Shepard's grin widened when the hologram remained silent, imagining the wheels whirling in that gigantic electronic brain as the Reaper tried to figure out how she knew its name. She held her hands out to the side and made a sweeping bow. "I'm Captain Jane Shepard. I can't tell you how lovely it is to finally meet you in person. I've heard so many wonderful things."

"Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh," the voice continued, "you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance. Incapable of understanding."

Shepard hesitated for a moment. She'd thought that moment would come with some sort of terrified revelation, but instead . . . calm filled her. Nihlus stepped up behind her, his hand pressing into the small of her back. She glanced back and nodded, understanding the warning and appreciating the support, but her fear had evaporated. Where others might have stood before that thing trembling, she had been given everything she needed to face it from a place of strength. Time to get some answers.

She stepped out to the very end of the platform. "Oh, I think might understand a little better than you think. You see, in all your amazing incomprehensibility, you didn't kill the Thorian before it let out your little secret. See, it watched your kind destroy Feros. It absorbed all that horror and death." A ferocious smile tightened her face, sharpening it. "It ratted on you, and then the true geth ratted on you."

"There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own that you cannot even imagine it." The monotone arrogance reverberated through the air, sending tremors through Shepard's eardrums and lips, fingers, belly … anywhere thin, fragile, and human. "I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign."

Shepard laughed. "Is this a pre-recorded message? In case of contact with organics break glass?" She cocked a hip and crossed her arms, settling her head back on her neck. "Oh yeah, you're a huge mystery, Nazara." She leaned forward as she stressed the Reaper's name. "Let's see how I do on the whole comprehension thing. You're what the Protheans called a Reaper."

"Reaper, a label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they chose to call us is irrelevant. We simply are."

Shepard leaned back, widening her stance and dropping her center of gravity, trying to look as immovable as possible. "No, you wouldn't call yourselves Reapers. You probably have no species name, because each of you is actually made from a different species … well, the remains of them."

"Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation. An accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal. The pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything."

Shepard straightened, her arms dropping to her side. "That's part of the pre-recorded intimidation message, is it? Because we've used the beacons, we know better. You were born 50,000 years ago in the heart of the Citadel tower from the grey, pasty remains of a race called the Rivaran. We saw you detach from your womb." She backed up a step. "Well? Nothing to say to that, Mr. Big and Scary Sovereign?" Nihlus pressed in tight against her, but didn't speak. She looked to him. He seemed steady and calm, but observing perhaps? Anyway, he didn't seem inclined to join the conversation. A giddy sort of laugh escaped her as she imagined what Garrus would have to say were he there.

Taking some steel from that thought, she stepped forward. "No? Nothing to that? I suppose your replies are all based on 'Sweet baby Jesus, what are you?' and 'Holy mother of God, that's not a ship'." She reached up and covered up turning on her radio with an ear scratch. "Okay, so … something easier. What of your allies? Saren and the heretic geth? What do they get out of helping you bring back all your buddies? A nice vacation condo on a beach somewhere?" She shifted a couple of steps to her right then back, pacing a mini-circuit, buying herself some thinking space. "You promised to give the heretic geth their future. What does that future look like?"

"The geth are an annoyance, creations of limited utility. They are unable to think on their own, made weak and dependent by their organic creators. Their allegiance is inconsequential outside their purpose. Once my kind blacken the sky of every world, the harvest complete, they will be exterminated. The cycle will not be broken."

Shepard grinned, nodding a little at the talons that patted her back, congratulating her. "Oh, I think the cycle is plenty broken already. The Protheans failed against thousands of you, but right now, you're here alone." She leaned in. "Trust me, I intend to see that it stays that way."

"Confidence born of ignorance. The cycle cannot be broken. The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance, and at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished. The Protheans were not the first. They did not create the Citadel. They did not forge the mass relays. They merely found them. The legacy of my kind."

Shepard nodded and paced behind Nihlus, turning her back to the Reaper, sensing it would hate that she did. For a being that demonstrated so little emotion, it reeked arrogance like a five day dead possum lying by the side of the highway in the desert reeked of … well, reek. When she reached the main part of the floor, she stopped, still turned away. "Yeah, I know that too. So what?"

"Your civilization is based upon the technology of the mass relays, our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it." Its voice rose on the end by the tiniest degree, but had previously stuck to the monotone so strictly that it registered as a shout.

"So, you prod us along, herding us through our development until we reach a stage where we're useful as … what?" Nihlus strode up to the hologram. "You don't take slaves, other than turning people into shock troops that you leave to die. I don't have any memories of you stripping planets of technology or resources. Why bother with any of it? What is it about?"

Shepard nodded, cataloguing the information away, wondering how much Tashac knew. Did she know the Inusannon didn't build the relays? She must have. Surely, the Protheans had seen the trap for what it was … since they ended up caught in it.

"So you built the relays and the Citadel. You created the whole concept of the Mass Effect?" She made a face, an eyebrow cocking, her mouth skewed off to one side. That rang wrong. "Really? A race so creatively barren that they repeat the exact same behaviours over and over for millions of years, and I'm supposed to believe that you invented anything?" She shook her head and turned back, striding down to face the hologram nose to … creepy shell, certainty fueling her. "No. Someone built the first one of you. Maybe the first several, and then you took over. You aren't capable of true creation or invention."

"My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation, free of all weakness. You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence. We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite. Millions of years after your civilization has been eradicated and forgotten we will endure. Your kind need not understand our motives, they need only die as have trillions upon trillions before them."

Shepard laughed, but despite everything she knew from the Thorian and Tashac, an icy dread crept up her spine. Nothing said so far could have provoked it. Something else lurked under the surface, something she couldn't see, and it terrified her. The thing, the damned Reaper felt as though it was gloating rather than reciting by rote. Despite that, she cracked her neck, squashed down her fear and bulldozed ahead. "Seriously? Can't you step off the script? I told you that I already know you were created, how, when, and even out of what. And I'm supposed to be completely terrified of you?"

Looking back at Nihlus, she shook her head. "What the hell were we so worried about? It can't even carry on an intelligent conversation. It's all just scripted threats and assumptions." She leaned forward and levelled an ice-cold smile at the thing, all teeth and frozen eyes. "You're pathetic, and I'm not afraid of you. You wouldn't know what to do with a galaxy ready and willing to fight you."

"Your fear is irrelevant, as is your posturing. We are Legion. The time of our return is coming. You cannot escape your doom."

She shook her head. "Oh, we'll avoid it. We'll send you straight to hell, and if your buddies and inbred cousins and drunken college roommates show up, we'll send them straight to hell too."

"Shepard!"

Shepard's hand flew up to her ear. "Team Four? All sorted?"

"Yes, ma'am. We got the cells open and are headed for the evac site now. Moving slowly though, Captain. The pilgrims and other prisoners are afraid of Legion and the primes as well as in general."

"Understood, Team Four. Keep them moving. Let me know when you're safely back aboard the drop ship."

Before Tali could reply, an emergency communication broke through, shrieking in Shepard's ear as it cut off the other call.

"Ouch, dammit." She doubled over, her hands clapped over her ears as six inch ardox spikes hammered into her head. "Fuck, that hurts. Who decided something was worth deafening me?"

"Alenko here, Captain. Remember that energy source that was about to be blown to hell so we shouldn't pay any attention to it? We just found it. It turned on about three minutes ago. It's set to blow everything sky high and blanket the planet in massive amounts of radiation in seventeen minutes."

"What?" Shepard jerked upright, spine snapping stiff. She opened the channel for Nihlus to receive as well. "A bomb?" Her mind spun into overdrive, trying to formulate a plan, thoughts flipping through so quickly that she almost missed his confirmation.

"Yes, ma'am. One hell of a massive bomb. It'll take out everything for five klicks in every direction."

Nihlus stepped to Shepard's side, his hand reflexively moving to squeeze her shoulder. "A trap. Saren let us get in this far before triggering it."

Shepard felt her heart dip sickeningly, a sponge bogged down in a swamp, riding algae-choked waves in a storm. "The quarians." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Their cells were hooked up to cables that ran into the floor. Tali said they just got the pilgrims out."

"There are cables coming into the room, but Captain, we have to evacuate. There's no way to disarm this thing, it's completely shielded. Commander Rentola and I have been trying to find a way in, but … ."

Shepard spun back to face the hologram. "Fuck, that bloody thing's been playing with us. Get out, Sparky. Get the hell out of there. We'll meet you at the evac point." Glancing at Nihlus, she barked. "Get the others moving! We're not leaving anyone on this fucking planet." She marched to the end of the platform to stare down the hologram. "We're going to end you. On the life of the sweet baby Jesus, I promise you that, machine. I will end you."

"Your words are empty, your future nonexistent. I am the vanguard of the harvest and your civilization's destruction. Your god has abandoned you, Jane Shepard. It left you to the batarians, and it has left you to us. We will not be as merciful as they were. This exchange is over." The hologram blinked out.

"… pinned down at the base of the AA tower!" Ashley's voice shouted over heavy fire as Nihlus included Shepard in the conversation. "Every heretic geth on the planet is dug in up there."

Ashley's voice broke through the thick, glacial darkness that held Shepard frozen at the edge of the platform. On the surface, she understood how the Reaper knew about the batarians, but something in that voice promised something so much worse and so much deeper.

"Blow that thing and get out of there, Williams," Nihlus bellowed back. "In sixteen minutes, this place is going to be a radioactive crater."

"Ash," Shepard chimed in as she shook off most of the terror and ran for the door. "Do what you have to, but take that gun down. We don't have time to make it outside the range of that gun for pick up. If it isn't destroyed, we're all dying here." Jumping through before the door even finished opening, she dashed forward and hit the elevator control.

"Understood, ma'am. We'll get it done. Vakarian, Kirrahe, move up and overload that juggernaut."

Shepard glanced back at Nihlus as the channel closed. "Tali's running for her evac?"

Nihlus nodded, stepping past her into the elevator. "We just need to hope that Williams and Vakarian can get that AA gun down, or it won't matter. We can't even call in the shuttle." He punched the controls.

She nodded, shrugging Roger into her hands. Fear galvanized her. In the face of certain disaster, only one thing remained. Action. Keep in the fight, keep moving forward until her heart stopped. "We need to send Gladstone and the refugees ahead to the evac and try to pull some of the heat off Team Two." She raised her hand to her ear. "Team One, I'm transmitting the tracker code for Gladstone. I'm going to send him and the noncombatants to the evac. See if you can join up and give them some extra fire support, make sure they get there."

"Aye, aye, ma'am. And you?"

Shepard stepped up to the elevator door, willing it to move faster. "Team Two is pinned down at the second tower. Going to try to give them a shot to blow that gun to hell. Just get the noncombatants out of the line of fire, Sparky."

"Yes, ma'am. Team One, out."

Wrex paced restlessly along the line of salarian prisoners when they made it back to the outer room. "About time. I was beginning to think the two of you had gotten yourselves killed." He strode forward to meet them, bristling and tense.

"No, but it's early still." Shepard ran over to the door. "Gladstone, run like hell for the evac with the salarians and the doctor. Team One will meet up with you." When he responded to the affirmative, she turned to face the salarian scouts. "Are any of you okay to handle a pistol? You're going to need to help protect yourselves."

Two stepped forward. She pressed her pistol into the hand of one and nodded for Nihlus to hand his sidearm over to the other. "Excellent. Good luck."

"I've fired a gun enough to help," the asari scientist said, stepping forward. "I might not hit all that many bad guys, but I can keep them scared."

Shepard smiled and nodded toward Gladstone. "He can give you his sidearm." She patted Rana on the back as she hurried past. "Stay safe out there."

Waving to Wrex and Nihlus, Shepard ran out the door, heading straight ahead, across a drawbridge rather than following Gladstone to the right. The AA tower rose out of the complex a couple hundred metres ahead. They just needed to get close enough to distract some of the defenders.

"Shepard-Captain," a geth voice called in Shepard's ear, "geth surveillance of the planet indicates that the Old Machine disengaged with docking station and is moving toward the base at a velocity of 1200 kph. ETA to base five minutes twenty nine seconds."

Shepard groaned. Even more good news. Now they could dodge Reaper fire as well. "Thanks. Keep us up to date on its movements. Shepard out." Shooting a glance Nihlus's direction, she called, "Reaper on its way."

"Shit."

She nodded, that assessment summing things up nicely, but then two geth destroyers charged them from the far end of the drawbridge. Halfway across, the large machines went down spewing white fluid, falling to a barrage of powers and bullets. Leaping over one even as it slid past, Shepard bolted for the door at the end.

"Insane," she grumbled, running around a long, curving interior hallway. "What the hell is the point of all these stupid corridors?" The door at the end of that opened, another outdoor walkway following alongside the building, then around, giving them a clear view of the AA tower. She could see Team Two up on the roof of the building, pinned down by a huge number of geth. Shepard pulled Ingrid and dodged into cover behind a crate.

"Some of those jumping ones," Nihlus called. "They're crawling down the wall from above."

"Excellent. Wrex! Warp. Try to keep them still for a second or two." Shepard sighted the thing, waited for Wrex to immobilize it before she finished it off. "Nice." Four of the nimble geth went down with relative ease before Shepard had a chance to wonder why they were, in fact, still fighting geth. Hadn't they heard what Sovereign said about them? Didn't they care about being disposable, expendable tools?

"Shepard-Captain, Old Machine proceeded to the north side of base and halted. Heretic dropships moving over primary evac site," their eyes in the heavens reported.

"Understood, let me know what that Reaper does. Shepard, out." She gestured for Nihlus to move up. "Let's take out a few of those defenders and then move. We have geth on their way to the primary evac."

"Understood." He brought up his sniper rifle, aiming for a head sticking up above the railing a good forty feet up.

She and Ingrid took out two troopers and three rocket troopers, the whole time the countdown ticking away inside her head. Twelve minutes, eleven minutes . . ..

"Thanks, Skipper," Ashley called two minutes later. "We're moving forward. Should be on our way to the dust off within a couple of minutes."

Shepard stuck her head out, seeing her people heading toward the gun. "Okay, let's get to the evac site and keep it clear." She turned and bolted toward the tower. "Our route down is through that elevator."

The elevator exited into another short, empty hallway, a door on the wall to the right. As Shepard opened the door, she spotted the drop ship hovering above the evac site.

"Sweet spirits," Nihlus whispered, his voice a thin, tight hiss that focused Shepard on what lay before them: one of the massive krogan breeding sheds.

"There must be a hundred tanks in here," Wrex said, his massive head shaking. He led the way through the ankle deep water between the raised tanks. "Saren has to have grown thousands of krogan."

Shepard shook at the thought that the shed before them was only one of ten. Lifting into a jog, she passed Wrex, Roger held high and ready. "Right now, our job is getting our people the hell out of here. Focus on that, and come on." A massive door blocked the far end. When Nihlus and Wrex took positions in cover, she opened it up.

Geth covered the high ground, leaving them to dart into cover. Shepard launched her drone and overloaded the closest trooper, dropping it into a twitching pile.

"Shepard! Team Four is pinned down fifty metres from evac," Tali shouted over the sound of gunfire and exploding rockets.

"Tali, we've got eight minutes before the big boom. Do whatever you need to, but get out of there!" Shepard ducked out, sighting down two troopers, finishing them both off with headshots before her shields began to complain. She wished she could see what the quarians and geth were dealing with . . . wished she could race down through the base to help them . . . anything but be trapped and helpless.

Three heretic primes marched down the slope toward them, pulse cannons sending balls of plasma roaring past her head and slamming into her cover behind the frame of the gate. She leaned out, ripping along the closest one's shields with an overload, then hacking it. It turned on it's companions, buying her a little time.

"Sparky! Where the hell is Team One? We're pinned down and taking fire from over a dozen geth here." Automatic, smooth and mechanical, she moved from one enemy to the next, ducking into cover only when her shields threatened to fail. The movements formed a dance, a dance of lead, careful timing, and deadly consequences.

"Still two minutes from your position, Shepard," Kaidan shouted back, constant gunfire coming through his mike as well. "We hooked up with your stragglers and are moving in as fast as we can. Meeting heavy resistance of our own here."

"Shit! Do what you can, Sparky." Shepard ducked out, hitting the hacked geth with overload again, then opened fire, trying to pull it down before it reversed her hack.

"Shepard-Captain," a geth voice called through her radio, "additional geth units housed on server 02242-14521 incoming to assist extraction of Team Four. Stand by." A drop ship soared over their heads, heading for Tali's position.

"Roger that." Shepard leaned out just in time to see Wrex blown backwards, three siege pulse blasts hitting him square. He flew three metres through the air to crash into the wall, sliding down into a motionless heap. Her heart stopped, a savage pain ripping down through her arm. "Wrex! Are you okay?" No answer. "Wrex! Answer me goddamn it!" Still nothing. Forcing down panicked sorrow and rage, she controlled her urge to run to the krogan's side, focusing her emotions into blowing the destroyer closing on him to hell.

An explosion rose up over the walls from the second AA tower, sending a lightning burst of relief sizzling along her nervous system. At last, they could call in the shuttle. A second later, the sound of gunfire erupted in Shepard's ear again.

"Skipper, the geth destroyed the elevator down to the breeding shed. We're fighting our way backward toward your position the long way, but there's too many of them. Vakarian, Kirrahe, and I are all wounded. I can't walk, so I'm going to hold here, try to keep them off the team and you."

"Ashley!" Shepard hollered over Roger's staccato beat as she tore into a rocket trooper. "Get your ass back here. You still have seven minutes. Even fighting backwards, you can make it." An explosion against Shepard's shields threw her backwards, leaving the radio channel open. She shook her head, clearing dizziness and water from her vision. "Nihlus, get that damned shuttle in here!" Scrambling up out of the water, she darted for new cover at the back of the field. They should be moving forward, but instead, the geth just kept coming. She took out another trooper with an overload, then finished off the one prime.

"Go!" Ashley hollered. "Jenkins, what the hell? I ordered you out of here."

"You're too badly wounded. You won't be able to hold them off. They'll hit us from behind." Shepard heard scuffling. Why were they wrestling instead of getting out?

Shepard opened fire on a rocket trooper that had Nihlus pinned, hammering the Spectre's position with a constant barrage of ML-77 shells. "What's going on there?" she yelled over the sound of Ashley cursing. "People, whatever you're doing, get the hell over here. We're on a deadline." Continuing fire, she exploded the heretic's head, showering Nihlus in white fluid.

"Garrus, take the chief," Jenkins called. More scuffling, then Williams yelling. Shepard couldn't make out the words. Jenkins's voice came through clearly again. "Go, get to Shepard." Gunfire interrupted him. "You can make it if you run. I'll hold them."

The huge gate on the other side of the field opened, Sparky and his team running out to scatter behind cover. Hope burst like a nova in Shepard's chest, lighting up the stormy darkness. A few more guns might only provide a long shot of survival, but it was still a shot.

"Glory hallelujah, Sparky," she said, her voice panting and breathless. "I've never been so glad to see your handsome mug."

"Can't say the same, ma'am." He ran across to take a position next to her, his rifle peppering the geth ranks with rounds.

Shepard ducked behind the cover. "Ashley? Jenkins? Team Two, what the hell is going on?"

Nihlus slid in behind a turbine casing next to Shepard's position. "Shuttle is on the way, but we need air support, or we're dead."

The young corporal's voice answered Shepard's call. "You were right, Captain . . . Jane. It's about knowing who to take the bullet for and when. I hope you think I made the right choice. When you take down Saren, have a cranberry juice for me."

"Jenkins, get your ass down here!" she screamed into the radio. A prime strode around their cover on the right. All three of them opened fire, the giant machine going down, but not before Sparky fell back against Shepard, blood bursting from his chest.

"It's been an honour, Captain," Jenkins said as Shepard scrambled to turn Kaidan around so she could check his wound. "Been saving something for you, Jane: 'Go with me, like good angels, to my end; and, as the long divorce of steel falls on me, make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, and lift my soul to heaven'."

Shepard hit Kaidan's medigel three times, then pulled him tighter in behind cover.

Jenkins's words, taken from Henry VIII balled in her throat, strangling her voice. "Not a betrayal," she whispered into the open channel. "You die a hero not a traitor, beautiful boy. We'll be proven to be the patriots in the end." The radio remained as quiet as death, so she closed the channel.

Shepard bent over Kaidan, scanning him with her omnitool. Unconscious, but alive. She clenched her jaw so hard that her teeth ground together, grumbling as she pressed her hand to Alenko's cheek, "Don't you dare die on me, Sparky."

Looking out, she saw that they'd finally started making headway against the tide. "Move up, drive those bastards off the edge," she yelled. "Keep closing in the landing area. Ash's team will make it any minute." She ducked out, running a handful of metres forward. "We just have to hold until she arrives!"

"Shepard," Joker's voice practically screamed in her ear. "The geth probe at the relay just recorded Sovereign taking off through the relay like a bat out of hell. Incoming for pick up, now. Which team? I need coordinates."

"Pick up Ash's team. Hold. I'll have her contact you." Shepard closed that channel. "Team Two. Ashley. Joker is incoming to pick up your team. You need to send him coordinates."

"Aye, ma'am, sending now." Ashley's voice came through rough, every other word or so forced out, no doubt by her bouncing along on Garrus's shoulder.

"Shepard, out." Before the channel closed, a massive explosion tore through her head, deafening her and dropping her to one knee. Wind roared . . . heavy objects . . . bodies . . . impacted . . . then screaming. The channel cut out.

"Jesus!" Shepard reeled from the pain in her head, calling out even though she could barely hear her own voice. "Ashley! Garrus! Anyone from Team Two, come in!"

No reply.

Shepard jumped out of cover, striding toward the landing zone. Roger took out a small squad of drones as she clicked over into automatic. "You bastards heard what the Reapers intend to do with you, for fuck's sake!" she screamed over the din, the constant aural insanity. She fired without pause, her shields complaining as rounds pelleted her.

Nihlus went down, but managed to drag himself behind cover and stagger back to his feet.

Shepard stopped halfway toward the landing zone and turned a circle. Nearly all of her people lay in the water, a couple still fighting, others dead . . . their eyes staring into nothing. Her omnitool beeped, letting her know three minutes left before the bomb under them detonated.

"Garrus," she whispered.

The shuttle swooped in from the west, swinging around as the VI brought it in for pickup, but eight geth including the two primes stood between her people and evac. Impossible.

Someone hit her hard, driving her behind cover. Looking up, she saw salarian eyes blinking at her. "Rentola?"

He said nothing, just leaning out to open fire, stopping, his mouth gaping as he stared up into the sky. Shepard followed his stare. A geth dropship soared in low, sweeping just above the walls. Geth units began dropping to the ground, curled into balls, arms hugging their knees. They unfolded, three-fingered hands reaching behind their backs for guns. The salarian fell, a mist of green blood spraying across Shepard's face.

Shepard closed her eyes and for the first time in a very long time, she found herself praying.

If you're out there, please, save my people.

Your god has abandoned you, Jane Shepard. It left you to the batarians, and it has left you to us.

The newcomers opened fire. Shepard opened her eyes, looking up as the Normandy soared overhead and then took off up into the clouds. A geth juggernaut stepped behind Shepard's cover. She stared up into that unblinking light bulb, numb . . . but not quite finished as the giant machine bent down. She swung Roger around, aiming for that soulless eye, but before she could squeeze the trigger, the geth picked Rentola up in its arms and started toward the shuttle.

"Shepard-Captain," Legion called, "you must evacuate."

Shock, cold and dizzying, left her swaying, confused. Hard, cold fingers grabbed her wrist and dragged her toward the shuttle. "Come. Only ninety seconds remain to escape the blast range."