(Disclaimer: Bioware owns Mass Effect, and the quote below comes from Full Metal Alchemist.)
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Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.
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She knew better than anyone that nothing in life was free; everything she had, she had earned with her blood, sweat and tears. In this universe, there were no free lunches, no miraculous reset buttons, and certainly no gains without appropriate sacrifices. So when life, or fate or whatever it was decided to up and give her a second chance where there rightly shouldn't have been one, she should have known there was a catch.
But of course, back then there had been little chance to consider such things. There were, as there always were, innocent lives that needed to be protected from the hordes of enemies determined to destroy them and very little time to devote to anything else let alone contemplating her own situation. And right now, she just didn't have the time.
Shortly after returning through the Omega 4 relay, following the destruction of the Collectors' base, the Normandy had found itself pursued by a squadron of Cerberus vessels that had opened fire upon first visual contact. During the fight, Cerberus had managed to override EDI's defensive logic by using some sort of override code, leaving the Normandy's systems completely defenseless. The enemy hadn't hesitated in hacking the ship's systems, locking the crew out of all vital systems—even going so far as to try to shut down life support. Even now fury burned inside her at the thought. She had been right not to trust Cerberus; they had proved themselves ruthless before and had only reconfirmed her suspicions now. They had even been willing to kill their own personnel just to reclaim the ship. But, she supposed with no small hint of pride, the crew of the Normandy no longer considered themselves Cerberus crew members but rather the crew of the Normandy—her crew. And her crew was certainly well trained.
Within moments of the attack, Legion had managed to counter Cerberus' hacking attempts and not only lock them out of the vital systems but also bring EDI back online. Tali and the engineering crew, had managed to coax a few precious seconds of FTL travel out of the engines before they went completely offline, allowing them just enough time to escape. Even after they had dropped back into normal space, Joker had still managed to evade the pursuing fleets, plotting a course so complicated and littered with false readings that it would have Cerberus searching for them for weeks. Assuming they survived that long, of course.
Following their narrow escape, the Normandy had limped to a nearby nebula, hoping to use the gaseous cloud and their stealth systems which, again thanks to Tali and the Engineering team were already back online, to keep themselves hidden until they could make repairs. But the nebula was quickly becoming more of a burden than a blessing. Apparently, something in the nebula was giving off low levels or radiation. Ordinarily, such levels wouldn't have caused much concern, however, with the hull damaged and kinetic barriers barely functioning above minimum, even these low levels were dangerous. Several crew members had begun showing the telltale signs of radiation sickness within hours of entering the nebula and were sent immediately to Dr. Chakwas for treatment. Ever since then, Mordin and Chakwas had been working feverishly to inoculate the rest of the crew; however, even after that, some crew members developed radiation sickness, so the unaffected members were ordered in to environmental suits to hopefully delay if not entirely prevent them from developing the illness.
And so, repairs to the ship, which were already difficult enough, now had to be done while wearing clumsy environmental suits which made the already delicate tasks, all the more difficult. Thankfully, Tali and Legion who were, for the most part unaffected by the radiation, were already hard at work, repairing the damaged systems one by one. Still, it wasn't right to leave them to do everything simply because they were unaffected right now. Repairs would go faster if everyone helped, at least that was what Shepard believed, and while she was well, she would do everything she could to help—even if it was damned frustrating to make repairs while encased in an environmental suit.
As she removed the plating covering the circuit junction she was working on, her mind wandered back to a conversation she had had with Tali some weeks earlier. They had been talking about Quarian environmental suits. Back then, she had truly felt sorry for the girl; she couldn't have imagined living in a suit for her whole life. Even now, after—what had it been—a few hours? she already found the enviro-suit intolerable, but for Tali, this was her every day life, and there was no escaping it. At least, once they either escaped from the nebula or got the barriers back to full power, the rest of the crew could come out of the suits. That was worth something.
She set to work, re-routing the circuits so that they would bypass the damaged relays. Doing so would increase the strength of the barriers by five percent. It didn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but out here, in this nebula, every percentage point mattered. One more percent could mean one less crew member who fell ill, one less person suffering for what was, essentially, her mistake.
She turned her attention back to the panel, more focused than she was before. When she had finished, EDI informed her over the comm that there was yet another circuit that needed to be bypassed—this time in Engineering itself instead of on the lower decks. She closed up the panel and headed up the stairs.
Engineering was in a state of controlled chaos, if such a thing were possible. Technicians in soot-coated uniforms rushed to and fro, carrying toolkits or spare parts or whatever was needed to complete the necessary repairs, their faces tired and grease-stained, expressions grim but determined.
She fought to suppress another swell of pride. These were good people. Many had signed on for the initial mission, knowing that their lives were on the line and here, again, they found themselves being hunted across the galaxy by an organization feared for its ruthlessness. She knew there was no avoiding such things—especially not on this mission where danger lurked around every corner, but she'd be damned before she let any of her crew make such a sacrifice when there was another option.
The panel she was looking for was down a small access corridor that branched off from the main area. She weaved through the crowd of people, stepping over pieces of twisted metal and other debris that littered the floor. Glancing around, she noticed that Engineer Daniel's usual panel had exploded some time during the fight, leaving behind only charred bits of metal. She looked around, trying to spot the red-headed woman, hoping that she hadn't been killed in the explosion and let out a sigh of relief when she spotted Gabriella working with Donnelly over by the mass effect core. Her arm was bandaged and tied in a sling, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. Shepard couldn't help wondering who among the crew hadn't been as lucky. Like it or not, the casualty reports would be waiting for her when she finally returned to her quarters this evening. But that was something to deal with later. Now, she had to worry about getting those kinetic barriers back up to specs.
She made her way to the access corridor and found the junction she was supposed to bypass. She quickly detached a large section of wall plating, revealing the glowing, pulsing guts of the ship. Feeling overwhelmed for a moment, she paused to wipe away a bead of sweat that had trickled down the side of her face, forgetting that she had her helmet on. Really, she'd been in this armor in hotter places and hadn't sweated as much as she felt she was sweating now. In the back of her mind, she knew this could be a warning sign of radiation sickness but filed the fact away to deal with later. She could go see Chakwas once she was done here.
The junction she was looking for was located behind a large bundle of thick cables, and she had to wedge herself between the cables and the wall to access the junction. The bundle weighed heavily on her back, and she ended up being pressed flat against the wall in order to escape the weight of the cables. It wasn't the most comfortable position to work it, but she made the most of it, connecting the like pins one by one until at last the junction was bypassed.
Quickly, she extracted herself from beneath the cables an slumped back against the wall, aware that she was now sweating profusely inside her suit and that her throat was twitching with the first signs of nausea. Damn it all! This was no time to get sick. She forced herself to replace the panel, not wanting to create more work for the already busy engineering team, but it was slow work. Her hands were no longer as cooperative as they were earlier. She was fumbling with and constantly dropping the bolts now, and she knew that this had nothing to do with the environmental suit this time. When the sheet metal began to slip out of her grasp, she leaned against it, using her body weight to pin it in place while she secured it. It was slow, tedious work, made difficult by her swimming vision and sudden clumsiness, but after several attempts, she finally closed back the panel and picked up her tools, determined to head to the Medbay for treatment before her symptoms became any worse. After all, she was little use to the crew if she couldn't even see straight.
The deck pitched suddenly underneath her feet, sending her crashing into the panel she had just repaired. She was about to comm Joker to find out what the hell had just happened when the ship pitched again. This time, she was prepared and managed to keep her balance by bracing against the adjacent wall of the narrow corridor. She heard footsteps through the buzzing in her ears and looked up to find Donnelly approaching her. Funny, he didn't seem to be having any trouble keeping his balance. Maybe the radiation had affected her more than she had thought.
She regained her footing and stood up straight; it just wouldn't do to look weak in front of the crew, no matter how sick she felt. Her head swam as she nodded to Donnelly who, strangely enough only regarded her curiously, before pushing past the startled engineer with a "Carry on, Donnelly" as she started down the hallway. A firm hand on her shoulder halted her in her tracks, and she looked back to find that the Irishman had stopped her. But this was no time to be stopped. She had to get to the elevator, then elevator to deck three to the medbay where she could get some medicine to take care of this and get back to work on the hundreds of other things that needed to be repaired before the Normandy would be up and running again. She had no time to be stopped here.
"You don't look so well, Commander," he said cautiously, as though uncertain as to whether or not saying something like that to the CO of the ship was considered disrespectful. "I think you should go see Dr. Chakwas."
She tried to tell him that was exactly what she planned to do but seemed to have difficulty focusing on his face. Dark spots danced at the edges of her vision, and everything else blurred together into indistinguishable masses of color and light. The ship pitched wildly again (she would have to talk with Joker about that once she was done in the Medbay), and she slumped gracelessly to the group, the sound of Donnelly calling for help ringing in her ears as the world faded to blissful blackness.