It was like playing chess: she delayed them, they delayed her. She destroyed one of their facilities, they claimed a large population. She fouled their plans, they made her pay for it while they constructed a new one. It was like chess, or a fencing match. For every blow a parry, for every attack a counter.
But she was wearing out, was running out of ways to block them.
She threw the demoralizing thought out of the sandbagged entrenchment in her mind. Kenson was dead, comms needed to be put back online.
There's no forgiveness for what you've done!
On that she and Kenson could agree, but with a different 'what you've done' in mind.
She threw that behind her sandbagged portion of consciousness, too. Despair would slow her reactions, cause her to make mistakes. She couldn't afford mistakes. She couldn't bear it—for the few minutes she'd live if she failed—if all those lives extinguished to no purpose.
She needed this to succeed. It had to.
Fortunately, she'd chewed through most—if not all—the personnel at the facility. They were down to mechs—light combat models since no one, apparently, remained to drive the big hulks.
The mass relay loomed ahead, impossibly huge beyond the horizon and drawing closer. She knew, logically, that the asteroid moved at ridiculous speeds. However, given the scope of 'space' in a galactic sense, the rock—the baseball through the window—moved slowly, gracefully.
She could see the comm tower. This was it…there was still time…
She loaded the warming recording she'd made while in the lift. It was short and to the point: all residents of the Bahak System. An asteroid collision with the mass relay is imminent. Get out while you can. Repeat: get out now. She set the playback to loop. It was all she could do…
"Joker?" Part of her seemed to die as she hailed her ship. "Shepard to Normandy. Joker, do you read me?"
Did she deserve to get out…she could still tell him to cut bait and run, that she couldn't make it out in time…
"Shepard."
Shepard's mouth froze, open to repeat the hail. She turned, very slowly, her words low, almost a whisper, "Joker, come get me."
She found herself looking at a hologram of a Reaper, much like Sovereign in design but unique unto itself. She could not be certain, but instinct told her this was the Reaper they had dubbed Harbinger, the thing coordinating the Collectors. Something about them matched.
Despite impending death, despite the impending massacre, Shepard steeled herself with reserves she didn't know she had. This…thing…wouldn't have the satisfaction of knowing it got to her, that it landed a blow, the damage from which she couldn't yet quantify.
'Next time you want me, come in person.' Her hissed defiance before knifing the avatar echoed in her mind.
"Ah, you got my message, did you?" There was no actual stopping the Reapers from showing up, but she would not give them the satisfaction of seeing fear, doubt, anything other than what the situation demanded. Not this obsessive freak. In the same way her own defiance came back to her mental ears, so too did the various avatars' canned threats about knowing pain and fear.
She walked up to where the hologram hovered, her expression drawn into tight lines.
"You have become an annoyance. You fight against inevitability. Dust struggling against cosmic winds."
"Did I hear emphasis on 'dust'?" Shepard asked. "Can a machine even get annoyed?" She couldn't let this thing distract her. It would try to keep her talking, make her miss the Normandy's flyby…assuming the Normandy even got her message.
"This seems a victory to you. A star system sacrificed. But even now your greatest civilizations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to be harvested."
"Maybe they have in the past, but not this time. We killed Sovereign, we've stalled you. If you want a war, bring your lunch: you'll need it." Much of it was bravado, and hope, but she would rather die than admit it. If she didn't believe they could be stopped no one else would. Her inner resolve firmed up under this new assertion.
"Know this as you die in vain: your time will come. Your species will fall. Prepare yourself…for the Arrival."
"Shepard, Normandy inbound for pickup." Beyond the hologram, Shepard saw the Normandy swoop past.
"Prepare yourself…for disappointment, you synthetic asshole." Shepard took off at a sprint, pushing every ounce of energy she had into keeping upright and keeping up momentum. The Normandy was so close…
She jumped onto the cargo bay's loading ramp, which immediately began to close.
"Get us out of here!" she shouted.
"To what coo-" EDI began.
Shepard didn't think as she raced up to the CIC, shouting the first system name she could think of. "Omega!"
'Omega.' The last letter of the ancient Greek alphabet.
She burst into the CIC, watched the galaxy map's array of systems with mass relays. Suddenly, the Bahak system's cluster began to ripple, then it went dark. "Are we out of the system?" Shepard asked, her voice taut and low.
"Yes, Shepard," EDI answered with such succinctness that Shepard was grateful.
Shepard said nothing, merely turned around, aware of the silence, and strode into the elevator. She entered the Loft, looked around, but found that she had neither tears nor spleen to vent. This must be what an inert molecule felt like. It was, but it wasn't. It was something but it was also nothing.
"EDI, set secondary course for Illium. When we reach a comm buoy, patch me through to Liara. We're…there's going to be another disembarkation." The words were so calm, too calm.
"Course set, Commander."
Shepard closed her eyes, walked into her bathroom, and looked at herself in the mirror. It was like looking into a painting, not a reflection. The eyes held a deadened look, the face held no expression. She'd escaped and yet she hadn't.