Chapter 45 – You Reap What You Sow
Normandy was screaming, her whole body quivering under the pressure against her sides, and Shepard clutched the rachni egg to her chest as feelings from past memory reared up and grabbed her nervous system, rendering her immobile.
"Shepard!?"
Cortez's voice broke through the internal bubble she hadn't realised she was in. His hands on her arms gave her a warmth she needed, and the concern in his vivid blue eyes snapped her back to reality. This wasn't then, and nor would she let it be. Her crew needed Admiral Shepard. With that thought, self-control was hers again.
"Abandon ship!" ordered Shepard into her comm, but Cortez hesitated. After giving him a reassuring smile that said she was fine now, he immediately went to start the Kodiak, and Shepard grabbed the frightened asari's elbow and led her inside the shuttle.
"Take this." Shepard carefully handed the asari the egg. "Protect it with your life."
"I will," came the hushed reply, the egg held reverently.
Turning from the shuttle, Shepard quickly shoved on her armour and helmet, her attention on ensuring the others were on route as she rushed into the elevator. "Adams?"
"I'm just putting out a fire. If this goes now, we're screwed before we can get out of the bay."
Not liking the sound of that, Shepard nearly barrelled into Massani as he entered the opening elevator.
"Oi! Where do you think you're going?" Massani demanded, gripping hold of her wrist. "We're getting off the ship, remember? Because you decided to go for the goddamn suicidal option."
"As the captain of the ship, I'm the last to leave," she stated, wrenching her hand out of his grasp and heading through the adjacent doors. "Get on the shuttle," she shouted back. From the muffled swearing, she guessed he'd submitted.
In Engineering, several panels were sparking furiously, but it was a fire spreading along the wall of an important drive-core cooling system that was threatening their immediate survival. With the core already at capacity, losing the cooling system would cause it to over-heat and explode. Normally, the in-built extinguishers would rain down the pressurised gas that would starve the flames of oxygen, but they clearly weren't working.
Adams discarded an empty hand-held extinguisher and reached for another, but Shepard got to it first.
"I've got this," she assured him, handing him a mask instead. "Head to the shuttle."
"But Shepard-."
"It's not up for debate, Adams. Go."
He faltered, but he was life-long Alliance, and he conceded to her order while she set to work on defeating the fire.
"Edi. Status?"
"Emergency broadcast has been sent. Hull breaches imminent in multiple locations-."
"I meant you and Joker. Tell me you're heading out."
"I am experiencing problems maintaining a connection with the ship. It's made reinforcing the shielding a harder task. Jeff has been assisting me, and it has delayed our departure."
"Leave it. It won't help Normandy, and the rachni…have done enough. We can't save them. But you can save yourselves. Is the cockpit escape pod clear?"
"Negative. All pods are currently blocked by the Leviathans."
"Then get to the shuttle. Now."
"Yes, Shepard."
Concentrating on the fire distracted her from the sound of rending metal.
O
"Joker."
"I know, I know," he sighed at Edi's verbal nudge. His stomach was churning at the damage reports that were racing down his screen. His baby was being crushed between two behemoths, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. The Leviathans causing it were most certainly dead now; it was purely their size and momentum that carried them on their destructive paths.
Smoothing his fingers fondly over the armrests of his seat, he was reminded of what this ship had meant the first time he'd sat here: a second chance. He'd taken it with both hands and had never looked back. Hell, Rorie had even been born in this very space – his haven. He smiled at the memory.
Another terminal blew somewhere behind him. He had to go. Standing, he stuck on a breathing mask and started to follow Edi. "The next ship better have leather seats," he grumbled, trying to ignore the obvious buckling in the hull to his right. "Perhaps I should make it a condition of my leaving. Shepard will agree to anything to keep me safe…"
"Blackmailing her with your life would be…wicked."
"Yeah, but it's leather." He gave one last look back at his station and did a double-take in horror at what he saw through the window. "Holy shit!" Still a way off, but rapidly getting bigger, the last Leviathan was moving straight towards them. Swiftly backtracking to his seat, he hit the comm. "Shepard! We've got a big problem!"
"Bigger than this?"
Joker could hear the extinguisher going off in the background. "Shocker, right? But our worst case scenario just got worse! Our watcher just chose to join the fun!"
"Shi-."
She was cut off mid-curse, and Joker checked his screen.
"We have lost all communications," provided Edi.
"Shit," Joker finished for Shepard. He looked up. The Leviathan was coming for them….
"We have to leave," prompted Edi.
"I can't. Not yet. That thing will be here before we get to the shuttle bay. If it impacts us, it's game over for certain. And that bastard knows it. But if I stay here, wait for it to get within firing range, then I might just be able to slow it down to give you all a chance to get out on the shuttle."
"Jeff. I will do that. Go."
"But-."
"I will be re-integrated within Shepard's next ship," Edi said with confidence. "My existence is not at threat. Just this hot body," she quipped.
"Damn it, Edi, not the time for jokes," Joker murmured, knowing there was nothing to counter her logic with. "Okay." Relinquishing his seat once again, Joker couldn't look at her as he started to walk away. "Speak with you soon." Though he knew he wouldn't really lose Edi, he had to try hard not to think he was leaving a friend behind.
O
The fire doused, Shepard threw the extinguisher aside, ignoring more overloading panels and short-circuiting terminals on her way out. They'd lost communications and now she had no idea what was happening. Was Joker evacuating? She hoped so, but she had to be sure.
He'd painted a damning picture of what was happening out there – she guessed she'd pissed off the Leviathan more than she'd realised. It was making sure she wasn't going to survive. Maybe, if she hurried, she could use the ship's guns…
But before she got to the exit, part of the hull gave way, sending debris and a huge beam collapsing onto her.
O
"Jeff!" yelled out Edi, and despite the chaos around him as he hurried through the crumpling CIC, Joker jumped at the alarm in her voice. "Shepard is in trouble on Engineering deck!"
"Shit, shit, shit." Joker resumed his fast pace towards the elevator. Without any ability to alert the others, he was all Shepard had.
"You won't be able to assist," called out Edi, and Joker spun to look all the way up the corridor to where she stood. "I will have to go. It will require my strength."
"Then go!" Without hesitation he started back for the cockpit.
"Jeff-," started Edi, as they passed.
"Just get her out of here, Edi." He was more than willing to give up his life for Shepard. "Don't give her a choice. She'll just come up here, trying to talk me out of it, and you can't let her, do you hear me? We both know we have to slow that thing down for the sake of the others, and that has to include her. You've got a free mind. Use it now."
With a single nod, Edi ran crazy-fast to the elevator, and Joker sank into that comforting leather seat and waited with his fingers poised over the controls for the main guns.
O
An incredible pain radiated from her crushed kneecap. Teeth gritted, Shepard put everything she had into trying to move the length of heavy steel from off her leg, but its weight combined with the awkward angle she was at, meant she couldn't budge it at all. She hollered out her frustration at being thwarted by such a simple thing. The downed comms were even more of a nuisance, and her omnitool was refusing to connect to the shuttle, its screen smashed from a direct hit that she was lucky not to have lost her hand to; she had no way of knowing whether Joker had gotten to the shuttle, and no way to tell Cortez to get them all out of here.
A beep inside her helmet sounded as her tool still managed to detect a change in atmosphere and interfaced with her armour to switch over to its own oxygen supply, and Shepard looked over to see the gap in the hull on Normandy's port-side, the dark vacuum beyond sucking the air out of Engineering.
How close was that Leviathan? The hammer above their heads, about to fall at any moment.
She'd been so determined to keep it here…. Had she made a reckless decision? Would it cost the lives of Joker, Cortez and Adams in the process? Edi would be contained within a ship again, and her father would lose an old friend. Then there was the innocent asari messenger, holding the fate of the entire rachni in her hands.
Kaidan and Rorie…. Those two perfect faces were so clear in her mind that it created an overwhelming demand within her not to give up, no matter how futile it might seem.
Shepard reassessed her situation. She might not be able to lift the beam in order to free herself, but maybe she could push it. It would probably crush the rest of her leg and foot in the process once the weight was off her knee, but she'd be somewhat mobile at least.
Placing her free foot against the beam, she took a deep breath and was about to push when she heard the door open – or rather partially open. It jammed, large dents preventing it from sliding into its housing. The cursing from the other side that gave away its owner, didn't stop Shepard's relief.
"Massani. I'd never have believed I'd be happy to see you."
He was kicking at the door until he could widen the gap. "They all say that eventually, darling. It's my animal magnetism."
Shepard could hear the smirk in his voice, but she didn't have time to let him annoy her. "Whatever. Help me out."
Then he was standing over her, arms crossed in superiority, and she was thankful she couldn't see his smug, chuckling face behind the helmet he wore.
"Well, how about this for goddamned irony? Maybe I should leave you behind this time." But he didn't continue basking in the moment - there wasn't time. Getting a grip on the beam, he heaved… but the beam was too heavy. "Fuck me," he puffed. "You're a pain in the bleeding arse, woman. Last goddamned time I'm doing a favour for Steve."
"Just help me slide it."
He bent and had a close look. "Do that and you'll likely lose your lower leg. Definitely your foot."
"It's that or my life."
"True." He braced his back against the beam-.
"Shepard!" Edi ran in, to Shepard's relief, and instantly moved to the beam.
It rose just slightly, but it was all they needed as Massani helped drag Shepard out, who awkwardly got to her feet only to experience eye-wateringly excruciating pain.
"Thanks, Edi," Shepard gasped. "Your timing's impeccable. Is Joker on the shuttle?" She was already making her way out, using the walls to support her in lieu of her damaged left knee.
"…Yes."
"Great. Then let's get the hell out of here."
Once in the corridor, a severed electrical cable swung down from the ceiling it was housed in. Edi pushed Shepard aside and took the full debilitating charge, collapsing as her system was short-circuited. While Massani dealt with the wayward cable, Shepard immediately began dragging Edi's unresponsive frame awkwardly towards the elevator.
"It's just a damned robot. Leave it here," growled Massani.
"Edi saved my life," Shepard snapped, biting down on the vicious pain in her knee as she hauled Edi's heavy frame. "Has done more times than I can count. Thought you knew a few things about loyalty. I'm not leaving her."
"Bloody woman," moaned Massani, then helping to get Edi inside. As an explosion above them rained down material onto the roof of the cab, Massani looked at Shepard uneasily. "Hate small spaces."
O
With no radar to depend on to tell him when his target was in range, Joker had to use his instincts. Just a little closer….
His thumb bashed down to fire the guns, the powerful lasers streaking their white light through the blackness. The Leviathan was slowed to a crawl as the energy forced its way through the creature's skin, and it shuddered in place as though the shock of the hit radiated out of every limb.
"Yeah, the rachni aren't the only ones who can melt your ugly asses," shouted Joker. Then the guns' warning light sounded – one of the few things still functioning. Short bursts were the recommendation when using the heavy guns, not a prolonged one like he was sending out. He had to allow them to cool down before they overheated. Loathe to give the Leviathan time to recover, Joker held his finger down for a few seconds longer before releasing it, the cutting stream instantly disappearing. Joker was already counting down the cooling time in his head – too damn long.
To his dismay, the Leviathan, now with a neat hole burrowed into it, recovered far quicker than the guns did. It changed direction, vanishing into the gloom. It would be back… to hit them from another angle - an angle he couldn't fire directly from. He kept his eyes sharp. Targeting might still work. He flicked it on. With nothing to lock onto, he'd have to do it manually, but it was all he had.
O
Arriving at the shuttle bay, Shepard saw the desperate state it was in. Cortez had moved the Kodiak to the open exit which was the only area not diminishing in size, but what took all of Shepard's attention was the rachni queen, flailing in pain from the metal sheeting that had almost sliced her in half. Her suffering was unacceptable and Shepard grabbed her pistol, nausea and grief rising up at what she had to do. The queen was cognisant enough to understand, lowering her head until it was against the end of Shepard's gun, indicating the best place to end it quickly and cleanly. Pulling the trigger wasn't hard; to hesitate would prolong her pain. The queen collapsed instantly and Shepard imagined herself as a wall of stone. Nothing could get through…. There'd be time to feel later.
Massani was shoving Edi unceremoniously inside the shuttle when Shepard re-joined them.
"Thank God. We were getting worried," Adams said, reaching out to help Shepard up, but she shook her head. The Leviathan was out there, and it would assume she was on board the shuttle. She had to stay, to keep its focus on her.
"Get them out of here, Cortez," Shepard ordered, going to close the hatch.
Steve turned to look at her from his seat with an 'aye, aye' on his lips, but instead frowned. "Get in."
"I can't. That Leviathan will take out the Kodiak easily. But not if I'm here. It wants me dead." Their objections rang on deaf ears as she noticed someone was missing. "Where's Joker?"
It felt like everything inside Shepard drained into a puddle on the floor at her feet. She scanned the shuttle's inhabitants again only to be left with no doubt that her pilot wasn't with them, finally staring at Edi who lay on the floor where Massani had dumped her. "She lied to me…." Shepard whispered in disbelief. Joker had stayed behind…. To deal with the Leviathan? Buy them time?
"I'll check for any escape pods. Maybe he was able to get one away." Cortez's face was deadly serious as he sought for the distress signal the pods emitted as soon as they were released. "Nothing," he sighed.
Outside the shuttle, a falling strut landed close to them; a clanging reminder the situation was getting grimmer every second. "Any word from Hackett?"
"Not yet," answered Cortez, "but they'd need to be close to be picked up by the Kodiak's comm."
They couldn't stay here any longer. "Take everyone out of here, Commander. No arguments." The protests came anyway, but she didn't have time for it, so she simply slammed the hatch shut and banged on it to say she was clear. There was hesitation but Cortez would know there was no point in making an issue of it.
By the time she was at the elevator, the shuttle was slowly escaping the mayhem that still surrounded her. She had to get Joker away from the ship – from her.
To keep the Kodiak's passengers safe, Shepard let in that link, felt the prickle at the back of her neck, and made sure the Leviathan knew she was still on board.
O
Joker's skin crawled with paranoia as he flicked from one camera to another – some still miraculously feeding back their images, others offering nothing but a blackness that wasn't space. It limited his ability to search out the Leviathan, and made him antsy.
Then he was momentarily distracted by the images of what was left of the other Leviathans, now certainly dead. Though the bulk of their bodies still towered upwards, unscathed, the lower part that had invaded the shields was little more than chunks of dark flesh and the more unnatural gleam of wires, with what looked to be brain matter tumbling out like the rachni had reached in and yanked it out. The shields had failed at some point and the rachni floated lifelessly around their prey – their task completed. It was a macabre sight.
Then he noticed the shuttle moving away, and he smiled. Good. Now it was ever more important to man the guns. But something nagged at him. A doubt – a strong one – that put its hands on its hips and tapped its foot with one brow raised, while saying really? You actually think Shepard would have just left you behind? Yeah, right. Nothing would stop her coming for you, least of all Edi.
A panic caused his heart to stutter. Shit! Of course she wouldn't leave! She'd come for him…. Was history going to repeat itself?
That was all the time he had to dwell on it, because the stars began to blink out in the distance. The Leviathan was back.
Fingers racing over the keypad, Joker plotted in targeting coordinates as best as he could estimate. A panel adjacent to him blew, sending hot sparks that singed the skin of his face, but he didn't stop. The target set, he fired, twin rockets shooting out then arcing round to follow the path he'd programmed them to go. Tracking them, Joker was itching to follow them up with another but he had to wait for the next rockets to slide into place. They hit into the side of the Leviathan, knocking it off-course, and Joker whooped with his accomplishment.
'JAM' flashed across Joker's control panel causing his heart to quickly sink: the rocket chamber was blocked. He couldn't fire again. Looking back up, Joker saw the wave of a pulse. Striking out his hand he switched on the PPP just in time, thanking some omnipotent being he didn't believe in that it was also still working.
The pulse rendered ineffective, the Leviathan was moving forward again at speed. With a new sense of doom befalling him, Joker knew they had to leave - now.
O
Shepard wasn't surprised when the cab halted its grinding, crawling ascent, but she sagged anyway. She just wanted to get Joker and go. It made her angry. Forcing open the doors she could see she'd almost made it to the CIC. She'd have to haul herself up.
Something heavy fell onto the elevator, jolting the cab and reducing the size of the gap she needed to get through. Without hesitation, she gritted her teeth and leaped up, her left leg refusing to bend to accommodate her need to use it to manoeuvre herself. Pure determination, arm strength, and her other leg got her waist onto the CIC floor, but the echo of more debris falling down the shaft was an ominous thing as she fought to pull herself the rest of the way through, her unbending leg hindering her escape. Whatever it was, it hit the cab, and she heard something snap. As she sucked in her breath at the sickening expectation of losing her leg after all, Joker was there, grasping her armour and yanking her towards him just as the cab fell and crashed at the bottom of the shaft.
"Shit, Shepard!" griped Joker from where he'd landed on his backside in his haste to drag her back, his fingers still gripped tightly at her shoulders. "You should have abandoned ship!"
Torn between wanting to hug him and throttle the hell out of him, Shepard decided on moving instead. Her knee may as well have actually been on fire as she forced her weight onto it. Grasping Joker's wrist, she pulled him along with her towards the cockpit's escape pod – high-speed propulsion might just force the capsule through the ruined Leviathan on that side. "The ship, yes. Not you. I told you to get on that shuttle," she bit back. "And getting Edi to lie!?" She eyed the dented hull, more grateful than ever for that superior reinforced armour.
"I had to stay-."
"You had to obey orders, Commander." Shepard was battling an awful feeling of dread, as old, long-buried and forgotten feelings surged up and threatened to asphyxiate her with fear again.
Then the powerful impact threw them both to the floor.
O
"I can't do this," murmured Cortez. His stomach was clenched with nausea at having left Shepard. "It feels wrong."
"Then go back," Massani said sharply.
"I'd agree," said Adams, "only it appears we're responsible for a whole race's survival." He looked at the egg the asari was hugging to her chest.
"They're goddamned bugs," sneered Massani. "Who gives a shit?"
"Shepard does."
"That woman doesn't know what's good for her."
Then Cortez was turning the shuttle, like his body had pre-empted his own thought to do so. Was he making the biggest mistake of his life? Was he just going to get all those on board killed? Yet something kept telling him not to detour from his new goal.
"Commander?" questioned Adams.
"I've got to," was all Steve answered. Though he should, he couldn't find it in him to care about the rachni. But he did care about Shepard.
He was relieved when the engineer didn't argue with him.
Completing the U-turn brought him a view that chilled him. The Leviathan had just sheared Normandy in half, bursting through the remains of one of its own race as it emerged. Was he too late? Again?
O
"I'll have it here, daddy." The screen image went sideways as Rorie jumped to another place. "Or here."
Kaidan was doing his best to seem interested in helping his daughter decide where to put the Blasto picture in her bedroom, but he was only too aware from the sudden increase in activity around him and the serious nod from Hackett as the man passed by, that they were about to get in visual range of the Normandy. They'd picked up the distress call a short while ago. "Uh, look honey, I'm sure it'll look great wherever you decide to put it. I really have to go. I'll call you back as soon as I can, I promise."
"Are you coming home soon?"
"I hope so. Now go get ready for bed like grandma told you to, and no more stalling."
"Kay," she sighed, sadly, and Kaidan felt awful, forcing himself to find more patience.
"I'm sorry, honey. We love you very much, don't forget that," he said, gently and with feeling. The smile he got in return was priceless.
"I won't. Love you, too. Night, night, daddy."
"Goodnight, honey. Sweet dreams." When she signed off, he raced through the Command Centre.
The Admiral was standing, alert and proud in front of the large cockpit window, with Garrus, James, Jack, Wrex and Bau at his back. Even the usually unconcerned Grunt was making his way to join them. "We should be getting a visual any second," informed Hackett, as Kaidan came to a stand-still beside him. "Still no communication, though."
Kaidan already knew it had to be bad for Terra to have initiated a distress signal. His heartbeat was loud in his ears. Never before had he felt so damn useless.
O
With her gravity boots keeping her firmly rooted to the CIC flooring, Shepard had raced an air-borne Joker the last few steps, past exploding workstations, and into the so-far unaffected cockpit, sealed as it was by the emergency isolating field, and catching Joker as gravity pulled him back down. He hissed in pain inflicted by the earlier fall, but Shepard was satisfied he was suffering from nothing more than a few broken bones. She went to close the hatch for good measure, the sight beyond clutching at her heart - everything beyond the elevator shaft was now detached. The hatch seemed to voice her feeling for her as it sighed shut.
Spinning, she helped Joker back to his feet and into the pod, but she had one huge worry: the Leviathan. It was still out there. If it thought she was inside, a small pod against a Leviathan had no chance at all…. Making sure Joker was strapped in tight, she cupped his cheek and kissed the other, seeing the fear fill his face as he realised she was saying goodbye.
"Shepard, no!"
"I have to protect you." Doing her damnedest not to feel, she stepped out, ignoring her pilot's pleading, and released the pod, which thankfully went unhindered by the fleshy obstacle.
An incredible calm fell over her then. She sat in her pilot's seat, leaning forward to watch the pod's retreat, and saw the Leviathan returning, heading for the pod. "I'm still here. You can't get rid of me that easily." Just as she'd hoped, the Leviathan changed direction, following that connection it had with her, and most importantly, ignoring Joker.
"You will die."
"We all die. It's just a matter of when," she said casually. A blip sounded from the flickering control panel beneath where her hand rested. Radar. She smiled. Back-up had arrived. "And your time has come."
O
When the first sighting came, it was unbelievable. The ship was in two pieces, small explosions erupting in various locations. Two Leviathans were in tatters, and rachni littered the area around them. Before Kaidan's mind could take in the implications of what he was seeing, he spotted the outline of the third Leviathan.
"There!" he pointed out. "It's making another run at the ship!"
Hackett was on it, shouting out orders that swiftly had several ship formations charging forward.
Garrus stepped forward. "The shuttle."
"Why're they going towards the ship," frowned James.
"They're going back for Shepard," Garrus breathed out.
Kaidan nodded wordlessly. Garrus was right – they both knew Terra and that selfless protectiveness. She'd have stayed to draw the Leviathan from the others.
Then the ships were engaging the Leviathan, and Kaidan was surprised that it didn't try to flee. Maybe it knew it was pointless when it became encircled. One thing was evident: it intended to take Terra with it, as it drove persistently on towards Normandy's front section, despite the combined gunfire from ship after ship that relentlessly struck its gigantic frame.
Those within Hackett's ship could only stare in tense silence as they watched the ships cease fire when the Leviathan closed on Normandy, fearful of hitting the ship – or rather the woman inside it – and causing more damage themselves. The Leviathan was hurt though, maybe mortally; it veered involuntarily from its target.
There were collective gasps as the Leviathan ploughed into the rear of the ship instead, colliding with the drive-core which created a huge explosion that ripped through the entire length, and engulfed the immediate area, including the front section where Kaidan imagined Terra was, and the shuttle which had been closing in. In that moment, everything phased out for Kaidan as he stared out at the swiftly extinguishing remnants of a ship that had been carrying his wife. His heart faltered.
One word whispered through his mind: No….
oOo