"Vashat kai! Segotha te rekalit udonai!"

Jayce jerked awake with a ragged cry, sweat plastering her tank top to her body. The cabin was dark, the faint glow from her work terminal and the numbers on the clock the only illumination, but the distance between the two light sources was enough to anchor herself back in the present: captain's quarters, SSV Normandy.

"Damn it." She drew a deep, shuddering breath, another, willing her heart to slow, the tremors in her muscles to stop. She'd known the nightmares would be coming. The events on Edolus had all but guaranteed it, and after getting the bodies of the dead Marines into the nitrogen storage chamber, getting Kaidan set up to examine the mystery beacon and reporting their findings to Admiral Hackett, she had set out to exhaust herself, taking full advantage of the floor space in her new accommodations: crunches, pull-ups, push-ups, lunges, combat katas. There was more than enough room for a heavy bag and speed bag along the wall near the bathroom; she'd take care of that the next time they docked at the Citadel. She hadn't stopped until her legs had been trembling with exhaustion, had barely managed to stay awake in the shower, and had been out almost before her head had hit the pillow, but it still hadn't been enough.

Nor had it just been another recap of events on Akuze. The damn Prothean beacon had tossed its contributions into the mix, and it had been Gina in front of her in the camp, shouting out those damn words that she couldn't comprehend, over and over, desperate to make her understand until suddenly the world was on fire and her best friend was dissolving before her eyes in a spray of acid, words giving way to shrieks of agony as a massive thresher maw made of metal and wire burst from the ground and reared overhead with an unearthly howl.

No bodies. They'd ranged for miles in the Mako over the surface of Edolus, seeking any evidence of the three missing Marines or the Antietam with the rest of its crew. Nothing. No hits from their transmitters, no sign of the frigate, no bodies. The only wreckage they had found was the battered and decayed remains of a centuries-old escape pod with the mummified corpse of a salarian.

She'd heard all the explanations six years ago: maw acid was incredibly corrosive, more than able to dissolve flesh, bone, even metal into nothing. Thresher maw were beyond omnivores, devouring anything they attacked, able to digest and absorb most of it, and capable of digging deep enough to drag remains beyond the range of any sensor. All that Jayce knew was that she hadn't even been able to bring Lily a body to bury, had never had a grave to stand at and say good-bye...and now twenty-three more families would be facing that special level of hell that you could never quite escape.

She scrubbed a hand over her face, dragged fingers through sweat-damp hair. Macavity nudged his way into her lap, and she rested her forehead against his back, scratching his head and neck, letting the familiar action and the sound of his purring soothe the lingering agitation that thrummed along her nerves.

"Commander?"

She lifted her head. "Go ahead, Joker," she said, hoping like hell that she hadn't been making enough noise to be heard in the cockpit.

"We've just entered the Knossos system. Reports from mining corporations indicate that there are a large number of prothean ruins on the surface of the planet Therum."

"Sounds like a good place to look for Dr. T'soni," Jayce remarked, glancing at the clock. Three hours of sleep; maybe she could doze a bit longer while they established an orbit and performed preliminary surface scans.

"Yeah, looks like the geth thought so, too. Long range scans are showing a signature consistent with geth technology orbiting the planet."

Or maybe not. She set Mac aside and rolled out of bed. "Time to Therum?"

"Thirty-two-point-five minutes."

"Call a meeting in the Comm Room in ten: Williams, Alenko, Wrex, Vakarian -" She hesitated, swearing silently to herself - "and Tali'Zorah." She'd made a deal, damn it.

"Aye-aye, Commander."

She pulled off her still-damp tank top and shorts and headed for a quick shower, hoping that Ash and Kaidan had slept better than she had.

"All right, looks like we're hoofing it from here, people." Shepard glared at the narrow gap in the rocks a moment longer, as though the barrier had been set here as a personal insult, then turned and stalked back toward the Mako.

Garrus gave her plenty of space. She'd been in a dangerous mood ever since they'd come back from Edolus, and it was more than the ten body bags that he'd helped offload from the Mako, though spirits knew that would have been reason enough as far as he was concerned.

Shepard, Alenko and Williams had been tight-lipped on the details, besides the encounter with a thresher maw (if the melted armor plates and bent frame weren't clear enough clues), but it didn't take a genius to notice the absence of any ship that would have had to drop the Marines. There had been no tantrums, no displays of temper, but there was a stillness to the Spectre that had nothing to do with peace, the coiled tension of a viper poised to strike, waiting for a target to come within range.

He didn't think that his stupid little comment earlier would be enough to put him in her crosshairs, but...damn, what had he been thinking? Yes, she was N7, probably heard crap like that – and worse – all the time; she'd certainly had no trouble with a snappy comeback, but still, she was technically his new CO. At least she hadn't pointed a gun at him yet, which put him one up on the krogan.

"Helmets on," she ordered, retrieving hers from the IFV and donning it. The atmosphere of Therum was breathable, but the stench of sulfur was overwhelming, and the heat seared the airway with every breath. The helmets were all equipped with molecular extractors that supplemented the air in their tanks with a mixture filtered from the environment and, as a bonus, dropped the temperature to something that wouldn't scorch the nasal passages.

"Lieutenant, Chief, form a wedge up front with me," she ordered as the rest of them pulled on their helmets. "Garrus, left flank; Wrex, right flank. Tali, stay rear and center."

"Yes, Captain." The quarian was quite aware that Shepard was not pleased to be bringing her along on this mission. Garrus couldn't blame Shepard for her reluctance; civilians on an op were a fairly reliable recipe for disaster, but the kid actually wasn't doing bad. She'd kept her mouth shut and eyes open (at least, as far as he could tell; he supposed she could be asleep behind that mask, but her body language suggested attentiveness). She hadn't argued on the occasions when Shepard had refused to let her leave the Mako to examine the shattered pieces of the geth they encountered, and to be honest, the Mako's guns didn't really leave much to be examined, thanks in no small part to some expert calibrating by a certain turian.

When Tali did speak up, it was worth listening to. The massive, quadrupedal armatures that they had encountered had originally been designed as heavy labor mechs, designed to transport men and equipment, or to pull trailers. The pulse cannon in the 'head' was intended for use in blasting through rock and other barriers, but it had evidently received one hell of an upgrade; they'd had to pause to allow the Mako's repair programs to do their work more than once, and the IFV was still going to need work once they got it back to the Normandy. The militarization of the synthetic race had included additional shields and armor, but their power centers were still in the same places: places that Tali knew, and once the cannon found its target, things were over pretty quickly.

What they were going to do if they ran into one of the damn things on foot was another matter entirely, but it didn't look as though they had any choice.

Settling the Equalizer into its place on his harness, Garrus slid the strap of his assault rifle over one shoulder and shifted the weapon into ready position, double checking his ammo pack for spare cubes and thermal clips. A pistol at his hip for close encounters and three grenades hanging from his belt completed the potential for destruction.

"You know how to use that thing, kid?" Wrex rumbled as Tali emerged with a shotgun in her hands.

"My name is Tali'Zorah," the quarian bristled, "and I've been trained in the use of multiple types of firearms, including the Elanus Hurricane."

"Good weapon," Garrus told her, "but it does have a tendency to overheat faster than some of the other models out there."

"Three-point-five shots," she replied calmly, "but I've got a choke on the muzzle to keep the pattern tight and maximize the damage at close range."

"Just remember where you're pointing it," Wrex jumped back in. "Shepard strikes me as the type who's gonna get grumpy if she catches an ass full of shot, and that's just foreplay to a krogan."

"I'll keep that in mind," Tali shot back, sliding an ammo cube and thermal clip into place and striding toward Shepard, who had been observing the exchange silently, giving no sign of being either impatient or amused. The sense of being evaluated was strong, and Garrus wasn't sure what irritated him more: that this human was judging him or that he wanted to make a good showing. He'd always been competitive, driven; it had served him well in the military as well as C-Sec, but this was the first time he'd been under the command of an alien...and a human at that. It wasn't that he was xenophobic – not like some of the old guard on Palaven, anyway, but still -

"Move out." Shepard strode toward the gap in the rocks, consulting the scanner briefly before stepping through, rifle ready. Alenko and Williams followed close behind, fanning out into a wedge as soon as they cleared the gap. Garrus stepped through ahead of Tali and faded left a bit wider than Alenko, giving himself a clear line of fire to the front. In his peripheral vision, he could see Tali and Wrex falling into formation.

'Harsh' didn't even begin to describe the terrain. If not for the abundant mineral and metal deposits, the planet would have been left alone; Garrus wondered if it had been more hospitable when the Protheans had built the extensive structures that spread across the surface of Therum. The environmental controls in his suit kept the temperature bearable, but he could still see heat waves radiating from the pools of sluggishly flowing lava a few dozen yards away. The ground underfoot was black sand, with frequent outcroppings of igneous and metamorphic stone formations. They'd passed by occasional pools of murky yellow water bubbling steam into the air, but nothing in the way of life except for a slime that might be a type of algae covering the rocks at the edges of the pools. Definitely not on the short list for his next vacation.

"Contact, fifty meters," Shepard warned, signaling them to take cover. Garrus ducked behind a jutting finger of granite, checked to be sure that Tali had found cover, then turned his eyes forward as a squad of geth – including two of the rocket-launching bastards – crested the rise ahead.

The geth really didn't have much in the way of tactics, he realized. There was no attempt at flanking; they simply advanced, opening fire when Shepard and Williams popped up and took out the lead pair with some sweetly placed shots. As the remainder swiveled to respond to that attack, Alenko leaned out from behind a pile of rocks and sent a pulse of biotic power that bowled two more over.

There was definitely something to be said for standardized training; the three human soldiers worked smoothly together, biotics, rifles and the occasional grenade quickly decimating the geth. Not all of them, though, and it was time to show what a lone turian could do. Garrus sighted down his rifle at one of the rocket-launchers -

Oh, crap!

He dropped, planting himself face-first in black sand, just as a rocket seared the air overhead and exploded against a rock formation twenty yards behind him. He was back on his feet almost immediately, ready for some payback, but Wrex had already taken out his target with two blasts from his shotgun.

"Everyone all right?" Shepard called out, stepping away from her cover and surveying the scene.

"Yup." Wrex's lip curled in a smirk as he added, "The turian ducks real good."

Garrus really wanted to shoot the asshole, but Shepard just shrugged. "Not sure how the krogan do things, but the Alliance taught me that incoming fire has the right of way. Tali?"

"I'm fine, Shepard," the quarian replied, rising from behind the shelter of a boulder and taking a step forward. "The geth?"

"Hang on," Shepard cautioned her, glancing over her shoulder. "Ash?"

"I've got some activity at the edge of sensor range, but nothing's coming closer," the gunnery chief reported.

Shepard nodded. "Check them out," she instructed Tali "Everyone else, set up a perimeter fifteen meters out and sound an alert if anything but us moves." Stepping away from the tumbled remains of the geth, she watched as the rest of them followed her orders, then divided her attention between the scanner mounted on her rifle and Tali's activities.

The quarian picked her way through the wreckage, pausing beside one, then continuing on with a shake of her head and kneeling beside another, her long fingers dexterous as she opened a panel and delved into the inner workings.

"Got something!" she exclaimed, glancing down at her omni-tool, then sagged in disappointment. "It's an image, but it's a krogan, not Saren."

"Another merc," Wrex rumbled.

"You'd think word would get around after what happened to that one bunch," Shepard remarked.

"Krogan don't think that way," he replied, shaking his head in what looked like disgust. "Offer us a chance to fight and get paid, we jump at it. Death's just one of the risks you run."

"You got out," the human observed.

"Yeah, well, I'm a freak," Wrex growled. "Now let's go find something to kill."

"Nothing else, Shepard," Tali announced regretfully, rising from the last destroyed geth. "I'm sorry."

"We know it's a long shot, Tali," the Commander replied. "But it's worth trying when we can." She glanced at Williams, who was the furthest along the direction they'd been traveling. "Still there?"

"Multiple signals about one-hundred meters out," the other female confirmed. "Nothing large enough to be an armature, though."

"Small favors," Shepard murmured wryly.

"What do you think the chances are that this T'soni chick is still alive with all these geth swarming around?" Williams wanted to know.

Shepard considered this briefly. "I think that the geth aren't here for the scenery," she replied, "and they don't seem to be doing any mining. Either they're still looking for her -"

"Or they're protecting her," Williams finished, her expression leaving little doubt which possibility she'd put money on.

"Either way is possible," Shepard conceded, "but either way, we need to find her. Take point, Chief."

"Aye-aye, Skipper."

"The rest of you, single-file, staggered column," Shepard called out, eying the narrow path through the rocks. "Kaidan, behind Ash, then me. Tali behind me, then Garrus, then Wrex. Keep some space between you and the person ahead of you." She paused only long enough to ensure that the quarian had positioned herself properly before falling in behind Alenko.

"Rather be up front," Wrex grumbled. Garrus ignored him. Damn mercenaries were a small step up from criminals in his book, and while the ones who were just in it for the pay were bad enough, it was the combat junkies who were the real pain in the ass. He couldn't blame Shepard for not wanting Wrex directly at her back, but it rankled more than a bit to be stuck back here with him, behind a civilian. Maybe she'd intended him to balance the krogan's unpredictability, provide a reliable rear guard.

Or maybe she just didn't trust him, either. He sighed softly. She wasn't what he'd expected in a Spectre; maybe it was just because she was new. Truth be told, though, it had been Saren's exploits that he'd followed growing up, Saren's unpredictable brilliance and casual disregard for the rules that he'd admired and wanted to emulate. Didn't really say much for his own judgment, did it? Which was probably at least part of why he wanted to nail the traitorous bastard so badly now.

"It's opening up," William's voice came over the comm. "Got activity below us, but they're staying out of range. Recommend a recon before we advance. There's a dogleg to the right that will give us cover."

"Sounds good," Shepard agreed. "You heard her, people. Move up and regroup."

The steep stone walls did widen out, though there were still plenty of fallen rocks to go around. Ahead, Garrus could see the shallow bowl that Williams had spoken of: maybe a hundred yards across, with artificial structures on the far side. Supporting walls and a tower.

Tower. Good place for a -

The thought had barely had time to register when a thin red beam appeared from the top of the tower, lancing through the air to settle on -

"Get down!" Tali'Zorah had frozen in shock when the red dot appeared on her chest, but Shepard spun smoothly, taking her to the ground with a flying tackle just as a shot cut through the air where she had been standing and exploded against the stone.

"Get to cover!" The Commander dragged Tali behind the shelter of a boulder, shielding the quarian with her own body as rockets began slamming into the cliffs overhead, sending stones tumbling down. Garrus dove forward, finding the dogleg and rolling in beside Alenko and Williams. Wrex had stepped back behind the last bend; he peered around the stone and fired off a couple of shots, but the angle was wrong. Shepard and Tali were at least ten yards away from the mouth of the dogleg, with nothing but open ground between.

"Contacts closing!" Williams shouted, eyes on her scanner. "Six incoming, fifty yards!"

Shepard tried to pop up for a look, but the laser painted the air again, and she ducked back down just ahead of a shot that would have taken her head off. More rockets, more falling rocks.

"Forty yards!"

Shepard tossed two grenades overhand, waited until they detonated, then rose up high enough to squeeze off a few rounds before dropping down to dodge the laser and another shot.

"One down, the rest are thirty yards and closing!" Williams warned. "Another group moving in at ninety yards! Commander, we've got to get out of here!"

Shepard looked back the way they had come, then up at the rocky terrain surrounding them. "Garrus, can you take out that sniper?"

"Piece of pie, Shepard!" The slope behind him was climbable, there were boulders to shield him and the range was well within his rifle's limits.

"Cake!"

"What?"

Another shot as Williams tried to lean out enough to target the approaching geth, followed by another round of rockets, and Shepard shouted something that his translator didn't interpret, followed by, "Just shoot the damn thing!"

"On it!" He belly-crawled up the slope, scrabbling for hand and footholds in the loose soil and rock. He paused at the top long enough to select a boulder to hide behind and peered around it, keeping low to the ground as he released the Equalizer from its clips on the harness and expanded it, bringing his eye to the scope, focusing in, mentally plugging in the data from his visor and adjusting for distance, angle, wind.

Damn it. He had a good view of the tower, but the sniper was standing behind one of the structural pillars. "I can't get a shot!" he shouted in frustration. "Target's obscured!"

"Stay ready!" Shepard ordered. "And don't miss!"

"Shepard!"

He didn't flinch at Tali's alarmed cry, didn't look around at the sudden barrage of gunfire. He knew what the Spectre was doing: the same thing he'd have done. He kept his eye to the scope, locked onto the top of the tower as the geth sniper turned to follow Shepard's movement, the red laser shooting out, tracking -

There!

The flashlight head was in his crosshairs; he squeezed the trigger and was rewarded with an eruption of sparks and the sight of his target crumpling into a heap of spare parts. "Got it!" he shouted, feeling the familiar rush that nailing a target from a distance always gave him. It was different from close combat: more satisfying.

"Finish them off!" Shepard ordered, bouncing up from the rocks she'd dived behind and opening fire with the shotgun at point-blank range on the nearest of the geth. Judging from the resulting damage, she was using tungsten rounds, and when Williams and Alenko joined the fray, the outcome there was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Garrus turned his attention to the reinforcements: four geth moving rapidly down the far side of the bowl, not even trying to make use of available cover. What was the human term? Like shooting fish in a bottle? Almost too easy. Sight in, squeeze the trigger, watch it fall: one, two...wait -

He eased off the trigger as the krogan charged in, sending the last two flying. The temptation for a bit of friendly fire was there, but easy to ignore. Shepard would undoubtedly see through any excuses, and might as well let the merc earn his pay. After a final sweep to confirm that all threats were being effectively neutralized, he folded the rifle back down and stowed it before descending the slope.

Tali was standing beside the rock that had been shielding her, clutching the shotgun. "You all right?" he asked her, looking over her suit for any tears.

"Yes," she said, then, "No. I should be dead right now." There was a quaver in her voice that was not the distortion of the speaker.

"I don't think any of us were supposed to walk out of here," he told her.

"Maybe, but at least the rest of you fought. I froze," she admitted softly, dropping her head. "Everything they taught me before I left -"

"It's not uncommon for the first time in combat," he offered, adding as she started to object, "and dealing with thugs in a back alley is different from being on a battlefield. I'm betting you didn't get trained in small-unit tactics?"

She shook her head. "Self defense, one-on-one mostly," she said. "I just thought it would be enough."

"Tali, you all right?" Shepard called up.

"I'm fine, Shepard," the young quarian replied quickly. "Are there any intact enough for me to examine?"

"Ah...not here," Shepard replied sheepishly, glancing around at the wreckage. "I think the ones that Garrus took out should be in better shape."

"I'd better hurry, then." Tali stepped forward, then turned. "Thank you, Garrus."

"No problem," he assured her, following her down, stopping beside the humans.

Shepard waited until Tali was well away and examining the fallen geth before asking in a low voice, "She okay?"

"Physically, yes," Garrus replied. "She's pretty shaken up, though. You should probably give her some training before you take her out again."

"I wasn't planning on taking her out this soon," the Commander growled. "Any chance this has cured her of wanting to be on ground teams?"

"Maybe," Garrus said, "but if there's any chance she can get intel from the geth -"

"I know, I know," Shepard replied irritably. "Help me keep her alive today and we'll take a couple of days on Pinnacle Station, get her at least trained enough to duck when she's got a laser dot on her chest."

"The place with the training simulators?" William's eyes were bright with interest. "I've heard of that spot! Any chance the rest of us could run some scenarios, Skipper?"

"Squad drills will definitely be on the agenda," Shepard replied. "Everyone's doing pretty well, but we need to integrate the different trainings. Nice shooting, by the way," she added to Garrus.

"Thanks. Pretty short range," he replied modestly. "That rifle is rated out to two klicks. What did you say right before you told me to shoot it, though? My translator didn't catch it."

She chuckled. "Not surprised. It was Maori, an old Earth language. The common language spoken now evolved from one known as English, and most of the translators aren't programmed for anything but that. One of my N7 squadmates was a bit of an odd duck. Engineer and a damned genius," she explained. "He could speak twelve Earth languages fluently, but his hobby was learning insults and curses in obscure dialects. He could insult someone in thirty-seven different languages, fourteen of them no longer spoken anywhere on Earth, and pretty much none of them will be picked up by a translator program. He taught me phrases in twelve languages."

"So...what did you say?"

"Something about its mother screwing a goat," Shepard said, then shrugged. "Probably not the most applicable, but I don't know the Maori word for 'toaster'."

"You'll have to teach me some of those." The notion of being able to slide under the translators was appealing.

Shepard gave him an amused look. "You sure your tender ears can take it?"

So, being made to blush like a schoolboy wasn't something he was going to live down soon, apparently. "Try me," he challenged her.

"Count me in, too," Williams chimed in. Alenko just gave him a disapproving glower and headed up the hill, muttering something about helping Tali.

"Speaking of insults..." Garrus watched him go. "Was it something I said?" While it could have simply been disapproval of the subject, the Lieutenant had been looking only at him, and it wasn't the first glare Garrus had gotten from him today.

"I don't think he considers penetration to be an appropriate subject to discuss with a CO," Williams replied with a smirk.

Garrus groaned, covering his face with his hand. "And you just had to tell him?" he asked plaintively.

Ashley shrugged. "You say something like that in the middle of the cargo hold, no telling how many people heard."

"Yeah...ehrm...I am sorry. That was way out of line." This was delivered to Shepard. If he'd made a crack like that to a turian CO – Pallin, for instance – he'd still be looking for his ass.

The Commander shrugged. "I've heard worse," she said, her eyes scanning the rim of the bowl they were in, then returning to the scanner on her shotgun. "If you manage to offend me, I'll let you know." Fighting the geth seemed to have taken the edge off of the tightly controlled hunger for violence that he had sensed in her earlier, but she remained alert, ready for anything.

"Nothing from these, Commander," Tali'Zorah called down, the frustration in her voice palpable, "but the rifle that the sniper was using is unlike any quarian technology in use at the time of the war."

"Bring it along," Shepard told her. "You can work with Chief Williams and Garrus when they look it over." She consulted her scanner once more. "Everybody back into formation," she ordered. "Looks like the signal we picked up from orbit is coming from a complex of structures two hundred meters ahead."

"That signature is weird, Commander," Joker reported. "Like off the charts weird. Unidentified energy signature coming from underground. Facility blueprints from the mining company indicate that it's a shaft sunk around a bunch of Prothean ruins embedded in the rock. Maybe they found another beacon?"

"Lovely," Shepard grimaced. "If it is, somebody else gets to touch it." She studied the terrain leading up the slope to the mining complex. "All right, leapfrog by twos: Ash and Kaidan, Tali with me, Garrus and Wrex. Rendezvous behind that stack of crates." She pointed, looking to each of them for confirmation. "Move out."

"Ready, princess?" the krogan taunted him as first Alenko and Williams, then Shepard and Tali moved up the slope, ducking behind the cover of the rock formations that dotted the ground. Garrus ignored him, kept his eye glued to the rifle scope, scanning the terrain ahead for any sign of hostiles. "Move!"

Lowering the Equalizer, Garrus sprinted after Wrex, not bothering to look for danger, knowing that the other two groups would be covering his advance as he had covered theirs. Securely behind a squared-off boulder three meters tall, he resumed his surveillance as first the two humans, then Shepard and the quarian moved forward. Leap by leap, they made it up the slope until they were all grouped behind the pile of crates.

"Anything?" Shepard asked Williams.

"Nothing." The Gunnery Chief shook her head, frowning as she peered at the scanner. "Maybe they got to her already?"

"Maybe." Shepard didn't look convinced, but she stepped from behind the crates, looking around warily, rifle ready. "Forward slow. Stay spread out, and Tali -"

"I know," the quarian replied. "Rear and center."

They advanced cautiously, the framework of the mining equipment towering overhead. The only sound was the crunch of their boots on the ground, the stillness so complete that they might have been the only things moving on Therum.

Yeah, right. Garrus switched out the Equalizer for his assault rifle, bringing it up as he caught movement from the corner of his eye.

What the – It didn't look like any of the geth they had encountered so far, except for the monocular head. Its body was flexible, sinuous as it uncoiled from where it had been crouching in the shadows – beneath an overhead walkway.

"What the hell is that?" Shepard asked, tracking the thing with her shotgun as it slunk upside-down along the walkway, then sprang onto one of the supporting walls, clinging to the sheer, vertical surface briefly before scampering away.

"Hopper," Tali supplied. "They were used in exploration and rescue missions."

"They don't show up on radar," Williams growled, her eyes shifting from the screen to the hopper, which was currently living up to its name while emitting a string of electronic noises.

"That's new," the quarian confirmed just before Joker's voice broke in on the comm channel.

"Commander, that drop ship is headed your way again!"

"Damn it!" Shepard glanced briefly skyward as a low hum became audible, quickly gaining volume. "Everybody get to cover!"

Garrus took cover with Williams and Alenko behind the crates again as the geth drop ship came into view, hovering just in front of the mine entrance to deliver reinforcements...including another damn armature.

"Is anybody else sick of these bastards?" Shepard muttered, glaring around the corner of the structure where she, Tali and Wrex had taken shelter as the ship zoomed off and the heavy artillery stood. "Joker, you up for some target practice?"

"Am I ever, Commander!" came the enthusiastic reply.

"Airstrike on my coordinates," she instructed, tapping data into her omni-tool, "and a bonus if you find that damn ship and blow it out of the sky."

"Roger that, Commander. Over your position in thirty seconds."

"Everybody stay low!" Shepard ordered. Not that Garrus was planning on standing up to watch the show, but he did risk peering around the corner of the crates when he heard the roar of the Normandy's final approach. The guns boomed and fire blossomed on the ground, consuming the geth and raining shattered pieces over a wide area.

"Guess I won't be checking those," Tali observed, nudging a still-smoldering chunk of geth head aside with one foot.

"Guess not," Shepard agreed, surveying the destruction with satisfaction, then tipping her head upward. "Wait." She lifted the shotgun, fired and stepped back, pulling the quarian with her as the hopper tumbled from above to land in an inert heap on the ground. "There's one."

"Nice," Garrus congratulated her as Tali crouched to examine the hopper. "Any reason you didn't do that when the sniper had us pinned?"

"Didn't think about it," she admitted with a shrug, looking a bit sheepish. "Not used to having that much firepower overhead. On N7 missions, you're usually limited to whatever you brought along, plus whatever you can scrounge on the way. Besides, you handled the sniper pretty well."

"There is that," he agreed.

"Commander, the geth drop ship has been neutralized. Cloaking and returning to orbit."

"Nice work, Joker," Shepard congratulated him. "All right, people, let's see what's below."

'Below' turned out to be a framework of scaffolding extending through volcanic rock that seemed to have flowed into place around the ruins before hardening. The handful of geth that they encountered were easily dispatched, but Tali had no luck in extracting any data from their memory banks.

"White and sterile," Wrex grunted, looking around at the half exposed structures as they approached a lift. "The Protheans sure built things homey."

"Sturdy, though," Alenko put in, brushing his fingers over a wall and the encrusted stone. "This was lava once, but the structure doesn't seem to have taken any damage from the heat."

"Damn...elevator still works, too." Ashley regarded the newly opened doors with suspicion.

"Maybe the mining company repaired it," Kaidan suggested. "Could it be the power source we've been reading?"

Shepard peered at her omni-tool, shook her head. "Looks like it's deeper...and stronger. Let's keep moving."

The elevator crapped out after a level and a half, leaving them to scramble out of the car onto more of the scaffolding built against the face of a multi-level structure. The rooms they passed were open and empty, coated in a thick layer of dust from the excavations that had revealed them.

"Getting close," Shepard remarked as they descended another ramp.

Ashley spoke up on point: "Commander, there's some kind of barrier up ahead!"

"Energy signatures don't match any known technology," Kaidan reported as they approached the shimmering, transparent field that stretched across the wide mouth of the room beyond. Garrus' attention was quickly drawn past the barrier to what lay beyond.

"Is she alive?" he asked. The asari was upright, suspended in some type of stasis field, but her head was slumped to the side, eyes closed, and she looked like shit, her skin more grey than blue.

Shepard stepped forward, laying a hand cautiously against the barrier, pressing with no apparent effect. "Can you hear me?"

At her voice, the head lifted a bit and the blue eyes slid open. "Who...who are -" the asari began weakly, then shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. "Not real...can't be real...goddess, please..."

"How long you think she's been in there?" Williams wondered.

"Too long," Shepard replied grimly before raising her voice again. "We're real, ma'am, and we're going to get you out. Are you Dr. Liara T'soni?"

The asari's eyes opened again, not quite as hazy as before as she regarded Shepard with resignation. "Proof. Only an hallucination...could know...my name." A pause, then fear washed over features that seemed too weak to sustain the emotion. "Or are you...with the...krogan?"

"Don't look at me," Wrex rumbled when Shepard glanced toward him. "Never saw her in my life."

The Commander nodded. "Dr. T'soni, we're from the Citadel Council. We've been instructed to find you and keep you safe. Do you know how to deactivate this barrier?" No response. "Dr. T'soni?"

"Looks like she passed out," Garrus said.

"Yeah," Shepard agreed tersely. "We need to get her out of there. Ash, Kaidan: head up and see if there's a back way in."

"Aye-aye, Commander," Kaidan replied, echoed by the Gunnery Chief.

"Shepard," Tali'Zorah spoke up as the two marines departed. "I think that is a mining laser." She pointed down to a massive piece of machinery on the floor of the cavern. "If it's functional, it could easily carve a path through the stone to that chamber."

Shepard stepped to the railing and peered over thoughtfully. "You know how to operate it?" she asked the quarian.

"Of course," Tali replied, her tone suggesting that the question had been a silly one.

Shepard nodded. "All right. If Ash and Kaidan don't find a way in, we'll give that a try."

The two soldiers were back in less than five minutes, reporting that the chamber above offered no points of access. Down they all trooped, gathering around the mining laser while Tali examined the controls.

"It's been locked," she announced. "It'll take a bit, but I can hack it." Her words were punctuated by a shot that shattered an outcropping of stone, sending fragments rattling against the faceplate of Garrus' helmet.

"Geth." Shepard drew her rifle. "Tali, keep working. Kaidan, you and Garrus watch her back. Ash, Wrex," she slammed in a fresh thermal clip and grinned. "Let's give her room to work."

As they moved off, Kaidan placed himself between the quarian and the action, lifting a hand and summoning a biotic barrier that encompassed the three of them. "It'll stand up to glancing fire," he explained, his brow furrowed slightly in concentration, "and hold for a while under direct fire."

"Can I shoot out of it?" Garrus wanted to know, unslinging and expanding the Equalizer.

"Yep."

"Nice." He peered down the scope, sighting in on one of the geth that Shepard and the other two were squaring off against. Only half a dozen or so...hardly enough to make the three break a sweat, but – Oh, yeah. He settled the crosshairs over the head of one of the rocket-launching bastards, squeezed the trigger and savored the explosion of sparks as his target collapsed. Payback.

"Got it!" He didn't turn at Tali's exclamation, or the sudden thrum of machinery followed by a vibration in the stone beneath his feet. He kept the rifle trained on the action, but found no further openings to shoot. Shepard and Williams fought together, each covering the other's blind spots, both of them staying clear of the havoc being wreaked by the krogan. Only when the last geth fell did Garrus turn to look at the massive hole that the laser had blasted through the rock.

"Nice job," Shepard congratulated Tali as she strode back. "Leave them," she added as the quarian started toward the fallen geth. "We need to get the asari out of that stasis field and back to the Normandy, and I don't want to split us up." They scrambled through the new cut and upward through a crumbling hole in the roof that allowed access to the level above

In the chamber, Shepard approached the stasis field cautiously. "What the hell is this thing?" she muttered, reaching out to touch the shimmering sphere. "Miss? Dr. T'soni?" No response

"I've never seen anything like it," Kaidan said. "Maybe it's Prothean technology?"

"So...she's working when the geth show up," Shepard mused. "She retreats in here to escape, activates the force field...but why this this thing? And how?" She moved to a console against the wall, scowling at the symbols on the numerous panels and buttons, none of which Garrus could decipher. "They...look familiar," she said, her scowl deepening as she gave her head a shake as though to clear it. "Anyone want to bet that one of these contracts that thing down to the size of a peanut...with her still inside?"

No takers. Shepard let out a resigned sigh, her forehead furrowed in concentration as her fingers hovered over the buttons. She punched one at last, and the shimmering barrier at the front of the chamber vanished.

"Eyes up front," she ordered without looking around. "And if that symbol turned that off, then maybe this one..." She hesitated briefly, then touched the button in question, which immediately resulted in the sound of a body dropping heavily to the floor.

"Crap." Chagrined, she sank to her knees beside the motionless asari, pulling up diagnostic programs on her omni-tool.

"Oh...my...God." Ash looked as though she might be ill as the scent of accumulated bodily wastes was released from confinement, as well. "How could she breathe in there?"

"Not well," Shepard replied tersely, eyes shifting between the readouts and T'soni. "Joker, tell the doc to have the medbay ready and to brush up on her asari physiology. I'm reading severe dehydration with an electrolyte imbalance and acidosis."

"Here." Kaidan withdrew an energy drink pack from his kit and offered it. "Asari are almost all biotics. If you can get her to drink, it might help."

Shepard accepted the offering with a nod, slipping an arm behind the asari's shoulders and lifting her up a bit. "Dr. T'soni? Liara? If you can hear me, open your eyes, please." Blue eyes slipped open, seeming barely aware of the world around. "Good, that's good," Shepard said calmly. "I'm going to give you something to drink, a little at a time. I want you to try to swallow it, all right?"

"Thirsty." The word was barely a whisper. "So thirsty."

"I know," Shepard said, raising the foil pouch to cracked lips and tipping it slightly. The asari's hands came up, trying to tip it further, but the Commander restrained her. "Easy. Too much too fast, and it'll come right back up." She emptied the first pouch, held out her hand for another. Alenko supplied it, having consumed one himself. Shepard tore it open, then looked up, suddenly alert as the ground rumbled beneath them. "What was that?"

"This part of the planet is geologically active," Tali'Zorah supplied as Shepard helped Dr. T'soni drink the contents of the second pouch.

The asari's eyes were brighter, and she seemed more alert, if still weak. "How...how did you get through?"

"Superior firepower," Shepard informed her, then ducked to shield the asari as another, stronger temblor sent debris raining down from above. Scarcely had that tremor ceased than another one began.

"It's possible that using the laser destabilized this area," Tali said uneasily. The shaking continued, growing more powerful. "We should probably leave soon."

"Wonderful," Shepard muttered, activating the long range comm. "Joker, lock onto my signal and prep for an emergency evac. On the double, mister!"

"Aye-aye, Commander. Secure and aweigh. ETA...eight minutes."

"If I die down here, I'm gonna kill him," Wrex growled.

"He can't pick us up down here anyway," Shepard reminded him. "All right, people, let's double-time it topside! Wrex – no, strike that. Kaidan, you've got Dr. T'soni." The asari had shrunken back in wide-eyed fear at the sight of the krogan. Alenko bent and lifted her easily.

"Go! Go!" Shepard waved them back the way they had come, taking the rear position herself. There was a brief scramble at the nonfunctional elevator before Ashley found another one that definitely looked like part of the original architecture: a broad, circular platform with a control panel in the center and an open tower leading upward.

"Here's hoping this thing doesn't have a 'launch' button," Shepard quipped, frowning at the panel briefly before jabbing a finger at one of the faintly glowing symbols. The platform shuddered, then began to rise: slow and jerky at first, but quickly smoothing out, even as the tremors in the earth around them continued unabated.

"Can you read that?" Garrus asked curiously, peering at the symbols.

"Not...exactly," Shepard murmured, her forehead furrowed again, a faint scowl touching her lips, "but more than a wild-ass guess." She stepped away from the console, glanced around, then upward as she pulled her shotgun out and checked the thermal clip.

"Expecting trouble, Skipper?" Williams wanted to know, readying her rifle.

"Maybe, maybe not," Shepard replied, "but she mentioned a krogan, Tali picked up an image of a krogan from one of the geth memory cores, and we haven't seen a krogan yet." She shrugged. "Do the math."

She had a point. Garrus double-checked the ammo and thermal clip on his rifle, touched the grenades at his belt as he felt the lift beginning to slow its ascent, and he wasn't particularly surprised to find company waiting for them at the top of the lift.

"Surrender." The krogan lumbered forward, flanked by half a dozen geth. Beady green eyes gleamed at them in anticipation. "Or don't. More fun that way."

Shepard stepped to the fore, regarding him with more impatience than fear as the tremors continued. "I don't suppose you'd consider taking this discussion to someplace that isn't falling down around our ears?"

The krogan laughed. "That's the best part." The massive head cocked, regarding Kaidan and his burden. "Thanks for taking care of the barriers. Give us the doctor, and you can go."

Shepard glanced briefly at Kaidan, a barely perceptible nod exchanged before she returned her impassive gaze to the krogan. "She'll stay with us, thanks." The words were casually spoken, but her body was angled so that the krogan and geth could not see her right hand where it dangled next to her hip...and the two grenades that hung from the harness there.

"Not happening," the krogan rumbled. "Saren wants her, and what Saren wants, Saren gets."

Shepard snorted, regarding him with contempt. "A little big to be some turian's bitch, aren't you?"

"I might have let you live before," the krogan snarled, but the threat lost most of its punch when he had to dive to the side to avoid the grenades that Shepard sent in his direction with a neat sidehand. "Kill them!" he roared.

"Kaidan, protect the package!" Shepard barked as the explosion sent two of the geth flying. The biotic immediately dropped into a crouch, hunching over the asari as a shimmering field sprang up around him in a tight radius. The Commander leveled her shotgun at the krogan, but he ducked behind cover, and she settled for blasting one of the geth as it started to rise.

The other geth tried to spread out and surround the group, displaying the same indifference to tactics that the others had. The krogan barreled around the perimeter of the circular chamber, staying behind the structural supports and taking potshots as they decimated the mechs. As the last one fell, he stepped out of cover, dropping his rifle and unslinging a shotgun, only to drop it with a roar as it overheated on the first shot in a cloud of smoke and sparks.

Tali'Zorah lowered her omni-tool and lifted the muzzle of the Hurricane, standing her ground as the krogan correctly identified her as the cause of the malfunction and charged her with a bellow.

Stupid kid! Garrus swiveled, trying to get a bead on the fast-moving krogan as the quarian fired shot after shot that might as well have been feathers, for all the effect the hits had on him. Too fast … too close … he wasn't going to -

Shepard closed with a savage shout, hitting hard and hanging on; she didn't have enough mass to take the krogan down, but the impact shifted his trajectory, sending them both careening past Tali to slam into one of the supports. She drew back, jamming the muzzle of her pistol beneath the krogan's chin and firing three times in rapid succession. Whatever passed for the brains of the species exited the rear of the skull in a mist of blood and pulverized tissue, while the rest stiffened, then slumped to the floor as the Spectre stepped away, breathing hard and glancing toward Tali'Zorah, looking her over for injury before speaking.

"Geth or no geth," she said, her voice level, "you are getting trained before you leave the Normandy again."

"Yes, Captain," the quarian replied meekly.

"Kaidan?" The grey eyes shifted to the human as he stood, still cradling the barely-conscious asari, who huddled against him in wide-eyed fear.

"The barrier held, Commander," he reported. "Neither of us took any hits."

"Nice work, Lieutenant," Shepard told him, checking over the rest of them in turn, then looking upward as a fresh series of tremors sent more debris tumbling down. "Time to get moving. Ash, on point with me. Tali, stay in the middle with Kaidan. Garrus and Wrex, each of you grab one of those geth and bring up the rear. Move, people!"

"I signed on to fight, not haul freight," Wrex growled as the Spectre headed up the tunnel away from the platform, the rest falling into position.

"You can tell her that, if you'd like," Garrus suggested, picking up a mech whose frame looked to have sustained the least amount of damage and hoisting it over his shoulders. Tali'Zorah had been fairly sure that their memory cores would erase after a few minutes, at most, but Garrus intended to save his questions until they were no longer in the middle of an erupting volcano.