"Commander Shepard, our analysis of the data you recovered is complete," Councilor Tevos said from her podium. It had taken a full two weeks galactic standard time to analyze it all with dozens of the STG's best scientists at work the whole time.
Councilor Tevos continued, "This information is not sufficient to conclude that the Reapers are real. With the geth as an ally, you have sufficient resources to fabricate these schematics and the integrity of your Justicar is suspect."
"You helped kill her daughter, a woman she had been chasing for four hundred years and whom she had dedicated her entire life to killing," she continued. "Between the loss of her daughter and the loss of her life's purpose, we cannot conclude that her mental health is sound." She spoke as if she were a machine, completely stoic and devoid of emotion.
She and the other councilors stood looking down at Shepard as he stood alone in front of them. They had concluded, with the exception of Anderson, that he was unstable enough to be a threat and his ability to lead made anyone with him a threat.
Shepard stood quietly, and councilor Anderson couldn't look him in the eye. With their decision to declare Shepard unstable, and deny him the ability to bring companions, the other council members had finally ignored Anderson and officially charged him with treason. He waited with shallow breaths for his counterparts to make the declaration.
"Commander Shepard, we have concluded that you are a threat to galactic stability. You have operated under delusions of grandeur, apocalyptic visions, and reckless abandon for the law, even for a Spectre," Councilor Valern said with disdain. "You have fabricated evidence in order to force this council to conduct a mass military buildup. This council hereby charges you with treason and conspiracy to subvert the stability of this government." Valern stopped and looked to his salarian counterpart to continue.
On this day, there were no crowds in the tower. C-Sec had emptied it and sealed off the entrances. There was no media present and no civilians gawking at the fall of the Savior of the Citadel.
"You are to comply with the will of this council and go with C-Sec willingly," he said. He then motioned to the twenty agents stationed around the chamber.
Anderson looked at his old friend as Shepard bowed his head. He could sense that something wasn't right and as the guards advanced on Shepard, he understood why.
Shepard was submitting without a word. He had gone from dominant and independent to submissive, which was a character change that Anderson knew could not happen. Not with the man that survived an attack on his home planet by raiders, an attack that killed both of his parents and all of his friends, only to single handedly defend the colony of Elysium from attack. Not with the man who defied the council in order to go to Ilos. Not with the man that defied death to lead a suicide mission through a relay that no one had returned from alive.
That man would not submit to this and Anderson realized too late what was about to happen. A shot rang out. But it wasn't one shot; it was several fired simultaneously. Both of his knee caps burst into fire and he screamed in pain as he dropped to the floor. He was vaguely aware of his fellows suffering a similar fate moments later. It took a moment for his head to clear enough for him to hear the C-Sec officers' chaotic reactions and aimless return fire before it was all silenced with more rifle fire. He could see that every C-Sec officer around Shepard was dead.
Anderson tried to go for the small pistol he kept stashed in his coat but when he pulled it out, his hand was shot through the wrist where the tendons passed through the carpal tunnel, severing them. His wrist began to bleed profusely and he was forced to use his left hand to stop the blood flow.
Lying on his left side in this position he searched for the shooters but could see only Shepard. He finally made eye contact with him and stared into his eyes, too out of breath to scream the question his eyes were asking.
Then a shadow darkened his vision and he looked up into the glowing light of a geth's face staring down at him. He recognized it as the one that had accompanied Shepard to his meeting with the Council immediately after he had come back from the dead.
He also saw another figure on the balcony appear from thin air and he realized that Shepard's companions had infiltrated the tower. He didn't have any more time to think about this though because the geth above him drew its hand back and struck, darkening Anderson's vision completely.
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Shepard looked around at the platform. He saw the C-Sec guards on the ground behind him and the guards on the balconies. He saw the council incapacitated beside their podiums with Legion binding their wounds and tying them up. He looked up at Garrus and Thane on the left and right balconies, their sniper rifles in hand.
Garrus gave him a wave of acknowledgement while Thane nodded.
His plan had worked flawlessly. At this point however, it wasn't safe to relax. He still needed to evacuate the Council to the Normandy and to do that, the Normandy needed to break dock and discretely move to the tall glass window behind the council podiums.
In the meantime, he, Garrus, Legion, and Thane needed to hold off all of C-Sec from their position. He crouched down next to the raised garden behind him and, after determining that he had a good angle, pulled out his Widow anti-materiel rifle. He then spoke to his squad, "Legion, take position there," he pointed to the mirror cover beside him and then continued, "Garrus, Thane, get to the balconies on the lower level. Legion and I will take them out at the door while you two will catch the ones that get past us."
"Understood Shepard, moving to position," Garrus responded as he climbed down from his balcony. Thane deftly descended from his and they both made their ways to their positions.
Shepard double checked his omni-tool to make sure he still had full control of the security systems. Once he was sure he did and had double checked that all doors except the one to the elevator were locked, he drew his Widow and settled into his position.
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"Sir, we can't find it," Gunnery Officer Tam said in barely perceptible dismay. C-Sec had broadcast the alert that the council was under attack just five minutes ago. With it appeared a standing order to detain or destroy the SSV Normandy, yet the vessel was nowhere to be seen.
"What do you mean you can't find it?" Captain Doren cried from his spot in the CIC. The turian officer had begun to get agitated. His vessel was one of the few turian warships that had survived Saren's attack and he was beginning to see too many similarities. As such, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, as the humans say. His ship was currently inside the arms of the Citadel drifting toward the Citadel tower while the rest of the Citadel Fleet had taken position around the Relay.
In order to distract himself from the building tension in his gut he had devoted himself to finding the Normandy. "We have sensors for detecting the Normandy's level of stealth systems so why haven't we found it yet?" he asked forcefully.
"Sir, I don't know. The only explanation is that it's using newer stealth equipment," Officer Tam responded. He hadn't been aboard the ship when Saren attacked but his Captain's agitation was infectious.
"Well keep searching, we have to find that ship," Captain Doren said.
"Sir!" Officer Tam shouted.
"Yes, yes? Did you find it?" Doren's tense stomach marginally unclenched.
"No, inbound vessels! Spirits help us, there're thousands of them!" Officer Tam said, looking up from his console at the huge fleet that had just come in through the Relay.
"Battlestations, now! Turn the ship around and target the nearest vessel!" Doren said. He could see through the starboard windows of the CIC the unmistakable silhouettes of Geth warships. He could barely see the Relay through their numbers.
"Sir, systems unresponsive; I have no control!" Navigations Officer Garen said. Her voice remained level despite the implications.
"Ensign Fallarn, contact the fleet, I need to know how many have been hacked!" Doren shouted into the flurry of activity on the bridge.
The ensign fiddled furiously with his console for a moment before he slammed his fist into it and said, "No good Captain, mine's down too." He stared angrily at the screen.
"I want those systems retaken. I don't care how you do it just get this ship moving and get into contact with Command!" Doren yelled as he watched ship after ship enter Citadel airspace.
His crew furiously attempted to retake the systems through their consoles before they realized it was impossible. All input to them gave no result and they were forced to delve into the hardware and try and disconnect each system from the communications array in an effort to isolate them from the geth.
Captain Doren waited impatiently, watching the fleet of geth grow in number. Finally, he barked at his officers, "How long people? We need control now!"
"Sir, all systems are down. We're isolated, but they have subroutines in our computers that we can't purge without a complete system flash," Ensign Fallarn said in reply, half buried in the equipment of his terminal. "That would put the ship completely out of commission until we could reinstall all the control software, which we don't have."
After noticing the Captain's blank stare Fallarn said, "Translation, we're screwed. We can't get control back unless they give it to us." He picked himself out of his console and stood then sat heavily in his chair. All activity on the bridge and CIC stopped.
Captain Doren cursed softly under his breath at the situation. He knew his crew did their best and now it was up to whatever powers that be in the universe to decide whether they survived the Second Geth War, as he fatalistically dubbed it.
Eventually, the arrivals of Geth warships ceased with a fleet that dwarfed even the Quarian Flotilla, the once largest fleet in the galaxy at over 50,000 ships. Without responding systems he couldn't be sure of the exact number of ships that now orbited the Citadel.
Doren and his crew watched in silent horror as the enormous geth armada systematically destroyed the incapacitated Citadel Fleet. Human, asari, turian, and salarian vessels exploded before their eyes.
Doren couldn't help but think of the thousands of military servicemen and women that were losing their lives for no goddamn reason. He stood petrified in fury that was instantaneously doubled as he saw the Normandy uncloak directly in front of his window.
"God damn it! That frakking bastard!" Doren shouted at the top of his lungs. His ship was immobilized and completely helpless and Doren knew that at any second, one of the only ships to survive the first attack on the Citadel was going to be destroyed by its savior.
However the Normandy didn't turn to fire but instead moved alongside his ship, drifting toward the Citadel Tower. Doren looked out at the tower itself and saw through the window the illuminations of gunfire.
He then realized that Shepard's massacre was twofold; the destruction of helpless ships in space and the devastation of C-Sec at the top of the Citadel tower.
He could only imagine the scene inside as he watched the Normandy block his view and take position just outside the tower.
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Shepard fired again with his Widow, destroying the head of another C-Sec officer. He launched a plasma jet at another, torching her instantly. He watched with satisfaction as the fire spread onto a nearby officer and engulfed him as well.
He and his team had held their positions with little trouble. Their attacks were so successful that C-Sec had been forced to build a wall out of the corpses of their fellow servicemen in order to protect themselves and advance. The scene had become so filled with grotesque perversions of living beings that many of C-Sec's officers had simply taken refuge behind the corpses instead of advancing. The biotic tearing, explosive impacts, and plasma jets had turned the bodies into twisted and bloody masses of flesh, no longer recognizable as once being people.
Shepard had gotten word from the Normandy and he knew that it was almost time to leave. Over the radio he said, "Garrus, are the charges set?"
Quietly Garrus said, "Yes Shepard, ready to blow on your word."
"Normandy, is the shuttle in place?" Shepard asked. The channel he was using was so well encrypted that he could speak freely on an effectively open channel.
"Yes Shepard. Ready when you are," EDI said over the radio.
"Alright team, prepare to fall back," Shepard said. He put down his rifle and accessed his omni-tool to lock the elevator door. Once it was sealed he picked up his rifle and fired randomly at the other end of the tower to keep the C-Sec officers' heads down.
"Move out," Shepard said over his radio. He and Legion continued to fire at the end of the tower while Garrus and Thane climbed down from their balconies and proceeded toward the window at the top of the tower.
Once they were at the window, Legion packed up his Widow and joined them. Shepard took a moment to stare through the scope at the carnage he and his team had wrought. Satisfied, he got up and headed quickly toward the window. He took a great leap from the Master Control Platform to the other side and then turned to face the elevator.
He accessed his omni-tool again and unlocked the door to the elevator. He could just see the crowd of C-Sec officers stumble out and into cover. He waited until they noticed that he and his team were no longer at their positions before he signaled Garrus to detonate the explosives, shattering the glass outward.
Due to the nature of the Widow Nebula, there was no explosive decompression. Shepard waited and watched the other end of the tower as C-Sec officers advanced up the steps, firing at them while they ran.
Shepard directed his team to the window where the hulk of the Normandy sat waiting. They stepped out into space, with a councilor in each arm… and disappeared.
Shepard watched the approaching C-Sec officers stumble as they tried to comprehend what had happened to his team and just as they began running up the steps toward him, he stepped backwards out the window into the cloaked shuttle that awaited him.
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Captain Doren watched as the still visible Normandy silently made its way past the wreckage of his fellow vessels. As it passed, the geth ceased their destruction of the fleet, leaving only a third of it intact.
Doren didn't think about the final death toll; he didn't think about his friends in uniform floating in space. The only thing he could think about was the Council and their fate.
"Sir, systems back online," Ensign Fallarn said as he silenced the flood of communications that screamed from his speakers before the sounds of dying men drowned them in sorrow.
A deep emptiness in his stomach, Doren said quietly, "Good, contact the Citadel. I want to know whether Shepard took the council or not."