***Author's Note***
Hello again! It's fantastic to be back to writing Fire in the Stars, and
I've been really moved by the numbers of PMs I've gotten since being
able to start back up. For FitS, I'm going to break apart chapters a little
more than I have been in my other pieces, so instead of 8-9 thousand word
chapters, but 30-35 of them, we'll be looking at 4-5 thousand word entries
and expecting somewhere on the order of 50-60 chapters before this bad boy
is all said and done. Like I said in my update, I had to step away for awhile due
to work, so I've been re-reading my own work and retracing my notes just to
make sure I'm not contradicting myself. If you see that happening, feel free to
point it out, but I think we should be good. :)

Thanks for all of your kind words
and, most importantly, for joining me again on this wild ride. Enjoy!

Chapter 2: Change of Plan

***EDIT***
Bearmauls made an excellent point about a discharge feeling a bit rushed in this sense, so I've edited the wording to more accurately reflect what I suppose would have happened. Just a couple of sentences, and shouldn't affect the overall plot. Thanks for the information, buddy!

The hallway bustled with blue-clad personnel, rushing this way or that, some faster than others but all moving quickly. Occasionally one of them would realize who they were scurrying past and snap of a quick salute or a muffled "Sir!", but for the most part they kept their heads down, looking at datapads or speaking on comm channels. It was a certain controlled chaos, the kind of which John was more than used to as a result of his many years in service to the Alliance. He'd had a long career, one he was proud of, and one that seemed to be in danger of ending all too soon.

"Shepard? Are you listening?" Anderson's deep voice cut through John's internal train of thought, snapping him back to the present.

"Yes, sorry sir," he mumbled. Anderson continued looking at him for a moment, then stopped, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I know it looks bad, son. But you've got me, and you've got Hackett; we won't let you go down without a fight. Whatever the disciplinary board says, you're not sitting this fight out when the Reapers show up."

John nodded sharply. "Understood, sir."

Anderson slapped his shoulder. "Good." They continued walking up the corridor, and stepped into a lift that would race them up to the top floor of the Alliance HQ building, where John's hearing would take place. "Our comms team has been trying to get in touch with the hegemony leadership for almost two weeks now, hence your long stay. Their ambassador isn't revealing why, so we're pretty sure it's a power play."

"You think they're taking a silent treatment approach until they get what they want from this hearing?" John asked as the lift doors closed and their car lurched to life up the shaft. He stared out the glass enclosure, over the rapidly-descending megacity skyline, still worrying despite Anderson's encouraging words. The man had fought for him since he'd taken the XO position on the SR-1, and he appreciated it more than he'd ever be able to say, but the only person who could truly calm his nerves at this point was floors below, in a waiting area with Kaidan and Vega. Outside spectators had been barred from attending his hearing, which meant it would either be very short, or very classified. Likely both.

"That's the official interpretation," Anderson replied.

"And the unofficial one?" John probed.

"I don't like it," Anderson replied. "The batarian ambassador has been hostile, as expected, but he seems almost as troubled by the lack of communication from the hegemony as we are. I've got a feeling something bad has happened on Khar'shan."

"Reapers?"

"Could be, but I'm not sure."

John stared out the enclosure again as the lift began to slow. "We're not ready. Not by a long shot. If Bahak only gave us five weeks, they're on the warpath."

"Then let's get this taken care of fast so we can get you back out in the black," Anderson replied, as the lift doors opened. A short hallway brought them to the entrance of the disciplinary board's chambers, an Alliance marine flanking each side of the double-doors. They saulted as Anderson and Shepard approached, and the two men passed through the doors, stepping into a large cicular room. On a raised dais on the far curve, backdropped by large glass windows looking out onto the city below, sat the seven members of the board. They were joined at the far left end by the batarian ambassador, whose eyes ignited when they met John's. He held the alien's hateful stare, owning it, accepting it, before standing at parade rest behind the rectangular table that had been placed in the center of the room for them.

"Commander Shepard," came Hackett's voice from the far right of the board, "we appreciate you taking the time to meet with us today, and for remanding yourself into our custody for the past five weeks. It's longer that we planned for you to remain there."

"Yes," Admiral Dravos chimed in from somewhere near the middle. Her graying hair was pulled into a tight bun behind her head, and the implications that the small lines in her countenance gave off were quickly negated by her sharp, green eyes. "Your patience with the process has been noted and is commendable, Commander."

John nodded. "I respect the judgment of the disciplinary board, and am glad to assist their inquiry however I am able."

"Then perhaps you can assist me in understanding what happened to three hundred thousand of my people in the Bahak system, Commander." The ambassador's words were ice cold, and he laced John's rank with enough venom to be palpable.

"Ambassador Ji'kahn is blunt, but understandably so," General Gairen said, softening the blow a bit. "Still, that is the purpose of this inquiry, Shepard. The destruction of the Bahak system is common knowledge by now, and the batarians claim you are responsible."

"It's more than a claim, general," Ji'kahn continued, his gaze never wavering from John's. "We have a fragmented audio file warning the colonists in-system about a pending explosion, which our researchers attest is a ninety-six percent match to the Commander's voice. We have comm buoys registering message between the research station and an unknown ship, on channels the Alliance have told us time and time again are for 'special operations'. And I've recently been told that your people may have archival security footage from inside the research station. Tell me, Commander, does that sound like a claim, or an open-and-shut case to you?" The room was silent for a long moment as the two men stared at each other. Hackett broke the silence.

"Yes, we have acquired video footage from inside the base, showing firefights between Shepard and Alliance personnel. Based on what my team has seen, we're under the presumption that the research center went rogue, possibly due to the types of artifacts they were housing within thei-"

"Christ, not this again," Dravos cut in. "Ancient alien artifacts, Reapers, mind control? Do you hear what you're saying, Hackett? You're supposed to be one of the more level-headed ones on this panel, and you're willing to chalk all of this up to mysticism?"

"What other reason would these Alliance soldiers have for assaulting, detaining, and incapacitating a ranking officer aboard the station, then firing on him when he recovers and tries to escape?"

"Self-preservation, perhaps?" She shot back. "All we've seen in these tapes is a research center full of Alliance personnel, who start getting gunned down by the Commander, who then accesses the navigation controls for the station, and we all know what happens from there. You just assume Shepard was in the right on this, when all evidence points to the contrary."

Hackett shook his head sharply. "That's a fairly large assumption to make, Admiral. Shepard was in the Bahak system on an extraction run for doctor Kenson."

"The same doctor Kenson he fatally wounded in the navigation center?" Admiral Rhen added.

"Yes," Hackett replied, "we can only assume she was with the rogue Alliance personnel as well, seeing the capture of the Commander as a way to weaken our forces before the Re-"

"Or we could all arrive at the logical conclusion," Dravos retorted, "and realize that the Commander, for whatever reason, commandeered an Alliance research center, crashed it into a mass relay, and killed hundreds of thousands of innocents as a result."

"This is ridiculous," Anderson cut in through the din of murmurs that followed her statement. "Shepard has proven time and again that he has the best interests of not just humanity, but all species, in mind."

"Yes," General Gairen added, "The Commander has been forced to go above and beyond for the causes of all species, on many occasions. But good deeds, however meaningful, cannot excuse what it blatant before us."

"Whatever the reasoning behind his actions," Dravos said, "we're dancing around the key issue we're here to discuss. Commander," her eyes bored into his as she spoke, "did you or did you not set the Alliance research base on a collision course with the Bahak system mass relay?" Silence fell for the first time in minutes, and John swept his gaze across the disciplinary board. Somber faces and leering eyes met his, and the batarian ambassador wore a smug face of finality.

"I'm...I'm sorry, Shepard," Anderson whispered beside him. John simply nodded, finally meeting Dravos's face once more.

"I did, sir."

"Koret'nash mik rhen satshe!" Ji'kahn burst out, standing from his seat and pointing down at John. "The hegemony demands immediate custody of this man for punishment!"

"Absolutely not," Gairen replied, before Dravos had a chance to speak again. "The Alliance has never, and will never, give its people away to foreign powers for incarceration. The hegemony will have to understand." Ji'kahn seemed ready to explode with anger, but eventually subsided under Gairen's stern glare. Once he was certain the batarian would not interrupt, he returned his gaze to John. "John Shepard, in light of the evidence provided, and of your own testimony, this disciplinary board finds sufficient reason to press formal charges against you for the destruction of the Bahak system mass relay, and the deaths of over three hundred thousand batarian non-combatants. You are hereby removed from active duty, stripped of any effective rank, and are ordered to be remanded to a secure location until a military tribunal can pursue formal inquiry and requisite action."

"This meeting is adjourned," Dravos said, and the heads of the military stood, beginning to leave.

The words hit John's chest like a rifle round, and time seemed to slow as he struggled to remain standing. He had known coming in that this was one possible outcome of his hearing, but for it to actually happen. The two guards who stepped up on either side of him went almost unregistered in his mind, and he seemed to float on a cloud of disbelief as they led him out of the hearing room and away from the lift that would take him, should take him, back down to the apartment he shared with Tali. They marched him through corridor after corridor, and at one point he could have sworn Anderson had approached him, told him he would take care of things, find a way to get him released. Nothing registered at the moment. The organization he'd given his life for over and over again had just disowned him, for buying them the very time they'd needed to do so.

Eventually John's journey ended in the detention block, where the two guards walked him into a cell, stood at post outside, and slammed the door. John shook his head slowly, trying to clear away the disbelief and confusion, then closed his eyes and tilted his head back to rest against the concrete wall of his cell. He stared up into the flat, featureless ceiling, wondering again if it had all been worth it. What good had stalling the Reapers been if he wouldn't be on the front lines fighting them. And Tali...he pushed the thought from his mind. He couldn't do that to himself right now, he needed to think clearly. He squeezed his eyes shut to think, and slowly but surely, the weight of the situation took its toll, pushing him further and further away from consciousness until he stopped thinking altogether, and let the blackness claim him.

"It's done," the woman's voice replied from the other end of the line. "Shepard's been burned as far as the military is concerned, and is in a holding cell awaiting charges. With the way things are looking, he won't be coming out of it any time soon."

"Well done, we appreciate your cooperation, Amelia."

"Stow the fake courtesy. Where are my husband and daughter, you monster?" For all the steel it could muster, James Kashon heard no small amount of fear in Admiral Dravos's voice. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly in a smile at the thought of the power he held over her. But, he thought, in the coming days he would need allies like her; allies with power, and who knew that he could get to the things they cherished if he needed to.

"Now Admiral," he said in the most sickeningly sweet voice he could muster. "We had an arrangement, of which I fully intend to hold up my end. This doesn't have to become personal."

"What part of 'not making things personal' does kidnapping my family fall under?" She spat back at him. Kashon shook his head.

"I needed collateral, nothing more," he replied calmly. He reached down to tap at his omni-tool, then stared at it for a moment until he received the confirmation signal he required. Only then did he return his attention to the admiral. "Now, we could sit here and argue intentions and semantics all day, but I believe you've got an important dinner to get to with your family, isn't that right? Girard's, on 9th and Park? I believe you mentioned you had an eight o'clock reservation."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment. "I suppose I do."

"I hear it's an excellent establishment," Kashon continued, standing from his chair and walking to the edge of the room. "And don't worry about the bill, it's already been taken care of. Just remember, admiral," he paused for effect, smiling as he did. The theatricality of his persona was never lost on him. "I'm always watching." With a single tap on his omni-tool, Kashon severed the comm link and scrambled the transmission frequencies. The admiral had been easy enough to leverage once her weak point had been found, but he took every precaution regardless. People became brave when they were angry; brave and stupid.

Kashon paced back and forth in front of the large viewport his personal office used as a rear wall while he checked his various projects on his omni-tool. Troops were mobilizing on his objectives, and many more were undergoing conversion therapy. Brutall, yes, but to defeat the Reapers his forces would have to use every advantage the enemy did. What his men and women now lacked in free will, they gained tenfold in coordination, speed, accuracy, and willingness to die for the cause. Loyalty without question was no longer desired, it was a given. In just under two months, Kashon had turned Cerberus from the lame dog it had been under the Illusive Man's rule into the three-headed attack beast he had known it was destined to be. However, he had decided to keep the name, he recalled with a smirk. As he flipped through the datapad, a priority comm burst came through, and his smirk grew into a full smile as he read it.

"Good, now we can begin."

"Ka laiath'al!" Liara whispered harshly, jamming the thermal clip magazine into the base of her heavy pistol. The weapon was hot in her hands from hard use, and sweat trickled down the side of her face. She shrugged a shoulder up to wipe it away as she slowly peered over the edge of the ventilation grate to assess the situation below. A single Cerberus operative, heavily clad and carrying a shield the size of a hovercar door, stood sweeping the med bay below her. Quietly, she aimed her pistol through the slats in the vent covering, regulating her breathing. Her finger began to slowly squeeze on the trigger.

"Team six, do you copy?" the voice called out directly below her, and she snapped her weapon back, barely stifling a gasp of surprise. A moment later, three more Cerberus soldiers joined the first one, and she silently thanked the Goddess for her patience. She would have been hard-pressed to win a fight against all four of them, and she shuddered to think what they'd have done to her if they-

"NO! No, please! I-I'm just a res-ugh!" The cries brought her attention back to the men below. The first soldier she'd seen was laughing cruelly as he drug a salarian out from underneath a workbench, twisting his arm as he went. The salarian's cries were abruptly cut off by the soldier's swift kick to the alien's stomach, and he now lay doubled over on the floor, clutching the wounded area and moaning.

"Looks like you owe me ten credits," one of the new soldiers said to the first. "Told you we'd find something in here."

The first soldier returned the other's gaze, the blazing yellow eyes of his helmet seeming to sear a hole through him, before raising his metal-clad boot over the salarian's head. The creature tried to scream, tried to beg, but before he could make a sound, the soldier slammed down with all of his might, earning a sickening crunch for his efforts. He continued to stare at the other soldier for a moment, then spoke. "I didn't find anything in here. Certainly nothing worth ten credits." He then turned and left, and the other two soldiers laughed as they followed him. The third stayed for a moment, staring down at the salarian, then turned to follow as well.

As soon as they'd left, Liara heaved a sigh of relief, fear, and trauma. All of her emotions rolled together and boiled beneath her skin. Originally she had thought to access the Prothean archives, to stop Cerberus in their tracks, but that had also been Dr. Green's first destination, and Cerberus had been with her. Green, she burned with rage to have been outplayed so easily. Now, instead of saving the precious Prothean data, she had been spending hours moving around the ventilation systems. Soon in she'd had to use a biotic barrier between herself and the floor of the ventilation shaft so as to avoid making noise when she moved, and the constant upkeep was taking its toll.

She moved forward again, past the poor salarian below, and after a few minutes came upon her destination. The communications center had been the biggest target for the Cerberus strike teams when they'd arrived, and the chance of calling for help had quickly dropped to zero. Now, however, only three Cerberus solider stood guard over the consoles. Liara knew her only hope of getting out of this alive was to re-establish a connection, and send a message burst for help. She checked her pistol, slowly let the biotic field beneath her dissipate, took a deep breath, and kicked out the grate below her to drop into the room below, the familiar purple corona of energy already flaring to life around her. Her pistol sang out as she ripped away one soldier's weapon while locking the other in a stasis field. The third tried to riddle her with bullets, but she danced backwards, backflipping at the end and pulling one of the other soldiers into his teammate's line of fire with her biotics. The body was perforated, blood staining her jacket as she shoved his corpse away. She was just in time to dodge the second hail of gunfire, and respond by ripping a traffic scanning terminal out of the wall and slamming it into her attacker.

She ensured all three targets were dead, then crossed to the nearest comm terminal. The moment she lifted the lockdown, she prepared her red flag beacon, but it was overwritten when a priority message came through on the official Alliance channels. She read it three times, though she knew she only had to see it once to know the implications.

"By the Goddess..." she whispered.

John heard the alarm klaxons throughout the base before the loud voices or the pounding on the door, but it was the entire building shaking that jarred him from sleep. For a split second, he'd been walking through a field of wheat at sunset, the radiant reds, oranges, and dulled purples of their star pouring over the field as it swayed in the breeze. Somewhere over his shoulder, he could hear his brother calling out for him...

John's eyes snapped open, and he leaned forward, rubbing his neck, though he stopped when he heard the familiar voice beyond the locked door.

"I'm sorry, sir, but without direct authorization from the presiding members of the Disciplinary Council, I'm unable t-"

"Let me tell you what you're unable to do, sergeant." David Anderson's voice was harsh, authoritative, and...scared?...all at once. "You're unable to eat, sleep, or shit without my say-so. You're unable to call the shots on a recon op, or even be part of a recon op, unless I OK it first. And in a few seconds, sergeant, you're going to be unable to eat without a straw, if you don't open this goddamned door."

"We have our orders, sir," the sergeant replied, and John cringed, waiting for what would happen next. "Not even an attack on the building couls sto-ugh!" John nodded to himself as the sounds of punches and scuffling cut off the rest of the sergeant's sentence, and a moment later the door locks retreated, the heavy door swinging inward and opening up to the hall beyond.

"Shepard," Anderson called to him, a trickle of blood making its way from the corner of his mouth down to his chin. "You look like you just woke up, you alright?"

"I did just wake up," John replied, reaching down to take the sergeant's pistol and tucking it behind the waistband of his slacks. "Thanks for the daring rescue. We gonna run from the Alliance like we ran from the Council?"

Anderson motioned for John to follow him, rushing down the corridor, his pistol in hand. "I'm hoping that by the time anyone notices what we're doing here, no one will care anymore."

"What do you m-" the building shook again, and John lost his footing, skidding out into a corridor. He leaped to his feet, before being stunned at the sight out of the plate glass window. He could see six of them, descending on the city, destroying buildings and razing entire blocks to ash with their cannons. "When..." was all he could mouth, before Anderson clamped a hand on his shoulder.

"This way, come on!" The building shook again, jarring John back to the here and now, and he took a firmer grip on his pistol and followed the man through corridors of wrent steel and explosive fires. "Two hours ago," Anderson called out over his shoulder, "a priority comm went out across all channels. Thousands of batarian refugees showed up on the Citadel's doorstep, all seeking asylum. And all describing a Reaper attack."

"God damn it," John whispered. "And once they had control of the batarian home system..."

"They had the mass relay you denied them," Anderson finished for him. "The reports have been coming in, they're fanning out, getting the war started in earnest. But they know their enemy, Shepard. And they know what's important to him." He paused for a moment, grunting as he pushed a heavy steel beam out of the way. He turned back to John. "They hit Earth first, stormed through the relay like demons out of hell. Hackett and the fleet tried to hold them off, hell they're still fighting up there, but it's a losing battle."

"Then we need to get help from the other species, from the Council, anyone who will listen."

"Agreed," Anderson added. "That's why Kaiden, Vega, and Tali are getting the Normandy and meeting us up ahead at a rendezvous point. We'll get you to the Cit-ah!" The door Anderson had been trying to open suddenly snapped wide apart, allowing a group of husks to charge forward in attack. John swept his pistol over the field, picking off targets as they moved forward. Anderson added his own bullets to the assault, and they moved past their fallen enemies, into a stairwell that wound ever downwards, eventually opening out onto an outdoor landing. They crossed a rooftop garden to a second adjoining building, then slipped down the access ladders to cross into what had been a memorial park for those lost at Shan'xi. What was once a place of happiness and quiet had, in an instant, become engulfed in flames and ruin. Fires burned wildly throughout the once-beautiful foliage, and the earth was rent asunder, a large crater giving testament to the passing of a Reaper directly through the park not long before. John looked out on the chaos, his mouth agape.

"We...we should have been more prepared..." he said, half to himself.

"You did everything you could, Shepard," Anderson replied. "We both knew this fight was going to be messy. Against things like the Reapers...there's no way to win clean. Shepard," the other man grabbed his shoulders, turning him to face him. "Take the Normandy, get help for Earth. The galaxy thinks you're the only person who can stop the Reapers, prove them right." As he finished, the Normandy slid tightly around the edge of the Alliance headquarters, banking sharply and coming to a hover above the burning fields just ahead of them. The boarding ramp descended, with Tali, Kaidan, and Vega descending, weapons-drawn.

"What about you?" John yelled over the engines. "You're the Councilor for humanity, I need your support with the others." Anderson shook his head.

"My place is here, Shepard. Earth needs us, Hackett and I, coordinating the resistance movement. Take the Normandy, get Earth the help she needs, no matter the cost, and we'll make sure there's still an Earth to come back to." John stared across at the other man, at a loss for words.

"Sir, I don't-"

"You're ready for this, Shepard," Anderson said, his tone stern, but his face reassuring. "Be the hero. Save the galaxy; just one more time."

"Hombre, it's now or never!" Vega called out, raining gunfire down on an approaching pack of husks. John watched the monstrosities fall in the hail of bullets, then turned back to Anderson, nodding before making his way for the ramp.

He leaped up onto it, taking hold of Tali's hand for support, and as the Normandy began to lift off, he watched as Anderson took off through the burning park, towards an Alliance shuttle that had just touched down to retrieve him. The boarding ramp closed with a resounding thud, obscuring his vision of the ground below, and for a moment the only sound was his own voice, and the reloading of weapons from his squad. He let the silence linger, and in the darkness of the now-sealed bay, he felt her hand on his shoulder, squeezing in reassurance.

"We're breaking atmosphere now, Commander," Joker's voice came over the comm systems. "Where are we heading?"

John took a deep, quiet breath. Everything that had happened since he'd encountered the beacon on Eden Prime had led him here, to this moment, and the war against extinction that had just begun. He let it go, letting Commander Shepard take over, putting on his battle-hardened mindset once more.

"Get us to the Citadel," he called as he turned to walk across the cargo bay and towards the lift. "Earth's going to need all the help it can get; we may as well start at the top."