Crumbled Ramparts

Kaidan left Garrus in the med-bay with enough alcohol to make a krogan go blind. While the turian was getting patched up, someone had to fill the others in on what was going on. He strode into the briefing room where a few crew members were assembled. Among them were Jacob, Liara, Daryn, Thane, Jack, Grunt, and Samara. The rest were dealing with the gunship that had crashed on the dock. Unsure about what to do with it, the crew members were hauling the thing into the hangar, hitching it to the Hammerhead to drag it in.

"So what's the next step?" Jacob asked as Kaidan entered.

Liara turned her attention to her friend. "Kaidan, what did you find out when you confronted the Shadow Broker's agent?" If the others heard what he had to say, maybe they could all put their heads together and come up with something.

"Shepard wasn't at any of the locations. The Shadow Broker just wanted us to think that to lure us away from the Normandy. Once we were all away from the ship, they were going to attack and likely kill anyone who returned."

"And why haven't they launched their assault yet?" Thane asked. If what Alenko said was true, then there was no reason why they shouldn't have all been dead or captured.

Kaidan shrugged. "They still might. But I think we managed to kill enough of their men to put a hold on their plans."

"Go team!" Jack roared aggressively, giving Grunt a mighty chest bump to show her enthusiasm.

"Still," Jacob continued, eyeing the biotic girl warily, "They're not going to wait forever. The Shadow Broker can probably trace where the gunship went down, leading 'em right to us. We need to get a plan in action immediately."

The gunship. Kaidan had an idea. One that actually had a shot at succeeding.

Shepard stared blankly down at the floor, desolately contemplating the very short remainder of her life. She was no longer bound by her hands and dangled from the chains. Instead, she'd been moved to a sitting position onto a cold metal folding chair. Her wrists were wrenched behind her back and cuffed, her ankles shackled together. She blinked once, the sweaty, bloody tendrils of her hair sticking to her face. She tried to remember the last time she saw the light of day. And failed.

When she heard the door open, she looked up hopefully, praying that it was Tayir come to finish her off. But it wasn't. She groaned.

"Hi there, Shep." Kamala was practically bubbling with excitement. Her lilac skin seemed to glow, and even as Shepard let her eyes drift shut, there was a faint imprint of the asari's silhouette in Shepard's mind. "Oh, come on. Don't be such a bore. There's still so much to do!" Shepard didn't move. Maybe if sleep took her, death would soon follow. Of course, that cursed Ardat-Yakshi didn't let her have a single moment of peace. "Tell you what: if you cooperate, I'll tell you something about your dear Officer Vakarian."

Kamala knew that mentioning the turian's name was risky, but she had to get Shepard's guard down somehow. There were still some final barriers within the commander left to penetrate, and Kamala had to be thorough in order for them to achieve their objective.

Just as expected, Shepard's eyes snapped open. "Garrus?" she rasped. "Is he -"

But before the words could even leave her mouth, Kamala's eyes had turned pitch black and she was inside Shepard's head once more. This time, she left no stone unturned. Nothing was safe from the asari as she tore through all of Shepard's memories, happy and unhappy alike.

Shepard was completely unprepared for the sudden onslaught and the glimpses of her past were like sand dripping through Kamala's fingers. Everything that the commander had ever done was lost to the Ardat-Yakshi, her every thought violated by the mere presence of an intruder.

Then, without warning, Kamala was reeling. Inside Shepard's mind was something so dark and awful that it was absolutely impenetrable. Memories of... Reapers. Not just memories. They were in the present and, most frightening of all, taking their hold on the future. Cold and all-consuming. Civilizations being torn apart, lives utterly and thoughtlessly decimated. Everything was going to end in an unstoppable slaughter. Kamala couldn't handle the pain and the terror. Her hold on Shepard's mind started to waver.

Shepard sensed that tiny bit of leverage like a shark sniffing out a single drop of blood in a vast ocean. She forced more memories at Kamala, each more horrible than the last: the raging, messy violence on Torfan, and the corpses of children on Eden Prime reanimating faster than Shepard could cut them down with her shotgun. The fear of knowing that she was going to die slowly and painfully as each of her breaths slipped away through a tiny hole in her suit. Unstoppable swarms of insects, plagues of locusts devouring colonies at a time, sentencing them to be dragged away by larger, more fearsome insects. Scene after scene of gore, horror, and destruction were played straight from Shepard's memory. Finally, Kamala could take no more. She was physically thrown away from Shepard, her lithe body thudding loudly on the ground.

They were both panting. Shepard's bloodshot eyes met Kamala's, the murky blackness fading back to pink. "You have no idea who you're dealing with."

Kamala was dizzy. She'd never been forced out of anyone's mind before. She felt sick. "Shut up!" The images were burned onto the inside of Kamala's eyelids. The new, awful memories had stuck with her, just like all the others she'd glimpsed. "Get out of my head!" Kamala tried to fight back against the horrific images, but they overwhelmed her, drowned and choked her. Visions of Shepard's past bit into Kamala like a rabid varren, scratching at her skin with its claws. The stark, vibrant violence and the knowledge of the galaxy's impending peril threatened to destroy Kamala from the inside out, like trying to smother a raging flame with her bare hands.

Shepard felt triumphant. On the battlefield of her mind, she'd been able to win back all the territory she'd lost in one fell swoop. Not even one of the galaxy's most vicious Ardat-Yakshi could subdue the great Commander Shepard. She tested her restraints, then wobbled to her feet. Her wrists and ankles were shackled, but she still had enough room to move forward. The only thought in her mind was that she had to kill Kamala. End the Ardat-Yakshi's life for what she'd done.

Shepard hadn't even had time to gather any dark energy to strike a blow when the door slammed open. It was the turian, Varick, flanked by Tayir and another troll of a krogan. She spotted a Somnex Four tranq gun in his hands, and before he could pull the trigger, Shepard knocked it out of his hands with a throw field. The biotic attack also hit the krogan, sending him sailing back into the hall with a yelp of surprise and pain. Shepard glanced down at her hands. She had no idea her biotics were so strong. She whipped her head right back up, ready to deal out another attack.

Before she could release the energy, Tayir fired the gun in his hands. Shepard was half-expecting a missile to blow her apart but instead, a net whizzed through the air. The force of the net colliding with her body and wrapping around it brought her to the ground, her hands entangled in the cord and unable to defend. Varick dashed to the other side of the room to retrieve the tranq gun.

Kamala had other ideas for Shepard. She would not let her power be undermined, not after all the years Kamala had spent gathering victims and absorbing their life force. Shepard was just a human. And humans could be broken.

Shepard was sucking air into her lungs, preparing herself for the haze of the knockout gas, when suddenly Kamala leapt on top of her, crushing her ribs. The last thing Shepard heard before Kamala opened the link again was Varick shouting angrily and the thudding of Tayir's boots on the metal drain.

This time was different from the previous ones. Kamala wasn't looking for anything. Instead, she was showing Shepard things, turning her mind into a projector while Shepard's was the screen.

The opening scene was a pan-over of Nos Astra. It wasn't long ago, Shepard could tell. In fact, it was only a few minutes in the past. Kamala was showing her what had happened after Garrus refused to stop searching for her. Her teammates were spreading out all over the city to look for her. Shepard felt a flash of fear and dread. She saw Zaeed and Samara. The two of them were being chased by the Shadow Broker's troops through the streets of the metropolis. Zaeed was breathing hard, drenched in sweat. He couldn't round a corner fast enough and was gunned down mercilessly. His unseeing eyes stared blankly up at the sky. Samara tripped over a cobble stone. Her ankle was broken. She turned around, saw Zaeed, and shrieked. A second later her body jerked unnaturally as she was riddled with bullets, then she too went still.

Thane and Grunt were taking cover back to back by the edge of a marble fountain. But they couldn't hold out for long: they were overwhelmed on all sides by soldiers in black. Grunt saw that there was no chance of survival. His krogan honor spurred him forward, sent him charging into the Broker's ranks with a deafening roar. He didn't get far. Several shotgun blasts took out his legs. He crumpled in a bloody mass. Thane started to sprint away, but before he could, he was caught by a helmeted batarian. Thane struggled, but another batarian grabbed his other arm. The two of them held him under the water, bubbles rising to the surface as he thrashed. It only took moments for his life to slip away.

Dragging a wounded Mordin forward, Jack crashed through a deserted alley. The salarian was missing an arm and blood coated his usually pristine white lab suit. One of Jack's eyes was swollen shut with a gash cutting straight through it. She couldn't see right. She missed the proximity sensor at the approaching end of the alley. Surprise barely had time to register on their faces before Jack and Mordin were blown to chunky bits when the trap was activated.

Shepard tried to scream, tried to throw up some kind of mental defense. But Kamala yielded no slack. Miranda and Jacob were making their way through a production factory. They came to a locked door and while Jacob tried frantically to hack through it, Miranda watched his back. She held the Broker's forces off for a bit, but she soon ran out of ammo. With one bullet left, she put the heavy pistol in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Jacob failed to get through the door. He whirled around and saw Miranda. He fell to his knees, a sob wracking his chest, and clutched her body. He died with her in his arms.

As the ground level of an electricity plant flooded with black-clad soldiers, Tali and Legion took to a metal fire-escape for salvation. They made it up one set of stairs before Tali's foot caught on a metal grate, sending her sprawling. Her arm reached up towards Legion, begging for his help. Legion didn't look back as a hand seized Tali's ankle and she was dragged back down. He made it to the top of the fire-escape, but the doorway he was about to sprint through was occupied by a krogan. The armored soldier headbutted Legion off the stairwell, sending him sprawling onto an electric fence down below. Legion's circuits shorted, sparking, then his optic nerve blinked out for good.

Shepard got a flash of the Normandy, sterling silver and gray beneath the lights of the dock. Then the Broker's army boarded it, blowing the door open with heavy ordinance. The troops swept through easily, killing anything living. Joker's skull was bashed in by the butt of a rifle as he tried to hobble away. A few crew members, including Liara, Kasumi, and Dr. Chakwas were murdered execution-style, forced onto their knees and shot in the head.

Shepard thought the agony was coming to an end. But then she was hit with the image of Garrus and Kaidan. Her heart throbbed at the sight of them climbing out of the wreckage of the Kodiak, its cockpit bearing the lead- and glass-filled body of Engineer Donnelly. Leaving the shuttle behind, the pair sprinted across an exposed rooftop in hopes of reaching some cover. Their heels were sprayed with incendiary rounds and for a second it looked like Kaidan was a goner, but Garrus grabbed him by the elbow and jerked him inside a roof access door. Tripping nearly all the way down, they managed to get down to the ground level of the building. A flash of hope fluttered within Shepard. Were they going to live? They had to. If she died and the rest of her team was gone, just let Kaidan and Garrus live.

But it seemed that even that was too much to ask for. A horde of Broker troops broke through the ground floor entrance, leaving no chance of escape. Kaidan and Garrus seemed to realize this as well. They unholstered their assault rifles with a heavy sense of undertaking, ready to make their last stand.

The firefight didn't last long. They soon ran out of ammo, and after that, Kaidan's biotics couldn't delay the inevitable for more than a few seconds. Defenseless, they were dragged out of cover by the burliest of the Broker's soldiers. The two of them were more badly beaten that Shepard had ever seen. Kaidan had taken several bullets to the abdomen and it was impossible for him to remain upright. Garrus's face-paint had become indistinguishable from his own blood. One of his arms was tucked into his side, rendered useless by the spray of an assault rifle. Shepard could only watch as they were brought to face the remainder of the Broker's forces, a flood of useless emotion paralyzing her. She couldn't help them. They were going to die.

Kaidan was killed first, a booming shotgun blast finding its mark in his chest. Shepard felt as if she were the one who had been shot. He collapsed to the ground, flecks of blood on his face, brown eyes wide open. All he'd ever wanted to do was make peace with her, and now he was dead. She'd never even told him goodbye.

Garrus jumped to his feet, towards his friend, but one of the soldiers stepped forward and prevented him from getting any closer. Garrus drew back. For a moment, his vivid blue eyes seemed to focus right on Shepard, somehow transcending the barriers between them to say, "I'm sorry, Shepard." And then he was gone, too. Nothing was left. Nothing at all.

Kamala broke the connection and moved away from Shepard. Varick seized her by the shoulder. "What the hell did you just do?"

Kamala looked down at Shepard. The commander was conscious, but motionless. There was a empty expression on her face and she appeared to be entirely defeated. The woman on the floor was only the ruin of the great Commander Shepard.

"I destroyed the final barrier." The siege of Shepard's mind had finally come to an end. She was completely at the mercy of her triumphant conqueror.