Alarms sounded throughout the Citadel. People were running, screaming, panicking as their minds buzzed with terror. The attacks outside the walls of the wards boomed with thunderous applause. Ships were torn asunder, shattered by the superior fire power of invading geth. The flag ship was massive and so unlike the other ships, reminding Captain Anderson of a squid. It must be the ship Shepard spoke of, the Reaper ship; Sovereign. It sent a chill through him.

The Alliance needed everyone to fight off the overwhelming forces. They gave him a ship. The Denmark. A frigate like the Normandy, but it was not as advanced. It would have to do. Behind him people were falling, screaming with a renewed horror. He glanced over his shoulder as he ran toward the elevators for C-Sec and the ship dock. What he saw shook the steel resolve he thought to be cemented in him. Geth had managed to infiltrate the Citadel. His step quickened. He could see the Denmark, waiting to disembark and engage in the battle tearing the station and it's defenses to pieces. Seconds latter it left without him only to explode as an enemy missile hit home with lethal accuracy. The thin line of his lips hardened, his face set in a scowl of determination. Altering his plans, Anderson pushed hard to reach the armory. He would make a stand on the station itself.

Geth fired a shot over his head. Geth were synthetic. They did not miss, but he didn't have time to see why the geth had missed it's mark. The wards were in flames, strange spikes with people impaled on them like some sort of ancient terror tactic to demoralize and intimidate. One of the victims moved! He was still alive! But there was no time to get him down. More lives were at steak that might die if he spent even a second on something other than the primary goal.

Hidden in the shadows, Anderson watched helplessly as more people were impaled and transformed into the husks from Shepard's reports. He was massively out gunned, even with the arsenal he had loaded himself up with. He was but one man. Packing enough guns fro a small infiltration team was not going cut it. The stench of the burning trees on the Presidium stung his nostrils, yet he breathed deep the smoke that filtered through the air, panting for breath. He was feeling his age. It had been years since he was running around with guns on the field of battle. That was the area of young people, like Shepard. He wondered where she was, if she was dead on the alien world called Ilos.

In his peripheral vision he caught movement near the mass relay sculpture. He turned his gaze and his gun in that direction to see that it was the monument that was moving. It wasn't art, it was a mini relay! A bright glowing light formed in the center of the spinning rings.

"So that's how Saren is transporting the geth inside." Anderson thought.

He was alone at ground zero. It wasn't how he'd planned on going out, but he had to do something! He closed his eyes for a moment with his back firmly pressed up against the false security of the fallen planter he hid behind. He prepared himself for the army he expected to pour out of the relay onto the Presidium. He prepared to die. His thoughts focused on Sonya, wherever she was.

"Sonya... forgive me."

He opened his eyes in time to see a mako launch itself like a rock from a sling shot from the relay. It tumbled through the air at bullet speed, taking out two geth before it crashed into the wall near the tower. The remaining geth approached with caution. Anderson looked on with narrowed eyes. The relay shut down. Surely Saren was not sending a single mako through. How many geth did he have packed in there? Unless he, himself had come in the tank. Anderson readied the sniper rifle. If Saren was in the tank, he would take him out with a single shot and end this. What he did see emerge from the toppled rover was not the tall, fringed turian head of Saren Arterius. He looked on in disbelief as Spectre Sonya Shepard appeared out of the belly of the beast, followed by Garrus Vakarian and the scared mercenary Krogan; Wrex. She was alive! She moved quickly and gracefully with deadly precision, taking down the geth and the husks that ran at her and her team. Anderson added his own fire power to her efforts. Her attention snapped in his direction when the last of her enemies fell. He left his cover and ran across the distance between them, meeting her half way as she ran to greet him. She knocked him to the ground when she hit him full force in her armor, her arms wrapped around him as if she would never let go.

"You're okay! Oh, thank god, you're okay." Shepard exclaimed on impact.

"Yes!" Anderson gasped.

She'd nearly knocked the wind out of him. She was a bit more to handle in her armor. He eased her into a sitting position so he could catch his breath. He sat up to face her. It was clear that she'd already seen battle.

"Did you succeed on Ilos? It that the conduit?" He asked pointing to the mini relay.

"Yes." She replied, standing.

He stood to join her.

"But Saren can still gain control of the Citadel through the Citadel Control Console in the tower. We have to stop him!"

"Yes, you do. You and your team. I'm not as young as I once was." He said, answering the question on her face. "I'll stay here and cover your back."

"But..."

"No arguing, Commander. Go!" He ordered.

Her eyes were hurt, but she understood she had to be a soldier first. Her team followed her to the elevator. Their eyes met one last time through the glass. The look in her eyes seemed to offer assurance that she would come back to him. That she would keep her promise. Only moments after she'd left he heard gun fire the the boom of a biotic attack. He was doing no good here, and he would not stand around while others were fighting and dieing all around him. Not while she forged on to stop an enemy that the Council had refused to believe was real. He wondered what they thought of her 'delusions' now that they were attacking the Citadel. Running across the remaining bridge over the lake, Anderson began searching for survivors, organic and inorganic. Any living being he found he did his best to make comfortable and stable. Any geth met an end with fire from his guns. He was alone, but he was a soldier. An N7 elite, and would be Spectre. He could fire any weapon and hit his target or twist a knife in the vital places of his enemy. Experience only strengthened his skills and he employed them generously as he vanquished the geth from the pillar of modern civilization.