A/N: Although the timing is completely coincidental, it is particularly fitting nonetheless. So today's chapter goes out to the vets. War and violence are terrible, terrible things, so much worse when the monster on the field is another human being, whether it is your brother or sister from across the world, your friend-or what they've made of you. I've never gone to war myself. I hope I never have to. But I wanted to recognize those of you that do, those of you that might have been through something like Beth Shepard, so much worse because of a human's part in what you saw. Thank you. God Bless You. And I hope that, like Beth Shepard, you will eventually find your peace.

LMSharp

IV

Akuze

It wasn't because she was such a great soldier that Beth Shepard survived Akuze. It wasn't luck. She'd been awake because she'd been breaking regulation, just like she had been for the past eight months, and on mission, because she'd got the word that it was to be her last run with the 179. Ashton's promotion to first lieutenant hadn't changed much, but after Captain Wendell's commendation, she'd received her second promotion since joining the unit, and with her commission as a second lieutenant she'd received her own command, on another cruiser with another unit. She'd been scheduled to ship out in a week, when the São Paulo returned to station.

She'd found out the day before the mission to Akuze. She'd had to employ the old tricks to keep from breaking down after her meeting with Wendell, until late that night when she could safely sneak into Ashton's quarters. Not that she wasn't happy about the promotion. She was thrilled about the promotion. But she knew what it meant for her and Ashton.

"It's over, isn't it? There's no guarantee the Cairo'll berth and fuel here again. In fact, I think she's generally stationed halfway across the galaxy. Even with the mass relays, that's a lot of territory for the Alliance. We might never see each other again," she'd said.

Sean had held her and stroked her hair, but he hadn't been able to lie. "We could try," he managed weakly. "Holocalls, emails. We could coordinate our shore leave. Wouldn't even be breaking regs anymore."

She'd laughed, but it came out strangled through her tears. "How often do you call home, Sean? I haven't talked to Stace in years. Both of us are too focused on the job. The only reason this works is because we work so closely together."

He'd smiled sadly then, shaken his head. "I won't ask you to stay," he warned.

"I won't decline the posting," Beth had retorted. "It's a great opportunity."

"Think I don't know that? I've been pushing this for you for months. I don't know why the hell it took brass so long. You'll outrank me in two years, Beth. Kick all our asses."

"Damn right I will."

"I love you," Sean confessed, as if to a crime.

Beth had sighed, touched his face, and turned her mouth up to his. As he kissed her, she'd smiled against his lips and left her tears on his cheek. "I know. I love you, too. But you or me, it's not enough."

If he'd denied it, she would have despised him, but he didn't, and she loved him all the more for it. "I'm sorry," he said.

"So am I."

"As often as I can, before," she'd promised. "I'll be with you."

So even though Beth'd never compromised a mission before, never brought her relationship with Sean into the field, she'd done it that night, because the relationship was ending. She'd lain awake in the tent she shared with several other women in the unit, waiting until the stories and the speculation had stopped and every woman's breathing had deepened. Then, fully dressed, she'd slipped out of the cot and out of the tent, toward Sean's command tent.

She'd wanted all the more to see him that night because it was so damn creepy at Akuze. The streets empty, the houses unlocked and abandoned. It was like freaking Roanoke or something. Looking back on it later, Beth cursed herself a thousand times for not insisting they post a watch. Sean had said it was unnecessary. There had been no signs of violence. They'd determined to camp and search for more evidence as to what had happened to the colony in the morning. Beth, weary from a day's fruitless recon anyway, had not pressed the point. It'd been a bad job from the start, she thought later. If she'd done what she should, other people might have survived. She knew that if she'd done what she should, she might have died too. But she should have known. She should have been ready.

Just a five-second tremor: that was all the warning she'd had. Then the first thresher maw had erupted from the silent earth right in the middle of one of the men's tents. They weren't called that then, of course. The Alliance had had no word for the things, hadn't known about them or heard of them from the krogan yet. Not until after that night. A bunch of scientists with datapads and sick, eager, shining eyes had made Beth describe the monsters later to a sketch artist, asked her exactly what she'd seen, what the things had done and how they'd done it. She'd given them what they wanted. It wasn't like she'd ever be able to forget.

The mouth was the first thing she'd seen. The giant, slavering, working mouth, erupting one, three, ten meters into the air, roaring and spewing acid. The wicked mandible, three meters wide and dripping with that acid, and dozens of smaller, waving legs at each segment of the massive, armored body. Smaller. Each leg was the approximate size and sharpness of a harpoon.

The first creature had torn through the military-issue tent like tissue paper. The first screams had rent the night, horrible, despairing screams of brave, seasoned men looking straight into the jaws of a nightmare, into the gates of hell. The second monster had tunneled up between the camp and the vehicles, the heavy artillery. Then there was a third, and a fourth, and Beth was screaming into the radio she'd had fixed to her pants, diving into a tent and grabbing the first gun her fingers touched.

"This is Shepard! To me! To me! The camp is under attack! The camp is under attack! Grab a weapon, form a formation! We'll skirt the side to the heavy artille—"

Beth dived to her left as one of the worms, arcing back underground, sprang up again not two meters from her. She fired blindly, only to find her bullets repelled by the thing's natural armor. "This is Shepard! This is Shepard!" Her left finger cracked on the radio button, sending a jolt of pain up to her brain. It was unimportant. The ragged, high voice she yelled in was unrecognizable as her own. "On my six! Retreat! Retreat!" She pressed the button on the radio to call the shuttle. "Templeton! It's Shepard! Get your ass here! Now! We need air support, air lift, anything! Get us out!"

Beth jumped as the ground beneath her rumbled. She rolled, came up firing back behind her. Someone else had got a gun, now, and a flare went up red in the night. Beth could see the monster dark and huge in front of it, and in its jaws, Bonnie Evans. Cheerful, dimpled Bonnie, who had baked cookies for all fifty men in the unit last leave, just because. The jaws shut on her, and she snapped like a twig. Beth heard her bones crunch.

"Evans!"

That'd been Orwell. The camp was up now, running around in every direction, trying to escape the monsters. "Forget her!" Beth had shouted. "Orwell! To me! On my flank, and watch our back!" And into the radio again. "Templeton! Templeton! Come the hell in!"

The radio had finally crackled to life. "Chief? What the hell is going on?"

"Templeton! Giant things are attacking the—ahh!"

Beth had ducked and rolled to avoid a spray of acid. To the side, she saw it hit a serviceman square in the face. The viscous liquid attacked his face, ate away his skin in seconds, melted the muscle right down to the bone, and then corroded the bone black, too. There was just time for an inhuman cry to tear from his throat, for him to clutch at the face that wasn't there anymore before he fell like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and the thresher maw slid over his corpse toward Beth.

"Retreat! Orwell! To me!"

"Shepard?" Templeton had asked over the radio. Beth hadn't had time to answer him.

Firing another round with the pistol, Beth hit one multifaceted, bulging eye. Green blood had spurted out from the wound, spurting over her, hot and sticky, but so, so welcome, because now she knew the things were vulnerable. The monster had shrieked, reared, dove underground. "Aim for the eyes!" Beth had called to Orwell. Beneath her, the ground had shaken again. Beth had sprinted away instinctively, zigzagging as she went.

"Chief!" Ned Granger had recognized her voice and rallied with Orwell behind her. "Orwell! What are these things? What's the plan?" He clutched a shotgun in his hands, not his usual weapon. It had been the first thing he'd grabbed too.

"Stay with me and don't get killed! Try to get to the artille—"

One of the monsters had arced itself over the land vehicle. The heavy armor crunched like aluminum between its massive plates. A young man had had the same idea as Beth. He'd been by the wheel, trying to work the door open. He was too slow to escape being crushed to death with the vehicle. Beth recognized his scream. Chance Wright, all of nineteen years old.

Beth had fired another round as tears of fury and terror streamed from her eyes. She'd hit one leg at the joint, blown it off. Granger'd hit another. More green blood had spurted.

"Shepard! What's your status? Come in!" Templeton had begun to sound a fraction as panicked as everyone on the ground.

"The camp is overrun, the vehicle's destroyed. We're dying down here!" Beth had reported. Behind her, she'd seen the ground ripple. "Orwell, watch your . . ."

She'd leapt away from the giant mouth that erupted not a meter behind her. When she'd scrabbled to her feet and kept running, she'd found that only Granger continued behind her.

"I'm on my way, Chief," Templeton had said over the radio. "Tracking your signal . . ."

"Negative! Negative! It's too hot! Land away from here. I'll save who I can and come to you. Otherwise these things'll crush the shuttle like a nutcracker."

"Affirmative. Sending you a rendezvous," Templeton had said. Beth's omni-tool had beeped with the LZ point he'd mapped, four kilometers away.

Behind them, what had been the camp but was now a hill churning with the feasting monsters, was starting to fall silent. Gunfire came in less frequent bursts. The screams were dying, as the men were dying, and there were fewer to scream. Granger cried out as he stumbled over something.

"Chief!" he yelled at her.

Beth pointed her gun lamp at his feet and saw a dismembered arm, the hand skeletal and pitted from acid, but on the shoulder, a uniform's stripes were still visible. A lieutenant's stripes.

"Retreat," Beth had whispered, as one of the things, sensing live prey still near, had erupted from the earth. She'd fired instinctively, hit another eye. "Just run." On her omni-tool, she'd quickly typed a signal, beaming the LZ coordinates to any other survivors.

They'd run. They'd run and run and run. A kilometer from the camp, the sounds of churning earth, gunfire, and screaming had ceased echoing across the plain entirely, and Beth's stomach had turned to cold stone. "Chief . . ." Granger had panted.

"I know!"

"No . . . Chief . . ."

Beth had turned then, and in the gun's lamplight she'd seen blood, a lot of it, far, far, too much, leaking through a gaping rip in Granger's uniform.

Beth had gone for the pouch in her jumpsuit where she kept her medi-gel, only to realize she was in her fatigues. Her jumpsuit and all the medi-gel it contained was back at the camp, and Granger obviously didn't have any either.

"Thing's mandible caught me," he'd grit out. "When Orwell . . . think it might have skewered something important." He laughed raggedly.

"No. No. We're not losing you, Granger," she'd said. "Templeton—the shuttle'll have first aid. We've got to make it. Come on. Come on!"

She'd slung her arm around his body and continued toward the landing zone. At first he'd been able to help. But he'd grown weaker and weaker, and by the time they'd reached the LZ, she'd been carrying him. She'd laid him down on the hillside, undisturbed here, knelt by him, pressed her hands into the wound, trying to stanch the flow. But he'd lost too much already.

Beth remembered she'd begged, pleaded. "No, no. Too many people have died today, Granger. Too damn many. You stay with me, private. You stay with me, dammit! Please, please. Just a few minutes. There'll be medi-gel in the shuttle. We can get you to the ship and the med-bay for transfusions. You'll be fine. You'll be fine. Damn you, why didn't you dodge?"

"Tried," he'd laughed weakly. "Can't all have superpowers, Chief."

"You can. You do. Remember how you took off that thing's leg with me? And back on Uriel, when you, Evans, and Wright stole that glider right out from under the batarians' noses? Saved that man and his son. That was awesome! Come on, Granger, you can't . . ."

Granger had shaken his head, smile weary. Shepard had seen the bright, beautiful green eyes that had driven so many of the women and a few of the men on Arcturus Station mad dimming. "Wright. Poor kid. Orwell . . . Chief, do you think . . . anyone else made it?"

"You stay with me, and we'll both go see. We'll find them."

"Sorry about the lieutenant . . . sorry . . . Chief. Know you liked him. Good officer. Good man . . . Fletcher, from the 601. You gotta tell her. She was the only one . . . the only one that really mattered. Tell her. And my mom . . . back on Eden Prime. You gotta tell 'em, Chief . . . I . . ."

Beth remembered she'd gripped his shoulders so tightly he'd winced. "Tell them yourself, dammit! Don't you . . . Granger! Ned!"

"Could I . . . could I have some water?"

Beth had shaken her head, crying so hard her voice came out all broken and wobbly. "It's all back at camp, Ned. Everything's back at camp. Everyone . . . everyone . . . just . . . just a little longer, Ned. The shuttle'll be here soon. Ned? Ned!"

But his eyes had gone glassy and empty. Beth had shaken him, shouted at him, but he was gone.

Andy Templeton had landed the shuttle two minutes later and found Beth covered in green and red blood, clutching Ned Granger's corpse to her and shaking silently, staring back across the plain.

In the morning, they'd flown back over Akuze to search for survivors. The settlement was still standing, echoing with emptiness. But the place where the camp had been was a mulched mound of dirt, still wet and red with the blood of the marines that had died in the thresher maw attack. They found scraps of canvas from the tents, fragments of destroyed supplies, the crumpled land vehicle, crushed to a quarter of its size and beyond repair, and a few charred bits of bone the worms hadn't bothered to devour.

But there was not a single survivor from the attack.

No one.

Except Beth Shepard.