Chapter Eleven: Unto the Breach

Shepard woke to the light hum of the Normandy's engines and a pale blue light blanketed the bed and the surrounding areas of the cabin. He scanned the room before looking down to his chest to find Jack sprawled across the bed with her head on his chest, her ear nestled directly above his heart. He turned his gaze upwards to the skylight and watched the pulsing of the ship's mass effect field as he listened to the sounds of the engines, every few moments it was broken by a deep breath being drawn by Jack. He didn't want the moment to end, and he knew that they were growing closer to the Omega 4 relay every moment that they lay together. He drew a deep breath and released it in a heavy, contented sigh. He felt a light stirring as his action shook Jack from her slumber and he immediately regretted disturbing the few precious moments of calm that they could afford before the hell would ensue.

"Hey, sleepyhead." He said as he lightly brushed his hand over the side of her head before running it along her jaw and tucking it beneath her chin.

Jack jostled slightly and cracked her eye just enough to see Shepard before smacking her lips against her teeth and closing her eyes again.

"Jack, we're getting close to the Omega 4 relay. I'll be down in the armory for a bit before going to the cockpit to see Joker," Shepard said as he pushed himself from the bed and began getting dressed. "I'll have Gardner send some food up-" Shepard felt the words catch in his throat and his chest tightened at the thought of his crew, despite his detachment from those around him he had grown close to the Cerberus crew over the past weeks.

Jack's only response was to roll over, turn her back to Shepard, and make an unintelligible noise into the sheets. He felt that it was his cue to leave so he walked into the elevator with the weight of his abducted crew still resting on his shoulders. They were all gone: Chakwas, Adams, Ken and Gabby, each and every member of the crew were aboard that nightmare of a ship.

Shepard came back to reality to see Tali standing squarely in front of him with her hands nervously wringing together. "Shepard, are you okay?" She asked, her thick Kelish accent still clear despite the slight synthesizing of her voice module.

Shepard shook his head violently and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he stepped around her, trying to mask the guilt that was burrowing into him. "I just…had a rough night's sleep. I know we beat the odds with Saren but this is a different situation. We have no idea what to expect on the other side of that relay."

Tali's shoulders stiffened slightly at the statement and her nervous wringing increased in pace, her already troubling unease towards the situation spiking as the man who had cheated death itself stated his doubts. "Shepard, we can't give up now."

"Hold on, I never said I was giving up. We're going through the relay, whether we know the odds or not," Shepard said as he continued on to the armory. "I want you to gather the crew, gear included, and have them all meet in the Debriefing room."

Shepard stepped into the armory and scanned the massive array of weapons that they had collected in the past few months, and decided on his usual setup apart from an experimental weapon that Mordin had recently pieced together: The Cain launcher. He locked his armor into place and strapped his weapons to his back before entering the Debriefing room to find that nearly the entire crew had assembled already, the one exception being Joker.

Shepard made his way to the end of the table, taking a position directly beside Jack and took her hand tightly. He looked around the room at the familiar faces that he had served with and had come to trust. Each and every one of their adventures together came to him in a wave.

Garrus; one of his most trusted friends and allies, natural born leader and an outstanding marksman who was fit for Spectrehood but decided on C-Sec to please his father. Betrayed by one of his closest allies, Garrus literally wore the scars of his past. Shepard helped Garrus track down the man who betrayed him and watched from only a few feet away as a round from Garrus's rifle plowed through his forehead and his body fell in a heap in the middle of the Zakera ward of the Citadel.

Miranda; a woman that was cold and calculated, but was that way because it was all she had ever known. Skilled with a pistol and having an amazing intellect, she deserved respect. Shepard knew this side of Miranda only because of their mission to retrieve her younger sister, which involved far too many mercenaries and old friends turned bad for Shepard to deal with.

Grunt; a nigh-unstoppable force of bloodlust and sadism, he had only been up and moving for a few weeks but he had already proven his worth countless times. Shepard had come to respect him not only for his power, but for his belief that the Krogan were a redeemable people. Grunt fought in a rite of passage to prove that he was a true Krogan and earned not only the respect, but also the admiration of clan Urdnot.

Zaeed; it was obvious that he was only in it for the money but he had made it one hell of a ride. Countless war stories, a slight case of hoarding, and a strong sense of pleasure that he gained from lighting things on fire all made him quite the person to be around. Shepard did leave innocent people to die in that refinery, but he gained a powerful ally.

Samara; the statuesque Asari Justicar that never seemed to falter, no matter the odds that were against her. She always brought her own perspective to every situation, which was much appreciated due to her centuries of experience that hung on every word she spoke. Shepard had helped her in tracking down her daughter, an Ardat Yakshi, and put an end to her hundreds of years of murder by killing her themselves. Executing her daughter had changed her, however, and her powers appeared to have grown in strength lately.

Jacob; Shepard came to respect him as a soldier and a man after they went to look for his father's wrecked ship only to find that his father had not only survived, but was now the acting captain for the rest of the survivors. He quickly began to lose control so he forced the other survivors to eat local plant life that caused neural degradation whilst he hoarded the safe food for himself. Jacob couldn't stand the beast of a man that stood before him, so he gave him a loaded handgun with only one round, and his father saw suicide favorable to being torn apart by those he had abused for so many years.

Legion; a Geth powerhouse that was home to over one thousand active Geth programs at once. Shepard and the crew decided to reactivate him after the mission aboard the derelict Reaper and they were more than pleasantly surprised by the amount of skill that he showed with a long range rifle, even outshooting Garrus on many accounts. Legion told Shepard of a Geth station that was built by the "heretics", a name given to those Geth that had sided with Saren and the Reapers. Shepard and the crew quickly went to the coordinates and destroyed it, wiping out thousands of Geth programs within moments.

Mordin; the Salarian genius that was responsible for the creation of the Genophage, however that choice seemed to weigh upon him after he had learned about the work of his apprentice, Maelon Heplorn. He and Shepard tracked him down on Tuchanka to find that he was conducting brutal experiments on Krogan females in order to produce a cure for the Genophage, a noble cause if it weren't done in such a horrific manner. With Shepard's advisory, Mordin killed Maelon and transferred the data to a personal drive to keep the Krogan from somehow retrieving it.

Kasumi; the master thief that Cerberus was able to offer just enough money to in order to bring her onto the crew. Upon her arrival on the Normandy she immediately dove into a mission that Cerberus promised her, another angle she was able to play along with the monetary fee for her services. She brought Shepard along to secure what she would only identify as "Keiji's Greybox." Retrieving this meant infiltrating a powerful mercenary's private party with Shepard disguised as a young, entrepreneurial mercenary that was on the rise in galactic relations, and Kasumi was to pose as his date to the party. After breaking into his safe and equipping their gear, which they smuggled in using a golden statue of Saren Arterius, they made their way to the vault. Inside they found countless priceless artifacts, which included Michael Angelo's David and the recovered head of Lady Liberty. He and Kasumi recovered the device but they were also discovered by the mercenary's security measures and had to run for the exfil shuttle. They smashed through many defensive positions that had been set up by the security teams before making their way outside to the shuttle pad where their pilot had landed and was anxiously waiting on them. Upon reaching the edge of the pad they were attacked by a stolen Alliance fighter, with the host of the party flying it. After a lengthy battle Kasumi was able to overload its thrusters and it crashed to the ground, the only remains from the crash a sparking heap of twisted metal. Kasumi decided to keep the Greybox, seeing how it held every memory of her time with Keiji before his death.

Tali; the young Quarian engineer that had been at Shepard's side from near the very beginning. Tali had always been a humble person despite her astounding knowledge of machinery and electronics. Tali was the first member of Shepard's original crew to discover that he was alive once again when they encountered one another on Freedom's Progress. Shepard attempted to recruit her then and there but she was much too dedicated to her work to join him. Only a few weeks later she joined on with his new crew after he rescued her and a member of her squad on a harsh planet overrun with Geth. The Migrant Fleet soon summoned Tali to the Flotilla for a trial regarding an issue with Geth equipment she had been sending them. Shepard gladly took her to the trial and there they discovered that her father had been trapped by recently reactivated Geth on a nearby Quarian vessel. Shepard accompanied her to clear out the ship and there they found that her father had been killed by the hostile machines and evidence that her father had been using the deactivated machines that she had been sending him to reconstruct Geth units and testing the strength of the connections that they could form when the units were able to reboot and arm themselves against the Quarian crew. Tali begged Shepard not to use the evidence in her trial because it would tarnish her father's name and Shepard gave her his word that he would not use it unless he had to. Upon returning to court he was able to use their prejudice against him as a human to get them to lift the charges against Tali.

Thane; the life-long assassin that had joined on with Shepard simply because he wanted to do a small amount of good in his life. Highly skilled and disciplined, he was the most composed person Shepard had met in his life. After the mission to stop his son from walking in his footsteps he had become much more content with his life and the fate that was issued him by his syndrome. Shepard respected Thane greatly and had even taken numerous training sessions from him.

Shepard took a long scan around the room before finally turning his gaze to Jack. The broken woman that had been born into unimaginable hell and carried through all of it. Shepard couldn't believe how deeply in love he had fallen with her. He would die for her if he must and he was sure she would do the same.

Shepard smiled as he pulled his view away from Jack and towards the rest of the crew. "There's no going back now. We've come this far to stop these bastards and there's no way that we're about to give up because of some relay." Shepard said as he met the gazes of each and every member of his crew. "Those bastards not only thought that they could take our colonists but now they think that they can take our crew! It's time we show them that we have had enough! We're going in there and we're going to wipe out every last one of those abominations!" Shepard ended his speech with a sharp rap on the table, spurring an uproar from the crew. "Joker, prepare to take us through the relay. I'm on the way up to the cockpit."

The crew dismissed themselves and took up necessary positions around the Normandy while Shepard made his way to the cockpit, followed closely by Jack and Miranda. Joker was actively running a check on the Normandy's systems before he took her through the jump when Shepard arrived. "Alright, Joker, let's get this over with. I want a quick entry but keep the systems level, we don't know what will be on the other side of this thing."

"Aye, aye, Commander."

The whirring of the Normandy's systems slightly increased as they began their movement towards the ghostly red relay. The anxiety within the ship was palpable and was increasing by the moment. Joker nervously looked over his shoulder at Shepard only to find him with his arms crossed, staring straight ahead at the relay.

"Here we go. Fingers crossed the ship doesn't rip in half."

The crew could feel the ship's mass effect drive engaging and they all held their breath, preparing for the worst.