Disclaimer: Everything recognisable is Bioware's. Everything else is mine.

A/N: Pssssst guys! Look! It's chapter 19 all finished and shiny! I'm hellish sorry this took forever. My work-life-muse balance is just bonkers right now, but I'm getting this thing done no matter what! There's SO MUCH more to come :p But here we are! I hope you're all having a good day!

Yours faithfully,

L.G

The Summit

Revelations force a tentative accord

"Oh f'th love of-COME ON!"

Not ten minutes had passed after the Priority-1 mission to Eden Prime. Not ten, and Shepard and her second in command were in the armoury shedding weapons and beginning upkeep and repairs on the tools of their trade.

"You'll tie yourself in a knot at this rate, y'know."

The Commander, sweat-soaked and half in half out of her under-armour, glared poisonously at her Turian brother in arms. She then braced herself and pulled up with all she had, a howl of effort coming up as the thick material rolled north; over her torso, then over her head with a slick pop. Rapture erupted thereafter –

"OH YES!"

- and across the way, the happily chuckling Turian flashed a toothy smile. "Your aim's for shit too" he said, ducking when she pitched the offending garment at him before moving up on the gear she'd removed when they'd first got back. Stripped of her armour to the waist - the rest being undamaged and too much hassle to remove when she had toiling to do – she clicked on the overhead light above the worktable and rubbed her brow on her forearm before giving her doffed wares a onceover.

Eagle-eyed Garrus though wasn't done. "And you're leaking."

She flipped him off without looking back at him.

Laughter now. "That's the bad finger, right?"

That got him a smirk. "The only one f'you, Vakarian."

"I forget." Six talons came up and were wiggled for emphasis. "You've got so damn many."

Shepard snorted, examining the puncture on her suit's right flank more closely. It wasn't anything too terrible, but it'd be a two-hour job if she took her time with it; which she hoped to do if she had the chance. She was reaching for her tool kit when the door hissed open, Thane slipping out of the bustling corridor beyond and into the armoury's relative quiet. Joy lit them both up when they locked eyes.

"Thane!"

"Siha" the Drell beamed, then glanced left and nodded to their Turian counterpart. "Garrus."

The toothiest, cheekiest smirk was flashed back at him. "Siha."

Thane blanched, his mate spluttering up a laugh by her table before managing a, "Hey!"

Garrus looked over, his grin sending his mandibles wide. "Shepard."

A beat passed. Then the pair of them, in unison - "Wrex!"

Their laughter echoed round the room as Thane fondly shook his head. He moved to approach the Commander, but didn't make it five steps before a new voice by the door -

"Shepard"

- turned him in a tight 180.

Behind him, Shepard and Garrus snapped to like they'd been hit by lightning.

"Primarch Victus."

That was the Commander speaking. The stately Turian bowed his head in response and greeting, sparing glances for his compatriot and the Drell who had swiftly stepped aside. He vaguely recognised him from the Bridge, but paid him little mind.

"Commander" Victus said. "I understand you've just returned from a mission. A successful one at that. Congratulations."

Shepard puffed up a fraction. "Thank you."

"You must be fatigued, but I have a matter I must bring to you." Guarded brown eyes flicked again to Garrus and Thane before resettling upon the Commander. "Privately."

The woman didn't even think twice. "If it's this second urgent, I'm right with you" she said. "If not, give me five minutes to change and I will be."

It took Victus a moment to answer; a moment he spent weighing how much Palaven stood to gain or lose in those five minutes. Thousands of lives, potentially. Another city? Another continent? Another arm of the fleet? He couldn't say for certain, but knew better than to think an overly weary, physically uncomfortable soldier would do him much good.

"Five it is" he said. "You know where to find me."

The Primarch moved off then with a final acknowledging nod, gathering his thoughts as he retraced his steps up to Deck 2. In his wake, Shepard too was preoccupied; concerned with what might be waiting for her up in the War Room. On the clock now she made hurried work of the clasps on the rest of her armour, gave Thane's lips the most chaste and thankful of kisses when he procured and handed over her favourite downtime sweater and a pair of cargo pants from the kit bag she'd squirrelled away beneath the work bench, and listened attentively as he relayed the good word about the colonists they'd sought to help.

"Their rebellion is growing by the minute" he said, moving so that he could effectively shield her growing nudity from Garrus. The Turian had neither the time nor inclination to glance over, but to Thane's mind discretion was still polite. "With any luck they will be able to drive Cerberus out before long."

"That's fantastic" Shepard puffed, worming her way out of her under armour with much the same effort it took to free herself from its top portion minutes prior. A kick sent the offending garment half way across the room, and she sprawled on the deck for a beat to let her skin breathe before reaching for the clean civvies her helpful mate had delivered. One leg into her kecks, a comment from Garrus drew a chuckle.

"She got you trained, Krios?" he asked, gesturing towards Thane. "Unprompted slacks bringing's the first sign y'know."

"I wouldn't call care training" the Drell noted primly, offering his Siha an arm when she sought aid in rising. She flicked her belt closed once she was upright, pulled on her sweater and remained comfortably close to her mate's side as she undid the scraggy tail she'd dragged her hair into earlier and worked on neatening it. Words then, as she tugged and pinned.

"It's all him. He's always looked after me."

A loving look was traded, gentle eyes and low lids, and then the Commander was on her way to Deck 2; to Victus and the war and goodness knew what else. Left together in her wake, Thane and Garrus regarded each other in silence briefly, the Drell then approaching and offering a hand that his counterpart gladly accepted. They'd agreed back when Thane first re-joined the Normandy that Garrus would watch over Shepard when they worked planet-side on missions together. That he would be the bullets Thane couldn't lend her, secreted away on the ship as he was. This, to Garrus, was nothing like a big ask. The woman was more a sister now to him than a superior officer – albeit a pink, squishy one – and he'd sworn again, as he had when Thane was dying, to keep both eyes on her whenever he could spare them. Thane's gratitude had been and remained incalculable, and was poorly summed up by the brief words he spoke as they clasped hands.

"Thank you."

Garrus bowed his head knowingly. "Any time" he said. "Any time."

"I said once, Shepard, that if the Krogan help us on Palaven my people will stand at your side to defend Earth."

Primarch Victus leant against the console before him, his head part lowered and posture tense. He felt now more than ever that he was a soldier, not a politician; that he was ill equipped to speak as one as his new, unwanted station in life demanded. He understood the to and fro of war. Understood competing demands and how duty could blinker even the most well-meaning. But he knew too that he couldn't disguise reality, and that the Commander, standing across from him, would lose respect for him if he tried. The room seemed to still, to fall to silence in the beat between the beginning of Victus' opening gambit and the end of it, and Shepard, in that time, felt a chill of dread and adrenaline wash through her; bracing her for a retraction of support that never came.

"We must act quickly. Time is as much our enemy as the Reapers now."

Shepard propped herself against the console much like Victus did. None of the relief she felt came through in her tone. "What's happened?"

"The bombardment remains overwhelming" Victus said. "I and our remaining military leaders are selecting portions of the fleet to move away from Palaven. To spare what we can, where we can, for future efforts. Combined efforts. But we need Krogan boots on the ground to make this feasible. Our Generals know as well as we do that any move to repurpose them without it would be tantamount to cultural suicide."

He paused briefly, the atmosphere as heavy as lead. A flash of his comrade's message – ADRIEN PLEASE! – came back to him and made Victus wince; the faintest tension rippling through his otherwise still, wracked expression. His gaze flicked up again to the Commander, and he considered for seconds whether sharing the plea for time would do any good; whether an example of real-world, present tense horror would jar her into action any more quickly than measured words. Their eyes locked across the eight or so feet between them, neither content to imply disrespect by looking away at such a pivotal time.

They were already living present tense horror.

The message wasn't required to reinforce that.

Straightening, the Primarch flexed his talons – sore from typing and from being clenched tight with stress – before resting both at the small of his back. "I know of your close ties to the Urdnot clan on Tuchanka, Commander" he said. "Their clan-chief is nothing if not vocal about it. Have you had any success in brokering a meeting?"

As her counterpart had moments prior, Shepard smothered a wince at the mention of her old friend and his very Krogan kind of diplomacy. "I'd apologise for him" she said. "But Wrex wouldn't want me to. If you're ready, all we're wanting for now is a safe, neutral spot to convene in."

"And the Asari?" Victus pressed. "I'd hoped.."

Shepard shook her head, the terse conversation she'd had with the Asari councillor via vidlink in the days before she and Thane had reunited permanently still fresh and irksome enough in her mind to bring the flicker of a scowl. "I tried, but their position's clear."

Victus' huff had a growling edge. "Political inexpedience?"

"Reapers closing on their front porch" the Commander recounted. "And precedent. To quote the councillor, they've been down this road before."

"As have the Turians. And the Salarians. Every species has made hard choices in the face of war."

Shepard nodded. "It's a well-trodden path, I'll grant you. Hell, even the Protheans walked it; this exact path that we're on now. We know where it leads if we roam the same way they did. Which is why we need to bring our best heads together to figure this out."

A low rumble escaped the Primarch's chest. It was a Turian tell for deep thought and consideration; one Shepard had caught Garrus making while he worked on his guns and that she'd asked him about moons ago. He'd called it a mind the mandibles kind of noise, meaning that the only thing that distinguished it from rage bordering on violence was how the Turian making it was holding his or her mandibles. Close to the face, you're safe. Wide, duck. Victus's were flickering lightly against his jaw. She was safe to continue, but he beat her to it.

"Do best heads not include Asari ones?" he asked, the frustration nipping at him easing slightly following the Commander's little speech. She had a good head for speaking, though that might just be the soldier in him. He'd only been out of the field a short while, but already he missed the directness with which others of his nature spoke. Diplomacy required doublespeak and implication; two things he had some skill in but no patience for.

"It can" Shepard said, straightening up but keeping both hands on the console. It wouldn't do to fidget when Victus was looking to her for counsel. His gaze was piercing. She matched him all she could. "If the Asari want to be at the table."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we'll at least let them know where the table is."

Those words were allowed to sink in a moment before Victus nodded. "Here's hoping they don't remain immune to reason for long" he said, reaching for a button on the console before him and giving it a click. A map of the galaxy appeared between them and laid flat as though it were spread out on a table. Each of the major races blinked onto the image over their respective home worlds, as did a number of the less martially adept but still notable civilisations – the Hanar, Drell and Volus being three. A second click highlighted the four peoples to be represented in the summit to come.

"This" Victus said, "is where we are now. Where it begins." He looked across the map a moment, then caught Shepard's eye. "I've told you before Commander, I'm no diplomat" he said, the flicker of a smile shown in how his mandibles stilled; how his brow plates shifted. "I'm a tactician. A soldier, like you. I hate abject uncertainty; things I can't even try to predict the outcome of. With the Reapers it's overwhelming fire power. Destruction by force. We know that, and much as we can't defend against it well yet, we've got a method. We can plan, like we are with this summit; with reaching out. But that, for me, is where certainty ends. Reapers I can predict. But politicians?"

A soft snuffle escaped Shepard. "Trust me, Primarch. Wrex is no politician."

"A blunt instrument with motives then? Between two soldiers and a politician."

The politician he was referring to would be one Dalatrass Linron, the leader of Sur'Kesh's wealthiest bloodline. Shepard wasn't sure if it was that wealth that got her selected for the role of ambassador, but she hoped at least that the woman would be level-headed. An irascible Krogan would be hard enough to deal with without having an equally immoveable Salarian wall to slam his head against. Victus' description of him though – a blunt instrument - drew a frown.

The Primarch caught it. "Am I doing him a disservice?" he asked, sarcasm thick in his voice.

Her answer came easy. Virmire lived in Shepard's memory where Wrex was concerned. He could be brutish, but there was nothing blunt about his mind. "There's more to Wrex than brute strength and rage. He can be reasoned with. Don't write him off."

"Help me then, Commander." Victus moved around the display towards her, highlighting the four races to be represented at the coming summit as he came. Once he and Shepard stood side by side, he manipulated the display to bring the information he wanted to focus on before them. "A Turian, a Salarian, a Krogan and a Human will enter a room in the near future. They each have things they need, things they can offer and things they can't." He hesitated briefly, watching her face. "You and I understand each other's situation, but the Krogan? The Salarian? What moves will they make, do you think?"

Give them each a pistol and I'll make an educated guess

That thought came unbidden and forced Shepard to hide a snort of laughter in a cough. She brought her hands up and rubbed them over her nose and lips, buying herself some think time as well as smothering a grin. Truth be this sort of exercise wasn't new to her. Maybe it was a product of being a military brat, but her mother had made a habit of posing her problems like this one to watch her work through them; see what conclusions she found, how she got to them and what she deduced. Her most recent go at this – their chat about Sovereign via vidlink – and Hannah's warning about treading lightly around the powder keg that is Krogan/Turian/Salarian relations came back to Shepard in that moment. She reached out and selected Wrex's image, pondering his motivations.

"Let's go with a worst-case scenario" she offered at length. "If the Reapers have reached Tuchanka, he'll be here for something that'll help the Krogan drive them back themselves. Wrex is invested in the strength of his people, and he believes they can survive without overwhelming martial aid. What he'd want though.. .. ..Supplies maybe? Medicine? Evac routes for key Krogan?"

"All possible" Victus agreed. "Anything more complex would take time and resources we simply don't have."

Shepard frowned, glancing up at him curiously. "Complex?"

"What's the key thing a Krogan might try and hold a Salarian Dalatrass to ransom with?"

It only took a moment for the dots to connect; dots shaped like Maelon Heplorn and horrifying experiments on Tuchanka. She'd let him live, kept his data but, "There's no cure."

Again, Victus nodded. "Exactly. It's a useless avenue to him, but it's still one he could try and press to his advantage." Shifting slightly in place, he reached across and selected the Salarian portion of the screen. "From what I know of this Linron woman, he'll get no quarter. She's a traditionalist where the Krogan are concerned. They were weapons, wrongfully raised up in desperate times."

Shepard's frown deepened. The Dalatrass' view wasn't uncommon, but that didn't make it palatable or right. "You're concerned they'll force a stalemate, aren't you. He'll want the Genophage cured, impossible right now or not. She'll dig in; refuse him flat. And we all leave with nothing. Or worse, end up setting off some kind of second Krogan rebellion."

"Tell me you haven't feared the same" Victus said, weary eyes fixing on the Commander. "We're hoping to broker something like peace between three species that have had over a thousand years of immense tension, if not war, between them.. .. ..I can do without Salarian ships. They have sixteen Dreadnoughts to their name, Shepard. They're useful but they're not Krogan bodies on Palaven. I need Wrex more than I do the Dalatrass, which means you and Earth need Wrex more than the Dalatrass as well."

Tension coiled in Shepard's gut. She met his gaze steadily. "What're you asking me to do, Primarch?"

"You've got the Krogan's respect, don't you? His trust? Leverage it. You can't let him leave the summit without pledging his support for Palaven.. ..It's both our races on the block if this falls through."

The Primarch's words rang in Shepard's ears for the day or so it took each of the summit's participants to arrive in the Pranas system. They set her on edge, so much so that when she'd wandered down to the Port Cargo hold with Liara to make sure their Prothean guest was settling in, he'd been able to sense it on her. To Pranas the Normandy arrived last, dropping out of FTL to find what must've been the most tentative sort-of-peace seen in the galaxy for over a thousand years. Just outside the range of each other's guns, the Turian, Salarian and Krogan vessels drifted uneasily; messages from each faction indicating that they'd welcome a neutral meeting ground in the Normandy.

Those calls had come in about an hour ago.

Now, presently, Shepard stood across from Primarch Victus in the Conference Room, fighting to keep the cold chill that'd just struck through her from showing on her face. Wrex was going the Genophage route, like they'd feared he might. The Dalatrass had balked so hard at the suggestion she'd stumbled back a step, raging, "Absolutely not! The Genophage is non-negotiable!", the moment she had breath in her lungs to use for words. And now it was on Shepard, as Victus watched her hawlishly, to dig them out of this mess. To leverage the situation somehow and secure Wrex's support regardless of the impossibility of his demands.

Her first attempt was a plea for intel; an attempt to show empathy and the willingness to listen. "Why're you so opposed to the idea, Dalatrass?"

The stately Salarian's response wasn't helpful. "Because my people uplifted the Krogan" she said, drawing herself tall. "We know them best."

Wrex was roaring dissent before the Commander could counter. "You mean you used us!" he bellowed, pushing off from the table he'd once had both hands on. "To fight a war you couldn't win! It wasn't the Salarians or the Asari or even the Turians that stopped the Rachni!" He turned to Victus briefly, then rounded on the Dalatrass; a clawed finger jabbed across the table at her. "It was Krogan blood that turned the tide!"

"And after that you ceased to be useful!" the woman snapped acidly, Shepard's affronted –

"Hey! Enough!"

- falling on deaf ears. "The Genophage" Linron seethed, dismissing the Commander with a waved hand as she glared across at Wrex, "was the only way to keep your urges in check. It was a necessity!"

"The only necessity here" Victus cut in, his voice cleaving through the mud-thick tension between the Salarian and the Krogan facing her. "Is that we come to an agreement on how we tackle the Reapers. Step." He gestured to himself. "By step." Then to Shepard. "By step." Linron and Wrex were then gestured to before the Turian pulled his shoulders back and addressed the Dalatrass. "You may not like him madam" he said, "but Wrex is right. Insulting him won't change that."

Outrage coloured Linron's expression. "I won't apologise for speaking the truth!" she clipped, turning her attention to Shepard at Victus's seeming opposition. "We uplifted the Krogan to do one thing. Wage. War. It's all they know because it's all we wanted them to know." Her tone became softer then, as though she was confiding something deeply personal to her. "We made a rash decision, Commander. We turned to the Krogan in desperation. It's the same mistake you're about to make today." A pause came, the Dalatrass looking between each of her companions before speaking again.

"No good can come from curing the Genophage."

The turn of phrase caught Shepard the moment it registered. She held the Linron's gaze, straightening as she too did; perhaps realising how she'd tripped herself up. "Can come? Dalatrass, you don't sound like you're talking about something academic there. What do you know that we don't?"

The woman's spluttering indignation was cut off when Wrex spoke.

"That a Salarian scientist, Maelon, grew a conscience!" He moved up on the console at the head of the table – Victus stepping back to keep shot of him - and accessed a vid-feed which he projected on the wall at his back. "He was on my planet. Testing a cure on our females."

"I remember" Shepard said, the dusty walls and derelict spaces of the hospital she and her team had infiltrated to find the rouge ex-STG scientist still fresh in her mind thanks to the cruelty of what else they'd found in the dim. Dead and dissected female Krogan, dead in the dozens, all in an attempt at a cure. "We didn't find anyone alive, Wrex. His methods were barbaric."

The Krogan shook his great head. "That's where you're wrong!" At his back, the vid-feed took on a first-person perspective; panning onto what appeared to be live female Krogan being kept in solitary confinement. As the Primarch and Shepard stared past him, Wrex bared his teeth at Linron. "The Dalatras here sent in a team to clean up the whole mess – and to take the females prisoner!"

"Where did you get this?!" the woman demanded, more aware than she'd let on that there was no one and nothing between herself and Wrex at this point. She backed a step up towards the Commander. "It could be a fabrication!"

"Don't insult me!" the Krogan snapped, pointing again towards the spluttering Salarian. "Those are my people! They're immune to the Genophage, and you're going to give them back!"

"Dalatrass" Victus cut in, stepping up beside Wrex. The move would've looked to the Krogan like a show of solidarity, and it was in part. But it was also something of a protective gesture. If Wrex wanted the woman's head he'd need to get through the Primarch first. Shaken by her seeming duplicity or not, he – they – couldn't risk the diplomatic fallout of a murder. "Is this true?"

The pretence dropped like a stone. Drawing her robe about herself, a sneer tugging her lips, the Dalatrass sniffed, "How will curing the Genophage benefit my people?", fighting to maintain her icy regard despite how the moral high ground had slipped from under her feet.

It took immense restraint for Shepard to reply constructively in that moment; to channel her more level-headed mother and not go off half cocked. "The only way we'll have a chance against the Reapers is if we all band together. How long do you think your people will last against them alone? Because if you don't help here." She tapped the table for emphasis. "Now. That's how you'll end up. Alone, adrift at sea as whatever armada the rest of the galaxy can pull together pulls together to face this threat head on."

The Dalatrass seemed indignant at first – "Threats will get you nowhere, Commander" - but as Shepard had been speaking to her Victus had closed in without her realising. He was within three or so feet of her when her protest came, and replied for his Human colleague; his supply of diplomacy run down to but fumes.

"Threats?" he snarled, the jump the word wrung from the Salarian too pleasing to him for the ethical parts of him not yet dulled by necessity to be comfortable with. "From Shepard?" A scoff escaped between rapier-like teeth. His talon hovered close to her, but Victus made no move to touch the arm it neared. The illusion of closeness was what he wanted; what he got with the gesture. "No, no, no, Dalatrass what she said wasn't a threat. That's reality; your reality if you don't help us.. .. ..Palaven's burning. You know it is. We all do, and I swear to you, I will be the last friendly Turian you ever see if you deny us the aid we need to start putting those fires out."

A pin dropped in the hallway outside the conference room would've been heard loud and clear in the silence that followed. The Dalatrass managed words again as Shepard dragged on a mask of composure to hide how shocked she was by Victus's plea. Wrex didn't miss her struggle; only smirked as the Salarian woman spoke.

"..The females are being kept at one of our STG facilities on Sur'Kesh-"

Shepard and Wrex were half way out the door when she called after them.

"But I warn you Commander! The consequences of this-"

The fuse on her patience finally evaporating, Shepard whipped round on her heel, marched two steps forward and slammed her hands on the table. "Will be NOTHING compared to what'll happen if the Reapers win." She held Linron's gaze until Wrex urged at her -

"Let's get the females!"

- the Dalatrass' protests and warnings falling on deaf ears. "We're going" she snapped, following Wrex and Victus out through the CIC. Once the Normandy was clear of its quietly seething guest, they'd be Sur'Kesh bound.

And now!

Coming in the next chapter!

Javik learns a little more about the Commander and their mission

The mission to Sur'Kesh is undertaken.

And last but by no means least, Mordin. Bloody. Solus.