Repairing a damaged anti-aircraft gun in the middle of combat probably was one of the hardest (and dumbest) things she'd ever volunteered herself for. Whenever they weren't trying to shoot Shepard or that cocky lieutenant, Solomen Trakes, the Collectors were firing off lasers at her head. She'd been hit once already, in the shoulder, but it was only a graze. It hurt more than she was willing to admit; her entire arm was numb, but responsive, and she followed EDI's instructions to the letter.
"Ash, you've got husks headed your way!"
She yanked open the panel EDI indicated seconds before, setting her handgun on the workbench beside her. Thank him later. "All right, I'm in. What am I looking for?"
"I'm reading the circuits. Please standby."
"I don't have time to standby!" Ashley exclaimed, clicking on the built-in flashlight on her helmet. She bent forward, leaning inside, and looked around, searching for any flaws on her own. Then again, while she'd been trained to damage defenses such as these, she hadn't exactly been trained to repair them. Still, that was enough to know what was out of place, and what wasn't.
"Scanning."
A hand locked onto her assault rifle, pulled, and flung it over the edge of the gun. She whipped around, but by then, the husk had recovered from its confusion, and grabbed her by the throat. It slammed her back into the sheet panels with enough force to make her see stars. The oxygen indicators on the corner of her visor started flashing, indicating damage to the suit and its software.
She drove her elbow down into the husk's just as a wave of music blared over the comm. It was accompanied by Trakes' childlike laughter. As she hit the ground, she ripped her helmet off, and took it in an underhanded grip. When she got back on her feet, the husk was coming after her again. Glowing hot-white eyes, bluish skin, breath that smelled like a mass grave, and that's what she'd nearly become?
Exposure could kill. She'd have to get back into the habit of praying.
Only, after the first hit of her helemt off its head, the husk stumbled back, gave her an odd look, and shuffled around in confusion. Ashley hesitated, glancing between the gun's damaged insides and the husk, and decided to worry about the meaning behind that later.
Instead of putting her helmet back on, Ashley reached up to her ear. The radio crackled noisily, but EDI's voice soon came through, loud and clear. "...a jumper through circuit board 17 to 12."
"Can you repeat that?"
"Reconnect board 15 to the main power, then place a jumper through circuit board 17 to 12."
Ashley replaced her gun on her hip, grabbed the small wires and pliers from their places on the bench, and crawled into the maintenance shaft opened earlier. To her left, there was a switch for power. She hit it, bathing the cramped space in red light, before continuing to haul herself through. As soon as she was able, Ashley got up and began rooting through the hanging wires and parts from the various shelves.
"Does it matter which board I reconnect?"
"Board 15 controls the firing mechanism. Ten through 14 are sensors."
"Then what the hell is board 12 for?"
"Safety countermeasures."
"There's a reason I signed up as infantry," she grumbled, following the small signs to a ladder. She climbed up to the next platform, hopping off right beside the section of electronics she needed. Four electronics boards dangled by their wires, sparking when bare copper brushed together, and she scowled. "I can't tell which board is which, EDI. I'm going to have to connect them all."
"Very well. Please do so quickly. I am nearly finished breaking through the firewalls."
She rubbed her numb arm a bit before setting to work, placing her equipment into her mouth. Tasted like plastic and metal, almost like blood. Cold and gross.
Ashley squinted at the small points on the first circuit. Two wires had been cut from power cables, transferring from large gauge wire to small gauge (two to ten), but she took a piece of 12 gauge and wound the ends together. She tore the insulation a little, shoved the loose ends down into the cables, and squeezed the insulation back into place.
"VI restored," a feminine voice reported.
"Great," she mumbled sarcastically. Repeating the previous process with the remaining boards was easy, makeshift and probably shitty, but easy. It would serve the temporary purpose. "I've got the circuits back in place, EDI, but you'll have to tell me what boards 17 and 12 should look like."
"Board 17 should be made up of resistors, capacitors, and diodes."
Locating it was just as easy as her crappy repair job. "And 12?"
"Board 12 will be made up of IC chips and computer-sensor switches."
"What?"
"Non-programmable logic gates, Williams," EDI said.
She grunted, but wrapped two pieces of 12 gauge together, stuck one end through an open connection on board 17, then threaded it to board 12. Both connected ends of the lead were bent backwards to hold better.
"Got it," Ashley reported.
"Reroute the power once you return to the deck."
"On it."
She dropped back to the lower floor and crawled back outside, wincing at the sunlight as she pulled herself from the AA gun. Below, Shepard and Trakes were still fighting with the Collectors, but that wasn't her priority at the moment. She ran around the side of the observation deck to the ladder leading up to the firing platform. The husk was still milling about aimlessly, grunting and groaning as it tried to find a way back to the ground; Ashley didn't pay it any attention. The climb was quick, but painful on her wounded arm. Shooting either of her rifles would be pointless when hauling her own weight hurt.
There it was, the redirect switch, right beside the programming panel.
"I have uploaded to the battery's systems," EDI reported. "Reactivate the cannon and I can fire on the Collector ship."
Ashley started towards it, letting out a breath of relief. Almost there.
Then, somehow, she was on the floor. Her shoulder wound was bleeding profusely now, reopened, and something felt off with her ankle. A Collector was standing over her, aiming its laser at her head. Not only was its weapon glowing bright yellow, but so was it. Bright, yellow veins traced up and down its body as it stared down at her. It almost looked...curious. Confused.
EDI's voice sounded extremely high pitched and whiny, and she shut off her comm, tears forming in her eyes. The gunfire below, Shepard and Trakes shouting, the whirring of the machinery and electronics below, it made her want to tear off her ears. It was all too loud.
A soft, soothing hum flooded her. It went everywhere, straight to her core, filling her bones and blood with so much relief that she was tempted to let herself cry. That voice was as beautiful as damning; she knew exactly what it was. It was the same singing that got her locked up in that Cerberus facility. It was the Reapers, begging her to give in. The singing offered so much more than her life did now. Safety, freedom, no more pain, guaranteed revenge against the Illusive Man. Whatever she wanted.
Then it made the mistake of telling her about the Reapers. An image of one of their ships passed through her mind's eye. It was easily twice as large as Sovereign had been, and when she just knew its name by seeing it, a feeling of dread sunk through her chest. Harbinger.
"You are human."
Oh God, it's talking to me. Her hand fumbled for her pistol.
"You smell like us."
It felt like her heart leapt into her throat. She felt sick.
"But you are different," the Collector continued. "More than a husk, less than human." It still had its gun pointed at her. It didn't seem worried in the least that she'd draw her pistol; no matter how much she struggled, she just couldn't seem to get a good grip on it. "You are proof that the cycle can end."
Wait, what?
"You are a danger. You must concede, or you must die."
Conceding to Harbinger was beyond tempting. All she had to do was stop fighting it, and she'd fought enough, hadn't she? Fighting the Reapers got her killed on Virmire. Fighting the Reapers got her here. Fighting wasn't worth it, not when there were just so many. She deserved to take a step back and breathe.
Someone shouted her name from the ground. Concerned, worried. It took her a moment to recognize it was Shepard, but just thinking of him pissed her off. The Reapers despised him; he was their problem. She could kill him, guarantee herself some peace...
He shouted for her again, told her to get the gun working for EDI. Ashley wanted to scream. It was hard to remember why she was fighting, but if she was fighting, there had to be a reason. A damn good reason. Shepard? He mattered. He inspired a fire and a desire to impress like no other officer she'd ever served under. He terrified the Reapers, but then again, so did she. He scared them because he had killed one. She scared them because she had all the strengths they did, and somehow retained her humanity.
Harbinger didn't want either of them anywhere near the other. Alone, they were like an annoying fly. Together, maybe they could cause some trouble. Maybe they could end the cycle.
"What a waste," it said, grabbing her by the front of her armor. Cerberus colors. It was almost as disgusting as the hand holding her up.
It dragged her across the platform before easily hoisting her over the railing.
"You are a mistake," the Collector said. "You were never intended."
She still couldn't get her hand to close around her gun. Maybe fighting really wasn't worth it. Maybe dying was better; she'd cheated death once before, and look where it got her. So close to becoming a husk just by being exposed to Reaper tech. So close that the husks thought she was one of them, but still far enough away from being a synthetic that scanners read her as an organic. What the hell did she have that was worth fighting for?
Ashley looked over her shoulder. Even with the enhancements, both from Cerberus and the Reapers, that drop would kill her. She looked back at the glowing Collector.
Her comm was still going off. EDI wouldn't shut up. Reroute the power, save that kid...
Kid. That little boy Shepard was so adamant about saving. There would be more like him. Her own sister could end up in his position, terrified and being harvested by the Collectors for God knows what.
Family.
Her hand closed around her handgun and she raised it just enough to fire a shot into the Collector's stomach. It dropped her on the railing as it staggered back, more surprised than wounded, but it gave her the chance to haul herself onto solid ground. Her ankle throbbed in protest, probably sprained, and lifting her pistol any higher than her waist sent electric jolts through her arm and chest.
It didn't matter. There was no shot in hell that she was letting anyone else face the same horrors this colony already experienced. There was no way she was turning her back on humanity to make her life easier. Not when she knew as well as Shepard that the Reapers were coming. Not when she still had younger sisters that weren't soldiers, not when they weren't trained to kill other beings to survive and protect others.
She felt her shoulder knit itself back together. She felt the torn tendons and flesh regrowing (which would always be gross). Holding her pistol up wasn't as difficult, even with the muscle fixing itself so quickly.
One shot. Then a second. A third. A fourth. Five. Six. Seven. Eight, nine, ten... Ashley shot the damn bug until her gun was so hot it burned her hand right through her hard suit.
When she was sure it was dead, she ran to the switch, and pushed it back up into position. The panel beside her powered up and she opened a channel to the Normandy. "EDI, the gun is online."
"Acknowledged. Firing on the Collector ship now."
Ash stood to watch despite the gun shaking both above and beneath her. Both fired on similar places along the hull, blasting straight through the ship's shields. An explosion split the air, and for a half a second, she felt that same elation as she did when the original Normandy escaped Virmire. Relief, excitement, and a feeling of finality.
But it was quickly replaced by horror. The explosion didn't come from EDI's shots at the hull, but from the engines powering up. Even while it lifted itself from the atmosphere, the guns continued firing, and the ship kept flying, as if it was the Collectors' final way of saying, "We're better than you."
That feeling of dread settled back in her gut. Even with everything, the Collectors still managed to win. They still took countless colonists, adults, teenagers, children.
And Shepard and her lost. The Collectors got what they came to Horizon for. The Collectors won because she was weak and stupid, because she thought, briefly thought, that giving up on humanity and the rest of the galaxy was worth it.
At the end of the day, she didn't have to trust aliens. She didn't even have to like them, but the Reapers weren't just coming for humans. They were coming for asari, salarians, turians, krogan, elcor, volus, everyone. And all of those races had families, and had people they loved, and had feelings, and lives, and no urge to die. Even if they wouldn't support Shepard until it was too late, they would still have to fight if they wanted to survive. It was them, or the Reapers, and even her borderline racist brain understood that it had to be the Reapers. She'd do what she could; she always did, and then some.
The only problem? Ashley was pretty sure the Reapers would try to indoctrinate her.
She was getting a whole new perspective on life. Back on the SR-1, she'd looked at Benezia and thought of her as weak. Now she knew what it was like to fight that, and Ashley could feel a load of respect forming for the asari.
But if that damn Matriarch could fight the Reapers' indoctrination, then she was the one of the best. And, like her father said, a Williams had to be better than the best.