A/N: Bioware owns everything Mass Effect related.

Sorry for the long pause between updates. And thank you to everyone who has been reading, alerting, favoriting, reviewing this story. Quick note: while this Shepard is also Jane, she is not necessarily the same Jane. And this story is not related to my other fic "All That Comes After" although there will be similarities.

As always, R&R, it makes my heart happy!

Chapter Three: Therum

Shepard rolled behind a support strut reloading. Fuck. This was not going to end well. She took half a second review where the enemies were: geth sniper near the entrance, krogan across the elevator shaft, four geth trying to flank her. And the asari, in the goddamn middle of the floor. She suppressed another curse. Pick up the archeologist, they told her, she'll be useful. Shepard thought she was about as useful as a used heat sink, but that wasn't the issue right now. The krogan battlemaster was.

"Wrex! The krogan!" she shouted. If anyone could last against the battlemaster it would be Wrex, at least until she could pick off a few of these geth.

"Garrus, your three!" ordered directing him to a steadily advancing geth. She heard the whomp of his rifle and a second later she heard the geth fall. She whipped a throw at a geth inching ominously toward the Asari leveling him across the room. Two down, two more to go.

She heard the roar of a krogan somewhere on her right followed by the heavy thud of charging feet. She pressed herself closer against the strut, readying her shotgun. The krogan emerged half a second later, and she unloaded three incendiary rounds into him. Shit. The armor was barely singed.

"Concussive shot!" Vakarian called and a heartbeat later the krogan was on the ground. Shepard unloaded the rest of her clip into the krogan sighing as the krogan slowly stopped moving.

Wrex was on the ground, but from the sounds he was making he wasn't hurt. Just embarrassed. That she could deal with. Two more geth: the sniper at the entrance and one still…somewhere.

She could feel the adrenaline pounding in her ears. God, it felt good. "Vakarian, grab the archeologist." She motioned Wrex behind her to take out the last of the geth as she sidled around the crate the geth was using for cover. The elevator shaft shuddered uncomfortably reminding Shepard why she wanted to finish this quickly. She let her charged biotics lead pulling the geth out of cover before sinking a round deep into the geth's head. She was rewarded with a satisfying explosion. She heard Wrex's feet thud towards her, and she knew he'd also dispatched his geth.

Vakarian was holding the asari up, she looked terrified. "Come on people! Let's Move! Move! Move! Move!" She pushed them through the door ahead of her. She took the stairs two at a time, she could hear the ground crumbling around her.

"Hurry!" She all but threw the asari into the Normandy. She leapt after her, she was gong to be short. She reached willing her arms to be longer than they were when she felt a solid hand around hers. Garrus, she'd never been so glad to see a turian in her life. He hauled her up with on heave, leaving her coughing in the airlock.

"Can't leave the Commander behind. Otherwise who am I going to use to cut through that tape?" he shrugged like it was nothing. Shepard nodded.

She slumped against the bulkhead the day finally catching up to her. The geth colossus, the stalkers, the snipers holding the basin, the Prothean artifacts, all of it came crashing down. At least she had the archeologist. She had what she came for.

oo000oo

"Williams!" Shepard's voice rang across the cargo hold.

The gunnery chief snapped to attention, oil spilling over the weapon counter. "Ma'am?"

Williams had taken Eden Prime hard. She'd kept to herself and stayed quiet. Shepard knew the loss of her team was what gnawed at her, but Williams couldn't let it consume her. She was too good a soldier for that, and Shepard needed to take her out in her squad soon, she could use another gun. Tali was perfect for decryption, but she'd been almost useless against that krogan battlemaster. And Liara, sure, her biotics might be strong, but she needed to use them not cower in the middle of the field. She wasn't a soldier that was clear. She was just a scientist who happened to have an important mother.

"Suit up. Let's go." Shepard was already in the ring arms hanging loose at her sides. She shook them twice, bounced on the balls of her feet. Williams was taller that she was, but not by much, only a couple of inches. Not like Garrus, and certainly not like Alenko.

Williams looked anxious. Hell, the gunnery chief was anxious. She'd never hit her superior officer, the Williams's played by the book. Always. There were enough strikes against them, no need to pile on anymore.

Shepard took the first swing straight and true at Williams's nose. She ducked stepping back. Shepard pressed forward, hard, forcing Williams back on her heels. Before she knew it she was on the ropes.

She bobbed under Shepard's left hook easing to the center of the ring. She still hadn't hit back.

She's graduating. First in her class, last to get an assignment. Williams. The name stings, sticking to her, she can't get away. She studies longer, pushes herself harder than anyone else in the class. No excuses.

Shepard was still pushing hard. Now, it's a spin kick at her gut, Williams slides to the right, but not fast enough. Her breath came out in a single huff as the kick connected with her ribs. The kick wasn't hard, just enough to knock the breath out of her. Shepard followed with a quick hook, uppercut combo that Williams can't quite evade. The blows were glancing, and she had a second to regain her breath before Shepard's on her again.

Jab, jab, jab, cross, jab, hook, kick, uppercut, the onslaught of blows caught Williams again pushing her back against the ropes. She felt the years of casual degradation push at her restraint. How many other commanding officers have tested her like this? Pushing her control, waiting for her to retaliate so she'd be locked in the brig with one more black mark on her record.

"Come on, Williams, is this the best you can do?" Shepard taunted her easing back for half a second.

Shepard closed the distance again, this time with a sidekick. The kick was slow. On purpose, Williams thought, as she sidestepped it easily.

"I've seen quarian who fight better than you," Shepard mocked.

She's on Eden Prime. She's just arrived. A Gunnery Chief stationed on a backwater farming world. She knows it's an insult, just another curse of the Williams family name, but she says nothing. She'll serve her time here just like she did at every other assignment.

Williams held her hands at her cheeks defensively while she waited for another round of blows to come. She wouldn't entertain Shepard's cracked idea of fun. Shepard moved in again raining another series of punches. Williams didn't move. She just stood leaning against the ropes.

Shepard finally stopped. Williams wasn't going to break tonight, those barriers would be up for a while. Jane sighed, hair sticking to her sweaty skin. "We're done. Williams, dismissed."

Williams slid between the ropes back to her spot at the armory. She had a sinking feeling she hadn't behaved as the Commander wanted. Her first shipboard assignment and she was going to fuck it up. She thumbed open her console finding a message from one of her sisters: Abby. She felt the knot around her heart loosen just a little. She sat at her desk, the familiar presence of her sister was almost with her. "Forward, the Light Brigade," she whispered.

oo000oo

Shepard slammed the console on the elevator. Who in the hell had she picked up? A turian with an attitude problem, a mercenary krogan, a quarian kid, a biotic with uncontrollable migraines, an asari who'd never held a gun, and a gunnery chief who had some serious baggage, Saren might not be up against that much after all. Shepard leaned against the back of the elevator, for once glad of the impossibly slow speed. The sparring session left her more frustrated than she'd started. She closed her eyes sorting through everything she still had to do today. Too much.

Thankfully, Therum hadn't been too much of a waste of time. T'Soni might be useful when they found her mother, but Shepard wasn't particularly hopeful on that front. She had been studying Protean artifacts her whole life, so she could be helpful when the finally figured out what Saren was after. Shepard let out a long slow sigh, rolling her shoulders, the tension was still building and she wasn't sure how to relieve it.

"Commander," Joker's voice cut through her momentary reverie.

"What is it?"

"The Council's on the line."

Shepard closed her eyes; she couldn't just ignore them as much as she might want to. She was the human spectre, and she had a reputation to maintain to ensure she wasn't the only human spectre. "I'll be there in a moment," she finally replied.

"All right, Commander," she heard the click as Joker signed off.

The elevator opened back at the CIC. Shepard stiffened her resolve and made her way back to the comm room for what she knew would be an unpleasant conversation. Just how unpleasant it would be was something she hadn't prepared herself to expect. Not only were they unimpressed with her reports of further geth activity, or their seeming alliance with a krogan battlemaster, they also blamed her for the destruction of the Prothean ruins. This, apparently, was the second time she'd destroyed something valuable and ancient. She resisted the urge to cut the call short, finishing with terse statements and promise to keep them updated. She wondered vaguely if this day could get any worse.

She bumped into Vakarian on her way back to her cabin, she'd never wanted the privacy of the Captain's quarters until today. "Vakarian, nice work out there."

"Just doing my job, Shepard."

"You did it well." She looked down at his mostly empty plate, "Getting dinner?"

"I was, but dextro food isn't prolific on an Alliance cruiser," Vakarian shrugged as though he wasn't hungry enough to eat the Mako.

"When we're at the Citadel again I'll make sure we pick some up for you. I need my sparring partner back," she attempted to smile and make it a joke before the turian could decline.

"I thought you were taking on Williams today. She seems like she would be a better match," the turian replied. He'd enjoyed sparring the human, she'd given him more of a challenge than he'd had in a long while, but he certainly outweighed her. The human female would be a much better partner.

"I don't think she's comfortable hitting her commanding officer," Shepard looked disappointed.

"Well, not everyone feels as free to disregard the chain of command as I do," he tried to make light of it. "I should get back to the Mako. She took a beating on Therum. The enemy fire combined with the heat, she needs to be cleaned up a bit before you take her out again." He disappeared into the elevator.

Shepard watched him go before slinking back to her cabin. There was always paperwork to distract her.

oo000oo

Garrus slid under the Mako frowning at the black scorching around the exhaust. She was lucky they hadn't lost the thing. He was lucky she hadn't lost the thing. She'd brought him along on the mission, although spirits knew why. He grabbed one of his tools scrubbing the carbon off the Mako's underbelly. He hadn't felt that alive while in the field for a long time. The Geth Colossus, the way Shepard holed herself in slowly whittling down its defenses, her calls for his overload. He sat on her six waiting watching for snipers or reinforcements. He's missed the feel of the rifle in his hands, the C-Sec pistols don't feel the same.

Garrus wasn't sure what to make of their newest recruit, the asari, she seemed nice enough, but that was what got Garrus. She was too nice, if there was such a thing. And she'd been nearly useless against that krogan, Shepard had almost taken a hit trying to keep the asari safe. The asari was lucky she hadn't taken a stray bullet. Garrus wasn't sure what Shepard was hoping to accomplish by keeping her on board other than maybe speaking to Benezia. Not your ship, he reminded himself, but he liked it. He liked Shepard, envied her freedom, and he was glad for a second chance against Saren.

He closed his eyes forcing himself to forget everything except for the intricate cables of the Mako. He could probably boost her shields 5% if he worked hard enough, and since Shepard wasn't going to fight him tonight, he needed something else to occupy his time.

He remembered the solid muscle of her arm has he grabbed her. The way her body tensed when he lifted her into the airlock. He knew humans were soft, but he'd never thought they would also be so solid. He should have noticed as much while they were sparring, but she'd kept him on his toes too long. Pushing him back against the ropes. He smiled while he cleaned the underside of the Mako: this was why he left C-Sec.