"Commander, we've located the Reaper base transmitting the local signal."

Shepard looked up, pulled abruptly from her train of thought. With everything that had happened between the last time she had stood in this war room and now – most notably, the played-by-ear infiltration of the geth dreadnaught and subsequent attack on the vessel while Shepard and her crew were still inside – it was hard not to get sidetracked thinking about it. Her discussion with Hackett on the matter had been short and unsatisfactory, with her expressing frustration at Admiral Gerrel's continued rash actions and him quickly shutting her down with the reminder that they needed the quarians' help if they wanted to win the war against the Reapers. It had not helped that she had also found herself outargued by the Admiralty board when she tried to express the same frustration to them, finally having to back down from her accusations in order to retain whatever semblance of her dignity and frazzled nerves she still had left.

Now, Shala'Raan stared expectantly at her from the far edge of the war console, keeping a notably wary distance from Legion, who stood across the console from her, also watching Shepard intently. Crossing her arms, Shepard nodded, bringing herself up to speed on the conversation. "Good," she conceded. "That's good."

"And not a moment too soon," Raan added, content that Shepard was paying attention to what she was saying as she turned to look at the hologram display again, worriedly. "With the Reapercode upgrades, the geth are tearing the fleet apart."

"Didn't you say they have a planetary defence canon?" Shepard asked, her brow furrowing faintly. "Wouldn't it be a good idea to think about taking that out, too, while we're at it?"

"It has already been taken care of, Commander," Raan informed her, solemnly, turning to look up at her again. "Admiral Koris sacrificed his own ship to destroy it. He crash-landed on the home world, along with one of our top geth scientists, Dorn'Hazt."

Shepard paused, surprised that she recognized the name. "Dorn'Hazt?" she asked, taken aback. "As in Jona'Hazt?"

"As in his father, yes," Raan confirmed. "Poor Jona's mother died last year in that geth research ship fiasco with Rael'Zorah… if we can prevent him from losing his father as well, it would be…" Taking a deep breath, she held it in for a moment, thinking, before letting it out again in a long, low sigh. "…Preferable," she said. "I realize it's not likely, but… when you do head to Rannoch, please keep an eye out for him if you would, Commander. Too many quarian youth have lost their parents to this war."

"I'll do what I can," Shepard agreed, nodding in return. "And the Normandy can definitely assist with any other necessary rescue efforts as well. Once I'm planetside, just give Joker the approximate coordinates and we'll try to get as many of your people back to safety as possible."

"Thank you, Commander," Raan returned. "Thankfully, I think the worst is already over. The geth no longer possess the programming upgrades they had while enslaved by the Reapers. If we can also manage to take out the local base—"

"Once the signal is disabled, the geth will pose no threat to Creator forces," Legion assured her, finishing her thought for her, before turning his head to look over at Shepard, as if for approval. Shepard paused, returning the look, before moving away from the door of the war-room and coming to stand by Legion at the console. She folded her arms in thought again as she looked up at the large, slowly-spinning hologram of the quarian homeworld, before turning to look at Legion and frowning, concerned.

"You sound conflicted," she told him, doubtfully.

Legion hesitated, the flaps circling his flashlight face shifting uncertainly, as if considering how to respond. "While the Old Machines have… unethical purposes, their upgrades have vastly improved our people," he finally explained, his electronic voice halted, almost tentative. "Observe." Typing something into a keypad on the war hub, he pulled up a large, circular hologram on the display, inside which flashed a singular, pulsing signal light.

"The geth processing signal," Raan commented, intrigued. "A single unit, I believe."

"Correct," Legion answered, his face-flaps fluttering elatedly. "Now, ten nearby units networked cooperatively—" Typing something else into the console, Legion looked up as the image changed, this time adding more pulsing points, each one sending out thin beams of light to the others, the lights zigzagging capably between each point. "…And now, a single geth unit with the Old Machine upgrades," he said, typing in another alteration. This time, the image changed altogether, the circular structure turning a deep red as the signal points and zigzagging beams converged into what looked to be some sort of organically-shaped root-type structure.

"That's a fully-evolved AI," Raan pointed out, sounding startled by the revelation.

"Yes," Legion agreed, straightforwardly. "We do not agree with the goals of the Old Machines, but we find this growth… beautiful. Indicative of life."

Shepard stared in awed silence up at the glowing red projection, watching the small, almost electricity-like lights pulse between each of the geth consciousness' winding curves, not even noticing as her hand came to rest subconsciously over her stomach as she did so. "…It is," she agreed, quietly. "Legion. It is beautiful."

"Commander," Raan scolded, turning to look at her, surprised.

Snapping quickly back to reality, Shepard hurriedly dropped her hand to her side again, turning to look at Raan and feeling an anxious, almost sickening blush start to billow to the tips of her ears. She hoped Raan had been too distracted by the idea of a fully-formed AI to notice anything unusual, but silently cursed her own sentimentality anyway as she gritted her teeth, balling her hand into a fist at her side. "Come on, Admiral," she shot back, a bit harsher than she had really intended. "You can't really be so heartless. That's a living creature, no matter what platform it's running on."

"And they will die when we destroy the base," Legion added, sadly.

"They allied with the Reapers," Raan returned, heatedly, leaning on the war console towards Legion.

"To save themselves from you," Legion countered, just as effectively.

"Maybe they don't have to die," Shepard suggested, hopefully.

"Just because this one appears friendly…" Raan started to warn, but Shepard was quick to cut her off.

"This one hasn't fired on a ship with me aboard it," she informed her, pointedly. Sighing heavily, she stuffed one hand into the pocket of her hoodie, using the other to massage her forehead in frustration. "All I'm saying is that maybe… maybe they don't all have to die," she said, looking up at Raan again and extending her hand, hopefully. "Maybe we can save them, or at least some of them. It doesn't always have to be one or the other. Sometimes it would be nice if everyone could live for a change."

Raan hesitated, staring at her for a moment, considering, before finally speaking up again. "It is a noble ideal, Commander Shepard," she told her, speaking slowly now, almost suspiciously so. "The idea that the quarians would both get to return to their homeworld and not have to destroy the geth in the process is…" She paused again, looking down, before clearing her throat, softly. "Well," she said, shortly. "It would be preferable, of course, but you also have to consider the facts. You must ask yourself if it would be realistic to have both things at once, when the continued existence of one so clearly negates the projected success of the other."

Shepard frowned, taken aback by the sudden, almost psychosomatic turn of the conversation. Up to this point, Raan and Legion had been talking mostly in facts, but now, suddenly, Raan appeared to have turned the discussion into something that seemed to be equal parts ethical and emotional. "There's no reason one should have to exist without the other," Shepard countered, trying not to sound too confused by the sudden shift in tone. "Geth and quarians lived in peace at one time. If you can learn to live in peace again, respectfully, with the quarians treating the geth as equals and not as slaves—"

"Is that where your problem lies?" Raan asked, cutting over her, tellingly. "Respectful coexistence? You make an excellent point for what it's worth, Commander…" Here she paused again, folding her hands, thinking. "But how can we be expected to be seen by those who look to us, by the entire rest of the galaxy, as anything other than selfish fools if we do decide to let the geth completely rewrite the way we live our lives?" she finally asked, deliberately. "If we sacrifice who we are to make way for their existence among us? How can we be expected to continue living the way we've always done if we have to make such radical changes?"

"So make changes, then," Shepard argued back, starting to get annoyed with Raan's sideways logic that just seemed to be getting stranger with every argument. "Your people created them in the first place, and it was your peoples' unfounded prejudice and neglect that caused them to turn to the Reapers. Who cares what the rest of the galaxy thinks of you? Your people made the mistake – why should they, the ones you made, pay for it?" Leaning her free hand against the sleek metal edge of the console hub, Shepard's frown deepened, vexed. "You caused the problem," she told her, firmly. "And it's your responsibility to make things right."

At this, Raan sighed, shaking her head as her gaze dropped from Shepard to the floor of the war room. "Commander, you are missing the point," she told her, disappointedly. "We did not mean for this problem to occur. Perhaps we should have foreseen the possibility of consequences, but I'm sure we had no way of knowing at the time. As such, it was in none of our plans to have such an… unfortunate outcome."

"That's no excuse—" Shepard started to say, but Raan stopped her again, holding up a hand.

"What I am trying to say is, sometimes things do not go the way they are planned," Raan told her, letting her hand drop back down again. "And sometimes, it can truly be better for everyone involved if the consequences for those actions are merely circumvented, rather than having one's entire existence shifted around to make way to accommodate." Clasping her hands in front of her again, she let out another deep, soft sigh. "It is a sad truth, but in order to achieve the greater good, sometimes hard sacrifices must be made," she went on, frankly. "And sometimes living things will get hurt, or even killed. If the geth have to die so that all of the quarians can live, but that also means the quarians get to return to their homeworld and possibly, one day, build more geth…"

Shepard paused, staring down at her hand on the console for a long, silent moment. Then, looking up at Raan again, she fixed her with a hard, telling stare. "We aren't talking about the geth and the quarians anymore, are we?" she asked, solemnly.

"How far along are you, Commander?" Raan asked, making sure to keep her voice low.

At this question, Shepard felt her blood turn to ice. If all it took for Raan to realize she was expecting was a simple, slipped gesture and a short conversation about the ethics of living beings, she was afraid of how easily others might be able to pick up the same from other, more telling details. She could still hear Javik's stark reminder in the back of her head telling her that her condition could not remain a secret forever, and it seemed that his warning was starting to come true. Stuffing her free hand into the pocket of her hoodie, Shepard gritted her teeth, glancing quickly over her shoulder to make sure Legion was not paying attention to their conversation, before turning her attention back to Raan, her ears quickly beginning to turn a bright, mortified red. "About three months," she muttered, under her breath. "I haven't told anyone, though. Or, nearly anyone. I didn't want anyone to know."

Biting her lip, Shepard ground the toe of her boot into the grated metal floor of the war room, making a pained face, unable to help herself. "Tell me the truth, Raan," she said, feeling her heart begin to flutter anxiously in her chest, dreading the answer to her question. "Is it really that obvious that I'm… I'm…?"

Raan paused, observing her, before finally shaking her head and offering her a gentle, soothing tutting noise. "Not really, no," she answered, truthfully. "I simply have a feeling for these things. A knack, or— a sixth sense, I suppose." Holding out her hands, she rested them reassuringly on Shepard's shoulders with a fond, remembering sigh. "It was the same way with Tali's mother," she told her, chuckling fondly. "I knew she was with child even before she did. She came to me one day complaining of sickness, and I told her then and there that she was having a baby. She denied it, told me there was no way… but of course, she was wrong and I was right. And seven months later, beautiful little Tali was born."

Shepard looked down, trying her hardest to be reassured by this story but finding it hard to keep her pulse from racing with anxiety. Suddenly, she looked up at Raan again, her eyes widening, startled. "You can't tell anyone," she begged her, shaking her head, vehemently. "Please, Raan. Promise me you won't tell anyone."

"I won't tell anyone, Commander," Raan assured her, running her hands comfortingly down the length of Shepard's arms. "You don't have to worry. I would not betray your trust like that." Retrieving her hands again, she folded them peacefully in front of her once more, staring at Shepard for a long, silent moment, observant. Then, taking another deep breath, she leaned in towards her a bit, her voice suddenly taking on a more solemn tone. "Do you know what you plan to do with it?" she asked. "Do you mean to keep the child? Or were you thinking…" Her voice trailed off, her glowing eyes fixed on Shepard for a long time, telling.

Shepard hesitated, meeting her eyes, anxious, before finally shaking her head. "…No," she admitted, quietly. "I don't… I don't know what I'm planning to do with it. I thought I knew, once, but now…" She paused, her gaze dropping, before letting out another soft, worried sigh. "I don't know," she said.

Raan nodded, understanding. Then, taking a step back away from Shepard, she shrugged her shoulders, forgivingly. "I… do not mean to pressure you on the subject," she told her, fairly. "I simply know that there are no easy choices when it comes to matters like this. But if you decide to keep the child, you are welcome to any of the resources we can offer you to that effect once this war with the geth is over. Our clean room is the most sterile place in the entire galaxy, that I know of." Another pause, as she tilted her head forward a bit, thoughtfully. "On the same token," she added, her voice a bit slower this time. "If you decide you would prefer to… not, go through with your term in its entirety, so as to focus on matters… a bit closer to home, as it were…" She trailed off again, moving her helmeted head knowingly to one side. "Our clean room is the most sterile place in the entire galaxy," she repeated, the implication much darker this time. "…That I know of."

At this, Shepard looked up at her again, taken aback. "I—" she started to say, but her answer was quickly cut off by the sound of Traynor's voice filtering in over the intercom system.

"Commander," Traynor reported. "Admiral Garrel has the civilian fleet back in position, and Cortez says the shuttle is ready to head planetside whenever you are. Who would you like me to send down for you?"

Shepard faltered, her expression going momentarily blank as she tried to remember everyone she had on hand to choose from. Her mind was still swimming from Shala'Raan's offer, but she tried her hardest not to look too off-balance as she turned her attention up towards the intercom. "Um… Tali," she decided, the name almost awkward on her numb lips. "And Thane. Tell them to wait for me in the docking bay."

"Will do, Commander," Traynor returned, before severing the comm connection.

Turning her attention back to Raan, Shepard stared at her for a long moment, awkwardly. Raan stared back at her evenly, her hands folded patiently in front of her as she waited for an answer to her question. Then, taking a deep breath, she shook her helmeted head. "You do not have to decide right now," she told her, understandingly, her voice still respectfully low. "I know this is a hard decision. And I know it is not really my business to comment on it. I will not try to persuade you one way or another as far as the right thing to do." She paused again, allowing her proposal to sink in. "But…" she suddenly spoke up again, causing Shepard to look up once more. "Will you at least consider my offer? Whichever way you decide to go with it? You have done so much for us, for our people… the quarians – I – would be more than happy to help out in any way we can."

Shepard frowned, feeling almost trapped by Raan's sudden, unexpected offer. She could still feel her head spinning with the thought of having these resources so readily available to her, making the concept seem almost startlingly real for what felt like the first time since she had found out she was expecting. "I'll…" she started to say. Then, losing her nerve, she instead cleared her throat, pointing over her shoulder towards the exit of the war room.

"I… should go," she told her, weakly.

The rescue mission to retrieve Koris and his crew had been less than successful. Though Shepard and her party had managed to accomplish taking out whatever artillery the geth still had remaining planetside with a combination of firepower and hacking skills, they had not been similarly effectual in saving the lives of any of the members of the crew apart from Koris, himself. Dorn'Hazt had been far too wounded and weak by the time they found him, propped up against a rock with his mangled legs sprawled out in front of him, for even medi-gel to patch his injuries. When they had tried to help him, he had begged them to tell his son that he had found peace on the homeworld, before taking his last, laboured breaths in Shepard's arms. Koris had been grateful for their rescue efforts and had promised his support in the upcoming Reaper war, but it seemed that their problems on Rannoch were still very much far from over.

The Reaper signal Raan had discovered was not difficult to find, as the coordinates she had provided them with had led them directly to an enormous construct built into the side of a massive rock formation. The structure, which looked to be some sort of colossal geth activity hub station, had once clearly been painted in sterile, militaristic shades of white and silver, but had since turned a murky brown and grey from layers upon layers of Rannoch dust. Having successfully fought their way inside the construct, it did not take long for Shepard and her team to find the source of the Reaper signal, an enormous, heavily-reinforced sinkhole in the heart of the station, covered by two visible layers of thick, impenetrable blast shields. With Legion's help to override the system, they had managed to peel back the blast shields, only to discover that the signal Raan had pinpointed had not simply been an active signal at all – but instead, a real, live Reaper.

Now, the dust cloud kicked up by the fallen Reaper was almost too thick to see through, but Shepard squinted into the murky air, coughing and waving a hand in front of her as she waited for it to clear, until finally it had settled enough for her to see the results of their planetside undertaking. The Reaper lay in a crippled heap at the base of a chasm, letting off a low, sickly buzzing sound as red electricity skipped around its beetle-black surface. A massive, hose-like tube dragged on the rocky ground where it had been shot out of place by the Normandy's orbital guns, leaking a thick, greyish substance that flowed like putrid animal fat. Moving up the slope of the outcropping overlooking the chasm, Shepard looked down on the nearly-dead Reaper, her gun still gripped, ready, between her heavily-gloved hands.

"Shepard," the Reaper droned. Its voice was a pulsing, electronic bass, a sound Shepard could feel vibrating in the very core of her ribcage, and she gritted her teeth, feeling her resentment threaten to boil over as she watched the pseudosynthetic struggle to retain whatever functionality it still had left.

"You know who I am?" Shepard returned, a white-hot, sickening ball of hatred settling in her stomach as her grip on her gun tightened, ready to fight.

The Reaper whirred, its mechanics grinding together as it fought to retain sentience, before it suddenly opened its targeting eye, letting the slow, red beam come to settle menacingly on Shepard. "Harbinger speaks of you," it told her, speaking sluggishly, almost pained. "You resist… but you will fail. The cycle… must continue."

"What are you talking about?" Shepard insisted, narrowing her eyes, incredulous. "We stopped Sovereign and the geth. We stopped Harbinger and the Collectors. We've earned a straight answer."

"The Collectors…" The Reaper fizzled, letting out a high-pitched sputter as a fountain of yellow-hot sparks peeled down its side. "The Collectors were… an effective force," it buzzed, haltingly. "Mindless, genetically altered soldiers… but their mission was, unfortunately… an ill-advised foray."

"You're just now realizing this?" Shepard demanded, holding out one arm in a gesture of disbelief.

"Not for the reasons… you might believe," the Reaper corrected her, its glowing red eye jumping small points from left to right as it tried to bring her back into focus. "You represent chaos. We represent… order. Every organic civilization must be harvested in order to bring order to the chaos. It is… inevitable." An arc of bright-red electricity crackled from one crippled leg to the next, causing the bright red eye to flicker momentarily, but it quickly returned again, staring at her, intently. "Without our intervention… organics are doomed," the Reaper went on, its digitized voice dark. "We… are your salvation. We tried to preserve your kind… in the only way we knew how, but… we did not… have the knowledge. Our ambition… outweighed our ability. We are not our Creators. We lack the knowledge… to do as they did. Even… Harbinger…"

"What about Harbinger?" Shepard insisted. Hearing the sound of soft footsteps behind her, she turned, watching as Tali approached, intrigued, before turning her attention back to the Reaper, which had begun letting out a low, buzzing thrum.

"Harbinger is the wisest of us," the Reaper told her, its red eye widening as it stared at her, fixedly. "One of the First of our Kind. Harbinger was there in the first Cycle. His knowledge outweighs ours… all of ours." Letting out another loud fizzle, the Reaper vibrated, sinking a bit lower towards the dusty ground, but it still kept its eye locked squarely on Shepard. "We trusted… but rashly," it continued, its voice becoming more laboured as it continued speaking. "Harbinger's ideal of preserving other lifeforms the way our Creators preserved theirs was… idealistic, but… ultimately… ineffectual. Other lifeforms are not… the same as us. We had no knowledge of how to replicate… what our Creators had done. Our efforts were… ultimately… in vain."

"The Human Reaper," Shepard breathed, remembering all too well the monstrosity she and her team had faced off against at the Collector base when she had taken them through the Omega-4 Relay. Turning her attention back to the Reaper again, she gritted her teeth, finding herself even angrier than before with this new information at hand. "So now you're killing everyone in the galaxy to save us?!" she shouted back, her fist tightening indignantly around the grip of her gun. "We have to suffer because you failed to do what you set out to do?!"

"It is a simple resolution," the Reaper explained as another daunting spray of sparks cascaded down its exoskeletal face. "If we cannot control your Kind… we must instead destroy. The cycle must continue. There is… no alternative."

"Organics and synthetics don't have to destroy each other!" Shepard insisted, taking an irate step forward.

"The battle for Rannoch… disproves… your assertion," the Reaper contradicted, its glowing red eye shuddering as it fought to keep its gaze fixed on Shepard.

"Why can't you just leave us in peace?" Shepard demanded, coming to stand at the very edge of the cliff, feeling the ground pulsating menacingly under her feet as the Reaper continued to hum, a deep, macabre drone vibrating in the core of her chest. "We have done nothing to you! Why do you feel the need to halt our progress as a species right when it reaches its evolutionary peak? Are you afraid of us? Afraid we'll become too informed, too powerful, and finally be able to fight back against you, and all the rest of the Reapers?"

"We… are not afraid of you," the Reaper returned, solemnly. "You… should be afraid of you. Your greatest fears, your most desolate destruction, comes not from us… not from outside… but from within. If allowed along your current path… you will only destroy one another. We… come, do what we do, to prevent… anarchy, and… annihilation."

"You kill us so we don't kill each other?" Shepard scoffed, getting more and more furious with every backwards excuse the Reaper provided. "Do you even have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? We won't kill each other if you don't kill us! Haven't we proven to you enough that we, organics – we want to live?"

"Your universe is… expanding," the Reaper explained, haltingly, ignoring her riposte. "Every galaxy… expands at a rate… equal to the rate that all galaxies move away from one another…"

"Hubble's Law," Shepard acknowledged, frowning. "And the relative theory of Hubble Flow. What does that have to do—"

"Your use of mass effect technology… your abuse… is causing too much dark energy to be produced," the Reaper informed her, solemnly, cutting over her question as another spark of red electricity jumped across its ruined plates. "Dark energy which causes your galaxy to… grow larger… Soon, it will grow out of control… overwhelm and eventually destroy other galaxies… whose relative movement could not keep up with the expansion of your own… Other lifeforms… destroyed…" Letting out another loud, foghorn-like rumble, the Reaper quaked again, the tube lying on the ground giving a sickening, guttural splutter as a gush of grey organic filth spilled out of it. "Through your own ambitious blindness," the Reaper continued, disjointedly, its voice fading in and out as it fought to continue speaking coherently. "You will effectively become… us…"

"We will never become you!" Shepard shot back, a dizzying rush of anger rising from her very core as she took another challenging step forward towards the edge of the cliff.

The Reaper droned loudly, giving an earth-shaking bass rumble as the giant construct shuddered, rattling in on itself in what could only be described as its ultimate death throes. "Finish your petty war, Shepard," it told her, its red light finally beginning to flicker out. "We… will… be waiting."

Shepard woke from a light, fitful sleep to the sound of her cabin door opening. After the events on the surface of Rannoch, she had wasted no time in returning to her quarters for a much-needed nap, but it seemed she would have to wait for that until later. Pushing herself up onto her elbows, she turned her attention interestedly towards the door of her cabin, and was only half-surprised to see Javik standing in the entryway, his harsh, attentive stare easily seeking her out from his corner of the room. Sliding her legs out of bed, Shepard quickly got to her feet, rubbing her eyes as she approached the prothean, before moving past him to drop herself down in the chair beside her desk. She had spent too long on her feet to stay there for any amount of time now, even for politeness' sake.

"How can I help you, Javik?" she asked, stifling another small yawn as she stretched her legs out in front of her, getting as comfortable as she could in the small space provided by the swivel-chair.

"You took on a live Reaper all by yourself," Javik pointed out, getting immediately down to brass tacks.

Shepard nodded, thoughtfully, scratching absentmindedly behind one ear with the nail of her index finger. "Yes," she agreed, offhandedly. "What about it?"

Javik frowned, taken aback by her seemingly unconcerned attitude. "You killed a Reaper," he repeated, giving the statement a bit more emphasis this time. "A synthetic creature whose sole intent was to destroy you. And yet, if I am not mistaken, you continue to believe that synthetics can be trusted."

"I believe the geth can be trusted," Shepard answered, simply, looking up at him again with a look of almost pained indifference. "Was that all you wanted to ask?"

"The geth," Javik repeated, the word sounding condescendingly unpracticed on his tongue. "Yes. A formidable opponent, yet you trust them to remain your allies. Why did you allow one on this ship?"

Shepard frowned, crossing her arms as she leaned back in her chair, regarding him with almost scrutinising scepticism. "Legion helped us before," she told him, straightforwardly. "So I trusted him to help us again. There's really nothing more to it than that."

At this explanation, Javik made a face, the edge of his lip curling disapprovingly. "It's still a machine," he retorted.

"I take it you had your own problems with AI?" Shepard asked, reaching across her desk to pick up the small, star-patterned bouncy ball she had set aside earlier.

Javik nodded once, before raising his hands, as if to illustrate. "The Jatil," he told her, directly. "They were as the geth are to this cycle."

"What happened?" Shepard asked, beginning to roll the ball around in small, unfocused circles with the edge of her thumb. She could see Javik trying hard not to be distracted by the motion, but every so often his top pair of eyes would flick to the toy, only to quickly dart away again to stare at her instead, intently.

"Their creators lived on a dying world," Javik explained, matter-of-factly. "It was beyond their ability to save. So they resorted to implants to enhance their intelligence."

"I think I know where this is going," Shepard commented, picking up the bouncy ball to instead roll it absentmindedly between her fingers.

"The AI seized the physical body," Javik went on, gravely. "It could alter the genetic material at the deepest level. In time, the offspring were moulded into a slave race. Few organic traces were left." He paused, gritting his sharp teeth as his gaze dropped from Shepard to the floor. "They were monsters," he spat. "All machines commit treachery. The one you brought on board is no different."

"Maybe," Shepard conceded, turning her attention away from Javik to look down at the bouncy ball still held in her hand. "But he's not like the other geth."

"You can't know that," Javik insisted, looking up again with a deep frown. "They are more alien than you and I are to each other."

Shepard's brow furrowed as she looked up at him again, taken aback. "Just because Legion isn't like us doesn't mean he can't be trusted," she countered.

In return, Javik shook his head. "You are wrong," he told her, solemnly.

"How can you be so certain?" Shepard insisted, now starting to get annoyed. She had never met another being in her life so convinced that the world was meant to be broken down into shades of black and white, and while at first she had found his cut-and-dry mentality to be interesting, if extreme, she now found it to be nothing short of chauvinistic.

"Organics do not know how we were created," Javik explained, pragmatically. "Some say by chance… some say by miracle. It is a mystery. But synthetics… they know we created them. And they know we are flawed." Lifting his hands again, he looked down at them, his gaze fixed on his hands as he clenched and unclenched them, contemplatively. "We created them, and then gave them the power to surpass us," he went on, introspective. "But, that seems to be the inevitable way things are. The creation surpassing the creator. Self-righteous, blindly ambitious machinations with no regard for the sanctity or importance of the ones who sacrificed of themselves so that they might be able to exist."

"What are you getting at, Javik?" Shepard asked, pausing in playing with the bouncy ball to stare at him, wary. She could not quite figure out where he was going with this meandering line of thinking, but that did not stop it from putting her on edge.

Letting his hands drop back to his sides again, Javik looked up at Shepard once more, fixing her with the hard stare of all four of his bright yellow eyes. "Have you decided what you are going to do with your own creation?" he asked her, directly.

Shepard hesitated, frowning a bit as she tried to figure out what he was referring to. "About my what?" she finally asked, rolling the starry ball distractedly between her thumb and index finger.

"About your…" Javik faltered, trying to figure out what to call it, before finally simply nodding his tapered head towards her abdomen. "About that," he said, firmly. "About your growing problem."

"My baby?" Shepard asked, sliding a surprised hand under her hoodie to rest it across the curve of her baby bump. "What about my baby?"

"Have you decided what you will do with it?" Javik asked. "Now that it has begun to interfere with your job as Commander? Surely you cannot be thinking of keeping it. Not with so much at stake."

"And why not?" Shepard challenged, staring at him, intently. "What if I say I had decided to keep it? I have a life outside of the Alliance, Javik – or I will, once this war is over. I'm a human being. This isn't going to be my life forever."

Javik frowned, baring his filed teeth in disapproval. "Then you have no regard to the fact that it is your life now?" he insisted. "No regard to the lives that depend on you giving this job your all? It is your responsibility to fight back the Reapers. Everyone is depending on you to lead the resistance. The great Commander Shepard, the name on every pair of lips all over the galaxy… will their pleas fall on deaf ears, their lives in idle hands, because you wish to keep an inconvenient child?"

"I don't see that it's any of your business what I decide to do, Javik," Shepard countered, getting up quickly from her chair to face off with him, livid. "It's my body, it's my child, and it's my responsibility. If I wanted your opinion about it, I would have asked for it, but as it is—"

"It is a rash decision, and a foolish one," Javik cut over her, raising his voice, irate. "Perhaps you would be doing the Alliance a favour to simply quit, rather than carrying out this ridiculous charade. You have chosen a duty to your own selfish agenda over that which is best for the entire galaxy, and you do so without shame." Taking a step towards her, he squared his shoulders, challenging her, his yellow eyes blinking off-rhythm, causing her blood to chill. She hated when he did that, and could not help but feel that he did it on purpose just to throw her off balance. "You should be embarrassed – I am embarrassed for you," he continued, darkly, growling through his teeth. "Your carelessness and the consequences resulting from it should not put the entire galaxy at risk. They should not be punished for your negligence and selfish singlemindedness."

"Get the hell out of my cabin," Shepard snapped, feeling her blood begin to boil as she pointed forcefully towards the door. "I don't want you coming in here again unless I specifically tell you I want to talk to you. Do you understand me? Get the hell out."

"I will leave," Javik agreed. "And I will keep your secret. But do not expect others to be so charitable. How long do you think your asari will stay quiet before her foolish concern for your well-being overwhelms her sense of duty? How long until your nosy thief lets it slip in some girlish gossip? How long can you keep avoiding standard medical check-ups before your doctor begins to suspect something is very wrong?"

"I said get out of my cabin!" Shepard shouted, grabbing up the first available thing on her desk and hoisting it, as if ready to throw. This seemed to do the trick, as Javik's yellow eyes widened, and he quickly turned, making his way for the door. Once he had passed outside, letting the doors slide closed behind him, Shepard set the model ship down on her desk again, dropping back into her chair and resting her head in her hands, exhausted. As much as she hated to admit it, his words had struck a chord, and she could feel each valid point stinging like a thorn in her side. He was absolutely right – up to this point she had been running on borrowed time, putting off talking about her pregnancy with anyone in the rash hope that if she simply refused to think about it, it would just go away.

Lifting up her hoodie again, she stared down at the telltale curve of her stomach, her military-issue pants pulled taut against the skin in the struggle to keep her condition as inconspicuous as possible. Passing a hand over her baby bump, she stroked it thoughtfully with the pad of her thumb, running her other hand back through her hair with a deep, anxious sigh. Perhaps Javik was right after all, and she was being selfish to keep the child. Perhaps the rash decision to keep the baby was nothing more than an imbalance of chemicals, a surge of misguided, sentimental hormones making her too emotionally invested in something she had seen as nothing more than an ill-timed mistake less than three months ago.

Letting her hoodie drop back down again, she retrieved her hand, watching as it moved, almost independently, across her desk towards the vidcomm control. Then, selecting a channel, she sat back to watch the screen, waiting anxiously for someone to answer but finding herself almost wishing they would not. When her call was finally received, she felt a heavy weight sink to the pit of her stomach, realizing that it was too late to turn back now. "Shala'Raan?" she asked, trying hard to keep from wincing as the finalistic name left her tongue. She hesitated, biting her lip, still not entirely sure she knew what she was doing. Then, taking a deep, steadying breath, she asked, quietly, "…Can we talk?"