~Author's Note~ Just for those that don't know, the dark energy plot as I described it in the previous chapter was the original ending for ME3, when Drew Karpshyn was still leading the writing team, (this was before ME3 was even under development, of course, as Drew left prior to ME2's completion). Originally, that was the ultimate choice- sacrifice humanity, or deny the Reapers and meet your fate on your own terms. For reasons unknown, this storyline was scrapped, (although as late as May 2011, Casey Hudson seemed to indicate what we have as our current storyline was not ME3's plot), and the sorry ending we got instead was substituted.
There will be one more chapter after this.
Enjoy the chapter.
Shepard stared at the hologram of her enemy, deep in thought. "Why can you not tell some of our leaders what you have told me?"
"They are incapable of belief, Shepard. The only reason that we can show you as we did is because your mind has been fundamentally altered by contact with the Prothean beacon- technology that was based on a blueprint we left for them. To do so with any other sentient being would most likely result in irreparable brain damage."
Garrus spoke up. "You can't honestly be considering handing over the entirety of humanity to these things, Shepard? We can fix this problem, together. We don't need them."
Harbinger's tone was derisive. "Every civilization that came before you that has been ascended has been working on this problem for a million years or more. Our combined knowledge is incapable of solving it. And you believe that the races of this galaxy, as divided as they are, can solve a problem the Reapers cannot? That is utter foolishness."
She faced Harbinger, her eyes set. "I'll do it." She ignored Garrus' shocked exclamation and continued. "If this is truly the only way to save us from galactic annihilation... but the fleets are constantly moving around, and even I do not know where their current location is. I'll contact them, tell them we've discovered a vulnerability or something, tell them to come to Sol so we can destroy you. For your part, you should probably bring as many Reapers here as you can. After all, if knowledge is what is necessary, then any losses on your- our side, at this point, would be a potential disaster. If you can crush the fleets without a single loss, then that would be best."
"Your point is well-taken, Shepard. We knew you would see things our way. We shall bring as many as we deem necessary for the task. This is for the good of the galaxy. You are doing the right thing."
"Don't placate me, Harbinger. I am doing what is necessary. It is hardly the right thing. Shepard out."
The console dimmed, and then Harbinger's image vanished. Shepard let out a deep sigh of relief.
A three-fingered hand grabbed her chin and turned her face so that she was staring deep into Garrus' blue eyes. He stared at her intently for a few seconds, then dropped her face. She rubbed her chin, and glanced at him, questioning.
"I don't understand. I thought for sure you had been indoctrinated when that thing did... whatever it did. But you're not. Why are you doing this?"
She met his eyes. "I do what is necessary to save us, Garrus."
"I refuse to let you sacrifice yourself for some vague ideal of the greater good."
She grinned, flashing her teeth. "I have no intention of sacrificing myself, Garrus."
"Oh, just the rest of humanity? Is that really what you're going to do, Shepard? Work with these things?" He shook his head.
She grinned wider. "Oh please, Garrus. You know me better than that, surely."
He stared, puzzled. She gave him a cocky grin and then headed back to the galaxy map. He followed, still not entirely understanding, but trusting that Shepard hadn't gone completely insane, as he had thought.
The instant Shepard set foot in the room, she called out to the geth. "Kerath. You got that virus ready?"
"It is in the systems of the Old Machines, Shepard-Commander. They cannot detect it until we send the activation codes."
"EDI. You got control of that cargo ship?"
"Affirmative, Shepard. It contains an extremely large quantity of nuclear warheads, and other weapons with a mass output of over-"
Shepard cut her off. "So we don't want to be anywhere near this area when that thing goes off. Got it."
Joker's voice came over the comm. "There are more Reapers incoming, Commander. We should probably cloak again."
"Negative, Joker. They won't fire on us. EDI, open a channel to the fleet. Just tell them we need to be seen contacting them. Leave it open for three minutes, then shut it off."
"Understood, Shepard."
Slowly, Garrus began to understand. Shepard bent over the galaxy map, staring down at Earth.
For the next half-hour, groups of Reapers poured through the Charon Relay, until the number of forces within the Sol system were nearly doubled from their previous count.
The flow slowed to a trickle, and then stopped altogether.
"Harbinger is hailing again, Shepard."
"Put him through, Joker. Just to my headset."
Harbinger's voice came over the speaker inside her helmet. "The rest of our forces would take a long time to get here. This is more than sufficient to crush the Allied fleets without any loss on our part. Send them. We shall be waiting."
He cut out without waiting for a response.
Shepard whispered under her breath, and only Garrus was close enough to hear her. "This is for you, Ash."
Then, raising her voice, "Kerath. Activate it."
The entity known as Harbinger was millions of years old. It no longer kept track of its exact age, as such details were irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, but it had survived a long, long time. Thus, it was familiar with the concept of betrayal. It even expected some sort of trickery from Commander Shepard, as this probability had been calculated to be greater than 62%, so when its systems told it there was a virus that was preventing any faster than light travel, it was not surprised.
Harbinger was never surprised. But there was no reason to fear that such a virus could do more than hamper its movements for a short while. Even the fact that the virus was fleet-wide was irrelevant. The pathetic races of this galaxy could do nothing that was capable of harming it or its comrades. It dismissed the virus out of hand, allowing its standard firewalls to handle the pathetic invader.
The chances of the galaxy's overall survival was approaching the 10% mark, however, and would undoubtedly drop thanks to Commander Shepard's betrayal. It was rather ironic that it was she who would be responsible for the end result, when the organic races of this galaxy thought she was some sort of hero.
It watched impassively as Shepard and the Normandy leapt from the Sol system via the Charon Relay. A typical organic. How disappointing. For a few short moments, it had thought that perhaps Shepard had been made to see the big picture. Apparently this was not the case. The virus was undoubtedly to make certain the Reapers could not follow, but they had no need to follow. The outcome of this war had always been inevitable. Shepard's betrayal merely prolonged the struggle a short while, but the only real concern was that she would prolong it just enough to cause the end of the galaxy. They would have to step up operations in other sectors to compensate.
It was just after its defensive matrix reported that it would purge the virus from its systems in 3 minutes when Harbinger's sensors detected a massive explosion at the outermost extremity of the Sol system.
Perhaps Commander Shepard and her ship had failed to make the jump and instead ran into the relay. Such a thought was amusing, although highly unlikely.
It was only when the wave of energy reached the gas giant Jupiter and redoubled in strength that Harbinger realized what exactly had occurred. But that was simply not possible. The destruction of their home planet and nearly ten billion of their people would almost certainly spell the end of the human race. They will have taken far too many losses to recover, at least enough to be a force in the galaxy. Such a sacrifice- none of these organic races would do this.
Surely its sensors must be wrong.
It shut them down to re-calibrate and attempt to diagnose the error.
The wave of destruction reached it thirty seconds later.
Some of the Reapers' defensive systems allowed them to survive the initial blast of energy from the Relay's destruction.
None of them survived the ensuing supernova when the wave impacted Sol's star.
Officially, the war did not end for another six years. There was still mop-up fighting, along with the gruesome task of putting down the indoctrinated servants of the Reapers, who were now nothing more than mindless husks with no orders from their masters.
There were still a few Reapers in the outer systems, but the vast majority of those were annihilated within the first standard year, as the fleet could take them down easily when they were by themselves, or at the most, in pairs.
Unofficially, everyone knew the war ended the day Commander Shepard blew up the Charon relay, eliminating close to 80% of the enemy's forces in one strike. The reaction from the surviving members of the human race, of which there were few, was mixed. Some called for a trial, but this was shot down by the Council, who stated that Shepard acted under their authority as a Spectre, and thus she could not be tried by a human military tribunal. While this was not technically correct, Admiral Hackett did nothing to disavow the Council's statement, and the movement lost ground and finally ceased altogether.
Most agreed that the actions Shepard took were a necessary sacrifice, something that had to be done.
Even before the war had been declared officially over, Shepard and the Systems Alliance led an initiative designed to inform the galaxy of the threat of dark energy. The quarians and the geth went back to Haestrom's system, side by side, to gather more data.
There was widespread optimism that with the combined might of the races, the problem would be solved before Harbinger's 500-year time limit was even close.
As for the races themselves?
The Krogan, led by Urdnot Wrex and Urdnot Bakara, returned to their home planet of Tuchanka after Wrex declared that "If any more of those squid show up, just point us to them and get out of the way." Under their leadership, the Krogan gained a seat on the Council 60 years after the conclusion of the Reaper War. There were some mutterings that Wrex had threatened to move the Krogan's colonization efforts into Salarian space if his people were not granted a seat, but when Khalisah Al-Jilani tried to get his side of the tale, she was headbutted into a wall and was hospitalized for a week. After that, the media assumed that subject was off-limits when talking to Wrex.
The first child they had was indeed a girl, and Wrex did carry through on his promise and named her Mordin.
The Turians were the last to regain their homeworld, as two Reapers remained on Palaven's surface. A crucial strike, led by the Normandy, finally broke through one of the Reaper's shields and destroyed it. The second fell victim to a computer virus that lowered its shields for a span of only fifteen seconds, but that was more than enough time for the Turians to test a new weapon on it. To say they were pleased with the results would be a significant understatement.
The Salarians were split after the war, into two factions. One of these factions supported the Dalatross, and maintained that the cure for the Krogan genophage was a mistake.
The other wished to make amends for the mistakes of the past, and chart a different course for the future. It was this faction that won out after the Dalatross mysteriously disappeared one day.
The Asari took a long time to rebuild Thessia, and refused to allow most outsiders onto the planet until renovations were complete. There were rumors that they did allow one outsider onto the world, and that the Shadow Broker brought them plenty of materials to help with the rebuilding.
Ten years after the War, they finally opened the planet to intergalactic trade and commerce again, and the renovations they had done made Thessia a very popular tourist destination for years afterward.
The Humans never did settle on an official "new" home world, but instead continued to spread out around the galaxy. They lost much of their power with the destruction of their planet, and took a long time to regain their former strength.
The Quarians and the Geth spread out from Rannoch in the ensuing years after the Reaper War, and their combined technological prowess made them easily one of the richest races in the galaxy in a very short while. While they no longer lived in their ships, they were still the best engineers in the galaxy, and if you really wanted quality workmanship, you went to a quarian-owned shipyard.
The crew of the Normandy went their various ways after the War.
Garrus Vakarian was offered the position of Primarch, after Victus accepted the job as the new Turian councilor, but he turned them down, saying he was done with politics for the time being. His current location is unknown.
Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, as she took to calling herself, turned from designing ships to designing architecture. She is currently in business on Rannoch and is one of the wealthiest realtors, known especially for her ability with beachfront houses, even some that are designed in the waters of Rannoch themselves.
Liara T'Soni continued her work as the Shadow Broker for twenty years, before turning it over to Feron. She set out into the galaxy, determined to explore new worlds and find new information on the races that had come before them.
Jack become the leader of a new school designed to train human biotics. While some of the visitors are shocked at her methods, and the language that every student on school grounds seems to enjoy, none can argue with her results.
Kasumi Goto vanished after the War, though the black market saw an increase in items for sale, notably a claim that said the original head of the statue of liberty was for sale. Which is, of course, ridiculous.
Samara was last seen on Thessia, though there is speculation that she has left that planet in search of a monastery.
Zaeed Massani formed another merc group, calling themselves the Blue Squid, and based it off of Omega, much to Aria T'Loak's intense displeasure.
Jacob Taylor joined up with C-Sec after a new Citadel was constructed by the combined efforts of the races. The ongoing joke was that at least they didn't have to worry about this model moving.
Joker continued flying for the rest of his days, even consenting to teach at the Alliance Flight School for a few years, although he gained a reputation as the most "hard-ass teacher you will ever have" according to a prominent graduate. EDI stayed with him, even then, although many of the students complained about her motherly tendencies. (Joker would agree with them, if he wasn't afraid of being overheard.)
Grunt became legendary among the Krogan and he is credited as having tracked down and destroyed the final Reaper within the galaxy. To hear him tell it, he did this by headbutting it into submission.
James Vega eventually became a Spectre, after having successfully completed his N7 training. His way of solving sensitive diplomatic issues made Councilor Velarn publicly wish for Shepard to come back.
Miranda Lawson stumbled into her sister's home ten years after the end of the War, exhausted, wounded, and bruised, but with a smile on her face. When Orianna pressed her as to its cause, she simply replied: "The son of a bitch is finally dead." She became a prominent agent in the special arms forces of the Systems Alliance, known especially for her dedication in removing Cerberus operations.
Commander Katelyn Shepard was offered a promotion to Captain immediately upon the end of the war, but turned the promotion down. A year after the end of the War, she resigned from the Military. Her current whereabouts are also unknown, though there are several rumors that she has been spotted in the company of a certain Turian, roaming the galaxy.