Samara knew she was going to die here on Earth. She'd known it for a long time, ever since she and her fellow order members volunteered to take part of Stiletto Two. Already, Lorella and Aurelie had fallen, their bodies surrounded by the corpses of their own assailants, burial mounds for the dead composed of the enemy's dead. No Justicar could hope for better.
As for Samara herself, she could feel the blood from scratches and bites sliding down her skin, the wounds stinging with sweat. Exhaustion beat with every pulse of her blood, her lungs screamed from too much exertion and not enough air. And still the Reapers came, came in wave after wave.
And that was without being underfoot of the watchdog the Reapers had put at the beam. Not that it was doing much good. Apparently, once one got under its feet the only thing it could do was hope to stomp on one. Its aim wasn't very good, leading Samara to suspect it couldn't actually see her. It certainly couldn't shoot at her unless it moved…and it didn't appear to want to move too far from its post.
Which told Samara that although the beam had been turned off somehow, it was possible that the beam could be reactivated.
Not from down here, though. Although the beam's contact point on Earth was flanked by large windbreaks, there was no actual machinery down here to serve as the beam's origin or to sustain it. That meant it was on the Citadel.
She hoped, would have prayed had she the mental capacity to think about anything but the Reapers assailing her, the teams that had reached the Citadel before the beam cut off were having some kind of success.
As she fought, moving continually to keep from becoming barricaded by the corpses she made, a tiny sliver of her mind remembered her bondmate. Not her name, but her face. She remembered her children as infants…and what they became as adults.
She remembered Shepard, so young by asari standards, but clever and crafty, hardened by much suffering but not ruined by it.
She gritted her teeth, Harbinger's—it had to be Harbinger—little speech about having finally succeeded in killing Shepard still ringing in her ears. It seemed obscene to her that that mechanical monstrosity should actually be the one to kill Shepard.
But if Javik, whose voice she recognized as the voice delivering the rebuttal, said that Harbinger had just killed a mech dog wearing Shepard's locator, then she would take his word for it over the Reaper's assurance. It sounded exactly like the sort of thing Shepard would do, knowing as she did what an unhealthy fixation Harbinger had for Shepard.
She wouldn't believe Shepard dead until she saw the body. And even then…there might be a mistake.
For a moment that tiny sliver of her mind remembered Thessia, her beautiful home which was no longer really home. She wished, just for a moment, a sliver of a moment, that she and Falare could have visited there together. To travel its lovely cities as mother and daughter, to enjoy the heart of the Asari Republics together. So many regrets… and so many born from necessity…
Pain screamed through Samara's side. Looking down, she found her shields gone out again, and blood trickling from a bullet hole. A Marauder had gotten a bead on her, she realized. But it wasn't serious…and even if it had been, she couldn't stop to worry about it. But it hurt, left her panting from the pain as well as the exertion, which amplified the pain.
She pushed out in all directions with her biotics, sent Reapers and corpses scattering like feathers from a torn pillow.
She was going to die here, but she wasn't done just yet. And wounded creatures were by far the fiercer than those whole and hale. A grim smile played across her mouth as she unleased another shockwave. Yes, she was going to die here. But she was going to make Death work for her paycheck.
It was a faint noise at first, so faint that Samara almost missed it over the noise of Reapers and combat. It was rhythmic, metallic, then words slowly formed themselves, uttered by a chorus of harsh voices, cracked with fatigue but determined to power on: 'Show me the body, show me the body, show me the body of Captain Urdnot Shepard!'
As the noise grew louder, the source coming closer, Samara realized she was hearing the pounding feet and the crash of armor on armor mingling with the furious bellow of angry, possibly grieving, krogan.
'Show me the body, show me the body, show me the body of Captain Urdnot Shepard!'
…Urdnot Shepard? …interesting.
Suddenly, the beam behind her turned back on, charging the air with something like electricity, something that crawled over her skin, something she'd noticed when it disappeared and again when it reappeared. The abrupt shift between darkness and something harsher than daylight caused her to hesitate, to gasp, her eyes dazzled. On instinct, counter to what she knew she must not do, she tried to look over her shoulder to see whether there was anything to see connected with the beam.
In that moment of distraction, a cannibal slammed into her, baring her to the ground.
As Samara fought to repel it, as more Reapers crowded in, swarming over her like so many rats on an unattended meal, Samara could feel the ground shuddering under the march of massive heavy feet. The last sound she heard was the chorus of krogan, shouting defiance of their clan-mate's death.
Her last thought was less a thought and more a general awareness: she was dead, but she had done exactly what she set out to do. She had held the line, she held a way open for others to follow through, provided a path of less resistance for those who attempted to take the beam.
There was pain…but not for long.