Samantha

The world burned.

Or, at least, that was how it seemed to Samantha, who had a front-row seat to Tuchanka via Shepard's helmet camera. Everywhere the commander went, buildings were half-standing, rubble spread all around. It made for a chaotic battlefield, but with many places for the Normandy's ground forces to take cover. Of course, that also meant Reaper forces were able to take cover. It was difficult to follow through Shepard's view. The commander had asked Samantha for directions more than once.

Now, Samantha was up on the galaxy map platform, a map of the area around the ground team showing instead of the Milky Way. She was tracking the team's progress, ensuring that Shepard, Liara, Garrus, James, and Javik were all headed in the proper direction. With Reaper ground forces and rubble surrounding them on all sides, it was difficult to keep the proper target. Sam's voice in their ears, reorienting them, was proving more helpful than having Sam at her console, only directing Shepard.

"Commander, something big just appeared. It's…"

{Fuck, I see it. It's one of those flying dragon fuckers. It's bad enough the Reapers are giant, flying squid-machines! Why do they gotta have fucking dragons, too?} A pause, and then a shout. {All right, people! Listen up! We need to distract that motherfucker! Liara, I want you and Javik to get as close as you can and tear it apart with your biotics! Garrus, I want you on the other side of the field from me, sniping!}

{What do you want me to do, Commander?!} James's voice almost sounded wounded at being left out.

{Get out there and distract it, James!}

James responded by swearing loudly in Spanish. Samantha chuckled to herself.

They took down the dragon beautifully. It of course wasn't actually a dragon, but a flying, bleating beast that could shoot a Reaper beam from its chest was close enough for Samantha. With a great, blinding blast of light, the beast fell to the ground, bathing the field of battle in its last throes of death.

Then, all was still.

Samantha left the dais of the galaxy map, leaping down to her station and its console. She listened with one ear as Shepard spoke with Tarquin Victus, the rest of her brain bent to the task of writing her report on the mission. It seemed there was a mutiny on-hand; Victus's men were blaming him for their losses. He tried to back out of finishing his mission, but Shepard pulled him aside, and Samantha had to stop to admire her pep talk, equal parts inspiration and drill sergeant.

{Bad calls happen, and owning it takes guts a lot of people don't have,} Shepard was saying. {But you have to own it and then move on.}

{Of course,} Victus said, hanging his head low. {It's just still fresh right now. Our mission is still a failure. Once we've stabilized the injured, we'll head back to the fleet.}

Shepard grabbed his shoulderpad, at face-height for her. {Wait, what? You're abandoning your mission?!}

Victus visibly bristled, going on the defensive. {We're down over thirty men. It would be suicide!}

{What exactly did you come here to do?} Shepard was obviously unperturbed at the turian's raised hackles

Victus's eyes shifted like he wished to evade, but his answer was straightforward enough. {There's a bomb on the planet. We were sent to defuse it.}

{A bomb? How big?}

{Enormous. And Cerberus has it.}

That gave Shepard pause. Samantha was unsure what the commander might be thinking, but she knew that the idea of a giant bomb on Tuchanka, in the hands of Cerberus, certainly made her incredibly nervous. Finally, Shepard spoke, her tone hard. Samantha recognized the franticness underneath, however, from spending so much time with Ashley. {Lieutenant, if Cerberus has that bomb, you have to finish your mission!}

{Haven't these men sacrificed enough?} Victus countered, pinning Shepard's gaze (And me! This is weird!) with his own.

Shepard nearly burst a blood vessel. Samantha could see it on the woman's vital signs. {They're soldiers, not babies! This is what they signed up for! This is a war with the fucking Reapers, Lieutenant! If Cerberus sets off that bomb… it could ruin everything your father and I have been working toward with the krogan!}

{So what am I supposed to do? We're broken, Commander.}

{Too fucking bad! Kick their asses into gear and let's fucking go! You can have the pity party later!}

This is what they mean about Shepard's temper, Samantha thought to herself. She'd never seen Shepard get this angry, but she had also never seen Shepard faced with such a… wanker. This man was whining about his broken men, and completely ignoring the fact that they'd been sent to defuse a bomb that was now in Cerberus's hands. Did he just not get it? Or did he truly care so little for the krogan people?

Yes, his men were broken. Yes, it was hard. But you didn't get to a position of leading others without having already done something hard and lived with the decisions you made.

Of course, there's always nepotism, Samantha reminded herself. When was he promoted? Before or after his father became Primarch?

Shepard – and therefore Samantha – watched Victus walk back to his men, whose hostility was almost palpable. She could no longer hear his words, as Shepard was keeping her distance.

{Why are you hanging back, Commander?} James asked, coming up alongside her.

Shepard's camera flashed to him briefly before moving back to Lieutenant Victus's back. {They're not my men. I'm not commanding them. He needs to be the one to kick them into gear. It's ridiculous, James. I've made bad calls before. None of my people have ever grabbed me and thrown me around like that, even though in hindsight it was a stupid-ass decision.}

{Yeah, but you're Shepard.}

{Have any of the people you've commanded grabbed you and blamed their bad situation on you?}

{No, but-}

{And you lost your whole squad. Shit, Ashley lost her entire unit on Eden Prime when Sovereign attacked. We ran into the husband of one of those lost some days later. He didn't manhandle her, James. He thanked her, for remembering his wife fondly.}

James was quiet a moment, and Samantha couldn't help but lean forward, abandoning her work for a moment while she awaited the rest of this conversation.

{So… what's the deal then? Are the turians just assholes?}

{No, James. I mean, yeah, their society is really rigid and they're way into military structure and hierarchy. But that's not the deal here. It's him. He's just… not cut out for military command.}

{So why is he here? Why's he still doing it if he's so bad at it?}

It was Shepard's turn to pause for a moment. {Because, James. Even when we don't have them anymore, we're haunted by the expectations of our parents. And some people can't get past it, but they also can't live up to it. They're just… stuck.}

She walked away then, radioing the Normandy for evac. Samantha dove back into her work, but Shepard's words stayed with her the rest of her shift, replaying in the back of her mind.

"Shit."

Samantha was lacing up her boots for the next ground mission. Not that she would be on the ground for said mission, but Shepard had called for all hands on deck for the bomb run. They'd taken care of a minor thing in the interim, in which Samantha had grabbed some much-needed sleep while Halanz was at the comms. But now, only four hours of sleep later, Sam was on duty once more.

There is not enough coffee in the galaxy to contend with these hours.

She had been cursing out loud because she'd finally had a chance to download her calls and email. When on an active mission, military intelligence was the only thing allowed through on communications channels. Once a day, a data dump occurred, allowing in all non-military email and voice messages and missed phone calls. The data dump had happened while Samantha had been asleep, and now she saw that she had three missed calls and an email.

She opened the email as she finished with her boots.

Hey, Doofus.

So I have some good news! I've been pronounced fit and healthy, and I've been released from the hospital's care! I'm back on active-duty with the Alliance again!

Unfortunately, the Council also got their hands on me. I had hoped we could schedule my induction into the Spectres for when you were next on the Citadel, but since the Normandy's goings-on are classified as all get out, there was no way to schedule it, and I couldn't find a good excuse. I tried calling, but you guys must be on a mission or something.

So here's a picture of my new pin on my dress blues. I love you, baby. Everyone's doing great. I can't wait to see you again.

Love,

Ashley

Attached was a picture of Ashley, in her dress blues and smiling. It was candid, which meant the smile was a real one, open-mouthed and in the middle of a laugh. Her hair was pulled back into a proper bun, her wheel cap jaunted up as if someone had just tried to hit it off her head, and her white teeth gleamed as brightly as her perfectly shined buttons. She looked beautiful, and hot, and a wave of longing and love and desire suddenly hit Samantha so hard she was nearly left winded.

"It has been way too long," Sam whispered to herself, closing her email and pulling on her uniform shirt. "But she's been cleared for duty. She'll be on the Normandy again just as soon as we cure the genophage." She sighed, blowing her hair out of her face. "You know. No big deal. People do that every day, right?"

Shaking her head at the ludicrousness of the thought, Sam grabbed a cup of very black coffee and headed for the lift, once again cringing at the state of her hair.

The CIC was less pandemonium than it had been for Sur'Kesh. Then, the call for all hands had been an emergency. The CIC had been a zoo. Now, the mission had a rendezvous time, and Shepard had decided all hands before Sam was even relieved of her last shift. So she had ample warning, and had gone straight to bed to capitalize on what sleep she could get. As had everyone else. Meaning the CIC, while crowded compared to its usual state, was now at least under control.

She barely nodded a greeting to Halanz, going to the station that was normally Shepard's terminal, and logging in. As soon as her earbud was in, Samantha was privy to a rather horrific conversation.

{What do you mean, turian?}

Tarquin Victus's voice spoke next. As he spoke, Shepard's helmet cam activated, showing a grainy image of the turian lieutenant, aboard his own shuttle. {My people planted it centuries ago, as a safeguard against another Krogan Rebellion.}

Sam was flabbergasted. This bomb was a doomsday bomb, planted after distributing the genophage?! Were the turians so truly void of empathy for the krogan people? Neuter them, and then plant a bomb just in bloody case?!

{It's brutal,} Garrus was saying, eyes expressing regret as he spoke to Shepard, {but it makes a kind of sense. The Rebellions almost destroyed galactic stability. They were scared.}

Shepard's head whipped back to the grainy image of the junior Victus. {You won't earn trust with tactics like that. But you aren't the one who did it. We have to focus on why we're here. To defuse this bomb and keep the krogan and turian alliance intact.}

{Agreed. We'll get this done, Commander. We'll cover you and draw their fire.}

{And we'll sneak in from two sides,} Shepard finished. {See you on the other side, Lieutenant.}

The image disappeared, and then Shepard turned to the interior of the shuttle. Standing or sitting before her were the various members of her ground team: James, Liara, Garrus, EDI, and Javik. Each of them were armored and armed for the hostile surface upon which they would land. Only one change had occurred since the last ground mission, six hours previously – James had painted all their armor to match the dirty, dusty environment that was the wastelands of Tuchanka.

This was a stealth mission.

{All right, ladies,} Shepard said, addressing her team. {We're doing this as two teams of three. James, Garrus, and Javik, you'll head around to the right. Take everyone down that you can. No mercy, no prisoners. Technically, you're acting as a second distraction for us. Liara, EDI, and I are a bit smaller and lighter. We'll be taking this route.} Here, Shepard raised her arm, showing a GUI projection of the ruined buildings through which they needed to travel to get to the bomb unseen. {It's an access tunnel left by the turians in case they needed to manually detonate the bomb in secret. The path is much more treacherous, and cramped, but it's also completely void of Reaper or Cerberus forces. With Victus acting as a distraction force, they'll expect some stealth forces to sneak in. When they find you, they'll think that's it. Hopefully, if things go according to plan, they won't expect us to sneak in from under the floors.}

Shepard paused, looking around. {Any questions?}

When none were forthcoming, the camera bobbed with a nod. {Good. James, your new camera working?}

{Yup!} he replied cheerfully. {Gonna show Sam a good time. Isn't that right, Sam?!}

Shit, am I expected to respond?

"Actually, I… have Shepard, James. Sorry." There, short and sweet. She hated getting roped into their conversations over the comms. It was awkward. Especially because of the juxtaposition of horrifying combat and witty repartee. Well, not witty, not with James. But still.

{Fine. I'll show Halanz a good time. You can be jealous when we talk about it later.}

{Head in the game, James,} Shepard said. {Stop flirting with our comms officers.}

{Yes, Commander.} James's face held not one hint of remorse, a wide grin visible through the clear front of his helmet.

Shepard heaved a heavy sigh and turned away from him. {All right, everyone. Get ready. We're dropping near an active battlefield, using it as cover. There's a ton of shuttles making drops nearby. With luck, we'll get lost in the craziness.}

{He never hesitated. Whatever he was before, he'll be remembered for this.}

Shepard's helmet camera bobbed up and down as the commander nodded. {He did what he had to do when it counted.}

Garrus heaved a heavy sigh. {Yes. Yes, he did.}

Samantha wiped a tear from her eye. She didn't know Tarquin Victus. She hadn't spoken to him, nor to his father. She didn't know much about turian culture, or krogan culture for that matter. But she had watched Victus go from a defeated man to sacrificing himself for the krogan people in the span of only a few hours. He had many doubts… but he died a hero.

And if he had lived, imagine what more he could have done.

But now was not the time for tears. It didn't matter that, in Victus, Sam saw her brothers. It didn't matter that this world had literally been saved by the man's (barely more than a boy!) sacrifice. The show must go on, and all of that. They weren't done yet.

Shepard immediately asked for Hackett when she got back to the ship. Still in hardsuit, she made her way to the QEC while Samantha raised the admiral. Getting through his own communications staff was easy enough, and then she had Shepard's voice on the other end. Only it cut out almost immediately.

Huh. Must be confidential. Even from me.

Minutes later, she had Shepard's comms back. There was no video, of course, but Sam knew all voices involved by now.

{The genophage wasn't enough?} came Wrex's voice. {You had to plant a bomb on my planet?!}

{The decision was made hundreds of years ago!} Primarch Victus countered. His tone was almost pleading. {So much has changed since then!}

{Not enough to tell us about the bomb! Coward!}

{I wanted to make this right!} Victus insisted. {How would you have reacted if I told you about this before it was disarmed?!}

{You're both wrong,} Shepard suddenly said. She sounded far closer. The other two didn't have mics. Only Shepard. Working very quickly, Sam tapped into its controls, upping the volume. She also hailed James, typing a text message and letting him know Shepard might need backup in the War Room.

{What?} Wrex's voice was deadly.

{The Reapers are out there, and here you are tearing yourselves apart from within. This is their modus operandi, gentlemen.} Shepard paused a moment, then continued. {Primarch, you had a bomb on Tuchanka. And Wrex, in the turians' place, you would've done the same damn thing.}

{Hey-}

{It's over, Wrex! It's done! It's gone and no longer a threat! The Primarch's only son died today making this right! So drop it!}

{Please, Commander, it's all right!} Victus interjected. {His upset is understandable.}

{You've made you point,} Wrex harrumphed. {We have stronger enemies to face. A united force is a stronger force.}

James burst forth from the lift at that precise moment, his chest armor still on.

"Hold up, soldier!" Sam cried, halting him.

"But you said-"

"I know. But Shepard seems to have patched it up. They're just talking now. Wrex buggered off."

James stopped trying to get around her, instead staring down at her. He was a little taller than Ashley, which meant he completely dwarfed Sam. But they had become friends, and she completely trusted him at this point. She didn't feel threatened by his proximity or his greater height at all.

Taking a deep breath, he nodded, turned, and headed right back into the lift. Sam turned around as the lift closed, taking James back to the shuttle bay.

After a few seconds of silence, she was tuned back into the conversation in the War Room. {My son died with the respect of his men,} Victus was now saying.

Shit, that conversation got heavy fast, Sam thought.

{His sacrifice will be recorded in the histories of the Ninth Platoon. Something any father would be proud of…}

Samantha nearly needed to wipe away a tear again. The Primarch didn't sound proud. He just sounded… defeated.

{Yes, sir,} Shepard murmured, heaving a great sigh. She sounded just as defeated.

Damn this war, Sam thought, not for the first time. Damn this war for turning even our heroes into jaded husks of human beings.

Heaving her own sigh, Samantha got back to her mission report, detailing her side of the ground mission for Shepard to review and send on to the Alliance mission files.

A/N: So, for anyone still following this fic... I apologize for picking it back up just to drop it again for a time. I lost all focus on ALL writing this spring, due to a lot of personal reasons. I got a bit depressed. I tried starting a few things to try to get my muse back, but nothing worked. It's back now, I'm doing better now. As I was on my way out I started my next Inquisition fic, and I'm... so-so about it. I don't think it's me best writing by any means, but I'm grateful that having it helped pull me out of writer's block hell.

Anyway, I'm hoping to write on this for a little while. It may be slow as I take on NaNoWriMo while also possibly starting a new job (I hope). But my brain has been abuzz with where I'm taking this fic next, and that is usually a very good sign.

So, if you're still following this... I hope you enjoy!