A/N: Well it definitely took some time but here is the next chapter. By the way just for the beginning I'd suggest you listen to "Insertion" from the Crysis 2 soundtrack, it kinda fit in pretty well with how this ended up getting written.

Last time the team fought their way through Saren's labs and had a confrontation with Sovereign. Their conversation was cut short by an explosion that sent the team to the ground.

CryNet Phantom Operative designation Wraith

Current assignment: SSV Normandy SR1. Aide to Lt. Com Shepard, Spectre

Current Location: Virmire, Saren's Laboratory

Current Time: February 26th, 20:21

I shook my head to clear it as I looked around me. The glass of the window had been shattered and now glass was lying everywhere and I stood up and looking outside saw a squad of geth standing outside, one of them was just in the middle of reloading a rocket launcher. A flicker of motion drew my eye to the last remnants of another couple geth vanishing from sight below me, no doubt on their way to storm the building. Ducking down I knelt next to Vanyali who was shaking off the effects of the explosion. "Vanyali you need to go. Now. We have geth storming the building and you need to get to that AA tower ASAP."

She nodded "Right, Garrus, Wrex you good?"

"It will take more than a little explosion to bring me down Shepard." The krogan grunted.

"Yeah, I'm good as well Commander."

"How bout you Liara and you Tali?"

Liara touched a cut on her head "I don't think I'm badly hurt. Just a small cut."

Tali closed her omni-tool. "I have a small suit puncture, I've already given myself antibiotics but I should be good until we get out of here."

"Alright if you start feeling worse let me know immediately."

"I understand."

Vanyali nodded. "Good. Alright well then Wraith, Wrex, go ahead and take point, we'll follow up."

I shook my head "No. These geth need to be dealt with or they will hit us from behind later. You go on, I'll take these out and meet up with you later."

"You sure? You'll be going up against quite a few geth with no backup."

I smiled underneath my mask grabbing a grenade and spreading my arms "Please Shepard, I work best without backup. Now go!"

"Right don't get yourself hurt. Lets go Sable!" Shepard ordered as I turned around, primed the grenade and tossed it out of the window. I waited two seconds and on the third I stood up and opened fire on the geth with my SCAR. My first burst caught the geth rocket trooper bringing down his shields as my grenade detonated in the midst of the geth. The shrapnel tore its way through the shields of all the geth and brought two of them down with electronic screeches. The rocket trooper I was engaging lost its leg in the blast and I finished it off with a double tap to the head. Adjusting my aim I opened fire on another few geth sending an additional three two join their fellows on the scrap heap. By now the remaining geth had reacted to my appearance and opened fire on me. Spinning to the side I ducked behind the wall cloaking as I did so.

The geth continued firing at the window that I had been shooting at them from, preventing me from returning fire. I however crawled underneath the window and with help from SECOND I aimed a grenade directly at where the geth had previously been while I continued on my way to the door. Pulling out a explosive charge I set it to one side of the entrance that the geth that were making their way up to me would enter through. As I placed the charge down I heard the detonation of my grenade and the suppressive fire on the window was reduced drastically. It appeared that the geth had not moved from where I saw them last.

As it was I remained cloaked and moved towards the entrance that Shepard and the rest of the squad had taken. There I waited remaining pressed up against the wall, hands tightly gripping my SCAR which I quickly swapped out for its carbine variant. I didn't have to wait long before the fire on the window stopped entirely and the door on the other side of the room blew inward. Staying cloaked I watched as a stream of geth flooded inward, clearing out the room. However once the sixth geth walked through the door I triggered the charge.

It exploded violently blasting a hole through the outer walls and completely disintegrating the geth that was unfortunate enough to have been standing right next to the charge when it went off. The other geth were all blasted apart, sending bits of shrapnel flying all over the room destroying the computers hologram projectors as they went. I jerked to the side as a geth hand embedded itself through the wall that I was hiding behind a handsbreadth away from my left arm. Stepping out I saw that the entire group of geth had been completely destroyed and that the wall now had a ragged volus sized hole in it while the stairway was completely destroyed.

Smirking at the destruction I turned and walked down the stairs, SCARAB held loosely in my right hand. "Wraith, its Basilisk."

"Go ahead Basilisk."

"We just retrieved a bunch of data from the labs servers, found one thing in particular that you should have a look at. Ceph research and artifacts brought here from Noveria."

"So we were right. They did manage to get some ceph tech off of Noveria."

"Yeah but get this, the artifacts are currently being held in the research labs not far from your location. Apparently they've been working on all kinds of equipment, including that cloaking that we saw the geth use. They mention that they are close to getting a breakthrough on the ceph energy sphere. They're trying to weaponize that."

"Interesting, make sure to send what data they have up to R&D."

"Can't. They keep all that data on a separate network. I can't access it from here."

"Damn. I'll swing by there and try and grab as much as I can before the nuke goes off."

"Understood. Good hunting."

Reaching the bottom of the stairs I exited the building and glanced off toward the AA tower that Shepard was currently clearing out. The muted sound of gunfire echoed out of it as I turned to jog toward the ceph research wing. "Shepard, it's Wraith. Geth reinforcements dealt with and that route of reinforcement has been cut off."

"Copy that. We're currently clearing out the tower. Regroup with us there."

"Negative. Just got some intel that I need to follow up on. Quick snatch and grab from the labs. Should be useful. I'll meet you at the bomb site."

"Understood. I'll see you there. Shepard out."

"Maximum Power"

My jog broke into a run as my suit started augmenting my speed and soon I was blitzing my way through the facility, leaping over railings and through windows as I sped towards the research wing. It didn't take me long running at my full speed to reach the ceph research wing. Slowing to a halt outside the entrance to the labs I let SECOND hack its way through the door lock and after a surprisingly long minute the door clicked and hissed open. I stepped into an Airlock of some kind. Glancing around I saw that the walls and doors were reinforced and there were some extremely advanced atmospheric filters built into it. It seemed that while Saren was comfortable in toying with fire, he made sure that the fire he was toying with wouldn't get out of his containment.

I however knew that if he had brought live ceph to virmire then this would not hold them for long. I held my SCAR tightly waiting for the doors to slide open and reveal what was inside. When the airlock had finally run its lengthy decontamination cycle the doors hissed open to reveal a single huge rectangular room. It appeared that the entire building was one large room which was dimly lit by lights along the ceiling and had multiple smaller domes which appeared to be containment units all along the structure. I slowly walked around the various domes peering inside and looking inside each dome and at the monitoring stations around them.

It seemed that there were no live ceph in the facility, however there was a large amount of various technology and samples taken from Noveria. I even found the corpses of a few of the Binary helix workers who had been killed by the spore. It seemed that they had been working on a way of weaponizing the spore itself, however that particular research had proven to be fruitless for which I was thankful. The one research that had made any headway at all was infact like what Basilisk had stated, their work on the ceph energy absorption. They had managed to extract a few of the energy manipulators from the ceph weapons and ceph exoskeletons and created a prototype of their own which was housed in a containment dome at the far end of the structure. As I picked my way towards that containment dome I noticed that the samples started turning more and more into prototype technology, until finally each dome that I passed held some sort of geth/ceph technology.

I made sure to download all the data off of the servers so that CryNet would be able to dig into it and hopefully replicate some of the tech found here. One thing however did cause him to make a slight detour. Overriding the security on one of the domes I stepped inside to see two pedestals. The first had what was obviously a heat sink of some kind. It was made of a dark blue metal and had light blue lines running lengthwise across it. The one thing that really set it apart from standard heat sinks was the fact that the vents on the side were too small to properly vent heat, and the fact that it had what appeared to be an electricity port.

My scans of the heat sink told me that it was ceph technology repurposed to place within a weapon. It used the ceph energy capturing technology to drain the heat from a rifle and route that power back into the weapon or into whatever else was connected to it. Theoretically it would allow one to fire for as long as the ammo block remained. With a satisfied smile I grabbed it and with deft movements opened up my SCAR and pulled out my old one which I placed in one of my chest pouches. Grasping the prototype I inserted it into my rifle and slapped the port closed.

That done I moved on to the other pedestal which had a heat sink of a different kind. This one seemed to be designed with quick insertion and removal in addition to using the same energy capture technology to function like a battery that was recharged by the thermal energy from firing a rifle. Going over the labs data on the matter it appeared that the geth used easily removable and insertable heat sinks to quickly change out heat sinks mid fight in order to avoid the lengthy cooling periods that most modern rifles were prone too. It seemed that this would allow for much powerful weaponry and shorter periods between bursts of fire, instead of waiting on the weapon to vent one could just pop in a new thermal clip.

I chuckled to myself, shaking my head. 2183 and it looked like the reloading might once more become a thing. However if the data that I was seeing was true it would be for the best. Grabbing and pocketing the thermal clip I turned and exited the containment unit and continued walking toward the dome with the energy sphere prototype. Along the way I encountered so many promising prototypes that I wished we didn't have to destroy the facility. It was nice that I at least had all the data on how to create said prototypes so it wouldn't be a complete loss.

Finally reaching my goal I once again hacked my way through the containment units security doors and entered the dome. Inside I found the prototype device. It was secured within a large crate about one meter long and another meter wide and high. It would be slightly awkward to carry around but well worth it. With a slight heave I wrapped my arms around it and lifted it. My suit flared red as I engaged power mode to pick it up. It was rather heavy and I would probably be rather vulnerable while moving. As such I opened up a communications channel.

"This is Wraith. Gonna need some assistance here. Got some tech that I want to extract. I'm gonna need someone covering me while I move."

Prophet was the first to answer "Understood. We'll divert to your location now. ETA Five mikes."

"Serpent is closer we'll be there shortly. ETA Two mikes."

"Understood. I'm on my way out."

Spectre Lieutenant Commander Vanyali Shepard.

Current assignment: SSV Normandy SR1. Find and bring rogue Spectre Saren to justice

Current Location: Virmire, Saren's Main base of Operation.

Current Time: February 26th, 20:58

Shepard was worried. When Sable had reached the bomb site they had found it clear of Saren's forces and with the last of the AA Towers taken care of the Normandy was currently enroute with Kaidan to deliver the bomb. The salarians were converging on their LZ in preparation for the evacuation and the two phantom teams reported that they were currently escorting Wraith back with some sort of captured technology. She scowled, hoping that whatever it was he had found was worth pulling both of the phantom teams away from their previous assigned locations, as their absence had left a considerable hole in their defenses.

She pulled herself from her thoughts as she heard the whine of the Normandy's engines as the frigate slowly appeared over the rooftops, the cargo bay door lowered. She stepped to the side of the courtyard, joining Tali who stood her eyes glued to the Normandy as it lowered down to the ground. Shepard gave the quarian a light tap on the shoulder "Make sure you're keeping an eye on our surroundings."

"Oh yes- I'm sorry. I didn't-"

Shepard rose a hand to interrupt Tali's flustered apologies. "You don't need to apologise. I understand, It's my job after all to make sure that you make it through all this in once piece. Just remember to keep an eye on your surroundings at all times."

Tali nodded confidently "I will."

"Thats my girl. You've already made great strides, keep it up and you'll be just as good as me some day." Giving Tali a hearty clap on the shoulder, Shepard shouldered her rifle and strode over to the Normandy, which had just landed.

"Alright Kaidan, boring part is done. Now you get to do the fun part of arming a goddamn nuke."

"I feel like you have some issues if you think this is the fun part Shepard." Kaiden retorted.

Shepard let out a loud laugh "I'm not gonna argue with you on that Lieutenant. Joker, Package has been delivered, you're clear for takeoff." She said, once Kaiden had cleared the ship.

"Copy that." Shepard walked over to where Wrex was calmly keeping an eye out to the north, wind and dust swirling up around him as the Normandy took off.

"Shepard."

"Wrex. How're you doing?"

"Why hasn't Saren sent any geth at us here yet?"

Shepard sighed. "I was wondering much of the same thing. Hopefully he made a mistake. But I kinda doubt it. We'll just have to be ready for whatever it is that he'll send at us next."

"I'll be ready."

"I know you will. Wrex."

"Shepard."

Stepping away from the krogan, Shepard glanced around for a moment before calling out over the comm "Garrus, where are you?"

She didn't have to wait long for an answer "On the roof of the building at your four o'clock." Glancing towards the indicated position she spotted the turian poke his head up and give her a quick wave."

"I see you. What do you see up there?"

"Not much unfortunately. I'm mainly just keeping an eye out for geth heading towards us but you won't get much of a warning when they do arrive."

"Well some warning is better than no warning. Do you have any visual on-" Shepard didn't get to finish her sentence as suddenly she heard the echoes of gunfire from the southeast. Turning in that direction she activated her alternate radio channel. "Aegohr this is Sable what's going on over there?" She waited for a few seconds but when the only response seemed to be an increase in the gunfire she tried again. "Ashley its Shepard give me a sitrep."

A tense two seconds later Ashley responded. "Shepard, we're pinned down. Geth pouring out of the woodworks here, we managed to find a fortified position but it's not going to last. We need immediate assist."

"Copy that Ashley. Just hold in there." She turned over towards Kaidan but he answered her question before she managed to utter it.

"Go. It's going to take some time to get this armed and I got some support if the geth show up again." He motioned towards the marines that had accompanied him from the Normandy's garrison.

"Understood. I'll pick up Ashley and the salarians and get back ASAP. Liara, Tali, Garrus, Wrex on me we're heading out."

"I'll be right down. I'm glad I set this up beforehand." Garrus muttered over the comm as he climbed over the railing and lowered himself down on a rope he had attached to something on the roof. Within two minutes Shepard was leading her team at a fast pace through the alleys. However when a geth dropship flew directly over her as she was leading her team across the roof did she realize that the situation was getting much worse.

"Kaidan you've got a geth dropship inbound on your position!" Ashley's voice had a definite note of worry in it as she called out the dropship.

Kaidan's voice on the other hand had taken on a quiet resignated tone. "It's already here. Shepard go, get Ashley and the salarians and get them out of here. I'm arming the bomb now."

"No. Shepard you have to make sure that bomb goes off. Get Kaidan. We'll hold off the geth for as long as we can."

"Cut it both of you. Wraith, can you divert your movements to assist Ashley and the salarians? You're closer to them. I'll go back to assist Kaidan. Once you've reached Aegohr get them over here to the bomb site for extract."

"Copy that Shepard. Williams, We're diverting to your location now. ETA Five minutes. We'll be coming in from your- chhhhhhk" A massive burst of static ripped its way through the radio. The static was so loud that Shepard almost ripped off her helmet before it cut out accompanied by her HUD suddenly flickering and vanishing.

"What the hell?" Shepard tried accessing the comms only to find them down. She turned to face the rest of her team who were all in equal states of recovery from the static burst. "We lost our Command and Control systems. Try to reboot them!" She called over her external speakers. As she started up the commands to reboot the GHOST armors systems. Another few tense seconds passed before lines of text started flying down her HUD and soon enough her HUD had reboot, only this time it only showed Shepard herself and had marked her team as unknown contacts.

"All our systems went down." Tali said, her omnitool open as she was running diagnostics. "Everything was being routed through Wraith's Nanosuit and that connection was just severed. Something on his end. It looks like it was filled with junk data just before it went down. Something must have happened to them."

"Shepard!" She turned to face Liara who was looking off into the sky where she saw three red flares hovering to the south where she knew the phantom teams had previously been.

Panic rushed through her system and she was no longer on Virmire fighting geth. She was on this godforsaken planet looking up at three red flares as she lowered her flare gun. Flares up in the sky she shouted at the men around her.

"Keep moving don't fucking stop. Just keep fucking running and whatever you do watch out for the acid!"

"LOOK OUT!" She leaped to the side at the warning as the ground underneath her feet shook wildly and a moment later the massive beast burst out sending soil flying everywhere. A shriek of pain sounded from her right and she saw Private Corse screaming his head off as he stared at his midsection where only a moment ago his legs had been. She saw his intestines spilling out of his body as Corporal Primmer tried to drag the private away, only for a massive globule of acid to land on both of them eating away at the two marines who's screams grew even louder.

The massive thresher maw reared up and sunk back into the ground one of its tentacles snatching hold of her left arm and it as it started dragging her to the ground She heard Toombs cry out her name.

"Shepard!"

Her eyes snapped up to reveal Liara's face, silhouetted by the three red flares that drifted lazily in the air, heedless of the heavy fighting on the ground. She gasped for air as she realized that the asari was kneeling over her prone body. "I'm fine, I'm not hurt."

"What happened? You just froze up and then collapsed"

Liara's voice hardly registered to Shepard as she stood staring off at the red flares, knowing that the situation had just reached its lowest point.

"Shepard its Joker. Whats the status down there, We lost connection to all of you."

"Joker, I'm sending you new landing coordinates. Meet us there. We're getting out of here."

"Uh, alright commander. Normandy out."

"Ashley, Kaidan…." She broke off. Her throat closing up as she tried to continue.

Kaidan was the first to respond. "I understand Commander. Go get those phantoms you have ten minutes to get off planet."

"Yeah, we'll keep the geth occupied here Skipper. It's been a true honor serving on your crew. One last request though. Kill that bastard Saren for me."

"I second both those statements Commander."

"Fight well Marines. You will be remembered."

"Shepard? What are we going to do?" Liara asked.

"The best can." Shepard mumbled numbly as she turned and ran towards the three flares. She focused on her breathing as she ran, ignoring the questions regarding her well being that Tali and Liara kept asking her. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. A cold fury had settled upon her as she reached the gate on the other side of which she heard the loud sounds of combat. The red flares had since drifted so low that two of them had vanished behind rooftops, but the last one hovered just above her head. Bathing the entire scene in red light. Turning to face her team she gave them a quick once over. "Wrex, you're with me. Liara, Tali support our charge. Garrus you're in the rear providing overwatch. Kill anything that isn't friendly." A final glance up at the flare above her head and she triggered the gate, causing it to slide upward revealing the firefight in front of her.

Large numbers of geth littered the alley, the balconies and causeways all firing indiscriminately at a small building that had since seen far better days. Half of the roof had collapsed and the entire front wall had been destroyed leaving massive piles of rubble scattered around. She could just barely see the figures of five phantoms hiding behind piles of rubble, seemingly not daring to move under the onslaught of geth fire. As she watched she saw one phantom, she couldn't tell who but judging by her gender, from Serpent try to return fire only for her to fall back as multiple geth fired indiscriminately at the nanosuited phantom.

Shepard flared her biotics at a quick hand gesture and a responding nod from Wrex and an instant later she propelled herself forward with a loud shout. She slammed into a geth on a balcony sending it flying into the railing where it tore itself in two. A quick blast from her shotgun shredded the second geth on the balcony while a bolt of biotic energy from Liara disintegrated the third. Another shout and she charged to the top of a causeway where four geth stood. The first went flying upwards where another bolt from liara caught it mid flight and yanked it into a nearby wall leaving a considerable dent. Two blasts from her shotgun destroyed the next two geth and as she turned and charged away a single shot from Garrus took out the last one.

Her next target was a group of six geth on the ground two of which were hiding behind cover, the other four were turning upward to face the causeway that Shepard had just evacuated. A shower of sparks erupted from one of these geth and quickly jumped to another sending them falling to the ground with a large screech as Tali overloaded their systems. She smashed into one geth crumpling it beneath her armored weight and shredded the head of another with the last shot from her marshal. Quickly drawing her majestic she fired twice, each high powered shot tearing its way through the remaining two geth shields and finding their mark within the glowing optics of the geth as they turned to face her. A quick flare of blue and she was away at her next target a small group of geth that as they turned to face her were hit simultaneously by two biotically charging soldiers. Shepard landed on a shock trooper crushing it beneath her boot as Wrex smashed one aside with a powerful backhand blow. The remaining two geth had raised their rifles already at the two biotics but didn't manage to fire off a shot as Garrus nailed one through the head and the other crumpled to the ground electricity sparking as Tali finished it off.

A loud roar echoed through the street and as she turned to face the origin of the sound Shepard saw that one of Saren's krogan had joined the fray. Without hesitation Shepard charged the krogan, her GHOST armor synthetic muscles pumping as her legs powered her way towards him. A geth trooper that tried to place itself in her way was simply smashed through, her armored frame knocking him to the side where a well placed shot from Garrus ended its movements. The krogan saw her coming and beat his chest once before breaking into a charge himself to meet the human commander. The two juggernauts met in an impact that jared Shepard to the bone. She didn't however hesitate as she dropped her weapons and grabbed hold of the krogans fists. She grunted with strain as she held the krogan in place. The shock of being held in such a manner flashed through the krogan and in that instant his guard wavered just slightly and Shepard capitalized mercilessly, driving a powered knee directly into his groin. Her knee impacted so hard that the krogan was lifted for a moment into the air and before he could begin to scream his pain she vaulted over him with a biotic enhanced jump and wrapped her hands around his head. With a sharp twist she snapped his neck with a muffled snap.

She quickly ducked alongside the corpse of the krogan and grabbed her weapons from the ground, raising her Majestic up and fired a single shot at a Geth that had just appeared from behind a corner sending it stumbling and falling to the ground. There she stood breathing heavily to recover from the firefight. All the other geth had since been eliminated by her team and the phantoms during her short fight with the krogan. The phantoms were slowly pulling themselves from their position and she spotted multiple phantoms being supported by each other and even saw one lying on the floor as another tended to his wounds.

Jogging over to the group she looked around, the only distinguishing features between all the phantoms were their gender and their size, which meant that she had no Idea who was who. "What happened to all of you?"

"Our suits are being disrupted." One of Raptor team said, she wasn't sure who though. "The moment that went down we lost comms, our energy regeneration tanked, Cloaking and Armor modes stopped functioning."

"Basically those fucks made our suits useless and then swarmed us." Another one of Raptor said, this one with a british accent.

"And while we do have training in fighting with disrupted suits, the shock of the initial disruption was immediately coupled by the attack which threw us out of it." Vanyali's face showed clear relief as she turned to her sister who had joined them.

"Are you alright?" She asked concerned running an eye over her sister.

"I'm fine. Some of the others not so much. Barnes took a bad hit but he'll survive. Some of the others got hit as well. Before you ask Wraith's unharmed as well." Maela added motioning towards the phantom tending to Prophet.

Shepard nodded "Good. Joker should be bringing the Normandy in any minute now and-" She trailed off as she spotted a hovering platform fly over a nearby rooftop. It bore just a single person, a turian that made her see red. "Saren." The name left her lips a snarl and heedless of the people around her she let out a shout of rage that was accompanied by a bolt of dark energy that she sent towards the rogue spectre.

Saren raised his own hand and a biotic barrier appeared right in front of Shepard's bolt absorbing it within itself and vanishing a moment later. She didn't hesitate for a moment however and with another wordless shout stretched into a streak of blue energy. She slammed into Saren with the power of a freight train, sending both of them falling off of his hovering platform to the ground below. They hit the ground hard but didn't waste any time recovering from the impact as Saren rolled over slammed his cybernetic fist down onto her head which she barely dodged by jerking to the side.

The fight was over far too quickly for Shepard's liking. Two shots from her majestic both impacting harmlessly on Saren's biotics as he quickly closed the distance between the two. Another two seconds of harsh biotic enhanced hand to hand that resulted in Saren's mechanical hand slipping past her guard and socking her square in the face. While her helmet prevented any serious damage being done, the impact still jarred her enough so that in the half second it took her to recover, Saren had wrapped his metal fingers around her neck and lifted her off the ground.

While her armor protected her from being choked, the position left her flailing wildly, her arms unable to reach the head of the Turian and unable to find purchase on his smooth metal arm. A shout accompanied by the loud report of a pistol caused Saren to flinch unconsciously as his barrier flared over the right side of his face. The movement brought Saren's head slightly closer to the Human Spectre who reacted without hesitation. Her glowing fist, traveling slow enough to bypass his shielding still had enough force contained within to send Saren stumbling back dropping her in the process.

She glanced up just in time to see the Turian regain his bearing when the courtyard erupted with gunfire. His shields sparking continuously as they were hit by a barrage of gunfire by the group of phantoms to his right. Saren didn't hesitate, instead turning and fleeing he jumped onto his platform that whisked him away to a far safer location where there weren't two phantom teams, a Human N7 Spectre and her team seeking his blood.

"Is the LZ clear commander?" Shepard nodded to herself as she answered the affirmative "LZ is clear Joker. Bring her in."

"Understood, I'll be there in two minutes."

"We'll be here. Tell Chakwas to prep the medical bay, we've got wounded." Shepard turned to survey the assembled team as she heard the Normandy's engines approach. She swallowed heavily as she strode over to the group. "Normandy is coming in, get aboard as fast as you can, we're on the clock here that nuke is going to go off any minute now!"

The Normandy slowly flew into view, descending with its cargo bay ramp open as it approached the ground. It came to a stop the moment the bottom of the ramp touched the ground. The moment it did the phantoms rose, picking up their wounded and rushed to the Normandy her team following closely after. Just as Shepard was about to join them she heard a voice from behind her "Hold the ship! Don't leave without us!"

Turning sharply she spotted a group of salarians rushing towards the Normandy, most of them either assisting or carrying additional wounded Salarians. Hope flared in her chest as she saw them, yet as she rushed over toward them she saw no sign of a human with them. Seeing Captain Kirrahe supporting Commander Rentola who had taken a shot to the leg, she moved over to assist the captain.

"Captain!"

"We did what we could Commander. But we lost too many men, Gunnery Chief Williams ordered us to get to the normandy while she held the line."

The hope that had built up in her chest was immediately squashed by the Captain's words, however the hope was replaced by pride of her fellow marine and a burning rage. "I'll make sure Saren pays Captain. I'll make sure he pays dearly." She promised as the salarians stepped aboard the Normandy and once she was the last one on the ground she turned to look back out over the courtyard towards where both Ashley Williams and Kaidan Alenko were making their last stands. "You will be remembered and avenged. This I swear." With heavy feet she stepped aboard the Normandy, signalling to Joker as she did so. The ship lifted off, the cargo ramp closing slowly.

She made her way up to the CIC where a large hologram of Virmire was displayed with a massive red zone marked over where Saren's base had been. A line of text appeared over the red zone displaying the heat and radiation signatures of a Nuclear detonation. She watched the hologram for a long moment before turning and walking back down the stairs, ignoring anyone who tried to talk to her. The moment she had retreated to the privacy of her room and closed the door she let out a scream of rage and grief as she sank to the floor her eyes unseeing as they glared at the wall.

A/N: Well that happened. I killed off both Kaidan and Ashley. I want to mention that I don't hate either character, I actually find them both to be interesting even if sometimes very prejudiced. I just had so much trouble with this chapter at first, I had written Wraith's part in the week after I last updated but then when I tried to continue I just got stuck, I didn't know how I was going to write the leaving either Kaidan or Ashley behind in a way that was different and made sense. Because realistically with two phantom teams they should be able to easily go and rescue the other team meaning that no one would have to die. I was so stuck on that that it took me literally up until two week ago when I came up with this solution. Have them first go to rescue Ashley while Shepard rescues Kaidan only for the geth to disrupt their nanosuits and make them another party to be saved. In that situation Shepard had to make a three way decision and ultimately chose the phantoms. We'll be seeing more of her thoughts on that decision next chapter where she struggles with her feelings in that matter.

Other than that we are approaching the end game. Now we return to the citadel, Ilos, the battle of the citadel and the end. I estimate probably about 10? Chapters remaining. I can't tell for certain as I have a habit of sometimes making certain things alot shorter and others longer.

Anyway until next time and hopefully it won't be another, wow has it really been six months, before I update again.