The Alliance Tower's primary courtroom was easily one of the biggest wastes of internal space Shepard could think of, barring the Council Chambers on the Citadel. At nearly fifteen meters wide and nearly twice as long, the committee chambers' designer had likely intended for its size and layout to intimidate whoever was seated opposite the presiding officers. There were three admirals present, just as there had been for months now, all of them seated behind a massive curved desk in front of a floor-to-ceiling window that had to be twenty meters tall.

Anderson led Shepard towards the center of the room, but where there was normally a defendant's and prosecutor's bench there was only empty space. With no alternative, the two of them stood side by side before the judge's bench.

Admiral Hawking, a thin woman with graying hair, leaned forward and pressed her hands together. "John Shepard," she began, "this committee has summoned you to deliver our final verdict on the charges leveled against you approximately six months ago." She made a show of opening a paper folder laying on the bench in front of her and examining the documents within for a moment before continuing. "After extensive investigation and analysis of the available facts, we have concluded that there is insufficient evidence to convict the accused of the charge of treason for their activities with the organization known as Cerberus. While it is true that Cerberus is responsible for the deaths of numerous Alliance and Council citizens, the defendant's actions during his affiliation with them did not result in any quantifiable breach of Alliance law, as was the case in Halsey v. Parliament in 2171."

She closed the folder and slid it away as Shepard let out a breath he'd forgotten he was holding. Hearing Anderson tell him he was clear was one thing; hearing it from the people who had the power to lock him away or have him executed was another.

Hawking opened a second file, and without bothering to pretend to read the contents said "Furthermore, it is the opinion of this committee that the defendant's actions in the so-called 'Aratoht Incident' do not meet the established definition of a war crime. While it is true that the defendant's confessed actions led to the deaths of approximately three hundred and five thousand batarian citizens, the recent events in the Batarian Hegemony and prior evidence of the Reapers' lack of ethics concerning unarmed citizens in war have forced us to conclude that the victims of the Aratoht Incident were a necessary loss in order to prevent a much larger tragedy from occurring."

She closed the second file and laced her fingers together as her eyes lifted to Shepard's. "Does the defendant have anything further they wish to add?"

"No, ma'am," Anderson answered.

Hawking nodded. "Very well. This brings us to our next outstanding issue."

Admiral Andreyovich, seated to her left, tapped a control on the bench. A holographic image of the Milky Way galaxy appeared in the air between Shepard and the committee. As he watched, a small point on the very edge of the galaxy expanded to reveal a solar system with five planets, an asteroid belt, and a mass relay. Bahak.

"Roughly six months and eight days ago," Andreyovich began, "the detonation of the Bahak mass relay resulted in the complete destruction of the solar system and all of its contents. Thanks to previous reports from Shepard," Andreyovich nodded in his direction, "and our own recon we now know that the Bahak relay would have been used by the Reapers as a jump-off point for the invasion of potentially every inhabited star system in the known galaxy. The loss of the relay has delayed this invasion significantly, but as the situation in batarian space proves has not stopped it."

The Bahak system shrank back to its scale size before winking out on the map. Red lines spread from Bahak to nearby systems, spiderwebbing throughout the Batarian Hegemony until nearly the entire region glowed blood-red.

"Approximately three days ago," Andreyovich continued, "contact with one of our listening posts on the edge of the Hegemony was lost. Several other remote outposts followed suit shortly after, all along the batarian border. In response, the bulk of the Alliance Navy has been recalled from various colonial patrols and assignments and redeployed to defend against an imminent Reaper invasion."

The Sol and Arcturus systems, less than a thousand light-years from the red disk engulfing the Hegemony, began to glow blue. "The Second, Third, and Fifth Fleets under Admiral Hackett have massed at Arcturus Station in preparation for any thrust towards Sol, with the First and Fourth in reserve near Pluto on our side of the Charon relay. The Sixth and Seventh have been ordered to take up advance positions at Terra Nova and Eden Prime, respectively, in order to gauge the strength of any invasion force before falling back to join the rest of the fleets at Arcturus."

Andreyovich tapped another key on the bench, and the galaxy map rose to allow Shepard a clear view of the admirals. "When the Reapers decide to hit us, we'll meet them with everything we've got."

Admiral Fletcher, seated opposite Andreyovich on the bench, nodded. "Which is where you come in, Shepard. You've had first-hand experience fighting the Reapers; their forces, their tactics, their capabilities. Out of any human in the galaxy, you've probably got the best idea of how they think. We'll need knowledge like that if we're going to win this." Fletcher exchanged glances with Hawking and Andreyovich before proceeding. "With that in mind, we've been granted the authority to reinstate your rank of Commander in the Systems Alliance Navy. You'll be placed on Admiral Hackett's personal staff as an advisor for the duration of this conflict to offer analysis and observations on the Reapers, until such a time as when the threat to human space has been eliminated."

Anderson nodded. "Thank you, Admirals." He gave Shepard a sidelong glance, his brow lifted in a silent query.

Shepard didn't hesitate. "Admirals, I accept."

Hawking leaned back in her seat. "Excel–"

"Sirs!"

Everyone in the room turned towards the bank of monitors on the left side of the chamber, where a lieutenant regarded her monitor with a look of concern on her face.

"What is it?" Anderson asked.

The officer looked up. "Something's wrong. I can't raise Arcturus Station for the hourly update."

"Admiral Hackett was delivering his report on the readiness of the Arcturus fleets just before you arrived," Fletcher explained to Shepard and Anderson.

"Lieutenant, it's probably an issue with the comm buoys," Hawking said irritably. "Reroute to one of the secondaries."

"With respect Admiral, I've already tried. No response from any of the backups."

Shepard's bad feeling intensified tenfold. There were dozens of military-grade comm satellites scattered throughout the space between Sol and Arcturus, with multiple redundancies. For every single one of them to have gone down at once…

"Contact the First," Andreyovich ordered, rising from his seat and moving around the bench. Anderson beat him to the lieutenant's terminal, so he halted by the edge of the desk. "Have them send a ship through the relay to see what the hell's going on with communications–"

"Sir," Anderson said grimly as he stared at the monitor, "the First is already gone."

The entire room was silent for a very, very long moment.

"What the hell are you talking about, David?" Fletcher asked.

Anderson glanced up, and the look in his eyes froze Shepard's spine. "We just lost contact with the moon."

Shepard closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "They're here."

Hawking shook her head. "Impossible," she said after a moment, although Shepard could hear a crack in her voice. "They couldn't be this close already. We would have had some sort of warning–"

"How the hell did they bypass our defenses?" Fletcher demanded.

Andreyovich had to shout over the other two in order for the comm officer to hear him. "Keep trying to raise Admiral Hackett, it's got to be an issue with the buoys–"

"Sir," Anderson urged. "Look."

The image of the Milky Way, still hovering above Shepard and the admirals, was replaced with a two-dimensional display from some sort of handheld holocam. It was shaky and blurry, with Chinese characters scrolling along the bottom too rapidly for Shepard's omnitool translator to kick in, but he had no trouble making out what it was showing.

A massive blue-black dreadnought, similar in appearance to vids Shepard had seen of Earth-native cephalopods, towered over central Hong Kong. Standing on five segmented joints almost like the fingers of a hand, with a half-dozen more protruding from its sides, its body tapered up into a spire that had to be nearly two kilometers tall. Bolts of red light emerged from the tips of its upper appendages to spear through skyscrapers and swat fleeing traffic out of the air. As Shepard watched, three more ships appeared from above the camera's field of view and touched down in the megacity.

The vid grew smaller before being joined by half a dozen more. London. New York. Moscow. Buenos Aires. Johannesburg. Los Angeles. All of them showed similar scenes.

Save for a few quiet sobs, nobody said anything as the carnage played out above their heads. It was Fletcher that finally broke the silence. "What…what do we do?"

Even if Cerberus' upgrades hadn't given him perfect hearing Shepard could have easily detected the fear in Fletcher's voice. Fear, he saw as he looked around the room to see that everyone's eyes were now on him, which was shared by everyone else. Only Anderson returned his look with a stony expression. He was afraid…but he'd known this day would come. The rest of them had only now woken up to that reality.

Before Shepard could offer anything in reply the entire structure of the Alliance Tower rumbled as a deep mechanical groaning noise, so low it set Shepard's teeth on edge, reverberated through the room. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and despite himself he felt his hand shake for a moment before he balled it into a fist.

Everyone turned towards the window at the end of the chamber just in time to see a shadow fall over the four hundred meter building.

"Oh my god…" Andreyovich murmured as familiar segmented appendage descended into view.

"Get away from the window!" Shepard shouted, backing away. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Anderson urging the other officers out of their seats and towards the door. "Move!"

A brilliant red beam of light emerged from the dreadnought and stabbed down at the base of the Alliance Tower. The window shattered inward as the pressure wave hit a split second later, sending shrapnel through the admirals and hurling the massive bench through the air along with their bodies.

Shepard tackled Anderson at the waist and carried the older man to the ground just before the desk would have flattened them both; it flew over their heads and smashed into the chamber doors, disintegrating on impact.

As the dust settled, Shepard looked up at Anderson. "You all right?"

Anderson coughed and lifted himself up on one elbow. "Fine…I think."

The two of them stood shakily and surveyed the chamber. In mere moments the room had been totally ruined; small fires nibbled at the walls and ceiling, monitors smoked and sparked, and bodies lay everywhere.

Without saying anything Shepard and Anderson moved from person to person, checking for survivors. Their injuries were grisly; the technicians and officers who hadn't risen from their seats had been electrocuted when their terminals had overloaded. Those that had followed Anderson's orders and moved towards the doors had been even less fortunate; at least three Alliance officers had been cut down by flying glass shrapnel, and another had been crushed beneath the flying bench meters from the door. The admirals had been hurled across the room by the blast and slammed into the walls like ragdolls.

Shepard glanced up at Anderson from across the room. His mentor shook his head slowly, his mouth pressed into a firm line.

Shepard let out a slow sigh and closed his eyes. How many times, he tasked himself, have others around me died while I lived?

He'd lost count.

He felt a slap on the shoulder and looked up to see Anderson standing over him. In either hand he held marine sidearms, likely taken from the bodies of the guards. He offered the butt of one to Shepard. "Get up."

Shepard met his eyes for a moment before looking out at Vancouver. With the window gone he could hear the cacophony of destruction outside; the clatter of mass accelerator fire, shrieking of starfighter engines, and the distinctive hum of Reaper weaponry. The first dreadnought to land had been joined by at least five others, all of them towering hundreds of meters above the tallest skyscrapers as they carved slow but methodical paths of destruction wherever they went.

A memory from the Prothean ruins on Ilos–he knew it had barely been three years ago, but it felt like millennia–flickered through his mind: a damaged recording of their last moments as a civilization, before the Reapers had snuffed them out. "All is lost…cannot be stopped…cannot be stopped!"

At the time, he'd been too focused on preventing Saren and Sovereign from bringing about the invasion. Failure of that magnitude hadn't been comprehendible then…but faced with the sheer scale of the Reapers' power now, it was.

Shepard's hand slapped over the grip of the gun as Anderson tugged him to his feet. "Where to?"