AN: Final update! Again, I've elected to release these chapters all together, as the first is primarily just a retelling of canon events from Ashley's perspective.

I have also started working on the second installment, set during the events of ME2. Thank you to everyone who has shared with me their feedback, ideas, and enthusiasm. Your kind motivation has been inspiring.

IX. A Race Against Time

"Uh, Commander? We've got company." said Joker motioning with his chin out the main viewscreen as Williams and T'Soni make their way into the cockpit. Momentarily, Williams wondered what the rest of the crew might think seeing her and T'Soni walk in together, but their attention was elsewhere. Williams hovered towards the back while T'Soni took a few steps in to stand near one of the side view windows and peer out. Arched her neck to see past the commander, the chief saw a fleet of geth ships in orbit as the Normandy rapidly approached the planet.

"Have their sensors picked us up yet?"

"The stealth systems are engaged. Unless we get close enough for a visual, they won't have any idea we're here."

"Picking up some strange readings from the planet's surface."

"Take us down, Joker," the Commander said, steel-eyed determination in her stare. "Lock in on the coordinates."

"Negative on that, Commander," said Pressly, turning from the sensor read-outs he'd been monitoring, "The nearest landing zone's nearly two klicks away."

Williams scoffed. "We'll never make it in time on foot! Get us something closer."

"There is nowhere closer! I've looked!"

"Drop us in the Mako," said Shepard.

"You need at least a hundred meters of open terrain to pull off a drop like that. The most I can find near Saren is twenty."

"Twenty meters?" Williams felt the color drain from her face, "No way we can make a drop in there."

Different voices began sounding off, talking over each other.

"We have to try."

"The descent angle's too steep."

"Find another landing zone!"

"There is no other landing zone!"

"It's our only option!"

"It's not an option! It's a suicide run! We don't—"

"I can do it," Joker cut in, suddenly. His voice was soft but sure.

Shepard eyed him carefully. "Joker?"

"I can do it, Commander."

There was only a moment's hesitation before Shepard nodded. She turned and motioned to Williams and T'Soni, who were still standing relatively nearby to one another. "Gear up and head down to the Mako," she instructed, "Joker — drop us right on top of that bastard!" She turned to the remaining senior staff on the bridge. "The rest of you, Tali, Wrex, Vakarian: take a second team and make trouble for any of Saren's forces he may have left behind guarding their ships at the obvious landing zone. Keep it to hit and run, gorilla warfare tactics only, understood? But I don't want any of those drop ships taking off again. We'll have enough to deal with from the fleet in orbit. Everybody understand their orders?"

The group nodded and started filing for the elevator to get to their equipment lockers. As Shepard walked past Williams, the chief saw the way the commander's eyes flicked briefly between her and T'Soni, and an almost imperceivable smile tugged at the commander's lips before her expression returned to one of stone-cold determination.

Damn it! thought Williams, Cat's out.

The landing had been rough, but true to his word, Joker got the main drop team down in one piece. As they clambered out of the small rover, Williams got her first look at the world and its alien jungle. Huge, sprawling stonework climbed out of a wild and unlandscaped green expanse for as far as the eye could see, all drenched in tangles of moss and ivy and extraterrestrial florah that spun itself in intricate, unearthly patterns, peppered with small wildflowers and large, heart-shaped leaves. It was breathtakingly beautiful in its desolation, but there was unfortunately desperately little time to appreciate the view.

"We have to get inside that bunker before Saren finds the Conduit," Shepard said, examining the giant doors that had sealed in Saren's forces just as the team had landed. Her expression was grim, "There's no way we can brute force these."

"Saren found a way in," Williams said, "There must be some kind of security override somewhere in the complex."

Before they could consider it further, the foliage behind the Mako began to rustle, and a sizable number of geth forces revealed themselves to have flanked the landing party. Williams started laying down cover fire and taking out the small geth stationary barriers as Shepard and T'Soni dove for cover.

They fought their way around claustrophobic corners and slim, stone passageways, taking out two colossi and a platoon's worth of shock troopers, before weaving their way through the intricate and mangled up mesh of what was surely once a bustling city. Occasionally, T'Soni would seem to lose herself, dropping her guard to gape, wide-eyed at some crumbling mural or architectural oddity. Twice Williams had to storm in and bater down a geth trooper herself before it could knock the archeologist's block off.

"Stay focused, Doc," she told her, tone harsh, before adding, softly, "Please."

Williams watched T'Soni swallow before stealing herself and giving a nod as they carried on after the commander, who was taking on a pair of ghosts over the next ridge. Shepard was fighting as hard as she had on Virmire, the chief noticed, but this time her moves were even more risky. Her style was more reflective of a biotic Vanguard than the Adept that she was. Her charges were reckless, her attacks fearless, and her tactics as bold as they were foolish. Nearly frantic. To herself, Williams wondered just how much of a toll Alenko's death was having on her commander, or if she was just that desperate to stop the Reapers and their pet spectre.

Stay alive, Shepard, she wanted to say, Alenko's with G-d now; but we still need you here!

When Williams and T'Soni had finished off the remaining geth in the area, they found Shepard with her barrier raised, hunkered down in front of an old elevator, trying to restore power to its command pad. She blasted the unit with a weak pulse from her omnitool and the console flickered back to life.

"This place must have its own generator," commented Williams as they got inside the industrial looking lift, the interior of which was a boxy parallelogram that the marine couldn't name, "I'm shocked it still has power. How long's it been abandoned?"

"This must be the command center for the entire complex," T'Soni mused as she scrubbed at the glass that was nearly impossible to see through after countless years' worth of neglect. "Saren's troops must have sealed the doors from here after he went inside."

"We'll need to figure out how to disengage the security lockdown if we ever want to get inside that bunker."

Williams nodded. "Let's just find the Conduit and get the hell off this world."

"There's so much history here," T'Soni said, quietly, "So much to learn. I only hope I have the chance to come back some day."

"You will," Williams said beside her.

"I just wish there was more time to-"

"I know."

As the elevator opened, the doctor raised her pistol back up and followed the commander's cues to continue forward as Williams took up the rear. They were led into a room crawling with geth and scrambled to hit the deck as a pair of rocket launchers fired their way. The corridor was long and narrow and offered little cover. Shepard and T'Soni stayed down, occasionally able to catch an enemy or two with a lift or singularity as Williams methodically took down a majority of the foes with her sniper rifle. Once the herd was sufficiently thinned, she and the commander stormed in with their assault rifles as Liara hung back with her pistol, pinging any geth who tried to flank them.

Finally they managed to take out all of Saren's forces in the room and headed up to some sort of security device on the upper level where Shepard was able to disengage the lockdown.

"Come." said T'Soni, "Saren already has a head start. We have to go find him before he reaches the Conduit."

"Unless he's already found it," the commander replied, tone bitter, "And we're just walking into a trap."

The doctor seemed momentarily stunned by the spectre's response, whose personality was never exactly bubbly, but tended to lack quite that level of nihilism.

"That's just a chance we'll have to take," Williams cut in, before adding a, "Ma'am," at the end for good measure.

Shepard seemed to catch herself and blinked at the two of them before nodding and heading back towards the stairs.

"Wait!" said T'Soni, as behind the commander an interface appeared and a badly corrupted holo appeared beside the still powered-up controls. "Something's happening."

A shrill static began and both Shepard and T'Soni covered their ears as a sound not unlike microphone feedback came shrieking out of the console for several seconds, followed by a garbled voice, which said: "—too late. Unable to-... invading fleets… no escap—"

"Sounds like some kind of message. But no language I recognize," said Shepard, who shook her head as she slowly pulled her hands away from her ears.

"It's probably Prothean," agreed T'Soni, "This recording must be at least 50,000 years old. It is no wonder we cannot understand it."

As the two nodded to one another, Ashley gave them each an incredulous look.

"Williams?" Shepard asked when she noticed the stare.

"I understand it, Commander," she said, "It's all broken up, but I recognize some of the words. It's a warning against the Reaper invasion."

"Of course!" Liara said, "Between the beacons and the Cipher, an understanding of Prothean language would have been transferred into your mind!" And to her wide eyes returned that reverent look that she's given Ashley when they'd first met. Deference mixed with wonder mixed with jealousy. Williams found herself fighting off a cocky smirk, and a flirty remark is halfway up her throat before she remembers herself.

"What's it saying, chief?" asked the commander, "Can you make out anything useful?"

Williams stood and struggled to listen to the decaying voice over the wiry static. Every few seconds a word would cut off or the interference would grow too loud to be understood.

"I'm only getting bits and pieces, Commander," she said, and shook her head. "It said something about the Conduit, but it's too degraded to really help."

Shepard nodded and gave a sigh. "We should go," she said, "Get back to the Mako and see if the doors to the bunker are unsealed."

And, indeed, they were. After the threesome had fought their way back through the abandoned upper ruins, they discovered the ATV now sat at the mouth of a large tunnel leading underground.

Williams sighed with relief and as she hitched her firearm back into its holster along her back. "Who votes we take the vehicle into the creepy, underground bunker?"

"Good idea," Liara said behind her as they each began to ascend back into the armored rover, "The firepower will come in handy."

They watched as the commander made some final calls over the radio to Joker and the rest of the Normandy, telling them to pick back up the secondary drop team and be waiting in orbit should anything happen. "Keep this channel open," she told them, "But if Sovereign and the rest of the geth fleet make a move, stay on them! Assume we're either dead, or have already found a way to follow them, ourselves."

Williams couldn't fight the sinking feeling in her stomach as the commander ended the call and climbed into the driver's seat beside T'Soni as the gunnery chief took up position to man the Mako's weapons array. Was this not the same commander who'd told them 'We don't leave marines behind?' barely a month ago when Vakarian had protested looking for Kahoku's men? It churned her stomach to see what this mission was slowly doing to one of humanity's greatest champions. Even if it was the prudent course of action.

Not unbecoming men who strove with gods...

"I have spent my whole life studying the protheans," Liara said as the commander threw the Mako into drive and started down into the complex below, "But I never dreamt I would discover anything like this! This bunker might have been the last refuge of their entire species. Just imagine what mysteries it might hold. Imagine the secrets it might reveal!"

She sounded nearly giddy, and while it was endearing in its own way, the gunnery chief saw the way Shepard stiffened up beside her and grit her teeth, clearly in no mood for the archaeologist's ramblings.

"Hey, T'Soni, keep it together," Williams urged, softly, as she kicked the back of the doctor's chair, "Remember why we're here. Saren, the Conduit, the fate of the entire known galaxy?"

"Err- right. I am sorry… I was swept up in the moment." She turned to look through the rover's window. She added quietly, almost as if speaking just to herself: "I just hope we have the opportunity to study this place in detail after this is done."

When they've been driving for several minutes uninterrupted, Williams mused aloud: "I would have thought Saren would have set some traps or an ambush for us. They must've been in too much of a hurry."

"Or we just haven't run into them yet," answered the commander, grimly.

The tense trek continued as the tunnel opened into the larger, subterranean compound. The pathway remained relatively the same, but above them the ceiling opened up and large columns appeared with dozens of thick cylinders stacked up along each frame, one on top of the next. There had to have been dozens of similar structures, all connected by decaying walkways and rust-eaten metal bridges. The deeper they traveled into the compound, the more spartan the architecture grew.

"What are all those things on the walls?" Williams asked, "Some kind of containers?"

"Stasis pods, most likely," said Dr. T'Soni, "The protheans probably tried to keep themselves alive through cryogenic freezing. But something must have gone wrong. This bunker became their tomb. The pods are dead, as well as anyone who was inside."

"All of them?" Ashley asked as she felt her stomach sink, "There must be hundreds of these pods. What was Saren even expecting to find here? There's nothing left but corpses."

Before they could ponder it further, the gunnery chief heard the commander curse under her breath. "Shit," she said, "I knew this was all going too smoothly…" Williams turned from the mounted turret she'd been minding and looked ahead to see what the commander was talking about: just ahead sat an enormous barrier curtain sheathed in a thick, sickly yellow, that walled off the entire compound and stopped the Mako dead in its tracks. Shepard was already unbuckling her safety belt and pushing out of the rover as Williams and T'Soni moved to get out behind her. Off to one side of the tunnel, they found a huge doorway leading them into another industrial looking, slanted elevator, overgrown with moss and vines, much like everything else on the otherwise desolate world. The small space stank of mold and mildew. As they descended, they could see even more powered down stasis pods. Ashley could hardly believe her eyes. Hundreds of lives, gone — having slipped away in a frozen sleep without their even knowing it. Bodies left to rot, forgotten in an unmarked grave masquerading as a planet. Williams felt her insides twist tighter with each pod that she counted. Dozens. Hundreds. Maybe even thousands.

Death closes all… The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices.

The elevator opened to a huge chamber overrun with the root systems of strange-looking, mangled trees that climbed up towards the surface overhead. The walls were aglow with the first bits of active tech they'd seen since entering the bunker. These were large circles, illuminated in weak golds and blues, leading to the edge of the platform where at the bottom of a long ramp stood a solitary computer console flushed in the light that flooded into the room from a large hole in the decaying ceiling above. As the commander approached, the holographic display seemed to automatically activate. Its display appeared just as broken as the last. Another VI? Williams wondered. Pretty badly damaged by the looks of it.

"You are not prothean," it said as the interface flickered and glitched, "But you are not machine, either. This eventuality was one of many that was anticipated. This is why we sent our warning through the beacons. I do not sense the taint of indoctrination upon any of you. Unlike the other that passed recently. Perhaps there is still hope."

"This is incredible," breathed Liara, "An actual Prothean VI, and I can understand it!"

"You can make out what it's saying?" Williams asked, and both T'Soni and Shepard nodded.

"I have been monitoring your communications since you arrived at this facility," the interface replied, "I have translated my output into a format you will comprehend. My name is Vigil. You are safe here, for the moment. But that is likely to change. Soon, nowhere will be safe."

"What are you? Some kind of artificial intelligence program?" the commander asked as she waved back Williams and T'Soni. Williams unholstered her assault rifle and began scanning the room, trying to ignore the horrified look the doctor was making no secret of aiming her way, clearly distressed by the thought of the gunnery chief putting any lead into their artificial liaison. Sorry, doc, she wanted to tell her, but I'm not exactly thrilled with the way this thing is going around using nominative pronouns. Little surprised it's not in league with the geth and Sovereign over us squishy, little organics. It went on to claim it was some kind of 'advanced non-organic analysis system' imprinted with the personality of its creator, one of the chief prothean overlords of the research facility, but Williams found that explanation increasingly hard to swallow with every passing moment the three stood speaking with it.

As Shepard continued questioning it, Vigil painted a horrific picture of the final, blood-soaked centuries of the prothean empire as they were systematically hunted down and slaughtered by the Reapers. It mentioned an endless cycle of bloodshed, all leading to some yet-unreached moment when finally one group of organics would be able to put a stop to the countless eons of destruction. That their own timeline, and the protheans before them, were little more than a link in a chain that spanned the lengths of which they could probably never fully estimate or fathom. It spoke of unknown motives and mysterious origins. Ruthless slaughter and methodical destruction. All the while watching, helplessly, slowly having to self-cannibalize its systems just to stay operational long enough for a new group of advanced organic lifeforms to find their way here, facing down the barrel of their own imminent execution.

"What do the Reapers get out of this?" Shepard asked, "Why do they keep repeating this pattern of genocide over and over?"

"The Reapers are utterly alien. Unknowable. Perhaps they need slaves. Or resources. More likely, they are driven by motives and goals organic beings simply cannot hope to comprehend. In the end, my creators concluded that their goals did not matter. Survival hinges on stopping them; not understanding them."

Williams shook her head and made a face. The words of Sun Tzu came to mind: 'If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.' Had organics been stuck in a billion years' long deadlock that was insurmountable by virtue of their own inability to understand the motives of a villain so ancient that comprehension was literally impossible? She remembered something Alenko had once said to her and the commander: 'We must be like ants to them.' How could ants hope to win a war against titans?

"You said you brought us here for a reason," Shepard said, apparently having had enough of the twenty questions, "Tell me what I need to do."

"The Conduit is the key. Before the reapers attacked, we protheans were on the cusp of unlocking the mysteries behind the mass relay technology. Ilos was a top secret facility. Here, the researchers worked to create a small scale version of a mass relay. One that linked directly to the Citadel: the hub of the relay network. The Conduit is not a weapon, but a backdoor onto the Citadel."

"How did you manage to stay hidden?"

"All official records of our project were destroyed in the initial attack on the Citadel. While the prothean empire came crashing down, Ilos was spared. To conserve resources, everyone was put into cryogenic stasis. I was programmed to monitor the facility and wake the staff when the danger had passed. But the genocide of an entire species is a long, slow process. Eventually, my energy reserves began to dwindle, and I was forced to begin disabling the life support of non-essential personnel in order to conserve energy. Eventually, only the stasis pods of the top scientists remained active. Even these were in danger of failing when the reapers finally retreated back through the Citadel relay."

"There were hundreds of stasis pods out there!" Liara said, "You just shut them down? You killed them?"

"It was necessary," Commander Shepard said, "It couldn't let everyone die. Better to sacrifice some so others could live."

Shepard's words hit the gunnery chief like a kick to the gut, and a visage of Lt. Alenko blinked across the back of her eyelids. She reached out and touched T'Soni on the arm, who looked over at her, eyes brimming with tears, and shook her head ever so slightly. 'Mourn later,' the look said, as she watched the doctor's fairytale being crushed before her eyes. The truth of the end days of the prothean empire were clearly not quite so romantic as whatever Dr. T'Soni had dreamed up during her studies.

"My actions are the only reason any hope remains," said the hologram, and Williams had to wonder if she was just imagining the slight sense of righteous indignation in its artificially generated voice, before it returned its attention back to Shepard. Vigil instructed her on their best course of action to catch up with Saren and retake the Citadel before Sovereign and its forces could activate the relay and bring the awaiting Reaper forces back from the depths of dark space.

"There is a data file in my console," Vigil told the commander, "Take a copy when you go. When you reach the Citadel's master control unit, upload the data file to the station. It will corrupt the Citadel's security protocols and give you temporary control over the station. It might give you a chance against Sovereign."

"Where's the Citadel's master control unit? I've never heard of anything like that."

"Through the Conduit. Follow Saren. He will lead you to your destination."

Shepard's hand hovered over the control panel. "What happened to the survivors from the Conduit Project?" she asked.

"I do not know the final fates of my creators," answered Vigil, sounding almost mournful, "They used the Conduit to gain access to the Citadel, but the Conduit is only a prototype. The portal only linked in one direction, and they became trapped on the station. I do not know what became of them. It is unlikely they found any food or water on the station. I fear they suffered a slow, grim death. I only know they succeeded in their mission to seal the relay. Your presence here proves their sacrifice was not in vain."

Shepard took only a few deep breaths to collect herself and her thoughts before turning to her team. "Right," she told them, "Saren's got enough of a head start. Grab the data file and let's go!"

"Shepard!" Liara raised up her hands to stop the commander, "Are you sure? Who knows how much longer Vigil will be here? Even now the projection is weak. This might be our last chance to speak with it — our only link to the knowledge of the protheans! It is an opportunity of a lifetime!"

"What?" the spectre snarled, and stepped up to glare down her nose at the asari, who took several startled steps back, unaccustomed to the usually level-headed commander losing her temper. "We're in a race to save all advanced life in the galaxy and you want to stop to play Q-and-A with a hologram?!"

T'Soni's eyes grew large and she was momentarily speechless. Softly, Ashley stepped up beside her and put a hand on Liara's shoulder. "You've got to let this go, T'Soni," she said, gently, "I'm sorry. We have to stop Saren. Nothing else matters."

After a short delay, the doctor nodded and shook herself from her startled stupor. "Ah — Of, of course," she said, "You are right. My personal feelings clouded my judgement. We… we should go."

Ashley nodded and gave Liara a brief but kind smile before they each turned back to the commander, who had made her way over to the terminal by the main door and was calling up commands on her omnitool. If she felt any remorse for snapping at the maiden, she made no efforts to show it.

"I've got the file," she said, "Come on."

"The one you call Saren has not yet reached the Conduit. There is still hope if you hurry."

The holographic interface flickered off, and Liara stared at the empty space for a moment longer as the computer terminal beside her powered down.

"All their culture," Liara said numbly on the elevator ride back up to where the Mako had been stopped just beyond the barrier curtain, "All their advanced technology, and the protheans were taken in by the reapers, just as we were. They failed."

"We can get there in time," Ashley reassured, "Their plan only fails if we do, and I don't know about you—" she stopped and eyed the commander who gave a nod as the doors slid open and the exited back out into the compound's main tunnel, "—but I've come too far to watch Saren win now."

After climbing back into the Mako, the remainder of their trek through the Ilosian underground was hardly as peaceful as their first stretch. Suits me fine, Williams told herself as she got into position to aim and fire the rover's main battery. Never liked the eerie quiet, anyway.

They resurfaced into some kind of garden waterway behind the main facility and battled their way through hordes of geth rocket troops, shock troopers, and a few colossi. But nothing could have prepared the gunnery chief for the veritable gauntlet they'd be forced to run at the bottom of the large aqueduct that led to the powered up relay. As they approached, a contingent of geth colossi, each armed to the teeth, could be seen patrolling the channel.

"There! The Conduit!" said T'Soni, "It is incredible!"

"No time to admire the view, doc," Williams answered, "We have to get through to that relay, and these geth aren't going to make it easy on us."

She gave the commander a sidelong glance, who nodded, before shouting: "Hang on! Things are about to get a little rough!" and flooring it for the final push.

They arrived on the Citadel in the flipped Mako that stacked it into a heavy column on the Presidium. Scrambling out of the on-fire vehicle, the team emerged to find the usually idyllic upper levels of the station in disarray. There was a layer of smoke in the air and everything seemed to carry with it a vaguely red tint. Fires could be heard crackling, electrical systems shorting out and spraying white hot sparks everywhere, and bodies and debris littered the floor.

Not far ahead, there was an Avina unit activated and glitching out as it recycled a canned safety message, warning all non-essential personnel to evacuate. As the commander approached the unit, a row of dormant geth spikes activated and sent a small gang of husks barrelling towards the shore party. Catching the front runners with a lift, Shepard barged through the brunt of the group while Williams capped them one by one with her sidearm. The gunnery chief kept guard as the commander spoke with the Avina unit, who tried to use her spectre clearances to coax a few more details about the attack out of the rudimentary system. Unfortunately, due to both damage as well as the systems general worthlessness they weren't left with much more information than what they had before they arrived, other than confirmation of high volume of suspected civilian casualties and the news that the Council had been ordered to evacuate to the Destiny Ascension in accordance with standard emergency protocol. It also informed them that former-Council Spectre Saren Arterius was making his way to the Council Chamber.

"The Citadel's master control unit must be in there," reasoned Shepard as she motioned for her team to follow her into the elevator. As they rode up to the Citadel Tower, they watched in horror through the glass paneling as Sovereign and a fleet of geth ships crashed through the station's arms and landed on its central pinnacle. The elevator came to a grinding halt that sent the drop team slamming into the ceiling. Red emergency lights began to flash as the control panel on the wall went dark.

"Suit up," the commander instructed as she pulled out her gun, "Mag-boots and rebreathers, everyone. We're going outside."

"Hostiles spotted!" shouted T'Soni as a group of geth troopers crashed through the windows of the Citadel and came after the team.

"Damned geth have us at a disadvantage, Commander!" Williams shouted as she began firing, "Synthetic bastards don't even need space suits out here."

"Odds aren't everything, Chief," she heard Shepard respond as she hit a rocket trooper with a biotic throw that knocked it clean off its feet and back several dozen feet.

"Damn straight, Skipper!" she shouted back before aiming her rifle at a geth trooper T'Soni had sent spiraling out into space with a biotic lift.

"Now it gets fun," Williams heard T'Soni mutter, and felt suddenly as though she'd just been lanced through the chest. Did she pick that up from Kaidan? the chief wondered, remembering the handful of benign drops the commander had taken the two of them down on. 'He's too soft with her,' Shepard had said at the time when she encouraged the chief to keep coaching Liara on her pistol training. 'She learns better when she's with you.'

Arriving at a gauntlet of geth heavy turrets, the team had to duck into small alcoves as they slowly took down each of the massive guns along with any troops that were guarding it. At the mouth of the final turret, Liara took a shot to the leg and dropped like a ton of bricks. By the time Ashley could snake her way up to meet her, Shepard was already hunkered over her and applying first aid. "Patching you up," she said before wrenching the asari back to her feet. "Come on, T'Soni; almost there."

By the time they finally reached the access hatch to make it into the council chamber, Liara's limp was hardly noticeable, and Williams had to fight to ignore the overprotective ache in her chest.

She's a squadmate. She can hold her own; you know she can, you trained her.

Yeah, but what if it wasn't good enough? What if I wasn't good enough?

She wasn't given the opportunity to ponder, as they were immediately under fire as they made it back into the Council Chamber. Saren's troops were in a heavily defensible position, but Shepard and T'Soni worked together with their biotics, each setting off singularities and lifts in rapid succession at the bottleneck of the chamber. The geth that got caught in the pull were easy pickings for Williams with her assault rifle. The rest of the troops were harder to take out, all spread out and hunkered down behind various artificial foliage and decor in the lavish lobby. Finally, the team came upon Saren, who threw a grenade at Shepard's feet and the group scattered.

"The implants!" Saren groaned as his frame shook and the glowing blue lights beneath his skin burned, punishing him for his transgressions, "Sovereign is too strong! I'm sorry. It's too late for me… Goodbye, Shepard. Thank you." The turian put his pistol beneath his chin and pulled the trigger. The body fell backwards and over the edge before shattering the glass ceiling into the gardens below.

Shepard took only a moment to recover from the shock before she holstered her weapon and approached the control panel. "Vigil's data file worked," she called out, "I've got control of all systems."

"Quick!" Williams answered, "Open the station's arms. Maybe the fleet can take Sovereign down before he regains control of the station!"

Just then a call broke in from the communications channel, and Shepard, Williams, and T'Soni all heard a distress call from the Destiny Ascension: "...-main drives offline. Kinetic barriers are down. The Council is onboard, I repeat: the Council is on board…!"

"Make sure he's dead." As Shepard deliberated what to do about the Arcturus fleet, she sent Williams and T'Soni down into the gardens below where Saren's body fell. The gunnery chief approached, withdrew her pistol, and fired several times into his head. The corpse didn't so much as flinch.

Liara raised her hand to her tympanum. "He is dead," she reported.

But just then there was a rumble that shook the whole station. As it quaked, a huge pilon came crashing down from the tower above, and Williams looked up in time to see Shepard lose her footing and come tumbling down the story and a half drop into the enclosure. Meanwhile, she and Liara were knocked clean off their feet and several yards back as Saren's body began to pulse and twitch and writhe. The seizures grew and the lights from the dead man's implants began to flash before exploding into an angry cloud of red energy. The body spasmed and sputtered and glowed with a visceral heat that could be felt as far back as where Williams stood, ducked back behind a large stone statue. With a gnarled groan, Saren's grotesque, inhuman form rose to its feet and let out a shriek that nearly split Ashley's eardrums.

"I am Sovereign, and this station is mine!" it howled.

When the rescue party found them, Williams was in bad shape. She'd taken the brunt of the explosion when Saren's body finally went down for the second time. It exploded in a mangle of fried flesh and wires, burning bones and organs and implants shooting out like projectiles in a pipe bomb, and the force sent Ashley hurtling backwards into one of the shattered window panes, where a metal pipe, sharp from having been torn from its primary unit, pierced her armor and pinned her from behind to the far wall. T'Soni had done what she could to stop the bleeding and lower the risk of serious infection, but neither had the strength nor medical expertise to remove the marine from the carnage without risking significant blood loss. The search calls of the paramedics sounded to Williams almost like an angelic choir.

"Here!" Liara called out as she rose to her feet and powered up her omnitool to light the search party's way to them, "Over here!"

"Captain Anderson!" one of the men called out, "We found them! They're in here!"

A couple of soldiers gathered around the gunnery chief and began work on how best to safely dislodge her from the rubble. As the Captain emerged into view, Williams did her best to offer the man a halfhearted salute, but he waved the gesture away. "Take it easy; you're safe now. Where's the commander?"

Liara turned with large doe eyes to Ashley, who in turn looked over at Anderson. After a pause, she simply shook her head and looked away. Shepard had thrown Williams back as some of the wreckage from Sovereign had crashed through the window and dropped into the tower. When the structure toppled over it cut the room right in half with a steep wall of heavy stone. That had been the last they'd seen of her. They'd called out to her from behind the rubble, and T'Soni had made a few weak efforts to search the area, but she'd more than likely been crushed beneath the wreckage.

O, Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills… Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

Visibly deflated, Anderson scanned the room before slowly nodding his head. He reached down and began to help Williams to her feet. One of the other rescuers turned to look over his shoulder and called out from up ahead, "Hang on, Captain! We've got movement up here!"

With help from Anderson and Liara, Ashley turned around in time to see a flash of a red-painted pauldron, and from up ahead emerged a badly limping but still very much alive Commander Shepard, holding a clearly broken arm and smirking as a pair of rescuers climbed over the debris to meet her.

Ashley felt herself let out a breath. "Oh, thank G-d," she muttered.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.