A/N: This begins with with Mass Effect 2 and continues on into the unknown. For the moment it is rated T, but there is a high possibility the rating will change in the future as the story progresses.
Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect or any of its characters, Bioware and Electronic Artist do.
Nearly six thousand light years away from Earth, inside the Omega Nebula star cluster, in the Amada System, near the planet of Alchera, the Systems Alliance stealth frigate, SSV Normandy decelerated from FTL speeds. The Normandy gracefully moved through the system.
Down in the engineering deckon the Normandy, former Citadel Security Officer Garrus Vakarian, was busy completing the repairs of the M35 Mako IFV, the old Mako had been trashed during its exit out of the Conduit on the Presidium and had been damaged by geth forces on Ilos. This Mako had received a heavy beating from a trio of geth Colossi; something Garrus had been less than pleased about.
The turian paused from his almost complete repairs of the vehicle to look around the empty engineering bay. Over near the port side of the ship were the team's lockers and a table that at several disassembled weapons ranging from pistols to sniper rifles. This was where the late Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams was, when she wasn't on a mission with Shepard or when the Normandy was in transit.
Garrus still remembered Shepard's face, when he saw the nuclear blast on Virmire from orbit. He knew Shepard had taken Williams' death harder than the rest of the team, even Lt. Kaiden Alenko, who had been wounded by Saren's geth forces. Garrus shook the image of Ashley Williams from his head, and looked over to an empty space in between the lockers and a pile of crates.
Apart from Williams, Urdnot Wrex was the only other team member not present on the Normandy, unlike Williams, however Wrex was still alive. He departed from the Normandy after Saren's defeat and Sovereign's destruction. The only other member of the team that was left on the same deck as he was Tali'Zorah who was still on her Pilgrimage, despite obtaining her gift for the Migrant Fleet, remained on the Normandy for the time being.
Liara T'Soni and Kaiden Alenko both remained on the Normandy as well. Garrus shook his head as he proceeded to finish some calibrations on the Mako's turret. In the engineering room Tali'Zorah nar Rayya was busy checking the drive core's status. Not far from her was Engineer Adam, the Chief Engineer of the SSV Normandy, who was busy updating the status report on the ship's Tantalus Drive Core. Adams smiled as he looked at the young quarian; he had never served with someone as talented as her, not even when he served on the cruiser, SSV Tokyo. He had to hand it to the young engineer, he had learned more about the Normandy's engines, than what he was originally briefed on and had even picked up a few quarian engineer techniques, for engine repairs.
One deck above the engineering deck, Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko was in the medical bay, getting examined by Dr. Chakwas, the Normandy's chief medical officer. While Kaiden was with Dr. Chakwas, in the room behind the med bay, the young asari archaeologist, Dr. Liara T'Soni was examining one of many Prothean relics that she and the Normandy's crew had recovered from Ilos, before heading deeper into the Terminus Systems.
Inside his quarters on the port side of crew deck on the Normandy, Lieutenant Commander Adrian T. Shepard paced around his quarters, while reading a data-pad. Adrian was still donning his N7 Onyx heavy armor, before setting the data-pad on a desk. He looked over to the single table inside his quarters, where a small picture frame decorated the otherwise bare table. He pulled up a chair and waved his hand over the picture, revealing his former teammate and lover, Chief Gunnery Officer Ashley Williams, who had valiantly fought to a bitter end on Virmire, a month earlier; shortly before Sovereign's attack on the Citadel.
Up on the command deck of the Normandy where the CIC and the bridge were located, the crew maintained their duties with extreme vigilance. In the bridge Navigator Pressley checked the various displays, while Flight Lieutenant Jeff "Joker" Moreau was keeping the Normandy on course.
"Disengaging FTL drives," Joker announced as the ship's FTL drive powered down. "Emissions sink active. Board is green… we are running silent,"
"We're wasting our time. Four days running up and down this sector, and we haven't found any sign of geth activity," Pressley noted with disappointment as he tapped a few commands on his data pad.
Joker looked back at him before returning his gaze to the haptic adaptive interface in front of him. "Three ships went missing here in the past month. Something happened to them,"
"My money's on slavers. The Terminus Systems is crawling with them," Pressley replied.
A young ensign named Talitha Draven, who was sitting at the long-range sensors console, spotted something. "Picking up a contact on the long-range scanner. Unidentified vessel. Looks like a cruiser,"
"Doesn't match any known signatures," Joker commented.
Far behind the Normandy, a gargantuan vessel that appeared to be a mix of both organic and technological construction was cresting the light side of the planet and gaining speed. The vessel altered its course towards the lone Alliance stealth frigate, with an increased velocity.
"Cruiser is changing course. Now on intercept trajectory," Ensign Dreven reported. Pressley looked at the display with shock.
"Can't be. Stealth systems are engaged. There is no way a geth ship could-,"
"It's not the geth," Joker stated as he looked at the display, as if realizing some unseen evil was nearby. "Brace for evasive maneuvers!"
The prow of the massive vessel trailing behind the Normandy began the glow in a golden light. Before firing a golden beam at the rapidly maneuvering stealth frigate; the first blast went over the Normandy's topside missing the ship, by mere meters, before striking the number two port thruster nacelle.
The engine exploded, causing several systems to violently overload. The panel near Pressley exploded and killed the XO. Ensign Draven rushed over to him quickly.
"Pressley!" Before being caught in an explosion as her station overloaded.
"Kinetic barriers down. Multiple hull breaches. Weapons off-line and someone get that fire out!" Joker frantically exclaimed as more and more systems went off-line.
Two decks below the CIC and bridge, Tali was busy trying to keep the drive core from overloading, when a piece of debris impacted Adams in the leg. She rushed over to Adams as a couple of engineers nearby were caught in an explosion.
As she lifted Adams and rested his left arm over her shoulders, Garrus came rushing in with his fully sealed Agent combat armor. "Garrus! Adams has been hit. We need to get him up to the escape pods on deck two!"
"Where's Shepard?" He asked as he hefted Adams' right arm over his shoulders and the three of them proceeded to carry Adams out of the engineering bay.
"Last I saw, he was up on the crew deck with Liara and Kaiden," she replied as the two of them made their way into the elevator. The lift began to slowly rise, and the three of them were nearly knocked over as another blast struck the severely damaged frigate. "Keelah! Why won't this damn elevator move faster?"
The elevator finally reached the crew deck as Liara was in her fully sealed white and red light armor. The young asari archaeologist and scientist, was helping a wounded crewmember up when she saw the three of them emerge from the smoke-filled elevator.
"Liara, where's Shepard?" Garrus asked. Liara shielded her helmet's visor from the sparks of a dislodged cable as the ship shuddered again from another blast.
"He's up past the sleeper pods, launching a distress beacon. Kaiden went to go get him," she explained, as they began to make their way to the escape pods. Liara and Garrus helped Adams into the pod, while Tali was directing crewmembers to the escape pods, before climbing in herself.
Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko ran out of the medical bay, with Dr. Chakwas and Liara. He made his way towards the bow section of the crew deck dodging sparking wires and secondary explosions from overloaded systems. He made it over to the sleeper pods area, where a heavily armored figure was busy typing commands on the haptic adaptive interface.
"Shepard!" He called out.
"Distress beacon is a way," Commander Adrian Shepard announced as he placed his helmet on and sealed it while polarizing the visor as he turned to his second-in-command.
"Will the Alliance get here in time?" Kaiden asked while Shepard pondered the question. An explosion knocked Kaiden forward. Adrian caught him, while looking at the display as it turned to static.
"The Alliance won't abandon us, not now. We just need to hold on for as long as possible," he ordered as he tossed the fire extinguisher to Kaiden as he rushed back to fix a panel. "Get everybody to the escape shuttles,"
"Joker is still in the cockpit. He won't abandon ship," Kaiden reported. "I'm not leaving, either, Commander,"
"I need you to get the crew to the evac shuttles. I'll go take care of Joker," Shepard responded as he made his way to the front of the sleeper pods.
"Commander…" Kaiden called.
"Kaiden, go. Now!" Shepard ordered without hesitation.
"Aye, aye," he replied dejectedly.
While Kaiden rushed off, Adrian was reconnecting a loose cable. His knowledge of starship systems was something he had picked up as a child growing up on space stations and starships. Once the cable was repaired to functioning, he went over to the panel and launched the beacon.
A hull panel on the starboard side of the Normandy rose up, revealing six escape pods. Kaiden rushed over to the pods along with any of the surviving members of the crew that weren't trapped. He stopped outside of a pod and looked back.
"Everybody in! Go, go, go!" He beckoned them into the pod as Dr. Chakwas and another crewman climbed in.
He turned to get into the pod, but paused to see if anyone else was coming. As two more crewmembers came bounding around the corner, one of them leaped into the pod. The other, however, was caught in an explosion and let out a scream as she was hurdled into the air. Kaiden jumped into the pod and lowered the rack above him, securing him to his seat inside the small craft.
One by one the pods ejected from the stricken vessel. The Normandy had sustained severe damage on her topside, as one of her engine nacelles and forward thrusters had been taken out of commission. Three of the thrusters were still online and were maneuvering the ship towards Alchera.
Shepard turned from the panel, when he was nearly knocked over by a blast as the systems overloaded, taking his armor's kinetic barriers with it. He went down the walkway between the sleeper pods and through the wrecked crew deck. He stopped briefly and looked at the sealed door to his quarters, which had been blasted close, before making his way up to the port stairwell.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday! This is SSV Normandy. We've suffered heavy damage from an unknown enemy," Joker's voice said over the open comm.
Adrian made his way up to the middle platform of the stairway as he heard Joker's voice once more. "Come on, baby. Hold together. Hold together!"
Adrian made sure his armor's magnetic boots were active as the air rushed out of the door into the hull breached CIC. He stood there momentarily shocked, never in his life had he ever seen a ship sustained so much damage, even the Reaper Sovereign, would destroy a ship out right. Not cause significant damage.
He looked over at the command consoles around the galaxy map that was flickering. Looking up he saw one of the hull plating supports, give way and fly off into the vacuum of space. It was going to be hard to explain this to the Council, if he ever made it back alive.
Adrian slowly made his way towards the cockpit; the only sound he heard was his own breathing. He pushed a few dislodged stations out of his way as he went down the darkened corridor towards the bridge. He could see a barrier around the bridge, and the controls still active. He rushed over to Joker, once he was on the other side of the barrier.
"Come on Joker! We have to get out of here!" Adrian exclaimed as he went over to Joker.
"No! I won't abandon the Normandy! I can still save her!" Joker protested as he looked up to him.
"The Normandy's lost. Going down with the ship won't change that," Adrian replied as he tried to convince Joker not to throw his life away. Joker looked at the display with a resigned look.
"Yeah…okay. Help me up," He said as he took one last look at the display.
High above the crippled ship, the unknown attacker was coming around to finish what it had started. The prow began to glow as it targeted the Normandy. Joker looked up through the shattered hull and saw the attacker preparing to open fire.
"They're coming around for another attack!" Joker exclaimed in warning.
The enemy ship fired, concentrating its energy beam on the middle section of the Normandy. Adrian rushed over to the escape pod and watched the beam cut through the ship, like a knife through hot butter. The pink glow of sparks and flames were casted on the N7 Onyx armor, as Shepard doubled back to grab Joker. He grabbed Joker's arm a little harder than he meant to and heard Joker grimace in pain.
"Ah! Watch the arm!" Joker cried out bitterly as Commander Shepard lifted Joker out of his seat.
He carried Joker to the escape pod and helped him get inside, while the ship was getting ready to give way, at any moment. A nearby bulkhead exploded causing Adrian to get distracted as he watched the rest of the ship get torn away with the sound of shearing metal. The blast knocked the air from him as he was sent back in the bulkhead behind him.
Joker could only watch in fear as his commander was pulled away from safety. He couldn't bear the thought of losing both Shepard and the Normandy at the same time. He watched as Shepard looked at him from behind the pitch black polarized visor.
"Commander!" Joker yelled out as Shepard was wretched free and floated over to the controls.
Adrian looked at the panel then back at Joker, realizing that it was his only way to save Joker. He watched as an energy beam came in between him and his only way to safety. He had a feeling this would happen as much as he hated to admit it. He gave one last look at Joker, who was confused and worried to as what Shepard was about to do.
"Stay safe out there, Joker," Adrian said to himself as he pressed the panel.
"Shepard!" Joker yelled out as the pod sealed and shot out of the Normandy.
Adrian began to float freely in the void as the blast enveloped him. He watched as the ship that helped him take down Saren and deliver the killing blow to Sovereign gave way to its fate. The explosion hurled him across the ship into another bulkhead and sent him fly through the gaping hole in the top of the vessel.
"Goodbye Normandy and thank you," He thought as he watched the energy beams finished severing the ship in half as the bow floated free of the main hull. He watched as three beams delivered the killing blow, destroying the Normandy in a fiery explosion. His breathing was steady, but audible as looked at the wreaked hulk of his ship, get destroyed around him.
He felt the heat on his back from the bow of the ship being engulfed in a secondary explosion, as he noticed his air hoses had become severed and his armor seals had been breached. He grabbed back trying to stop the release of air as he was spiraling out of control and suffocating from the lack of air as he approached the planet's atmosphere. The last thing Lieutenant Commander Adrian Shepard felt was the agonizing heat of entering Alchera's atmosphere and the stabbing cold of the vacuum of space, and then nothing, just silence.