Chapter 2

London-2186, Fort Endeavour

18 Days post-Crucible

Fort Endeavour was small, Shepard had learned that her first few days actually getting to walk around the Fort. The 'Fort' itself was a more built up presence on the footprint of the FOB that she and Anderson had used during their push towards the Reaper conduit. As she wandered the Fort sights would occasionally bring her back to that hellish night. The Alliance forces in London had been slim since London was a strongly controlled Reaper position. They'd struggled to even establish this FOB that night, and the cost had been high. As her eyes scanned the surrounding area she could make out a makeshift military grave that'd been dug for their fallen comrades, and it was then that she realized just how many they'd lost. At the time she'd been close to point of Hammer's push through London, and though she knew they were getting slaughtered she didn't know just how bad it was. Shepard clenched her jaw, teeth gritting against each other in anger as she looked out over the torn remains of the city, and the sprawling graveyard beyond the Fort's walls. Her vision drifted upwards to see the broken remains of the Citadel in orbit, what'd managed to remain flying during the explosion. That she'd made it out of the Citadel alive was still surreal to her, though her body showed signs of the abuse that she'd suffered in the process. Her left eyebrow was split through with a long red gash that started midway up her eyelid and sliced straight through the patch of dark red hair of her brow, before tapering off into the pale skin above. Her right eye socket was a sickly mixture of yellows, purples, blues, and blacks from the bruising that it'd taken, it was a wonder that she'd retained sight in the eye. Just under her right eye was a curved stretch of raw, somewhat scabbed skin that hurt every time she blinked or squinted her eyes. Her lip had been cut open pretty badly and had been stitched back together to result hopefully only in a scar. Her chin, cheeks, and neck had a flurry of lacerations, burns, and bruises that only served to further affirm the hell that the Commander had seen during her fight to, and flight from, the Citadel, but the most obvious sign of her injuries was the stiff gait she'd adopted. The first day she'd been allowed to walk, two days prior, she'd noticed that her left leg didn't work like it was supposed to. She could feel the leg, but it only responded limitedly to the commands she issued it, and as soon as she'd put any pressure on the limb it'd burst into an intense blinding pain, which had subsided into a constant dull ache that still hadn't gone away. She'd been told by the doctor that they'd need to get her off world to begin work on her internal organs, most of which had been maintained by mysterious cybernetics implanted in her by Miranda Lawson during Project Lazarus. When she'd killed the Reapers she'd killed those cybernetics, and the sick feeling inside her combined with her poor field-lab results showed that their failure wasn't good for her. She wasn't going to drop dead instantly, but the sooner she could find a lab to figure out how Lawson had brought her back to life, and what the cybernetics had done, the sooner they could put an end to her decline.

"Hell of a fucking hatchet I stumbled onto back in the Verge." The voice was old and gravelly, the tones of a man that'd seen his share fighting, drinking, and smoking. Shepard turned from where she'd stood on the wooden battlements at the Fort's edge, her eyes coming to rest on the wrinkled and scarred visage of Admiral Steven Hackett, the Commander of all Systems Alliance Military Personnel. "Admiral." Shepard managed a painful salute, her hand snapping towards her brow despite a jolt of pain that shot across multiple joints. She'd been urged by Dr. Jharn that she probably wasn't ready to leave her bed yet, but she was restless and going mad trapped with her thoughts. Hackett coughed a bit of a laugh and shook his head, a simple wave of his hand dismissing her need to salute. He idled towards the edge of the Fort's outer wall to stand next to her, his eyes surveying the horizon as she'd been, before his attention turned directly towards her, "That is what they used to call you, isn't it?" The old man let out a short laugh despite himself and motioned towards her with his head while he crossed his arms and leaned on the battlement's rail, "Hackett's Hatchet." He'd heard other names for her too, but he'd also heard of the reactions Shepard usually had when she was called those, the worst of which being the Butcher of Torfan. Shepard had seen a rough patch the first three years of their time together, and by all means she likely should've been issued a medical discharge due to the toll it'd taken on her mental health. She hadn't wanted it, had insisted that she be allowed to stay and fight, and a younger Hackett obliged. He needed a weapon in Terminus, and she was more than willing. A decade of age and experience later, he wasn't sure if he'd make the same call. Shepard stiffened at the mention of her work in the Verge, and the Traverse/Terminus border, a series of memories flashing behind hollow eyes. "Yes sir. I'll admit, it's been a minute since someone called me the Hatchet." He gave her a conceding shrug, "It has been, what, ten years since the Blitz? Eight since we hit Torfan?" Shepard was bitterly silent for a moment, her face a steel curtain, and for a second the Admiral began to think he may have offended her. She glanced down at her omnitool, her face going distant once more as she looked up, before affixing him with her hard eyes. "Ten years, four months, two days since Illyria." Shepard replied flatly, "Eight years, four months, two days since Torfan, sir." Hackett closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly as his fingers massaged his eyelids. "You still remember?" "I'll never forget sir." Her voice was dry, a pained hoarseness still biting at each of her words while her vocal chords tried to recover from a battle fought weeks prior. Hackett's steely blue eyes met her, his pale white skin only slightly darker than the aged white hair of his mustache and eyebrows. "You did good work there. I know you've been told that, hell you've got a Star of Terra and a dozen other medals to prove it, but I'm hoping that one day you'll believe it before someone finally puts you in the ground." Shepard only gave a slight nod of recognition at what he was saying. Silence passed between them once again, and the scar that stretched from Hackett's right eye through his mustache made him look like a phantom in London's waning afternoon light. Finally, he spoke up again, "Do you regret it at all? All the work we did after Elysium, Torfan, the Perseus Veil, Shrike." The Admiral didn't offer any indication that he felt an ounce of remorse for any of the names he listed off, nor the dozens other that remained unspoken. His face didn't show any signs that he'd apologize for the orders he'd given her if she did regret it, nor that he felt bad for anything that she'd done at his command. A slight curvature came to Shepard's bruised lips, a cold sight that reminded the Admiral of the 22-year-old Ops Chief that he'd met aboard the bridge of the SSV Hyderabad. She'd had cold hatred in her eyes then, and he thought he saw a glimpse of that shoot across her eyes. "Not for a single moment, sir." Her response finally came, dripping with ice at the memories that came back to her. She and Hackett had worked closely since then, but until now she couldn't recall a time that he'd brought up the Blitz, or Torfan, to her—probably because he didn't want to see the pain. The things that the two of them had done together were brutal, and some of the ruthlessness shown to the pirates bordered on unethical at best. Shepard showed each batarian stronghold that she breached the same courtesy that they'd shown Illyria, and each time it only seemed to please Hackett even more. "That's what I wanted to hear, Commander."

Elysium's Orbit-2176, SSV Hyderabad: The young woman standing before him was of average height and a thin build, but not to the point where her Alliance Dress Uniform seemed clownish. Freshly minted-Rear Admiral Steven Hackett assessed the 22-year-old Ops Chief with his sharp blue eyes that he'd been told could 'cut a marine to ribbons'. Though Hackett was long removed from the days of crew gossip and 'scuttlebutt', he had a way of hearing some of the more interesting tidbits that passed around a ship under his command; some of it even amused the older man. Back to the matter at hand, his eyes darted across her from head to toe, taking in all that she had to offer and deciding what of it he could put to use. Through the thin shoulders, well-kept shoulder-length red hair, and sharp angular face he saw something more. Steven Hackett saw a weapon, a crude one, one without proper direction and finesse, but a weapon unlike any he'd seen in a marine.

"What is your name, marine?" The Admiral spoke, his voice drawing the attention of nearby sailors in the scattered duty stations of the Hyderabad's CIC. "Operations Chief Jessica Shepard, sir." Her voice was firm, but it was her eyes that drew Hackett's interest. Unlike so many of the young marines that Hackett had met in his time as a senior Alliance Officer, Shepard didn't show a shred of fear or intimidation. She was out of her element, on the bridge of a ship possibly larger than any she'd ever served aboard before a man known across the Alliance Military as one of the fiercest officers in the Navy. Her blueish-green eyes were hard as iron, but he saw something behind them, along the edges where the pearly white of eye met pale skin—a hint of red inflammation that was telltale of recent tears. The Chief had no doubt been crying earlier, perhaps as a reaction to the stress venting off of her now that adrenaline was no longer flowing through her veins, or perhaps due to the losses she'd suffered in the defense of Elysium; Hackett wouldn't' embarrass her by bringing it up. "Do you know why I've asked you aboard the Hyderabad, Chief Shepard?"

"No, sir." "It's because I'd like to discuss a future for you, a different path than the one you're presently on with the Marine Corps before. Walk with me Shepard." He beckoned for her to her to fall in step beside him while he stepped away from the bustling of the CIC and towards a stairwell that would take them deeper into the Hyderabad. "I read the reports of what you accomplished in Illyria, and it's my understanding that the only reason you were even on Elysium was that you were on shore leave." The Admiral snorted, a soft sound that conveyed amusement and impressment simultaneously, "It shouldn't be any surprise to you that the Hegemony is sponsoring pirates, terrorists I call them, to harass our efforts in the area—especially around the Verge. With their support, otherwise small pirate and smuggling operations have become local powers, and they're just going to keep growing." With his left hand he motioned to the viewport to their left that offered a brief glimpse of Elysium, "They're calling what happened here the 'Skyllian Blitz', and the Alliance is going to be doing a lot of very public grieving, posturing, and accommodating to draw attention from one key fact: we knew this was coming. Now we didn't know it was going to be Elysium, or that it'd be today, but we knew it was coming. The Hegemony has been irate ever since DoCA decided that they wanted to colonize the Verge. The top brass have been petitioning parliament for a green light on decisive military action for a while now, but there were too many scared old men, worried that the blood of another First Contact War would be on their hands. It took something like this to wake them up, and I've been greenlit to lead a task force in the Verge, and beyond if I deem necessary, to assure this never happens again."

The pair stopped walking as they arrived at a long stretch of bulkhead that'd been made into a viewport. Bulky strips along the left and right side of the observation port showed that there were emergency shutters that could seal it off in case of a breach, but presently the transparent panel allowed her to get her first full view of Elysium. Above the planet were drifting pieces of scrap and wreckage, some of it still venting stored atmosphere in a gush of flame. The planet below looked so peaceful and calm, its cities just twinkling specks, from this altitude you couldn't see the flames, the destruction, and the fields of dead. "His name is Elanos Haliat," Hackett said, breaking her from her thoughts as they both stared out into space. "Sir?" "The man responsible for all this, the man that organized the blitz, his name is Elanos Haliat. He's a turian, a former member of the Hierarchy military before he was dishonorably discharged and became a soldier of fortune at the employ of the Hegemony." A cut of his eyes to the side afforded Hackett with a look at Shepard, and the Admiral could see the very carefully concealed rage that was burning inside her, only betrayed by the narrowing of her eyes, the newfound tension in her posture, and the occasional twitch of her face.

"If you'll forgive me for speaking bluntly, Chief, I see potential in you. You're a blade, minted by the Marine Corps in 2172, but neglected in its full potential. I'd like to turn you into a pointed weapon, one aimed at the Hegemony's jugular so that we can ensure that another Elysium never occurs. If you come with me, transfer to the Hyderabad, for now, and work on my task force I can promise you few things. Among them are not prestige, glory, or fame. I can't promise you that the top brass will give you the recognition or promotions that you'll deserve, and I can't promise that it won't be hard to sleep some nights, but there is one thing that I can promise you with certainty." The Admiral stopped speaking for a moment, waiting until Shepard made the initiative to ask him what that was. "I can promise you that your leash will be as long as you need it, that you won't be bound by bureaucracy, and that if I put you on the ground everyone in the vicinity is a hostile, RoE be damned." Shepard turned her head to look at him, the briefest smile across her lips—not one of joy, anticipation, or excitement, but a smile of respect. "The last thing I can promise you is that we won't stop until you and I can stand over the Hegemony's corpse and know that we completed our mission. Now if you want to return to your old platoon, that's a respectable choice, Chief. I won't force you, and I won't stifle your career in retaliation, I leave the choice up to you."

"When do we ship out, and where's my bunk, Sir?" A thin smile came over Hackett's face as he tucked his hands into his pocket. "We ship out as soon as the SSV Hong Kong can transfer over your belongings. My XO will show you to your bunk, Second Lieutenant Shepard.""Sir?" "I had the paperwork forwarded to MARCOMM as soon as I read the after-action report of what you did in Illyria." He fished a single gold bar out of his pocket and pressed it into the palm of his hand, then extending the same hand towards her to shake. Shepard grasped his hand tight, her fingers curling to take the bar once they were done. She pinned it onto the right side of her naval blue dress jacket's chest, removing the old Ops Chief insignia, and then the pair were encased in silence for several long minutes. Hackett allowed her to process all that she'd just been told and the changes that'd just taken place in her life, before he threw her back to duty. Finally, the Second Lieutenant's voice spoke up one last time, a cold steel in her words, "Admiral?" "Yes, Lieutenant?" "You swing at the target, and I'll make sure they don't get up."

"How long have you been on planet sir?" The Admiral turned back to face her, and it was clear that he'd been lost in his memories. "A couple hours, with the damage done to the Relays travel is slow and arduous right now. We intercepted SSV Bunker Hill a couple of systems out, they'd been en route from Earth to the Coalition RV point to get a sitrep, but there wasn't a need to spend all that fuel. We're working on ways to speed things up, and boost efficiency. As it is the salarians are saying they've been pouring over Reaper remains to see how they travel, given they were able to move from the Viper Nebula to the Local Cluster in six-months, including a stop to kick the shit out of the batarians." Hackett smiled for a moment, despite himself, sparing no sympathy for the four-eyed aliens that he and Shepard had dedicated so much of their career to fighting. "I've sent Admiral Singh with the SSV Logan to Sur'Kesh to let them implement their prototype drive and see if we can't speed up time until we get those Relays back up and running." "What's our strength here, sir? I'm assuming you got a sitrep when you landed, and I've not been able to get around enough to figure it all out." "This Fort, Endeavour I believe they're calling it, is all we've got in the area. London was enemy territory two and a half weeks ago, and our troop numbers in the region were what we brought with us. The Fort is standing at about 350 strong. That's marines, sailors, SF, and all other personnel combined." He snorted another of his self-amused laughs, "Apparently Coats hasn't made it public beyond the Fort that you even made it out of the blast." "I'm not surprised. He was a bit pissed off the last time we talked." "Fed me a line about 'making sure she survives her injuries before we get the troops hopes up' or something like it."

Shepard nodded along, her eyes distant and thoughtful at the shape of the galaxy. She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it, turning her head away from him slightly to just look at the wreckage of London. "Yes, they're alive." Hackett said, answering the question she hadn't had to ask. The two of them had worked together for a decade now, and though he hadn't had the relationship with her that Anderson had, he knew Shepard thoroughly. "Normandy crashed on an as-of-yet unknown world immediately following the blast, it seems Lieutenant Moreau was trying to outrun it." Shepard coughed a slight laugh at the thought, and she could see Joker doing just that. "Whatever that blast was, it knocked them out of FTL and onto some world near the Coalition RV point. The quarian aboard, Tali'Zorah, managed to get the ship operational enough to RV with the rest of the fleet." That was when the Admiral gave her a more reserved look, "They think you're dead, Shepard." Shepard swallowed hard, her eyes shutting as she nodded her head. "Comms are a disaster right now, and no attempts to hail Earth got through. I couldn't hail them right now to let them know I found you alive even if I tried. We're set up with a buoy system, but those buoys rely on the Relays to do the heavy lifting, without them its dead air. Whether we expand that system or not depends on how soon the salarians can get the Relays back in operation, they've already dispatched an STG unit to Ilos to assess how well the salarian scientists there are doing with reverse engineering the Conduit." His expression turned a bit more amused for a moment, fixing Shepard with an almost disciplinary look, "Cute move making Vakarian Normandy's CO, by the way. Do you know the depth of bullshit I received after I made that official? I had Officers I'd never even seen the name of sending me their feelings about putting a turian in charge of an Alliance Warship, let alone a Normandy-Class." The comment was enough to turn Shepard's spirits, and she looked up towards him with an impish joy in her eyes, "What commission did you give him, sir?" Hackett's frown said he was unimpressed, but she knew it was a game the two of them played. "What makes you think I gave him one at all, Commander?" "Because you thought I was dead too, and you missed me." "Lieutenant Commander." Hackett returned dryly. "Weak shit, sir. You could've at least matched my rank." "Who's saying I didn't?" The quip was enough to shut her up, but not enough to wipe the smirk from her lips.

SSV Orizaba-2186, Serpent Nebula

Pain shot through Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams' chest at the sight of the woman standing before her. Garrus Vakarian, now Commander Vakarian, had been ordered aboard the SSV Orizaba to receive the crew's orders, and Ashley had somehow, in all of the chaos, missed the name of Orizaba's commanding officer. The woman was tall and stiff, her face sharp as though it had been chiseled from stone, and striking red hair framed the sides of her face as it flowed around her shoulders. Her hair was darker than Shepard's, and run through with streaks of silver, but that didn't affect the resemblance. Rear Admiral Hannah Shepard was the perfect likeness to her daughter, and the sight was not one that Ashley had prepared herself for. The last time that she'd seen Shepard, the woman's own red hair had not been on display. It'd been that hellish night as Hammer Squadron assaulted the Reaper beam, and Shepard had forced Ashley aboard the Normandy at the last moment. She could still see the 32-year-old's face, fear burning in her eyes behind the scratched faceplate of her helmet as she forced Ashley into Garrus' arms. Damnit Shepard I can do this! She'd shouted the words while the turian had hauled her up the ramp, but they still burned in her throat. If she'd fought harder, if she'd ordered Vakarian down, if she'd done a dozen other things than what she'd done, she could've made sure that Shepard got out alive.

That wasn't the here and now though, and even through her grief Ashley Williams was a marine, and she had a mission to focus on. She walked at Garrus' right-hand side while they approached the Admiral, and the closer she got the better she could tell that though the Admiral had put on a mask of neutrality, the lines freshly etched into her face, and the dark shadows beneath her eyes conveyed the horrid grief she was going through. This was the second time that they'd lost Shepard, but before there was a galactic infrastructure. There was Cerberus, as wicked as they were they did have near-infinite wealth and resources. Pain shot through her chest again, this time at the memory of how she'd scorned Shepard when the Commander had asked her for help following her return to the living. How much more time could Ashley have had with her had she put a little faith in her?

"Lieutenant Commander Vakarian, Lieutenant Commander Williams, welcome to the Orizaba." Admiral Shepard's voice was older and more mature than the Commander's, but it had the same firm sense tone to it, a tone that didn't demand respect—it expected it. "I understand you served under my daughter both in the war against the Geth, and the war against the Reapers. That alone gives me an idea of the kind of Officers you must be, and that reminds me." She turned her attention to Garrus, smiling a little brighter this time, "Allow me to welcome you to the Systems Alliance Navy, Lieutenant Commander Vakarian. I can say without a doubt that you're the first turian to be given the honor… and might I suggest you keep a sidearm on you at all times, especially if you're to be interacting with an older Alliance Officer." The woman chuckled slightly at herself, trying to make light of what was likely to be a tense situation for Garrus. Ashley understood that Hackett had weighed between suggesting Garrus seek a commission within the Hierarchy and giving him one within the alliance, and that ultimately it came down to the Admiral being a little bit more comfortable with having turians in the Alliance than he was with having the Hierarchy command one of their ships. The three of them, Vakarian, Shepard, and Williams now stood in the Orizaba's fore-CIC, where it seemed Admiral Shepard preferred to spend most of her time. It was far bigger than that of the Normandy, and Ashley briefly wondered whether she'd prefer the sprawling size and power of a Dreadnaught, or the close cozy familiarity of a frigate.

"We're sending you both back to Ilos, along with the rest of the Normandy's crew." The show of confusion on Garrus' face must've been clear to the Admiral, even through the species' barrier. "Before and during the war the salarians were working there to study the Conduit, and all of the ruins surrounding it. From what we understand, the inusannon inhabited the planet in the cycle before the protheans, and their work is what finally allowed the protheans to build the Conduit. With the failure of the Relays, the extranet is down, meaning that I have no idea how far their work progressed, but it's pretty vital to rebuilding the galaxy. There's a problem though." "Isn't there always, ma'am." Garrus mused "It would seem so. The batarians were bitching for a spot at the table when it came to Ilos ever since we found it, and they'd tried to block off the Mu Relay a handful of times. We know that the Hegemony got its ass kicked when the Reapers showed up, but there were still a lot of batarians in Terminus at the time, we even had word that the Hegemony might be trying to set up some kind of official proxy-capital in Terminus to better amass their people and power, without the attention of the Alliance—we aren't sure if they succeeded or not. All that said, we're worried that the batarians might try something with Ilos now that the galaxy is dark, and the other Council races are still recovering from the Reapers. If the batarians got their hands on the Conduit, especially if they could move it, it would put the Hegemony in a unique situation of power that they've never even dreamt of before. The Normandy is one of the fastest ships we've got, and we've already plotted a course for you—Command estimates that it'll take you about two weeks flight to get there, but I've already got my engineers working with yours to take on extra fuel reserves so that you can make it there and back." The Admiral's face grew deathly serious for a moment as she fixed Garrus with her hard eyes, "Lieutenant Commanders, if you find batarians on Ilos kill them. That might not fit in line with Alliance RoE, but the Hegemony has never been anything more than a pain in our ass, and they've made multiple threats at Ilos in the past—don't give them a chance to accomplish anything that they're there for."

The two Officers returned the elder Shepard a nod and a salute, "Yes ma'am, understood ma'am." Garrus voice rang out, calm but still very wary of what they were about to undergo. Two weeks' flight was a hell of a voyage, though Ashley hardly suspected either would be too hard for him. Garrus was a turian after all, and their people were historically militaristic. Fourteen days in the Normandy with only limited stops to discharge their static buildup would be rough, but Garrus might be the least bothered by it among them — except for Joker, he hardly left the ship even when offered shore leave.

Definitions:

DoCA: Department of Colonial Affairs. DoCA is responsible for overseeing all matters relating to colonies of the Systems Alliance.

MARCOMM: Marine Command, simply administration for the Systems Alliance Marine Corps.

Author's notes: I made a slight edit to what's technically 'canon' in the ME-Universe, particularly with Elanos Haliat. It's my understanding that Haliat was supposed to be a turian, his dialogue was given the pitch/tone of a turian, and really makes far more sense if he is a turian. It was just a mistake on BioWare's part that his model was a human, and on that note I'm fixing it for them here—not that Haliat is likely to get much time in this story, as we're post-ME3 and he's long since been dead, but I do write the occasional flashback as seen here. If I haven't already stated it, the Coalition RV point is basically the Serpent Nebula, where the Citadel used to be. I'm estimating that it takes about a week's FTL flight to get from Earth to the Serpent Nebula, since the ME wiki cites non-Relay FTL travel at ~12 lightyears per day, and Sol's radius is about 1 lightyear and some change. The math there isn't exact, but hey this is science fiction after all, and no one gives me an exact (or even rough) distance between Serpent Nebula and Earth.