Chapter Fifty-One: Night Vigil
Armed with Liara's discovery, Shepard conferred with Pressly and Joker, confirming Ilos' location and that they could use the relay to reach it. It was in the Pangaea Expanse, deep in the Terminus, and beyond isolated. There were no star charts. Before the rediscovery of the Mu Relay, the only means to reach the system involved years or decades of FTL travel through unexplored space, at unconscionable risk and expense given the location. Even within Council Space, such expeditions were rarities even in areas of active colonization like the Traverse, and required special approval.
Pressly was beside himself. He took the mutiny in stride- much to Shepard's personal astonishment- and seemed downright thrilled to be headed into uncharted space. It made a strange kind of sense. As a navigator, he'd spent years training for just these circumstances, skills rarely used in the modern Alliance save during emergencies. Maybe that was what lured Pressly into the navy in the first place- the promise of new horizons and fresh ground underfoot.
Once their plans were laid, Shepard took the comm and ordered Lowe to open a ship-wide broadcast. "Normandy, this is the commander. In less than ten hours, we will arrive at the Mu Relay. We now know that Saren's destination and the location of the Conduit is an old Prothean colony called Ilos. It is my intention to travel through the relay and either beat Saren to his target, or wrest it from his grasp."
There was no need for a big speech; they all knew the score. "I suggest everyone try to get some rest. The next time we get a chance, one way or another, this trip will be over. It's been a long time coming. He's not going to get away with it again. This war ends here."
As she stepped away from the comm, Pressly cleared his throat. "You ought to take your own advice, ma'am. It's bound to be rough on the ground."
"Gonna try, anyway." She gave him a tight smile. Sleeping before a mission was all but impossible even before the beacon's nightmare, but despite the recent thaw in their relations she'd rather shove rusty nails into her eyeballs than discuss her dreams with Pressly. "The deck is yours."
"Yes, ma'am." He took up her spot as she headed down the stairs to her cabin.
/\/\/\/\/\
The hours trickled by. Lieutenant Alenko was in the lounge. He couldn't sleep, and anyway, the hot bunks were full. He'd cleaned his weapons, checked his suit, run a diagnostic on his omni-tool combat routines. Thinking it would be best not to hit Ilos on an empty stomach, he spent a short while searching through the mess, but nothing looked appealing.
Somewhere on the other side of that relay, Saren waited, with his reaper dreadnought and a fleet of geth. One ship, even a stealth ship, wasn't much against such a host. Alenko wasn't the type to worry about the odds. He wasn't afraid to die if it came to that. He just didn't want to leave any loose ends.
The lounge was crammed up against the skipper's quarters. He could almost feel Shepard on the other side of the wall, pacing back and forth, wearing a shiny-smooth strip into the floor. She'd probably be up all night re-running numbers and strategy and scenarios until her head was a total mess and only putting actual boots on Ilos would bring it back into focus.
It was hard to sit there, with it being so late and her so close, knowing that everyone tonight was too preoccupied with their own thoughts to notice or care if he went to her cabin.
I should let her at least try to rest. He bit his lip. It wasn't a good time for distractions, or heart-to-heart chats. He glanced again at the wall. Screw it. I want- I'll just go in and say what needs to be said. And then I'll leave. That's all.
Before he could think better of it, he rose and rapped on her hatch.
/\/\/\/\/\
Shepard sat at her personal terminal. Upon discovering there were no maps of Ilos to consult, even ancient ones, she settled for a mash-up of Sovereign images, geth force estimates, and data on other Prothean sites. It was a feeble attempt to think through what they were likely to encounter on the planet's surface.
"Enter," she called, distracted, at the knock.
Kaidan walked in. "Hey, you."
As openers went, it wasn't stunning, but it put a smile on her face. "Hey yourself. I figured you'd be sleeping."
"And I figured you'd be driving yourself to distraction trying to plan the unplannable." But he said it with a smile of his own. "You can take Commander Shepard out of the chain of command, but you can't take the commander out of her."
She slouched back and shook her head, chuckling. "I guess I should get some use out of the title while I can. The first thing the navy's going to do when they catch up is strip my rank."
"'Mutineer' has more of a ring to it than 'commander' anyway."
"Doesn't look quite as impressive on a resume."
His mouth quirked. He crossed his arms. "I suppose that depends on who's trying to hire you."
She laughed again, and smoothed her expression, erasing the anxiety. "What do you need?"
"Nothing," he replied, instantly, and blushed. "I mean, nothing official, anyway."
She knew what he meant. Since about an hour into this vigil, she'd been fighting the impulse to find him, to have somebody to help wait out this long night, but she resisted because it seemed an unnecessary distraction. Unprofessional. Shepard was really starting to hate that word. For the moment, she decided to ignore it.
She moved across the room and settled into the couch, leaning back with her arm resting along the top of the cushions. "We're fleeing our own navy, and there's a good chance we're all dead by this time tomorrow. It may be time to admit that this stopped being a standard officer-subordinate relationship awhile back. What's on your mind?"
He stayed standing, and licked his lips, tapping his fingers against his arms. "This is some pretty deep stuff we're into."
"Having second thoughts?" she asked lightly. "I'll remind you that you pushed me into this."
That made him laugh. "No. This is just a hell of a way to set an example."
Shepard raised an eyebrow. "You think we're putting the navy at risk for a rash of mutinies?"
"I did read a weird thing a few weeks ago. Apparently, there's been an epidemic of hair dye in the latest batch of recruits. Bright red."
"Please tell me you're making this up."
He raised his hand. "Cross my heart."
She buried her face in her hands. "I tried to tell them I'm no good on a poster. Why does nobody ever listen to me?"
Alenko eased into the seat beside her, and nudged her. "Maybe you're a better example than you think."
She scoffed, embarrassed, smoothed her hands over her lap and looked up at him. "Seriously, what did you need?"
The light-hearted mood evaporated. He fidgeted and fumbled. "It's all going to hit the fan when we get to Ilos. I just wanted you to know… Well. I've enjoyed serving under you."
Oh, so that was it.She smirked, and leaned towards him. Her fingertip brushed his jawline. "Kaidan, I don't believe I've yet had the pleasure of you serving under me."
He chuckled, and blushed a bit despite himself. "Well, there goes me trying to be serious for a moment."
"Let's not kid ourselves. You're always perfectly serious." Her grin widened.
The joke fell flat. He seemed determined to have this out, whatever it was. Kaidan took a breath and looked into her face, searching. Then he picked up her hand, inspecting it fastidiously like he had in the mess earlier. "Nathaly- what if this doesn't work out?"
She didn't know whether he meant the mission, or something else. Between the gravity of the situation and their proximity to one another, it was hard not to wonder about his reaction if she slid across that last bit of distance, pressed him down into the couch, and let whatever happened run its course. If it all ended on Ilos, she didn't want to squander these last moments alone together.
The thought was disconcerting. Shepard wasn't accustomed to having anything much to lose.
Rather more carefully than she intended, she said, "I keep telling myself we're doing the right thing. I'm not sure I believe me yet."
His hand tightened on hers. He looked back up at her. "If I didn't think we were doing the right thing, I would have left on the Citadel."
The mission, then. She tried not to show her disappointment. She couldn't even say what she wanted from him right now, but it wasn't this.
"This isn't what I wanted to talk about," Kaidan said abruptly, as if reading her mind. He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. "I've been thinking a lot. About this, about us."
"Yeah." She slouched a bit. Her hand slipped free. "Sometimes I think I burn all my timing luck on my professional life."
"Tell me about it." More than a little frustration there, a feeling she shared.
Shepard took another breath, met his eyes. "I know there are much more important things. And I know that what happened with- what happened on Virmire can't happen again. But sometimes I just wish…"
The statement went unfinished. With a touch of wistfulness, Shepard tried to shrug it away, and he was suddenly irritated, though not with her. This bond between them, this relationship, wasn't something that should be shrugged off, or buried, or left unvoiced.
Alenko reached for a bit of bravery- and abruptly snagged her hand again, enclosing it in his fingers. "I think about losing you and I can't stand it. The galaxy will just keep going. Everything, even the reapers, will come around again." He touched her cheek, gentle, hesitant. "But you and I, we are important right now. This is what will never happen again. Us."
He was so earnest, as he looked at her, that it made Ilos and Saren and all the rest of it seem small. She suddenly didn't care whether confession made her seem weak. The only real crime would be letting this slip away. She put her hand on his chest. "I'm so glad you were here, through all of this. I think I would have lost my mind a couple times over by now."
"Who says you haven't?" He chuckled, smoothing back her hair. There was hardly any gap between them now. "You would have been ok. You're strong."
"Between you and me? Some days I'm really tired of being strong." She looked him over. "You do ok yourself."
"I'm not like you." Kaidan dropped his hand from her face and glanced away. "I've never… I've always been kind of an outsider. It's not just the biotics. The way I think and feel about things… it marks me, you know?"
She did know. She'd been in the same position, more often than not. "You have a strength of conviction. That's not a vice. It's admirable."
He shook his head. "I wasn't totally honest with you earlier, when you asked why I signed up. Half the reason I wanted to enlist is so I could know, just once, what it was like to be an ordinary person. Fit in somewhere, just another marine. But I'm still…"
"Different," she filled in after a few seconds passed. Her heart was breaking for him. She had a feeling this was something he'd never told anyone, not even once, because it was too honest and too vulnerable and he'd had those virtues exploited too many times.
"You make me feel human, Nathaly." His gaze returned to her face, and there was wonder in it, edged with just a little bit of fear. He took a shaky breath. "Like maybe I have a place to belong after all."
"Come here." Shepard's throat was almost too stopped up to speak, so she simply wrapped her arms around him. Somehow it was still not enough. She wanted- needed- this to be real, if only for one night, if only for a single moment.
Her voice muffled in his cheek. "Stay with me tonight. Please."
He was returning the embrace so tightly it was difficult to breathe, but she didn't care in the slightest.
"It can't change anything," he said, but he made no effort to move away.
"I know." Her nose brushed his ear. Desire burned to run her tongue along it, to hear him gasp, make him shiver, smother every guilty instinct telling her this was a bad idea with one intimate touch. His mouth was at her neck, his breath ragged.
Shepard forcibly drew back, cupping his face with her hands, the texture of his cheeks rough beneath her fingers. The musky scent of his body filled her nose and went to her head.
He brushed a stray lock of hair off her face, a gesture by now as familiar as it was intimate. There was no joking now, no playfulness, only the quiet strain of need and intention. Their eyes met.
Shepard took a final breath. Leaned across the scant space between them, and kissed him.
He pressed against her, his lips moving against hers. No hesitancy, but no rush, either. Just feeling each other. Getting familiar. Savoring the feel and the taste, something new and yet somehow completely at home.
Her hand slid to the back of his head, fingers tangling through his hair. His arms circled her waist. Worrying at her shirt where it tucked into the band of her pants, just like in the cave on Virmire, wanting her skin and almost taunting himself with it.
But she'd had enough teasing. She broke the kiss- his mouth trailing after her a moment in surprise at her sudden absence- leaned back just far enough, and pulled her shirt over her head in one smooth movement. Bent her head back to him, lips parted, and forgot absolutely everything but the feel of him against her flesh, the taste him on her tongue, and the her own growing need.
He groaned her name into her ear. "Nathaly-"
That one little word ran like lightening down her body. She loved hearing her name. Not out of vanity- because it said this wasn't mindless sex, but something she was doing to him, and him to her. That the fact that it was her mattered because there had been enough times when it didn't. She never told anyone that, but somehow he knew, or stumbled over it. Probably made no difference which.
She didn't let him recover. Instead, she brought his mouth back to hers, her fingers clinching in his hair, putting him exactly where she wanted him. His response was instantaneous. Clutching her, almost crushing her, forcing them both to their feet. They staggered off towards the bed in a kind of frenzy. His legs bumped into the mattress. She hadn't made the bed and didn't care. She pushed him down onto the rumpled sheets and climbed over him.
His arms tightened around her. She had always loved the feel of him, always felt that they just fit, whether hauling him over some obstacle or leaning on each other in the shuttle bay after Ash died. It was the same now. Somehow he knew just where to hold her to press her closest. Somehow she found the exact right place to put her body so they had full access to each other. Their legs tangled together. She left his mouth and kissed the soft place under his jaw, behind his ear, nibbled down his neck.
They moved together, utterly bespelled. There was no part of him that escaped her interest, no part of her he did not wish to explore, with an urgency that came from long deprivation. Every contact made her want him that much more badly, but also to hold back, just a little longer, to feel him ever more urgent against her, an exquisite tug-of-war.
By the time they finally joined their bodies, Shepard was well beyond caring if everything in a hundred parsecs could hear. She sank into him like a ship lost at sea. Kaidan's fingers dug into her hips were the waves biting at her prow, her legs about him the storm binding them together.
In the afterwards, Shepard slowly came back to herself, sweaty and panting. His hand was over her mouth, and Kaidan was looking at her with a mixture of naked arousal and alarm.
She moved up slightly, and kissed him, long and slow and deep. Affection, amusement, and somehow still more desire. "Everyone's asleep."
"I'm not sure that's still true." But he returned the kiss two fold. Clearly being overheard wasn't weighing too heavily on his mind. She lay against his chest, her breathing slowing back to normal. Listening to his heart thud beneath her cheek.
His palm skimmed across her sweaty skin. They were both soaking. She raised her head slightly, fingers brushing over his lips. Opened her mouth to say something. Failed.
He smoothed back her hair. His voice came out hoarse. "Worth the wait."
It wasn't a question. But she answered anyway, husky, her throat nearly sore. "See, all I can think is we could have started doing this a month ago. Imagine all the sex we missed."
He chuckled, a sound she felt as much as heard, coming up through his chest. His mouth sought hers and she gave it to him readily, another deep kiss that seemed to reach all the way down to her core. One that was not in the least tired, or sated. "Are you sure you're thirty-two?"
"Not tonight, I'm not," he growled, and rolled her onto her back.
They worked their way up to a second round, less urgent than the first, really taking the time to become acquainted, until it was all but torture, learning each other in lessons of fingertips and helpless moans. By the end they were both thoroughly exhausted, if still not quite completely sated. Shepard was beginning to believe reaching that point would take years.
They rolled onto their sides, him spooning her. She drew his arm around her chest. He planted a kiss on her shoulder and pulled the bedding over them. Neither of them felt the need to speak.
In the comfort of that moment and warm shelter of his body, Shepard drifted off to sleep.
/\/\/\/\/\
Shepard woke in a tangle of damp bed sheets and warm Kaidan. He was still fast asleep, his breath steady against her back. All was still and quiet in her cabin. It matched her mood. Right now, she was at peace. Warm memories of earlier wrapped her like a blanket, making love into the night, dozing off and holding each other close, earnestly, until real sleep took them.
She closed her eyes and snuggled into him, wanting the next few minutes before they had to get up to go on forever. Because she knew what came next. Did we really do that? Were we out of our minds? This will never work. This can't happen again.
That was how it always ended- some variant of it, anyway, the same leaden words punctuating different scenery. That it was happening aboard her ship was new though that only made it worse. As did the fact that this wasn't someone she just met and was trying out, hoping it would go somewhere. Somehow, in the breadth and depth of all they'd been through since leaving Mars, Kaidan became her dearest friend. Here, lying in his arms in the silence of this room, deep in Terminus space far away from human civilization, it felt like home.
She really, really didn't want this night, or this mission, to be the end. She wanted to pretend just a little longer.
The comm came to life in a burst of static. "Fifteen minutes out, Commander."
Damn, was it that late already?"Thanks, Joker."
Kaidan stirred but didn't wake. Shepard rolled over until she was facing him, and curled her hand around his, drawing it close to her chest. He made an annoyed sound and tried to burrow back into the pillow. Even with her stomach in knots, she chuckled. He never was an easy riser. Slowly, his eyes creaked open.
"Good morning," she said, for lack of anything else to say, and in spite of the fact that by the shipboard clock it was actually closer to noon.
He looked at her. She couldn't read his expression past the tightness in her chest, waiting for him to speak.
Kaidan brushed his fingers across the freckles on her cheek, and said, sleepily, "I love you. That was what I came in here to say."
She stared. It was the last thing she expected to hear. A strange feeling was spreading through her, elbowing aside the doubt and worry, and it was so foreign it took her a moment to place it. It was joy.
He blinked at her, muzzy-headed.
Shepard wrapped herself around him and kissed him soundly. He mumbled something against her mouth and reciprocated.
Pressly came over the ship-wide comm. "ETA to orbit ten minutes. Crew to your stations."
That woke Kaidan up. He swore. "We need to move."
"Joker only just woke me, too," she said by way of apology. Reluctantly, she disentangled herself and let him go.
She went to a storage compartment and began pulling on a uniform, while behind her Kaidan started hunting around the floor for his clothes. As she tucked in her shirt and turned around, she found him perched on the edge of the couch, watching her with his pants still in hand. Shepard's look was bemused. "Kaidan, we have to get suited up."
He blinked and gave himself a shake. "Sorry, I just- you're really nice to look at."
She blushed, but was spared a response as Joker once again made use of the intercom. "Commander, we're five minutes out. We could use you on the bridge if it's not, you know, interfering with your primping or anything."
Shepard glanced at the ceiling with pure exasperation. Kaidan laughed. "Alright, we need to go."
"I don't know," she said, looking him over slowly as he pulled on his pants. "Five minutes is a long time."
"Nathaly-"
"Oh, alright." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Hell with you anyway."
But she couldn't resist pulling him close for one last kiss before she sped out the door.
Exactly four minutes and thirty-two seconds later, she was standing on the bridge in her hardsuit. There was no time for a shower, and so the dried, mingled sweat of last evening still clung to her skin like filmy lingerie. She wondered if anyone could notice. It made her feel strangely daring and incredibly sexy, and at that moment, she felt like she could take Sovereign apart with her bare hands if she had to.
"Dropping out of FTL on my mark, ma'am," Joker said as she came up behind him. "Let's get a look at what's out there."
He counted down the seconds evenly, and abruptly the plasma wash cleared. Shepard gasped. She wasn't the only one.
Spread out ahead of them was the full might of Saren's fleet. Sovereign hovered at center, a wasp preening over its hive, while arrayed all about it were geth ships, similar to the one they destroyed on Feros. Each could hold a hundred geth units or more. Smaller ships flit between them, and streamed down upon the planet's surface.
"IES fully engaged," Pressly reported before she could ask, leaning down to view one of the bridge terminals. "They haven't spotted us."
Shepard leaned down to get a better visual. They were on the night side of Ilos; the ground was shrouded in darkness, though here and there, fires burned upon unseen plains. Sensors revealed the atmosphere was super-oxygenated and prone to storms. Lightning ignited the grass and some of the wildfires looked as if they would burn for years.
Kaidan finally joined them, strapping on the last of his suit armor. His mouth dropped open. "My god."
Liara took an unconscious step towards the port. "What are we supposed to do against all that?"
"Picking up some strange readings from the surface," Pressly interrupted, frowning. He tapped a few keys.
"That's our target, then." Shepard glanced at her pilot. There was no time for any deeper strategy. "Joker, lock in on those coordinates."
Pressly shook his head. "Negative on that, ma'am. The nearest landing zone's two clicks away."
Her spirits sank. "That's not good enough."
Kaidan echoed her thoughts. "We'll never make it on time on foot. Find us something closer."
The Normandy continued sailing towards the geth fleet. Their window of opportunity was closing. Pressly, rankled by what sounded very much like an order from a junior officer, and strained by the urgency of the situation, snapped, "There is nowhere closer! I've checked the whole field."
Tali crowded in. "Let me try."
Shepard rubbed her nose. She hoped to land the ship, so that everyone would be available for this, the last and hardest push. But she wasted no time complaining. "Drop us in the Mako."
Pressly surrendered the terminal to the quarian, disgusted. "You need at least one hundred meters of open terrain to land a Mako. The most I can find near Saren is twenty. If that signal is Saren."
It was Physics 101. Drop the Mako too steeply, and it wouldn't be able to slow its descent sufficiently to land without killing its crew. The shallower the drop, the longer it would need to roll to kill its momentum upon hitting the ground.
Kaidan paled. "Twenty meters?"
"If the Mako didn't have to fall quite so far, maybe-" Tali began, but Alenko was already shaking his head.
"The ship will never get close enough," he said flatly.
Liara swiveled towards them, her face drawn. "We have to try."
"It's Saren," Shepard said, reaching the end of a thought. There was no proof- but every instinct, every drop of experience she had, said that rogue signal was their enemy. Her gaze cut to Pressly. "Find another landing zone."
His arms flew up, an expression of futility. "There is no other landing zone! The descent angle's far too steep-"
Liara clasped her hands. "It's our only option."
Kaidan shot her a glare. "It's not an option. It's suicide! We don't-"
Four words cut short the tension and rising panic. "I can do it."
The argument died. Everyone turned to stare. Shepard licked her lips. "Joker-"
The pilot's eyes never left his instruments. Sweat beaded his forehead, but his voice remained steady, firm. "I can do it. Just don't overload the damn Mako this time."
"Right." She nodded and her attention snapped to her team. "Liara, Kaidan- with me. Now. Joker- I want my tank to hit that bastard's head on the way down."
He smiled grimly. "Yes, ma'am."
Shepard wouldn't run, not for Saren, and so she walked with deliberation across the CIC and down to the elevator. Alenko glanced at her, the question written on his face.
"Liara knows more about the Protheans than the rest of us put together. I need her."
Beside her, Liara blushed, always self-conscious at the first sign of a compliment. Shepard paused. "And if not for your overactive curiosity back on Eden Prime, none of us would be here now. You deserve to be there when it ends."
"My overactive curiosity almost got you killed, activating that beacon," he pointed out.
She waved a hand, dismissive. The elevator opened onto the lower deck. "Let's get this done."
They loaded into the Mako and strapped down. Shepard turned her head to peer out the side port in the chute, out in the blackness of space.
Joker came in hard and fast, skimming through the upper atmosphere to foil the geth sensors. The last thing they needed was an orbital strike. They passed through the terminator- the line between night and day- and in the fresh dawn Shepard could see rust-red earth poking out between a bounty of ferns and brush. In the distance was a concrete city fallen into disrepair, its graceful spires with their fishtail bottoms crumbled into ruin. There were no lights, no energy; only pink sunlight and silence.
"There won't be any animals," Liara whispered. Her hands gripped the edge of her seat so tightly her knuckles must be white beneath the gloves. "Whatever spiked the soil like that would have killed off complex life."
Kaidan was in the back this time. Liara had no experience on the gun. "Think that's our destination?"
"I doubt the Conduit is simply laying out somewhere," Shepard said, and then the forward hatch opened, and the Mako rolled out onto thin air.
Shepard was no novice when it came to combat drops. Making planetfall in a Mako was routine. By turns she'd parachuted, flown, crash-landed, and on one memorable occasion, on a world known for its light-element mines, ridden a dirigible from one cloud-station to the next. And the Mako's high-mounted ports made it impossible to see the ground beneath them as they fell. But she could not avoid noticing the regrettable horizon, far, far too near, nor the fact that it vanished almost instantaneously in a tangle of buildings, nor the suicidal speed of their drop. Their trajectory was nearly vertical, with almost zero forward momentum. Joker was cutting it very fine.
She did not close her eyes. If they survived, she suspected she'd need them immediately upon reaching the ground. But she recited under her breath. "Inertial dampeners can cancel thirty gees. Retrorocket can decelerate at a rate of…"
The Normandy's wakebuffeted their tiny craft as the ship passed too closely overhead. They fell like a stone.
Just before they hit bottom, the height and closeness of the Prothean city cut off the light. A shadow fell across her face. The struck the earth with enough force to crack her teeth together. Her skull bounced off the headrest. It wasn't a particularly hard hit, but with her accumulated injuries, her vision went gray, just long enough to really scare her.
They were still moving forward under the momentum of the drop. Pressly's vaunted twenty meters.
"Shepard!" Liara cried.
The commander shook her head and tried to peer out.
Directly before them stood Saren Arterius with a squadron of geth, staring open-mouthed at the rushing tank. Staring at her. He called something unintelligible to his soldiers, and the geth began to scatter. He took a step backwards. A hatch began to close between them.
Which was when Shepard realized the tank showed no sign of slowing, and they'd just lost five meters of terrain.
Liara, unthinking in her terror, reached over and gripped her arm. "Shepard!"
"I see it, I see it," she muttered, struggling to control the tank with Liara hampering her movements, laying on the brake as much as she dared. If she exerted too much force she could spin the Mako hard enough to flip it, and the roof was a crush zone second to none.
Alenko stared into the gun's camera sights. "Hostiles straight ahead, ten and two o'clock!"
"Then fucking shoot them!" she exploded, with no concentration to spare. Her hands were full enough already. Maybe, with a little luck, the artillery would slow them a bit.
The cannon boomed. The geth heavy standing starboard crumpled. The Mako clipped the other as it stormed past, sending it flying. Alenko tracked it with the gun. "All targets down."
Shepard abandoned all caution and slammed the brake. The hatch was coming up fast, too fast.
With only centimeters to spare, the tank slowly, achingly, ground to a halt. Her hands went slack on the controls. She slumped in her seat. Liara gasped for air, as if she'd been holding her breath. In the back, Kaidan slid down the platform to the floor. For a few long moments, there was no sound but their own heavy breathing as they recovered from the rough landing.
They were on Ilos.
