A/N: Yeah, remember when I said I wouldn't bring the Mirror Universe into this anymore? I changed my mind. I swear, next chapter will get back to the cast of Mass Effect.

My apologies for the lack of updates. College has been eating so much of my time.

Angels Fear to Tread

Chapter 7: Two-Way Mirror

The Batarian Homeworld of Khar'shan burned. Through the panoramic windows of her Ready Room, Fleet Admiral Akiko Kobayashi gazed out upon the once lustrous world, humming along with the deafening orchestral music that blasted out of the room's speakers. Small explosions around the planet heralded the fall of the remaining planetary defense forces as they fell to the might of the Terran Empire's ships. It had taken a long ten years, but the last of the resistance in the galaxy had been crushed underfoot. The Batarians were a stubborn folk, and had help in the form of the ragtag remnants of the once formidable Council races. Still, they fell one by one. Nothing could stop the forward march of Humanity, not even the unexpected attack of the… what were they called again?

Akiko smirked as she remembered. The Reapers. They came, numbering in countless trillions of ships. They proclaimed to be the end of all organic life in the galaxy. Their first attacks caught the Terran Empire off guard, but that did not last long. Endless hoards of reinforcements poured through the artificial wormhole, bolstering Terran defensive lines, and the Reapers were gradually hunted down and exterminated. The hunter became the hunted, and the Reapers would reap no more.

The offensive against Khar'shan marked the end of resistance in this galaxy. Akiko fondly remembered when they had stumbled upon star systems reclaimed by the former Council races while the Empire had been preoccupied dealing with the Reapers. Hostilities broke out once again, and through fire and flames Admiral Kobayashi cleansed the galaxy of alien filth.

The door to her Ready Room opened, and the voice of one of her Bridge officers cut through her music like a needle across a record.

"Admiral, you're needed on the Bridge."

Admiral Kobayashi grit her teeth, ending her symphony with a jab at her desk's LCARS panel.

"Ensign," she ground out, "Do you know what you just interrupted?"

"Ma'am?" the Ensign replied shakily. He could tell from the Admiral's tone of voice that this would not end well for him.

"It was 'Air', by Johann Sebastian Bach," she growled, "and you. Interrupted. It."

"I'm sorry, Admiral!" the poor Ensign stammered out, "it won't happen again!"

"You're damn right it won't," Akiko snarled as she drew her knife.

The unfortunate man's screams were cut short by the bladed weapon impaling his neck. He collapsed on the floor, choking on his own blood.

The Admiral stepped over his twitching body onto the Bridge of her beloved ship. It was huge, easily three times the size of Odyssey Dreadnought's Bridge, and even more advanced. Advanced photonic consoles took the place of the old physical ones, arrayed in a pit below her command chair.

Settling into her throne with catlike grace, she folded her black-gloved fingers together.

"Status," her voice commanded obedience.

"The remaining enemy forces have formed up and are making a suicidal charge towards us," her second-in-command, a sadistic Vulcan named T'pira, informed Akiko with an amused grin.

"A suicide run?" Akiko barked out a laugh, "Please, what can they hope to accomplish by attacking this Regalia-class Mobile Command Center?"

The ISS Symphonia was the prize of the Terran Expeditionary Forces. It stood at an unprecedented length of six kilometers, with a three kilometer long saucer and three kilometer long secondary hull. The Regalia-class Mobile Command Center was a one of a kind mega-starship, specifically designed to act as a base of operations in this new alternate universe. It was commissioned by Empress Sophia Lalonde, but she never lived to see it. The Empress was killed in the opening skirmishes of the Reaper War. The Reapers must have thought that if the Terran's leader was taken out, they'd flounder like a headless chicken.

They were wrong.

With the newly finished Symphonia at her command, Fleet Admiral Kobayashi secured the artificial wormhole back to their universe, and rallied the remnants of the fleet. With reinforcements from home aiding her, the Reapers never stood a chance.

Equipped with Antiproton beam weapons and countless Tricobalt Torpedoes, the universe's only Regalia-class Command Center smashed aside the Reapers like paper towels.

Using it on the former Council races was just overkill.
Admiral Kobayashi scoffed at the last-ditch suicide run the remaining enemy forces were attempting. It was idiotic. She was about to order them destroyed when one of her officers called out in a concerned voice.

"Admiral," he frowned at his console, "The Salarian Dreadnought is emitting some odd readings… I'm getting some massive graviton fluctuations…"

"It must be some desperate last-stand suicide weapon," Captain T'pira reasoned, "Shall we destroy them?"

"You read my mind," Akiko smiled broadly sinisterly, "All Antiproton arrays, open fire!"

Black-crimson beams slashed through the last five enemy ships, eviscerating them. The Salarian Dreadnought and its comrades went up like dry tinder.

"Good work," Admiral Kobayashi clapped slowly, "If anyone needs me, I'll be in my rea-"

"Captain," Lieutenant Brody spoke up from his station, "The energy levels are increasing among the enemy derelicts…. Massive gravitational distortions… We're being pulled in!"

With a groan of strained metal, the ISS Symphonia and its 50-ship strong escort was dragged through space towards the roiling vortex of energies left behind as a parting gift, courtesy of the Council races.

"Reverse, full impulse!" Akiko shouted at the top of her lungs as the ship drew closer to the anomaly.

"Helm isn't responding!" Lieutenant Brody shouted in distress, "We're going in!"

In an instant, the formidable Terran fleet disappeared off the face of the universe.

[Unnamed Star System, CSV Hades]

General Oleg Petrovsky was bored. Then again, there wasn't a soul aboard the Hades who was actually interested in their current task. They were scouting a system for traces of an odd signal. It had been appearing on and off for almost three months, and every single time it popped up, the Illusive Man ordered them to investigate. That was why the Cruiser Hades and her two Frigate escorts were drifting in space, scanning constantly.

"Sometimes I think I should have retired, bought a nice house on Terra Nova," Petrovsky sighed to no one in particular, "When I joined Cerberus, this was not really what I thought I would be doing."

"You won't hear any arguments from me, General," Commander Sulu, a disgruntled Japanese man nodded slowly, "I myself thought that there would be more… action when I joined Cerberus."

"Yes… but we do this for Humanity," Petrovsky yawned, "Strength for Cerberus is strength for all of Humanity… and if the Illusive Man thinks that there is something to be found here, then we will find it."

Sulu acknowledged Petrovsky wordlessly, slumping in his chair.

The ship's proximity alert blared to life, snapping everyone out of their stupor.

"Collision imminent! Object approaching 500 meters off the starboard bow!" the ship's VI screamed in virtual alarm.

"Fire Ventral thrusters!" Petrovsky ordered swiftly, "Get us out of its path!"

The Cruiser lurched upwards as the unidentified ship screamed by underneath, the unknown vessel trailing smoke and flames from various hull breaches.

"Report, what was that?" Commander Sulu shouted at the Bridge crew.

"Ship profile doesn't match anything in our database!" someone replied, "Getting readings now…"

"We've got some odd energy readings off our starboard bow," another crew member announced, "Cannot identify the anomaly."

On the ship's tactical monitor, the unknown bogey visualized.

"What kind of ship is that?" Petrovsky wondered aloud.

It was small, barely a frigate. It had a large saucer, with a roll cage above it. Below were two struts. One strut was connected to a rectangular nacelle with glowed blue with an inner light. The other strut had been sheared off, but it undoubtedly was once connected to a matching nacelle.

"It looks damaged," Commander Sulu remarked, "General, what are your orders?"

Petrovsky didn't know much about this ship, but he could tell that it was as alien as anything in the galaxy. With new aliens came new technology.

And new technology was strength for Cerberus.

"Instruct the Frigates to board that vessel," he instructed the Commander, "This is a salvage operation. We should maintain the pretense that we are providing assistance... but if anyone resists, take them into our custody. Use of force is authorized."

"Yes, General," Commander Sulu nodded before barking out orders to the Bridge crew.

Petrovsky looked at the odd ship, grey-hulled with odd sweeping yellow markings…

He wondered who made it.

[ISS ShadowCruiser, Bridge]

Captain Lutz Braun was having a shitty day. First, his ship was seriously damaged in the fight over Khar'shan, and then a random anomaly just had to go disable nearly every system on his small Miranda-class Frigate.

Honestly, sometimes he felt that the Terran Empire loses more ships to random spacial anomalies than the Cardassian-Klingon Alliance.

"Damage report," he coughed, trying to wave away the haze permeating his ruined Bridge.

One of his surviving officers groaned in frustration as he tried to get a response out of one of the crippled consoles lining the walls, "As far as I can tell, Captain, we've got Main Power, but nothing to use it with. Weapons are offline, impulse engines are offline, Warp Drive offline… Even internal sensors. We've just got communications and life support. Force fields are operational, and are holding in the breached sections."

"What's our structural integrity?" Lutz sighed. He didn't think he'd like the answer.

"…25%," the officer reported, "We should probably abandon ship."

"It's fine," Lutz gagged a bit at the smell of the burnt flesh, courtesy of his dead senior staff, "I'm sure the Symphonia will drag us into her shipyard, and then we can evacuate in an orderly manner."

The entire ship shook slightly.

"See, what did I tell you?" Captain Braun nodded, "That's probably the Symphonia."

Just then, a garbled message crackled over the comm, "Captain! This is Lieutenant Kert! Someone is forcing the airlock!"

That was strange. If it was the Symphonia, the airlock should have recognized them… that must mean…

"Hold on, I recognize that armor!" Lieutenant Kert exclaimed, "Cerberus!"

The sound of gunfire and Phasers filled the comm before it was cut.

"Cerberus?" Lutz scowled, "I thought we dealt with them years ago."

"Apparently not, sir," the officer grabbed a Phaser rifle lying nearby, "Do you need this, Captain?"

"No," Lutz drew the small dagger from his belt, "I have what I need. Prepare yourself, Ensign."

[ISS Symphonia, Bridge]

"Thankfully our cloak is working," Admiral Akiko sighed, "Too bad for the ShadowCruiser."

The entire fleet was cloaked, except for the lone Miranda-class Frigate. It was a shame, but any Captain who let themselves be captured deserved it.

She stared impassionedly at the viewscreen. On it, the ShadowCruiser was being boarded by Cerberus Frigates. Apparently the anomaly had taken them to an alternate version of the Council's galaxy. Someone on her Bridge had ordered all the ships to cloak. The officer in question had somehow managed to discern that the anomaly was a transdimensional portal, and cloaked the fleet so that they wouldn't be detected emerging from the other side.

She commended his initiative, and then promptly shot him. She had no use for those who disobeyed the chain of command.

"Commander, open a channel to the ShadowCruiser," Akiko ordered her second-in-command.

Onscreen, the Bridge of the ShadowCruiser fizzled to life. Captain Lutz was slumped in his chair, slowly bleeding out as his ship was scoured by Cerberus soldiers.

"Captain," she chuckled, "I expected more from you. This was a poor showing."

"S-Sorry, Admiral," he coughed, "I… I did my best."

"I'm sure you did," Akiko sighed in disappointment, "Still, you have lost your ship. You know what to do."

On the ShadowCruiser's Bridge, one of the Cerberus soldiers interjected, "This ship is under our control now. Whoever you are, you can give up any hope of getting it back."

"Oh, that's fine with me," Akiko smirked maliciously, "You can have it, Warp core and all."

In his chair, Lutz quickly tapped out the code to one of his contingency plans on his armrest panel.

He grinned sideways at the Cerberus soldier as they yanked him away from his chair, "All glory to the Terran Empire."

In Main Engineering, the Warp Core's containment field shut off.

[CSV Hades, Bridge]

The explosion was like none General Petrovsky had seen before in his life. In a bright white flash, the alien ship was annihilated, an expanding sphere of destruction taking out the two Frigates docked with it. On the screen, the shockwave front grew closer.

"Turn us around, get us out of here!" he shouted. His crew tried to carry out his orders with due haste.

The Hades barely leapt to FTL before the destructive wavefront washed through where the ship was moments before.

[ISS Symphonia, Bridge]

"Well," Akiko opened a line to her ship's Astrometrics Lab, "Where are we?"

"We are currently in the same galaxy, in the Skylian Verge," came the reply, "but certain inconsistencies lead me to believe that we are in a different universe, and different time."

"A different universe, huh?" she crossed her arms in frustration, "That's a pain. Any universe we know?"

The officer on the other side checked, before replying, "Uh, it shares properties of that other one, Admiral. The one with… Starfleet."

"Starfleet?" Akiko scowled, "Those weak cowards? Of all the universe to find ourselves in, it's this one?"

"Possibly so, Admiral," the officer reported, "At least we know how to get home, though, if it is."

"…" Akiko pondered her options. She could try and establish a new Terran Empire here, the local races were nowhere equipped to handle her or her forces. However, if… Starfleet… was here as well, they might be able to defeat her. The Symphonia was unparalleled in pure strength, and its logistical capabilities were unprecedented. However, there was something to be said for quantity against quality. Starfleet may be filled with a bunch of ambitionless, spineless pansies, but they could definitely fight, as many a failed invasion attempt into their universe had demonstrated.

"Fine," Admiral Akiko stood up, "Scan for warp signatures. Our course of action will be determined by what we find."

"I found three, Admiral," the Sensor officer called out, "Three Cruisers, by my guess. A Federation Sovereign, and two Akiras."

"Only three?" Akiko brought up the readout on her chair's display, "Why only three?"

"Perhaps they are stranded here?" someone suggested, "We know that the Federation doesn't exactly traverse universes that often. Perhaps these ships don't know how to."

That changed things. She could easily take three Federation Cruisers with her fleet, and then steamroll this universe's Council. It would be easy.

But there were still the Reapers to worry about.

Akiko's fleet may be powerful, but against the seemingly endless Reaper onslaught, there's no way to be sure that they would lose a battle of attrition.

She had nowhere near the number of ships needed to withstand the Reapers… and she had no desire to fight the ones here.

The answer was clear.

"Plot a course to a Relay Dead Zone," she commanded, "All ships follow us, Maximum Warp. Begin preparing to construct an artificial wormhole generator keyed to our original universe."

Her crew carried out her orders, and soon over a hundred Terran warships were streaking off into the unknown, arrayed around their intimidating flagship.