M-Angel: Hey everybody, guess what? I got myself a new beta-reder/co-author. HBHound is both one of my readers and a favorite author. He's freakin' funny!

HBHound: I'm the badass that snorts coke off a hunting knife

M-Angel: Okay, so let's not let everybody wait any longer on this chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter 21: Battles

Why me, why me, why or why me? was my first thought as those words finally sunk in. Crap, crap, mega CRAP! Were the next words coming to my mind as I heard another voice. "I'll go with her." I looked up at Ian who was smiling at me. Captain Kirrahe just rolled his large amphibian-like eyes at us.

"No, I'll need you both." John said causing Ian and I to breathe better. "Kaiden will go instead."

"Aye, Aye, Commander." Kaiden says quickly as he begins to do a weapons check.

"We'll load the bomb onto the Normandy..." Kirrahe begins to explain but at the mention of a bomb I suddenly have a very bad feeling and usually my feelings are right.

Ann looked down at her omi-tool once again. It had been hours since she told Garrus she was gonna contact Serena, but she had yet to push the send button. Spirits, let this be the right decision. she thought as she pressed the button. Standing up from her bed she began to walk through the Normandy SR-3, as she did she looked at all of the improvements and upgrades from that of the SR-2.

Sure the second ship had been impressively large; it also was a waste of space by any military standards. The new Normandy was twice the size with twice as many available sleeping berths for the crews sleeping corridors. It was on par with a turian military frigate when it came to the sleeping arrangements. Each of the 265 crew members had their own rooms for privacy.

The rules were a bit changed from the SR-2. As to where before she hadn't had any married couples onboard, now she did. She found that couples who worked together were more efficient workers than those who were not.

Chakwas now had a much larger med bay, sickbay, and now had a separate clean room for both surgeries and the Quarian engineers. The labs were on deck 2 and 4, with the AI Core on deck 2. One of the labs was ran by Mordin's nephew Mordin Hidus and the other run by a turian named Ali'va Pholus, who spoke just as fast as her salarian counterpart. Decks 3, 5, and 7 were all weapon operations for both the ship and her four grand teams, which included a training and sparring room on deck 5 and a teleportation room on deck 7. Deck 6 was the crew deck, which included rooms, lockers, shower stalls, and mess hall. Deck 3 also contained an elevator which would take you to the CIC, port side observation deck and starboard observation deck and the one-pilot cockpit. Overall, the SR-3 was the best ship in any galaxy or reality. It was faster, had better stealth and now had a cloaking barrier that made it invisible to any and all ships.

Ann smiled as she walked onto the starboard observation deck. Sitting on the couch was Garrus who was talking to his sister, Solonna and her mate, Venzaris, who had his hand over his wife's ever swelling stomach. By the way both of them were looking at her, she could tell Garrus had just told them the news of the reality jump and the likely hood of never going back. At least they have each.She thought solemnly as she sat next to Garrus, her husband and mate.

"This is a pain in the bloody arse!" Ian yelled as another sniper shot at him, which caused him to duck down behind a crate.

"Could be worse!" Garrus yelled as he shot a geth unit's shields down low enough that I could shoot it with my assault rifle with no problem.

"Worse?" Ian asks with a shudder. "Oh for the love of my sanity, don't say that!" as he pulls the trigger and another geth falls down dead. I overload a geth in a way that it shoots one of its won while it convulses in an electrical field. Wrex blasts one geth with his shotgun and rips another's head off with his bare hand. Ashley does a back flip to avoid getting shot, while John makes ten freezes and then pushes them over the edge of the cliff with his biotics. Ian then shoots another one on the nearby tower and gets a headshot as it falls over the railing.

"Fun?" garrus asks with a smile.

"F-uck yeah!" he yells back. "Kinda reminds me of the Red Sand mercs we took out."

"How?" Garrus asks with a frown. Is it me, or can I understand turian facial expressions better than I do humans?I silently wonder.

"Well, gun fire everywhere and almost dying." John snorts and signals the all clear.

"What spirits did I offend to get you as a friend?" the turian asks while looking up into the sky for dramatic effect.

"Aw...ain't you two cute when you fight." I say with a smile and walk by them towards the Commander.

"We're not fighting." Ian says as he runs up next to me.

"Yet..." Garrus finishes causing both to laugh.

John begins pressing button on a console near the tower and then smiles. "That should interrupt geth communications." he pauses. "Plus help Kirrahe and Kaiden out." he turns to us. "Keep moving, we have a while to get to the bomb site."

2 Hours Later...

I sat there in the debriefing room until everybody else from the ground team. I think we were all in state of shock as to what happened. Kaiden was dead, shot by Saren. Garrus was unconscious from a blow to the head from an enraged krogen that Wrex had then killed and John was currently in med bay having Chakwas surgically remove shrapnel from his chest, legs, and back from having a metal container go off next to him with a homemade bomb inside of it. The mission was completed though. Kirrahe and his men survived and had left on their own ship. To top things off Joker had been ignoring a council call that was trying to come through. The silence was deafening when Wrex spoke. "For a human, Kaiden was strong." he said with a nod.

"He was compassionate." Ashley said as she wiped her tears away.

"Good sparring partner." Ian mumbled.

"Always came to me when he got migraines" I said. "Enjoyed our chats."

"Liked when you kicked him in the quad." Wrex said with a smile.

"Uh, humans don't have a quad" Ian said. "Love it if we did. We just got two of 'em."

Wrex's eyebrow rose. "Is that so?" he chuckled.

I shook my head and was about to say something when my omni-tool pinged. I raised an eyebrow when I saw the contact was Shepard.

Serena,
Spirits, I do hope you are who I think you are. We need your help...Jeff needs you even. Spirits... Please contact me!

Ann

My eyes widened. It was too much. Everything that had happened and now this. I felt myself fall backwards and let oblivion take me.

In a small shop on the Presidium a woman could be seen watering and planting new plants in pots. As she stood up you could see she was about 6' 1", well proportioned, not too fat, but not too skinny either. Auburn chin length hair with different colored feathers in it, deep blue eyes, freckles dusting her nose and cheeks and olive tan skin. She turned her head as her private face to face terminal pinged. "Yes?" she answered.

"Dottore?" said a male voice.

"How may i be of service?" she asked as her eyes narrowed at the man on the screen.

The mans mechanical blue eyes shone back at her. "I have a person of interest that I need brought to me alive. I've been told you're the best for the job." he said as sipped a drink.

"What's his/her name and where do I drop them off?" she asked.

An image of a blonde woman appeared on her console. "Serena Lavargus, currently on the SSV Normandy, but you'll have a brief window of opportunity to grab her when she arrives in a few days from Virmire. Take her to Illium. Miss Lawson will take care of the rest."

"Very well." with that the conversation ended and the wheel of fate began to turn once again...

M-Angel: So I hope ya'll enjoyed that one. Also keep on voting on the poll, voting doesn't end until Thanksgiving time!

HBHound: Its confirmed ME3 will have co-op so on the reviews post your gamer names, mine
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