Disclaimer: Not mine, Bioware's. Also, the song briefly quoted is Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" (don't ask me why; it just seemed to fit). I don't own it either, but I believe quoting a line is fair use.
Dead Man's Switch
Part Four: Absolution
Somehow Shepard always knew this would happen. Somehow it would just come down to her and Mindoir, the colony she had once been able to save. It lurked in the back of her mind--the conviction she could not outrun her past. Old lives, old friends, old crimes, old sins . . . all waited in the dark to snag the unwary.
She also had the uneasy feeling she deserved to be snagged.
The transmission faded to static, a low hiss in a quiet room. Richard was white to the lips, although Shepard wasn't sure if he was troubled by Balak's demand or by the thought of all those slaves, people they had almost certainly known in their previous life, loaded with explosives, and herded, like livestock to an abattoir, patiently toward their own destruction.
Shepard had met enough former slaves to know any resistance would have been crushed long ago. The batarians had all sorts of nasty ways of inspiring obedience.
Richard ran a hand through his hair and then thrust his hands in his pockets, finally finding his voice. "But…you mustn't," he said feebly.
"You'll be safe," said Shepard. "You and the colony. And your wife and your baby. I promise." She meant it as much as she had ever meant anything.
He started at her for a long moment, his face remaining pale. "You mean—"
"I mean there's another way," said Shepard quickly, before he could finish that sentence. "I'll find it. I always do."
The comm cackled back to life. Singh's holographic face was steadier this time, at least in regards to the transmission. Her expression was troubled. "Did you see that, Commander?" Her voice was crisp, business-like.
"Yes," said Shepard simply. "Can you pinpoint where he was transmitting from?"
"Not yet. We're trying to, but it's tricky. Too much stuff is down. And I have too few people. My resident genius is working on it." She snorted. "Such as it is. I really don't have a resident genius, or even a resident sort-of-smart techie. I've got a guy who's great at holding two-decade-old computer systems together with a few lines of code and some bubble gum, but sophisticated comms analysis is a little beyond him. He might surprise me, but You'd think from the vids every garrison had some sort of tech genius as a standard issue."
"A socially-impaired tech genius, a bellowing hardass, a pretty girl . . ." said Shepard. "They were showing some sort of series about life in a colonial garrison over and over on the plane. Or perhaps several shows with similar characters. I wasn't paying attention. I don't have time to watch vids."
"You've never been stationed in a colonial garrison," replied Singh. "Sometimes there's nothing to do but to watch what old vids are in the colonial database. Colonial Blues must be the one they were showing. Several hundred hours of absolute crap. Very popular on Earth; they think it's what being stuck in a garrison on a backwater planet is really like. They couldn't be more wrong."
The other soldier's voice, broken still a little by static, seemed normal, chatty enough. But it was a frail sort of normal, a taut covering for real worry.
"You don't seem to like it here," observed Shepard.
"It's not where I expected to be at this point in my career, Commander," said Singh firmly, the chatty tone dropping from her voice. "But I'll be damned if I let Mindoir go down on my watch."
"Well, at least we're all agreed on something," observed Richard, who was leaning against the wall, hands thrust in pockets, watching the conversation.
"Give me ten minutes to think, commander," said Shepard. "I'll come up with something."
"You better," said Singh. "I'm no politician, but the batarians have just gotten themselves in some deep crap, I think. You're not just Alliance. You're Citadel Council, as much as many of us would hate to mention it. They're not just taking on humanity, which they keep doing—they've more or less just taken on all the Council races. Then again, what do I know?"
"Don't worry," said Shepard. "I specialize in doing the impossible."
"That's what the vids say about you," said Singh. "I hope this time they're actually right."
*
Shepard was nowhere near as calm as she sounded. Her mind, usually so nimble at looking for loopholes, felt heavy and dull and a part of her was convinced already there was only one solution.
Could it be that simple? That black and white, that make amends for past crimes?
She was tired, and grimy, and it occurred to her it had been over a day since she had slept or changed her clothes. Odd that. Normally it wouldn't have crossed her mind to uncomfortable in such a situation. She was a soldier, after all.
She left the room, and stepped up the stairs, trying to ignore all the wounded placed around the hospital. She couldn't deal with people right now. She made her way up, to the lonely room on the top floor where she had left her bag and shot a bomber from, earlier today.
The room was dark, a sliver of the moonlight slipping across the room from beneath an old-fashioned curtain, but when she waved a hand over the lightplate at the door, a figure stirred in the bed. "Oh, I'm sorry," Shepard said quickly. "There was no one in here earlier."
"I believe that," said a voice dryly. It was Dr. Newcastle, sitting up in bed, hair mussed about her shoulders. "We don't usually put people up here if we can avoid it; too much running up and down stairs. There's an elevator, but it takes approximately a geological age to move between floors. I'd rather be down there helping. But Richard insists I rest. He won't let me help, the stubborn brat."
"I'm sorry—I'll let you sleep," said Shepard, taking a step back. She had no particular desire to walk into whatever situation lay beyond, with ex-boyfriends, wives, and babies. It seemed far too trivial and labyrinthine for the present circumstances.
"Don't. I've been sleeping for hours until I can't sleep any more." The doctor's voice was heavy and tired. "Besides, I'm bored, and I don't think anyone will be sleeping tonight." She inclined her head In a brief nod. "Look out the window, Commander."
Shepard obeyed, more for the fact she had no particular reason not to than for any desire to actually look out the window. She crossed the room in a few strides and lifted the curtain. She hadn't seen curtains proper for years; they were as rare as old-fashioned doors in modern space stations. There had been curtains like these in their farmhouse, only theirs had been more cheerful, bright yellow with a white tracery of suns. Her mother had loved bright colours and cheery things. She stared out at the same street where she had shot a bomber, an old school friend, hours before. There was a little more activity now; a family packing cartons on a rover. "Trying to outrun the blast, I guess."
"I've been listening to them for a while. We lack high tech in many things, including soundproofing," said the doctor dryly. "And there's little enough else to do. I can't even connect to the 'net to grab a new book for my datapad. So I eavesdrop instead. Do you think they can run far enough? Far enough to escape the explosion?"
"There won't be one," said Shepard firmly.
"Are you sure? In any case, even more stay put, convinced you'll get them out of this. Faith in their Good Shepard. God, I'm not envious of that sort of reputation. It must be hell to live up to."
"It can't be that much worse than being a doctor," replied Shepard carefully. She was not sure if the other woman's tone was respect or contempt.
"Similar, but on a smaller scale. I only have families relying on me. You have worlds." The doctor waved an hand toward the chair where Shepard's bag rested. "You left your guns up here. I can't stand guns."
"You live in a colony," Shepard points out, moving to shoulder her bag. "Get used to them. Everyone here will have one. You never know what darkness comes out of the hills—that's what my dad used to say." It was what her dad said when he taught her how to use his shotgun, the one she had carried so uselessly the day the batarians had come. Funny she had forgotten until now.
She grimaced. "True enough, but I hate things that are meant to hurt people. That's the only purpose a gun has."
"To keep other people safe," Shepard pointed out.
"But it all depends on what side of the gun you're on, whether you're being protected or shot at," she said.
"All the better to be able to use one yourself," pointed out Shepard.
"But there are a lot of people in this world who really shouldn't have one. I'll pass. If that means I end up being at the mercy of people like you."
"Like me?" asked Shepard. "Do you have a personal problem with me, or do you just not like soldiers?"
"I just don't like soldiers," she replied. "Oh, you do some good. But not only am I nervous about things designed to kill people; I'm nervous about people being trained to kill people. Because, when you come right down to it, that's what a soldier is. A killing machine. Trained to kill. Oh, we like to dress it up in bold uniforms and pretty words, but that's been the purpose of soldiers since civilization began."
"I didn't sign up just so I could kill people," retorted Shepard. There were too many people dead already over the past day, and her nerves were stretched thin.
"Then why did you become a soldier?" she asked, jaw set, pleating the bedspread between her fingers.
"I've already told you," Shepard said, turning toward the door. "To save people."
"Funny," said Dr. Newcastle. "That's why I became a doctor. But it's all different. You save people by killing other people. I save them by healing them. You destroy things. I put them back together."
"I stop other people from destroying things," snapped Shepard. "So you can then put them back together. Either you've got no idea at all what sort of darkness there is in this universe, or you really don't like me."
"It's nothing personal, really." The doctor was far calmer than Shepard was. "Well, to be fair, I'd be lying if I didn't say the fact my husband's ex-girlfriend is a galatic hero didn't bother me a little, but I'm a big girl; I can handle. I can say 'thank you' for helping me from the spaceport, and I have. You'll probably tell me that this colony wouldn't be here without the Alliance military, and that's true enough. But there are a lot of things that wouldn't exist without the military, and not all of them are good."
"I wouldn't disagree with that statement," said Shepard, "But I would disagree with you that we would need to toss it all out for the sake of the bad. In any case, I'm sure this would be a fascinating debate, but I have about three hours and forty five minutes now to come up with a plan to save this colony, and I can't really be wasting it."
A thin wailing broke into the silence, a baby's cry. "Very good," said the other woman. "But can you do me a favour and hand my daughter to me before you go? It'll take ten seconds, and you'll still have three hours, forty-four minutes and fifty seconds."
Shepard paused, her gaze going to the same bassinet at the foot of the bed she had completely overlooked before. "I—well—congratulations," she settled on saying. "Richard didn't say."
"Of course he didn't; he's a man. Easily distracted. That, and he's worried out of his mind she won't get to live but a few hours, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't bother me too. But stop looking so panicked. Soldier or not, you won't break her as long as you support her head and don't drop her." The other woman sounded almost irritatingly calm.
Shepard took a deep breath. She stepped to the bassinet for much the same reason she looked out the window earlier -- she didn't have a good reason not to, and as much as time ticked away, it was difficult to resist the temptation to waste it, put off the moment of decision. Shepard regarded the baby for a long moment before picking her up, very gently. She knew nothing at all about babies. The circles she moved in generally didn't have them, at least not out for public display. The baby girl was very loud, and her face was red. She was a solid, heavy weight in the soldier's arms.
And the baby had slanted bright eyes like her father, and the tiniest fingers—godamnit. This was absolutely no moment for her biological clock to start ticking. There was no room for children in her life, and no time to have them.
She had been pregnant, once. Not for very long. She had been twenty-three, and going through a string of handsome, dull-witted and easily-dropped boyfriends to numb the pain of Richard's rejection. Apparently she had inherited her mother's reproductive system, sometimes contrary with Alliance-standard birth control. A doctor had detected an 'abnormality' with her cycles on a regular checkup, and suggested a new form of birth control and a termination. It was the Alliance's standard procedure in such cases. They hated unplanned pregnancies--really threw off troop rotation. Female soldiers trying to get pregnant had to officially inform the commanding officers of that fact, so it could be planned for. There had been a couple of lawsuits against the Alliance for that, but they hadn't lost one yet.
There had been no pressure in Shepard's case. It seemed the logical choice. She wasted no time on the choice; the procedure was quick and clean, and it never disturbed her sleep. She rarely spared a thought for it now. It was done and past.
If anything, recent events had only clarified her choice—would she have been able to do what she had done with someone dependent on her?
No regrets at all, then, but occasionally, once in a very great while, when the matter crossed her mind, she was a little . . . wistful. She had spent most of her life without a family. It might have been nice to have one.
"Think about what you're holding, commander," said the doctor mildly. "That's what's on the line. Not just you."
Shepard paused by the side of the bed, the baby wriggling in her arms. "I thought I was doing you a favour, not walking into a sermon."
"I thought you just might have needed the reminder," Dr. Newcastle said mildly. "Sometimes people get out of touch. I don't think you've never held a baby before. Do you even have any friends? I mean ordinary people you talk to, not the Council members or Alliance officers. Girlfriends who take you out for shopping and drinks and remind you how nice trivial things are."
"Funny," said Shepard. "All my girlfriends have this troubling habit of dying." She shied away from the thought of Jade, of Ashley.
"And more might die," said the doctor. "If you don't get your act together here."
"Trust me, I know," said Shepard. "I am prepared to give myself up, if there is no other way." She had been cherishing this small, almost rebellious thought for the last twenty minutes, not daring to mention it to anyone.
There was a long silence. The baby wriggled in Shepard's arms, and she wondered if she was really holding the baby right. The girl was so very little, after all. Such a tiny little life.
"My god," said Dr. Newcastle. "You're quite serious."
"Of course I am," said Shepard. "Wasn't that what you wanted to hear? I know the cost of things quite well, doctor. And if I wasn't prepared to risk death on a daily basis, I'd be no sort of soldier at all."
The other woman looked rather taken aback. "There's a difference between running into battle knowing you might be killed, and being prepared to yield yourself up to what will probably be torture and humiliation and then perhaps death. I'm not sure if that's heroic or scary, Commander. Self-preservation is a natural and perfectly understandable urge. There's nothing selfish or cowardly about it; just human."
"Congratulations, did you take courses in pop psychology along with your medical degree?" asked Shepard."Besides, what did you want to hear?"
"I wanted to hear you took it seriously and had a plan," snapped the doctor, struggling to sit up a little more in bed. "I just spent ten hours in labour; I've enough things to worry about. But don't you see? You can't give yourself up? You're larger than you; you're a symbol to humanity. Hope. If you give yourself up, they've won."
"So are you saying I should sacrifice the colony for the sake of a symbol?" Shepard. "I'd be dead, too, in that case. Would it be worth it to give up everything, including your baby, for a futile last stand?"
"You're the almighty Commander Shepard," Dr. Newcastle said. "Find another way."
Shepard sat down on the edge of the bed, the baby still in arms. Her bag clattered off her shoulder to fall at her feet. "I am thinking," she said between gritted teeth. She watched the baby's face, and admitted, "This is all my fault anyway." Her arms were shaking, and she rested the baby on her lap, not to disturb her.
"How so?" asked the doctor. "Objectively speaking, no one knew you were coming here until just a few days ago. This was probably too elaborate to whip up in a matter of days—it appears it probably would have happened anyway, whether you were here or not."
"No," said Shepard. "That batarian…Balak. I've met him before." She closed her eyes and the story trickled out, word by word. "It was on an asteroid in orbit around Terra Nova. He was trying to crash it into the planet. It would have killed millions. , That I stopped. I had a chance to catch him, but he—he really seems to like to play games of 'make humans blow up.' He had three engineers in a cell with a bomb primed to blow. I could either save them or catch him. I chose to let him go to save their lives. So it is my fault. If I had caught him then…those people would be dead, but all the people who died today would be alive."
There was another long silence. Shepard was too lost in the past to break it. Finally, the doctor said, "But those three are still alive. Who knows what they might do? Perhaps one of them might make a difference in many other people's lives. Don't play the 'what if' game, Commander. You only end up twisting it the way you think."
There was another long silence, a silence so empty it begged for words to be fit into it. Shepard said, carefully"But there was no third way then. No other choice. I keep thinking back…there should have been a way I could have caught him and saved the engineers. Should have been. But every time I think about it I come to the same conclusion. There was no third way. Sometimes there isn't. You always think--well, I always think--that there's some other way. Something clever, a middle path to make everything all right. But sometimes there isn't. No third way, black and white, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. There isn't always a good option. Sometimes you have to decide which is the least bad of two terrible choices." She drew in a deep breath. "And maybe there's no third way this time," she admitted. "If that's the case, I will give myself up. Because I'm not letting you and your daughter and all the others be blown up. Because this is my fault. Because I couldn't save anyone last time."
"How old were you last time?" asked the doctor. "Fifteen? Sixteen? You were just a kid! Who expected you to save the colony?"
"I did!" Shepard took a deep breath, and gingerly handed the baby back to her mother, mindful of the child's head and limbs. arising, and looking over the room. "I should have been able to do something. All around me everyone was lost, and I survived. It should have been for a reason."
"You've got something of a Messiah complex, don't you?" murmured the other woman.
"There you go, psycho-analysing me again," retorted Shepard defensively.
The doctor did not answer immediately. She cradled the baby in her arms, and said quietly, "Her name is Isabella Jade. Jade after Richard's sister, of course, but only as a middle name. She deserves to be her own person, not her aunt over again."
"She ran back to the batarians to save me," admitted Shepard. She hadn't meant to say it. She'd never told anyone, not even Richard, who deserved to know, or Kaidan, whom she should be able to confide in. But the words tumbled out, too dammed up for far too long. "She ran back to save me, and was caught herself."
There was no answer from the other woman, either in reassurance or condemnation. Shepard moved to the window, lifting the curtain again to look out on the streets, the battered metal of the colonial buildings cool in the blue moonlight. The darkness was deepening, the darkness that threatened to swallow her up. Years of solitude, lost loves and children unborn. The road not taken, the person not saved. Years of guilt and fear.
She had looked upon many a sight. Held the dying in her arms, been confronted by shambling plant zombies, husks of corpses turned into blue-eyed ghouls, aliens, machines, and angry humans with guns. She had been to the end of the universe and back, wandered through the ruins of a vanished civilization, fought a millennia-old intelligence, been the last one standing far too many times.
And, for the first time, she was about to give up. Because no matter what the batarians did to her, beat or tortured or humiliated her, they could grant her the one thing no one else could.
Absolution.
There was a faint rustling behind her, a baby's cry.
"I believe there is a third way this time, Commander Shepard," said Dr Newcastle. She paused to murmur quietly to the baby, and then added, "But only if you want to find it."
*
It was Richard who found Shepard a few minutes later, just outside his wife's room, leaning against the wall and staring into space. "Are you alright?" he asked, slowing his pace.
She came out of her thoughts, and looked to him. "Richard. Just the man I was about to look for."
"Me? Why?" He had his hand on the door, but glanced back to her, expression uncertain.
"You," she said firmly. "I've got an idea, but I can't do it alone. I think you have the expertise to do this. If I'm wrong, and you don't, but someone else here does, let me know. And if you can't do it, please let me know quickly. Don't work on it for an hour than pronounce it impossible." She told him, in a hushed voice, what she wanted.
There was a long pause. "Yes," he said, and he sounded almost surprised. "I can do that."
"Good." Shepard paused. "Go ahead and see your wife and daughter first. I understand. Just keep an eye on the time."
She had made her decision. She would go down fighting.
No matter how many old ghosts clustered at the back of her mind, demanding retribution, she couldn't live with herself any other way.
*
"It seems so simple," said Singh, "but so much could go wrong with it."
They had turned off the holograms on the comms to conserve power. Who knew when all this would end? The other commander's voice was a ghost among the static.
"Simple is best," said Shepard. There was nothing for her to do now but wait, wait for dawn. "Less to go wrong than a complicated one." She was cleaning her guns. She did not intend to use them, but it calmed her nerves. She tried not to think about Ashley, spending night after night in the great cargo bay of the Normandy, cleaning everyone's guns.
"Still…" The other soldier's voice died a little, in the hiss and crackle of the static. It was quiet otherwise. It was very quiet. Everyone was asleep, thought Shepard vaguely. Or praying. Someone had brought her a cup of tea earlier; a little girl with wide eyes and a bandaged arm. It was real tea, fragrant and warm, with real milk. A luxury for a colony, or for a soldier.
Her mother had kept real tea, too, in a small painted tin in the corner of the kitchen shelf. It was a treat for rainy days, and she would sing them a scrap of an old song: tea and oranges that come all the way from China… From back in the days when China had been a very long way away.
She tried to remember that song now, but only a few words and scraps of verse would come to her, as dried and withered as autumn leaves. It was about a woman…name beginning with S? Susan? No, that was Dr. Newcastle's name and it wasn't right anyway.
"Shepard?" said Singh, across the comms and the town from the garrison.
"Hrm?" said Shepard, too distant for actual words.
"What was the name of the garrison commander in your time? When you were a kid, during the raid, I mean?"
Shepard had to think about that for a moment before answering. "Lieutenant Grayson. Adam, I think his first name was. We didn't rate a commander in those days."
"What happened to him?" she asked as if she already knew the answer.
"Dead," said Shepard. "In the raid. Went down fighting."
Another long pause, a silence she filled with memories of her mother's song and its long melancholy chords.
"Shepard?"
"Yes?"
"Does anyone else remember him?"
*
Does anyone else remember him? Shepard knew exactly what Singh had been asking. Will anyone remember us, if we die here?
She didn't really have an answer, at least not a reassuring one. Reassuring ones usually rang false. Soldiers either told themselves lies to keep going on, or looked at ugliness head on and kept going. It was hard to make civilians understand.
She did not sleep. Her mind was too busy to sleep, even as she paused to wonder 'When did I last sleep?' and had no answer. She leaned back on the couch in the lunch room (the beds were all quite full), and toyed with her omnitool as the clock displayed beside the comm gravely counted away the minutes in flashing red numbers that were not terribly reassuring.
All the outside comms were still down. There was no way to get a message beyond Mindoir. Still, after a long time staring at the blinking orangeness of omnitool, she typed up a short message to Kaidan and left it queued up to sent whenever the extranet link was re-established. It was short. Just three little words.
Only thirty minutes to go now. She put the omnitool away, wedged a chair beneath the old-fashioned knob of the lunch room's old-fashioned door, and laid out her uniform. It was her dress uniform, because she hadn't packed a regular one, a fact that almost left her feeling naked. She gave her boots a shine, and changed, paying attention to every button and crease as if she was about to undergo inspection. She slipped a talon into her boot, strapped on her guns, and then added her grenades. Those were the important part. The grenades.
She ran a comb through her hair, tucking the strands behind her ears, and then departed, closing the door softly behind her. She did not stop to speak with anyone. That was the way she wanted it.
She had not been in Mindoir in thirteen years and the town had changed. Yet it was easy enough to find her way to the town square; the opening in the pre-fab buildings where a shrouded statue waited, miraculously still intact, for the unveiling that was supposed to come. Her booted steps echoed on the street. The world was quiet.
She had known many dawns, and dawns were many colours in many worlds. In Mindoir it was pink and purple, sky dusty rose tinged with grey, the night sky, tyrian, faintly receding. The day waited. All around her the world held its breath.
Today there were slaves arrayed in the town square, more than she could count at a quick glance. Their clothing was mismatched and ragged, their hair likewise, mussed by the wind. Their makeshift harnesses, loaded with munition, were wore openly, cobbled together from scraps of leather and metal and explosive, twining about thin frames. Thin fingers curled about switches. Fail deadly.
A comm station was set up before them, and on it the wavering orange hologram of Balak the batarian. Why was so much tech orange? One of these days, when she had time, she would consider the question.
"You came," he said.
"I did," she said. She wished she had braver words. The wind was strong this morning, blowing her hair back from her brow. The slaves trembled and shivered, but did not break ranks. The wind was too strong. And it was blowing the wrong way. "Do you think I'd let you destroy my home?"
Home. What a word. It was a long time since she had had one.
She resisted the urge to look at the slaves, look for familiar faces. She needed to be alert. And the guessing would drive her mad.
"Oh, I know you, Shepard. You'll always take the soft option. But you're still armed, Commander," the batarian remarked. "Planning some treachery?"
"What, and rob you of your moment?" she said. "What would this be without your enemy surrendering her weapons?" The wind was still too strong. An errant gust could destroy their plans. She pulled her sniper rifle from its harness across her back, and tossed it to her feet. The hollow sound of metal against the street arose a dull sick feeling in her stomach.
The batarian's mouth curled in a slow smirk. "Very good, Shepard."
Next her assault rifle; one weapon she rarely used, but had brought anyway. The wind was still too strong. Then her shotgun, from where it rode low across her back. Her father had taught her to use a shotgun. Because you never knew what darkness would come down from the hills.
The wind tugged at her hair. Somewhere, far behind her, someone was screaming "Nonononono…" futilely at the sky. Next her pistol from her hip, clattering down beside the other guns.
The wind stilled a little. If there was ever a time…
It was still blowing, but gentle now. Her hand found the first grenade.
It was still blowing the wrong way.
Almost without thought, she pulled out the grenade slowly, as if to lay it beside the guns, but at the last moment, took a step back, and whipped it toward the mass of gathered slaves.
The wind was blowing the wrong way.
She threw a second, and a third, in the small gasp of breath before the gas reached her, blown toward her by the disobedient wind, thick and choking. She gasped, and staggered, muscles seizing, and the fourth grenade dribbled out of her hand and rolled toward the feet of the slaves.
As she fell, the ground shuddered beneath her, as from an explosion, and she wondered if there had only been two ways after all.
Author's note: I'm terrible. Originally this chapter didn't end with a cilff-hanger but after a lot of agonizing, I decided the original last scene fit better in the next part, and moved it.
Er. On the bright side, the last part is written, and just needs some editing.