10. CHANGE WEAPONS
The Collector ship became grimmer and even more inexplicable as they ascended. Glittering arrays of empty glass tubes lined the walls. Sticky webbing stretched across dead-end corridors. Shepard rounded a corner, took a sharp breath, and held up her fist. Garrus and Miranda came to a halt behind her.
A pile of half-melted human corpses lay heaped in front of them. Torsos, heads, and elbows jutted out of the rotting mass.
A flash of hot pink caught her eye. A body in Phoenix armor, half-buried in flesh. The tip of the soldier's ponytail dangled into a pool of reddish slime. Her swollen face was young, dark-skinned. Pretty.
Garrus stepped closer. "Alliance. She must have been part of the guard force on one of your colonies."
Shepard crouched down and felt along the soldier's neck. The dog tags read Perez, Susana L.
"Horizon, I'd say, judging by the lack of decomposition." Garrus cleared his throat. "Relatively speaking."
An Ashley Williams from a mirror universe. A good soldier stuck in a shit posting on a beautiful backwater of a planet.
Horizon. What a clusterfuck.
The silence of the landing site, the empty prefabs, the pods, the colonists flash-frozen in their horror, only amplified the strange sense of unreality that had been shadowing her all along. Shepard had felt tenuously connected, at best, to her post-Lazarus life.
Then she'd watched herself sliced to pieces in the Praetorian's gaze. Shaken apart in its blastwave.
She'd panicked. Charged ahead on blind instinct, and then gotten herself and her squad the hell out of there.
But if she'd understood back then that death was her ally, not her enemy— if she'd just been able to just keep a level head and a firm hand on the situation— maybe she could have gone back again. Done it right. Saved the colonists. Maybe Kaidan—
It's okay, Commander, a phantom voice murmured in her ear. I don't regret a thing.
Shepard snapped off Private Susana Perez's second dog tag, and pocketed it.
The rabbit hole had bottomed out for her long ago. It was too late now. She'd come too far.
She'd never jumped back further than twenty minutes. Horizon had been over a week ago.
And Virmire— well. Even a supernova probably wouldn't be enough to rewind that.
But the present moment stretched out in front of her, infinite with possibility. Hers to write and rewrite. As many times as it took. She'd get it right this time.
Shepard pressed the soldier's sunken eyelids closed. "Let's move."
The next room was crowded with steel tubing, empty transport pods, vacant operating tables— and one occupied one. Miranda drew in a sharp breath. A glassy grey body lay under a nest of sensors and analysis equipment. The Collector's ropy muscles were slack, its eyes blank, heat signature null. Dead— but intact.
Monitors flickered in the gloom. Miranda stalked over to the nearest console, omni-tool aglow. "EDI. Are you seeing this?"
Shepard watched the exits while Garrus went to rummage inside the medical lockers. A clatter and a surprised noise made her glance back at him. A haphazard collection of guns lay strewn at his feet.
She put her hand on her hip. "Can't take you anywhere, Vakarian."
"Ha." He prodded the pile with his toe. "Seems like the Collectors aren't much for housekeeping."
Shepard bent down to examine a familiar silhouette. "Isn't this the rifle you wouldn't let me buy for you?"
Garrus peered over her shoulder. "So it is. That's the current model, too. Your colonists were well-equipped."
"Shame you're too much of a snob to use one yourself." She hefted it in her hands. Huh. Lighter than she'd expected.
"The Viper's a solid gun. Never said it wasn't. But a specialist deserves a specialized weapon." He patted his Mantis fondly.
Shepard was silent.
"What is it?"
"Look." She lifted the Viper. A hot pink stripe had been painted down the length of the stock.
Garrus's head tilted to one side. "I suppose we can guess who that belonged to."
Shepard stood and clipped it to her back.
He regarded her for a long moment.
"What," she said, wishing she could see his face.
His voice was soft and dry as dust. "Whatever happened to 'fuck your big guns'?"
"This isn't a gun. It's Horizon. It's—" She gestured back at the pile of bodies.
A reminder. A scar. A promise.
"—It's her funeral pyre," she said, finally. "Let's see how well Collectors burn."
He made a quiet thrumming sound.
"What," she said again.
He shook his head. "Nothing. Just—" He paused. "Sometimes, Shepard, I think you were born into the wrong race."
She snorted. "Wrex'll be glad to hear you agree."
The black stripe of his visor regarded her steadily. "I meant you should have been a turian."
She blinked up at him.
EDI's synthetic voice buzzed in her ear. "Shepard. Operative Lawson and I have found something remarkable."
"Protheans," Miranda said, eyes wide, hands pressed to her head. "The Collectors are bloody Protheans."
They proceeded through tangles of empty corridors, climbing up and up, towards the silent heart of the ship. Shepard bent down to scan a heap of mysterious, glittering tech that burst out of the fleshy wall.
Organic and synthetic ships. Organic and synthetic servants.
Sovereign had been filled with nothing with contempt for Saren. For all organic life. We are eternal. You wither and die.
Something wasn't adding up. Why did the Reapers even give a damn about organic species in the first place?
It wasn't as though organics posed a credible threat. Even if every race in the galaxy united and came out in force, they would still be thoroughly outclassed by the Reapers.
So why the servants? Why the tricks and gamesmanship? Why dick around harvesting human colonies one by one when the Reapers could just swarm out of dark space and annihilate every single living thing in a matter of days?
She stood up, shaking her head, and gestured for Miranda and Garrus to fall in. They continued up along the sloping tunnel. Soft light bloomed up ahead, beyond the crest of the hill.
Extinction couldn't be their real goal, no matter what Sovereign had said. It had to be something else. The Reapers needed organics for something.
And— oh.
"Unbelievable," Garrus murmured.
Apparently they needed a whole hell of a lot of them.
She turned around to face Miranda. The cavernous hall reflected back at her in the operative's glass breathing mask. Millions— billions— of little glowing pods. One for every human being alive.
"This is it," Miranda whispered. "The Reapers have decided. Humanity is going to be their next slave race."
"Somehow, I feel insulted," Garrus said, looking around.
Shepard gestured up at the sea of pods. "Still think this ship's a derelict, Miranda? It looks pretty damn functional to me."
"There's no energy signature from any of the pods. Even the occupied ones. Everything's still reading as offline." Miranda shot her an impenetrable look. "I understand your history affects your judgment, Shepard, and I'm not without sympathy. But our intel is reliable. The Illusive Man doesn't make mistakes."
Shepard grit her teeth. Must be nice, having someone place that kind of pure, unquestioning faith in you. Especially someone like Miranda Lawson.
She hoped the Illusive Man appreciated the gift.
"In any case, what matters is the evidence." Miranda strode off towards an array of consoles clustered at the end of the platform. "EDI, I've found a command node. Access the ship logs."
"Synchronizing." A low hum rose as the data storage banks spun to life.
Shepard looked out towards the hazy, indistinct end of the cavern. Garrus leaned back and draped an elbow over a steel pipe.
"Really, though," he said. "Did they even try to kidnap any turians?"
Shepard snorted and opened her mouth to respond, but something pulled her attention back to the nest of consoles. The pitch of the hum had changed. Miranda took a step backwards, looking wide-eyed between her omni-tool and the stream of data on the console screen.
Something shook under their feet. A thunk, then a bone-rattling hum, as if some great machine had just been kicked awake.
Miranda shouted something at EDI. Joker's voice, thin and panicky, responded. Movement caught Shepard's eye. A platform spinning in through the distant haze. Beetle-headed silhouettes of Collectors swarmed over the surface.
"Garrus," she said.
His rifle was already in his hands. "I see them."
Then their platform began to spin, too.
She clung to the pipes for balance. EDI's synthetic voice buzzed in her ear. "Shepard. This is not a malfunction. This was a trap."
The platform slowed, then stopped.
Garrus and Shepard turned to look down at Miranda.
Miranda stared back up at them, face pale. "It's not— I didn't know."
"C'mon," Shepard said, and helped her up. "Incoming on our seven. Look alive."
Garrus and Miranda fought in perfect sync without even trying. Biotics, bullets, grenades, repeat. Her left and right hands.
"EDI, how are we going on that exit?" Shepard struck out with a blue fist. An assassin few backwards off the platform and plummeted out of sight.
"Nice," murmured Garrus. His rifle cracked. A distant Collector-shaped shadow staggered and fell.
"Processing. I cannot override any system locks until I complete the file transfer. You will need to go back the way you came. There will be resistance."
"Damnit, EDI," Miranda snapped.
"Scion in my scope. One-thirty."
"I see it. Miranda, get in cover," Shepard said. "Keep the Collectors off our ass. If you can help out with a Warp, do it, but stay out of sight."
"Affirmative." Her pistol barked. "Assassin down."
"Firing." Garrus's rifle round exploded into the Scion's throat. Greyish fluid spurted from the crater. Its head lolled and twisted, dangling from a sinewy cable.
The creature staggered, then righted itself. Raised its gun arm, and fired.
"Fucking Reapers." Shepard dove behind the barrier. The shockwave crunched through the decking. "How can it be so hard to kill something that's already dead?"
"You know, they probably say the same thing about you," Garrus said. "Reloading. Your shot."
Shepard hefted her scavenged Viper. Time to ride, Private Perez.
She rose to a crouch. Pressed her eye to the scope.
CRACK. The rifle jolted against her shoulder. The Scion's sac burst, raining black pulp over the platform. The body swayed and fell.
"Ha!" Shepard punched the air.
Garrus's voice was a low purr. "Rethinking your stance on big guns?"
"Maybe." She was grinning.
"That was ninety percent me, by the way."
"Like hell. Maybe if you'd gone for center mass, instead of trying to be all slick about it—"
I will direct this personally.
Crap. She whirled.
"Ten o'clock," Miranda said. "One of them's glowing."
"On it. Barrier, Lawson." Garrus took aim.
"Affirmative." Miranda bloomed with blue fire.
Movement on the radar caught Shepard's eye. A drone was trying to creep in around their right. She aimed. Fired once, watched its shields flare and die; fired again.
The drone collapsed, trailing slime from its forehead.
"I think I'm in love," Shepard said, looking down at her Viper.
Garrus let out a huff of laughter. "If I'd known all it took was an overdesigned piece of tin—"
She turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "—Yeah?"
You cannot stop us.
"It's advancing. Barrier's still intact," Miranda said.
Garrus reached for his ammo pack. "Switching to concussive."
"Save your shot, Vakarian." Pistol fire. "There. Barrier's out."
"Excellent. Firing." CRACK. A bitten-off turian swear word. "Still up. This thing's tough. Reloading."
"I'll cover you." Miranda rose.
Shepard spared a moment to watch them. A scarred-up ex-cop vigilante, and a beautiful black ops terrorist. They fought at each other's sides like they'd been rehearsing it for years.
She narrowed her eyes and peered into her scope. "Stay down, Miranda. Firing."
Her bullet punched through the Collector's armored chest, splitting it apart. Glowing fragments bounced off the deck and hissed into dust. She sank back into cover.
"That was just lazy, Shepard," Garrus drawled. "Eighty-five percent me. Lawson, fourteen and a half."
"You're an ass, Vakarian," Miranda said, flexing her hands.
Assuming control of this form.
Not again. Shepard thumped her head against the barrier.
Miranda slapped a fresh heat sink into her pistol, and sighted over the barrier. "We've got incoming. Another glowing at our three, plus a new Scion—"
I am the Harbinger of your perfection.
Shepard leaned out and fired at the Collector. "Christ, do you ever shut up?"
"—What?" Miranda twisted to look at her in surprise at the exact instant the Scion's shockwave ripped through their platform.
It punched through her shields. Knocked her flat on the ground. Her skull cracked against the decking.
"Fuck!" Shepard lunged forward, grabbed Miranda's limp arm. Plasma fire crackled against her shields as she hauled the woman back behind cover.
Miranda's eyes were closed, lashes still. Blood dripped through her inky hair. Shepard felt for a pulse, pried an eyelid up. Slick blank white underneath. Her status indicator on Shepard's HUD flashed yellow. Fuck fuck fuck.
The whirr-chunk of another platform locking into place. "Shepard," Garrus warned. His rifle cracked. Dots swarmed on her radar.
"I know. Fuck." She lowered Miranda to the floor. "Lawson's out of the fight. You— no, switch to assault. I'll take care of the Scion."
"Affirmative," he said, face unreadable behind the helmet. She took aim. Fired once and clipped the creature in the arm. Her nerves were jangling. Goddamnit. She'd been doing so well. It'd been so long since she'd had to die.
Shepard exhaled. Tossed a quick Warp, to bleed off her adrenaline. Sighted, then fired again, and again, and again. The Scion crumpled to the ground.
"Down," she said.
"Good," said Garrus, over a barrage of gunfire.
Irrelevant, said the voice. A pair of assassins had winged out from the glowing Collector. The Harbinger. Whatever.
"Switching to crowd control." Shepard clipped her gun to her back, shook out her hands, lined up her neurons. Took a deep breath. Her amp thrummed at the back of her skull. "Status update, EDI."
A pause. EDI's voice sounded stilted. "Shepard. There is someone else in the system. I am attempting to quarantine. Please hold."
Garrus jammed in a fresh sink. "Guess we're on our own."
A beam of plasma fire raked overhead and forced her down. "Guess so."
Miranda's medical status icon flashed again and turned red. Shepard ground her teeth. Why did it have to be a fucking head injury? She couldn't do anything for a head injury.
Garrus's rifle chattered. The Harbinger's barrier flared. The bullets fell, useless, to the ground.
We will end you.
"You can try, asshole," she hissed.
"Shepard," Garrus said.
Electricity crackled down her arms. She hurled one of the assassins over the edge. "Little busy here."
"Are you—" He ducked under an energy blast. Fired a stream of bullets in retaliation. "Are you talking with it?"
"Yeah." She crouched back behind the barrier. Glanced over at him. "Wait. You can't hear it?"
His blank, empty visor turned to hers. Her own dull reflection stared back at her. "...Hear what?"
We are Harbinger. Nothing stands against us.
"That," she said. "That. Just now. It called itself Harbinger. You can't—?"
He shook his head.
"Oh shit," she said quietly.
He rose and fired half a clip into the glowing Collector. "Maybe it's a beacon thing. They used to be Protheans. Maybe they still have some kind of connection with you."
She reached out with blue hands and crunched the air tight around the Harbinger. It twisted, writhing in her grip. "...Or maybe I'm just crazy."
Garrus's voice was low. Soft. "Maybe."
No. No no no. This was real. She hadn't lost it. Not yet. She grit her teeth. Crushed her fear down into a bright blue ball. Stood and smashed it into the Harbinger's cracked lava carapace.
Destroying this body gains you nothing.
The Collector scattered into ash. A drone on their left flank, standing much too close for comfort, began to glow.
You cannot kill me, Shepard. We are limitless.
Shepard pitched another Warp at its head. "It's body-hopping. Pick off the others while I keep it busy."
Garrus made a discordant noise and slapped in a fresh clip. "Was it doing that on Horizon?"
She sidestepped a smoking energy pulse. "Between you and Massani, I think we were killing them too fast to notice."
"Forget Goto," he muttered, dumping bullets into one of the drones. Plasma fire hissed against his shields. "Should've told you to bring Massani instead."
"Probably still wouldn't have listened." She yanked him back down into cover as his generator failed. Tossed out a hasty Throw, trying to buy time.
"Probably not," he agreed. "Shepard, we're losing it. We need to retreat."
"No go. Neither of us can fight and carry Miranda at the same time, and one person can't lay down enough fire to cover." The Collectors were closing ranks. She drew a deep breath. Fed energy down, down, down along her arms. Gathered it in her palms, her skin buzzing. Threw.
Drones went flying. Two fell over the edge. The Harbinger stood unfazed.
"...Shit," she said.
"I'm out of heat sinks," Garrus said.
She handed him her spare pack. He looked down at it for a moment.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his posture change. His spine straightened, his shoulders settled. And she knew the exact words that would come out of his mouth.
"We have to lea—"
"No."
"Shepard." A puff of breath. "Your safety is Lawson's highest priority. If you get yourself killed saving her—"
"Miranda said that? When?"
He made an impatient noise. "We've been talking. It doesn't matter. If she were conscious, she'd tell you to run."
"Yeah, well." She slipped the heat sink out of her SMG. Glanced down at Miranda's pale face. "If she were conscious, she'd tell you I only listen to her about half the time."
Shepard shook out her shoulders. Rose and wrenched through the Harbinger's barrier. Sunk back down. A rifle beam sliced through the air where she'd been standing a moment ago.
"Drones on our ten." Garrus's voice was distant. Calm.
"I know." She unhooked Perez's Viper. Slotted in her final heat sink. Aimed. Fired. The Harbinger kept walking.
He lodged a round in an assassin who'd drifted out of cover. Another popped up to replace it. "I can't hold them back."
She launched a Throw at a drone skulking up on his side. "I know."
Garrus twisted to look at her. His opaque visor gleamed in the greenish light. "...What?"
"I know," she said again, and sighed. This is it. "I can't hold them back either. Just— don't worry. It'll be okay."
"Shepard." His back stiffened. His voice was taut. "What the hell are you saying?"
She sat down and leaned back against the low wall. "I'm sorry, Garrus. I should have done better. I'll be more careful next time."
Garrus was silent.
Harbinger advanced. Reinforcements fell into step behind it.
She tipped her head back. "Cain would probably come in handy right about now, huh?"
"Shepard— what— I don't even—" His voice was rattled. She'd shattered his graveyard calm. And then, low and resigned, he said: "Fuck my ancestors. You really were crazy all along."
Oh. Her hand rose to cover her heart.
She'd prepared herself for death, but somehow, not for this.
She'd been so fired up on her own magical sense of purpose and destiny, ready to throw herself into the abyss to save him, to save them all, and do it again and again and again. Somehow she'd forgotten that he would see things a little differently.
She blinked hard. "...Yeah. Maybe I have been." She rose and unloaded the last of her clip into the center of the advancing spearhead. "But not as crazy as you think."
He fired a series of staccato bursts down the field, then crouched back down. "So— what? You're just giving up? To hell with Lawson, to hell with me, to hell with the galaxy?"
"No." She glared at him through her visor. "I'm not ever fucking giving up. It's not the end, Garrus. I'm coming back for you."
He stared back at her. Held very still. Said nothing for a long time.
The red dots on her radar grew closer and closer. A trail of smoke snaked through the air, winding its way towards their hiding spot.
Clear fluid dripped slowly from Miranda's ear, crept down the collar of her uniform. Blood pooled and congealed in the seams between the deck plates.
"I trusted you," Garrus said, finally.
Shepard breathed in deep. Okay. Fine. This was part of the price. She would pay it.
You cannot resist. Harbinger's voice echoed in her head. Face your annihilation.
Yeah, yeah. "Garrus—" she began.
A hissing ball of energy smashed into their wall, spraying plasma everywhere. Shepard swore and batted at the flames on her armor.
Garrus lobbed a grenade over her head, then pushed her down. His hand lingered at her shoulder. His face was very close. "Shepard. Listen to me."
BLAM. Two dots blinked off their radar.
"What," she said, wishing she had more than the slick, blank surface of his helmet to look at.
"Run." He pointed down at the sealed entrance. "There's cover to the west of the main doors. Not much, but I can keep them busy for a while. Buy you and EDI some more time."
Her whole body went rigid. "No. Absolutely not." How could he think that she would ever—
"Shepard." He grabbed her hand. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but—"
She shook off his grip. Fired a Warp blindly over the wall, not watching to see if it connected. "No."
"I still believe you can put an end to this. Collectors. Reapers. All of it. Just—"
You prolong the inevitable.
"No!"
"Damn it, Shepard! Just run!"
She threw down her empty rifle. Stood. Turned to face Harbinger. Plasma beams lanced out of the darkness. Crackled against her shields.
Garrus's arms shot up, grabbed her by the belt, yanked her back. She wrenched his hands off of her. Staggered forward.
"Shepard— DON'T. Shepard—"
"I'm saving you, you asshole," she bit out. Her shields sparked and collapsed.
Harbinger's fiery gaze fell upon her. We are unstoppable.
A grim smile twisted her mouth. "Yeah? I'm invincible."
"—SHEPARD!"
Rifle fire sliced through her lungs. Bit into her heart. Blood pumped out of the split, red and steaming in the gloom.
A second shot pierced her helmet. Brilliant, glittering light crashed down upon them.
And that was that.