Chapter 17: In death... sacrifice

Shepard stared down the barrel of Velentrian's pistol, unafraid and ready to die. "Well are you just going to stand there?"

"Quiet!" Velentrian froze into place unmoving. "Do we really need to kill Shepard?" He questioned, looking at the Reaper object. "We should let the council deal with this traitor and his human conspirators."

This is the only way. Eliminate, Shepard!

"You hear him don't you? For such a great ally, he likes to give orders doesn't he?"

Silence him!

Shepard scoffed. "You've gotta wonder why it wants me dead so much."

The turian spectre was puzzled by the statement. Why does, Harbinger want the death of one human so badly? He thought. "What are you saying?"

"What do I know that, Harbinger doesn't want the council to know?" Shepard says, playing on Velentrian's distrust of him.

Enough! The doors to the chamber screeched open, husks slowly making their entrance. Taking the opportunity, Shepard rose to his feet. He ran for the door, knocking Velentrian to the floor. A husks took charge after him, leaving the remaining husks to encircle Velentrian.

"What is this?" Velentrian cried out.

Current host is insufficient. Further augmentation is needed.

The Hammerhead:

Miranda and her team evacuated, Gianna Parasini joining them. They all crammed inside the tank, Gianna uncomfortably sitting on Jack's lap, made rougher by Garrus's driving. "There any way you can not hit every bump?" Jack yelled.

Garrus ignored her. "Normandy this is hammerhead, please respond." Garrus called over the communicator.

"This is Joker and we're en-route! We need to get off this planet now!"

"I just hope that data file, vigil gave us works." Miranda grunted.

"The data file serves a similar purpose as the one Shepard used the first time." Gianna rebutted. "If the Reapers shut the relay network down, we'll got out like the protheans."

The Normandy descended from the dark clouds of Caleston. The hanger doors opened, Garrus shot the tank into it, the thrust and the sudden landing shaking the team. The hammerhead wailed as is slid on the floor of the hanger. Miranda and the rest of the team filed sluggishly out of the tank.

"Never doing that again!" Jack groaned. "Your heavier than you look."

"Come on we don't have time." Miranda ordered, heading towards the elevator.

New Project base:

Shepard had escaped the reaper artifact chamber and made it to the control center or what was left of it. There had been some fighting here, the walls scorched with weapons fire. Windows blown out and machinery damaged. Luckily he found a radio that still worked, he called for the Normandy. Hoping, Joker was listening. "Commander Shepard to the Normandy. Joker?" He got no answer.

He wondered the wreckage of the room, searching for something he could use to signal his ship. As he searched he stumbled across a body, one he recognized. It belonged to a man who sacrificed everything to make him the first human spectre, who helped him when no one believed him about the reaper threat. David Anderson. His eyes were still open, absent of life. Shepard put his head to his chest, praying for a heartbeat. He heard none. He pounded at his former captains' chest, desperately trying to restart his heart. He stopped after a while, he was too late. He closed the eyes of his former captain. Eyes that brought him hope now shut forever.

Skipper? The radio cracked.

Shepard radio thinking he miss heard. Thinking he heard the voice of the woman he loves. "Skipper it's Ash, I'm on the Normandy!" Shepard's heart sank; he hoped he was just imagining Ashley's voice. He hoped he wouldn't have to speak to her, not like this. At least she's safe. He thought.

"This is, Shepard." He answered, his tone sounding defeated and wiry.

"Thank god! We just picked up your team and we're on our way to get you."

He knew she'd say that. He knew there was no time. They had to get to the Citadel; they had to warn the rest of the galaxy. There was no stopping the reapers. In the end all he managed to do was slow them down. He couldn't stop the reapers about as much as he could save his team on the collector base. His part was over. At least he gave the galaxy a head start before the reapers descended on the galaxy.

"No you're not."

"What are you talking about? We can get you out of there!"

"Ash the reapers are out there, they are coming!" Shepard looked up at a hole in the ceiling. The sky above him got darker and the wind rolled into the remains of the complex. In the distance he could see the beams of light shooting out of the clouds like fire. Mountains of metal falling through the atmosphere, roaring and decimating the landscape as they landed. "Now it is up to you and the others to stop them."

"Don't talk like that, Skipper!" Ashley shouted over the radio, her voice starting to break in and out. "You can still..." Shepard cut off the radio; he couldn't bare hearing her voice anymore.

He leaned against a wall, collapsing to the floor. "Goodbye, Ash." In the end he was just as powerless as Harbinger and Sovereign claimed. There is no stopping the arrival. A lesson he should have learned at Arcturus. He couldn't hope to stop the reapers, for all he knew they couldn't be. But he gave the galaxy a head start and a way to fight them. The technology from the collector base would make sure of that.

The compound quaked with the landing of each dreadnought. Their intent clear. Before Saren died he told, Shepard that they couldn't stop them... not forever. "What can you expect, from a human?" Shepard remembers him saying. Shepard laughed weakly to himself.

"Not too bad, I'd say." A shadow darkened the room, the approach was one he excepted. He closed his eyes, thinking of better things. His fight was over, he had none left. Not bad at all.