The second worst thing about the attack on Eden Prime, Councilor Sparatus decided, was that it was going to make humans completely unbearable to deal with.

At the absolute best of times interacting with humans was a lot like talking to children. Stubborn, rowdy children with laser rifles and Mass Effect technology. Not so long ago they unleashed nuclear weapons and terrifying viruses on their own planet, wiping out millennia of technological and cultural progress. A lot of them became literal cavemen. Small caches of technology and data hidden away in apocalypse proof vaults allowed them to restore their technological level in three centuries rather than a hundred. But culture is not so easily restored.

Only two species ever proved to be the right combination of violent and stubborn to nuke their own planet. The krogan just got even more hardy and violent than before. The humans never went that far, but what happened instead was in some ways worse. They flew into space before their heroes and villains had time to fade into history, much less myth. The scientists decoding the Prothean archives on Mars were at most a few generations removed from adventurers walking through the wasteland with wide-brimmed hats pulled over their eyes and shooting slavers and cannibals. They were a young race with the technology of an old race at their disposal. Children really was the correct description.

Like any children they got into plenty of trouble. They encroached into zones the Council races traditionally left alone as buffers. They kept petitioning for more Arrays to be thrown open. They were caught conducting illegal studies of the Citadel's Keepers. They seemed to always be on the verge of starting a war with the batarians. But this latest trouble was not of their doing. Which meant that instead of being dragged in to be chastised they would barge in demanding things. And worse, they'd arguably be right to do so.

And even worse, he'd have to listen to them. He was listening to one of them right now.

As humans went, Shepard was not a particularly imposing specimen. She was shorter than either of her subordinates and very soft. All humans looked kind of soft to a turian, but the contours of her face and her unusually large eyes gave off a suggestion of youth and delicacy. If Sparatus didn't know who she was, he might have guessed she was under the age of majority. If she stepped out of her combat armor and ran a comb through the unkempt mane of chocolate-brown hair, she could easily pass as one of the thousands of girls who flocked to the Citadel each year in search of galactic culture or just some excitement.

The combat logs from three days ago showed her killing 173 geth.

And that was the problem with humans, really. You couldn't tell with them.

For instance, Shepard's eyes were exploring her podium with an unsettling concentration. For a few seconds Sparatus found himself staring at it too, just to see what was so interesting about. Not finding anything special, he decided to call her attention back to the proceedings.

"Courier Shepard?"

Her eyes flipped upward to meet Sparatus's own and she stood a little straighter. But she just didn't seem as interested in him as she was in the podium and after several seconds her eyes drifted down again.

"You and your party were on Eden Prime during the geth attack. We have access to your combat logs, but it would help us understand the situation if you told us the story."

"All right..." Shepard creased her forehead. "It went a little like this..."

"I don't like this."

Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, one of the greatest pilots in the employ of Systems Alliance, liked very few things. Good alcohol, pretty women, leather seats, and captains who hadn't read up on obscure genetic conditions made the list. The current mission did not.

"First they send us on a shakedown run with the one-of-a-kind ultra-expensive prototype ship that - get this - has stealth capabilities for if we need to sneak by a huge enemy fleet. Then the Alliance sends us a Courier. And then the turians send us a Spectre. Call me paranoid but I think we're about to run into some major trouble."

"You're paranoid," Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko answered without hesitation. "This is a big moment for us and for the Council. I'm sure the politicians just wanted to throw a few extra chips into the pot."

"Yeah, no, that's bull. If the Council just wanted to show off they'd send along an admiral or a politician, not a Spectre. And a Courier? Couriers exist to solve problems. We wouldn't be getting one if the Alliance didn't think we were about to have a problem. And we wouldn't be getting Zetta Shepard of all people if they didn't expect that problem to involve gunfire."

"There's tons of other reasons they could have sent her," Alenko objected.

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Maybe they're planning to take pictures. Shepard's one of the Alliance's biggest heroes. It looks good to have her standing next to our new ship," Kaidan paused for a second before a mischievous twinkle snuck into his eye. "I mean, it looks really good."

"All right, I'll give you that one," Joker answered with a laugh. "Maybe they just called up one of the most dangerous women in the universe because they expect her to put on a bikini and pose on top of their ship. But I seriously doubt it."

"Wait, wait, wait," Alenko interrupted. "You could hear us?"

"Of course."

"Well, that's...um, yeah," Alenko finished lamely.

"I know people find me attractive. I've seen the pornography they make with my lookalikes," Shepard explained helpfully.

"Not quite the details we were looking for," Sparatus commented, looking visibly annoyed. "Please continue your account."

"Very well. At that point Captain Anderson..."

Captain Anderson tapped Shepard's shoulder. Or at least he tried to. When he did, Shepard casually leaned her shoulder to the side, avoiding the touch, and then spun around in the same seamless motion, coming face to face with him.

"Shepard. Are you up for a briefing? Nihilus wants to meet you."

Shepard gave him a measured look, eyes drilling into his skin like electronic microscopes. After a moment's hesitation her lips formed a tight smile.

"Of course."

With another fluid movement Shepard shifted stances and moved alongside the captain.

"Your people are scared of me," she noted, pointing with her chin at a small knot of crewmen leaning together like conspirators.

"Not at all. They're just intimidated."

Shepard cocked her head in puzzlement.

"What's the difference?"

"They know that you could do very bad things to them if you wanted to. But they also know that you're on their side. That makes you intimidating."

"I see," Shepard nodded, as if receiving some sage wisdom. "What about Nihilus? Is he intimidating or scary?"

Anderson couldn't resist a small smile.

"If that's your way of asking if he's on our side, the word from on high is that we're to give him all the cooperation we can, and he's never done anything to strain the alliance. Some of the crew are uneasy, of course. But as for you personally? I doubt you have anything to be scared of."

"You think I can take him?"

"If I said no, would that scare you?"

"No."

"There you go, then."

Anderson stopped, pressing his palm against the scanner. The doors opened with an accommodating swoosh, revealing a round room containing some communication machinery, a holographic projector, and a turian.

"Shepard, this is Nihilus. He's here to observe and lend us a hand if we need one. Nihilus, this is Shepard. She'll command our ground forces and create miracles as needed."

Nihilus nodded and gave the turian version of a smile.

"Well, hopefully it won't come to that. But I actually do know who Shepard is. You're famous among your own kind," he addressed the woman.

"Humans?"

"No. Couriers."

"Do you know many Couriers?"

"Not in person, no. But I follow the lore a little. When it comes down to it, your organization is a lot like mine."

"It is similar. But different! More organic. Spectres are top down, imposed by the Council to fill the gaps between the laws. Couriers grew naturally out of adventurers."

"Adventurers?"

"Yes," Shepard nodded, her face alight with enthusiasm. "Adventurers. Explorers. Vault delvers. Monster hunters. Small units, informal organization, built-in problem-solving expertise. Very important to the Republic."

"Problem solving, huh? Sounds like you are just like Spectres," Nihilus smirked.

"You have to know how to solve any kind of problem. You need to be able to get through a locked door, create and repair infrastructure, spy on people, negotiate with people, shoot at people...there is less shooting at people than you would think, but still a lot of shooting at people."

"Yeah, I get that," Nihilus nodded in empathy. "They give us all the authority in the world, but at the end of the day some people won't accept any authority except that which comes from the barrel of a gun."

"We have less authority than that. We're supposed to keep our activities quiet. One reason I'm famous is that I'm less good at quiet."

"Still, it seems like when Earth is finally ready to have a Spectre of its own, you won't be lacking for candidates."

"I have a cousin back in San Francisco," Shepard said, closing her eyes, as if in an attempt to picture her relative more clearly. "She's only two years old. Maybe she could be the first human Spectre."

"If she's anything like you? She very well could."

"Nihilus? The beacon?" Anderson reminded gently.

"Right. Of course. The other reason I wanted to meet you. The truth is, this mission is far more than a simple shakedown run."

"I see," Shepard answered noncommittally.

"We're here for a covert pickup. A research team on Eden Prime dug up a Prothean beacon. I assume you know the importance of such a find."

Shepard nodded. Of course she knew. Everyone knew.

"Knowledge," she intoned, just in case. "Possibly technology. Every beacon is a galactic treasure. Everyone wants one."

"And right now your people have one," Nihilus agreed. "And in the spirit of sharing, we're here to escort it to the Citadel. Best case scenario, we enjoy a nice train ride, pick up a tall box, and get back before anyone has a chance to miss us. We can use the time to get to know each other better, maybe swap a few stories. I'm guessing you've got some good ones."

"Worst case scenario?" inquired Sheprad.

"We get to show each other what we can do."

"Unless something of importance happened during the briefing, I think we can fast forward a little," Councilor Valern interrupted.

"If you like. After the briefing was completed, we made the transit to the Eden Prime system, where…"

"You found your worst case scenario," interrupted Sparatus.

"Yes we did," Shepard continued, unperturbed by the interruption. "The planet was under attack by a geth fleet, including three dreadnoughts."

And there was the third worst thing about the attack – its perpetrators. Since winning their rebellion, the machine race of geth had been content to stay in its newly-won space and taking potshots at any ship that got too close was the extent of their aggression. Taking a fleet out to bomb a Citadel-aligned planet was something very different.

The humans were demanding action, obviously. But other races were likewise concerned. Less than a hundred people in the galaxy knew about the existence of the beacon and to everyone else the attack seemed unprovoked and random. Had the geth struck at a world near their borders, that would have been one thing. But an attack at an old human colony well away was much scarier. Everyone wanted the Council to do something, be it launch an investigation, sweep Citadel space for any unlicensed AI research, move a fleet onto the geth borders, or outright attack and hopefully destroy the machine race. The more cautious thinkers could see that starting a war over the possibility of another attack at some point somewhere wouldn't be wise, but they were being outshouted.

Still, three dreadnoughts. That was something to think about.

"We put up the stealth field immediately and debated leaving the system. Because of the beacon we chose to move in and landed near the research site. Nihilus insisted on moving ahead on his own to scout; I stayed behind to choose my party."

Shepard walked in front of the assembled soldiers, examining each one like they were dogs at a show. Her eyes flickered between the assembled infantrymen and the omnitool on her wrist. Like most human-made omnitools, it was a thick bracelet with a reassuring heft to it, not quite as bulky as the old Pip-boys, but clearly made with the same design aesthetic in mind.

"You," she finally settled on Kaidan, pointing at his nose, causing him to unconsciously cross his eyes. "You're a biotic and a tech expert?"

"I...yes."

"And you," she said, staring up and up and up at Corporal Jenkins. "You're big."

"Most supermutants are," he hedged.

"Perfect. You two will come with me. The rest will hide."

"You sure?" Captain Anderson asked. "Seems like you're leaving yourself exposed with so few people."

"There is an army out here. They can kill ten or fifteen people easily. Three is enough."

The soldiers around her exchanged uncertain glances, but no one dared to outright contradict her.

"What are we looking for, anyway?" asked Jenkins.

"Obelisk," answered Shepard.

"Oh. What's that look like?"

"Tall. Pointy." Shepard paused and uncertainly added "Eldritch?"

At this moment she was spared further explanations when two geth drones, each one about the size of a standard Eyebot, floated up and opened fire on Jenkins. The first sent out a laser beam that drew an angry red line through Jenkins, totally ignoring the Mass Effect shield. The armor's ablative layer hissed and bubbled out, running the look of the armor but saving Jenkins from being cut in half. He brought up his own gun only to find that the laser had sliced through that too. At this point the second drone shot out a missile which blew through Jenkins's still-intact shield with concussive force and sent him flying even as it deposited white-hot shrapnel throughout his body.

By this time the other two soldiers were getting in on the action. Kaidan threw his arm out and the one of the drones was enveloped by dark energy. It frantically fired its thrusters to try and correct course, but that just made things worse. Driven by the biotic attack, the drone spun out and crashed into the ground with an explosion.

Shepard popped out from behind cover and let out three pistol shots in quick succession. The first hit the drone's shield and bounced off. The second spent its momentum popping the shield. The final bullet hit the drone's electronic eye and emerged from the other side, having irreparably damaged its electronics.

By the time the drones finished falling, Shepard and Alenko were leaning over Jenkins's blood-splattered body.

"I wish that hadn't happened," noted Shepard.

"No kidding. You think he's dead?"

"Maybe. Supermutants can take a lot of damage, but if one falls it usually means he's down. The others will drag him to the ship and treat him. We will move on."

"Are we going to be getting a new third?"

"No. No one else was big enough."

At this point Kaidan was seriously starting to wonder about Shepard. Hero or not, the woman was distinctly odd.

"I'm not that big myself," he offered.

"You don't need to be big. You can hack, and I can't. You can be biotic, and I can't. He could carry a gun that was equivalent to light artillery and now nobody can."

"Oh," comprehension dawned on Kaidan. "You know, we have other heavy weapons guys."

"Not heavy enough."

With Shepard's selection criteria adequately explored, Kaidan moved forward, carefully watching the area for any more hidden geth.

"You can't hack?" he asked.

"I can reroute physical wires, a little. If I need to get through a software block, I usually find someone who knows the password and threaten to shoot them."

"I always thought Couriers had to be the best at everything."

"Not exactly. We need to be able to do anything. In training they gave us goals, but we could learn to accomplish them in any way we chose. If you met the goal, you passed."

"I'm guessing Couriers don't end up being too choosy about their methods, then?"

Shepard stopped in her tracks.

"Are you implying something?"

"Not about you," Kaidan physically backed up a step. "Sorry if it sounded personal. I've just had bad experiences with the Whatever Works school of thought."

"I see," Shepard slowly blinked. "Tell me about it at Sharing Time."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

For an answer Shepard suddenly whipped out her guns and fired the one in her left hand over Kaidan's shoulder. He turned around to see the electric pulse strike a previously invisible humanoid machine. It was huge, easily a head taller than Kaidan himself, and carrying a nasty-looking shotgun. It was also shaking and sparking lightly, as Shepard's Pulse Pistol was playing havoc with its electronics. Shepard's other gun immediately deposited several bullets into the geth's chassis.

"How…?" asked Kaidan, subtly pointing with his chin.

"You need to know how to see bent light. There is an outline. But that gives me an idea."

Shepard pulled something out of her backpack and gently tossed it underhand to Kaidan. He found himself holding a Stealth Boy.

"The ship should have given me the idea. Too much on my mind. Let's go flip the script on them."

A small group of geth was milling about the archeological dig site, drones flying overhead. The area was currently clear of humans, though it did have a number of dead bodies. Still, the platforms were alert for any sign of the intruders.

The first sign they got was a grenade bouncing into the middle of the largest group. The second was two intruders decloaking to unleash a barrage of bullets and biotics against the drones and ducking behind low stone barriers. More than half of the on-site geth and all but one of the drones were gone in only a few seconds.

They tried to regroup, of course. One of the platforms leapt into the sky, aiming to land behind the intruders. At its maximum point of ascent the geth suddenly jerked and died. A second later the remaining drone exploded into fragments.

"I'm not doing that," noted Shepard as the remaining geth poured on suppressive fire, staying low to the ground.

"That looked like sniper fire to me," answered Kaidan. "I'm guessing someone from the garrison survived."

"Good for them."

There were three geth platforms remaining. Two of them were keeping the barrier under fire while the remaining one tried to edge around it to flank. Shepard responded to the situation by tumbling out of cover and placing the would-be flanker between herself and its comrades. The geth fired on her but her shield withstood the hit as she fired back. The two geth at the back were distracted by Shepard and while they were trying to find a way to fire at her without hitting one of their own, Kaidan popped from cover and biotically slammed one of them into the other before unloading his rifle at the tangled pile.

Having won her shootout, Shepard bent down to examine the geth weapon. Kaidan supposed the weapons had some scientific value, especially since the geth seemed to like energy weapons. When humans first made contact with the galactic community, their unusual arsenal caused a minor revolution in the art of war. If geth had any new insights, it could cause more of the same.

A woman dressed in a mud-colored uniform and a wide-brimmed hat that covered her face approached. Kaidan looked up and kept his eye on her. Shepard did not. The new arrival raised her hand to the brim of her hat in a semi-formal salutation.

"Hi. I'm Ranger Ashley Williams. Who are you two?"

"We're on a special mission," answered Shepard, pocketing something.

"I'm guessing you were our friendly sniper?" asked Kaidan.

"Yeah, that was me. I've been trying to get at this group for two hours, but there were just too many of them. I couldn't believe it when you two came along. Must be one really special mission to walk into the middle of all this."

"It is," answered Shepard. "What is all this? What's the situation?"

"The situation's a nightmare. The fleet came out of nowhere. They jammed our distress calls. I hope you got one off?" she asked, and continued once the others nodded. "The garrison was overwhelmed. The rangers are doing better, but only just. They've been sending out groups to pick us off one by one. I don't know how many of my unit are still alive. Worst of all, they can go anywhere they want because the Archimedes system didn't go off."

Ashley stared at the horizon in accusation and the others followed her gaze, just seeing the top of a slim metal tower.

"They must have hacked the tower," opined Kaidan. "Still, if it were me, I would have put a few cannon rounds in it afterward, just to be sure."

"So would I. Geth must think differently," answered Shepard. "If we took the tower, could you get it to fire?"

"I'm guessing the geth would jam any electronic signal. But if I could reboot the system from analog and turn on optical targeting, I could set it to kill anything in the sky, friend or foe."

"Not a lot of friends up in those skies," Ashley remarked morosely, staring at a geth vehicle making its way through the clouds. "Not now."

"All right," Shepard nodded. "We're making a detour."

"Watch the ceilings. Some of those things can jump and cling," instructed Ashley as the group crept toward the tower.

"They're really more people than things," Shepard corrected her.

"Is this really the time for that debate?"

"If you think of them as objects or animals, it's easy to think they're stupid. But they build space ships, so they're smart. They'll fight like people, not like turrets."

"Okay, fair."

Ashley leaned down to view the tower's entrance through the scope of her gun.

"I don't see any geth," she noted after a couple seconds' observation.

"They probably don't think anyone's going to try and retake the tower," said Kaidan. "If they did, they'd destroy it for sure, different thought patterns or no."

"Which means a token force in and around the tower and then every geth in the area rushes us when we activate it," Shepard summed up.

"And I'll be too busy getting the tower up and running to help defend it," added Kaidan.

The women just nodded, Ashley grimly and Shepard enigmatically.

"Just for the record, it's not too late to back out. We could leave the tower be, catch that train, and go after our primary objective."

"No," answered Shepard. "This is a good plan. We'll just need to make it work."

She hefted her gun as the others did the same.

"Charge on my mark. Ready? Charge!"

They charged.

"We killed a few geth inside the tower. They were on ceilings, but it wasn't a problem. Kaidan got to work on the tower while Ashley and I prepared to defend the entrance."

"The geth had to be there in overwhelming numbers. How did you manage it?"

"It wasn't easy. But we had a solid plan. Here is what it was…"

Shepard walked outside the tower's entrance and leaned down to place an object on the ground. She took two steps and put down another one.

"What is that?" asked Ashley, peeking out from behind cover.

"Mines. And something else."

"That's great. When you're done, come back inside and we'll set up a defensive position."

But Shepard just shook her head.

"Stay inside and shoot anything that tries to come in," she ordered. "I'll fight out here."

"That's crazy!" objected Ashley.

"There could be dozens of geth here. If we let them come at us together, we'll lose even if we have a good position. Out here I can keep them from bunching up."

"They'll overwhelm you!"

"Not if I'm faster than them."

"But you're not."

"Am so."

The geth came out of the nearby woods by twos and by threes. Most were bog standard platforms, armed with kinetic weaponry. Some were large, equipped with reinforced shields and plasma shotguns. A few were carrying rocket launchers. Against them stood two women – Ashley, crouching behind the impromptu minefield with her sniper rifle, and Shepard, standing a step away from a metal wall with her guns pointed at the enemy. It didn't look like a fair fight.

And yet, somehow, it was. Shepard seemed able to predict every move the enemy made. Each time her shield was about to go down, she was just able to dive into cover as it broke. Each time an energy weapon was fired at her, she managed to present an unscorched part of her armor to it. Each time a rocket trooper was about to fire, there was another geth between it and Shepard. When the geth spread out, she picked them out one by one. When they bunched up, she threw grenades. All the while Ashley was taking down geth after geth, furiously calculating shot angles and weighing the likelihood of landing a kill shot against the potential target's value.

But finally it seemed to be all over. With dozens of geth laying broken on the battlefield, a small group was still standing. Shepard was all out of grenades and though she was only a couple steps away from cover, they had enough power to overwhelm her.

Without missing a step in her dance, Shepard tapped the underside of her wrist. And behind the geth an Alliance Eyebot sprang to life. It didn't even finish floating to its normal cruising altitude of human eye height before opening up with its built-in laser.

It managed to fire precisely three shots. The first pierced a standard platform, sending it to the scrapyard in the sky. The second hit one of the large, reinforced units in the chest, doing some damage but not enough to down it. The third one took the same platform in the head, melting the optics. At this point the Eyebot began to spin and smoke as the geth unleashed a variety of anti-machine attacks against it.

Still, it accomplished Shepard's goal. She retreated another step and tumbled as her shield broke, crouching behind the corner of a building. One of the large geth fired straight through the corner, but though it made a large hole, Shepard wasn't hit. Five geth moved toward Shepard together while three more ran toward the tower's entrance.

At this moment the Archimedes system bloomed into life. The tower unleashed the power of the sun against everything in the sky in the form of dozens of white energy beams per second, turning the incoming geth reinforcements and fighters into molten slag.

The geth ran inside. The first of them died to a shot from Ashley's derringer-type pistol, deliberately set to unleash all its power in one shot even if that meant instantly overheating. The second geth raised its rifle and pressed the trigger, only to find that its weapon was overheated too. It glanced up in confusion as Kaidan emerged from the tower's machinery, spraying it with bullets. The remaining geth desperately tried to kill the humans, but with two against one it was outmatched and went down before inflicting a wound.

In the meantime outside the tower the geth hunting party rounded the corner only to find Shepard gone. They fired wildly at thin air, perhaps suspecting stealth. They were right to do so, but wrong in their approach; as an electric pulse followed by several bullets hit the remaining large platform, the remaining ones turned their heads upward to find Shepard firing from the room of the one-story building.

She ducked and rolled, avoiding their shots. One of the geth threw a grenade. She slid off the roof on a different side of the building and dispatched a geth as it rounded the corner. She flipped to the side as the next one came out firing, took it down before it could take her down, then ran for it as the remaining two emerged. Their shots got through her shields but not her armor as she dove behind yet another building. One of the geth climbed onto the roof. The other rounded the corner. Shepard was right around that corner, so close that she was now inside the geth's shield. She fired as it vainly tried to club her with its rifle, turned around as her own shield came back up, and killed the last of the enemies.

Panting with exhaustion, she walked toward Kaidan and Ashley as they emerged from the doorway.

"Kaidan! Let's play good news, bad news."

"Wait, what?"

"The tower is up and running. It will keep the geth from sending in more reinforcements or bombing the town from orbit," summarized Shepard.

"Good news?" Kaidan tried to guess the rules of the game. Seeing Shepard's encouraging nod, he relaxed slightly.

"I'm out of grenades, out of Stealth Boys, out of Eyebots, and almost out of batteries for my Pulse Pistol," Shepard continued.

"Bad news."

"If most of the geth in the area ran here, the train station is going to be lightly guarded."

"Good news."

"The artifact won't be."

"Bad news."

"I'll be relying on the two of you."

"Um…"

"Good news!" Ashley cut in. Shepard gave her an approving grin.

"Let's hope so."

They walked toward the spaceport, alert for any geth stragglers. But none emerged. The soldiers were able to catch their breaths and absolutely nothing bad happened until they reached a loading dock just before the train station where Shepard suddenly stopped and muttered a small "Oh."

"What is it?" asked Ashley, before following Shepard's line of sight. It ended at Nihilus's body, half melted by plasma.

"Bad news," summarized Kaidan.

"That was in poor taste," noted Sparatus.

"Humor helps to stay alert in combat situations," objected Shepard. "I take responsibility but Nihilus would have understood."

"I'm sure," Councilor Tevos attempted to defuse the tension. "Are you positive the body belonged to Nihilus?"

"The head was melted, but the armor was the same. Seems probable."

"How do you think he died?" asked Sparatus.

"Impossible to know. Geth ambush?"

"Nihilus was too good to fall for that."

"He might have tried to save some civilians," suggested Kaidan. "There were other bodies on that dock."

"Possible," acknowledged Sparatus. "You had no other clues about his death?"

"None at all," muttered Shepard, staring at the back of her hand.

"I'm guessing there'll be a welcoming party at the next station," said Kaidan. "I mean, I don't know a lot about geth, but it would be weird if they didn't have some way of remotely communicating. I'm sure one of them radioed ahead.

"That's okay," answered Shepard. "Trains are fun to fight through."

"Until the geth overwhelm us, you mean."

"They can't. That's what's fun about trains. They're narrow and there's cover everywhere. We can kill an army in here."

"That's good, because at the rate this is going, we'll have to."

There was a thump above them.

"Called it," declared Kaidan, firing through the roof.

Within a few minutes there were geth everywhere: hanging from the top of the train, crouching behind the benches, or standing out on the platform to fire inside. And within a few more minutes there were no more geth left, and the party stumbled out the doors walking over a mechanical corpse.

"Called it," declared Shepard in mockery of Kaidan's tone.

"Don't start celebrating just yet," warned Ashley. "If it were me, I'd save the worst for last."

"Me too," agreed Kaidan. "What do you think it'll be? Some more of the rocket drones? The big, invisible guys?"

"No," Shepard answered him. "Something worse."

The three of them were looking at the heavy doors to the final dock, which would contain the Prothean artifact. It had taken a long time, but they were almost at their goal.

And standing in front of those doors were two geth Colossi, each one as large as a tank and armored like one, with enormous cannons down their fronts.

Shepard looked at her gun and back at the massive enemies and muttered "I wish Jenkins were here."

"See, my first instinct would be to run up to one of them, get on top of it, trick the other into shooting it, then jump off at the last possible second," remarked Shepard. "But I don't know how we'd deal with the other one."

"Also they'll fight like people and not like turrets," Ashley reminded her.

"Also that, yes."

"Could we maybe blind them?" offered Kaidan. "There's sand here, right? If we could just get enough of it into the air…"

"And if we could get enough gas bags to rub up against them, we could just burn them to death," interrupted Ashley. "Keep it reasonable."

"We could ram them with a car," suggested Shepard.

"No good. They'd blow it up before it got close."

"Three cars? Maybe more. Kaidan could rig up something to keep them going straight. If we lined up enough, some would get through."

"Too many variables. Keep it simple, people."

"I see. Your turn, then," said Shepard. "Come up with a plan."

"You know what? Fine. Give me a minute."

Ashley put on her planning face, sinking into her thoughts and giving a thousand yard stare. The Colossi waited quietly, content to attack once the organics left cover but not to leave their positions with beautiful firing lines to walk into a possible ambush.

"Okay, I got it!" Ashley finally exclaimed. "Look, that crate right there. That would be this month's delivery of mining explosives."

"What do you even mine around here?" asked Shepard.

"So not the point! There's enough there to kill a dozen of those things, much less two."

"Mining explosives are stable, though," objected Kaidan. "That crate wouldn't explode even if you shot it a thousand times. You need a detonation."

"They are also powerful. You wouldn't need the whole crate. Two or three bricks each would do it," said Shepard.

"I take it you have a plan now?" asked Kaidan.

"I do. In a minute you'll just grab some biotically. Synch the detonators to your omnitool and be ready to throw those."

"Do I want to know how you're planning to get the crate open?"

"Let me show you how."

Shepard drew here disabled Eyebot from her backpack and tossed it into the air. The Colossi moved slightly as they put their optics in a better position to observe it. When the drone failed to make an attack and dropped to the ground like so much dead metal, they decided not to go after it. At around the same point they reached that conclusion, Shepard jumped over the barrier and bolted across the open area.

The Colossi turned to follow her progress. One of them fired, aiming not for where she was but for where she would be. Or at least where would have been had she not suddenly stopped, letting the shot pass harmlessly by. The other Colossus waited, tracked her, and fired.

Shepard jumped.

She didn't leap out of the shot's way, not quite. But she managed to catch the edge of it so that instead of ripping through her it simply tossed her into the air like a rag doll. Only instead of landing like a rag doll Shepard twisted her body, tucked her legs into a somersault, and rolled behind the crates. Her teammates winced sympathetically. No matter how good her landing, that had to hurt.

Shepard's arm popped out from behind a crate. Not the explosives crate but a shipment of cloth, considerably bulkier and consequently better as shelter. A Colossus fired back, destroying the crate, filling the air with flying bits of burning cloth, and knocking everything loose with the blast wave.

The explosives crate, caught in the edge of the blast, teetered and fell over, spilling its cargo all over the ground. Kaidan obediently grabbed several of the explosive bricks with his biotics and pulled them to his position.

Shepard took advantage of the confusion to dive behind a metal separator that withstood the next Colossus's blast with considerably better grace.

"What now?" Kaidan half-yelled as he got to work on the detonators. "Do we just throw these?"

"Might as well!" answered Shepard. "I'd do something more dramatic but I either sprained or broke something."

Kaidan and Ashley did as ordered, tossing three of the bricks at a Colossus's feet. When Kaidan triggered the detonation, the blast ripped right through the thing's barriers and downed it.

The remaining Colossus was not content to wait for the same to happen to it. With speed unnatural for something that size, it skittered across the clear space and over the barrier protecting the humans. Kaidan and Ashley just barely dove out of the way of its sharp legs. As soon as both of them were clear, Kaidan activated the remaining detonators, but the positioning was off and when the blast cleared the Colossus was unshielded and on fire, but it was still standing. It whirled around and advanced on Kaidan, threatening to put a foot right through him.

Ashley desperately drew her derringer, lined up the shot and fired. The heavy attack hit one of the geth's leg joints and blew it straight off. The already-damaged geth teetered uncertainly on its remaining three limbs. Kaidan took advantage of the situation by hitting it with the strongest biotic push he could muster. The wounded giant collapsed and Kaidan and Ashley spent the next half a minute shooting its bulk just to be sure.

For the last ten seconds they were joined by Shepard. She was walking with a slight limp and had her lips pursed, but seemed otherwise unharmed.

Giddy with a sense of victory, the three soldiers walked onto the final dock triumphantly. But their triumph was short-lived. The beacon they'd come so far to find was gone.

"…the Colossi were most likely a decoy or a stalling tactic. Reports from the Maxson showed that the geth ships started pulling out while we were still on the train."

And that was the number one worst thing about the attack. The geth won. They killed Nihilus and despite Shepard's admittedly impressive performance they had the beacon. Sparatus didn't know what they were capable of doing with it, but their audacity in going after it suggested that it was something grand. Even worse, the fact that they knew to go after it in the first place suggested they either had spies in the highest echelons of the Alliance government, or those of the Council itself. There was a lot to feel bad about.

"Thank you for your account," Councilor Tevos was saying. "It will help us as we consider our next action. Have you anything else to add?"

"I think we need to prevent this from happening again," Shepard said very seriously, for once looking up at the Councilors.

"I agree," said Sparatus. Then, on a whim, he asked "How?"

"Help us secure Mars," suggested Shepard. "It's the biggest store of Prothean knowledge in human space. It would be very difficult the Alliance to secure it against a fleet that size and still take care of its other responsibilities."

Sparatus considered. It was an innocuous enough request. Sending a force to Sol wouldn't provoke a war in the way that stationing the same force at the border with the geth might. On the other hand, the Council races would need every ship they had to secure their own stores of Prothean artifacts. And more importantly, there was always the chance that they were totally misreading the geth plans and spreading out their forces in an effort to secure dozens of systems would turn out to be the exact wrong thing to do.

Still, it wasn't an irreversible action, and making the gesture could go a long way toward mollifying humanity once the Council refused their other demands, as it surely would have to pretty soon. Tevos would agree, he knew that much. As if on cue the two of them turned to look at Valern. After a moment's pause the salarian gave a small nod.

"Very well," Sparatus pronounced, with all the dignity of his office on his sleeve. "We'll contact your embassy shortly with the details."

Perhaps even Shepard couldn't lose them all.