Chapter 8: No Fear, No Remorse

1.

Garrus watched the scarred merc's head explode and instinctively rolled to the side. He saw Ashley and Kaidan try to move the quarian they'd been carrying away from the line of fire and then just give up and toss him, literally toss him, through the space-port doors. Out of sight, out of mind; out of harms way. Garrus could guess that the quarian wasn't likely a combatant, and besides that was probably exposed to more diseases and viruses than he cared to think about given the state of the poor guy's suit.

Spirits, Shepard probably did on a number on him...

Millions of thoughts making their rounds through his head, but credit to his turian military training, not one of them was about how his undead former friend was the one trying to kill everyone. Shepard was a name, a threat, but that was it: "Shepard" didn't have any deeper meaning than that. Survive first, ask Kaidan and Ashley how any of this was possible later. Much later.

Survival was gonna be hard enough. Human skulls (Spirits, little facts like this that kept Garrus out of polite company) weren't on the same level as krogan or even turian skulls, but they didn't spilt apart like that without a lot of effort. He didn't realize Shepard had that kind of streng—

The salarian doctor was trying to get his omni-tool lined up with Shepard's chest and Shepard saw. Garrus slammed into Mordin—that was his name, Mordin Solus—just as another shotgun round went streaking over their heads.

"Apologies!" Modin said, now on the ground with a turian on top of him. "Though I could drop shields. Miscalculated."

"Do we need to get you out of here?" Garrus said.

"Situation…unusual," Mordin said, glancing at Shepard. "Hardly insurmountable. Can handle myself—always have."

The two of them rolled towards the Space Port entrance and got to their feet…Spirits Shepard had one of the secret-agent types by the throat.

Jacob would've said a religious curse of his own if Shepard hadn't been crushing his throat like she was. Jacob could kick pretty hard—it wasn't his favorite method to deal with people, but it paid to be prepared—and even then, his kicks were bouncing off Shepard's upper thighs and quickly giving him shin-splints.

Then he felt his throat get freed and it was like getting slapped in the face by a hand made of pure oxygen; he pulled as much air in as he could and suffered for a few seconds longer as his body told him how close he'd been to dying.

Shepard was staggering back and was covering in flicking purple lights—so was Miranda, who was pulling Jacob back to his feet and slowly directing him backwards, towards Mordin and Archangel and the Widowmaker, the best place in the universe since it could run away faster than the speed of light.

Jesus he'd never been in something like this, never fought someone like Shepard.

"Don't lose consciousness," Miranda was saying to him. "Keep moving—we're retreating."

"I…I d-don't…have a…lot of choice," Jacob said, feeling shards of glass go up and down in his throat with every word.

Miranda looked behind her: Dr. Solus and Vakarian were together, there was a chance she could ferry both of them onto the ship at the same time and hope that the Alliance didn't try to come after the turian. She wasn't thinking about Zaeed; she wasn't thinking about how the list of dossier's she'd been given had contracted under her watch, had been whittled away by the very person she had been in charge of returning to life. She wasn't thinking about The Illusive Man and what sort of explanation he would tolerate, nor was she thinking about the body of the other Cerberus agent that was to be transferred to her command—now crackling with fire, the other half already blackened dust being kicked under everyone's feet. She wasn't...

"Move Dr. Solus and Vakarian to the ship, if you can," Miranda said to Jacob, pulling him a few more feet before she let go of his arms. He stumbled but found his equilibrium. "I'll cover you, but we need to move now."

Jacob stared at Shepard, still groggy, still feeling shards in his throat. The closest person to Shepard now was that batarian guard and…and no, Shepard had hit him with a biotic blast. He was down on the ground, pushing himself backwards, screaming into his radio and…and now he wasn't anymore. Now his head was a smear on the bottom of Shepard's boot, and the way she was moving—the way she didn't linger to savour it or check to make sure the guard was truly dead—it was like she hadn't even realized she'd crushed his skull with a single step.

Jacob yanked out his pistol and held it in Shepard's direction. He didn't want to do this; there was something about bringing a hero like her back from death that felt sacred, like she'd earned her right to walk and breath again and Jacob would be guaranteeing that the only thing in anyone's future was dust and decay if he pulled the trigger.

Miranda grabbed his arm before it became apparent that he couldn't' do it; he couldn't shoot.

"JUST MOVE! We don't have time for this!"

"Listen to your boss!" Williams said, backing up and readying another concussive shot with her pistol (shit, if it worked before…), focusing her mind and just how difficult it was to switch through ammo types when you were on the edge of death like they all were and they'd never been like that around Shepard before, they'd never been anywhere close to death when Shepard was leading them literally through hell like she'd been doing just two years ago and…and there, concussive shot, line it up and squeeze the trigger. "We're not stopping her—not like this!" Ashley didn't need to add that but it came out.

The concussive round fired and Shepard just had to contort her body slightly to let it fly right by, fly straight into the door of Afterlife Club where all it did was leave a cloud of smoke that disappeared in less than five seconds.

"…shit," Ashley said.

Shepard glowed blue and then everyone in front of her was airborne. The shockwave she'd unleashed rattled the metal ground and splintered it in a few places and the spaceport doorframe wasn't structurally sound anymore, not after that biotic blast. Ashley nearly came down elbow first on a nasty looking piece of floor that jutted out like a mountain peak but, luckily, momentum carried her away from any serious injury.

She looked up and saw Alenko on Shepard's back, Garrus grabbing onto Shepard's arms, and Dr. Solus with his omni-tool out—Garrus and Alenko were both screaming at the salarian to shock her, don't worry about whether they got friend in the process. Ashley stood up and started sprinting at Shepard, reading to grapple and have one more set of arms keeping her stable, but then Shepard moved. She moved and Kaidan slid down her arm right to where her elbow was primed and ready, right where it had a clear path to his nose and then he went down, nose bent 90 degrees to the right, blood gushing. Garrus got turned midair into the path of Dr. Solus's electric shock and that ripped his talons off Shepard's armour, literally ripped them off the current was so strong. Shepard's shotgun was up and so Ashley changed course, heading straight for Garrus. She collided with his bulk just as Shepard pulled the trigger and Ashley was pretty sure she got there in time, pretty sure she knocked him aside, except no, now they were falling and she could see blue blood pouring everywhere and Jesus Christ half his face was hanging off and—

"Garrus! GARRUS can you hear me?" Ashley said.

Some horrific bubbling noise—wet and sounding like tar being kicked up to the surface of a marsh—told Ashley that Garrus was alive but barely. She punched her omni-tool hard enough to nearly break her wrist as medi-gel started pumping its way through Garrus's shattered armour. They were on their feet, trying to move, Ashley trying to drag Garrus as far as she could before he—not her, she was fine, she was going to be fine—before he gave out, before the medi-gel stopped keeping him out of shock, if that's what it was even doing.

Something collided with her back and she and Garrus went down. Alenko rolled over top of her; Shepard had thrown him headfirst at her back and Jesus his blood and Garrus's were starting to mix together.

And then Ashley saw the black-haired secret-agent woman just out the corner of her vision. She was pushing Dr. Solus towards Jacob, yelling something that Ashley couldn't make out through the ringing in her ears….

…what Miranda was saying was to get moving, they had to get moving, and then something snagged her hair and she was yanked backwards. Shepard was over her, and before Miranda could even fight back, Shepard had a hold of her arm and was twisting it backwards until the joints start to pop. Miranda bit down and refused to scream, but couldn't help it when her wrist was roughly seized and her omni-tool started peeling off her arm. Then she cried out.

She was trying to activate the self-destruct sequence or the file-shredder function but Shepard was too quick. The omni-tool was torn from her wrist and then, only then, did the pressure on her arm cease.

Shepard was walking towards the skycar that Alenko and Williams had arrived it, with untold amounts of Cerberus secrets in her hands. Miranda tried to stand up, but nothing in her body was solid enough to support her weight. Perfect genes and a perfect environment sputtered and failed on her, bloated up like a corpse and went "bang" in the noonday sun. She collapsed into unconsciousness just as Shepard boarded the skycar and disappeared into the Omega skyline…

…and she woke up what seemed like half a second later to the sound of Aria T'Loak. Her private army was everywhere: putting out fires, ushering people away from the area, watching their boss with guns drawn in case anything else happened. She was speaking into her omni-tool.

Miranda looked around and saw that Alenko, Williams, Vakarian, and the quarian were gone.

"I know you moved into the docks, Jaroth, so listen to the advice I'm about to give you: tell your people that if someone in N7 armour shows up, let her pass. You'll thank me when you don't have to start a recruitment drive."

She hung up just as the voice on the other end of the line started to object.

It was just Aria and Miranda now, the latter on the ground, the former staring with barely controlled hatred in her eyes. Then Aria's body glowed purple.

"Leave," she said to Miranda. "Now."

And leave the Lazarus Cell certainly did.

2.

The Illusive Man would wait for Miranda's report, but he already knew everything he needed to know about Omega. The Enhanced Defense Intelligence construct was not being nearly as forthcoming with data as he'd hoped, but it was only one source of information on the ship—the Widowmaker, as it was apparently called now.

In the quiet moments after missions had run their course—when his many assistants and support personnel left him alone to look at the binary stars just out his wall-to-ceiling viewing window—The Illusive Man used the quiet to consider the next conversation he'd have to have. He'd plan what he was going to say in advance and suggest to himself possible responses he'd receive in turn, and how he could direct those responses to make the other end of the conversation say exactly what he needed them to say. That was, in his mind, the benefit of knowing everything before anyone started talking: conversations were a formality, and a useful one. They could be used to remind everyone that needed a reminding who, precisely, was in control.

Miranda Lawson was different: when they conversed, The Illusive Man generally endeavored to listen and learn. And after Omega…he was genuinely interested to hear her explanation for how so few goals were accomplished, and why so many knew obstacles were created. He'd have to force himself not to come to any rash conclusions, lest he start twisting Lawson's words and end up putting himself in a worse position than he already was.

That would be difficult. Whether or not he was out of practice in that regard, to see things fail so spectacularly under people who he thought were competent enough to salvage any mission, regardless of new variables…it was difficult to grasp.

The Illusive Man took a large drag of his cigarette, and waited for The Widowmaker to contact him.

3.

On the Citadel, David Anderson waited for Donnell Udina to arrive at his office. His assistant was many things, and luckily punctual was one of them. Udina—a greying man in an equally grey suit—walked through his doors and quickly closed the distance to Anderson's desk. He seemed genuinely interested in what Anderson could possibly want to talk to him about, and Anderson hoped that feeling would stick around for the duration of what was hopefully going to be a quick chat.

"Anderson," Udina said. "You…wanted to see me?"

Anderson nodded, pushed himself away from his desk, closed his computer screen. "I'm heading to Arcturus Station," he said. He gave Udina a look that was about as close to begging as Anderson was willing to go. "No questions asked, all right? Take care of things for me while I'm gone."

"I'll…make sure your absence is as inconspicuous as possible, of course," Udina said. Surprised more than anything, not overtly enjoying being put in charge…on the one hand, Anderson was grateful; on the other hand, it looked like Udina wanted to ask half a billion questions before he let Anderson leave.

"No questions, right?" Anderson said. "I wouldn't say that if it wasn't important."

"I'm perfectly used to being kept out of the loop, Anderson," Udina said. "Just like I'm perfectly used to keeping others out of the loop as well. It comes with the job."

"Guess it does," Anderson said. He paused next to Udina, thought about thanking him, but…he felt like a rat, doing all this scurrying around in secret. At least as a soldier, when you did something like that, it was because someone else made you do that…or at least, that's what he liked to tell himself. The Alliance stressed decentralizing command as much as possible, so God knows Anderson ordered more than his fair share of scurrying before he got named flag officer and then was kicked even further upstairs.

He'd even ordered the person that'd caused him to get kicked upstairs on a few of those missions. Funny how things went in circles like that—funny like disinfecting a wound.

Udina, luckily, just let him walk past without saying another word. A few steps down the embassy's main walkway and Anderson felt his omni-tool buzzing; there was a brief second where he wondered if Udina would do something like that, calling him right after he left just to keep him on edge. But Anderson dismissed that thought and kept walking. He had a lot to think about, and a lot to tell Hackett when he got to the Alliance capital. The report that Williams had sent from a frigate that had to be pulled from active patrol to meet them at the border of the Terminus System (a frigate with the best medical facilities they could find, Ashley had said, adding only that there were casualties and that she'd tell Anderson more when she could) it…didn't look good.

These sorts of missions never went to plan, but even still…things had gone of the rails, and in a big way.

Anderson's curiosity got the better of him. He wasn't planning on answering any calls in order to keep the channel with Williams open. But he checked his omni-tool anyways.

Good thing he did: the message was from an unknown name, but the channel it was sent over was reserved for communications with folks that'd been around two years ago, just in case they needed Alliance help after everything they'd done.

Anderson opened the message, sent the audio to his earpiece, and slinked behind a potted plant near the embassy's front desk.

"Captain Anderson?" the message said. "Or…I'm sorry, Councillor Anderson, apologies I…this is Tali'Zorah vas Neema. I'm…hoping that I'm using this channel properly, but I need to talk to you urgently. Please, um…contact me as soon as you can."

"I'll be damned," Anderson said to himself.

Funny thing, about life going in circles like that.

Well, that chapter's a lot shorter than I thought it'd be. That's not a bad thing necessarily, but hopefully that arc came to a satisfactory conclusion for everyone!

(As I was writing, I sort of unconsciously ended up turning Omega into it's own arc: if you count Chapter 1 as sort of its own thing, then Chapters 2 to 8 constitute the "Omega Arc," and now that nobody is welcome on the station any more - for some obvious reasons - we can start on a different arc, if uh...that makes sense. Nobody said I was a clear writer, after all).

But yeah, probably could've combined this chapter with the last one, but I didn't realize it was going to be this short until I hit upon what the hell Shepard actually wanted from fighting her old crew. And uh, here we are!

I want to give a shout out to "DoctorpooandtheTURDIS" over at AO3 (which is just a great name no matter how you slice it) for pointing out that Shepard is sort of behaving like a T-800 in this: hence the Chapter title being pulled from Kyle Reese's famous line from the first movie.

Other than that, stay tuned for a Tali-centric chapter! I'm excited to write that one out because, I mean c'mon, it's Tali. How could I not be excited about it?