Shepard's head pounded with pain, but she shoved it aside as she jumped onto the liftgate and stepped into the cargo bay proper.
"Shepard…the admiral not coming?" Forbes asked, watching Anderson's progress.
"No, he's not." He couldn't bear to sit out the war behind a desk somewhere. Shepard understood that, understood the necessity of having people like Anderson on the ground…but she didn't like leaving him.
"I'll stay, too," Forbes assured her. "He'll need the help—and if you can't trust me, who can you trust?"
He had a point, and leaving her favorite protégé would be the next best thing to staying herself. It caused her less concern over Forbes staying: as an N, he'd end up posted groundside somewhere, anyway. "Better hurry. He moves fast for an old guy."
Forbes saluted and jumped to the ground.
"Joker, take us up," Shepard declared.
"Aye-aye, Commander."
Vancouver began to shrink as the Normandy lifted.
"Shepard, you need to get off the liftgate," Joker prompted.
Shepard nodded, but stayed where she was, squinting down at the beginnings of an evacuation movement. People swarmed and clustered. Something bright caught her eye, a flash of sun on something pale. She reached over unthinking, and pulled the rifle from the hands of the nearest rifleman in order to peer through the scope.
"Shepard?"
She let her Collector beam hit the ground, put her foot on it to keep it from 'wandering off'—as the saying went. "Just a second, Joker. All hands to posts," she added, knowing she shouldn't be impeding their own exit, but unable to just look away. It was her first good look at the carnage, and she needed it.
She needed to remember it, in case her resolve ever wavered.
The glint of light again.
The reflect that caught her eye was the light bouncing off the little boy's head—the boy she'd found in the ventilation duct. He was filthy from head to foot, his white shirt reduced to a dismal, dingy grey. So, he'd got out of the building after all. He still had his little toy ship, clutched in both hands, the last familiar thing in a galaxy gone horribly wrong.
Shepard bit her lip, watched as three shuttles, Alliance blue MP vehicles, closed in on the boy's position—his and perhaps a dozen others', all adults.
A Reaper laser, accompanied by that horrible sinus-ratting sound, cut into one of the shuttles, sending it flying apart, peppering its fellows—and those on the ground—with shrapnel. Two of the adults on the ground did not rise from their efforts to avoid the debris.
The two surviving shuttles dropped to the ground more quickly than a driver might normally do, if only to get out of the Reapers' sights for a moment.
Her stomach clenched, her eyes darting around for to see which of the nearest Reapers seemed to be paying attention. Her mind said 'accidental fire' took down the first shuttle, a stray beam, perhaps even fired off in hopes of causing damage at some point.
The shuttles opened, pouring out MPs who began setting up a defensive line or hustling people into the shuttles for evacuation.
Shepard bit her lip as the little boy, his face a mask of determination, climbed unaided into one of the shuttles. She took in a breath she did not let out: one of the MPs slammed the shuttle door shut, waited for the other shuttle to fill, then pounded on the doors to both, letting the drivers know they was good to go.
The two shuttles stayed as close to the ground as possible for as long as possible, then rose into the air, clearly hoping to sprint out of range before they were noticed.
Shepard lowered the scope—she didn't need it, now, to follow the progress of the two shuttles.
She winced as a Reaper laser—this one with purpose—cut into the second shuttle, sawing it in half, narrowly missing the shuttle with the boy.
She moved to clamp a hand over her mouth, to stop the scream she felt building, but aborted the gesture. It was not one she wanted anyone else to see, not when those in command needed to seem unshakable. She compensated by clenching her teeth so tightly she was sure she could feel them fracturing from the pressure.
The Reaper that destroyed the second shuttle was aware of the one with the boy: the little vehicle exploded spectacularly, the Reaper's laser apparently hitting something critical. She thought it might have been a munitions store, rather than some component of the shuttle itself.
It didn't matter, she supposed: what mattered was that, of those two shuttles and some dozen people, there were no survivors. None. It was her first real look—a look with her own eyes rather than through eyes of long-dead Protheans, looks garbled with centuries, with too much data crammed into a human mind—at what Reapers could do when they arrived in person.
"Shepard," the gentle voice belonged to Alenko, as did the hand that took careful hold of her arm. "You can't do anything for them." He pulled until she stepped back, then took the borrowed rifle so she could claim her Collector weapon. "Joker, let's go."
Joker, remaining silent, closed the liftgate as the Normandy angled sharply upwards.
The crew had a momentary sense of 'being at an angle' before the ship's internal systems compensated, returning the sense of 'being on level ground.'
"You really can't," Alenko reinforced.
Shepard made herself look him in the face. "I know. But I needed to see it. Ladies, gentlemen, pick yourself a duty station and wait for orders."
"Hey," Vega's voice cut across the emptying cargo bay as he hurried in, looking around. "Where's Anderson? Where're we going?"
Shepard took a deep breath, glad of something immediate to occupy her attention. From the tone of Vega's voice he was not going to like the answer to either of those questions.