…
"My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me; it has only strengthened me."
(Steve Maraboli)
…
Citadel Exterior, November 20th, 4:01 PM, 2186
…
Walking along the outside of the Citadel with Shepard, my ORIONs, and everyone else, I couldn't help but admire the lights and the way they illuminated the sealed Citadel. In the distance, there were occasional flashes of light as an explosion tore apart something far away. It was certainly more activity than there had been before when we first arrived, and my guess was there were even more people rising up against their new "leaders". It was still disorienting though, the lack of a proper horizon in the distance was quite confusing to my brain, limiting the amount of time I could spend looking up.
Even after a little over an hour out here, it still felt like we were barely any closer to the tower. The massive arm connecting the Tower to the Presidium Ring was incredibly long, and the Tower itself had only grown in size a bit since we began our walk.
"Watch out, another patrol!" Yaelo yelled into the comm, forcing us all to take cover as a Cerberus shuttle passed by, visually patrolling the outside of the structure. We still had no idea if they knew we were out here somewhere, but we could only guess at this point.
"Clear!" Shepard announced, getting us back on track towards the tower. As we walked, I got closer to him, getting a glance from him through that small visor of his. He tapped the side of his helmet, pointing between me and himself to get the message across. I opened my omni-tool, setting up a quick two-way channel just for the two of us.
"What's up, Commander?" I asked, knowing he wouldn't want to talk privately if it weren't important.
"I just wanted to get your take on this, the current situation." He remarked, sounding remarkably calm despite what we were doing. "What's their plan with all of this? Even with control of the station they must know they can't keep it sealed forever."
"They aren't. My intelligence source believes Cerberus' goal is to move the station to the Galactic Core, then cut off all outside access by destroying the relay in the Omega Nebula." I explained in further detail, getting him to look back at me for a long moment as we continued walking normally.
"What kind of source are you getting this intelligence from?" He questioned, obviously weary of the intel's efficacy. "That's a big conclusion to come to between our last communication and getting where we are now."
"Let's just say explaining the source of my information would take longer than the rest of this walk." I denied, suddenly feeling a rumble beneath my feet as something began happening.
"Everyone, take cover!" Shepard shouted over the group comm, getting us all back into position once more.
As we moved to the "solid" cover, I suddenly realized why I was feeling vibrations. As we sat in shadows, I watched as the five arms began separating, bathing the dark interior of the Citadel with the orange, red-ish glow of the black hole's accretion disk. It was a hellish sight, surrounded by the countless hulks that, until now, I had only seen in Shepard's reports.
"Still have doubts about my intelligence?" I joked, turning back to Shepard as the ward arms finished moving, sending another violent jolt through the station.
"Not anymore. We need to move, we're running out of time." He shook his head, turning back to the tower. "Jack, there's something I want to try, but I'll need your help to pull it off."
"What's that?" She questioned, putting her hands on her hips as she faced him. He switched to another channel as Reegar looked back at me, tapping his own helmet.
"Yes Lieutenant?" I asked, connecting to our own Confederation channel.
"Sir, with all this light out here now, we're not gonna stay hidden for much longer." He pointed out, the sickly light clearly leaving us very visible. "We need a new plan."
I glanced back at Shepard, as he and Jack nodded to one another.
"I think we've already got one. Standby." I finished, quickly reconnecting to the group channel. "What's the word, Shepard?"
"I had an idea, remembering something we tried here during our assault on the Collector Base. We're going to disengage our magboots, and Jack is gonna use her biotics to propel us forwards." He explained, getting a double-take out of me. "As long as we all stay grouped together, she should be able to keep us on track."
"Not entirely safe, I assume?" I guessed, getting him to look away for a moment. "We'd have to fly pretty damn close to the surface of the tower to avoid being detected as projectiles."
"There's a risk of course, but we're out of options. We're too exposed out here." He reiterated, nearly mirroring Reegar's observations from before.
I suppressed the memories of that jump we made to the Blue Suns cruiser years ago, along with the results of our attack on that Batarian dreadnought a few months ago. It certainly wasn't an appealing idea, but we had little choice. Sucking in my gut, I nodded in confirmation.
"Alright. Let's tell everyone the plan and gather together." I agreed, knowing we had to do this quickly.
Once Shepard had explained the new plan and got everyone together, we all prepared ourselves as Jack warmed up her biotics. Knowing entirely too well how easily this could go wrong, I prepared for the worst. I preferred to limit my zero-g escapades to enclosed spaces, and my track record with this kind of thing wasn't the best. I banished those thoughts from my mind for now, getting ready for Shepard's command.
"OK… OK… now!" He yelled, getting all of us to simultaneously disengage our mag boots and float off of the surface of the tower arm. We were now completely untethered.
Suddenly, I felt a force hit me, almost like a lasso around my chest as everyone shifted head-first towards the Tower. We all floated there for a moment, completely stationary before a large biotic blast suddenly went off behind each of us, shooting us all forward like a bullet out of a gun. We were all now flying like Superman, and our speed was only increasing. Jack glowed a bright blue behind us, managing to steer us quite well despite there being so many of us.
"Oh keelah… watch out for that outcropping ahead!" Tali shouted over the comm, sounding the same way I felt.
"I know, dog legs!" Jack shouted in an annoyed and strained voice, moving all of us in unison around the obstacles, a series of communication arrays mounted to what were likely elements of the Citadel's control systems.
I didn't get much time to look at it, though. We accelerated even faster, turning everything to a blur except our destination far ahead. We must have been going somewhere between 90 to 110 miles an hour, and I was forced to keep my eyes focused on the Tower to avoid getting sick to my stomach. It was indeed getting far closer, already appearing twice as large.
"Shepard, we've got a Cerberus ship on our left!" Garrus pointed out, getting all of us to look to the side. A Cerberus cruiser that had been patrolling the Citadel's interior was now making a beeline towards us, though not on a direct course. As it got closer, it shot at something behind us, between the ward arms.
I looked back, seeing a Reaper destroyer, clear as day, moving towards the ship.
"Oh Jesus Christ!" I shouted in a moment of panic, realizing Cerberus was now the least of our problems. "We just went from zero to one-hundred really damn fast!"
"Jack, we need to go faster!" Shepard urged, looking back down at me as the cruiser accelerated, clearly not noticing we were there. We were bathed in shadows for a brief moment, passing under it before it exploded into several pieces, its reactor taking a direct hit from the Reaper's main cannon.
Chunks of the destroyed ship started shooting at us at high speed, crashing into the Tower arm. I even spotted a body fly past as Jack continued to accelerate us out of the newly-formed debris field, grunting under clear stress. We were going fast enough now that I felt myself getting dizzy, meaning we must have been pulling more than our fair share of G's.
"Come on, you bastards!" She yelled as loudly as she could, the Tower almost right on top of us at this point. "Aghhhhh!"
She yelled out in pain as she arrested our momentum, right near the base of the tower. Little pieces of ship debris shot past us, leaving large dents in the walls as we floated towards them, reactivating our mag boots.
"Jack, are you alright?" I asked, grabbing her and forcing her to look at me.
"I'm fine, boy scout. I just need some water and a box of energy bars." She joked, getting me to smirk under my mask.
"Good to know you haven't changed." I replied, giving her a tap on the shoulder as we began our "climb" up the tower. The access hatch Shepard had marked was less than fifteen minutes away on foot now, but the Reapers were a cause for concern.
The Cerberus ships that had been patrolling the inside of the Citadel hours ago were being ripped to shreds by the Reapers that had seemingly appeared from nowhere. We made great progress, using the confusion to move very quickly up the side of the Tower unopposed. Strangely, none of the tower's defenses were firing on the Reapers, and vibrations could be felt going through the station as debris impacted from the ongoing engagement.
As we neared the top, we watched as several Reaper boarding "pods" slammed into the tip of the tower, likely where the Council Chambers were. If they hadn't noticed us and weren't sending them to cut us off, then they were likely going after the Director and his men.
"Be ready for anything." Shepard warned, opening the top hatch so we could go inside.
Once in the airlock, we wasted no time as it cycled. We checked our weapons and refilled our oxygen tanks, ready for whatever was waiting for us in the Council Chambers.
Silently, we shuffled out of the airlock, me, Shepard, and my ORIONs taking point. The place was wrecked, with bodies of both Cerberus commandos and Reaper husks strewn around everywhere. There were massive holes in the ceiling where the pods had breached the chamber, with red emergency lights bathing the place with an eerie glow. The fountain was dead, the water still with the exception of the occasional ripple as another object struck the station.
"This feels awfully familiar, Shepard." Garrus remarked, aiming his rifle into the darkest shadows. "No movement, whatever happened here happened quickly."
"I know." Shepard nodded his head, taking point with his rifle held steady.
We crept up the stairs, past one of the burning trees towards the platform. A disabled OGRE mech sat smoking up above the stairs, surrounded by dozens of smoking husk bodies. The air was thick with the smell of blood and burning flesh, and as I reached the top, I saw one man standing on the edge of the platform, in front of a large hologram. Next to him was Sovereign's computer core, clearly hooked into the console. I knew who it was in less than a second.
"It's over, Director!" I yelled at him, my voice echoing against the vaulted ceilings as I aimed my rifle at his back. "Back away from that console!"
He staggered as he turned towards us, clutching his side as he bled profusely. He was clearly very badly injured, but I knew better than to underestimate an enemy.
"You… look what you've done!" He shouted in unrestrained fury, pointing at me with his free hand. "We were supposed to be safe here, we would have survived, even prospered! It was all worked out, perfect, but you and your suit rat friends have made sure that there's no chance we'll survive the Reapers!"
"I don't have time for your bullshit! We've got the only means of stopping this war, and you've done everything possible to further endanger it." I dismissed, walking towards him as he raised a Carnifex towards me. "Oh, go on, shoot me! It's about all you've got left right now!"
"I should… I shoul..." He paused, coughing up a mouthful of blood onto the floor as he fell to all fours. He yanked off the goggles he normally wore with a grunt of pain, tossing them to the side.
"Listen, we can still defeat the Reapers. We just need control of the station. If you agree to help us, we'll get you the medical attention you need." Shepard reasoned, putting on his diplomatic voice.
"It's a little late for that, Shepard." He said with a dire tone, staring up to reveal his eyes were actually missing. "I've given my entire life to Cerberus… I suppose it's only fitting that it should die with me."
Before any of us could react, he quickly took the Carnifex and put it against the underside of his chin, blowing the top of his skull to pieces and showering the area around him with bits of bone and brain matter. As much as I hated the man, it was still a nasty way to go and filled me with genuine discomfort.
"Everyone, set up defensive positions. Sean, you're with me." Shepard ordered, looking at me as I gave him a single acknowledging nod.
We walked past the Director's crumpled body to the console, acutely aware of the Reaper computer core on the ground next to us that was powered and active. Though I wasn't afraid of it, I was worried for Shepard and everyone else near it.
"It looks like he tried to close the station back up after the Reapers arrived." Shepard assessed, looking confused. "Something stopped him, though. It's like the moment the Reapers arrived all the systems locked themselves out."
"I have an idea as to why." I remarked, glancing down at the core again as Shepard followed my eyes. "What about those jammers they set up? Are we able to disable them from here?"
"Um… yes, it looks like they're unaffected." He nodded, shutting off the jammers as my earpiece burst with a flurry of traffic before my omni-tool filtered out the interference.
"Good, that's back at least." I nodded, turning around and kicking Sovereign's computer core off the edge of the platform, through the glass and down into the garden below. It hung by the few wires still connecting it to the platform, getting me to sigh in annoyance. "Well, that didn't work quite the way I had planned."
"And I thought James was unnecessarily destructive." He shook his head, shooting out one of the wires and sending it falling right to the ground below. He then returned his attention to the console, managing to reactivate the power grids in the Wards. I nodded in approval, turning around and opening my omni-tool.
"This is Admiral Michaels to all Confederation forces on the Citadel. We have control of the Tower for the moment, but the Reapers have arrived and are attacking Cerberus in force." I informed, wanting to connect to all my men. "I want an operational confirmation from each squad, then you're to bunker down and wait for Confederation reinforcements."
"Admiral? Is that you?!" I heard my long-range immediately spit out, surprising me.
"Dixon? My God, it's good to hear your voice." I replied, feeling very thankful all of the sudden as our connection to the outside world was restored. "What's your status?"
"Status is grim, sir! Randall and Lenlo managed to stop Cerberus from killing the relay, but we got pinned down on the other side of the relay with the Citadel Defense Fleet trying to reach the core." He explained, getting Shepard to shoot me a worried look. "We're holding our own, but the rest of the fleets still haven't arrived."
"Alright, just keep them held back until-" I began to order as commotion could be heard on the other side of the line. "Dixon? What's happening?"
"God damn, they just jumped into the system in one coordinated jump! All the Confederation fleets, Systems Alliance, Turian… sir, they also brought the Crucible!" He yelled in elation, unable to contain his joy as the rest of the CIC crew could be heard cheering.
"Alright, you coordinate with them for now, but keep me informed of any changes to the plan! I want you at the head of that fleet, Dixon." I urged, trying my best to handle the new influx of information as several loud bangs could be heard hitting the Tower. "We'll hold the Tower as long as possible, try to keep them from accessing the Citadel's systems. When you get the chance, recover our people in the Presidium, then us. Don't let me down, XO."
"Understood, sir. Over and out." He finished, cutting the connection for now as screeches could be heard echoing from the back of the chamber. I knew now was our time.
"ORIONs, now's your time to shine and put your names in those history books! I don't want them to get a single meter, foot, or inch past us!" I shouted, jumping on top of one of the planters to look down over them. "We're gonna kill them, then kill them again until they either stop coming, or they're all dead! You're the best the Confederation has to offer, and some shambling glowing zombies sure as hell aren't going to stop you now! Am I right, marines?!"
"Sir, yes'sir!" They all shouted in unison as the shrieks got louder.
"Mhm, that's what I thought! I want overlapping fields of fire in all directions, restrict automatic fire to groups or large targets, and make all your shots count. Good luck to you all." I finished, jumping back down to cover with Shepard who was now giving me a funny look. "What?"
"Nothing… that just sounded a bit practiced." He smiled, getting me to roll my eyes as the first wave of husks charged over the top of the bottom row of stairs. They were cut to shreds under our combined fire, but there were plenty to wear us down over time.
Looking back at the OGRE mech, I suddenly had an interesting idea.
"Tali, I need your help with something!" I shouted over the gunfire, vaulting over my cover towards it.
"What's your plan, Sean?" She asked, firing her shotgun as we used the ORGE for cover.
"I want you to reprogram this thing to attack Reapers while I fix its powerplant." I urged, pulling off the reactor cover to examine the damage. "It only needs to know not to attack us."
"I'll do my best." She agreed, opening her omni-tool as she hooked into an access port on its back.
The reactor was well engineered for something Cerberus had built, even if it was poorly shielded from electrical interference. Several grenades were fired by one of my ORIONs, impacting on the horde and splattering them like bugs on a windshield as I trimmed a melted piece of wire that had caused the thing to short circuit. I cut it carefully with my knife, twisting the two ends together and hoping I wouldn't receive a lethal electric shock.
"I can't bypass the BIOS, it's encrypted." Tali shouted over another explosion, several bits of husk falling down around us as I did more work on the tiny reactor.
"What about remote control? Can we bypass the BIOS that way?" I questioned, getting her to tap away on her omni-tool again.
"Wait a minute… if I run it using my custom command lines for Chatika… I've got it!" She nearly squealed as the OGRE groaned to life, raising its guns.
"Let 'er rip!" I shouted with a smile, diving back behind one of the planters as Tali directed it towards the husks. It began firing its guns, cutting down waves of them with little effort as they all began to focus their attention on it instead of us. "Keep them off the OGRE, keep it going as long as possible!"
We fired for what felt like hours, with occasional moments of calm in between before even more of those pods slammed into the Tower. A veritable wall of husk corpses had formed, looking like something out of 300 as they began climbing over the newly-formed wall to attack us.
"I'm starting to run low on ammo over here!" Gata yelled, popping another magazine into his pulse rifle.
"Same here! We're running on empty here, sir." Reegar verbally added, turning to face me.
"I should have brought a damn sword." I shook my head, taking two more mags out of my pack and throwing them to him. "Make'em count, Lieutenant."
"Yes'sir!" He thanked, tossing one of them to Gata as I turned to Shepard.
"How are we supposed to get out of here, Shepard? I only know about the one exit, and it's completely blocked." I questioned, taking a moment to think about our survival.
"There's a shuttle bay below used by emergency services. If we break that glass behind us, we can quickly get below." He explained, getting me to nod. "If that fails, we can always jump."
"I'd rather not." I shook my head, peeking back over cover to shoot one of the bigger husks, another one of those crab things that cut Dan's leg off. Luckily for us, the OGRE's cannons made short work of it, even if it was running low on ammo.
As we finished shooting down the latest wave, we all sat in our positions wondering when the next wave of pods would hit. It was one hell of a lull this time around, leaving me with a bit of a pit in my stomach.
"Look at that… damn fine sight." Garrus pointed out, getting us to turn around and see the dozens upon dozens of friendly ships that had poured into the Galactic Core. They had set up a massive defensive line, with the Crucible far behind them.
"Wow…" I muttered as my radio buzzed again. "Michaels here."
"Admiral, we've broken through the Omega Nebula and are on our way." Mal said into the long-range frequency, getting a smirk out of me. "I'm sending the Saint Luke ahead of the fleet to send out rescue shuttles. We're going to get you and your men out of there."
"Sounds good to me, Admiral." I nodded, turning back to Shepard. "Hopefully it shouldn't be too much longer. We seem to be beating them back."
"I never thought I'd see the day." He shook his head, turning back to the console above the platform as another wave of pods could be heard slamming into the tower. "Keep them off of us, I'll see if I can get some of those defenses working outside."
"You got it!" I agreed, turning our attention back to the firing like we had created. "We just gotta hold out a little longer, people! Give them hell!"
Predictably, they started another rush, though this one was much bigger in size. The husks were practically climbing over each other to reach us, and had amassed in far greater numbers than before.
"We need a new plan, Michaels!" Garrus yelled as Jack began throwing out biotic blasts, having recovered from our trip outside.
"Tali, send that ORGE into the crowd and detonate its reactor! It'll buy us enough time to pull back to the rear of the chamber." I ordered, getting a quick nod from her as she fired the last of its ammo, running it right into a swarm of pissed-off husks. As they climbed over the OGRE, it glowed underneath them for a brief moment before exploding violently, shaking the entire chamber as it busted several of the unbroken glass panels and caused parts of the walls to literally shake off.
"Pull back! Pull back!" I shouted over the chaos, seeing it hadn't taken long for them to recover from the explosion as more poured in. Even as we made our way further up the stairs, more pods could be heard slamming into the tower around us.
"Get down to the shuttle bay! Staggered retreat!" Shepard said, immediately turning back to the console.
"What about those defenses, Shepard?" I quickly asked, running up to him as we began jumping down into the garden below.
"Defenses are shot, and they've already overrun the tower." He shook his head, sealing his helmet with a hiss. "If we have to, we'll go back outside, but we are not staying here."
"Understood." I nodded, jumping down into the garden as the husks overran the last line at the top of the stairs. I was the last to jump down, with husks hot on my tail. Gata and Reegar turned around to cover me as I made a dash for the open doorway toward the shuttle bay.
"Admiral, we're outside the tower and ready for pickup!" One of my pilots announced over the radio as I followed behind Reegar and Gata, beginning to feel my lack of breath catching up to me.
"Understood! Meet us at the emergency shuttle bay, we're coming in hot!" I yelled over the shrieks, blindly firing my rifle behind me as the wave continued running towards us.
I ran for what felt like hours, my legs turning to jelly even with the exo built into my armor helping me. The Tower began to rumble as something large struck it, either more debris or possibly one of the Reapers themselves. Either option didn't bode well. Finally, I spotted the shuttle bay as most of my team had already gotten aboard the Cobra, firing back at the husks behind me.
"Hurry up, Sean!" Shepard urged, waving me toward the Cobra as Reegar and Gata jumped onto the ramp.
As I got closer, a massive explosion struck the Tower, ripping apart the ceiling near the Cobra and venting the air out of the bay as the atmospheric field dropped. I fell to the deck as I gripped the floor panels, several of the pursuing husks flying past me out into the vacuum. The Cobra shot back as the atmosphere vented, getting hit with several large pieces of debris.
"Bosh'tet! We just lost the port engine!" The pilot yelled, several alarms clearly heard on his end. "I'm gonna need to make another pass to get up, Admiral!"
"Forget it, I'll find another way out!" I shouted back as the shrieks could still be heard further down the hall. "Get everyone else out of the combat zone!"
"...yes'sir." The pilot reluctantly agreed as the line went dead, and I gripped my side in pain from the fall.
Looking around like a frantic animal, I spotted a C-SEC Kodiak shuttle, quickly using the key I had gotten from Bailey hours ago to open it. I closed the door just as several more husks ran into the bay, one of their arms getting cut off as it reached for me.
"Oh God, Sean… you've really gotten yourself into it this time." I said to myself as I shook my head, warming up the engines as the abominations outside could be heard crawling all over the shuttle. Turning on the external cameras, I saw almost nothing but them as I strapped myself into the seat. "I'm not gonna die here… not gonna die here!"
I fired the engines, punching the throttle up as far as it would go through the debris. I shot through the wall out into space, finally able to see the wards in full again. Though I had gotten out, one of the engines wasn't firing correctly, and kept burning out. I must have damaged it.
"Come on, you piece of shit!" I urged as the sensors picked up two Oculi fighters on my tail. I flipped around in an attempt to dodge their fire, watching their shots barely miss me as they blasted past. "Jesus, this isn't a good idea."
I rotated the shuttle using the forward thrusters, taking aim at the Oculi fighters with the cannons on the front. I fired, successfully nailing both with pinpoint shots. Unfortunately, the pieces of one of them struck the shuttle quite hard, knocking out the forward thrusters and jamming the throttle on the broken rear one. I was now descending quickly towards one of the Wards, acutely aware of the speed at which I was coming in. I fired the RCS thrusters in an attempt to slow myself down, closing my eyes as I impacted with the lower section of one of the Wards.
The last thing I heard was a crash as I felt pain, and completely blacked out.
…
My mind was cloudy and unfocused in the darkness, unable to discern anything it processed. I saw a familiar light ahead, rushing towards it as fast as I could. Reaching it, I felt something grab my wrist, pulling me all the way through as I heard my name called.
I was suddenly standing in front of my old home in Catonsville, looking up at the trees as the sun peered between the rustling leaves. The wind on my face was crisp, carrying the smell of a charcoal grill through the summer air as a dog could be heard barking in the distance. I took a few steps forward, looking down at the old, cracked sidewalk that led to my home, the dirt on the sides lined with numerous Hosta varieties. I heard the pitter-patter of paws ahead of me, looking at the stairs to see my big brown Labrador Retriever Patrick barreling towards me. He slammed into my legs, nearly knocking me off my feet as chucked and kneeled down to pet him. His tongue dangled out of his mouth as he panted, walking circles around me as happy as could be.
"Hey there, buddy!" I said, patting his side as he rolled over, allowing me to rub his belly. "I know, you're a giant butterball! Good dog!"
As I slowed down, the wind picked up slightly, blowing a few leaves off the trees.
"Sean."
I heard a familiar voice call out my name again, looking up to see both my parents standing at the top of the stairs, smiling down at me.
My father stood there with his gunmetal grey hair, wearing his usual t-shirt and shorts combo for this time of year. My mother was standing next to him, graying bangs that bled into her blond hair immediately visible. She wore a summer dress like she normally did. Both stood side by side as Patrick nudged me with his nose, tearing my attention away for a split second.
"Mom… Dad. It's been so long." I said in a softer tone, petting Patrick as I tried to maintain eye contact with them. "I'm so sorry… about everything. I've missed both of you so much."
"We know." My dad nodded, putting his arm around my mother. "Not a single day has gone by where we haven't thought about you."
His words choked me up, as I couldn't help but feel ashamed, like I didn't deserve his compassionate reassurance.
"I never should have fought with you… either of you." I lamented, looking back down at the ground, disappointed in myself. "Can you forgive me?"
"We forgave you long ago." My mother reassured me, walking down the stairs with my father following closely behind. She walked with grace of likes I've never seen before, her hair shining in the sunlight as she pulled me in for a hug, connecting the both of us. "Oh, my sweet boy… you've done so much for your friends and family… we couldn't be more proud to have you as our son."
Her warmth moved through me as my father joined in on the hug, squeezing all of us together. We held that hug for what felt like hours, filling me with a sense of comfort I had only experienced a handful of times in all these years. As both of them released me, I felt a small sense of emptiness, almost as if something had been taken from me. I felt… smaller.
"Can I stay?" I implored, wanting to feel that way again as my mother and father both looked at one another, frowning.
"Not today, Sean." My father shook his head, patting me on the back and replacing the emptiness in my chest with sadness. "There are still people waiting for you on the other side. People who love and depend on you."
I sucked up the knot that had formed in my throat, forcing back tears as Patrick stared up at me, panting like the lovable big idiot he always was.
"Will you wait here for me?" I asked, sensing a new feeling, one I hadn't experienced before, wash over me.
"Of course we will." My mother nodded, the smile returning to her face as she placed her hand over my heart. "We'll always be with you, and we'll be right here, waiting for you when the time is right."
I didn't want to go, I could have stayed in that place forever. But, I knew they were right. There were others that needed me. Mara, Elle, Dan… all my friends, depending on me.
"Goodbye. I love you." I accepted in a shaky voice, feeling the world pull itself apart around me as everything went dark once more. It was like being in an empty room with no doors or lights, as cold as a block of ice.
Then, I felt pain, followed by a falling sensation. Before I could process it fully, I seemingly hit the ground, feeling the jolt to my system in an instant.
...
All around me, the world spun like a carousel, punctuated by a throbbing pain in my head and body. All the noises around me were muffled, as if tissues had been shoved in my ears. I felt the blood run down the left side of my face, touching it and confirming it was indeed really there.
"God, if you're there… thanks for watching out for me." I remarked in a half-daze, trying to get an idea of where I was.
It looked like I crashed into one of the ward markets, managing to breach a location with an atmospheric field. There were bodies all around me, and the smell of burning flesh wafted through the air like death itself. I could hear a woman crying in the distance punctuated by gunshots as husks could be heard not far behind. I then heard a loud "warbling" noise of some kind, looking up from my crashed shuttle as the Crucible crackled with untold amounts of dark energy, glowing brightly in the distance against the orange glow of the black hole's accretion disk. It looked like it was working, but it may have been too late for me.
I heard the shrieks of husks in the distance over the gunfire, getting closer with each second. Seeing that I had lost my pulse rifle and Carnifex in the crash, I drew my only remaining firearm, my 1911.
"Come on… come on!" I yelled, staggering forward as I spotted the husks charging through the smoke. I opened fire, determined to at least take a few more of these bastards with me.
I held my side, firing the 1911 with my free hand as more husks rushed my crash site. I was almost certain I was going to die here in this godforsaken wasteland, surrounded by these disgusting abominations and shipwrecks older than I could possibly fathom. Suddenly, my vision turned dark as a strong force pushed me backwards, filling the wrecked cabin of the shuttle with dust and smoke. My vision cleared and I stood back up, suddenly realizing how quiet it had become. I peeked my head back out of the shuttle, unable to see anything through the smoke.
"-al! Come in!" I heard Dixon shout over the shuttle radio, causing me to turn and face it. "God damn it Sean, tell-... you're alright, please!"
"I'm here, Dixon." I answered, getting a short pause over the line before he came back.
"God, you had me worried. We saw the two shuttles go down, it looked bad." He replied, sounding ecstatic. "What happened down there? We lost all signals from the Citadel after the Crucible fired."
I looked out the shuttle again, seeing the ruined metal hallways and stalls around me with little to no movement at all as the smoke began to settle. It was only then I saw a Reaper Destroyer leaning against the side of one of the ruined ward skyscrapers, unmoving as all the husks now lay dead around me, their implants already beginning to disintegrate.
"All the husks and reapers… they're dead!" I realized, the shock of it all finally starting to wear off. "I think it worked!"
"We're sending another shuttle down now with a medical team, don't go anywhere!" He quickly cut off, leaving me with the sound of silence once more.
I stood with my back straight, watching several survivors come out of hiding. They too looked out the window and some began cheering, unable to quite believe we had done it. Suddenly, I heard the shuffle of footsteps behind me, and I turned around, seeing Old Dan approaching with a smile on his face.
"Dan? What are you doing here?" I questioned, surprised by his sudden appearance when he was supposed to be on the Crucible.
"When I heard you were in trouble, I couldn't keep myself out of harm's way. I thought for sure you were dead when I watched you go down, but I'm just happy to see you're alive." He reasoned, getting me to shake my head at his stubbornness. I couldn't help but express the jovial feeling in my gut.
"We did it, Dan!" I congratulated without any more questions, grinning from ear to ear. "We actually did it!"
"That we did." He nodded in his raspy tone, putting his hands on my shoulders. "It seems we finally did."
Before we could say anything, tears began streaming down his face, even as he continued to smile.
"What's wrong?" I questioned, confused by this sudden change. "What's there to cry about? We won!"
"You did, I d-did not." He admitted, voice trembling slightly this time around. "My purpose here is finished, my friend. From this point on, you get to make your own future."
His words left a small hole in my heart, leaving me feeling incredibly glum for a moment before his expression changed once again.
"I hate to say it, but I am just an old man with painful memories, unfit for this new world. I'll be leaving soon. Where, I do not know, but it'll be somewhere far from here." He continued, looking hard into my eyes. "Maybe I'll go to deep space, or the Andromeda galaxy. Explore...like we always discussed, right Sean?"
"R-Right." I nodded, smiling in the face of his decision. "I… Mara and I will miss you, you know?"
He nodded in confirmation, closing his eyes and letting out a deep sigh. Just as he was about to walk away, I quickly stopped him in his tracks, turning him around.
"Wait! If you're leaving, you should take this with you." I urged, handing the OSD with all his files to him. "We don't need this knowledge in our new world. It's yours to keep."
He looked mildly distraught, looking hard at the OSD before looking back at me and gently accepting it.
"You're sure? There's forty-seven years of research on here." He questioned, holding the drive between his thumb and index finger.
"I believe there was a time long ago where we vowed to never work on the SDD ever again." I denied, slowly pushing his hand away. This seemed to elicit a good chuckle from him.
"That was so long ago… but you're right." He relented, slipping the OSD into one of the pockets on his armor. "Goodbye, Sean. Good luck in all your future endeavors."
"Thank you... goodbye." I waved, watching him walk away.
Part of me felt good about him finally being able to move on from the years of hell he went through, but part of me couldn't help but worry about him like I had instinctively over the years. I realized that he really deserved better, but he had made the sacrifice for our gains so long ago that it would forever be part of him.
I wished him the best of luck. He deserved to feel the same way we did.
I watched my CO arrive on an unarmed Cobra, giving him a smile as the medical team began treating me and the nearby survivors. I had no words, watching Dixon take a deep breath through his nose.
"If you had told me I would have been involved in something like this in high school, I would have called you a big fat liar." He joked as we both sat down, exhausted from the last few hours. "Thanks again, Admiral."
"Heh, for what?" I questioned with a smile, turning to face him.
"For giving me and my friends a second chance on Pragia." He nodded, breathing deeply as he stared ahead into the reddish-orange space around us. "It's more than we ever could have hoped for, looking back on it all. I never knew I was capable of doing these things until you came along and put all your trust into me that day."
"Don't count your chickens just yet, things have only just begun." I corrected, nudging him with my elbow to get him to focus on me. "Things will start off slow, but soon… soon we'll begin building on the bedrock we created during this war. I'll have my company, Mara and I will have more kids, and hopefully we'll live out the rest of our lives in comfort on Reach."
"That's one hell of a dream, sir." He smirked, tilting his head slightly as he looked into my eyes.
"It's more than a dream… now that the Reapers are gone, it's a promise." I finished, thinking back to the words of C.S. Lewis. He once defended his belief in Chistianity by comparing it to a rising sun, saying "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." While I wasn't sure if I fully agreed with him on the Christianity part, I couldn't ignore what I had seen the last few years as I stared up at the black hole in the distance. I thought about what I saw while I was briefly unconscious, especially. Parts were hazy, but I seemed to remember a warm, comforting feeling similar to when I had my little quiet moments with Mara. I vaguely recalled the smell of summer air, the feeling of the sun on my skin, and my mother and father's voices.
I wasn't sure if what I had experienced was real or not, manufactured feelings created from memory or some kind of divine message. But, it felt genuine, and that sense of warmth was worth all the effort in the world.
I would have made them proud, and if they really were up there, watching me, I hoped they were grinning ear to ear. There was a whole new world of possibilities out there waiting for us now. I couldn't wait to face it with my friends and family at my side.
…
A/N: And so, we have reached the end of the Reaper War. A little chaotic and frantic, but we've finally reached the climax of the story. I'll be posting the epilogue shortly after this chapter has been uploaded, meaning you won't have to wait to see what happens after the war. It'll be a long chapter though, so keep that in mind.
