Zaeed was struggling. Limping and cursing, he dragged his uncooperative leg along with him, an unwilling passenger to the rest of his body.

The Blue Suns founder was as tough a man as could be imagined, but his limited mobility demanded a strategy adjustment. Now the team moved with him as a central focal point, advancing only as far and as fast as he could manage; spreading around him and seeking leftover cover after he had picked his spots. Grunt had switched over to shadowing him closely, as Zaeed didn't have the quickness to fall back from his spot if overrun and needed strong close support.

Miranda and Mordin went to either side and used biotic and tech attacks to support whatever the two soldiers engaged, creating a strong center to punch into enemy groups. Shepard roamed free, attacking from angles to flank enemy cover, or to briefly pin opposition to allow for a short, brutal charge from Grunt.

It was becoming increasingly clear they were interrupting the colony abduction in mid-operation. They found themselves stepping over humans that were unharmed and seemed alive, but paralyzed. Others were saved from a horrible fate as Collectors were shot while dragging captives away, in the direction of the huge mothership that increasingly towered over them as they approached, now only a few hundred meters away. A burst from the Vindicator dropped a straggling Collector that was dragging a motionless human.

From ahead, Shepard was shouting. "Keep moving! We're catching up!"


Operations Chief Ashley Williams ignored the stiffness in her body, washing it away with a storm of caged violence that flowed through her. The harder she ran, the better she felt. Her strides lengthened as she charged around colony shelters, and hurdled over fences and through yards, her rifle pumping in front of her in both hands.

God, give me something to kill. Adrenaline, guilt, fear, and rage all mixed inside of her too potently to consider the uncomfortable nature of that request, and to whom it was addressed.

At full sprint, around a corner that turned into a corridor between two homes, she nearly ran directly into a Collector. The insectoid soldier was dragging a limp person over the grass in the direction of the huge ship in the distance. Not breaking momentum, she snarled and smashed her Avenger's rifle butt into its triangular head viciously, pouring all her rage into the blow with a primal scream. With a sickening crunch the carapace collapsed, the head snapped back and it fell to the ground, twitching and leaking yellow goo from the cracks.

Ash reversed her rifle with perfect form, and the Avenger roared, spitting incendiary rounds into a target close enough to kick. The Collector burst into flames while splashes of its ignited vital fluids flew over her and against the wall of the shelter.

If you have a hell, you burn there, you son of a bitch.


"Shepard!"

The commando froze. That voice? He turned and saw Jack running towards him, and beyond her jogged Kasumi and Thane. Distantly past them, Garrus was following at more of a brisk walk. Shepard held up a hand just as Jack huffed to a stop just in front of him. "No time. Short version."

The biotic blew out a deep breath to gather herself, then spoke in a rush. "Uh, we gotta hook up a dish to talk to EDI, and then she can maybe unfuck the big gun towers and shoot that thing." Pointing first to a large comm dish on the roof of a two-story building close to them, she then jerked her head towards the looming Collector ship to needlessly indicate the target.

"Ok, good, you guys make it happen. My group needs to keep moving. Who's doing the dish?"

"I am!", Kasumi declared cheerfully as she skidded to a stop with Thane, standing to either side of Jack.

"Ok, Thane, keep her safe while she's doing it." Shepard turned back to his own group. "Zaeed! Stay here with them, they won't be moving as much." The merc, grim-faced with pain, nodded tightly in agreement and slammed a fresh heatsink into his Mattock. "Garrus stays with you guys, too."

Shepard considered the makeup of the two teams for an entire second, balancing powers and abilities. "Jack, you're with me."

"Fuck yeah," Jack muttered to herself, taking her Scimitar shotgun from her back and extending it.

Garrus arrived just as Shepard's group cleared out, breathing heavily. Too much sitting on my ass in medbay lately.

"What did...I miss?"

Kasumi slid a small, one-armed backpack from her shoulder and started to open it. "You guys are covering my shapely ass while I work the uplink. I'll be on the roof, don't think it matters much which one."

"Ok, guys...that building there, with the two dishes...on top. Looks...more solid then most. Thane...you and me...rifles on roof. Zaeed, ground floor, cover the doors. Kasumi, do your stuff."


Shepard's team had saved over a dozen people so far. Or, he hoped they were saved. The colonists were completely unresponsive, and he had to trust that the paralysis was temporary. The commando could see all the way to the base of the huge ship now, approximately 100 meters away.

Shepard pulled up short, and held up a hand to stop the others trailing him. He could see dozens of Collectors dragging more victims to the ship, and he was about to yell for a double-time advance when movement, high and barely visible against the backdrop of the towering vessel, caught his eye.

Nearly as big as a shuttle. A vehicle? A small dropship, like the geth used.

He squinted and his polished-steel cybernetic eyes, after a hesitation, zoomed and refocused to blur out the background and isolate details of the target. Still not used to that sensation.

Four white eyes, set in a crab-like head that floated above its own body in a field of blue energy. Biotics? In the void of its torso where the neck and chest should be, was...a pile of husk skulls, all aglow with life and energy. It had vicious-looking mechanical pincers for arms, and it flew in slowly, as if no haste was required for it's already assured victory.

No, not a vehicle. Something new.

A living thing.

"Incoming! Grab cover!"


The battle unfolded like a slow-motion horror movie. One of those events in his life he would relive in his dreams. Another one for the growing list of nightmares, for his mind to pick from.

One of those he'd wished to banish to the darkness of the human mind, where forgotten things went.

Miranda, Mordin, Grunt, Jack, himself. They were, each in their own way, respectively amongst the most capable of their species he had ever known.

Skilled, tough, smart, motivated.

All so very different from the other, in some ways distrustful or even hostile to each other, but now - under fire, under pressure - together as one, they operated smoothly, without hesitation, without doubt. In free time, they gathered in the cargo hold and used crates to map out defenses or positions to assault.

They drilled, practiced, pointed, explained, questioned, and practiced some more. Make your mistakes here, not out there. He encouraged them to make suggestions and question his tactics; they didn't have his vast experience with squad-based combat, but he didn't have their diversity of skills and talents.

Layering up their abilities, learning who could do what, in what order, to maximize firepower. Force multiplying, he'd explained to them. Make five fight like ten, make ten fight like an army. He was proud of them. His team. His guys. Once the bullets started to fly, it was like his love them for them grew. His responsibility. His family. He knew they could do anything he asked of them.

Now, they were helpless against it. This thing.

A beam of white-hot plasma seared through the air beside him, and he could smell ozone as molecules of the atmosphere were smashed into hot subatomic matter. His cover disintegrated and exploded, and a trench was carved into the ground where he'd just been standing.

The beam touched his shields for an instant, and they went down without resistance. From the exploding soil at his feet, a rock shot into his open facemask and struck the corner of his mouth, snapping his head back and filling his senses with the sensation of sudden pain; the taste of blood.

The thing had ignored the rest of the team, focusing on him alone. Like it knew who he was, like that other one that had spoken.

This one said nothing, but he knew. He knew that it knew.

From the corner of his eye, he saw tracers streaming from all around, his team pouring firepower into it desperately, seeking to distract it, to save him from its singular focus.

Arcs of electricity from an Overload coated its shields, shimmering them with temporary weaknes,s but still they stood. Miranda.

A flaming inferno enveloped it - he could feel the baking heat briefly that shimmered the air - then it faded with little effect. Mordin.

Blue ripples of biotic power flowed over it like water, Pulling. A tug that slowed its chase of him; pulling its beam briefly aside; saving his life. Jack.

That final beam cut the air; carved the ground; nearly tore him in half. It was learning his movements - he could sense it was getting closer with each attempt. His shields dropped again from the near miss, and one arm numbed as the edge of the beam barely touched him, vaporizing a notch with glowing edges into the ceramic plate. Shepard stumbled and fell, rolling awkwardly with muscle memory alone, regaining his feet and moving in a direction; any direction.

Just move. Don't be a target. Don't stop.

A mistake was inevitable. He stumbled right into the shadow of the thing, and he knew it was over. Lazarus had been decimated - there was no coming back this time.

As if more chaos and noise was needed, eye-searing brilliance lit up the sky above and beyond the monstrosity. Light strobed all around them as the massive gun towers hummed to life, blinding observers with capital-ship grade laser cannons as it carved holes into the Collector ship, which rocked with explosions.

At that moment, the Praetorian staggered. Charging with an unheard roar, seven hundred pounds of enraged krogan vaulted from a storage container to land on the back of the thing. Howling a newly-learned Clan Urdnot battle song, Grunt shoved his Claymore into the open skeleton of its body, emptying the inhumanly massive shotgun into the husk heads contained inside, blasting the pile of living skulls again and again.

The entire thing shook, shuddered, then bucked in an attempt to throw him off, even as shattered bits burst from inside of it to rain down on Shepard. The N7 commando threw himself backwards even as he fired a concussion round up and into the monster, the explosive barely clearing the barrel before impacting on its shell. The blast violently knocked him across the courtyard to senselessly tumble into a stack of barrels, which collapsed and fell upon him in a heap.

I hope that hurt you too, you bug son of a bitch.

Shepard never saw the brilliant blue glow that exploded from it - he only heard the sound that assaulted his ears and numbed his senses. Layered noises of corruption, of baneful hatred. A choir of malice; endless darkness; of the void of all life.


Garrus, Kasumi, Thane, and Zaeed arrived just as Miranda rolled a heavy barrel from Shepard's ankle, while he pushed another from his chest. She braced her feet and offered a hand, pulling the heavy soldier to his feet. He nodded his thanks to her and, wordlessly, the two turned as one to the others.

Faces to the sky, the entire team stood in a semi-circle. A pillar of white smoke showed the trail the Collector ship had taken as it vanished into the clouds with a fading roar. The GARDIAN towers had gone silent. All was quiet.

Except the sizzling. That noise would live in his mind forever.

One by one, they returned their eyes from the blue above them, looking at the horrors that lay below.

In a smoking, burnt circle large enough to sit a house in, was a huge mound of seared armor and blackened flesh. Still morbidly smoking, hissing, and popping, the remains of two gigantic combatants lay, now carbonized and locked together in death.

Jack backed away from the others before turning her back and covering her face with her hands, falling inwards upon herself in a ball of silent loss.

Mordin blinked several times rapidly, then raised his omni-tool and started to scan the remains, as if needing to find something useful to do. Anything. His mouth was tight and grim, the scar on his cheek bright with the tightness of his face.

Miranda's face was carved from ivory, her icy eyes unblinking as she looked at the bodies, then to Shepard, then back again.

Kasumi silently reached up to tug her hood down lower, retreating into her personal darkness. Her features vanished into shadow as she crossed her arms over herself while staring at the ground, her normally jovial lips set in a thin line.

Garrus removed his targeting sensor, looking like he needed to do something with his hands. He rubbed his face with the other hand, then replaced it back over his left eye. Placing his hands on his hips, he looked up at the dissipating smoke trail of the ship that got away.

Thane silently lowered himself to one knee, then the other. His hands came up, steepled, and he murmured words that only he could hear.

Zaeed's face was a mess of lines, and tension. His good eye nearly squinted shut as he looked, taking in the whole scene. He didn't turn away. Like he wanted to remember every detail, commit it to memory like he had with so many other things.

"Bloody goddamn hell," the old merc muttered.

Grunt's berserker rage that saved them all would be his last. The one perfect krogan. A living tank of aggression and power, spent and emptied. Dr. Okeer's legacy was now truly ended.


All around them, now, were the beginnings of the sounds of activity. Screams of horror, weeping for those who had been taken, and the cries of those left behind.

Shepard felt numb to it. He had lost one of his soldiers again. The weight of failure crept in, piled on, and settled. A thousand actions ran through his mind, decisions made that could have been different. He pulled his helmet off, suddenly feeling the need to be free of the heavy thing.

Their shuttle descended behind them, landing in a cloud of dust that washed over them. Jacob exited, then paused at the scene before him. Walking up to stand between Thane and Zaeed, he took in the remains of the Praetorian and Grunt with wide eyes and a slackened face.

Garrus rested his hand on Shepard's shoulder, and said something supportive to the effect of, it had been a hell of a tough fight, and they had done well to only lose one person. And that Grunt, if he'd had a chance to script his own end, would have chosen something just like this. Shepard nodded absently, only hearing some of the words.

He had taken Grunt under his wing, like an unruly teenager trying to make right. Looking for direction, a purpose, a cause. He tried to teach him so much in such a short amount of time. Not enough time.

A man in the non-military dress of a colonist had dared to approach the group and shouted at them, hysterical, near tears. "They got away! You let them get away! Half of the colony was in there! Egan and Sam...and Lilith!"

"We saved some of your asses, would you rather it was all of you in that thing?" snarled Jack in return, jumping forward with balled fists and a jutting chin.

Shepard turned to her hurriedly, shaking himself from his trance, raising his hands. "No! It's ok, Jack...it's been...a traumatic experience for them, too."

"Dammit Shepard, they should be thanking you! They should be kissing our fucking asses for this, look what we gave!" She spun away again, as if not trusting herself to restraint and needing to get away while she could.

The man's expression changed. "Shepard...the big Alliance hero Shepard?" The man kept talking, but Shepard didn't hear him, as one of the Alliance marines was walking past him, slowly approaching.

A woman's armor, standard Alliance dark blue. She was tall, her shoulders broad with strength. The way she walked. He felt a tingle of recognition.

She slowed perhaps ten steps from him, and removed her helmet with unsteady hands. Long brown hair spilled from it. One of her cheeks was swollen and red from an injury, but her features were as handsome as always. Tanned skin, full but pale lips, beautiful eyes that were wide in disbelief. Ashley Williams.


Ashley was in a dream, or a nightmare, or...something not real. She had to see him with her bare eyes, even the clear visor was too much of a barrier.

The helmet came off...and he was still standing there.

Shepard.

Her throat went as dry as dust, and she fought tears away from her eyes even as denials raged up in her. "John? Are you...how is this possible?"

Looking into his living face for the first time in years, Ash was struck by a flash of memory. Blowing snow all around and over them. Shepard flat on his back in the frozen crust. The white turning to red below him. His black armor punctured by a single neat hole in his abdomen. Her, straddling his waist, their armor clanking together as she balanced herself with a gauntlet to his chest, ripping a tube of medi-gel open with her teeth.

Above them both, the sound of Kaiden's biotics and rifle, sounding off in turns. The digital shriek of damaged and smashed geth units. Her leaning down to yell into his face. Wake up, soldier. Getting you out of here. Shuttle's on the way. His face. The empty look. A blink. Then his eyes moved to meet hers, and a tight nod of affirmation. Yes. I'm here, Ash. I'm with you.

A precious memory to her. It was the only time that she had saved him in such an obvious fashion. Once it was clear that he would fully recover, herself and Kaiden had been smiling about it for a week. Her feet hardly touched the ground for a few days, afterwards. The fact that he had proved to be human had only strengthened her belief in him, her respect. No mere hero or legend had done so much for her, for the Alliance, for humanity. He was a man. The N7 armor, the Star of Terra, the reputation and the stories had all obscured him from her, but now she saw him clearly.

That face wasn't quite the same, now. There had been a scar running along the bottom of his chin - it was missing now. His face also had fading bruises, especially around one of his eyes, as if he had recently been in a serious fight - and lost. One corner of his mouth was freshly blooded. His signature scar was still present, the one in his hairline above his temple. It almost looked out of place on his newly-youthful face - he looked like he had lost a few years, somehow.

His eyes. They were someone else.

They were a different color, silver rather then light brown, and they contained exhaustion and pain, yet still burned with purity of purpose. Defiance and loyalty. Compassion and judgement.

No, not someone else. She'd never seen eyes like that before, or since. The color was the least of it, it was the volumes they spoke. Shepard.

No, it's impossible.


"Ashley." He didn't want to do this, he was exhausted beyond thinking, and almost at his feet lay one of his people, dead for only minutes. Now, he was looking at a good friend he felt like he had only seen a month ago jump into an escape pod, while knowing she must have mourned his death for two long years.

"I...this is not the best way for us to meet again. I'm sorry."


The voice was the same. Deep and normally rich with confidence and strength, but not now, when he sounded simply drained of energy. She recognized it the sound, she had heard it before. Having witnessed him him at the end of combat that he had poured every fiber of himself into. After Virmire, especially.

Her eyes flicked from the smoking pile of remains, to the crew of people and aliens around him, taking in how they looked shell-shocked and used up. Dirty, bloody, stooped in fatigue. Hands on knees, some were bent at the waist as they drew air to recover from the rush of battle. Like they'd fought like hell for him. She remembered that, too.

It was...it had to be him.

Words were being spoken. After an instant, she realized they were her own.

"Is...that what you have to say? You show up after all this time? I...you died, Shepard. I cried for you, I attended your funeral. I was a wreck for..." For when? A time? I never stopped.

"...was that all...faked? You didn't tell us?"

He held up his hand to slow her down for a moment, "Ash...I did die. They...I don't know or understand the how. They recovered my body. They spent two years on some sort of huge project...they rebuilt me somehow. I woke up from that less then a month ago. But I remember everything, right to the end...you and Liara getting people into the pods, the Normandy splitting apart..."

Behind him, unseen, Garrus winced and turned away from this scene, walking away and leaning heavily on the shuttle. The drell also turned and assisted Zaeed with entry to the shuttle as the old, scarred human cursed and winced in pain. The salarian and a raven-haired, beautiful human woman moved to stand together by the scene of death, pointing and talking quietly, as if deciding plans of action for post-mission. The woman was wearing a white bodysuit, with a distinctive black, white, and gold logo...

Shepard was still talking. "You and Liara tried to stay with me, while I got Joker..."

Ashley's eyes flicked to the shuttle. That same logo was painted on the side. She abruptly moved backwards two full steps, a gesture he didn't miss, and he fell silent in response.

"Wait a second. Cerberus? Are you with them?" She pronounced the corporation's name with the same inflection people would usually use for a sexually transmitted disease. "They...are...terrorists. I...trusted you more than anyone alive. I was ready to walk into bullets for you!" As she nearly shouted at him, she felt her face contort with the effort of shoving the words past the tightness of her throat, and her eyes burned, the shape and color of him blurring.

"Ash...please, they brought me back. They offered me the resources to fight the Collectors, something the Alliance wouldn't do. I know what they said about me while I was gone, the quotes are all in the news history, they discredited everything I ever did or said. What we did. Cerberus...I don't work for them, I may owe them but they don't own me. It was them or do nothing at all."

His words grew louder in defiance as he spoke, energy returning to his face and voice. "It was a binary choice for me, Ash! Sidelines or saving people! So I did what I always do, I grabbed a rifle and got to work."

Ashley was silent a moment, her mind racing; a brick in her chest. Finally, she stepped closer to him, close enough to touch. Her eyes searched into his, looking for evidence of falsehoods. "You owe them? How do...you know that's just what they want you to feel, or do? If they...rebuilt you, they could have...changed whatever they wanted. Including your loyalties, your mind. Maybe you'd have never accepted them...but they changed your feelings to make it ok."

His eyes burned with fresh fury, and she resisted the urge to recoil away from them. "Bullshit, Ash! If they'd been able to do that, they'd have made me like them, and I sure as hell do not. I'm not liking anyone right now. I already visited the Citadel once, I spoke to the Council. They scoffed when I talked about Sovereign or the Reapers. Called them a myth. They don't believe that the Collectors are connected to them. So that's why I spent thousands of human lives to buy their safety. So they could do...this. Deny, deny, deny." He looked away from her for a moment, his silver eyes wet with outrage and frustration. He looked ready to murder them, from across the vastness of space, with his anger alone.

"They gave me Spectre status again, a pat on the back, and basically said 'good luck, just don't involve us and stay out of the way'." He dripped with a bitterness that she'd never heard from that voice before, ever.

His eyes shot back to hers, full of fresh fire now. "And if Cerberus screws me over, then they're next. I'll burn the whole organization down. I'll save the Council again despite them being a goddamn weight on my back. I'll drag them across the finish line against their will and I will win."

Ash shook her head in wonderment, and felt her suspicion leave her. He still had it. His will was unbreakable, his words inspiring.

My God, it's him. He's alive. He's right here in front of me.

Looking into his eyes, she yearned to tell him every word she had ever suppressed. He'd never loved her, not like that, but she did, of him. Two years of suffering and regret. She could release it all right now.

No. If it's really him, then you know nothing's changed. Including that.

As a response, she nodded slowly, and took a half-step forward and gathered him in her arms, resting her good cheek against his breastplate. After a moment, he returned the gesture, holding her close, and she cursed the body armor they both wore. Still...it was nice. It was still him. He was back.

"I have to go, Ash. I lost one of my crew today. Just a kid. I need...I want to take him back to Tuchanka. He wasn't born there, but...he should be there." His voice was rough, tightened with pain and regrets.

She responded by squeezing him tighter, and she bowed her head lower in his chest so he would not see her face.

"I'm sorry, Skipper," Ash answered after a moment of hesitation, choosing her words carefully. "You always loved your crew. Wish I could be part of it, like before."

Shaking her head with new resolve, she continued. "But I can't do that. Alliance marine. That's in my blood going way back, Shepard. Could never leave them, not for anyone, not even you of all people. But...good luck, ok? I'll be thinking of you. I hope someday, someplace...we can carry rifles together, again."


Twenty meters away, one person in the current Normandy crew stood silently as the two soldiers embraced, eyes narrowed in uncertainty as to what she was witnessing.