got to work. Three geth suddenly found themselves without shields—or, if they didn't have any to begin with, their guns and servomotors suddenly seizing up. Then they got hit by biotics. Then we pummelled them with fireballs or concussive rounds before resorting to good ol' fashioned gunfire.

Tali deployed a drone to keep any survivors occupied while I advanced. Unfortunately, I picked a bad time to break cover. Fortunately, I only lost my shields. And my pride.

At least I wasn't the only ones, judging by the curse James bit out. Though that wasn't necessarily a good thing, what with the rocket troopers that came in. They didn't seem fazed by the shockwaves. Come to think of it, none of the geth were.

Meanwhile, our progress was reduced to a crawl, what with our having to stop every few seconds and hide from the shockwaves. We'd never get anywhere if our momentum kept getting interrupted like that. And if we couldn't finish the mission, then all those quarian ships out there would keep getting picked off one by one. "Tali, are there any adjoining corridors that run along here?"

"Yes," Tali confirmed. "But they're on the other side of the main guns."

"Then we need to shut it down!" I yelled. "At least long enough to get out. We're sitting ducks if we stay here." (8)

That was when all those calibrations Garrus did finally paid off. "Find the maintenance lock! That'll take it offline!"

"Right. I'll look for it. Cover me!"

I launched some plasma at a rocket trooper, shot it with my sniper rifle, then used up the rest of my clip laying the hurt on a cloaked hunter. Meanwhile, EDI, Miranda and Kaidan hit the geth with their EMPs. Without shields or working weapons, it was easy for Liara to snatch them up in a singularity. Everyone ducked in the face of the latest shockwave before popping up and peppering them with concussive rounds and bullets.

Everyone but me, that is. I was busy looking for the maintenance lock, belatedly realizing in between shockwaves that I'd gone the wrong way, and surprising the cloaked hunter who thought no one could see it. Leaving its burnt circuit boards behind, I ran forward. A rocket trooper tried to follow me, only to face a sudden barrage from Tali's drone and Miranda's biotics. I slowly made my way forward, pausing only to scoop up a thermal clip, swipe some salvage and avoid shockwaves. Eventually, I managed to make it to the maintenance console and activate the lock.

The main guns powered down as a series of concentric shutters rotated into place. The rest of the squad converged on my position. "That'll buy us time," Garrus said. "No way they'll fire with that maintenance lock in place."

Without any geth or shockwaves to worry about, we entered the main bore of the guns themselves. We'd just begun to move when everything shook. "They must have overridden the maintenance lock," Miranda realized. "The guns are coming back online!"

All of a sudden, the threat of geth or shockwaves seemed laughable when compared to the thought of getting hit with a giant mass accelerator round. It would be like getting hit by a shuttle… times several orders of magnitude. "Come on!" I urged as the shutters began to rotate open again. "Let's get out of here!"

Thankfully we didn't need to go too far before finding the corridor Tali had mentioned. "Hurry!" I snapped, motioning the squad through. A harsh blare vibrated through the air, our hardsuits and our bones as the main guns prepared another round. I leapt through milliseconds before the guns discharged, narrowly avoiding the door that slammed shut behind me.

"Cut that a little close, Loco!" James panted.

"Uh, guys? I wish that was it, but…"

"Oh you gotta be kidding me?" I groaned.

He wasn't. More hostile geth. Yeah. "Watch your shields! Stick to cover!" Tali shouted as we scattered.

We were already in position by the time the first rocket trooper appeared. Tali's drone and Miranda's EMP made short work of its shields. I managed to drop it with a headshot and duck down before a wave of crackling energy swept over us. "I thought the whole point of getting to this corridor was to avoid the shockwaves," I complained.

"It's supposed to be shielded," Tali replied. "I don't understand."

"I am detecting inconsistencies in the surrounding plating and insulation," EDI announced. "Perhaps this dreadnought was rushed into service before it was completed."

"Whatever the reason, we have no choice but to keep fighting the machines," Javik snapped.

He was right. As Miranda and James hammered another rocket trooper, I looked around. The two rocket troopers we'd dealt with so far were up on the floor above us, along with a third. Superior positioning plus shockwaves equalled serious trouble. There was a ladder connecting the two levels, but getting to it meant running through a gauntlet of rockets. But behind us... "Teams Two and Three: take out the geth if you can, but make sure none of them get down here." I hit the third rocket trooper with a direct hit, taking out its shields. "Team One with me!"

You see, there was a ramp behind us that also led up to the next floor. If the geth got there first, they could hit us from behind. If we got there first, though…

It wound up being close.I made it to the top of the ramp just in time to take a rocket to the face. On the bright side, my shields took the brunt of it. Plus, it was so focused on me, EDI and Liara were able to get the drop on him. My sniper rifle did the rest.

Seeing a shimmer along the walls, I lifted my rifle again and fired. My fireball finished off the hunter before it could get close. Then I scouted around. Maybe a little too long, considering I got clipped by another shockwave, but I got the intel I needed. "Everyone listen up: Team One has the high ground. Get up here ASAP."

I continued once the squad was reassembled. "The only way to our target from here is down that ladder. I want Team Three up here on overwatch. Teams One and Two will go down the ladder and advance. Let's move, people."

Garrus and Javik took out a lone trooper while the rest of us scurried down. Then Teams One and Two began leapfrogging forward. In the end, the only thing we had to worry about was the shockwaves. It took less than a minute before we found a side door. Once Team Three joined us, we headed through.

The door led us up a few ramps into another section of the ship. One shielded from all the shockwaves, much to my relief. We went through a few doors into a room, cylindrical in shape like so many others. A catwalk ran partially around it, but not enough to get to the door beyond. In the middle of the room was a platform with a computer console, guarded by rails. Leaning over, I could see several floors below me, until the light faded into a dark abyss.

There was nothing on the catwalk but a bit of salvage. Nothing that could get us to the door, anyway. So I tried the computer console, hoping it would extend a bridge of some sort. Instead, it extended a ramp from the ceiling above us. Good enough. The squad quickly went up.

Just as I was about to follow them, two rocket troopers rushed in with weapons drawn. At first I thought their rockets missed me. Then I realized they were aiming at the platform below me. The impact shook it. To my alarm, I could feel it shift beneath my feet. Even worse, the bridge began to retract.

"Hurry!" Miranda shouted.

I ran forward and leapt up, arms pinwheeling madly. My fingers managed to latch onto the edge of the bridge. "Hang on!" Tali yelled. She and Miranda reached down and pulled me up as the platform collapsed beneath me. I could hear it clattering against the walls as it fell down into the depths of the chamber. "Shepard?" Miranda asked me worriedly.

"I'm all right," I reassured her. "Just let me catch my breath."

"Tell me we don't have much farther to go," James pleaded.

"The drive core shouldn't be far," Tali nodded.

She was right. We just had to go up a ladder, along a corridor and through a set of doors, picking up the odd bit of salvage along the way.

The doors led us to a large circular chamber. Most of it was shrouded in darkness. The only light came from the centre of a room. A computer console lay in front of a dark grey sphere of some sort. Above it was some kind of skeletal scaffolding that contained the dreadnought's drive core, its energy writhing and twisting as if it was alive.

"That's definitely Reaper tech," I said, holstering my rifle and moving to the console. I hit a couple keys to open a command prompt. "But what—"

A loud hiss cut me off. Before me, the lower sphere separated into two… sections. Like a pair of hands that had previously been clasped together, one over the other. The lower 'hand' lowered into the ground. The other one rotated in place before rising up to reveal…

"Shepard-Commander. Help us."

"Legion," I whispered, staring at them in shock. (9) I couldn't believe my eyes. But it really was Legion—complete with the giant hole in their chest. Their hands were bound above them by some kind of shackles.

Garrus recovered first. "Good to see you, Legion. We'll have you out of there in no time."

"Right," I nodded. "Now let's see—"

"Shepard, wait," Tali said. "The geth are being controlled by the Reaper signal."

"Right," I said slowly. "This thing."

"So for all we know, Legion is with them. Maybe it sided with the Reapers voluntarily. Or maybe it's hacked."

"Legion helped us fight the Reapers before," I argued. "There's no way they would agree to this."

"They may have been coerced," Miranda frowned.

"Your caution is understandable," Legion said. "Once freed, we will submit to any restraints you deem necessary."

"Satisfied?" I asked.

"For now," Tali replied. She took a step forward. "I never thought I'd say this, but… it's good to see you again."

"Likewise, Creator Zorah."

"So what is this thing?" I asked. "And why are you hooked up to it?"

"It is a modified transmitter, designed to use our networking architecture to broadcast the Old Machine command signal to all geth simultaneously."

"'Old Machine'?" James and Javik asked in unison.

"The geth term for Reaper," I replied. "So if you're an integral part of this transmitter, then getting you out of there would free you and shut off the Reaper signal." I raised my hands to the console. "Then let's do this."

"Wait. You cannot simply remove the restraints. We are secured via hardware blocks nearby that shackle our operating protocols." "The hardware blocks are on the far side of the room." Legion turned their head and looked at the blocks in question.

Of course they were all the way over there. I headed towards the far side of the room, picking up salvage and scanning weapon mods along the way. "How hard will it be to crack these things?"

"Deactivation should be simple. The geth protected them against remote viral attack, not physical removal."

Translation: they didn't expect a low-tech approach, so there were no safeguards along those lines. "How'd the Reapers get control of the geth?"

"They did not. The Creators attacked. The geth wished to live. The Old Machines extended an offer."

I came to a halt, suddenly filled with rage. I knew it. I knew it! None of this would've happened if the quarians couldn't own up to their mistakes and move on instead of trying to repeat history. Thanks to their stupidity, we could lose two invaluable allies—one to the Reapers, the other to extinction.

Legion failed to mention that accessing the far side of the room meant taking an elevator up to the next floor. After everything I'd been through so far, though, one more surprise wasn't that big a deal. "I seem to recall going to that geth station and temporarily rewriting the heretics," I said aloud.

"Heretics?"

"A minority faction of geth that sought to ally with the Reapers," Miranda answered to James' question.

"Oh. Thanks, ma'am."

"I thought the whole idea of rewriting them was to give them a taste of what life would be like as slaves under the Reapers' collective thumb," I continued. "They didn't forget that, did they?"

"No. That experience convinced them to seek consensus with the other geth and made the decision to ally with the Old Machines even more difficult. Had the Creators not attacked, it would have been unnecessary."

"It would appear that the geth only joined the Reapers because the quarians attacked first," EDI summarized.

"Nothing excuses an alliance with the Reapers," Tali said angrily. "They could have found another way."

"Some would say the same about turians curing the genophage and allying with the krogan," Garrus pointed out. "We could've done something different. Try to go it alone. Reach out to anyone other than the krogan. But we didn't. We found another way."

"I know you don't want to hear this, Tali," I said softly. "But your people could've found another way too. All they had to do was try. Try to establish new colonies and, eventually, a new homeworld. Try to talk to the geth. Instead, they chose to repeat the past. To cobble together geth and experiment on them. To develop a countermeasure custom-tailored to thwart the geth. To initiate hostilities against the geth. There's an old human saying, Tali: war makes for strange bedfellows. And while I think it's a horrible mistake for the geth to get in bed with the Reapers… all the evidence I've seen and heard so far suggests that it was the quarians who started this war in the first place."

"Yes, but…" Tali's shoulders sagged, unable to muster a counterargument. "Damn it. I begged them to negotiate rather than attack. I did."

"I know. But they didn't listen." Granted, Tali might not have put the best case forward in presenting an argument against this war. And it was strange bouncing from keeping in touch with Legion to voting against the war to doing her best to maintain unity once she'd been outvoted. But there was no denying that she'd been thrown into a leadership role with very little in the way of training—unless you counted Haestrom, and that didn't exactly end well. Maybe she was trying to do the best she could without any experience or idea of how to do so.

"Let's get Legion out of there," I said. That'll buy your people—and us—some breathing room while we figure out our next move."

At last, I reached the console that controlled the hardware blocks. After a bit of fiddling… "Got it," I announced.

"Tali'Zorah to fleet," Tali said into her comm. "The signal is about to go offline."

"This is Admiral Han'Gerrel. We're in your debt."

"Hardware blocks offline," Legion stated. "We are free."

The shackles clamped on Legion's arms popped open with a series of hisses. Legion dropped to the platform below, which lowered them to the ground. Then they looked up. At me, I thought initially.

Then the energy in the drive core collapsed from a miniature sun to a miniature speck of light. It twinkled at us before exploding outwards and dissipating into nothing. "Keelah!" Tali exclaimed.

"As a gesture of cooperation, we have disabled the dreadnought's drive core," Legion told us. "All weapons are barriers are offline."

Which would go a long ways towards helping the quarians escape. "Thanks," I began to say.

Then I felt a tingling on the back of my neck. Aw, crap. I instinctively pulled out my sniper rifle. The rest of the squad did the same.

"Alert! Geth reinforcements incoming."

Metal objects began dropping one by one from the ceiling to the floor. Each one unfolded into a geth platform. Somehow, I had the feeling they weren't friendly. "Here we go again," I sighed.

"The geth fleet is destabilized," Admiral Xen reported as we opened fire. "The signal is offline."

"Watch out, that's a prime. Heavily armed, heavily armoured, maintains tactical control of the other geth."

"Thanks for the heads-up, Sparks," James shouted.

"Teams Two and Three on the prime," Miranda ordered. "Shepard?"

"Got it. Under my direction, Liara froze a trooper with the cryo mod on her gun. I blew it to smithereens with one shot while EDI dropped an EMP on another trooper. As Team One concentrated fire on it, I listened to the conversation going on outside. "Civilian Fleet, prepare to withdraw," Admiral Raan ordered. "The Patrol Fleet will cover you once the Heavy Fleet is in position."

Tali deployed another drone to keep a third trooper at bay, mostly so Teams Two and Three could continue hammering away at the prime. It also helped make Team One's job a lot easier. All I had to do was set it on fire and the trooper was done.

"Whenever you're ready, Admiral Gerrel."

"Good," Garrus approved. "Let's see what the quarians can do. Wait—drone incoming!"

I couldn't see the drone, but I could see a rocket trooper. One shot took out its shields. Another blew a hole through its flashlight head. EDI zapped a second rocket trooper just before Liara hauled it and a trooper into one of her singularities. I set them both on fire.

"Turrets," Liara warned. "The prime is setting up turrets."

"Team One, change of plans: we're gonna flank the prime and hit it with everything we've got. All other teams: hang on." I led EDI and Liara around the left while the rest of the squad covered us. My shields took a couple hits before we got in position. "I have a lock on the prime," I reported. "Launch EMPs on the following coordinates. EDI, you're up first."

EDI hit the prime. Then Miranda. Then Kaidan. Tali's energy draining trick was the final straw. "Shields down, switch to biotics and plasma." I launched a fireball, then lifted my sniper rifle while Liara hit it with her biotics. My shot landed a couple seconds before James' concussive round.

As Team Three finished off the prime, I heard Raan speak again. "Admiral Gerrel, what are you doing?"

"Raan, check your screens! The dreadnought is helpless!"

I rolled behind a computer, popped my head up and fired a shot. The geth trooper twitched and collapsed as if it was a puppet whose strings had just been cut.

"No barriers," Gerrel continued, "and the main gun is offline. We can remove their flagship if we strike now!"

"Damn it, this is our chance to withdraw the Civilian Fleet safely!" Raan cried out in dismay.

"What are you talking about, Gerrel?" Tali added. "We're still on board!"

"And the plan was to get your people to safety once the Reaper signal was disabled!" I snapped. "Remember?"

"We can't waste this chance. Heavy Fleet, all forward. Take out the dreadnought!"

EDI and Liara combined their efforts to take out a trooper. Miranda, James and Kaidan did the same with a rocket trooper. Tali, Garrus and Javik finished off the last of the drones and turrets that the geth prime had spawned.

"Patrol Fleet, hold position," Raan ordered as the squad advanced, only to scramble for cover as another pair of troopers opened fire.

"You do that and the Heavy Fleet gets wiped out," Gerrel yelled. "And if we die, a simple retreat won't save you from the geth response!"

"Damn you, Gerrel!" Raan cried out.

"Damn it, what are they doing?" Tali asked.

I was wondering the same thing, though I had a bad feeling I knew the answer. "Focus on the geth!" I said instead. "We'll worry about the admirals later!"

We quickly spread out, each team advancing one at the time while everyone else lay down a ferocious barrage of fire. Most of the geth we faced were troopers who had been damaged from earlier assaults and could only take a few more bullets before collapsing.

The second prime, on the other hand, was another matter. It must have been freshly activated. No matter. "Just like before, Shepard?" Miranda asked.

"Yea—wait. Let's try something new." I quickly laid out what I had in mind. "Everyone got it?" A chorus of yeahs greeted my ears. "Then let's do it."

I fired the first shot with my sniper rifle. Then EDI hit it with her EMP. Liara's biotics set off the residual ionization with explosive effects. Then it was Miranda and James' turn to show the prime what they could do. By that point, its shields were gone so I fired off some plasma. Tali ignited the plasma before Kaidan hit it with his biotics. Garrus landed a direct hit with his sniper rifle, blowing it to smithereens.

Then my worst fears came to pass: "Patrol Fleet, flanking support on the Heavy Fleet," Raan ordered. "Give them a firing lane."

"All ships, open fire!" Gerrel shouted.

The quarians' salvo knocked us all off our feet. Pieces of equipment fell down around us. Picking myself up, I ran over to the lower level where we'd first entered and looked down at Legion. They looked back up at me. "Shepard-Commander, the Creator fleet is firing upon this vessel."

"Gee, ya think?"

Legion had been around me long enough to know when I was being rhetorical. "Without barriers, this ship will be destroyed. We must evacuate."

"Good idea," I approved. "Where's the nearest escape pod?"

"Geth transmit intelligences via remote signal. We do not use escape pods."

Oh for crying out loud! "Cortez can pick us up. All we need is a place where the shuttle can dock."

"There is another option, Shepard-Commander: geth fighters are docked in the port-side fighter bay. We can pilot one to safety."

"That works too," I nodded.

"Sending coordinates now. We will meet you there."

"Got it!" I said once I received the NavPoint. "You heard Legion, people. Let's move!"

Following Legion's directions, we ran up a ramp, through the door and took a left—only to see that path get cut off by a fiery explosion. Turning about, we went right. I activated the comm as we waited for another door to cycle open. "Shepard to fleet! Hold fire! I repeat, hold fire!"

"They're not responding," Tali told me.

"Damn it!" I cursed.

"Shepard-Commander, we have taken control of docking protocols," Legion told us.

"We'll be right there—" I paused as a large piece of falling debris took out part of the walkway in front of us. "—eventually," I finished. Taking a running jump, I tried to clear the gap. Unfortunately, another section of the walkway collapsed beneath my weight and I fell to the floor below.

"Shepard?" Miranda asked worriedly. "Are you hurt?"

"Does my pride count?" I groaned.

Miranda didn't reply, too busy leading the rest of the squad down to join me. "Quarian bastards!" Garrus cried out.

It probably said something that Tali didn't take offense to that remark.

"Shepard-Commander, we have tracked your detour. We regret to inform you that we can only launch from the upper level."

"Let's go!" Kaidan yelled.

"They're closing the door!" Javik warned.

"Double-time, people!" I urged. "Let's go, go, go!"

I managed to find a series of ramps that took us back to the upper level—and, more importantly, bypassed the gap. "Hurry," Tali cried out, "we're losing the environmental fields!"

"We'll make it," I replied.

As if the universe had heard me and wanted to respond out of spite, the next explosion—courtesy of the quarians—took us off our feet. Literally: one second we were running for our lives, the next we were floating through the air. Calmly walking towards us, no doubt utilizing mag-locks on their feet, Legion strolled over, reached out and hauled us to safety one at a time.

"Normandy to Shepard," Joker said over the comm. "I'm reading a loss of gravity. You okay over there?"

I latched onto one of the geth fighters and pulled myself in. "Fine," I said tersely. "We're leaving in a geth fighter. Transmitting rendezvous coordinates." Seeing that the rest of the squad was piling into a different fighter, I pushed myself over to join them.

"Just waggle the wings or something so I know which one is you."

"Understood. Shepard out."

"Does the storage compartment have adequate room, Shepard-Commander?" Legion asked when I arrived.

Actually, it was a bit tight. As in tighter-than-a-can-of-sardines tight. (10) Under the circumstances, though, we weren't exactly spoiled for choice. "We're fine, Legion. Go!"

(1): A treaty signed by Council races limiting the number of dreadnoughts amongst the different Citadel races in their given fleets, in an effort to mitigate their destructive potential. For every five dreadnoughts the turians—whose vessels makes up the majority of the Citadel Fleet—construct, the other Council races—asari, salarian and human—may build three and the Council associate races—such as the hanar and volus—can build one. However, as their embassy was shut down following the war with the geth and their subsequent exile, the quarians technically are under no obligation to abide by the terms of that treaty.

(2): Admiral Xen equated experimenting on geth with her past hobby of performing surgery on childhood toys, a revelation that Shepard—and several others—found rather disturbing.

(3): A fictional human scientist who developed a technique to impart life to non-living matter, which ultimately was used to animate 'the Monster'—an amalgamation of body parts stitched together. The latter would subsequently and erroneously be referred to as Frankenstein himself.

(4): Also known as lidar, it is a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light. The term was originally created as a portmanteau of 'light' and 'radar,' though it subsequently became known as an acronym for various phrases.

(5): This may be an allusion to the 1984 human novel 'The Hunt for Red October,' about an American intelligence analyst who led a group of naval officers to track and take possession of a Soviet nuclear submarine with cutting-edge stealth technology. The novel was subsequently turned into a vid and various computer games.

(6): Apparently, this particular argument began shortly after Shepard became a Spectre and was maintained out of a sense of good-natured camaraderie and friendship rather than bitter rivalry. I consider it notable simply because Shepard was unaware of it until this point.

(7): General ARea Defence Integration Anti-spacecraft Network, a system of anti-missile and anti-fighter laser turrets on the exterior hull of a starship.

(8): A human idiom meaning one is exposed, out in the open or otherwise extremely vulnerable.

(9): After Shepard learned that Legion was actually a gestalt consciousness formed by 1 183 geth programs, he adopted the habit of using the plural form of address. Curiously, he never extended that to the other geth he encountered, as each platform also consisted of multiple programs.

(10): A human idiom for being extremely crowded, to which I wholeheartedly agreed.