Remnants

by General Rage

From Halo's ashes, a mismatched Alliance is born. UNSC soldiers now serve alongside both Batarian deserters and shifty Jackal Space Pirates. Now Shepard and Master Chief have to keep these strange bedfellows from killing one another before they can stop an emergent new threat to the galaxy. The Next Swashbuckling Chapter of the Wormhole Chronicles.

20. Shadows Unaltered

Chapter 19: Shadows Unaltered

There is no fate but what we make for ourselves

-John Connor

Shepard crashed down onto the hard floor of the cargo bay, his eyes practically burning. As he struggled to see, he tried to call out for someone.

"Chief? Are you there?"

He felt a hand on his shoulder lift him up as his vision cleared.

"Here, sir," Chief's voice replied, the Spartan's visor coming into view.

"That damn light must've done a number on me," the Commander grumbled, rubbing his eyes and the bridge of his nose. "Did we get the plug in time? Shut the power off?"

"I don't think so, sir," Chief told him.

Shepard's vision cleared at last and what he saw horrified him. The entire Cargo Bay was a wreck. Everything was blackened, wrecked, utterly demolished. It looked like a hurricane had torn through the whole place while it had been set on fire.

"Oh no," Shepard said in shock. "Tali! Tali, where are you? Grunt? Doctor Halsey?"

Shepard frantically looked around the rubble, hoping someone had survived. As he pulled over broken beams and trashed crates, he found nothing.

"Commander, stop," Cortana insisted, popping up on Chief's Omni-tool. "They're not here. I did a life-sign scan, there's nothing aboard the Normandy. Save us."

"That's impossible, Shepard stated. "They were all just here!"

Shepard gave the room another look around, finding the hammerhead in one corner. It was completely trashed, broken beyond repair. It's turret lay upon the floor in a shattered heap, it's struts cracked and rusted. Upon closer look, it appeared as it had been like that for a while.

"I'm not sure what to tell you, Commander," Cortana answered. "I'm... I'm just as confused. I know, a first."

"Hmph," Chief replied, marching over to the elevator.

"What does 'Hmph' mean?' Cortana asked cattily. "I'm very rarely confused about anything."

"Mhmm," Chief answered rather plainly.

"Oh now you're just being an ass," the AI snapped back.

Chief pried open the doors to the elevator shaft, revealing that said elevator had been destroyed. What was left was a hulk of scrap metal, broken and shattered on the floor. Chief looked up into the shaft, and saw it was at least unobstructed the whole way up.

"We're going to have to climb, sir," he told Shepard.

The Commander nodded and followed the Spartan as they used the emergency ladder within the shaft to climb up out of the Cargo Bay. Shepard's mind was still reeling from what was going on. What had happened to them and why?

"Okay, lets recap," he began. "Halsey, Tali and Taq were running their experiment..."

"As was I," Cortana added.

"Right," Shepard replied, keeping close behind the Chief. "Grunt came down looking for his action figure, then Zek burst in with a black eye."

"Everything went haywire after that," Chief recalled. "I grabbed Cortana and we tried to pull the plug. I... I think at least."

"You think?" Shepard asked confused. "What do you mean think? That's... that's what happened. Right?"

But even he was unsure. He did recall pulling at the plug to the console. Grunt called out that he had found his toy and everything went white. Or, did Grunt come rushing in saying something else and trying to warn them. No, no, he remembered Grunt coming in complaining about the action figure he misplaced. He was sure that had happened. It couldn't have gone two completely different ways at the same time. That was insane.

Then again, more insane the Normandy being in this dilapidated condition it certainly wasn't in five seconds ago?

"I don't know, sir," Chief admitted. "I guess... I don't know. My memory is usually sharper than this."

"Maybe we got a shock when we pulled the plug," Shepard suggested. "Messed up our heads or something."

But even Shepard wasn't entirely convinced on that front. Either way, they had to get out of this shaft and find out what had happened to the Normandy. He had tried to contact EDI through his commlink, but no connection could be made. He decided they had to get to the AI Core.

Once they reached the crew quarters, Chief and Shepard forced the doors open. This level was no better off than the cargo bay. No lights were on, parts of the walls were falling apart, the table in the center of the commissary was cracked in half. Plasma fire and bullet holes were everywhere, along with busted equipment littering the room. The Med Bay wasn't much better, with many of the machines inside turned over or blocking their way. Chief moved them to the side of forced them to stand up right as they pushed their way to the AI Core. Inside they found the remains of what should've been EDI's data storage server. It was now a burnt husk.

Shepard could only presume this meant EDI wasn't here. He hesitated to consider the worst.

"Cortana, can you plug in remotely?" He asked hopefully.

Cortana appeared on Chief's omni-tool and shook her head.

"There's nothing to connect to," she explained. "It's gone. Whoever took a blowtorch to this room destroyed everything."

"What is going on here?" Shepard asked, his frustration growing. "How long were we out for? What happened to my ship?"

"Is there anything still active on board that we can use?" Chief asked Cortana.

"Scanning," the AI replied, after a moment she answered. "Whatever power is left in this place seems to be routed to the Normandy's cockpit. We might be able to find some answers there."

Cortana used what she could recall of the ship's schematics to bring up a map of the maintenance ducts, pointing out one in Life Support they could use to get to Mordin's lab. Shepard remembered it, Joker had said he used it when the Collectors had attacked and boarded the ship just before their jump through the Omega 4 relay. It was much easier than using the elevator shaft at least.

Both Life Support and Mordin's Lab were in similar states of disrepair. Also, both rooms gave them a proper look at the Drive Core. It had been destroyed, currently laying the ground in a shattered heap of twisted metal. The worst of it though was the CIC, which was in complete disarray, wires and consoles hanging from the ceiling or burnt out respectively. The Galaxy Map was gone, nothing but a cold empty space and dust fluttering through the air.

Shepard remembered finding the old SR-1 Normandy's remains shortly after Cerberus brought him back. That had been a grim mission for him, recovering what little remained of the old crew and setting that Memorial down. This felt different, it felt unreal in the sense that this was wrong. He was just here this morning, it had been alive and full of people. Last time there was time to process the loss after waking up and getting a new ship. Now? This WAS the new ship and suddenly it was gone along with everyone else.

They reached the cockpit, the shutters to the outside world closed over the windows. Shepard wasn't really to see what the rest of the Ascendant Justice looked like in comparison to this place. Assuming they were even still aboard the carrier of course. Chief took Cortana from his helmet and placed her in the console. She appeared on the dash and made quick work accessing what she could.

"Emergency power is almost gone, it's been running on fumes since the drive core blew," she explained. "Evidently from some kind of crash."

"Crash? You mean we're on a planet?" Shepard asked.

"Seems like it, with a breathable atmosphere if the sensors are still working right," the AI confirmed.

"Do you have any control over these shutters?" Chief asked.

"I think so," she confirmed. "There should be enough juice to get them working"

"Open them up," the Spartan ordered. "We need to know where we are."

Cortana turned back to the system. The shutters activated, rolling back across the top of the glass. It cracked some as it began to recede, Shepard even had to step out of the way of a shard of it as it fell. The light from outside was blinding for a brief second, as the full view of the cockpit window appeared. Both Shepard and Chief could only look on in horror at what awaited them outside.

A devastated cityscape, stretching as far as the eye could see. Blackened, cracked earth beneath them, a darkened, churning black sky above. To the side of them, a crumbling skyline of buildings, shattered glass and ruined concrete. The cause of this devastation, however, was no secret and was the true nightmare behind it all. Flying through the sky, so large that they could still be seen even miles away, were giant ships that looked like metallic squids. Some were landing, crashing down into the already demolished city. Others kept flying, slashing out blasts of red-hot energy beams from their tentacles down on the ground.

Shepard felt sick to his stomach. His nightmare was here, at last, fully realized in front of him. The Reapers had come and they had brought a war unlike no other with them. He didn't wait for Chief or Cortana to speak, he was already running for the airlock. He forced it open, using his Biotics to blow open the locks.

Jumping down from the remains of the Normandy, Shepard found himself in the remains of a battlefield. He had expected to find UNSC vehicles, his mind racing with possibilities as to where they were exactly. Instead, all he saw was demolished Mako Fighting Vehicles and Grizzly Tanks. Near his right foot, he saw a cracked, discarded helmet. He picked it up, but he could already tell it was Alliance Issue. Chief and Cortana soon joined him, the Spartan jumping down and slowly walking up to the Commander cautiously.

"Where are we?" Shepard asked grimly.

There was a brief moment of silence as Cortana checked, scan geographic topography and cross-referencing her data banks. She soon had an answer, and it was the one she dreaded.

"Van... Vancouver, Canada," she said. "But... but some of these buildings... what's left of them anyway. I don't recognize them-"

"You won't," Shepard assured her.

He pointed over to a large building far off in the distance, one that looked like it had been stomped on by a giant foot. It had more likely been a giant metal robot tendril though.

"If I'm not mistaken, that's Systems Alliance HQ for the North American Region," he exclaimed. "What's left of it anyway."

"Wait, Systems Alliance," Chief questioned. "Your government?"

"Yeah," Chief said somberly. "My people. Chief, we're not in your dimension anymore. We're in mine."

"That's impossible," Cortana declared. "How could we have...? We... we weren't anywhere near the wormhole that brought you here! We haven't even found it yet!"

"Don't ask me to explain it, but look around," Shepard said, pointing out the destroyed vehicles and demolished buildings. "Does any of this like it could be your Vancouver?"

"I'd be hard pressed to recognize it as anything," Master Chief admitted.

Shepard stood staring off into space, his eyes headed skyward as he watched the twisted black sky above. He had periods of feeling powerless before, of being scared, or alone. This was no different, but right now it felt... gut-wrenching, more hopeless than ever before.

"Sir," Chief said, catching the Commander's attention. "We need to start moving. We won't find answers to what happened here."

Shepard slowly nodded, knowing the Spartan was right. They had to figure out what was going on, although he already had a sneaking suspicion. Perhaps they could reach someplace with power, with a working computer or comms. They could try contacting someone, anyone. If there was anyone to talk to left anyway.

As they started their trek through the long-dead battlefield though, they heard noises close by. Familiar ones, sickly moans and muffled screeches. Shepard knew that sound before he even saw what it was. Husks, a lot of them by the sound of it, all of them close. Very close.

From behind the wreckage surrounding them, deformed humans crawled out, their screeching and moaning alerting even more to converge on their position. Thankfully, whatever had happened to Shepard and the Master Chief hadn't taken away their weapons. Shepard still had his sidearm, as did the Spartan leader. They began firing on the approaching husks, cutting them down as they streamed towards them. As they approached striking distance, Shepard's biotic shockwave tore through their ranks, sending the killer corpses flying into the air before crashing down in a heap.

Not that it seemed to matter, as more Husks soon came to fill the void left by the fallen. Shepard and Chief kept moving through the rubble and wreckage, trying to outpace the encroaching horde. One even jumped at them from the top of a demolished gunship. Chief quickly turned to gun it down with two clean shots to the torso and then the head.

"Cortana, we need an escape route!" Chief told the AI.

"Motion tracker can't find a clear path! They're everywhere!" Cortana shouted, her voice suddenly growing more grave. "Oh no, something bigger on the scope, coming in fast and hard!"

At that moment, they heard some kind of engine, screaming over the Husk's painful wails and roars. It got closer every second before it was suddenly on top of them.

"Get down!" Shepard said, pushing Chief back.

Bursting from behind a smashed up Hammerhead appeared another vehicle. It ran over the Husks directly in its way. The doors to the driver's section flung open as three humans wearing Alliance issued armor jumped out. Highly specialized and fairly custom to be sure, but the emblem on the arms left little room for doubt as to who they were. A quick glance at them told Shepard that two were male, one of them female. One of the men, clearly older than the other two, threw out a powerful Biotic Cascade that smashed into the Husks directly on his right.

"Form a perimeter," he ordered the other two. "Watch your sides, do not let them through!"

The older man then turned to Shepard and Chief's position and rushed back to meet them. It was only now that Shepard could see the man's N7 patch emblazoned on his armor. He shot down another Husk that came screaming in from the side as he approached.

"Commander Shepard? Master Chief?"

Shepard was a little surprised this person knew his name, more so that he knew Master Chief's name.

"Uh, yes," he responded, it was all he could say in he given moment.

That elicited a slight laugh from the man.

"Well I'll be," he said. "T'Soni was right."

"Wait, T'Soni?" Shepard said, his confusion added to exponentially. "You know Liara? Is she alive?"

There was a sudden explosion from behind them as the other man shouted out over the chaos.

"Dad! We gotta go!"

"I know, Scott! I know!" The older man replied, turning back to Shepard. "Listen, I'm guessing you have a million questions, but we don't have time. You need to come with me, I can get you to Liara."

Shepard wasn't one to argue when someone was offering answers and a free ride out of the fire. Neither Chief nor Cortana offered any resistance to the idea either, so all three followed the man back to the vehicle, quickly climbing inside. Scott, the man who had yelled out before, now called out to the female still outside.

"Sarah! Come on! We're getting out of here!"

"Coming!"

Sarah was firing back on the approaching husks, moving quickly back to the vehicle when something red lashed out suddenly. An Abomination, a suicidal version of the ordinary husk, now grappled with the young woman, trying to claw off her face even as it began to sizzle and smoke.

"Sarah! No!" Both Scott and his Father cried out.

Shepard acted before either of them could, Biotically charging out of the safety of the vehicle and right into the Abomination. The husk went flying as Shepard shielded Sarah from the forthcoming explosion by turning his back to it and covering her. When the blast receded and helped Sarah up to her feet.

"You alright?" He asked.

"Thanks," the young woman said with a sigh of relief. "I thought we were saving you?"

"Didn't mean to step on your moment," Shepard assured her. "Come on!"

He helped Sarah back to the vehicle, Chief providing them cover fire. Once they were inside, the doors slammed shut and the vehicle took off, leaving the husks far behind. It took another minute before they were on stable enough ground to stop jostling and bumping each other as they race away. Once they were though, the oldest of the trio came into the back of the vehicle where Shepard, Chief and subsequently Cortana now rested. The man tore off his helmet, revealing a grey-haired and grizzled man, a thick beard covering most of his lower face. To Chief, he probably didn't look all that different, but to Commander Shepard, he knew him instantly.

"Sorry for not giving you all a proper hello, but we needed to get you out of there first," he explained. "My name is Al-"

"Alec Ryder," Commander Shepard excitedly interrupted. "Legendary Galactic Explorer and one of the most decorated officers in the Alliance Military! You were part of Jon Grissom's expedition beyond the Charon Relay! One of the first candidates for N7 training before it was even called that! Veteran of First Contact on Shanxi!"

Alec seemed more than a little taken aback by all the listing of his various accomplishments, and the sight of Commander Shepard looking positively giddy. Even the Master Chief was put off a bit.

"You've... heard of me then?" Alec asked as he tried to compartmentalize everything.

"Who hasn't heard of you?" Shepard responded in near disbelief. "You're the whole reason I even applied for N7 training in the first place! You were my idol back in basic!"

There was some laughter from the cockpit.

"Looks like you got a fan, pops," Sarah's voice giggled.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, kid," Alec said, sounding a bit annoyed.

"I'm sorry, sir," Shepard said, finally composing himself. "It's just... I never thought I'd meet you in the flesh. You kind of vanished off the radar along with Grissom a good while back."

"Yeah, not for the reasons Jon did though," Alec replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "You've already met my kids of course. Scott and Sarah, they've heard a lot more about you, both of you."

"Ahem," Cortana spoke up, appearing on Chief's Omni-tool.

"Sorry, three of you," Alex apologized. "Look, I know you have questions. I'm prepared to answer as many as I can. Liara can fill you in on the rest of it when we find her."

"So she did send you," Shepard said, his hopes truly confirmed. At least one of his friends was still around. "Thank God, but how did you know where to find us? And that Chief would be with me?"

"It's a very long story," Alec explained. "For now, the easiest way to answer that is you've missed a lot and we figured out that you'd reappear together."

"How much have we missed?" Cortana asked.

Alec seemed to struggle at the answer to the question.

"Well that's complicated, but the transmission reporting your disappearance came in around Mid to late 2185," he explained. "It's 2187 now, just a few months out to the day before anyone over here got the news you were missing."

Shepard was stunned by the revelation. He had thought it had actually been more time, but to know the truth now just made it all the more unsettling.

"We've been gone for a little over a year," he said, anger and disgust building up in his stomach. "Damn it, I missed everything. The Reapers, the invasion, the whole damn war."

"What about my dimension?" Chief asked, clearly expecting the worst as he spoke.

"I can't really speak to that, I'm sorry," Alec confessed. "But from what I hear it's nothing good and given everything that's happened, it could be worse."

Shepard could hardly think of what could be worse than this. Then again, he hadn't really asked yet, had he?

"What has happened?" He asked Ryder. "When did the Reapers show up?"

"Heh, that's hard to really place," Ryder confessed. "You could argue they showed up early, given how much the Covenant softened things up for them."

"The Covenant?" Chief asked, shock in his own voice.

"Yeah, when your crew came back through the wormhole fleeing the other universe the Covies were close behind," Alex clarified. "They assaulted every major homeworld, using some device that opened wormholes right at their doorstep. Their fleets just started pouring through them."

Shepard realized what that meant, that the Inquisitor had held true to his promise. They just made a new Stabilization device and used it to make passage through the wormhole easier. Then they had the Covenant just invade en masse, their entire empire at war with his own Galaxy.

"Everyone held on best they could, but we took a major beating before we could even drive them off to regroup," Alec continued. "That was when the Reapers showed up, just as we were licking our wounds. They went straight to the Citadel, decapitating our leadership. Palaven, Thessia, Sur'Kesh, they all fell pretty quickly once the Covenant rejoined with their masters for a renewed assault. Tuchanka probably held out the longest, then they just started glassing the place from orbit."

Shepard hung his head, trying his best to block out the horror in his mind, but he could not help but think of every soul snuffed out in the fighting. The most powerful races in the galaxy, Asari, Salarian, Turian, all helpless before the Reapers as they cut a swath through the galaxy.

"What about Earth?" Shepard asked. "When did they attack here?"

"As soon as they could," Alex answered. "What was left of the other races' fleets did their best. Tried for one last stand. Normandy was part of it. More ships than any of us could imagine, countless military legions, our best and brightest strategic minds, our strongest weapons... we all aimed it at the head Reaper, thinking we could cripple it and their war effort."

Shepard knew who he was talking about.

"Harbinger," he reasoned. "You were trying to kill Harbinger."

"Try, yeah," Alec confessed sadly. "It... didn't go well. That place we found you in? That was where the battle took place, where... where everything really fell apart. We used up everything in that one strike... and it just wasn't enough."

Shepard figured as much, Harbinger's power was more than evident. He thought of his crew, how terrified they must've been.

"My people, my crew," he spoke up. "Ryder, sir, where are they?"

"A few are still alive, Shepard," Alec assured him. "They're with Liara. Once we get to our ship we can get you off the planet and deliver you straight to her. You'll probably want to hear about the finer details from her rather than me."

Yeah, he probably would. This was already enough to absorb, he couldn't think about the others. He desperately wanted to ask about Tali at least, but he was too afraid. He imagined Liara hadn't told Ryder about his relationship with the quarian, he wanted to hear the truth of the matter from a friend. Alec was his hero, sure, but hearing about how hopeless things were from him was already disheartening enough. There was only so much one could take all at once.

Thankfully, he had one friend here who could at least provide him with some comfort.

"I'm sorry, sir," Chief said. "I... wish there was something I could say."

"It's alright," Shepard told him. "Well, it's not, but... we're here now. We... we have to figure this out. It's all we can do."

A spike in his head made Shepard wince. It was probably the stress or something. Headaches brought on by everything he had apparently missed and failed to stop. However, the pain brought with it something else, something strange.

"Chief, before we ended up here, do you remember a meeting with Grunt where he took us through BBR's song lineup for some reason?"

"Um, when?" Chief asked. "And why ask now?"

"Earlier in the day I think, way before the experiment," Shepard explained. "As for why, it just... came to me now."

"That is... very weird," Chief confessed. "Cortana, have you been remembering anything strange since we arrived?"

"Not sure what you can define by strange," she informed him. "I mean, I process memory different than you. I'm not remembering anything out of the ordinary at least."

"Given what you've been through I imagine your thoughts are a little scrambled," Alec Ryder claimed. "I'm sure things will start to make sense if you give it some time."

Shepard liked to hope so, he hated not being able to trust his own damn memories for one. He just didn't understand why he seemed to be remembering contradicting events. Whatever, it was hardly his biggest concern at the moment.

"We're just a mile out from the ship, dad," Sarah reported. "No hostiles in sight."

"Good, last thing we need is another firefight," Alec sighed gratefully. "I guess the Reapers are too busy with other things at the moment."

"Like what?" Shepard asked.

"Let's just say for now we're not the only people fighting them," Alec told him. "But we don't exactly share the same agenda."

Shepard was starting to hate how this whole thing sounded. How much more terrible could pile onto this already nightmarish scenario? Before his imagination could conjure up anything concrete, Sarah shouted out something.

"There it is, Home Sweet Home."

Shepard moved back into the driver's hub at the front of the transport. Looking out the window he saw a scout ship looming over them. Smaller than the Normandy, but of similar design, with a second set of stabilizer wings at the front of the nose one of the bigger departures.

"The Tempest," Scott spoke up as they drove towards the ramp. "Stealthy, fast and capable of landing on planets. Not originally designed for battle, we had to strap some guns onto it purely as a defensive measure more than anything, but it can get us where we need to go and without drawing too much attention."

"You fly around the whole galaxy in that little ship?" Shepard asked surprised. "Don't the Reapers have control over traffic by now?"

"They do, but the Tempest has some advanced tech," Sarah explained. "It can cover thirteen light years in a day and that was before we had the Slipspace Drive installed."

"You have a slipspace drive?" Chief asked curiously.

"Yeah, by the time the Normandy came back through the wormhole it had integrated the technology with its systems," Scott answered simply. "We were able to develop the technology for the Tempest from the schematics, integrating it with our engines. Took awhile, but we weren't building it completely from scratch. Not once we recovered one such drive from a Covie cruiser that got disabled. Between it and our long-distance travel, we don't need the Relays to get around. Although it is slower going for the most part."

"Better than getting lasered out of the sky, bro," Sarah stated.

"Can't argue with that logic," Scott agreed.

Shepard looked up at the ship as they crossed over onto the ramp, driving into its belly.

"I don't recall them developing anything like this in the Alliance," he observed.

"It wasn't for the Alliance," Alec explained. "Hell, it wasn't even built for war. But we had to adapt after..."

Alec stopped himself, seemingly remembering something painful. Shepard would've urged him to keep going, but he did so without any prodding needed.

"We were part of a potential leap forward in intergalactic exploration," he exclaimed. "An Initiative born and funded in secret, designed to launch us on a one-way ticket to the Andromeda galaxy. Members of every known species were getting set to launch into a bold new frontier and I was leading the charge for humanity on our very own Ark."

"What happened?" Chief asked him.

"Your Covenant, Master Chief," Alec informed him. "Somehow they found out where we were mustering and swarmed us. It was a small task force, but we weren't a primarily military operation. We stood no chance. By the time we fought them off, we were too damaged to make our jump window before the Covenant invaded the galaxy in full. Then the Reapers came and it was too late for anyone to escape."

Shepard couldn't help but feel saddened by the revelation. Alec, his family and so many others had a chance to escape all this and the Covenant had robbed it from them. Someone else would've felt a bit cheated by the idea of people fleeing in the face of the Reapers' onslaught. Honestly, though, he wouldn't wish this war on anyone. If someone could find a way to escape, he would be more than happy to give them the chance.

"I'm sorry, sir," Shepard told him earnestly. "It... it sounds like you were going to do something incredible. Discover a whole new frontier, a new galaxy. That's a dream opportunity for any space explorer."

"Hmph, well, all in the past now," Alec stated rather distantly. "Present mission is getting you to T'Soni."

The vehicle had by now rolled to a stop and had been secured in the hangar, clamps locking it in place. As everyone clambered out, Scott and Sarah took off their helmets. Scott had a small scar across one eye, a military grade haircut and a fuzzy beard. Sarah had slightly darker skin and dirty reddish-brown hair that was much thicker than you'd have thought it would be. How she got it all to fit inside that helmet comfortable he couldn't say.

"It's a little cramped at times," Scott said as he looked around. "But it's home."

"Scott!"

A jubilant cry and the frantic rush of running feet were followed up by a blue blur tackling the young man to the floor. Scott now lay under an Asari, wearing a purple jacket with heavy heavy black makeup made to look like a bandit's mask covering her eyes. She was straddling him, pulling up his collar and kissing him full on the lips. Shepard wondered if he should be looking away and giving them privacy, but it didn't look like that was an issue for them.

"Thank the Goddess," the asari said gratefully. "You were gone for hours! We didn't get your signal because of interference! I was worried sick! I thought something had happened to you out there!"

Scott touched her nose with his finger.

"Peebee," he said affectionately. "As if a whole planet full of indoctrinated undead monsters could keep me from getting back to you."

"I'd hope not," the asari giggled. "I like to think I'm a lot more fun than them."

She eventually looked up and spotted Shepard looming over them, still fairly confused.

"Holy shit, you found him! The Doc was right! I figured she was, but still... holy shit!"

The surprise was enough it seemed to get her off Scott and looking up at Shepard in awe.

"Hmm, you know I thought he'd be taller, honestly," she confessed as Scott stood up beside her.

"Commander, this is Peebee," he introduced her. "She's our chief archaeology expert aboard the ship. When Liara offered to help organize the survivors of the Initiative into a fighting force, she placed her with us. She's been helping us gather old tech, both Forerunner and Prothean related, since the start of the war."

"Well, Liara always had an eye for talent," Shepard said. "Good to meet you, Peebee. I... trust a handshake will suffice as far as I'm concerned?"

Peebee took the hand and shook it vigorously.

"No worries, Commander," Peebee assured him. "Scott's the only one I tackle now. It's kind of our thing. That and Zero-G stuff."

She nudged Scott and winked at him slyly. Shepard could tell even Chief was able to guess what "Zero-G" stuff meant. For his part, Scott's face flushed with red and he hastened to retake control of the conversation.

"Forgive her," Scott requested. "She is extremely blunt and has no concept of social decorum."

Peebee rolled her eyes.

"Shut up, you know you love me for it," she said in a sultry manner.

As strange as Peebee was, it did Shepard some good to see that even now two people were able to find each other in this hellscape of a future. Perhaps it meant that there were still some things worth saving. He could hope.

Peebee eventually spotted the Master Chief. To be fair he hadn't exactly made a big deal concerning his presence, even if he was a hulking super-soldier in heavy armor.

"Oh he's a big one," the asari noticed. "You're the... Master Chief, right?"

The Spartan just nodded.

"Wow, now him... he's about the size I expected," the asari confessed. "What's he eating? Krogan growth hormones?"

"Peebee, stop patronizing our guests," Alec ordered. "They've been through a lot already."

"Right, right, how silly of me," Peebee said, still a bit sardonic, yet somehow still sincere. When she turned back she had plastered a welcoming smile on her face. "Welcome to the apocalypse, guys! How's it treating you so far?"

"Pretty shitty," Shepard bluntly responded.

"Yeah, that's about right," said the asari with a catty grin. "You'll fit in around here just fine."

Cortana appeared on the Omni-tool, looking somewhat perturbed.

"Is she always like this?" She asked Scott.

"Pretty much," Scott shrugged.

"Humor is a wonderful way to mask the crippling anxiety of every encroaching moment potentially being our last," Peebee informed the little AI. "Trust me, if you had nightmares, you'd be doing it too, little purple lady."

"Well luckily I'm not burdened with that sort of thing," Cortana replied. "Just another one of many things that makes me grateful to not be an organic being I guess. That and my superior sense of sarcastic wit."

Peebee just grinned broadly.

"Oh, I'm gonna like her," she said excitedly. "Cortana, right?"

"In the code," the AI answered. "I'm assuming you've heard a bit about me."

"Well mostly that you loved screwing with people and refused to be modest about anything," Peebee explained. "I was hoping it was true."

"Well it wasn't wrong at least," Cortana replied smugly. "No reason to be modest when you're amazing."

She could hear Chief's "Hmph" before he even said it.

"I will ignore that this time," she informed him.

Shepard could feel the ship lifting off from the ground, the floor shaking beneath them. As it did, he spotted a turian, female from the looks of her fringe, walking up and hugging Sarah close. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, of course, but it was hard not to in such a confined space. Sarah pointed towards him, causing the turian to saunter over.

"Sarah tells me you ended up saving her out there," the turian said, stretching out her hand. "Thanks... for getting her back to me. Name's Vetra, good to meet you, Commander."

Shepard took the hand graciously.

"Think nothing of it," he told her. "People keep telling me I have a hero complex. I just see danger and rush in. Easier to do with a biotic charge of course."

Vetra just laughed.

"Holy shit, he's the real deal," she said looking over to Sarah. "Doctor T'Soni wasn't kidding about the modest badass act, was she?"

"She didn't really phrase it like that," Sarah recalled. "I mean, it's the general sense of what she said but still..."

That did sound like something Liara would emphasize about him. If not in those exact words, she would in some fashion. He just hoped she hadn't exaggerated his abilities too much. In light of everything going on, he doubted just getting him and Chief back could fix this mess. Then again, Liara always had a plan when it came to this sort of thing.

"Are you another survivor of the Initiative?" Shepard asked Vetra.

"I was in charge of the Tempest," Vetra explained. "Well, in so far as keeping it supplied with the things it needed once we got to Andromeda. When everything went to hell I just became the quartermaster full time. Not so bad though, I mean, I met Sarah through this job."

"We all have to take what comforts we can find I guess," Shepard acknowledged.

A nearby door opened up, revealing another human woman striding towards Alec. She was around Sarah and Scott's age, with blonde hair cut short and swept over her eye.

"Harper, everything green?" Alec asked.

"I told T'Soni the good news, she's expecting us at HQ soon," the woman responded, soon turning her gaze to Shepard and the Master Chief. "Still can't believe this didn't turn out to be a wild goose chase."

"Oh, are we suddenly starting to doubt the word of an asari now, Cora?" Peebee teased.

"Like you believed that crazy story any more than the rest of us did," Cora snapped back.

"Hey. given all the weird shit that has gone down over the past year or so, nothing honestly surprises me anymore," Peebee claimed rather confidently. "Besides, the Doc is a fellow archaeologist. We have a code of trust between us."

Cora rolled her eyes, but Shepard stopped them before things continued.

"I'm still a bit in the dark over everything, honestly," he informed her. "I'm assuming Liara will explain it when we get back to your base?"

"Sorry, Commander," Cora apologized. "I didn't mean to be rude. Unlike some people."

Peebee just smirked, clearly enjoying the rise she was getting out of the woman. Thankfully, Alec stepped in.

"Shepard, Chief, this is my second," he explained. "Cora Harper, trained in advanced combat and leadership tactics. She's one of the best soldiers we have left fighting this war."

"Good to have you with us then," Shepard told her.

"Same and, actually, I'm here to bring you to someone aboard who can fill you on some more details," Cora explained. "Please, follow me."

Shepard followed after Cora as they got onto a lift in the hangar bay and ascended to the second level. And while he was curious as to who she was taking him to, he had other questions to ask.

"I gotta ask, what's it like working under Alec Ryder?" He prodded. "It must be such an honor."

"He's one of the finest officers I've ever known, well, outside the Asari," Cora exclaimed. "I'm grateful he trusted me as his second. Although, honestly, I wish it were under better circumstances."

"The war is going that bad?" Chief asked.

"Worse than many imagined it would," Cora answered bluntly. "They recovered you from the Normandy wreck right? That fight wasn't even the biggest battle, just the one we managed to keep going the longest. Most of our successes come from engaging the Covenant fleet in sporadic skirmishes. Fighting the Reapers is near impossible. There's nothing left big enough to kill one anymore, not unless we steal some big guns from the Covies and that's increasingly rare."

They entered the main command center, the main door swishing open. Cora turned the corner, pointing to a set of stairs that led up to a raised section behind them.

"That goes up to the main briefing area," she explained. "She's waiting for you there."

Shepard and Chief climbed the steps, emerging into a small rounded meeting room with a holotable in the center, windows providing a view outside around them. They could see the clouds passing by as the Tempest broke out of the atmosphere and into the starlit void. Shepard got a good glimpse of Earth as they left it behind. A burnt out, devastated husk, fires raging across whole continents, black smoke replacing white clouds. It looked like a portrait of hell.

"What they did to Earth is a nightmare alright," said a familiar voice. "It's nothing compared to the rest of the galaxy."

Shepard knew who was speaking before he even turned to face her. What he saw though was shocking. Standing before him, approaching out of the shadows, was Miranda Lawson. Where her right arm should've been however was a mechanical one, similar to Noble Three's original one. Her face a far cry from its usual stunning beauty. There was a patch over one eye and scar ripped across the bridge of her nose.

"Miranda," Shepard said in shock. "What... what happened?"

"You know better than anyone what war takes, Shepard," she replied bluntly. "This one took a bit more from me than expected."

Shepard felt his stomach groan in guilt. He could barely even look at Lawson because of it. This was his fault, his screw up.

"I should've been here," he told her. "I should-"

"It wasn't your fault," Miranda assured him. "It was the experiment."

The experiment? The one with the relics? What did it have to do with... wait did they even do the experiment? He remembered postponing it for some reason. Ugh, again with the contradicting memories. He tried to keep it straight in his mind. He had already suspected that the experiment was at fault for this, but he still didn't know why. Apparently, Cortana had already figured it out though.

"The Crystal, it had some kind of time manipulation function, didn't it?" Cortana asked.

"Yes," Miranda confirmed. "And through the Amplifier and an excess power surge, it somehow transported you three forwards through time, locked to a singular position within the Normandy's cargo bay. It's the only explanation we can figure as to why you ended up here in this dimension with the ship's remains."

"What happened back in my universe?" Chief asked, his voice slightly desperate. "Alec said you had to flee. Why?"

Miranda sighed sadly, looking out the window into the void for a moment.

"It all fell apart, Shepard," she stated plainly. "Without you, Chief, Cortana, it just... crumbled. The Alliance with Zek to begin with. Not long after you vanished he decided to split with the relics and find the Cutlass on his own. He got sick of following orders and the longer you were gone, the fewer reasons he had to stay. In the end, it just didn't work without you."

Shepard shook his head disappointedly. He wasn't really surprised to hear that, but what came next was worse.

"By the time we got back to the Earth in your dimension, Chief, it was completely under siege," Miranda continued. "We didn't know where they came from, but the Covenant swarmed the planet. We... we did our best to save who we could but..."

Shepard approached slowly, seeing how painful the memories were for Miranda. She pressed on all the same.

"Jacob, Mordin, Thane... they didn't make it," she said, close to tears. "And... I'm sorry Chief, but neither did your Spartans."

Chief lowered his head, a look of defeat clear as day across his face even though no one could really see it.

"They all fought till the end, but the Inquisitor had opened up its little science lab and sent every screwed up nightmare creation it could dream up right at us," Miranda growled under her throat. "And all those upgrades it got didn't help. It didn't matter if it was smaller than Sovereign, by the time it got to Earth, the Covenant had cleared away enough defenses that it ceased being a war. It was just a massacre. The Inquisitor was levelling whole cities just by itself. We had no choice, we had to get out of there while we could."

"You made a break for the Wormhole," Shepard reasoned.

"It was our only option," Miranda stated. "We led as many ships left to it once we discovered the location. We still wouldn't have broken the Covenant blockade if it hadn't been for Zek."

Shepard's eyes widened in surprise.

"He came back? Why?" Shepard asked, shocked at the turn in the story.

"To bring us back the Amplifier and to protect our backs while we escaped," Miranda answered. "He sent Taq over with it, probably hoping she'd be safe in the other dimension. Unfortunately, her shuttle took a hit and was badly damaged. When we got to her, she was barely breathing. Zek's ship was destroyed by the time we got her back to the Normandy's med bay to try and stabilize her. That was when she shoved the damn Amplifier in my hands and told me it was 'the key' before she succumbed to her wounds. I didn't know what she meant at the time."

"I'm assuming you discovered she meant the key to finding us again," Cortana presumed.

"That was just part of it, but yes," Miranda stated. "We only found that out later, after fighting the Covenant as they invaded our Galaxy, followed closely by the Reapers of course. Earth fell before we discovered what she meant by it. We lost... too many good people that day."

"Who?" Shepard asked desperately. "Who did we lose?"

Miranda took a moment to compose herself, clutching at her metal arm.

"Joker and EDI died when the Normandy crashed," she explained. "Along with everyone else who didn't get to an escape pod. Garrus, Samara, Kasumi, Jack... they're all gone, Shepard. There's only a handful of the original crew left."

Shepard fell backwards into a seat nearby, his hands buried into his palms. Garrus was dead? Kasumi? Jack? Samara? All just... gone? And he hadn't been here to help them. Any of them. He had failed them by not being there for them. By not being the Commander he should've been. He felt Chief's hand on his shoulder.

"Commander, I'm sorry," he said.

Shepard patted the Spartan's arm and did his best to compose himself.

"Where are the others?" He asked. "The ones who are left? Tali? Where's Tali?"

Miranda looked crestfallen.

"They're... they're alive, Shepard," she said. "More or less. We're stationed out of an old Alliance Training facility on the moon. It was the only place left to go that was close to Earth. We had to wait and prepare for your return. It... it was our only shot."

"At what?" Chief asked.

"Ending this," Miranda declared, determination burning in her remaining eye. "Ending all of this before it even starts."

Miranda didn't get to elaborate on that statement, as much as Shepard wanted her too. End this? There was a way to stop this from happening? All of it? Right now there was nothing more Shepard wanted in both universes. Instead of getting answers to how they could do that, Alec's voice came over the intercom.

"Everyone, we got trouble! We're going in hot!"

Hot? That was never a good thing to hear. Miranda was already running towards the cockpit as Shepard and Chief joined her. When they reached it, they found Alec standing in the command position. A woman sat in a copilot's chair on the left, wearing a labcoat. The pilot's seat was filled by a salarian. All three were staring in horror out the window. Shepard soon joined them.

He could see the surface of the Moon and a small facility among the rocks. He could see fire erupting from a number turrets, as well as several crashed shuttles and transport craft. As well as a number of figures he could see patrolling the area firing on the turrets.

"I've confirmed it, sir," the woman in the labcoat said, speaking in a Scottish accent. "It's them."

An image appeared on one of the holoscreens, confirming what Shepard had already suspected by now. It was not a husk they were looking at on the screen. It was a human Combat Form. The Flood were here too.

"The Flood are here?" Chief shouted aloud. "How are they here? We killed them."

"Guilty Spark said there were other rings," Cortana reminded him. "Other rings with more Flood Samples. The Covenant... they must've set them loose again."

"I'm sorry," Miranda apologized suddenly, her voice flustered and anguished. "I meant to tell you both. But after telling you about the others... how they died..."

Shepard stopped her, placing a hand on her shoulder. He wasn't intent on blaming her or being angry at you for not reliving every horrible detail at once. He just wanted to find out what he could now. That was all that mattered.

"When?" He simply asked. "When did they show up?"

"Our push against Harbinger," Miranda answered. "They just swarmed Earth along with our other forces. We might have actually stood a chance but their attack diverted resources. They were the reason we failed so horribly that day."

"Are... are they working with the Reapers?" Shepard asked, the horrifying thought instantly crossing his mind.

"No," Alec answered. "Near as we can tell they're fighting them too. They're the reason our resistance cell has survived so long. Reapers and Covenant are fending them off more than hunting us down. There are still pockets of the bastards on Earth they're trying to burn out."

"Who's winning?" Cortana asked.

"Does it matter?" Alec asked in return. "Between the two of them, it's like picking between the frying pan and the fire. Look, we can talk more about this later. Our people are dying down there. We lose this base and we lose everything."

Shepard just nodded as did the Master Chief.

"Get us some weapons, sir," Shepard requested. "We've been out of this fight long enough."

Alec grinned at that.

"Let's get you geared up then," he said.

---

The Tempest fired a single cannon shot near their landing zone, clearing out a few of the Combat Forms swarming the area. When it came in for a landing, the ship had barely touched the ground before the hangar doors opened. Shepard jumped free of the vessel, the Master Chief close behind. Not even a second after landing did a number of Combat Forms rush them. Shepard opened up on them with Shockwave, ending their mad dash before it had even begun.

The rest of Alec's team soon rushed down the gangplank as the Tempest landed. Scott let loose with assault rifle fire, cutting into a few of Combat Forms opening up on their position. Chief was the first to notice something familiar about said rifle.

"That's an MA5," he recognized.

"Oh yeah, your team brought back a lot of specs for weapons to reproduce," Scott explained. "It's pretty old school, uses real bullets, but it's more effective on Flood forms."

"Or you could be like me and just use ammo mods," Peebee declared, taking aim with her pistol.

Firing her gun at the Flood forms, Peebee managed to damage two Combat Forms with clean shots to the chest.

"Warp ammo," she grinned. "Tears at their insides."

Alec quickly took point, Cora backing him up. Alec formed a Singularity that picked up a few Flood Carrier forms as they waddled towards them. Cora then plugged them both with her own Warp Ammo, detonating the field and causing an explosion that destroyed the Infection forms that survived the initial blast.

"Everyone pair up, we need to cover the most ground," Alec ordered. "Cora, take Vetra and Sarah to the East Entrance, chatter is warning of a breach. Scott, Peebee, you're with me, we need to clean out everyone topside before heading in. Cut off the attack at the source."

"Where do you need us, sir?" Shepard asked.

"Lawson will take you two directly to the Commander Center," Alec insisted. "We'll try to catch up with you once things are clear."

Miranda moved in on their right, firing her pistol at the Combat Forms ahead of them.

"We need to move, fast," she insisted. "We've fortified best we could, but this place wasn't built to survive a full-blown assault."

"Lead the way, Miranda," Shepard requested.

Lawson rushed over the hill, firing as she went, both biotics and her gun. Shepard backed her up best he could, using his Shockwave to knock the Combat Forms back. Chief was currently using a Scimitar Shotgun with Shredder rounds, ripping apart encroaching Combat Forms with ease. One of them rushed at the trio, blasting away with a Revenant Assault Rifle. Chief rolled across the moon dust to avoid the shots, popping back up to return the favor and gun the creature down. When he got a better look at it though, he was perplexed.

"That one looked like Garrus and Vetra's species," he stated. "A turian."

"The Turian colonies held out the longest until the Flood invaded," Miranda shouted over the fire. "Even their exoskeletons couldn't protect them from infection! The Flood just found ways to burrow past the plates!"

They eventually reached the safety of one of the entrances to the underground. With a missile turret firing over their heads at invading undead monsters, Shepard was almost too distracted to realize something. He had been here before.

"Hey," he said. "This is the Alliance Training Camp. The one where I shutdown that Rogue VI."

"Liara remembered it," Miranda informed him as she punched in the entry code. "It was shuttered after you took care of that VI, but the superstructure remained intact. We just added onto it after we moved in."

The airlock doors swung open and Miranda ushered them inside.

"Come on, we have to stop the Flood before they infest the whole damn place," Lawson insisted. "Liara should be directing things from Control. If we lose that, we lose everything."

---

Miranda hadn't been kidding about the remodelling they had done to the training facility. It seemed to have been expanded with a number of tunnels cutting into the rock. It had to have taken some time to accomplish all that, especially given the circumstances.

Miranda led them through the alternating halls and quickly dug caverns. He could see various beds and rooms built for extra power and storage. There were probably more people in here than they realized or could see at the moment. He wondered how many were combatants or just desperate survivors? He wanted to ask Miranda, but far more pressing matters plagued his mind.

As they turned one hallway, a door burst open further down the way. From behind it, a number of Combat Forms swarmed into the corridor. They fired on the team, forcing them into cover. Chief opened up in kind, ripping off the firing arm of one Combat Form. It charged across the length of the hall, flailing its remaining arm. Miranda grabbed it by what had once been the corpse's throat, using her mechanical hand and then used her Biotics to punch it into pieces.

More Flood soon filled the corridor though, the sound of battle calling to them. Shepard used his Shockwave to break some of their number up, but they were as relentless now as they ever been back on Halo. It was starting to seem like they would have to fall back, even as the Flood stepped over the broken and desiccated corpses of their fellows. Until an explosion ripped apart theirs.

It hadn't been a grenade from Chief's arsenal though. Rushing out of the smoke, firing into the downed Combat Forms, appeared a man, possibly of African descent. Miranda was quick to call out to him.

"Liam! What are you doing here?" She asked.

"T'Soni saw you enter on the cameras," he replied. "She sent me to fetch you. I know, I know, Ryder put me on base Security detail and everything, but when Liara gives an order-"

There was a sudden roar from a few corridors down, reminding them all of the gravity of the situation.

"Forget it," Miranda told him. "We need to get to Control, now!"

Liam just nodded, taking point, even as he looked back at Shepard.

"So, you really found him?" He asked. "We might actually have a chance now, right?"

"Not if we get killed by the Flood," Miranda informed him grimly. "Eyes open."

"Right, right, sorry," Liam apologized. "It's just a bit crazy is all."

Shepard could infer Liam was also part of Alec's team. Maybe just a bit frazzled as well, but he had been able to find them in all this chaos. That was admirable.

"Liam, what happened?" Shepard asked as they moved through the halls. "When did this attack start?"

"Twenty minutes ago, tops," Liam answered. "Came out of the sky in shuttles and dropships. We wondered if they were refugees, turns out not so. We took a few out when we realized something was wrong, but enough crashed down and started swarming the base."

"Has Control been breached?" Miranda asked.

"No, Doc is secure, so are the living quarters," Liam assured. "But they're all streaming right towards it."

That piece of information seemed to disturb Miranda the most.

"Damn," she growled. "We got to move."

They turned a corner, picking up speed as they did. That unfortunately put them right in the path of a pair of Combat Forms armed with missile launchers.

"Down!" Chief shouted.

He tackled Miranda as Shepard ducked with Liam. The missiles flew over their heads striking the wall far behind them. Chief popped up to fire on them, only for part of the wall near the Flood to give way. Something charged through it, smashing the Combat Forms apart and squishing them against the opposite wall under the weight of his girth. Once he got a decent look, Shepard realized it was a krogan, one who had quite literally smashed through a wall. His armor was covered in bones, no doubt from kills he had made. He was also lugging around a huge shotgun with a pointed double blade bayonet attached to its barrel.

"Ha Ha! Told them they needed to make these things thicker." The big burly alien declared.

"Drack, good to see you, mate," Liam called out as he stood up.

"Oh, hey," the Krogan replied. "Didn't know they were firing on you, Liam. Just chasing down some Flood, can't let the others take all the good trophies."

Shepard got up off the floor, as did Chief and Miranda, who the Spartan helped to stand. Drack whistled upon seeing them both. He didn't need to voice his reason for doing so in order for Shepard to figure out the intent. This was quickly becoming a common reaction, surprise that he and Chief were here. How unbelievable was Liara's theory? Then again, he was here in the future back in his own universe and he was still having a hard time believing that.

"Commander Shepard," the krogan laughed as he approached. "The legend himself. Heh, guess I owe Wrex some rations now. Should have known better to doubt T'Soni's hunch."

"Wrex is here?" Shepard said, overjoyed to know at least another of his old friends was alive.

"Yeah, and your tank-bred kid," Drack stated. "Not for long though, if we don't break this infestation hard and fast."

So even Grunt was here. A sigh of relief washed over him. Miranda had said the crew was alright, a few of them anyway, but she hadn't explained to what extent. Knowing Grunt and Wrex were still in the fight was a relief to him more than anything.

"Come on," Drack ushered. "I'm not the only old geezer in need of a hand. I'm trying to shore up defenses in one of the bunk rooms close by. The Flood take that, they can get to Control and the lower levels."

"That's not happening," Miranda declared. "Lead the way."

Drack led them to the room, rushing through the doors as the opened. He impaled a Combat Form on his bayonet, rammed him into a wall and then unloaded the weapon in it. The body was practically blasted in two and Drack continued to unleash hellfire on the other hostiles nearby. The room they were in was indeed a crew quarters of some kind, re-purposed from one of the older original rooms that made up what had once been the training facility. Last time Shepard was here, he had been fighting Rocket Drones. Now, more horrifying foes surrounded them.

The Combat Forms were all over the place, rushing in and out of cover with little concern for themselves. Shepard shot down one of their number as it jumped on a nearby box. As he did, a burst of flame exploded to his right. Three Combat Forms were set ablaze, running like mad, screeching in anguish. Shepard looked to where the flames came from. The culprit was soon found, a Firestorm Flamethrower, held by another familiar face. Drack hadn't been kidding about there being another old timer in here.

"Bloody hell, Shepard," Zaeed declared. "Never thought I'd see your ass again."

Zaeed, despite being alive, did not look great. Granted, he had never looked like a fresh-faced soldier or anything, but this was worse. Half his face was covered in third-degree burns, the other half even more cut up than when Shepard had first met him. His arms were grafted with even more implant scars and cybernetic grafts.

"Massani," Shepard said, wondering if there was anything left he could be shocked by. "You look like hell."

"Still as lucky in war as ever, for whatever that's worth," Zaeed said, before suddenly wheezing horribly. "Damn it, some days I wonder if being too damn stubborn to die is a curse."

"Preaching to the choir, Massani!" Drack shouted from across the room.

One of the vents up top exploded at that moment, a number of Infection forms bursting forth from it. Zaeed lit up his flamethrower and blasted it right at them.

"Come on, Commander," he cried. "As long as we're living, might as well make it hurt for them!"

A sentiment that Shepard could get behind. He used his biotics to charge into the fray, sending a number of Combat Forms flying. He blasted his Shotgun at them as he moved across the room, Zaeed backing him up with a wall of flames. At the same time, he watched the Master Chief gun down another turian Infection Form, while Liam covered his forward advance. Drack mostly was just bull rushing through the Flood, Miranda cleaning up any he missed in his wake.

As they kept pushing though, more Flood seemed to be drawn into the room. They burst from behind walls, crawled out of ducts, broke down doors that had been sealed.

"We're going to get overrun!" Shepard called out. "Zaeed? We need backup!"

"I have none! They were all dead before you even showed up!" Zaeed exclaimed. "Infection Forms, had to kill'em myself!"

Shepard quickly searched the frequency on his communicator.

"Ryder, sir!" He called out. "We're getting overrun here!"

That was when one of the doors burst open, sending a few Combat Forms nearby tumbling over each other. The cause wasn't one of their own though, it was a Biotic Detonation, caused by a Shockwave attack. Rushing inside the room and gunning down the nearby hostiles, were Scott and Peebee.

"Hey gang! You miss us?!" Peebee asked.

"Watch it!"

Scott grabbed Peebee, bringing him over into his arms as a Flood Form suddenly stood up and tried to swipe at her. A concussive shot sent the corpse flying back into a wall, with Scott holding Peebee in a rather suggestive embrace.

"You know, he wasn't even that close," Peebee told him. "You just wanted to touch my ass, didn't you?"

"Uh, no," Scott claimed, rather flustered at the accusation.

"You really don't need an excuse, babe," she assured him. "You know that, right?"

The moment was broken up when Alec walked into the room.

"Flirt later," he told them. "Kill things now."

"Aye, Aye, Captain!" Peebee saluted.

Alec had pulled out an Omni-Blade and, without missing a beat, cut down a Combat Form as it tried to rush him. He then sent a Biotic Throw attack that resulting in throwing two more Flood creatures right into a wall. Suddenly, he looked up and blasted his shotgun into the vents above. Another Combat Form tumbled out of it moments later. A Carrier Form stumbled into view next, he merely pulled it into with Biotics before releasing it at another Combat Form group and firing at it with Inferno Rounds.

Shepard stood in awe, he knew how accomplished a soldier Alec Ryder was, but seeing him in action was another thing entirely. All these years and he had not lost a single move. He was just as amazing as the vids always said he was.

And yet, things still had gone down the toilet even with him here to help Liara. Not exactly something that gave him hope for his chances in the long run. He shook the thought off quickly all the same, they still had a job to do.

He and Zaeed supported Alec as he moved towards the Master Chief's position. He was firing like mad at a chokepoint within the bunks lined up in the room, trying to keep the Combat Forms contained. However, he soon began running low on thermal clips. Luckily, Liam had some extra to spare and passed them along. As the fire intensified from the Combat Forms though, Chief's shields began to fail. Alec stepped in front of him at that moment, pulling up a biotic shield in front of him. He reflected the incoming bullets, sending them back at the Combat Forms. Because they were mostly using Mass Effect weapons though, they did little to no damage. Not that it mattered, as Alec was just the distraction.

"Scott! Now!"

A powerful shrapnel blast exploded among the Combat Forms, shredding them to bits. Alec had drawn the attention of the Flood onto him, allowing his son to fire off a Carnage shot that decimated the enemy's ranks and give Chief time to recover from their onslaught.

There was little time to really congratulate everyone on their efforts. An entire wall just suddenly exploded, revealing the maintenance access beyond it. Combat Forms rushed out, firing like mad at anything that moved.

"I got this!" Peebee shouted. "Cover me!"

Shepard wasn't sure what she intended, but protected the asari as she rushed into position, drawing enemy fire as she moved in. When she was close enough, she activated her omni-tool. Little red lights suddenly ejected out of them, striking the Combat Forms. They appeared disoriented for a moment, unable to shoot straight, until they suddenly just all exploded. Shepard was almost stunned.

"Invasion attack," Peebee giggled from cover. "Something they developed for our Andromeda expedition. Little VI controlled robobugs that infect enemies and screw with them. When they damage the enemy enough, they explode! Like most things that are fun actually."

"Your Initiative had some killer tech," Shepard complimented.

"None of it really intended for this stuff," Peebee noted. "But hey, least it's getting some use."

Another door opened wide, stepping back into the room now were Vetra, Cora and Sarah. Vetra was firing off a storm of Inferno rounds, first into the hallway they were backing out of, then into the Flood forms in the room when Cora ordered her to shift the focus of her attack.

When Vetra turned, Miranda moved up into her position. Shepard, moving to get a better look, now saw what they did, a mass of Combat Form moving on their position. Cora hit something on her Omni-tool, shouting something about shields being boosted. Miranda then sent out a series of Warp attacks, as quick as she could. Sarah then readied what appeared to be a biotic lance in her hands.

"Hit them!" Cora ordered. "Hit them now!"

Sarah let loose, her lance striking one of the primed Flood forms. In the next instant, a terrible biotic explosion ripped the Combat Form ranks, destroying them all. The three women now fell back, moving over to regroup with Vetra.

"That the last of them?" Liam asked, scanning the room.

"Kosta! I told you to stop saying that!" Zaeed shouted. "You always jinx us!"

Sure enough, the team heard footsteps thudding towards the very door Shepard and the others had used to get in this very room. Along with a horrific roar that Shepard remembered from earlier.

"I hate it when you don't listen to your elders, Liam," Vetra chided, readying her assault rifle.

At that moment, bursting through the doors, screaming violently at them, was a lumbering tower of rotting flesh. It looked like an undead Gorilla, only ten times bigger, hunched over on all fours and clearly very pissed off.

"Tank!" Alec called out. "Scatter!"

Everyone did, save for Drack who took the monster's charge head on stopping it cold in the middle of the room. Cora slammed into its side with a biotic charge, disorienting it slightly while Vetra poured on the incendiary rounds. All the same, it smacked Drack away and nearly crushed Cora. It turned on Shepard and the Master Chief, rushing at them like a bull. Both of them dodged in separate directions, avoiding the beast. It smashed into a small, causing the whole room to shake. Chief brought up Cortana on his Omni-tool.

"What the hell is that thing?" He asked. "A Hunter Flood Form?"

"No," Cortana warned. "I'm detecting no trace elements of any known species. This thing... it's... it's pure Flood Biomass!"

"You mean that thing is just... Flood?" Shepard asked in disbelief. "They... grew it?"

The Tank moved to charge again, pounding at the floor with its fists. Chief readied aim at the creature's mouth, where the weird plant-like tendrils were. Perhaps, like the regular Combat Forms, it was an indicator of a weak spot.

Instead, a giant metal fist crashed into it. From out of one of the blown open doors, some kind of Mech emerged. It was bulbous and hunched over. Colored a royal shade of blue, one arm seemed to be sporting a giant Needler, while rocket packs boosted the suit into the fray. The Tank lay on the floor, trying to get up, as a big old robotic boot slammed into its head. One arm grabbed the Flood Form by the neck, while the Needler Gun fired into its stomach at point blank range. It then kicked the Tank away and it exploded into a pink mist.

The mech then turned towards Shepard and the Master Chief. While it didn't look like it was Flood or Reaper tech, it did have some very similar aspects to Covenant weaponry. Upon even closer inspection, they could see what looked to be the outline of an unggoy sitting in the cockpit of the thing. However, Peebee and Scott were quick to calm the two down, forcing them to lower their weapons gently.

"Easy super commandos," Peebee said. "He's one of ours."

"Yeah, one of the Doc's elite even," Scott added with a chuckle. "Although, you wouldn't know it just by looking at him without the suit."

The cockpit opened, revealing the unggoy sitting at the controls. He was wearing a mask over his face, feeding him methane most likely and had facial paint on, also colored blue. He gave both Shepard and the Chief a hearty salute.

"Kayap," Alec said as he approached the scene. "A little close on the timing there, weren't ya?"

"There were a lot of bad guys to clean up," he claimed. "Boss has already sent people to clean out what's left. Only stragglers now."

"Boss?" Shepard asked confused.

"Liara," Peebee elaborated. "It's what he calls her. He's like her chief enforcer next to Wrex ever since they grabbed that suit from a Covie Battlecruiser they disabled."

"Shepard, Chief," Kayap spoke to them in a fairly commanding tone. "Liara needs to see you now. Follow me back to Control. She'll explain everything."

The cockpit closed back up and Kayap began to exit the room, his mechanical footsteps shaking the floor every time he inched forward.

"Best get going," Sarah warned them from across the way. "He can get real testy when you don't listen. Which with him is both cute and incredibly scary."

Shepard would hardly put unggoy and scary in the same sentence together. However, Kayap didn't seem like your typical unggoy. Liara had mentioned in her transmissions she had picked up the little guy when he invaded her ship and defected to her side. He had sounded like a timid soul when Liara had described him. Evidently, not so much anymore.

"Come on!" Kayap called back over the suit's megaphone system. "We're wasting enough time as it is. Which, I guess is the whole point of this when you think about it. Now move it!"

Not wanting to be commanded a third time by anunggoy, Shepard, Chief and Cortana just shrugged and followed him. The rest of the group close behind.

---

Kayap led them towards a room carved out of the rock around them. He parked the mech in a small alcove just outside a large door and hopped out. Hooking himself up to a portable methane tank attached to the wall, before pressing a button on the side of his helmet. His gas mask separated near the mouth and retracted back into his helmet. There were still tubes feeding into his nostrils and his mouth, but now they could see his face more clearly. The paint on his eyes that had seen before covered most of his face, a bright blue that Shepard recognized very clearly as Liara's own color tint. Kayap next waddled over the keypad near the door and input a code.

"How much did Lawson tell you?" He asked. "About why we're here."

Shepard presumed he meant the moon.

"She explained that Liara knew we'd be reappearing here and they had to wait as close by as possible," he replied. "And that I'm somehow the key to fixing this."

"You both are," Kayap corrected him, looking at Chief as well as him. "Boss sacrificed a lot to keep this place safe for so long for both of you. So I hope you can deliver. For her sake. For everyone's."

He was certainly more authoritative than any unggoy they had met before. Shepard wondered if that was from the mech or how long the little guy had been fighting. One thing was for sure, his thoughts seemed centred squarely on Liara.

The doors opened wide and Kayap ushered them in.

"She'll explain everything," he said as he walked in ahead of them.

The Control Room was a bustle of activity, various species, mostly human but plenty of asari and turians as well. They were stationed at various screens and terminals, feverishly going over information across their screens, all talking at once. Others were soldiers, armed to the teeth and geared up in specialized armor. Shepard wasn't two feet into the room when a giant hand clasped on his shoulder. He turned to see it was attached to someone he knew, a still young, but not so fresh-faced, krogan.

"Shepard!" Grunt declared, greeting him before pulling him into a giant hug. "Ha ha! I knew you'd be back! Liara said as much and she's smarter than any of us."

"Grunt, been a long time, well, from your perspective," Shepard said, squeaking out the words even as he felt Grunt crushing him.

A wave of memories struck Shepard's mind in that instant. Grunt looking for his toy, but also sitting in the med-bay with Zek, as well as barging into Miranda's office on the Normandy with varying degrees of urgency and, sometimes, boredom. More contradicting events, it made no sense. He could only hope Liara would sort it all out.

Grunt finally put him down.

"You and Chief better get over to Liara, she'll want to see you," he explained. "We'll talk once you're settled. We're going to fix all of this, just you wait."

Grunt seemed so sure, yet Shepard couldn't figure out why. As he walked over towards what appeared to be the center of the room, he could see various people stopping to stare at him in Chief. They seemed amazed that he was here, now. Some seemed concerned, others were perhaps hopeful. Again, he wasn't sure why.

Eventually, he got close to the holographic table in the middle of the room, staring directly at the backside of someone hunched over the thing, deep in thought and gripping the sides of the table tightly.

"Have third and fifth squads perform a perimeter check," she said. "We need to be sure they're all dead up there. And I need that report on the weapons cache raid, how many plasma weapons we got and how many we lost getting them."

Shepard recognized the voice instantly.

"Liara?"

The figure stood straight suddenly, as the whole room fell silent. She turned from the table ever so slowly, not entirely sure if she should at first. There stood Liara T'Soni, her tattered brown longcoat revealed as well as a small scar across her cheek and a bandana across her neck.

"Wade."

She said his name with almost utter disbelief, before rushing over to him and embracing him in a hug. Her arms closed in behind his head and he could feel tears in her eyes against his skin. He did his best to recover from the shock and returned the hug.

"I... I'm sorry," she said. "It's just... after everything... It's been so long. I... I was beginning to think I... we..."

It's okay," Shepard said, calming her. "It's okay."

Eventually, Liara pulled away and dried her eyes.

"It's... it's good to see you, Shepard," she told him, turning to the Spartan next to him. "And a pleasure to finally meet you, Master Chief."

The Spartan nodded in return.

"Likewise ma'am," he said.

"And Cortana is with you, correct?" She asked.

The AI appeared on his Omni-tool.

"Present," she replied. "And by the way, nice set up you have down here."

"We've done what we could," Liara insisted. "But your approval is appreciated, thank you. Right now though, we need to talk."

"I'd hope so, I feel like every question I get a straight answer to reveals ten more at this point," Shepard told her. "Everyone keeps saying there's a way to fix this. Miranda even said we could stop it before it starts."

"Yes, we can," Liara assured him. "It won't be easy, but we've pinned everything we have left on this. You, Chief and Cortana were the last missing pieces to it all. Now that you're here... there's finally some hope again."

"A flicker at least."

Shepard turned to the new voice and saw it was Kat, accompanied by Wrex. His old krogan friend didn't look much different from when he had seen him last, save for his cracked headplate. Kat, however, had seemingly upgraded the Geth arm Tali had given her. It now seemed a bit heftier, more robust, like the arm of a Geth Prime. It probably had more weapons attachments. Her armor was also grafted together from pieces of her old Spartan gear as well as N7 components. Obviously, the war had forced her to improvise and adapt.

"Wrex! Kat!" Shepard greeted with a degree of joy.

"Heh, heh, Shepard," Wrex said, coming up to clasp his old friend's arm. "I kept telling everyone the void couldn't hold you. Looks like you beat death twice."

"This time I didn't die," Shepard joked. "But it's good to see you nevertheless."

Chief approached Kat.

"Miranda said most of the Spartans were gone," he said. "I'm... I'm glad you made it out."

"I'm not exactly sure there's much to be proud of, Chief," she told him. "Given everything that's happened. But if this plan of ours works, it won't matter."

"I'm eager to know what this plan is exactly," Cortana insisted. "Because I'm still unsure. We don't even know how you knew to expect us."

Liara sighed, holding her head.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to keep you waiting for answers," she explained, pressing a button on the table. "Perhaps this will start to explain things."

From the center of the table, a small compartment opened up. Inside, rising up from a platform, was the Amplifier. Shepard looked puzzled, he knew Zek had returned it and it played a role in this somehow, but how would this explain anything.

"What do you remember about this relic?" Liara asked.

"It amplifies the core process of any technology it interacts with," Shepard recalled. "Maximizing its full potential beyond its previous capabilities."

"Do you remember the experiment they were performing on the Normandy before you arrived here?" Liara asked cautiously.

"Yes, we were performing it on the Crystal relic we found, but..." he stopped himself, wondering if he should explain about the contradictions. In the end, he decided they needed to know. "I'm not sure. Did we even do the experiment?"

"We did," Kat confirmed. "And you were both there in the Cargo Bay. I wasn't, but all the Spartans knew of what was going on. Remember?"

Chief nodded, but then held his head.

"How come I remember there being a meeting to postpone it though?" He asked.

"Think hard," Liara insisted. "Do you all have conflicting accounts of the day of the experiment?"

Shepard nodded, as did the Master Chief. Cortana looked puzzled for a moment.

"I... I have data entries that seem a little scrambled but-"

"Think back," Liara pressed again. "You took Cortana out of the console. Correct, Chief?"

The Spartan nodded.

"And then the Commander and I tried to pull the plug," Chief added. "But also we didn't. How does that make sense? Which memory is true?"

"They both are," Kat told them. "The experiment resulted in a time loop that trapped the Normandy in a six-hour interval that ended at the time the crystal originally exploded."

"However, Grunt was immune to the effects as was Zek," Liara continued. "Eventually they managed to undo the effects, but you were missing. From what Grunt remembers, you were both trying to pull the plug on the experiment when the Amplifier overcharged the Crystal and the latter exploded. We believe the sudden burst of energy, the same that caused the loop, also propelled you forward in time. No doubt because you were closest to the power surge that resulted in the Crystal's explosion."

So the Crystal controlled time, that explained why they were here. The Amplifier must've increased its output, enabling it to send them forwards in time.

"But why here?" Shepard asked. "Shouldn't we be floating in the middle of space right now if we were sent forward in time? I mean, we didn't reappear in the same place."

"The Crystal interacts with more than just time, it is also connected to space," Kat informed him. "The explosion occurred in the Normandy's cargo bay. From what we understand, it became locked to that specific space, regardless of current position or dimension."

"And the contradicting memories?" Chief asked.

"The first explosion when you tried to pull the plug sent you forward," Liara explained. "But in other loops during the same time, you didn't come into direct contact with the surge of energy. Thus creating a paradox of sorts. When the loops were resolved, it reverted everything back to normal, but you had already travelled through time in the original explosion. The loops were resolved, but that part of the paradox remained. So now your memories are contradicting themselves because they're recalling the loops for you."

Shepard almost couldn't believe any of this, but the more Liara talked, the clearer his thoughts got. He remembered more, not in any great detail, but he remembered some of the loops he had lived. Or hadn't. It was all still very confusing. He tried to think about what this meant for them. Then he recalled something Cortana had said, or a version of her at least, during one of the loops.

"Schrodinger's Cat," He declared.

"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing," Cortana spoke up.

"You did, or didn't, whatever," Shepard said, trying to keep his train of thought straight. "You're saying we're both here in the future but there's also a part of us connected to the past?"

"Exactly," Liara said, her tone growing more excited. "At the very least your ability to recall the loops to a degree suggests you are mentally linked to that moment in time. The paradox is still ongoing, but we can correct it!"

"How do you even know all this?" Cortana asked. "I thought Taq only came back with the Amplifier before dying. That's what Miranda said."

"Taq is dead and we only have the Amplifier, yes," Liara confirmed. "But we eventually cracked her Omni-tool. There was an encoded message on it. We think Taq had meant to give it to us personally, but she died before she could unlock it."

Kat tapped a few buttons on the holotable, revealing a wealth of information on several screens. Notes, reports, analysis readings, everything referring to what Taq had been able to discover about the Crystal and the Amplifier while it was in her possession.

"There's one file, in particular, you need to see," Kat said, bringing up a video on the screen. "It's... it's from Zek. To you."

Shepard slowly approached the table, noticing others had begun to gather around. Including Grunt, Kayap, and a newly arrived Alec Ryder alongside his crew. It looked as if they had been waiting for this moment for a while, he hoped he wouldn't disappoint them. He let the video play. On it, Zek was sitting in a half-demolished room, the one he had aboard the Fallen Serpent from the look of it. He looked terrible, more scars and burns and plucked out quills than ever. He was grimacing at the screen, looking defeated.

"Shepard, if you're watching this, I'm dead," he began. "Likely from doing something pretty sinful in as far as the pirate life is concerned, being selfless. At the very least, I hope Taq makes it through that wormhole with your crew. I don't have much time, so I'll be quick. I fucked up, Shepard. Fucked everything up. The whole damn galaxy is gonna burn and it's because I was too damn stupid to see beyond my own fucking beak."

He slammed a fist on the table before he kept going, sounding like he was about to start sobbing.

"I took the relics to find the Cutlass on my own, left Haverson and Holland to rot," he continued. "I never found it. I instead found some new humans, people who acted like they wanted to help me out. They didn't. They had just intercepted Haverson's transmissions to ONI command about the relics and tracked me down. The second they had a chance, they killed half my crew robbing me blind... in... including Retz. The motherfuckers. Lousy naked ape motherfuckers killed him! He told me they didn't smell right and now he's dead because of me!"

Zek threw a bottle of ichor against a nearby wall and finally broke down, smashing his fist into the table in anguish until Shepard swore he saw it begin to bleed. When Zek finally got a hold of himself, he kept going.

"They weren't UNSC, or ONI, not even those damn Insurgents, they weren't from here, period." Zek claimed. "They're from your neck of the woods. Your universe. Called themselves... Cerberus."

Shepard's eyes went wide in shock. Cerberus had gotten through the wormhole? How? When? He wanted to ask anyone for more information, but the video kept playing.

"I was bitter and angry, didn't heed the warning signs," Zek explained. "I just wanted my Cutlass. Taq was able to figure out everything though, even with the Crystal stolen. How you got warped through time. How slipspace opened up and swallowed you and the Spartan whole. That you're somehow tied to the Normandy now and you'll eventually reappear there. We know shit on Earth, this one at least, is going bad and we figure your crew is headed there with as many people they can bring with them. That's why we're headed there now, we need to make sure your ship stays intact, that it follows the bastards who stole the Crystal relic back to your universe. Taq says that with it, we can fix this. We can send you and the Spartan back in time, before any of this happened! Before it all went to shit! You can stop this from happening, all of it!"

Zek looked into the camera desperately, almost pleading directly at Shepard now.

"I'm encoding this message into Taq's Omni-tool," the Jackal stated. "Just in case something goes wrong, we've decided to lock it. If the wrong person learns about any of this, like Cerberus or the Covenant, they could use that knowledge to trap you and then we're all fucked. Shepard, Spartan, you need to find the Crystal, find the fuckers who took it. When you're close enough to it with the Amplifier, it should open a tear in slipspace capable of sending you back. If we've figured this right, you should appear back in the Normandy's cargo hold just after me and Grunt resolved the time loop problem, right in front of Tali and everyone. That's Taq's theory anyway, I trust her on this and really, what else we got left to lose?"

The alarm sounded in the room Zek was in, his face becoming more determined and grim.

"You two and that AI with ya are our last hope," he declared, grabbing his plasma pistol and standing up. "Keep me in that fleet, keep those relics in the fleet and you make 'me' from the past get his fucking shit together! Do what you two do best, save the fucking galaxy. Save us all."

The video cut off there, leaving silence in its wake. Shepard could only lean over the edge of the table. He thought about how Zek had at least hoped to save Taq. How little he knew how bad things would get. About how Cerberus was apparently a part of this. He felt Liara's hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. He had plenty of questions still left unanswered, but after seeing Zek in his state, he only had one at the forefront of his mind.

"Liara, Miranda mentioned Tali was alive," he said. "Where is she?"

Liara looked pensive and unsure.

"Wade..."

"Tali, where is she?" He asked again. "I need to see her."

His thoughts kept going back to Taq, how Zek had wanted to save her out of everyone. He could've picked himself to deliver the message, but he tried to save Taq. With that in mind, all he wanted to do right now was see Tali.

"Where?" He pleased again.

Liara lowered her head sullenly.

"She is alive," she confessed solemnly. "I'll... I'll take you to her."

---

Liara remained silent as she led Shepard down into the lower quarters of the base. He asked her about how long it took them to dig all of these. Liara just said "mining lasers" and left it at that. It was the only word she said to him. She remained silent as they passed small groups of survivors taking refuge here. Some were probably soldiers, most were just scared, desperate people. They lived out of shacks made from repurposed scrap, if they were lucky. Most just slept in bed rolls or hastily made bunks. Some were maimed, others hungry, all covered in filth.

Eventually, they arrived at a section of the cavern, a beat-up old sign over its entrance said "clinic." It reminded Shepard of Mordin's own practice on Omega, but even that place had a neon sign. This was just written on sheet metal. The inside was packed with the wounded, dead and dying of the Flood attack. There was moaning, screams of pain, poor souls limped by aimlessly, others were just curled up into balls in corners sobbing.

"We do what we can," Liara said grimly. "Not... not everyone can be saved."

Shepard said nothing. He always knew this would be the case, that when the Reapers came they couldn't save everyone. He knew the toll would be high, even if the Council listened to his every word the casualties would devastating. He thought he had prepared himself for that mentally. Now he knew he had failed in that regard. His stomach sank with every tortured face, every pained groan, every bloody sheet covering another body.

Worst of all was knowing why he was here. Somewhere down here was Tali, the woman he loved. Part of him wanted to hope she had lost a limb or was ill, maybe her suit couldn't be repaired and she was in a bubble room. The reality was far worse though, as they came to a locked door near the back. A door that looked like it had been repurposed from a ship.

Liara paused at the keypad, hesitant to complete her task. Shepard could see the conflict on her face, her hands shook and her eyes grew fearful.

"You... you don't have to see her," she tried to tell him. "Not like this. You don't-"

Without a word, Shepard pressed the button for her. He didn't blame her for wanting to talk him out of this, he could tell she was troubled by it. He was simply taking the decision out of her hands. He wanted to come down here, he wanted to see Tali. None of what happened next was Liara's fault, he'd bear the consequences of this, like he had everything else in his life.

The door led to room, but not one like the others. This was actually comfortable looking. Relatively. It was padded, to a degree. Mostly soft walls, pillows strapped to what looked like proper walls. It was as if they had been torn out of a ship and rebuilt in here. An attempt to make it look less like a cave. Less like a cell.

It was a cell though, as Shepard could see clearly. In a corner of the room, near a small bed, was a purple-clad figure, hunched over a holoscreen of some sort, staring blankly into it. The figure was muttering something at constant length, its hands scratching like mad at the wall near her. The closer he got, the clearer the words became.

"Hungers, always hungers. Hungers for rage. Hungers for despair. Hungers for hate. Always hungry. Never full. Never finished. Never finished. Always more. Never finished."

Shepard already knew who it was. The pattern of her hood, although tattered, torn and ragged, was a dead giveaway.

"Won't stop. Can't stop. Consume us. Consume us all. Consume everything. Can't escape. Never escape. Followed us. Keep following us. Death races for us. A pale horse always chasing. Always chasing."

Shepard could see the screen now and saw it was recording her words for her. It was as if she was speaking an entry in a journal. Dictating it for the computer to record.

"Tali?"

She stopped talking for a moment, her head raised suddenly. She looked around her immediate front at first. Her fingers halted their scratching against the floor, curling up into firsts.

"Father? Father is that you?" She asked hopefully. "Please tell me you're back. It didn't chase you away from me did you? Father?"

"Tali, it's me," Shepard insisted. "It's Wade."

The quarian shook her head, her fist pounding into the floor twice as her other hand clutched at her face.

"No. No. No tricks. No more tricks. No more lies. I can tell when you lie," she growled.

"Tali, it's no trick," Shepard pressed further. "I'm here."

"Stop lying," she growled, still staring at the screen. "You do this when I sleep. I'm not asleep. So stop it! Wade isn't here. Wade is dead."

"I'm not dead," Shepard insisted, moving to try and touch her.

"No, he's dead. He has to be dead. Wade is dead. He has to be dead."

Shepard touched her shoulder and in an instant, she turned violently towards him. She just as quickly darted away, backing into a corner. Her face mask was partially cracked, her suit shoddily repaired with other armored pieces. She was a mess and her eyes were wild and anguished. They stared at him accusingly, viciously, hatefully.

"How dare you?" She screeched. "How dare you use his face?! Monster!"

"Tali! It's me!" Shepard tried to reassure pleadingly.

"Liar! Liar!" Tali pointed. "Wade is dead! He has to be dead! He wouldn't have abandoned me! He wouldn't have left me! Left me like everyone else did! Left me to let you poison my mind! Left me to rot from the inside out! Wade is dead! He's dead! Let him be dead! Keelah, just let him be dead!"

She broke into pained angered sobbing. Shepard fought through his anguish, trying to ascertain what this was. He could only think of one thing.

"Is that it? You think I'm the Chronicler?" He asked fearfully. "He's back? No! He can't be! You're stronger than him! You proved that when you killed him!"

"Stop trying to confuse me!" Tali screamed. "I killed your stupid Voice! I know what you are! I've always known! You're the creature in the swamp! You're the thing from the grave! You took everything from me! Why can't you leave Shepard in peace?! Why can't you just let him be dead!?"

Tali lunged at Shepard suddenly, but he caught her arms in mid-strike. She strained against him for a moment, becoming lucid for a moment or two as she looked at him.

"Wade... why did you leave me?" She asked. "Why did you leave us? Where did you go?"

"It's hard to explain," Shepard told her. "I... I don't know the specifics. But Liara says I can fix this."

"Fix?" Tali laughed aimlessly. "There's no fixing here. There's only decay and rot and what the grave demands. What it wants is us. What it will get. We can't stop it. Nothing can. Too late. It's all too late."

"No, no it's not," Shepard tried to tell her. "Liara, she has a plan to-"

"Liara doesn't know, she can't know, she hasn't seen it!" Tali shouted fearfully. "She hasn't seen its reach! She doesn't know what it's capable of! What it did to all of us!"

"Who Tali?" Shepard asked. "Who is doing this?"

"Him," Tali cried. "It waited for so long. Now it has a new universe. It has a new purpose. Its revenge... is never ending now. It is ever expanding. To every reality. To the infinite. We are specks to it."

"What it?" Shepard pleaded again. "Who is talking to you?"

Tali pulled away suddenly, backing towards a wall.

"If you were Wade, you'd know, you'd see," she growled in disgust. "You'd understand. But you're not him, because Wade is dead. Just like my people. Just like Legion. Wade would've been here, he would've stopped this. He wouldn't leave me behind to be food for him!"

She pulled off one of the pillows from the wall, causing more to fall, revealing that her mumblings had not been limited to the holoscreen. Etched upon the wall were phrases, ramblings, panicked rantings. Shepard read them one by one, trying to discern something from it all.

"The mind of the tomb watches"

"The grave never sleeps!"

"Death won't let me rest!"

"The dead are awake"

"I hear the voice of the Grave"

"Too many questions! Make it stop!"

The words surrounded a central figure, some kind of gaping dark maw with what looked to be little people falling out of its mouth and all around it. Shepard didn't get to look more, as one of the pillows hit him.

"Get out! Get out! Let me sleep! Let me sleep! Stop screaming! Stop it! You're a liar! A liar!"

"Tali!"

"No! Liar! Monster! Get out! Let Wade rest! Leave me alone!"

Shepard backed away from the quarian as she fell to the floor in anguish and started sobbing. He attempted to approach her again, only for her to scream in a rage. He pulled away in horror and heartbreak, racing back to the door and opening it. Even when it closed, Tali's wails could be heard echoing everywhere.

Liara stood in front of him on the other side of the cavern. Her face was filled with regret, her mouth covered by her hand. Tears had been streaming down her cheeks from before, Shepard could see the wet trails across her features. She spoke before he could.

"She... she held out hope the longest," she insisted. "She believed you were alive, always. Until... until the Flood poured through."

"What happened?" He asked, knowing he'd hate the answer.

"Legion... something happened to Legion," Liara confessed. "It... the Geth, they... they attacked the Migrant Fleet, destroyed it utterly."

Shepard felt the color drain from his face.

"What?"

"The quarians were in the thick of it when the Covenant began their attacks," Liara explained. "They thought the Council would let them retake the homeworld if they helped defend the Galaxy for them. Tali convinced them to do it, she was key in doing it. As much as they wanted to reclaim Rannoch, all the Admirals saw an opportunity in attacking the Covenant. Capturing an Assault Carrier or two would've made fighting the Geth easier. Legion had left to recruit the Geth to our side, that... that was the last we saw of him until Earth."

"The attack on Harbinger," Shepard recalled, still in shock.

"The Geth came around the same time the Flood attacked," Liara continued. "They focused on the Migrant Fleet specifically. They... they destroyed it, completely. Left... left the escape pods for the Flood to take. Tali managed to escape... she was holding Legion's head when we found her escape pod."

Shepard couldn't believe it. After everything they had went through, all they had done together, their hopes of reuniting their people, that was how it ended?

"She killed him?" He asked in disbelief.

"She claims he was already dead before she killed him," Liara stated, unable to look at him in the eye. "That... something claimed the Geth, turned them all. She... she thinks it was this voice she keeps hearing. Near as we can tell she thinks it's the Flood, whatever intelligence is controlling them. She's so far gone though we can't be sure. Losing her people, you, being forced to kill Legion, watching all her friends die... it broke her Shepard."

She turned away from him completely now, looking ashamed and disgusted with herself.

"The closer she is to the Flood the worse she gets," she explained, frantic with pain and self-loathing. "It's... it's how we knew the Flood were going to attack us actually. I... I tried to make her comfortable here, keep her from hurting herself. I've tried to help best I can but..."

She couldn't continue, slamming her fist into the wall and letting the tears flow once more.

"I'm sorry, Wade!" She shouted through her sobs. "I tried everything! I did everything I could! This was the best I could do for her! It wasn't enough! I wasn't enough! Everything is screwed up and it's my fault! I failed you! I'm sorry!"

Shepard rushed over to her, hugging her close. It caught the asari off guard, but she eventually hugged him back. He was barely holding in his own tears himself, failing even now. He inevitably couldn't stop his grief from taking hold, but he could keep Liara from blaming herself for this.

"You did what you could," he assured her. "You did everything you could."

He should've been here. He should've been bearing this burden with her and everyone else. As lost as she was, Tali was right. He would never abandon his crew, his friends, his family, to face this alone. Even if he hadn't done so intentionally though, he still had. Well, he was here now. He would not let them down again.

"How do we fix this?" He asked, his voice resolute and determined. "How do we stop this?"

Liara answered as directly and simply as possible.

"The Amplifier."

---

When they got back upstairs, everyone from the Tempest along with the other survivors had gathered around the holotable. Shepard stood beside Chief as Liara took position at the head of the table, flanked by Wrex and Kayap. The Amplifier still sat in the middle, all eyes looking at either it or Liara.

"Taq theorized the Amplifier's processor wants to resolve the paradox and restore its full functions," Liara explained. "It's still connected to the Crystal, so a lot of its power is being syphoned off to it. Taq believed that if it was connected to a significantly long ranged transmitter, it could more easily seek out the Crystal. What was missing was you three, you're part of the paradox as well. In order to trace the exact coordinates of the Crystal, we needed you to be here, so you could complete the circuit in a sense."

"So what?" Cortana asked. "You want Chief and Shepard to touch it and that will show where we need to go?"

"I connected it to what's left of my ShadowNet System," Liara explained. "It's still spread out across the Galaxy and able to feed us information about what is going on. The Amplifier has its means of showing us where to go, we just need you to feed it more information to make it lock on a location. Which you contain, since all of you are part of the anomaly that created the rip in time. A fact confirmed when it began reacting like crazy today, when you arrived here in our time. It was detecting your emergence through the rip, the missing piece of the paradox's resolution. The Crystal is all that remains."

"Right now our best guess is it's somewhere in the Traverse," Wrex added. "It glows stronger there, but it's too weak a signal as is."

"So we find where the Crystal is and then what?" Shepard asked.

"From what Zek and Taq seemed to believe, the Crystal will open a portal to the start of the paradox once you're close enough to it," Liara informed him. "You all go through and this entire nightmare never happens."

Shepard looked at the Amplifier, his gaze troubled at the implications of the plan.

"You want me to leave you again?" He asked, concern in his voice. "After all this?"

"Shepard..."

"Liara, I can't just leave you all again," Shepard insisted. "After everything that's happened, all that I've seen, how can I? Maybe we can use the Crystal, as a weapon or something. Use it against the Reapers and the Flood."

"We've been trying to do that with the Amplifier," Alec claimed. "Nothing we plugged it into was enough. The Crystal is syphoning off too much of its power, it's a miracle it has been able to boost the ShadowNet enough as it has."

That wasn't a good enough excuse for him, he couldn't just abandon them all again. They were his crew, they had needed him and he wasn't here. He had to do more than just get sucked back into the past. He owed them that much.

"What if this doesn't change anything?" He asked. "What if I go back in time but this future remains?"

"There is a theory concerning time that discusses that very possibility," Cortana noted. "From our perspective, the past might be altered, but this future could still remain in some form. Locked in a sort of temporal reality state."

"Taq didn't believe so," Liara stated. "From everything I've looked over concerning her notes, her studies, this current state of affairs is the result of a rip in the time-space continuum. It only exists because you were pulled out of time itself and thrust into this future. Only by sending you back to the past can we fix it."

"But what if you're wrong?" Shepard asked. "We'd be leaving you all here to die. Isn't there anything else I can do? Before you send me back? I can help you win THIS war. Save THIS future. I can help you make this right."

Kayap suddenly slammed his fist on the table.

"No!" He shouted. "No! None of this is right! None of it!"

"Kay," Liara said, trying to calm him. "Please, this-"

"No! No he doesn't understand! They need to understand!" Kayap screamed. "Too many have died for this! Too many friends! Nel on Palaven! Saya on Sur'Kesh! Vik with the Migrant Fleet! All dead trying to win this war! All of them gone! Lost! Countless more Unggoy are dead, slaves! That Mech Suit? They don't have a choice to go in it like I do! The Covenant strap them inside! Force them! Sometimes fuse them to it! My people are enslaved! My friends are dead! My planet for all I know has been consumed by the Flood! And you want to save this world now? No!"

Liara placed a hand on his arm, trying to calm him. The unggoy finally eased up.

"I don't want to live in this time," he said solemnly. "If there is a chance to stop this, all of this. We need to take it. You need to take it. There's no time to argue about it. The only hope we have is the past, not now, the past."

Shepard saw Chief's head lower slightly from Kayap's words. His contemplation was obvious enough, he was thinking of his Spartans. What else would be on his mind? They were all gone in this future. Why would he want to live in this time either? However, Cortana just seemed confused by the unggoy's statements.

"But if we could go back at any time, then shouldn't we at least try to give you a fighting chance?" Cortana asked curiously.

Liara shook her head.

"No, Kayap is right," Liara warned. "We don't have time to debate this."

As she said that, Shepard felt something stinging in his head. So did Chief, holding onto his temple slightly. Cortana herself went fuzzy and weird for a moment, she too was holding her head all of a sudden.

"The hell was that?" She asked when it was over. "My... my memory banks just went haywire!"

Shepard knew what it was. His thoughts were filled with a series of images. Reports from Tali about progress concerning Grunt and Zek. Meetings with Haverson, Holland and Whitcomb that seemed to repeat.

"More contradicting memories?" Liara asked.

Shepard nodded.

"That's what we mean," she explained. "Time isn't set, the paradox has ripped a hole in it. The fabric of reality itself. The longer you stay here, the more you'll remember parts of the looping incident happening in the past. When that stops, you'll miss your window to go back. You won't end up at the same point in time you left. We don't know where you'll end up."

"So we either head back now or maybe not at all," Chief concluded.

"I'm sorry, Wade," Liara confessed to her old Commander. "But for this to work, you need to go before the paradox is partially resolved in the past. It's the only way. Otherwise, this future will be set in stone. It will be a singular solid loop of time, from your disappearance until today."

Shepard looked at Chief and Cortana, to see what their opinion was. He knew before they even spoke it though. He could just tell by the way they looked.

"We might not know all the specifics of how this works completely," Cortana said, her logic tinged with concern. "But the facts are clear Commander. If we don't go back, and soon, this will be how things turn out no matter what. If there is even a chance that we can change this... we should take it."

"Both our Earths are gone in this timeline," Chief said next, stoic and practical as ever. "They've sacrificed enough already to give us this chance. We now have vital intelligence about possible future events and way to bring it back to our time because of this. Sir, I know this can't be easy, but this seems like our only real option."

Shepard couldn't deny that. He knew as much, but he hated the idea of abandoning everyone again. Even if it meant none of this would even happen, to begin with, leaving his team behind would never sit right with him. No matter the context, they were his family. However, because of that same reason, he couldn't risk sacrificing everything they had worked for up to this moment. They had put themselves at risk to give him and Chief this chance to go back, to set everything right.

John was right, what other option did they have?

"Give me the Amplifier," he requested.

Liara pressed a button on her console and the Amplifier moved across the table, as the section it rolled towards them on a conveyor belt-like system. Shepard took a breath before placing his hand on the Amplifier. Chief quickly did the same. Within moments, the holoscreen came alive with a flash of colors, data pouring into it like crazy. Before long a map of the galaxy appeared and slowly began to shrink in size, zooming in on the Traverse, then a cluster, then a system and finally a planet. By the time it was over, most everyone was staring up at it in awe.

"Talk about a light show," Peebee said.

"Where's it leading us?" Wrex asked.

Liara gaze fell onto the planet singled out by the Amplifier's lock on.

"Of course, Eden Prime," she reasoned. "Where Cerberus set up their own little nation-state shortly after the Covenant invaded."

Eden Prime, where it all started. Where Shepard received the Prothean beacon's message. Where he first saw Sovereign. He had heard of cyclical history before, but this was something else.

"I knew we should've checked there sooner," Drack growled.

"It was one of many possible sites and for all, we knew they had it in an underground bunker we didn't know about," Liara stated. "It doesn't matter now. We've been saving up our strength for this, an all or nothing final assault."

"Where are we headed?" Shepard asked.

Liara looked over the precise coordinates, properly sifting through the data. An image of a large, towering structure appeared on the hologram, looming over the landscape like a megalithic obelisk.

"Their main military Command and Control complex," she said. "Thanatos Spire, built over the colony Sovereign attacked years ago. One way or another, it ends there."

She looked to the assembled group of people around the table.

"Pack everything you can, get the refugees to emergency shuttles and launch them," she ordered. "Ryder, prep the Tempest. We need to leave, now."

"Now?" Shepard asked. "I know we're in a rush but shouldn't we come up with an attack plan?"

"We can figure it out on the way there," Liara insisted. "Shepard, it's no coincidence the Flood attacked so soon after the Amplifier went off. It's not really Forerunner as I recall. It has some sort of connection to the Flood and what they used to be."

Shepard nodded, knowing all too well what she meant.

"The Precursors," he confirmed.

"They must've felt the energy resonance through the depths of space and sent everything at us to retrieve it," Liara exclaimed. "I'm not taking a chance that they didn't just learn where the Crystal is too. We need to go now before they beat us to Eden Prime."

Alec Ryder took Shepard by the shoulder.

"Sarah will take you to the armory, grab whatever you can," he said, taking charge of the moment. "I'll warm up the Tempest and get it ready for you."

He looked to the room at large, already bustling with activity and shouted commandingly at them all.

"Let's move it, people! We need to be out of here in less than thirty!"

---

AN: Welcome to the future, same as it never was. You probably have questions, I intend to answer them on my blog. The post should be up by now. I'm sorry this has ended up being another cliffhanger. But the story went long. I meant to upload this much later, but I'm going on vacation soon and will not be able to keep up with my writing schedule as much as I should soon. I've gotten a fair bit of the next chapter I'm working on done though, so I decided it was okay to post this installment next. I hope this tides you over for a while and that you enjoy this little peek into everything that can go wrong going wrong. This was a hell of a thing to write to be sure, so I hope you're enjoying it so far.

Next chapter will finish off the time travel shenanigans, but expect to cry. Some people are about to not feel so good. Sorry in advance. Remember to review, visit the tv tropes page, etc.