(42 minutes prior)

Below the lone combat shuttle, London's corpse sprawled in every direction; with the glow of advanced particle weapons and simple fires acting as the chalk line around the vast megalopolis. In contrast to the inky black and the conflagration of corpses, a brilliant beam struck from the center of the city toward the night sky and beyond.

Without thoughts or designs toward strategy, the single vessel screamed toward the tower of photon and light; its mad flight fueled by the potential of a loss far larger than the toppling of a universe.

'Say again!', the shuttle pilot screamed into her headset.

*Allied fo…eavy…sses*

'This is Lt. Saville! I'm Two minutes outbound from the muster point! I am caring vital cargo for Commander Shepard! Respond!'

*…Oun…star…fa…ack…*

'Say again!? Dammit, I can't make out a thing!'

Suddenly the head of the shuttle's lone passenger appeared beside the pilot's.

'What's going on,' Jack demanded.

Saville pointed to the erratic LED over her communication's station.

'The sons-of-bitches have been interrupting long range comms for the last half hour. Can't understand a fu…"

As if on cue, the signal cleared long enough for one crystalline, apocalyptic statement.

*Shepard has fallen! I repeat Commander Shepard has fallen!*

Silence, like the promises of the unjust, fell over the two women.

Brutal flashes of memories steeped in violence cut into Subject Zero. A history of torture, loneliness, betrayal and imprisonment threatened to derail her sanity, but, as it always did, Shepard's image appeared in her dark mind and brought forth a light, brought forth hope.

Despite the despair laced into each syllable of the broadcast, Jack knew, as only the truest of loves could, that Shepard yet lived, but even with the utter and complete faith she had in his survival, Jack could feel him fading.

Shepard was in the dark, alone and seemingly abandoned.

Jack's eyes narrowed; the orbs awash in determination, chaos and the promise of pain delivered for the Reapers.

'Get me on the ground…now.'

With the communication's dire news, the battle-hardened pilot, a witness to the end of countless lives, lifted the back of her gloved hand to her mouth and whispered.

'No, God no…no…no.'

Above and beyond his unmatched heroics and seemingly immortal shell, Shepard stood, for Saville and countless others, as a symbol of humanity's ability to challenge against any obstacle and conquer any threat, even the Reapers.

Now, if even their champion could topple…what hope did the rest of his species have?

'Get me on the ground,' Jack repeated with a haunting growl, an animality fashioned beneath Cerberus's scalpels.

'I should pull us back. We need to regroup…for a final stand I guess.'

The pilot seemed adrift, drugged by thoughts of a world without a hero.

Suddenly, Jack's tattooed hand clawed the front of Saville's flight suit, while the other one pointed through the forward window toward the column of light.

'I don't have time for broken spirits, bitch! Set this shuttle down right there. Do it now.'

To emphasize a point that did not require it, Jack's biotics flared and snarled around her body.

Incapable of debate and apparently aware of how outmatched she was, Lt. Saville simply nodded and began a rapid decent toward the forward lines of the Alliance's remaining ground forces.

Strangely no anti-aircraft threatened their approach. Perhaps The Reapers, sensing victory, were merely taking their time.

While still twenty feet from the surface, Jack banged on the hard frame of the shuttle door and drew the pilot's attention.

'Fallen doesn't mean dead! Reapers, Grim Reaper, it doesn't matter!", Jack shouted over the thrusters. 'If Shepard's proven anything, it's that death is just another fucker to beat!'

And with that she leapt from the craft.