"Open up!" screamed a human voice over the Cerberus tactical net. "It's Conti! Open up!"

Major Griggs stared at the heavy sliding door at the end of the bare metal room. Six meters wide, the door stretched from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, and took almost thirty seconds to close completely once Doctor Archer commandeered the geth network. The rest of Grigg's squad, hand-picked from the elite ranks of the Centurions, watched her intently as they stood among square columns holding up inactive geth platforms, four each, one to a side. Beneath the floor, intricate patterns etched in soft blue-green light traced geth data pathways. They lead back to a wall of Cerberus holo screens surrounding an exposed node of the geth network.

Closing the giant door was a precaution to keep the quarians from interfacing with the network node as Archer had done. The geth hub was rebooting, and soon hundreds, maybe thousands of platforms would join Cerberus in their defense. In the mean time, two squads of Cerberus shock troops stood ready at the facility's entrance on the surface to block the quarian's advance. Even the vaunted Migrant Fleet Marines wouldn't be able to defeat entrenched human elites.

But all contact with the Cerberus soldiers on the surface had ceased, until Conti cried for help from the other side of the door. Griggs waved to an operative who keyed a button on his omnitool. The giant door opened to one side, and before it made it ten centimeters along its track an armored arm squeezed through, followed by a shoulder. Griggs pulled Conti through and he fell to the ground. "Seal it!" Griggs shouted and the door reversed on its track and slammed shut.

"Thank you," Conti said, barely able to climb to his knees. His kinetic barrier generators sparked and his black and gold armor was plastered with scorch marks. He repeated his thanks as he caught his breath.

"What happened?" Griggs demanded as she pulled him to his feet. "Where's the rest of your team?"

"They're all dead!"

"What?" Griggs blinked. Twenty-four of the best soldiers Cerberus could field couldn't possibly have failed. "You let the quarians through?"

"It's not the quarians!" Conti's voice betrayed utter terror. "It's Shepard! He's here! They all are! They cut right through us! Qe couldn't even get down a base of fire. They tore through us like we weren't even there!"

Griggs looked between the door and the panicked trooper on the floor. Her own squad looked at one another with uneasy glances. "Where are they now?"

"Right behind me! We gotta get out of here!" Conti staggered to his feet and ran blindly past. Griggs didn't have to stop stop him. The chamber's dead end did it for her. Conti whirled around to face her, eyes wide. Her own squad stared at her, gripping their weapons tightly.

"We've got to go," Doctor Archer said. He still kept his hands in the air, even though the pair of troopers guarding him now watched the closed door. "He's coming for us! All of us!"

"Stay put, Doctor!" Griggs pointed at the AI researcher, who wisely shut his mouth. She needed a clearer picture of the situation. She keyed the transmitter on the side of her helmet. "Griggs to Xenophon, come in Xenophon. Is anyone monitoring this channel?"

Archer took a step forward, which got him the muzzle of a rifle pointed right at his helmet. "They're dead, Major! All of them! The Xenophon is gone! Shepard destroyed it! He's coming here now to take control of the the geth! Destroy this terminal and get us out of here before its too late!"

Griggs looked about the room and the inactive geth platforms attached to the pillars. "How long until they come back online?"

"I don't know! But if Shepard gets in here he'll turn them against us!"

"Farrow!" Griggs pointed to the network console mounted in the back wall behind the columns. "Rig it for remote detonation. We'll blow the console as soon as we're out-"

Before she could finish her order, the giant door bulged inward as if punched by a giant fist and exploded from its track. Griggs dove behind one of the geth columns as the metal missile smashed into into the room, instantly crushing half of her troops. It bounced against the geth columns and fell to the floor with a bang they could feel through their boots on the deck.

Griggs rolled on her back and brought her Revenant to bear. It was overkill at this close range, but it was what was in her hands. In the opening stood an asari in a red vac suit, glittering with biotic energy, but she took not a single hit. A hulking figure in white armor charged in front of her, immediately drawing fire of everyone left standing. Impact after impact sparked against his barrier but the krogan didn't even flinch. He grabbed Sanderson by his helmet and wrenched it so hard the body landed minus the head. The beast hurled the flesh-filled helmet into Takagi, then fired a massive hand cannon which blew out the back of his armor in a single shot. Behind him, tracers flew into the chamber like a swarm of meteors.

Still on her back, Griggs swept her weapon across the open corridor and fired. None of her shots connected. Her stomach fluttered as if in free fall as she sped toward the ceiling. She barely had time to shield her head as she spiraled back to the floor feeling a sickening crunch throughout her body. She rolled on her back in a daze, but could still make out the a faded blue biotic aura in the doorway. It was a human woman, decked out in black and white Cerberus issue vac armor. Griggs raised her weapon to zero in on the traitorous bitch but her arms flung back over her head, sending her rifle skittering against the wall.

A tall human stood above her, clad in dark gray armor. There was no mistaking the white-and-red stripe on his right shoulder and N7 logo on his breast plate as he aimed his rifle square at her head. Her hand whipped down for the Locust on her hip. She howled in pain as Shepard stomped her wrist with his boot with all his might. The last thing she saw eyes as cold and ruthless as the Illusive Man's looking into hers as her kinetic barrier flared and faded and armor-piercing slugs ripped through her skull.

"Clear," shouted Zaeed. He pointed his rifle at the downed Cerberus troops as he passed, putting rounds into the heads of any that still looked intact. Grunt stomped on the bodies on the ground as he advanced, making sure they weren't just playing dead. The rest of the squad followed behind.

Shepard examined one of the columns of the room and the wrecked hulk of a standard geth platform still dangling in its rack. White conductive fluid dripped on the floor. Beyond, holo displays flickered over geth console near the back of the chamber. "Tali, over here!"

At the sound of her name, Tali slipped her shotgun back into her leg holster and jogged to Shepard at the back of the room while the rest of the squad covered them. Her omnitool flared around her arm as she tried to make sense of the Cerberus interface. "Dammit! They locked the console. I've got to get through their security first."

Miranda slung her weapon and moved next to her. "Let me see what I can do."

Shepard and the rest of the squad watched the quarian and the former Cerberus operative worked side-by-side at the geth console. "Got it," Miranda announced and stepped back from the console to let Tali back in. "All yours."

Shepard looked toward the opening to the corridor. "How long?"

Tali shook her head as she studied the console. "I don't know."

The cool blue network indicators in the floor flickered and blinked, then went out altogether, before switching back on to flood the chamber with a hellish red glow. Garrus stared at the bloody red path that appeared beneath his feet and stepped away as if he'd stepped in wet cement. "That can't be good."

Shepard whirled around to face the closest column as the geth platform's head raised up, its flashlight aperture ablaze with red light. He fired point blank into its head. Zaeed, Samara, Garrus and Miranda joined in firing, while Grunt simply walked from platform to platform, tearing them down his bare hands, spraying himself and the floor with white fluid. For a second, all was quiet.

"Geth are downloading to physical platforms throughout the hub," Tali said from behind them.

Shepard waved Zaeed and Grunt to the door and turned back to the quarian. "How many?"

Tali's voice was strained as she surveyed the Cerberus screens. "Thousands."

Shepard scanned his tactical display. Geth processes could travel anywhere they had a network connection, but their platforms would have to physically traverse a central corridor to reach them. Against thousands of geth acting in unison, the chamber would be overrun in seconds. Shepard looked at Tali, his expression and tone dire. "We'll keep them off of you as long as we can."

Before Tali could utter a word, Shepard was on his way out to the corridor. What remained of the squad followed him. As much as she wanted to draw her shotgun and charge after them, if she strayed from her station, none of them would survive. Not the Commander, not the squad, maybe not even the Migrant Fleet. She took a deep breath and focused on the panel in front of her as her friends marched out to face an army of geth without her.

Shepard peered around the corner of the red-tinted corridor that stretched off to the left of the terminal chamber. It was empty and quiet. Miranda knelt in front of him, also watching the corridor ahead. Across the hall, Zaeed and Samara took cover in an alcove above a pair of geth platforms that now lay crumpled and disconnected on the floor. Garrus dragged one of them to the middle of the corridor and lay prone behind it, propping the bipod of his rifle on the deck to one side of its head. They had two guns on each side of the hall, with Garrus at the back and Grunt in reserve.

The corridor stretched as far as they could see until it dissolved into a red haze fifty meters away, with side corridors branching off every few meters. Soon, every geth platform on the station would funnel down the main corridor toward them. Shepard glanced across the corridor to Zaeed and Samara. "Bet you're both regretting coming back."

Samara's eyes reflected the calm in her voice as she watched the corridor beyond. "I have no regrets at all, Commander. My place is here, with all of you."

"What she said," Zaeed said, standing behind the former Justicar, peering around his corner. "Been blowing holes in things all my life. Don't know if it ever counted for anything before."

"Hear, hear," Miranda said, crouched in front of Shepard. The ammo indicator of her Locust glowed white as did all the other weapons in the squad.

Garrus adjusted his sights as he crawled closer to the dead geth platform on the deck. "I'd just like to point out you actually had to kick me off the ship."

Shepard rolled his eyes. "That's because you're too stubborn to do what's good for you."

"Look who's talking." Garrus's comment was rewarded with a round of quiet laughter over the squad channel.

"I don't know what you're all complaining about," Grunt said, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he stood in the doorway behind Shepard and Miranda. "Dashta was the most fun I've had since the Collector Base And now this? This has been the best week of my life!"

"It's been one for the books," Shepard said. It was obvious Grunt had a short memory when it came to casualties. Bringing that up now might bring him down from his combat high, and they needed it now more than ever.

Miranda shifted to rest on one knee, still keeping her weapon aimed down the corridor. She could hear the change in Shepard's tone. The geth could strike at any moment, and they definitely didn't need him falling apart now. "Commander, did you get a chance to watch that vid?"

"Which one?" Shepard smirked beneath his helmet. "Fleet and Flotilla?"

Garrus sighed over the comm, loudly, while the rest of the squad shared yet another laugh at his expense.

"No," Miranda said. "Normandy's Hope. The piece your friend Emily Wong did?"

"Haven't had the chance. What's it about?"

Garrus shook his head. "Mostly about you, running around saving the galaxy. All by yourself, apparently. I mean, I was mentioned in passing, but otherwise it's just 'Shepard, Shepard, Shepard...'"

Shepard grinned. "Finally, some good, honest reporting." That got him a round of groans and boos, which made him smile more.

"Regardless of it's veracity," Miranda said, "You need to see it."

"Definitely," Garrus said.

"All right," Shepard kept staring through his scope into the haze that filled the corridor. "It's at the top of my to-do list. As soon as we get out of here."

Daro'Xen's marines led her deep into the geth installation, weapons raised. As she surmised, the entrance to the geth enclave was empty and undefended. As the column progressed, the marines kept glancing down to keep from tripping over the obstructions that littered the metal deck. Even the most hardened of them couldn't stop from staring at the human corpses lying on the ground as they passed. Fully armed and armored, the Cerberus operatives were strewn across the floor like broken statues. Some of them weren't even recognizable as human, still bubbling blood into the vacuum from the holes in their suits. Xen's landing party hadn't missed Shepard's passing by long.

More unsettling than the dead humans were the red channels of light glowing beneath the walls and decking. Geth processes were flooding into to physical platforms in preparation to defend the installation. In two, maybe three minutes, Xen and her squad of marines might be overrun, and control of the geth lost forever to Cerberus.

The marine at the head of the column halted and crouched when he reached an intersection, and the rest of the squad followed suit. Xen crept behind him. "What is it?"

The squad leader kept his voice low. "Shepard's team is right around the corner to the left. They're blocking our advance."

"Damn it," Xen said. "Is there any other way around?"

"No ma'am. Not unless we go all the way back out and find another way in."

Xen's heart thumped in her rib cage. At any time, rampaging geth could come pouring in from around the facility. They had even less of a chance surviving the geth than Shepard's band of killers. Turning back was out of the question. She opened the comm panel on her omnitool to broadcast in the open. "Commander Shepard, are you receiving?"

Shepard scowled when he heard a familiar voice in his ear. "Who's this?"

"Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh."

"What the hell?" Garrus said. According to the countermeasure suite in his visor, the unencrypted, uncompressed broadcast came from around the first corner of the corridor ten meters away. He marked the source on the squad tactical display and shifted his aim.

"I beg you, listen to me. We don't have much time. The geth will be here soon."

Shepard adjusted his aim along with the rest of the squad to Garrus's mark. "Glad you're here to see it. Come on out. We saved you a seat for the grand finale."

"I can stop them, Shepard!"

Shepard stared down the long corridor stretching before him. For now, there was still no sign of the geth. "How?"

"Get me to a terminal and I can shut them down. You don't want the Illusive Man to have the geth any more than I. If we fail here, no one will be able to stop Cerberus. Humanity and the entire galaxy will be enslaved by their will. Is that what you want?"

The network traces in the walls and floor pulsed red in earnest. With power fully restored and free from restraint, the geth hub was now processing at full capacity.

"Shepard, there's no time," Xen urged. "The geth will be here any second. We still have a chance if we work together!"

The squad watched Shepard with a mixture of surprise and incomprehension as he lowered his rifle. He bowed his head, deep in thought. Shepard couldn't ever forgive Xen for the things she'd done, but an appeal for unity was something he could never pass up. "Come into the corridor. Keep your hands where we can see them."

"She sticks her head out," Garrus put his crosshairs on the intersection beyond, "I'm taking it off!"

"Hold your fire," Shepard shouted. "That's an order! Weapons down!"

"Weapons down," Xen said to her marines and stepped into the main corridor with her hands in the air. Shepard's squad kept their weapons at hand, but were no longer aiming at her. However, she could see hate in the eyes of those that held them. The pulsing red light in the corridor grew brighter.

Shepard, in his dark gray battle gear, stepped out into the open and motioned over his shoulder. "The terminal's back in there. We need to hurry."

"Let's go," Xen said.

Shepard talked as he escorted Xen to the terminal chamber past the shocked stares of his crew. He nodded at Xen's marines. "Position your people at the first intersection. My squad's already in position to cover them."

"Do it," Xen told her squad leader. Her omnitool flared around her wrist. The virus, pre-loaded, was ready for injection. All she needed was an open connection. Her bad leg sent a spasm through her entire body and she stumbled, but Shepard caught her. He actually put his shoulder under hers to help her along.

"How long will it take?" Shepard asked.

"Not long," Xen said. She almost felt sorry for the human. His trusting nature had already gotten him into trouble with the Citadel, with Cerberus, even his own crew. The fact that Shepard meant well counted for nothing. The universe didn't care about good and evil, right and wrong. All that mattered was survival. If not for the fact that Shepard wanted to stop the quarians from retaking control of their creations, Xen would have let him and his crew live. But in order to protect her people, the first order she would give the geth would be to eliminate Shepard and his valiant crew. That was the only way to guarantee he wouldn't stop her.

They turned the corner at the end of the hall. At the chamber's rear, wrecked geth platforms and fallen Cerberus soldiers littered the floor next to a giant plate of metal which must have been the chamber's door. Beyond, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy stood at a terminal, surrounded by glowing holos, bathed in a heavenly glow as she manipulated the screens. The connection was already open. Xen stepped into the chamber.

Shepard grabbed Xen's shoulder and shoved her face-first into the wall with the muzzle of his rifle against the back of her head and pulled the trigger. In the vacuum of the geth base, there was no sound. The front of Xen's mask exploded, sending a spray of blood, bone fragments and glass into the bare metal wall. Her body crumpled to the floor with plumes of gas spewing from her shattered helmet.

"Betrayal repaid," Garrus said softly.

Shepard took a step back. He could feel the eyes of the squad on him as they held their positions, weapons aimed down the corridor as if nothing had happened. He looked to Tali behind the geth console, and their eyes met. She said nothing, only pausing to gave him a curt nod. Shepard turned away to resume his position behind Miranda at the corner, while Tali went back to work on the console.

Zaeed, like everyone else, kept his rifle aimed downrange so none of the quarian marines would notice anything amiss. "Didn't think you had that in you, Shepard."

"I save it for special occasions."

"Nice of her to bring us reinforcements, though," Garrus said.

Shepard shrugged. "As long as they don't call her expecting to answer back."

Flashes of light erupted from the haze at the far end of the corridor. "I don't think that's going to be a problem now," Garrus said. "Incoming!"

A ripple-salvo of rockets streaked toward them. The Normandy squad all retreated behind cover. At the same time, the quarian marines in front of them ducked down behind whatever corner was closest.

"They're coming in from the surface!" shouted one of the quarian marines.

"Coming from the left!" shouted another as he adjusted his stance. The quarians at the intersection were now under attack from three sides.

"This is it!" Shepard and his squad raised their weapons as the entire corridor filled with explosions and shrapnel, making their barriers sparkle with each impact. Beyond, a shambling mass of mechanical arms and legs advanced slowly through the fog, each topped with a hellish red spotlight.

Shepard let loose with a long burst of disruptor rounds. "Open fire!"