In a flooded Buenos Aires, after heavy tropical storms, a child named Steven went after his ball alone in the water. Water flowed through the alleys like a river, and soon Steven was swept up in its current, flowing towards the ocean with debris of his Villa miseria, like so many other boys before. Some youngsters, ones his mother had always told him to stay away from, caught him from the rain.

Speaking with the people who took him in, Steven asked, as the torrential rain fell around them: "How big is the sea?" Some of the boys had been to the beach several times, others only once, years ago when they were children. And yet, they all shared the same opinions on the multisensory, overwhelming experience of witnessing the infinity of the sea: an experience which further sparked the curiosity of the child who had never had the opportunity to feel those things.

He wanted to live in the sea. The sea had endless water, they'd never go thirsty, they'd never go hungry again. When his mother told him that the water from the sea could not be drunk, and the life there had been extinguished, Steven cried. She dried his tears and told him not to worry, that even though this planet had been all but destroyed, there were other planets where other families could live, and that one day they'd both escape.

And since then, Steven had always dreamed of living off Earth. The grand infiniteness of space exciting endless possibilities in his young mind. No more January-hot days, the unpaved alleyways shimmering with heat in the early morning hours, wafting the stench of waste and sewage in the air. Away from the interminable steep, small stairs, from the tangled wires from stolen power, the debris, the heat, the violence.

Many years later, his love for science and his natural gift for leadership vaulting him to one achievement after another. The cycle of poverty had been broken, all because of a ball floating in the rain.

Fifty-one years later, Steven Hackett, now an Admiral, sat in his desk chair contemplating another broken cycle.

How big is the sea? He thought to himself once more. Can something lost ever be found?

The Reapers were dead, that much he knew. The casualties numbered in the millions, hundreds or more. And he was here, swept out in the current of a raging torrent, reaching for another hand.

A mug of fresh coffee on his desk, he considered the vibrations in his cup, moving in rhythm with the hum of the engines, a constant motion among the idling power units. They had a little under three weeks to make berth before their life support systems began to fail entirely.

"Sir?"

The disembodied voice of his intercom broke the spell and he wondered how long he'd been ignoring the call from his assistant. He took another sip from his mug and grimaced at the sharp, bitter taste.

"Hm? Speak."

The officer on the other side of the comm paused, thrown off by the unexpected shortness of his reply.

"You wanted to be notified when we'd made contact with the Citadel…sir." She said, meekly. "The signal is broken but readable and available on the bridge when you're ready."

He thanked her and stood, rubbing the weariness from his eyes, and donned his uniform coat and cap. Unwashed and wrinkled from rationing of water supplies, he examined his appearance and dabbing a finger on his tongue, tucked stray hairs under his cap and stepped out of his cabin.

Sailors of SSV Orizaba pressed themselves against the bulkheads as he passed, snapping crip salutes and paying compliments to which he paid no mind. The pungent smell of dirtied uniforms and unwashed bodies permeated the air, mixed with the same scent of sewage he remembered from his boyhood. A ship could not survive alone at sea, and this one would not survive much longer.

The Officer of the Deck, Lieutenant-Commander Annalise Kaminska, greeted him at the Bridge. Her greasy hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, her uniform soiled with sweat like every other officer of the bridge. She flashed a smile as she saluted, the dark shadows under her eyes making her appear much older than the thirty or so years she had lived. He returned the greeting, a customary drill they'd continued to perform amid the crisis formed around them.

He took his station at the center of the room, half a step above the rest, giving him oversight of navigation, weapons, radar, and communications stations. The Bridge of the SSV Orizaba was standard for Kilimanjaro-class; a two-tiered command center, each station aligned front-facing along a long hundred-meter wall with him at the center. Heavy armour blocked the view to the empty void just a few inches beyond them, cameras projecting windows or videos on command. Constantly surrounded in dim red light, chattering quiet, organized chaotic movement at each hour of the day, panic rarely resided in these walls; but he could sense its anxiety today.

"I have the conn." He said, and the change in status was marked in the ship's log. "Ensign Pulver, center screen, open channel."

"Aye, Sir. Channel open."

The wall to his front lit up in pixilated static, grainy images appeared on the screen. Dressed as always in battle dress, her distinct bright blood-orange facial tattoos contrasting with her dark blue skin, Matriarch Lidanya appeared on the screen, the sub-standard video quality matching the lagging sound.

"Admiral." She spoke first, as she always did.

"General," He paused, allowing the audio to catch up to the video feed, a stilled image of the Matriarch's round, glacial blue eyes haloed in dark black tattoos. Lips set in a line, he knew she had little patience for pleasantries and small talk, so he got straight to the point. "I need berth for the SSV Orizaba, within the next three weeks. A dozen other Alliance ships require the same."

"We cannot accommodate every request." She sounded annoyed.

"I am not requesting, General." He clarified. "If my ships are not permitted to dock, life support systems will fail. I need access to power, water filtration systems, food and medical supplies."

"Don't we all." She mused. "The Ascension has many more occupants to care for, and the Citadel is not in a state to accommodate more refugees."

"I think you misunderstand me," the General tilted her head expectantly, the video catching a brief condescending smile on her face. "I have services to offer in exchange."

She paused, but the image on the screen did not even blink, "Go on." She demanded.

"Engineers, medical personnel, general duties crew. Whatever you need. Set up a rotation for Alliance ships, offer the same to our Quarian, Turian, Krogan, and Salarian counterparts. If you continue to hoard for your people, we'll be in another war soon enough."

"My people," she started, obviously perturbed, "are working to repair the relays so we can get these refugees home. There simply isn't enough to go around."

"Marines make due, General." He quipped back. "And the fact remains, while our collective efforts built the Crucible, it was my man who fired it."

"Your man?", she bit back, stepping closer to the camera in a very unusual move, "Your man destroyed the relays, setting us back thousands of years, dooming millions more to famine, pestilence, and even more conflict. Your man is the reason we're where we are right now."

Some of Hackett's crew shifted nervously in their seats, and he knew he'd struck a chord. "All the more reason to let us help." He urged, "Whatever was destroyed can be rebuilt. I need to get crews to Earth and I need to regroup and rebuild the Alliance military so I can help you, so we can help each other. But in order to do that, I need the few surviving vessels of my fleet to dock, so they don't fall into orbit, or turn into floating coffins because you're concerned about distribution of resources."

Silence hung in the air for several uneasy seconds. He had nearly begun the order to terminate the call when the Matriarch spoke.

"I need Earth." She said tersely.

"You need me." He corrected. "You give me the Citadel; I'll get you Earth."

"Then we have a deal. Standby for orders." Her final word issued; she terminated the call quickly.

He released the breath he'd been holding, and felt the room do the same.

Straightening his posture, he fell back into the easiness of command. "Right full, all ahead flank. Ready for port." He ordered. The crew sprung into action, and he locked eyes with Lieutenant-Commander Kaminska.

"I am ready to relieve you, Sir." She said, beginning the next drill.

"I am ready to be relieved." Anna came to his side and spoke to her in hushed tones, "power is most crucial. Amenities can wait. Give status on the shuttles and fuel for next report."

"Aye, sir. I relieve you."

"I stand relieved." He said, loud enough for the VI to record into the log. "Attention on the Bridge, Lieutenant-Commander Kaminska has the deck."

"This is Lieutenant-Commander Kaminska, right full, all ahead flank. Ready for port." She ordered, completing the passage of command. They exchanged salutes and the VI recorded in the log.

He strode off to his quarters, thinking again of the ball floating in the rain. The sea is endless, can something lost ever be found. There was no possibility in his mind that Shepard could be alive, but if they could find him, if they could find the Normandy, maybe he could understand what the hell had happened up there in those final crucial moments before the weapon had fired. What had happened to destroy the relays, to annihilate all Artificial Intelligent life?

We'd created AI before; we can do it again, he thought. Technological achievement was just that, it didn't happen on its own. It was achieved by people, by organics. Maybe this time, we'd do it right.

He sunk down in his office chair, tossing his cap across the table, puzzling out a plan. The console began blinking, sharp, short green light demanding his attention. He cued up the message screen, and noticed it was a live call placed directly to his personal line.

The video was weaker than the channel to the matriarch, but he knew the figure in front of him. "Miss Lawson."

"Admiral." Her voice bared fatigue, though she hid it under a veneer of professional competence. He admired her for it, she reminded him of himself.

"Tell me you have good news."

"I've established an outpost…won't be…. access…." The video began to sputter and static appeared, "…about a week."

"Do whatever you have to, Miss Lawson." He spoke slowly, hoping his entire message would make it through the airwaves. "We need to find him."

A few silent moments passed, and he waited patiently.

"He's there." She declared. "He has to be."