The Normandy dropped out of FTL. It always made Shepard a little nauseous before the brief moment of vertigo passed. She was on the crew deck, in the mess actually, trying to eat her lunch. She suddenly didn't feel like eating. She took her leftovers to the trash and washed out her bowl. The slight clink of ID tags under her shirt was drowned out by the quiet mummer of the people around her. She'd started wearing Nihlus's tags as well as her own after she survived the encounter with Sovereign's remains. It made her feel closer to him. Made her feel safer. She took a few seconds to examine the strange scar on her finger before falling to the floor when the ship made a hard turn to port. What the hell was going on up there? Her irritation became alarm when the Emergency Alert Sirens rang out throughout the ship.
"Brace for evasive maneuvers." Joker's voice came over the com shortly before the ship swerved to starboard, the port again. The Normandy lurched again. This time it felt more like weapons impact. She had to get up there, now! She pulled up on the table. She had been thrown across the room. Down the armory hall consoles started exploding, fires were breaking out. Pressly would have to handle this alone for now. She had to get those fires out. Several more hits. Now the crew deck was aglow with red blazing flames. Screw the fire. They had t evacuate. The kinetic barriers had were down if they were taking this kind of damage.
"Everyone evacuate! Move, move, move!" She shouted. People started running. Shepard ran to her locker and grabbed her gear. She put it on as she made her way to the rear console to punch in the evac codes. Something behind her exploded and someone screamed. A male. Shepard moved faster. She was finishing the prep for the distress beacon when Garrus ran up behind her. She put her helmet.
"Shepard!" Garrus shouted to his friend over the explosions. He hadn't know she was going to be here. It was just a feeling. He ran here as soon as the alarms sounded. He just had to get to her, to make sure she was ok. He didn't have many friends on the ship. If he could only save one, well, he owed it to Nihlus ,as a fellow turian, to save Sonya.
"The distress beacon is ready for launch." She said as she turned to him.
"Will the Alliance get here in time?" He asked, clearly worried they wouldn't.
The wall behind Garrus erupted into flame with another explosion. Sonya grabbed an extinguisher. She herd the turian grunt as he braced against a rail. The console she'd just been using went fuzzy then died.
"I'm not doing this so they can find our frozen corpses." She blasted a burning console with white foam. "I need you to get everyone onto the escape shuttles." She tossed him the extinguisher.
"Joker's still in the cockpit. He won't abandon ship." Garrus blasted a blazing console with the foam. "I'm not leaving either." He looked at Sonya over his shoulder.
Blue sparks flew from disconnected wires. Sonya looked at Garrus. Was he crazy? She typed in a few more commands into a console before running over to him and taking him by the shoulder.
"Get to the damn shuttles! I'll haul Joker's crippled ass outta here." She was serious. Seriously pissed that someone was tearing her ship apart.
"Commander?"
"Get the hell outta here, Garrus!" She pointed toward the exit.
"Aye, aye." Garrus nodded before running to the shuttles, urging others along as he went. He heard the buzz of the evac shuttle doors unlocking.
"Everybody in," He shouted. "Go, go, go!" pushing each crew member in by the shoulders. The last one to board died when an explosion threw her several feet, frying off her hair. Garrus took her place. "If anybody's listening, please get her out safe." He muttered the prayer under his breath as he locked the safety harness down. His was the last to click in place and the shuttle ejected itself away from the Normandy. A heavy knot settled in his stomach as he watched the Normandy quickly growing smaller and saw the thing that was attacking them. It was like no ship he'd ever seen and it was turning the Normandy into scrap. But that wasn't why he felt sick. Part of it was the lack of sufficient inertia dampers. Most of it was knowing Sonya was still on that burning swiss cheese of a ship.
Shepard launched the distress beacon then, turning on her heels, ran for the stairs to the command deck. She shielded her face reflexively with her hands from the heat of the flames. The left stair was blocked, so she took the right. The doors hissed open and she stepped through the emergency barrier. It took her a few seconds to process what she saw before she could prompt her body to move. The galaxy map, the surrounding consoles... they were all destroyed. The entire over head area was missing. She could see the pale blue haze of the planet they'd been scanning glowing above her. It looked like a gigantic, space-dwelling shark had taken a bite out of the Normandy. Blue sparks sprayed out from destroyed consoles. The only sound she could hear was her own breathing inside the helmet. Shepard forced herself to take the first step. Her boots had automatically engaged the zero gravity magnets that held her to the walkway. She was trying to run, but the best she could manage was a stroll. She pushed past the floating, empty chairs of crew men. Wires and tubes hung like guts from ruptured bodies of a female ensign and... Pressly! She turned her gaze away from the floating bodies. She couldn't look. She finally passed through the barrier keeping Joker from being sucked out into space.
"Mayday, mayday! This is the SSV Normandy! We've suffered heavy damage from an unknown enemy! Mayday, mayday! Do you copy?" Joker was still trying to maneuver the ship as he sent out the distress plea. "Common baby, hold together. Hold together."
Shepard charged over to his chair and slapped a hand on the head rest.
"We've got to get out of here!" She could see the determination on his face. He loved this ship, but it was a thing, and she wasn't going to let him die for it.
"No! I won't abandon the Normandy!" Joker mouth was set in a thin line behind the oxygen mask. "I can still save her!"
Shepard ran to the barrier to look out side. Something exploded. She ran back to Joker.
"The Normandy's dead, just like us if we don't get the hell outta here."
"No! I just have to... Oh, no! They're coming around for another attack!"
Shepard turned to see the beam of yellow light that was slicing through her ship. It was all the motivation she needed. She grabbed Joker by the arm and hoisted him onto her shoulders.
"Ow! Watch the arm!" Joker struggled to get to his feet. She was taking him whether he wanted to go or not.
Shepard mostly drug Joker to the last shuttle. She helped Joker to climb inside. The beam shot through the Normandy causing another explosion. The blast burned her skin, even through the suit. She instinctively grabbed at the pain. It was definitely time to go. Another explosion. It sent her flying, conveniently to the eject button for the escape pod. She wouldn't have enough time to the shuttle herself.
"Commander," Joker shouted to her. She heard his desperate cry though the com in her helmet.
"Shepard!" He knew what she was thinking.
She slapped the button and the escape pod's door slammed shut. Joker's screaming protests silenced, reduced to his face and mouth moving in almost comical snarls, as the small craft was jettisoned into space.
The yellow beam sliced through the ship. More explosions and Shepard was flung from the carcass of the Normandy. Pieces of the hull, and other debris glanced off her armor as she spun slowly, helplessly out into space. She watched the alien ship destroy what was left of the Normandy. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. It was defiantly not geth. The outter hull seemed to be made of rock. It was as if it were the spawn of a asteroid..Rage and frustration swelled within her. A few thousand meters away she could see some of the evac shuttles. Further off than that the first of the Alliance ships were arriving, dropping out of FTL. The crew would be alien ship shot one last beam, completely decimating the Normandy, then disappeared as quickly as it had come in a flash of silence.
Space was cold, and getting colder. The thermal collectors in her suit couldn't warm her sufficiently against the void of space. She could still hear her own breathing inside the helmet. She could hear the oxygen from the small reserve thank on her back feeding into her helmet, but it sounded... wrong. Shepard reached behind her in a panic, the tubes feeding the oxygen had been severed. She was going to suffocate, and soon! She struggled, trying to grab the tubes, to reconnect them or close them off and maybe give herself a few precious seconds. Maybe enough time for a ship to pick her up. She grabbed at her neck, she was suffocating. She was trying to scream, but to no avail. It was getting harder to breathe, her chest was tight. She couldn't force any air into them. The vacuum of space was stealing it from her, compressing her lungs. Her limbs grew heavy and numb. Her head was pounding from the lack of oxygen in her blood.
The sun was rising around the horizon of the planet below. It's rays blinded her as she perisheded. Her body began to fall toward the surface, caught in the planet's gravitational thought of Nihlus. Would she finally be with him again? Could humans go where turians went, if anyone went anywhere at all? Her vision went black. The pain stopped. The last throbs of her heart beat faded into the back ground. She felt the sensation of falling, or maybe flying... then there was a light. A small pinpoint in the vast emptiness. She felt compelled toward it. There was something familiar about it. She could smell grass. She felt no fear.
Garrus was watching intently. He saw the last pod eject and made immediate radio contact with it.
"Shepard? Shepard, do you read me?" Garrus' voice was staticy on the com. Joker reluctantly hit the button to reply.
"Garrus, it's Joker. I've got some bad news."
That's all Garrus needed to hear. He knew the rest. He searched the floating debris intently from the small view port. The strange, rock armored ship was gone. The Normandy was nothing but pieces of metal floating in space, falling toward the planet below. She had to be out there. Had to be. He spotted some erratic movement. It was Sonya. Her oxygen tubes had come loose, or been severed. She was suffocating and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He slammed a fist against the wall of the pod. Static came through on the radio, then a human voice.
"...iance. Please respond. Repeat; This is the Alliance. Please respo..d."
Garrus hit the com button.
"We're ok. Get Shepard! She's spaced in the debris field. Her oxygen has been cut off! Do you copy? Save Shepard."
"We copy. We're scanning the debris for her now. We will fi..."
"Send a ship, now! She's dieing out there!" His turian temper was getting the better of him. They weren't going to save her in time. He could still see her out the view port. She'd stopped moving. Stopped struggling. It was too late. He had intended on letting the Alliance vessel know how pissed he was, but he hit the com button so hard he broke the control panel. He ignored the looks from the crew in the pod with him and glowered in his seat. He didn't speak to anyone for weeks.