Mass Effect 1

Burnt for Beacons

Chapter 19 - Virmire

Ashley had replayed it over and over. She had read the reports, searching frantically for a way that Shepard could have saved them both. She scrubbed furiously at her eyes and looked around at the faces of the broken people gathered in the meeting room. There had been nothing that Shepard could have done in that moment that would have led to both Kaidan and Ashley surviving. Once their team had been separated, their fate was decided.

"I can't believe Kaidan didn't make it. How could we just leave him down there?"

It was a stupid question and her voice sounded hard and gravelly as she said it. It had been a long day of grieving, of wandering through the Normandy and looking into the dead eyes of her crew, of giving and receiving meaningless platitudes and reassuring shoulder pats. Ashley couldn't take back the words. Her anger and regret bubbled up and out of her, as sulphurous and spitting as a volcano, just as uncontrollable. Unsurvivable.

"Kaidan knew the risks going in. He gave his life to save the rest of us." Shepard's words were meant to be a balm, to cool the fire and pain.

The official Virmire debrief was over, and they had moved into something more sombre. The key military personnel were present, they would join the rest of the crew for a wake later, but for now, Ashley was safe to vent her frustrations. It was unprofessional, rude, callous, but safe.

"Why me? Why not him?" Ashley hated that she already knew the answer, needing to voice the question anyway.

"It wasn't your call, Williams. I had to choose. I chose you."

If we hadn't been lovers, you would have picked him, her thoughts screamed. The primary mission was to ensure the bomb went off, so you should have protected Kaidan.

"It wasn't your fault." Shepard continued, placatingly. "It wasn't my fault. The only one to blame here is Saren."

"Yes, ma'am. I…"

Ashley allowed herself to return to the memory of Virmire.

It was beautiful. The most idyllic planet she could remember. Shepard had been smiling and euphoric inside the Mako; kept pointing at things as they came into view finder range and saying things like: "It's just like the Coromandel back home," and "it could be Cook's Beach." Ashley's memory had painted the weather as thunderous, full of portentous winds and storm clouds. When she reviewed the footage, though, the skies had been summery, full of gulls performing carefree acrobatics; big crab like creatures had been feeding in the shallows; small, harmless waves had lapped gently across crystal sands; trees had been rippling lightly in an unforeboding breeze.

Then their scanners had been jammed.

They had fought their way through the geth defences. The Mako had made short work of the scattered enemy forces and there had never been the need to disembark or make a stand of any kind. Shepard's eyes had crinkled as she smiled over at Ashley more than once. Ashley remembered the joy of those moments, the sense of getting closer to the end, knowing that they would soon find the conduit and Saren, and bring an end to the reaper threat.

They took down the AA towers without injury or incident. The first gatehouse had been sparsely protected by geth troops. Given their artificial intelligence, Ashley found their battle formations decidedly lacking, the geth were waging a small arms guerrilla war against a well-armed and armoured IFV. All the marines had to do was wait for the rocket troopers to reveal themselves, roll the Mako out of the way of the oncoming and clearly visible fire, and then return a volley that packed a far greater punch than the little bipedal robots could launch. There was no real rush. The Normandy was in matching orbit, well out of range of the planetary defences, and the salarians could probably afford to wait a bit longer.

At the next towers, the geth had figured out the Mako's strategies and were pulling together to combat them. The geth were moving quickly, firing from behind cover, and with the scanners jammed up it was difficult to pick them off. At one point, Shepard managed to creep the Mako behind cover, just poking the M35's rear tires out far enough to hit their mapped targets. It was there they left the vehicle and continued into the tower on foot. Ashley took point and Shepard and Garrus fell in behind. It was a horrible location, designed to be difficult for invading forces to take. The surrounding area was pock marked with potential sniper nests, the rocks below perfect for setting booby traps. The stairs offered very little protection for those at the bottom, while those at the top had line of sight and cover, as well the normal advantages of high ground. The geth were relentless, but outclassed. During the walk back from the final gatehouse, Shepard casually slipped in beside Ash and let her gauntleted hands clack against Ashley's. If Garrus noticed these little contacts, their exuberant smiles, and the way they leaned their heads toward each other when they thought no one was looking, he didn't mention it.

It was at the salarian encampment where things changed for the worse. Captain Kirrahe briefed them about what Saren had been doing. He had discovered a cure for the genophage and was using it to create an army of krogan. It was immediately obvious to Ashley that these would not be 'real' krogan, in the same way that husks weren't 'real' humans. Wrex did not see it that way. Maybe it never even occurred to him. All he seemed to hear was that these krogan would be destroyed along with the cure for the genophage. Ashley had been working with him long enough to recognise the pain in his eyes as he turned away from the commander. His fury was obvious to those who didn't know him, but she recognised the other emotions, the powerlessness, and the sense of betrayal. It was a bad combination in him. Dangerous. He was firing his shotgun into the water, presumably aiming at fish or crabs, when Shepard went to talk to him. Ashley's fingers moved to her pistol as her body stepped sideways into Wrex's blind spot.

"This has to be done. Saren's the enemy, not me." Shepard was wary, she looked tiny walking towards Wrex.

He turned away from the water to look at Shepard, and Ashley took another step sideways. "Really? Saren created a cure for my people. You want to destroy it." The pair of them were standing close now, and Wrex was waving an arm violently. "Help me out here, Shepard," he rumbled at the very bottom of his deep vocal range, "The lines between friend and foe are getting a little blurry from where I stand."

The wind caught Shepard's voice and hurled her words into the ocean, but Wrex's reply came loud and clear: "Don't push me, Shepard. I followed you because I wanted to fight for something more than credits. If you can't give me a better reason than this to destroy the hopes of my people, then I'm done with you." Ashley's pistol was up before Wrex freed his shotgun, his claw was on the forend, but he hadn't moved to pump it.

Shepard had automatically raised her own weapon, then looked embarrassed at what she obviously felt was an overreaction. She lowered it, gesturing with it loosely. "These krogan are slaves of Saren. Puppets. Tools to be used and discarded. Is that what you want for your people?" There was kindness in her voice, but firmness too. Her voice had lowered, and Ashley struggled to make out all the words.

Wrex held his position for a long time. Ashley moved her finger onto the trigger, and unblinkingly watched his hands. Finally, he spoke. "No. We were tools for the Council once. To thank us for wiping out the rachni, they neutered us all. I doubt Saren will be as generous." He stared at Shepard long and hard through alien red eyes. "All right, Shepard." Finally, he lowered his gun, and Ashley could breathe again. "You've made your point. I don't like this, but I trust you enough to follow your lead." Confident the worst was over, Ashley turned away, holstering her gun. She aimed for the STG supply officer, wanting to look innocuous on the off chance Wrex turned her way. She felt tired and shaky as she tried to make small talk with Commander Rentola. His heart clearly wasn't in it either. Eyes wide with bemusement, he kept peering over her shoulder at Shepard and Wrex.

Eventually, she wandered off to find some shelter in the shade. She wondered if Shepard would come and find her for some downtime, but the commander was restlessly moving from person to person, checking in and issuing commands. Eventually she summoned Ashley and Kaidan to Captain Kirrahe's tent to go over the mission plan. It would be incredibly dangerous. The STG force had constructed a nuclear bomb, something that these fortifications were built to withstand. The bomb would need to be placed carefully, and armed inside the complex. The Normandy crew could do that once the AA guns were taken down, but for that to happen the STG force would draw most of the enemy to the front of the building, allowing a small group of marines to sneak into the complex to take down the defences. That's when Kirrahe made his devastating demand: one of their people needed to join his squad to coordinate communication between the two groups. It was suicide. The calculus of war kicked in: Kaidan had the tech skills to complete the priority mission; he would arm and protect the bomb. Ashley had the armour; she was the soldier, the grunt. She would aid the STG ground forces. Shepard and her team would raid the base.

Their last words together were stilted, forced. "No heroics. Understood?" Shepard had said. The fear in her eyes was plain for all to see. Ashley's words to Kaidan had been just as banal. She couldn't remember what she'd said. She wished she'd said more. Said thank you. Thank you for the advice, the banter, the friendship, the encouragement. What if he died never knowing how much he had mattered? She thought back on all those times that he had helped her out. Had she even thanked him? Had she ever acknowledged that she appreciated what he'd been doing? Or had she always been too self-absorbed, too caught up in her own problems. Filled with recrimination, she imagined him working at the console next to Shepard's office, working on logistics and training schedules for the crew, his hair and skin took on a golden sheen in her memory. Hands loosely holding a data pad and stylus, she imagined him moving them down to his side and giving her his full attention, looking at her with brown eyes and confident smile. I'm sorry, she imagined saying. It should have been me.

Smoothly professional, the STG operatives were paranoid about their communications tech. They had Ashley linked up via shortwave on a separate system to the rest of their team, so instead of getting information in real time, she had to wait for it to be relayed to her in bite sized chunks, then she could in turn pass that on to the Normandy's "Shadow" team. Working like that was frustrating, like a bad game of Operator, and made her miss her team more than she might have.

Mannovai came under heavy fire and looked to be badly pinned. If it wasn't for Shadow team bringing down a comms tower and disrupting the geth network, Ashley would have almost certainly watched that team be crushed by geth forces. Assistance was regularly provided by Shadow, who were able to shoot out a satellite uplink from their side of the facility, and to bring down a geth flyer depot and fuelling station. From there it was easy. Right up until the moment it wasn't.

Bird like, the Normandy glided into the middle of the complex; watching it soar overhead was a moment of sweet relief because it meant both sets of AA guns were down and the area clear for Kaidan and the nuke. At first nothing changed and then geth and krogan swarmed towards them like bees out of a kicked hive. The three STG squads did their best with the flyers, but the geth primes and juggernauts were formidable and the sheer number of enemies surrounding them meant that slowly their escape routes were cut off, and they were pinned down. The STG were very well drilled. Cool under fire, they steadily picked away at one target after another, taking pot shots, before returning to cover while their shields recharged.

Her helmet chirruped and Shepard's voice sounded reassuringly close. "The nuke is almost ready, Chief. Get to the rendezvous point."

"Negative, Commander." Ashley replied, before pausing to add her shots to the geth rocket trooper that was the team's current target. A massive krogan roared somewhere to her left, followed by screams that were quickly silenced. "The geth have us pinned down on the AA tower." She changed guns and took out a sniper on the roof. "We've taken heavy casualties." There seemed to be fewer sounds from the salarian guns now, and the geth were starting to crowd them. "We'll never make the rendezvous point in time." The salarian who had been fighting beside her took a hit to his arm and she stopped talking to pull him deeper into cover. Out of nowhere, Ashley thought of General Williams and felt absurdly at peace. She would die here, Shepard would be safe, Saren ended, the universe saved, and the Williams' family honour restored.

"Hold tight. We're coming to get you."

"Negative." Don't be dumb. "Just make sure that nuke is set. We'll hold them as long as we can." Her helmet took a glancing round, and she was momentarily stunned by the noise and jolt of the impact. The diagnostic and repair tool reset her comms. She would be offline for a bit. Headshots took out another two snipers, and she returned to the defensive action.

High pitched whirring overhead alerted Ash to a geth dropship. Her salarian squad mates couldn't take much more. Her relief as it continued to the other side of the facility was short lived. It was heading to the breeding facility and the nuke. Kaidan was in trouble.

"Lieutenant, we just spotted a troop ship inbound to your location."

"It's already here and it's bleeding geth all over the bomb site."

"Can you hold them off?" That was Shepard. Impossibly, furiously calm.

"There's too many. I don't think we can hold them." And then in a voice that could have been describing what he'd for breakfast that day: "I'm activating the nuke."

"What the hell are you doing, Alenko?"

"Making sure the bomb goes off. No matter what."

Kaidan's voice sounded calm. He always managed to sound so calm in moments like these. "It's done Commander. Go get Williams and get the hell out of here."

Fuck that. "Belay that. We can handle ourselves." Ashley blasted a shock trooper to prove her point. "Go back and get the Lieutenant." It was the calculus of war. As it always was. Protect the bomb, destroy a krogan, destroy a geth army, kill Saren. Save countless lives. Sacrifice a small team of salarians. And her.

Shepard was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Ashley wondered if her helmet repairs had failed.

"Chief, radio Joker and tell him to meet us on the AA tower." Shepard's voice brooked no argument.

"Yes, Commander. I…"

"You know it's the right choice, Ash." Those were his last words to her. Words designed to make her feel better. She said nothing. The lump in her throat made breathing difficult, so the last words she'd said to him was to warn him of a troop ship that he'd already seen. She should have saved Kaidan.

"Stay alive. I'll be coming to get you too, Alenko."

"I think we both know that's not going to happen, Commander."

Ashley resigned herself to following Kirrahe's advice. She held the line. The salarians fought and died around her, but they held out. The first she knew of Shepard's arrival was watching Saren disappear over a wall on a flying board, and the Normandy settling in the field of battle. Her marines poured out of the bay doors clearing enough of the geth that Ashley could rally the STG and get them safe on board. Tali set up turrets to defend the LZ and sent drones after krogan that looked like they might feel tempted into coming too close. Liara rounded the corner with biotics flaring, Garrus and Shepard followed her and Wrex brought up the rear.

Then they just left.

Fingernails digging into her hairline, Ashley leaned forward in the meeting room seats. Surrounded by the key military personnel who looked as broken as she felt.

"…I'm sorry, Commander. You saved my life. I'm grateful to you for that. But it should have been me. Alenko was a superior officer. I would have gladly stayed behind."

Suddenly, she felt claustrophobic. The meeting room walls seemed to pulse and she felt the overwhelming need to crawl out of her skin. The meeting had ended some time ago and she couldn't bear to stay.

Shepard caught her arm just outside. She must have rushed to catch up.

"Ash," Shepard's words were for her alone. "How far are you going to drive yourself? It wasn't your fault. Kaidan had armed the bomb. It couldn't be deactivated. Going to get you meant saving the STG as well."

The calculus of war.

Shaking her arm free of Shepard's grip, she turned on her heel.

"Aye, aye. Commander."