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Six Months Later...

"Good luck in there, Shepard."

Kate smiled. "Gracias por todo, James."

"So that's the cabrón who broke Lola's heart, huh?" he asked, looking past her.

Kate looked over her shoulder at the man currently talking to Admiral Anderson. "Yeah, that's him. Obviously, I've moved past it. He might be a little touchy on the subject though."

James laughed. "Wait. Is that how Alenko broke his jaw? Dios. We all heard about that, but no one knew how it had happened. Just when it happened."

She grinned. "What can I say? I've got a mean left hook." The grin disappeared as Kaidan looked in her direction. "Mierda!" She turned to James and hissed, "Please, for the love of God, do not let me do something stupid."

James smirked. "You're the boss, Lola."

They walked over to Kaidan and Anderson. "Did I hear right? You're a Major now?" she asked.

Kaidan nodded. "Yeah. Biotics division."

"Congrats," Kate said with what she hoped was a genuine-looking smile.

"You hadn't heard, Shepard?" Anderson asked.

She took a deep breath before she answered, but her voice still had a bite to it. "No, I didn't, since someone thought it was a good idea to keep me in a media blackout for the last six months."

Before Anderson could answer, an aide came up to them and ushered the admiral and Kate into the committee room.

The next few minutes passed by in a blur. But Kate didn't hear anything after the aide looked over at them and said, "Admiral, we've lost all communication with everything beyond the Sol Relay." Her hand automatically went to the pendant at her throat, praying that Zaeed was OK, wherever the hell he was, and her father and Joker's family on Arcturus.

Anderson squeezed her shoulder and she realized one of the committee members had asked her a question.

"What do we do?" the man asked again, a look of desperation on his face that was matched by those on the rest of the committee.

Kate looked from the screen displaying the destruction of the reaper invasion to the committee members sitting high above her. "What do we do?" she repeated, trying her hardest not to have an I told you so look on her face. "We stand and fight. Or we die."

Suddenly, that didn't matter anymore as a Reaper landed just outside the Command Centre and cut a path of destruction through the middle of building. Kate and Anderson ran for cover, but she was thrown violently against the back wall. The next thing she knew, Anderson's voice, which sounded very far away, was calling her name. She opened her eyes and saw him kneeling beside her.

"Shepard, you OK?"

She winced as she sat up, felt pain in her arm and shook her head. "I'm-" She looked around the room. "Well, I'm a lot better than them, at least," she said, nodding towards the committee members who now lay dead around the room.

"Alright, up you get. We've got to get the hell out of here," Anderson said, helping Kate to her feet.

Half an hour later, she was back on the Normandy. She had never been so happy to see her ship and hear Joker's voice than she had when he'd landed near her and Anderson as they fought off a seemingly endless wave of batarian Reapers.

"If people could please stop shooting me, I'd be ever so grateful," she said as she walked up the ramp into the shuttle bay. Her right wrist had been broken in the initial attack at the Command Centre and one of the batarian fuckers had shot her in the shoulder during that last firefight.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Joker on the comm. "We've got an incoming message from Alliance HQ."

Waving off Kaidan, who was trying to get a look at her injured shoulder, Kate ran to the nearest terminal and hit the button to answer the call. Relief washed over her when a distorted image of Admiral Hackett appeared on the screen.

"Thank God! I was... I knew the bastards must have passed by Arcturus on their way to Earth and..."

"I wasn't on the station, Katie," Hackett said quietly. "I'm glad to see you're still in one piece."

"Nearly got vaporized by two different Reapers, but yeah. I'm OK. We're on our way to the Citadel, talk to the Council, for whatever good that'll do."

Hackett shook his head. "I need you to do something first, before you leave Sol, before it gets over-run by the Reapers. I need you to go to Mars. Dr. T'Soni was... is... researching in the Prothean Archives there. But we lost communication with her and the station when the Reapers invaded."

"Got it. Mars. Liara."

"You have a team who can fight? No idea what you'll find down there."

Kate nodded. "I've got Major Alenko and Lt. Vega. They were in the Command Centre when it was hit, went the opposite way that Anderson and I went."

"Alright, then get down there and see what's going on."

"Yes, sir." She saluted.

"And Katie? Welcome back to the Alliance," Hackett said with a smile as he returned the salute. "Hackett out."