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.

9. Chapter 8: Judgment Day

Mass Effect: A Few Good Soldiers

"Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea,

for the Devil sends the beast with wrath,

because he knows the time is short...

-The Book of Revelation

Chapter 8: Judgment Day

Near the Tera Nova Mass Relay the Alliance 5fth Fleet hung silently in all its deadly beauty. The full might the Alliance's most elite fleet was assembled and rearing for some payback against the geth who'd embarrassed them at their own Naval Base.

On the bride of his flagship Admiral Hackett a stood starring out the window at the massive blue-silver object was the Terra Nova Mass Relay. He spared a brief glance over his shoulder, "How much longer till we get underway captain?"

The Orizaba's captain Otto Strasbourg glanced up from where he had been working with the navigation officer. He glanced back down and spoke with the officer before looking back up, "We're just about to initiate handshake protocols with the relay, Admiral."

"Very good captain proceed," he said as he turned back to gaze out the window. He glanced around the window naming each of the ships he saw in the formation… an old trick to calm the nerves and pass the time. In the background he heard the navigation officer run through the pre-jump checklist.

"Relay is hot, acquiring approach vector," the nav officer said the familiar words, "All Stations secure for transit in T-minus ten seconds."

The Admiral watched as the mission clock counted down and as it approached the launch window he reached out and grabbed hold of the railing just in case of any tremors. He waited and when the countdown timer hit zero… nothing happened.

Hackett spun, "Captain report," in all of his military service he'd never had as much of a problem as getting this damn fleet to the Citadel.

The captain turned to the navigator and helmsmen who were franticly trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong but didn't seem to have any answers. The bridge crewed scrambled around all of them seeking an answer to the problem of why they were still here.

Finally one of the officers called out, "Admiral whatever the problem is it isn't on our end."

"I agree," the captain added after a few seconds, "it has to be a problem with the relay… we're trying to reestablish contact."

Hackett made his way to the sensor's station to look at the man's console and he if he could make heads or tails of what was going on. The console's operator pushed away from the station so the Admiral could get a better look.

"I have no idea what's wrong Admiral," the young officer said rubbing his eyes, "It's like it's just not responding anymore," the officer huffed, "it's like it's locked down or something."

"Can they do that," Strasbourg questioned, "I didn't know it was possible to lock down a relay."

"It might be for us," Hackett said warily. As far as he knew there was only one possible group in the galaxy that might be capable of manipulating the Mass Relays… the Reapers. He'd read the Shepard's report cover to cover and found the information very troubling to say the least. He straightened up ramrod straight as a horrid feeling of worry curled in his stomach, "Get me a comm to the Citadel," the crew turned to look at him, "Now!"

The comm officer went to work franticly typing at the keys at his terminal, "Nothing," he said bleakly looking up at the Admiral, "nothing but static."

The sense of worry in his stomach blossomed into full blown dread. That could only mean one thing. Someone was attacking the Citadel and all he could do was sit here on his hands and do nothing.

XXX

The 9th Citadel Fleet Patrol group was comprised of three cruisers and six destroyers belonging to the salarians and asari. It was one of twelve patrols assigned to cover the four corridors where ships could enter the Citadel Station Security Zone. Because of unique composition of the particles in the Serpent Nebula surrounding the Citadel these four corridors were the only way in or out. As a result they were all heavily patrolled.

The defensive strategy of General Septimus was to allow Saren to enter the Security Zone and then once their direction of attack was determined the bulk of the Citadel Fleet could be deployed to counter them. Septimus would rely on the might of his dreadnaughts and the Citadel own defenses to carry the day.

Even without the fleet the Citadel was still the most heavily defended position in the galaxy. The station was dotted with weapon emplacements and if worst came to worst the station's "arms" could close creating an impervious shell to protect itself.

Ever since Shepard had reported back the Fleet had been on its highest threat readiness alert. They were ready for anything… or so they believed.

In less than an instant their calm was shattered as the geth fleet erupted like a stampede of angry bulls from the "galactic southwest" corridor. The first geth units to emerge from FTL were their frigate and fast attack ship analogues. Those ships swarmed the ninth patrol and wiped them out to the last ship in a wave of fire and steel. The remaining patrols at the "southwest" corridor attempted to regroup but were cut down without any mercy.

Near the Citadel the turian, salarian and asari dreadnaughts and cruisers fired their maneuvering thrusters and main engines to take up a position around Septimus's flagship, the powerful dreadnaught Legatus.

While not the most powerful ship in the fleet, that honor belonged to the massive Destiny Ascension, the Legatus was the pride of the turian fleet and had been his command for close to twenty years. The Destiny Ascension would be kept in reserve as the personal evacuation ship of the Citadel Council if the need arose. Otherwise it would help bolster the reserves.

There was another flash of light and the geth fleet proper arrived led by the immense dreadnaught Sovereign and hundreds of large capital ships. The massive squid like vessels dwarfed everything on the battlefield expect the Citadel itself and cast an aura of dread into the hearts of all who laid eyes upon it.

From the Citadel and its Fleet poured squadron after squadron of interceptors racing out to meet the approaching geth fighters. The moment the Citadel interceptors were free the mighty dreadnaughts and cruisers let loose with their main cannons sending almost a hundred and fifty twenty kilogram ferrous core shells to a velocity of four-thousand twenty-five kilometers a second or nearly one-point-three percent of light speed.

The shells tore through space and when they struck the geth cruisers and frigates they caused grievous damage and destroying a few outright. The geth dreadnaughts fared far bettered as their kinetic barriers were able to shrug off the slugs. Sovereign however shrugged off the dreadnaught's fire at if it was nothing but little droplets of rain pestering a mountain.

Conventional military tactics would have had the dreadnaughts and cruisers dueling it out at long range while the frigates and fighters engaged in knife-fighting tactics. Sovereign however did not subscribe to such tactics as it and its fleet rapidly closed the difference and the two great fleets intermingled in a grand and savage mêlée.

XXX

The Normandy slid through the space less and one EU from the planet Ilos. In the cockpit of the stealthship Lieutenant Jeff Moreau gracefully piloted the craft through the blackness. Twisting around his chair he found his commanding officer standing behind him in full tactical gear, "This isn't going to be easy… aye commander?"

Kathryn Shepard an agent of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance; or that least she was for the moment. The theft of the Normandy for this assignment meant that more than likely she'd be stripped of that title when she got back… if she got back.

Out the front of the cockpit Shepard could see the cigar shaped silver object that was a geth cruiser. This complicated things, she mused, this complicated things a hell of a lot. They just couldn't get dropped on the planet because the cruiser would detect them and shoot them down, "No it's not going to be easy," she finally admitted and then corrected jokert, "and I'm not a commander anymore."

Joker rolled his eyes at that an went back to piloting, "Whatever… commander," he said with a wink.

"Mr. Pressly," she called out and the always open comm in the cockpit transferred her call to the CIC, "can the Normandy take on a geth cruiser," she asked fully admitting that she didn't know the full capabilities of the Normandy and was its best commander at space.

The comm channel was silent for a few seconds before his Pressly answered, "We can't stand up to her in a straight up fight…but I have an idea," there was another pause, "hold on commander I'm working on the calculations now."

"Hold on I'll be right back," Shepard said and headed back towards the CIC where she saw Presley and another officer working franticly at a terminal. She made it into talking range and called out, "What have ya got Pressly?"

The Normandy's XO pressed a few keys and a holographic image of the Normandy and the geth cruiser appeared, "I want to use the Normandy's stealth system to slip right up to the back of the cruiser… about half a kilometer away," as he spoke the little holograms moved with his words as a visual representation.

Even with her limited experience in naval warfare she knew that five-hundred meters was nearly point-blank range for warships. Most fights were conducted from far longer distances, but instead of interrupting all she did was nod.

"Once we fire a load of torpedoes up their ass and damage their engines we'll skedaddle over to the planet to drop you off before they can respond and come after us," the XO informed her.

Shepard bit her lip, "uhmm that still doesn't explain how we're going to get down to the planet," she said doing the best she could to keep the confusion to a minimum, and I and my team can't jump from orbit… in fact half of them have never jumped before."

Pressly shook his head, "we wouldn't have time for us to get low enough for you to jump anyway," he smirked. The first time she had ever seen him smile in fact, "You're gonna like this Shepard… we're gonna drop your team in a couple of escape pods."

"That could work," Shepard though out loud, "they're armored, with their own interial dampeners, powerful sensors and retro-rockets…. Yah… good idea XO," she said clapping him on the shoulder. This was one of the borderline insane plans that made humanity so dangerous. They'd come up with shit like this that no one else would even contemplate. "Put it in motion."

"Aye, aye," the XO snapped and began barking orders to the crew to get the ship ready. The crew moved with the efficiency expected of the Alliance Navy, "Load all torpedo tubes forward and aft and remove all the safeties."

The weapons officer responded with an, "Aye, Aye."

"Put us on course one-two by eight-nine and bring us five hundred meters aft of the geth cruiser Mr. Moreau," Pressly ordered, "all silent as they go."

"Aye, aye XO," Joker responded over the comm, "one-two by eight-nine, five hundred meters aft. All silent as we go."

Shepard watched holoscreen as the dot that represented the Normandy moved closer to dot that represented the geth cruiser. As the rangefinder on the holoscreen ticked down Presley ordered, "Joker the moment we lose those torpedoes I want everything the girl can give to get us to Ilos before the geth can figure out what the hell is going on."

"Aye, aye," Joker answered before asking, "Sir you are aware that once we heat up we'll need at least five minutes to reengage the stealth systems?"

"We won't need'em Joker," Pressly, "we're gonna scrap that cruiser," once he was finished with Joker he turned to face and said, "You better get you team to the pods commander."

Shepard nodded but before she went to assemble her team she gave Presley a wary look, "Can you really pull off all that bullshit you just said?"

"Can you really stop Saren," her XO retorted.

Shepard threw the man a mock salute as she walked away, "Touché."

XXX

The SSV Normandy slid slowly through blackness of space illuminated by the system's only star and the reflection of the planet. The Alliance stealth ship approached the geth ship without the large cruiser ever knowing it was there.

Maneuvering into position to do what they were about to do was a lot more complicated than it sounded for two main reasons. One was that in space nothing is ever motionless so they were actually trying to sneak up on a moving target. The fact that the target was moving brought up the second point. In order for them to stay cloaked they couldn't use the engines and were forced to use the Tantalus Drive Core that, compared to the main engine it was incredibly slow.

Still, slowly but surely the Normandy inched her way closer to the cruiser and when they reached their optimal firing range. From the CIC the command was given and the weapons officer obediently obliged and relayed the command to shoot to the weapons compartment. The pair of enlisted personal manning each of the Normandy's forward torpedo tubes slammed down on the firing levers.

Two type III Disruptor Torpedoes flew out from the underside of the Normandy propelled by explosive decompression. All such torpedoes had to be cold launched to prevent them from scorching the tubes on their way out. Once free of the tubes the torpedoes' thrusters ignited and they were sent racing towards the geth ship and slammed into the rear of the geth cruiser catching the machines unprepared. The charges detonated against the unshielded engine with the force of a small nuclear bomb shredding three of the four main engines of the warship.

The moment the torpedoes had left the tubes the Normandy had fired its thrusters at full throttle and executed a hard right turn heading for the planet with the geth cruiser firing angrily in retaliation. Fortunately for the Normandy the geth cruiser was facing the opposite direction and because of its damage could turn fast enough to bring its main gun about so the only fire they were catching was from the point defensive batteries.

The Normandy accelerated away from the cruiser and after a good thirty seconds of full burn it reached the orbit of the mostly green orb that was Ilos. It took a second of banging away with its active sensors to find enormous emissions of energy and a few more to launch the pods containing Shepard and her team.

With the team deployed the Normandy's engines roared as she was angled to get back in the fight.

XXX

"Saren-Spectre," the red striped geth intoned, "Cruiser nine-dash- three-six-dash-eigh-"

"Enough with the dashes and numbers," the Spectre roared spinning on the geth in frustration, "spit it out!"

The geth tilted his lampshade like head for a moment before saying, "The cruiser in orbit reports it has sustained critical engine damage from a ship matching the specifications of the SSV Normandy…" there was a brief pause as it receive more information, "sensor detect the launch of three smaller objects…," there was another brief pause as the geth did some quick calculations, "Eighty-three percent possibility that the smaller objects are standard design Alliance escape pods."

Saren regarded the geth with a cool stare, "Escape pods," he questioned, "why would they…," he trailed off with realization. With the cruiser in orbit the Normandy couldn't risk a descent into the atmosphere so it appears Shepard or one of her officer had come up with using the escape pods as make shift descent craft. It was very clever as he thought about it but in the end he shook his head, it wouldn't matter.

"Have the patrol engage and eliminate Shepard," Saren said in almost a gentle tone. He didn't even here the geth respond as he continued to stare at the small wonder they had found in the middle of this facility.

Rising out from the middle of the facility was a massive trapezoidal stone pedestal upon which rested the towering and familiar blue-grey sight of a mass relay. This relay was unique for four reasons; the first two of which were the most obvious, that the relay was far smaller than all the others and it was on the surface of a planet. The third thing that made it unique was that it wasn't a genuine Mass Relay. It was a copy; a partially functioning reverse engineered Prothean duplicate of Reaper designed Mass Relay. Lastly unlike all others relays this one only went one place… to the Presidium at the very heart of the Citadel.

Saren turned around and let his gaze sweep across the ranks of geth that were assembled and waiting for the Relay to activate and the command to be given to storm through. There were close to four hundred geth troopers, about three companies worth, standing motionless. While it wouldn't be enough to completely overwhelm Citadel Security and the crack Response Teams in the entire Citadel not to mention whatever addition marine elements that were added, it would be enough to fight their way to the Presidium.

There was ear shattering clap that sent Saren's hand's over his earholes in an attempt to protect his ears from the deafening sound of the Relay activating. Saren growled savagely at the offending sound before turning back to the red striped geth, "Go," he barked as the hypnotizing blue glaze of the Relay's Element Zero core

"By your command," the geth's interface unit answered before issuing a high pitched mechanical sound ordering the geth through the relay.

The ex-spectre turned cybernetic life form watched as neat rows of shiny silver troopers marched up to the Relay and were launched at super-luminous speeds. He watched as the Relay fired row after of geth into the clear blue sky in what was sure to be an incredible surprise for the people on the Citadel.

Saren ground his razor sharp teeth at the sight. He wasn't a coward by any stretch of the word. He'd done things that others would have sent other's screaming. Still… this was terrifying; to be accelerated at millions of times the speed of light and thrown across the galaxy. Any other time he would have called it insanity, but today was the day for apparent insanities.

He took slow deliberate steps up the pedestal towards the Relay. As he closed to within ten meters he warily held out his hand feeling static electricity fizzle across his hand. The feeling was quite amazing, he mused as he ran his hand through the blue energy field. The ex-spectre took a deep reflexive breath and with a single step plunged himself into the light.

XXX

The turian dreadnaught Legatus shuttered as it was struck by a flurry of disruptor torpedoes. On the bridge of the flagship Genral Septimus and held tight to the console in front of him. Everything was going straight to hell. The geth and Sovereign were tearing the Citadel Fleet a new asshole and to make matters worse the Citadel's own defensive systems wouldn't activate.

"Inform the Destiny Ascension and her escorts to advance and plug up the gap in section A-3 by F-9," he called out to the communication officer.

After a few moments the turian male at the communication console looked up at him with a beleaguered look on his face, "Sir the Destiny Ascension and her escorts have been ordered to evac the Council," he paused, "Citadel Command orders us to cover their withdrawal."

The general swore an ancient and particularly vulgar turian curse and the Legatus shook again from another hit, "Damage report!

"We're venting atmosphere on decks three through nine," he raised his hand to his earbud, "also we've lost port batteries, the accelerator coil for the main cannon has been destabilized," he hissed, " and kinetic barriers along our entire port side. Damage control teams have been dispatched, but things are looking good sir."

As if to empathize the damage control officer's point the monitors that broadcasted the view of the port side of the ship flared bright weight and when they cleared the cruiser that had been guarding the Legatus's flank exploded as a red beam like thing tore through its magazine storage and out the other side.

"General the geth dreadnaught's advancing on our position," the sensor officer reported with the slightest trace of nervous showing despite her training.

"Focus all remaining batteries on that dreadnaught and tell all ships in the area to focus fire on Sovereign we need to buy the Council time to withdraw," the General ordered as he assumed a position of at-ease for the benefit of his crew. They needed to see their general was calm and collected despite the odds and forces arrayed against them.

The intimidating image of the squid-like dreadnaught filled the forward view screen as it's accelerated away from the geth lines at the heart of the Citadel Fleet, the Legatus itself.

"Admiral," the sensor officer called, "the geth dreadnaught is on a collision course!"

"Steady as we go," he ordered as the remaining batteries on the Legatus and its support ships opened fire in a withering hail of tungsten, depleted uranium and disruptor torpedoes, "we are not going to be the ones to flinch this day."

Thirty-two-point-nine-eight seconds after they were fired the projectiles slammed into the obscenely powerful kinetic barriers of the massive dreadnaught and were almost effortlessly denigrated by said barriers.

The general grimaced, "Again," he called out to fire control as the dreadnaught grew steadily larger in the view screen. The Legatus shuttered as her secondary batteries fired again with the same results and the dreadnaught just kept coming. "Spirits protect us," he whispered as the sensor officer sounded another collision alert.

In the CIC and all throughout the ship the collision alarm klaxon blared as the Reaper closed to within ten kilometers. It was close enough that he could see on the view screen the masses of geth fighters swarming around the ship like flies.

With horrid realization he realized just how out matched his ship was against the massive brute as another salvo uselessly impacted the kinetic barriers. That let him only one options, "Helm," he called out, "All ahead full… estimated time until collision"

"All head full…yes sir," the helmsman said after a brief pause and the entire bridge crew hand gone silent. They knew what their commander had in mind. "One minute forty-six seconds until impact, sir."

The general took a deep breath, "Inform all hands to abandon ship. That's how long they have," he paused looking at his bridge crew, "I'll need at least three people to stay on board."

The fifteen man bridge crew looking at one another before the ship's captain answered for all of them, "We'll stay sir… it's been an honor."

The old turian general took a long look at each of the members of his bridge crew, "Thank you… thank you all. It's been a privilege serving with you."

Exactly one minute and forty two seconds later, on fire and with escape pods streaming from its underbelly, in a show of turian bravery and martial courage the Legatus slammed dead center into the massive enemy dreadnaught. The Legatus detonated with the force of a hundred atomic bombs washing the Reaper in a sea of flame.

The sailors and marines of the Citadel Fleet collectively held their breath hoping that the sacrifice of the kilometer long turian dreadnaught had not been in vain. However as the flame were quenched in the cold and heartless void the painful truth was revealed. Sovereign flew through the debris field unharmed and unhindered by the kamikaze attack of the turian ship and towards the Citadel.

With a hole now open in the Citadel Fleet's lines the geth fighters that had been swarming Sovereign broke off to attack the Destiny Ascension and her escorts while the geth capital ships drove hard at the gap intent of cutting the Citadel Fleet in two and destroying them piece meal. The tide of battle was now swinging clearly in favor of the Reaper ad its geth servants.

XXX

On the positive note at least she managed to get her helmet off, Shepard mused as she spit at the bottom of the escape pod before wiping the vomit from the edges of her mouth. She wiped the top of her wrist off on her armored calf before slipping her helmet back over her head. When the seals finished hissing and took hold Shepard reached out a grabbed her rifle and did a quick check to make sure it was fine. When she was satisfied she leapt through the open escape pod hatch and down onto the stone courtyard floor.

The Spectre operative ducked into cover behind a stature of a Prothean, she recognized the physique from her memories, and shouldered her rifle letting loose two quick bursts as a geth trooper came into view. Shepard, Garrus and their respective teams had dropped down in three escape pods almost right on top of the geth position overwhelming most of the rear guard in a matter of moments.

Rising up from her crouching position she fired her weapon for suppressing effect while Garrus and Alenko pressing in hard from the right flank and gunned down the geth. With the immediate threat neutralized and the immediate area secure she waved her team, which consisted of Wrex and Liara, forward. Shepard wanted the Prothean expert close on hand when they went after this thing… the Conduit or whatever it was.

The two teams picked themselves and moved towards the blown out archway which had apparently held someking kind of blast door at the entranceway of the ancient structure. Shepard gave two quick commands and the squad formed into a passable squad column fire-team wedge with Shepard's fire team in from with Garrus's pulling up the rear.

They entered the long hallway, which was more like a large city street or even an old highway then a hallway in a building. The corridor was expansive and rose at least twenty to thirty meters skyward and was pitted with racks and some kind of man sized tubes. They looked kind of like cyro tubes that they back on Normandy and other Alliance ships.

They moved quickly but in formation down the seemingly endless hall. She nearly called the unit to a stop as she thought she heard someone call her name but each time she'd glance up at the comm and found that none of her squad mates had accessed the secure channel.

She was about to chalk it up to nerves when she heard an electronic voice shout as clear as day, "Shepard!"

Shepard launched her hand into the air making a closed fist and the squad froze, "Who is this," she whispered harshly.

Nearly at the same time Garrus came up next to her, "What's up Shepard…we can't stop here for long we have to keep moving," the turian said quickly.

"Someone's on my comm," she answered quickly frowning as she did and slapping him on the shoulder, "take command while I figure this out," she said as she dropped back into the center of the formation with her hand to her ear, walking with the team as they continued forward. She did a brief check of her comm and found out that it had been silent this entire time.

Shepard frowned in confusion once more and was about to run a check on her comm system when a voice blared straight into her head, "I am Vigil. The prothean Virtual Intelligence assigned to safeguard this instillation from discovery and to ensure its survival."

Beneath her helmet Shepard frowned… a prothean VI, "How the hell are you inside my head," she hissed angrily. She'd been mind-fucked enough on this mission to last a lifetime

"For reasons too complicated to get into for the moment the cypher you received allows me to directly connect to your mind. I have waited a long time for someone to discover the beacon and uncover the secrets of this place… " the machine paused, "there is so much I wish to tell but I lack the time to tell you. The indoctrinated one has already activated the Conduit and gone through."

Shepard felt fear tear at her gut at what the VI had said. The Conduit had been their last great hope for defeating the Reapers. "What exactly is the Conduit? What's it do and why does Saren want it," she fired off three quick questions.

"The Conduit is the pinnacle of prothean advancement," the VI began to explain, "after decades of research the science team stationed here managed to unlock the greatest achievement of galactic technology… the Mass Relay ."

"You guys built a Mass Relay," she said almost disbelievingly. Every race out there had at one point or another tried to duplicate the technology that allowed them to traverse the galaxy. She shook her head, "wait a second," she said with sudden realization, "the Conduit's a Mass Relay… I thought it was a weapon?" She finished her sentence with a hard edge to it. She'd come all the way out here, risking her career, freedom and the freedom of her comrades on the hope that the Conduit was some kind of superweapon… maybe like a moon sized station with some kind of planet blowing uppy gun or a missile that blows up suns or something like that.

"Affirmative," the VI intoned, "but it more important than you believe. The Conduit is a proverbial backdoor to the Citadel and the Citadel is the key to the galaxy."

Beneath her helmet Shepard frowned. The Citadel was important surely, but it wasn't that critical. Even if the Citadel fell the other races still had massive fleets with which to counter-attack and defend their own territories. Gritting her teeth she asked, "Why exactly is the Citadel so important?"

"It is the gateway from which the Reaper fleet with emerge upon the galaxy," the virtual intelligence unit said, "the Citadel is in fact an enormous Mass Relay which leads to the resting place of the Reaper Fleet in darkspace."

Shepard blinked, so it wasn't just one Reaper… it was an entire fleet of them and the Citadel was there beachhead, "Shit," she cursed under her breath, "Hold on if the Citadel's a Relay then while haven't the Reapers invaded yet?"

"I can only guess that the keepers who maintain the Citadel's systems have some evolved in a direction the Reapers didn't intend; so much so that they couldn't use them to remotely activate the Citadel Relay," the VI reported. It paused before adding with urgency, "You must hurry Shepard before the Reapers cull all life once more."

As suddenly as the voice had appeared it vanished leaving her with one hell of a headache causing her to stumble before a pair of arms caught her, "Commander are you all right?"

Shepard brought the palm of her hand up to her forehead, or rather the part of her helmet that covered her forehead, and groaned, "We need to move double time," she grit out.

"What's going on Shepard," Garrus barked as he called the column to a halt.

"I'll explain."

XXX

The Presidium burned, or more precisely the trees which lined the walkways burned. Citadel Security had been caught completely unaware hand the handful of officers stationed on the Presidium had been wiped out with ruthless efficiency.

With the Council and embassies evacuated the Presidium was more or less empty leaving Saren and his geth with practically no opposition. To further disguise his intentions Saren sent all but ten of the geth he brought with him to wreak havoc by attacking several bunkers and collection points for civilians from the nearest Ward.

With his ten geth troopers in tow Saren stormed into the Council Chambers and right into the teeth of the defenses of the last remnant of the Council Guard. The turian and asari bodyguard unit had taken cover behind the many seemingly harmless stands and atriums that covered the chamber.

Whether by ignorance or design the top of the Council Chambers was a magnificent defensive position from which to fight and they knew it. Shots rained down as the guards fired their weapons and with a slick movement Saren drew his weapon and sent three rounds down range before slipping into cover behind a large cluma tree.

"Jam their comms," Saren growled looking back to the red-striped geth before firing at one of the guards and apparently hitting them in the shoulder because he fell back with a pained shout.

"By your command," the geth responded then raised up from behind its cover and let loose with its pulse rife, "enemy communications jammed."

"Take them," he ordered and they get did as he commanded. The geth troopers rose rising from positions firing relentlessly to pin the unfortunate guards down. Slipping from his cover and vaulting over the solid steel banisters that stood in his way Saren out flanked the few surviving soldiers and before they could respond he shot them dead.

For a moment Saren starred at the recently created corpses and felt a twinge of guilt as he recognized one of the dead turians as a son of a former comrade of his. Slowly the ex-spectre holstered his weapon and glanced up the long flight of stairs towards what Sovereign had revealed was the concealed location of the Citadel's master control panel.

"Get rid of them," Saren barked angrily at the geth as he started to climb the stairs. He wasn't so sure what he was angry at. He wasn't sure if he was angry with himself, with Sovereign, with the rest of the galaxy for forcing him to do this.

After what seemed like forever he reached the summit of the Council Chambers and activated the Citadel's master control system. The ghostly holographic panels surrounded him and almost filled the entire top platform.

He reached out and with a single talon tapped several commands into the system. Even though he was most likely been the first person to activate this system in fifty-thousand years he knew exactly what he was doing… a benefit of his "upgrades." Several seconds later the console beeped three times and gave the message that the Relay's leading to the Citadel were locked down.

Sovereign had been able to lock them down at least temporarily under its own authority, but the threat that someone could overpower his lockout from the master control unit was too much of a threat. Plus, the master control unit was the only place that the Citadel Relay protocols could be activated.

Saren finished all the calibrations and checks prior to beginning the warm up procedures for the Mass Relay and his talon hovered over the button. He hesitated unwilling or unable to take that final step, to press the button that would begin the Reaper invasion. Perhaps… the thought went through his head, Shepard was right… perhaps.

"Arggh," the turian groaned clapping his hands over his head as pain laced through his mind. Reaching out he made a fist and slammed it down on the holographic button and seconds later a cheery holographic voiced informed him that the Citadel's capacitors would be charged in twenty point three-eight standard minutes.

XXX

"Son of bitch," Shepard cursed as she was thrown through the air and landed in artificial lake on the Presidium. Pushing herself up to her knees she pulled her rifle out from underneath the water, "This is fucking bullshit," she spat.

She had enough of this … over the past six month she had had her mind fucked with seven times including the mind melds with Liara and whatever the damn Prothean VI had done to her. Not to mention going through that goddamn Mass Relay. When the VI had told her about the Relay she hadn't actually taken the time to think about what the implications of going through it were.

Normal Relay travel made her nauseous and then she had several inches of titanium-A battleplate between her and the Relays. But free flying halfway across the galaxy without even a ship was batshit crazy. She considered herself lucky that she had already emptied the contents of her stomach otherwise she'd be cleaning out the inside of her helmet right now.

"You alright Shepard," Garrus said kneeling down next to her and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Forcing herself up she ground out, "Yeah I'm fine Garrus." Pinning the stock of her rifle up against her hip she made her way to the railing and hoisted herself over. After reaching the top she turned and held out her hand to help Garrus up. "We need to get to the Citadel Tower," she added in a calm commanding tone.

"We've got another problem commander," Alenko responded from the small perimeter the rest of the team had established.

"This seems to be the day for it," she wearily responded before sighing and finishing, "hit me."

Alenko tapped his omi-tool, "I've been eavesdropping in on the C-Sec comm channels and they're in a lot of trouble commander," the lieutenant being the team's communications expert had advance systems built into his hard-suit to better deal with electronic warfare situations.

"How much trouble," she questioned not liking the sound of what the lieutenant had to say.

"They're outgunned and being overwhelmed. They weren't expecting and attack from the rear and they're entire rear guard flat-lined before they realized what's going on," Alenko reported grimly, "the geth are slaughtering everyone they come across."

Shepard bit the inside of her cheek and glanced up at the tall glass elevator shaft that led to the Council Chambers. She turned back to face the Lieutenant, "Alright take Wrex, Liara and Tali and head out to see if you can link up with any of the surviving C-Sec elements."

"You sure about that Shepard," Garrus asked coming up right behind her, "We may need everyone we can get to take on Saren and whatever surprises he's got in store for us."

She considered what he had to say and she had to admit that he did have a valid point. Splitting the team didn't seem to be the wisest move but she was sure Garrus and her could handle Saren themselves without the need for the rest of the team. Besides Alenko and the others might be able to do more to help the civilians than they could by taking on Saren.

"We can handle it Garrus," she said reaching out and placing her hand on his before turning back to Alenko, "get to it Lieutenant," she ordered and the marine saluted before gathering his team and heading off.

Shepard watched them head off. Wrex grumbled about not getting to be there when they killed Saren but she promised him he get to at least see the recording. After they left Shepard and Garrus turned and quietly entered the glass like elevator and Garrus reached out and pressed the button on the control panel to take them to the Council Chambers.

Glancing up at her friend and lover she saw her reflection in his obsidian black visor, "This does seem like the best possible design," she said as she patted the side of her rifle reflexively while referring to what was all intents and purposes a tube with a steel frame and back.

Garrus head bobbed twice as he chuckled, but that chuckle and any sense of good cheer died as the lift cleared the metal ring that made up the Presidium and passed onto the skyscraper sized connector to the Citadel Tower which at the very top housed the Council Chambers. As it cleared the ring Shepard and Garrus had a clear view of the space heading down the "arms" of the Wards. It also gave both of them a view of the ferocious battle taking place in the space around the Citadel.

"Spirits," Garrus hissed at the sight while Shepard croaked, "My God!"

From their position in the lift car they could see massive explosions the signified dying and exploding ships and they could see the brief flashed of weapons fire. Shepard had never really scene a large scale naval battle play out because of her normal position on the ground. In an odd way it was quite beautiful the way the lights went off.

Suddenly Garrus's hand shot out and he called out, "Shepard look at that!"

She followed Garrus line of sight and nearly gasped at what she saw. The Reaper, Sovereign, was driving hard and directly towards the Citadel Tower with its 'tentacles' spread wide. It took Shepard a few seconds to realize what was going on; that the Reaper was going to latch on to the tower itself. Not only was the Reaper barreling down on the, but as she took a closer look she could see that the arms of the Wards were closing.

"This can't be good," she groaned and if to empathize her point the entire elevator shook and they were both thrown off their feet and slammed into the back wall. Scrambling to her feet in the now stopped elevator Shepard pressed the control panel with almost frantic movements, "Damn! The controls are frozen."

"What now Shepard," Garrus growled and he pushed his way past her and yanked off the control panel and went to work fiddling around with the circuits and wires.

As Garrus tried to override the lockout Shepard was focused on thinking up a way to get out of this situation… wait she thought as sudden realization came to her… get out was the key here. She glanced down at Garrus who was still working on the control panel.

"Do you still have a full air reserve," she questioned as she cracked open the chamber of her weapon and loaded a special breaching round into her weapon.

From his crouching position he glanced up at her and she saw herself reflected in his visor. He paused a second before answering, "Yeah it's full…why?"

Beneath her helmet she gave a small reflexive smile, "Make sure all your seals are good, 'cause' we're gonna take a walk outside."

Garrus quickly glanced at the window and then back at her, "I hate EVA," he ground out as he stood away from the glass front.

"I'm not a big fan either," she admitted and that was the absolute truth. She could do parachuting HALO and HAHO jumps, but EVA's and Relay travel always sent her stomach into little fits. Adjusting her rifle she pointed the barrel of the rifle at the glass wall and fired the breaching round.

The round shattered the bullet resistant, blowing it out into the vacuum of space with tremendous force. For a brief second there was a gall force wind equal to the greatest hurricane as the air inside the elevator rushed from the lift to try to accomplish the impossible task of equalizing the pressure between the vacuum of space and the compartment.

The first thing Shepard was aware of was just how loud her breathing sounded in the dead-silent vacuum. Every breath sounded like the beating of a thousand war-drums right next to her ears. Like she had been taught in training she took several slow deep breaths to get her heart rate under control

As normal voice communication was impossible the next thing Shepard dud was open up a two way comm channel with Garrus, "Let's get moving," she said wearily as she activated the magnetic plating of her boots make sure she didn't just float away.

She made her way to the edge of the lift and leaned forward to look 'outside' before leaping out of the car and onto the track that would take them to the Citadel Tower. Standing on a comparatively small platform in the vacuum of space while a massive naval battle raged around you and a gigantic genocidal ship was bearing down on her objective, put thinks a bit in perspective.

"We're fucked."

XXX

With a hiss of steam Alenko popped the heat sink of his weapon and slammed a fresh one into his weapon and charged the hammer of his weapon .With his M-8 Avenger now operational again he re-shouldered the weapon and sent a stream of super accelerated metal shards streaming to a geth trooper.

As the geth trooper fell another one stepped up to take its place with its pulse rifle firing superheated plasma pulses rapidly through the air causing the air it was flying through to sizzle as it did. Alenko ducked behind the burned out aircar her was using for cover, "I need some help," he shouted again flinching as rounds tore a few inched above his head.

Moments after his call a flurry of blue energy flew over his head and the next thing he knew the geth was lifted into the air and slammed down with enough force to completely shatter its synthetic body into half a dozen pieces. He glanced back and had expected to see Wrex roaring in victory but instead saw a blue corona fading around Liara.

Beneath his helmet Alenko smiled and gave Liara a mock salute. Readying his weapon he popped back up and sprayed rounds as several more geth appeared on the street. The marine pulled a frag grenade of his belt and tossed it down the street and after a single bounce it exploded scrapping the geth out in the open.

He waited for several seconds before and when the only thing he heard was silence he peeked around the side of the car and saw that there wasn't anything waiting to shoot at them he stood and yelled, clear!"

Slowly his team and they three straggling C-Sec officers that they had collected during the course of their firefight stood. Alenko gave the signal to move forward and slowly they did just that. They'd surprised the geth rearguard and managed to eliminate a portion of it. Hopefully it was enough to draw some pressure from the C-Sec units in block 39-21A.

"Captain Tarso," Alenko opened a come dedicated channel to the commander of a Citadel Special Response Unit that was holding out in a desperate battle against nearly overwhelming odds, "We've flat lined the rearguard and are approaching your position."

"Roger that Lieutenant Alenko," the turian C-Sec officer responded with a grateful tone in his voice, "thanks for the assist. Where the hell did all the geth come from we would have heard the boarding alarms."

"That's a long explanation Captain," Alenko chuckled, "I try to explain it when we link up."

XXX

Shepard advanced slowly through the lavishly decorated Council Chambers her head and gun on a swivel as she hunted for Saren. She spared a quick glance to her left to make sure Garrus was still on her left flank.

Silently they approached the stairs leading up to the top of the pedestal where Vigil had told them the Master Control Panel would be. Shepard rose up, her finger tightening on the trigger, as she expected to see Saren manipulating the controls. However that wasn't the case and she felt her stomach drop in trepidation and started to drop back wary of an ambush.

Suddenly from beyond the control panel there was a high pitched whining sound and Saren rose like a specter on a geth flying platform, "Garrus contact forward," she shouted leveling her rifle at the former Spectre. The sound of three cracks of thunder filled the air as Saren fired at them.

Shepard grunted in pain as the first shot connected with her left shoulder. The force of the shot knocked her off back down the pairs. She grit her teeth as every thump sent a join of red hot lightening through her shoulder and into her brain.

A burst of automatic weapons fire filled the air and was answered by several semi-auto shots. As the rounds rang out Shepard pulled herself behind a banister to act as her cover. Gingerly she brought a gloved hand up to the bullet wound and found her hand coming away sticky with her blood.

Seconds later Garrus landed on the deck beside her and scrambled for the other banister opposite her position, "Shepard you hit," he questioned grimly and even though she couldn't see his face she could tell he was concerned.

"Yeah," she said holding up her bloody right palm before dropping her hand to her side and drawing her pistol, "I'll be fine," she said after doing a quick check of her vitals through her suits system. The round fortunately hadn't hit anything in important; it was what they called a 'through and through.' Still the wound hurt like a son of a bitch and the suits automatic pain killer and regenerative supplements injectors wouldn't be very pleasant either.

"I was afraid you wouldn't make it in time," Saren's dark, metallic voice echoed throughout the Council Chambers, "after everything that's happened it'd be a shame if you weren't here to see the end of this match."

Shepard flinched as she felt the needles in her armor pierce her skin and the medication flow into her blood stream. Biting the inside of her cheek she said, "Sorry," she said sardonically as she flexed her wounded shoulder, "took me a little longer to get up here than I originally thought… must need more cardio in my workouts."

Saren chuckled darkly, "It doesn't matter in moments the Citadel's capacitors will be fully charged and I'll be able to activate it's Mass Relay and allow the Reapers to return."

Charging the slide on her pistol she readied herself for what was likely to be the final showdown, "So then all I need to do is kill you."

"You may have survived our encounter on Virmire," he snarled, "I've improved… I've changed," he continued spreading his arms and mandibles in a fierce growl, "Sovereign has upgraded me!"

The way he said that sent a shiver down Shepard's spine, "What do you mean … upgraded?"

The rouge Spectre began to pace, "I've learned there is a place for organics in the new galactic order and I am the first of a new creation," he intoned ominously, "a perfect blend of the synthetic and organic; a vision of the future that is to come."

"Then I'll check out here," Shepard said shifting into a crouched firing position, "Cover me," she shouted and moments later the sound of Garrus's rifle roaring filled the air.

Ignoring the protests from her shoulder she dashed up the stairs firing her pistol at Saren on his floating platform. Both her and Garrus's shots did no damage as Saren's platform was protected by a powerful kinetic barrier and the rounds just pinged off.

That didn't surprise Shepard that the platform had a shield. Most Alliance military vehicles processed kinetic barriers that carried out the same function as they did aboard ships, to deflect and or absorb enemy shots. What she hoped was that this operated just like the kinetic barriers on ships and armored fighting vehicles and allowed relatively slow moving objects to pass through unchallenged.

It was designed this way so that soldiers could enter and depart from fighting vehicles and starfighters and shuttles could do the same from their motherships without having to constantly raising and lowering the barriers.

As Shepard raced towards the top she was thankful that the shots from Garrus's rifle were causing the kinetic barriers to flare in a bright white light obstructed the ex-Spectre turned cyborg's vision. Reaching a distance of around two meters Shepard launched herself at the platform. As she hoped she passed through the kinetic barrier and slammed into Saren and they both went tumbling over the edge and fell with a thunderous crash through the skylight and down into the atrium.

Pushing herself up among the shards of glass and threw herself ontop of the rouge Spectre, drawing back and slamming her fist into the metal plates of his face. She pulled back again and threw her fist forward but Saren managed to get his own hand up to catch her fist in his palm and squeezed digging his talons into her fist. She screamed in pain as the talons dug into her gloves and in attempt to finish this she drew her k-bar from her legs sheath stabbed downward at his eye.

However Saren was quicker than her and before she could deliver the death blow Saren snapped out with his free hand and wrapped it around her wrist. Even with a superior position on the top and gravity to assist Saren was stronger than her and slowly pushed her back. With a gasp of pain Shepard dropped the knife and could swear she head the bones in her wrist breaking.

"Shepard," she heard a shout from above, "gimme a shot!"

Having an idea of what Garrus wanted she brought her head down slamming into his face. High-grade composite material met the natural metal-like plate of a turian's face. The force of the impact was enough to jar herself free and roll off him.

Seconds after rolling off Saren the familiar roar of an assault rifle filled the chamber for a full eight seconds. Lying on her stomach which her hands over her head a few meters away from the ex-Spectre she craned her neck and glance at him. The former spectre operative was lying still with dozens if not hundreds of holes riddled his body. Thick, dark, blue blood oozed from the holes and the turian was motionless.

Again she pushed herself off the ground and carefully moved towards the body. She knelt down next to him and gingerly reached out and found the spot on his next to where his plates met. She'd learned, quite incidentally, from her time with Garrus about where you could feel the pulse on a turian.

After several seconds she removed her head and took a long look up through the broken skylight where Garrus was standing, "Nice shot," she commented before turning back to the corpse and reaching back out to close the dead turians eyes. "try to figure out how to shut down the Relay."

Saren Arterius was dead.

Standing up she retrieved her k-bar and side-arm and replaced them on her person. Shepard took several moments to glance around looking for a way back up. After a few seconds she saw a later at the far end of the atrium and she then headed that way.

XXX

Garrus looked down into the atrium from his position up above Shepard and Saren's cooling corpse. He had turned Shepard's last command but he hesitated. Once she was several meters away Garrus raised his rifle and double tapped on the trigger. He watched with some satisfaction as Saren's head twitched as two rounds tore into the skull.

Slinging his rifle over his shoulder he made his way over to the control panel and carefully looked around. It seemed Saren had been in the process of trying to lock it down. He wasn't as tech savvy as Tali or even Liara but he could read a layout screen.

It seemed Saren had had three major programs running. The first and most obvious was charging the Citadel's Mass Relay to prepare to accept the massive influx of Reapers; however beneath that he did find a less prominent program that Saren had activated.

After a few seconds he discovered that the second program was a full-spectrum jamming of all transmissions leaving the system. The third was a lockout of the relays leading into the Citadel. With sudden realization he understood the purpose of the last two. They were in place to keep any kind of reinforcements from arriving to aid the Citadel Fleet.

"What have we got," he heard Shepard ask as she came up behind him.

Garrus stood to the side, "Take a look," he said stepping back to allow his mate at the Master Control Unit. He watched as Shepard's hands danced over the controls ad after a moment she echoed his concerns.

"Try to find a way to shut the jamming and the lockout down," she said with an understandable sense of urgency in her tone, "the Fifth Fleet has to be waiting at the Terra Nova Relay and the Citadel Fleet doesn't look like it can last much longer without help."

Garrus froze and glanced over at her. The thought about the Fifth Fleet hadn't occurred to him before. He quickly brought up the Citadel's sensor and confirmed that there were only a few Alliance IFFs which were nowhere near enough to make up an entire Alliance Fleet, but was enough to account for they few Alliance warships that were normally here in port.

Suddenly he caught glimpse of a blinking limp out of the corner of his eye. He focused in on the system and found that this was what they were looking for; the jamming controls for outgoing and incoming communications.

"Shepard," he called as he started to shut down the jamming system.

The moment he did he heard, "-of the Alliance Fifth Fleet, Citadel Control come in! This the SSV Orizaba holding position in the Terra Nova system. If anyone can hear me come in. This is Admiral Hackett of the Alliance Fifth Fleet, Citadel Control come in!"

Shepard settled in next to him and tapped a few buttons on the holographic interface and a comm channel opened, "Admiral Hackett this is Agent Shepard with Special Tactics and Recon we've managed to kill Saren and retake control of the Citadel's Master Control Unit."

"Good work Shepard," Hackett congratulated, "the entire Fifth Fleet is waiting at Terra Nova, but the Relay isn't working properly. Is there anything you can do about it Shepard?"

As Shepard and the Admiral had been talking Garrus had been studying the console and running through its commands looking for a way to shut down the lockout. With a triumphant grin he found what he was looking for and triggered the command that would unlock the Relay.

"Relay's unlocked Shepard," he said with a smile beneath his opaque black helmet, "tell Hackett the door's open."

Shepard turned to look at him and even though he couldn't see her whole face he could tell she was pleased. She turned back to the comm, "Admiral the gates opening and I'm forwarding you the tactical information from the Citadel's sensors."

There was a pause on the end of the line before the Admiral answered, "That's affirmative Shepard we're receiving the package now… the cavalry's on the way."

XXX

Lieutenant Commander Adam Lee sat in his Raptor interceptor rapping on the instrument panel in frustration. His squadron and most of the wing had been sitting in their fighters for over an hour after they had been called up to alert status. So far all control a deigned to tell him was that they were having trouble with the Relay… whatever that meant.

As far as Lee was concerned the Relays had been around forever and he'd never heard of them suffering any kind of 'problems' before. That made him more concerned that he would care to admit. Rumors had started to circulate through the fleet that something evil was out there and acting through the geth and Saren. While the veteran naval aviator wasn't one to give into shipboard scuttlebutt he did admit this had him nervous.

He was about to call control again and ask what the hell was going on when a stern and immediately familiar voice came over the comm, "Attention sailors and marines of the Fifth Fleet I apologize for the delay, but a terrible event as occurred. The Citadel has fallen under attack from a massive geth fleet and situation is dire. Gentlemen today we get to be the shining white knight riding in to save the day. Today we get to show the galaxy what humanity is truly capable of. You are the best of the best and today you get to prove it. Good luck to us all… Hackett out."

Lee swallowed hard as the orders came down and did one last check of his systems and called for a roll call of his unit… the twenty-fourth fighter squadron. Once all of the men and women under his command checked in he relayed their status to control.

A few frantic minutes later the cold metallic female voice of the ship's VI echoed across the ship and the fleet telling them to prepare for relay travel. There was a wait and then the ship shuttered in a telltale of relay travel. Seconds later the shuttering stopped and the Control Officer barked "Launch!"

The Lt. Commander shook like a leaf in his seat as the magnetic sled on his launch tube hurled his fighter through the tube and into the void of space. Manipulating the controls of his fighter he brought his fighter into a holding pattern as the rest of his squadron was ejected into space.

"Lord in Heaven," he whispered as he saw the carnage of the battlefield. The numbers of ships, the scale of the fight and the shear amount of death far outweighed any other engagement he'd taken part in; in fact this was easily the largest naval engagement since humanity discovered the Mass Relays. With a shake of his head he brought himself back to his senses, "Knights," he called out the designation for the Twenty-Fourth Interceptor Squadron, "form up on vector two-oh-by-three-eight."

There was a collection of 'yes sirs,' 'roger that's,' and 'aye commanders' from the members of his squadron as they responded to his orders. The Twenty-Fourth and the other interceptor squadrons from the Enterprise and the other carriers formed a fighter screen in front of the fleet and accelerated towards the swarms the flying wing shaped geth fighters which were just beginning to react to the unexpected Alliance presence.

"Alright boys and girls," Lee called out into his comm while checking his LADAR screen, "here come the toasters. Break by pairs and stick with your wing mates."

The smooth, streamlined Alliance interceptors rapidly closed the distance with the geth and when the alarm klaxon sounded signaling he was in range of the geth Lee disengaged the safeties on the six space-to-space missiles and when the signal lock chime sounded he thumbed the launch button on the side of his joystick six times in rapid succession.

His missiles and the missiles fired from the rest of the interceptors streamed through space and detonated in an incredible burst of light. Pushing his throttle all the way open he flew through the debris keeping his eyes open for more fighters. When his LADAR warbled a warning he threw his fighter into a series of evasive maneuvers as he slipped behind a geth fighter and blew them away.

Lee was in the middle of tracking another target when a shaky and static field voice butted into the comms, "This… Matriarch… commanding the Destiny Ascension… barriers… failing. The Council… onboard… request assistance… repeat…"

"Command you getting this," Lee barked over his comm as he juked his fighter and pulled a Crazy Ivan and blew away two fighters that had tried to sneak up on his tail.

"Roger that Ares," Commander Grace the Fleet's CAG responded a moment later, "await further instructions."

The Lt. Commander bit out a curse at the CAG's answer and as one of the Alliance interceptors exploded under fire from the geth. He threw his fighter into another series of pitches, yaws and rolls to avoid the deadly rounds that buzzed by his cockpit.

"Alright Ares new orders," the CAG's voice came back about thirty seconds later, "Hackett's ordered that the Destiny Ascension to be secured at all cost Commander. You'll lead the charge and the rest of the fleet will follow you."

"Roger that," Lee confirmed the order. He paused before he asked, "what about that geth dreadnaught the intel warned about." That massive geth dreadnaught that had had the fleet pissing itself was nowhere to be seen. In a lot of ways that worried him more than if it was out in the open blowing the fleet away.

"It's inside the Citadel," the CAG responded to his confusion, "We've got an operative on the inside who'll open the arms once we've dealt with the rest of the geth."

He was surprised that he had gotten as much information as he had but that left a lot more questions than it answered. However he was lucky that he got that much out of command. Opening his squadron wide comm system, "Knights form up on me we need to secure the space around the Ascension."

The Alliance interceptors finished off the rest of the geth which had engaged the fighter screen three squadrons worth of Raptors disengaged and headed off towards the beleaguered Citadel Flagship at their maximum speed.

The closer his interceptor drew towards the massive Asari dreadnaught the more worried he became. The once purple plated skin of the mighty ship was now blackened and in certain sections the superstructure was exposed to the ravages of the vacuum. Around the damaged ship a handful of teardrop shaped asari starfighters, avian shaped turian starfighters and dagger shaped salarian starfighters fluttered in a desperate struggle for life.

Lee, however, was more concerned about the two geth cruisers and a couple of frigates bearing down on the beleaguered flagship. While single man craft, interceptors especially, lacked the firepower to punch through the kinetic barriers of capital ships or even penetrate most ship plating they had the ability to knock out weapons blisters and kinetic barrier generators to soften them up for their own ships.

So that's exactly what Lee and about half the squadron did while the other half went after the geth fighters harassing the Destiny Ascension. With great skill and more than a little luck Lee flew his raptor through the point-defense fire of the geth and began strafing the unprotected weapon blisters of the geth warships.

The weapons blisters and shield generators withered as his high explosive armor piercing shells tore into them and detonated blowing apart the offensive and defensives capabilities. As detonations rocked the small frigate he barked out a warning to the other interceptors and they pulled out before a round from the Orizaba gutted the geth ship.

Flipping his fighter over he glanced out and the vanguard of the Alliance Fifth Fleet tearing a bloody swath of destruction through the rear of the geth Fleet.

XXX

"Shepard the Destiny Ascension has been secured," Hackett barked over the comm unit, "open the Citadel and give us a shot at Sovereign."

"Roger that Admiral," Shepard responded as she guided her hands over the control panel and started the sequence that would open up the Citadel's 'arms' and expose Sovereign to the full might of the Fifth Fleet.

As Shepard hit the key that would begin the process of opening the Citadel's 'arms' she heard a horrible sounding cry from down in the atrium from where they had left Saren's cooling corpse. In a swift, smooth movement Shepard pulled her side-arm from its holster as she glanced over at Garrus who shouldered his rifle and gave her the same confused glance she was sure she was giving him.

"He's dead right," Garrus questioned with a confused glance as they both started inching their way towards the edge of the atrium.

As they reached within a meter of the edge a blur of grey smashed up through the atrium glass and with an arching backflip and landed in a three-point crouch on the other side of the atrium on the opposite of them. Shepard nearly felt her jaw drop as the grisly turian stood.

The former Spectre looked like the walking dead and as crazy as it sounded Shepard found herself believing that he might just be that. Saren's chest was a bloody blue mess that oozed from dozens of bullet holes; his right side mandible was torn and hanging limply by a tendon and blood spurted from his mouth with every breath. Worst of all were the turian's eyes. The silver orbs now glowed a sickly red reminding Shepard of the color of human blood.

She spared a quick glance at Garrus who locked just as shocked at the sight of the dead ex-Spectre's appearance. Training her pistol she asked, "Saren… what the…?"

"Saren is gone," a deep voice deeper than even Saren's normal tone echoed throughout the Council Chambers. The 'thing' raised both hands and from the cracks in his flesh the same sickly red glow that came from his eyes was emitted from his insides. Suddenly the flesh around the lights burst in a flame that engulfed his body.

"By the Spirits," Shepard heard Garrus whisper as they both watched the grotesque sight before them as Saren's flesh quite literally melted away from the rest of his body pooling at his feet. What was left was a horrible fusion of metal and bone held together in a form that mocked turian anatomy.

When the last piece of meat fell from his corpse the glowing red eyes focused on her, "Saren is gone," it repeated, "I… I am Sovereign."

What Saren had said about receiving upgrades flashed through her thoughts. The Reaper must have used them as a failsafe so even if Saren died the mission could still be accomplished. She bit down the bile that was threatening to rise in the back of her throat at the thought of what Sovereign must have done to Saren for this to happen.

As quick as she could pull the trigger she pulled it sending a torrent of fire streaming toward the abomination and Garrus did the same. Their rounds pinged harmlessly off the abomination's shell and in response it let out a horrible laugh as it launched at her with its razor sharp talons extended intent on gutting her right there.

Shepard threw herself to her left just in time to avoid the deadly claws of the monstrosity and in a smooth motion fired her side-arm again and again the shots pinged off. Hitting the ground with a thump she fired again with the same result.

What once was Saren turned menacingly to face and began to advance menacingly clenching and unclenching his claws as he did. Her mind raced as she attempted to figure out what to do next to stop the thing that was about to kill her.

Suddenly there was a roar from her right and she turned to see Garrus charging at Sovereign with the butt of his rifle raised. He brought the butt of his weapon down slamming into the side of its head with enough force that would have snapped a normal turian's neck. With this thing all it did was make it angry and its hand snapped out and dug its talons into Garrus's helmet.

It held him there for ten full seconds as Garrus uselessly failed in an attempt to break his hold. That said Garrus couldn't and Sovereign lashed out with one of his legs and slammed it into Garrus's right leg with tremendous force. The bone snapped like a dry twig. Garrus's shouts of pain filled the air from his leg but Sovereign was far from finished with him and with a mighty heave hurled her mate through the air.

Reaching into one of her vest pouches Shepard retrieved a small block of high explosives and plugged a detonator into it before palming the plastic. It was a gamble and she knew it but this was the only thing she could think of at the moment. With all the strength she could muster she charged at Sovereign, but the machine merely side-stepped and like a flash of lighting lashed out and arrested her by the neck.

Shepard felt a ragged cough burst from her throat as the vise like grip tightened around her neck. With her right hand she unsheathed her he k-bar and brought it down on as hard as she could on Sovereign's head, but as she expected the knife deflected off the impenetrable alloy. Shepard didn't let that deter her as that had been a part of her hastily thought out plan. It had been in fact just a cover for her to plant the plastic explosive inside his ribs.

If had been quite a gamble on her part. She had been betting on the fact that with all the organic components gone the metal skeleton would lack any tactile sensation. As she had hoped the cyborg didn't immediately tear off the explosive or snap her neck.

"I'm disappointed Shepard," Sovereign rumbled in its arrogant, prideful and superior tone, "after everything I would have thought you'd put a better fight than this."

"You'd be surprised," she managed with the barest traces of a smile touching her lips. The machine's head titled in confusion and when Shepard activated the detonator on her omi-tool she would have sworn that the emotionless face plate showed fear.

XXX

"Dammit," Hackett cursed as the Orizaba was rocked from an explosion caused by another ship being bisected by Sovereign's tentacle cannon. He spared a look at the tactical display and noted that the destroyed ship was the cruiser Cairo.

So far the Reaper had put more of a fight than Hackett would have given it credit for. That single monstrosity was fighting the entire Fifth Fleet to a standstill. Nothing they did seemed to be able to scratch it. The reverse was not true every time that thing fired its primary weapon another Alliance or Citadel ship was destroyed in an instant.

"Admiral we need to fall back and regroup," the Orizaba's captain, Strasbourg, shouted from the duty station of the tactical officer who had been wounded when the ship took a hit in the opening engagement with the Reaper.

"Negative," the Admiral responded squaring his shoulders, "If we retreat now we'll never get another shot at this. Comm order the Fleet to press the attack at all cost," he paused then looked over at the captain, "Tactical, ready all remaining ship-to-ship missiles and arm the nukes."

The buzz of activity on the bridge fell silent as the crew understood what the order meant. At this range, which was the equivalent of knife-fighting distance, the nukes would likely destroy them as well as their enemy… which of course assumed their enemy would in fact be destroyed.

"Aye Admiral reading all remaining ship-to-ship missiles and arming nuclear ordinance," the captain repeated his voice tense. There was a brief wait as the orders were carried out but less then fifteen seconds later, "We're ready Admiral."

Admiral Steven Hackett the commander of the Alliance Fifth Fleet took a breath to give what was likely to be his last order when the sensor officer shouted, "Admiral massive energy disturbance coming from the geth dreadnaught!"

"Onscreen," he barked turning to the monitors. He frowned at the image of the massive squid like ship as what looked like red lightning bolts danced around it. Then the ship's 'tentacles' which for the most part had been wrapped around the Citadel tower began to unwrap and the Reaper began to fall away, "Sensors," he called, "What's happening to it!"

"I don't know Admiral but from what I'm reading its kinetic barriers are down and I'm detecting diminishing power emissions from its Element Zero Core," the officer said with confusion clear in his tone.

Hackett didn't know if the Reaper had achieved its goals, was playing with them or had a heart attack. All he did know was that for the first time in this fight the Reaper was vulnerable, "Belay nuclear attack order, but fire every bit of conventional ordinance we have left!"

The order was relayed and moments later the massive main cannon of the Orizaba fired while at the same time twenty-six "broadsword" ship-to-ship missiles launched from their tubes and ignited their rocket engines.

The main cannon round impacted the Reaper mid-section and tore an enormous hole right through the ancient warship causing it to spasm like a fish that had been hit with spear gun. Moments after the cannon round impacted the missiles delivered the follow through punch; slamming into the Reaper and detonated covering the ship in a massive fireball.

Hackett and the rest of the bridge crew watched with rapt attention as the fireball began to fade and when it did a massive cheer rang out across the bridge as the Reaper ship began to break apart.

XXX

Spirits don't take her from me, Garrus thought as he slowly drug himself over to the position where Shepard had landed. Even though the pain in his leg was excruciating he forced himself to go on. He watched as she executed her near suicidal plane to kill Saren… Sovereign… whatever the hell that was, while he was unable to help.

He watched as the thing exploded and the force of it threw her halfway across the room. He closed to within arms distance of her still figure and nearly cried in relief when he saw the gentle rise and fall of her chest. He bit back an angry curse wishing that his helmet was still intact so he could check her injuries.

Even without the systems in his helmet he could tell she was in bad shape. Her helmet was cracked staring at the top of the skull and heading down into the rebreather section; the whole front of her armor was black and burned and in some places he could see the under suit she wore beneath her armor.

"Shepard," he called out and when she didn't respond he called out a little louder ,but still got nothing… she was out cold.

Garrus was torn on what to do. Logically he knew she might have some sort of back, neck and/or a head injury, he'd be surprised if she didn't, and that moving her could cause more damage, but every instinct he had told them that leaving her out her especially with a ruptured suit and him with a busted helmet was a monumentally bad idea.

Without warning the space outside the enormous windows of the Council Chamber's lit up like a sun going nova. Garrus wasn't exactly sure what exactly caused it. He hoped it was the Alliance blowing up the Reaper, but he couldn't be sure. Nonetheless that explosion made up his mind for him.

Mindful of his leg he wrapped his right arm around her and began the slow arduous task of dragging both of them across the floor of the Citadel Chambers. His goal was one of the top level conference rooms off to the side of the main chamber. These rooms would be perfect for what he wanted. Like most rooms on a space station they could be individually sealed again vacuum but what made these special was they had their their own life support systems. With the elevator down this was the best chance they had.

With a gargantuan effort he pulled them both into one of the rooms and sealed the door behind them. Carefully he laid her up against the wall at the far back of the room with a solid steel table between them and the door. After making her as comfortable as he possibly could under the circumstances he propped himself up against the wall and, gritting his teeth, set his leg.

With tears streaming down his face as his leg screamed in pain and would until the pain meds started to kick in. As he sat there he continually found himself glancing down at Shepard… his Shepard… his Kara… his mate to make sure her chest still rose and fell.

Slowly and carefully he scooted himself right next to her and gently lifted her head to remove her battered and useless helmet. When that was complete he carefully laid her head down on his lap and grimaced at what he saw. The whole left side of her face was covered in what would definitely become a bruise and a small trickle of blood leaked from her mouth and nose.

Reaching out he gently traced the contours of her face with the first talon of his right hand. Even bruised and bloodied as she was he still found her beautiful. Without warning the sound of breaking glass, rending metal and the rush of air invaded the room even through the airtight door as he could only assume something had smashed open the Council Chambers to space.

"Ugggh," the pain hissed escaped from Shepard's lips, "what happened?"

"You tried to blow yourself up," Garrus cracked feeling an unbridled sense of joy in hearing her voice again.

He watched as she rolled her eyes and smiled slightly, "Yeah remind me never to do that again."

She quickly glance around and again Garrus felt a sense of joy mingled with relief as he saw that at least she didn't seem to have any neck damaged.

"We're in one of the conference rooms," he explained sensing what her next question was going to be, "3-B if it helps at all."

"Sovereign," she questioned, "I planted the charge inside him."

"Itty bitty pieces," he responded harshly glad that the monster was finally dead.

"And the battle?"

That gave him pause. After opening the Citadel's 'arms' and 'Saren's' resurrection they lost connection with Admiral Hackett and Garrus hadn't even thought of patching the Citadel comm line into their own after the fight was over. He took a deep breathe to give himself an extra moment and looked back down at her. Shepard's face was calm but he could he the worry in her eyes.

"I don't know," he finally admitted and despite his efforts his own voice sounded strained even to his own ears.

He saw her try to shift to get up, but when a pained look crossed her face he gently pushed her back down. It was her turn to take a deep breath after which she said, "And with my armor toast and you're helmet nowhere in sight neither of us have comms."

He blinked… and then swore angrily at the realization that she was absolutely right, "I didn't even think about that Kara."

"So," she drew that single word out, "I guess we wait."

"I guess so," he grumbled still upset with himself about the comm situation.

"Can you move everything," he ventured again worried for her health.

Slowlt she shook her head, "I can't move my legs," she whispered and Garrus could detect a note of fright in her tone. That alone scared him more than he would have thought. Kara had always

Silence filled the room as they both sat their motionless, or rather he sat while Shepard laid on the floor with her head on his lap. Absentmindedly he ran his talons through her hair while he whispered soothing things to her.

"I like June," she said interrupting him.

Startled he looked down at her until he remembered that June was what humans called one of the summer months. Even remembering that he was still a little confused by the apparently random statement, "Pardon," he questioned while tilting his head in a very avian manner.

"Were being married… mated," she hitched her eyebrow and clarified, "I'd like to do the ceremony in June if it's possible."

He smiled. His asking Shepard to be his mate seemed like ages ago, but now it seemed like the most important and pressing thing in the word to him, "There's going to be a lot to decide on," he said, "but I'm sure we can do it in June if you like."

Despite everything was or for all he knew was going on right now Garrus was at peace. As long as Kara was with him nothing else mattered.