Author's Note: This story takes place during the course of Mass Effect 3, and as such several instances of dialogue and situational events in the fic are taken verbatim from the game, itself. This was done intentionally as an attempt to make the story seem more plausibly conterminous with the actual game; however, the fic ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT follow a direct novelization of the game – some characters, missions, situations, and conflicts have been added, changed, or removed as per the author's discretion in an attempt to strengthen and/or enhance the quality and clarity of the story. Additionally, the author clearly does not own Mass Effect or any of its characters, locations, situations, etc. As always, favs/follows are fantastic, but reviews are loved and very much appreciated! Thank you for reading, and please enjoy the fic!

Palaven was in ruins, and Menae seemed like it was very close to being the next to go.

The moon had been set up several years ago as a base of military operations, both as a means of convenience for turian troops and also as a way to draw destructive attention away from Palaven. Palaven was their home, the place where in times of peace they made their livelihoods, as well as the place where their wives, their children, the infirm, and the elderly still lived, and where they expected to be kept safe. But even the best-laid plans had a way of falling through, a fact that was becoming only too apparent as the cracked, burning surface of the darkened homeworld stared down at them, watchful, from the starlit skies of Menae. The Reapers had no taste for strategy – they were beings of destruction and destruction, alone. Still, Shepard had to admit that the turians had done a commendable job of luring the Reapers away from their home world and over to the adjacent moon, for whatever good it had done them in the long run. She figured that with the preservation of Palaven as their main concern, the turians would be only too happy to sacrifice Menae if it meant having a fighting chance to save their planet. It seemed like an extremist view, at least to Shepard, but she had never quite seen eye-to-eye with the turians, no matter how hard she had tried – a fact which had nothing to do with being shorter than even the smallest of their species.

Clutching her gun to her chest, Shepard jogged towards the makeshift strategy shelter at the centre of the camp, her gait slowing to an energized walk as the siding of the main pergola lowered, converting instead into a ramp of sorts. Coming to a stop a few yards away from the pergola, she watched as the ramp came to a rest on the rocky ground and two tall, majestic turian soldiers, war-torn but proud, descended down its face. The first was taller than the second, clearing what she guessed was a good seven feet, and wore all-black armour, illuminated by evenly-spaced bars of red light. His tribal markings were white, and appeared to be caked on, as if he had slathered on the war paint to make his markings more visible to his soldiers from far away. It was a good precaution, she realized, as the markings of turians were an important factor in being to tell them apart, and in a place as dimly-lit, hellish, and war-torn as Menae, being able to tell friend from foe and commander from commanded was extremely important, making every precaution taken an absolute necessity. Like her, this turian carried a Marauder assault rifle, but his had been detailed to match his armour, and also looked to be of a heftier, more ammunition-heavy make than her own – more than likely a turian-modified design. Turian soldiers were larger than human soldiers, so it stood to reason that they would be able to carry larger weapons, but she still could not help the fleeting pang of jealousy she got when she looked at the spruced-up weapon.

Quickly pushing the thought from her mind, Shepard started towards the turian soldier, hearing the crunch of heavy boots against the coarse ground as Garrus and Vega followed dutifully behind her. "General Victus?" she asked, her voice even, raising her voice so that he would be sure to hear her, even over the sounds of war exploding in the background.

General Victus' gait slowed at the sound of his name, until finally he came to a stop in front of Shepard, looking down at her, seeming a bit taken aback by the note of familiarity with which she had addressed him. "Yes?" he asked, trying not to betray too obviously that he could not remember ever having met the woman before, but the halted tenor of his voice gave him away.

"I'm Commander Shepard of the Normandy," Shepard introduced herself curtly, and, almost as if by magic, Victus' expression cleared instantaneously at the only-too-familiar name.

"Ah, Commander," he replied, a smoother, more relaxed air to his voice now as he lifted his gun over his head, tucking it securely into the magnetic locks of the holster at his back. "I know who you are. I can't wait to find out what brings you out here." Shepard paused, a bit thrown by the almost sarcastic note in the General's tone, but he only allowed her a moment of thought before tucking his hands coolly behind his back and turning on her turian companion, demanding, "Vakarian! Where did you go?"

"Heavy Reaper unit on the right flank?" Garrus replied, his tone collected as ever, the same note of sarcasm in his voice as in his commanding officer's, and Shepard had to wonder for a moment if this level of playful cynicism was the way all turian soldiers normally spoke to one another. "I believe your exact words were, 'get that thing the hell off my men'."

"Appreciate it," Victus answered, giving an approving nod in Garrus' direction.

Shepard frowned, not used to being so easily blown off, and took a few steps forward, re-inserting herself into Victus' direct line of sight. "General, you're needed off-planet," she told him firmly. "I've come to get you."

Victus gave a short, sharp huff of breath, turning his gaze away from Shepard once more, and her fist clenched in frustration at her side, but she said nothing, feeling that her annoyance at his dismissive actions might just be self-conscious paranoia. She always did feel out-militarized, almost offput, by turians, and this was their homeworld, or close to it—they ran the show here, so the way they acted was their own business. Still, she could not help but feel that he was doing it intentionally to get on her nerves. "It will take something beyond important for me to leave my men or my turian brothers and sisters in their fight," he informed her, looking back at her with an almost trivializing air, as if she were ignorant for even suggesting it.

"Fedorian was killed," Garrus chimed in then, causing the General to look up at him, startled. "You're the new Primarch."

"What…?" Victus asked.

"You're needed immediately to chair a summit and represent your people in the fight against the Reapers," Shepard added, and this time, the General seemed too surprised to remember not to look at her.

For a long moment the newly-instated Primarch was silent, staring first at Shepard, then at Garrus, and then finally at the ground, overwhelmed. Then, looking up again, he started forward, moving past Shepard and causing her to have to step out of the way to admit him passage. Striding to the edge of the rock outcropping his makeshift outpost had been fixed on, the turian seemed almost to drag his feet as he walked, until he finally came to a complete standstill, his sharp frame silouhetted, black, against the dying red light emanating from the ruined glow of his home planet. Shepard and Garrus glanced at one another, exchanging worried glances, before turning their attention back to the now-Primarch as he stood, seemingly frozen in place, staring up at the ruined face of Palaven, his home, its dark face stained with the fiery blood of failure.

"I'm… Primarch of Palaven?" Victus finally breathed, his voice barely above a whisper. "Negotiating for the turian hierarchy…?"

"Yes," Shepard answered simply.

Victus hesitated again, continuing to stare in disbelief up at Palaven, looming over them in the night sky like a watchful protector, as the weight of the truth finally began to sink in on him. Then, turning back towards the two soldiers standing behind him, he stared at them for a long moment, his expression difficult to read, before finally starting to walk back towards them, his gait practiced and uneasy, but still notably proud as ever. "I've spent my whole life in the military," he said, addressing Shepard directly for the first time, a strange hint of animosity in his voice. "I'm no diplomat. I hate diplomats."

At this, Shepard frowned, noting the hardened bitterness in his tone, and for a moment she had no idea what to say in response. It was an odd realization – most people in his position would have been honoured that they had been asked to perform such an important duty. It meant that his people looked up to him to provide a vital and necessary political service for them, and trusted him to make the right choices that would benefit them, their families, and their livelihoods in the long run. Yet somehow, it almost seemed as if Victus resented her for bringing him this news at all. "What makes you think you're not qualified?" she asked, hoping that that was the issue, and not some sort of deep-set vendetta Victus had against politicians. It would certainly be to nobody's benefit to have a politician in the hot seat who resented his own authority.

"I'm not really a by-the-book kind of guy," Victus spat, sharp, now a much more obvious tenor of venom in his tone. "And I piss people off. My family's been military since the Unification War. War is my life – it's in my bones." He paused, his mandibles giving a few faint, thoughtful taps against his jaw, and lifted his chin, making the dim luminosity from the crude camp spotlights glint off of his white war paint, accentuating the hard outline of his face and the dark holes of his eyes. "That kind of passion is… deceptive," he finally added, looking indicatively down at Shepard as he spoke. "Can make you seem… reckless, when you're anything but."

"War is your resume," Shepard answered, ignoring the obvious dig at her own leadership methodologies. "In a time like this, we need leaders who have been through that hell."

"I like that," Victus replied. "You're right."

"And honestly, uniting these races may take as much strength as facing the Reapers," Shepard added, turning away from Victus and beginning to walk towards the other edge of the rock outcropping. A landscape of devastation and rubble lay spread out before her, the dust from the ruined moon still hanging thick in the air, a moment of death and destruction frozen in time in the moon's stagnant atmosphere. At these words, Victus lifted his chin, the same look of worry as before crossing his features as the thought of the Reapers returned to him, but Shepard drew his attention back with a wave of her hand, indicating outward towards the war-torn moonscape. "See this devastation, Primarch?" she asked. "Double that for Earth. I need an alliance – I need the turian fleet."

Garrus turned his head, watching with rapt interest as Victus crossed to her before finally coming to stand before her, straight-backed and proud, but no longer arrogant. "Give me a moment to say goodbye to my men," he said. Then, turning away from her once more, Victus began to walk away, his gait slower than before, almost as if he were intentionally dragging his feet. Shepard could tell that this was no easy task for him, but at the same time she knew that there nothing was easy, when it came to war.

Garrus watched his superior's departure as well, his sharp blue eyes fixed on the regal turian's withdrawing back, and then, as soon as the newly-instated Primarch was out of earshot, he made his way to Shepard, a frustrated frown pinching the plates of his brows inward. "Without him down here, there's a good chance we lose this moon," he said, a touch of annoyance in his voice, almost as if he were speaking to a child about a poor grade.

"Without him up there, there's a good chance we lose everything," Shepard shot back, stabbing a finger in Garrus' direction. She knew that this was his home world and that losing it would be as devastating to him as losing Earth would be to her, but the fact of it was, as far as she could see, she was willing to look past her own desires in order to see the bigger picture, while he was still stubbornly stuck in the small frame.

Turning away from Shepard, Garrus took a few steps towards the edge of the rock outcropping, looking up towards the huge, mechanical monstrosity that had all but swallowed up the skyline, watching with a morbid, detached fascination as it slowly crawled across the landscape of Menae, destroying everything in its path. "Look at that," he said, his tone now oddly insistent, as if questioning whether Shepard had ever actually taken the opportunity to look at one of their imposing foes before. "And they want my opinion on how to stop it? Failed C-Sec officer, vigilante – and I'm their expert advisor?"

At this, Shepard fell silent, staring out at the fractured horizon, her expression hard, unmoving, as she watched the Reaper make its slow progression across the moon's surface, the familiar noises of the laser and the telltale mechanical foghorn call muted in her ears, instead overpowered by the throbbing sound of her own heartbeat. Garrus turned, staring at her, his avian blue eyes searching her face, as if trying to read her expression for some sign, some indication of encouragement, or surrender, or determination, or anything, but he was disappointed when he found nothing there. "Think you can win this thing, Shepard?" he asked, his voice quieter now, finally breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

Shepard turned, looking up at him now, an odd, tired determination in her expression. "Yeah," she said, the word leaving her lips in a tired sigh. It felt good to be able to talk to him truthfully, to let him know what she was unable to let on to others. She was Commander Shepard, and everyone looked up to her – but with that came the constant, crushing fear of making even one wrong move and ruining everything. With Garrus, it was different; he knew her reputation, but he saw her as a person, rather than as some unattainable idol, and it felt good to be able to not have to try to be anything but human around him. "I dunno, Garrus," she told him. "But I'm sure as hell gonna give it my best shot."

"I'm damn sure nobody else can do it," Garrus was quick to reply, turning to face her again, this time with an air of almost startling positivity. It seemed he had just been waiting for some confirmation from Shepard that she still had her head in the game, and now that he had that, he was all in to follow her to hell and back. "For whatever it's worth, I'm with you."

At this, Shepard smiled, and, taking a step forward, she offered her hand to Garrus, who eagerly took it, giving it a hearty soldier's shake. "Welcome aboard," Shepard told him, a hint of friendly sarcasm in her tone. Then, hearing the sound of solemn, approaching footsteps, she turned, watching as the new Primarch climbed the gentle rocky slope up towards the bolted pergola, and, now with a new confidence in her mannerism, she offered him a friendly, reassuring half-smile as well.

"Ready to go, Primarch Victus?" she asked.

At the sound of his name, Victus turned, looking over towards Shepard, and, looking thoroughly unamused at her newfound buoyancy, he made his way towards her, until finally he stood in front of her once more, looming over her as he looked down at her, stern. "One thing," he answered, his voice stiff. "Commander, I appreciate your need for our fleets, but I can't spare them. Not while my world is burning." He turned his head, looking out towards the burning face of Palaven, as if for extra emphasis. "But…" he added, an expectant tenor in his voice, making it clear that it had been his intention to ask this favour all along. "If the pressure could be taken off Palaven…"

Shepard frowned, the good humour of before leaving her as she took a step backward, moving out of Victus' imposing shadow. "That's a pretty tall order," she told him, flatly.

"We need the krogan," Victus insisted, taking another step towards her as he fixed his hard gaze on her, a note of stern determination entering his voice, as if he refused to be deterred from his decision. "I can't see us winning this war without them. Get them to help us, and then we can help you."

At this, Shepard made a face. "The krogan…" she mused, her gaze drifting from Victus as she turned the thought over and over in her mind, trying to figure out if there were any easy way to get it done, but as always, none came to mind. There were no easy outs when it came to war.

"Looks like your summit just got a lot more interesting," Garrus quipped.

"The asari have been down this road before, Commander Shepard," Tevos said, her motherly voice taking on an almost scolding quality as she addressed the human Spectre.

Shepard had never enjoyed speaking with the asari councillor, and she had to figure that this was probably why. The woman had a custom of talking down to everyone she spoke to, almost as if she were addressing children rather than full-grown adults who were perfectly capable of holding their own, and though the Commander knew that this mannerism was probably unintentional, it still had a bad habit of rubbing her the wrong way. "But Madame Councillor," Shepard argued, trying her hardest to get a word in edgewise despite knowing that it was likely futile, "let me—"

"I tried to smooth things over with the salarian dalatross," Tevos went on, completely brushing off anything Shepard might have had to say on the matter. "To say she is upset would be a monumental understatement."

Taking a step forward towards the vidcomm display, Shepard held out an agitated hand towards the hologram of the asari councillor. It was probably for the best that they communicated this way, she figured – being on the other end of a communication device millions of miles away meant that there was no danger of her lashing out at Tevos in frustration, though she was not certain she could have controlled her temper if the councillor had addressed her in such a trivializing way in person. "Some of these issues are hundreds of years old!" she argued, making an irritated downward motion with her hand. "It's time to let go!"

"Sad to say, but any effort to ally these disparate groups seems doomed to failure," Tevos answered, calm and collected as ever, seeming utterly unmoved by the Commander's passionate show. "And I'm sure you understand that we cannot afford to waste time with the Reapers knocking at our door." She paused, as if expecting Shepard to say something else, before taking a deep breath and retrieving her hands from where they had been folded behind her back. "This must be my final word," she said, her tone hard and finalistic. "I'm sorry, but the asari will not be at your summit."

"Our alliance would be stronger with the krogan!" Shepard insisted, jerking a thumb back towards the adjoining war room, where, while there were no krogan present at that moment, she knew that there would soon be. "You need them – we all do!"

"I wish you luck, Commander," Tevos replied, not even bothering to respond to Shepard's argument. "Goodbye." And with that, her signal faded out, leaving Shepard standing alone in the vidcomm room, looking like a desperate fool. Scoffing in disgust, Shepard turned, waving a dismissive hand towards the spot where Tevos' double had once stood, but, as she started to leave the vidcomm portal towards the war room, she did not get very far before she found her efforts interrupted.

"Commander," Samantha Traynor's chipper, accented voice come on over the intercom, causing Shepard to glance upwards, as if looking for the source. "Admiral Hackett is available on vidcomm."

For a moment, Shepard paused, considering faking a busy schedule to get out of talking with the Admiral. She had had just about enough of authority figures giving her the run-around that day, between Primarch Victus' blatant disregard for her and Tevos' stubborn refusal to hear her sound arguments out, but she figured that, considering the situation they all found themselves in with the Reapers all but knocking at their doors, no matter how worn out she was, keeping the Admiral waiting would likely do more harm than good. Turning back towards the vidcomm platform, she pressed a finger to the flashing Alliance symbol on the display panel, and, barely a moment later, Hackett's stern, straight-backed form flickered into glowing blue life.

"Commander," he said, wasting no time in engaging her as he folded his hands sternly behind his back, drawing himself together into the picture of militaristic professionalism. "Have you retrieved the Primarch for your summit?"

"Yes, sir," Shepard answered, giving a curt, assuring nod, before making a face and adding, "but the asari are staying on the sidelines."

"They'll regret that," Hackett replied, seeming dissatisfied but not particularly surprised. "The time for unity is now."

"The salarians will be there, though," Shepard told him, a note of lingering hesitation in her voice, as if she were not sure admitting this would be altogether beneficial to her cause. Though intelligent, the salarians had never been the most reliable of allies, nor the most cooperative.

At this, Hackett's lined brow furrowed into a look of faint concern. "You don't sound very optimistic," he commented.

"We expect the krogan will be joining us, too," Shepard clarified, taking a step backwards. It took all her willpower not to wring her hands in his presence; the way he talked always made her nervous, like he was constantly evaluating her performance.

"I see," Hackett replied, his deep voice lingering in thought as his gaze shifted to one side, pensive. This thoughtful pause lasted only a moment, however, before his attention returned to Shepard again, all business once more. "Well then, you've got your hands full, Commander," he told her. "Was there something else you needed to discuss?"

Shepard hesitated, one hand playing anxiously with the edge of her uniform. She had a thousand questions she wanted to ask him – how her mother was doing, if he had heard from Anderson, what kind of weapon the Alliance was working on from the Prothean data they had managed to uncover. But she knew that all of those things would have to wait, as the Admiral had only limited time before he would inevitably be pulled back into the thick of the fray. It was where he thrived, and though he was always painstakingly professional during his talks with Shepard, his curt way of speaking and down-to-business attitude always betrayed a veiled annoyance at having to suffer through these instances of talk over action.

"How do you see us winning this war, Admiral?" she finally asked, figuring it was probably the most direct question she could possibly voice at this point in time.

"By making you the tip of the spear," Hackett was quick to answer, pointing a hologram finger at her.

Shepard frowned, taking a step back, and wet her lips, choosing her next words wisely. "I'm flattered," she finally said, offering up her hands, palms-up, in civil disagreement, "but the Normandy is just one ship."

"And a fast one," Hackett was quick to point out. "You can move quickly, hit a target, and leave before the enemy has time to react."

Shepard made a face, crossing her arms across her chest. "It's an advantage," she conceded. "But can it win a war?"

Hackett frowned, his wrinkled brow drawing into a hard, irritated line, his thin lips pursing. "It's the larger principle that matters," he answered, now starting to sound almost annoyed at her counterpoints, however relevant. "We'll never defeat the Reapers in a full-frontal assault, Shepard. The battle against Sovereign three years ago took everything we had, and that was just one Reaper."

"I haven't forgotten," Shepard assured him.

"So I'll find their soft spots, avoid them where they're strong, and hit them where they're not," Hackett continued, resolute. "And when I find gaps in the armour, I'll hammer them with every soldier, ship and bullet we've got."

Shepard hesitated, made suddenly uneasy by the amount of determination with which Hackett seemed to be laying out his far-reaching war plans. There was no doubt in her mind that he knew what he was doing – he was an expert when it came to strategy, and a genius in the art of war – but she knew the Reapers much better than he did, and she knew that it would take more than sheer willpower to take out these seemingly ageless destroyers of worlds. "How long can we keep that up?" she asked, hearing too late the note of hesitation in her own voice and hoping Hackett would not pick up on it.

"As long as it takes," Hackett replied, frank. He took a step back, and for the first time Shepard noticed something almost mirroring her own concern come over his gruff, grizzled face. "The reality is, Shepard, everything I'm doing is a delaying action for you," he went on, and there was something more temperate in his voice when he spoke now, something that could almost be interpreted as uncertainty, but Shepard knew him too well to suspect that he might be beginning to doubt himself now, at the eleventh hour, after he and the Alliance had put so much time and energy into perfecting their war effort. It was unlike him to let on any semblance of human fear and doubt, but at the same time she realized that, like her, that was all that Hackett really was, in the end – human. "I'm buying us time, keeping us in the game, while you gather what we need for this Prothean device. So keep at it."

"Any updates on Cerberus?" Shepard asked, quick to change the subject. She did not want him to realize that she had caught on to his note of uncharacteristic anxiety, or to give him time to dwell on that gnawing concern. He had his pride, an infallible predominance, and she was not about to take that away from him for one fleeting moment's worth of mortal trepidation.

"They're still the wildcard here," Hackett answered, crossing his arms and falling quickly back into his usual, hard-nosed stride. "Hitting the archives on Mars suggests they're after the same thing we are – a way to defeat the Reapers."

"It didn't seem as if the Illusive Man was suggesting we appease them," Shepard observed, her brows drawing together in thought as she ground the toe of one heavy boot distractedly into the comm room floor. "Not like Saren did. You'd think we'd be on the same side now more than ever."

"Cerberus has never played by the rules as we know them," Hackett contended, unfolding his arms as his bushy grey brows drew together into a hard, lined frown. Shaking his head then, he drew his hand in a sharp downwards motion through the air, showing his disapproval of the radical pro-human terrorist group. "I don't know what their agenda is, but it has nothing to do with humanity's best interests," he said.

"The Illusive Man talked about controlling the Reapers," Shepard offered, remembering the talks the self-important chain-smoker had drilled into her head again and again during the time she had worked under his less-than-willing service. "He seemed to think that's how we win this."

"He's wrong," Hackett was quick to contradict her. "Dead Reapers are how we win this."

"Doesn't mean he won't try," Shepard replied, deadpan.

"I saw your report on that Cerberus soldier you found on Mars," Hackett went on, seemingly ignoring her sardonic interjection. "If the Illusive Man is good at one thing, it's finding new ways to subvert science. It's never worked for him before, and it won't now." Falling silent, Hackett stared at Shepard for another moment, before reaching up a hand to stroke absentmindedly at his close-trimmed grey beard, thoughtful, his hard blue eyes narrowing faintly as he stared Shepard down. Shepard could almost feel herself start to sweat under his scrutiny, and it took every ounce of resolve she had not to fidget under his gaze. "Was there anything else you wanted to discuss, Commander?" Hackett finally asked, letting his hand fall back to his side as he broke the uncomfortable, drawn-out silence.

"Nothing more, Sir," Shepard was quick to answer, trying her hardest to stifle a breath of relief that their conversation was drawing to a close.

"All right," Hackett consented, giving another curt, militaristic nod of his head. "Keep me posted. Hackett out." And with that, he was gone, his holographic likeness flickering out of sight, leaving the vidcomm pit empty once more.

Turning away from the vidcomm pit, Shepard moved to the door of the comm room, her stride steady and even to alert the pressure sensor to open the door and let her pass. When Cerberus had had control of the SR2, the doors had run on an automatic motion-sensing technology, but when the Alliance had reclaimed the ship from Cerberus' posession, they had re-wired it with their own technology to avoid any residual Cerberus tech from corrupting their systems. Though they claimed to have put the Normandy back together with the same functionality it had possessed while under the colours of Cerberus, Shepard still found its new pressure-sensitive systems to be, unfortunately, somewhat buggy from time to time.

When she had first come back aboard after her prolonged suspension onshore, she had more than once forgotten that the ship no longer ran on the systems that Cerberus had used, and, unfortunately for her, the most common side effect of these lapses in memory was a tendency to forget to allow the pressure sensors in the floor enough time to send a signal to the doors, and running face-first into said doors as a result. She was only glad her old friend Karin Chakwas was not there to witness her shame, or she might never have been able to live the residual bruising down.

The newly-instated Primarch Victus stood before the war board, his avian yellow eyes fixed on the glowing display with a sort of detached hunger, as if he were looking through the board, rather than at it. His posture was rigid, making him seem almost statuesque as he loomed, tall and dark, over the holographic displays, watching as numbers that might as well have been meaningless flashed before his eyes. Approaching the Primarch, Shepard stood in silence for a moment, not wanting to disturb him, but it did not take long for him to turn his eyes to her anyway, his gaze hollow as he tried to hide the obvious insecurity he still felt in his newfound role behind a mask of stone.

"Commander," he said, his tone almost stiflingly civil. "Thank you for allowing me the use of your ship. And for going along with this plan." He paused a moment, thoughtful, before adding, "Garrus said he had to attend to the Normandy's weapons systems. Something about… calibrations."

Shepard smiled, surprised by how pacified even just the mention of Garrus made her feel, and gave a soft, familiar laugh at the well-worked phrase. "Sounds like Garrus," she replied. Then, the smile fading from her face, she took a long, deep breath before coming to stand beside the Primarch at the war board, letting her thin hands come to rest on the thick metal bar that ringed the lit-up table like an overlarge handrail. "I'm sorry to say the asari councillor won't be joining us," she finally said, her voice lower and more solemn. "She thinks there's too much bad blood with the krogan."

Victus took a deep breath, his black-and-yellow eyes moving back towards the war board, before finally letting his breath out in a long, inevitable sigh. "She may be right," he admitted, a faint note of near capitulation in his voice. Then, turning to look at Shepard again, he fixed her with a grave, rigid stare. "But there will be a lot more blood – real blood – if we don't try," he told her, his tone hard and determined.

"Well, when you put it that way…" Shepard commented, only half joking. The Primarch's point of view on the matter seemed a bit extreme, but at the same time she had to admit that he had a point – the council races had a bad habit of exacerbating conflicts to the point of suffocation, and then trying to resolve them on the field of battle rather than with civil constitution.

Instead of being uplifted by her buoyant tone, however, Victus' mouth drew into a hard line, and he frowned, his mandibles gave one sharp, unamused tic against the taper of his chin. "The sooner we have this summit," he answered flatly, completely disregarding Shepard's attempt at humour, "the sooner we'll know."

Not knowing what else could be said to this, Shepard clenched her teeth, feeling her posture beginning to tense as a long, heavy silence fell between them, broken only by the soft, periodic beeps being emitted by the war board. The hologram image of the first, sparse shreds of progress being made on the mysterious prothean weapon spun slowly in the middle of the table, wordlessly mocking them, and Shepard could not help but feel it as a personal attack. The atmosphere in the room felt almost as if a tangible wall had been erected between herself and the Primarch, and they were arguing blindly from either side of it. She had never sought to disillusion herself about the Primarch's level of cooperation; she had known from the start that dealing with him was going to be a struggle.

However, the more he fought with her on small, trivial things like this – the more he intentionally pushed her buttons for the single reason that she was someone that he perhaps felt outranked, and therefore threatened, by – the less inclined she became to want to include him when the big, galaxy-changing wartime decisions were finally starting to be made. But she knew all too well that, until the war summit actually came to pass and she got the full assistance of Victus' men, allowing him to talk down to her seemed like her only option. But that still did not mean she had to like it.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" Victus asked, cutting through the stifling silence, and the barely-masked derision in his voice was so tightly wound that Shepard could have strangled him with it. Instead, however, she merely took a step back, rocking onto the ball of her back foot in a thoughtful perch as she met his gaze, considering him.

"How are things on Palaven?" she finally inquired, hoping that by changing the subject, she might be able to make a dent in his foul manner. With any luck, being presented with something he seemed much more interested in talking about would allow Victus to unload on her about his insecurities about his home planet, thus making him, hopefully, more receptive to the struggles of others who were going through similar, if not exactly the same, hardships. It was a long shot, but one Shepard figured was just as much worth pursuing as any other. Victus, however, did not seem to be very interested in changing much of anything for her consideration; raising his chin proudly, he stared down his ridged nose at her, his hard yellow eyes half-lidded, something almost arrogant in his demeanour as he took an intentionally audible breath, before speaking.

"The casualty reports are staggering," he told her, his tenor as cut-and-dry as Hackett's, almost as if he were reading off a cue card rather than addressing her personally. "The Reapers are using our own tactics against us – destroy the enemy with overwhelming force."

"I've seen the same on Earth," Shepard answered, returning the militaristic tone.

"The strategist in me admires their brutality," Victus commented offhandedly, attempting to continue in the same vein, before finally giving up and returning to the same cold, accusatory tone as before to add, "The turian in me knows I'm watching the destruction of fifteen thousand years of civilization. …My civilization."

"And how is it, being the Primarch?" Shepard asked, perhaps a bit too quickly, attempting once more to change the subject to something he would be more receptive to. However, from the look of disapproval that crossed his face at this question, she could instantly tell that, once again, she had made a mistake in her topic of choice.

"Not what I imagined," Victus admitted, his tone harsh. Rather than being pacified by her attempts to steer the conversation in a different direction, the change of subject only appeared to rile his temper even more; his yellow eyes flashed indignantly, his mandibles giving a few angry pulses against his jawline as he stared down incredulously at the woman before him. "The battle of all time is happening on Palaven, and I'm lightyears away, reading casualty reports in the millions," he spat. "If I'm going to die, I want to be with my men so there's no doubt we fought to the last soul."

Falling silent again, Shepard crossed her arms, trying to think on her feet as to how she could remedy the situation, which had, despite her best efforts, inexplicably continued to slide downhill from bad to worse. She stared at Victus, watching him as he spoke, feeling her own ire beginning to build, a burning sense of defiance forming in the pit of her stomach the more he talked about Palaven and the war he had left behind there. For one fleeting second, she felt the bleeding desire to hit him, to cut him off, to put him in his place, but instead she held her tongue, allowing him to finish, and, once he was done, she simply continued to stare at him for another long moment, allowing a wave of wire-thin silence to fall between them. Then, taking a deep breath, she held it, calculated, before finally letting it out in a long, slow, calm exhale and looking up at him once more, meeting his avian yellow eyes with her own determined green ones.

"I understand," she told him, her voice calm and sincere. She paused, allowing the levity of the statement to sink in, before letting her gaze fall from his face to the glowing war board, thoughtful and sad. "Leaving Earth to save it… it's one of the hardest things I've ever done."

For a long moment following this statement, Victus could only stare at Shepard, seeming, for an instant, to have been caught off-guard by her sudden shift in tone. Then, slowly, his stern expression began to clear, the plates of his brows sliding smoothly away from each other as the agitated grinding of his mandibles slowed to a gentle, patient hover. "I'm not surprised," he answered, his voice markedly calmer than it had been only moments earlier. "Garrus speaks highly of you. You never asked to be a leader, yet your people will die if you refuse." Another long silence fell between them, but, unlike the last few, this one seemed positive – cleansing, almost – as if the silence alone had allowed a great weight to be wordlessly lifted from their shoulders.

"We find ourselves in similar circumstances," Victus finally told her, straightening his bearing and folding his hands neatly behind his back. His posture was rigid and militaristic, but this time, there was nothing derogatory about the way he held himself. He spoke with a tone of candour, not derision, and for the first time, he looked her straight in the eyes, addressing her as his equal. "Let's hope the spirits grant us the strength to see it through."

"I understand this is a difficult time for you, Primarch," Shepard replied, solemn but kind. "But Earth can't survive without reinforcements. Can I still count on your help?"

Victus stared at her for another stretch, his hard, yellow gaze unwavering. Then, finally, clearing his throat, he gave her a gentle, reassuring bob of his plated head, agreeing with her for the first time since their meeting on the burning plains of Menae. "If the krogan help us on Palaven," he answered, his voice quieter, almost seeming to stretch out the hypothetical to make sure Shepard understood every syllable, "then I give you my word."

Returning the nod of understanding, Shepard shifted her weight to her second foot, allowing her posture to relax. She recognized that while she may not have gotten very far with the Primarch on a sociable front, they at least appeared to be on the same page, diplomatically speaking.

"Thank you, Primarch," she said. "My thoughts are with Palaven."

Victus nodded again, as if to seal the deal, and, for the first time since leaving Menae, he seemed to be almost at ease. "And mine with Earth," he replied, quietly.