AN: This is the first of a series of one-shots in a ME2 AU.

Any review is better than none at all.

There was fire almost everywhere, sirens were blazing and the crew was evacuating the ship.
Gabriel was putting his helmet on when he heard someone running to him.

"Gabriel!" shouted Ashley as an explosion rocked the Normandy
"I'm launching the distress beacon.. The Alliance will be here in a few days at most. Get everyone to the escape shuttles!"
"Kaidan is already taking care of it but Joker is still in the cockpit, he won't abandon ship. And I'm not leaving you either."
"I need you and Kaidan to get the crew to the evac shuttles. I'll take care of Joker."

As he stumbled toward the mess area, an explosion, stronger than the last, made him lose balance for a few seconds.
"Commander..." she hesitated
"Ashley, Go. Now."
"Aye, aye."
While she left, Gabriel finished preparing the distress beacon and launched it.
As the fire burned everything around him, he began to run toward the mess area, and, behind it, the stairs to the top deck.

When the door opened, a sudden rush of air pushed him a step or two forward as the emptiness of space, without any hull to separate it from the interior of the ship, was now aspiring any last air that was inside. Slowly, Gabriel walked past the galaxy map, the terminals that were the CIC, some of them surprisingly still running. He looked up, trying to see what had attacked them but couldn't recognize anything, hoping that at least the camera inside his helmet would record the attacker.
He also got lost in toughts at the view of the planet that the Normandy was falling toward, with the chairs slowly spinning above the floor. Space was beautiful. It had been one of the reasons he had enlisted after all.
Shaking his head, he resumed his walk toward the cockpit, traversed the forcefield keeping the air inside, and grabbed Joker's arm.
"Come on, Joker! We have to get out of here!"
"No! I won't abandon the Normandy, I can still save her!" he looked woeful
"The Normandy's lost Joker, going down with the ship won't change that."
Joker lowered his head, silent for a few seconds.
"Yeah.. Okay. help me up." as he tried to do so.

Suddently, Joker looked to the end of the ship and shouted.
"They're coming around for another attack!"
Gabriel took a glance at where he was looking and saw a light shining brighter and brighter by the second. The main cannon of their attacker.
Panicking, Gabriel grabbed Joker's arm and, ignoring his protests, half dragged him toward the shuttle and helped him get inside.
The enemy beam hit the Normandy, intending to finish the ship off.
Another explosion hit him, sending him into the opposing wall. Pivoting until he was crouching on it, Gabriel pushed his legs and managed to get into the shuttle.
Joker hurriedly pulled the lever, closing the door.
The pilot barely had the time to put the security harness on when the shuttle was ejected, Gabriel, not having been as lucky, had barely sit when he was thrown against the wall where he finally had the time to put his harness on.

What followed were a couple of minutes of silence,neither of them knowing what to say, until they could hear what was, without doubt, the sound of the shuttle on entry in an atmosphere. Joker looked at the screen on his side,a timer showed that, at the speed at which they were going (they had reached terminal velocity), the parachute would open in two minutes. Once it opened, the rest of the descent was relatively calmer.
Gabriel finally spoke.
"Sorry about your arm up there, Joker. I panicked."
"No problem, you didn't brake anything and I was being a stubborn moron. Still, to think that the Normandy is gone like that..."

Trying to divert his attention from the destruction of his beloved ship, Gabriel looked at the screen, now showing informations about their landing zone and the planet in general.
"Joker, once we've landed, look for an environmental suit. According to the inventory of the shuttle, there should be one under your seat."
"Why? Where are we?"
"Alchéra. It's an icy planet, it has a pressure 20% lower than Earth, average temperature of -22° and it's atmosphere is not breathable by humans."
"Everything that we'd ever want a planet to be."

A relatively low shock signaled them that they had landed a minute or two after. Joker immediately undid his harness and kneeled in front of his seat, searching for a handle, finding it after a few seconds.
Turns out each seats had one compartment under it, with enough rations bars and water for a few days to two weeks (depending on how they were consuming them) and an environmental suit for planet with different pressure, atmosphere or temperature than humans were accustomed to. Their was also a portable radiator for the shuttle, a radio, and a small beacon. The radio was for contacting other shuttles and the beacon was for giving a precise location for every landed shuttle to the ship that would be rescuing them.

Gabriel pressed the radio.
"Commander Shepard here. I've landed a few minutes ago without problem. Joker is with me and we're fine. Anyone recieving me? Over."
It was only a couple seconds until the answers came.
"Lieutenant Alenko here. I'm with five other people, we are fine and landed half an hour ago. Over."
"Gunnery Chief Williams here. Same. Over."
"Lieutenant Gregory Adams here. We're five and we're fine. Over."
"Chakwas here. Same. Over."
"Err... Mykhalia Yemima here. We're three. One of us hurt his leg but it doesn't look permanent. Over."
"Marianne Ella. We're two. We're okay. Over."
"So, Commander, what do we do ?"
"Stay where we are and wait for someone to rescue us. It'll probably take a few days. I advice to stay in the shuttles as much as possible to save air. You can walk around but always stay within view of your shuttle, precise how long you'll be out and inform others about the direction you're going. If anything happend, radio me, Alenko, Chakwas, Adams or Williams for instruction. There should be a survival guide somewhere in your shuttle. Over."

The next five days were dull, empty, boring. Even the novelty of a snow planet (Gabriel hasn't seen snow in years) worn off after a moment. The radios were used every day to keep each other company. During this time, they began mourning their dead, Damla, Orfeo, and many others. 17 had died in that attack. Even with replaying the few images they had revealed little about their enemy.

They were called Collectors, they came from somewhere beyond the Omega-4 relay and that was pretty much it.

Fortunatly for them, an Alliance vessel picked them up after five days.
Even if the were eating standard Alliance meals, all of them were happy to eat something that those rations bars.
Leo Basma, the captain of the ship, had welcomed them personally and had not lost a moment asking Gabriel about what had happend to them. To his dismay, none of them knew enough to satisfy his curiosity and Gabriel's report was bare-bones, merely stating that they had been attacked by an unknown vessel they suspected being Colletcor's, had lost their ship and 17 men, and had been stranded on Alchéra five days.

Without a ship to fly, Chakwas was given a position on the Mars Naval Medical Center, Joker went with her to pilot shuttles and the like, a decision he was extremly unhappy of, Adams was affected to a cruiser and everyone else went to different affectations. Only Kaidan and Ashley remained, Gabriel having 'borrowed' them from the Alliance for 'Spectre business' for an nondefined duration.
They were friends and both Kaidan and Ashley had made clear that wherever Gabriel went, they would go too. He was also thinking of nominating them for the position, too.

So they waited for Gabriel's next assignement.

AN: Not realyl satisfied with how it ended. But anyway, i'll write more later! Hope you enjoyed it and remember, any review is betterthan no review.