Zaeed whistled, a grating sound through his faceplate. "I've seen a bloody lot of colony raids, but nothing ever like this. Guess an old man can still get surprised."
Jack scowled under her own helmet. Horizon was oppressively hot, muggy air wrapped around her like a damp blanket, the sun beating down on their heads and the blocks of prefab buildings. She could feel the prickle of sweat under her armour. Mordin's countermeasure was a dark block jutting from her hip. The salarian had said it should confuse the bugs - well, he'd gotten damned deep into an overly complex explanation of how it should work until Shepard had cut him off and told him to use smaller words. That was the bottom line; up to a certain density, his devices would convince the swarms there was nothing worth stinging around.
Jack was more relieved than she'd admit that they'd had no problems so far. Even if it only affected humans, three out of their team were human, and she didn't trust that Vakarian wouldn't just grab Shepard and leave the rest of them for the Collectors.
Fucking Shepard. She'd called this hardsuit 'light,' but it still dragged at Jack's shoulders with its weight. She'd survived this long by doing things her own way - she didn't need Queen of the Girl Scouts telling her how to fight.
"It's certainly something," Shepard's voice was flat, cradling the squat form of her M12 carbine close to her body. She didn't stop, stepping over the shattered carapace of a Collector with her silent turian shadow on her heels.
When Shepard had savagely smashed the bug into the ground, ripping it apart in a flash of violent light, Jack had thought for the first time that maybe they had something in common after all. But that was exactly why Jack didn't trust her.
Shepard had that anger in her - that rage that led you to smash and rip and tear your way through the galaxy - but she hid it. She pretended she was 'better.' They'd see about that.
"We should keep moving," Vakarian said evenly, his voice hissing through his helmet. "That won't be the last of them."
Shepard nodded - and waved for Jack to take point. Hell yeah. Maybe she'd get to splatter some more of the creepy husk shits.
The entire colony was unnaturally silent, so silent she could hear her own breathing inside her helmet as she took some stairs two at a time. The sort of quiet that crawled its way under your skin. Raids weren't supposed to be like this. They were loud and chaotic and bloody, with all the desperate energy of animals fighting for survival. That was all anyone was in the end - an animal.
But the Collectors were as quiet and mechanical as machines even when they fought, and she shivered despite herself as she passed a colonist. He was frozen in the middle of running, his face stuck in a grimace of horror, and his eyes - wide and bloodshot - followed her.
Shepard said nothing about helping him or any of the others they passed.
Hazy, orange sunlight glanced off chitin. Jack took cover on the walkway above a grassy square, staring at one of the bugs through the sight of her gun. Her trigger finger itched. She heard the heavy tread of armoured boots on metal as the others found their own hiding spots.
There were a good ten Collectors below, moving with that same machine-like precision. They'd gathered twenty or so frozen colonists and were methodically loading them into cocoon-like pods. The whole thing was almost mundane, like a dockworker stacking crates.
Jack waited, stock against her shoulder. The Locust still felt alien in her hands. She could feel the prickle all over her body - biotic power just waiting to be let off the leash.
The air shattered with the crack of Vakarian's rifle beginning the ambush. The head of a Collector exploded in a splatter of black ichor and broken chitin, the body slumping unceremoniously against the pod it'd just sealed.
Now we're talking. Jack didn't like all this sneaking around anyway. She jerked on the trigger, the Locust spitting a steady stream of rounds at a knot of bugs, punctuated by the snap of Zaeed's Mattock or Garrus' sniper rifle. She felt the twisting sensation of the gravity field bending when Shepard lashed out with a biotic field, ripping a Collector out from behind one of those hexagonal shields.
Jack bared her teeth in a snarling smile and struck it with an opposing field. The air shuddered with the resulting biotic detonation, bits of Collector raining down and splattering the frozen colonists.
The Collectors fought with a chittering that set Jack on edge - but there was no real reaction to their comrades falling around them. No anger, no grief, no fear. Like machines.
"I am assuming direct control."
The voice was deep and reverberating, ringing in Jack's ears. One of the Collectors rose into the sky, arms spread out in some grotesque mockery of a crucifixion. The dull yellow of its eyes was stoked to a fire - hell, it seemed like the entire creature was burning from the inside out.
"The shit," Shepard said calmly, ducking as the orange lance of a particle beam raked above them, cutting through the metal wall of a prefab like it was butter.
"Talking bugs!" Garrus called in between shots. "Now I really have seen it all!"
"Shepard."
The talking Collector seemed thoroughly fixated on the Commander. Jack felt the biotic attack in the moment before it came; a writhing mass of black energy unlike any biotic field she'd ever seen before erupting from its outstretched hand.
It careened right for the Commander - struck her right in the chest and slammed her into the wall behind her, the glow of her own biotics shorting out.
"Shepard!" Garrus shouted.
"Shoot first, worry later!" Zaeed roared back over the cacophony, firing point blank at an encroaching Collector.
Shepard struggled to her knees, scrabbling for her Locust as the possessed Collector alighted above her. Jack found her shotgun and fired it at the creature's back. The blast peeled away layers of chitin and flesh, revealing what had to be circuitry. It kept going, raising a glowing hand.
The air shook with a thunderclap, and with a flash of light Shepard was gone - instead slamming into one of the few other Collectors left alive, her fist lashing out with a flare of biotic energy and crushing its skull. Without pause she pivoted, swinging out in another vicious mnemonic.
A crate smacked into the Collector's side, staggering it, and then Shepard was advancing, shotgun in hand now. It boomed once, then twice. Serrated metal wedges shattered through the back of its head.
For a moment the Collector stood there, headless, and then it began to crumble into ash.
And then there was silence.
"Shepard," Garrus began.
"I'm fine," she said roughly. "Don't bloody fuss."
Jack snorted inelegantly. The entire front of Shepard's armour had spiderweb cracks through it like the ceramic was one wrong breath away from crumbling away completely. No one was 'fine' after being hit with that strong of a warp field.
Shepard glared at her, breathing raggedly. She clenched her hands, unclenched them, all barely restrained energy. "My armour took most of it, and we've got a colony to save."
She didn't wait for them - simply started moving deeper into the colony, still so very confident that they'd follow. After a moment Jack shrugged, slammed a new heatsink into her shotgun and did just that.
Sweat dripped down Jacob's face, and he wished he could wipe it away, but his visor was in the way. Given that taking his helmet off for a bit of relief was probably one of the stupider things he could do, the only thing to do was endure.
He knelt, resting his rifle against the hood of a family skycar, listening to the unnatural silence and trying not to look at the husks they'd just cut down. It'd been easy, but a shudder of revulsion still worked its way down his spine at the sight of them.
Jacob had grown up on Earth but spent most of his career on the colonies. The one that would always stay with him, carved right into his bones, was Eden Prime.
His platoon in the 1/12th had lost three Marines before the battalion commander had consolidated his defences just outside the city. For what felt like months later he had still heard the deep, bassy roar of the Makos firing over their hastily dug fighting positions when he slept.
There'd been a skycar there too -some soccer mom's practical van, painted a bright white colour that had stuck in his memories. They'd used one of the IFVs to drag it across the road as a makeshift barricade. Fifteen minutes before a geth round had caught her right in the face, Corporal Janssen had made a joke wondering about how you explained that to your insurance company.
That hadn't been the worst of it. Hell, the first few waves of husks hadn't even been the worst of it, even when the street in front of him had been three bodies thick with them. It was when the geth had marched out a handful of civvies and poor bastards from the 2/12 and started putting them on those fucking spikes right in front of them.
Again and again - and Jacob's Marines had begged for him to let them help them, but he couldn't. If they moved, they'd get mowed down or captured too.
Again and again, until the platoon marksman had lost his shit and started shooting the prisoners. The First Sergeant had wrestled his rifle off him. Last Jacob had heard Ricci had been run out of the Corps with a quiet Cat Six. A lot of the 1/12th had left the SAMC. The ones that had lived, at least.
"Jacob?" Miranda's voice was jarring - and impatient.
He blinked. His heart was thundering in his chest. "Yeah?"
Her blue eyes searched his for a moment and then she looked away. "Keep alert. The Collectors will want to stop Shepard once they realise what we're doing."
"Aye aye," he said automatically, even though he hadn't been a Marine for two years. Old habits died hard.
Shepard had ordered them to hold this intersection leading towards the planetary defence battery in the hopes that they could hold off at least some of the Collectors' forces.
Unwillingly, his eyes were dragged back to the husk corpses. The blue glow of their eyes had been extinguished, desiccated flesh peeled back where bullets had impacted. These weren't like the ones on Eden Prime. If he had to guess, Jacob would say they hadn't been 'made' on Horizon. The fresh ones were always wet and bloody, with bits of hair or clothing stuck to them. Always enough to remind you that they might have been a friend of yours once.
He sucked in a breath, rechecked his rifle and shotgun. He had a job to do. He was here because of that day, wasn't he? If the Alliance wouldn't protect humanity, they would have to. It had to mean something.
"Curious." Doctor Solus was out of cover and prodding at a Collector corpse. Jacob bit down a sigh.
"Doctor," he began.
The salarian ignored him, large liquid black eyes blinking rapidly as he turned the body over, examining in great deal the head wound that had killed it. Metal glinted from the mess. "Extensive cybernetics. Replacement of internal organs? Done to themselves or by another source?"
"Not just the organs," Miranda told him. "See, the brain is heavily modified. Such interface would necessitate brain damage. Beyond anything...advisable, nothing to say of ethics."
There'd not been much discussion of ethics when they'd been piecing Shepard back together, like Miranda's personal Frankenstein.
"Yes, yes," the salarian agreed, enthused. "Would destroy sense of individuality, personality. For what purpose?"
Miranda shrugged, elegant despite the weight of her dark armour. "The Reaper Sovereign had Saren Arterius implanted with cybernetics. During the Battle of the Citadel - some of the Normandy crew reported Saren's body was 'possessed' by the Reaper after he was killed. The Council rejected the reports, but-"
"Advanced form of control, feedback. Similar to remote-controlled drone, only organic."
"Yes. And given what we know from Shepard on the topic of the Citadel Keepers, it's clear the Reapers aren't disinclined to such...engineering."
Jacob went back to watching his sectors. The conversation and the tone of it - how Miranda and Solus were both so intrigued by it - unnerved him. Scientists. Sometimes even he forgot that Miranda was a cyberneticist, for all that she'd been Lazarus Cell's head. She saw fighting as something to be dealt with as quickly and as efficiently as possible, but this sort of thing? It put a light in her eyes he didn't see very often.
A flash of movement. He snapped his rifle up, finger balancing on the trigger.
"Hold your fire!" A voice shouted, "We're human!"
Jacob blinked. He hadn't expected that - none of the other colonies had had anyone still moving. The explanation quickly came apparent - four figures loped out of the building, all dressed in jet black armour with Alliance insignia, faces sealed behind faceplates. Two of them were carrying a fifth person between them, frozen just like the colonists and a patch of white medigel plastered across their abdomen.
There'd been mention that the Alliance had built the defence systems, but what were Alliance special ops troops doing on Horizon?
"Good to see someone who isn't a bug," he called over.
The leader stopped in front of him, a M-99 Saber marksman rifle cradled in her arms. Nice piece of gunsmithing, those. All Jacob could see of her was her wary brown eyes through the sliver of darkened visor as she examined the four of them.
"Lieutenant Williams, Alliance Marines. Who the fuck are you lot?" her words were sharp-edged, bitten off. She had to be 103rd, though their paths hadn't crossed before. And there were a lot more than five Marines in a MSOT.
"We're trying to help the colony," he said.
It wasn't an answer, and her eyes went hard. "Who's in charge here?"
"I am," Miranda filled in calmly. "Miranda. This is Jacob. Our commander is fixing the guns."
"Then I should talk to your commander," the lieutenant said briskly, stepping forward - only to be halted by Miranda's hand. She looked down at it and then back up at the agent, looking like she was a moment away from attempting to snap said hand off at the wrist. "Take your hands off me."
Miranda rolled her eyes but dropped her hand. "Lieutenant, Collector forces are approaching us as we speak. Our commander can deal with the guns, but I could really use the extra guns here. Explanations can wait until the colony is safe, don't you agree?"
Williams breathed out. "Fine. Wei, get your MG set up. Jaz, get Okri into that prefab."
"Our medic can take a look at him," Jacob offered, gesturing at Mordin.
"We've got it," she said coolly. One of the Marines unfolded the bipod of his LMG so he could cover where Grunt couldn't, while the other man carefully dragged his frozen comrade towards one of the prefabs behind them.
"Very familiar with human physiology," Mordin sounded almost offended, "former STG. All competencies through Citadel accredited universities."
Williams tilted her head to look at him. "STG, huh? I worked with STG once."
"Yes, yes. On same side."
She hesitated and then nodded. "Fine. Have a look at him. He got shot - and then those bloody bugs stung him."
When the lieutenant was preoccupied with her people, Miranda stepped close to Jacob, her hand running across his forearm. "We need to make sure Lieutenant Williams stays here. She can't see the Commander - or know who she is. Not yet."
Jacob frowned at her. "Huh?"
"Trust me," she said cryptically and stepped away.
He forced his curiosity and confusion away. You'd think Commander Fucking Shepard would be a nice card to play with Alliance types. But Miranda would only explain things in her own time. He just had to go along for the ride.
"I hate bugs," the lieutenant grumbled. "Why is it always something out of a goddamned horror vid?"
"It's so you don't feel bad about shooting them, boss," the Marine called Jaz told her as he settled in beside Jacob. His rifle wasn't familiar - looked like some new variant on the Alliance's standard issue, the tube of a grenade launcher clinging to the barrel. "Imagine how bad you'd feel if you had to kill a fluffy bunny rabbit or a unicorn or some shit. Allah is just looking out for ya. That's my theory on the blinks, anyway."
"I'll make sure to thank Him," she said dryly.
"You guys Army or Marines?" Jacob asked. "Know you're Ns." Not N7s though. No blood stripe.
"Marines," Jaz replied. "103rd."
"All the way, brother," Jacob said with a genuine grin.
Jaz fistbumped him. "You a Raider?"
"Used to be. Until I decided to do a bit of government contracting if you know what I mean."
"Heard the money's much better. They don't put 'save the galaxy on forty grand a year' on the posters."
"That they don't." He cut off. A distant buzzing tickled his ears, set his teeth on edge. The Collectors were coming again. "Get ready."
"EDI," Shepard said calmly, tugging the pin out of a frag grenade and tossing it forward, "How much longer?"
The grenade went off with a teeth-jarring thump, tearing through black-blue flesh and cybernetics. The husks filled the courtyard with scrabbling limbs and unnatural shrieks, pouring towards the four of them - and the FDC behind them. There was a civilian sealed in there - and more importantly the battery computers.
"Please stand by," the AI repeated.
They'd taken cover on top of the stairs leading to the bunker, Garrus sweeping his rifle in front of them, scything the husks down in their dozens. The ground was thick with clumps of dismembered tech zombie.
Rita had loved zombie vids, and more than one of their leaves together had been spent with her making Shepard watch them. She liked them even less now she was living through one.
Ash had only ever wanted to watch the really stupid kind of action vid. The kind they could laugh at, or rather, Shepard would laugh at Ash's constant, sarcastic commentary. Ash, who she couldn't do anything to help. They'd found a frozen Marine just outside the FDC, a red welt across her bare cheek, but her name had been Hernandez. She hadn't been who Shepard was looking for. They'd sealed her in the bunker with Declan or whatever the fuck his name had been.
This was all Shepard could do. Defend the bunker until EDI got the guns online, and hope it was enough. Her chest twisted tight enough that she could barely breathe.
A husk slipped through Garrus and Zaeed's interlocked fields of fire, clawing up the stairs with a growl. Her Locust beeped in protest when she pulled the trigger - she'd lost track of her remaining shots, a green private's mistake. Shepard pulled her pistol out and shot it in the knee and then, as it tried to crawl towards her, she shot it in the head twice.
Concentrate, damnit. No one was helped by her getting her idiot head ripped off.
There were more husks coming up the stairs, carried by sheer weight of numbers, and Garrus was reloading.
"Jack!" she called over, kneecapping another husk.
The other woman lashed out with a vicious fist, forcing a wave of violent biotic energy away from her. It knocked the wave of husks off their feet - and in a couple of cases ripped them away. Zaeed dispatched any remaining husks with efficient single shots from his rifle. Jack was laughing. At least someone was enjoying themselves.
For her part, Shepard was pretty sure she was going to have some very impressive bruises across her chest and abdomen. Whatever that...thing was, it didn't like her very much and it had no concerns for the wellbeing of the Collectors it 'possessed.' It could get in goddamn line.
In the moment of breathing room, Shepard mechanically slotted in a new heatsink. She'd taken the frozen Marine's heatsinks and grenades to top them up after the fight through Discovery. Not like Hernandez could use them in her condition.
Zaeed bit off "Ah, crap-"
And that was her warning. Something floated toward them between the battered prefabs. Something very large and covered in smooth slabs of black, carapace-like armour, surrounded by a haze of biotic energy. Four glowing eyes locked on her and Shepard's breath caught painfully. Its 'mouth' was a horrifying pit of husk heads, jutting up like grotesque teeth.
"Fucking really!" Her carbine wasn't going to do the trick. She slotted in the last of her grenade rounds into the launcher and fired it. When the dust settled, there wasn't a mark on it.
A boiling lance of blue energy swept towards them, and Shepard threw herself down, bruised chest hitting the ground with a jolt. The beam cut right through the prefab behind them, leaving a deep, melted gash behind. Hardsuits won't going to stop that.
Air support would be fucking fantastic right now.
"Spirits!"
Another attack slashed across where she'd just been standing, forcing her out of the way. They couldn't hold their defensive position against the husk equivalent of a tank. But it was focused on her.
Just like the possessed Collectors calling themselves 'Harbinger'.
"I'm going to draw it off," she said calmly, "then hit it with everything you've got." Between Garrus' tech grenades, Zaeed's rocket launcher and Jack's biotics they had to make a dent.
"Shepard," Garrus began, and when had he gotten so goddamned protective? She ignored him.
She sucked down a breath of stale tank air, her skin prickling all over, the pain falling away. Her blood felt electric. She'd felt like this twice before - once amongst the rubble of Constant alone except for her rifle and her biotics, and once when she'd stood in front of Saren with only words to protect her.
The moment of fear fell away and left only cold, hard necessity that left no room for fear or doubt. It wasn't even courage, whatever anyone said. It was throwing your own life off, and if you were lucky it was handed back to you once the gunfire ended.
Shepard broke out from cover with her biotic barrier wrapped tightly around her, armoured boots pounding against the grass and concrete - all of it slick with fluids from slaughtered husks and Collectors. The particle beam pursued.
She would be faster. She had to be.
Blood thundered in Ash's ears, almost drowning out the roar of the planetary defence cannons. She couldn't help but look up and watch. Watch the shells crashing into that juggernaut of a cruiser, tearing at the bulbous armour with flashes of fire.
"Die, bitch," gritted out Wei from where he was leaning heavily against the makeshift skycar barricade. One of the husks had gotten close enough to tear open his side, right through the weave. She didn't know how he hadn't gotten stung like Okri had, but she wasn't complaining.
Unfortunately, it didn't look like the Collector ship was going to be dying today. It rose slowly, labourishly, into the sky, thrusters burning. Wounded, but not defeated.
Her rifle hung loosely in her grip. She blinked, eyes stinging with sweat, thoughts grinding over slowly as the adrenaline faded away. She needed - she needed accountability of her people. She only had three of her eleven Marines here.
"Sūn...you and Jaz start looking for our guys. Wei, you stay here with..." She waved a hand at the salarian doctor.
"Mordin Solus," he supplied. He'd been surprisingly deadly in the battle, tossing around blasts of plasma. Not exactly 'do no harm,' but that was STG for you.
"Thanks." She glanced over the so-called Raider. "I want to talk to your commander now."
"I'll take you to her," the woman cut in. Something about her set Ash on edge - made her want to bring a Marine to have her six. But Wei was wounded, and she wasn't sending Sūn alone into the city when there might still be husks or Collector troops around.
So she followed 'Lawson' towards the battery through the silent, frozen crowds. Guess they could only hope they unfroze on their own.
The courtyard had seen better days - whole walls torn through by particle beams, the jagged edges of the rips glinting metallic in the dying afternoon sun. She wanted to lie down somewhere dark and quiet and sleep, but she had to know her Marines were safe first and who these strangers were. Not least for her report.
Four figures were picking through the battlefield, and the face that turned to her was unexpectedly familiar. Ash felt unsteady on her feet, clammy hands clenched on her rifle. "Garrus?"
"Ash!" The plates of his face relaxed. One of his mandibles was pitted and damaged - hell, half of his face looked like someone had taken a lawnmower to it. "You're alive!"
He didn't sound surprised to see her.
"What- what are you doing here? Who sent you?" Last she'd heard, Garrus had quit CSec and Spectre training both and disappeared. Her emails had bounced when she'd tried to contact him.
But he didn't have to answer. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of colour and turned. Black, glossy armour, red and white stripe down to the wrist. Familiar dark eyes, familiar lips, familiar cheekbones. Something out of a dream. A ghost gone walking.
It was impossible. Emilia Shepard had been dead two years. Ashley had buried her.
But then Emilia Shepard was crashing into her with the dull clacking of their armour colliding, hard enough Ash stumbled back. Shepard's arms wrapped around her, tight enough she could almost hear the ceramic of her hardsuit creaking.
"You're alright," Shepard breathed into her neck, short curls tickling her skin.
Alright? How could she be alright?
Shepard started to pull away. Without thought, Ash's hands curled in her webbing, dragged her back. She bent her head and found Shepard's lips with her own. It was hard, biting, desperate, inelegant - but Shepard didn't seem to mind. She kissed back just as hard and held her in place with clutching hands at her waist. For a moment that was all that mattered. That Shepard was here and breathing and in her arms.
Ashley had buried her under a bright summer sun on Benning. The thought spilt over her like icy water, and she pulled back, palms against Shepard's shoulders. Looked at her, really looked at her.
Familiar eyes, familiar mouth, familiar cheekbones and jaw - but there was a gleam of unnatural red, and her skin was split with seams of orange. The scars on her chin and through her eyebrow from Elysium were gone. Ash's skin prickled. It was like a close but not quite right copy of the woman she'd loved and lost.
"I thought you were dead." The words dropped from her lips like stones.
Shepard swallowed. "You sound angry."
Angry? She didn't know how she felt. There was something like a cyclone in her chest, churning up everything she'd tried to put to rest. Part of her wanted to scream. Part of her wanted to grab Shepard again and never let go. Part of her thought that if she took her eyes off her Shepard would disappear, melting away like shadow did when the sun rose.
"I've spent the last two years thinking you were dead. I-I was a fucking pallbearer at your funeral." She clenched her hands into fists. "I loved you and I thought I'd buried you. And - here you are. Please tell me how any of this makes sense because from where I'm standing..."
She couldn't quite believe Shepard could be capable of such cruelty. That she could use the horror above Alchera to fake her own death, leave Ash and her mother and her grandmother and all the people who'd loved her, who'd carried the weight of her ghost around for this long.
"I don't think I did survive," Shepard told her, and there was a deep terror hidden in her gaze, the kind of terror that could swallow a woman whole.
She knew they had an audience, but it felt like they were the only two people in the galaxy - a parody of the way Shepard had made her feel before when they were alone.
The reports and all their damning words thudded around inside her skull.
"Tell me you're not with Cerberus." It came out more like a plea than she'd wanted.
Shepard's lips parted, but she was silent. The look in her eyes sharpened into shame, an alien expression on familiar features.
Something in Ash's chest cracked and she took a deliberate step back, Shepard's hands falling from her arms to hang between them.
"I'm working with them, Ash," she pleaded, "not for them."
Ash shook her head. "Really? Semantics? Do you really believe that? I can't believe the reports were right. I wanted to believe you were alive but this..."
"I didn't have a choice in any of this, Ash, you have to believe me," Shepard's jaw clenched. There was a line of red right along it. "I woke up a month ago, and I couldn't think of a way to contact you without putting you under suspicion. I don't want to work for Cerberus - you know me, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have a damned good reason."
"Do I?" Ash asked flatly. "The woman I knew would have never worked for Cerberus - they tried to kidnap you for fuck's sake, and they killed your Marines, tortured Toombs! They're everything you said you hated!"
"Typical Alliance," muttered the dark-haired Cerberus agent. Because that was what Lawson had to be. It all made sense now.
"Not now, Lawson," Shepard snapped. When she spoke to Ash, her voice gentled. "I didn't want any of this. I didn't fake my death or defect. I need you to believe that. Please."
Ash wanted to believe her. God, she did. "If this is all a big misunderstanding, then come home with me. We can sort it out with Hackett and Anderson."
Ash knew Shepard's answer before she spoke. It was in the way her face went blank. Emotion packaged neatly away. Ash half hated her for it. She wanted to see it - that Shepard was hurting like she was, that they'd meant something. That Shepard had loved her.
"I can't."
Ash scoffed. There was something like broken glass crunching in her chest. "Can't or won't?"
"Cerberus is doing something about the Collectors. I can't just walk away from the colonies."
"If the Alliance is doing nothing, why am I here?"
Shepard looked away.
Ashley scoffed, shaking her head. "Guess there's nothing left to talk about then."
"You could come with me," Shepard said softly.
"No. No, you don't get to ask me that!" Ash's eyes were burning, but she'd cried enough over Emilia Shepard, damnit. "I loved you and you- you've betrayed the Alliance. You've betrayed me. But I know who I am. I'm an Alliance Marine. It's in my blood. And whatever my flaws, I will never work for human supremacists."
"I am not a traitor," Shepard's voice was low and vehement. "And I -"
Ash couldn't do this. She'd had dreams, early on, of Shepard walking in her door one day. This was all her wishes twisted into something else. She knew what Shepard was going to say and she knew that it'd unravel all the hardening anger in her chest.
"Don't," she cut her off. She drew in a shaky breath. "I'm reporting in. Hackett and the Council can decide if they believe you or not. You should be gone before the Alliance shows up."
Ashley Williams walked away from her, and Shepard didn't call after her.
Codex Entry
Service Record - Ashley Madeline Rodrigues Williams:
Service Number: 6724-ES-3423
Name: Rodrigues Williams, Ashley Madeline
Rank: First Lieutenant (O2)
DOB: April 14, 2156
Place of Origin: Outpost Vercingetorix, Sirona
Nationality: Sirona, Brazil, UNAS
Language Proficiency: English - fluent, Portuguese - intermediate
Marital Status: unmarried
Next of Kin: Mariana Rodrigues Williams (mother)
Status: Active Duty
MVC: B5, N5
Biotic: N
Service History:
Enlisted as Private through Rio De Janeiro Recruitment Office, 2174
Basic Training received at Recruit Training Depot, Macapá, Brazil, 2174
Zero Gravity Training (ZGT) received at Rakesh Sharma Orbital Platform, Earth, 2174
Hostile Environment Assault Training (HEAT) received at Fort Charles Upham, Titan, 2174
Infantry AIT received at Infantry Training Battalion, School of Infantry Pacific, 2174
Excellent qualification scores received upon entering active duty, 2174
Recommended for OCS, 2174
Assigned to 3/20th Marines on Terra Nova, 2174
Promoted to Private First Class, 2174
Awarded Colonial Service Medal, 2174
Promoted to Lance Corporal, 2176
Transferred to 1/1st Marines on Luna, 2177
Attended Scout-Sniper School, 2177
Promoted to Corporal, 2178
Transferred to 2/23rd Marines on Czarnobóg Fleet Depot, 2180
Promoted to Sergeant, 2180
Transferred to 2/12th Marines, 2nd Frontier Division, on Eden Prime, 2182
Promoted to Staff Sergeant, 2183
Participated in the Battle of Eden Prime, 2183
Transferred to Marine Detachment (103rd MARDIV) aboard SSV Normandy, 2183
Participated in Battle of Solcrum, 2183
Participated in Battle of Virmire, 2183
Participated in Battle of the Citadel, 2183
Awarded Eden Prime War Medal, 2183
Awarded Citadel Unit Citation, 2183
Awarded Distinguished Unit citation, 2183
Awarded Space Service Ribbon, 2183
Awarded Purple Heart, 2183
Awarded Navy Cross, 2183
Awarded Silver Dagger (Salarian Union), 2183
Meritious appointment as First Lieutenant, 2183
Attended Officer Candidate School, 2184
Awarded OCS Honor Graduate Ribbon, 2184
Attended ICT, Special Operations Academy, 2184
N5 designation assigned, 2184
Transferred to Marine Special Operations Team 27 (103rd MARDIV) as team leader, 2184
Participated in Operation Slingshot, 2184