~Author's Note~ The idea for this story has been floating around in my head for a very long time. I'm not certain if I will go all the way through ME3 with it, we'll see.
Some people may consider the story slightly AU.
Alchera, November 5th, 2183 C.E. One month after Sovereign's defeat at the hands of the Systems Alliance.
If an impartial observer looked out across Alchera's icy landscape, he could be forgiven for believing that nothing good would ever come off of this planet. Alchera had no summer, not really, it was nearly always icy cold. And it certainly never got hot.
Of course, that very fact might be exactly why whatever had taken those ships had chosen this planet as a staging ground for their attacks. After all, who was likely to come looking for them in this backwater world? And if they were geth, the cold really wouldn't bother them.
Evelynn Shepard was of the opinion that they were most certainly not geth. She wasn't even certain that she believed the Council's report of four ships having gone missing here over the last month. It seemed just like an all-too-convenient excuse to get her out of their hair. Well, metaphorically speaking. Only Councilor Udina had anything remotely resembling hair, and he didn't have much of it, at that.
Her opinion of the Council was the same one she had of every other politician. Willing to say and do anything to keep their power. And if the hero of the Citadel, Commander Shepard, disagreed with their public statements about what had caused the devastation to their giant mass effect relay, (and it was a mass effect relay, despite what the Council wanted to believe), then she needed to be quietly reassigned. Let's tell the public that they don't have to worry anymore, it was just the geth, and we have the great Commander Shepard chasing after them.
Like a dog we've trained. She snorted. Except instead of chasing bones, they had her chasing geth. She pulled on her armor, getting ready to head down to the surface of Alchera and check out a few likely spots for geth activity. It was going to be really freaking cold, she was sure of that.
She was startled out of her thoughts by Joker's voice over the comm. "Uh, Commander? We're picking up a ship on long-range scanners. Going into cloak, just thought I'd let you know."
"Thanks, Joker. I'll be up in the cockpit in a minute."
Now, this was an interesting development indeed. Maybe they had lucked out, and she wouldn't have to go down to the planet's surface after all.
She opened her cabin door, and stepped out into the corridor.
And that was when all hell broke loose.
The first strike slammed her against the side of the hull so hard she saw stars. The second knocked her into the elevator, and she retained enough presence of mind to set it for the CIC.
"Who the hell is blowing holes in my ship?"
No one answered her, of course. What had happened? Joker had said they were going into cloak, had something gone wrong? Or could the geth have a way around their cloaking mechanism now? Or maybe- and the adrenaline spike that accompanied this thought gave her enough energy to race down the corridor towards the beacon that would hopefully summon the Alliance to pull their asses out of this mess- maybe it was the Reapers.
She had just finished sealing her helmet when she heard boots rapidly approaching. She launched the homing beacon right before Ashley Williams, her second-in-command, rounded the corridor, giving a sigh of relief that Shepard heard even through both their helmets. Presumably at seeing Shepard alive and well.
"Will the Alliance get here in time, Shepard?"
"I'm not doing this just so they can find our frozen corpses." She looked up, saw Ash's face was pale, and her tone softened. "They'll get here, Ash."
Williams nodded. "Joker's still up in the cockpit, Shepard, I couldn't get him out. He thinks he can still save the Normandy."
"I'll get Joker. You get to the escape pods, get my crew out of here. Understood?"
"Shepard, I'm not-"
"That's an order, LC. GO!"
Ashley hesitated for a split-second longer, before she gave a brisk salute and turned down the side towards the Normandy's escape pods. Shepard turned upwards, towards the cockpit. "Damn pilot wants to play hero, and of course I have to go haul his ass out of there."
The door opened in front of her. "Of course, he did land in a volcano to save me once-" She cut off as she looked up. The Normandy was sliced open, the center completely exposed to the vacuum of space. Instinctively, she checked her helmet again, just to make sure everything was sealed. She knew it, at that moment. This was not the geth. The geth did not have a single ship that was capable of slicing her ship open like it was butter, not in two shots. She wondered why they had stopped firing. Were they amused by the Normandy's futile struggle to stay in the air? Shepard already knew it was over. Even if whatever that was out there simply went away, right now, the Normandy was still going to go down. The thought unexpectedly brought a bit of emotion with it. "Just hang on a bit longer, old girl. I need to get Joker out of here, okay?"
In retrospect, she really wished that she had asked it to wait until both her and Joker were out.
She slipped through the forcefield that was the only thing protecting Joker from the vacuum of space, glad a hundred times over that the Normandy had a single escape pod near the cockpit, installed just because Joker would have a hard time getting down to the regular escape pods in an emergency due to his Vrolik's syndrome.
First, though, she had to convince the stubborn bastard to use it.
"JOKER! What the hell do you think you're playing at?"
He didn't even glance at her. "I can still save her, Commander! I won't abandon the Normandy!"
"Joker, I can see the damn stars from the bridge! And not through a window! The Normandy is gone. Going down with the ship isn't going to change that. And I am sure as hell not letting you go down with the ship, you're still the best pilot out there. You want a chance to get back at whoever did this, right? You've got to live to do that, soldier."
He sighed, all the fight going out of him. "Yeah, okay. Help me up."
The lights on the console in front of him lit up like a Christmas tree. "Oh shit! They're coming around for another pass!"
The third strike sliced through the Normandy's already crippled midsection, and a groan reverberated throughout the ship. The metal screeched under the strain, and Shepard understood. One more strike, and they were finished. The next shot would cut the Normandy in half.
She grabbed Joker by the arm and hoisted him up, not even bothering to let him limp, just carrying him to the escape pod. She let him down, gently, and pushed him in.
And that was when she ran out of time.
The fourth strike sliced down just behind the cockpit, sending flames that spurted upwards before almost immediately going out seeing as there was practically no air left on the ship. The explosion sent her flying backwards into the bulkhead. She looked up at Joker and their eyes met across the gap.
She knew. There was not enough time. If she tried to pull her way towards Joker, she would not be in time. The Normandy would blow apart before she could reach him.
"Goodbye, Joker. Take care of them!" She reached down and pushed the red button that would seal the pod's door and send it flying towards the surface of the planet.
Joker's eyes went wide and he screamed her name, "Shepard! NO!"
The pod doors sealed.
And the Normandy blew apart.
She didn't have time to worry about Joker, and whether or not the pod had cleared the explosion.
Her body was thrown out into space, and she knew that she had only seconds to live. She hadn't had time to fill up the oxygen tanks in her armor, and so the first breath she took depleted the air supply that was left.
She grasped her throat, struggling, even though she knew it was futile.
The darkness at the corners of her vision began to move in as she gasped.
And then, she ceased struggling and let the blackness take her.
So really, the first time she met the woman in blue, she wasn't dreaming. She was dead.