Ren's Note:
So I was pretty surprised at the response chapter one received. Thanks so much for the kind reviews, and especially the corrections. I appreciate the encouragement as well as the critique.

I've decided to move forward with turning this into a full Mass Effect 3 dive into Samantha Traynor aboard the Normandy. I'm game if you are!

I'm still working on the overall outline, but it will probably be a very long haul with a mixture of new interactions on top of canon in-game dialogue. I also really want to include DLC content as well, including Omega and Leviathan. As always, I would adore any feedback or suggestions on anything you'd like to see over the course of this story, not limited to characters, missions, or scenes.


Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Samantha's head struck the back of the elevator in three-second intervals. She was counting how many times she could slam her head against the wall in the time it took to go from the Shuttle Bay back to the CIC. Where I belong.

The elevator ride up to the CIC was almost as agonizing as the ride down had been for Sam. Her mind found new and interesting ways to be embarrassed anew about what had happened down in the Shuttle Bay just a few short minutes ago.

God. It was just... a smorgasbord of awful. I panicked. While holding a supremely dangerous weapon. I fired on my commanding officer. Who I thought was a bloody Reaper. Then I get dismissed. Like a child.

Or… maybe… like a soldier?

Still hitting her head against the wall, Traynor wasn't sure if she was pleased or embarrassed at the possible idea that Commander Shepard mistook her for an actual soldier. The worst bloody soldier in the Alliance, at that.

She sighed and welcomed the sight of the galaxy map through the opening elevator doors. And… time! 54 knocks to the head for a travel time of 162 seconds. I'd add in a few decimal places since that last one was in the middle of a beat, but who's counting?

The sarcastic bravado inside was decaying rapidly, in danger of becoming unhinged if her mind was allowed more than a few seconds to devote focus on the situation. Samantha's command console blinked impatiently with an incoming transmission, a welcome respite. The encryptions were classified. High ranking. Sam didn't recognize the IP address and had to do a search, then swore under her breath when a match came up.

Admiral Steven Hackett. …Right.

The signal was absolutely terrible. Even with more than a little help from EDI, Samantha couldn't pull more than a few percentage points out of the dirty signal. It'll have to do.

She wished she had her clean-up suites, an array of hacking filters and scrubber programs gathered from a range of sources. Some were even hand-coded. None were technically Alliance-issue so they weren't approved to use. The filters not sitting inside a storage chit back at Samantha's apartment were locked in requisitions hell with Lieutenant Ventura.

My apartment. So many tiny, useless things that somehow summarized the most precious parts of my life. The hematite and rose quartz chess set my father gave me. My console and storage chits, the tools of so many hours of scheming, learning, creating… That tiny little efficiency that was home for four months… is it gone? Crushed under a giant Reaper claw or melted to rubble from a canon? Crushed like—like Ventura?

Swallowing deeply, Sam pushed both the selfish and the bitter thoughts away. A few keystrokes sent the transmission down to Commander Shepard in the Shuttle Bay.

"Shepard...—sustained heavy losses," Admiral Hackett's deep voice garbled. "The invading force was overwhelming— … There's no way we can defeat them conventionally."

Clean up, damn you. You can do it. I see you right there, so shape up, Samantha growled at the comm signal dropping in and out of range. It was all she could do to not ponder the ominousness of his words, the sureness of our defeat.

"Anderson's already ordered us to the Citadel to talk to the Council." Shepard was calm. On Sam's second screen, the woman had cleaned up her bloody face and hands. There was a disheveled prettiness to the Commander, an air of untamed confidence. Even with a dribbling gash on a freckled cheek, Annelise Shepard looked poised and ready for action.

"First, I need you… —lliance outpost on Mars… —efore we lose control of the system."

"Lose control of the system?" We're that far gone already? Sam felt the color drain from her face as an unnatural coldness traced up her spine. Work on the signal. Work on the signal. Work on the signal.

"…been researching the Prothean Archives with Dr. T'Soni. …found a way to stop the Reapers. –ould be the only way to stop them. We'll be in contact soon. Hackett out."

Even though Hackett's comm dropped off, Sam dimly observed a spike in Shepard's signature as it switched to internal comms. "Flight Lt J Moreau" popped on to the feed before briefly cutting out, followed by Joker's voice coming over the ship-wide intercom.

"Saddle up, Normandiers. Change of course. We're making a pit stop at Mars."

EDI was not satisfied with Joker's update, insisting on adding, "Continue manning your stations. The Alliance has flagged the Normandy for combat readiness and will be retaining a full crew once we arrive at the Citadel. At our current trajectory, we will reach the Prothean Archives in less than five minutes."

Mars? The Citadel? But... what about Earth?

The afterimage of Earth still burned fresh in Sam's mind. She had spent so much of the invasion (massacre?) locked away aboard the Normandy. Just watching through a window or via a vid feed in a detached, unreal way. Like maybe if she closed her eyes tight enough and gave her arms a few hearty pinches, she would wake up in her bed simply cursing a bad dream.

Remembering her bed made Sam suddenly remember Isabella. That detached unreality translated to the fall of the Eld-Ash Tower, to an odd uncertain hope that Izzy wasn't in there. It's not as though I saw her... being crushed... Maybe... Maybe she's all right.

Does not seeing the rest of Earth burn make it not true? Grow up, Sam.

Her own cruelty made Samantha aware of how she really felt about that woman. Because it created a kind of cyclical guilt that threatened to send her reeling to the bathroom on Deck 3.

Am I sad? I mean, maybe a little? Izzy could be a comfort. Kind of funny. Soft and smooth. She had this commanding presence, a way of making the room part around her and take notice and listen. It was intoxicating, but when pulled into a smaller room full of shadows and secrets, Isabella was ...small. Her demanding nature could be alluring. But after the excitement dwindled, all that truly remained was an impatience wrapped in an insecure (but still attractive) shell.

Other than a sort of personal representation to cut through the incomprehensible loss going on right this very moment on Earth, Isabella was... unimportant. Samantha mourned the idea of Izzy, but not the woman herself. And this confession made Sam hate herself.

How can I think this way? She's gone! So many on Earth are being burned to ash by ththose things, those Reapers. Was itwas it quick? Did she suffer? Did she think about me beforebefore it happened? Would I even want her to?

The elevator button was being pressed for Deck 3 before Samantha was even aware of her surroundings. Thankfully, her body seemed to have taken over the difficult task of wielding this useless sack of meat. Propelled out the door a handful of seconds later, Sam tripped into the bathroom and nearly fell headfirst into the first toilet. But now her body had given up handling the show, leaving her to vomit pitifully on the floor.

It was acidic and bitter and mostly bile. Some of it even came out through her nose, tainting her senses completely. Sam wretched until she could only dry heave, feeling her short black hair slick against her cheeks. It all tasted like defeat. Despair. Guilt. So, so much guilt.

I wishwhat do I wish? I wish the Reapers defeated, obviously. Earth saved. But what about Isabella? Everyone else? Maybe I wish she has someone to mourn her properly? To wish someone is filled with that wistful longing that would move mountains to avenge her? Could I ever be that person? Would I ever do that for someone, or have someone do that for me? What do I do with this? Other than feel impossibly guilty and useless?

Mostly, Samantha was afraid. She felt small, overwhelmed and useless. The Shuttle Bay had proven just how out of her league she was. That when the time came to be brave, Samantha had closed her eyes and acted blindly and nearly hurt someone. What difference could she possibly make?

Bringing her knees to her chest, Sam batted away the wetness on her cheeks, not caring if it were tears or ...something else. She wasn't sure how long she sat there, numb and dazed, trying to comprehend a way to mourn an entire planet. A planet already declared lost by the ones claiming to protect it.

"Lose control of the system" kept floating and repeating drearily in her mind, such a concise summary of billions of lives. It was several long minutes (hours?) before Sam was able to push that thought into a worse conclusion.

"The system..." Sounds so, military, so tactical. As though we have other systems to lose... Wait... Sam's conversation with her father from earlier came surging in like a tidal wave. Horse Head... Exodus... The blackouts... Is that them? Reapers? There were hundreds on Earth! Thousands! How many systems can they take at once? Are they already everywhere? Is the war already lost?

As if to emphasize this, Sam suddenly heard the elevator door open. Heavy footfalls and grunts trailed out and down the hall, occasionally interrupted by Shepard firmly demanding, "Move. Move!"

Curious, Samantha pushed herself heavily to her feet and went to the sink to slap water on her face and swish a few mouthfuls to dull the awful taste in her mouth. She didn't even bother looking in the mirror, knowing there was nothing there she wanted to see right now. Sam made her way outside unsteadily, then followed the hallway to the last place she heard movement.

Through the glass of the Medical Bay, an asari in combat armor and a lab coat stood against a gurney, her expression stricken with worry. Sam could barely make out an armored soldier leaning intently over another, and it wasn't until she saw bright red hair did she realize it was Commander Shepard.

Dr. T'Soni was an asari, wasn't she? They must have found her on Mars already. Christ, how long was I wallowing in the little girls' room while the grown-ups did their jobs? …Snap out of it, Sam.

The Commander nor T'Soni (what was her first name? Laria?) took any notice of the comms specialist lurking outside the executive officer's (retrofitted) suite. Shepard seemed to be in a daze, unmoving. Through the open door to the Medical Bay, Sam heard the asari repeating Shepard's name over and over, to no avail. Sam was briefly tempted to come out of hiding, before T'Soni leaned over the table and desperately sought eye contact with Shepard.

"Ashley needs medical attention," the asari said simply, but with a pressing urgency. When the Commander didn't react, she shoved her azure face in closer. More demanding. "We have to leave the Sol system."

"I know!" Shepard shouted petulantly. Whereas Sam shrank back at the gruff bark, T'Soni didn't even flinch. She tilted her head to once more match the Commander's, calmly explaining, "The Citadel is our best chance. We can find help there." From a distance, Sam couldn't tell what, if anything, was passing between human and asari.

She had to stand on her tiptoes to see over the wall to catch a glimpse of Ashley Williams. Her deep blue hardsuit showed some scuff marks. Maybe a few glancing blows of bullets. But no angry red wounds in soft, vulnerable places. The Lieutenant Commander's feet were closest to Sam, so her eyes roved their way up Williams' body (grow up, Sam) until she finally saw the woman's face.

Dark hair was splayed about the soldier's head while the attractive features were marred with dark bruises. The skin was pebbled red from both burns and broken blood vessels. The damage was clearly focused on deep head trauma and, with the heavy hardsuit, Sam couldn't tell if Williams was even breathing or not.

Shepard ordered to the ceiling for Joker to get the Normandy to the Citadel, to which the pilot replied somberly, "Roger that."

"Heads up, amiga." A soft tenor popped from Samantha's right. She jumped with a start as James Vega padded by with another female body slung over his shoulder, though this one was burned to a crisp. Sam felt her stomach churn once more. How many people are coming back corpses?

Even though she was heavily armored, with sharp angular shoulderpads and heavy bracers, Shepard seemed oddly fragile. She looked like she wanted to stay and flee Ashley's side at the same time. When Vega stomped in and dropped the new arrival onto a far gurney, the Commander's concern did not shift. In fact, she seemed almost angry.

Facing Dr. T'Soni, Shepard pointed emphatically at the charred body. "See what you and EDI can learn from that—that thing."

Thing?! Is it... a Reaper?

"Commander, I'm receiving a message over the secondary QEC. I believe it is Admiral Hackett," EDI reported overhead.

Squeaking with a start, two emotions hit Sam simultaneously. The first was shame that EDI was in control of comms because Samantha had clearly dropped the ball. The second was sheer panic that Shepard was taking off at a jog to the elevator. And was coming straight at Sam.

The XO's office, remodeled only slightly from the previous Cerberus owner, was still barren of any character. It barely looked livable, as the pristine metal seemed more sterile than even the Med Bay. But it was a good enough place to dart into to escape admitting you were eavesdropping on your commanding officer.

Afraid to even sit down in one of the pair of white chairs sprinkled across the office area, Sam pressed her back against the wall. She could scarcely breathe until she heard the doctor's and Commander's footsteps disappear into the elevator.

The limp form of Ashley Williams in the Med Bay was complicated to digest. Samantha had never served on an active warship, so the casualties of war were foreign until quite literally this morning. Her one brief interaction with the Lieutenant Commander in the Shuttle Bay was a memory already replaced by that broken body on that medical bed.

How quickly things change. From bad to worse. I really don't want to start betting on how long it takes to get from worse to worst. …is there anything worse than this?

A young boy's voice echoed that thought. "Everyone's dying."

"I'll get you someplace safe," Shepard had replied. Sam wanted to believe that now.

I want to be somewhere safe. Where the hell is that?