Thanks for the reviews and PM's. I guess this is the meat of the ending. Again, violent in places, grim in others, but this isn't the final chapter. Thanks everyone for reading and supporting, to my beta reader, you're a hero, thanks for every chapter.


An annoying voice, like an itch she couldn't reach, echoed inside her head.

"This is admiral Hackett, is there anyone on this frequency? Did anyone make it to the Citadel?" Silence and static. "I say again, this is admiral Hackett…"

"Please don't say it again." Shepard answered, wincing as her lip cracked.

"Shepard, is that you?" His voice raised an octave. "I don't believe it, I thought Hammer was annihilated!"

"It was." She coughed and opened her eyes. Blood had dried her left eye shut and she had to blink to clear it. Her body was a dark land of pain, a continent of torment.

"Where are you?" His voice was tense, tight and severe.

Shepard rolled her head to the left and right, looking for anything that would indicate where she was. The dark corridor offered very little other than a smeared, dirty number painted on the wall.

"C185," she coughed, "It's the only marking on the wall. Am I in a corridor?" She closed her eyes and heard voices in the distance. "I can hear voices up ahead, I can't be the only one who made it up here."

"Right." He paused. "All right, we still have a chance. Commander get those arms open!"

Shepard took a deep breath. The marauder had shot her through the shoulder and she could feel the blood oozing down the inside of her hard suit. Her left arm was almost useless, numb and paralysed and it felt like her left ankle was fractured, trying to move it sent a pain like fire flashing through her. She was lay on her back, half slumped against the wall and seemingly welded to the grating below by her own dried blood. "Yes Sir." She mumbled.

"You injured Commander?" His voice mellowed a little, laced with genuine concern.

"I think I'm dying." Shepard didn't mean the statement as dramatic, she meant it as fact. She felt like a smashed insect, unintentionally left alive by some child who had presumed it dead.

"Keep going Shepard." He grunted. "Hold on."

Shepard sighed and activated her omni tool. Her hard suits warning sign flashed up at her and she ignored it. The remains of her suit would help her, but it wouldn't save her. She adjusted the suit to administer the remains of the medigel and pain killers and moved quickly, before she could change her mind. Pain seared through her as she crawled her way up the wall and stood. From her bloody mouth a shout came. Nobody heard. Her voice echoed in the corridor and then there was silence. Her body throbbed with the aftershock of the pain but she was mobile at least. Staggering forwards she gasped, wanting nothing more than to lie back down and close her eyes, but she had come too far for that.


Traynor was weightless for a second, she felt herself lift from the floor of the CIC. She closed her eyes, her fingers gripping the edge of the control panel as she waited for the anticipated crash. Instead, the Normandy levelled out again and she was suddenly back on her feet.

"Get those boxes secured!" Garrus screamed at one of the frantic crew. "Stow it now before it takes someone out!" He was standing where Shepard usually stood, one hand gripping the panel in front of him, the other stretched out, enlarging an area of the Sol system on the galaxy map. "We need more fighters in the second quadrant." He barked into the comm. "The line is broken, shore it up." He paused. "I don't care, get that damn line filled!"

The Normandy shook suddenly, as though it had clipped the top of a mountain. Everyone in the CIC was thrown forwards, falling to the ground or straining in their harnesses. A couple of rifles went forward and up, to clatter off the ceiling before slamming back down. Two crew members grabbed for them and Traynor closed her eyes again, glad at least their safeties had been on.

"Traynor!" Garrus shouted.

"Yes sir?"

"Get the communication line open with Shepard, if she so much as breaths I want to hear it."

"Yes sir." Traynor nodded and opened the frequency.

The Normandy began some hard manoeuvring, throwing people onto their backs. The ship dipped, making Traynor's stomach feel empty and then steadied again. She could hear grunts and curses from the crew.

"Hostile fire." Joker's voice sounded over the ships intercom. "More incoming, hold tight people."

Traynor tried to focus on the task at hand, but it was proving difficult. The last communication that they'd heard on the Commanders' frequency had been between her and Wrex. It hadn't sounded good. She listened with one ear as Admiral Hackett continuously attempted contact.

"This is Admiral Hackett, is there anyone on this frequency? Did anyone make it to the Citadel? I say again, this is admiral Hackett…"

"Please don't say it again."

Traynor froze, her breath dying in her throat. She turned to see Garrus looking at her, his dark eyes questioning. Shepard had answered.

"She made it." Traynor shouted. "The Commander made it, she's on the Citadel." She paused, her brows furrowing as she listened to the rest of the conversation, heard the pain and blood in the Commanders' voice "She doesn't sound good though, sir."

"She's alive though. She made it." Garrus slammed his fist down on the console. "I knew she would, she made it!" He looked back at the map. "Let the fleet know that Commander Shepard made it to the Citadel, tell them to keep fighting!"

"Yes sir." Traynor nodded and relayed the message. She knew she should have felt some kind of joy at the words, felt hope kindle at least a little. But the Commander had sounded so weak and so desperately in pain that it felt wrong. She took a deep breath and prayed that it would all be over soon.


To Shepard, it was a cavern of nightmares. The ceiling was almost perfectly spherical with just a dim light shining from its centre. The only other luminescence was provided by the thin lines of bio strips and cabling that were inlaid on the walls, glowing and pulsing ghostly pale. Further lines of cable climbed upwards, like enormous inward pointing veins, making the room feel oddly organic, as if they were ribs and she was inside some vast creature. Near the far edge of the room, the wall's seemed to fall away, leaving the floor extended into an open cavern. Shepard squinted as white dots of light seemed to spit and spot through the expanse. It was an odd sight, as if the inner walls of the Citadel were lit up by a cloud of lights, lots of winking, twinkling glints, flaring up and dying down, each tiny spark replaced by one or two others. It would have been beautiful, had it not been for the silhouette of the Illusive Man bent over the solitary console, his twisted and distorted face ruined by an infusion of blue.

"Shepard?" She turned at the sound of her name being rasped out, her eyes widening in sudden horror as a cloud of raging blackness enveloped her. Anderson was on the floor of the room, slumped against the wall. There was blood on his stomach and chest, both hands clutched to a wound that she couldn't see. "Shepard, don't listen to him." Anderson coughed, blood bubbling on his lip.

"It seems I underestimated you Shepard." The Illusive Man drawled, turning to face her and revealing the true extent of the Reaper influence.

Shepard kept her hand clenched on her pistol as he walked towards her, her body balanced, feet slightly apart, ready to kill him. She wanted to kill him, her hand ached from not pulling the trigger, but suddenly her head was cloudy. A deep lethargy seemed to seep through her and she shivered; she had a sensation of being swept away, like a leaf in a river current; swept away and drowned.

"What are you doing to me…?" Shepard spoke, but her voice sounded foreign to her own ears, mumbled and weak.

"I warned you." The Illusive Man sneered, "Control is the means to survival, control of the Reapers and of you, if necessary."

"You're a fool." Anderson interjected. "You aren't controlling them, they're controlling you!"

"You're playing with things you don't understand." Shepard shouted, shaking her head as a wave of nausea flooded her stomach. She looked down at her pistol and then lifted it towards Anderson.

"Shepard…" Anderson held his blood stained palm up and shook his head weakly.

"I have you Shepard." The Illusive Man leaned closer to her, his broken skin gleaming with blue light from beneath. "If I can bend you to my will." He indicated the direction she was aiming her pistol. "Then I can bend them too. I've dedicated my whole life to understanding the Reapers and I know…" he clenched his fist, "With certainty that the Crucible will let me control them." He smirked.

"And then what?" Shepard asked, frowing at her pistol, not sure how it had ended up pointed at Anderson and oddly, not concerned by it. "You are completely mad."

"Look at their power!" His voice echoed. "Look at what they can do!" He nodded, smiling at the floor.

"I can see what they've done to you." She replied hoarsely, watching as his insane smile fell and his brows knit.

"What?" He paused. "I've taken this from them, taken what I wanted."

"You're indoctrinated." Anderson growled.

"No!" The Illusive Man rounded on Anderson and jabbed his finger towards him, "I'm not, no one is telling me what to do. The two of you, so self-righteous, do you think this kind of power comes easy? There are sacrifices…"

Shepard glared at him; a shadow of the man he once was in a borrowed Reaper shell. He watched her from disturbed, mechanical blue eyes. His word, sacrifice, seemed to snap something free within her and her muscles flooded with what she recognised as a release of tension. She scowled as self-disgust filled her and she moved the gun from where it was trained on Anderson, to the startled face of the Illusive Man.

"Answer me this," Shepard said levelly, her voice calm, laced with ice. "Could there possibly be any vestige of humanity left in that ruined Reaper skin of yours?" She tried to smile but didn't have the energy. It was taking every ounce of effort to keep her pistol pointed at his disfigured face. "You can't even control me, you don't have a hope in hell of controlling them."

"Shepard, you can't…" The Illusive Man stared at her in horror, a brief flash of genuine terror passing over his face. Shepard allowed herself to enjoy it before she fired.

Two rounds punched neatly into his face and his body crumpled, sagging to the ground and falling onto his chest, spasming once before lying motionless. A dark liquid seeped from beneath his head. For a moment Shepard could do nothing but stand there, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

"Bastard." She said quietly, letting the pistol slip from her fingers and clatter to the floor. She sighed and made her way over to the solitary control panel. With a frown she activated her omni tool, casting her gaze over something before reaching out and inputting a series of commands. The console gave an outraged chirp as a red light began to blink urgently, seconds later the wall of light in front of her peeled away, as the arms of the Citadel opened.

"What a view..." Anderson whistled from behind her.

Shepard nodded, watching as the curve of Earth was revealed. She watched for a second, as the Reapers and joint fleet engaged in front of her. Contacts like small pieces of shrapnel flicked past them, all around. The bitty, distributed sparkles became brighter, like a shining curtain of light. Two lines of the combined fleet disappeared in violent bursts of light. The next explosion filled her sight, seemingly right next to her. A Reaper destroyer detonated. A flurry of explosions within and around the last one, spreading outwards like fierce blossoms of fiery white. "That's a whole lot of their shit, hitting a whole load of ours." Shepard turned around and shuffled towards Anderson, dropping down next to him and propping herself up against the wall. She sighed and closed her eyes.

"It's finished." He said softly, his voice bubbling and liquid sounding.

"Yeah." Shepard rolled her head and looked at him. Reaching over, she touched his throat lightly, feeling the rapid, thready pulse beneath her fingers. "I'm going to be honest, I didn't think we'd actually make it." She winced as she stretched her legs out in front of her and leant her head back against the wall, watching the ships fighting in the distance, content to wait for the Crucible to do its thing.

"Really?" Anderson tried to smile, but settled instead for reaching down and taking her hand. "I never doubted it." He took a massive breath, "Christ, feels like forever since I just sat down."

"Tell me about it." Shepard agreed.

"You did good Shepard." He squeezed her hand, "I'm proud of you." he sighed. "Real proud."

Shepard let those words sink in. She wanted to say she was proud of him too, proud of them all. Honoured and proud to have fought with each and every one, to have endured. To have acknowledged together, that there was something greater than their own individual suffering. She looked at him, made a motion to speak, but realised her words were pointless.

"Anderson?" She choked, she couldn't see him breathing anymore, and his fingers were cold. "Anderson?" She reached out her hand and touched his cheek. There was blood and saliva on his teeth, his lips just slightly parted, as if he was smiling. His dark eyes were open and fixed. "Fucks sake Anderson." She reached out and touched her fingertips to his cheek. There was no reaction, no contraction of his eye, no blink, no movement at all. A small, cynical smile crossed her lips: amusement at herself and how human beings relentlessly hope. Part of her had been thinking that he still might be alive, that even with his massive injuries, he might still answer her, but she'd seen and touched the dead often enough to know the truth, even if her heart wanted to ignored it. She put her fingers to his face, closed his mouth and eyes.

"Anderson. You weren't meant to die, so many people weren't meant to die." Sudden pain constricted her chest. Hot tears rimmed her eyes. "How many lives I could have saved if I'd just killed that bastard sooner?" She looked down at her hand, where it was pressed to the wound in her shoulder and covered in her own thick, hot blood. Suddenly she felt dizzy. The reality that Anderson wasn't going to be the only one to die up here hit her like a physical blow. War has no pity. She licked her lips and closed her eyes.


"It isn't firing." Garrus growled. "There must be something wrong, Shepard would have activated it by now if she could." He looked at Traynor. "Any word?"

"No sir." Traynor typed some commands into her console. "Admiral Hackett is attempting contact again." She swallowed. The Normandy had been banking and twisting erratically and she was starting to feel sick.

"We've lost twenty-two percent of the combined fleet already." Garrus shook his head. "If the Crucible doesn't fire soon we're going to have to retreat, we just aren't doing enough damage."

The Normandy banked hard and steeply one way, then the other, shuddering once and dipping. The ship seemed to bounce and shake.

"We've been hit." Joker's voice blared, tight and urgent. "Compensating." There was a pause, "We can no longer maintain altitude, we have to descend."

Traynor felt fear grow in her stomach. She brought up the external monitor, so she could see exactly where the Normandy was and watched in horror as it continued to drop, flying through thickening atmosphere, until they were in the very first few high altitude clouds.

"I think we're going to crash." She looked at Garrus with something close to horror.

"Not if Joker has anything to say about it." Garrus began to enter frantic commands into his console.

There was shouting somewhere across the other side of the CIC and suddenly the Normandy was stabilising. A sound like five or six explosions echoed through the deck and one of the conduits erupted in flames, sending wisps of smoke across a charred seat.

"Get than fire out now!" Garrus jerked his finger at one of the crew members.

Traynor could do nothing but listen to the comm as the ship bucked and bounced, like a bird caught in a storm.


There was that dull itch again, inside her head, behind her eyes.

"Commander Shepard?" The voice rasped. "Commander Do you read me?" Hackett's voice was harsh. "Commander, if you can hear me, please respond."

Shepard cracked one eye open and gasped, pain flashed through her like a lightening flash over the shadowed country that was her body. It seemed so bright.

She could feel herself dying, feel the slow leak of blood inside her suit, just starting to ooze from the gaps. It occurred to her that there was a sad sort of irony to the fact, that her final battle wouldn't be waged with the Reapers at all.

"Admiral?" She coughed, blood catching in her throat and spilling onto her chin.

"Shepard!" His voice was loud in her ear and she winced. "Commander, we have a problem, the Crucible isn't firing, nothing is happening." He paused, she could hear muffled conversation in the background, "We've done everything we can here, it must be a problem on your end."

"Hang on." Shepard dragged herself forwards towards the console, crawling on her one good arm and grasping its edge when she got there. The effort was agonisingly painful. Every time she crawled she thought the pain would less, that her body would adapt, but it didn't. It was as though every second she crawled along, her blood vessels ran with acid. She bit her lip to stop from crying out as hot tears ran from one eye.

She lay at the bottom of the console, face down on the ground, breath misting on the tile below. She just needed to rest a little, just a little. Shepard closed her eyes, she had the distinct impression she was moving, as if on some kind of elevator. She had intended to do something, she knew that, but it was all slipping away from her now.


An alarm, a brash and repetitive bleating.

Shepard lifted her head and looked up. It was a different room to the one she'd been in before. It seemed as though the panel she was on had served as some sort of lift. She reached up to the console above her, this one much bigger than the last. She pulled with all her strength, got her head onto the edge and used her neck muscles as well as her good arm to level herself upright.

She sucked in a wet, painful breath and gazed over the massed controls.

The large panel was connected at the rear to an enormous set of cables, all splayed and separated into smaller and smaller cords and fibres and threads and filaments. Eventually they divided into three separate streams, each leading in a different direction and disappearing from view.

"Wow." She whistled, or tried too, as she looked up at the vacuum of space above her. She had no concept of time, no knowledge of how long she'd been laying unconscious, but the fight was still raging all around her. Reapers doing the only thing they knew how to do. Destroy. Spreading death across space and time, charring into nothingness planets and whole systems, annihilating entire cultures with frightening ease. She looked down at the console again, frowning at the script and lettering she didn't understand, written in a language she'd never seen, a language lost in time.

There was a flash. A sudden piercing punch of green light that seemed to sear her vision, blinding her for a second. If it hadn't been for her death grip on the console edge, she would had jerked back. Blinking a few times to clear tears, she noticed the script was changing, resolving into a language she could actually read. Suddenly there was a massive assault of information in front of her, filling the display screen, racing streams of data. She tried to haul something out of the fast flowing confusion, but it was all moving so fast.

"What…?" Shepard mumbled, spreading her hands out on the cool surface for balance, "What…is all this?"

"Program data, final calculations and completion time frames." A dull sonorous tone sounded from beside her and Shepard twisted, surprised to find herself face to face with some kind of virtual interface. "Harvest of..." It paused as if thoughtful, "Human species is currently at 37.436% of completion."

"And you are?" Shepard asked, frowning at the ghostly, shivering, not quite real shadow of a human being - hardly defined at all - a fine mist barely contained by the outline of a human form.

"A familiar artificial intelligence construct displayed to aid in program administration."

Shepard rested her hip on the console and wiped blood from her eye, "Program administration? You mean the Reapers?"

"Correct."

"So you can control the Reapers, make them stop?"

"No and yes." The construct flared a bright white and moved its smoke like hand to indicate the view beyond. "Control, no, but a failsafe contingency was built into the Catalyst. Activating the failsafe will stop them."

"By Catalyst, you mean the Citadel?"

"Incorrect. The Citadel was built around the Catalyst by the Reapers. They have maintained it under their control in order for them to direct the evolution of future species. The Catalyst exists separately to the Reapers and outside of their sphere of influence."

"If the Citadel isn't the Catalyst, then what the fuck is?" Shepard felt her stomach drop and a cold pit of dread form in her stomach.

"Me."

"You?"

"Yes, me."

"Christ." Shepard shook her head and regretted it instantly. A wave of nausea broke over her and she stepped back, bracing her hands on her knees as she retched blood onto the floor. She was running out of time. "This is unbelievable. If you can stop then, why haven't you done it? Look at what they're doing!" Shepard growled.

"The failsafe requires the..." the construct paused briefly, "Crucible to work correctly, and I cannot initialize it without request. That is a limit of my program."

"And nobody has ever made it this far." Shepard sighed.

"Correct. Nobody has accessed this chamber since the very first cycle."

"Can you run the failsafe now?"

"Yes." The construct waved its hand over the console in some bizarre mockery of human motion. "However, I must warn you that the initialisation will cost this cycle significantly." It stepped away.

"I can't imagine it could cost us anymore than what we've already paid." Shepard stood upright again, bracing her weight on the console with both hands.

"The code required to terminate the Reapers will be interpreted by all synthetic life in this cycle." It waved its hand at the ships fighting in the distance. "A species you know as the geth will self-terminate. All other artificial intelligence will be eliminated. It is necessary."

Shepard, for perhaps only the second time in her bleak, grey existence, was completely staggered by the choice she had to make. The very concept of it made her stomach churn. To eliminate an entire race? Her mind trembled at the idea. It would be genocide.

"There is no other way?" Shepard asked quietly.

"None. Do you wish to proceed with engaging the failsafe protocol?" The construct asked, its glow a little dimmer now, tone a little meeker.

Shepard ignored it for a second and rubbed her aching eyes. She activated her omni tool and then closed it. She didn't want to make this decision, didn't want to die with the weight of that on her shoulders. "Admiral Hackett?" She pushed her finger to her comm and waited. "Admiral Hackett, come in." Silence. "This is Commander Shepard, is there any one still on this frequency?" Nothing. She wasn't sure if her comm was dead, the admiral was dead or the whole of humanity was dead, but she was suddenly disgusted by her obvious moral cowardice. Of course there would be no one to assist her, no one to lend support or confirm that she was making the correct decision, because there was no real decision to make. Her mind washed itself in the water of thought.

"Do it." Shepard said, her hands on the console edge stiffening, the knuckles turning white. The truth was that there was no deliberation, she'd know instantly that the price wasn't too high and the revulsion she felt at having to choose was simply revulsion at herself. There was finally nothing of her humanity left.

"Of course." The construct moved forwards and stood next to Shepard. It pulsed a terrible, blood red colour for a few seconds and then stopped.

Shepard stepped backwards and staggered, wincing as her leg gave way and she fell to one knee. With a groan she allowed herself to slump the rest of the way then rolled over onto her back. She looked up at the stars. "How long will the code take to transmit?" Shepard asked, finding it harder to breathe now that she was lying flat.

"The code will be transmitted through the relays, a chain reaction will be caused. It will not take long and will initialise in thirteen minutes. The firing mechanism will cause massive feedback in this chamber. " The construct moved next to her, crouching down and peering into her face. "You should leave now."

Shepard tried to laugh but blood caught in her throat "It's a bit late for that I think." She stared straight up at the star shine, odd looking shadows of black and silver thrown across her vision like millions of tiny diamonds.

"The Citadel is equipped with emergency vehicles for evacuation purposes." The construct paused and ran its eerie looking hand over Shepard. "You are gravely wounded, but do you not wish to survive?"

"No." Shepard said quietly, her mind drifting to thoughts of Liara "And yes."

"Why not?" The construct asked, its head tilting like a curious dog. "Is survival not the driving force for all organic beings? Is that not why you are here?"

The sage and eternal advice of the blackness above, of the silent stars, stared back at her. She could feel the skin of her left hand begin to pull, as the blood dried and contracted and a metallic wash spilt over her lip. She thought of all the people on Earth fighting, while she lay here. Those people fighting because they wanted to survive, those who cried because they were afraid and tired, because they just wanted a home without death. She had ended it, finally ended it all. She engaged her comm.

"This is Commander Shepard of the Alliance navy broadcasting on all frequencies. If there is anybody listening, the Crucible is about to fire. I say again, the Crucible is about to fire. Stay away from the mass relays," She coughed hard, groaning as she rolled onto her side and hugged herself, "I'm sorry," she said to the silence, "Liara, I'm so sorry, forgive me." She pressed her forehead to the cool tiles below, her smeared blood making it sticky.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting the tears flow freely, crying not so much at the torment of her death, but at the barren bleakness of being alone amongst the death of a thousand worlds.


Liara fought to open her eyes. She recognized the piercing overhead lights, the smell. She was still in the medical bay. Her chest tightened and she tried to lift her arms, then her legs, but moaned as a swift surge of pain all but robbed her of breath.

"Easy." Tali soothed again, fingers wrapped tight around the asari's. "It's all right Liara."

A silhouette took shape in her field of vision, backlit by the bright light. She tried to focus.

"Shepard?" She asked the quarian desperately.

Tali tightened her fingers on the asari's hand. "She made it to the Citadel Liara, she's all right. Don't worry. " She soothed, seeing the bewilderment in Liara's eyes. "We don't have a two way comm link, but I can patch her channel into the intercom? Specialist Traynor has been monitoring it."

"Please." Liara muttered, licking her dry lips.

Tali reluctantly let go of the asari's hands and launched her omni tool. A few seconds later the dull hiss of static filled the medical bay. Tali glanced towards doctor Chakwas who was bent over some medical readouts on a nearby console. "Doctor, she's awake."

Chakwas moved to the head of the bio bed opposite Tali. "Welcome back," She gave the asari a fond smile, but her eyes were searching, examining every reaction. "Do you know who I am?"

"Of course." Liara replied, eyes widening as the ship twisted and rocked. "Doctor Chakwas."

"Good." The doctor nodded, hoping her intense relief didn't show on her face. "Liara, you need to listen to me. You and Lieutenant Vega need surgery, but given the flight conditions I cannot risk it, do you understand?"

"Yes" Liara nodded and tried to sit up. The two women by her bedside spoke simultaneously.

"Liara, lie still." Tali admonished, pressing one palm to her shoulder in restraint.

"You have a serious lower limb injury and sustained a significant concussion." Chakwas stated. The doctor opened her mouth to speak again but was cut off by the sound of a faint voice rumbling through the intercom.

"This is Commander Shepard of the Alliance navy broadcasting on all frequencies. If there is anybody listening, the Crucible is about to fire. I say again, the Crucible is about to fire. Stay away from the mass relays,"

Liara closed her eyes and let the words roll over her. Shepard's voice was tight, but there was none of her usual fire, only a deep sadness.

"I'm sorry. Liara, I'm so sorry, forgive me."

The pain in that voice was so rare, and so raw. She was saying goodbye. A hurt grew in Liara's chest, in her stomach; her head was on fire, eyes burning with unshed tears. First for Shepard, and then for herself.

"Liara." Tali took the asari's hand, her voice breaking.

She could almost feel Shepard's pain, her loneliness, the sadness that there was no time left to her. All was now a final ending. It was so typical of Shepard, to have held on until that time when she was released from her duty. She felt herself suddenly taken by anger. Gripped by frustration and disappointment, choked by sadness. She wanted to scream, to destroy and to protest against the unfairness of it all. That despite everything, true freedom from the Reapers would never be granted to Shepard. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling for a long moment. Then, with a grunt, she pushed herself up on the bio bed and swung her legs over the edge. The pain was almost enough to make her pass out and for a second, her head swam on the very edge of consciousness.

"Liara, what are you doing?" Chakwas snapped, grabbing her by the shoulder. "You're just risking further damage!"

"I'm going to the CIC." She jerked free of the doctors grasp. "I cannot lie here and just let Shepard die." She looked down at the bandaged outline of her leg. Blood was already starting to seep through and just the sight of it was making her dizzy. "If Joker will not take the Normandy to the Citadel, then I'll take a shuttle."

"Liara," Tali interrupted, "That's madness!"

"What part of this isn't madness?" Liara countered. "You can help me, or let me struggle, either way I'm going." She bit her lip and jumped down from the bed, her leg all but collapsing beneath her. Tali reached out and wrapped a sturdy arm around the asari's middle, supporting her.

"I imagine I'll be helping you then." Tali sighed and looked back at the face of the enraged doctor. She was about to speak when the intercom interrupted again.

"Some sort of massive energy pulse has just been emitted from the Crucible!" Joker's voice rang through the room, terse and alarmed. "We can't outrun it. All hands brace for impact." He paused as a shrill alarm sounded through the ship. "I say again, all hands brace for impact, we're going down."