Shepard closed the door to his personal locker, having put away his weapons, and armor before it. As he goes up the stairs and into the CIC, he's hit with the familiar feeling he's become accustomed to over the past year, a feeling of home. He walked past the Galaxy Map, and towards his pilot. Joker turned his head to look at the Commander, "I heard what happened to Captain Anderson. Survives a hundred battles, and then gets taken out by backroom politics." Joker turned back to the controls. "Just watch your back, Commander. Things go to shit on this mission, and you're next on their chopping block."

Shepard nodded, but didn't respond. Then he sighed, "Captain Anderson should be the one in charge. It just feels like I'm stealing his ship from him."

"Yeah, the captain got screwed," Joker said. "But it's not like you could've done something to stop it. Nobody's blaming you on this." Joker let out a breath, "Everyone on this ship is behind you, Commander. One hundred percent." he looked up at Shepard, "Intercom's open. If you've got anything you wanna' say, now's the time to do it."

Shepard nodded and held down a button, "This is Commander Shepard. We have our orders: find the Conduit before Saren does. I won't lie to you crew, this mission won't be easy. Our enemy knows we're coming. When we go into the Traverse, Saren and his followers will be waiting for us. We all know what happened on Eden Prime. We saw the bodies and destruction they left behind. We know what they're capable of." Shepard stands up straight "But we'll be ready for them. Wherever Saren goes, we'll follow. Wherever he searches for the Conduit, we'll follow. We will hunt him down to the very ends of the galaxy and bring him down! The Council sent us on this mission for a reason, because we're the only ones who can stop him. And I assure you we will stop him."

"Well said, Commander," Joker said. "Captain would be proud."

Shepard turned around and started to walk away. "Fancy speeches won't stop Saren from finding the Conduit. If we really want to make the captain proud we better get this bird in the air and on route to Therum."

Joker nodded. "Yes sir!"

Shepard walked down the stairs and into the mess hall when Joker's voice chimed through the speakers, "Just entered the Artemis Tau Cluster, Commander. It'll take around an hour or two until we get to the Knossos System."

"Got it. Thanks Joker," Shepard said.

Shepard entered the mess hall and made his way to the kitchen area, grabbing a glass of water. As he closed the refrigerator door, Kaidan walked up to him and leaned on the cutting table.

"So, how did the meeting with the Council go, first human spectre?" he asked, grinning.

Shepard chuckled, "About as good as it can get, I suppose," he took a sip of his drink. "Anything exciting happen while I was gone?"

"Nah, not really. Ashley said a while ago that she'd gone down to look at the weapons, and I haven't seen her since. Then I went to lay down for a bit, rest up my head." Kaidan shrugged, "I did have an interesting chat with Pressly though."

Shepard looked back at the Lieutenant and took his drink away from his mouth, "Oh?"

"Yeah. He's thrilled about the new crewmates," Kaidan said.

"Oh really?" Shepard said, detecting the sarcasm. He had known a little bit of how Navigator Pressly felt about aliens, but he didn't know how strongly Pressly felt on the subject. "What did he say?"

"Nothing too big of a deal," Kaidan said. "Just that he thought aliens shouldn't be on the ship, that this was a human matter, yadah yadah yadah." the Lieutenant rolled his eyes at the last part. "I don't think it'll be too much of an issue. You know how Pressly is."

That much was true. Pressly never liked to be too confrontational, especially towards superior officers, so Shepard also doubted that too much would come of it. "Still, it might be worth having a talk about it with him," the Commander said. "Speaking of our new guests, where are they?"

"When they came in through here, I brought them down to the cargo bay, told them the need-to-know stuff." Kaidan moved off the table, and towards the refrigerator. "I pointed that quarian girl, Tali, to the engineering room. She'd mentioned something about the drive core, so I just told her it'd be best to ask Engineer Adams about that stuff."

"Alright, thanks. It'll be a while till we get to our next mission, so it'd be a good idea to get to know them a bit," Shepard said. "I'll be doing just that if you need me."

Kaidan nodded and got something to eat. Shepard took the elevator down to the cargo bay. After the elevator door finally opened, Shepard entered the cargo bay, and to his immediate left was Wrex, who had taken a liking to an area by a couple crates. On one of the crates he had his weapons spread out, while on anther crate he had a couple of grenades sitting out on another one disassembled. Wrex himself was leaning on a third and final crate, looking over the cargo bay. Garrus, who was in the far corner of the cargo bay, was working on the M35 Mako's main cannon. Right beside the Mako was a terminal that was used to lock it in place. In front of the Mako was a variety of parts and tools. Just liked Kaidan said, over to the upper left was Gunnery Chief Williams, who was at the weapons locker, and was checking out the stock. One of the guns was taken apart, with components placed in neat clusters on a work bench.

Shepard walked up to Wrex, seeing as how he was the closest. As he approached, the krogan nodded and said "Shepard."

"Wrex," Shepard returned the gesture.

"Nice ship you got here. Looks like it can pack a punch for its size," Wrex said while glancing at the Mako.

"Yeah, she's one of the best that the Alliance has, and it's still only a prototype," he replied.

Wrex nodded, then after a few seconds asked, "Is there a reason you came down here, or did you just come down to make sure I wasn't lonely?"

Shepard chuckled at that, "No, no reason I suppose. Just wanted to check up on all of you, make sure you were settling in nicely."

Wrex glanced at his equipment. "Well I don't know about the others, but I've made myself comfy." He looked back at the Commander, "So where are we going next, Shepard? The Citadel was fun but I'm dying for a bit more action."

"We're on our way to Therum, to pick up Benezia's daughter, Liara."

Wrex scoffed, "Great, that's all we need. Some Asari lecturing us on how amazing they are." Then he mumbled, "They're more pain in the asses than anything."

Shepard smiled slightly, "Well either way, I'd rather have her on our side than Saren's."

"I guess so," Wrex said. "You're the commander here, Shepard. What you say goes. I'm just giving you my opinion."

Shepard nodded, "Alright, well I should go. I need to do some things before we get to Therum."

Wrex nodded, then leaned back against the crate, "Shepard."

Shepard decided to check on his turian crewmate, and walked the short distance to the Mako. Upon seeing the Commander heading towards him, Garrus paused his work and climbed off of the vehicle.

"Something wrong with the Mako?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow, curious as to what the turian was doing.

"Don't worry, Commander, the M35 works just fine," Garrus said. "When I was giving it a look over, I noticed some things that could be improved. And a good calibrating is always handy every now and then." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, thanks for bringing me on board, Commander. I knew working with a Spectre would be better than life at C-Sec."

"Oh? Do you have experience with other Spectres?" Shepard asked.

"Well, no. But I know what they're like. Spectres make their own rules. You're free to handle things your way," Garrus said "At C-Sec, you're buried by rules. The damn bureaucrats are always on your back."

"Yeah, I can see how that would get annoying. But for the most part, the rules are there for a reason," Shepard said.

"Maybe," Garrus said "But it just feels like sometimes the rules are only there to stop me from doing my work. If I'm taking down a suspect, it shouldn't matter how I do it, as long as I do it." Garrus argued "But C-Sec wants it done their way or the high way. Protocol and Procedure come first. That's why I left."

Shepard leaned his shoulder on the wheel of the Mako. "So you left because you didn't like how they did things?"

"There's more to it than that," the former officer said "It didn't start off bad, but as I rose in ranks, I got saddled with more and more red tape. C-Sec's handling of Saren was typical. I just couldn't take it anymore. I hate leaving..."

Shepard nodded, understanding what Garrus meant "Well I hope you made the right choice. I'd hate for you to regret it later on."

"Well, that sort of why I teamed up with you," Garrus confessed. "It's a chance for me to get off the Citadel, see how things are down outside C-Sec. Either way, I plan to make the most of this," Garrus said, sounding a bit more happy during that last part "And without C-Sec headquarters looking over my shoulder, well, maybe I can get the job done my way for once."

"Sounds good to me, as long as you follow orders," Shepard said.

"Of course, Commander. I didn't mean to imply otherwise," Garrus said.

"Glad to hear it," Shepard said. "So, what do you think of the target?"

"Saren? I think he's a disgraceful son of a bitch who needs to be taken down," the turian said, venom adding an edge to his words.

"Sounds a bit personal. You know him before hand?" Shepard asked.

"No, not really. It's just… I don't how it is in human culture, but with turians, if you betray an ally or abandon your post for no apparent reason, you're all but shamed. Now compare that to what Saren did… Well, let's just say we won't be too happy," he snickered quietly at his last comment.

"News of Saren's betrayal only just went public. Do you think the news will really spread that fast?" Shepard asked.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the first thing Councilor Sparatas did was contact the Primarch about this. I'm sure they'll try to keep this under wrap for as long as possible, but as humans say, news spreads like wildfire," Garrus said. "But either way, Saren's going to pay for what he did."

"Agreed," Shepard said. "Well I'll let you get back to your work. I'll talk to you later, Garrus."

Garrus nodded. "Again, thank you for letting me join Commander. You won't regret it."

Shepard smiled and returned the gesture, before turning around and heading towards the engineering room. As the left door to the engineering room opened, Tali turned around, and walked up to Shepard, almost running to him. Shepard held back a chuckle, as it reminded him of how a kid would act on Christmas.

"Your ship's amazing Shepard! I've never seen a drive core like this before! I can't believe you were able to fit it into a ship this small!" Tali exclaimed "I know you said this was a prototype, but I never thought it would be this good!"

Shepard smiled, "Glad you like it. The Normandy's one of the best the Alliance has."

Tali shook her head lightly in disbelief. "A month ago, I was patching a makeshift fuel line into a converted tug ship in the flotilla. Now I'm sitting on board one of the most advanced ships in Citadel space!" She said "I-I have to thank you again for bringing me along. Traveling on a vessel like this is a dream come true for me."

"It's no problem. It's always good to have another helping hand," Shepard said. "I didn't know you were into ship technology."

"It comes with being a quarian. The migrant fleet is the key to the survival of my people. Ships are our most valuable resource. But we don't have anything like this. We make do with cast-offs and second-hand equipment. We just try to keep them running as long as we can," Tali said "Some of the Fleet's larger vessels date all the way back to our original flight from the geth."

"That was 300 years ago. I'm amazed they're still working," Shepard said.

"They're constantly being repaired, modified and refitted. They aren't pretty by any means, but they work for the most part. We've tried to make ourselves as independent as possible on the flotilla. Grow our own food, mine and process our own fuel," Tali explained. "But somethings we just can't make on our own. A patch to maintain the hull integrity requires raw materials we just don't have. That's why our pilgrimages is so important."

Shepard nodded in acknowledgment. "Alright, well I need to go prepare for our next mission. If you need me my cabin is right next to the mess hall."

"Okay. And Shepard," she added as he was about to leave. "Thank you. F-For giving me a chance."

Shepard smiled. "You don't have to thank me. I like to judge people based on who they are, not based on what species they are," With a final nod, he left the engineering room and entered the elevator to the mess hall.

Once the elevator door opened, he walked over to the Captain's cabin and entered. It looked the same as it did when Captain Anderson was in charge; a small desk immediately to the right, with a screen on the wall, just a few feet in front of it was a medium sized table, with two chairs, and in the back of the room was a good sized bed with two twin mattresses, along with another desk close by, and a terminal on the wall a few inches above it.

Shepard flopped onto the bed, and sighed. It had been a long twenty-four hours. He was still processing the events that occurred on Eden Prime, let alone the fact that he was the captain of the Normandy now. Thinking back on it, he reminisced on what the geth did to those civilians, turning them into husks… It was horrific, but at the same time unbelievable.

How did those spikes mutate them so quickly? Had the geth's technology advance so far as to where they could change someone into a machine within seconds? He'd have to ask Tali about that, though he doubted that she would know. It's not like the quarians were in a position to monitor the geth for the past three hundred years.

As he thought about all this, his mind went back to the vision, and that massive ship. Was that one of these 'Reapers'? The machines that wiped out all intelligent life fifty thousand years ago? If so, how many of them are left? Shivers ran down Shepard's spine at the thought of hundreds of millions of those massive machines slaughtering everyone. Shepard rolled onto his left side to look at the clock. Overall twenty minutes had passed. Only forty minutes till they reach Therum. It'd be a good idea to get some rest, so that he isn't be sloppy during the mission. He whizzed his Omni-Tool over the clock, and set the alarm to thirty minutes. It wasn't much time, but it'll have to do...

[Normandy; Knossos System; Approaching Therum]

Shepard sat straight up, overwhelmed in a cold sweat, panting. Those images from the vision came back to him in a nightmare. Images of what looked like a city, machines and implants, and some kind of creatures... He rubbed his temples, pushing the memories out of his head. Just as he started to calm down, the speakers in his cabin suddenly activated, startling him.

"ETA around nine minutes, Commander," Joker said over the speakers.

"Right. Thanks Joker," Shepard said, turning to his right and entering his personal shower.

It was brief, only two minutes or so, but the cold water was much appreciated. Shepard put a pair of new clothes on, and walked out of the private cabin. As he made the short walk to the elevator, he turned to face Kaidan, who was talking with another crew member.

"Kaidan, suit up. You're gonna be accompanying me on Therum," he said.

The biotic nodded. "Aye aye sir." With that, the two humans entered the elevator.

As they exited the elevator, Shepard motioned for Garrus to gather his weapons and get in the Mako, and poked his head into the engineering room. "Tali, get your guns ready, you're coming with us."

"Y-Yes sir!" Tali said, surprised by Shepard's sudden announcement.

After quickly getting her weapons, Tali joined Shepard, Garrus and Kaidan inside the Mako. Shepard had gotten into the driver seat, and after making sure everything was in check, looked over his shoulder at his three other crewmates. "Kaidan, you'll be firing the guns. Tali, you're on repair duty in case we get damaged."

"What will I do, Commander?" Garrus asked.

Shepard smiled. "You'll be enjoying the ride."

Garrus rolled his eyes. "Wonderful," he mumbled. "Are you going to take me to dinner too?"

Before Shepard could come up with a witty comment of his own, Joker's voice came through the voice comm, "We're about to enter atmosphere, Commander. Opening cargo bay door."

Immediately after he said that, the door to the cargo bay opened, revealing a rocky, volcano-like world, over the surface, with pockets of lava scattered over the surface, with hundreds of active volcanoes spewing their smoke into the sky. The Mako engines roared to life as Shepard started the Alliance vehicle up. Tali gave him a confused look, but before she could ask what he was doing, Shepard slammed on the gas pedal, and drove the Mako out of the Normandy, down onto the molten world, much to Tali's shock and horror. The Mako descended down onto Therum, its stabilizers sparked to life and slowed the fall down. With the help of the Mako's stabilizers, the Alliance vehicle landed relatively safely in a flat area of the mountainous wasteland.

Once the dust from the impact cleared, Tali let go of the seat she was clutching onto, and looked at Shepard. "A little warning next time would be nice."

"Sorry," Shepard said with a smile. "I'll try my best to remember."

"Commander, I'm picking up some strange readings. really strange. Like, off the damn charts," Joker said over the comms as Shepard started to drive down a path, if it could be called that, with a lake of flowing lava on his left, and man-made tubes on his right. "It looks like it's coming from an underground complex a few klicks away from the dropzone."

As Shepard drove the Mako down the path, taking a few turns and going up a hill with dust trailing from the back tires, the ground started to vibrate ever so slightly. Not long after Shepard took notice of this, a giant geth dropship flew over top them, and made a sharp turn to the right, launching two Geth Armatures from the bottom of it. Once the dust cleared and the Armatures got into sight, Kaidan started up the machine gun, firing rapidly at the first one, before firing the Mako's main cannon, doing a great deal of damage. With a little more fire from the machine gun, the first one was destroyed. But before they could turn around a focus fire on the second Armature, it fired its cannon at the Mako, taking down it's shield.

Shepard cursed under his breath, before backing up. "Whatever you do, don't stop firing, got it?" When Kaidan nodded, Shepard slammed on the gas pedal, heading right towards the Armature. When Kaidan had the armature almost whittled down, Shepard rammed it at full speed, running it over and destroying it.

"Keelah, I don't think anyone's ever run over an Armature before," Tali said, surprised at the Commanders actions.

"Well, first time for everything," Shepard said. "Besides, I have a feeling we'll be doing that a lot in the future."

As Shepard started to track back up the path they were going on, Kaidan spoke up, taking his eyes off the radar. "Commander, we might want to be careful up ahead. I'm getting enemy signatures right on the edge of the radar."

"Got it," Shepard said.

Shepard cautiously drove the Mako up the bumpy hill, taking a careful left, and sure enough, off in the distance was a geth controlled base. "I don't think we can take that stronghold head on," Kaidan said. "It might be a good idea to go around and flank 'em."

The Commander did just that, taking a route that was most likely cleared by the miners and archaeologists here on their right. Once they entered the small mining area, which was cluttered with small mining tubes that connected to the mountain closest to it, they took out a nearby geth turret, then followed the trail, which was just big enough to fit the Mako. After they exited the other side of the pathway and got into the stronghold, they were greeted by multiple geth units, who were armed with anti-air weapons. The Mako team was able to make quick work of the geth outside, only taking minor damage to the middle right wheel.

Shepard turned the engines off and went outside, along with Kaidan and Garrus, while Tali made repairs. Right when Shepard stepped outside, the heat and humidity hit him instantly.

"Damn, it's like an oven out here," Kaidan commented.

"Yeah, even for me it's a bit hot," Garrus said.

"Let's get those gates open then," Shepard said. "I'd like to spend as little as humanly possible out here."

Shepard exhaled through his nose, and led the team towards the back gate. The sooner they could get back to the Mako the better. Shepard entered the gate control house, followed by Garrus and Kaidan, and cautiously walked towards the controls, each clank his footsteps made sounded louder than the last to him. The second he turned the corner, he heard some type of synthetic call, and a rocket came right at him. "Shit!" Shepard swore, diving away from the rocket, which made a small explosion against the metal wall. Kaidan quickly threw the geth against the wall behind it, effectively pinning it against the building, while Garrus got out his sniper rifle and shot the geth right in its eye.

Garrus, who was closest to Shepard, extended his hand. "You okay, Commander?"

"Fine, thanks," Shepard said, grabbing the turian's hand and standing back up. "Wasn't really expecting it to have a rocket launcher."

"Didn't know you were so good with the sniper Garrus," Kaidan said.

Garrus smirked "I am pretty good, I suppose."

Kaidan smiled and rolled his eyes, while Shepard walked to the controls and pressed a button, making the gate creek open. When he and the others left the building, Tali was just finishing her repairs on the wheel.

"All done Commander. The damage wasn't too bad, just needed to tighten some loose bolts," she informed him.

Shepard smiled at her, "Good job Tali."

With that, they all got back into the Mako and continued their drive to the marker that Joker had set for them. Once they went through the gate, they entered a much more open area, with a big lake of lava to their left, bubbling ever so slightly with a faint layer of steam rising from it. On their right was more of the tubes they saw before, going in and out of the mountains, presumably to mine their resources.

Off in the distance were two more Armatures, who had began firing at them the second the Mako entered their sights. Shepard maneuvered the tank from right to left, dodging their attacks while Kaidan fired its machine guns at the closest one, destroying it right when they reached it. As they continued onto their next target, Tali made some minor repairs that the armature caused.

This armature, however, had better shields then the last, allowing it to take more damage from the firepower of the Mako. As Shepard drove closer to it, the path got thinner, and he noticed the a much smaller pool of lava to his right, that curved around behind the Armature. Shepard grinned, then drove straight towards the Armature, mimicking what he did during the fight with the first batch.

"Keelah, here we go again..." Tali said as she grabbed her seat, preparing herself for the impact.

Shepard rammed the Armature head on, knocking it into the pool of lava behind it, melting it within seconds. Despite holding onto the seat in front of him, the impact nearly jolted Garrus out of his seat. 'Spirits, do all humans drive like this?' he wondered.

Shepard let out a breath, "I think that went well."

"Define 'well'," Kaidan said, readjusting himself in his seat.

"Well as in we didn't end up in the lava with it," Shepard said. "Damage report?"

"Everything looks good, Commander," Tali said, then paused her work to look at Shepard. "Considering we rammed two geth in less than an hour."

Shepard smiled and rolled his eyes, turning the Mako left into another open area, with more Armatures on the other side of the mined wasteland. "More enemies in the distance, Commander," Kaidan said.

"Alright, wait till we get closer, then start firing," Shepard said.

Kaidan nodded "Aye aye."

"Wouldn't it be better to take them out from afar?" Garrus asked. "If we get in the right spot we could take 'em out with the cannon from here."

"I'd rather wait until I know we can deal some damage, then try and snipe them and have a fifty/fifty chance of missing," Shepard said.

Garrus nodded, "Alright, you're the commander here."

Just like the ones before them, the team of four were able to take out the Armatures, with only a few scrapes and dents. As they drove through a small pathway, they came across more ground units, and one big geth. It looked like an Armature, but twice the size. It spoke in the same way the geth in the gate control building did, but in a much deeper tone. Immediately after, it fired it's main weapon, which seemed to be a plasma cannon, at them. Shepard reversed, and once the dust cleared from the impact of the plasma cannon hitting the ground, Kaidan starting firing the main cannon at the colossus geth. But this one was much stronger than the Armatures, in turn having better shields. To take out the shields, Kaidan switched to the machine gun, which took out them out faster than the cannon.

Shepard sped past the colossus, hitting one of it's legs, knocking it down. Once he was far enough away, Shepard made a 180 turn, allowing Kaidan to fire the cannon directly at the body armor, severely damaging it. The geth colossus quickly got up, but before it could turn around and continue to its attack, Kaidan fired the cannon at its body one last time, penetrating the armor, before opening up again with the machine gun, focusing on the cannon's impact point. Within seconds, they had fatally wounded it, and it collapsed, making a slight thud as it fell to the ground.

Once the battle was over, Shepard put the Mako in reverse, ready to turn around and continue on the path, when they hit what seemed like three or four people behind them, a crunching sound following suit. "Oops," Shepard said, as they heard the faint muffles of geth speaking from under them.

"What is it with you and running geth over?" Tali asked.

Shepard shrugged, "Hey, it's not my fault that they got in the way."

The Commander turned the vehicle around and went up a ramp that led to a tunnel that bored through a mountain, presumably made by archeologists. After a couple turns, they finally reached the other side, but were greeted by a couple geth ground units. Before the geth knew what hit them, Kaidan fired the main cannon, taking all them out in one hit.

They proceeded through another tunnel, fighting more geth in the process, until they came across a blocked route. Luckily, there was just enough room for them to fit through on foot, so begrudgingly, they exited the Mako, and trekked on on-foot. "Great, just when I thought we wouldn't have to go back out here," Kaidan said.

"Hopefully we won't have to walk too far," Shepard said.

One by one they squeezed through the fissure, with Shepard taking the lead. Due to the space being so confined, around halfway through the rocks started to scrape Shepard's armor slightly, just enough to scratch the paint on his armor. Apart from the confined space, it went relatively smooth.

They didn't get too far until they came across a geth outpost stationed on a small slope. They all used the fallen rubble as cover, and started firing upon the geth up the hill. Since they outnumbered the geth by one, they made quick work of them, and moved up the hill, taking a small pathway which swerved to the left. Almost immediately after Shepard rounded the corner, he came across another geth outpost, this one having a sniper perch. Shepard quickly got to cover before the geth sniper could fire upon him, the other three following suit.

Shepard looked over his shoulder at Garrus as he switched his pistol out for a Lancer. "Garrus, stay back here and take care of the sniper. We'll push up and take out the others."

"Got it Commander," Garrus said, then smiled. "Have fun."

The turian brought up his sniper rifle, and rested it on the rock he was using as cover. He lowered his head so that his eye was with the scope, and took aim at the geth sniper up ahead. Right as the geth noticed him, and focused his aim towards the turian, Garrus shot the geth, killing it, sending it plummeting to the ground below. Shepard, Kaidan and Tali moved up the hill, going from cover to cover, killing any synthetic in sight.

After they took out the remaining geth and Garrus caught up with them, they headed towards what looked to be an open garage-like shelter, with a tunnel that led into the mountain nearby to their right.

As Shepard slowly moved forward, leading the team to the tunnel, an eerie silence fell over the area. Not the sounds of nearby lava bubbling and flowing. Not the sounds of mountains off in the distance rumbling. It was completely silent. "Anybody else get the feeling we're being… watched?" Kaidan asked as he scanned the area. As if on queue, the noise of footsteps colliding with the metal walkways above them cut through the quiet atmosphere.

Shepard looked up at the source of the noise, and saw some type of geth looking creature hanging from the bottom of the walkway drop down. It looked like a mix between a geth and a frog, but moved like an insect. It jumped onto a wall on their left, and crawled up it. Just after this, a ship was heard soaring through the sky behind them, vibrating the air as it moved.

All four of them turned around and saw a giant geth dropship fly above their heads, geth dropping from the bottom of it, just like the Armatures did. Each geth made a thud as they landed, dust rising from the impact. A much larger thud followed shortly after, the last geth rising to its 'feet' as it stared down at Shepard's team. Shepard squinted his eyes, trying to see through the light layer of dust that had formed from its impact. When the dust subsided, his eyes widened slightly. "Shit," he mumbled, finally recognizing the geth as an armature.

While they made quick work of these things while in the Mako, taking one out on foot would be a different story. They all took cover behind a few crates to the left of them, as the geth began their assault.

"You just had to say it, didn't you?" Garrus said as he fired his Lancer at the geth.

As a rocket whizzed past the crate Shepard was behind, the Commander looked in the direction of his team. "Alright, here's the plan. Tali, Kaidan, take out those geth bugs on the walls. Garrus, take out the other geth here. I'll damage the armature and give us time to take it out."

Kaidan nodded, as he and Tali started firing at the geth 'insects on the walls', while Garrus sniped the geth shock troopers. As he made his way deeper into the garage, Shepard remembered something. He pulled out the two grenades he had bought while on the Citadel, and looked at them for a few seconds. Coming up with an idea, he clenched onto them, and put them back on his hip.

He crouched down, and peeked his head around the wall. He saw that the Armature was still attacking the others. Bringing his arm back, he threw the two grenades at the geth, both of them sticking to its back right leg. A couple seconds later, they blew up and severely damaged its leg. The armature said something in its language, and collapsed. A couple seconds later, it got back up, and slowly turned around, focusing fire on Shepard. Due to amount of firepower, the commander had to stay behind the wall, occasionally getting shots in on it.

This left the armature open for Kaidan, Tali and Garrus to attack it, damaging it even further. Right when the geth was about to turn around and fire at them instead, Shepard threw one last grenade at its eye. When the grenade blew up, it completely destroyed its eye, a few static bolts coming out from where the eye was. Soon after, the armature fell to the ground for the final time.

Shepard put his gun away, and wiped off a light layer of sweat as his team approached him. "Good job back there. All of you," the Commander said with a little smile.

"You too, Commander," Garrus said. "Guess I can check off 'take out a geth armature on foot' on my to-do list."

"That was pretty impressive," Tali said. "Though I hope we don't make a habit of this."

Shepard chuckled at that, "No promises." Then he looked towards the mineshaft. "Alright, let's get it in there and get Dr. T'Soni."

"Aye aye sir," Kaidan said, then sighed quietly. "I hope it'll be cooler in there than it is out here."

Author's Notes

Hey guys. Sorry this chapter took so long to make.

Hopefully next chapter will get made and published faster than this one :D

Anyway, you know the deal. Feel free to leave a review, as they're always appreciated, but no senseless hate please ~