A/N: This is a ridiculous amount of fun to write. I have to stop myself from making the chapters too long. A lot of research has been going into these chapters; I'm trying to get down into the more gritty details of space flight and combat.
For those of you following my other story, I'll be posting a new chapter for that tomorrow.
Otherwise, you know the drill. Bioware owns the characters, blah blah blah.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul
Excerpt from Invictus, William Ernest Henley
II: Black as the Pit
Garrus was sitting in his office, sifting through data pads full of reaper intel, when the call came through.
"Advisor Vakarian, the Primarch is requesting your presence in his office immediately," came a voice over the comm. Garrus rubbed his temple in frustration. He had been awake for almost 36 hours, longer than an entire cycle on Palaven. His team had been working with a munitions supply company to develop a type of incendiary ammo that ate away at cybernetics and metal. Tests had come back promising, but the prototypes had melted every weapon it was loaded into. It was proving to be problematic.
The hallway outside his office was a flurry of activity, complete with an edge of panic in the atmosphere as Garrus made his way down to Fedorian's office, nearly bumping into multiple people as they rushed around him. The Primach was pacing in front of a massive table. Hovering over the center was a large projected holo of the Milky Way galaxy.
"Vakarian," Fedorian said as Garrus crossed the threshold into the office.
"Primarch," Garrus saluted, coming to a stop in front of the holo display. He could see pinpoints of bright, pulsing light; comm buoys, mass relays and planets blinked up at him softly.
"I received some disturbing data about five minutes ago," Fedorian said softly, raising a hand to zoom in the holo. With the wave, pixels swirled and came to a rest on a system populated by five planets. Garrus noted they were not illuminated, nor were any of the comm buoys or the mass relay. "Batarian space has gone dark."
"When," Garrus said, eyes narrowed at the dull holo.
"Last contact was about four hours ago; a data packet with a destination of a comm buoy orbiting Khar'Shan was intercepted by one of our frigates. The message had bounced back as undeliverable. We can confirm that the entire Harsa system has gone dark. No communications in or out have been received for the last four hours."
"How many comm attempts have we tried?"
"We've been bouncing unencrypted messages off any of the comm buoys in the system every fifteen minutes for the last two and a half hours, and all of them have come back as undeliverable. Vular system is dark as well. No comm in or out for nearly seven hours."
"You know what this means," Garrus said darkly, raising his head to lock eyes with the Primarch.
"They're here." Fedorian sighed heavily, a sound that shook Garrus to his core. The older turian turned to look back at the dark holo, an unreadable look on his face. "I have three fleets on their way to Taetrus right now to assist with cleanup. Another three are already there. I need you to go to Menae. Take your team. You'll report to General Victus."
"Manae, sir?" Garrus said, looking confused.
"If Palaven comes under attack, I need you on the front lines. Right now, our fleets are spread thin. If worse comes to worse, and we lose Manae, we lose Palaven. I need our best out there, especially with your knowledge of what we're up against."
Garrus took a moment to absorb just how high his security clearances were. Menae had been shrouded in absolute secrecy since the krogan rebellions; almost nothing was known about Palaven's largest moon other than it was the site of multiple military strongholds.
"Sir." He saluted sharply.
"I'll have my people arrange for your way off-world. Departure in two hours." Fedorian turned back to the darkened holo. "Take what you need."
Garrus hesitated, unsure if what he was about to ask was overstepping his boundaries. "Sir, can I ask why you believed me? My own father doesn't. Hell, the Council and Shepard have been butting heads for almost four years over this. Why you?"
Fedorian appraised him with mandibles pulled tight to his face.
"You're too young to remember the 314 Incident, but I was there in the last year of war," he began, pacing the length of his side of the holo table.
"I was stationed with a small platoon responsible for sweeping the countryside and cleaning up any pockets of human resistance that were left. One day, we stumbled upon a village of sorts, really just a few prefab pods. During our infiltration, a lab was discovered. Crude, obviously set up with minimal supplies and maintained on a tight budget. We had received intel that three of our men were being held there. We went in, guns drawn, and found the three prisoners in fairly decent condition, save for a few surface wounds. They were in the middle of eating, gathered around a table and talking quietly amongst themselves. There was only one human in the lab, a tiny female who started shouting at us as we busted down the door. Shouting at us in turian."
Garrus raised a brow plate in confusion, and Fedorian gave a chuckle.
"Yeah, you can imagine how surprised we were. This was, of course, before translators had information available for human dialects, and here was this small defenseless thing yelling at us to stand down, in our native tongue. Turns out she was some form of military linguist, and had been hopping from camp to camp assisting anyone she could, human or turian. We had to take her in, of course. That was the law."
The Primarch waved a hand at the holo, zooming it back out to a view of the entire galaxy. The tiny pinpoints of light blinked softly as it rotated.
"During interrogation she told us, in fluent turian of course, that the humans who had come through the 314 Relay had no idea what it even did. She admitted how idiotic of an idea it had been, and went on to explain how the turian fleet the humans encountered were the first intelligent life humans had made contact with other than themselves."
Fedorian laughed sharply, running a hand over his face in an uncharacteristic display of humility.
"She said in so many words that 'your people scared the shit out of my people'. Which, thinking back, made complete sense. Here are these soft, vulnerable beings flying blindly through a mass relay, and on the other side are large, vicious-looking aliens with more advanced ships and better guns."
He leaned against the table, tipping his weight onto one hip, eyes watching the lazy rotation of pixels. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it.
"We kept her in interrogation for several months, questioning her, but also making sure she was fed and kept comfortable. Her information was pivotal in convincing the Council to get off their asses and negotiate an armistice. However, since according to Alliance protocols, she had technically committed treason by assisting the enemy, she was handed over to them and immediately incarcerated. It's to my knowledge that her very existence as a military linguist has been wiped from Alliance databases."
Garrus sucked in a sharp breath. A feeling of déjà vu began to settle over him like a heavy blanket. Fedorian chuckled at his reaction.
"So, when news broke of Saren going rogue, and your Commander and you went after him, I started to pay attention. It's not public knowledge that General Desolas Arterius recovered a prothean artifact from a downed turian ship on Shanxi. Three human mercenaries found General Arterius and his squad. They killed them all save for Arterius, who eventually was able to overpower the humans. Arterius was attempting to use the artifact to create a race of superior turians. Saren stumbled upon his brother being overtaken by his own creations, and ordered an airstrike to destroy the temple. He always harbored ill will towards humans, especially after the destruction and death of his brother.
"And so, as whispers of prothean artifacts and indoctrination started to come across my desk, I began to realize the Council was doing to Shepard what the Alliance had done to their linguist. The proof was there; I've seen the vids and the holos of this Sovereign. The reports of humans being turned into husks, of Collectors abducting entire colonies on the edges of the Terminus System and using them as the flesh for a new breed of reaper."
Garrus had written reports, of course. Detailing their mission through the Omega 4 relay and into the bowels of the Collector base, the sheer amount of humans held in stasis pods and processed into fodder for the reaper fetus. He had watched the vid feed taken from Shepard's helmet as they sat on her couch, freshly showered and wrapped up in each other as they tried to come to terms with the fact that they were alive. All of these memories were fresh in his mind, but seemed so far away. And here, the Primarch of Palaven was telling him that the Alliance had a history of using its finest soldiers as scapegoats for their misgivings. How many times had Shepard argued herself blue in the face to the Council, begging them to heed her warnings? She was easily their most decorated N7 agent, and yet due to her actions, she was being held by the very people who trained her. Was trying to help every species the bane of the Alliance's existence?
Fedorian stared at Garrus over the holo. "Commander Shepard died trying to make the galaxy a better place for every race. She died for her cause. Cerberus brought her back, and instead of working for a pro-human terrorist group, she took on even more alien crewmembers, including you. She saw you all safely through what most would consider a suicide mission, and brought you all back alive. If there is any human in this damned galaxy that is telling the truth, it's Shepard.
"The destruction of the Bahak System is an unfortunate example of the ruthless calculus of war. 300,000 lives sacrificed to buy time for a trillion others. And here we are, barely prepared, with our thumbs up our asses. Those sacrificed may have been batarian, but I would rather they not have died in vain. The Council and the Alliance seem dead set on vehemently ignoring a threat that has proven itself multiple times, and I would cut my own heart out before I let Palaven fall because of politics."
He shook his head sadly, eyes lingering on the holo galaxy in front of him. "Acanthus Vakarian, as good of a man as he is, allows himself to be blinded by his distain of humanity and his feelings of failure as a father. It is common knowledge that he does not like Spectres, and your commander is the living embodiment of everything he fought so hard against during his time at C-Sec.
"To see his only son proudly serving her is somewhat of an insult to him." Fedorian was not chiding him, his voice quiet and calm. Garrus shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot, hands clasped behind his back.
"However, you have been fighting for what you believe is right, consequences be damned. Going against your very nature and shedding the restraints turian society has placed on you since birth, you have risen above being merely a 'bad turian', Garrus. You are hope for your people, for your home. This is not another average enemy to be fought, so why would I rely on the average soldier to lead the charge?" Fedorian reached out and clapped Garrus on the shoulder, a small smile on his face. "Now, I've wasted enough of your time reminiscing about politics and war games. Go pack, and be ready."
Their shuttle to Menae was not unlike the Kodiak shuttles used by the Alliance. This one was larger, able to fit the two pilots, Garrus and his team of five comfortably. In the aftermath of his meeting with Primarch Fedorian, he had instructed that all their data to be dumped on each of their omni-tools, as they would need it on Menae. And so they boarded the shuttle, bags at their feet, and departed Palaven.
In the hurried few hours between leaving Fedorian's office and boarding the shuttle, Garrus had unceremoniously shoved all of his possessions from the locker in his office into his bag. To save space, he opted to leave the scuffed blue armor he knew Shepard loved, and instead donned his new military issued set. It was much bulkier than he was used to; reinforced in places where his old set hadn't been, black ceramic slashed with gold instead of blue and silver. He (briefly) allowed himself to silently mourn the abandonment of armor that had seen him through so much, reminiscing as he loaded heat sinks and data pads into his bag. His high security clearances had allowed for him to carry within the building, and so with the latch of the last catch on his new armor, he clipped the Widow Shepard had gifted him to his back, pushing away memories of the exchange to the back of his mind. Renewed military training had given him a deep appreciation for grenades, and he loaded the mag strips below his shoulder guards with rows of cylindrical explosives. Proximity mines were next, clipped to his waist where they could easily be detached and set in seconds. Assault rifle latched opposite his sniper and pistols on his hips, he decided it felt good to be armed and armored again.
Chop from exiting Palaven's atmosphere brought him back to the present as he knocked his knees against his bag. The vid feed from outside the shuttle, displayed on a screen next to the hatch, showed a clear, cloudless sky. Garrus tightened his grip on the strap he was holding, swaying slightly with the movement of the shuttle.
"Sorry for the bumpy ride, sir," the pilot said over the din of thrusters. "Seems as though we have a weather system moving in and it's stirring up the atmo."
"No worries, Lieutenant. I've seen wor-"
A large bang echoed through the shuttle as it was flung sideways from its flight path, sending Garrus sprawling back across the laps of several of his crew members. The lights in the cabin started flashing red, a klaxon screaming out warning. Garrus struggled to his feet, apologizing to the individuals he had landed on. The shuttle was rocking violently, pitching Garrus side to side as he struggled up to the cockpit.
"Something dropped out of FTL right next to us and caught us in its wake!" yelled the pilot, fingers flying over the controls. His copilot was pulling up diagnostics and attempting to correct their flight path.
"What the hell would drop out of FTL that we wouldn't know about?" Garrus shouted over the klaxons.
As if to answer his question, a single, ear-splitting, bone-shaking note rose over the din of thrusters, warbling and metallic. Garrus felt as if his very soul was being ripped from his body, and the breath was knocked from his lungs as the pilots screamed.
On the vid screen, the dark, immense figure of a reaper passed mere inches from their shuttle, orienting its multiple legs to land thousands of meters below.
"Fuck!" Garrus yelled, watching more reapers drop out of FTL and begin their decent towards Palaven. "Get us the hell out of here! Stealth systems engaged until you set an FTL vector off Palaven. NOW!"
"Sir, IES systems have been engaged since departure. Standard protocol. If we drop them to initiate redshift into FTL, we risk being seen."
"Shit," Garrus said quietly, running a hand over his fringe. "Alright. Can you fly through this?"
The pilots nodded violently, not taking their eyes off the control consoles. Garrus turned to his team. The shuttle suddenly left Palaven atmosphere, the ride becoming smoother, klaxons dying with the flashing red lights. Garrus let out a soft sigh of relief.
"Helmets on, folks. This is going to be a bumpy ride, and we're going to have to ditch as soon as we touch down. Just follow my lead." His request was followed by the sound of helmets being latched into place. "Asellio, Lentulus, let's put those new assault rifles to work. Anyone else with an SMG, get it out. Incendiary ammunition. I need constant fire on my mark. Any questions?" Five helmeted heads shook in unison.
"Any radio contact with Menae?" Garrus asked the pilots.
"Patching you through to General Victus, sir," the copilot responded, opening up a comm channel.
"Advisor Vakarian to General Victus," Garrus said, pressing his earpiece with a gloved finger.
"Vakarian!" barked a deep tinny response. "Should have known you would bring the party."
Garrus chuckled and balanced his helmet on his knee. "I've got reapers inbound to Palaven, we're currently stealthed heading towards your coordinates. Status of LZ?"
"We've got two reapers on the ground about twenty clicks from our outpost. I've got three platoons on foot heading in to assist. So far we're clear here, but I don't know how long that's going to last. Husks keep popping up everywhere. We've got turrets on the perimeter, but I'm worried about those reapers taking out our comm towers."
"Understood. ETA five minutes."
"Victus out."
Garrus double-checked the coordinates on his omni-tool and donned his helmet.
"Sir, we're going to be passing over a hot zone," the co-pilot said, pulling up a vid feed on his console. Menae's surface was pocked with craters and large boulders, a myriad of jagged outcrops and sweeping valleys. Husks were pouring out of flaming sacs and scattering in any direction, spraying white sand and rock in their wake. In the distance, the silhouette of a reaper stood stark against the large orb that was Palaven.
"Let's bring the heat," he said, popping open the shuttle hatch and unlatching his assault rifle. "Asello, Lentulus, kneel here," he pointed to the lip of the shuttle hatch. "Paulus, Strabo and Vatian will cover you here, here and here. Don't shoot each other. The Alliance has jokes about turian friendly fire and I'd rather not live them." He turned to the pilots. "Bring us in low and slow. Let's let these bastards know the cavalry has arrived."
"Sir!" came the reply from the cockpit. The shuttle descended, what inertia dampeners had been active going offline to reroute power to horizontal thrusters. Lentulus rocked forward precariously until Strabo grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back into kneeling position.
"Careful, boys. Grenades get thrown out the shuttle door, not soldiers." To prove his point, Garrus ripped a grenade from the mag strip on his shoulder and pulled the pin with his teeth. With a toss, he let it fall into a cluster of husks, the explosion spraying gore and cybernetic pieces everywhere. I love new toys, Garrus thought gleefully. His heart was pounding in his throat with adrenaline, and a small part of his mind reveled in being back on the front lines. Where I belong, he added as an afterthought. "Open fire!"
The sound of bullets was almost deafening as his team rained down incendiary ammo. Husks ignited with inhuman screeches, falling to their knees and exploding.
The shuttle swooped down lower, passing over hoard after hoard. Garrus casually tossed a few more grenades out the hatch, humming along to Die for the Cause playing loudly in his earpiece.
"Sir, coming up on the LZ!" the pilot barked. Ahead was an outpost, nestled into a shallow crater. Metal bunkers and shelters had been erected to house supplies and barracks.
"Set us down and get the hell out of here. Set an FTL vector back planetside. I'll send clearance ahead so you don't catch grief for breaking about fifty-seven flight regulations for using FTL in atmo."
"Thank you, sir."
The shuttle came in slow on a bank overlooking the outpost, settling down with a flurry of white dirt.
"Alright, everybody out!" Garrus shouted as soon as they touched down. "Head for the outpost and keep your eyes open!" his team disembarked and began footing it towards the nearest gate. Garrus followed, slamming the hatch closed and pounding twice on the exterior of the shuttle. There was slightly less gravity on the surface of Menae; it took several shaky steps for him to acclimate and gather his legs beneath him. "Advisor Vakarian to Cipritine base" he barked into his helmet comm.
"Go ahea-…-visor Vaka-" came the static-filled reply.
"I have a shuttle inbound from Menae outpost to planetside on an FTL vector into atmo, on my orders. Let them through."
"Cop-….Pritine Base ou-"
Garrus figured that was good enough, and hurried to catch up with his team.
Adrien Victus was leaned over a holo table as Garrus climbed the stairs to his shelter. The general was tall, white clan marking standing out stark against dark plates. He cut an imposing figure in black armor slashed through with red. Garrus had spoken to him briefly before he departed for Menae a month ago, and harbored a hefty respect for the way his mind worked.
"Ah Vakarian. How good of you to make it!" Victus quipped, straightening from his observation and extending an arm to Garrus. The younger turian gripped it in greeting, unlatching his helmet.
"Fashionably late, as always," Garrus shot back. The holo on the table showed a spinning Palaven, with twin moons Menae and Nanus. "Any updates?"
Victus tensed, extending his fingers to zoom in on Menae.
"This outpost is the only one with a standing comm tower at the moment. We've been calling it Alpha. Beta, three clicks away, has intermittent comm channels in and out, but last report was some form of flying creature dumped husks and took out their tower at the same time."
"Harvester," Garrus growled. "They're modified from the organic harvesters that breed klixen. Nasty things."
"How nice." Victus' voice dripped with contempt, and he shook his head. "So far it's been hoards of husks dropped of by these harvesters, but when Echo base checked in a few hours ago, they were reporting several new, unidentified enemies. One of them was strong enough to take out their comm tower like a charging krogan. They haven't reported back in since."
Garrus dropped his bag in frustration. "Have you sent a team over there?"
"I have a squad of twenty men on foot headed there as we speak. The reapers have taken out almost all the comm buoys we have in orbit around Palaven. That seems to be their MO, or so it seems."
"Yeah, they took out all comm buoys when they hit batarian space. That's how the Hierarchy found out. And that's why I'm here."
Victus studied the slowly spinning holo with finite intensity. He looked as if he had many questions, but couldn't decide which one was more important. Instead, he shook his head in frustration and sighed.
"We're on 18 hour rotations here. Fedorian's people let me know you've been up for almost 42 hours. Go find a bunk and grab some sleep. I'll wake you during the next shift change and we can talk more."
Victus pointed him to the nearest barracks, two shelters over from command center. All the bunks were empty, and Garrus set his bag near a lower bed, not bothering to remove his armor before collapsing.
For the first time in weeks, he let his mind wander back to moments he had tried to shove into the recesses of his mind. Just thinking about Shepard was like a sharp pain in his chest; there had been no communication from her or any of their fellow crew for almost five months. His job had been keeping his mind busy, filling his head with repetitive tasks and data memorization just to drown the heart wrenching guilt he felt for leaving the Citadel. Of course, no one other than military personnel and his family knew his knew omni-tool identicode, but that didn't stop him from using his new security clearances to attempt contact with anyone who might know about Shepard's wellbeing. After many fruitless attempts, he had given up, and compartmentalized his memories of his time with Shepard away.
But now, amidst the chaos of war, he let himself remember their first night in her quarters. She had painted her face for him with her clan markings, the markings of her ancestors. He knew then, twisted in sheets bathed blue with aquarium light, that he loved her, his reverence for this human woman going beyond anything he could even begin to comprehend. She was fire and fury in human form, deadly precision coiled into a lithe form. For weeks she had practiced sneaking up on him under the cover of her tactical cloak; twice she taken him by surprise and pinned him. He let slip a soft keening noise, sub vocals resonating with sorrow.
Here, amidst the chaos of war, he let himself say her name out loud. Her given name, used in the most intimate and private moments between them. Offered up in nothing more than a whisper, he allowed himself to hope in the form of her name.
Incarceration, topped with gratuitous amounts of stress and anxiety had turned Lana Shepard into something feral. And she knew it.
"Commander, I need you to stay still so I can stitch this!" Chakwas exclaimed, fingers prodding the left side of Shepard's head. Their mission to rescue Liara from the Mars archives had been a success, but she had managed to catch not only an incendiary blast to the face from that damned AI Dr Eva, but a bullet had grazed the side of her skull, causing blood to run in rivulets down into her ear and onto her face.
"It's just a surface wound," Shepard replied, gritting her teeth as the good doctor dabbed antiseptic over the gash.
"Commander, it's deeper than you think. I'm going to need to shave the hair around it so I can clean and stitch it thoroughly."
"Small price to pay I guess," she sighed, and curled her hands into fists in her lap. The top half of her armor had been removed, leaving her upper body swathed in slick undersuit, blood, grime and sweat.
"You are lucky, I will give you that," Chakwas replied over the buzz of the razor. Shepard watched as tendrils of dark hair floated down to cover her fists. Absent-mindedly, she twirled on in her fingers, marveling at the scorched ends. The side of her head had caught fire as she tried to dodge the attack and throw Ash out of the way at the same time; she had snuffed it out by jamming her helmet as Dr. Eva sprinted out of the archives and into the torrid Mars sandstorm.
The thought of Ash twisted Shepard's gut into a steely knot. Her prone form laying limply over her shoulder, Shepard had practically screamed at Joker to set a course for the Citadel as they crashed into the airlock, and bless him he didn't even snap back with some smartass remark about her tone. The doctors had met them at the docking bay with a stretcher, and Shepard had followed them, sprinting through decontamination and so many doors until a rough hand on her shoulder knocked her out of the room with a violent shove. She had refused treatment until Chakwas had assured her that not only would Ashley be ok for the moment, but the good doctor would gladly join Shepard back on the Normandy.
The twinge of needle on skin shook Shepard from her self-pity. Chakwas hummed softly to herself as she worked, and Shepard counted stitches. Seventeen neat little sutures in all, following her left temple to behind her ear down to the base of her neck. With a swipe of medigel, Chakwas stepped back to admire her handiwork, brows knitted.
"Your hair really took the brunt of it, Shepard," she said, putting down the needle and suture thread to try and smooth down short spikes of hair.
"I'll find some way to fix it," Shepard replied with a shrug, hopping down off the hospital bed and gathering up her armor. "Wouldn't be the first time it's caught fire."
Chakwas smiled. "Somehow I believe that."
Back in her quarters, Shepard unceremoniously dumped her armor on the floor near her bed, and strode to the bathroom to assess the damage. The left side of her face was slightly red, angry looking and shiny, chunks of her hair had been scorched away into uneven swatches. With a heavy sigh, Shepard gathered the rest of her hair into a sloppy braid, pulling the unharmed locks to the right. The razor she grabbed was meant for legs, but she stuck her head under the faucet, wetting the raw skin. With meticulous strokes, careful to avoid the stitches, she shaved a swatch of charred hair and watched it float lightly to the floor. The cold water felt like heaven against her burnt flesh, and as she exposed more and more skin, the better she felt, until the left side of her head was bald from temple to ear, and down to the base of her neck. She let the razor clatter into the sink as she leaned forward, examining her handiwork from different angles. The stitches were already puckered and healing thanks to the medigel and Cerberus skinweave, and part of her hoped she would have a scar. The sutures would dissolve in a matter of hours, leaving an angry pink puckered line.
"Commander," crackled Traynor's voice over the comm. "Admiral Hackett is available on vidcomm."
"I'll be right there," she replied to the ceiling. Shepard had seen more of Hackett in the past 72 hours than she had during her entire trial and incarceration. N7 dog tags clinked against her chest as she shucked the rest of her armor in favor for a crisp, clean uniform. She still wasn't quite used to the layout of the Alliance retrofitted Normandy; it took her a little longer than necessary to locate the comm room. Hackett's pixelated form shimmered into focus, and if he noticed her new haircut, he said nothing about it.
"Shepard, I have some bad news," he said, standing in digital parade rest.
"Is there any other kind of news right now, sir?" Shepard asked with a grimace.
"I've received word that Palaven is under attack. The reapers hit several days ago and knocked out all communications."
Shepard felt as if all the air had been vented from the room, and briefly she felt her knees go weak, threatening to give way. She closed her eyes so hard bright spots of light appeared behind her lids, struggling to control her breathing.
"How are we just finding out about this?" she managed choked out, grasping the edge of the comm console.
"The Hierarchy has been…reclusive since Taetrus. Not a lot of unencrypted comm going on and off the planet. We think Palaven was hit after Earth, hence why it wasn't on our radar. The turian councilor was able to send a message to me about an hour ago. Apparently, the Primarch is stranded on Menae, and with the fleet stretched thin, they asked if the Normandy could be spared for a reconnaissance mission."
"Yes." Her answer was sharp, her mind reeling with a thousand and one different scenarios.
"Fedorian wants to hold a war summit regarding the building of the Crucible. If anyone can get in and get this done, it's you, Shepard. We need the turian fleet."
"How bad is it?" she whispered, closing her eyes against his answer.
"I don't know."
She took a deep, shuddering breath in through her nose and released it out her mouth in a steady stream, fighting back the panic clawing its way out of her stomach and into her chest. Hierarchy called. Palaven-bound;. no contact established. Will contact with more info. Kasumi's message swam in her head. The thief had never made contact with more info.
"Consider it done," she said with a salute.
"Be careful out there, Shepard. Hackett out."
As his form disappeared from the holo, Shepard threw out her arms as she stumbled back against the comm room wall, sliding down to the floor with her knees drawn to her chest. A dry sob wracked its way out of her body as she pressed her face into the heels of her hands.
She had seen the destruction on Earth. In mere minutes, Vancouver was smoldering ruin under the weight of the reapers. The sharp smell of burnt flesh and metal had filled the air as her and Anderson fought their way to the rendezvous point. And that boy…that little boy. He had refused her offer for help, instead he cowered in the shadows, shrinking back from her outstretched hand. She had watched as he had climbed up into the shuttle, his short legs struggling for purchase. The red laser had come from the black gullet of a reaper. It had sliced apart both shuttles as they struggled to take off into the safety of FTL. Shepard had watched the flaming wreckage smash into the ruins of an apartment building below as the Normandy banked for departure into atmo. She could still feel Ashley's hand on her shoulder as her and Vega pulled her inside her ship, N7 tags cold and hard in her grasp.
"Joker," she whispered, knowing EDI would pick up her whisper and amplify it on the bridge for him. "Set a course for Palaven."
"Aye, Commander."
His reply was cautious, and Shepard knew he had been listening to hers and Hackett's conversation.
She pushed herself against the wall and onto her feet. The front of her uniform was wrinkled where it had bunched against her torso, and she smoothed it down absent-mindedly, making her way out of the comm room to the elevator.
"ETA fourty-six minutes, Commander," Joker announced over the comm as she entered her quarters.
"Thank you, Joker," she said with a little more gumption in her voice. "EDI."
The AI's orb appeared instantly, casting a soft blue glow. "Yes, Commander?"
"Tell Liara and James to be suited up and ready in thirty minutes. I need Cortez to ready the shuttle, tell him we're going into reaper-occupied territory. I need the IES stealth systems fully checked, up and running. I'll be up to the bridge in ten for the relay jump."
"Aye aye, Commander."
Shepard turned her back to EDI's holographic orb and peeled off her uniform with slow, deliberate movements. Since Kasumi's message warning of Garrus' departure to Palaven, Shepard had started to come unraveled. Months of solitude and isolation became caustic, eating away at whatever sanity and hope she had managed to bring back with her from death. And now, naked in her quarters, the weight of his mortality pressed down on her shoulders with a force that almost brought her to her knees.
Shepard ferreted a clean undersuit from the depths of her closet, pulling the skin-tight fabric up over her legs, flexing her feet as she stood to zip the pants portion. The shirt came next, high-necked to prevent her neck guard and helmet from chafing, zipping up along her spine. The fabric was woven from Teflon-like fibers and reinforced with the same skin weave technology that now held the rest of her body together. Her hands slid along her arms, smoothing down the sleeves and hooking her thumbs through the small hole at the bottom of each.
Methodically, she reached for her boots and pulled them on. Next came her greaves, clipping onto small latches at the top of her boots. The snap of the catch brought her a small satisfaction; with each piece of armor she adorned, she felt as if she was building herself, pulling it all back together. Her chest piece was loose and she made note of it for her return to the Normandy after Menae. She had lost weight during her incarceration, a product of immense amounts of stress and very little appetite. Shoulder guards and gauntlets gleamed blueish black in the aquarium light. There were scorch marks on her N7 insignia, where white paint met red. Her gloves were the finishing touch, but instead of pulling them on, she padded lightly to her nightstand.
The pot of makeup was small. Feeling the cool glass against her bare hands brought back fragments of memories that seemed so very long ago, hidden away in another life where she had been allowed to have hope. Her chest tightened as the scent of the cosmetic reached her nose. The pigment was stunningly black, dark and rich. She dipped the pad of her thumb in, coating it thoroughly. She began at her left temple, drawing a line across her closed eye, across the bridge of her nose, mirrored on the other side. Each stroke was cathartic; a show of solidarity, and ode to memories of a night where cultural lines had been merged as well as two hearts and bodies. The line across her eyes became thicker and more pronounced. She dipped her thumb in again, tracing from her bottom lip down to the hollow of her throat. The drying pigment pulled her skin slightly as she wiped the remains on a tissue next to her bed.
No mirror was needed for Shepard to admire her handwork. A finger hooked in the band holding her braid in and pulled it out, letting shoulder-length hair hang limply around her face. With sure fingers, she re-braided it, tighter this time, neater. Her gloves went on last, encasing tan hands in black fabric and metal knuckles.
Six months ago, Shepard would have balked at keeping her weapons in her quarters. But today, she was grateful for their proximity. Her Widow went first, clipping into the latch on her left shoulder blade. Assault rifle was next, taking its position next to her sniper on the opposite shoulder. A pistol on each hip and a mag clip of incendiary grenades completed her routine. In her mind, Garrus was next to her in blue armor; sniper, assault rifle, pistols. As an afterthought, she thumbed the control for her shield generator on her omni-tool, changing the lights encased in the pack on her back from red to vibrant, vivid blue.
The CIC was hushed as she exited the elevator and made her way up to the bridge. Whether her crew was aware of the seriousness of the mission, or utterly confused by their Commander's appearance, she ignored it. The only sound she could hear was her boots echoing on metal floor, and her heart pounding a steady rhythm in her chest.
"About to make the jump, Commander," Joker said as she reached his chair. She could see the relay looming ahead of them.
"Take her in nice and quiet, Joker," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I don't have the patience to play cat and mouse with a reaper."
"Aye aye, Commander," he replied, fingers flying over the console. Shepard leaned over to the copilot seat and thumbed the comm button.
"Attention all crew, this is your Commander speaking." She could hear the reverb of her voice out in the CIC; she was broadcasting her message ship-wide. "In approximately 60 seconds we will be making a mass relay jump into reaper-occupied space. That means we will be running silent until myself or Helmsman Moreau says otherwise. Critical personnel report to your stations immediately. All others hunker down on the crew deck. In the event that we are to enter active combat, I need all hands on deck at appropriate stations."
"Ten seconds to relay jump, Commander," Joker said. "Widow relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence…We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination…The relay is hot…Acquiring approach vector. All stations secure for transit... Approach run has begun. Hitting the relay in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ..."
Subtly, Shepard could feel the mass relay warp the ship in a cocoon of electric eezo, crackling blue and white as it shot them through to the Trebia relay in a matter of seconds.
"Thrusters ... check. Navigation ... check. Internal emissions sink engaged. All systems online. Drift ... just under 1500 K. Damn I'm good," Joker quipped, turning to smile at Shepard from under the brim of his hat. He caught sight of her face and his grin slipped. "Commander…" he said quietly, grabbing her hand that had been resting on his shoulder. "He's hard to kill." Shepard gave him a small smile and squeezed his hand in thanks. Joker turned back to the console with a sigh and flew them silently towards Palaven.
