Mass Effect: The Dreamworks
By Devlin Arduini
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"Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity."
-Khalil Gibran
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The distant hum of the starboard cargo room's artificial gravity fields occupied Shepard's mind while he stared out into the vacuous abyss of space, the sound mirroring its emptiness.
Leaned against the bulkhead, he watched the stars idly drift, the one of a kind arrangement of constellations. His thoughts were a thousand parsecs away. And yet here he was, in the cramped compartment that didn't quite live up to its name aboard the SR-1 Normandy. This was where he found himself when he needed to unplug from everything- from running the ship, constantly giving orders. It was a place that gave him comfort amidst uncertainty.
But this time, he did not feel at peace.
The door behind him slid open. Shepard knew it was Pressly before the XO stepped in, not bothering to turn around. The wreckage-studded jungles of Eingana came into view as the Normandy passed by the mysterious garden world. Shepard watched, intent. His gaze darkened by something unknown.
Without speaking, Navigator Pressly stood next to him and admired the view for a moment.
"You feel it too?" The Commander asked. He already knew the answer.
"Something's wrong, Shepard. I don't know what it is, but I don't like it."
He waited a couple seconds before responding. "Speak freely, Pressly."
Thoughtful eyes glossed over the planet before them, equally darkened. "We took out Sovereign what, three months ago? Wiped out a fleet of geth. Repelled the Reaper invasion by the skin of our teeth. The Council slapped some medals on us, call us all heroes, then they go and blame it on the geth and cover up any sign the Reapers were here. And now here we are."
Shepard chuckled, but not out of mirth. "Now here we are, twiddling our thumbs and chasing rumors of holdouts in the Terminus Systems."
Pressly turned to face Shepard, a fire in his eyes. "With all due respect, this is bullshit, Commander. We should be finding ways to fight the Reapers. Reverse-engineer some of the wreckage. This may be an Alliance mission, but I think the Council put us up to it. They want us away from where we can cause anymore 'problems'."
"You're preaching to the choir Pressly, but there's nothing we can do right now. The public thinks the geth were the ones who attacked the Citadel, so we're out here chasing ghosts."
"We're chasing less than that, Commander. After you saved everyone's ass no less."
"No, we did it. I couldn't have done any of this alone."
The XO sighed. "Maybe. It's like Eden Prime all over again. Whitewash after whitewash. We lost Kaidan, Alliance soldiers, STG operatives, half of Fifth Fleet, and two damn Spectres. What's it going to take for them to see the light?"
Shepard shrugged. "Besides a Reaper invasion? Probably nothing."
He knew they should be out there, finding a way to stop them. He owed it to Alenko. He owed it to Saren, who turned in the end and took his own life. He owed it to all of humanity, because none of it would matter if they weren't ready when the Reapers showed up.
But Shepard- he would make sure.
Back out on deck, the Normandy was still adjusting to arriving in-system on their scour of the Omega Nebula. Joker was in the cockpit calibrating trajectories and running numbers while twenty-odd crewmen went about their tasks.
"Emissions green. We're running silent."
Shepard watched the post-jump diagnostics flicker across the screen for the third time today. He suppressed a yawn. Pressly, right next to him and fiddling with a datapad, still wasn't convinced.
"We're wasting our time. Four days running up and down this sector and still no sign of geth activity," he said.
Joker swiped through screens seamlessly, as if he was one with the nav display. "Three ships have gone missing here in the past month; something happened to them."
"My money's on slavers. The Terminus Systems is crawling with them," he retorted unconvincingly.
And then, a helmsman abruptly spoke up-
"Picking up something on the long-range scanner." With a deftness just shy of Joker's, she flicked past rapidly compiling sensor data. "Unidentified vessel… looks like a cruiser."
Joker chimed in, excitement lining his voice. "Doesn't match any known signatures."
Tension filled the cockpit. Adrenaline spiked as the boredom of what had been a two week long goose-chase melted away. Moments ticked by, the Normandy maintaining course, now passing by the icy world of Alchera.
"Cruiser is changing course," the helmsman announced, noticeably worried. "Now on intercept trajectory."
Pressly shot back. "It can't be. Stealth systems are engaged, there's no way a geth ship could-"
Unless...
"It's not the geth," Joker cut him off, staring into one of the screens. The tension mounted-
And his eyes widened as it all came crashing down.
"Prepare for evasive maneuvers!"
Another moment dragged by as everyone braced themselves. The Normandy lit up into calamity as gravity stabilizers kicked in. Standing in the middle of the cockpit, Shepard's head spun. The Reapers wouldn't be attacking so soon. There's no way-
The cockpit exploded in a cyclone of electric fire. Right in front of him, Pressly's console burst into flames right before the concussive force of the blast lit him on fire and hurled him to the floor- dead on contact. Alarms sounded. "Pressly!" As the helmsman ripped off her harness and tried to reach his charred body, another explosion threw her like a ragdoll.
Joker survived, clinging to the nav console and keeping the ship moving. "Kinetic barriers down. Multiple hull breaches- someone get that fire out!"
"Joker, get us out of here! I'll be back," Shepard yelled as he ran off deck, dodging explosions and sure-death, headed toward the frenzied CIC. It's too soon…
The bodies started piling up, those he had known for what felt like years. He moved adroitly through the ship and carefully stepped over them. Yet another blast ripped through the ship. The hull ruptured. Again- somewhere along the wings. The Normandy's primary systems went offline shortly after, the foreboding red glow of life support systems taking its place. Having cleared a path to the escape pods, Shepard put on his full atmospheric rebreather helmet and began prepping the pods for launch. We just need a few minutes- he had to find Liara and make sure she was alright, but then-
"Shepard!"
She was behind him, holding her helmet in her hands, tears in her eyes.
He clicked the atmosphere clamps into place and turned to face her.
"Liara. The emergency distress beacon is ready for launch."
She ran towards him and they collided in an embrace as rapturous as the destruction raining down upon them. "Do you think the Alliance will get here on time?"
"The Alliance won't abandon us.. we just need to hold on."
Breaking free out of necessity, Shepard peered into Liara's eyes, suddenly masked beneath her helmet. He knew this could be the last time- he burned them into his memory forever.
"Get everyone into the escape shuttle-"
"Joker's still in the cockpit. He won't abandon ship! I'm not leaving either."
Shepard reeled as an explosion rocked one of the nearby pod bays. "I need you to get the crew onto the evac shuttles. I'll take care of Joker."
Another explosion rocked him backwards as he took his first steps down the ramp. Shepard walked through it, the Normandy lurching, ready to fall apart.
"Shepard…"
Standing at the jettison console, he spared her one last tender look.
"I know, Liara. Go. Now."
Liara stood there for a moment, dumbstruck. Beautiful in the chaos.
"Aye aye," she managed, hesitating, and left him.
Five seconds later, he hit the launch icon. They had fifteen seconds to get inside- more and more crewmen were filing down from the other decks and Engineering and reaching the shuttles. Good, now to find the smartass who thinks he's going down with the ship.
Climbing the broken stairs back up to the CIC Shepard felt the Normandy reverberate as the shuttles jettisoned. A huge weight lifted off his shoulders- his crew was safe, at least those who had survived. The ship was a different story… he breathed recycled air from his helmet as she vented to space from multiple breaches. When he got to the CIC, his jaw dropped in his helmet. It was gone, the ceiling blown out into space, hundreds of pieces of debris straddled between the artificial gravity and the vacuum of space, Alchera looming like a planetary vulture in the distance. Adrenaline pushed him forward. Up on the walk-deck Shepard noticed a kinetic barrier separating the cockpit from the rest of the ship-
Joker was alive. Of course he'd already known that, feeling the Normandy swerving, still somehow avoiding the majority of whatever was attacking them. He quickly stepped through the barrier and confronted him.
"Come on, Joker! We have to get out of here!"
Insulated with his own oxygen mask, Joker waved him off. "No! I won't abandon the Normandy! I can still save her!"
Again, the ship lurched. She was entering her final death throes.
"The Normandy's lost. Going down with the ship won't change that."
Joker hesitated, then saw truth. "Yeah… okay. Help me up."
Shepard scooped him up as delicately as possible as another blast shredded the ship in half. Explosions conflagrated through the decks and nearly made it into the cockpit- they couldn't reach the shuttles even if they wanted to, so he brought Joker to the portside escape pod near the ship's entrance.
Without a word, Shepard got Joker seated and strapped in. "Commander!" Joker yelled as the explosions pushed Shepard out and he slammed the button with his fist.
"SHEPARD!"
It was too late.
Shields failing, he was vented out of an airlock and into space as the pod jettisoned and the Normandy crumpled into oblivion. One final blast and she was gone forever.
Too soon…. Shepard floated helplessly towards the planet's surface, millions of miles away. He would never make it. But his crew was safe, and that's what mattered. They would carry on. Find a way. Garrus was still out there, Tali, Wrex. Heroes die more often than not, but at least they could finish what he started. Spinning through the cold darkness, he let go.
And there was something else. Something he would take to his grave that virtually no one knew about. The Reapers had been stopped by humanity once, before all of this, before Sovereign. Alliance operatives that had faded into obscurity, only to reemerge as legends that would deny them Paradise- a sentient world created by another master race that would've allowed the Reapers to shape life itself had it not been destroyed. Most of them were dead, but some, he knew, yet lived. And they wouldn't stop until it was all over.
The last oxygen canister in his helmet sputtered and ceased functioning. With nothing to breathe but emptiness and hydrogen molecules, Shepard thrashed and choked. Through dimming vision he caught a glimpse of the attacking vessel enter FTL; it looked evil, partially organic. Agents of the Reapers, perhaps.
As he asphyxiated, he let his final thoughts rest on Liara. The feeling when they Joined; experiencing the universe in its entirety from the eye of another, from a lover's embrace. That single act had changed his perspective on everything. In his last moments, he was thankful for that experience.
It made letting go easy.
Content that he would find her- all of them, in this life or the next, Shepard let out one last breath… and slipped away.
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My eyes snapped open.
Covered in a thin layer of sweat, I rolled over and checked my phone laying next to me on my bed, silhouetted in the dim glow of my computer humming idly. 3am. I shuddered. Rubbed my eyes and laid back down, feeling my head spin. Despite the heat radiating off my body, the window AC blasted consistent cold air into my room.
I had a dream. A dream that I died and was reborn again. One of those dreams you can't help but keep thinking about, over and over, and over. There was a metaphor in there somewhere. Some kind of hidden meaning- but that was the thing, you can't over-analyze a dream or it'll lose its meaning entirely.
I eased my eyes closed, letting my mind go over it again but letting go of the small details. I'd become a hero once I shed myself of my previous life. Something I would do in this life in a heartbeat. I enjoyed my existence, in truth, but I yearned for something more. Something that fit the scope of my imagination. And if I was ever presented with an out I would take it and never look back. Yawning, I leaned my head back into my pillow, heaving a sigh at the things outside of my control. It was not a bad thing, though. Life always had a way of surprising those who heed its call.
Somewhere out there, a hero died and another was born. Legends existed. And they died everyday. Something in my gut told me that we all get our chance in some way. Big or small, active or passive. But when that opportunity came knocking the window in which to act was short. The risk equally great. One had to act without thinking to seize it.
That same something told me I would have my chance…
And that it would happen sooner than I ever could have imagined.