Not enough air to breathe. Fire. Red alarm buzzing and vibrating in the closed space of the cockpit. But it wasn't too late. Sweating like hell and gasping for air, but I could still do it. I was the best, damn it! If it was possible I could do it.
Hand on my shoulder, curses breaking through the static of the com link. A completely pointless in this situation argument. Then a hard quake.
We were taking another hit. Particle beam was boring through the plating just few feet from the mass effect field protecting all that was left of life-supporting environment on our ship. All was foggy even before I felt a blinding hit on the back of my head when a piece of now useless equipment fell on me during the tremor.
It was too late.
If it was impossible even I couldn't do it. There were two things I would never left behind, not even for my life. The first was… private, the second was Normandy. But now she was burning in space, cooking the last two of the remaining crew alive.
I was staring into a blank monitor, doing nothing, but I could bet all the brittle bones in my ass that I was about to die and no one, not even Commander Shepard, the worst hard-ass of the Alliance fleet , could court-martial me if I was dead. She was running through the cabin now, back and forth, frantically trying to bring some of the machinery to life. It was hasty, urgent, lacking her usual methodical approach, but I was sure that if I had a 'What To Do When Your Ship's On Fire' guidebook, she would be numerically checking out every point.
Not much was still in order. The last escape pod was stuck behind the mass effect field covering the cockpit, there was no way I could have made it there without an enviro-suit, and to make matters worse it was jammed in a disfigured emergency release tunnel even before we took the second hit. I could suggest that she should try to save herself, but first – it was pointless to say that to someone who a Alliance regulations rulebook instead of a brain ("Captain always leaves last.." – the rule existed even before the first spaceship), and second – I didn't feel like speaking coherently right now.
Finally something sent sparks and sprung to life – the navigation systems. We wouldn't be needing that any time soon. But Shepard seemed happy – if that shadow of smile under her helmet meant happiness. She began rerouting power from the nav systems… I began losing consciousness.
"So, Commander, how do you stay alive when all of your squad has been eaten and you're stuck in the last sec-room surrounded by thresher maws?" This wasn't the most sensible question I could ask when meeting for the first time the famous Survivor of Akuze, but I did it anyway, so long ago. She annoyed me. I was expecting some scarred veteran with lots of stories of her missions and lines like 'This is what the regs say, and this is how you do it' or 'Tell the brass to shove it up their ass'. In more wild dreams I imagined her to have a weak spot for talented pilots. Nothing prepared me for harsh, realistic 'Officer on deck!'. She knew the regs by heart, probably read them every night before going to bed. She didn't even approve of the word 'regs'! Always 'the regulations'!
"However you can" she answered. That was the first time I thought that there was more to her than obeying rules. Also, the last.
My mind stirred back to the burning Normandy at hand. The laser was putting more holes in what was left of Alliance's pride. In addition to sweating wildly I was now bleeding from the cut on my brow. The alarm stopped flashing – there was no energy left. I looked at Shepard and had to blink to make sure what I saw was real. I blinked and still wasn't sure. The force field was now moved a bit further to allow passage to the escape pod. The air was much thinner because of the growth of the enclosed space – if I didn't have the helmet on I would be breathing void by now.
"Wake up!" Shepard shook me. There was a faint hiss coming from her envirosuit. I vaguely recalled she took a hit the last time she went on recon searching for geth. Tali made the necessary repairs immediately, but warned they wouldn't hold long. There was a spare suit so she didn't put the repairs high on her list of priorities. Unfortunately Shepard grabbed what was closest when the sudden attack came.
"Watch the arm!" I could almost hear my humerus breaking when she lifted me from the pilot's seat leaving no place for my manly pride.
"Move" she ordered and my legs obediently began to walk before my head even began to consider if I was able to. That was the skill of Shepard – you obeyed before having a chance to think. Commander supported me sparing no thought to being gentle. She just threw me inside the escape pod and was just about to follow when she realized something I knew all along. The goddamned thing was jammed.
A slight look of annoyance crossed her lips, I saw no more than that when the particle beam hit us the third time and the meager mass effect field gave up on us, just like that. I heard the pod I was in creaked and I could swear I was going to die this second. I was going to die and all I had for company was Shepard! Shepard?
She wasn't standing by the pod anymore. The current of air escaping I felt on the bare skin of my forearms threw her off balance. Now she was barely holding to what was left of deck and looking at her I could see the vast emptiness of space opening over her as the roof of the cockpit gave away. Fires were almost blinding me, but I couldn't close my eyes, just as if I knew already how important was what I was about to see.
Liza 'Synthetic Queen' Shepard didn't lose her cool, I couldn't find even a sign of fear on her face behind the helmet visor. Her cold eyes focused on one active part of the machinery – the emergency escape pod release, which wouldn't work in the state Normandy was in. And why would Shepard, in a leaking envirosuit, want to release the last intact pod? No one's that stupid!
In a second I barely registered, she threw her weight in the direction of the pod release, calculating the right moment and pushed forward as hard as she could. Just with her finger – but she managed to activate it and by some miracle the pod sealed before my bloodied eyes, still not able to eject properly. Another explosion turned what could already be barely described as a ship, in bits of debris circling in the orbit of Alchera and, I couldn't believe it was happening, forced the escape pod out of its tunnel. I couldn't see the last part because it also blinded me, permanently, I think. I didn't see what happened to Shepard.
And it wasn't a good thing. It helped me delude myself she somehow survived, for a long time after her funeral.