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After five days in orbit over S4W8 Earth, the Starship Aurora made her jump home, accompanied by the Koenig and the Normandy.

The intense fighting in the recent weeks meant that every drydock space in the Fleet Base was being used for repairs. The Aurora slipped into the only remaining dock for her size and the Normandy into another. Even the Koenig, though not as badly hurt, would have to content herself with repairs in her own dock on the Aurora due to the lack of space.

Shortly after arrival, the time came for goodbyes. Everyone was gathered at the airlock into the station to meet the departures. Shepard and her team were joined by King and by Zack. Julia spoke to King as she walked up. "I heard the Excalibur beat us here," she said.

"Yes. Commander Stirling was able to effect sufficient repairs to allow a mass relay transit," King said. Her head was no longer covered in a wrapping. "Due to my injury and Doctor Gillam's excessive caution, Commander Granville will be directing repairs for another few days while I undergo enforced recuperation."

Leo responded to the polite barb with an equally polite, "I'm used to my patients overestimating their recuperative abilities, Captain. So I try not to take chances."

"And that is why you are a marvelous physician, if rather frustrating to deal with," King replied jovially. "Although even recuperation has to wait. General Hatcher is awaiting my arrival."

"The intelligence from the Von Braun Academy?" asked Robert.

"Exactly," King said. "The Nazis were working on several projects there. Our analysts will have months of work ahead to go through this data." She nodded to Shepard, now arriving with her team. "Commander, a pleasure to work with you again." She extended a hand.

Shepard took it. "Same here. Watch your head."

"I shall." With that King departed.

The Normandy and Aurora crew exchanged looks and started to shake hands. "It's been quite the ride, hasn't it?" Shepard said to Julia and Robert.

"It has," Robert agreed.

"You got everything off of the Normandy?" Shepard asked.

"I did back at New Prussia," Robert confirmed. "And as much as I enjoyed the company of your crew, it's good to be home."

Shepard barked a teasing laugh at that. "You mean it's good to be back on this luxury cruise liner of a starship you've got. No more sleeping pods."

"I confess, I do miss a normal bed," Robert conceded.

"You Systemer types are spoiled," Ashley complained. "Completely spoiled."

"You're just jealous you don't have Hargert cooking your meals," Jarod retorted playfully.

Kaidan grinned. "I'm in the wrong service."

"Tell me about it," Garrus said.

Nearby Tali was leaning over the hoverchair Barnes was sitting in. "I'm so sorry, Tom," she said. "They're going to make you a new arm, right? Humans can have those?"

"One way or the other, eventually," Barnes answered. "I guess the immune system thing means Quarians can't have prosthetics?"

"It's… very difficult," Tali said. "Very expensive too. Sometimes we just attach mech limbs to our suits and use VIs to control them. But for a Quarian to do what you did? I think the Admiralty Board would agree to pay for a proper prosthetic."

"He may end up with an organic limb, actually," said Leo. "Our technology allows for cloned or replicated limbs. It just takes time. We can give this technology to the Quarians."

"If you don't already have it," added Locarno. "Relations with the Migrant Fleet are pretty good these days."

"Perhaps. I hope I never have to find out." Tali patted Barnes on the shoulder. "Keelah selai, Tom. I hope you get your new arm soon."

"I do too," he replied.

As the Normandy crew filed out, Shepard made sure to extend a hand to Robert, having saved him for last. "Good luck out there, Robert," she said.

"The same to you, Jen."

And then Robert surprised even himself by turning the handshake into a small, friendly embrace. Shepard accepted it, even if she was clearly surprised as well by the gesture.

Once she was walking through the airlock, Julia asked, "What was that about?"

"I… I'm not sure," Robert admitted. The feeling that drove him to the small hug was already faded. It wasn't that he was upset with himself for doing it. Shepard wasn't just an ally, she'd proven a good friend and a brilliant leader, and her advice on the matter of his abilities was something that he felt would always guide him. She'd earned it. He just couldn't think of why he felt the need to give it. It was like he was never going to see her again…

Zack stepped up next. "Do I get a hug?" he asked with amusement.

"Always," Julia said. She and Robert were the first; everyone else lined up to give one. "A week of mandatory leave sounds about right after everything that we've gone through."

"It does," Zack agreed. "I've got some trips to make. People I need to talk to."

"Clara's parents?" Robert asked quietly.

To that Zack nodded. "Yeah. And what about you?"

"I've got no standing missions," said Robert. He gave Julia a look. "I was thinking that I'd keep an eye on the Aurora's repairs so that Miss Responsibility could go have some fun. Before Leo sedates her and leaves her on a Pacific island paradise for an enforced vacation."

"Now that sounds like a good plan…" Leo said thoughtfully.

Julia shot him a playful glare. "I've got plans," she said.

"The Battlestar Pegasus is in drydock for repair at Fleet Base Alexandria, I hear," Zack remarked. "And Alexandria's got a really nice selection of romantic getaways."

The glare was now directed to Zack. "Don't you start."

"I surrender," he said, holding his hands up. "Anyway, once I'm done with leave and my tour on the Citadel is over, I look forward to coming back. It's about time we got the gang back together."

"It is," Jarod agreed.

At that final farewells were given and Zack departed. As the others walked away, Lucy stepped up beside Robert. "Speaking of leaves and assignments…" she began. When she had his attention she said, "The answer is yes."

Robert sensed her meaning and nodded. "Welcome to the team," he replied.

Lucy chuckled. "A team of you and me, right now. Or are you going to take Shepard's route and put together a team of badass fighters?"

"Who knows? Maybe. Right now, though, I just want to enjoy some peace and quiet. You?"

"Same here. But I also need to be there for Talara. She…" A guilty look came to Lucy's face. "I may have hurt her more than I realized by bringing her down there with us, Robert. She wasn't ready to sense that much pain and death."

"You'll be there for her," Robert said. "I know you."

"Yeah. We're taking the leave to go to Fala, actually. She wants to see her parents. And I think she needs to go home for a little, to feel peace." Lucy felt a thought come to mind. "Have they confirmed what really happened to those dead Nazi leaders?"

"The autopsies are done," said Robert. "They were all asphyxiated. There's signs of trauma in their windpipes, like something clamped down on them."

"Fassbinder."

"That's what I'm thinking."

"Just what is the SS up to?" Lucy asked. "They nuked their main world, they killed off the Reich's leadership, and they turned tail at Earth. And Fassbinder went missing. You don't suppose…"

"...that Fassbinder was beamed up to the fleet during the fight and got away with them? That sounds like what happened to me."

"And how did he and his lackeys get that well-trained in barely a year?" Lucy asked. "When we fought on New Brittany, he was pathetic."

"I'm more worried about what the SS is up to," said Robert.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it's going to be trouble."

"As if it'd be anything else," he sighed. "But whatever they're up to, we'll stop them."

Lucy grinned at that. "Damn right."

Far from the now-dead world of Himmlerwelt, Oberführer Erik Fassbinder stepped off of the transporter pad of the SS dreadnought Heinrich Himmler and raised his arm in a salute. "Heil Hitler!" he cried.

Oberst-Gruppenführer Hans Kranefuss responded. "Heil Hitler!" The elder SS leader was the highest ranking officer of the Schutzstaffel still alive. "Report, Oberführer. Your team is lost?"

"They died so that I could accomplish my mission," Fassbinder replied.

"Then the reports about the death of the Führer…?"

"He would not come." Fassbinder showed contempt. "Our defeats poisoned his mind. He did not accept my arguments. I spared him the indignities of capture."

"Excellent." Kranefuss led him from the transporter room to the corridors of the Himmler. "And the Oberkommando and the Reich Ministers…?"

The contempt was joined with glee. "I removed them as instructed. Generalfeldmarschall von Schoenburg was the only one we could not kill. He relocated to the secondary command facility in Milwaukee before the enemy resumed the attack."

"A pity, as von Schoenburg has surrendered the Reich," Kranefuss spat. "They signed it upon the Aurora. The Alliance has been transmitting the image since. While we expected as much…" Disgust showed on the older man's face. "The surrender is being acknowledged by Gauleiters and commanders across the Reich, frightened of the untermensch laborers on some of our worlds. There may be some that hold out, but they are scattered. Von Platen at least refused to surrender but he has declared his fleet a freikorps and disappeared from known space."

"This is why the SS should have seized control long ago," Fassbinder grumbled. "We would have purged the damned 'von's and strengthened the Reich under orthodox Party leadership."

"We compromised to preserve the order of the Reich. But now that we are all that is left of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich, never again shall we compromise," Kranefuss declared. "We will endure!"

Their trip brought them to the bridge of the Himmler. SS men were at all stations. The Donner Nebula crackled with plasma energies on the main viewer. More SS starships were gathered here. Some were transports, some armed auxiliaries, and many were combat starships of varying type. And the Himmler was their beating heart.

Fassbinder felt two other presences before he saw them. He turned to his allies, the only two females on the bridge, clad in dark jumpsuits and bearing the same energy blade weapon he had on his belt. One was, despite a lighter skin texture, a dead ringer for one of the Aurora officers, Lucilla Lucero; the other was a gorgeous woman with wavy blond hair down to her neck. Fassbinder might have felt an interest in her if he wasn't aware of her true nature.

For they were not fully Human, but machines in Human bodies. Machines known now to Fassbinder as the Cylons.

"It is a shame you wasted some of the best students, Oberführer," remarked the blonde, "Six". "They were not ready to face our foes."

"It was required," he said. Fassbinder sensed Kranefuss' unease. It reminded him of the delicate balancing act he had to play; he could not alienate his allies, but if Kranefuss lost confidence in him, it would destroy this alliance before it could bear fruit. "There are others to train."

"There are," agreed the Lucero clone known as "Twelve".

Nearby Kranefuss accepted the salute of the Oberführer in charge of the Himmler. "Are we ready?"

"Jawohl, Oberst-Gruppenführer."

"Then put me on with the fleet." Kranefuss waited until this was done before he began speaking. "Loyal Germans of the Schutzstaffel, this is your new Führer. I am Hans Kranefuss. You know my lineage. My family has served proudly since the days of Hitler. And we serve still!"

"Our Reich has been betrayed, comrades! Betrayed by the spineless cowards in the OKW and the weakling spoil-seekers of the Ministries! Our old Führer Sauckel was forced to take his own life to avoid capture by the horde of untermenschen that even now tear down our glories from the heart of Welthauptstadt Germania! Our fleets lie broken and Germans everywhere are losing heart to despair."

"But not us! We are the beating heart of Hitler's vision! We are the raging fist of his Party! We are Schutzstaffel, the purest among the Aryan Race, and we still stand! We go now to rebuild our strength and ensure that one day those who have brought the Reich low will die at our hands! The order is now given!" Kranefuss clenched a triumphant fist from where he was standing. "Activate the drives!"

Fassbinder's heart was swelling with pride even before the viewer showed space splitting open ahead. One by one, swirling green vortices formed in the space of the SS fleet. The deck plates below his boots thrummed as the impulse drives of the Himmler powered up to send their vessel through the one ahead.

Finally it was too much. Fassbinder jubilantly lifted his right hand and kept it at the firm angle over his head demanded of his perfection, hand perfectly flat. "Heil Hitler! Heil Kranefuss! SIEG HEIL!"

One by one the other officers on the bridge stood and joined his salute, hailinging the names of the first and the newest of the great Nazi leaders before beginning the chant of "Sieg Heil!"

And this they did until their vessels slipped through the interuniversal jump points, freed from the overrun home universe they were all determined to reconquer.

When Robert told her that President Morgan wished to see both of them, Julia felt some surprise. She'd met the President before, of course, during the negotiations that led to the Alliance. But since then her contact had been entirely with Admiral Maran. That Morgan summoned her as well as Robert made her wonder just what was going on.

The security escort was as humorless as Julia figured they'd be when they ushered her and Robert into the presence of the President of the Allied Systems. Foreign Secretary Onaran and Defense Minister Hawthorne were in the room as well, as was Admiral Maran. Hawthorne gave them a level look. Julia didn't need Robert's abilities to know his dislike for the two of them and everyone they called friend. He was the leader of the anti-metaphysical talents camp of the Alliance government, with his in-service ally being Vice CNO Admiral Davies, who was even more bigoted than he when it came to "mind-readers" and metaphysically-capable individuals.

Morgan nodded to them. "Captains," he said. "My thanks to you and to your crew, Captain Andreys, for their bravery over Germania. It's fitting that the Aurora has yet again played an instrumental role in bringing the war to a satisfactory conclusion."

Hawthorne's eyes narrowed slightly. It was clear he didn't agree with that assessment.

"Thank you, Mister President," Julia replied. "I just wish the cost of winning hadn't been so high."

"You and me both," said Morgan.

At that point Robert felt the weariness in Morgan was not just from the war. He could tell Morgan was upset with something, something new since the surrender. Had there been severe trouble over the division of the Reich into occupation zones?

"My intention when I called you was simply to give personal thanks to you both," said Morgan. "You are both being named for commendations, for service at Germania and prior operations. But there has been a new development that, I fear, may bring us on the path to another war."

"With the war's aftermath, or something else?' Robert asked.

Morgan reached to a control and looked toward the holo-viewer on the wall. "This message just went out on subspace all across Universe S5T3."

A moment later the holo-viewer came alive. On the screen was a Cardassian, one neither of them had met. But Robert recognized him from an intel briefing on the ongoing problems in S5T3. "That's Gul Dukat," he said. "And is that Cardassia? Did he come back from exile?"

"You could say that," Morgan said, after which he triggered the message to play.

"You might ask, 'Should we fear joining the Dominion?'" Dukat said. "And I answer you, not in the least. We should embrace the opportunity."

Robert felt his stomach begin to turn, realizing just what Morgan had met by Dukat's return.

"The Dominion recognizes us for what we are. The true leaders of the Alpha Quadrant. And now that we are joined together, the only people with anything to fear will be our enemies…"

President Morgan shut off the image of Gul Dukat before turning to Robert and Julia. "Now you see what we have to deal with," he said. "The Dominion has a foothold on our side of the S5T3 Milky Way. Our worlds, and those of our allies, are in danger."

For Caterina and Violeta, it was to be their last night together aboard the Aurora. Violeta's transfer to her new ship would be official following their leaves, requiring her to begin the process of traveling to the Huàscar for her new post. They spent the time enjoying a meal before settling onto the couch in Cat's quarters, the same piece of furniture they'd first cuddled together on. It was only fitting that they cuddle again.

"You don't have to go to Sirius if you don't want to, Cat," Violeta assured her. "There's nothing else you want to do?"

"I cost you the last chance. It's only fair that I go through with it this time," Cat answered. She pressed herself against Violeta, enjoying the sensation immensely. "I guess it'll be awkward with your parents…"

"A little."

"...but still, I… I want to do it. Meet them, see the places you grew up. If we end up moving on, I want to at least have the memories."

Violeta responded by playfully toussling Cat's dark hair. "We already have a lot of good ones. But I'll be glad to make some more with you."

Tears formed silently in their eyes, both aware of how likely it was that after Sirius their relationship would end due to distance and time. Whatever happened, neither wanted it to become a bitter outcome. A sad one, but not bitter.

Quietly, both fell asleep in each others' arms.

Cat woke up to empty quarters. At first she thought Violeta had left for some reason, but quickly it was clear something was wrong. The ship seemed too dark.

No. Not this again. No no no no…

But it was. The same dream of a dead, dark ship. The bridge filled with the bodies of dead friends. Even her own body.

And then, when she stepped back from her corpse, she backed into someone. She turned in confusion and only remembered what came next when the hands pressed against her temples, unyielding, refusing to move. Pain filled her head. She screamed "Stop!" while trying to escape and failing, feeling herself begin to fall.

A voice spoke. And her eyes widened in recognition at hearing the words spoken.

"I'm sorry, Cat. I'm so sorry."

And then she fell, fell into darkness, into nothingness...

...and awoke still on the couch, cuddled up beside Violeta. Her girlfriend remained fast asleep.

Cat sat up and rubbed her face with her hands. It was the dream again. Why was she having it?

And why was he the one hurting her?

"Why?" she whispered to herself. "Why?"

And for the moment, the answer did not come to her.