PART ONE: HOW BLUNT ARE ALL THE ARROWS
How blunt are all the arrows of thy quiver in comparison with those of guilt. -Robert Blair
Shepard surged through the Normandy like the tide coming in, tugging Garrus and Miranda helplessly along in her wake.
Garrus had had it all planned out, over the three long days since Shepard had left without a word and without back-up, as tension inside the Normandy had ratcheted up and up. He'd point out that it'd been reckless to go without someone to watch her six, that she didn't have to jump whenever the Alliance - whenever Hackett - demanded anymore.
But she hadn't stopped at the sight of him, just thrown a rifle onto the ground next to the shuttle - something she never would normally do and it wasn't even the gun she'd left the Normandy with - and gone for the elevator.
He was almost jogging to keep up with her when she swept into the CIC. Shepard tugged her helmet off and he winced at the sight of dark purple bruising down the side of her face. There was blood on her arms and chest - red, human blood. What had happened on Aratoht?
He'd wonder why she'd gone down there without back-up but he knew exactly why she'd done it. Hackett had dangled the possibility of going home in front of her and she'd jumped without looking.
Well, maybe that was unfair. She just hadn't cared about the potential fall.
She came to a stop in front of the galaxy map so suddenly he nearly ran into her back. Then he glanced over her shoulder and froze, a feeling like ice water cascading over him.
"Bloody hell," Miranda breathed beside him.
At first he couldn't quite believe what the Normandy's sensors were saying. The devastation represented by cold, hard numbers on a scale his mind struggled to comprehend. An entire star system gone in minutes. They'd barely outrun it.
Shepard was still for several, long moments and then her voice rang out through the CIC as she threw her helmet into the bulkhead, blue light crackling around her. It hit with a distinct crunch.
"Fuck!"
Dead silence reigned.
"Shepard," he said cautiously when Shepard didn't move, still as a dark, ceramic-plated statue, "I'm sure you did everything you could."
Shepard laughed, but it was cold and hard. "You don't get it. I didn't try to stop it," she waved a hand at the sensor readings, "I'm the one who pulled the trigger."
His mandibles fluttered before he could control his expression. "What happened in Bahak, Shepard?"
"It was just meant to be a rescue mission," she pinched the bridge of her nose between her armoured thumb and forefinger, "break an AIA operative out of a batarian prison and take her back to Arcturus. Not exactly easy, but…"
"Something you've done before," Miranda guessed.
"Yeah. But then she started talking about Reapers and I wanted to see the data," Shepard shook her head, "the idiots had found a Reaper artifact and worked out that the Reapers were going to use the Alpha Relay to bypass the Citadel's control of the Relay. So they were gonna blow it up but they didn't shield the fucking artifact!"
Her voice rose.
"They were indoctrinated," Garrus said flatly.
"Yeah. She had a Marine platoon to protect the asteroid and they should've killed me, but they didn't. They didn't, so I killed them instead. And then I turned the damn thing on." Shepard swallowed, clenching her fists a couple of times.
Garrus stared at her. A whole planet. A whole damn planet. It didn't feel real. Especially with Shepard's finger on the trigger - Shepard, who always talked about doing things the right way.
Shepard shook her head and when she looked at him, there was a hint of red-orange in her gaze. "The Reapers were only ten minutes behind the asteroid. If I hadn't destroyed the Relay, they'd be here right now."
"Bloody hell," Miranda shook her head, face pale, and then tried for something reassuring, "Shepard, you have to know that the colonists were dead anyway."
Lawson was right. "The Reapers would have destroyed Aratoht or processed them. You know what happened on Eden Prime and the Citadel three years ago."
"Don't," Shepard cut them both off, her voice now ice, "I just killed three hundred thousand people." She went to rub her face but there was blood on the gauntlet of the hand she'd raised. For a moment she stared at it like it was someone else's hand. "Did any other ships make it out?"
"I believe so. We detected ships running for the Relay when we came in to get you," Miranda said quietly. There was a crease between her eyebrows.
Shepard nodded slowly. "Put us on a heading to Omega. And when we pass a comms buoy, let me know."
"Where are you going?" Garrus asked.
"I need a shower. And to think." The elevator swallowed her up in a split second. Garrus reached down and picked up her discarded helmet. The casing was cracked.
Miranda was frowning at the elevator door. " Tell Joker our destination - I need to talk to her. She's going to do something stupid."
He opened his mouth but the executive officer was gone just as quickly as the Commander.
He sighed, glanced down at the damaged helmet, and went to do as he was told.
Miranda couldn't hear the shower when she stopped in front of Shepard's cabin door. Something heavy sat in her stomach.
Their operation over the past few months had been as successful as she could have dared hope, even if one ship couldn't shift the course of a galaxy. T'Soni had found them targets and Shepard had led them in hitting them.
Nothing would be the same now.
She hesitated and then opened the door. Shepard was sitting on the steps leading down to the bed, her bloodstained armour a haphazard pile at her feet. She hadn't made it out of her underarmour, the material clinging to the curve of her bowed spine.
"Shepard."
The commander didn't react.
Miranda sat down next to her and shook Shepard's shoulder. There was an awful blankness on her face and her fingertips were pressed, gingerly, to her forehead. There were needle marks on her arm and chafing around her wrists like she'd been restrained.
"What did they do to you?" Miranda asked, a stab of helpless anger deep in her gut, and touched the back of Shepard's hand.
"Not enough to stop me," Shepard said quietly.
"Have you seen Chakwas?"
"It's just bruises," she shrugged. "I'll talk to the crew in the morning."
It was an attempt at a dismissal but Miranda wasn't going to be so easily dissuaded. "Shepard, I know you feel guilty but-"
"That's the worst part," Shepard cut her off, wincing as she pulled her hand away from her bruised face, "I don't really feel anything at all. How can I feel nothing?"
"You're in shock," she said carefully.
"Maybe."
"I know what you're thinking of doing," Miranda began, "and you don't-"
Shepard shook her head, "Yes, I do."
"You don't owe the Alliance anything!"
"It's not about owing anything," Shepard said, almost gently.
"They'll toss you into a cell and call it a day. I didn't put two years of my life into bringing you back so you could play martyr."
"The batarians will declare war over this."
"So you'll play scapegoat," Miranda pursed her lips.
Shepard was quiet for a moment, watching the flit of fish in the fishtank, the blue light washing over her face.
"You know my brother is at the Naval Academy on Arcturus?" Shepard's tone was conversational. "He's nineteen. Just a kid, really. If I don't hand myself in, it's kids like him that will die in the thousands. And then the Reapers will show up and we'll have done half the job for them. And even if I ran? They won't let it go. They can't. We'll be running from everyone and everything."
"The galaxy needs you." It was one thing Miranda still agreed with the Illusive Man about.
"I'm just one person. We're just one ship. We'll need armies and fleets to have any chance against the Reapers - we need the Alliance and the Hierarchy. I'm going to ask Garrus to work on the Hierarchy and...I have a few friends left on Arcturus. Hell, I might even be able to use my trial to get the word out."
Deep down, Miranda understood what she was saying even though she hated it. It was practical, pragmatic. Shepard would sacrifice herself as much as she had sacrificed others on Elysium, as she had in Bahak. No one would listen to them. They'd be just terrorists on the run from justice with a burning solar system behind them. Miranda could live with that designation, but she wasn't sure Shepard could.
Miranda sighed heavily. "I understand."
"I know you do," Shepard tilted her head to look at her.
"The crew aren't going to like this."
"I know. But I'm not going to bring everyone down with me. I'm sure I can try and - negotiate something with the Alliance. They'll want me more than any of you."
"Commander," EDI sounded almost - apologetic, "we are being hailed by the SSV Orizaba."
"Admiral Hackett," Miranda guessed, frowning.
Shepard nodded. Something resigned lurked in her gaze. "Please excuse me. Route the call to my cabin, EDI."
Miranda stepped outside and heard through the door, Shepard's crisp, military, "Admiral, sir."
The airlock opened with a hiss. Shepard clasped her hands behind her back, glancing down at herself - the crisp white of the dress uniform that felt strangely alien, the ribbons that spelt out the career that had ended so abruptly above Alchera on her chest.
Behind her stood Joker, the engineers, Goldstein. Alliance as much as she was, though Joker probably didn't see it that way. Not Chakwas, who'd asked to be let off with the rest of the crew. Apparently she'd never resigned her commission and had been on furlough the entire damn time. Crafty old officer, Chakwas.
"I can't stop you from being put on trial, Shepard."
"I understand, sir."
Hackett had been regretful but resolute. Some part of her had quietly wondered what he'd really known about Bahak. Constructing the thrusters to propel that asteroid into the relay would have required a lot of funding and a lot of resources. She wondered how much of the plan had been his. If it had just been missing the triggerman. The rest of her did understand. She was a covert operative with blown cover. She was being cut loose.
Dropping off the ground crew had hurt more than anything else and she didn't know what that said about her. Jack had refused to talk to her. Tali had cried. Garrus had, of all things, hugged her, the two of them finding their way around alien limbs.
"This is the worst thing you've ever asked of me," Garrus had told her then, on the docks of Omega.
He'd followed her into the hell of the Collector Base and now she was leaving him behind.
"Hey EDI," she called.
"Yes, Commander?"
"Thanks for everything. Keep yourself safe, okay?"
The AI was silent for a moment, "I will try to do so. Captain."
She smiled, just a little, at that.
She heard the sound of regulation boots on metal decking before she saw them. Here we go. Anderson stepped out of the airlock in his dress whites, his face grim, followed by a handful of MPs in their hardsuits.
She drew herself up and saluted. "Sir."
"Commander Shepard," there were lines on his familiar face. He smiled a tight-lipped smile, "Getting formal on me?"
She shrugged. She was glad he was here, but she didn't feel like banter. "Felt appropriate." She nodded to the new bars on his uniform. "Congratulations on the promotion."
Rear Admiral, huh? Not a bad couple of promotions for a man who'd had to give her his ship.
He sighed. "I have to place you under arrest."
"Yessir."
"We'll get you all aboard the Lahore soon enough. You'll be confined to quarters."
She blinked. "You're not going to handcuff me?"
He frowned. "I don't think that's necessary. I will need your amp and omnitool though."
She reached up and pulled it out of the port at the back of her neck, grimacing at the 'bugs' that skittered down her nerve endings as it disconnected, slid it into the case she kept in her pocket and handed it over, followed by the slim band of her omnitool. He put both away and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"C'mon, kid." The last time he'd called her that was just before she'd enlisted.
The MPs herded the last of Shepard's crew into the airlock - except for Joker, who would help the skeleton Alliance crew fly the Normandy back to Arcturus.
"Behave yourself, Joker," she called over her shoulder.
He tugged on his cap and tried to look innocent. He wasn't very good at that. "Me?"
She would've almost felt bad for the Alliance crew, if they weren't about to put their hands all over her ship.
She rolled her eyes and let Anderson guide her through the airlock door. It was an unceremonial goodbye to the Normandy. At least it was less dramatic than the last time.
It'd been their choice to stay, but Goldstein and Daniels looked nervous and Donnelly was just staring blankly at the bulkhead. She wanted to comfort them but she wasn't sure how her moving would be received by the MPs flanking them. One of them, a man with sandy brown hair, was glaring at her.
Once aboard the Lahore they were quickly separated and she was whisked through corridors and up decks, surrounded by the bustle of the crew at work - all of them pausing to stare at her. She couldn't help the way she tensed. Anderson must have felt it because he gave her shoulder a squeeze.
"Easy on," he murmured.
She'd imagined her return to the Alliance a dozen times. The first time she put this uniform on again. She'd never thought it would be like this.
"In here."
It wasn't the brig, which surprised her, but an officer's cabin, hastily cleared of their things. She silently apologised to whatever lieutenant she'd displaced.
"It'll be about fourteen hours back to Arcturus," Anderson told her, "I have to go up to the bridge to tell the captain we're good to go but I'll be back later."
"Hackett said…" she began but he shook his head sharply, a glint of warning in his eyes.
"Not right now. Later. Don't say anything to anyone, understand?"
"Aye aye," she nodded.
Then he was gone and she was alone. She sat down on the bunk. There was a deep throb behind her temples.
Her head had hurt since the asteroid.
She'd thought so this is how it ends, then on the asteroid. Alone, no adrenaline, just the in-slow-motion hurtle towards the blue glow of the Relay and the end of a world. She'd seen a lot of deaths. Some of them instant, some of them far too slow. Some of them begging, like Baby Thompson on Akuze, some of them stoic to the last, like Doc Tilki on Elysium. That was the sort of death she'd always thought she'd get. A bullet in the head or something like that.
She'd thought at least there won't be a body this time. This time they can't bring me back.
But then the Normandy had hurtled out of the Relay, the proverbial cavalry, her crew and ship risking obliteration to whisk her away from certain death. And in their rearview mirror Aratoht had died.
In that moment it felt almost simple.
Total war called for victory at any cost.
It took two hours for Anderson to come back to the locked cabin. In that time Shepard got bored enough to start reading the only reading material the officer had left behind - a newly updated paperwork manual.
Anderson gave an raised eyebrow at her reading material but sat down on the bunk beside her and pulled something out of his pocket before nodding. "Now we can talk freely."
She blinked. "Anderson, are you - jamming? They're putting cameras in cabins now?"
He frowned. "Not taking any chances, not with the AIA at least."
"You don't trust the AIA?"
"I don't trust any spook as far as I can throw them. Especially not at the moment. I know you've been - away, but there's been some tension between the AIA and the Navy. There was an attempt on Hackett's life a month ago."
"Shit," Shepard leant back, "you think the AIA were behind it?"
"We can't prove it, but I see their fingerprints all over it. The worst part is I think they genuinely think they're protecting the Alliance from him. He refused to let them or BNI bring you in after you woke up."
"Oh."
"Yeah. That's part of why we need to handle this very carefully, Shepard. If he loses his position - or gets a bullet in the head - we'll lose control of the military."
"We?" she raised an eyebrow.
He smiled grimly, "You're part of a conspiracy now, Shepard. Congratulations."
She pressed her palm to her throbbing forehead, "A conspiracy to save the galaxy, huh?"
"Something like that."
"And how exactly am I going to help save the galaxy if I'm in prison?" she asked sardonically.
"We can't stop this trial, but we can drag it out," he touched her arm, "you'll plead not guilty and stick to the story we give you. The truth? The truth will stay with us and a few others who have the full story."
Shepard shook her head, conflicted and bewildered. "But I am guilty."
"So what?" he said, almost harshly, "You want me to have you thrown in the brig? You think rotting there will make you feel better? Bring back the dead?"
She shrugged off his hand. "Anyone else would be thrown in a cell."
"But you're not anyone else," he said, pitiless, "you know more about the Reapers than anyone else alive. We need that. We need you and what's in your head."
What was in her head. The galaxy of pain the Protheans had forced into her skull, the rage that kept her on her feet when her normal strength was expended.
They would have approved of Bahak. Victory at any costs. Tear the enemy down even if you have to use your fingernails and teeth.
"So what's the plan?" she asked, looking away. "Besides me committing perjury, that is."
"Hackett has formed a Reaper task force. You'll be brought in on the analysis and advisory side of things - and if they need anything Prothean translated. The Defence Council and JOC are a bunch of brass, we both know it, and a fair few of them don't want to see the immediacy of the threat. We need to make them understand what the situation is."
"If I hadn't pulled the trigger, they'd be at Earth by now," Shepard said quietly. The Lahore's drive core was a much older design than the Normandy's. The hum of it put her teeth on edge. "We're running out of time."
And what had she done since she'd woken up? The Collectors had needed beating but they were a sideshow. Everything she'd been doing in the Terminus was a fucking sideshow.
"Well, let's hope the data you've collected can get some asses into gear."
CODEX ENTRY
Systems Alliance Defence Council Meeting February 2186:
The Honourable Emmett Mercer (Minister for Defence): Jesus Christ, Steven, you told me Shepard was handled.
Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett (Chief of Defence): The mission to Bahak was necessary.
EM: Necessary! Necessary? Fucking hell. We're on the brink of war. The batarians are furious.
SH: That doesn't change the facts, sir.
EM: Shepard's accounting of the facts.
SH: Shepard is many things, Mr Minister, but she's never lied to me.
General Ingrid Eriksen (Commander, ASTRACOM): That you know of.
SH: Ingrid, you've seen the projections.
IE: I have. But the fact remains we have a very real problem with Bahak. The batarians are on the verge of declaring war and the Council is already distancing themselves. We won't be able to activate the self-defence protocol if the other Council members vote that we started it.
SH: I am aware. Shepard will need to face charges.
Moise Koffi (Secretary for Defence): Will that be sufficient? Perhaps we can reach out through diplomatic channels, offer for them to send an observer to oversee the proceedings.
IE: Something to discuss with our colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs, but it will definitely be a start. I believe they're already discussing how to distance the government. The batarians will never believe it, but if we can convince the rest of the galaxy that we weren't responsible…
EM: We weren't!
IE: Regardless of fault, the Hegemony will not attack if they believe the turians will come to our aid.
MK: Mr Minister, if you could work with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we can try and stop this war before it begins.
EM: I'll bring it up in cabinet.
IE: Of course, this will all rely on us getting a hold of Shepard. We can't send our troops into the Terminus Systems. We may have to reach out to the Council to have a Spectre assigned to the task.
MK: If we ask a Spectre to do it, they'll kill her or hand her over to the Council itself.
IE: Do you have an alternative, Mr Secretary?
SH: Such measures will be unnecessary.
EM: Is that so, Admiral?
SH: Shepard has already agreed to surrender to Alliance forces, so long as it's to Rear Admiral Anderson, and the rest of her crew aren't pursued.
EM: She has conditions, huh?
SH: Acceptable conditions in my opinion, Mr Minister.
EM: Fine. Bring her in. Quickly.