A/N: This is an alternate ending to "For Tomorrow We Die," picking up at the end of Chapter 78: Xenophon, replacing chapters 79 onward.
Shepard pointed toward the shuttle. "Move!" He turned back to face the control shack where Legion stood and slapped a fresh heat sink into his rifle, waiting to see if his crew would obey his order. One by one on his tactical plot, they started for the Kodiak. Only one member of the squad remained close by.
"Shepard," Tali said, her voice cracking, "please don't do this."
He didn't look back at her. "You can't save us from here."
The words hit Tali like a mass accelerator. Every second she wasted, the less time any of them had; Shepard, Legion, the geth, the entire Migrant Fleet, any of them. She spun on her heel and chased after her crewmates toward the waiting shuttle. By the time they were halfway there, she was already in the lead.
"Garrus," Shepard said. "I'm staying here to cover Legion. Get Tali to the hub. Come back for us when you've taken care of the geth." He paused, waiting for an acknowledgement that didn't come. "You read me?"
"Affirmative," Garrus finally replied.
"I know I don't need to tell you this, but you fuck this up and we're finished. So no pressure, but..."
"Don't you dare say it."
"...I'm counting on you."
"Goddamn it."
From a distance, Shepard watched Garrus roll off the roof of the Kodiak to land on the deck as the rest of the squad ended their sprint to the aft end of the hangar. "See you in a few minutes, right?"
"We'll be back ASAP. Good luck, Shepard."
"You too," Shepard said. He turned back to Legion. "Shepard out."
"You should have departed," Legion said from the control console. Its camera eye focused through the window at its retreating shipmates. "It is not too late. There is nothing to be gained by risking your life."
Shepard stood next to the geth and figured angles potential shooters would have into the control shack. Its flimsy door and pane windows made it seem remarkably exposed in the corner of the hangar. "Would you have left me?"
"No."
"There's your answer." Shepard looked out the window to see the last of the squad disappear beyond the far side of the Kodiak.
Legion's head flaps expanded and his voice synthesized sputtered from overload. "Alert! We detect a sizable Cerberus force assembling on deck three, port stairwell."
Shepard looked at the hatch to the stairway just outside the control shack. "How many?"
"Another squad, twelve to fifteen in number."
The hangar flared with blue light as the Kodiak rose from the Xenophon's deck. Shepard stared into the inferno of Ma-at through the hangar door beyond. "Where's the ship programmed to go?"
"No course set. Maximum thrust ordered on current vector. Safety protocols overridden. Trajectory will carry the Xenophon into Ma-at's corona."
"Anything you can do to change it?"
"Negative."
"All right," Shepard kept staring at the open bay door. "As soon as I give the word, release your hold on helm and put everything you've got into overriding the the self destruct."
"Shepard-Commander, the resulting delta-vee will cause substantial physical harm if you are not in a secure position."
"I'm counting on it," Shepard gave Legion's shoulder a thump and jogged back toward the middle of the hangar. The shuttle was dropping out of view, on its way to the hub. The Illusive Man didn't know it, but he just might have given Shepard just what he needed to even the odds.
He huddled over one of the brightly outlined maintenance access panels dotted the deck and wrenched it open, exposing a crawlspace just like those on the Normandy. He dropped in, charging his barrier. The pit was just deep enough to cover him below the waist. A glance over his shoulder through the open bay door told him the Kodiak was clear of Xenophon's engines.
At the fore end of the deck, the portside hatch next to the shack slid open. Shepard raised his rifle but held fire. The Cerberus troops locked onto the lone target in the middle of the hangar and surged through the door, peeling left and right, firing everything they had at Shepard's position.
Shepard ducked into the crawlspace and shoved his back against the aft wall. Grenades burst centimeters above his head, making his barrier flare. "Now, Legion!"
Legion braced its physical platform against the console and released their locks on the Xenophon's helm. The engines flared to life and the Xenophon surged forward at fill power. Throughout the ship, unsecured objects and crew fell sideways as relative motion turned the ship on its end. The Cerberus squad in the hangar felt the deck yanked from beneath their feet like a rug. Flailing bodies and loose equipment tumbled helplessly through the open bay door and ship's barrier, flaring like matchheads in Ma-at's blinding inferno.
Shepard constricted every muscle he could, trying to keep blood, tissue and organs in place as G-forces pinned him to the wall. The human body could withstand such sustained forces for only a few seconds before coming apart in a way even medigel couldn't fix. A dark kaleidoscope swirled in front of his eyes, then faded to black.
The Illusive Man rolled his cigarette between a thumb and forefinger as he stared at the Xenophon's status panel. The quantum entanglement communicator had relayed his commands to the ship, but they didn't execute. Something, someone, was preventing the ship's destruction from the other side. His eyes darted back to Archer's projector in front of him. "Shepard has the Xenophon. How long, Doctor?"
"I'll tell you when I have an answer." Archer snapped, still pouring over his own displays. "The geth networks are still in a locked state. It might be-" Archer's image stuttered, then froze, then disappeared altogether, replaced by the words NO SIGNAL.
The Illusive Man blinked. Loss of signal was impossible with the quantum array. It had infinite range and was impervious to interference. He switched to the Xenophon's status page. The quantum communicator was still receiving and reporting the ship's condition but the ship was blasting out of orbit as he'd ordered only minutes before. In close proximity to the hub, the Xenophon's antennas could easily maintain a lock on Archer's signal. But with the ship spiraling away from the asteroid, that link in the chain was no more.
"Captain Scott," The Illusive Man said into the comm. "Report. Xenophon, come in."
He flicked his cigarette to the obsidian floor, sending sparks flying as his hands rippled over the Xenophon's command console. Unless he could maneuver the Xenophon back into position, he no longer had eyes, ears or most importantly, a voice in the system of Ma-at. He reached out to cancel the self destruct command, then pulled back.
As long as Shepard was alive, humanity's domination of the geth collective was in question. But as long as Shepard remained on the Xenophon, he was contained. Even with the self destruct mechanism blocked, the research vessel could last only so long before it's shielding gave way to Ma-at's destructive power. One way or another, the Xenophon was about to meet its end, with Shepard and his valiant squad along for the ride.
The Illusive Man leaned back in his chair and reached into his vest pocket for his cigarette case. He lit a fresh cigarette and with a deep puff settled into his seat to wait.
The eight remaining members of the Normandy squad braced themselves as the Kodiak pitched and rolled on its uncontested trajectory to the geth hub, charging their barriers and adjusting armor fittings. Garrus and Jacob passed fresh heatsinks and power packs down the line from the munitions locker.
"I can't believe we left them," Kasumi muttered as she slid extra heatsinks into her belt. She never needed but one or two, but the more prolific shooters always found themselves running short. "We've never left anyone behind!" Her sudden outburst drew stares from the rest of the squad.
Tali didn't even hear her, focused intently on the geth code projected on her omnitool. Xen's virus was simple in function but complex in how many different routines it required to operate. A mistake rewriting any of them would be disastrous.
But garrus froze in front of the locker at the thief's words. Back on the Xenophon, It took every scrap of will he could muster to keep from rushing to the forward end of the hangar to provide cover for Shepard whether Shepard allowed it or not. The last time the Commander stayed behind on a doomed ship to save one of his crew, it ended badly for everyone.
He glared Kasumi. She'd only been with the squad for a few months, and she was going to question his loyalty to Shepard now? He looked to see the entire squad looking back at him, their expressions mirrors for Kasumi's. It wasn't his loyalty to Shepard that Kasumi doubted, Garrus realized, it was her own, and she wasn't alone. Even though it had been on Shepard's order, they'd all left him behind.
"On final," Rolston said from the cockpit. "Negative contact. Thirty seconds."
Garrus reached into the locker and pulled out a heavy, claw-shaped weapon. "Grunt!" Using both hands he tossed the arc projector to the krogan sitting in the middle of the forward bench. Grunt's eyes lit up beneath his helmet as he laughed gleefully and caught it one-handed. The rest of the squad, however, was nowhere near as enthusiastic.
"Listen up," Garrus said, standing in the center aisle, holding onto the overhead rails. "We have to move, and move fast. Every second we're down there is another second Legion and Shepard are alone up here. Once we're inside, Grunt's on point, with Zaeed, Jacob and Samara behind. Miranda, Tali? With me. Kasumi?"
Kasumi looked up, surprised.
"I need you out in front, doing what you do best. We need every door, every panel unlocked before we get to it. As usual, we'll shoot around you as best we can, so try to let us know where you are."
"Right," Kasumi said with a nod. She took a breath. "Listen... I'm sorry about before. I-"
Garrus nodded understandingly. "I didn't want to leave them, either."
"Traffic on the landing pad," Rolston said. "Two- check, three UD-47's already on the deck, offloading personnel. How far away you want to set down?"
"No time," Garrus said. He looked over at Jacob and Miranda in their Cerberus-issued armor. "Set us down next to them just like we belong there."
Pain coursed through Shepard's arms, legs and spine and strange patterns swirled before his eyes. With shaking knees he slid up against the pit's wall and wrestled himself onto the deck. The entire hangar pulsed with red and yellow warning lights. There was no other movement.
"Shepard-Commander?"
"I'm here, Legion." Shepard knew the geth was still intact because the Xenophon was, but hearing Legion's voice over the comm gave him renewed vigor. He staggered forward to the control shack as circulation resumed through his veins. "What's our status? How we doing?"
"The Xenophon has entered a stable elliptical orbit around Ma-At with a period of approximately 46.6 days. However, the ship's electromagnetic shielding will provide less than fourteen minutes of protection on our current trajectory."
Shepard nodded. "I figured as much. How are you doing on the self destruct?"
Legion's vocodor still sputtered from overload. "We have refocused all of our runtimes on the task. However, the Xenophon's countermeasures have similarly redirected their efforts to counter us. We are unable to predict an outcome as control inputs for the Xenophon continue to be fed through the Quantum Entanglement Communicator."
"The Illusive Man still has control." Shepard clenched his jaw. The strength returned to his limbs as he hefted his rifle. "Once you've got the self destruct disabled, try to take control of helm. Get us back to the hub if you can. Understood?"
"Acknowledged. However, control inputs from the quantum array will make- Shepard-Commander? Where are you going?"
"To do what I should have done a long time ago." Shepard stepped from the control shack and poked his head into the now empty stairwell. His pain subsided, replaced by a different kind of fire inside. Like Zaeed told him when they'd first met, rage was one hell of an anesthetic. He charged his rifle and marched toward the stairs. "Shut that son of a bitch down for good."
Gabby braced herself against her console in engineering as another impact rocked the ship. What was happening outside she couldn't guess. All she did know was that Normandy was taking hits from all directions and the thermal buildup was again edging into the red. She had to balance weapon fire and maneuvering to keep the ship from overheating, but Joker was demanding unlimited amounts of both.
As if that wasn't enough, the inboard starboard engine nacelle flashed yellow on the primary damage control display. "We're losing engine three!" Ordinarily, Tali would have ordered Ken or Legion herself into the crawlspaces to check for damage. Except Ken was dead and Tali and Legion away with Shepard.
But Gabby wasn't alone. In fact, she had more help than she'd ever had before. "I need somebody in the number three nacelle to check for damage! Now!"
Three of the standard geth platforms stood watch at the other consoles in engineering, manipulating the panels under Gabby's direction. While they couldn't speak, a message window opened up on her screen.
Platform 12: Drive Core; Closest physical proximity. Redirecting to number three engine nacelle.
Platform 15: Reactor Compartment; Rendezvousing with Platform 12 to assist.
More messages popped up from around the ship.
Platform 6: Forward battery; power coupling restored. Awaiting instruction.
Platform 4: Port strut, frame 11; multiple leaks in main coolant line. Commencing repair.
Platform 9: CIC; commencing repair on aft internal dampener.
Platform 10: Infirmary; assisting with casualty evaluation and treatment.
"Good job, everybody," Gabby said, knowing all of them could hear thanks to the platforms next to her. "Six, get to portside and help Four. Nine, Ten, as soon as you're done, get back down here and get to the reactor spaces! Got a feeling we're gonna need you!"
More alerts erupted on the status display. They were running out of power in almost every system, short of parts, fabrication materials... everything except heat. Even though Joker could see the status on his own panels, it was time for a reminder. "Conn, Engineering! We need to break off. Thermal buildup approaching maximum!"
Joker didn't respond. The pilot obviously had his hands full. The ship shuddered from another blast. She looked toward her silent partners. She didn't know if it mattered to them at all, but she had to say something. "Keep it up, guys, you're doing great!"
Normandy's Thanix cannons sliced an attacking geth ship neatly in two sending each half tumbling off into space. "One down, a dozen to go," Joker said, looking around for another target. The quarians had crushed the Cerberus fleet, but now the creators and their creations were locked in battle. Any hope of the geth reverting to friendly mode vanished when they attacked the Normandy on sight. The quarians took many of the geth ships out when they were inert and helpless but more were arriving with every passing minute.
With the quarians still on the attack, Joker didn't know who to target. The ship's kinetic barriers were almost drained, GARDIAN was so hot that it could barely track the ship itself, and the thermal gauges on his status board crept back into the red, making the decision much easier. "Breaking off for another pass." He kicked the ship's tail out and accelerated the Normandy away from the fight.
"Alert," EDI said. "One of the quarian ships has disengaged as well."
"They're running?"
"Negative. They are now on an intercept course with the asteroid. Jeff... it's the Moreh."
"Oh, hell no!" Joker yelled as he swung the ship around toward the tiny rock and the blazing star behind it.
The Moreh pitched and rocked with each strike from the geth. Daro'Xen slumped in her seat inside the shuttle, trying to ease the pounding in her skull and the throbbing in the stub of her left leg. Leaving her ship in the middle of battle was the last thing Xen wanted to do, but the Moreh was never meant for combat and would not last much longer. Besides, she wasn't abandoning ship. She was completing a sacred mission.
Around her, marines clamped themselves and their weapons in position as the shuttle prepared to launch. Though they were all experienced veterans, Xen knew they were no match for Shepard and his squad of mercenaries, nor would they last long on a geth installation swarming with hostile platforms.
But Shepard would reach the asteroid first. If the geth attacks on the Normandy were any indication, Cerberus had finally turned on him. If Xen could land unnoticed, all she needed to do was wait for Shepard to draw the defenders on the hub away. Finding a network node wouldn't be a problem as long as resistance was concentrated elsewhere. She stared at the omnitool on her wrist, forcing her eyes to focus. The code of the modified heretic virus glowed in front of her. The future of the entire quarian species was literally in the palm of her hand... if she could get to the hub to use it.
A deafening crack resonated through the hull. If not for the restraints of her seat, Xen would have careened into the ceiling above her. All around her, marines and their loose equipment crashed into the roof of the shuttle, then smashed into the deck.
"It's the Normandy!" Captain Rundan shouted over the intercom. "She's right behind us!" The entire ship shuddered again.
"Launch us!" Xen screamed. "Launch now!"
"We're off axis-" Rundan's voice was lost behind another explosion that rocked the ship.
Everything in the shuttle tumbled like clothes in an air dryer as the mass effect fields strained to keep the environment inside stable. The marines screamed in panic and pain as the g-forces grew more and more intense.
Xen screamed as well, not because she was about to die, but because she was too close to let it end like this. She keyed her Fleetwide Emergency transmitter, the same used when ordering the Fleet to relocate to Nariph. All surviving quarians in the Ma-at system would see it even after Moreh's destruction. As the shuttle disintegrated around her, Xen prayed that one specific quarian would receive her message.
"Impact," EDI announced. "Target destroyed."
"Fuck you, bitch," Joker muttered as the Moreh's eezo core detonated with blue-white firefrom within.
"Jeff!"
"Oh, shit! Not you, EDI!" Joker swung the Normandy wide of the Moreh's expanding fireball. "I meant the Moreh. Breaking off, going for distance. Find us another target!"
The surface of Orbital Body 413319 was rocky, porous, and pitch black. Ma-at's corona created a white aurora that streamed from the horizon in all directions into the stars above. Dozens of geth platforms stood frozen in mid-stride, stopped dead in the middle of whatever task they had been carrying out. Their camera eyes were dark, forming an eerie statue garden around an enormous rectangular opening into the asteroid.
The area around the entrance was not entirely still. Humans in vacc armor carried heavy equipment from one of three Kodiak shuttles in the darkness. They worked without light, depending on light intensification visors to guide them. Low-power burst transmissions between them would only carry a few dozen meters at most. They were for all intents and purposes invisible from orbit.
"Got a target inbound," Sargeant Glotzer said as he gazed into the sky, tracking the intruder with passive optics only so as not to give away his position. The spacecraft approaching from orbit also radiated nothing, appearing only as a black slab in the sky as it descended.
"Cover!" Lieutenant Hazan shouted to his troops over the tactical net and looked into the darkness above. "Got an ID? Is it quarian?"
"No squawk. Not the quarians, though... Holy shit, it's another Forty-Seven!"
"From where?"
"The Apollo, maybe?"
"Cerberus markings," another Centurion said. "Definitely ours!"
"Hold fire." Hazan said as quiet cheers erupted over the channel. As Glotzer indicated, the Kodiak made a rushed but controlled landing right next to the other three shuttles, displaying no lights or beacons of any sort. Even its reaction control jets stayed hidden behind their baffles. The pilot knew exactly what he was doing. Once settled, the human pilot waved a hand through the cockpit window before reaching up to complete the landing sequence.
Hazan waved back with relief and looked over his shoulder. "Conti, duck inside and tell the Major reinforcements are coming in. "
"Roger that," Conti said, slung his rifle, and headed for the door.
"Got two targets disembarking on the left," the centurion's voice was calm. "They're ours!"
Hazan zoomed in on the two figures. Like the pilot, they were clearly human, outfitted with Cerberus hardsuits. A man cradling a Mattock rifle marched a pace behind a woman with a Locust SMG on her hip. The insignia on her Cerberus-issue armor indicated she was a senior operative. She beckoned the troopers forward as she advanced. Hazan lowered his rifle and jogged forward, trying not to bounce in the asteroid's low gravity. The operative extended her right hand as she approached, a smile visible behind her mask.
As they drew closer, Hazan's near field receptors locked on the operative's comm system and he pumped his superior officer's hand. "Lieutenant Hazan. Are we glad to see you, ma'am! What's going on up there?"
Behind the operative, more figures dropped from the newly-landed Kodiak from both sides. Unlike the two humans in front, the others were not wearing anything close to resembling Cerberus gear. They weren't even human, Kazan realized, as the giant hulk of a krogan in full battle armor dropped to the ground behind them. His eyes went back to the operative and he tried to pull his hand back when every synapse in his body shorted out at once.
Conti had only taken a couple of steps toward the main entrance to the geth hub before a blue flash cast a shadow on the wall in front of him. Was a shuttle taking off? He turned his head to look.
Hazan and the five Centurions around him drifted above the asteroid's surface, their bodies arcing with biotic energy. The two Cerberus operatives from the shuttle had dropped to the ground, weapons to bear, spraying anyone still standing. From behind them, other figures spilled out of the newly landed Kodiak. Another human, an asari, and a krogan all surged forward, weapons ablaze.
Conti ran for the door as fast as he could manage in the low gravity. He hated leaving his friends behind, but his first priority had to be to warn Major Griggs. The giant doors began to slide shut in front of him. Soon, nothing at all would be able to get through; personnel, equipment or radio transmissions. Only meters away, he dove headfirst toward the narrowing gap.
As he sailed through the vacuum something grabbed his right arm and flung him into the wall of porous black rock. He tumbled to land on his back and used the momentum to spring to his feet, bringing his rifle to bear. He saw a ghostly apparition shimmering in the darkness, then a brilliant white spark that shot his head like a lightning bolt.
Garrus leaned from the Kodiak's open hatch and fired round after round over the heads of Grunt, Samara and Zaeed as they rushed forward. Kasumi had succeeded in shutting the door to the hub and darted to the left, out of the line of fire. Grunt plowed into the remaining Cerberus ranks like a bowling ball as Samara picked off targets one by one with the flick of her wrist. Zaeed's methods were less esoteric, his rifle and grenade launcher shredding the enemy before them.
Sidestepping to his right along the line of neatly parked Kodiaks, Garrus kept pace with Grunt, firing down the alleys between the shuttles as he moved. When he got to the end, he'd be in perfect position to fire down the Cerberus line. As soon as a helmeted head snapped back, he slid to the side and scoped another target. Wash, rinse, repeat, Shepard called it.
He reached the edge of the last Kodiak. The Cerberus troopers ahead of him concentrated fire to his left, toward the main thrust of the Normandy squad's advance. He closed one eye and raised his rifle once more when a massive Centurion in powered armor dropped from the shuttle's side hatch and yanked his weapon away. Garrus let go, pulling his pistol and firing repeatedly into the trooper's chest. The human's kinetic barrier flared as he threw the Mantis aside and went for an Avenger rifle clamped to his back. He brought it to his hip and fired point blank.
The Centurions spun around beneath a hail of silver-white shot. He fell sideways, his rifle firing harmlessly into space, collapsing into a lifeless heap on the asteroid surface. Vaporized blood leaked into open space from the holes his body.
Tali hopped down from the Kodiak's hatch. She'd been following Garrus's progress, but passed through each shuttle instead of behind them. The Centurion never saw her coming. She reached down to pick up the turian's rifle and held it up to her shotgun in comparison. With a shrug, she tossed the rifle to Garrus and patted her preferred weapon with a smile.
"I'm going to hear about this later, aren't I?" Garrus said.
"Count on it."
Garrus shook his head and seated another heatsink in his rifle. Beyond, Grunt reached the final Cerberus soldier still standing and grabbed the unfortunate man by his helmet. With a mighty heave, he flung the human into the sky with all his might. The low gravity might have given the trooper a chance of surviving the landing, except that his helmet was still in the Krogan's hands. Garrus couldn't tell, and didn't want to know, if the head was left in it.
"Clear," Jacob said over the comm.
Garrus and Tali moved to the front of the shuttle where Grunt waited for them, looking very pleased with himself. True to Jacob's word, there was no further opposition from the Cerberus team. Close to twenty bodies littered the ground. Once again all eyes turned to Garrus.
"Kasumi?" Garrus said. "I know you just got it closed, but..."
"Open sesame," the thief said from nowhere. In the darkness beyond, the giant double door to the geth hub began to slide open. Dark silhouettes of geth platforms of all shapes and sizes looked on from all sides but offered no objection.
Garrus pointed through the door. Without needing to say a word, Miranda stepped aside to let Grunt take point, with Jacob, Zaeed and Samara behind. Garrus turned to Tali, who looked back at him with a look of utmost confidence, the way she always looked at Shepard anytime he lead them in harms way.
"Let's do it," she said.