Mass Effect: A Few Good Soldiers

by Teutonic Knight 92

When Commander Kathryn "Kara" Shepard an N7 Commando is thrown into the middle of a conflict against a ruthless Turian Spectre it will challenge her to her breaking point and threaten everything everyone thought they knew about the galaxy.

6. Chapter 5: The Freezer

Mass Effect: A Few Good Soldiers

Chapter 5: The Freezer

"And they say hell is hot," Shepard muttered as she started at the enormous white-blue ball glowing out the forward viewport. Noveria from everything she heard and read the planet was a giant frozen tundra where a human being could die from only second of exposure to the temperatures that constantly hovered less than a hundred degrees from absolute zero.

And yet Noveria hosted life because it was outside, but not too far outside, Council Space and therefore the jurisdiction of the Council their Spectres. To date Noveria housed representatives and outlets from dozens of major corporations all of which settled here to avoid Citadel conventions, regulations and ethical conundrums.

"Alright Lieutenant take us in," she said from her position behind the pilots chair.

Joker nodded as manipulated the flight controls of the Normandy and sent her flying into the upper atmosphere of the frozen world. His fingers danced over the council as he opened comm line to the port authority, "Approach Control, this is the SSV Normandy, Requesting approach vector and a berth," he said calmly into the communicator.

"Normandy," a terse voice bit back, "your arrival is not scheduled. Our defensive grid is armed and tracking you. State your business."

Joker leaned forward when Shepard stopped him by gently setting her hand on her shoulder. Leaning forward she said, "This Agent Shepard of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance I'm her on business for the Citadel Council," she finished and stood back waiting to see what their reaction would be.

"Roger…," the operator said, "Ahh granting access Normandy…," there was a paused and Shepard assumed that the operator was checking with someone else, "be advised we're confirming identification. If identification cannot be established your vessel will be impounded."

"Roger that control," Joker said into the comm, "Normandy out." Turning back to face her he continued, "Cheery bunch aren't they," he joked, "I think I'll take my next shore leave here."

"If you can afford it Lieutenant," she said dryly, "then by all means. Just get us landed first before you start planning your vacation. "

"Aye commander," retorted, "Bringing the ship into dock."

Shepard nodded, "Inform Officer Vakarian I want to see him in the briefing room ASAP."

"Aye commander," Joker said again with a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Frowning Shepard growled, "Something amusing Lieutenant," ever since the Citadel shipboard gossip had been talking about the commander and 'her turian.' Before she had dismissed them as the crew being idiots, but now the rumors were true. After Liara had caught them in a… comprising position Shepard had been a bit nervous, but the asari promised she wouldn't say anything.

However from her years of experience in the navy she knew no shipboard secret would remain secret for long. The rank and file of the navy had a way of weeding out secrets better than any intelligence or internal affairs agent could ever do. The rumor that she and Garrus were together was the scuttlebutt of the ship. It was a rumor that she had done nothing about. She also learned that the more you denied something the more likely people were to believe it.

"No ma'am," he said covering his smile by turning back to his console.

"See that it stays that way," she growled before turning and heading towards the Normandy's briefing room.

XXX

Garrus ignored the stares and guarded glances of the ship's crew. Sometimes he'd hear Shepard's name amongst the whispers. It'd taken him some time to get use to the thought that human crewmembers weren't allowed to 'fraternize' as they called it. Onboard turian ships personal relationships were permitted as long as they didn't effect performance.

At first he was worried Shepard was going to call their relationship off as one giant mistake. To his immense joy he discovered that she had decided to continue it. In fact the moment she had finished addressing the Council she had hightailed it back to her quarters and to him. They'd spent entirely the entire trip to Noveria together.

He purred a deep purr issuing from the center of his chest as he thought about her before he caught himself remembering that he was out in the open.

"Officer Vakarian to the briefing room… Officer Vakarian to the briefing room," he heard Joker's voice play over the comm.

Stopping and turning around he started heading towards stairs with a quick pace. With them closing on Noveria he was sure this had something to do with the upcoming mission. Finally he made his way up to the command deck and past the CIC. Stopping at the blast doors she punched his ID code into the reader and the doors slid open.

Garrus stepped in and the doors slid closed. He glanced around the circular room and was surprised to find that they were alone, "What's going on Kara," surely she didn't bring him here to… He suddenly blinked as he looked at her. She wasn't in her Alliance fatigues or dress uniform. She was in the same outfit when he first met her, that old jacket of hers and jeans.

The Spectre smiled and embraced him, "I'm not taking the whole team out when we dock at Noveria City. It's just going to be you and me for a while before we figure out what's going on," she smirked again, "you're going to want to change out of that."

He glanced down. What he was wearing was similar to standard turian style fatigues he had worn in his army days. He didn't have any right to where a uniform anymore because he wasn't in the army or in C-Sec any longer but he still like the look and feel of militaristic uniforms, "What's wrong with it?"

"You won't blend in very well," she replied, "I don't want to attract too much attention why we're down there."

"Loud-out," he questioned. He heard Noveria was a tough place and just not because of the cold. If they we're going down as civies they couldn't be loaded for bear. However he doubted Kara would ever go anywhere completely unarmed.

Shepard opened her jacket revealing two pistols holstered under each arm pit. Closing her jacket she wordlessly knelt and drew a long knife from her right boot before sheathing it and standing up, "Whatever you can conceal."

Flaring his mandibles in the turian version of a smile he nodded, "Whatever I can conceal," he repeated, "I can deal with that," he said running through a list of the weapons he could manage to conceal on his person… there were quite a few.

Kara zipped back up her jacket and added, "We touch down in a few minutes. So let's meet at the airlock in ten."

"In ten then," he said and turned and left.

XXX

Shoot, cover, move, shoot and a blue white armored body fell to the floor. It was a pattern so ingrained he didn't have to even think about. Shoot, cover, move, shoot and another Blue Sun fell with a hole him his head. Saren shifted and aimed at three more Blue Suns appeared rifle in hand and he shot all three of them in the head.

There was a glint of steel as he drew his long serrated, curved knife and a squirt of blood as a merc fell uselessly clutching at his neck. Another Blue Sun saw him and turned his weapon upon the rouge spectre but Saren faster than anone could have though possible raised his pistol and shot the merc in the hand.

The man dropped screaming in pain as he clenched his now worthless appendage. Saren shifted his aim to the man's faceless helmet but after several seconds lowered and holstered his weapon. Instead he stalked, like an Angel of Death, his way over to the merc and stood behind him.

With a savage twist Saren snapped the neck of the last Blue Sun mercenary in the compound. Weeks ago he'd used this particular cell of Blue Suns on an operation inside Council Space where he couldn't use the geth. Geth managed to attract attention and six feet tall walking toasters didn't blend with the local populace.

They'd been key in the procurement of a certain artifact necessary to his plans. However they were now expendable and worse were a loose end. He tracked them to their base in the Terminus and proceeded to use his geth vessels to wipe them out. After all they were mercenaries and their only loyalty was to credits ad he couldn't risk them selling their service or knowledge to the highest bidder.

"Saren Arterius, Spectre all Blue Suns eliminated. Beacon is secure," a white plated geth trooper reported, "awaiting orders."

"Sweep the area again," he growled making a slashing motion with his hand, "There can be no mistakes. Not like on Therum or Feros."

"By your command," the shock trooper replied as it raised its rifle.

He turned to the remaining troopers and barked, "Secure the beacon for transport to Virmire."

Saren watched the geth leave with barely concealed disgust written all over his face. Twice he entrusted them with a mission of critical importance and twice they had failed him. Saren wasn't a forgiving person by any means and was quite fed up with failure.

That was why he sent Matriarch Benezia and her household guard to Noveria to oversee his latest project and perhaps more importantly kill that insolent Shepard if or when she showed up. The Alliance commander had been a thorn in his side for far too long and it was time for that thorn to be pulled out.

Spinning on his heel he stormed his way back through the compound spoiling for a fight. The few geth that stood in his way were smart enough to get out of his way as he tore through the hallway. The metal clanking of his boots on the deck ramp echoed throughout the compound as the rouge Spectre marched into his shuttlecraft.

With a savage motion he spun back and yanked the manual level to seal the hatch, "Take me back to Sovereign," he growled towards the cockpit.

Two geth units glanced back at him and their headlamp likes heads bobbed, "By your command."

XXX

Shepard and Garrus stepped out of the airlock and into the umbilical which connected the Normandy to the port structure. The Noveria City main port was in some was like an airlock itself. Ships entered through one set of massive doors which closed behind the ship and an inner set of door opened to allow the ship into the port hanger proper. The reason for this was to keep the freezing air outside from making its way into the port hanger where it could do great damage to the personal and equipment there in Noveria City itself

When the unlikely pair stepped out of the umbilical they were immediately greeted by three humans in police or quasi-police uniforms. As the only law on Noveria was whatever the corporate board decide it was. To police this world they used mercenaries and private security forces to keep the order and collect the dues.

The first thing Shepard noticed was the woman was flanked by the two guards had stars on her neck… a police captain, "Stop right there," the police captain barked and the other two officers pumped the slide on their shotguns.

Shepard briefly glanced at Garrus, "Is there a problem officer?"

The police captain pulled out a badge and said, "I'm Captain Matsuo head of port authority. This is an unscheduled visit. I need your credentials."

Shepard crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow, "Agent Shepard Special Tactics and Recon."

"Load of horseshit ma'am," the blonde female officer to the captain's left spat.

"We're going need to search your ship and take your weapons," the captain said suddenly her eyes hard, "Sergeant Stirling secure their weapons!"

"Like hell you are," the Shepard snarled and drew both her weapons, "I'm a Spectre and the Normandy is an Alliance warship. There's no way you're getting my weapons or searching my ship."

A Mexican standoff ensued with Shepard and Garrus standing the three security officer down with weapons drawn. The captain's face fell into a mask of anger, "You are aware," she said her voice burning with rage, "that threating a Noveria security officer is an offense punishable by death."

Shepard glared at her, "And what do you think the Council will do to you if you kill one of their Spectres," the commander taunted, "Pride demands in the very least that the perpetrator be punished." Shepard was taking the gamble that the Noverian corporate leadership would understand that screwing with a Spectre, the strong arm of the Council and a symbol of their power, would be far too risky an enterprise to undertake, "so what's it going to be?"

For a second though Shepard thought she had miscalculated and the captain would order her officers to open fire but thankfully it never came to that. The police captain raised her hand to her ear piece and after several abortive attempts at argument she grit out a weary "Yes Sir."

Not beginning able to resist the commander grinned, "I take it I win?"

The captain's face twitched before she barked to her lackeys, "Lower your weapons…," she turned back to Shepard eyes burning, "apparently Spectres and their compatriots," she said directed at Garrus, "are allowed to carry weapons… Mr. Smith is waiting for you up stairs."

"Smith," she questioned?

"A rep for the corporate board," Matsuo spat, "now I have an entire port to look after so if you don't mind… get the hell out."

Shepard threw the woman a single finger salute as she holstered her side-arms and they headed toward the elevator.

"You enjoyed that," she heard Garrus accuse were out of earshot.

She felt a small smile cross her lips as she turned her head to face him, "She was a bitch… so yah I did."

Garrus merely chuckled and shock his head, "Spirits Shepard you're..." he just trailed off with another shake of his head.

The elevator ride out of the hanger bay and into the customs building took less than a minute and when they stepped off they found an impeccably dressed light skinned man in a while suit waiting for them, "Agent Shepard," he said with a smile on his face as he extended his hand, "I'm Mr. Sith I represent the corporate board on Noveria."

After a second or two of hesitation Shepard reached out and took the man's hand, "Nice to meet you." She was a bit surprised by him. He grip was hard and firm and his stance made him out to be more than just a rep.

"I apologize for the inconvenience," he continued. It was said eyes were the window to the soul and when Shepard caught his eyes she recognized that this man was a trained killer… as the saying went it took one to know one. If she was a betting gal she would wager this man did a lot of the board's wetwork, "what brings a Spectre of all people to Noveria."

"I'm hunting a traitor," she said studding his face carefully.

The smile slipped from his face for a second and he released her hand before the smile returned, "Noveria City is a big place will hundreds of ship loading and offloading every day. I afraid it will be extremely difficult to track down a single individual."

"I don't think that will be a problem," she countered, "She'll be hard to miss," throwing the man a bone to see just how intelligence this man was. She narrowed her eyes as she saw a flash of realization in the man's eyes, "so if you just point me at the head of port authority."

"That would be administrator Anoleis ," Mr. Smith provided, "but unfortunately its afterhours had he's gone home for the night," at her un-amused look he swiftly added, "I'll set you up for an appointment first thing tomorrow," he paused before turning to Garrus, "I apologized Mister.…," he trailed off.

"Vakarian," Garrus replied extending his own hand so they could shake.

"Now that the pleasantries have been taken care of," he said straightening up, "now the board has taken the liberty of providing you a penthouse at Neri Hotel… it's reputed to be the best hotel on the planet."

Shepard coly regarded him, "They wouldn't be trying to bribe me… now would they? Perhaps in exchange for a favorable report to the Council," she ventured.

Mr. Smith merely smiled and extended his arm towards the door, "This way Agent Shepard, Mister Vakarian there's a limo waiting outside."

XXX

"I can't see it. I can't see it," the panicked voice of his wingman, Klick, broke over the comm, "Where the hell is he?"

Naval Lieutenant Adam "Ares" Lee jerked hard on the stick sending his Lockheed-Martian F-203 Raptor IV Space Superiority Interceptor into a brutal seventy degree left turn, "Break left, break left," he barked over the comm. The rate of the acceleration slammed him back into his seat as they tried to shake their relentless opponent, "Chuckles," he called to another pilot, "Ares can lend you a hand!"

"Negat-," Chuckles started to sa but his comm broke off and a brief fireball was visuable at the far left of Ares cockpit view before it was snuffed out by the vacuum of space.

"Dammit," Ares cursed as he jerked the stick again as several rounds flew right by his cockpit, "Alright Klick let's pull a Crazy Ivan."

"Ivan… fuck," he heard his wingman curse, "fine."

A crazy Ivan was named after an old submarine maneuver the Russian's like to pull. Though different than the original tactic it was crazy as hell so the name stuck, "Now," Ares shouted and let go of the stick with his left, while still holding it with his right, and pulled a lever painted in caution tape colors.

The Raptor's engines cut out and metal frame shrieked as the two maneuvering thrusters under the nose fired for all they were worth. Lee screamed as the Raptor was flipped ass over teakettle and just before the ass end of the Raptor passed the 180 degree mark the onboard computer fired the rear thruster's located on either side of the vertical stabilizer. The rear thruster's fired and with a bone wrenching jolt the Raptor stabilized 180 degrees from its last position and with its nose and more importantly its guns facing the rear.

Lee shouted a war cry and he savagely yanked the trigger sending a hail of bullets at his pursers. The stream of fire sliced through one, then two and a third. Unfortunately before he could react a piece of debris from the first fighter slammed into his cockpit and his world went white before going black.

"You have been killed in action. Please report to pilots' ready room for full debriefing."

The cockpit hissed and opened. Lee groaned bringing his right hand to his eyes before rubbing the light away, "Shit," he hissed glancing up and out of the simulator at the CAG, Commander Air Group, for the Carrier Wing on board the SSV Enterprise or the Big-E as the crew like to call the big girl.

"That was a gutsy move Lieutenant," the CAG said sounding more impressed than annoyed.

"Ahh thank you sir," Lee said not quite sure if it was a compliment or not. Reaching up he undid the latches on his helmet and pulled it off and handed it to the CAG so he could pull himself out of the cockpit, "So how are we doing Commander?"

The CAG sighed, "Not good we're at sixty-three percent casualties and rising and no closer to punching a hole in their defenses," he said consulting his datapad.

Lee leaned up against the simulator, "Sir how accurate are these simulations," he asked skeptically. He worried about how accurate the sims were. As far as he knew the only Alliance or Citadel pilots to engage any geth fighter were the Marine aviators on Eden Prime and they were all dead.

He saw a muscle in the CAG's cheek twitch, "The intel boys say they've 'composited a simulation out of the best available data'," he said with air quotes which translated as they were guessing.

The Raptor pilot rubbed the bridge of his nose, "So we have no idea what their full capabilities are?"

"Yep," the CAG said with a shake of his head, "we have no idea what their full capabilities are. Now get your ass to the briefing room."

"Aye commander."

XXX

The aircar finally settled to a stop to the landing deck on the Neri Hotel. Shepard watched through the side window as two attendants ran up to each side of the door and one opened hers for her.

"Agent Shepard," the attendant said holding her door open, "Welcome to the Neri do you have any luggage?"

"Ahh no," she said exiting the limo and straightening her jacket. She glanced at the ornate pillars and columns and that stood like some Greek temple back on Earth, "thank you."

"Agent Shepard, Mister Vakarian," Mr. Smith said with a smile on his face, "If you'll follow me…," he added gesturing to the door, "They have you're suite ready."

Shepard nodded as she allowed Smith to lead her and Garrus up the ruby read carpeted stairs and through the ornately carved pillars and into the hotel/casino. The transparent doors slid open with a hiss revealing rows after rows of slot machines, poker tables, and craps tables. Amongst the patrons were scantily clad asari and human females who were serving drinks and running the tables.

"Do you play Spectre," Mr. Smith intoned no doubt referring to the gambling, "the board would be more than happy to grant you some chips on the house."

Shepard glanced at the tables before turning back to him, "I don't gamble," for one she was the unluckiest card player she knew of. It's was comical when she thought about it. She could fight against overwhelming odds without losing her cool but in cards she always gave her hand away, "How about you Garrus?"

The turian tiled his head to the side, "A little bit," he admitted to her surprise, "in moderation of course," he added with a turian smile.

As they walked through the casino level of the hotel Shepard and Garrus received several stares from the immaculately and lavishly dressed patrons. Shepard had no illusions about fitting in with this crowd and they were no doubt wondering who she and Garrus were and why they were here.

They stepped into the elevator and the attendant keyed in the code to take them up to the penthouse suite. It only took a few seconds for the elevator to reach the top floor the doors slid open and Shepard found that they elevator went right to into the middle of the suite instead of in a hallway.

"Spirits," she heard Garrus whisper and she had to agree with him. She walked deeper into the suite glancing around as she did feeling her jaw drop slightly before she snapped it shut.

The room was absolutely enormous and lavishly decorated and in the center was giant Jacuzzi and…, "Oh my God…," she whispered under her breath. They had a waterfall in the middle of their room and a huge gigantic bed with crimson silk sheets.

"If there is anything else please feel free to contact me," Smith said rubbing his hands together before pulling two keycards from his pocket and handed them to her, "These will unlock the elevator so it can access your room," and with that he turned and left.

Shepard smirked as she turned to Garrus and with a tilt of her head gestured over at the bed. She saw Garrus quickly glance over had the bed and even quicker glance back at her. She grinned as she saw his eyes cloud over and a deep purr issue from his throat, "Kara," he purred drawling her name in a way that made it hard for her to think.

She felt his taloned hands snake around her waist and felt him pull her towards him. Pacing her hands on his chest she leaned forward and whispered, "Lets clear the bugs from the room first. Performing for an audience was something I'm only gonna do once."

The turian growled and they separated. They both activated their omi-tools and went to work faster than the best counter-intel on the Citadel.

XXX

Slowly Garrus regained consciousness and as he did he began aware of a weight on his chest. Cracking his eyelids he saw a golden mane on hair resting atop his chest. Kara was sleeping on top of him and bare down to the waist were she was wrapped up in the crimson silk sheets.

Wordlessly he reached up and threaded his talons through her short jaw length hair. He wasn't quite sure why he found himself fascinated with her hair. He ran his hand through her hair and down onto her bare back and as he did he felt his hand come into contact with something sticky. He pulled his hand back and found little splotched of red on his talons.

It took him a few seconds to connect the dots; red… human… human blood was red. He had hurt her… in shock he sat up which unfortunately jolted Kara awake. Kara like the highly trained and toe soldier she was awake in an instant her eyes sharp and focused as she glance around the unfamiliar room before he saw the light of recognition enter her eyes.

"Garrus what's wrong," she said as she rolled off of him and onto the bed and looked up at him with a worried look in her eyes.

"You're back," he whispered, "you're bleeding. I've hurt you," anguish filled his voice as he propped himself up.

Kara shifted herself and snuggled up next to him and rested her head on his chest, "You didn't hurt me," she said softly, "last night was great and loads of fun," she reached up and ran her hand across his face, "the cuts are superficial don't worry about them."

"Kara," he drew out her name and held his talons up in front of her face, "I could really hurt you," he whispered and that was his most horrifying thought that he would do something to harm her.

Tilting her head up she sighed, "I'm a big girl Garrus you don't need to worry about hurting me," she laughed slightly, "If you want to you can worry about other people hurting me."

Garrus flared his mandibles. Stubborn female he mused before wrapping his arms around her. Then again that was one of the reason he loved… he paused, yes he did love her. He had cared for her deeply before but, "I think I love you Kara," he voiced softly.

Kara's eyes got as big as saucers and her mouth opened and closed, "Garrus," she said slowly, "I… don't… I think… I think I could love you too."

For a long time they simply starred at one another until Garrus finally said, "We have that meeting in a few hours. We should probably get up and get dressed… maybe take a shower."

Kara leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, or where his lips would be, if he had been human. Before he could do anything else she threw off the sheets and headed off towards of the shower swaying her hips as she did.

Garrus felt his mouth go dry as he watched her go. He watched her go all the way across the deck and slip into the Jacuzzi. He watched her disappear beneath the surface before emerging and motioning him over.

XXX

Shepard starred out the window of the aircar as Garrus maneuvered the vehicle deftly through the skylanes from the hotel towards the port authority building. Closing her eyes she rested her head up against the glass. Garrus loved her… it was amazing… she hadn't felt this way since… since she couldn't remember the last time she felt this good.

"Kara we're almost here," she heard Garrus say softly.

Looking up she saw the trapezoid like port authority building growing rapidly in the viewport. Ritualistically she checked her weapons to make sure they were still good before sliding them back into their holsters, "Put her down Garrus," she ordered and the turian deftly maneuvered the vehicle to the pad.

Garrus set the rental down and the pair exited their vehicle. Straightening her jacket she headed down the several steps from the pad and headed towards the sliding doors at the far end of the walkway.

Within seconds of them setting down on the pad the glass doors slide open and two guards in Noveria Security Force uniforms rushed forward with rifles held in a low guard position. Shepard reached her right hand into her jacket and rested it on one of her weapons, "What's going on?"

The pair of security guards, two turians, slowed to a trot before coming to a complete stop, "Agent Shepard," the turian on the left with white swirling face markings said, "We were told to expect you Administrator Anoleis is waiting for you in his office."

Slowly Shepard released the handle of her his pistol and shoved both her hands into the pockets of her jacket, "Take us to your leader," she said with a slight smile but when the turians just look confused she rubbed the brig of her nose and amended, "never mind just take me to the administrator."

"Yes ma'am," the lead turian said gesturing back to the doors, "follow us please."

Shepard allowed them to lead her and Garrus through the sliding doors and into the port authority building. The inside of the building was what you would expect from a public building. There were cubicles filled with white-collar drones that went about their daily lives shifting through the mountains of information that each day came through port authority in regards to incoming and outgoing ships.

Every once in a while once of the drones would look over the top of their cubicle or rolled their chairs back to see who was interrupting their daily monotonous routine. Though apparently they didn't recognize her and Garrus and quickly went back to their routine.

The security guards lead them to an office at the far back where a secretary sat at a desk typing away at her computer station. The lead guard approached the desk and said, "Ms. Parasini we've brought Agent Shepard and Mr. Vakarian for Administrator Anoleis."

"Thank you Julius," the secretary nodded, "you're dismissed," and when the guards were gone she pressed a button on her desk, "Mr. Anoleis."

"What, what," a hyper sounding and irritated voice that Shepard almost immediately pegged as belonging to a salarian said, "what is it?"

Shepard noticed the secretary roll her eyes with a longsuffering look, "Agent Shepard and Mr. Vakarian are here. They have an appointment sir."

"Yes, yes send them in," the salarian said dismissively.

"Go can go in now," the secretary said.

"Thanks," the Spectre said with that she and Garrus headed through the revolving doors and into the port administrator's office. The office was nicer that what Shepard would have expected from a mid-level bureaucrat. She felt her lip twitch as the thought that he was mostly likely corrupt filtered through her head. The again she mused, this was Noveria and it was likely the order of the day. She threw a quick glance at Garrus who looked like he had come to the same conclusion from the look on his face.

"Forgive me for not standing up," the salarian stated putting down a datapad and picking up another and studying it, "I have no time for space jockeys who spend most of their existence traveling on a starship."

Briefly the thought of reaching across the table and wringing the salarian's skinny neck passed through her mind. Reeling her emotions in she cocked her eyebrow, "I thought the corporate board told you to assist me," she said crossing her arms over chest. Despite what Smith said she doubted that these people, who spent most of their paranoid lives glancing over their shoulder… she meant the corporate types not salarians, would help her.

"The board instructed me to assist you," the administrator said bluntly without looking up from his pad, "they didn't say what level of assistance to give."

"Semantics are a bitch," Shepard said deadpan.

"Tell me about," Garrus huffed under his breath.

The salarian stopped and looked up at her with an annoyed look in his eyes, "Please refrain from such crude language human," the salarian quickly rapped his fingers on his desk before going back to his work, "business come here to avoid the second guessing of galactic law."

"I don't care what you're doing here," Shepard said leaning forward on the administrator's desk supported by her arms, "All I want is Benezia and if you don't gi-," she started to threaten but was cut off when the salarian suddenly looked up.

"The asari matriarch," he questioned, "she arrived a few days ago with a personal escort and some cargo. She's currently up at research station 15 or Peak 15."

She didn't like the sound of any of that, "Define personal escort," she ordered narrowing her eyes.

The salarian folded his hands on top of his desk, "the phrase is self-explanatory. Bodyguards attending to the safety of her person," he paused before delivering the bombshell, "about a dozen or so asari commandos," he finished in a matter-of-fact manner.

"And that didn't strike you as odd," Garrus said astounded and Shepard had to agree with his sentiment, "that she'd bring a team of asari commandos."

He shifted his gaze from her to Garrus, "They followed all of our regulations and statutes. I had no reason from forbidding them to enter."

"What were in the crates," she asked.

"I don't know but they passed all the weapon restrictions and other contraband scans," Anoleis replied.

"Wait," the Spectre growled, "I need to get to Peak 15."

"Impossible a massive storm front has blown in rendering all ground travel from the city to the research laboratories inadvisable at very best," the salarian stated, "For that reason the board has grounded off traffic out of the city by land."

"For how long," Shepard growled again gritting her teeth.

"Four or five days," he said bluntly and this time Shepard wasn't sure she'd be able keep herself from strangling him this time. Suddenly she felt Garuss's hand on her shoulder restraining her and calming her down. Anoleis huffed before picking up another datapad, "Now please go. Time is money and you've already cost me one hundred and twenty-eight point four five credits

"Yeah thanks," Shepard said as she pushed herself off from the table and spun to leave, "If I've found out you've been lying to me…," she trailed off letting her threat so unsaid

XXX

With a stutter the vanguard of the Fifth Fleet, the two wolf pack flotillas, swept out from FTL banging away with their active sensor arrays searching for anything that might pose a threat or try to ambush the fleet. If they had detected anything they would have shot off a tight beam transmission to the main body of the fleet which always traveled at least two and half minutes behind, as a full active scan took at least two minutes, so the fleet could disengage its FTL and drop out before running smack dab into an ambush.

When the frigates completed their maneuvers and the lieutenant commander in charge gave the fleet and all clear the wolf packs convalesced back into their two original flotillas just as the main fleet arrived. From the bridge of the Orizaba Admiral Steven Hackett watched as the Fleet deployed itself in a defensive formation.

The Fifth had been deployed to the Armstrong Cluster to investigate and if necessary destroy the geth presence. Alliance Intelligence in cooperation with the Salarian Intelligence Service and the Citadel Intelligence Agency had suspected that the geth were using the Armstrong Cluster as a staging ground for a major thrust into the Skyllian Verge to attack Alliance colonies to preparation for a larger invasion of the Alliance and Citadel Space.

The salarians, asari and turians were also mobilizing their assets to defend to their space and the Citadel Defense Fleet had been put on high alert and had set up massive patrols at the Mass Relay exit zones leading to the Citadel. However while the salarians were conducting hit and run attacks the Alliance was the in position to make a potentially devastating first strike.

"Sir combat air patrols has been deployed," Captain Strasbourg repeated relaying the information the group captain in charge of the fleet's combined air wings, had reported to him, "All raptors are in the tubes and waiting for permission to launch."

Fleet Admiral Hackett towered over the holographic tactical display focusing on the little figures that represented the ships of his fleet. The fleet emerged from FTL and was arrayed in the standard Alliance formation which as designed for maximum firing power. The Orizaba stood at the heart of the fleet with the three carriers ringed around the dreadnaught in a triangular formation. The cruisers were in turn spread out in a spherical formation surrounding the dreadnought and carriers, though each maintained a staggered position so that all the cruisers and the dreadnaught could fire with risk of hitting one of its own.

This formation would also allow the vitally important carriers to be protected and had the bonus that the fleet could throw up interlocking fields of fire against enemy fighters and missiles. As the main fleet engaged its opposite number the wolf packs would take positions a great deal away from the fleet on the horizontal axis. The frigates would attempt to eliminate the enemy frigates before moving in to conduct "knife fight" hit and run attacks on the enemy fleet.

Commanding one of those "suicide sleds" as the officers and men of the heavier class ships derisively called them was in a way like commanding one of the Forlorn Hope of earlier times on earth. Like the Forlorn the frigates often suffered grievous casualties in any full scale engagement but their officers and enlisted personal were greatly rewarded assuming they survived. After all they were built for speed and lethality on a little frame. Unfortunately that speed and lethality cost them dearly in survivability.

"Permission denied," Hackett said quietly but sternly, "keep the CAP on a two hour rotation and deploy recon drones and two flights of blackbirds."

"Aye Admiral, Ms. Grace," the captain said addressing the Group Captain," CAP on a six hour rotation and deploy recon drones and two flights of blackbirds," he repeated per Naval parlance.

"Aye," the woman said and she began to relay the information to the carrier commanders who could in turn deliver it to their CAGs who would deliver it to the pilots.

Fifteen seconds later the first probers were launched from the Orizaba and within a minute the first of the sleek blackbird spyplanes launched from the SSV Enterprise. Hackett nodded with satisfaction and the response time of the Enterprise's pilots and deck crew; they were certainly living up to the legacy of their ship's forebears.

He looked up from the holographic layout, "Call the crew to action stations and set condition two throughout the fleet."

"Aye Admiral."

XXX

Following the information Administrator Anoleis's secretary, or undercover internal affairs agent, had slipped her Shepard and Garrus had made their way across the city to a hotel bar where they were supposed to find a disgruntled turian named Lorak Quin that might be able to help them.

Shepard wasn't quite sold on this Parasini woman but the fact that Parasini could sip a memory stick into her back pocket without her knowing it was definitely points in her favor. It pissed Shepard off that she could pull it off. Shepard considered it a point of pride to be on top of thing.

She felt Garrus nudge her and she glanced up at him, "I think that's him over there," he said with a nod in the generally direction, "the facial markings match."

Shepard studied the turian for a moment before agreeing. The Turian was sitting at the bar with several empty shot glances on the counter and a full on in his claws. She made her way over to the bar and sat down next to him while Garrus sat on the other side of him.

The turian glanced at one then the other before sighing, "If this is some kind of shake down…"

"Nothing of the sort," Shepard said giving him her most reassuring smile. Catching the bartender's eyes she held up two fingers in a V signaling for drinks. She mouthed the word 'scotch' at him and then pointed at whatever the turian was having, "I'm Agent Shepard Special Tactics and Recon and this," she continued gesturing to herself then to Garrus, "and this is Mr. Vakarian my… my partner," she finally decided on the word she liked.

She saw Garru's eyes go wide for a second before he gave her what she was coming to understand as a turian smile… he got the double meaning to her statement.

"Lorik Qui'in, what can I do for you Spectre," the turian said as Shepard's and Garrus's drinks arrived.

Picking up the glass she took a sip wincing as it burnt it way down her throat, "Damn good stuff," she hissed before setting the glass back on the table, "I need to get to Peak Fifteen… a friend," she hesitated drawing the word out, "said you can get me there."

Qui'in downed his shot before looking at her with glazed eyes, "You'd need and executive pass to override the lockdown temporarily," he set the glass back down on the table and motioned for another, "which I used to have because I managed the Synthetic Insights branch here before Anoleis closed my office on charges of corruption."

"Are you," Garrus stated and Shepard took another sip of scotch as she rolled her eyes. She had no doubt most of these people were corrupt in one way or another, "corrupt I mean," he clarified unnecessarily.

The turian at least had the balls not to lie, "In a manner of speaking yes, but then again so is everyone else. The key is," he explained, "Anoleis is stealing millions from the port authority and is selling company secrets," his mandibles spread apart and he huffed in laughter, "I finally had enough to bring him down and he got wind of it. Now he's bought off about a dozen Security Guards and is having them ransack the building looking for it. Get me the data and I'll get you authorization to leave the city… as well as a great sum of money."

Finishing off her scotch she sat the empty glass on the table and ran her credit chit through the scanner, "We have deal, but kept the money," she standing up striating her jacket as she did, "but there are a few things I'm goona need to pull this off and I rather not go back through the Normandy and back through customs to get them."

"What do you need," the turian asked titling his head.

Shepard thought for a moment before saying, "Two silence submachine guns, preferably Tempests or MP-80's," she paused for a second, "I'll also need a grapple gun with enough strength to support," she did the math in her head, "At least a hundred and forty kilograms and at least twenty pounds of semtex."

She saw Garrus give her a curious look and she could see his mind running as he tried to figure it out. What she wanted the silenced weapons for was quite obvious, but the grapple gun and high explosives weren't quite as clear.

Qui'in rested his chin on the backs of his hands, "I should be able to get those things for you. It will take a few hours at the least to acquire the things you need."

"Will there be any problems," Garrus asked.

"The semtex will be hard to come by, but doable," he said glancing over at Garrus, "anything else," he asked.

"Anything else I need I can get myself," she said with a smile on her face as she turned and headed out the door, "see you soon Mr. Qui'in."

With Garrus in tow she headed out the entrance to the bar and back onto the street. Jogging across the street Shepard jumped sliding across the hood of the aircar and swiftly entered the vehicle. Garrus entered more conventionally and slid into the driver's seat.

"Care to fill me in on the plan Kara," he asked as he turned on the air and brought up into the autopilot.

Glancing over she smiled, "I think you gonna like this one."

XXX

Lieutenant Adam "Ares" Lee carefully maneuvered his Raptor interceptor along his designated CAP, Combat Air Patrol, route with his wingman Lieutenant Oliver "Klick" Johnson at his side. He'd been out on CAP for about and hour providing security for the fleet.

"You think Intel screwed the pooch again Ares," Klick questioned over their private comm channel.

Lee glanced down at his LADAR, Light Detection and Ranging, screen before replying, "Possibly," he admitted though that wasn't what his cut was telling him, "I'm not sure."

"Sitten out here waiting on the toasters to make the first move doesn't sit well with me," Klick grumbled.

"It's better than charging to the unknown," Lee argued, "we have no idea-," he started but was cut off as LADAR system started beeping franticly and red dots started to appear on the screen, "Shit," he cursed before he opened a comm to the Orizaba, "Orizaba this Ares in Bravo CAP we've got thirty… no forty… scratch eighty plus hostiles."

"Roger that Ares," the Group Captain stated over the comm, "You are cleared to engage. Be warned alert fighters are two minutes out."

"Roger that captain," Lee replied, "Ares and Klick moving to engage," before switching to the private channel, "Klick you hear that?"

"Roger that Ares," Johnson said dryly.

Lee pushed down the throttle opening the engine all the way up. The raptor jolted slightly as the fighter increased to its maximum speed. Using his thumb he flicked off the safety on the raptor's twin cannons as he said, "Safeties off, weapons free."

With Johnson on his wing the pair of raptors accelerated towards the massive squadrons of geth fighters. As they closed the distance the flying wing like shape of the geth fighters became more apparent. Taking his left hand off the stick he armed the raptor's load out of twelve air-to-air 'sparrow' missiles and disengaged the safeties.

"Safeties off, weapons free," his wingman repeated.

The distance between them continued to close and the range indicator was dropping rapidly and the moment he came within four kilometers he hit the release on his flight stick and two by two each of the Advance Short- Range Air-to-Air high-explosive fragmentation missile shot out from their pods and soared towards the enemy.

At the same time he fired his wingman did the same sending twenty-four AMRAM missiles blasting off from the fighter and were sent streaming towards the geth at extremely high speed. Most of the geth veered out of the way of the missiles while a few tried to shoot down the missiles with their guns.

Lee saw several explosives of missiles that the geth had hit, but they missed far more and they detonate inside the geth formation taking scores of fighters with them, "Orizaba, Ares we're engaging hostiles. Still no cap ships in sight or on LADAR."

"Roger that Ares," the Group Captain responded, "backup's on the way… give'm hell boys."

"Roger that," he said to the captain then switched over to his private comm, "Whadya hear Klick?"

"Nothing but the rain," Johnson roared the navy aviator cadence.

In a situation like these there was no way that two fighters were going to take on an entire fighter wing of enemy starfighters. The best they could hope for is to slow down and distract them until the rest of their fighter support could get there. That is just they did; the two fighters dove into the mass of geth fighters guns blazing.

Feeling sweat pouring down his back and face he thumbed the trigger sending shorts bursts of fire streaming from the raptor's nose cannons. He clipped one geth ship in the right side sending it spiraling off in space, "Scratch one," he called diving through the formation sometime missing the geth by less than a few meters.

He juked and jinked through the formation until he burst through the back end of the formation and the moment he cleared them he pulled a Crazy Ivan and slammed his throttle forward flipping the raptor over and firing at the geth from behind.

About a flight of geth for him and Johnson each broke off from their main thrust towards the fleet and accelerated towards them. As the raptor continued backwards Lee continues firing, using the maneuvering thrusters to shift his aim knocking at least two geth out of the sky.

Slamming the throttle forward to kill his negative momentum the raptor shuttered under the negative G-Forces as it started to accelerate again. Suddenly his raptor shuttered again though this time not from G-Forces but as several rounds tore through the right fuselage and wing of his fighter.

"Shit, shit, shit," he cursed as the raptor started spinning and he struggled to regain control of his craft. Lee glanced outside of his cockpit and saw several deep gashes torn into the wing as fuel was leaking from the fuel bladder. He fired the maneuvering thrusters in an attempt to even out the bird's flight path, but the fighter was too damaged.

"Fuck it," he cursed again, "This is Ares, punching out," and reached down to the right side of his chair and wrapped his hand around the yellow and black handle. Instinctually he took in a deep breath as he yanked hard on the handle. Moments later the explosive bolts around the cockpit exploded and the canopy flew back. Seconds after the canopy blew away the ejection seat fired sending Lee and his seat flying away from his crippled bird and into space.

XXX

Garrus parked the full sized van down on the street across from the Chevron Galactic Fuel Company building which itself was next to the Synthetic Insights building. Exiting the van bringing with him a large nondescript duffel bag that fit perfect with his nondescript grey workers uniform he headed towards the Chevron building.

Within a moment Shepard was walking right next to him in a similar outfit and with a similar bag. The only major difference was that Shepard had a grey baseball cap on her head and the bill was pulled down so it covered most of her face.

He dropped back and let Shepard take point as they approached the door to the skyscraper. Most modern buildings would have a sophisticated security system to check all employees and guests to match them against existing records. That would have been a major problem at any major corporate headquarters building but fortunately the entire building was undergoing renovations.

Garrus wasn't one hundred percent sure this would work, but he agreed that it was their best chance of succeeding with minimum casualties and risk to themselves. They came up into the door and entered the building. He saw Shepard flash a fake identification badge and the guard who was probably extremely board, underpaid and had seen similar workers come in all day long just waved her in. He was next and he did the same thing and held up the fake ID around his neck.

The guard glanced up briefly at him before glancing back down at his reading material. As he passed Garrus took a closer look and saw it was Fornax the xenophilia pornographic magazine. As he did he shook his head and chuckled.

"What's so funny," Shepard asked throwing a glance back at him on their way to the elevator.

"You like porn Shepard," he responded and chuckled again as he saw Shepard halt and spin around with a stunned look on her face.

"Uhmm," she stuttered bushing as the elevator doors opened and she stepped in and Garrus followed her in, "I've watched a few before," she admitted before glancing up and around. It took Garrus a moment to realize she was looking for cameras, "Why," she asked as a saucy grin played across her face, "feeling kinky Garrus?"

Clearing his throat he replied huskily, "What have you got in mind Shepard," pressing himself up against her and relishing the feeling of her heat up against him and took a small nip at her neck.

"Something naughty," she whispered into his ear before pulling back as the elevator door opened.

As the door opened on the 98th Floor which was the last office floor of the building before it went to the exec penthouses. They both went over to the glass wall/window at the side of the office facing the Synthetic Insights building.

Laying his duffel bag on the floor he shrugged out of the jumpsuit revealing a black "cat burglar" suit. Kneeling down he unzipped the bag and removed a large medal box and set it down next to him. Unlatching the box he removed a stock, the main body, scope and a barrel. One by one he latched the rifle together, pulled apart the bipod and rested the rifle at the edge of the window.

Reaching back into the bag he pulled a Heckler and Koch MP- 80 sub-machine gun from the bag and laid it on the floor. Next he removed the silencer and screwed it into the barrel. Finally he removed a balaclava, knee and elbow pads and a tactical vest and carefully put them on.

He threw a quick glance over at Shepard. The ex-N7 Commando was in the same black suit, tac vest and balaclava and was in the processing of putting together the grapple gun. This plan was one of the things that made humans so danger Garrus mused.

If Turian Special Branch had received orders to secure the data in the Synthetic Insights building they would have succeed whatever the cost, but he doubted they would have been as creative in their efforts to accomplish the mission. What Shepard had come up with was the type of borderline insane plan that her species were known for.

She glanced over at him and asked, "Ready?"

Garrus nodded and they both picked up their sub-machine guns and bashed the windows out. They both then cleared the glass from around the frame. When that was finished Garrus laid down behind the rifle and shouldered the rifle, "Eighty-eight floor," he confirmed glancing back at Shepard.

"Roger that," she confirmed, "any hostiles," she asked as she readied the gas powered grapple gun.

Garrus shouldered the rifle and glanced through the scope. There was a turian and a male human with assault rifles standing in the window looking like they were talking, "Ready to go Shepard?"

"Ready," she responded pulling her balaclava down over her face. She moved to the edge of the window and glanced down her own scope, "3…2…1," she counted down and when she hit one she fired the grapple gun.

The warhead sailed through the air and sliced through the window without shattering it and dug about a foot deep into the wall behind the window. Garrus watched through the scope as the two startled security guards worriedly investigated the warhead and cable. As the two were turned Garrus fired two rounds both of which struck the guards in the back of the head.

He quickly looked up from the rifle and saw Shepard had anchored the line and was hooking her D-link up to the cable. Holding her SMG in her right hand she ran towards the window and jumped. Putting her in the rifle sights he watched her slid along the cable and smash through the window feet first.

Setting the rifle down he attached his SMG to his vest and latched himself onto the cable. Bringing himself up to the edge of the building he sighed. It'd been a long time since he had lost done this. Steeling himself he jumped feeling the wind rip away hat him as he slid along the line until he felt his boots collided with the floor.

Quickly he unlatched himself and his sub-machine gun. Separating himself from the cable he shouldered his SMG and moved carefully through the office space clearing each cubical as he went. He and Shepard had calculated that they would have less than three minutes before more guards reached this level. An explosion rocked the building from behind him which was Shepard taking out the west stairwell.

Garrus stopped at the elevator reached out and wedged the claws of his left and in-between the sliding doors. Leveraging them open he knelt and removed a block of semtex form his vest and inserted a detonator. Leaning out he glanced up to make sure the elevator wasn't above him before activating the proximity switch of the detonator and dropping it down the elevator well.

The plan was fairly simple. They'd rope in take out the stairwells and elevator separating the hostiles below from the few above. They'd then ascend to the manager penthouse office suite and secure the data, eliminating any hostiles they came across than evac the site.

Bringing his SMG back up to his shoulder he advanced towards the east end stairwell, "Shep-," he started to say as he entered the stairwell but Shepard shushed him by putting her finger over where her lips would be. He knelt down next to at the side of the stairs he waited and listened to what Shepard had heard. The position they were in made them both hard to see and gave them a clear view of anyone rounding the corner to come down the last flight of stairs.

After a few seconds he heard the sound of heavy boots clunking down the steps. Flicking the safety off the sub-machine gun he pulled the extendable stock to a comfortable distance and nestled it up against his shoulder. He waited several long seconds before they finally appeared rushing down the stairs with their rifles in a 'low guard' position and chatting insentiently.

Sloppy, he thought, very sloppy and gently squeezed the trigger. He heard Shepard's weapon cough and the man on the left staggered as puffs of blood appeared stitching a line up his chest as Shepard walked the SMG up from his groin to the base of his neck.

The second man did even have time to gasp as Garrus's weapon coughed once and the man went down clutching his throat. They both waited several more seconds to see if any more men came charging down the stairs. When they didn't Shepard fished another block of semtex from her vest and ran about halfway down the staircase to the next floor. Like with the west stairs her job was to make them impassible to any further reinforcements; though this time would be a little trickier. She had to take out the stairs going down without damaging the one going up.

Garrus stood quietly moving over to the man on the floor. The dark skinned man had his hands clutching his throat in a vain attempt to stop the torrents of blood that would gush from the wound if he let go. Even so he wasn't very successful as streams of the sticky red substance slid through his fingers and gurgled from his mouth.

He didn't like killing cops… he didn't like killing at all, but sometimes it had to be done. He told himself these men were dirty, little better than Blue Sun, Eclipse or Blood Pack Mercenaries. They sold themselves to a corrupt administrator for a few credits. He was in the middle of his thoughts when the man's head jerked violently from the side a round torn into his head killing the mortally wounded man. He quickly looked over at Shepard and saw she had returned from planting the charge. She walked over to the corpses and quickly stripped them of their ear buds and comm units and held out one to him.

"Thanks Shepard," he said hookin the comm unit to his vest and pushing the bud into his earhole.

He waited a second for a response and was rewarded as he heard a hard female voice bark, "This is Sergeant Stirling. What the hell is going where's Ricko and Mike?"

Shepard gave him a look of recognition. He nodded he recognized the name. Sergeant Stirling had been one of the guards with Captain Matsuo when they entered Noveria. That definitely wasn't a good sign he realized. If the sergeant was in this he didn't want to know how far this went up the chain.

Then he and the commander started ascending the stairs in a leap frog pattern one covering the other as they made way up. It was the best way to ensure that what happened to the two hapless Noveria Security Guards didn't happen to them.

"Sergeant this is Corporal Jecks where just getting in the elevator on our way to-," the man, a turian by the sound of his voice, started to say but was cut off by an explosion, the proximity mine on the elevator no doubt.

"Jecks," he heard Stirling shout angrily, "Jecks goddammit report… corporal, corporal"

"Nice job Garrus," she whispered throwing him a thumb up, "Let's move!"

It was six more flights of stairs that had to traverse to reach the penthouse level. They reached the blown-out penthouse sliding door and took up positions on either side. He saw as Shepard ran her gloved hand over the jagged medal before returning her hand back to her sub-machine gun. She held up three fingers before slowly counting down.

When she hit zero Garrus spun SMG raised into the room. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as he took the right side of the room, scanning it slowly with his weapon, as they breached. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement and he spun. He saw Sergeant Stirling with a shotgun raised as his finger tightened on the trigger.

He saw the muzzle flare of the shotgun as his SMG coughed several times. He saw three puffs of red erupt from the woman's chest. Suddenly he felt his right arm flare and he felt force of the blast spinning to the right and crashing into the floor.

"Garrus," he heard the beloved voice call franticly.

As the floor rushed up to greet him the last thought that ran through his head was how the hell was Shepard going to rappel down the side of the building carrying him.

XXX

After another quick glance at his O2 tank to make sure it was at the relatively same level before he glance back at the battle scene before him.

"This is rescue three ETA five minutes on recovery Ares," a voice over the comm said, "just hold on tight LT."

Hackett had delivered quite the one-two punch to the geth whose apparent strategy had been to draw the fleet's fighters away by offering up a wing of their own as sacrificial lambs, bur Hackett had kept a large contingent of fighters and when the geth finally did make their main push he was ready and bloodied their nose something awful.

He watched a cigar sized ship, or at least it was at this distance, which had to be the Orizaba fire its main MAC gun and moments latter a geth cruiser analog burst into flames before the flames were quenched by the vacuum of space. He gave a small shout of approval as he saw another geth ship go up in flames and shouted again as the geth fleet turned tail and zipped away in a burst of light.

Lee saw the large metal object, a boxcar search and rescue shuttle, and the brief flare of maneuvering thrusters and he blinked at the icon in his HUD that would open a comm channel to the rescue bird, "Rescue three this is Ares I have a visual."

"Roger that Ares we have a visual on you," he heard the boxcar pilot call out, "hold on buddy we've got ya," with that the maneuvering thrusters on the front left wing fired spinning the craft around before another thruster fired to counteract the spin. When the rear of the ship was facing him the ramp slowly began to lower revealing two men in EVA suits tethered to the cargo compartment.

"Alight just take it easy guys," Lee said taking a slight gulp. In training whenever he did EVA recovery he puked his guts out the moment the gravity turned back on.

"No worries LT," man with then a Petty Officer Second Class's stripes on his shoulder said as he held him as he held his arms. Lee felt a tug on the side of his chair as the Petty Officer and Navy Corpsman pulled his chair into the cargo bay of the combat shuttle and gently pushed the ejection seat to the deck.

The ramp slowly ground close and the moment it did Lee could hear the hiss as it sealed and as O2 was slowly pumped back into the shuttle. Lee felt the corpsman unlatch his helmet and pull it from his head, "Sir," the Navy Medic said, "welcome aboard how you feeling?"

As the temperature in the shuttle rose Lee became aware of just how cold he was and began to shiver, "Like I've been spaced," he joked as he took the blanket that the Petty Officer handed him. He shook his head, "damn Klick's gonna never let me hear the end of this."

They Petty Officer and Corpsman exchanged glanced and Lee felt his stomach drop, "What?"

The corpsman sighed, "Your wingman didn't make it through the battle."

XXX

"He's going to be alright," Shepard said harshly with her arms crossed as she glared at Dr. Chakwas from her position next to the bed.

"He'll be fine commander," the grey haired navy doc said scrolling through the pages of her datapad, "I gave him the turian equivalent of morphine before I conducted surgery to remove the shrapnel and he's resting peacefully."

Sighing she glanced at the sleeping turian torn between wanting to kiss his forehead and whishing she had disemboweled and dissected that Sergeant Stirling when she had the chance. "When's he going to be back on his feet?"

The doctor studied her datapad and titled her head thinking for a moment before finally saying, "About a week until he's fully operational."

Shepard rubbed the bridge of her nose. That meant he would be out of the Noveria mission. She still had a mission to complete and now she was down a squadmate. Everything was set; all she had to do was meet Qui'in's men and they would get them and the Mako out of the city. Sighing again she clapped the doctor on the shoulder, "Take good care of him doc I need him back to one-hundred percent ASAP."

Chakwas nodded as Shepard turned and evacuated the room heading down towards the cargo/vehicle bay and the moment the lift doors slid open Shepard walked out the door. Les then ten feet later she came skidding to a halt, "Sergeant what the hell did you do it," she shouted.

The army sergeant threw her an offended puppy dog face as he patted the Mako on its armored side, "First of all skipper it's a she not an it."

Rolling her eyes and reminding herself she was far too young for stress lines the commander replied, "What did you do to her," she said sarcastically stressing the feminine pronoun. The Mako looked a lot different from the last time she'd seen the thing. For one it was a looked bulkier and the tires had been switched out for one that were at last a half and again as big as the last set.

"Got her dressed up in her sniffle gear," the southern sergeant drawled, "she's wasn't designed to fight negative two hundred degree weather commander. If we took her out now she'd freeze up before we got halfway to where we wanted to go."

"So it's…," she paused and corrected herself, "she's all good to go?"

The sergeant pulled off his standard Alliance Army cover and wiped the sweat away from his forhead before replacing the hat on his head, "As good as she's gonna ever git commander…," he paused and shrugged, "I'd be a little more hesitant about getting her into a firefight," he jerked a thumb towards the extra bulk of the Mako, "that stuff ain't all armor platen; most of its insulation and heatin systems. Anything bigger than small arms fire and we might end up soldier sickles…," the sergeant paused frowning, "sailor sickles? Whatever… we end up dead is what I'm trying to say."

The Army… Shepard mentally hissed and reminded herself she was far too young for ulcers, "Thanks I think I got that sergeant just get her packed up and ready to go."

As she turned to go gather Williams, Alenko and Liara for the mission she would have sworn that she heard the sergeant mutter 'navy pukes.' She entertained the thought of heading back but decided against it. The last thing she needed was for the Sergeant to go back to his division and bitch to his divisional commander. After all the army had been nice enough to lend them their newest toy for this operation.

Slapping one of the intercom buttons she hollered, "Williams, Alenko, Liara suit up and report to the airlock," before taking off for her arms locker to suit up for the upcoming assignment. It took her about ten minutes to strap into her combat armor. She ran a quick check on her M-8 and her side-arm before sliding the later into her holster and the former she latched onto her vest.

Within twenty she was at the airlock and Williams, Alenk and Liara were there to greet her, "Commander," Alenko said with a respectful nod, "geared up and ready to go."

Shepard threw a glance at the fidgeting doctor in the slightly oversized combat armor with a pistol strapped to her hip, "Are you alright doctor," she said dryly.

The young asari doctor held her helmet in her hands and took a gulp, "Uhm… hello commander… uhmm I'm not sure… what you want me to do… I'm not a soldier," she said shyly.

"No," the Spectre agreed, "but you're Benezia's daughter and if we get in a firefight she might be more hesitant to shoot at us if you're with us."

The doctor's eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open, "Ohh well," she shifted uncomfortably, "ok I guess."

"Let's move out," she said turning her back on her team and towards the airlock, "By the time we get to the garage bay they should have the Mako ready to go."

XXX

Admiral Steven Hackett sat at his desk rapping his fingers on the desk. The battle for the Armstrong Cluster was over… at least for the moment. The geth fleet had withdrawn after suffering several casualties apparently unwilling to risk a major engagement. While the Fifth Fleet had come out on top in this first engagement the admiral knew for certain that it wouldn't always be this easy.

After wiping several geth outposts and space stations from the cluster the fleet had fallen back through the relay to the pre-designated rally point. There was a chime and he looked up, "Enter," the admiral said and the doors slid open and Captain Strasbourg walked in and took a seat.

While it was a gross violation of military protocol he and the admiral were very good friends and in private in could be allowed to slid. The captain placed a datapad on the mahogany desk and slid it across the table where Hackett scooped it up, "The damage reports, Admiral."

"Help yourself Otto," Hackett said gesturing with his eyes to the bottle of cognac. After the captain had reached out and poured himself a drink the admiral asked, "Losses," as he skimmed the pad for himself.

"Sixteen fighters were lost and another twenty-nine were damaged," he started, "though we managed to recover five pilots. Comparatively they were extremely light as we estimated the geth losses were up and around the two hundred mark."

"What about the Bravo CAP pilots," Hackett interrupted, "that was some mighty fine flying."

The captain paused for a second recalling that information before responding, "Lieutenant Junior Grade Johnson was killed in the line of duty, but the flight leader Lieutenant Adam Lee managed to eject and was recovered by a SAR bird."

The Admiral sighed, "Very well," he paused, "I want both their names put forward for a Distinguished Flying Cross… Also I believe the squadron leader for the twenty-fourth interceptor perished durning the battle… correct?"

"Aye?"

"Put Lieutenant Lee in for a field promotion to Lieutenant Commander and put him command of the twenty-forth," Hackett added, "the man's shown great promise as an officer.;"

Captain Strasbourg nodded, "Aye Admiral, would you like me to continue," he asked and when the admiral nodded he continued, "Several cruisers also took damage with the Cairo being the worst. Her MAC was damaged and she'll have to put into port to get it back up to spec," he paused, "three frigates were also damaged to the point where they'll need to go to dry-dock. A dozen more suffered non critical damage."

"What were our total losses in manpower?"

"Forty-two," the captain answered almost immediately, "nineteen dead and twenty-three wounded," he paused again to take another sip of cognac, "What are you orders now admiral?"

Hackett reached out and took the bottle and filled a glass of his own, "We're going to put in at the Naval Base at Tera Nova to repair and let them men get some R&R before we head back out."

XXX

The garage for the special designed craft that were capable of withstanding the frigid temperatures of the wilds of Noveria was somewhat like an airlock or like the locks on a water way cannel. The vehicle bay itself was one area with lead blast an enormous blast door that the Normandy could easily fit through. That door led to a large cavernous chamber with another blast door in front of it. This was so the massive airlock could be sealed and the temperature could be slowly lowered to prevent flash freezing which could damage even the most cold weather prepared vehicle.

"Agent Shepard," a slick voice sounded from off to the side, "a pleasure to meet you again."

Holding her helmet against her hip she glanced over in the direction of the voice and found Mr. Smith waiting for her, "Smith," she said and cocked her eyebrow, "Aren't you a little cold," she mentioned referring to the fact that he was wearing the same suit she had first met him.

"Mind over matter Agent Shepard," the coy man smiled, "that was quite a display of out of the box thinking at the Synthetic Insights building," his lip twitched, "I'm sure your N7 instructor would be quite please."

Shepard carefully schooled her features into one of ignorance, "I'm sorry Mr. Smith you must have me confused with someone else."

The suit chuckled, "Please don't insult my intelligence Agent Shepard. You're one of only seven people on this planet capable of such an action and the only person who had anything to gain from it."

While Shepard remained impassive she could tell that even if he didn't already have conformation that Williams and Alenko's nervous moment would have telegraphed it. Resting her hand on the extendible stock of her rifle in a somewhat threating gesture, "And?"

"Please Agent Shepard," the suit held his hands up in a none-threating gesture, "you did the Board a great favor in bringing Administrator Anoleis's… indiscretions to light and as a result we've been willing to look the other way to you 'deal' with Mr. Qui'in."

"I'm glad," she said bluntly carefully eying the suit. She was still convinced he was more than he was letting on.

"Commander Shepard," Sergeant Ryan's voice rang out from her ear bud, "we're about five minutes out… sorry the cargo mover got caught in traffic."

"Hurry up sergeant… its cold in here," she added as her breath rose up in front of her. On a whim she glanced out at the lifeless garage. After the storm had rolled in the Board had shut it down until the lockdown was lifted. She was about to ask Mr. While what he was doing here when out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of movement, "Mr. White I though this area was in lockdown."

The suit frowned, "It's supposed to be."

She quickly put her helmet on and felt as the seals hiss as they closed and the metallic tasting recycled air assaulted her mouth. She then undid the latch on her vest and shouldered her rifle, "Something's up," she whispered as she flicked off the safety with her thumb, "Lock and load marines," she ordered and almost immediately she heard the clack of safeties being disengaged.

Slowly and carefully Shepard scanned the area looking for any sign of… well anything, "I'm gonna call security," she heard Smith say from behind her.

Shepard nodded in agreement, "Alright lets…," she started by was cut off as she saw a red plated geth trooper step out from behind several with a RPG launcher on its shoulder, "Contact front," she shouted raising her rifle and when she saw a flare from behind the trooper "RPG take cover!"

Squeezing the tripper her weapon roared to life and she dashed for cover and jumped down into one of the trenches were the pit crew would work to access the undercarriage of a vehicle. A few moments later White leaped into a trench next to her with a Shuriken Machine Pistol, "Were those geth,"the man shouted for the first time losing his composure.

"Yeah," she shouted back as she fired several rounds down range but wasn't sure if she hit anything, "I'd bet Benezia brought them with her in those crates," she fired several more rounds off, "Alenko flank left, Williams go right," she paused before barking, "covering fire," and with that she and White fired their weapons on full auto as her squadmates advanced.

Ducking back beneath her cover she threw a look at White, "I knew you weren't just a rep," she said pleased with herself before popping up and blowing the head off a geth trooper, "Where'd you train?"

White fired off his weapon several more times and Shepard could see a geth go down from. Dropping so his back thumped up against the concrete wall of the trench he finally said breathing heavily, "I was a captain in the Twenty-Second Special Air Service Regiment."

Shepard felt a grin tug at the corner of her lips… Army Special Ops so she was right about the man he was far more than he had appeared to be. She took a quick peek over the top and saw what looked like an old M-20 Tiger IFV that looked like it'd been heavily modified to withstand the cold. It was the perfect cover.

With a blink she turned on the suits vox amplification system in the suit, "Cover me while I move ," she shouted.

A few moments later she heard Alenko and Williams call back, "Got you cover," and that was followed by a roar of automatic weapons fire.

Shepard vaulted from the trench she was still and made a b-line to the old IFV. She saw a pair of geth raise their rifles to gun her down but the one on the left chest exploded as one of the others gunned it down. The remaining get opened up with his pulse weapon getting off a handful of shots before another shot blew its head apart.

Nonetheless one of the pulse round struck her in the right leg and fell forward slamming into the ground. Not wasting any time she quickly crawled on her belly the rest of the way towards the IFV making it before anything else had the chance to shoot at her. She swiftly drew her side arm, she'd dropped her rifle when she got shot, and checker her leg.

The kinetic barriers had absorbed most of the energy of the round and the armor had done the rest and deflected the round leaving only a small indentation in her armor. For the moment she put the throbbing pain in her leg at the back of her mind she crawled towards the rear end of the IFV. She spun around the edge with her weapon raised and rapidly pulled the trigger every time she saw a flash of silver.

The whine of her pistol overloading filled her hearing and she slipped back into cover. In one swift motion she popped the heat sink and with her left hand pulled a sink from her belt and slammed it into the weapon.

She spun again and jerked her weapon up, down, left and right searching for targets. When she didn't find any hostiles she started slowly moving out, "Clear," she shouted.

Three more 'All clears' rang out from Alenko, Williams and Mr. White as they moved from their cover and warily out into the open. Shepard heard White say from behind her, "Here's your rifle."

Shepard holstered her side-arm and took her rifle back with a quick, "Thanks… this definitely isn't good," she said glancing at the packing crates the geth had come in and tried to figure out how many they could have packed in there. It was a sobering thought because of the geth could likely fold up tight and they could stack them like datapads inside the crate, "you may want to let security know that you may have geth infiltrators running around the place."

The former SAS officer nodded and reached up to his ear bud comm, "Superintendent Simmons,' he barked, "I need you to mobilize every security officer you have and deploy them to secure to the critical area of the city… life support, water, etc."

As he was talking the blast doors behind them ground opened and in rolled the modified Mako IFV. The IFV rolled in and stopped about ten feet away. Seconds after it stopped the hatch popped and Sergeant Ryan emerged from the opening, "Whatcha all waitin for? Come on get in before my balls freeze off."

XXX

"Admiral on the deck," the voice belonging to the Orizaba's Master Chief Petty Officer echoed across the deck followed by the sound of thousands of boot heels click together. Alliance tradition dictated that all funeral proceedings take place on the flagship. While only a portion of the Orizaba's crew would be psychically present the speech would be broadcast all over the fleet

The newly minted Lieutenant Commander Adam Lee snapped to attention the presence of the gold oak leaf clusters on his collar weighing heavily on his shoulders. While he was proud of his promotion to a squadron commander he felt guilty that his promotion had come because of his predecessor's death.

He watched as the admiral took the podium which looked over nineteen coffins, each one draped with the blue-sliver flag of the Systems Alliance. The admiral briefly scanned the crowd of sailors, naval aviators and marines before he ordered, "Be at ease ladies and gentlemen."

Lee and the entire assembled audience relaxed to a position of at ease as they waited for the admiral to begin his speech. Quickly he glanced to his right and left at the pilots… his pilots in formation next to him. These were his people and he would everything in his power to make sure they didn't end up like those nineteen service members in those coffins.

"It's never easy to lose people," the admiral started, "these men and women have given their lives to protect the Alliance, the human race and their comrades in arms. It's our job to ensure that their sacrifice was not in vain," he paused, "we've won a victory… the first of many, but like all victories they come with a price. That price was nineteen good men and women and now we commission their memory to the deep."

The admiral took a step back from the podium and brought up his hand in salute. As he did that the Master Chief Petty Officer barked, "TEEEEN-SHUUUUUN…" and Lee and everyone else snapped to attention, "PRESEEEENT ARMS!"

Lee raised his hand in salute as the Master Chief Petty Officer blew on the boatswain call sending out a long shrill whistle through the air. Slowly the coffins began to move along the track that would normally load the Raptor Interceptors into their launch tubes as Taps played in the background. One by one the caskets were loaded into the tubes and ejected into deep space.

When the last casket had been fired from the tube the Master Chief gave the command, "ORDER ARMS," and Lee and everyone else dropped their salutes then Master Chief added, "COMPANY DISMISSED."

Lee hesitated for a second before falling out of the formation. He threw one last glance at the launch tube from where one of closest friends had departed into the abyss. He filed past the columns of man and women headed to the exits and either back to their racks or duty stations. He came and stood next to the launch tube and thought about his former wingman.

It didn't seem quite fair that Johnson got killed, put in a steel box and ejected into space while he got gold oak leaves, a new bird and a squadron of his own. He replayed the fight over and over again in his mind wondering if there had been he could have done differently. They were a CAP against a two full geth squadrons and they wiped out about half of the geth fighters.

He reached down and ran his thumb over the metal of his Distinguished Flying Cross and briefly wondered if it was worth it for just a hunk of metal. He grit his teeth and turned to leave when he just about ran straight into the admiral, "Admiral sir, I'm sorry…"

"No problem commander," the aged admiral said clapping the man on the shoulder, "how are you taking your new promotion?"

Lee took a moment to formulate a response, "It's taking some getting use too Admiral," he admitted.

The flag officer nodded, "It always does commander," removing his hand, "we need you out there commander you're one hell of a pilot."

"Aye Admiral."

XXXX

"Looks like we're here commander," Sergeant Ryan shouted looking down from his position in the cupola.

The Mako in addition to its two man crew could hold a full squad of nine fully geared up soldiers or marines. Shepard was in what normally would be the squad leader's position in the far back right hand side. Reaching up to the ceiling she flipped down the flat screen monitor connected to the gun cam.

The image that appeared on the screen was something that looked like a scaled down version of the entryway to the space port itself. There was a large concrete arch that emerged from the side of this mountain with an enormous blast door, "Send our handshake," she barked back over comm.

"Roger that ma'am," Sergeant replied as he tapped a few keys on his console, "initiating handshake protocol."

Shepard watched the grainy image on her monitor. She didn't have long to wait before the enormous blast doors began to slide open, "Alight sergeant take us in and keep your eyes peeled."

"Roger," he stated and with a slight jolt the Mako began to move forward Shepard watched on the display as they entered the cavernous opening. Though it would have been obvious as the gale force winds died down.

As the Mako cleared the opening the doors behind them began to close and like at the garage locks when the doors sealed the temperature began to slowly rise. Knowing from her experience back in Noveria City it would take at least a half hour, "Any luck reaching anyone inside the facility," she questioned the sergeant over the intercom.

"Negative ma'am," Sergeant Ryan answered, "If someone's listening they ain't answering."

"Keep trying," she got back before flipping the monitor back up and leaning back to rest against the back of the bench; as hard as it was. As she waited she found her thoughts drifting towards Garrus worrying if he was alright. While the doc had said he'd be fine she still worried. She cared about him more and anyone she could remember as a clichéd as it sounded she didn't know what she'd do without him. Garrus wasn't only her love and lover he was her best friend and she treasured him.

Suddenly she became aware the Mako moving again and she realized it must have been moving of of the lock system and into the garage. When the Mako stopped she heard Sergeant Ryan say, "It's clear to go out now the temps up to a balmy two degrees Celsius."

"Roger that," she said before turning to her squad, "Helmets on and stay on," she gestured with her head towards the hatch, "just because it bearable out there doesn't mean marks of this facility aren't compromised. The last thing I need is for one of you to flash freeze out there… roger that?"

"Aye commander," Alenko and Williams chorused while Liara just nodded.

Shepard grabbed her helmet from its stop nest to her on the bench and brought it down over her head; taking the time to make sure all the seals on her helmet were good. When she was satisfied she and her team members were all green she got up, unlatched her rifle from her vest and reached out and slapped the release button.

In a blink of an eye the lowered connecting with the ground with a large clack as metal hit metal. The reason for the speed was that when offloading troops in the middle of a battle neither the troopers themselves nor the IFV crew wanted to be stationary for too long.

Rifle raised Shepard moved down the ramp quickly glancing around before turning her head and with her left hand gesture her team out. When they were out she said softly, "I'll take point," catching the gunny's eyes she said next, "Williams you're rear guard," turning to Alenko she added, "you're on babysitting duty," and finally she pointed her left index finger threateningly at Liara, "that means if he says jump you jump, if he says duck you duck , if he says run…"

"I run," Liara completed the sentence, "I understand commander."

"Good make sure you do more than understand," she said before clicking the safety off her rifle, "safeties off I've got a real bad feeling about this one." In formation they moved quickly through the garage until they came to large steel door like the kind they used to separate bulkheads on naval vessels.

As they approached the hatch an electronic voice blared out, "Warning: All Peak 15 facilities have suffered a great deal of damage."

"That doesn't sound good," Alenko said softly from behind her.

Shepard didn't bother responding to his comment instead she said, "Williams, Alenko cover me," as she latched her rifle to her vest and grabbed the wheel on the door.

"Roger," the marines intoned as the raised their rifles while Liara moved to the side away from the door. Making sure she had a firm grip on the wheel she turned it hard to the left. When the lock was released she, staying behind the door, gave it a hard tug pulling it all the way open.

"Clear," the marines chorused and Shepard released the wheel and shouldered her rifle and moved into the large corridor.

The corridor they entered was at least fifteen meters wide and fifty long. The first thing the Spectre noticed when she entered was the corridor was that the two defensive turrets the facilities security forces had deployed were facing the wrong way; meaning they were facing in towards the facility rather than out to defend from intruders.

The second thing she noticed was the two corpses. Advancing carefully up to the bodies she found that they were lying face down and that were wearing a set of military style fatigues with the symbol of Binary Helix on their shoulder. Kneeling down next to one of the bodies she reached down and grabbed the cloth of his uniform near his right shoulder and tugged.

She rolled the body onto its back, grimacing as she did. The corpses face was blue and not because it was an asari but because he'd frozen to death, "Damn," she cursed and stood, "let's keep moving."

"What do you think they were trying to keep locked up," Williams questioned as she studied the military grade heavy Gatling cannons.

"I'm not sure I want to find out," Alenko added.

"Move," she said and they passed through the second hatch warily moving and scanning as they slowly advanced through another set of corridors. As they continued on the corridors became flanked by rows of offices.

Suddenly Shepard heard something that sounded like something running beneath the floor. She jerked her hand up and made a fist signaling everyone to stop and freeze. There was that sound again… though this time it sounded like it was coming from above them.

Quickly she turned and pointed back in the direction they came. Alenko nodded and grabbed the doctor by the shoulder pulling her gently back while Williams brought up her rifle and turned around to make sure there wasn't anything behind them.

Slowly Shepard began to backpedal away from where she had heard the sound come from when all of a sudden the grated floor panels she was just on top of exploded upwards and some sort of creature crawled its way up.

Not hesitating she fired her weapon at the red insect like creature. Her first few rounds pinged off the insect's carapace and the thing charge right at her. She continued firing and several shots punched through the insect's armor with a wet sounding thump; eventually the rate of fire was too much for the bug and it collapsed with green luminous blood pouring from the cracks in its carapace.

With a screech of rending metal the grating above her collapse and Shepard had barely enough time to shout as another of the red bugs fell from the ceiling. The Spectre Operative dove forward using the butt of her rifle to break her fall. When she landed she rolled over onto her back just in time to see one of the 'tentacles' from the bugs lashed out at her. She rolled again dogging the tentacle as it buried itself in the steel floor.

A roar filled the room as Alenko and Williams fired their weapons at the bug which stuttered and finally collapsed from the hail of bullets. Slowly Williams took several steps toward the creature and when she was standing over it she fired several more rounds into its head.

"What the hell is that," Alenko question worriedly.

As Shepard pushed herself up off the floor she heard Liara exclaim, "By the goddess I… I think it's a Rachni."

"I thought they were extinct," Williams shot back accusingly.

Looking down on the thing Shepard grimaced. The red skinned six-legged thing that looked like a cross between a shrimp and a preying mantis did look a lot like a Rachni… of course the only holos of Rachni she'd ever seen were in a history book and a really bad horror-holo.

"They were," Liara stuttered, "they are… they're supposed to be," she said rubbing the back of her neck, "this is bad. Last time it took the pre-genophage krogan to defeat the Rachni at the cost of billions and billions of lives."

"You can say that again," Shepard muttered. She was grateful for her helmet so that her team wouldn't see her biting her lip. What were the chances that Benezia was still alive? With an asari commando unit to back her up she would have put the odds in the matriarch's favor, "we need to keep moving."

"Aye commander," Alenko and Williams replied dutifully as they shouldered their weapons.

Shepard briefly consulted the map of Peak 15 that Mr. Smith had forwarded her after their conflict with the geth in the garage back at Noveria city, "There's a tram that will take us to the main research facility located deep inside the mountain range," she paused looking at Liara, "if Matriarch Benezia is alive that's where she's gonna be, in the main lab."

XXX

She was lying on the floor in a growling pool of her own rich crimson blood. Garrus ran up screaming in anguish as he fell to his knees, her blood splashing as he did, "Shepard, Kara… Kara please stay with me," he yelled as he cradled her head in his hands.

"You bastard," she swore as blood slid from the corners of her mouth, "You let this happen… it's all your fault!"

"Kara," he cried over her broken body, "no I didn't…"

"You weren't there," she shouted spitting blood in his face before her body shuttered and went still.

Garrus woke with a jolt and franticly looked around. It took him a second for his brain to catch up with the fact that he was in the Normandy's medical bay and that horrible scene had been a nightmare. He took a moment to slow his breath and calm his heart that had been beating like a racing varen.

He sat up in the hospital bed and threw off the covers. He was about to pull out the IVs from his arm when one of the orderlies rushed into the room, "Whooa whoa hold on there," the man said franticly, "just wait for the doc to come back before you get up."

He paused before yanking out the IV's and slowly nodded before lying back down. As he did he was aware that his right arm was throbbing; no doubt from his injury. He took a deep breath before asking, "Where's Kara?"

The orderly blinked, "I'm sorry?"

Garrus nearly rolled his eyes as he realized that apart from him that no one would have any reason to know Shepard's nickname, "Commander Shepard," he clarified, "where's Commander Shepard?"

"Shepard's on a mission at the moment," Doctor Chakwas said entering the room, "thank you Thomas you're dismissed," she nodded to the orderly before turning back to Garrus when the man had left the room, "she sends her apologies about not being able to wait for you to recover," the doctor paused and starred at him in a way that made him feel like a lab specimen, "She cares for you very much."

"I know," Garrus answered carefully, "and I for her."

The doctor nodded as she went and checked his chart. After several moments she nodded before moving next to him and removing the IV drip in his arm. She then moved to set his right arm in a sling and said, "Now Mr. Vakarian in order for this to heal correctly and as quickly as possible you need to take it easy for a few days."

He nodded as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, "Thank you Doctor Chakwas," he said as he stood up before sitting back down as he realized that all he was wearing was a hospital gown.

Before he could say anything Chakwas spoke up, "Your clothes are on the chair… if there's anything thing else just holler."

"Thank you," Garrus said again as he made his way over to the chair that had his clothes. He then proceeded to do the awkward shuffle associated with trying to get into one's clothes with only one functional arm.

When he finally managed to get all of his clothes on he made sure his arm was comfortable, or as comfortable as it could, in the sling. As he exited the medical bay he glanced around trying to decide what he could do while he waited for Shepard to get back from the mission he should have been on. He growled, if she got hurt because he wasn't there to watch her back he'd never forgive himself.

He was about to head to the firing range when it hit him that he wasn't going to be able to shoot. He paused in the middle of the deck before deciding that the best thing he could do was head up to the CIC and wait for news on Shepard.

He ascended the stairs up to the CIC and as he reached the door it slid open reveling Lieutenant Presley, "Mr. Vakarian I was just about to come down to see you," the older man said sounding somewhat revealed that he didn't have to walk the length of the ship.

Garrus blinked. He and Presley hadn't got along… well they hadn't not got along … it was that they hadn't had many opportunities to meet and they never really had talked, "What for?"

"The Council's on the horn and without Shepard here I figured you be the next logical person to let them talk to," he said leaving Garrus dumbfounded.

"Me," he repeated questioningly, "Why me… you're the XO of the Normandy."

Presley shrugged, "I just make sure the ship runs and gets from place to place. I don't have or want anything to do with Spectre business," besides he added cocking his head, "You're her second in command for the ground team and would probably be better for this than an old ship pusher like me."

"Fine," Garrus grumbled wishing again he was out with Shepard though this time for a different reason, "led on," and the XO did.

When they came to the blast door to the comm room Presley typed in his access code before stepping back and allowing the turian to enter. He took a deep breath as he entered the room and stepped onto the holopad.

"I'm sorry who are you," the cool voice of the asari councilor filled his ears, "and where is Agent Shepard."

"Uhmm she gone," he stammered quickly before regaining his wits, "she leading a mission to capture Matriarch Benezia. I'm Garrus Vakarian… formerly a detective with C-Sec and a team leader for the Special Response Unit."

"Vakarian… hmmm," the turian councilor muttered, "I know your father… he'd be most disappointed to know you're working with a human."

Garrus felt his mandibles twitch and calmed a flaring temper before responding, "I'd think he be more angry that I'm working with one of your Spectres."

The turian councilor's eyes flared but he was prevented when the salarian interrupted, "Gentle-beings please this isn't why we've make this communiqué. Mr. Vakarian," the salarian said addressing him, "can we trust you to deliver this message to Agent Shepard."

There were several ways he could have taken that statement but he choose to let it slide, "Of course."

"Very good," the salarian replied, "we've received an urgent transmission from one of our infiltration units in the Traverse."

Garrus nodded and did the math, "STGs," he said knowingly. STG stood for the Salarian Special Task Groups, an elite branch and combat arm of the Salarian Intelligence Service.

"Correct," the councilor informed him, "we have several infiltration regiments scattered throughout the border regions of Citadel Space looking for any sign of Saren."

His first instinct was to ask if Shepard knew about this and given that she hadn't informed him he doubted that was the case. If he did ask they'd feed him some bullshit about not needing to know until now, "You found him," he guessed again, "what's the intel you wanted to relay."

The salarian didn't say anything and instead allowed the asari councilor to speak, "The transmission we received was little better than static. They must be in an environment where they haven't been able to deploy or there isn't a good interstellar communications system."

"Are you sure they're in danger," he asked.

"It's a channel that only to be used for the utmost emergency," the turian answered, "if they're using it then they must be in danger."

"Alright I'll be sure Shepard gets the message councilors," he said sternly.

One by one the council members nodded and their holograms vanished.

XXX

Reaching up Shepard wiped the bug juice and guts off the face plate of her helmet as she and her team crouched outside the door to the hotlabs. Quickly she pulled the charging handle on her rifle to cycle the next round into the chamber. Looking up to her team she asked, "Ready?"

One by one her team nodded and Shepard punched the door's pad causing it to slide open. The moment the door started to open Shepard primed a flash bang grenade and tossed it into the lab. When the grenade exploded Shepard shouldered her rifle and with Alenko and Williams in tow stormed the room.

She took point as Alenko and Williams took up positions on her flanks as the entered the laboratory scanning the area with their weapons as they did. Shepard glanced around her cut churning as she did. She had a bad feeling about this, "Alenko, Williams spread out I..," she started when a flash of something caught her eye.

It wasn't easy to see but for a second it was there a distortion in the air…, "Fuck ,"she cursed and swung her weapon berating herself for her stupidity. Asari… fucking… Commandos used personal cloaking devices as a part of their ops. She swung her rifle around and double tapped on the trigger sending two rounds streaming through the air and with a wet thumping sound the rounds they impacted seemingly nothing, "cloaked commandos," she hollered as she dropped down to her right kneebehind one of the solid steel railing.

William started to fire her weapon as the commando's began to decloak while Alenko make sure that the doctor was down in cover. Shepard glanced quickly to her right and her left and grimaced at the position they'd walked into. The causeway went around in a square like pattern and it the center was a raised platform surrounded by thick walls.

She scooted along the railing in and clapped Alenko on the shoulder and gestured to him to move him over to Williams who was defending the west side. He nodded and she held up three fingers, slowly counting down until they hit zero and they swiftly switched postions.

She raised her rifle and glanced around the corner and gunned down two commandos that had dashed around the far corner. When as she gunned them down she frowned, these commandos seemed sloppy… almost too sloppy. She'd worked with Asari Commandos before during a joint operation and while they didn't have the professionalism the N7s, STGs and Turian Cabals prided themselves on they were definitely not sloppy. Shepard could be stealthy when she needed to, even inside her armor, but the asari were damn ghosts if they wanted to be.

She held her rifle up waiting for any more movement but when she didn't see anything she stood up slightly, but not fully and began to move forward her finger tense of the trigger of her weapon. When she reached an archway, not the end of the catwalk but the stairs up to the raised platform, she paused and knelt again. Taking a deep breath she spun around the corner with her rifle shouldered and ran up into the containment unit in the center of the hotlab, "Freeze," she hollered at the figure, "Don't move!"

The asari wasn't wearing any combat armor like the commandos or Shepard and her team. Instead she was wearing a black gown like outfit. Shepard didn't know if asari had some kind of natural resistance to the cold but that was a hell of an outfit to wear on this godforsaken planet.

The woman was staring at a large tank in which was had something… big in it, "You do not what it means to be a mother. There is power in creation, to shape a life, to turn it towards happiness or despair," she paused, "Her children were to me ours to control, raised to hunt Saren's enemies."

Shepard tightened her finger on the trigger, "I don't care," the commander said even though the thought of Saren having the Rachni at his command was terrifying, "put your hands over your head and get on your knees."

The Matriarch turned slightly to face her, "Insolence," she hissed and her body lit up in a blue aura and thrust her right hand out.

Shepard was about to fire her weapon at the Matriarch when she felt a massive ball of dark energy same into her side, knocked her off her feet and sent her flying into the wall. She fell to the ground with a thump and tasted blood in her mouth. She resisted the urge to spit out the blood that had accumulated in her mouth. Slowly she wobbly stood, collapsing back to her knees once before she finally managed to get back on her feet, "That's one hell of a right hook," she said groggily.

The Asari Matriarch turned fully around and before Shepard could raise her rifle the Matriarch flared again and the Spectre felt herself lifted off the ground and pulled towards the asari. The matriarch side step as Shepard sailed through the air and at the last moment she threw up her arms to do what little she could to cushion the blow. Nonetheless she hit the glass of the tank causing the bug-like creature to which was imprisoned within to flinch.

Coughing up the blood that was pooling in her mouth Shepard rolled over onto her stomach as she fumbled with the latched on her helmet. The moment the helmet hit the floor the wounded commander spit a stream of crimson blood onto the cold unforgiving steel floor.

Gritting her teeth as she tried to get her wounded, aching body to its feet she failed and could only manage to get up on one knee, "Come on bitch… is that all you got," she taunted spitting again and holding her arms open as if to invite a attack.

Matriarch Benezia stalked like a predator until the asari towered over the Spectre. The asari shook her head and made a disappointed 'tisking' sound, "Commander, commander… I'm quite disappointed," she teased, "Saren overestimate your abilities and strength. He thought you'd be so much more of a challenge," he features twisted into a coing visage, "to think… he thought about recruiting you."

Shepard smirked, her blood stained lips curving into a defiant little smile, "I'm flattered I just hope the dental's better than my last gig." Shepard's morbidly humorous declaration served a more important purpose than defiant last words. As she was speaking she let her left hand drift down out of sight and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her boot knife.

"Brave words," the Matriarch said appraisingly but before she could say anything else Shepard swiped up with her blade aiming for the harpy's jugular. The former N7 commando was fast but the asari was just a bit faster and caught Shepard's wrist with her left hand. While normally Shepard could have overpowered the woman, but she was not only wounded; she was also in a bad position leverage wise.

Shepard watched as a flash of rage passed over the Matriarch's feature, "You can't blame a girl for trying," she said with a faux smile… a smile which quickly turned to a grimace of pain as the asari gave a sharp tug on her wrist causing the knife to drop from her fingers, "owww," she ground out as pain flared in her wrist, "Maybe you can."

The asari Matriarch growled angrily and held out her hand which glowed with biotic power, "Goodbye commander."

Shepard grit her teeth as she waited for the asari to deliver the death blow but instead of her head being caved in by a biotic blast she heard two gunshot bursts. Shepard heard the Matriarch gasped in pain and glanced down to the two rapidly expanding blue patches of blood on her chest. The shooter slowly and regretfully lowered their weapon and Shepard didn't even have to study the figure to tell it was Doctor T'Soni.

"Doctor," she hissed painfully not only because of her own injuries but for Liara. She had no idea what the young, relatively when compared to her own species, asari would go through after killing her own mother. Shepard and her own mother weren't close; in fact the last face-to-face they had ended with a barely civilized argument. Still as much as she disliked the woman she wasn't sure she could kill her.

Liara ripped her helmet from her head and knelt down next to her mother's body, "Oh mother," she cried taking her mother's head in her hands, "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be… little bird," the matriarch whispered softly, "You have no reason to be sorry," she took a harsh breath; "it is I who have everything to be sorry about."

Shepard frowned at the seemingly about-face shift in behavior. Before she could say anything Alenko and Williams rushed into the room but she waved him off before they could do anything; instead she focused in on what Benezia was saying as she had the feeling it was extremely important.

"Why were you working with Saren," Liara questioned her voice breaking as she did.

The matriarch's rapidly discoloring lips twitched in a smile, "It wasn't my intention little bird…," she drew a ragged breath, "I hoped to lead Saren down a gentler path, but I underestimated him… his ship is capable of…"

Shepard who'd by this point managed to get herself back on her feet, "We know about Sovereign ," she said pausing as she tried to recall the asari's name, "Shiala I think it was told us all about ," as she spoke she saw regret flash through the woman's eyes , "Matriarch," the Spectre said sternly, "you don't have much time left. I need to know what Saren's up too."

The dying woman slowly nodded, "As far as the researchers were concerned I was here to get the Rachni project back on track," she gulped, "unofficially I was here to secure the location of the Mu Relay from the mind of the rachni queen."

"What's so important about this relay and why do we need to find it," Shepard questioned eagerly.

"Four thousand years ago a star went supernova and blew the relay away from its orbit making it almost impossible to find," she took another ragged breath, "by accident the rachni found it at the height of the war. It's important because the relay is believe to be the only relay able to connect to the world that holds the conduit."

"Mother do you know where the conduit is," Liara questioned with tears running down her face as she ran the tips of her fingers of her right hand down her mother's face.

"No," she gasped, I'm… I'm sorry," she said exhaling her last breath.

Shepard glanced up at Alenko hoping he was smart enough to understand what she wanted. Thankfully he did and he slung his rifle before gently escorting Liara from the room. The asari rested her head against the Lt's chest and wept as he did. Turning her gaze to Williams after waiting until she was sure they were out of hearing range she asked, "Tell me you got that on your hardsuit recorder," she nearly pleaded. The Matriarch's dying confession combined with the recordings from Feros should go a long way to proving that is was a lot bigger than it seemed.

Willams tapped the side of her helmet with the first two fingers of her right hand, "Aye commander," the Gunnery Sergeant answered before adding, "What do we do with that?"

That… was obviously the rachni queen behind them in the large glass tank. Shepard sighed before through a glance at the sentient insect behind the glass and running her hand through her hair. When it came down to it who was she to decide the fate of an entire species, "It's above my pay grade gunny… I'll leave it to the Council to decide her fate," she grabbed her helmet off the floor while Williams grabbed Liara's, "help me grab the body."

William's glanced down at the body of the fallen Asari Matriarch and was about to argue but Shepard's glare was apparently enough to silence her, "Aye Commander."

Author's Note:

Sorry this took me so long. If you haven't noticed already I borrowed at lot of the naval tactics and equipment from Battlestar Galactica (Reimagined Series). Apart from the Battle of the Citadel we never really saw a naval battles and even that battle didn't mesh with what tactics and information that was written in the codex. Also while they've been mentioned we've never seen any fighters from any side. For the purpose of this story the fighter appearances, tactics and maneuverability are based off BSG.

Another note is that while Mass Effect is primarily Shepard's story like STAR WARS is the story of Anakin Skywalker, his fall and redemption by his son, we're still talking about a galaxy wide event. I also find it hard to believe that the only thing that was going on was Shepard's assignment. I mean really were the geth and everyone else just standing around with their thumb up their ass?

So while this is Shepard's story it covers more than just her actions. Hackett and Lee, yes he's based off BSG, will feature in secondary roles until they end and play heavily in the Battle of the Citadel. I'm also going to be shifting a lot to Saren's perspective as the race to the conduit winds down.

Review Please.