A/N I'm not really pleased with this, but it's proving to be more complicated to write than I expected and I don't want to drag this out any more. Maybe I'll come back and re-write some of this or something later. Now I'm gonna go listen to Despacito and sulk

Jane, Corsair Ship Perugia, Asgard System

"Asteroid is in visual, Captain," Semma'Mon announced as he worked over his boards. "Looks like a smaller freighter on the surface itself."

Jane tapped her fist over her mouth a couple of times as she brought up her own displays. "Can you get a make?"

With a small snort, Semma shook his head. "It's an older hannar ship. The kind you can get at any third hand dealer."

"Looks like ten-thousand ton displacement," Jane muttered under her breath as her eyes scanned over readouts. Her screens flashed by faster than most sentiant people could comprehend. "Hannar make. That size, judging by the age….the powerplant is going to be...yes…. Assuming they crammed them in, they might be able to have upwards of eighty-seven hostiles…."

"That's twice the estimate!" Garcia grunted. "That will make things...complicated, won't it?"

"No, not actually have that many, they won't be able to have than many, have the gear and equipment, specialists, and be able to keep it quiet," Jane flicked away her screens as she stood, adjusting her realk. "They will have thirty at most." She let out a small sniff as she brought up her omnitool. "Kal, you're looking at close to twenty batarians. Most will be clustered in the main control hub. I expect at least two teams of two the patrolling the surface itself."

"Do we have any idea their load-out?" Kal'Reegar acknowledged. He was already in the launch bay, prepping his marines for landing.

"Well funded terrorists," Jane said, nodding to herself. "Doubt they will have a biotic of any significance. I'm going to go so far as to say that most of they don't know what the plan is. Only the leadership will be fanatic."

"Roger," Kal came back after a short pause. Knowing him, he was setting the different squads and their targets. One thing Jane enjoyed about the man was his professionalism. He knew when to listen, but was flexible enough adapt to the changing battlescapes. "Estimate numbers at the torches?"

"Five per, at least one will be an engineer….they'll have to have drones and access to the installed security, not that it helped the scientists much," Jane snickered at the last.

"Confirmed. Loading teams now."

"And Kal?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Bring back my bird intact? I find myself attached."

"You like me?" Megan's overjoyed voice came over the comm and Jane found herself unable to hold back a small laugh.

Emma, Bridge, Stick in Your Eye, Thorne System

"Anything?" Emma leaned forward with a frown. It was probably the third time she had asked in the last ten minutes, but the tension was beginning to get to her.

"That's the fifth time you've asked in the last five minutes," Jac growled out. He was clearly irritated, but didn't look up from his scanning boards. "When I find it I'll...wait….think I got it."

Looking up, Emma pulled up the feed on her own board, skimming over the data. "Geez...look at that thing….. How the hell has it been missed for all these years?"

"It hides itself," Legion intoned. There was a strange note in its voice. Almost like...awe? "The Old Machine is dead, but still, it hides itself."

"Seriously," Jac let out a burst of breath as he glanced back, his gaze sliding over Legion before looking at Emma. "The only reason we could see it at all is because of those crazy scanners Dr T'Soni had put in this thing."

Emma grunted as she looked at the data. "Blake, make a course, please. Best time."

Best time?" Blake laughed while his hands danced over his boards. "You've been watching those old vids again, haven't you?"

"I...maybe," Emma coughed into her fist as she fought down the blush she could feel creeping up her neck.

"Wow…" Jac gasped, drawing her attention.

"Don't say that then nothing else," Emma frowned. "What is it?"

"Huh?" Jac glanced up and blinked. "Oh! Right! Sorry! Here, it's easier if I send you the data."

"O-kay…." Emma's frown shifted to a full scowl and she brought up the new data. And her irritation evaporated in an instant. "I...what is this?"

"Ships," Legion answered. "Ships from years, centuries. Designs older than the Council. Some older than your species."

"I…" Emma swallowed slightly as she looked at the geth. "How is that possible? There dozens of ships attacked to the hull of that thing! What happened to the crew?"

Legion didn't answer at first. Instead it stood, its glowing optic staring at the point on the wall that probably corresponded with the Monster's location. "I shall find out," it said at last.

"What?" Emma blinked incredulous, confused for a moment. "You can't! All those people already went in and none of them survived!"

"They were organic," Legion's eye turned to regard her for the first time since they had dropped into the system. The small flaps around the optic moved slowly. "I am not. The Old Machine will not be able to influence me they way it does organic species."

"How...how do you know that?!" Emma jumped to her feet, anger shooting through her. As she waved her finger at the geth. "What if you're wrong?"

"Then you shall escape," it said evenly. "I shall take my ship. You shall not be in danger."

Emma's mouth hung open for a moment as her arm lost strength, dropping the still pointed finger toward the floor.

"Uh…" Blake turned his chair around and looked from Emma to Legion and coughed. "I think what she's trying to say is, 'Fuck You'."

"I do not understand." Legion looked to the boy, his eye flaps folding closed. It was one of the small ways of it showing its surprise. It probably didn't even realize it did it.

"We are going in," Jac answered as he gestured for Blake to get back to work. "We'll dock and let you off. You go in, get what you need and we'll stay ready to bail as soon as you get back."

"Right," Blake nodded as he brought the ship around to course. "And if something happens, we come in and get you, then we bail."

"That...is not advised," Legion looked between the boys.

"Fuck 'advised'!" Emma spat finally, her anger driving her forward. She grabbed the machine's arm and pulled it around to face her. Or...rather she tried to do. It turned out she wasn't really that strong. Instead she ended up walking around it to look at it. "We're going in. You have a problem we get you out! We're family!"

"...Understood," Legion finally nodded.

"That's what I said," Jac snorted.

"Pfft…" Blake fought back a snicker exactly three seconds before losing it. He then laughed his way out of his chair.

Marcus Rodriguez, Landing Site Alpha

"Pull it in people," Rodriguez charged his rifle as he dropped from the shuttles door before it had fully landed. He liked doing that. Made him look badass.

"Dude, you look like an idiot doing that," Halla'Kris laughed as she followed him out of the shuttle. "You're going to get yourself hurt doing that, and I'm the one who's going to have to fix you."

"Aww, give the old man a break," the turian trooper chuckled. Krak was tall, even for a turian but almost skeletal thin. If Rodriguez was any judge. Which he wasn't. They had picked the Krak up from one of the lowest Wards on the Citadel. He claimed to have been turian special forces, or some such, but had gotten into a drug problem, but was cleaned up now. And from the skills Krak displayed, Rodriguez believed him. "After all, we know how you like lingering on his 'physicals'."

"Bosh'tet!" Halla spat, spinning and planting a solid fist into the turian's arm.

"Ah LT! I'm being assaulted!" Krak cried out, dramatically throwing himself against the side of the shuttle, even as the rest of the squad piled out, laughing to various degrees.

Rodriguez chuckled quietly as he watched Halla's body language shift to extreme embarrassment. It was difficult for him to keep professional around her as he had his own feeling for the girl, even if he was pushing his early forties and she was in her early twenties.

"Shuttle down, all present," the squad leader reported. And to his unit's credit the teams took positions and scanned the area with a wary eye, they may fly loose a bit, the moment they were working, they were professionals.

"All right people," Rodriquez gave a quick nod. "We move straight for fusion torch alpha. They will probably have caught the drop shuttle's heat bloom, but with it coming out of nowhere they will be confused, so we should catch them napping.

Krak, take your people around the back, slice the panels there. Blueprints suggest there might be an emergency override if we can't take the control room."

Martin, your people breach the door then clear and hold the entrance."

Rest of you are on me. We are going in. Shoot anything batarian, we aren't taking chances with this one, too many lives are at stake."

The leaders all gave short nods before pulling their people aside and confirming the details.

Rodriguez found his eyes lingering on Halla. Maybe when this is done I can ask her to spend some time at the view port…..

Tali, The Loft, SR2-Normanfy

It was the crash that woke her up. The sound was quick, violent, then over. It was accompanied by a curse, not as loud as the crashing, almost soft. Her helmet's audio pickups almost didn't catch it. It was bitter, anger being held back with notes of despair.

John wasn't in bed.

Lifting her head slightly she glanced toward John's desk on the upper level. The light was dim, the loft only illuminated by the lowered glow of the fish tank, but she could see him. Behind the glass case full of his ship models,his elbows sat on the table, his head in his hands as he ground the heels into his eyes. Around him, datapads, the subject of the crash, lat scattered across the floor as if they had been violently cast aside.

Of course they were cast aside, Tali mentally grumbled to herself. How else would they have crashed? Stupid girl! She was never that great when she first woke.

"Edi?" Tali whispered, not taking her eyes away from John.

"Yes, Miss Zorah?" the AI's voice was pitched down, as her blue orb popped up on the bedside table holo pad. The color was lowered to a ghostly blue. It was strangely comforting.

"Do you know what happened? What set him off?" She was hesitant to ask. It felt like a preach of his privacy, but the anger, almost rage, mixed with the soul crushing sorrow she could feel though the Bond pressed into her mind.

There was a sort pause, before the Edi's dim blue orb flashed a slightly brighter red. "I am sorry, but I am not able to give you the information you want. My blocks limit my ability to share potentially strategic information to non-Cerberus personnel."

Letting out a low snort as she shook her head slightly. Edi was becoming more and more irritated with her limitations. Tali wasn't sure what frightened her more, that the AI had grown enough to have the emotion of frustration, or the fact Tali could recognize the emotion and sympathize. She had grown fond of Edi, which was its own set of problems.

And you are running away from confrontation again. Tali gave herself a small shake as she took in a slow breath. She stretched her ribs as wide as she could and held it for a few seconds before letting it out in a long, quiet exhale. John was her mate and he was in trouble.

She rolled over to stand, but her legs were caught up in something… Sheets. So weird… Her suit kept her at a fairly even temperature, baring external extremes of course. Like Noveria ugh…. The thought of the ice planet made her shiver almost involuntarily. Of course she liked to turn the regulator off at times, usually when she was on downtime with John. Human's body temperature was so much higher than quarian's, it felt so good….

You're doing it again, girl!

Slipping her feet to the floor, she stood and padded quietly across the loft. John just sat, his head still down. His breathing was slow and even.

"John?" she spoke quietly as she ascended the steps to stand next to him. Her worry grew when he didn't respond. Screwing up her courage she slowly reached out through their shared Bond and spoke louder. "John?"

This time he jerked back, his head snapping around to her, his eyes a little wild for a moment. He his skin was pale with dark circles under his eyes, his cheeks a bit sunken recognition softened his features as he blinked, a small smile almost crept onto his face. "Tali," his voice was low and rough as he swallowed and gave a small shake of his head, as he seemed to pull himself together. "What are you doing awake? It's…." His voice cracked as his gaze dropped to the fallen datapads. He frowned again with a deep sigh. "Ah...Sorry. Probably my fault."

"John, what's wrong?" Tali's fingers slid over his shoulder. She could feel the rock hard tension in the muscles.

He hesitated only for a moment before deflating. He grunted softly as he leaned back over his desk and picking up one of the datapads still in front of him. "Got some classified information," his voice almost dropped venom. "I thought it was weird that the Collectors were so quiet after Horizon. I mean, there was no way a single set back like that would stop them, not when they are being controlled by Harbinger."

"That's...true," Tali frowned as she tilted her head. "I had assumed they were gearing up for something big. Is that what happened?"

John's face twisted in a silent snarl. "Nothing near so dramatic." He stood suddenly, nearly knocking his chair over as he threw the pad back onto his desk. Tali watched it skid across the surface before clattering to the floor to join the others. "There have been two more colonies."

"How?" Tali turned from the pad to look back to John. The anger in him was bubbling up. She could feel it clouding his thoughts.

"The Alliance AND the Council are keeping it quiet," John turned from her to walk a few paces away. "I happened to come across it when I was using my Spectre clearance to do some research into this dead Reaper thing."

"Cerberus?" Tali took his emotions, his anger. She pulled it away from him, taking some of his burden. It's what Mates did.

John turned back to her and leaned against the side of his desk as his arms crossed in front of him. "Keeping it quiet as well, it seems." He allowed himself a small chuckle as he glanced up at her, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "By the way, it looks like they know Miranda is on our side now. She had no idea."

With a short laugh, she leaned on the desk next to him, their shoulders touching as she crossed her arms in a mirrors of his. "Well, that's interesting. Now we just need to win over Edi."

"Miss Zorah, I would like to assure you that my loyalty lies with Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy," Edi appeared on pad near the main door. "I am limited by my hardware blocks, but I shall never willingly betray any of you. You are my...friends."

Tali blinked for a long moment before slowly turning to look at John, only to have the same dumbstruck expression as she was sure her own face held. "Thanks….Edi.." she said slowly. "I'm...glad to have met you?"

"Thank you," Edi sounded...embarrassed as her orb colored pinkish for a moment.

Weird...I think….I meant it…..

Costa'Nok, Landing Site Beta

"Alright, I want this by the book," Costa tilted his head swiftly from one side to the other. It was a weird habit he picked up from the human team members. For them, apparently, it released built up...gases? Or something. They found it quickly relaxing. How one would take relaxation in the unholy snapping of one's neck bones he had no idea. Didn't work that way for quarians, naturally, but Costa did find a kind of satisfaction in the stretching of the neck. Made him feel more limber.

"How else would you do it?" one of his new fireteam members laughed as she popped another bubble of that weird pink stuff she chewed. It wasn't food, and she didn't eat it. When he asked around, the humans called it 'gum'. It was a sweetened substance that, apparently, was 'just one of those human things'. Which meant they didn't know how to explain it properly. It also meant Costa wasn't going to ask any further. He found digging too deep made his head hurt. He still didn't remember her name.

A short bark of laughter pulled attention to the tallest marine in the squad, an actual krogan. For a krogan she was actually on the smaller side, only a head above him. Still though, she was plenty big. And she was smart. In fact it shamed him when he thought back at how he had assumed, and acted, when she was first put on his squad as his engineer.

"Costa, sir," Sorey rumbled in her amused chuckle. "Even the new girl has you pegged from the start. It's probably because you stand like you have… what was that human term?" She glanced at one of the humans with a questioning look.

Catching the look, Illia, the human carrying the heavy mass rifle snorted. "Dat vould be 'a steek up his ass'."

"Okay, okay!" Costa growled, cutting of this teams quite unfair verbal assaults. "Lock in. Doors pop in Mark 5…6….7…."

"Sarge! You're going up!" Clair! That was the human's name! Called out.

"Heh, steek up my ass huh?" Costa sniffed as his fist hit the hatch release. It barely had enough time to open before he booted the new marie out the door with his foot. "Anybody else?"

With another bark of laughter Sorey jumped after the human. She, in turn, was followed, one by one, by the rest of the team, leaving Costa for last. "Heh, love these guys," he muttered as he followed his people.

Kal'Reeger, Landing site Gamma

The shuttle rumbled as it cleared the Perugia's launch bays, the pilots hitting assault speed quickly. Kal looked around at his people. They were professionals. All of them. Even Megan. She was, it turned out, a special forces trained soldier. In fact, her job on the diplomatic team was to integrate common Citadel military practices with her own people's. A job she decided would be best served by doing in the field. With pirates.

Now she stood with the rest of the team, her bubble helmet was darkened so that one couldn't see her face. It, as well as her containment suit, had been reinforced with modern armor plates. Along with the heavy rifle that she had mastered with somewhat frightening ease, she cut a rather imposing figure. Even before one learned of the nano bladed sword handle strapped to her leg.

The thing almost made Kal shudder, if he wasn't in the middle of a drop. It had taken Kal a bit of work, and a lot more talking than he was comfortable with, especially when the target in question was so….happy.

Still, he learned that weapons like swords, axes and other weapons the Citadel races would consider barbaric, were still widely used on her world. They had firearms, of course, but after the first major war her people saw the sheer devastation they could deal, the war itself was called off. In fact it sparked a world wide conference about the morality of the weapons, which, in turn, led to the beginnings of a unified government.

Of course it wasn't that easy. It never was. During unifications mixed units of melee and firearm soldiers were that norm. In fact, one of the first applications of Mass Effect technology that they had discovered a scant hundred years before the raloi encountered the asari was melee weapons. Using the tech on ranged weapons hadn't even occurred to them.

Megan's sword was an example. It seemed to consist of a long metal cylinder that was actually a bit lighter than what one would expect. However, the handle contained a small mass effect unit and a powdered metal medium. With the flick of a switch the unit activates, throwing the metal out in front of it, pulling the metal into a giant sword blade, almost longer than she was tall, and nearly as broad as Kal himself was. The blade edge was on a nano-molecular level and kept in a constant rotating spin. Truely a terrifying weapon.

"Hitting the ground in three...two…" the pilot called just as the shuttle shuddered hard, settling on the asteroid's surface.

Kal's fist hit the release at almost the same instant as his team pushed forward. Teamed pairs dropping, weapon's up, scanning. The shuttle was already pulling away as Kal's feet hit rock, it's thruster's burning it hard back to the Perugia.

"First point is the pirate radio station," Kal's omni-tool sent the map markers to his team's HUD. "From here we cut down around these dunes. I want eyes open for the batarian patrols. I expect those enemies in the dust before we hit the central control center, here." A series of line that indicated possible routes to their destination. The human's had a saying that plans lived only until they met the enemy. But they didn't plan the way he did. Except maybe the Captain.

"No movement so far," Darrens scanned the area around them with his rifle.

"Two by two," Kal nodded, dropping his omni-tool and hefting his rifle. Move out."

Quarian Lexicon

Realk: Cloth covering used by the quarians. It is used to describe not just the hood seen on most but any material adornment.

Bosh'tet: Animal, native to Rannoch. With no insect life, other species of life had to fill the niche that on earth fell to the insect. One such niche was the dung beetle. A bosh'tet falls into the category of roller on earth as it moves the dung found to a central location. Though differing in colors, from the green/yellow of the cooler climates to the blue/white in the more tropical areas, they are the same species. Known for apparent inability to distinguish between dung and small rocks, it is considered extremely stupid. Many have been found dead, surrounded by small rocks, as it tried to feed on them.