A/N: Part-3 of 3… so go back two chapters if you haven't already read them.

The battle against Sovereign wasn't going as well as the Alliance had hoped. No matter how much of a pounding they give the stationary target, they just weren't able to penetrate the kinetic barrier as the monstrous ship continued to take pot shots at them and inflicted massive damage. "Sovereign's too strong! We have to pull back!"

"Negative! This is our only chance! Take that monster down, no matter what the cost!"

"You will not retreat, humans!" Two Covenant ships moved in as the Citadel fleet that was still capable of fighting joined them. "The betrayer will fall this day! With or without your aid!" Sovereign had prepared to fight against the Covenant, studying their plasma weaponry and developed a pseudo-energy shield to absorb most of it. Though should all Covenant ships assault against it, the shield wouldn't be capable of holding, fortunately the rest of the Covenant fleet was occupied with destroying the remaining geth vessels.

The three snipers easily took out the turrets as Jorge and Vaht rushed the geth as Tali gave them an extra gun by hacking one of the juggernauts to fight with them. It almost seemed unfair as Vaht cut through three with one slice and Jorge mowing them down before they could attempt to bring his shields down. O'Brien was picking off a few extra geth he could, competing against Garrus and Ashley to see who could eliminate the most geth before Jorge or Vaht could.

Shepard Cortez and Wrex were on the ground with Sovereign's puppet while Liara, Kaidan and Six provided biotic and fire support from above to whittle away at the thing. Wrex got in a few good hit against the thing, Kaidan had it floating in the air, sending it against the wall with a good smack. This thing just continued to get back on its feet, the rapidly regenerating kinetic barriers weren't exactly helping either.

As Cortez took cover, he looked at it as it started blasting the area. "Kaidan, Wrex. I've got an idea. Shepard, think you can draw it away from us for a bit?"

"Not a problem. I think Sovereign's got a crush on me." Shepard jumped over the cover to keep it busy with Six giving her extra support fire.

Cortez switched off his helmet's speakers, relying on Dot to relay the plan to everyone. "Here my thought, that red core of his, I think it's like the heart or brain, or whatever Sovereign is using to control it. We pop that, we kill it. We need a biotic to distract it so Wrex can pin it to the ground." Cortez pulled out a fragmentation grenade and hung it on his finger by the clip, "I slip this onto one of its ribs and Wrex tosses it before the frag goes off. Any objections?"

"I think I have a better plan." Liara used her biotics and froze the puppet just as it was about to jump. With it frozen in place, Shepard fell back as Cortez took her place. He had to look around, but he soon found a gap with one of the ribs right of the sternum. He slid the clip in and positioning it onto the sternum.

Cortez fell back and Six was ready to shot. "Time."

"Five seconds." Cortez had counted how long Liara's stasis field usually stayed in effect, and his search for a gap in his ribs took most of that time. Six counted until four before she fired. The shot hit the grenade just as the puppet came out of the stasis.

The grenade's explosion took the barrier out, but the thing was still functioning. "Damn, I was hoping it would work."

Shepard got ready for round two, "As long as those shields doesn't regen, I'll be happy." Wrex tried to crush it against the wall it has jumped onto, but the thing jumped away rapidly firing on Wrex. The krogan battlemaster created an extra biotic barrier to soak up most of the hits, though his shields were just barely able to hold their own.

Kaidan caught the thing in his biotics again, allowing everyone to unload into it and just as Shepard had hoped, the kinetic barriers didn't come back. Even after it was released from the lift field, the team did its best to keep the pressure on it. Wrex got in a lucky blast from his shotgun, the puppet tripped over as it collapsed onto one of the rocks. The red core was gone and when the body finally came to rest, it became inflamed, turning everything that was to dust.

Simultaneously, as Saren's husk of a body disintegrated, something was happening to Sovereign. The red static electricity started jumping all across the ship as its systems started to fail it to the point that Sovereign could no longer keep its grip on the tower.

The debris of so many ships littered around Sovereign, as the Normandy flew by to confirm this unusual activity, "Its shields are down! Now's our chance!"

"Hit it with everything we've got!" The ships that were about to retreat turned around as every ship opened fire on Sovereign.

The Normandy u-turned with Alliance and Covenant fighter escorts around it back down toward Sovereign. "Hard on my flank! We're going in!"

The Normandy fired a disruptor torpedo as it was followed by Covenant class-2 projectile cannon fire. The disruptor torpedo went clean through Sovereign's underside as the opening allowed the Covenant plasma fire to cause even more damage. The explosive events lead to a chain reaction within Sovereign, slowly expanding it before violently exploding to pieces, some of which unfortunately flew back into the tower.

It took mere minutes for Garrus and the others to reach the tower and start searching for the others. "Damn it Cortez, you're not going out like this!"

"Six! Six, give me a signal that you're alright!"

Vaht continued to move pieces out of their way in their search effort. One of them eventually yielded fruit, "Humans!"

Vaht continued to move the debris as the others arrived. Liara had enveloped the group in a biotic sphere, though Wrex still had to support a piece from crushing them. Anderson was with the team as he rushed over to assist anyone injured. "Take it easy…it's over. You're safe now."

Ashley looked around only seeing four heads, "Where's the Commander, LT?"

"And Six?"

Cortez looked back to where most of the debris was, "She went after Shepard."

Garrus helped Wrex with his injuries, though not knowing if Shepard and Six were still alive plagued them more than their injuries. O'Brien gave Cortez a leg to hobble on as everyone was getting ready to leave. It was until Jorge's motion tracker picked up something, and the distinct sound of metal grinding against metal, did everyone look back once more.

One of the legs was kicked over as Six had Shepard lean on her while she dragged the Commander out. Everyone, even Vaht somewhat, was relieved to see the duo walking out of the carnage, if not slightly worse for wear.

Captain Anderson and Commander Shepard met with the Citadel Council with Ambassador Udina. Shepard even recommended Anderson for the position as the human representative on the Council as the crew of the Normandy disembarked on their next mission, finding a means of stopping the Reapers for good.

Though most of the non-human crew remained, Wrex and Vaht had left the team. Wrex accomplished what he had wanted, killing Saren, twice, and got to kill a hell of a lot more before that. Vaht had returned to his people, planning to return to Tali's side once his people had established a planet to call home, for now…

Amongst the Covenant, the Kig-Yar that were in ships broke away once Sovereign was destroyed, using the mass relay network to disappear. Though the few true devout among their kind remained at the Fleet Master's side, ready to fight as he saw fit. The others had little choice in the matter, seeing as it was stay or journey into the void of space without a ship.

The Kig-Yar who managed to escape Fleet Master Rayta's command during the chaos of Sovereign's demise eventually found their way to Omega. They were uncertain as to what to expect when they found out about the Pirate Queen of the Terminus, but seeing the Omega space station they knew they could work this rather easily. With a salvaged translation device taken from the geth, the Kig-Yar managed to tweak it to function for their language. When they got through the airlocks, they were greeted by more turians, and a new species. Four-eyed muscular things, but their overall build was still humanoid, almost to the point that they looked like humans with different heads. Shipmistress Chur'R-Zer pushed one of her people aside, with the translator strapped to her chest, "Take us to Aria T'Lok."

Aria watched them approach her seat, escorted by her people, as the ones presented to her bowed. "We are honored to meet you, esteemed Queen of Omega."

Aria continued to look away from them, barely giving them a glance. "Flattery will only get you so far. What are you and what do you want?"

"I am Shipmistress Chur'R-Zer. We are Kig-Yar. And we seek employment."

Aria wasn't interested. "If you can't see, I have all the man power I could ever want. So why do I need the likes of you?"

Chur'R-Zer snapped her talons, as two muscular Skirmishers jumped into the booth and the two with her activated their point defense gauntlets and protected Chur'R-Zer from Aria's guards, "In a few generations, our people adapt to any new environments. Our ancestors have even settled on asteroids like this before. Our eyes are sharp enough to spot any unusual activity. Our sense of smell is excellent enough that we can differentiate the different patrons, and hunt them down if you so desire. And even in this noise, I can hear the many conversations being had. We are snipers, scouts, shock troopers, and we very good at finding anything or anyone. And we are very good at what we do."

Aria was still suspicious of Zer's motives, "So why come to me if you can already start your own raiding parties?"

Chur'R-Zer has seen people like her, mostly among her own, and a few from the San 'Shyuum, "If we did, we'd have to work though you eventually. I thought we could skip the middle man, as it were, and just work directly under you. Plus," she turned to the turian guards, "I know we'd be far superior than his breed could ever serve."

The two turians were about to do something, but Aria gave her wicked smile as she finally turned toward them. "I like you. You're ambitious, quick tongued, and you know your place. I'm willing to give you and your people a test. If things work out, we'll arrange a more permanent situation."

Zer bowed again, "I assure you, Aria, you're making a great new investment."

After about a month since Sovereign's demise, Vaht had returned to the Normandy to continue his service to Tali'Zorah. The Alliance continued to learn from the remains of the Long Night of Solace, UNSC ships and weapons to improve their capabilities and stance among the other races. Lamenting Light was asked to help Fleet Master Rayta with the colonization and enlightenment of his people, both of which the monitor gladly accepted, once permitted by the Reclaimers.

Even with this time that has passed chasing geth, they had no new leads on the Reapers. "Disengaging FTL drive. Emission sinks active. Board is green…we are running silent."

Pressly walked into the cockpit, "We're wasting our time. Four days searching up and down this sector, and we haven't found any sign of geth activity."

"Three ships went missing here in the past month. Something happened to them."

Pressly still though they were on a wild goose chase, "My money's on slavers. The Terminus System is crawling with them."

Ensign Helen Lowe was also in the cockpit when she noticed an unusual reading, "Picking up something on the long-range scanner. Unidentified vessel. Looks like a cruiser."

Joker pulled up the readings, "Doesn't match any known signatures."

"Cruiser is changing course. Now on intercept trajectory." Lowe double checked to be certain.

"Can't be." Pressly took a seat and check their systems, "Stealth systems are engaged. There's no way a geth ship could possibl—"

"It's not the geth." Joker suddenly had a bad feeling in his gut, activating the ship wide comm, "Brace for evasive maneuvers!"

As Joker began the maneuvers the unidentified ship opened fire, hitting them and caused damage across the board, including the terminal Pressly was on. "Pressly!" Lowe tried to help him, only for an explosion to kill her.

"Kinetic barriers down. Multiple hull breaches. Weapons offline. Somebody get that fire out!" Joker was doing everything he could to keep the ship alive, though already crippled the enemy continued their relentless assault.

"Come, there is nothing we can do. This vessel is done."

Tali wouldn't budge, continuing her work even as fires started erupting from the consoles. "Just a bit more…I can…"

Vaht pulled her away, "There is nothing we can do."

"Come on, everyone else is already out!" Adams pulled Tali's arm as Vaht shielded them both until they could reach the elevator.

Jorge was holding the elevator open, "Everyone in, now!"

Six, O'Brien and Cortez secured their weapons as they helped anyone who was injured. "Damn, I hate party crasher!"

Six tapped Jorge's shoulder, "Elevator's full. We'll catch the next ride."

Jorge nodded, "Don't plan on pulling what I did."

"Never crossed my mind."

As the elevator left the trio alone, O'Brien turned to her, "I hope it has time to come back for us." Another explosion, this one came from engineering. "Now I really hope it does."

Kaidan had suited up as he rushed through the ship to the sleeper pods. "Shepard!"

Shepard was also suited in her armor as she donned her helmet, "Distress beacon is ready for launch."

"Will the Alliance get here in time?"

Another hit rocked the ship as Shepard help keep Kaidan stand, as much as for herself. "The Alliance won't abandon us," grabbing a nearby fire extinguisher and tossing it to Kaidan to help, "We just need to hold on. Get everyone onto the escape shuttles."

"Joker's still in the cockpit. He won't abandon ship. I'm not leaving, either."

Shepard turned back from working on another part of the ship, taking the extinguisher from Kaidan, "I need you to get the crew onto the evac shuttles. I'll take care of Joker."

Another internal explosion rocked them as Shepard pulled a few more wires to keep things going a bit longer, "Commander…"

"Kaidan. Go," looking back to him, her eyes pleading to Kaidan, "Now."

"Aye, aye." Shepard launched the beacon and signaled the abandon ship order. Jorge was already at the escape pods with the crew from engineering.

Williams rushed Chakwas and a few others in, "Everybody in! Go, go, go!" An explosion unfortunately killed a crewmember before she could reach the pod. Kaidan arrived and Ashley didn't like that he was alone, "Where's the Commander?"

Kaidan looked away from her, hesitant to say. "She's staying behind to get Joker."

Six, O'Brien and Cortez just arrived when he said that. Six looked back, "I'm going in."

"Six!"

She turned to Jorge, "I'll get out, with Shepard and Joker. I promise."

Jorge nodded, "You better." O'Brien, Cortez and Jorge take up one pod as the rest of the crew divided among the other five.

Six rushed over to the distress beacon controls, finding Shepard was still there. "Hitomi? I thought I ordered everyone to abandon ship?"

"Your pilot isn't listening either." She looked up toward the bridge, "We can all get out in his."

There wasn't much she could do now that the other pods had already jettisoned. The two cross the burning mess hall as they heard Joker over the comm. "Mayday, mayday, mayday! This is SSV Normandy. We've suffered heavy damage from an unknown enemy. Come on, baby. Hold together. Hold together!"

As the door opened to the CIC, the ship was in worse condition then they could have anticipated. Much of the hull above them was gone, the CIC was flickering with what little life it had as chairs and bodies floated about. Dot calculated that the Normandy was entering a rather stable orbit about the planet above, though it would only last for so long as the ship was not disturbed any further. At the cockpit the found Joker had the emergency barrier projected and a kinetic barrier EVA helmet to continue his attempts to fly what little of a ship there was. "Come on, Joker! We have to get out of here!"

"No! I won't abandon the Normandy! I can still save her!"

Shepard tried to speak some sense back into him, "The Normandy's lost. Going down with the ship won't change that."

Joker finally stopped piloting, looking down as he could no longer lie to himself. "Yeah…okay. Help me up."

As Shepard got Joker to his feet, Six noticed the readings, "Commander."

"They're coming around for another attack!"

"No," Six turned with her DMR at the ready, "Boarding party."

The massive ship was now side by side with the Normandy, as the unidentified invaders landed near the CIC completely unarmed and in masses. Shepard pulled Joker out of his chair to hasten their escape, "Ah! Watch the arm." Six continued to hold the enemy off, forced to pull out her pistol and fire both that and her DMR at their unending numbers. Eventually she was forced into hand-to-hand combat and using both knife and kukri against these unknown hostiles. Getting closer to these aliens, Six's mind continued to compare them to the Sangheili in overall form crossed with the Yanme'e, four golden eyes with a tough exoskeleton. A couple managed to grab her arm once or twice, but her heightened reflexes and strength won out each time.

One of these strange insect humanoid was glowing, the eyes more so than the others and various cracks were formed all across its body as it used a strange form of biotics to repel Six's attempt to strike it with her combat knife. Slightly dazed by this sudden unknown, the insectoid took this opportunity to knock Six aside with the back of its arm, assuming her to have been dealt with.

"Hitomi!"

Shepard got Joker into the pod as she tried to help Six but as soon as she left Joker's side something bite the back of her neck. When she pulled it off, it was a bug that fit in the palm of her hand and its stinger still covered with her blood. Shepard could feel something was stiffening her joints as it was getting harder for her to move. She turned back to Joker, completely vulnerable in the pod, though his chances here were less then savory if she didn't act fast. "Commander! Shepard!" Shepard fought with every fiber of her being to punch the external jettison button and launched the last life pod before her entire body finally froze up on her.

The invaders seemed to have acquired what they wanted. They grabbed the frozen Commander Shepard along with their fallen and prepared to leave. Six was hurt, but it wasn't anything serious, at least compared to injuries she had sustained before. When she came to she saw Shepard in the arms of the glowing one as it walked past her. "Dot?"

"Yes, Noble Six?"

"I need you to emit a signal, one that only I can follow. Keep that signal alive as long as possible without anyone else noticing. You're going to be with Shepard for a while, so you're going to be limited. You are to ensure Shepard's survival and ensure I can still reach her. Are your mission parameters set?"

There was a momentary pause as Dot finalized her adjustments to Six's armor systems. "Parameters set. I will await your swift return, Noble Six."

Six pulled Dot out of her helmet and inserted her into a small port on Shepard's back normally reserved for medical or armor microframe analysis. Six watched the unknown invaders expose their very insect-like wings on their backs and returned to the awaiting ship above. Six grabbed her weapons, floating out of the Normandy and looked out to the seven life pods floating and waiting for pickup. Six then turned to watch the unknown ship turn away from them, letting the other live.

Six pulled her way to her intended destination, unfortunately for the others it wasn't to the life pods. "Jorge…Cortez…O'Brien…everyone…" Six unlatched the undamaged YSS-100 Sabre from underneath the husk that was once the Normandy, "I'm sorry…" She entered the pilot's seat and flew off, away from their pods. She had no intension of losing Shepard to those bugs and she was going to the one place she could to launch this suicide rescue mission, the one place that had the resources she needed, the one place she knew would be waiting for her…

A/N: You know that weird circle thing on the back of the armor, right between the assault rifle and sniper rifle(used as the heavy weapon holder in ME2), that's where Dot is.

And like I said in the first chapter of this three chapter update, I'm ending the 'story', but not ending the story. I will pick up where I left off under a new story title(still working on the name), so just give me time to work on the title and it should be up soon enough.

Now I know what some of you are about to yell next, 'You're disrupting the Liara/Shadow Broker complex,' and to that I say I do not care. She's too much of a Bioware lovechild. And by that I mean she gets the most screen time and dialogue than any squadmate(cumulatively), she is the only character that has an appearance in almost every pieces of Mass Effect merchandise/story it's not even funny anymore(I'm looking at you Kotobukiya statuette and Paragon Lost scene, too much). Hell, she can't even die until ME3, and even then, unless you screw the pooch for everyone else, she's still protected!

Now don't get me wrong, I think she's alright as a character(fairly decent, if not at times, squishy squadmate), but stop trying to ram blue alien sex down our throats! If I really wanted that, I'd just go green and look to Star Trek.