Hey all, long time no see. Apologies for that, it has been a bit busy this year for me. A small chapter to remind you I'm still dedicated to this story, and shape the next few chapters.

/.../

The Krogan, a towering figure of muscle, jagged teeth, and armour, looms over Pethio. Despite his intimidating size and scars, she refuses to cower. "Urdnot Wrex," she greets, rising from her chair in a futile attempt to appear less diminutive.

"You summoned me," The Krogan states, his eyes scanning the opulent room that serves as Tevos's office as he strides towards her desk, "Impressive place you have here. How is Shepard?" he inquires, his tone a mix of casual and authoritative.

"I did," Tevos blinks while openly ignoring the Shepard comment but silently making note of it. "Because we can help one another."

"How?" The Krogan asks with guarded curiosity as he stops a few feet before her desk, "I ain't got nothing for you." The Krogan notes from looking around that no guards with twitchy fingers followed him in for this meeting. Very unusual. He supposes if he did try anything, there would be a full Commando contingent somewhere out of sight, ready to pounce.

"Clan Urdnot," Pethio says aloud, "Is as wanderless as a swamp at the moment and needs direction, and like a swamp, it is beginning to fester with disease."

"And?" Asks Urdnot Wrex with a loud grumble, "Get to it. You may still have a few hundred left, but I'm running short."

"You're one of the few next in line. Urdnot Mung is... tasteless, Urdnot Mus is overly violent, and Urdnot Amsu is..."

"An idiot even for Vorcha standards," Wrex answers, his disdain for Urdnot Amsu evident. "Been thinking as much myself. Alright, you're speaking some sense, so I'm listening."

"How much are you tied in with the Humans? I understand the Normandy will be here soon to collect their people."

"Their Shepard killed Sarren," Wrex answers while rotating his right rotor cuff, causing some horrific sounds of grinding from within his joints, enough to make Pethio shudder a little, "I'm open to ideas." The Korgan goes on.

Tevos waits for the Krogan to settle a little after his response, "The Asari will put you in the power of Clan Urdnot. We can give you resources and weapons and make people disappear should you so wish."

"If I want to kill someone, I'll do it myself," Wrex pauses before quickly adding, "Like a true Krogan of Tachunka blood, but why?"

"If you aren't in power, Udnot Wreav is predicted..."

Wrex begins giving a deep and throaty chuckle, "Yeah, he doesn't like you citadel folk, does he? Bet you're squirming at the thought. Oh wait, you are cos I'm here." He chuckles before reaching for a flask hidden in his armour and taking a healthy drink. From the pungent smell, Tevos does not need to ask what it is.

Tevos squints her eyes, suppresses a comment, then asks, "So, do we have an agreement?"

"Not yet." Wrex answers with all seriousness, "Why me?"

"What was one of the first things you did in this room?" Asks Tevos in return.

Wrex initially answers with a deep chuckle, "Not often you get a chance to express yourself in a Councillor's office."

Tevos raises a hand to her face and rubs her eyes, "You're not making this easy for me, are you?"

"No, and you would be a fool if you think I would."

Tevos sighs before saying, "You asked about Shepard. How many Krogan would ask about my wife?" She debated revealing this information but realised he probably already knew, considering he is a part of the Normandy crew, "Of someone of no importance to them?" She gives a slight pause. "You are far left enough on the progressive stage to win my support but not left enough to lose the Krogan. To give you the truth, I would rather Urdnot Dazs was here, but I recognise reality; he would not control the denizens. You can."

"I appreciate your quad to tell the truth for once," Wrex tells her, "And it looks good on you, but between us in this office, Urdnot Dazs would be eaten alive by the packs. He is smart enough to know it too."

"Hence you." Tevos reinforces this with a gesture to the old battle master.

The second Wrex walks out of her office, Sha'ira walks in purposefully. As always, she looks gorgeous and like a million credits. How Sha'ira always looks on point, Tevos can only guess, but her best assumption is Sha'iras handmaidens must attend to her hourly. "Lunch, now," Sha'ira says.

Tevos looks at some old analogue clocks hung on a wall in her office. She has five clocks, one for the Citadel, one for Thessia, one for Illium, one for Standard Spacetime, and one for some place of significance depending on galactic events, at the moment, that is the Sahrabarik system. According to the clock showing Citadel time, it is three hours past lunch.

"I'm fine; I'll wait for evening dinner."

Sha'ira does not look impressed, "You know who has sent me. You have missed numerous meals in the last few days, including yesterday's breakfast, evening meal, and this morning's breakfast. I'm not leaving without you."

Tevos's expression hardens as she settles back into her chair, her focus returning to the tasks at hand. "I have a mountain of work to attend to," she asserts, her determination unwavering.

When Tevos is usually this overworked, Osh would get the estate's chefs to pack a sandwich and Pethio's favourite food into a cooler, and then she would walk into her office and put it in front of her. Osh, being her bondmate, would then force her to take a ten-minute respite while they both ate lunch. Of the three people in the Galaxy who can force Tevos to stop work, Osh and Sha'ira are two. Benezzia was and maybe still is a third.

"Like I care?" Asks Sha'ira, "You look like a Vorchas turd, and when did you last have some water? Your skin looks like fish scales out of water."

"I... I..."

Sha'ira can recognise the stress in her lifelong friend, and it's painful for her to see it. Realising her friend's mental state Sha'ira changes tact, "Back at my office I have a fresh Tubar sent from Piares. If you meet me back at yours in twenty minutes, we will third it with Osh."

"A Tubar? Is it not out of season?"

"They had an early spring," Sha'ira reveals while realising she now has Tevos on a hook and simply needs to reel her in, "I got the first one off the ship and it's been in the fridge since this morning."

"An early spring on Piares is usually seen as good luck to the local population. I should probably send them..."

"Well meaning after you sample some of their product." Sha'ira urges, finishing her sentence, "Back at your estate in twenty."

"You sell a hard deal. Fine." Until Osh is back on her feet, Sha'ira realises that she needs to step up and keep Pethio in the game, a job she was not expecting nor wanting, but as a Matriarch and member of the Circle, it is a job she will gladly undertake.

As Tevos goes to lock her computer, it makes an all-important ding which even Sha'ira recognises as a P1 email that in theory, can't wait.

Sighing, Tevos sits down and opens the email, "Huh," Pethio says aloud, "It would appear the Humans want to open talks with the Asari."

"Not the citadel?" Sha'ira asks, to which Tevos responds, "No."

"Then not your worry," Sha'ira urges.

"It is when it's talking embassies," Tevos counters, "I apparently have a meeting scheduled in an hour thirty. We have one ten before I need to be back here."

"What do you think could have prompted such a change in heart?" It is only after asking the question does Sha'ira realise she is now keeping Pethio at work.

"If I had to bet, our forces have had success with the Collectors, and this is them acknowledging our joint efforts. If this is the case, we should know in an hour when I get an update from Ja'Noir."

/.../

Meanwhile

"Ah, shit," Osh says as she sees Nyx limp into the room, an underarm crutch firmly in her grasp, "You look worse than me somehow, and you're on your feet."

"Hardly," Nyx answers as she hobbles towards a chair and sits down in a manner that could be best described as a controlled collapse. Osh is still confined to a medical bed, the limbs belonging to her right side still alien and numb to her, "How are you doing?" Nyx then asks when she is down in the chair.

"Well enough," Osh begins, "Freya is speaking 20% of my words, filling in the gaps, and my right-hand side is rather useless right now," Osh raises a right hand about an inch off the bed, "That is about the best I've got without Freya. I've got every bruise going, surgical cuts left right and centre, and a few new joints to get used to. But no old classic grinding so that is a positive, right?" She holds her left thumb up in a optimistic gesture.

"So, overall, pretty fucked," Nyx suggests as she puts a foot up on a footrest, allowing Osh to see a medical brace around Nyx's upper leg, "Not much you could get worse."

"I could be Ash," Muses Osh, "Dead and in the hands of the enemy. How is your leg?"

"Sore." Nyx answers immediately, happy to quickly move off the topic of the dead marine, "Real sore. One of the goons got a good shot on me, splintered my femur here into more pieces than a prebuilt Haffi." A Haffi is an Asari toy, much like a 3d jigsaw puzzle. "Took the docs and machines 36 hours of surgery to put it back together, but it's far from rebuilt."

"Any permanent damage?"

Nyx blinks, "They believe I'm going to have a wicked scar without plastic surgery." She half smiles, showing that she is putting up a brave face, "But I'm more concerned with the threat of permanent nerve damage to the lower limb. My toes are constantly feeling numb since I woke up. You could stand on my foot, and I would be none the wiser."

"Are they not able to regrow it? Should sort the issues out."

Nyx shakes her head very humanly, "They could, but I'm rather attached to this leg."

Osh raises a brow, "Is that a...?"

Nyx blinks with a chuckle, "It was."

"It was awful."

"Better than the vast majority of yours," Nyx retorts, "But that is a last resort. So, less of me, how stir-crazy are you?"

"Madly," Osh responds with a sigh, "And my damned pig-headed AI is only helping with..." She raises a left hand to make quotation marks, "Essential tasks." There is a slight and natural pause before she goes on, "Nyx, How did you escape the tower?"

"I didn't," Nyx answers, "Got rescued about a day and a half afterwards. It took a week of being bedded down before being allowed to roll out from the medical suites. Don't tell the docs I'm hobbling about; they mandated a chair for 4 weeks."

"I reckon a crate of booze will buy my silence."

Nyx raises a brow and chokes down a laugh, "As you would say, the Matriarch would string me from the highest tower if she found out I supplied any right now."

"Worth a try. I reckon Ophelia will cave."

"Ophelia cave?" Asks Nyx with a raised brow, a very sceptical look, and an undignified snort, "She is by the book."

"Yeah, but I have something she wants," Osh declares, "Ability to green light her academic conference on quantum tunnels next week without Pethios approval, which I doubt Pethio has even looked at right now with everything going on."

"She will get you another brewery, never mind a crate," Nyx tells her before changing topics, "So, how long until you're walking again?"

"Till Freya is walking for me? She wants a week before she even lets me stand. Till I can walk on my own accord? A month minimum."

"That is fast."

"I could be walking today if halfers here would do her job." Halfers refers to Freya, the infamously very hard-working, no-day-off AI.

"I'm certain she has her reasons," Nyx laments, "So, more importantly, how long till you are back in the arena?"

Osh genuinely smiles for the first time since Nyx walked into the room, "Even half-crippled, I could take down you lot and the next team. Just give me two weeks to figure out how to walk again."

Freya materialises in both their lines of sight, holds up six fingers, and then disappears, causing Osh to grumble loudly and curse the "Dam retched AI."

"Six weeks for your current predicament is very good," Nyx suggests.

"Not you too," Osh groans, "Is anyone on my side? If I had a dog it would be on my side."

"Well, you don't have a dog, so no, not many are," Nyx tells her, "But you have gained a bunch of fans online who may help."

"Sorry, say what?" Osh asks with a raised brow, "Fans online?"

Nyx blinks at her before pulling her omni-tool up and showing her a few videos, most of them are of Osh fighting the invaders on T day- Triumph day. "These are in the public domain?" Asks Osh with some horror.

Nyx blinks at her, "Yeah, the only videos I can't find is when you fought Saren or what happened after that."

"Saren?"

"The Turian Spectre?" Nyx is confused about why Osh can not remember the name.

"Did I win? I guess not from my current state." Osh wonders quietly if this Saren is the Turian whose face she can remember.

"Right," Nyx slowly says as a realisation hits, "No, you did a pretty good job on him from all accounts. His body was supposedly found looking like it had been mulched from dozens of up close rounds."

"So what did this?" Asks Osh, gesturing to her body, "They are quite tight-lipped on the topic."

"A whole bunch of glowing Banshees." Nyx tells her, "I saw them head your way, then I don't know what exactly happened after..." Nyx stops speaking as Pethio and Sha'ira enter the room.

Osh looks to Tevos but Freya speaks in her ear, letting her know it's time for Nyx to leave, and promises it's for a good reason which she will explain later. With a nod to Nyx she says, "Yeah, our time is up. I'll see you in a bit."

"Then I am dismissed," Nyx says with a smirk before clambering to her feet and beginning to slowly hobble out.

Tevos looks at Nyx as she hobbles out, "Nyx, I do not know who is worse, you or Osh. Just take it easy."

"Osh," Nyx calls over her shoulder as she continues to hobble out the room.

When Nyx is out of sight Osh looks to Pethio and says, "You're looking like dog shit. Besides, we have good news for you, which is likely more important than anything else you will receive today, but only after we eat."

"Then let us eat," Pethio says while gesturing to a bag which Sha'ira is carrying.

Freya appears out of nowhere and gestures to a table her holographic technology is now projecting. "Shall we?" She asks them all. The table is close enough to Osh's bed to make her feel included.

When Sha'ira places the Tubar on the table, Osh does her best attempt to sit up while stating, "Oh man, that thing is like a watermelon on crack cocaine mixed with red sand."

They spend a full twenty minutes eating before Pethio could no longer hold her silence. "So, Osh, what is my good news?"

"Freya?" Osh asks while looking at the AI, which has been sat at the table the whole time, making small talk with the group. Her presence in such a manner used to be very unusual but since the attack on the Citadel Freya's holographic form has become a more common sight.

"Your teams attacking the Collectors have rescued up to 1,548,137 Asari held in Collector captivity."

There is a pregnant pause before Pethio says, "That is excellent news, but we are missing tens of millions. What has happened to them, and why 'up to'."

Freya answers before Osh can say anything, "We need to focus on the good news. We have 1.5 million plus of your people, but you need to help us get them home. The terminology 'up to' has been used as many have been injured in the fighting and some will die as our medical teams are magnitudes beyond capacity."

/.../

3 hours later.

Getting off a call from the Volus ambassador Tevos slumps down into her chair after pacing around her office, "That is another 7 ships pledged."

"Seven hospital ships?" Asks Sha'ira, "That is less than I expected."

Tevos blinks at her before giving a verbal response, "They are still trying to sweet talk me into a vote, and I'm struggling to see how I can say no right now. If I give it I reckon they will give another two at most."

"Holding this over us for a vote? All the more reason to deny it. So, Salarians have given us four, we have 12, Volus 7, Elcor just promised me 3, and the Hanar have sworn 2. We are still a few beds short."

"By best estimates..." Tevos makes a few notes before saying, "We still need to find another 500,000 beds. So just a few."

"No. We need to remember the 3 ships the Humans promised, at 20,000 capacity each. So 440,000 beds. And we are forgetting the two Human and two Asari ships already there."

"From all reports, those four ships are nearly overrun with the assault team casualties. I don't think we can count them."

Sha'ira clenches her fists tight, "For that many casualties, it must have been fierce fighting."

Tevos blinks at her with a grim look, "Indeed. From initial reports, we only have killed or wounded left."

"So, where are the other ships coming from?"

Tevos makes a helpless shrug before saying, "One moment," She walks out of her office, retrieves Osh's old phone she was gifted and powers it up to ask, "Freya, can Humanity provide any more hospital ships."

The AI response is slower than Tevos would like, but it comes with little delay, "No, but I have been working on this. Can you provide medical teams, and equipment?"

Tevos and Sha'ira share a quick glance before Tevos answers, "Yes. We just need the ships."

"I can give you ships," The AI tells her, "But they will not be comfy. They are designed for mass material transport. I can install environment capabilities in a few days, but that is all. I must warn you they will be inefficent, unsightly, and spartan, but they will give medical teams space to work."

"How much capacity do you think you have?"

"Each ship can host upwards of 100,000 if I base capacity off your own vessels. I can provide 8 in a timely manner."

Tevos and Sha'ira share a very quick glance before blinking at one another, "Tell us where to send the teams, and we only need 5."

"They will meet you at the Sha'brik system. I must reiterate however these ships are not designed for life. They are cold, dark, ugly and slow."

"What are you using them for?" Sha'ira asks.

"Nothing of interest to you." Freya tells her, "I am only doing this as a favour." I.e don't ask too many questions.

/.../

There is a loud 'knock'... 'knock'... 'knock'... reverberate around Maiden Fintrl, and it stirrs her from her slumber. She remembers waking up in the medical tank a day earlier, her left leg missing below the knee and her left arm torn off at the shoulder. Opening her eyes despite the ever so slightly salty liquid she is suspended in, she looks at the source of the knocking and finds Viv standing outside her medical pod and with a printout in his hand. "Hey, look, you're dead," He tells her, holding the sheet up to the tank's glass sides so she could see.

With the liquid, she couldn't fully read the document, but she recognised the document, a letter that informs families that one has been KIA. Why does she have one? She can only guess it was an administration error. She wants to ask Viv how much longer she has in the tank, how she lost her limbs, and what happened with the overall battle, but she can not ask through the liquid. Looking to her side she notices she has a new arm, and a leg that now reaches down to her toes. The skin of her new limbs is very pasty, but she knows the colour will return with time. The only wound currently being worked on is a large hole where a slab of metal pierced her side.

Giving him a thumbs up, she closes her eyes and lets the drugs she is being pumped full of for pain management drag her back under.

Who knows how many hours later, she wakes up on a hard bench, only to find Viv next to her, numerous other wounded around her, and medical teams buzzing all around. "How do you feel?" He asks her.

"Like I've got the worst hangover ever."

"I'm not surprised. Here," He responds as he passes her a glass of water, and she goes to gulp it down, only to feel a tight spot on the right side of her face. Raising a hand she feels a large jaggared scar crisscrossing her left hand cheek and neck. Not noticing her pause, Viv goes on, "I think you were on every drug they had for a while. You know you were medically dead for at least an hour."

Shaking herself out of feeling her scar, she asks, "So that is why..."

"Yeah, they were a bit pre-emptive with that." Viv keeps quiet that he may have forced a medic at gunpoint to continue treating her till he was confident she would survive.

After slowly sitting up, Fintrl looks around at the chaos going on around her, "How bad is this all?"

"Bad," Viv tells her, "But we won. Terrier team killed the Reaper, and after that, the game was over for the bugs. They became mindless fodder for the remaining troops."

"Reaper?"

"Oh yeah," Viv tells her, beginning to sound somewhat upbeat, "You should have seen the thing. Real nasty skeleton monstrosity. It took a few mini-nukes to the face to put it down, but it's molten slag now."

"I'm in the Loaves canteen, laying on one of the benches people should be eating from. Just what is our casualty rate for me to be here?"

"46% are KIA. We have about 8% MIA, and pretty much the rest of us are shot up to some degree on these ships." There is a slight pause before he offers her his hand, "Come, I guess you will want to see if your friends have made it or not."

After helping her to her feet, and keeping her stable as she learned to walk on her new limb, he guides her to a large screen which displayed an almost endless scroll of names, next to most were KIA, some had MIA, and the rest had wounded, and a corresponding location. Two of her closest friends have perished, but the majority of her team she travelled to Human space with are somehow alive, but wounded, some significantly so. "How did we win this?" She asks as she continues to watch in horror as the monitor scrolls down the list of dead. She has never seen or heard of such horrific numbers of casualties in her life.

These were some of the best the Humans and her own had to offer, yet from looking at this, they had a severe lesson in military tactics. "We just got our asses kicked, pal."

"Who knows, but we did win." Viv tells her. "And god knows what the Reapers will be like when they do get here." Fintrl can not stop the shiver of dread that runs down her spine.

/.../

Who likes Reapers? Cos I like em. I like them a lot.