Seven Years Previously

"I know this isn't exactly your normal mission profile, Shepard," Major Ingrid Gallo said across the dull metal table in the middle of the SSV Falcon's briefing rooms. The light flickered, shadows clumping in the corners and beneath the chairs. You'd think the Navy could spring for some proper lighting - but for all that the Falcon could carry nearly two thousand Marines and their myriad vehicles - and was assigned to Special Operations Command, the old tub looked a bit worse for wear. The Navy would rather play with their dreadnoughts.

…Euphemism intended.

"But," Gallo continued, "give that we don't know what the situation on the ground is, the boss wants a Raider team down there in case there's a hostage situation or anything like that. He wanted my best and that's you."

"Understood, ma'am," Shepard replied, trying not to feel too satisfied with the praise. Gallo's approval was painfully earnt. "Will we be seconded for the duration of this mission?"

The Major nodded. "Bravo Company, 2/30th Marines aboard the SSV Hornet. You'll grab a shuttle over there in two hours and report to Staff Lieutenant Jacob Eriksen who'll be overseeing the operation. Any questions?"

"None, ma'am. With your leave, I'll go get my guys ready to go."

"Dismissed, Lieutenant. We'll see you when you get back."

"Don't have too much fun without me." They'd been hunting a particular pirate gang all over this sector. Shepard hoped that this sideshow would be done and dusted quickly so she could get back here for the planned raids.

"No promises," the Major retorted, a smile flitting across her mouth. Shepard sighed theatrically and snagged the datapad containing information about the colony on Akuze as she left.

She navigated her way through the maze of metallic corridors, working her way down to Marine territory past harried looking sailors. A flash of sympathy flickered through her. Operational tempo out in the Traverse was high for the Navy and the sailors often had little time to relax - or even sleep. On the other hand, the Marines aboard the Falcon had very little to do but sleep, do push ups, clean things and polish weapons.

…Euphemism intended.

Shepard and her senior NCOs broke it up sometimes by going through simulations and going over intel reports in minute detail.

Shepard knocked on the door to the cabin her six senior NCOs shared. Some officers seemed to think their bars gave them a god-given right to be domineering over the enlisted, but Shepard remembered being a Lance Corporal at the mercy of her superiors. More than that, it was just polite to knock.

"C'mon in!" Master Sergeant Richardson's thick Southern burr was muffled by the bulkhead shortly before the door slid open.

Three of them were sitting on the floor playing cards. Hamasaki was doing push-ups beside his bunk. Soriano was living up to her nerd label by reading some science journal. Gunny Shehu was fast asleep.

"Here to play cards, LT?" asked the burly Russian Staff Sergeant, Borisov. The one thing she liked about being a Special Operations Officer was that the line between officer and enlisted wasn't as cut and dried. Here, she was one of the team.

"Nah. We've got a mission."

The effect of those words was palpable, the languid laziness of Marines at rest sharpening into deadly intent. Soriano set down her datapad. Richardson tossed down the cards he'd been holding between two thick, callused fingers, and thumped Shehu solidly on the shoulder.

"What the fuck-" Shehu fell out of his bunk with a thump.

"We've got a mission, Gunny," said Shepard firmly, forcing down the laughter that wanted to fight free. Hamasaki grinned openly.

Shehu sat up, rubbing his shoulder. "Fuck me, Richardson you asshole - What's the word?"

"Colony on Akuze went dark. We're being seconded to the 2/30th when they go see what's happening. Hopefully it's just a comm issue, but…"

"Prepare for the worst," Richardson rumbled. With his scars and powerful build, the Master Sergeant looked like the grizzled protagonist of an action vid, if missing the impressive beard most of those characters always seemed to have. Hair and beard regulations weren't enforced on the Raiders, but Richardson had asked the rest of the MSOT to keep clean shaven and within regs on this deployment. Easier to be mistaken for regulars by the enemy, not stand out.

"Exactly. Can you make sure our gear is all good to go and meet me in the shuttle bay? I'll get the others."

"Roger that, LT."

The other cabin was the floor below, so she squeezed past a muttering sailor trying to fix something electrical in the wall - Shepard wasn't paid to fix things - to get to the door. It whooshed open immediately.

She stopped. Blinked.

Seven vaguely guilty looking Marines blinked back. Lance Corporal Bình Lê, the baby of the team, was balanced on the shoulders of Corporal Toombs. Sergeant Nieves was holding up an empty rocket launcher for Hospitalman Thomason to pour - something into. A something she quickly and blindingly obviously hid behind her back.

"What the fuck." Shepard said simply. "How did you even get that out of the armoury - is that from the still? - could you not fucking close the goddamn door before your dumbfuck hazing rituals - "

She cut herself off and took a deep breath before starting again. "Goddamn. I'm going to turn around, y'all put Lê down, get rid of whatver horrific moonshine that is and unfuck yourselves. We've got a mission. You've got twenty minutes to be geared up and in the shuttle bay!"

"Aye aye ma'am!" They boomed hastily. She turned on her heel and stalked out.


"Not got anything to say?" Toombs asked, silhouetted by the light behind him. She could make out a few details of the hold she was in - austere, functional metal surfaces, neatly stacked crates and freshly swept decks.

"This isn't what you think," she told him, caught halfway between exhaustion and frustration. "I'm just trying to help the colonies and no one will help me."

"There we go," he said with a twisting sneer.

"You really think that this is what our unit would want?" she demanded, "Us killing each other?"

She didn't want to hurt him. The feeling wasn't mutual.

There was a gun holstered at Toombs' hip when he kicked Shepard in the face. Her head snapped back with a burst of pain. She could taste blood - her lip had split. Toombs stared down at her, and she couldn't find any echo of the boy she'd once known on his face. She was very aware that he'd held back - there was a lot of damage an armoured person could do to someone at their mercy even without a weapon.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I think that Richardson died for you. I think that you've betrayed our fucking unit. I think that when Jeremy stepped in front of that acid blast the better person died."

"Well," she said, "there's no arguments on that last part."

"We're not going to do that thing where you talk and talk until everyone agrees you're justified in what you're doing," he crouched beside her, "I trusted you once. I'm not buying anymore."

His email had been full of anger. He'd said not to expect any different than any other Cerberus operative, but part of her had - what, hoped he'd understand? Fuck, of course he didn't.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asked, and found the exhaustion was winning. Shepard didn't know how she'd ended up here, not really, so how she was supposed to defend it?"

"Not yet," he replied, back to distant.

"Not yet?" she echoed disbelievingly.

"We've got something to do first."

"Go to hell," she snapped pushing herself up on her one good elbow, "just get it over with." She wasn't going to beg or plead for her life, but like hell he was going to draw it out.

She half expected him to hit her again.

"Put this on." The suit he dropped at her feet was a civilian model - designed to protect against the vacuum and nothing else.

"Forgotten the handcuffs?" she asked dryly. Toombs sighed and reached over to roughly unlock them.

Then slowly, sweating and grimacing from the pain of her dislocated shoulder, she dressed in the suit, stuffing her useless arm into it. She bit down on the sounds that wanted to escape. When she was done, he roughly grabbed her arm and handcuffed her again - and this time a hissed gasp of pain did escape her.

He pushed her through the doorway and Shepard blinked against the sudden light. The bridge of Toombs' ship was small and cramped, a generation or two of shipbuilding old. An asari turned at their entry and when her violet eyes settled on Shepard they sharpened into loathing. Her scars weren't as visible as Toombs' but Shepard knew a survivor when she saw one.

"You're sure about this?" she asked, looking past Shepard.

"Yeah."

"I still think you should've shot her and left her on the street," the asari said with another hostile glance at Shepard, "Not everything has to be poetic, Chance."

Shepard saw the planet spinning on the galaxy map, a frozen white and blue marble, and her heart plummeted. When she met Toombs' eyes there was a sick kind of eagerness there - like he was excited to see her reaction.

"Why?" she asked wearily. Her head and shoulder throbbed in time to her heartbeat, and she could feel the blood drying on her chin.

"When they told me you were dead I went there. I thought I am completely alone in the universe again. I thought I could find some piece of you that remained, find some measure of peace. But you weren't there and at the time that stung, like you were abandoning me, but now I understand. You couldn't be there. You'd just used it as a way to get back to your real masters."

"That's not true," she shot back, sickened.

"You've always been a liar, Shepard. What's one more betrayal?"

Shepard's eyes fixed on the sedate rotation of Alchera.


Six Years Previously

The flight from Arcturus to Brazil had been full of screaming children and tourists. The shuttle from the city to the Villa Militar on the other hand was a rattling old Navy CT-94 full of representatives from each of the branches, so Shepard had let her head fall back against the netting and gone to sleep. The others aboard hadn't disturbed her. Either they understood the value of sleep or were too caught up in their own anxieties about where they were headed.

She dreamt that she was digging a foxhole, hard clay underneath her shovel. The enemy was coming, with bullets and artillery that would tear her men apart. She had to protect her guys. But no matter how much she stabbed that tool down into the earth, the hole never got deeper.

She woke up, sweating, as the shuttle hummed into a landing. The man beside her, a burly guy in an Army uniform, was staring straight ahead, lost in thought as the shuttle touched down. Neither of them wore name tapes or rank. That was the point - to strip you of identity for the length of Selection and training, to turn you into just Candidate Number. For Shepard though, it was almost relaxing. Everyone who read 'First Lieutenant Shepard' on her uniform saw Akuze and Elysium.

The whole shuttle went still and quiet when a woman walked up the ramp, face hidden behind a bandana and the blood stripe on her sleeve. Hard grey eyes peered over the material. "Those of you here for the Operator Training Course, stand up."

Shepard rose to her feet. So did the guy beside her and scattered others.

"Follow me," the Course Instructor said and then turned on her heel, tugging the candidates along behind her. Almost immediately they all began to sweat as the muggy heat pressed down on them. Behind her another N instructor was pulling out the candidates for the N5 pipeline. They'd be destined for premier raiding and interdiction units across the Alliance Defence Force, like the Raiders.

Shepard ruthlessly thrust away the flare of wistfulness the thought brought up. The whole Marine Corps knew the oh so tragic story of Lieutenant Emilia Shepard - saved a city, a colony, only to lose her entire unit to a thresher maw nest, and then she went crazy and got turfed out of the elite 103rd Marine Raiders.

She would never again deploy with the Raiders, that was the one certain thing. She would never again deploy with the Raiders, that was the one certain thing. What happens at the Operator Training Course is completely in your hands, Junior. That's what Anderson had said. After eighteen months of bobbing around Arcturus like flotsam, that felt real good.

This was the end of the line for First Lieutenant Shepard. The last throw of the dice. She wouldn't remain in the Marine Corps to be paraded around like a prized pony. Here, she'd succeed or fail on her own terms. She had to know.


"You're sure?" Miranda paced, her boots clicking against the smooth metal decking. The Normandy CIC hummed with anxiety and activity.

"I am certain," EDI's voice was as unruffled as ever, "We are tracking a heat signature matching that of a Sigil class corvette, and the heat trail is consistent with the Arachne entering a geostationary orbit above Alchera. The use of ladar could confirm this but would reveal our presence in system."

"Stick to passive sensors," she rubbed her face.

"We need to board that ship," Garrus said from behind her. His blue eyes were chips of ice in the hard planes of his face.

Miranda bit down the urge to tell him that much was obvious. "The stealth drive can get us close to the Arachne but it doesn't solve the issue of boarding her - nor stop her from simply fleeing once we attempt it."

The Normandy was a larger vessel than the corvette and much more heavily armed, but using shipboard weapons ran the risk of killing or injuring Shepard.

"We could use thruster packs, if the Normandy can get within a kilometre or two."

"Sure," Joker said, his voice holding a biting edge, "if no one looks out a window."

"Be advised," EDI interrupted, "I have detected a shuttle launch from the enemy vessel, headed for the surface."

Miranda and Garrus exchanged glances.

"What is Toombs up to?" Miranda clenched her jaw, "It doesn't make sense." If he wanted Shepard dead, why not simply kill her? Why drag her across the cluster to the place the first Normandy had died?

"He's not acting logically because he's not thinking logically," Garrus replied, "Nothing matters to him but revenge against Cerberus."

"If," Miranda said slowly, "we assume that Toombs is taking Shepard down to the planet…you should take half the ground team and intercept him. I'll keep the other half here to board the corvette if she isn't there."

"Agreed," he said.

"The launch of the shuttle may alert the enemy to our presence," EDI pointed out. Her holo shone a soft blue in the confines of the cockpit.

"So we jump," Garrus decided.

"Alchera is a hazardous planet," Miranda pointed out skeptically, "and the simulations Shepard made us all go through - that's not the same thing as jumping onto an unknown planet we haven't had time to survey."

"The Normandy can do a quick sweep to locate a landing zone. Tali, Jacob, Mordin and I have experience doing it - and I don't think we have any other choice."

Miranda had to begrudgingly admit that was true. "Fine. Don't engage until you've identified that Shepard is with them. If she's not, tell me immediately so we can board the Arachne."

Garrus' mandibles flicked irritably, but he nodded. "I'll go get my team together."

The turian left the cockpit, headed for the elevator. When Miranda glanced at Joker, the pilot was staring blankly at the viewport - or rather, at the sleek, white curve of Alchera that was visible.

"Do you need to be relieved?" she asked bluntly.

The pilot scowled, tugging at his cap. "I'm fine."

"Sure you are," she said dubiously.

"I let Shepard down here once. I'm not doing it again. I can fly, and you want me at the controls if it comes down to it."


Seven Years Previously

"Ma'am," Shepard stepped through the doorframe, fingers twisting into her belt. Major Gallo looked up at her entrance - and for a moment she smiled, easy and familiar. Then Shepard could see it - the remembering, washing over her like a wave, twisting the line of her mouth downwards. Sometimes -

Sometimes in moments like this Shepard felt this was the penance for survival. That she'd spend the rest of her life as a living monument to fifty deaths. Sometimes she wished they'd all stop looking at her like that. That was usually when the guilt came.

"Lieutenant Shepard, how can I help you?" Gallo asked, leaning back in her chair. A hint of surprise laced her voice. "You're in uniform."

Not the dress blues she'd spent far too much time in recently either - just standard fatigues, muted rank barr at her throat, her name on her chest. "Uh - yeah. I had an appointment."

There'd been so many. Psychologists, psychiatrists, a med board, plastic surgeons. Rita sat beside her in each one, holding her hand tight enough to make hers blanch, like Rita was afraid if she let go Shepard might float away and never come back.

"Well, you should get home," Gallo said with another smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes, "Spend time with your wife while you can."

Yes, before Rita used up all her leave and had to redeploy.

"No - I," she stopped, breathed in. Started again. "I want to come back to work."

"Shepard," Gallo began, something complicated flashing across her face.

"I'm not asking to go back into the field, ma'am. I know I'm on a profile and - but I'm sick of sitting at home. I can do planning or intel or something. You know I can," she said, rubbing her palms against her thighs, focusing on the rasp of the rough uniform material. Grounding, her shrink called it. Focusing on the now, not the then - or the low buzz of anxiety in her gut.

She was sick of it. Sitting at home with one of her friends or her wife playing babysitter, the only real measure of time the medication or the appointments. Her arm was fine. She could do the reports and planning the MSOTs needed. It was a way to still help.

Gallo looked at her steadily. "You're not coming back to the 103rd, Shepard. I'm sorry."

All the breath rushed out of her and for a moment she just stared at her commanding officer, tongue frozen in her mouth. "What?"

"The colonel thinks it's best if you get a transfer to a different unit," Gallo said carefully - like Shepard was a spooked animal to be handled carefully.

"You can't do that," Shepard said, something knotted in her chest, "I'm a N5 - where else can I go if not the 103rd?"

"3rd MLG has a position for you in their headquarters regiment. Staff work, but they want you to do some PR work too."

"Be their decorative war hero you mean," Shepard snapped.

"There was already a push to get you out of the field before," Gallo told her gently, "A Star of Terra recipient nearly dying-"

"I was doing my job. I'm not more important because of a bit of metal."

"The Marine Corps disagrees," the Major replied, "look, there's benefits here. You'll be able to see your wife and family more-"

"Don't fucking condescend to me," Shepard snapped. "You fought for me to stay in the 103rd before."

"It's out of my hands," Ingrid Gallo insisted, half-rising to her feet. "It might be good for you."

"No," Shepard hissed out, sick to her stomach with betrayal, "now I'm damaged goods."

"Shepard-" Gallo began, and the pity in her eyes was worse than anything she'd said so far.

"Fuck you, ma'am - and fuck the colonel too."

She left the major's office, the 103rd headquarters, the Marine base, brushing past the hellos, the salutes. She was meant to meet Jules after seeing Gallo. Instead, she walked in the other direction. By the time she boarded the tram back towards the apartment she shared with Rita the anger had faded, and in its place was a cool, hard kind of calm. Her skin tingled and when someone brushed against her, muttered an apology, it felt very far away.

They'd told her, Major Gallo and the colonel both, that it wasn't her fault. Again and again, even though it had the taste of a lie. It's not your fault, Shepard, you couldn't have known. There's nothing you could've done. Platitudes stacked on top of platitudes. It was almost a relief to know what they really felt - what they really thought.

They didn't want her in the 103rd anymore. She'd run and her Marines had died and they didn't want her anymore. They were shuffling her off to the fucking 3rd Marine Logistics Group to count beans and trot out at dog and pony shows.

The tram rumbled to a stop and she stepped off, into the processed air of the station and the warren like corridors. She went home.

Rita wasn't there. She was on a 'shore' posting now her emergency leave had run out, working at the headquarters of one of the corvette squadrons that patrolled Sol, but today she was seeing her best friend for coffee. When Shepard had woken up after the first surgery, Rita had very carefully gotten into the hospital bed and wrapped her arms around her.

They'd talked about children. They'd talked about how Rita wanted a corvette command soon, when Shepard's N5 company was off rotation. A big step towards her dreams of being a captain, but with short day cruises so a perfect time to have a baby. All that talk had stopped. Shepard had brought Rita's life screeching to a standstill.

In the dark apartment she found the half-empty bottle of whiskey and set it on the table beside the holo that flickered with images of Shepard with her arms around her wife, lips pressed to Rita's pale cheek. They'd gone to Ireland that year, spent time with Rita's parents and siblings. Shepard had seen snow for the first time.

The safe was in the bedroom cupboard, blinking red holo letters at her when she put in the combination. There was one less pistol in there than usual - they'd taken Shepard's when she'd been put on a profile - but Rita's was a Phalanx just like hers. Familiar as the back of her hand. Smooth, cold metal under her fingers when she pulled it out. Her hands were steady and sure as they moved. First the ammunition block, slotting into the grip with a satisfying click. Then the small cylinder of the heatsink.

She wandered back out to the kitchen, setting the pistol down next to the bottle. Her hands were just as steady when she poured herself a drink.


The Normandy's bones spread around Shepard, spars rising from snow banks like broken off ribs. A shard of name clung to a piece of armoured hull, propped against a ridge. She felt outside herself, barely feeling the hard pressure of Toombs propelling her forward. The silence of a tomb hung over the valley that formed the SR1's grave site, even Toombs and his asari companion keeping a respectful silence.

There, the Mako half buried in ice, still mostly intact. She remembers Nick Ki-tae's hands on the controls. The way the squad would thump him on the back of the helmet if the ride was particularly rough - and it was always rough in the Mako.

The Normandy's nose had broken off as she'd plummeted, separated when the ship's spine had broken. Broken cabling hung like entrails.

Everything was cold and blue. Familiarity shattered and twisted. This couldn't be the corridors in which she'd laughed and joked with her Marines, run beside a puffing Pressly. She was frozen all over. At Toombs' next shove, her feet caught in the powdery snow and she tripped, landing hard on both knees.

She didn't move. Maybe she couldn't. This was her command, smashed open. This was home, dismembered.

This was, she knew distantly, everything Emilia Shepard had been running from since the moment she'd woken up to Miranda's voice. This, the ship that had taught her so much. This, where Amina Waaberi had died and Alexei Dubyansky and Frag, all of them too fucking young.

They'd willing followed her from one end of the galaxy to another and she'd led them here to die.

Toombs tossed something in front of her. Shepard stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending before a sick feeling lodged in her chest. A helmet, scorched and black, a red stripe across it like blood, a torn hose hanging from the back.

"I found it here," he said softly, crouching near her. His gun was in his hand, all angular dark metal.

"You bring me here to gloat about my failures?" she asked, lifting her head.

"You were meant to die here," he told her, almost gently, "I'm just making it right. The ghosts here deserve a little bit of revenge don't you think?"

Technically, she was meant to die in Alchera's sky.

Toombs rose to his feet. He raised the pistol and Shepard found herself staring down the muzzle into his brown eyes. He was so calm, compared to when he'd nearly killed Wayne.

She closed her eyes.

The gun went off.

When Shepard opened her eyes she was still alive. Toombs' gun slipped from his fingers, and after a moment he followed it - his weight collapsing into her, pushing her onto her back. She bit back a scream at the twisting of her dislocated arm. What was he - ?

Somehow she managed to get her feet dug into the snow and rolled, onto her side, dumping Toombs beside her. His eyes were wide and unblinking and the snow beneath them was turning a deep, dark red.

"Chance?" Shepard looked down. The bullet had struck him in the back and exited out the front of his chest. A good, clean shot right through the heart and lungs. An almost instant, painless death. She could see the white gleam of shattered sternum and rib.

"Shepard!"

Shouting, hands on her shoulders and pulling her to a sitting position. A cry of pain pulled itself from her.

"Oh Shepard, I'm sorry," Tali's purple faceplate pressed briefly to her shoulder, and then the quarian was pulling the handcuffs from her wrists. Garrus crouched beside her. Past him, Toombs' asari friend was dead in a pool of purple blood. Shepard's crew were efficient killers.

Mordin bustled over. "How long has your arm been dislocated?"

Shepard wanted to ask them all to be quiet, let her get her metaphorical feet under her, but instead she answered mechanically, "Since I was taken."

"Will need sedation to relocate then. Will have muscle tension by now. Will put in sling and relocate onboard Normandy, with Doctor Chakwas' help."

The turian answered his comm with a raised talon. "Shepard's with us. She's alive."

"Don't tell me," she said abruptly, meeting his clear blue eyes.

"What?"

"Don't tell me who killed him."

Now, Shepard thought, she knew how Toombs must have felt when he'd first come to Alchera. She was alone again, utterly and completely.