Mass Effect: Out to Pasture

Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect.

To hell with the Cannon, I'm ending Mass Effect Three my way. Originally when I thought of this, it was going to be one semi-long piece. But then I started it and decided it needed to be cut up into three slices. Needless to say, Spoilers, dear.

The Epilogue

Somehow, though no one, especially him, knew how, he had managed to retain control. It was chaos after the Crucible fired, and the red energy washed though the system and destroyed the Reaper forces. It seemed like every Reaper that was touched by the energy began to disintegrate after a series of micro explosions rippled across their hulls. Reports began to filter in from the ground before the light had cleared. Husks, Cannibals, Marauders, all were all dissolving into dust. Hackett had no idea what had happened.

The Crucible had docked with the Citadel after Shepard had, by some miracle, opened the arms. But it didn't fire. He had tried to contact Shepard, but had gotten nothing but static. But it seemed to have worked for a few minutes later the device activated and fired. The balloon of energy coalesced and gathered in the Charon Relay and was launched out of the system. The core of the relay faded and the relay broke apart and began drifting. He sent as many ships as he could to stop the pieces from drifting too far apart. They were in deep shit if the Relays were all destroyed. FTL flight could still allow for transit between systems, but at speeds that would be far less then optimal. When the light emanating from the Citadel faded, Hackett had a moment of panic.

The whole damn thing was coming apart. He rerouted some more and luckily the non-human forces were still listening. They needed to keep the damn thing from entering the Earth's atmosphere.

(…)

The year following the final attack on Earth was not easy. The remains of the Human, Turian, Asari and Salarian fleets had managed to keep the largest chunks of the Citadel from falling to the planet, and towed them to a safe parking orbit around Venus. Thankfully, Comm Buoys were still up in some sectors, and communications were still available with most of the Galaxy. As most of the leaders of the Civilized races were stuck in Sol, this meant that they could at least start to get things back together. It was not a problem as far as the Krogan were concerned, as while they were eager to return, Tuchanka was in able hands while left to the Females. They were amazingly helpful under Urdnot Wrex. They were actually happy to help the Humans, who they knew were responsible for giving them their future.

While Thessia had taken extreme damage during the last weeks of the war, The Councilor had managed to survive and escape the Citadel before it was taken, and was ruling her people from Asari space. Their biggest contribution however came in the form of on Doctor Liara T'soni, who together with "The Last Protean" had poured through the Mars Archives, and discovered a more detailed examination of the Mass Relays than any current species had managed thus far. With Javik's help, they had a good idea of how to make a point to point conveyance by using bits of the salvaged relays. After the firing of the Crucible, the Geth had all gone offline, but had spontaneously reactivated, and devoted them to aid any projects they could. It was heard that they to wished to return home, which had surprised many.

The Salarians, whose planet had not suffered to greatly, devoted the entirety of their research staff to the project as a peace offering for their in system lack of support, and just a year after the battle, transit was possible from earth to Salarian space. Only the most learned of the projects engineers could explain how it worked, but it was similar to entangled communications, and like the Crucible was simple in construction if not theory. The final result was a ring just big enough for a Carrier to swim through, and enacted near instantaneous transit.

Then the real galactic recovery began, and those still alive returned to their people, or began to look for survivors in old colonies. It was a dark time, but recovery looked good for all species, and even the surviving Batarians were working at peaceful coexistence.

In system, the Geth worked tirelessly to recover survivors, scouring the broken hulls and picking up life pods. It was the perfect task for them, as they had large, mostly Organic survivors combed the ruins of the Citadel for the first month after the end of the war. The Reapers had made no move to eliminate the people inside; they had just towed it into the system. There were so many survivors, an endless chain of ships of all builds and species loading up survivors and dropping them on Earth. These efforts were hard, but Hackett hoped that the constant work would keep everyone too busy to panic.

He had been in constant meetings with the respective heads of all races. Everyone of them The Volus and Elcor, Hanar, Krogan, Geth and even one of the Quarian Admirals was linked in to the talks. Hackett absolutely HATED it. So far, all they had decided is that all of the species would now be represented on the Council. As the Highest ranking Alliance officer left, it fell to him to represent his people. He was a soldier, and even the Krogan had more experience that he did at all this political bull crap. Worse yet was that because of Shepard's success, it seemed that the lot of them were looking to him to give them answers to what needed to be done. But to get him out of here, he needed someone he could trust, especially after the debacle with that traitorous rat Udina. They had found Anderson in the ruins of the Citadel, but the old bastard had refused, saying he had more important things to do. Hackett figured it involved that Sanders woman who never left his bedside, and wished the Admiral luck. Then it hit him. Shepard was gone, but Hackett still had another Shepard. And she wouldn't refuse. No, she knew how much weight her name carried now, and he personally knew she was a good candidate.

He turned to his assistant, a perky little red head who had used to be a Cerberus agent. He had received a tip for the younger Shepard that this she was an excellent asset and could use a hand in "disappearing." He forwarded her dossier, and Hackett liked what he saw. He interviewed her personally, and she had been his assistant ever since.

"Chambers, contact Hannah Shepard and tell arrange for her to meet me in my office. I have a job for her."

End 1

Just to cover the basics, this is a Male Shepard, everyone form Mass Effect 2 surivied, Spacer and War Hero personality, and Mostly Paragon with just enough Renegade for the fun choices.