SSV Dunkirk, Sol

September 14th, 2186

"How's the pain?"

Jessica Shepard rolled her left shoulder, though it took a concentrated effort to follow through with it. The joint was stiff and painful, but not debilitatingly so. She followed by flexing her arm at the elbow, her nose and mouth pinching into a wince of pain at the sensation that shot up her arm. Still the marine didn't stop the exercise in the face of the pain, but instead kept going in hopes that it'd ease off some—it didn't. "It isn't great, but it's bearable sir."

The marine standing in front of Steven Hackett was a striking contradiction to the woman by the same name that he'd found in London after the war. Shepard wore her deep red marine BDUs, a contrast to the background of blue uniform officers bustling behind her. Her bright red hair had been pulled back into a neat regulation ponytail and the cuts on her face had healed into muted scars or subtle scabs. Her lips were stoically pressed into a thin line, her eyes as sharp as blades—anyone who met this woman would recognize her as the Shepard of mythos.

Hackett had seen Shepard make a fast turn around like this before, most notably after Akuze. Fifty marines had touched down on the colony and only one was pulled out alive. She'd been a wreck afterwards, both mentally and physically—but anyone standing around him now would never know it. Much like Shepard pulled her BDU jacket over the disfigured scars on her shoulder, she'd pulled a cold emotional veneer over the memories. Hackett knew how long it'd taken her to find peace with Akuze, far longer than she'd admit, just as he knew that she was still processing the events of the Reaper War. He wouldn't betray that knowledge to her though, it was an unspoken pact between the two: Hackett knew how deeply things affected Shepard, and gave her the space to process it on her own time—meanwhile Shepard never let it affect her performance. "Just don't over do it Commander. Take as much time as you need to heal." Both physically and mentally, it was all the Admiral would say on the matter.

"I will, thank you sir." With that Hackett saw her body language relax some, and he couldn't help but admit that he was more at ease seeing her like herself again.

The SSV Dunkirk had just recently arrived in Sol after a nonstop flight from Elysium, Miranda and her doctors had been left aboard, pending debriefing on Shepard's procedure. Hackett had ordered the ship here as soon as possible in order to oversee the defense and relief of their damaged home system. "Lieutenant Foresath, bring us in closer to the Citadel—I want to get a better look at the damage to the wards before we begin."

"Aye sir."

It had been the Admiral's intention to move into the cockpit and watch their approach, but he wasn't given that chance. An unfamiliar alarm, with a shrill shout from Specialist Tess Emery on its heels, broke through the din of the CIC. The specialist had turned around in her seat and was facing Shepard and Hackett with concern on her face, "Sir, ma'am, we have an urgent transmission coming in over the QEC. I'm putting it through in the comm room, you'll want to hurry to see this."

All pretense of Shepard's stiff and injured limbs, and Hackett's slow methodical decorum were forgotten. The two wheeled from their former trajectory and began in a near-jog towards the comm room. If there was an emergency coming in over the QEC it could only be a few individuals. On the wall consuming screen before them was the distorted frozen image of Garrus Vakarian, standing on the captain's podium of the Normandy. The message began playing once they both were well within the room, and in the background of the static laden hologram were sheets of sparks with flames licking at the corners of the screen.

"This is Lieutenant Commander Garrus Vakarian of the SSV Normandy, we are under attack! An overwhelming number of batarian vessels emerged from FTL in the Ilos system and they're overrunning us. Our marine detachment is on the ground, we're trying to get back to them but the—" the image cut out for a second with only garbled electronic sounds playing before both the image and sound returned "—unsure when we'll be able to return to support for ground team. Send all available help!"

"Garrus!" The shout came from Shepard, and Hackett could see from the mix of emotions on her face that she'd blurted it before she even realize she was going to. The marine's hands were gripped around the metal railing of the comm room so tight that her knuckles had become even paler than their natural complexion, and her face was taught with worry. "Garrus are you okay? Is anyone hurt?"

"I repeat, this is Lieutenant Commander Garrus Vakarian of the SSV Normandy, we are under attack!—Traynor, are you sure this is transmittin—" the image shook violently again, the transmission gaining several permanent lines of distorted static through the video feed "Joker get us the fuck out of atmosphere, we're getting torn to pieces up here. This is the SSV Normandy send all availa—" The signal cut to a screen of colored bars and white noise, quickly replaced by Specialist Emery's voice "The signal ended sir... That came in over your QEC with the Normandy, no one else received it."

"Fuck!" Shepard's voice again, her stoic resolve melted away to thinly concealed panic.

Hackett's jaw was set as he left the communications room, shouting orders to Emery across the CIC, "Transmit that via our QEC to Mikhailovich, tell him to spread news through the fleet and send what we have."

"Sir the trip to Ilos is two weeks from the fleet's current location."

"I realize that Specialist, but we have to do something. Tell him to rally any ships that might be absent from the fleet's rally point and are along the way."

"Affirmative sir."

Hackett stopped on the captain's podium and gripped the cold metal railing in his hands. He'd gotten used to the feeling of helpless rage during the war with the Reapers, but this was almost worse. During the Reaper War the relays had been intact, and even if it was hopeless he was able to move naval forces to try. For the first time in his naval career he was without the relays, with marines further from Earth than he would've been comfortable with even had the relays been online. His rampant thoughts were interrupted by the Shepard's voice, something finally drawing the Commander from her silent anxieties. "Sir, the Conduit. We could take it to Ilos."

"Commander?"

"We could use the Conduit sir. It's still somewhere on the Presidium and we could use it to go to Ilos. We could be there instantly."

"Wouldn't the Conduit be as badly damaged as the other relays?"

"The reports I've read speculated that the damage to the relays was because the blast traveled through them. The Conduit isn't part of the relay network, and it was offline at the time of the blast. It should still be intact."

Hackett locked eyes with her and saw that the fire had returned to her gaze. Shepard was a force of nature which few had proven able to stop, and this danger to her crew had reawakened that. "Wasn't the reason that we weren't able to use the Conduit for the past three years that it could only receive?"

"I remember a report at the beginning of the war saying that a joint salarian and asari science team had theorized a way to reverse the Conduit. They weren't able to test it, but all their simulations showed that it would allow the Citadel to send traffic back to Ilos."

What Hackett had to say next was hard, not just because it wasn't what he wanted to say, but also because he knew how deeply it would stab into Shepard. "Negative Commander. I care about the Normandy as much as you do, but I can't sign off on sending naval or marine assets through an untested device like that—we're as likely to lose them instantly as we are to save anyone from the Normandy."

Shepard took on a perfect stillness, her jaw set in place in a way Hackett assumed meant she was swallowing all the words of anger she wished to retort with. Slowly her head nodded, her eyes never breaking contact with his, "Yes sir." The words were as cold as ice, and he knew that in her heart she felt betrayed. It was the nature of their relationship, he occasionally had to make the hard calls that she wouldn't. Finally she broke her gaze and stepped away, moving to talk to one of the CC station officers in what he could only assume was an attempt to take her mind off the Normandy.

SSV Normandy, Ilos

September 14th, 2186

There was a tense atmosphere among the crew of the Normandy. They'd been holding position over Ilos for three days now, most of which was spent idly above the Conduit facility maintaining overwatch for the ground team there. There were several airborne batarian ships left, mostly fighters with only a frigate having escaped, but pursuit hadn't been worth it for the Normandy.

The past twelve hours had seen a departure in normal behavior for the surviving ships though, as they'd sacrificed one of the previously two surviving frigates, and two fighters, running strafing attacks against the Alliance frigate. At first it'd seemed like indiscriminate attacks, but where Garrus had thought he'd seen a pattern Lieutenant Arnette had confirmed the existence of one.

Each attack wave seemed not designed to inflict maximum damage on the Normandy, but rather to instigate pursuit. At first they'd been sly about it, and had settled for beating up on the frigate before retreating when the Normandy hadn't pursued far. The second time they'd lost their frigate trying to pull the human ship away from the planet and into space. Arnette had confirmed that she saw the pattern too, and that each time they pulled back she caught a tight beam signal transmission into deep space from one of the frigates.

The existence of the pattern had been enough for Garrus to put the ship on high alert, and it was in that tense state that he tersely watched the blackness of space in. Behind him, in the CIC, he could hear the hustle of officers making for their duty stations but his eyes were locked on space now. Suddenly Garrus' attention was ripped back to the situation inside the ship when a series of alarms began to cry out. He turned to Joker, silently asking the pilot for an explanation. "Uhh sir!" Garrus hated it when Joker looked nervous, "The alerts are FTL departure alerts—we've got a lot of Hegemony ships inbound!"

Garrus moved as fast as he could through the hall connecting the bridge to the CIC, pushing past the crowd of officers to get back to his podium. "Someone get me a sitrep!"

"Sir!" this was Sensors Lieutenant Mangin "We've got at least six large Hegemony signatures... sensors are indicating that there's two two Kes'heel-Class Cruisers and four Yu'Garr-Class Frigates, with dozens of fighters between them."

"Shit..." The word came out on his breath, silently to all but those close to him.

"Looks like they've got signs of having taken damage, but our readings are saying they're fully fit for battle—it's probably cosmetic leftovers from fleeing Hegemony space during the invasion."

"Traynor, tell them to leave!"

"Aye sir..." The Specialists hands were a blur of movement as she brought up the comm and hailed the ships, "Attention Hegemony Vessels, this is Systems Alliance warship Normandy. You are in a restricted fly zone and are not permitted to enter the system at present. Break course and depart this area immediately, over."

There was a tense silence in the CIC as everyone waited for what was sure to be an aggressive reply from the batarians, but there was nothing. Finally Traynor's soft voice spoke up again, "Sir... they're making no attempts to establish a connection with us."

Without warning the ship was rocked by a devastating tremor, and duty stations began to scream with alarms. Garrus had to brace himself as he felt Joker peeling them away from where they'd been, and he only did just catch Lieutenant Chinnock shouting "Sir that was a hit! One of the Kes'heels fired on us, our shields absorbed it but it hurt bad. Shields are at eighty-percent right now and shaky."

The ship rocked again, this time less violently, as they took lighter fire from the fighters. He could hear the familiar dull buzz of GARDIAN lasers outside the ship swatting at the fighters, and felt the slight shudder each time a missile dislodged itself from the Normandy and sought an enemy target. Still, the status hologram in front of him was showing him just how outmanned they were.

"Fuck, torpedo inbound!" This was Mangin again, and Garrus thought his stomach might give way when Joker bottomed them out into a downward roll to avoid the torpedo. Gardian lasers desperately swatted at it, but a hard shudder along the whole ship told Garrus that evading the torpedo had been what the batarians had wanted them to do. They'd known the frigate would swat the torpedo away, but had predicted the vector that the ship would take in its evasion and had already set targeting ranges—two heavy rounds from each of the Kes'heels smacked along their dorsal hull. Chinnock was shouting something about shield status, but Garrus wasn't even listening.

"Traynor transmit on all Alliance frequencies—QECs included." Her nod told Garrus that she both heard and was working on it, and a moment later he saw the hologram in front of him switch into a spotty communications display. "This is Lieutenant Commander Garrus Vakarian of the SSV Normandy, we are under attack! An overwhelming number of batarian vessels emerged from FTL in the Ilos system and they're overrunning us. Our marine detachment is on the ground, we're trying to get back to them but them but airspace immediately above them is overwhelmed by hostiles. I am unsure when we'll be able to return to support for ground team. Send all available help!"

Garrus thought he saw the flicker of a green light for a moment on the transmission, meaning that it was being received, but it returned to an uncertain yellow only moments later—he didn't even know if anyone was listening.

"I repeat, this is Lieutenant Commander Garrus Vakarian of the SSV Normandy, we are under attack!—Traynor, are you sure this is transmitting—" He was almost thrown from the podium as another round hit them, this time from one of the frigates. "Joker get us the fuck out of atmosphere, we're getting torn to pieces up here. This is the SSV Normandy send all available help to the Ilos system, we are overwhelmed!"

He motioned at her to kill the transmission and clung to the railing best he could. Shepard had given him the Normandy in her death, and he was going to let her down the first time he saw combat with it.

"Damnit, hostiles!" Lindsey Haight was hauling back towards the Mako as fast as she could, legs burning from the sudden burst of athletics needed to avoid being shot. Down the cavern from her in the direction they'd come was a caravan of enemy armor, and it seemed to be heading in her direction. Leading the way was either a batarian APC or tank, and behind it she saw at least one heavy mech. Dispersed between the two war machines were at least a dozen batarian foot soldiers, and all of them were firing at her. "Get inside the Mako, we got hostiles and we're BOXED."

The Staff Sergeant dove inside the Mako and felt her knee catch one of the seats, sending her sprawling across the metal grated floor. Already the IFV was coming alive and moving to a better position, but there wasn't much of a position to move to. "Shit, fuck, damn." This was Havens, the Sergeant unaware of where exactly to take them that was any safer than where they already were. Englewood on the other hand knew exactly what was needed of him and had the Mako's machine guns roaring at the enemy. It had some effect in cutting down the foot soldiers, but the kinetic barriers on the larger vehicles made it ineffective—only the 155mm saw any traction there, and its slow rate of fire spelled death for them.

"Aye Sarge,"

"Yeah Englewood?"

"I'm thinkin' only way we buy ourselves time is take after the salarians an' bring down the roof 'tween us an' them."

"The roof that's already weakened by the salarians doing just that?"

"'Mean ma'am what else are we gonna do?"

"Do it." this from Haight, her face hard as stone. "We don't have another option."

The Mako was nearing firing range from the heavy mech now, and if Englewood couldn't collapse the roof in time they would be fucked. The IFV shuddered as he fired the turret, and then a piercing alarm could be heard from the gunner's seat as he short-cycled the turret and fired it again while hot. "You know that shit warps the barrel, right Englewood?"

"Aye sarge, but I figured gettin' shot in the ass ain't real good for the barrel either. Y'figure?"

To Englewood's credit, the two shots had pierced enough of the facility's roof to collapse a sizeable amount of debris between the batarians and them. For now.

Sweat streaked down Ashley Williams' face, infuriatingly masked behind her helmet so that she couldn't wipe it away. The cavern was heating up,likely from the new collapse and the above ground bombardments. The heat made Ashley's skin feel hot and sticky as she ran across the stone floor towards where they'd left the Mako, but she pushed aside the discomfort. The batarians had gotten reinforcements faster than any of them had thought they'd be able to, and those reinforcements were actively trying to swamp the Mako—with Ashley's marines aboard.

She'd left most of the marines behind to guard the salarians, but she'd taken Vega and Worbaar with her to backup the Mako's marines. They'd lost communication with the Mako moments before, she assumed from some sort of mobile comms jamming, and that'd set her nerves on edge. They'd broken into an all out run now trying to crest the last hill that separated them from the Mako.

Already she could hear the popping of small arms fire ahead, but the pile of rubble they'd had to slip past meant she couldn't see who was shooting more. Ash was pressing herself against the wall, ceramic scraping against stone, when she heard the distinct sound of the Mako's machine guns. It sounded like the gun's rate of fire was able to rip the air itself, but she didn't know what exactly what it was they were shooting at. Her body shimmied through the hole and she could see the mess that they were in: a pile of rubble had delayed the batarians but it hadn't been in a place where they could totally block off access. Instead the batarians were both picking their way through the rubble and coming over it.

"Shiiiit!" The word came out like a hiss as Ashley saw the Mako's gun mow through a pack of varren, only to have to stop firing from heat and miss killing a second pack. The marine pulled her Valkyrie from off her back and instinctively drew it up to fire, even as the rifle was still unfolding itself. Two bursts cut down the first two beasts, and the second splattered across the ground from a well aimed burst of Vega's assault rifle.

"Nice shot." This from Cyzilie Worbaar as she brought her light machine gun to bear on the charging hordes. The Mako was trying to jockey itself to a more defensible position while its machine guns cooled down—which looked like it might take a bit from the bright red of their barrels. Unlike the choke point that the salarians had managed to collapse, the pile that Englewood had caused was from shooting out one of the support beams above them—which had caused the right wall to collapse inward on itself and obstruct the batarians.

A pack of varren and vorcha had climbed over the pile of rubble near the intact wall and were already peppering the Mako's quickly waning shields. The IFV's turret came spinning around, sighting in on them, and it was then that Ash realized what Englewood was doing. "Englewood don't you fuc—" the PFC had already been pulling the trigger when Ashley called out to him, and she wasn't even able to finish her command.

The sound of the Mako's turret was deafening, and immediately the marines were engulfed in a cloud of smoke and dust coming from where the wall once had been. She felt pieces of debris smacking against her hardsuit, small shards biting at the exposed skin of her mouth and cheeks. "Godda—aagh!" She felt a large chunk of concrete smack against her shoulder and knock her to the ground, more small stones raining down on her prone form.

SSV Dunkirk, Citadel Docks-Zakera Ward

September 14th, 2186

"Murphy," Shepard put an intentional blade to her voice, hoping to ride her reputation and spur the Chief into quicker action, "What're we looking like?"

The Commander stood over the Ops Chief's shoulder in Dunkirk's CIC, the latter stooped over his terminal with a durable OSD protruding from it, "I.. I'm trying to get it all down ma'am. It's one thing to download it but I have to design it so that the OSD automatically executes the exploit when it's mounted—"

"Why do you need the extra step?"

"Err... Ma'am.." Murphy looked visibly uncomfortable, "I don't mean to be rude at all ma'am, but do you understand how to reverse the current on an eezo core, and how to walkthrough a systems exploit on a Prothean OS?"

"Point taken, Chief."

"What is this for ma'am? Didn't the Admiral say we were'—"

"He asked me for options." The answer was a lie, but Murphy didn't need the truth anyways. He just needed to get her the damn OSD.

"Do you want me to hail him on the comm when it's done, ma'am? He's out in the ward but we could probably hail him."

"That won't be necessary, Chief. I'll handle that."

"Yes ma'am. It'll be another ten minutes or so before I have the OSD prepared for you..."

Shepard could tell in the inflection of the boy's voice that he was asking—no, begging—for the XO to leave him to his work alone. Shepard smiled a little, she frightened him. "Aye Chief. Call me over as soon as it's done."

It was just as well that the data would take a minute, she had another job to do. Hackett had ordered fireteam kodiak to accompany him into Zakera Ward later, but he'd left both the marine Staff LT, Staff Sergeant, and fireteam grizzly behind to guard the ship. She'd peeled away from Murphy's station and was just now coming around the curved staircase that led from the Dunkirk's CIC to its crew deck. In a moment she'd be in the elevator headed down towards the cargo bay to seek out volunteers, but something stopped her before she could. Hackett had been standing beside the staircase in a position that hid him from sight until she was off the stairs, and only then he'd revealed himself by placing a hand on her shoulder.

The younger woman wheeled around, fright on her face but her hands still. A momentary flash of cold tension threatened to bloom across her face, but she kept her expression neutral. Hackett's eyes immediately sought out her own and he caught her in an intense stare, "Whatever you're going to do, don't miss."

Her brows knit themselves into a skeptical line, confusion blossoming in her eyes. "Sir?"

"I can't authorize anything, and I can't give you any speedy support if you get into trouble, but I know you're not going to sit still. Go bring our people home, but don't miss."

An eruption of emotions that Shepard couldn't describe welled inside her, and immediately her gaze softened. She'd felt like Hackett stabbed her with a dagger of ice on the CIC when he'd benched her plan to save her crew, but now she understood. Her only plan for saving them was a risky one, one that involved untested equipment and had a high chance of leaving everyone involved dead—and he couldn't ask any marines to take on that risk. Still, their relationship from a decade of working together had fostered a firm trust between the two soldiers. Knowing that he was giving her his blessing lifted a weight she didn't previously realize had been on her shoulders, relief that she'd desperately needed.

From the bottom of her vision she noted that he'd drawn his hand from his pocket and extended it towards her. Shepard met his extended hand with a firm grip, "Thank you sir. I won't miss."

"I know you won't." She felt something cold press into her palm but didn't dare look at it yet. Instead she silently accepted the gift and pulled her hand away, clutching it in her fist. "Whatever you do, I don't want to know. Let me be surprised." With that the 52-year-old Fleet Admiral broke away from her and continued through the crew deck, destined for other duties Shepard couldn't guess at.

Left alone in the middle of the hall she opened her hand, finding that Hackett had returned her old damaged dogtags to her. She'd gotten some prefab tags that'd been quickly engraved with her name and service number, but to have her N7 tags returned to her brought on a wave of nostalgia. A piece of string tied around the tags' chain bore a paper tag with a series of letters and numbers on it. She recognized it as the naming / designating system used for supply crates aboard alliance warships, and made a mental note to investigate the cargo deck later.

While she'd been looking over the tags Shepard had boarded the Dunkirk's small crew elevator and descended to the cargo bay. Both Staff Lieutenant Donnel and Staff Sergeant Romez were lingering around the kennel as she'd hoped. Romez was toying with a half-assembled Avenger while Donnel sat across two lockers and shot shit with the former. Shepard could tell from her past interactions with the men that they were good friends, and that made what she was about to ask much easier.

A stiff pain shot through Shepard's hip with each step she took, and she realized that the adrenaline from Garrus' message had been fueling her on without even noticing how sore her freshly-operated on body was. The pain could be tucked away to be dealt with later though, she'd been through worse—the acid gnarled skin on her shoulder proved such. Lieutenant Donnel seemed to spot that she was headed for the pair of them, and he instinctively stiffened into a salute—prompting Sergeant Romez to do the same. Shepard just waved her hand dismissively and smiled at them, "Dismissed, you don't need to salute every time I step near you. If I made you do that every time I came down here to check in on the crew you'd be able to skip PT for a week." The men seemed to relax some but were still visibly wary—not yet accustomed to their friendly XO.

"You two are the ones that found me in London, right? The ones that pulled me out of the wreckage?"

Donnel nodded proudly, "Aye ma'am. I'm sorry we couldn't save Admiral Anderson, we did all we could but he was already gone. Are you feeling alright ma'am?"

The sides of Shepard's mouth drew nearer as her smile shrank, her overall demeanor a little sadder for the mention of Anderson's name. "Anderson was dead before we got back to London, it's not your fault. I do appreciate your efforts though, both for Anderson and myself. I'm feeling alright myself, they had to patch me up a little but I'm back in fighting shape." That was a lie but she didn't need to admit as much. If Dr. Chakwas heard her mention going back into combat in her current condition the severity of her tone would violate the Geneva Convention. She brought some warmth to her smile and looked between the two men, this was the hard part of what she was going to have to do. "Have either of you heard the news from Ilos"

An intense emotion came over Romez's face at the mention, and this time it was the Sergeant to speak up. "You mean about the Normandy, ma'am?"

Even as clearly angry as he was about the situation Romez still managed to keep some decorum, she liked that in a marine. Shepard nodded her head with a soft mhmmm, eagerly awaiting Romez's reaction so she knew how to structure her request.

"I have ma'am." His voice was hard and angry, she could tell he didn't like sitting still or playing EMS. "You were Normandy's CO during the war, right ma'am?"

Again she only nodded, though this time she played up the emotions she felt internally on her face. She'd put on her proverbial war paint now, and she'd heard from both an ex-wife and Ashley that it was near impossible to discern anything through the icy expression.

"I hate being trapped here, doing police and medic work on an alien space station while they're trapped out there. The fucking blinks are like animals."

The marine looked like he was almost ready to put a fist through the bulkhead at being proverbially benched while marines were under fire. Marines were a close knit group, even when it came to marines outside of your division or ones that you'd never served alongside. "I don't intend to just sit still."

The words had a certain weight to them, and it took a concentrated effort to breathe life into them. She knew that Hackett had given her his blessing, but she planned to keep that need-to-know for deniability's sake on his part.

"Ma'am?" This was Donnel, obviously the more even tempered of them. "Aren't all the relays down? It's why we didn't immediately depart when we got the message. Soonest we could get there would be three weeks."

"There's another way." Shepard knew that what she was about to say, what she was going to suggest these marines undertake, was insane. The only saving grace about it is that she wouldn't ask a single one of them to take on something that she wouldn't be taking on herself. "I don't know if you've read the mission reports from the original Battle of the Citadel in 2183, but my team found a prototype Prothean-made relay on Ilos. We call it the Conduit, and it's a direct link to the Citadel."

"Right ma'am. You followed Saren through it and managed to take back control of the Citadel. It's how we got the arms back open."

"Correct. The problem with the Conduit is that it was only designed to be a one way trip from Ilos to the Citadel—the one on the Citadel itself doesn't have the necessary programming or calculations to make a return jump. With that said, right before the start of the war I picked up an intel report that the salarians and asari had developed an experimental algorithm to reverse the Conduit and make it two-way. With the start of the war galactic focus was shifted elsewhere and they never tested it, but they ran dozens of simulations that all panned out. I'm planning to upload it to the Conduit and travel through it to Ilos to bail out my crew, and I would appreciate marines at my back. With that said I won't pull rank on you and make it an order, and there's no sha-"

"I'll start prepping my gear ma'am." Romez's voice cut her off before she'd even been able to finish assuring them that they didn't have to. "Fireteam grizzly has your back ma'am."

"Aye, I'll start pulling on my hardsuit ma'am." Donnel hadn't even hesitated to agree with Romez, and their trust in her warmed Shepard's heart.

"I appreciate your support gentlemen. Know that you aren't being pressured into this, and if you change your mind I won't seek repercussions or shame you for it—but once we set out for the Conduit there's no going back, I don't leave my men behind." Shepard's service record had largely become marine mythology for those who knew the name. Many who served alongside would trade stories amongst themselves during downtime, detailing stories of Elysium, Akuze or Torfan. For all the elaboration the marines brought to the tales, there were pieces of truth scattered in. No matter what age she lived to be, even if her memory escaped her in late life, Shepard knew that she'd carry the horrid sights of Akuze to her grave. The bone chilling screams of stoic marines that she'd seen boil in acid weren't something easily purged from memory.

Likewise Torfan would stick with her to the grave. There'd been no purity or innocence in Shepard's heart from the moment that she signed on for the operation. Legally Hackett shouldn't have even let her go, all of her medical and psych reports suggested extended time off, despite her ability to mask their accuracy. It'd been another time that Hackett had known what Shepard was capable of and had given her more leeway than a by-the-books CO should have. The names of all the men that'd died serving under or alongside her on Elysium haunted Shepard for many nights; Torfan was a chance to get revenge for them. The horrors that she'd committed that day could've ended in Court Martial had anyone spoken out, and they'd lost all but a quarter of the men that she and Major Kyle brought with them. For his part in the matter Major Kyle had suffered a psychotic break and fled society to start a biotic cult, and she'd been forced to put a round through his skull—the only regret that haunted her from the entire ordeal of Torfan.

"You wouldn't need to pull rank on me, ma'am. Those are marines they're attacking, our brothers and sisters. If I knew how to work the Conduit there wouldn't be any way you could pin me down." This from Romez again.

"Thank you." She took a moment to just pause and breathe a sigh of relief. Much of the tension that had seized her body an hour earlier was gone, replaced by a resolve to save her friends. "I'll signal you when it's time, but we'll need to move fast. We'll take the Mako, and we'll have a moment before the CIC realizes it's gone, but then they'll try and stop us."

"Guess we'll just have to haul ass then, won't we ma'am?"

"We will indeed."

As if on queue, Shepard's omnitool chirped to let her know she'd received a message. A quick glance at the arm mounted device told her that Operations Chief Murphy was done with his part of the mission. Shepard stepped backwards in preparation to take her leave from the two marines, "Excuse me gentlemen, I have some last minute preparations."

It'd only taken a few minutes to weave a path through the Dunkirk to Chief Murphy's terminal on the CIC. Though it'd been years since she'd served aboard the Normandy SR-1 the floorplan of the ship was still burned into her memory, and the Dunkirk could've been an exact replica of the older ship. The young and slightly pudgy technician was still seated at his terminal, though now he had the portable OSD guarded in his hand.

"I finished the burn ma'am. It should auto-execute as soon as you mount it, though whatever you mount it with will need to be networked to the Conduit—if the Admiral lets us."

"Thank you Chief, I appreciate it—and I appreciate your discretion."

The younger man was quick to hand over the OSD to her, he was quite obviously frightened by the clandestine nature of the work he'd performed. She was pretty sure that he was afraid of her too, afraid of the possibility that she was defying Hackett, and wanted nothing to do with it. She was fine with that, it was better that he want to distance himself rather than delaying her with more useless conversation—she needed to prepare for what was coming.

Now was the matter of her gear, but she had a nifty suspicion about that. Her old kit had been destroyed in the blast and she hadn't had a chance to get new gear since—and that was where she suspected Hackett's note came into play. She retraced her steps from the CIC to the cargo bay and began to sift through the Dunkirk's cargo. It didn't take long for her to find the crate matching Hackett's note, and to her amusement there was a subtle N7 emblem atop the crate. The crate carried a full set of N7 Specialist armor, alongside a full stock of weapons. She suspected that he'd had this requisitioned for her while they were at port on Elysium, but a small item tucked into the top of the crate brought a wide smile to her face. Resting against her ceramic breastplate was a small hatchet, built in the same self-folding style of system alliance weapons, with a simple note tied to its handle: Don't miss.

It felt good to fasten the pieces of armor over her body once again, her muscle memory mindlessly placing each plate reassured her that nothing had truly changed. The armor felt truly comfortable, and it supported her sore body in a way she hadn't felt since Hammer's charge on the London conduit. For a moment Ashley's face, coated in thick red blood and soot flashed through her mind. That was the last time that she'd seen the woman, screaming and cursing her as she pushed her into Garrus' arms for safety. I'm coming Ash.

"Wouldn't wanna charge the gates of hell with anyone else, ma'am. I've seen a few N7s in action, that red stripe might as well be painted with blood."

Flickering apparitions of those who had died during her career shrouded Shepard's mind, batarians scattered on the streets of Illyria and the caves of Torfan, her entire platoon screaming in time-muted voices as a thresher maw sprayed them with acid. She saw Kaidan Alenko's stupidly genuine smile staring at her when she'd left him to save Ashley. She'd known in her mind that she would save him, it had been a reality for her that she would save him, right up until the bomb took his life in a brilliant flash of light. He'd been a nice boy, one that deserved a proper funeral. Romez was right, she had painted her stripes in blood—and she was about to add more to the collection. "I just thought it went well with my hair."

A few of the nervous marines let out quiet laughs at the comment, good—they need to laugh now, because I'm not sure this will even work. She was now fully armored, save for the helmet which she would secure in transit, and it was time to go. She led the way into the already-open IFV and jerked her head at them to follow her. "Mount up boys."

The cold winds of uncertainty whipped at Steven Hackett as he tried to piece out what would come next. It wasn't in regards to the Citadel and relays, nor the Council that he was speculating—rather it was to Commander Shepard he was uncertain of. He'd shaped and guided her career since she was fresh out of the academy, and he'd seen her grow both as a woman and as a soldier—but there was one streak of herself that she'd kept all these years. Shepard was fiercely loyal to her men, be they her marines or her crew, and when their fate was put in the balance he couldn't ever accurately predict what she'd do. He'd seen a similar shade of it on Torfan, a lethal young woman fueled by rage and revenge for those she'd lost on Elysium. He'd seen it when the Council had grounded her during the hunt for Sovereign, and he knew that he was about to see it again.

Whatever faction of batarians had chosen to attack Ilos had endangered the Normandy and its crew, both of which she'd grown to care about. She'd decided that she could save them, and he knew that she would do whatever she could to make it a reality. What he wasn't sure about was how she'd do it.

She was a hatchet that Hackett could swing viciously towards any enemy and know that they'd fall, but he knew that there were times it'd swing wildly on its own. Were this another point in time, a point where the Alliance had a firm government and everything was smoothly following standard operating procedure, he might have tried to keep her in line—but this wasn't one of those times. Hackett knew that he could probably stop whatever it was that she was going to do, but if you tried to stop the hatchet while it swung wildly there was a chance that it'd rip through you on the way to its target. Hackett might could've stopped her, but there was no telling that both of them would walk away from it had he tried—so instead he'd followed his gut. Over a decade Shepard had earned his trust through performance, she deserved this from him.

Despite himself Hackett smiled at the facial expression of the young Serviceman running towards him. The boy looked thoroughly frightened and confused, while also looking terrified that he might drop the datapad clutched in his fingers. "Admiral sir!" The boy popped a quick salute out of habit and began stumbling over himself to explain to Hackett what was happening. "I uh—the Dunkirk is reporting that there was an unauthorized deployment of the onboard Mako. No one was able to locate the XO to tell her, and erm—" he stopped to take a deep shaky breath, "They weren't able to find the Staff Lieutenant or the Staff Sergeant, I, uh, they sent me to, uh, inform you sir! Is the XO okay sir?"

The boy clearly knew who Shepard was, and he seemed a tad frightened by her—the thought amused Hackett. He remembered meeting Shepard when she'd been little older than this boy, and near his same rank. At the time she'd been afraid of him. "The XO is fine, son. Tell the ship to stand down, the marines might have taken the Mako out for an emergency evacuation—it is well suited for that kind of thing."

"I—yes sir! Erm the Masters-At-Arms said she thought the Mako might have been taken by the XO, sir."

"That's entirely possible."

"You said stand the ship down sir?"

"Aye son."

"Yes s-sir!"

The young man disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived, and Hackett was left with a humble amusement. She'd stolen the Mako and was no doubt making for the Conduit, hell only knew how she would activate it once she got there. The Admiral squeezed his eyes closed and uttered a silent prayer that he wouldn't have to put pieces of her back together after this. Trust goes both ways. Don't miss, Shepard.