A/N: Hello there. It's been a hot minute since my last update and I have no excuses. I will try not to need another fifteen moths before the next update! Anyway, thank you all for your patience and please enjoy the new chapter!

The elevator door slid open letting the sound of chatter drift Kaidan's way. The sight of the Grissom Academy students seated at the table talking excitedly while eating met his eyes when he rounded the corner on his way to the showers after he and James had finished conducting weapons maintenance. By the time he went to get food empty trays and glasses stood scattered on the table and they seemed to have moved on to good-natured ribbing.

It was nice to see them relax after the trials of the day.

With a faint smile he walked past them to the galley and, after quickly scanning the selection, took out two MREs.

"Hey Jack," one of the students asked suddenly, "What's working with Shepard like? She seems … intense."

Kaidan paused, casting a quick glance toward the mess table. None of the students were facing his way, but Jack was. It would be interesting to hear what she had to say. She raised an eyebrow and shot a look his way. A smirk formed on her face when she met his gaze. Caught eavesdropping he returned his attention to preparing the meals. After a short silence Jack spoke.

"Shepard? She can be a real bitch," she drawled. Kaidan tensed before Jack continued, "But she's good. Takes care of her people. Always making rounds talking to everyone after missions and whatnot. Drove me up the wall sometimes. And she knows her shit."

He relaxed slightly. Nick didn't seem to hold the slap against her and maybe Jack was always this abrasive. He could deal with that. He would deal with that, even if he didn't particularly like it. The oven plinged, startling him out of his thoughts. He quickly grabbed a tray, placed the MREs on them, and headed for the elevator.

Kaidan rapped on the door with his knuckles and it slid open with a hiss. He stepped inside, carefully taking in the spacious quarters. The first thing he noticed was Nick's desk, cluttered with data pads, before his attention was claimed by a large fish tank. It was, well, attention-grabbing, seconded only by the oversized bed.

Who in the world thought of putting something like that on a warship?

For a moment he simply stood there, gaping.

Nick chuckled darkly beside him, motioning at the couch tucked in the corner. "Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction when I stepped in here the first time. Wait till you see the skylight."

"Skylight?" he echoed. Grinning, Nick reached out and pushed a button. Panels over the bed slid to the side, revealing a skylight as large as the bed itself.

His eyes went wide. "Holy crap."

"Yep. So, what did you bring me? I'm starving."

She tossed another data pad onto the table.

"Isn't that usually my line?" he asked, following her down three steps and setting the tray on the table. "And to answer your question, chili mac for you, beef BBQ for me."

"Sounds good." She glanced at the tray. "Did you remember my hot sauce?"

"As if I would forget," Kaidan replied.

The only sound over the next minutes was that of silverware scraping against plates. Eventually they sat back and silence filled the room, interrupted only by the gurgling of the fish tank and the hiss of the ventilation system.

"Tell me about Liao," Nick said suddenly, cradling a cup of tea in her hands and gently blowing at it to cool it off further.

Kaidan started, then folded the napkin in his hands and placed it on his empty plate. He knew this had been coming up. After all he had promised not an hour earlier that he would tell her about Liao. "He was my second-in-command. I'd served with him before our tour on the SR-1 and when Anderson and Hackett approached me about a biotic spec ops division he was one of the first names I gave them. He was a talented biotic, a good officer, and I would go so far as to call him a friend."

She nodded slowly. There was more to come, he could practically see the cogs in her head turning. He waited.

"You were pretty off-kilter at the academy," she finally continued with a soft voice. "Not just the usual tension in a combat situation, but something more. Impatient, angry. And I don't think Liao was the only reason for that."

He cast her a sideways glance. "Cerberus makes my skin crawl, Nick. And the way they targeted specific students by name, apparently trying to coerce especially biotics, is disturbing."

She murmured her assent. "Not to mention gunning down unarmed kids running away."

"Yeah." He hesitated, his mind wandering to the Cerberus trooper on Mars and his husk-like appearance. "I just have a really bad feeling when it comes to Cerberus."

"You and me both," Nick sighed, remembering her unit on Akuze, seeing Toombs on Ontarom and learning of the torture he'd had to live through, or finding Admiral Kahoku's corpse on Binthu. "You and me both."

Now it was his turn to adjust his thoughts. "You've worked with Jack before?"

Nick let out a short laugh. "Yeah, she was on my team during my Cerberus stint. Believe it or not, she hates them even more than we do. She takes some getting used to, but she's okay."

A scowl crossed his face. "She slapped you." That still bothered him. A lot.

Nick shrugged. "It could have been worse. You should have seen her when she first joined my team." She shifted toward him, lacing her fingers with his. "Kaidan, I need you two to get along for now, okay? Jack is a bit prickly but she's not a bad person. She's been through a lot."

He scrubbed his hand over his face. "Alright."

Of course she was right. No matter how vexing he found Jack's earlier behavior, he had to put his first impression of her behind him and be prepared to work with her. He was a professional, after all. Plus, he trusted Nick's judgement.

Nick shifted again, letting go of his hand and picking two data pads off the table. She glanced at them. "So, which do you want? Requisitions or mission report?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"What?" she asked innocently. "I'm a little backlogged here, and I'm sure you want to help your CO out."

"And here I thought this was a simple dinner invitation," he teased, taking one of the offered data pads. She winked at him.

Smirking, he sat back and began reading.

"Priority call incoming," EDI's detached voice sounded through the dimly lit cabin. Nick blinked blearily and tossed back the covers, getting up. She quickly pulled on her uniform, casting a short look at the clock as she smoothed out some creases. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she headed down to the QEC.

"Patch it through, EDI," she said, voice rough with sleep. She cleared her throat several times before the image of Admiral Hackett popped up.

"Good job with Grissom Academy," the admiral began.

Nick dipped her head briefly. "Just doing our jobs, sir."

Hackett narrowed his eyes before continuing, "The quarians have agreed to join the war effort, offering both technical specialists as well as ships."

She blinked. "Just like that?"

Steve Hackett gave her a dry look. "Of course not. They have a situation."

A situation. Great.

"And that has what to do with my crew?" Nick asked, warily.

"We need you to travel to the Far Rim and meet with the quarian envoys," he stated, typing something. "Mission specifics are coming your way now."

Her comm beeped.

"What about the Academy students and Jack? Are they supposed to stay aboard the Normandy?"

Hackett shook his head. "No, drop them off at Pinnacle Station on your way. I'll try to get them assigned to support roles."

"Understood."

"One more thing, Shepard. You're a Captain now. It's been a long time coming but your stint with Cerberus and the clusterfuck with the Batarians made a mess of things." His voice softened. "Congratulations, Nick. You deserve it."

Surprised, she leaned back. "Thank you, sir."

"Godspeed, Captain," he told her, cutting the connection.

Nick stared at the empty space in front of her, frowning, before turning on her heel and making for the CIC. Her frown deepened at the security checkpoint on the way. "EDI, how long until our next relay approach?"

The answer came promptly. "Two hours and thirty-seven minutes."

"Good. Set course for Pinnacle Station and give me the ETA."

Nick listened to the quarian delegation impassively, arms crossed over her chest. Those idiots had started a war with the geth and were in over their head. If it weren't for the fact that the Alliance needed every ally they could get, she would have been inclined to turn them down. Instead she was looking into a way to disable a geth dreadnought broadcasting a Reaper signal.

Awesome. Just fucking awesome.

She glanced across the room, meeting Kaidan's gaze, standing next to Tali. He arched an eyebrow, looking as unimpressed as she felt.

"Let me get this straight, Admiral," she reiterated, trying hard to keep her voice level. "You started an open war with the geth despite knowing the galaxy was under Reaper attack, and now you need help because the geth are being controlled by a Reaper code? "

"That is correct. Under Reaper control the geth are more effective. Our fleet is pinned down in our home system," Admiral Gerrel acknowledged. Admiral Koris scoffed.

Nick's gaze fleeted over to Tali before turning her attention back to the others.

"And you didn't see anything wrong with this whole scenario?"

A wave of schadenfreude rippled through her at seeing the quarian admirals squirm under her cold glare.

"We may have underestimated our opponent, Commander Shepard," Admiral Raan admitted after sharing a look with Admiral Gerrel and Admiral Xen.

Nick blinked, briefly taken aback. "You underestimated the geth? The same geth that drove your people off of Rannoch in the first place because you underestimated them?" She shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You know what, don't answer that. Just … continue with the briefing. My guess is we're supposed to take the Normandy and use our stealth drive to get up close, board the dreadnought, and disable the signal. Does that sound about right? Also, it's Captain."

Some time later Nick finally left the war room, Kaidan and Tali trailing a short distance behind her. She waited until they were on the elevator to turn toward Tali.

"I'm glad you're here, Tali," she said, rubbing both hands over her face, "but your admirality are fucking idiots."

"I know, Shepard," Tali sighed. "I'm glad to be here, too."

"And congrats on being an admiral now."

Tali laughed. "Thank you. It's mostly a formality."

"Be that as it may, it gives you the chance of making your voice heard. Raise a little hell," Nick told her with a shrug.

"You would see it that way," Tali remarked. Kaidan chuckled, and Nick glared at both darkly.

"Dropping out of FTL, stealth drive engaged," Joker said, checking the controls.

"Good. Take us in nice and slow," Nick replied, eyes glued to the window. Leaning on the backrest of Joker's seat she observed the battle in front of them, armored fingers curled to a loose fist. "Can you get a lock on the dreadnought?"

"Affirmative. Taking us closer," the helmsman retorted. Silence filled the cockpit. Then, "We have visual on the docking tube. Looks pretty banged up."

Nick frowned at the rickety structure visible outside. Pretty banged up was an understatement but it would do. It had to. There was no other point of entry, neither on visual nor on sensors.

Joker looked up at her. "You should get ready."

Tapping her hand on the headrest twice in confirmation, she turned and left, comming Kaidan and Tali to suit up and meet her at the airlock.

It didn't take long for the other two to arrive.

"Ready?" Nick asked, clipping on her helmet. The inner airlock door closed and depressurization began.

"Yes, ma'am," Kaidan answered. "How does it look?"

"Wait and see," she said cryptically. In a moment they would see how badly damaged the docking tube was first hand. The outer airlock door slid to the side, revealing tattered remains.

"Well, fuck," Nick swore softly under her breath. It looked even worse close up. Large panels were missing, exposing skeletal beams. She turned to look at Kaidan and Tali. "It should hold one person. You two wait here. I'll secure the docking area and you follow."

Bracing herself, Nick stepped outside, the docking tube shuddering beneath her. Her breathing was loud in the surrounding silence. The ongoing space battle illuminated parts of the tube in lightning flashes of reddish light. It looked surreal. She focused, picking her way cautiously along sturdier looking beams and past debris floating, placing one foot in front of the other, slowly making her way to the dreadnought.

"Take your time, skipper," Joker spoke up, his voice loud over the speakers in her helmet. "We're fine until they, you know, look out of a window."

"Geth don't use windows, remember?" Nick shot back, ignoring the hint of tension in her helmsman's voice. She was grateful for the banter. "Structural weakness."

"And you think the geth are saying, those organics would never try the no-window thing twice?"

"We better hope so. I'm almost -." The tube gave way, breaking away from its mooring, and she lurched forward, pushing herself off and floating over the newly opened gap. Voices echoed in her ears as both Kaidan and Tali called out in dismay. "Ah. So the rest of the boarding party is going to need a different way in," Nick said as soon as her mag-boots connected with the remaining part of the docking tube, heart beating rapidly in her chest. "Somebody point me in the right direction and I'll try to get to another docking tube and override the controls. I'd rather not solo this dreadnought."

Luckily the next airlock wasn't very far away and the remaining boarding party joined her within minutes. Kaidan stepped next to her.

"You okay?" he inquired quietly over their private channel, voice tight with worry.

She reached over, squeezing his arm briefly. "Better now," she admitted, meeting his gaze and holding it until he nodded. They turned toward Tali.

"Where do we have to go?" Nick asked.

Huddling together, they checked the dreadnought layout. Tali pulled up on her omnitool, pointing out the route she had in mind. "We're here. We have to find an operations center, but we need to pass their defense network - here - and through a sensor cluster - here - to get there."

"Fucking awesome. Okay, let's geth going," Nick told them, rolling her shoulders and ignoring her squad mates' snorts at her lame pun. "This signal isn't going to disable itself. Tali, send those schematics our way."

Another energy pulse swept through the corridor. Nick ducked low as it passed, hoping the other two had been close enough to cover. She peered around the corner, catching the slight shimmer of a cloaked geth hunter ahead of her, not far from a staircase.

Nick brought up her rifle. Gazing through the crosshairs she saw the geth's cloaking device frazzle out, followed by the sharp bark of a pistol. The geth stumbled back. Smirking, she pulled the trigger and watched it crumble. Leaping over the low cover, she sprinted toward the stairwell.

"That was fun," Kaidan commented drily as she sidled up next to him. Tali snorted.

"Oh yeah, good times! Almost like back on the SR-1," Nick replied. "Just good they didn't have any colossi standing around here."

"Good thing we don't have a Mako," Tali muttered under her breath, hacking the next door. Kaidan chuckled.

They passed into a deserted corridor and Nick threw a look over her shoulder. "The Mako was a loyal vehicle and very useful in running over geth."

"It was fine as long as Kaidan was driving. He didn't feel inclined to make it climb mountains or drop out of the Normandy at ridiculous heights," Tali said.

"I'm hurt, Tali. That's what the Mako was there for! Next you'll tell me the Hammerhead was better. Bad enough that Cortez thinks that." Nick held up a hand at Kaidan. "Don't say anything!"

The next door slid open, revealing an odd spherical construction suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

"Definitely looks like Reaper tech," Kaidan said quietly.

"Looks like Darth Vader's meditation chamber," Nick muttered in return, walking up to the console in front of it. She considered it briefly, and activated it. Hydraulics hissed overhead, and the sphere opened slowly. She stepped back to her squad mates, gazing up into the contraption. A familiar figure hung shackled in its center.

"Shepard-Commander, help us," it said. Her eyes widened in surprise. Beside her she sensed Kaidan tensing up.

"Legion?!" she choked out.

"You know this thing?" Kaidan asked in a low voice.

Tali answered, "Legion helped take down the Collectors. We still have to be careful. The Geth are being controlled by the Reapers, after all. Legion could be hacked or perhaps it joined them voluntarily."

Nick hummed in confirmation, brow furrowed. "What is this thing?"

"It's used as a networking architecture to broadcast the Old Machine command signal to all Geth simultaneously," Legion explained.

"So getting you out of there would shut off the Reaper signal?" Nick concluded.

"Wait," Legion put in, "you can't simply remove the restraints. We are secured via hardware blocks nearby that shackle our operating protocols. They are on the far side of the room. Deactivation should be simple."

Kaidan shifted his weight. "Nick?"

"Once free, I will submit to any restraints deemed necessary," Legion assured.

"I trust you, Legion, but I'd like to know how you ended up in there. And why the Geth sided with the Reapers. Did we rewrite the heretics for nothing?"

"The Creators attacked," Legion stated simply. "The Geth wished to live and the Old Machines extended an offer. The decision was not easy."

Deactivating the shackles was easy, dealing with the Geth reinforcements streaming into the chamber less so.

"Rocket trooper!" Tali called, the telltale whining of a rocket already filling the air.

"Fuck," Nick groaned, sighting a Geth Prime as she took down a Hunter. "Kaidan! Get rid of those shields for me, then I'll take care of the big one!"

He didn't answer. Instead, there was a flash of blue followed by the yellow glow of his omnitool before he turned his attention to another rocket trooper. Breathing steadily, Nick fired at the Prime as rapidly as she could with her sniper rifle. How strong was its fucking armor? Finally, the Prime collapsed. The radio crackled, breaking through the sound of the battle and broadcasting the ongoing dialogue between the quarian admirals.

"Admiral Gerrel, what are you doing?"

"Raan, check your screens," the admiral replied. "The dreadnought is helpless. We can remove the geth flagship if we strike now. Heavy fleet, all forward! Take out the dreadnought!"

Nick hoped fervently the admiral didn't mean what she thought he did, but the order for all ships to open fire came moments later. They raced toward the nearest ladder, and the dreadnought shuddered under their feet.

"I can't believe the admiral ordered them to shoot at the ship with us still on it!" Tali wheezed as they ran. "Kee'lah!"

More Hunters showed up in their path, along with another Prime. Swearing profusely, Nick took cover and pulled a grenade from her belt, lobbing it in a high arch between two Hunters. Between the geth blocking their escape route and the quarians firing at the ship this mission was beginning to look decidedly pear-shaped. The following loss of gravity thanks to the heavy bombardment when her team reached the hangar bay was just the cherry on the top. Nick seethed. Someone was going to catch it hot when she got back to the Normandy.

"Commander?" Joker's voice crackled to life over her com. "Reading a loss of gravity here. You all okay?"

"Peachy," she growled in response, climbing into the storage compartment of one of the fighters. "We're taking a Geth fighter out of here. Sending you rendezvous coordinates. Try not to shoot us."