A/N: Hi everyone. Sorry for another long wait. Hopefully it's worth it.
"Saren's dead, Sovereign is destroyed...so why don't I feel any better?" Shepard let his head fall in his hand as Karin Chakwas looked on sympathetically.
"It could be that your problems were never related to those specific threats," she said, scratching a few notes onto a faux-paper pad, "you said you were having dreams again?"
He nodded slowly, "mostly weird… Unconnected things. A fire, dead squamates at a bar, aliens I don't recognize. Weird ones, pointy heads and four eyes".
Chakras took some more notes, "how are your personal relationships feeling?"
Shepard tightened his jaw, "Nothing to report".
"Shepard...I know that's not true. Now cut through that military bravado and talk to your doctor," her tone allowed no room for argument, "how about Garrus?"
His tension eased a bit. Garrus was a bright spot in his mind. He knew the tougher inquisitions would follow soon though.
"We went out for drinks last night...Joker too. We had fun. It's been a while since I didn't have something hanging over my head".
It had been fun until a salarian jeered at him something about dead council members. Garrus had shouted back something the translator couldn't pick up and Joker had pulled Shepard over to talk to an asari he was obviously trying to impress.
Leaving the council to their fate should have been a hard choice. He was sworn to protect them after all. But it would have been at the cost of thousands of lives on the citadel. That was not something his conscience could take. Some cynicism he figured he got from Anderson, that the lives of common people are more valuable than those of politicians or generals.
It had certainly been a bad political choice though.
Hey looked up and realized Dr Chakwas had been speaking, "sorry… Say that again?"
She backtracked, "That's good. They are good people to depend on. Maybe that can become something regular, something you can count on each month or each week now that we aren't at war".
That did sound nice… As long as they weren't sick of his bad dancing and awful wingmanning yet.
"What about Liara?"
He felt a wave of guilt wash over him, "we haven't talked much in the last two weeks. She's been busy with some new project and I've been...well. I haven't had time…".
"That's understandable. You're spread thin lately… That's why we're doing these meetings," she said with a light chuckle.
He nodded his agreement, "I guess you want to know about Kaidan next?"
She shook her head, "I was actually going to ask you about Tali".
She made another scratching note on her pad.
"Why do you use paper? It's got to be easier to note on omni-tool," he asked, not trying to steer away from talking about the quarian… But not helping her stay on course.
She raised an eyebrow, "I find the activity of writing by hand comforting. I also feel that it forces me to write slower and therefore take more concise and pertinent notes".
"Oh...I guess that makes sense," he felt a little dumb for asking a question with such an obvious answer.
Dr Chakwas shifted in her seat, crossing her legs and leaning back, "So...Tali?"
Shepard swallowed and took a breath, "she's been really helpful in figuring things out the last few weeks… Months really".
Chakwas laughed lightly, "I'm sure she has".
Shepard felt his face warm, "she's easy to talk to…"
She nodded and smiled infuriatingly, "you trust her".
"I trust all my crew," he answered automatically.
She raised one perfect eyebrow and he deflated, looking at his feet and feeling like a 12 year old being chastised.
"I trust her," he murmured. He paused before continuing, "I guess we are alike in a lot of ways. Her duty to her people is so important to her and the way she thinks about things just...I like it," he smiled faintly at the thought, an image of her enthusiastically retelling a story from the fleet.
"I would wager she trusts you too".
Shepard shrugged, "Probably as much as Garrus. But we're just her teammates," He looked at the floor, "I'm just another human she works with. Back on the fleet she-"
"Do you know what quarians look like under the mask?" She cut him off.
His eyes fixed on Chakwas and narrowed, "I...don't".
"Shame...it seems nobody does. I have tried like hell to find an image or something but even their public medical texts, of which there are few, only have very technical descriptions," she looked at him pointedly, "it seems nobody outside of their race had seen a quarian face since at least the beginning of the modern extranet".
"They are very private about those things," Shepard said thoughtlessly, "the suits have become such a part of their culture".
"I would wager that at this point you likely have more knowledge about quarian culture than any human alive due to your friendship with Tali".
"I doubt that…"
Her tone changed to one of practiced inquisition, "do they play music?"
He nodded, "it's a pretty big cultural thing for them. They have this one instrument, the gh'ina," Shepard explained with a phlegmy attempt at the Khelish word, "Tali took lessons when she was a kid. It uses nerve impulses from your forearms to direct internal air currents…"
Chakwas was writing furiously now, biting one thin lip. He paused and she looked up at him, "what does it sound like?"
"It's sort of like a guitar trying to sound like a trumpet or a tisur. She played an old recording of hers for me," he explained.
"Does she play in a performance group or band?" The doctor was clearly interested.
He shook his head, "it's mostly just something she does for herself. She used to play with her mom but..."
He was about to ask why she cared but he looked up to find her grinning like a cat who just caught the canary.
"So she showed you a private vid of her playing an instrument that the rest of the Galaxy doesn't even know exists".
He nodded, not quite putting together the pieces.
"Could you tell me your routine when you get back from a mission?"
He raised an eyebrow at the secord sudden change in topic but answered, stepping through it in his mind, "usually I strip my gear, shower, dress, debrief, clean my guns and armor-"
"You make tea then, right?"
He shook his head, "I usually go around and see how the crew is doing".
"And then you make two cups of tea, one from my stash and one from Garrus' and bring them to engineering…"
He saw where she was leading him, "Tali likes Turian tea… And fraternization is prohibited on Alliance ships," he deadpanned, heading off the nosey doctor and shifting into a somewhat more defensive position in his plastic chair.
"I didn't realize the quarians had joined the Systems Alliance".
Shepard bit back a groan, "I think I should-"
The ship lurched. They both looked out the medbay window to see several crew members stumble. Shepard slammed the comm button on his omni-tool, "Joker, report".
"Evasive maneuvers...alien ship… Don't know what it is… Energy weapon," a buzzing, vibrating energy shook the ship and it lurched again, maneuvering violently.
"All hands to battle stations," Shepard commanded through his comm to the ship PA.
He looked apologetically at the doctor.
"Go," she said, shooing him away.
He jumped up and sprinted up to the CIC, taking the stairs three at a time. He passed a few crewmen on the staircase, nodding curtly. Another pulse rocked the ship and he was thrown into the galaxy map. His hands flailed through the buzzing pulsing light fields of the holographic display. Scrambling for a hand hold, he finally found purchase on one of the lenses which cracked under his grip and sliced open his palm. He swore.
Finally on his feet again, he ran through the now shuddering ship toward the flight deck.
Out the window was something that looked less like an engineered warship and more like something that had congealed in a gutter somewhere. It was huge and seemed to have grown around an artificial scaffold.
"What the fu-" he was cut off by an all encompassing buzzing quake of a sound as the ship's energy beam fired, missing the Normandy by inches sure to Joker's quick reflexes.
The ship shook and Shepard was thrown sideways into the airlock. He groaned and pushed himself to his feet
"Joker! FTL!"
"Can't! That beam left a disruption field a mile wide . If we jump now, we'll leave half the ship behind".
"What can you do?"
"I'll keep flying… You prep lifeboats".
Shepard's heart stopped beating. Was he really about to lose this ship? Anderson's ship? A million thoughts buzzed through his head line a whole hive of wasps, each one stinging with a new way to feed his guilt. He shouldn't have let his guard down like this!
Nevertheless, he nodded decisively to Joker, "I'll keep weapons at their posts, but all other crew will be ready to evac".
He took a shaky breath, got on the PA and gave the appropriate orders. As soon as he did, reports from all over the shop started appearing on Pressley's command screen.
"12 lifeboats report ready to launch, 5 to -" Pressley was cut off by a mind-shattering noise.
The beam struck amidships and Shepard's ears popped violently and air was sucked from his lungs. The air around him became cold and foggy.
Depressurization
He jumped toward the wall where he knew the emergency masks were and scrambled to find his. He'd done this drill a hundred times but the real thing was decidedly more chaotic.
Find mask
Squeeze paddles
Mask over face
Release
Emergency switch on chin
Breathe
He relaxed his lungs and let the pressure forcibly inflate his lungs in the near vacuum.
"Pressure breathing...just like regular breathing but backwards," he remembered his naval instructor saying. He made a tight ring with his lips and forcibly exhaled against the pressure, popping his ears.
The sequence of pressure breathing always took a bit of getting used to.
Mask over his face, he turned and confirmed that his bridge crew had done the same. Joker and Pressley were indeed sporting identical plexiglass visors. Shepard breathed a sigh of relief; or would have if such an action had been physically possible against the 20 psi of lung-bursting pressure in his respirator.
A blue force field separated the three of them from the CIC now. Several parts of the ship had automatic pressure fields that would go up in a depressurization event. His heart hammered in his ears over the hissing of the oxygen mask in the low pressure environment.
His Omni tool buzzed, the normal chirping sound inaudible over the squawking alarms and shuddering metal in the near vacuum of the flight deck.
He answered the call and his heart began to beat in his ears. Tali's helmeted head appeared in the image window the tool constructed. She looked frantic and was in some confined space. He could hear the thin sound of her voice but couldn't understand what she was saying.
Tali's in trouble...did a shot hit engineering? Core breach?
A million nasty possibilities rattled around his mind. A second window appeared, Kaidan and Liara were ushering people into lifeboats. Kaidan looked stern as he said something, probably important, that Shepard couldn't hear.
Dammit! When will they figure out a way to-
BANG!
He never finished his thought as another beam rocked the ship. Shepard could see the inky black of space through the blue forcefield. There was a major hull breach. The CIC was spaced. He couldn't see them, but he knew there were frozen bodies in space just beyond that hole in the ceiling…bodies of his crew and friends.
The gravity cut out. Shepard felt his feet come free from the floor. The lurching of the ship slammed him into the ceiling. Scrabbling randomly, he grabbed an emergency mobility handle above him with a stinging, bloody hand. There were several handles scattered around any ship surface for exactly this type of scenario. He pushed himself toward Joker, who was still strapped into his flight chair.
One screen was flashing the words "All Hands Abandon Ship? Y/N"
Below it was a big holographic button with a command code authorization window. Joker looked at Shepard, wide eyed and nodded toward it.
Dammit
Shepard slammed his hand into the button, feeling the buzz as it read his biometrics and authorized the evacuation.
He looked back towards the vacuum of the CIC. The two command escape pods were still docked on the starboard side. He moved to help Joker, but the pilot shoved him away and nodded toward Pressley. Shepard pushed toward him and tried to help him through the field that would open just enough to allow him passage through while keeping most of the remaining air pressure inside.
Another flash of light. Another shudder. Pressley was through the force field and...floating in space. His eyes were wide and his arms were flailing. It appeared only a single metal beam held the flight deck to the rest of the Normandy.
I can't help him... he's already too far away
Shepard helplessly reached a hand into the burning hell that was true vacuum but his XO was gone; body boiling away as the confluence of vacuum and solar radiation destroyed it. He could not hear the screaming...but he could see it.
Joker grabbed his shoulder. Their eyes met and he wrapped an arm firmly around his waist. Shepard knew Joker wouldn't be able to propel himself across the sucking chasm of nothing to reach the escape pod. His disability wouldn't let him. Shepard was fairly sure though that he could get both of them across.
He swallowed with difficulty through the pressurized air, set his jaw, and using both feet on one handle and his free hand on another, flung them both aftward.
As soon as they passed through the barrier, the residual pressure in the cockpit gave them a slight push. Shepard's unprotected skin was screaming. In a vacuum, water and therefore the human body reaches a point at which it will simultaneously boil and freeze. The effects of this on living tissue are similar to extreme frostbite. You are typically able to survive about two minutes in a vacuum before your epidermis is entirely dead.
As they sailed out of the cockpit, Shepard got his most unobstructed view of space yet. Just a thin plastic visor between himself and oblivion. His eyes, watering from the pain, focused solely on the handles around the escape pod door which he was aiming for. Joker was tensed against him, shaking.
Ungracefully, he caught a handle with his free hand. Joker caught one too. Combined with their momentum, it sent them both spinning into the pod door.
Shepard slammed a hand on the door control and it opened silently.
Tali…
He grit his teeth, shot Joker a look he hoped he would understand, and pushed himself back out of the pod. A well aimed punch set the launch sequence. Joker was safe. Then he pushed off and was flying toward the crew lockers.
He could feel his hands, his joints not wanting to continue working. The burning pain had faded into a pulsing heat on his skin and bone deep aching cold.
Scrambling with uncoordinated hands, he grabbed his armor and shoved himself toward the second capsule. It opened smoothly and he hauled his uncooperative body inside.
He threw a useless floppy hand against the door control and it shut. Immediately the pod began pressurizing. His ears popped unpleasantly and the pain in his body seemed to intensify. He screamed and he could hear it.
"Fucking hell," he growled as he pulled his pressure suit on over his civvies, body spinning chaotically in the zero g.
He wanted so badly to just sit down. He felt as if he'd just run a hundred miles fighting geth the whole way. His whole body was screaming in agony with every motion. Images flashed through his mind though, images of Tali, floating in space, trapped in a dying pressure suit, helpless, drove him on. The thought of her glowing blue eyes going out drove him to depressurize the pod once more and launch himself, now suited properly, into the wreck of his mentor's ship.
He pulled out his omni-tool and dialed Tali. She picked up instantly.
"John!" Her eyes were wide, glowing in the hazy hologram.
Gratitude flooded through him as he was able to hear her voice through his helmet's audio system.
"Tali, where are you?"
"Engineering...stuck-"
"I'm on my way...stay put."
"John no, do-" She was cut off when he closed the window. He had limited time and needed to make the most of it.
He made his way down to engineering, biting back bile as he had to push aside a crew mate's frozen body. There was a force field over the engineering doorway.
Good sign
He pushed through it, the now familiar tingling overwhelming his still burning skin and causing him to cry out.
Almost normal pressure… .688mb
"John! Keelah, you're okay!"
The cry came from behind some paneling on the corridor to the drive core chamber.
"Tali! Are you alright?"
"Yes...I'm fine. I'm stuck behind this bulkhead".
He ran to where her voice was coming from. Her legs were sticking out of the wall and the panels over where her torso would be were crushed in. He found a torn panel, gripped it firmly and hauled back on it. It jiggled and a screw broke. Shepard screamed in frustration.
"Get away from this panel!"
"John! Be careful!"
He let the biotic energy pool in his abdomen and released it in a tight burst behind the panel where it overlapped with the bulkhead. With a burst of blue it tore free. He felt dizzy.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes...keelah...what happened?"
"New aliens...uurgh!" Another panel burst free. He could see her face and his heart lifted as his vision blurred, "Why are you stuck?"
"Engineering crew couldn't get out unless I manually put up a force field. I had to get back here to set it up. They got out fine but the last blast crumpled these panels and.."
"You're amazing," he said, eyes meeting hers through each of their visors.
With a cry, he tore the last one free and pulled her out. As he stood up, her hand in his, his head went light and he felt himself wobbling. The pain got far away.
"John! Hang on...I'll get us to a pod".
"Only one left...CIC...I'm fine," even he had to admit his voice sounded weak.
"You're not fine...come on".
She pulled him along through the zero gravity. He was quietly impressed with her strength and presence of mind among a collapsing ship. He didn't remember much of the trip back to the CIC. Just a few flashes of her arm around him, warm and pulling him along...that felt nice.
The command center of the once great ship was utterly destroyed. Three frozen bodies spun lazily in the flickering light of the emergency power system. The galaxy map juttered, occasionally coming into focus and occasionally sparking out completely. Those few interface panels that were functional flashed evacuation commands in big unfriendly letters. A large chunk of ceiling was missing and bright stars were visible outside.
Tali pulled them both through the room that had until a few minutes ago been the beating heart of a great warship.
They reached the pod and she climbed inside, pulling him in after her. Tali set about running the activation sequence over again since it had already run once. It was left in a half-ready state.
The ship rocked violently. Tali and Shepard were slammed into the walls of the tiny vessel. John felt his head snap back painfully.
"Shket ..I've got to reset it from outside," she swore.
Tali...outside...no!
"I'm on it," he said blearily.
Shepard rolled himself over in an awkward kicking motion, already spurred into action.
"Don't...I can get it," She said firmly, trying to push him back inside but managing only to float herself away from the controls, "John."
The despair and panic in Tali's voice nearly stopped him. Nevertheless, he grit his teeth and forced his body to move. Shepard swung outside on the emergency handles. His throat was thick with emotion. He knew he might never see her again. But then again...that was always a possibility.
He twisted out of her reach and toward the exterior control panel.
"No!" She shrieked, "you're staying here! you -"
Shepard never heard what she was about to call him. He had swung out the hatch and punched the manual activation. The door silently slid shut. He saw a balled up three-fingered fist slam against the porthole. With a shudder it fired itself away from the Normandy...from him.
"I'm okay...she'll be okay," he thought to himself, checking his O2 stores, "I'll wait with the ship, recharge my suit when I need to. When the pods and the ELT get picked up, they'll find me."
He watched Tali's life raft sail off into the endless night. Then, through the gaping hole in the ceiling, he saw the bulky misshapen beast of a ship that had torn his pride and joy to shreds. Hate flared through his hazy mind. He saw the ship twist and a glow built around its weapon, charging. Instinctively, he ducked behind a bulkhead for cover, whatever good that would do. He twisted back against the shell of the ship, so thin, so fragile. His body was hidden from the weapon but his head remained in the open. Pain was forgotten as his eyes flicked between the flickering glow of Tali's boosters and the steady burn of the alien weapon's growing power.
"Just don't hit the life rafts you fuck," he growled knowing nobody could hear him.
Suit radios worked through shipboard relay and that definitely wasn't working...design by committee.
The beam fired
The ship shook
Shepard was torn from his perch by a violent g force. His head smashed against the exterior armor of the ship. He almost caught an edge with one hand...almost. Shepard was thrown out into the void, spinning.
He screamed. He flailed his fists and legs. There was nothing left to do. He was furious. He screamed at them as he spun in the endless nothing.
Alone… Untethered… It was so vast… So empty… The stars would probably be beautiful if they looked like anything besides whitish blurs. There was nothing to grab on to...would never be anything.
He was spinning… Starting to feel dizzy.
A ringing noise distracted him. From somewhere around his neck. He looked down, white vapor… air spewed from a fractured neck seal. He let out a breath and closed his eyes. With a good seal he might have had an hour. Now… Seconds
His ears popped again. The cold was creeping in around his fingers and toes. His head felt light again, pleasant almost. Things were bad but...mostly everyone was safe. He wondered what the aliens looked like. Probably horrible gelatinous things with twelve tentacles. He couldn't keep a grin from spreading across his face.
The spinning was like a carnival ride. He had gone to plenty when he was a kid; with babysitters usually. The zero-gravitron had been his favorite. It used a negative mass field to let you float around weightless for a few minutes. This was sort of like that. He whipped his hand sideways and felt himself twist. He laughed again.
He was laughing hard, so hard. He tried to gasp in a breath...but there was nothing there to gasp. His giggles faded as did the stars around him. He closed his eyes.
I wonder if Tali would like the carnival
