A friendly warning for 18+ content ahead. You all know how Mass Effect works, one (possibly) last steamy session before the final battle!

The Galactic Heart

There were still a few hours to go before we reached Omega, and from there it would only be a thirty-minute jump to the Omega 4 Relay. I sat at my computer and scanned over all the information available on the Collectors, both what we had learned and what was already on the extranet. Since EDI had shown us that the Collector home "world" was situated in the galactic core, I knew that Mordin's assumption that it would be a space station had to be dead on. But when we went through, we would be bringing a mere frigate against a well-defended and fortified battle-station. Even though that "mere" frigate was the Normandy, she was still horribly outmatched.

What kind of firepower would such a space station wield? Would we even be able to get on board if it possessed strong kinetic barriers that withstood everything that we threw at it? Was our crew doomed with a certainty? In my moment of maximal fretting, a kind hand landed on my shoulder and I took a hold of it. Tali stood over me and her bright eyes shone out in the slight darkness of my room,

"Are you ok?" she asked, her voice as soft and comforting. I stood up and held her,

"You know me, I like to worry myself half to death before the battle even starts."

"I feel like we've done this before," Tali laughed a little, "remember that time we stole the Normandy SR1 and charged off to Ilos?"

I thought back to that day, so long ago, with a queer fondness,

"Those were the good old days weren't they," I said to Tali. She closed her body to mine,

"Remember that first night we spent together?"

I stroked the side of Tali's hood,

"How could I forget? That was the most important night of my life up to that point. I'd… never felt anything like that before. I'd never met anyone like you before."

"It was special," she said, "you were the first man I had ever loved, the first man I'd ever kissed, the first man I'd ever made love to," her voice became sad all of a sudden. "Promise me that you'll live, Scott! Promise me I won't lose you again."

I moved her slowly over to the bed and said to her,

"Tali, I can't make promises about the future," her head dipped, but I gently raised her head to look at me again, "but what I can do is promise you that I want to be with you for the rest of my living days, whether that be one day or a hundred years from now. And I can show you how much I love you right now."

"Show me," Tali said longingly.

Her mask was placed at the side of the bed and I ran my fingers across her cheek and around the back of her neck, her soft skin warm beneath my fingertips. I locked my lips with hers and in that instant all the stress and worry simply left my body. She gently kissed my neck and I began to unbuckle her suit one seal at a time. First her shoulders were revealed and I kissed my way along her collar bone as I uncovered her arms and held her uncovered hand in mine. When Tali and I were together it was always about more than just sex. For Tali, the opportunity to actually feel another living being with her own hands, with her own skin, was almost sacrosanct.

Every touch, every brush of a finger, the feeling of my muscles moving and working was an other-worldly experience for the beautiful Quarian woman. I wanted nothing more than for her to experience as much as possible before we launched our attack, before we threw ourselves into the greatest of perils. I wanted Tali to feel. Wanted her to know how much I loved her and how she had brought me back from near despair on so many occasions.

When both of us felt our naked bodies against the other's, we kissed with all the passion and lust that burned away inside of us both. Tali opened her strong legs for me and wrapped them around my waist, bringing me into her and gasping with pleasure as I moved my hips slowly back and forward for her. She held my head in her hands and lowered it to her chest where I kissed her. Her petite and supple breasts bounced gently up and down in time with my thrusts and her nipples stood firm as my tongue ran over them, both of us enjoying pure heaven together.

I traced my fingers along Tali's hips and up the sides of her body, cupping her breasts as I teased a nipple with my mouth. Her lilac eyes shone in the dim light as our eyes met and our mouths collided. I increased the pace of my thrusts, eliciting adorable moans of pleasure from the gorgeous Quarian. Her fingers ran through my hair before venturing down my back. Her hands came around to my front and ran back up to my pectorals where they lingered for a while. I graced her neck with kisses before I decided to change things up and momentarily pulled out, much to Tali's chagrin,

"And just where are you going?" she gasped. Giving her a cheeky wink, I suddenly grabbed her hips and flipped her over onto her front and lifted her rear up so that she was on her knees.

"Oh," Tali purred, "I'm ok with that!"

Tali squealed in delight as I slid my length inside her, driving in deep as my hands gripped her cheeks tightly. She buried her face into a pillow to stifle screams as her hands played with her breasts. Our love-making continued for several minutes, the sweat running off of me as I gave everything I had to please Tali. She straightened herself up so that she could twist slightly to kiss me while I drove into her from behind. With one hand I cupped a soft breast, but the other slid around to play with Tali's most sensitive spot. It was fortunate that Quarian women were very anatomically similar to Human women in that regard. It meant I already knew how to bring Tali maximum pleasure. For that was all I wanted for her, and when she came to a thundering climax she flopped back down on the bed. If the smile on her stunning face was anything to go by, I had done my job well.

With a very satisfied sigh, we both lay together as the euphoria continued to wash over us for a while longer. Wrapped in the comfort and warm embrace of my duvet, we revisited the dream of having a normal life somewhere one day. When I mentioned that we could build a home together on Rannoch one day she smiled at me,

"I can't think of anything more perfect," she said as she laid her head on my chest. I kissed her, feeling her heavenly lips on my own, and said,

"And we'd have little Sari and Steven running around at our feet, driving us nuts."

We both laughed at that and dreamed our own dreams of a home and our children, our normal family life. With sudden inspiration I said to Tali,

"We're going to survive this Tali. You know why? Because we have that dream to live for!"

"Even the Human-Quarian children?" she said.

"Hey," I chuckled, "science can do amazing things."

"Like bringing Commanders back from the dead?" Tali joked.

"Yeah!" I replied happily, "just shows you what they can do these days."

"I hope you're right," she said cheerily, "I want that more than anything else. Before I left the fleet for my pilgrimage, I never dreamed I'd want to spend my life with a Human, or any alien for that matter. But I'm so glad I found you."

"Pretty sure it's me that found you in that alleyway on the Citadel," I chuckled. She playfully slapped my chest,

"You know what I meant, Bosh'Tet."

"Of course I do," I kissed my Quarian girlfriend. "And I'm glad I found you too."

For the limited time that we had left to us we snuggled in comfort and in peace, enjoying every precious moment with each other that the galaxy was prepared to allow us.

All too soon, however, I found myself torn away from the loving hold of Tali and standing at a transport hub on Omega. Alongside Tali, Garrus, Jacob and Kasumi, the people that Sophie had become most friendly with, I said a fond farewell to my little sister. I had made all the arrangements and paid for her travel to the Citadel, with extra money spent on a transport with high security, of course. After Tali had given her a big hug, I wrapped my arms around my little sister for what could be the last time,

"You know what you have to do," I told her, "get the information to Anderson. Get the Council to believe us, get anyone that you can to believe us. Admiral Hackett is a good bet as well."

"I will, Scott, I promise," she said back, "And good luck, to all of you. Come back alive!"

"We'll do what we have to," Jacob told her, "but we'll bring your brother back in one piece, if he lets us. Take care of yourself, kid."

I watched sadly as Sophie boarded her transport with the few belongings that she had on the Normandy. Since we were still in the Terminus Systems, I had advised her to keep anything that could identify her as an Alliance marine out of sight. Would they listen to what she had to say? Would anyone take what I had written in the report seriously? Should I just take Sophie with me through the relay instead of wasting time? All these doubts went through my head as I met my sister's eyes for a split second before the doors of her shuttle closed,

"Destroy the bastards," her eyes seemed to say.

This was it. There was nothing left for us to do except go straight to the Omega 4 Relay and take the battle straight to the Collectors. Everything that we had done, every endeavour my team and I had undertaken over the past months had been leading to this moment. As I stood in full combat gear on the bridge of the Normandy, Joker made the short trip towards the infamous relay. Miranda joined me,

"Everything's ready, Scott. The team's ready to rescue our crew and end this," she said confidently.

"Good," I replied, "time we finally showed the Collectors what we can really do. Joker, begin your run."

"Taking us in, Commander," he replied, "IFF is active and we're receiving signals from the relay. No going back now!"

The Omega 4 Mass Relay came into view and the sight of its fiery and unstable energy field contained within it instantly unsettled me. Even if the IFF did get us through, there was a chance that the energy required to pass through would be too much for the Normandy's drive core to handle. With every step we took there was always one more risk, one more way for us to be killed.

"Rendezvous with the Relay in 30 seconds, Commander," Joker said and though he would never admit it, I could hear the nervousness in his voice. We all knew that those 30 seconds could be the last we spent in the world of the living.

"Let's do this," I said.

The Normandy began to shake and on Joker's monitors I could see warning lights springing up everywhere.

"Commander," Jacob contacted me from the armoury, "the drive core just lit up like a Christmas tree!"

"I will protect critical systems from overloading," EDI assured me, but when we hit the relay there was a moment that I was sure that the whole ship was about to explode.

The Normandy shot through space towards the galactic core and while there were still warnings lights going off, our trusty ship never let us down. After a few heart-stopping seconds, the Normandy emerged from mass transit and I would have been relieved had we not charged straight into a massive debris field.

"Shit!" Joker exclaimed, "hold on everyone, this is going to be tight."

Joker put the Normandy through some extremely tight manoeuvres and I had to grab onto a handrail to stay on my feet. Miranda was not so lucky and when the Normandy hit a sizable piece of debris she was thrown to the floor and rolled almost halfway back from the cockpit to the CIC. It was no shameful thing, however, as most of my team were struggling to stay upright. Joker was putting every shred of his monumental skill into stopping us from colliding into anything which would spell our destruction and he was doing a great job. If there was another helmsman in the galaxy that could have pulled off the moves that Joker was, then I certainly had never heard about them. This was when he proved his worth to us all over again.

As I looked out of the windows, I could see that we were near the end of the debris field and could see that it stretched on for what seemed like forever in all directions. When we broke free of the field, we all took a much-needed breather.

"These must be all the ships that have tried to pass through the relay," Joker said, "some look ancient."

He was right. Among the few ship corpses that were still relatively whole, there were barely any that I recognised or could even hazard a guess at which species they could have once belonged to. If the Collectors had been around since the Reapers had wiped out the Protheans over fifty-thousand years ago, then the vast majority of these ships could also be many thousands of years old.

The thought was incredible, but at the same time very moving. Tens of thousands of lives had been needlessly ended in vain attempts to pass through the Omega 4 Relay, and yet here we were alive with only a few bumps and scratches. While we sailed through the centre of the galaxy, enormous black holes filled my vision wherever I looked. Dense pits of complete blackness set against the backdrop of the entire galaxy surrounding us. I thought I saw something, a reflection of light from something in front of the nearest black hole, but there was little time to look as EDI suddenly warned us,

"Enemy presence detected. Fighter class craft powering up and moving to engage."

"Taking evasive manoeuvres," Joker said, "everybody brace yourselves! Let's give it to these guys!"

I caught a glimpse on the scanners of our new foes as they chased after us, spherical constructs with four small wings and forward-facing weapons. Their main weapons, however, were miniaturised versions of the beam that Sovereign had wielded to such terrible effect at the Battle of the Citadel. They were also the type of weapon that the Collectors had used to carve up the SR1 over two years ago. Even with the SR2's upgraded defences, the fear that these vicious lasers would cut right through us sent a chill down my spine. Jeff evaded the initial salvos and the beams streaked past the starboard side of the ship. He was the best pilot in the Alliance and arguably in the galaxy, but the fighters were more manoeuvrable than our Frigate and Joker was unable to bring the fighters into the scope of our own weaponry.

"I'm taking us back into the debris field," Joker announced to my horror, "I can try and lose some of them in there and ambush the rest when we get back out."

"How many are on us, Joker?" I asked in alarm.

"There are currently six Reaper fighters pursuing us," EDI told me, "I am interfering with their navigation and weapons systems."

"Keep it up, EDI!" I told the AI.

Huge pieces of metal and rock came hurtling towards us as the Normandy dived straight back into the debris field and took us on the most nerve destroying rollercoaster ride in galactic history. On several occasions the shield monitor indicated that damage had been taken, but with EDI and Joker working together to reroute power from non-critical systems to bolster Tali's upgraded cyclonic barriers, the shields were always regenerating back to near a hundred percent again.

"How we doing against those fighters?" I asked as Joker performed a barrel roll and narrowly missed what used to be the bridge of an old, old freighter.

"Two fighters have been destroyed in the debris field," EDI said.

"If I can get just a bit further ahead of them, I can turn around and make an attack run," Joker said quickly, his hands working furiously to guide his precious warship through the storm of wreckage.

"Make it happen," I ordered him.

"Alright, here we go!" Joker exclaimed. The Normandy lurched hard to port as it shot through the forever shifting debris field and burst free from the metal storm. The Normandy pulled a tight turn and when the three remaining fighters emerged to hunt us down, two of them were blasted to pieces by the Normandy's forwards cannons.

The one remaining Reaper fighter darted upwards, and Joker was hot on its heels. The manoeuvrable little fighter only made it a short distance before a mass accelerator shell tore it to shreds. With a great sense of satisfaction powering through him Joker levelled out the Normandy,

"Keep your eyes peeled for more of those things, EDI," Joker said. After a glance back to make sure no one had fallen and hurt themselves during the hectic flight, I put a hand on Joker's shoulder and pointed out the window to where I had seen the faint reflection before the fighter attack,

"Take us over that way Joker, I think I know where the Collectors are."

"It's gotta be a space station, Sir," my pilot replied, "no planets around here."

"Yeah. Take us in nice and slow, we don't know what kind of defences we might be facing," I said, "EDI, get any readings about the base that you can, ASAP. If we reach the base, we'll need the schematics to plan our attack."

The stealth systems had remained undamaged during the transit through the relay and our engagement with the fighters. Certain that we were still cloaked, we glided in closer and closer to where I suspected the Collector base resided. In the event, my instinct had proven correct and soon we were able to make out the features of the space station. Similar in all aspects of construction to the ship we had seen at Horizon and later boarded, except that it was at least twenty times larger.

"The Collector base," Miranda said in wonder as she gazed out at our dismal destination, "it's got to be almost as big as the Citadel!"

"Look!" I said, "around the central belt, there's docking stations for their ships."

Four Collector vessels were docked on the base, but as we began our direct approach one of the docking ports suddenly lit up and a wave of energy readings appeared on the sensors,

"Looks like they're sending an old friend out to greet us," Miranda said as the vessel left the station and turned around and set itself on an intercept trajectory.

"According to information collated and compared with readings taken from the original Normandy, this was the same ship that destroyed the SR1 and caused your death, Commander," EDI told me.

"Then it's time for payback," I said angrily, "ready the main gun."

"Time to show our new teeth," Joker enthused.

The Collector ship took the first few shots and the high-powered beams shot past us, great streams of bright, burning energy that could finish us with only a few blows. The Collector vessel dwarfed the Normandy and had superior firepower, but we had speed, agility, EDI and Joker. He rolled in between the light beams of two of the Collector ship's weapon batteries and swooped in to take our first shot back. Our Thannix Cannon charged up and unleashed its deadly energy beam which tore into the side of the Collector ship with an enormous explosion. Joker pumped his fist in the air,

"Take that you sons of bitches!"

"Stay focused! It's not dead yet. Circle around and send another shot right down their throat!" I ordered Joker, my heart beating fast from the adrenaline. Revenge was sweet sometimes.

Our Frigate screamed past our damaged enemy and soon we were bearing down on the enemy ship head on. The Collectors began to charge up their main weapon, but ours was primed first. The blue stream of energy surged right down the main body of the Collector ship, and in an instant the whole thing seemed to disintegrate in a spectacular show of lights and explosions.

"Yes!" Joker exclaimed with a victorious shout. I was going to have to thank Garrus later for his incessant calibrating of our weapons systems, he just allowed us to take down a far more powerful ship with ease.

"Watch out!" Miranda suddenly said in alarm. I looked out of the cockpit and watched as the shockwave from the exploding ship surged towards us and when it hit us our warning systems began to blink away furiously at us.

"Shit! Mass Effect Field generator's offline," Joker said as he tried to stabilise the Normandy, "We're going in hot on the Collector base! Everyone brace for impact!"

Unable to hold the Normandy steady, Joker gave it his all to bring the ship down steadily on the hull of the Collector base. However, a glancing blow with one of the many metallic spires sent the Normandy spiralling out of control and when we hit the side of the base I hit the floor hard. My Frigate went grinding along the outer face of the hull and finally stopped when it smacked into a rock-face and sent everyone on board flying into walls, computers, tables or whatever was in the way of their momentum. I staggered back to my feet and saw that Joker was hunched over in his chair. In a moment of dread, I shook his shoulder,

"Joker… Hey, you ok?"

He groaned and leaned back in the chair,

"I think I broke a rib… or all of them!"

"Everyone else ok? Sound off," I said over the comm. Thankfully I received confirmation that everyone was alright and ready for action.

"EDI, how we looking?" I asked.

"Most critical systems are down but can be brought back online in time."

"And what about the Collectors? Will they know we're here?"

"I detect no internal security network," the AI replied, "it appears as if they never expected anyone to ever reach their base."

"If we're lucky then the base got hit the same as we did from that explosion," Joker said, "could've taken down some of their sensors."

"Well we all knew this was likely a one way trip," Miranda said with a sudden realisation.

"Miranda's right," I hit the point home, "we all signed on to complete this mission, whatever the cost."

"Then we're off to a good start," Joker mumbled.

"Get everyone assembled in the comm room," I said, "Joker, you and EDI get the Normandy functional again as soon as you can."

"Yes Sir."

My squad was gathered in the comm room around the central platform where my talks with the Illusive Man took place. They watched me enter and waited for me to talk, to give them direction and lead them into the abyss that awaited them just beyond the hull of the Normandy. I looked at all the faces in the room and saw the worries in their eyes, saw the doubts, the apprehension, the stress. Sometimes I forgot that, just as much as I needed my team, they also needed me.

"This isn't how we planned this mission," I started, "but this is where we're at. We've already scored our first victory in destroying the Collector ship, but we still have a long way to go."

They all rallied to me and I continued to tell them the importance of what we were doing here,

"We don't know how many the Collectors have taken. Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? It doesn't matter. What does matter is this: Not one more!"

The men, women and machine that I had brought onto the Normandy for this very moment were being reminded of our true purpose on this mission, imbuing them with a greater sense of duty and determination.

"We've all come together from different walks of life, from different species. But as we've fought together, covered each other's backs and succeeded together we've grown beyond simply being a team, we've become a family! And a powerful family at that!"

Grunt smashed his fists together in agreement and the rest of them glanced around at their fellow squad-mates around them.

"Look to each other for strength, trust the man and woman next to you and we'll all get through this! EDI, bring up your scans of the base."

The schematics flashed up in the centre of the room and we all examined it thoroughly, each of us struggling to not be at least a bit amazed by the sheer scale of the construct. EDI highlighted a huge chamber towards the centre of the base from where there was a massive energy source present,

"This is likely the base's central power core. Overloading this will set off a chain reaction which will destroy the base."

"That's our target," I said, "and if our crew is on this base then that's where they'll be. We just need to get there."

I examined the distance between our ship's crash site and the central core of the Collector base,

"There's a way inside the base right next to us, and from there we can take these two passageways to the core. If we split into multiple teams, we can keep the Collectors confused."

"There are heavy blast doors along the passages, Commander," Miranda pointed to the plans, "we don't have the ordnance to deal with them."

"It's not built to be a fortress," I said thoughtfully. My eyes scanned the route again and I noticed that there was a smaller shaft that ran parallel with the main passages. A vent.

"Here, this ventilation shaft," I informed the team, "someone could go through the shaft and come out on the other side of those doors and open the way for us."

"Practically a suicide mission," Jacob said before he looked at me, "I volunteer."

"I appreciate the offer Jacob," Miranda said to her friend, "but you wouldn't be able to get the doors open in enough time. You need someone adept in hacking secure systems, we need a tech expert, Commander."

"Who d'you want to send in, Sir?" Jacob asked.

I knew exactly who I wanted to go into the shaft, the most technically adept and genius engineer I had ever met, but I was almost unable to say the name. With great pain, but with absolute trust and faith as well, I told the team who I was sending in,

"Tali, you're up. I've never seen you fail to hack anything in all the time we've served together."

With the rest of the team looking at her, and showing their shared confidence in her abilities, she stood up straight and with an affirmative nod she said,

"I won't let you down, Scott."

I gave her an approving smile and Miranda moved onto the next detail,

"I'll lead the second team."

Jack immediately spoke up, malice in her voice,

"No one wants to take orders from the likes of you."

"This isn't a popularity contest," Miranda countered, "lives are at stake here. Scott, you need someone who can command loyalty through experience."

Miranda was right and everyone knew it. Most of my crew disliked the fact that Miranda regarded Cerberus so highly, but accepted that the Operative was hugely capable when it came to high intensity operations.

"Miranda leads the second fire team, callsign will be Ferris Team. She has the experience and skills for the job and I expect you all to follow her orders. Personal issues get left behind, understood? I'll take Horizon Team," I said. I used the names Horizon and Ferris, after Ferris Fields, to remind the team of the tragedy that had befallen those colonies along with dozens more over the previous years, to emphasis what we were here to stop.

"Everyone's clear on the objective," I said, "let's move!"