The shuttle touched down quickly and Shepard, Grunt and Garrus leaped off before it soared back outside the atmosphere. Shepard watched it go before adding her ammo mods. The sun glared angrily in her visor but there wasn't any particular heat in the air. Shepard squinted briefly before the visor automatically polarised to the light and the harsh impact on her eyes softened. Shepard looked at the sheen on her armour before looking back to Garrus. "I hear I have you to thank for the polish being so pristine?"

Garrus seemed to cough a stutter as he averted his eyes downwards. "Well, I uh, had a bit of spare time when I found you weren't awake."

"Was that all you found?" Shepard teased.

"Uh, all that I'm going to mention. Sorry." Garrus managed.

"No need" Shepard smiled, "I'm the one who's sorry. Sorry I wasn't awake to be there." She took the momentary silence to examine their surroundings. All around her, columns and structures constructed from ancient stone rose out of the ground, an old canvass occasionally marked with the incandescent brushstrokes of glanced bullets or beam scorches. The sound of Geth weaponry ahead echoed all through the compound, but currently Shepard couldn't pinpoint it.

"I think you needed sleep more than you need me" Garrus said to her, "and more than that, given the noise I think we need to find Tali. Now."

"Agreed" Shepard replied. "Let's move."

A gatehouse lay ahead, corpses of both Quarian and Geth forces lay inside. A looped log entry was playing, the Quarian's last words. Splatter patterns of white Geth dielectric operating fluid were on the walls and pooled on the floor. Garrus checked the Quarian corpse. "Been dead a while," he mused, "tried to hold the Geth off, the rest must have fled further inside."

"…find Tali'Zorah, she and that data are all that matters" the log pleaded. "Keelah se'lai."

"Come on," Shepard said, overriding the gatehouse controls and opening the door. "We need to hurry." The team rushed into a large open complex which was suspiciously empty. "Keep your guard up" Shepard ordered. The entire complex was thus far unguarded, every instinct screamed at Shepard that something was wrong but time was pressing against them; the longer they took, the closer Geth reinforcements got. Every second diminished their chances of finding anyone alive. The team progressed through, checking their corners and keeping their formation tight. Shepard looked towards the end of the square, the wide red door stood imposingly. Shepard's eye narrowed, there was no way they had been undetected, so where was the response? A silvery streak suddenly appeared out of the sky, blotting out the sun as it bore down on Shepard and her team.

"Incoming drop ship!" Garrus yelled as a salvo rained down into the ground just in front of them, fragments of stone showering them. Cold white lights appeared within the dust cloud, followed by the granular distortion of clicks.

"Get down!" Shepard yelled as a flurry of bullets from pulse rifles flew overhead. She was glad she had already added her disrupter modification to her ammo as she waited for a pause to return fire. She looked across to here Garrus was similarly waiting, his eye was steely but also alive from behind his visor. He was fully engaged, this was his place, next to her, in the heat of battle for their friends. He gave Shepard a reassuring nod before popping over cover and returning fire. Shepard joined him as they mowed down two out of three, easily overloading the shields. The third was hidden in cover when Shepard realised Grunt had flanked the last one as the massive krogan charged.

The geth tried to bring its gun around but Grunt merely slapped it out of the trooper's grip with a throaty laugh. The platform was helpless as Grunt lifted it above his head before ripping it in half, white fluid spraying everywhere. He threw the pieces down on the ground before lifting up a massive krogan boot and crushing the headpiece with a mighty stomp, uttering a growl. Grunt looked at Shepard, fire in his eyes. "More" he simply said with a smile, his appetite for destruction stoked.

"We'll find it" Shepard promised.

They didn't have to go far for Shepard's promise to be fulfilled, a squad emerging from the red door at the far end providing mere target practice for Garrus as he mowed them down under his scope. Shepard kept pushing forward, her Avenger punching each shot with cold intensity. They rounded a corner to a chilling sight; a pair of dead Quarians and a pair of geth troopers confirming the kill by pumping an extra clip into them. Enviro-suits were shredded as bullets were pumped into them, red eruptions of blood sprayed from the corpses as the projectiles ripped them open like tissue paper, the resulting pool adding to the sickening scene before them. A fallen geth hunter was glitching in and out of visibility against the wall. The Geth were clearly intent on giving as good as they got, Shepard briefly considered whether the excessive brutality was born out of rage, an act of revenge, but dismissed it. It wasn't possible, emotions weren't a part of geth programming. A buzzing from the ground caught Shepard's attention, a dropped radio was being hailed. "Op-1, this is Squad Leader Kal'Reegar, come in, over."

Shepard picked up the radio, slightly nauseated at the blood that clung to it against the ground. "This is Commander Shepard of the Normandy; can we provide assistance?"

There was hesitation at the other end, and then a pained sigh. Reegar clearly knew why it wasn't his squad answering. "Patch your radio into channel 617-Theta."

Shepard discarded the radio but the blood still clung to her hands, becoming sticky, compounding her discomfort. It was both reassuring and upsetting that despite all her history of combat, no matter how many bodies she was forced to drop, enough of her humanity remained that situations like this affected her so deeply. Her bloody fingers tapped at her omnitool finding the frequency.

"…stealth mission" came Reegar's voice. "High risk. We found what we were after but the Geth found us. They've got us pinned down; can't get to our ship, can't transmit data through the solar radiation."

"Hold your position" Shepard ordered, "we'll hit their back ranks."

"Wait!" Reegar shouted through the radio as a shimmer passed over the sun. "Watch your ass!"

"Dropship!" Grunt roared, almost louder than the missile explosions. Shepard rushed around into the courtyard only to watch a column of solid rock crush three Quarian corpses, blood oozing out from the burst bodies within. Shit.

"That's going to slow us down" Garrus remarked as they took cover.

"Grab the demo charges in the buildings nearby!" Reegar instructed, "Use them to clear a path!"

"Of all the times we don't bring along Jax" Shepard cursed, seeing the increased readings of Geth activity. "All right, let's go find these charges."

The next series of minutes was spent navigating the battlefield amidst a hail of geth fire but eventually, they found what they were looking for. "Here" Shepard said, stepping over a geth corpse to reach the second demolition charge lying on a desk.

"Flamethrowers" Garrus muttered. "I'm Garrus Vakarian and geth wielding flamethrowers are my least favourite thing in the galaxy."

"Anything wielding a flamethrower really" Shepard remarked. "Those vorcha were an absolute pain in the ass when I was recruiting you. Still might come second to a Reaper though."

"A close second" Garrus amended.

"Look on the bright side, with the state your armour's in, you'll never notice the odd burn mark or two" Shepard teased.

"Well I was too busy cleaning yours to get around to that" Garrus grinned.

Shepard pocketed the detonator and turned her attention to a computer. "Looks like a data entry. Tali's field notes" she read, scrawling through the text. "Nothing of use in terms of combatting the sun's effect but…" Her voice trailed off. "'Therum'", she remembered. "Tali took inspiration from the mission where we first found Liara. I haven't thought of those days in so long."

"The old crew never really left," Garrus told her, "not truly. No Alliance and Council cover up will ever change what those days meant."

"Yeah," Shepard mused, "I wonder what Ashley would've thought of all this."

"She'd stand with you" Garrus instantly replied.

Shepard shook her head. "No she wouldn't. Ash was Alliance through and through, soldiering was in her blood, nothing would ever have made her give that up."

"Despite the glares she occasionally gave me while doing inventory when I first came aboard, I always admired that about her" Garrus said "Her simply indomitable streak of stubbornness, I joked once that she should've been born a turian, I think she almost shot me for that."

"Sensitive topic" Shepard replied to him. "But at the end, she came around. The entire Citadel, the melting pot of nearly every sentient race in the galaxy and Ash didn't even hesitate to lay down her life for it. I couldn't be prouder of her."

"We'll continue to honour her in preserving everything she protected" Garrus promised her. "Come on, Tali can't be too far."

Shepard nodded, they were wasting far too much time on sentimentalities as it was already. Shepard quickly planted the explosives and made short work of the wall. The other side of the wall was a fairly docile sight. Geth and Quarian corpses lay strewn, clearly this had been the site where the Quarians had dug in, a mobile armoury stood against the wall and a disassembled geth rifle lay on a desk for study. One Geth trooper was still at least partially functional, the light still blinking before it looked up to meet the end of Grunt's massive shotgun.

"Ha, ha" Grunt pronounced carefully before pulling the trigger, reducing the trooper's head to paste.

"Spread out" Shepard ordered, "let's see what we have here."

"Nothing that's in better condition than what we have on the Normandy" Garrus reported, checking a weapons locker.

Shepard found another of Tali's logs still active on a terminal. "Our ancestor's walked these halls with uncovered heads…" it spoke in Tali's voice.

"This place means a lot to them" Shepard muttered, "it's part of their history."

"Even so, why fight for something so clearly lost?" Garrus muttered in reply, kneeling beside a dead quarian. "Coming here was a waste, a pointless gesture of bravado and for what? An over-irradiated rock."

"It may be a rock, but it's their rock" Grunt growled back. "And to a species without even that now, it's worth everything. I wouldn't expect a turian to understand, your kind had half the galaxy to yourselves and rolled over in your 'Unification War'. You don't know what you have until you lose it."

"You feel strongly about this, despite not being born on Tuchanka?" Shepard asked.

Grunt exuded a soft growl. "Home isn't where you're popped out, it's what you fight for. I took on a thresher maw for my people."

"I grew up on Earth an orphan" Shepard replied, "I know it's the seat of humanity but honestly? The people who mean the most to me are all out here, Earth doesn't mean that much to me."

"Because you've never had to lose it" Grunt growled back. "If the enemy took your planet from you, would you still feel the same then?"

"I hope I never have to find out" Shepard replied honestly.

An interruption from one of the terminals cut through the tension. "Tali'Zorah to Base Camp, come in Base Camp."

Shepard crossed the room to the terminal, forced again to note the corpses Tali was trying to reach.

"Hello?" Tali pressed again, a touch of desperation entering her voice. "Is anyone there?"

"Tali, it's Shepard" she answered. "I'm sorry, everyone here is dead. Any survivors must have fallen back."

The hologram of Tali shook its head sadly. "We knew this mission was high risk" she sighed. "Damn it." It seemed after the Citadel and Freedom's Progress, Tali had gotten past expressing disbelief at Shepard's timely interventions. "We're in the middle of Geth space, what are you doing out here?"

"Was in the neighbourhood," Shepard remarked, "figured you could use a hand."

"Thank you for coming Shepard" Tali replied. "It means a lot right now to hear your voice."

"What's your status?" Shepard asked.

"Holed up in the Observatory" Tali replied. "Kal'Reegar and the other marines managed to get me in but I've got a lot of geth outside."

"Any of the marines left?"

"Reegar had a team when I made it in here" Tali said. "At least some of them are still alive, I can hear them firing at the geth outside."

"We'll join them, can you get the doors between here and there unlocked?" Shepard asked.

"Done" Tali replied after a moment. "Be careful Shepard and please, do what you can to keep Reegar alive."

Shepard nodded and headed through the now unlocked door, navigating her way down the ancient stone corridors before opening a door to meet Geth barrels waiting for her. Before she could react, a blinding blast of blue light lit up the recon drones and they fell to the ground, inoperative. Shepard whirled around, Garrus' overload already recharging. "The drones have optical camouflage systems" he said, tapping his visor that had allowed him to see through it instantly. "And here I was worried this would be too easy."

Shepard looked down her sights and dropped two more incoming drones before realising there was a much larger shape backing them up.

"Prime!" Grunt roared a hail of bullets from a Revenant assault rifle flew at them. "They're trying to slow us down!"

"It would certainly seem like we've lost any chance of the element of surprise," Garrus agreed.

"Any forces we encounter here are being pulled from taking the Quarians from behind" Shepard said. "Let's give them something real to shoot." She broke from cover as Garrus' sniper rifle rang out, drones falling from the sky, the armour piercing rounds drilling holes through them. The Geth may have been exceptional in mobilising resources to react to Shepard's team but even that wasn't enough and soon later, the Geth Prime fell to its knees before self-destructing, leaving only a puddle behind. "Come on" Shepard breathed, "the marines can't be far."

Another linear labyrinth of corridors later and they ended up in a room surrounded by blast shielding, the ever increasing volume of gunfire and explosions the only thing telling them they were on the right track. Shepard deactivated the lock down and the window panels slid down to reveal a metal monstrosity. Its massive head turned to face as its arachnid legs brought it around, black metal shining in the sun as it released a massive burst of power. "Oh crap" Garrus managed.

"Get down!" Shepard yelled as they dived for the concrete floor the blast shaking the foundations around them, dust trickling down from the ceiling.

"We need to move!" Grunt said as they quickly made their way out the door.

Shepard scarpered down the ramps to find a single Quarian still left alive, a medkit and a few remaining thermal clips scattered around him. "Over here!" He barked, "get to cover!" Shepard's introduction was interrupted as he launched a missile at the Geth before taking cover again. "Squad leader Kal'Reegar, Migrant Fleet Marines," he introduced, "we spoke on the radio."

A blast from the colossus hammered the wall, showering them with stone pebbles and making them crouch deeper behind their cover.

"We know she's alive?" Shepard asked.

Reegar nodded. "The door is reinforced, even the Geth will need time to get through it." He chuckled as he gestured to his rocket launcher. "And it's hard to hack a door when someone's launching these at you."

"Got a plan for dealing with that thing?" Shepard asked as more bullets rang out against their metal cover.

Reegar did something that appeared to be akin to a grimace behind his visor. "Standard protocol with something that size is to chip away at it, kill it with bug bites but that's been blown to hell; the colossus has a repair protocol, it's capable of fixing itself so you'll need to do something great to get destroyed, probably involves getting up close."

"Best way to do that?"

Reegar indicated. "The catwalk on the right. It'll expose you to the sun but in the middle you're a sitting duck for the colossus and the left leaves you vulnerable to being swarmed by the Geth, I found that out the hard way."

Shepard noticed a small line of blood leaking from his suit. "Garrus, medi-gel."

Reegar raised a hand in refusal. "No, combat seals have clamped down to isolate contamination and I'm swimming in antibiotics. You might need that more than I will. The Geth might get me but I'm not going to die from an infection in the middle of a battle, that's just insulting."

"Well then we need to get up there" Shepard growled. "Got any ideas?"

"Just one" Reegar replied. "I'm not moving so well but I can still pull a trigger and I've got a rocket launcher the sun hasn't fried yet."

"Fried?" Shepard asked.

Reegar nodded. "Heavy weapons operate on power cells, same as your shields; the sun chews through them."

Shepard checked her arc projector. "Shit" she cursed, Reegar was right; the weapon was non-responsive. "Well this just got a whole lot harder."

Reegar nodded. "With only small arms, you'll need to get in close. I'll keep the colossus busy, maybe even drop its shields. With luck, you'll be able to finish it off." He made to stand and fire another rocket but Shepard yanked him back into cover as a bullet blew a massive chunk out of the stone wall behind where his head had been.

"We don't have enough people for you to take one for the team," Shepard yelled, "stand down!"

"I'm not going to sit here while you run into enemy fire!" Reegar yelled back, "they killed my squad!"

"I lost my whole squad too" Garrus told him, "I know the pain you're in, but that isn't an excuse for firing blind. I'd be dead without Shepard rescuing me from that situation and you might be too, use your head marine!"

Reegar nodded slowly, conceding his words. "I'll cover the rear, with the amount of reinforcements you had to fight through to get here, there might be more coming. Keelah se'lai."

Shepard nodded as Grunt laid down covering fire, allowing her and Garrus to move up. "You didn't lose your whole squad" she reminded Garrus. "You still have Jax."

"And every day I thank gods I don't believe in for it" Garrus replied.

"Does he know that?" Shepard asked.

Garrus grimaced. "Nothing like the threat of death to remind you of your failings."

"You'll remedy this one" Shepard promised as Grunt joined them and they began siding up the catwalk. They reached the top and Shepard cursed. "Isolated cover" she reported, taking a look. "We take this one at a time."

"We're with you" Garrus told her.

Shepard moved up, fire peppering the rails all around her. She ducked into cover as a group of Geth emerged from a door on the side. "Just when I thought we were done with the flamethrowers" Garrus commented drily as he analysed them through his scope before dropping two. Shepard took advantage of their distraction and charged to the next spot, pushing further forward. There was a moment of silence before a massive high pitched whine like a ship hurtling out of orbit filled her ears even within the helmet.

Shepard clamped her hands against her helmet as reality rippled around her, her shields phasing briefly. Siege pulse cannon she thought, forcing herself to calm. It's the main weapon of the colossus, eight seconds to recharge, seven, six… "Move!" She yelled, pushing forward as Grunt switched to his assault rifle to be more effective from his rear position. They advanced and secured the door, also succeeding in putting themselves on the other side of a massive stone column from the colossus and allowing them a moment to breathe. Shepard examined the field over the railing as another geth squad pushed forward. She motioned Garrus and Grunt to ready themselves but the squadron moved past them entirely out into the main field. Shepard attempted to gun them down but they were already moving in between the cranes out in the middle, making it impossible to get a shot off. "Clever bastards" she muttered, "Reegar, you've got a squad coming at you, six hostiles. How many rockets do you have left?"

There was a moment of silence. "Enough" Reegar said finally. "I'll take care of this group, just get to Tali."

"Reegar" Shepard repeated, "how many rockets?"

Reegar exhaled. "Two" he admitted. It wouldn't be enough.

"Any sidearms?" Shepard asked.

"A marines-grade Shuriken."

"No way he survives that" Garrus said, affirming what all of them already knew.

"It's an honour to go down fighting the synthetic bastards" Reegar said. "Tali is what matters here."

"It's an honour you'll have to forgive me for denying you" Shepard said, making a snap decision. "Grunt, fall back. Keep Reegar alive, we'll handle the colossus."

Grunt and nodded and jumped the railing, charging like only a krogan could.

"Guess it's just us" Shepard said as she and Garrus approached the corner to see the colossus. She looked at him briefly, seeing a flashing alert on his omnitool. "Your shields."

He nodded. "They've stopped regenerating, sun burnt out the power core on the catwalk. Yours are taking a pretty long time to regenerate too. I have," he checked his display, "sixty-three percent left, should be enough."

"No heroics" Shepard warned, "that's an order."

"Yes Ma'am" Garrus chuckled, twisting around her and triggering an overload on the colossus's shields. For a few minutes, Garrus and Shepard worked side by side, Garrus whittling down the shields with miniature overloads and Shepard peppering it with bullets to prevent it for regenerating, it was working.

"Shepard!" Grunt roared.

Shepard paused for a moment. "Come in Grunt, what's your status?"

"The Geth are backing off!" Grunt yelled, "they're doubling back behind you!"

Shepard had enough time to turn around as a Geth rocket trooper came around the corner and fired. Shepard's shields absorbed the blast but the impact still knocked her backwards, right under the glowing eye of the colossus. Shepard's shields were down, the colossus' eye began to brighten as the hum of the pulse cannon charging up became a roar. "Katrina!" Garrus screamed, using her first name.

Shepard was barely aware of herself. She didn't think she'd ever heard Garrus use her first name. It was such a pity it'd been in a scream of fear; she would've rather liked to have heard it softly whispered in his gruff yet caring tone. It was only as the colossus released the blast did she feel the impact of a body crashing against hers and Garrus' pained grunt escalate to a cry. Shepard didn't have time to question why she could still move as she snatched her carnifex still strapped to her hip, aimed wildly at the geth trooper and fired. The bullet entered the tip of the rocket launcher and the trooper disappeared in an explosion of white flames that swallowed its squad. Shepard rolled to her feet as the colossus towered over her, ready to fire again. She dived out of the way behind cover before remembering why she was alone in it. "Garrus!" She screamed at the limp figure still lying on the ground. He had taken the impact of the colossus' main cannon with broken shields for her. Shepard couldn't do anything for him now as another surge of blue energy flew past her in cover. She looked around and cursed, she had dropped her assault rifle when Garrus had tackled her. She didn't have the time to aim with the sniper rifle for a proper shot and a shotgun from this range was useless, and it was suicide to consider charging forward. There was only one option now. Shepard bit her teeth as she opened her omnitool. "Mayday, mayday" she called, looking up at the textureless haze of the burning sky. She prayed the Normandy could hear her through the radiation, and that they would respond in time. "Can anyone hear me!?"