The Conduit, it turned out, was imperfect. When they landed on the Citadel, they were upside down. In one instant they became a tangled array of human, asari, turian, and most distressingly, krogan limbs, all flailing to get back under control.

"Stop fucking moving!" Nicole barked, well aware that they were all panicking from an adrenaline spike. She couldn't blame them—she felt like someone had lit her brain on fire. Travelling via mass relay in nothing more than a thin metal chamber was probably not good for one's health. She accessed her omni-tool and popped all the Mako's doors open, and they all crawled out, slowly returning to their senses.

They were on the Presidium. As ever, it was a beautiful, artificially manufactured day. As Nicole looked around her, she realized there was a loud, persistent ringing in her ears, as though a bomb had gone off. Slowly she started to hear the rest of the world through the ringing, and she was aware of the sounds. Gunfire, and screaming.

Some instinct, some impulse buried so deep within her that it was more than second nature, urged her to spin around, her pistol already in her hand. She went down to one knee as the geth's fire hit the air where her head had been, and pegged it in the chest three times, the cannon-like blasts of her pistol gouging holes in its metallic body.

"We need to find Saren!" Garrus shouted, forced to yell over the cacophony around them. Nicole took a moment to look around: there were far more people running than geth shooting. In fact, the only geth she could see was the one she'd killed.

"You're right. Saren's moved on, his geth aren't with them. We have to follow."

"How?" Garrus asked hopelessly. Nicole gave a very grim sort of smile.

"We go where the screaming is loudest."

XXX

The entrance to Ocato's Prosthetics was a small arch between two much larger businesses, so that people often failed to realize it was there. But Ocato, an old, fussy salarian doctor, had enough traffic that he had needed to hire security. He hadn't wanted much in the way of qualification, but had asked some very shrewd questions about personal defense and crisis management that led Ten to believe he wasn't as feeble as he seemed. Jenkins, the boy from immigration, had set her up with the job. It was the shop where he'd gotten his cane, he told her.

She spent most of the time reclining against the doorframe, watching as the odd visitor would come for maintenance on a prosthetic limb or to get a cane replaced or upgraded. Quite popular was a mod that embedded basic omnitool technology into a wooden cane, retaining the classic look while giving it some useful capabilities. Ten learned to some surprise that salarians, asari, and humans had all developed wooden canes more or less independently from one another.

She heard someone coming, steps echoing through the archway. Step, thud, step, thud. Someone with a cane, walking very fast, much faster than usual.

Jenkins. He was a very decent person. Came to visit her often. She thought she was beginning to grow fond of him, in the same way she was growing fond of the cantankerous old salarian whose shop she was guarding.

"Evelynn! Dr. Ocato, are you two all right?" His voice sounded high pitched, distressed, like Ten had never heard it before.

"Yes. What's going on?" When he came to the doorway, his face was pale, his eyes wide. And he had a pistol in one hand.

"Geth! And Saren, on the station! When I heard I had to come warn you two, I know you're out of the way—"

"You could have gotten yourself killed." She'd said it before she'd thought about it. Jenkins seemed not to hear her.

"Look, we're being encouraged to evacuate, to get towards the docks, but I don't know—"

"No. You'll be more vulnerable in a ship than on this station. If the geth are here, Saren's flagship must be." If possible, Jenkins eyes grew wider as he spoke. She heard a loud clanging as Dr. Ocato came out from the back area, his cane and metal foot thumping loudly against the floor.

"What's all this—"

"Quiet! Both of you. Jenkins, I'm taking this." She grabbed the pistol and started steering him into the shop, behind the counter. She ignored Ocato's flustering and Jenkins's protests. "You both hide in the back room, under the work table, and do not come out until either I return or a message is sent through saying the attack is over. Got it?"

"What—Evelynn, I'm not going to hide while you—"

"Yes you are! And you too, Ocato! In the back! Under the table, now!" Her voice rang with an authority she didn't know she had, and somehow, miraculously, Jenkins and Ocato obeyed, entering the back of the shop. She checked the readout on Jenkins' pistol. It was military grade, a Predator model standard issue side-arm. She guessed it hadn't been used in nearly a year, but the ammo block scanned as operable. When she really listened, she thought she could hear screaming outside. And gunfire.

Suddenly, fear gripped her. Terrible, overwhelming fear. The same fear she'd lived with ever since she'd been a child, the fear that had haunted her for all her life. She nearly shook with it, but her grip on the pistol was firm. The fear was a part of her. It was her weakness, but it made her strong, too.

I'm going to survive. I'm going to go out there. And I'm going to survive.

She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, and stopped her shaking. She was calm. Afraid, but calm.

"My name is Evelynn."

XXX

Nicole was running so fast that she was breaking ahead of her squad. Even Garrus, with his long legs and turian physiology, was having trouble keeping up. When she saw a geth, she raised her pistol and fired, not even stopping to watch the geth die. She knew she'd hit.

"Shepard!" It was Ashley, yelling to her, now fifty yards behind her. Nicole stopped as she was crossing a bridge, giving the rest of them time to catch up. There were blast holes through the bridge, where some geth fire must have been concentrated. When the others caught up Liara immediately reeled forward and rested her palms against her knees, breathing heavily. Ashley took Nicole to one side. "We can't keep this up, Commander!"

"We can't afford to wait, Ashley! Garrus and I will keep going and you all just follow and catch up when you can!"

"And what're you gonna do when you catch up to Saren, fight him and an army of geth on your own?" Wrex demanded, trying and failing to hide the heaving gasps of air he was inhaling. Krogan were good at a lot of things, but long-distance running wasn't one of them.

She meant to respond, but something in her urged her to turn around, and she saw it—a missile, fired by some far off geth cannon, spinning and veering out of control. Heading for them.

"Off the bridge!" She yelled. In her panic, she tried to run for Liara, but before she made it the blast collided with the underside of the bridge, and on instinct she leapt away, saving herself as stone and flame engulfed the air. As soon as she realized she was on solid ground she got to her feet and looked around, but she only saw Garrus, who had leapt with her to the far side of the bridge. She couldn't see the others. "Liara? Liara!"

"Nicole, we're down here!" It was Liara's voice, on her suit comms. Nicole fell to her knees.

"Where?" Nicole demanded.

"Safe! I got the rest of us in a biotic cocoon when I saw the missile was going to hit—the blast threw us a level down, we can't get back up to you anyway! And we were slowing you down. We'll be fine, Nicole. I promise."

"All right. Stay together—are the others unconscious?"

"I think Ashley is. Wrex is fine."

"All right, listen, I want you to reach into the pouch on Ashley's left hip, there's going to be a soft package of medigel in there with a needle attached to the top, probably with 'gut-gel' or 'brain-gel' written on it in marker. Do you see it?"

"It says 'brain-gel'."

"I don't care, listen to me. Take off Ashley's helmet, and take the cap off of the needle at the top of the pouch. Inject it into her neck, into the soft tissue. It doesn't matter where, the gel will do the rest. Do that now, okay?"

"Nicole—"

"Do it now!"

Nicole was frozen on the ground, her heart pounding. Liara wasn't a soldier, and she wasn't human. Concussions weren't a big problem for asari. They could be for a human.

"Okay. I've done it."

Nicole switched on her omnitool and got the readout from Ashley's hardsuit. She breathed a sigh of relief. There was no internal bleeding. She was going to be fine.

"All right, Ashley will be up in a minute or two. When she is, I want you to head to the Council chambers. That's where Saren's heading."

"How do you know?"

"Ask the Protheans who shoved a half-dozen probes up my—"

"Commander." It was Garrus. "We should go."

"Right. I just know. The Council chamber. And hurry!"

She got up, and nodded to Garrus. He had his assault rifle out. That was good. As much as he favoured his sniper rifle, they wouldn't have time for it now.

They started to run.

XXX

Geth made easy targets. She just had to hide, and wait, and watch them acquire their own targets—and then they paid attention to little else. They were reserving their processing for something else. Communication? Or something worse?

Ten didn't want to think about it. She just waited, and shot them. Twice she'd been thanked by weeping, overwhelmed would-be victims of some geth shock trooper. She didn't know what to say—when one had asked her name, she had almost said "Ten". She ignored them, focused instead on ensuring that the district around Ocato's was free of geth. She clambered around the exteriors of the tight-knit buildings and shops, onto roofs and weather vanes, sniping the geth with Jenkins's pistol from a vantage point. There weren't as many as she would have thought. By the time fifteen minutes had passed she had found only eleven geth.

They're not here. This isn't what they want.

But what would they want? That was easy. The Council chambers. That would be where any geth would attack. The Council themselves had already been evacuated, but all the command functions for the station were controlled at the top of that tower. And if the geth were there, that would mean Saren was there as well. And if Saren was there….

Shepard. She's here.

Two impulses were warring within her. The first was to stay as far away from Saren as she possibly could, to forget about everything, to hide. The second … the second was to seek him out. Not because she wanted to, or because she wasn't scared. But because Shepard had given her this life, this new, small life she had, and Shepard was going to face him. Ten felt like she had to help, even if she was nothing compared to Shepard. They had been trained to kill Spectres when they were fifteen years old. Shepard had left before she'd had the rest of that training—but Ten knew she'd never needed it. If she'd had less than half Ten's training she could have killed her without trying. Gabreau hadn't picked Shepard because he'd liked her. He'd picked her because she was the best.

But even the best might not survive Saren. Even before he had worked with the geth he was one of the best Spectres. The contest between him and Shepard couldn't be certain. And now….

Now Evelynn had a choice.

XXX

Near the Council chambers the geth were stronger. Their shields were more powerful, their movements more careful, their strategies more refined. The geth must have been rerouting their intelligence to their ranks that were standing guard around the Council tower.

It didn't matter. Nicole and Garrus mowed them down like so many insects, though once or twice Nicole had to pull Garrus back behind cover before he leaned out to shoot. Blast marks stained the walls and floors, rubble had strewn itself across the Presidium, and explosions spat hateful flame wherever a geth rocket had been fired. Once or twice Nicole shot one out of the sky before it could reach them.

The noise became almost soothing to her. The feeling of her gun in her hand was familiar, the burning in her muscles an old companion. This was what she had been made for. If any good would come of her life, maybe it would be this. That she could kill Saren in time.

"Shepard, I doubt we're going to get the elevator working," Garrus muttered, as he kicked aside the remains of the last geth that had been standing sentry around the tower.

"I agree." Nicole walked to the elevator door and found that it had been shut, electronically. She squeezed her fingers in between the slit where the door receded at the right side, and threw her entire weight into pulling it open. There was some powerful seal on the door, but she braced herself and pulled, putting all of her strength into it, her jaw clenched as she pulled back on the door. As her arms began to tremble with the effort, she managed to pull it open a crack, and then the seal was broken, and she pulled the door back so harshly that she nearly warped it out of its frame. When it was done she was breathing heavily, and took a moment to compose herself. Garrus was staring at her.

"Shepard … those are sealed with magnetic biotics."

"What? Oh, yeah. They are," Nicole replied, between breaths.

"That's got to be at least four hundred pounds of force."

"Get in." Nicole jerked her head towards the door she'd just twisted.

"Shepard, it's not going to be functional."

"Get in. I hope you don't mind climbing."

"Oh, goody," Garrus muttered. Nicole was already in the elevator, carving out a hole in the top with a laser torch she kept in her belt. A large circle of metal fell from the top, and she pulled herself up. She waited on top of the elevator, in the dark elevator shaft, while Garrus followed her. She looked up. The tower was almost impossibly tall, but to her surprise, the elevator functioned using good old fashioned cables. That was convenient.

Nicole pulled Garrus through the hole, to help him get his lanky turian body through; turians didn't have as much upper body strength as humans did.

"So what's the plan? Magnetize our boots and walk up?" Garrus asked briskly. Nicole jerked her head towards the cable.

"This tower is proofed against that sort of thing. We climb."

"You're joking."

"Garrus, if I was going to pick a time to grow a sense of humour, it wouldn't be right now." And she clambered onto the cable, easily pulling herself up in bounds at a time, ignoring the burning in her arms. She heard Garrus climbing on after her, and couldn't help but smile as he muttered,

"Oh, you have a sense of humour all right. It's just evil."

To his credit, Garrus managed to keep up with her, either through athleticism or sheer force of will. The climb was long, giving Nicole too much time to her thoughts. Thinking about what she'd find at the top of this elevator shaft. Thinking about Liara, about whether she was safe … thinking about Sovereign, about how even if she killed Saren, she still had to think of some way to disable a ship the size of a city.

"Shepard!"

"Yeah, Garrus?"

"I wanted you to know that I've decided something!"

"What's that?"

"I am never climbing anything again!"

Nicole chuckled. "Humans call that gallows humour."

"Turians call it—"

"I know what turians call it."

"You know what?" There was a slightly hysterical note in Garrus' breathless voice. "One of these days, I'm going to surprise you. And it's going to be really funny."

"Bet it is." Nicole heaved herself up the rope further. By now even her arms were starting to shake.

"Commander Shepard. Commander Shepard, do you read me." It was a voice on the Alliance channel.

"Yeah, I read you, all right!" Nicole shouted back, not entirely successfully hiding the fact that she was climbing up an elevator shaft.

"Commander, I'm Captain Jacobs of the Arcturus fleet, we were the only ones close enough to respond. No turians, asari, nothing—only us."

"Super! Go shoot some geth!"

"That's the problem, ma'am. We don't have any directives. We thought—I thought—it would be smart to get your advice. You're not the highest ranking Alliance officer present but you are a Spectre, and comms with the Normandy confirmed you're on the ground."

Nicole paused. Obviously this Jacobs wasn't high in the Alliance food chain; he didn't know better than to trust her. She kept climbing.

"What's the situation? Where's Saren's flagship?"

"It's leading an attack on the Citadel, ma'am, it looks like it's trying to dock with the station—but it's the Destiny Ascension, it's being swarmed by geth ships. And the Council is on it! Some of my men want to help defend the Citadel—but I think we should save the Council. But if we do—"

"You'll be extending into firing range," Nicole concluded. Sweat-slicked hair clung to the back of her neck. "And you want my advice on whether it's worth the risk."

"Yes."

She could feel Garrus listening to her. Could imagine what Ashley would say. She knew how many would die on a rescue mission of that scale.

"Save the Council. Above all else make sure the Destiny Ascension is battle ready. If you see an opportunity, the entire fleet needs to move with the Ascension to strike Sov—Saren's flagship."

"Aye-aye, sir."

She kept climbing.

"You're going to lose a lot of human lives," Garrus said, between heaving breaths, "Saving a bunch of aliens."

"The Destiny Ascension has over ten thousand people on board, Garrus. And three of them are the closest thing we have to galactic representatives. You think anyone would forget the day humanity let the Council die?"

"If the Reapers kill us all they might," Garrus muttered. Nicole pretended not to hear that. They arrived at the top level, where the Council chambers were. Nicole was staring at the door, just as Garrus managed to come up behind her. Nicole held herself level and worked to control her breathing, to try and gather some control over her body. She wouldn't be able to regain the strength she'd wasted climbing, but she could at least conserve what she had. When she felt sure, she leapt the short distance from the cable to the edge of the door, grabbing on to a narrow ledge at the top.

"Uh, Shepard? What about those biotic seals?"

"Only on the outside," Nicole called back. "The inside has a lighter seal, in case of emergencies." She started pulling on the door, and it pulled back easily enough. She stepped inside and breathed a sigh of relief, bracing her palms against her knees. As she heard Garrus thumping onto the platform behind her, she reached into one of the pouches on her belt and pulled out a packet filled with a faint, clear gel. Grimacing slightly, she pulled off her helmet and tore the top of the gel pack, revealing a small needle. Then she injected it into her neck.

"What's that?" Garrus sounded understandably horrified. Turian physiology reacted very poorly to most injections.

"Provides a quick boost of energy, helps cardiovascular recuperation … decreases build-up of lactic acid, that kind of thing." She took note of her breathing, felt it coming easier. The pain in her limbs ebbed away too. Each breath was careful, controlled. Calm. She could feel her strength returning to her.

"I've never seen any Alliance soldiers use that kind of thing," Garrus gasped, between breaths. Nicole grimaced.

"That's because it's not Alliance. It's something they taught me to make at—you know. Shadowhill. Not the kind of thing I'd like to use often. It can be addictive."

"Really?"

"Considering the fact that I can breathe right now, yeah. I could see how you could get addicted to this. Doesn't work on turians, though. Not unless you want to kill one, anyway."

"Think I'll pass."

"Come on. Saren will be in the main Council Chambers."

As they walked up the large staircase leading to the chambers, Nicole keyed her omnitool to upload Vigil's program as soon as possible. Hopefully, that would buy the Alliance ships and the Destiny Ascension some time.

The Council Chambers were on a plinth overlooking a large, glass-covered atrium filled with wildlife from each of the Council planets. Normally the Council gathered there, with onlookers in the balconies above. Now there were no onlookers. It was empty of all life, except Nicole, Garrus, and Saren, standing at the podium like a preacher idly going through his notes at the pulpit. Saren barely even seemed to notice them. Nicole had her assault rifle trained on his eyes.

"Where are your geth, Saren?"

"Irrelevant, now. Soon I will enable Sovereign to access this station. Soon my mission will be complete." Saren's voice was soft, almost like a child's. He was still keying commands into the stand. He kept working, not knowing that Nicole had locked him out, and suddenly his almost peaceful face snarled into furious life, and he spun around to look at her. "You think you can stop me?!"

"I know I can stop you," Nicole said easily. "You're just a brainwashed puppet dancing on Sovereign's strings. Even if you're the scariest puppet alive, there's still nothing you can do I can't see coming."

Saren's eyes went wide, and he screamed, flinging a biotic blast at her. Nicole rolled away from it almost carelessly.

"He's made you weak, Saren. He must have decided that by now having you in control of your own faculties would be too risky."

"Impossible! I have studied the Indoctrination, I know how it works! He would not want me weakened now—"

"Let me tell you something, Saren. You know the easiest way to know if you're a willing slave? If you're a tool?" Saren's face twitched with every word she spoke, his fangs bared, ugly and feral. They had been stained black by something. "If you can't account for the things you believe in. So go ahead. Tell me why it's so important that you let Sovereign invite all his Reapers in the front door. Explain to me how that saves lives."

"They are coming, Shepard! You cannot stop them! And now, human, I am going to kill you. Sovereign knew my resolve would weaken, he knew that we organics are not to be trusted … so he made me stronger. Strong enough even to kill you."

"What, by flinging super-charged biotics with the aim of a toddler?" Nicole sneered. "What did he tell you, he was implanting you to 'strengthen your resolve'? You're a puppet, boy. A puppet and a fool. I always knew you were a racist bastard but I didn't think you'd be a weak racist bastard."

"I am not weak!" A biotic field erupted around where Nicole had been standing, but she leapt backwards, barely even breaking her composure. She could feel adrenaline pounding in her brain from Gabreau's formula. She forced it out. Forced herself to be calm.

"Oh? Then prove it. What's your grand plan for saving the universe, boy? Let the monsters at the door walk in, and hope they take pity on you? Children dream of pity, Saren! What pity has Sovereign shown you so far?"

"He's let me live!"

"Yeah. What a pity that is."

Saren and Nicole were circling around each other, Saren having strayed away from the platform. Nicole kept her gun trained on him. Biotic energy swirled in Saren's slack claws, and his mouth was half open, his breathing harsh, his eyes wild.

"The people who own you will never show you mercy once they don't need you anymore. How are you going to prove to a race of city-sized ships that they need us? By killing a few dozen? You think Sovereign needs you? You think he'll need you once all his friends have made it through that relay?"

"I … I think…."

"You don't know what you think," Nicole snarled. "You don't know what you think because he's in your head, Saren! Here's a question. You think he'll let you shoot yourself before you've let him in?"

"Why would I shoot myself, vermin?!"

"Because it's the only way you're ever going to be free."

"I am free!"

"Then go ahead." Nicole put her own gun down. "Do something he doesn't want you to do."

Saren's hands were shaking wildly, spittle gathering in his jaws. Slowly, his right hand inched towards the pistol holstered on his hip. Nicole was content to watch. Twisted as he was, he wouldn't be able to make a violent move she couldn't predict before he'd even thought about it. He raised the gun, slowly … pointing it at his own head. His hand was shaking, but he held the barrel to his temple.

"See?! I can do whatever I want!"

"Sovereign's not worried about you holding a gun to your head. He's worried about you pulling the trigger." Nicole's face was merciless. Blank. "Try."

Saren's hand was shaking again, even harder, so had the pistol was in danger of falling out of his hand. Then he flinched, and grabbed his head with his other hand, reeling backwards.

"No, master, I—"

"You call him master?" Nicole demanded. Saren looked up at her, horrified. "Tell me, when I kill you, should I mark your urn with the name Saren? Or Sovereign's slave?"

"I am no slave!"

"Then pull the trigger, boy!"

And then Saren screamed, a bloodcurdling, shrieking sound that ripped through the Council Chambers, his free hand clutching at his face.

"I can't!"

A bullet pierced his skull, and his body fell. It hadn't come from Saren. Nicole turned around in the direction of the elevator, and saw Ten, supporting a heaving Garrus, who looked like he was going to pass out. A gun was in Ten's hand.

"I can." The shadow of a smirk was on her face. "Your friend here nearly killed himself climbing that shaft, Shepard."

"No I didn't," Garrus muttered.

"Yes you did," Nicole replied softly. There was a loud crashing, sprinkling sound behind her. Saren's body had fallen through the atrium. "When did you get here?"

"When I saw the elevator roof had been taken out with a custom laser cutter. Same one they taught me how to make. Distinctive burn markings."

"Yeah," Nicole said. Ten had changed her face, but Nicole knew it was her. The little gestures, the way she held herself. She couldn't have come from anywhere but Shadowhill. She couldn't be anyone else. "I'm going to go check on Saren's body."

"I'll follow!" Garrus said immediately, apparently forgetting that his weight was being supported by a human woman about two thirds his size.

"No you won't. I'll be fine."

XXX

Descending down through the glass was like jumping back in time, to another world. An older world, overgrown with plants that couldn't possibly have survived together. Nicole used a tall salarian tree to climb down to the grassy floor, looking for Saren's body. She found him in a small clearing, his elbows at odd angles. There was a hole through one of his eyes.

That should definitely have killed him. But so should the knife wound Nicole had given him on Virmire. She had to be sure….

As she approached, blue lines came into life along the implants beneath his skin, and Nicole lurched back, her shotgun already in her hands. Her breathing was very rapid, now, as she watched him, rising, some guttural, squelching groan coming from his throat and chest. His head hung down like a marionette doll with cut strings.

Then he looked at her, with eyes glowing blue.

"SHEPARD. YOU HAVE DEFIED US FOR THE LAST TIME."

Nicole was forced to watch in horror as Saren's body lurched, his bones cracking and popping, his skin tearing as his entire body twisted. She had to bite back bile as his claws and feet started to stretch, until metal points burst through his skin, and his entire body caught on fire, blazing blue. When it was done, he was a turian skeleton, grossly exaggerated and mismanaged, with his lower jaw hanging off, his eyes two burning points of light. He was all metal. All horrible, black metal.

"YOU THINK SLAYING MY PAWN WILL STOP ME, HUMAN? YOU THINK I HAVE WORKED FOR CENTURIES TO ALLOW MYSELF TO SUFFER DEFEAT BY AN INSIGNIFICANT BAG OF FLESH?"

"I think if you had left that insignificant bag of flesh alone, he would've been a lot harder to kill."

"SILENCE, FOOL!"

And the bone-Saren moved quicker than the Saren Nicole had known, leaping to the ceiling and clinging to it with all four limbs like some grotesque, swollen insect. Nicole barely ran in time as biotic ruptures tore at the ground beneath her feet, no longer wild and misdirected, but controlled.

"THIS BODY IS MUCH BETTER SUITED TO COMBAT WITHOUT ITS PETTY ORGANIC MIND INTERFERING." Sovereign's voice reverberated through her skull, like bombs were going off next to her ears. She ignored it, tuned it out. She rolled away from another biotic singularity and fired her shotgun into the bone-Saren, so many times that her gun overheated and she threw it to the ground. Chips of metallic skeleton frayed and flew from his body, but the bone-Saren ignored them, and dropped from the ceiling to stalk Nicole like a cougar with mismatched limbs.

"YOUR TIME IS AT AN END, ORGANIC. WE CANNOT ALLOW YOU TO DEVELOP FURTHER."

Nicole drew her pistol, and fired, directly into his head, until that weapon overheated too, until Saren's skull had been reduced to a single burnt eye socket dangling from a wire that hung from his neck. But he didn't stop. Nicole threw her side-arm away and pulled out her sniper rifle, activating a dial on the side—

"WE CANNOT DIE, SHEPARD. WE ARE ETERNAL, WE ARE IMMORTAL, WE ARE—"

"High-ex!" She raised the sniper, pointed, and shot. Only seven feet away, the explosive round struck the bone-Saren with the force of a bomb, and the world tore apart in an explosion of metal and ruined forest and fire.

XXX

With the bridge destroyed, they had to take a much longer way to get to the Council chambers. Liara felt her lungs screaming in protest, her limbs turned to jelly, but she ignored it, pushed on, pushed herself as fast as she could. They kept hearing gunfire, explosions. When they had nearly reached the Council tower, they found another road blasted by the geth, so instead Liara wrapped them all in biotics and floated them up a level. Using so much of her biotic power actually physically hurt, she was so tired, but she didn't care. When they found the elevator with the hole in the ceiling, Liara knew what she had to do.

Ashley, however, seemed distracted by something, a message she was receiving on her comms. Liara couldn't hear it. She pushed Ashley aside and climbed onto the top of the elevator, just as a massive explosion reverberated through the air, with a great, rumbling roar. Her pulse quickening, she wrapped herself in biotics and ascended as fast as she could, ignoring the fact that her entire body was nearing exhaustion, ignoring the fact that her biotic cells were burning beneath her skin, that her biotic amp was sending light tingles down her wrist: warning her she was approaching serious physical harm.

When she got to the top of the elevator, she collapsed, but instead of stopping, she limped on, stumbling as she found her way. She grabbed onto the railing and pulled herself up, cursing her legs for not being stronger, faster. Nicole had made it up these stairs. When she got to the top, her heart stopped.

Smoke, so much smoke, was rising from the botanical garden beneath the Council floor. As quickly as she could, she rushed over and scrambled to the top. Garrus was down there, and a woman Liara didn't recognize, pulling away pieces of broken stone and logs from trees. Liara leapt down and tried to catch herself in a biotic bubble, but the bubble faltered and she only reduced her speed by half. She landed with a painful crunch, and hissed in pain. She tested her ankles. Nothing seriously injured.

"Liara?" Garrus was wide-eyed, his mandibles flaring. "Quick, you have to help me find her!"

"Right … hang on." Liara raised her hand and clenched a fist. Nothing happened. Screwing up her face, she clenched her fist harder, focused her concentration, and little biotic particles whizzed through the air around her fist. Just as the pressure was mounting, as the warning signal from her biotic amp became a full blown electric shock, she released her fist. All the rubble flew apart and hung in the air, suspended by a biotic singularity Liara had created. Then she fainted.

XXX

"Liara? Liara, are you okay? Liara!" Her eyes fluttered open, and she saw Nicole. There was a cut over her left eye, but she must have treated it because it wasn't bleeding. Her face was wild, panicked, her features out of control. She looked like she was ready to sob. Suddenly Liara found herself in a bone-crunching hug. She tried to raise her arms to embrace Nicole, but found that her body wasn't really responding.

"I believe I … may have over exerted myself," Liara admitted. She looked around and realized she was on the main floor of the Council chambers … along with the Citadel Council themselves, as well as Anderson and Udina. Ashley, Garrus, and Wrex were there … but Liara couldn't see the woman who had been helping Garrus dig out Nicole. Liara flushed immediately and tried to stand, which resulted in her just doing a sort of wiggling motion. Nicole was still holding her.

"That makes two of us," Nicole whispered. She was smiling, in a shameless way Liara had never seen before. It was beautiful.

"Here I am … the damsel in distress," Liara muttered, happy to see Nicole but utterly mortified. Nicole was still smiling.

"Actually, more like the conquering hero. I was trapped under one of those trees. That biotic singularity of yours saved my life."

"So that makes … you the damsel."

Nicole laughed, a sudden, spontaneous sound. "Yeah. I guess it does."

"Are you quite all right, Spectre?" That was the salarian Council member, the one who always seemed impatient. Liara could never remember his name.

"Yeah. We're okay." Nicole shared one last smile with Liara, and then stood at attention. Liara didn't need to see her face to know that the mask had come back down.

"Congratulations are in order. From what we can make of your story, your defeat of the … thing Saren became is what caused the sudden breach in Sovereign's shields. This allowed the Destiny Ascension and all your assembled Alliance ships to destroy the geth vessel. We are in your debt, Spectre."

Nicole shrugged. "I told him I was going to kill him. He should've listened."

She is extremely attractive when she's acting all tough, Liara thought dreamily. Then several heads turned towards her, including Shepard's. It took her a moment to realize what happened. "I, ah, said that out loud, didn't I?"

To her infinite gratitude, the Council chose to act as though she hadn't spoken. Tevos spoke first.

"Commander Shepard, in honour of your tremendous efforts to defend the Citadel Station, and to protect the lives of this Council as well as the over ten thousand lives aboard the Destiny Ascension, we are forever in your debt. We have each met with our heads of government, and you will be awarded the Star of Alaris, from Thessia, the Third Badge of Service from Sur'Kesh, and the rank of Colonel in the turian Honourary Services cabal."

Sparatus cleared his throat and stepped forward, taking Nicole aside.

"There will be presentation ceremonies for the other awards, but we do not have any such ceremonies. However, I believe you are familiar with the prestige of the Honourary Services cabal." He pulled out a foot long black box, immaculately lacquered and completely devoid of ornamentation, and handed it to her. There was a ceremonial ring to his voice as he said, "You have honoured your people, and in doing so honoured ours. Your service will not be forgotten. Go now with honour, and wield this Talon in that name."

Nicole nodded.

"I will."

"There is another matter," Tevos said. Sparatus returned to her side. "In light of the efforts of the Alliance military in defending this station, we have elected that humanity shall be granted a seat on the Council. As the single-most crucial individual in today's events, we would appreciate your input on a nomination."

"Anderson," Nicole said, without hesitation. Her cool visage was almost marred by a smirk. "He'll hate me for it, but he'll do well. That's my recommendation."

"Very well. We'll take it under consideration."

"There's something else you should take under consideration, Councillor." Tevos had started to turn away, but now looked towards Nicole, her eyes narrowed.

"Yes?"

"The flagship—Sovereign—was not a geth vessel. It was a Reaper, part of a species of machines that wiped out the Protheans." Liara expected Tevos's eyes to go wide with shock, for her to sneer in derision, but instead she raised a single eyebrow.

"Do you have any proof of this claim?"

"Two Prothean visions, and the fact that when you scan Sovereign's wreckage you'll find it distinctly different from the geth in composition. If they could've built a ship like that, they could've upgraded their own AI several times over."

"I see. We will take that under consideration, as well."

"See that you do."

XXX

They stayed at a very nice hotel on the Citadel while they waited for delegates to come, to make speeches and promises and to give Nicole her medals. Nicole kept her face blank through all of it, but by now Liara could tell when she was upset, or uncomfortable, and she had never seemed more uncomfortable than when an asari general and a salarian minister had been pinning badges to her uniform. Nicole didn't acknowledge the crowds, and absolutely refused to talk to reporters. When they returned to the hotel, she threw her dress blues off and changed in the bathroom, coming back out in the jacket, shirt, and jeans she seemed to always be wearing. She was wearing the combat mesh again, Liara noticed.

There was a very nice sofa in the main area of their room, with a glass table in the center, covered in cheap plastic flowers. Nicole sat down beside her.

"You can't wait to be off of this station," Liara observed. Nicole grimaced.

"That obvious?"

"I don't blame you. The interior decorators here have absolutely no sense of subtlety." Liara gestured to the impossibly bright flowers on the table. That elicited maybe half a smile.

"The Council aren't going to seriously consider the Reapers. I always knew that. I thought maybe … doesn't matter. I have to figure out some way to stop them."

"You mean we do."

"No, Liara, I—"

"Nicky, it's very sweet that you're trying to protect me, but if you seriously think I am going to let you go off and save the universe on your own … then I think we need to get better acquainted." Liara smiled, and took Nicole's hand. The roughness of the combat mesh against her skin was almost familiar, now. If you held still, if you didn't disturb the threads, it was soft. "I can protect myself."

Nicole smiled, and looked up at her, through a tangle of fiery red hair. "A couple rounds of cardio in the gym probably wouldn't hurt, though."

"I am going to pretend I did not hear that," Liara said, pointedly staring at the ceiling. Nicole laughed.

"All right. So, first things first. I have to get my ship back."

"And the second thing?"

Nicole looked at her, and for the first time, Liara could see the goodness in her at the same time as the deadly, iron will that defined her. She saw her brilliant emerald eyes, her red hair, and the scar on her cheek. She saw both the determination to do good, and to stop those who would do harm. She saw all the reasons she loved her.

"We go hunting."

.

.

.

/-

Thank you all so much for reading this far. If you've stuck with Nicole Shepard from the beginning to the end of Mass Effect 1, you have my sincerest gratitude. Working on this story has been a tremendous opportunity to grow for me, and it's been a real treat. I can't say enough how much your reviews, favourites—hell, even your page views—mean to me.

The one goal I had in mind for this past summer was to finish Beyond the Fire, and I have (I finished this chapter back in August 30th, but I've found that keeping a buffer of completed chapters and releasing them on a weekly basis both lets me stay ahead of the game and gives readers a chance to process what I've written). So thanks once again, and I can assure you the next entry in Nicole Shepard's story will be coming soon. Beyond the Fire: DragonRise will be posted on October 4th. I'm starting to get decent at this keeping schedules thing.

And now, because we've all been to more Marvel movies than we care to admit … A POST-CREDITS SCENE.

\-

In space there was a blanket of stars lit against the night sky. Here there was no such light. This place was the shadow between galaxies, the silent black that accounted for so much of space. There was only darkness.

In that darkness, lights flared into being, for the first time in millennia. Ancient, hallowed, they woke slowly. The eyes of Harbinger. The first Reaper. The greatest of their kind. He had been sent a message.

Sovereign was dead.

Harbinger sifted through Sovereign's memories, beamed to him at the moment of Sovereign's failure. The Citadel would not open to them. A blow, but not a fatal one. Even now, as he awoke, he stirred his ancient contingencies, woke them to his will. Even now he was not worried.

One memory stood out to him, of an organic. Somehow, she had been touched by the Protheans. Somehow, she had been warned. She stood defiant in his mind.

"We are legion. The time of our return is coming. You cannot escape." Sovereign's voice, ancient, proud, arrogant. Dead.

The organic, called a human, stared back into Sovereign. There was no fear, no hesitation. No remorse. No weakness.

"I'm not going to escape. I'm going to kill you." Sovereign had dismissed her words as organic bravado. Now Sovereign was dead.

For a long time, Harbinger dwelled on that face. On her scars. Her eyes. The muscles and organs beneath her skin. Her brain. For an entire year he considered her, and her species, and what made her something else. He came to a conclusion.

We must have her.

Assuming direct control.