On Menae she finally stops long enough to take in what's happened.
On Menae, half-way inside a burning shipwreck on a moon orbiting around a burning Palaven, Shepard stands absolutely still for a few seconds and opens her mind to the flurry of images and insights that scatter all over her. Earth, Mars, the Illusive Man at the Archive – you were a tool, an agent with a single purpose – and everything that came after; Kaidan being rushed away to surgery, the hospital at the Citadel that had been much too crowded to instil any sort of hope in her. They're past all that now. Long past hope and faith, running on determination and anger, an eagerness to avenge every fallen ally.
It's going to be a long war for those who still count the losses.
"Shepard." Garrus is beside her now, voice urgent and low. "We've got to pick up the pace."
She nods, starts moving again.
Time had slipped away from her in the brig; she had somehow forced herself to stop caring about it, the passing of days on the outside while she was stuck on the inside organising reports and signing export/import requests like a proper security guard. She had cut off the stream of time to protect her sanity – always a survivor first and foremost – and now it comes heading towards her again, crashing into her carefully arranged system like a Reaper.
While she had always suspected the collective wills and authorities of Admirals Anderson and Hackett would have gotten her ship out of drydock and herself out of inaction sooner or later, the attack on Earth had still hit them out of nowhere and left them no time for preparations. You are always ready but you can't always be ready. Her dog tag around her neck again now, but the feel of it has shifted from back when she first received it; its mix of metals is cool and light, weighs almost nothing.
They keep moving on Garrus's orders and Shepard listens to him explaining the planet to Lieutenant Vega as they cross a field where a few husks are being shot at by turians lined up behind a large shelter. Vega is full of questions now that he's fallen in line after his stunt on Mars. She had itched to smash his skull when he all but wrecked their escape route because of his own reckless death wish and it towers inside her now as well, the anger that she needs to deal with once they have a moment to themselves. They don't, so instead she listens to the guided tour behind her.
"This moon and its sister moon were classified by the Hierarchy. They feared a clever enough enemy force might try to smash them into Palaven during the Krogan wars."
"That's an option now?" she asks Garrus who looks at her over his shoulder, mandibles twitching.
"Last resort." They all duck as a Reaper beam screeches through the air – far away but not far enough not to trigger instincts. "It's too hard to evacuate and it would only kill the groundside forces."
"Right."
The lieutenant looks sideways at her but says nothing, as though he hasn't been thinking what Shepard is thinking, what has branded itself inside her brain since Vancouver – that they might not be able to save the planets, that they might have to blow them up system by system until the Reapers are stuck somewhere in time. He's a good soldier with a mind for tactics; he must have been trying out the same thoughts. But they've had the same story told over and over ever since Earth so Shepard gives her subordinate a brief nod before looking at Garrus. They might be past hope but she intends to do her best to deny it.
"Did we ever tell you about Saren, Lt?"
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Later, after a shower and three mugs of Normandy-coffee Shepard scratches the back of her head with one of the datapads in her hands as she follows Comm Specialist Traynor through the second deck.
"A fire?" she repeats, re-reading the message from Joker while talking to him at the same time.
"The AI core's gone haywire," he confirms.
"He's right, Commander." Traynor stops by a console that appears unresponsive to whatever command or code she attempts to give it.
"Great." Shepard exhales and tries to remember to lower her shoulders while she's at it. Her entire body feels tense and heavy. "I'll go check it out."
The turmoil in the AI core, she thinks afterwards when she walks back up the stairs to make a call to Admiral Hackett, is precisely the kind of unforeseeable events that used to make her initial runs with the Alliance so much fun. They are also the kind of thing that make her sleep uneasy now because every mistake matters at this point, every step outside the margins she has drawn for them. What used to make for neat stories to swap over drinks has become life and death, another name for her memorial wall.
Of course, Hackett isn't exactly lifting that load off her, either.
"The reality is, Shepard, everything I'm doing is a delaying action for you."
She inhales deeply, exhales again, hoping he doesn't notice her momentary lack of confidence. It's the prothean device that eats away at the corners of her mind, all the unknown variables and implications of it, all its inherit danger. The atomic bomb during the Second World War. She remembers reading about that for some N7 course, seeing old photos of nuclear wastelands.
"Yes, sir."
He sacrificed the entire second fleet to provide cover for the third and the fifth. She hears the numbers there in his voice, fathoms the losses that were necessary but never acceptable and a wave of compassion hits her stomach. Admiral Hackett who is hard and unrelenting, never looking for the easy way out but a good officer, a good man. When he first heard that the other marines had dubbed her Butcher of Torfan he had looked at her, seen the uneasy harshness curved around that title, and nodded simply. I've been called worse than that, lieutenant.
She wants to give him the same kind of nod now; she knows he would never allow it.
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"You look tired, Shepard." Liara's voice is soft, her words falling gently across the room. She's by her screen as usual but her expression is a relaxed one which tells Shepard it's a relatively slow day for the information broker aboard.
"I am tired."
A couple of years ago she'd never have admitted such a thing – would never have displayed it openly enough for anyone to pick up on it, either. It had been part of the training, part of the package. Everything is different now. In small ways, everything has been altered.
"Come in, sit down."
Shepard brushes past Glyph and slumps down in an armchair near Liara's bed. Her quarters are neat as usual, kept clean and sterile by a lack of belongings more than anything. These days they don't carry much with them.
"Did you have anything for me?" She makes the question sound casual but the outlines of it are frayed and her emotions are showing, she can tell by the way the asari attempts to hide her own.
"Yes, Shepard."
The leather feels dry and cool in the curve of her neck as she leans back, folding her arms across her chest like any commanding officer awaiting a report. Codes of conduct to keep other things at bay, the endless alienation of yourself. Liara offers a brief smile.
"Zaeed Massani," she reads off her datapad. "Was last seen in the Horsehead Nebula tracking down a Cerberus vessel. He appears to have made no attempts of hiding his identity or the signature of his own ship. Docked at Cresti spaceport two days ago. No further reports available."
Shepard grins inwardly. Not Zaeed's style to use covers; he can complain all he wants about her lack of stealth, given his own preference for keeping his name visible in everything he does. If the goddamn Reapers blow me to pieces at least I want them to know who they killed, he says in her memory or her imagination. Maybe both. Six months in lock up and your start to lose your way inside your own mind.
"Why's he going after Cerberus?" she says, mostly to herself but Liara frowns, taking on the question herself. Occupational habit, that inability to let things be untouched, left alone or researched by someone else. A single-minded,obsessive salarian scientist, she thinks at times. That's all anyone ever is.
"I don't know that, Shepard. Do you want me to find out?"
"No." She pauses, re-thinks. The danger of being friends with the Shadow Broker is that lines of privacy and ethics start to blur in the face of curiosity and greed. "Not yet. I'll get back to you."
She allows herself to remain in the armchair for a moment longer, eyes closed, not thinking too deeply about the wave of relief that wraps itself around her like a blanket.