Disclaimer: All characters belong to Bioware. Song lyrics belong to the rightful owner. I'm just borrowing for my fan fiction. This is my first attempt at writing a story. Some game dialogues can be found in the story because it just feels weird without them in here. Hope you guys enjoy the story as much as I enjoy writing.
Chapter 1 – Heavy Cross (Gossip)
It's a cruel cruel world, to face on your own
A heavy cross to carry along
The lights are on but everyone's gone
And it's cruel
Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable. – Bruce Lee
Hmm what is love? Some may describe love as something sweet, addictive like a drug, crazy, lust, infatuation or madness. Is love really that important like we need air, food and water to live? Is there even true love? Does having peoples in your life help you become a better person, to expand and grow in love or are they just a nuisance, a waste of space and time? A soul mate that has deep affinity that belongs to you and the one person that can tug the strings to your heart and make you feel like you're on top of the world. Is there even such a person waiting for us, our other half?
What does love do to a person who doesn't actually believe in it?
Miranda Lawson never saw it coming. It felt like a train wreck hitting her. Nah, maybe a love train. No matter how hard she tried to deny her feelings even giving excuses for how she felt. Whenever the commander is close by, Miranda can feel the butterflies in her stomach, her heart beat a little faster and times seem to slow down. Miranda is drawn to her like a bee to the honey. "Gosh her confident strut, her charming and impish grin, dimples that appear whenever she smile and her cute laugh and did I say those green eyes that seems to sparkle seems to be calling out to me. I could get lose in those eyes. "I know it's more than physical attractiveness, dammit, Diana Blue Shepard, what have you done to me"…..?
Miranda Lawson: "Shepard did everything right, more than we could have hope for". Saving the Citadel, even saving the Council. Humanity has the trust of the entire galaxy and still it's not enough.
The Illusive Man (T.I.M): "Our sacrifices have earned the Council's gratitude but Shepard remains our best hope.
Miranda Lawson: "But they are sending her to fight geth, GETH. We both know they're not the real threat. The Reapers are still out there".
T.I.M: "And it's up to us to stop them".
Miranda: "The Council will never trust Cerberus. They will never accept our help. Even after everything humanity has accomplished but Shepard they will follow her. She's a hero. A bloody icon but she's just one woman. If we lose Shepard, humanity might well follow".
T.I.M: "Then see to it that we don't lose her".
One month after the devastating geth attack on the Citadel, the galactic community struggles to rebuild. The Alliance fleet made a tremendous sacrifice to save the Citadel Council and earned humanity membership in their prestigious groups. Now the Council is forced to respond to evidence that the Reapers – enormous machines that eradicate all organic civilization every 50,000 years – have returned. To quell the rumors, the Council has send Commander Shepard and the Normandy to wipe out the last pockets of geth resistance. Officially, they blamed the invasion on the geth and their leader, a rogue Spectre.
But for those who know the truth, the search for answers is just beginning…
"Disengaging FTL drives. Emission sinks active. Board is green. We are running silent" Joker the helmsman who is piloting the SSV Normandy giving verbal report to XO Pressley , Shepard 2nd in command on the ship.
Pressley: "We're wasting our time. Four days searching up and down this sector and we still haven't found any sign of geth activity."
Joker: "Three ships went missing here in the past month. Something happened to them".
Pressley: "My money's on slavers. The Terminus System is crawling with them".
Ensign: "Picking up something on the long-range scanner. Unidentified vessel. Looks like a cruiser".
Joker: "Doesn't match any known signatures".
Ensign: "Cruiser is changing course. Now on intercept trajectory".
Pressley: "Can't be. The stealth systems are engaged. There's no way a geth ship could possibly-
Joker: "It's not the geth. Brace for evasive maneuvers!"
SSV Normandy was send to the Terminus System to locate and wipe out all the remaining geths that escape. Shepard was resting in her room on the SSV Normandy and listening to music on her playlist after doing her regular rounds and checking on the crews when the ship was hit by a blast from an unidentified vessel. She ran to the windows, saw a weird looking vessel and quickly change to her armor and ran to the lower deck to signal the distress beacon so that the Alliance will come to rescue the crew who are running to the escape pods on the ship. The ship was in chaos with all the crew members trying to avoid the explosion and running to the escape pods. While Shepard was putting on her helmet, she heard Liara T'Soni calling out to her "Shepard!"
Shepard replied" Distress beacon is ready for launch. She turned around and came face to face with the young asari archeologist, who had a crush on her. "Will the Alliance get here in time?" Before Shepard can answer her, another explosion in the ship sounds and Liara loses her balance and almost fell but Shepard managed to grab and hold onto her. "The Alliance won't abandon us; we just need to hold on. Get everyone onto the escape shuttle". Shepard grabs the extinguisher and passes to Liara to put out the fire that is beside her. "Joker's still in the cockpit. He won't evacuate. I'm not leaving either" says Liara defiantly to Shepard.
Shepard walks over to Liara and holds her arm "I need you to get the crew onto the evac shuttles. I'll take care of Joker". Shepard walks towards the pathway that will lead to the staircase leading her to the cockpit. Liara stand and called out to Shepard. Shepard turned towards her and replied with her commanding voice "Liara. Go. Now." Reluctantly Liara nodded and reply "Aye, Aye." and run off to the escape pods to help the others. Liara didn't realized that will be the last time she will saw her alive. Shepard pressed her palm on the computer to activate the distress beacon. Then she ran up the stairs and pushed the open button on the door connecting the CIC and the cockpit. As the door open, air was vacuumed out towards the door. Shepard looked up and realized the top of the ship was missing and she could see empty seats floating around the CIC. She shuddered and quickens her pace to the cockpit.
Joker: "Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is SSV Normandy. We've suffered heavy damage from an unknown enemy. Come on, baby. Hold together. Hold together!"
Shepard walked towards the walkway connecting to the cockpit. He was still trying to pilot the starship despite the massive damages to the ship. "Come on Joker, we have to get out of here!" Joker replied back harshly "No! I won't abandon the Normandy! I can still save her!" Shepard shakes her head and replied "The Normandy's lost. Going down with the ship won't change that." Joker sighed and says "Yeah...Okay. Help me up." Joker gasped as he look out towards the window "They're coming around for another attack!" Both of them saw the vessel fired at the Normandy, Shepard run towards the pathway and saw that the vessel was destroying the pathway that connected what was left of the ship. She run back and dragged Joker by her arm and put it around her neck and dragged him out of the pilot seat and bring him over to the last escape pod that was near the cockpit and pushed him in. Before the Commander can board the pod, the explosion from the latest blast of fire from the enemy ship send Shepard flying across the room due to the loss of gravity. Joker called out "Commander! As he looked helplessly from the evac pod. Shepard managed to hold on to the pillar. Joker called out to her again, "Shepard!" She managed to glance at Joker and hit the close button for the escape pod before being totally spaced out of the exploding ship. She watches helplessly as the Normandy exploded and the enemy vessel firing at the ship.
Debris from the ship is all over the space when a few of them cut off the air vents at the back of Shepard helmet. Shepard starts to panic as she sense that the oxygen is been abruptly cut off. She grasp for the air vents at the back of her helmet which was unfortunately punctured due to the explosion. As the air slipped out of the vents and she struggles to open her helmet, her last thought while she was free falling down from space to a nearby planet was "I'm sorry, I can't do anything more about the Reaper threat". At least I manage to save the crews from the explosion as each and every one of her crew mates faces appeared in her thought till she closes her eyes and draws her last breath.