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Shepard could feel blackness closing in on her vision, and was so tempted to let it come. She was utterly spent from the constant fights of the last—how long had it been? She honestly had no idea. It could have been five minutes or five days, for all she had been able to keep track.
But they had prevailed. They had won through to the center of the Collectors' base, they had defeated the horrific embryonic Reaper made of the essence of all the missing colonists—and defeated it again when it popped up after they had thought it down for the count.
There was something she needed to remember, though, something that had brought her up from the floor and kept her from surrendering to unconsciousness, no matter how tempting it seemed.
"Oh, no!" The words sounded loudly inside her helmet as she remembered—the Collector base was going to be destroyed in a matter of minutes. There was no time, not if they were going to get out of there alive in time for the Normandy to make its escape.
Even as she searched for Thane and Grunt amongst the wreckage, she was thinking of the Illusive Man's last-ditch effort to control her, the revelation of the ends he had meant to use her for. To think he had wanted to preserve the Collector base! The last thing they needed was to give the Reapers a familiar landing pad such as this one, just on the other side of the Omega 4, or to open up the Collector base to unprincipled research … research such as that funded by Cerberus, she admitted to herself, tugging at Grunt's arm.
"Grunt! We have to go!"
"Wha— Shepard?" His eyes widened as consciousness returned. "What are we doing here?"
"Running," she told him.
"Where's Thane?"
Shepard looked around her, helplessly, unable to see Thane's green skin and black armor. "I don't know." How could she leave without him? But if she didn't, she doomed them all.
"Here!" Grunt shouted. He hauled Thane bodily out from under a pile of rubble, and began running with Thane's still form balanced on his shoulders. Shepard followed, gun out, ready to cover them if any Collectors remained in their path.
It took much less time to get out than it had taken to get in. Sooner than Shepard would have imagined they were climbing the outside of the Collector base structure toward the highest point, where the Normandy hovered ready to receive them.
Grunt glanced back, ready to send her ahead, and she shook her head. Her people went first. "Go!"
Thankfully, he didn't stop to argue. He heaved Thane into the open door of the cargo bay, where Jacob caught hold of Thane's shoulders, pulling him up into the ship. Grunt leaped after him, grabbing hold of the edge of the door and heaving himself up. He turned around, holding out a hand to Shepard. "Come on! I've got you!"
Even though her legs were burning and aching, the muscles screaming, her lungs overtaxing the oxygen supply of her suit, Shepard put on an extra burst of speed. After all of this, she was damned if the Normandy was leaving without her.
She leaped, flailing in space, and felt the firm, solid grip of the krogan close around her. The sudden impact of all her weight depending from her arm gave it a wrench that would take a hell of a lot of medigel to heal—but that didn't matter. What mattered was Grunt hauling her inside the ship, the doors closing with all her people, and at least some of the colonists, safe on board, and Thane's eyes fluttering open and searching for her anxiously, his face relaxing when he saw her there.
Feeling the ship accelerate beneath her, Shepard got to her feet, hurrying through the cargo bay to the elevator, tapping her foot impatiently as the elevator made its way to the CIC, and sprinted to Joker's side.
"Are we going to make it?"
"You think I'm letting you go through all that effort for nothing? Damned right we're going to make it." He never took his eyes off the panels in front of him, his fingers flying across the screens in ways incomprehensible to Shepard, and she thanked whatever powers might be responsible for his skill and his presence on her ship, just where he was needed.
The Normandy accelerated, speeding through the debris field, even as Shepard felt the shock wave of the explosion behind her. The relay was ahead of them. Her good hand tightened on the back of Joker's seat even as she willed herself to stay silent and not distract him.
They were nearing the relay, they were almost there, they were pulling alongside it, they were caught in the mass effect field …
They were through.