Chapter 39: I Failed
"Are you sure you can land the shuttle once that pulse hits?" Miranda sat up front next to James, ever the perfectionist in need of control; she had to settle for the passenger's seat.
"Hey, if you're scared and want to hold on to my arm … or something, I'm good with that." James' bawdy tone floated to the back of the shuttle.
Shepard groaned, shaking her head. Miranda's disdainful scoff the only response she gave. The rest of the ride passed in tense silence until the pulse hit and the shuttle took a dive. Shepard held on to her harness, bracing herself against the turbulence. Garrus sat stiff in his seat, his hand drifting to her thigh. She dropped her hand to his and squeezed reassuringly, turning her head to give him a smile.
"Oh, Keelah se'lai!" Tali's lithe frame jostled around in her seat, and she gripped her harness for dear life.
"Ooh Rah! Yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about!" James whooped gleefully from the pilot's seat. "Hang on everybody!"
James was right. His landing wasn't nearly as pretty as Steve's, but the marine got the job done. The high pitched whine of metal sliding against metal announced their arrival along with a few solid, definitely-shuttle-damaging bumps.
"Ow! Damnit, I bit my tongue." Tali gave a light shake of her head as the shuttle slid to a screeching halt.
"What've we got, Vega?" Shepard unbuckled her harness, moving through the shuttle to stare at the Kodiak's readings.
James turned in his seat to grin up at her. "All clear, Commander. Kodiak's a little banged up but it's nothing Plates can't fix. Ain't that right, Plates?"
"If it is, I'm throwing you overboard." Garrus moved to the shuttle door, assault rifle at the ready, waiting for Shepard's signal to move out.
James chuckled. "If you think you're big enough, you're welcome to try."
"I'm sure Miranda wouldn't mind lending me a little biotic back up." Garrus smirked, his mandibles fluttering.
Shepard pushed away from the pilot's chair, moving out of the way while Miranda and James unbuckled. "Alright, we'll need to borrow the shuttle's power cells to get the storage doors open. There's a few things of use spread around on the ship, scavenge what you can so long as things stay calm. You'll notice some strange orbs. The leviathans will be using them to watch us, but they can also use them to take control of you, given enough exposure. Destroy them on sight. I'm fairly certain they use them to create the pulse that took us down as well." Shepard nodded to Garrus.
He opened the shuttle door and dropped down to the ancient wreckage of the MSV Monarch. Shepard moved out behind him, her assault rifle sweeping the area in front of her. Once satisfied there were no reapers spontaneously dropping from the sky, she stowed her assault rifle and turned her attention back to the shuttle. Cosmetically a disaster, the Kodiak didn't seem too worse for the ware as far as functionality was concerned, and really that's all Shepard cared about. She nodded her head; Garrus and Tali would have it up and running in no time.
James set to work pulling the power cells for Shepard while she held a backpack open to receive them. Once the bag had all it could carry, she began lugging the power cells to the Monarch's power sockets. The relative silence of the ghost ship in contrast to the battle-filled chaos of her memories felt eerie, making the fine hairs on Shepard's neck stand on end.
She couldn't help but to stop and look over her shoulder every couple of minutes. Mordin and Miranda moved about the ship, gathering what useable items they could salvage and destroying the leviathan artifacts as they went. Tali and Garrus worked on the Kodiak, heads close together; occasionally the sound of Tali cursing at the shuttle followed up with Garrus' laughter would reach Shepard's ears. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, but she couldn't shake the unease slithering along her spine.
Finally, she chalked it up to being watched by the leviathans and focused on getting the door powered up enough to open. James went back and forth from the shuttle to Shepard, bringing her more power cells. The tight lines of his furrowed brow belied the easy smile he flashed at her as they worked.
"What's going on? Talk to me James." Shepard slid a power cell into the socket, watching as the gauge gave her the readout before moving on to the next socket.
"Ah, it's just jitters, Ídolo." James looked around him, and shrugged. "This place kind of gives me the creeps." He turned his attention back to Shepard, studying her intently. "You sure you want to go down there? I mean, if these leviathans are as bad as you make them sound …."
"I'm sure, James." Shepard smiled, opting to change the subject, hoping to ease the lieutenant's mind. "So, you and Kasumi seem pretty close. There something going on there?"
"Ah, come on, Ídolo. I don't kiss and tell. But uhhh … if there were, you know … would that be a problem? I mean, the Normandy isn't exactly under Alliance regs."
Shepard chuckled, shaking her head. "No James, no problem. It'd be nice to see, actually. Another reminder of what we're fighting for, right?"
"Right." James grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. "She uh, she moved down to the hangar so Tali and Kal could have some privacy up in port observation. It's good, you know, having someone down there to talk to."
Shepard glanced down at the gauge, watching it fill enough for the door housing the Triton to open. She brushed her hands together. "Good," she said, meeting James' gaze and nodding. "Talking is good for her right now." She gestured at the gauge. "Show time."
Shepard made her way back over to the shuttle, stealing Garrus' attention away from the Kodiak repairs long enough to press her forehead against his and give him a quick kiss. "The doors are open, I'm heading down."
"Shepard, let me look over the Triton first. Make sure it's all in working order." Tali wrung her hands, shifting her weight from side to side.
Shepard nodded her head, watching as Tali trotted over to the mech. She took the extra time Tali gave her to spend a few more stolen moments in Garrus' arms. He didn't ask her if she was sure about the mission, and she felt grateful; they'd settled it on the Normandy and he knew how important the leviathans could be for her.
When Tali called in with the green light, Garrus pressed his forehead to hers once more before letting her go, his subvocals whining with unarticulated worry. Garrus and James followed her to the Triton, helping her climb inside and then stood back as she activated the mech. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she walked the mech out to the side of the ship and jumped overboard.
Garrus' voice filled her comms before the Triton even hit the water's surface. "Be safe down there, Shepard."
Water filled her vision as the mech submerged. "I'll do my best. Comms usually cut out while I'm down here. Try not to worry, and remember: turians don't swim."
"Hmmm. Humans can, and Vega looks like he's got a good set of lungs. Mordin's amphibious." Garrus sounded strained, the humor forced to her ears.
"I'm sure they'd both be willing to try, but they'd never reach me. I'll be more than thirty-two hundred meters deep." Shepard fought to steady her breathing, not wanting her anxiety to eat up all of her oxygen. "I love you, Garrus."
"I love—." The rest of his words were lost to static.
"You're breaking up, Garrus. Don't worry, I'll see you soon." The comm went dead. She wasn't sure how much he actually heard, but in the end, she trusted in him to keep his head on straight.
The darkness closed in around her, the bright beam from the Triton illuminating a swath of nothingness in front of her. There in the quiet, with nothing to distract her, the new memories that didn't belong there—weren't hers and shouldn't be in her head, pressed in on her. She was on the surface again, dodging reaper troops and making a mad dash to the next power socket. Husks and brutes chased her down, zeroing in on her while marauders charged up the cannibals, keeping them on their feet and providing them with armored plating.
Shepard shook her head, trying fruitlessly to clear the images. Falling through darkness, layer after layer of memories of the great expanse filled her mind. The leviathan rising up just beyond the edge of a cliff sent a terror that wasn't hers lancing through her. She remembered thinking she was staring into the eyes of a reaper; stunted relief sweeping in when she realized the entity in front of her was purely organic.
It spoke to her, its voice deep and soft, sounding directly in her head. Invading her mind, it scoured her memories and used them to form the images of familiar faces. Using the visage of Ann Bryson and so many others from the Task Force Aurora team, the leviathan told her about the creation of the Intelligence and its subsequent betrayal.
Her team dragged her to her feet, urging her to the waiting shuttle. Brutes turned on one another, ripping into each other, ignoring Shepard and her team as if they weren't even there. They got her into the shuttle and took off; watching from the windows she saw a reaper near the ocean only to be pounced on and pulled below the water's surface by a leviathan.
The Triton touched down on a solid surface, sending a jolt through her, pulling her back to reality—current reality. For a moment, Shepard didn't move, shaken by the realness of her flashbacks. Nothing stirred around her save for seaweed dancing in the currents. The sound of her own ragged breathing anchored her in the moment. "Shit."
Her fingers trembled as she sent out a flare, using the soft glow to light her path. Bioluminescent jellyfish moved gracefully nearby, coral and seaweed lined her path. Whenever the light of her flare faded behind her, she sent out another. Her movements through the water felt automatic, and she felt entirely sure she didn't even need the flares. Shepard swallowed against the knot in her throat and trudged forward, dropping off an outcropping before continuing on. Shutting off all non-critical systems without thinking about it, she moved in sync with the memories. She plunged off of another outcropping, rounding the bend to make the final descent.
The memory of a probe she never actually launched from the Normandy flashed at her. She blinked once and it disappeared, licking her lips she continued. The ground beneath her shook, the rumbling audible through the mech. Bubbles rose up just past the ledge, and Shepard's heart pounded in her chest. She kept herself moving forward, even as the ground rocked beneath her again and she caught the first glimpse of the leviathan cresting over the ledge. She couldn't tell anymore what was real, and what was merely a mirage. Something told her it didn't matter either way. She stopped, watching the leviathan rise out of the depths. Stilling her breathing, she slowed her heart, letting her training take over.
The leviathan's voice broke through her mind, banishing all other thoughts. "You have come too far."
Something brushed up against her consciousness, brief and fleeting before recoiling.
"You should not exist." The leviathan's voice wormed its way into her every cell. "What are you? Why have you breeched the darkness?"
There was no gentle easing into the place of communion the leviathan created in her mind—where they walked her consciousness stealing the faces of people in her memories—no, not this time. There were no flickers in and out of reality, no sudden trips back and forth between that dark place her memories promised her. This time there was pain, sharp and hot, ripping apart the very fiber of her being.
"There are too many inside one vessel. This vessel will not hold them all for long."
"Stop …." Shepard groaned, her head swimming in a sea of agony.
She grit her teeth, fighting back against the onslaught of alien thoughts pressing against her mind. Her vision cleared for a moment, but only long enough to see other leviathans rising out of the depths, more than any of her memories accounted for. A red haze consumed her, voices whispering just beyond her range of hearing filled the moments of silence in between the grating voices of the leviathans.
"They know us. They have breached the darkness before."
"The Intelligence will find us. This Harvest has only begun, the vessel is filled with memories it cannot have."
There were too many of them, she couldn't track the voices. "Stop …."
"They have already begun construction of the Crucible. This cycle will end the Harvest."
Shepard shoved back with all her might, and for one brief moment, it didn't feel like she pushed alone. "Stop!"
On her hands and knees, her palms pressed into a solid, clear surface, water lapping in small waves just below. White and gray unidentifiable motes of debris floated in front of her face, filling the darkened atmosphere and adding to the otherworldly feel; catching in her lungs and tasting like ash on her tongue. Coughing, she sucked in deep gasps of fetid air, smelling of death and decay, until the odor cleared, taking with it the haze filling her mind.
Hands slid under her arms, pulling her to her feet. Her head jerked from side to side, taking in the battered, sickly faces of Jane and John. Shepard sobbed with a strange mix of relief and dread. They held her up, leaning against her as much as they supported her weight. Her gaze roamed, taking in the sight of hundreds of other Shepards, some pulling themselves to their feet while others lay, unconscious and prone on the ethereal floor. Catching sight of the truly unexpected, Shepard froze.
The Council stood before her; Udina, Sparatus, Tevos, and Valern. She squinted, her head still swimming. That wasn't right. Anderson filled the role of human councilor for now, and Sparatus resigned. As soon as the idea skirted across the surface of her thoughts, Udina shifted into Anderson and Sparatus into Quentius. Shepard let out a sudden, sharp, bark of laughter. Of course they chose faces meant to represent authority over her. She wasn't the lone, lost, little lamb stumbling into the lion's den by herself, and unlike before, they just saw exactly who she was. Steeling herself, she tugged her arms free of Jane and John, taking a determined step forward.
"You made this mess. These Harvests are happening because of you." Shepard crossed her arms over her chest.
"You will pay tribute and end the cycle," the Tevos-leviathan spoke up, her face void of any emotion, the deep voice contrasting with the illusion.
Shepard shifted her weight, shaking her head. "We need your help, you created the Intelligence. There has to be a way you can stop it, stop the reapers."
"Without the Crucible," Jane added, stepping up on Shepard's right-hand side, crossing her arms over her chest, too.
John moved to Shepard's left-hand side. More Shepards started making their way to her, taking up station around the three of them while others formed a loose ring around the group, leaving Shepard, Jane, John, and the Council imposters in the middle.
"You will build the Crucible and succeed without our interference." The Quentius pretender flicked his mandibles, nodding his head decisively.
"No, the Crucible isn't enough. Something's not right with it, your Intelligence is the Catalyst and …," Shepard said, glancing around her at the weakened Shepards still lying unconscious, "it just starts this whole goddamn thing over again." She took another step forward. "Don't you get that? Your creation controls the Crucible."
"We understand. You will be the key the Intelligence needs to finalize its solution. Your tribute will end the cycle." Coming from a leviathan wearing the face of Shepard's mentor, the words somehow felt more ominous.
"The cost will be paid, life will be preserved." The would-be Valern tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe.
"What? No. We don't know that it actually ends the cycle." Jane dropped her arms to her side, her jaw slack. "We don't know what happens to everyone else once the Crucible is used. But obviously something isn't right because we," she said, waving her hand around to indicate all of the Shepards, "keep coming back to do it all over again!"
"Your fate is anomalous but ultimately irrelevant." The Anderson-leviathan waved his hand dismissively. "We will move forward, free to reclaim our rightful position in the galaxy once more."
Murmurs of unrest broke out in the gathered crowd of Shepards, bringing them pressing in closer and closer. Jane and John eased a little nearer to Shepard, their arms brushing up against hers. The muscles along Shepard's shoulder blades tensed, the animosity coming from the other Shepards palpable.
"Irrelevant?" Ruby pushed her way through the crowd, getting right up in the Anderson imposter's face. "Irrelevant? Who the hell do you think you are?"
The leviathans didn't flinch in the face of Ruby's ire; observing her as if she were nothing more than an unruly child threatening to hold her breath until she got her way, knowing her temper tantrum would only lead to her passing out.
"I stood in this very spot, fighting like hell to get you to see reason the last time I was here. I stood right here, alone, and called you out for the cowardice of your actions and convinced you to fight in this war. That's irrelevant?" Ruby snarled throwing her hands up in the air.
"Ruby," John warned, the tendons along his jaw standing out against his stubble.
Ruby ignored him, shaking her head at the mockery before her. "But apparently, Dawn lacks the backbone to call you what you are. Cowards! You know the outcome, so now you're not even going to fight? You're going to stay down here, hiding in the dark while the rest of the galaxy suffers through devastating losses to fight a battle you started?"
The fake Valern sniffed just as disdainfully as the real one. "Why should we interfere on behalf of lesser races when our sacrifice is unnecessary to end the cycle? We can see your minds clearly; you will not abandon your task even in your darkest moments."
"You sorry, craven sonsofbitches! Do you really think that after hundreds of thousands of years literally hiding from your own mistake that you'll be able to just waltz right in when this is over and build yourselves a fucking empire?"
"Ruby, stand down." Jane squared her shoulders, authority seeping into her tone.
Ruby spun, turning on Jane with a blood-thirsty sneer. "No. I don't take orders from you. Our alliance is over, Jane. You don't even get to talk to me. I trusted you to fix all of this, but you betrayed all of us when you chose her," Ruby said, shoving her finger in Shepard's direction, "and she tried to kill us! Look around you, Jane. Seem like a few faces are missing to you? Because it sure seems like more than a few are missing to me. That bitch killed them while you fought to protect her."
Jane held steady, flinching no more than the leviathans in the face of Ruby's rage. Instead, the corner of her mouth lifted up into a one-sided smirk. "Too bad you weren't one of them."
The crowd of Shepards shifted restlessly, whispers of 'killed them' filling the air. Shepard's heart dropped into her stomach. What did they mean? She looked around her, trying to estimate their numbers, but in the dim ambiance all she could say for sure was that the majority of them were staring back at her with narrowed eyes. Had she killed some of them? Could they even be killed—she watched John land a perfect headshot on Ruby, but there she stood without a sign of the lethal wound.
Ruby smiled, the glowing scars crisscrossing her face only adding to the crazed look in her eyes. "Careful, Janey. You might be next."
"We tire of your bickering," The Tevos-leviathan spoke, her voice silencing the crowd. "The course has been set. You will return to the surface and do that which you are meant to, activating the Crucible and ending the cycle."
Ruby turned back to the leviathans, picking up where she left off as if nothing else had occurred. "You think that we won't rise up against you and tear you down just like we're going to do with the monsters that chased you into hiding in the first place?" She shoved her finger into the chest of the leviathan wearing the Valern disguise. "We—."
She collapsed to her knees, her hands fisting in her hair. Screaming in agony, she dropped to the floor, curling in on herself. Shepard took half a step toward Ruby only to stop when John settled a hand on her shoulder. She glanced at John and he shook his head. The leviathans watched Ruby writhe for a moment before dismissing her, turning their attention back to Shepard. The second they averted their gaze, Ruby's screams faded to whimpers, her chest rising and falling in heavy pants.
Shepard licked her lips, struggling to stay calm while her plan went sideways. "So don't fight. You don't have to fight to help. You had the ability to create something as complex as the Intelligence. So you can do something to stop it—rewrite its programing, give it a virus—something!"
"No." The Tevos-leviathan gave a firm shake of her head. "We are done here."
As one, the four leviathans turned their backs on Shepard and started walking away.
She followed them, determined to see it through to the bitter end. She still had her wild card, the threat of exposing the leviathans, to play. "Wait. The reapers are already on their way. The Harvest has already begun. They're going to find you. You can help me stop them before they reach the relays. You can—."
Blinding pain filled her head, spreading throughout her entire body, dropping her to her knees. The sound of her scream echoed back to her by every other Shepard, searing through her mind. Retching, blood spilled from her mouth, pouring from her eyes and nose. Then, just as suddenly, the agony disappeared. Shepard panted, tears stinging her eyes.
"Do not test our patience. We have been merciful beyond your understanding." The four Council imposters circled Shepard. "You breached the darkness not to beg for our assistance as supplicants, but to demand it with threats." Their voices pushed into her head, speaking in unison. "You live because we allow it, because you serve a purpose. Leave now of your own volition, or leave as our thrall. The choice is yours."
Shepard opened her eyes, gasping for breath. She blinked, red filling her vision. Fully conscious, secure inside the Triton, she felt blood roll down her cheeks like sticky tears. The rest of the leviathans retreated into the abyss, leaving one floating there at the edge to watch Shepard through the mech's glass.
She tried to activate the thrusters, wanting to flee to the surface but couldn't get her fingers to cooperate. Whimpering, she tried again; sobbing desperately when the Triton shot upward. Her ears felt clogged, and she didn't think it the shift in pressure could be blamed. She licked her lips, the taste of blood leaving a coppery tang in her mouth.
"I failed," Shepard thought, taking a shuddering breath, squinting her eyes against the pinpoint of light reaching her from the surface.
"You had to try," Jane said, loud and strong in Shepard's mind. "Maybe they'll reconsider."
Shepard sobbed again, it turning into a strangled, wet cough leaving her gasping for air. The water around her no longer looked as black as night, hints of green and blue mingled with the red of her vision. Her lungs hurt and she was tired, so, so very tired. Eyelids drooping, she let them fall closed for just a minute.
A spike of panic filled Jane, seeping through to Shepard. "No! Stay awake, Dawn. You have to stay awake to get us to the surface. You're hurt and the Triton's running out of air."
Shepard forced her eyes open, her head lolling listlessly on her neck and groaned. She tried to reach for her omni-tool, intent on activating her suit's Medi-gel release, but she couldn't quite figure out how to move her arm. The light grew brighter, burning her eyes and clawing through her skull.
The diving mech broke through the surface, shooting out of the ocean. Shepard's hands, moving over the controls without her conscious direction, landed the Triton on the surface of the Monarch. The mech opened, and she spilled out, falling face first to the ship, her arms barely coming up in time to prevent her face from smashing into the metal.
"Shepard!" Garrus' called to her, sounding so far away.
Groaning, she pushed herself over to her back. She coughed, her lungs heavy and rattling in her chest. Garrus hovered over her, calling her name, but she couldn't get her eyes to focus on him. Miranda knelt down on Shepard's other side, her omni-tool open, waving it over Shepard. James appeared, hands pulling at Garrus' shoulders. Garrus jerked out of his grip, his growl cutting through the ringing in her ears. James grabbed Garrus again, yanking him to his feet and dragging him back. Mordin dropped down to her side in his place.
Something huge and dark moved above her, blacking out the sky before leaving her field of vision. Miranda and Mordin looked up, their jaws hanging agape. Shepard coughed again, expelling something wet and thick from her lungs, dragging their attention back to her. More dark shapes filled the sky, seeming to shrink before disappearing altogether.
"It's the leviathans." Despair riddled with disbelief passed from Jane into Shepard. "They're … leaving."
"I failed," Shepard said, feeling her lips move but unsure if they made any sound.