The Athena was able to latch on, but the helm airlock door for the Aswa did not want to open. Taking off a wall panel, Tali managed to muscle over the manual release, Ankah and Liara getting their hands into the gap and prying the doors open.

Some of the control panels at the helm appeared to be damaged, but there was no sign of Shrive. As Liara moved aboard and headed to the small CIC, the radiation gauge on her hardsuit immediately began to flash an amber warning. They were safe enough in their suits for the time being, but anyone out of them would be ill within minutes.

Red was the first of her crew that she saw, the quarian engineer rushing from the lift to meet them.

"Good to see you, Captain. They're coming up from the infirmary now. Radiation interfered with communications but we registered the lock on – I was hoping it was you and not our new multiverse psycho friends."

"Injuries?"

"Just-"

Liara didn't wait for her response, for just then, two of her crew came off the lift, guiding a hover gurney with the third. The two on their feet were in hardsuits, and it was clear from the shape that one was Brekk, but she could not tell who was on the gurney. It only took her three steps to realize, and felt a simultaneous surge of relief and concern.

Shepard's eyes showed the same relief as she looked over and realized it was them. "Liara, thank goodness. She's suffering from radiation sickness; we need to get her out of this environment now or she's going to end up with permanent injuries."

The one on the gurney was Shrive. She seemed unconscious, and either Del or Brekk had put her in a containment field. Other than a few small burns on her hands she looked uninjured, but her pallor was not healthy.

"This way, get her to the Athena's infirmary," Sam said, the group not losing a step as they headed up to the helm.

Liara, now that she'd seen Del was alive and on her feet, looked at Red. "Ship status?"

"She'll need some repairs, no mistake. She got torn up a bit when that station exploded; attitude control is down, environmental systems are fluctuating. Weapons are gone. So is the shielding. Core wasn't damaged but I had to shut her down to idle after we hit the relay due to overheating in the power transfer conduits; I think there may be a coolant leak. We're gonna need towed to a dry dock and several days for the repairs. The automated systems are already handling the radiation scrub, so there should be no danger in docking."

"I'll reach out to Deefa, have her stop and meet us," Tali said. "Our ship has a quarantine dock big enough to hold the Aswa, and she can get her to the Citadel a lot faster that way."

"We'll tow her to rendezvous," Sam said. "It doesn't look just yet like we've been followed but I don't want to linger and tempt fate."

They all went through radiation procedures in the airlock as they entered the Athena, then headed down to the infirmary. Del, the moment she was scrubbed, had taken off her helmet and gloves, focusing on Shrive. She had grown used to the hardsuits enough that she no longer struggled against their weight, but she was not terribly fond of them.

Liara lingered, watching her tend to Shrive's injuries. Del noticed, but did not chase her out. Liara cared a great deal about her crew. She had lost one pilot already; Jura, killed when Osco had destroyed the first Aswa. She had no intention of losing a second.

"She saved our lives," Del told her as she worked. "The moment she saw those ships coming through the Fold, she had us put our hardsuits on."

"She did not retreat as she was instructed."

Del gave her a half-look. "You would have done the same thing to try and protect that station."

"She didn't put her own hardsuit on," Liara said, and another half-look came at the deflection.

"She had her hands full, there was no time. She'll be all right, Liara. There's no permanent injury. She'll feel like she has no energy for a few days but that's all. No risk of cancer."

Del's fingers were gentle on the still sleeping Shrive's forehead, before she looked again at Liara. "So what happened? All I heard down in the infirmary were that some ships came through a Fold and started shooting? It was extra-galactic aliens that attacked the geth and started draining their sun?"

"No, it was not. We should talk upstairs, somewhere private. Is she stable?"

Del straightened, frowning. "She is, but she's my patient. Crew. I'd rather stay with her."

"I understand, but this is a conversation that needs to happen in private. Dr. Llewynn and her staff can watch over her for a short time."

She took Del back upstairs to the same conference room they had met Legion in. As they passed through the corridors, several of Sam's crew cast Del a few looks. None were hostile, most looking concerned or confused, but Shepard clearly noticed them. Folding her arms, the doctor looked back at Liara as they entered the room, alone.

"So what did I say?"

"I am sorry?"

"There are only so many options here, Liara. Ships came through a Fold. If it wasn't an invasion from outside the galaxy, that leaves only a few possibilities. Invasion from inside this one in either the past, future, or present; or a force from elsewhere in the Multiverse. A Milky Way fleet wouldn't go through so much effort, expend so much energy, in something like opening a Fold to cross into Tikkun. They'd just use the relay system like everyone else. So we can rule out the present. I suppose the past and the future are options, but then I wouldn't have been getting such strange looks in the halls, and you wouldn't want to speak to me in private about it. That leaves only one last option; the invaders are from elsewhere in the Multiverse, and at some point my counterpart was involved in the conversation. So, I ask again. What did I say?"

Liara stepped over to her love, placing her hands gently on her arms. The concern in Del's eyes only grew as she straightened, dark eyes searching the asari's blue.

"You are correct. The Fleet that came through appears to be human in origin, from another universe. When we spoke to Legion, we were informed that the geth were being attacked and wiped out by another form of sentient software, more advanced than they."

"Pio."

"Yes. The Pio must have been sent not only to build the anchor, but to secure this system to prepare for the incoming Fleet. The anchor they built does not match the more advanced extra-galactic signature of the black tech we encountered with Osco, which is why we missed it despite repeated scans. It appears that this 'Resurgence', as they seem to be called, may have found sources of this tech in their own volume and conscripted it for their own purposes. Their lead vessel, a dreadnaught their commanding officer called the 'Juggernaut', is of near identical design to the Reapers from Melara's home volume."

Del's concern only grew. She had only watched some of the footage from the Reaper war, before she could no longer stomach it. When Melara – the child of the Del and Liara from that volume – had been with them for a time after Shepard had somewhat foolishly rushed through a Fold to help them stop a galaxy busting weapon. She had told them of the war and the heroics of her parents.

Truth be told, it was not the horror of the Reaper War itself that Shepard found difficult to handle, it was Melara's father.

The other Del Shepard had been a soldier, a marine and N7 captain. Hearing that one of her alternate selves was a soldier was a bit surreal, but the more she heard of her, the more unsettling it became. The horror of that Shepard's past, her anger and sheer determination, fighting beyond her limits, beyond endurance, to win against such an indescribable force? She had been a hero, in all ways one could ever be a hero.

This Del Shepard had enjoyed a comfortable childhood with loving parents. She'd grown to be a geneticist, a scientist, not a warrior. Compared to Melara's father she felt – well, not inadequate- but sheltered. Diminished.

"They're not from Mel's home volume, are they?" Even as she asked the question, Del was shaking her head, thinking hard. That volume was unique in the entire multiverse as far as they could tell, and the only one that had Reapers and their 50,000 year Cycle of Extinction.

Then again, when it came to knowledge of the multiverse and how it functioned, they were still at the 'banging rocks against each other to create a spark of fire' stage of understanding.

"No, they couldn't be," she answered herself. "But where else would they get even the idea of Reapers?"

"They may have pulled radio or QEC transmissions from other volumes when experimenting with micro-folds, as we did. Or perhaps Reaper tech is native to their volume in this way; less sophisticated, and not to the same purpose as those from Mel's home."

"We could speculate all day, and you still have not answered my question. She communicated to you through that Fold, either before or after that dreadnaught came through. What did she say?"

"She did not communicate with us through the Fold." Liara's expression was schooled, careful. Over the years, she had learned to let the stoicism she kept between herself and others fall away when she and Del were alone. To see it up now was disconcerting. "She was aboard that ship."

"She was here? In our volume? But that's impossible. Two versions of the same person cannot be in the same volume at once. It should have been fatal for her to even try."

"I do not know how she managed it, but she was here, aboard that ship. In fact, she commands the entire Fleet."

"She was attacking the geth? Us?" Del felt like she'd had the wind knocked out of her, and Liara dipped her head a little, seeking out her eyes.

"She is not you, Del." Her voice was soft, kind.

"I'm not concerned with her being me or being like me! I'm concerned with her being like Mel's father!"

"Mel's father never would have invaded another volume and attacked anyone the way that this woman is doing here."

"No, she wouldn't have, but what happened to her enemies, Liara? That Illusive Man and his Cerberus, the Reapers, those Collector bug-things? If this new Shepard has even a tenth of her resolve, courage, determination, and sheer bulldog tenacity-…"

She covered her face, shaking her head. The story that Melara hard been telling when Del had realized she could not hear any more, was of a time that her father had faced down a Reaper both alone, and on foot. Her only weapon had been a laser target, the one thing between her and the destroyer's main weapon a battered around hardsuit.

And she'd won. She'd won.

Having that woman against them? Del would rather have fought Osco again.

"She can't be here. It has to be some kind of a trick or something. They had to have piped in that feed through the Fold and made it seem as if she was speaking from the dreadnought. Physically she cannot be here. It just doesn't make sense."

"That is one of a million questions we need to get answered."

"What did she say? Specifically? What does she want? Why is she doing this?"

"She demanded our surrender. She was unsurprised that we knew who she was, and also seemed to know who I was. She revealed her xenophobia, not only in how she spoke to me, but in expressing her regret in finding it necessary to destroy Sam and her human crew. She wanted it quite clear that she was firing upon the Athena as a Council Spectre vessel and not a human one, that she fully intended to declare war on every 'non-human' species in the galaxy. It seems her human Resurgence forces have already dominated the Milky Way and many of the other sentient species there. She mentioned Tuchanka, Palaven, and Sur'Kesh by name."

"But not Thessia? Not the asari?"

"No. I would not begin to speculate at this time what that means."

"Asari must exist there if she recognized you. But you're right. We could go crazy thinking about possibilities. What we need is information. And to warn the rest of the galaxy."

"Transmissions have already gone off to the Citadel; the Council should be filled in before we arrive, and by extension the homeworld governments. Despite this new Shepard not desiring war with the Alliance they are part of Citadel space, part of the Council. While they have to defend their own people, I do not imagine them sitting idly by while their allies come under attack."

"No. I can't imagine they'd do that."

Liara put her arms around her future bondmate, holding her close. "We will figure this out. This galaxy did not fall to Osco, and we will not let it fall to her, either – no matter who she is."