Her expression darkening at the merest mention of the Reapers, Shepard shrugged, her question sounding more like a statement.
“Winning it?”
The turian moved a little closer, not hesitating in taking her hand in his. She felt the metallic roughness of his three-fingered hand and it reassured her, seemed to remind her that she was still human. Ironic, perhaps, that being with this turian could make her feel more human…but by this point, there was no other being she needed more. He continued, his tone flecked with alloyed tenderness.
“No. I was thinking that it’s a good excuse to remind the ones you care about that…well that you care about them. Want some company?”
Everything else seemed so distant now – the war, the datapads, the constant never-ending struggle to balance resources with demands. Garrus always succeeded where she failed, provided her with the hope and support to continue. True, there was a time for sacrifice, for conflict, and for grief. But there was also a time for self, and for love – even in this cold, war torn time.
Smiling, Shepard ran a hand softly over his cool, scarred face.
“You read my mind…”
She drew close to him, wanting for once to lose herself from the world and the galaxy. Close, so close now…his familiar scent – like steel mixed with leather. Somewhere deep inside, she remembered potently the first night they had spent together while under Cerberus flags. Never would she have thought that of all the men she had been with, she would find the true meaning of love in a turian rebel. Now, she couldn’t imagine it any other way.
“It’d be an awfully empty galaxy without you in it, Garrus. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Garrus slid his arms around her waist, his mandibles stirring into an expression that Shepard had long ago learned was a mischievous grin. The closeness and intensity of that predatory glint in his eyes would have unnerved most humans – true interspecies crossed wires…but Shepard knew. She had seen. She had welcomed this turian to her before and it had changed them both forever. For the two of them, there were no species, no borders, no race. There was only the individual.
Garrus’ flanging voice was soft – softer than most would give a turian credit for.
“Hmmmm. Guess I’m getting pretty good at this…” His mouth brushed hers in the awkward kiss that had become their raison d'être.
“…but, some more practice wouldn’t hurt…”
Feeling his fierce love for her, Shepard snaked her arms around his plated neck, and took him down with her into a world of purple haze. The colors of the far-flung nebula they traveled seeped in through the skylight, bathing them both in dancing waves as the forgiving bed received them. Two aching, tired, hurting bodies – clinging to each other because it was the only thing they knew was real.
If only personal devotion could forge a future for all. The Normandy was their vessel across the light years, but their love for each other was the vessel of everything and anything they ever fought for.
~
The war was brutal, as all are. The entire intergalactic force behind them, Shepard and her crew in the Normandy brought the interspecies equivalent of rain from hell to the Reapers, yet still they persisted, still they gnawed at supply lines with their ground troops, and decimated entire fleets with their flagships. Space was alight with constant destruction as this cycle came to its Reaper-portended end.
But life – be it biological or artificial – has a stubborn backbone. The geth, the krogan, the turians, the quarians, the asari, the salarians, the humans and countless other smaller species conglomerated in one final wave as their ‘Hammer-and-Sword’ strategy played out. In the entire history of the current cycle, no other singular sight matched the spontaneous arrival of the combined alliance’s fleets to the Sol System. The Sol mass relay lit up a million times over in a split second as the forces arrived to the most desperate theater of war.
From cooks to commanders, aboard every ship men and women caught their breath in awe of what they were seeing. For as sure as they were likely to be facing the end-days of their species, they were also witnessing an intergalactic, interspecies miracle play out in real life. Turian cruisers flanked krogan transport ships, geth fighters used asari dreadnoughts as staging platforms, human starships bolstered the mass effect fields of quarian liveships. The Reapers stood between them and the perpetuation of what they were fighting for. One person, one woman stood at the helm – the tip of the spear. Shepard…a stubborn, worn chariot of life.
~
Reapers’ beams sliced through waves of ships, and with every orange glow that lit her peripheral vision, Shepard shed another mental tear. So much death – so much destruction. For what? Were they just pawns being manipulated by these grotesque dark space harvesters towards their own perverted goals? Then again, who cared? Reality is as it is – not as they desired.
The allied fleets’ losses were astronomical, but they brought enough firepower to the front line of Reapers surrounding Earth and the Citadel to break through to the planet’s orbit. Separating from the bulk of the force, the ‘Sword’ fleets hung back, defending the last hope of the Crucible under the ever-watchful eye of Admiral Hackett. ‘Hammer’ – the forces designated to take the fight for Earth to the Reapers and find a way onto the Citadel to open the massive station’s arms – broke off and executed a mind-numbing, stomach-turning plunge into Earth’s atmosphere. The Normandy danced in the hands of Jeff ‘Joker’ Moreau as if he had been born and raised the pilot for this very day. Screaming through lines of Reaper fighters and ships before they even had a chance to react, the Normandy showed the other Hammer forces the way down. Her Thanix cannons cut a path of righteous indignation clear to Earth’s atmosphere, the sun glinting off her wings and seeming to give hope to all who followed her down.
Whereas the battle in the void of space was merciless and all-consuming, the battle on Earth was claustrophobic and personal. London had been the focus of the most intense fighting, and was where bodies littered the streets. Pitched battles – whether squad-to-squad or soldier-to-soldier – flared up on every street corner. Shepard’s crew took leave from the Normandy in a shuttle to the surface while Joker returned to assist the vital Sword forces as they hung back, waiting to escort the Crucible towards the Citadel. Stepping out amidst the rubble, their stomachs squirmed at the carnage and the terrible realization that this was all that was left. The rivers ran red with blood, the skies burned, and the buildings fell to the wind.
Reaper ground troops pressed on every artery of humanity and its allies, even as the krogan and turians bolstered the front lines. Was it all for nothing? Was it all going to go this way – end this way? Doubt and depression were beginning to set in. The troops who had been on Earth since the beginning of the war had known nothing but this carnage, and the units arriving as reinforcements were now thrown into the midst of it with little notice or time to recuperate. It needed no voicing…this was how wars were lost.
Anything and everything any living being had known was being systematically erased from the surface of Earth, and of countless planets the galaxy over. Not content with sheer destructive force, the Reapers were also employing subtle stealth tactics. In more remote areas, their vessels landed and broadcast slithering, tempting offers to anyone that would listen. Those who entered to ‘negotiate’ returned only as indoctrinated servants of the Old Machines.
The Normandy crew – aided by Admiral Anderson’s forces – were able to assist in some of the most important and taxing missions in the city. The entire horizon of London was awash in blue from the energy conduit the Reapers had established there. It served as a physical link between Earth and the Citadel, and those who had got close enough told horrific stories of human bodies piled higher than buildings. Most soldiers – rightfully so – dismissed the notion, thinking their comrades were trying to inflate their own war stories. But some – Shepard and her crew included – knew all t
oo well the truths of the Reaper harvest. They were some of the only beings alive who had actually communicated with the Reapers – beginning with Sovereign on Virmire, then Harbinger, then the destroyer on Rannoch. The Reapers weren’t merely here to extinguish all organic and synthetic life – they were here to use it. The beam was their harvesting mechanism.
Since the destruction of Sovereign on the Citadel three years ago, the Reapers had regarded humans with some kind of fascination. The race that Shepard seemed to represent had been picked once before for the Reapers’ mysterious devices – the human proto-Reaper in the Collector base stood as testament to that. It stood to reason that they would begin these ‘harvesting’ operations on Earth. If the allied forces didn’t experience a breakthrough soon, it looked as if they would also end on Earth.
~
Forward Operations Base on the edge of the war-torn center of the city served as a hub of chaotic planning, triage and re-fuelling. The mood in the musty, burned-out buildings was quiet, somber, yet determined. Somewhere in the distance through radio chatter, a medic was barely keeping it together while trying to talk a soldier through an emergency amputation in the field. Dust floated in the air so thickly that some even kept their breather helmets on – it danced teasing patterns in the military floodlights that had been erected around each corner of the building. The whine of gunships overhead was constant, and gunfire was often heard as wave after wave of husks was kept at bay from the exterior gates to the base.
Gasping for air, Shepard looked up at herself in the grimy bathroom mirror as the incessant concussions of war resounded in the distance. She looked like death. Her eyes were sunken, her face was ashen, and the sour odor of her vomit hung in the makeshift restroom’s air as thickly as the dust in the crumbling operations building. Wetting her shaking, clammy hands with the pitiful trickle of water that fell from the faucet, she wiped the moisture across her face, trying to regain some feeling of life before facing her team for the final push to the beam. ‘What’s happening to me?’ Her breath stung in her raw throat as she dried her face with one of the soiled rags that lay in a pile next to the basin. She couldn’t escape that image of her – that horrific face that insisted upon peering back at her from the speckled, clouded mirror. Was she still herself? The headache that had plagued her since she could remember had reared itself into a cluster of indescribable agony. It seared her temples, clenched her skull, fogged her judgment. Freezing sweat dampened her clothing.
Stopping for a brief moment, Shepard closed her eyes and massaged her forehead slowly as she tried to regain her composure. Forcing her lungs to draw deeply on the acrid air, she felt her teeth slowly loosen their pressure on each other. Then, a massive, closer blast gave way to a lull in the noise of battle outside. The quiet that then descended on the ruined operations base was a brief respite – a moment to catch breath and sanity as troops and demons alike stopped, waiting for the next move.
“You can’t do it.”
An instantaneous attack of vertigo coursed through her body, giving way to rising nausea again. Her clammy fingers gripped the edge of the sink as the sudden silence allowed the whispering to return once more. “Futile. You are so tired. We know this. Do not fight – instead, rest…”
‘Goddamn it!’
Shepard pushed herself away from the mirror with feverish desperation. The tight confines of the restroom were compounding her fears, playing on her weaknesses. With resolve, she stalked from the small room leaving the door swinging on its hinges.
“Shepard!”
She was about to head towards the strategy room where her team has gathered when Anderson’s voice sounded from a corridor. As he approached, the careworn face of the admiral provided her a faint sense of comfort. His combat armor was dust-ridden and blackened in places, but his eyes still held the same determination they always had. Smiling, he seemed to have been waiting on her.
“You alright?”
Shepard’s eyes tumbled from his face, settling at his feet.
“Fine, sir.”
Anderson sighed, shaking his head.
“Goddamn it Shepard don’t call me that – we’ve been through too much together and known each other far too long for formalities.”
She smiled slightly, acknowledging their friendship in the dark, debris-littered building. The concussions began again as the aging admiral’s kind eyes absorbed her.
“Helluva thing we’re about to do, huh?”
Drawing a shaky breath, she nodded as her hand worked its way through her hair.
“Yeah. Sure is.”
Anderson had moved closer to her – his gaze seemed more intense now. He searched her blanched face unapologetically, and she felt his hand grip her arm. His voice was low, hushed.
“Shepard – seriously. You look like death warmed up. Are you alright? You’ve been fighting these damn things longer than anybody else I know. You’ve had more exposure to the Reapers than all of us combined! No…headaches? No dreams? No…voices?”
A chill settled in her bones as her eyes met his. The nothingness inside her was all-consuming.
“I’m fine, sir.”
Her mouth answered him seemingly without her bidding. She felt his hand leave her arm as she unconsciously walked away from him. The further she got from him, the more control she regained, even as the battle-weary admiral watched her leave with a dark, worried expression on his face.
A shower of dust and small rock particles fell from the crumbling ceiling as another closer blast echoed over their part of the city. As if being jolted from another of her nightmares, Shepard’s feet picked up their pace. Down the dingy hallway she could see the glow of the operations room – the sparkle of holographic interfaces as EDI and Tali poured over an omni-tool map, and a reassuring blue visor…
“Shepard.”
She jumped visibly as Kaidan emerged from the shadows of the corridor near her. He smiled apologetically, raising a submissive hand.
“Sorry…I didn’t mean to startle you. Do you have a minute? To…talk?”
Casting one last, guilty glance at the now distant-seeming room containing the rest of her teammates, Shepard nodded at the major.
“Yeah, of course, Kaidan.”
Feeling his hand gently usher her into a burned-out side room, separating them from the overburdened soldiers and panicked medics that scurried about the forward operations base, Shepard watched him as he pulled the blackened door to, muffling the sounds from the corridor. His silver armor shone even in the murk of the ramshackle building, and five days of stubble shadowed the handsome lines of his jaw. The young lieutenant she had known from years ago had matured into an accomplished Major and Council Spectre. A knot of nervousness twisted in the pit of her stomach as he drew closer to her.
“Sorry, Shepard. I just – I wanted to just have a minute with you. Before…”
He gestured towards the smashed out window on the outside wall, and the ever-present harvesting beam that linked earth to the Citadel across the city blocks. She nodded slowly as he continued.
“Shepard – I know you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on everything.”
The statement seemed at once true and absurd, given their history. Kaidan laughed under his breath,
“Hell – sometimes we’ve seen more than that…of each other, I mean…”
A warmth thawed his hazel eyes that brought back painful memories to her – and there was a sorrow in them as well. It delivered a small piece of reality to her as she fell over her words,
“Yeah…I know, Kaidan. Look - a lot happened between Sovereign and…”
But he cut her off, not wanting to lose the thrust of his statement.
“Shepard – don’t. Listen. No matter what has gone before us, no matter what’s gonna happen today at the end of all this, you need to know. You need to know that I don’t blame you for anything. I’ve been wrong time and again about you…and I want yo
u to know that I’m grateful.”
His gaze held hers intently now – she could make out graying strands in his black hair.
“I’m grateful for everything we’ve been through together. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to serve with you again on the Normandy – something I never thought would happen. Above all, I’m grateful for our friendship…for having the chance at this friendship. I know you could never have given me any more than that. Not…now. But I owe a lot of what I’ve become to you, Shepard. I needed you to know that.”
A deep rumble from the center of the ruinous city punctuated the conclusion of his statement, followed by the patter of more dust as it fell around them. Shepard looked at him, finding the ability to breathe freely for the first time in what seemed like days. She clasped his shoulder with a grateful hand.
“Thank you, Kaidan. That means a lot to me. Our friendship means a lot to me. It…always has.”
The major smiled warmly – their salvaged friendship bringing a small point of light to them amidst the destruction and death and war. Pausing for one more brief moment, he reached out and opened the door the led back into the corridor. The sounds of injured soldiers and frantic troops reached them once more.
“Come on – they’re waiting for you.”
~
Through her migraine, Karen Shepard was aware of events only through a haze of shellshock, fatigue and whispers. The occasional bought of vertigo overcame her – dismissed as too long at space and not long enough on firm ground. Her eye twitched incessantly as she stooped over a makeshift operations table with the others – so few of us. So few left…London’s streets were complete rubble. Earth was dying. Anderson talked over plans for the Hammer forces’ push to the beam – the mechanism by which they hoped to get a few souls onto the Citadel. Sweat studded her forehead and her skin crawled with goosebumps as she talked over plans with Admiral Hackett before embarking on the final push towards the beam. Conversations began to make less and less sense.
“Huh?”