Disclaimer:
Mass Effect, the Mass Effect franchise, Commander Shepard, the Reapers, all characters contained herein and the entirety of back story material are property of Bioware and Electronic Arts (EA) and the author claims no ownership thereof. This novel and its plot are solely the author’s artistic interpretation of the Mass Effect universe and are – as such – unapproved and unverified by Bioware and EA.
This work of fiction may not be reproduced, rewritten or rebroadcast without express written consent from the author, Karen Politte, who is contactable at
[email protected].
v1.6
Foreword
I was first introduced to the Mass Effect game franchise by my husband, who was almost beside himself at having found a science fiction game title that was not only worthy of playing, but also interesting, enjoyable, colorful and gripping. Being someone who usually leaned towards the other end of the spectrum with games (generally ‘medieval fantasy’ rather than ‘science fiction’), it took me some time before I exhausted the supply of titles needing played and finally picked up Mass Effect 2. What ensued was one of the most enlightening, exciting and emotional rides of my game-playing life. The broad tapestry of the Mass Effect universe has been woven with intricate detail, and the game designers display a fervent understanding of the characters and stories contained within it. Mass Effect has largely transcended game status for many fans, becoming a story of hope, humanity, and the greater good and concealed evils in people.
Firstly, Bioware (a division of Electronic Arts) are to be commended for their vision and creativity in creating the Mass Effect series of games, characters and back-story – as well as casting the talented, enigmatic voice actors they did for each role in the games. It is only thanks to their imagination, passion and determination that titles such as this exist and become greater than the sum of their parts. Director and Executive Producer of the franchise Casey Hudson deserves commendation and admiration for the success and perseverance of the great universe and civilizations he – and his team of designers, writers and associated producers – created.
The second half of Mass Effect’s equation of greatness lies with you – and me, the fans. Or… ‘The Fan’. Because we are all the shepherds of our Mass Effect. Without a loyal and enthusiastic fan base – any franchise is doomed to obscurity. Mass Effect’s fan base is large, growing and effervescently involved with the games, stories and materials associated with the franchise. Throughout my journey to create this novel (it sounds strange to call it my ‘book’ as it is the first work of my writing that can be described as such), I have always tried to keep in mind that I am a fan, and only a fan. This novel started – and ended – as my personal labor of love for the Mass Effect series of games. One quiet Friday afternoon, I decided to pick up my virtual pen and begin a piece of writing based on my own canon Mass Effect character, Karen Shepard. It may have ended after a couple of chapters. I may have become distracted by some other project and laid the whole idea to rest permanently. I may have decided that it was a waste of time and effort and picked up my game controller once more, but none of those things happened (well, okay – the controller did get picked up occasionally…). I can’t really tell you how it came to be – it just did. Sitting here penning this foreword now – I can scarcely believe it.
It is so very important to remember that Mass Effect will signify and mean something different to each and every person who has played all three games in the trilogy. But ironically, this is why it has universal appeal. Each and every person who has become involved in Mass Effect has been able to craft their own Commander Shepard – male or female – and undertake their own voyage within the boundless universe that Bioware’s developers and writers created for us. We have watched our characters grow, make universe-changing decisions, and strive to overcome the ever-present enemy – whether it be the geth, the Collectors or the Reapers. I am also keenly aware of the fact that my Shepard character is mine alone – and her relationships, opinions, personality and drives may seem foreign to some who will read this. But my fond hope through all of this is that some commonality can be found in the overarching desire of everyone’s Shepard to do their utmost to see that the Reaper threat is extinguished once and for all – whether you do it through diplomacy or cracking heads together! Karen Shepard’s story begins after the end of Mass Effect 3 – essentially after the credits have stopped rolling on your completed game.
I feel compelled to say here that I have not read any other pieces of Mass Effect fan-fiction that are available in the public domain, nor have I participated on any online forums or boards related to the franchise. I am merely a fan – with a passion for writing – who wished to turn the story of her Commander Shepard into something more personalized and in-depth. The ‘Indoctrination Theory’ has allowed me to do that and build a completely new ending for my own character (and her team) using the previously-established plot elements of the Citadel and the Crucible.
I struggled for some time with the decision regarding the name of my central protagonist/Commander Shepard, and in the end relied on advice I was given and kept her name synonymous with my own. I was somewhat concerned that this would appear self-indulgent, however, once my writing began in earnest it became very apparent to me that it was in fact pivotal to my emotional investment in my Shepard. It was simply not possible to transfer a different name onto the persona of Karen Shepard – because, for me, there has only ever been one Karen Shepard. I hope you understand my decision with respect to the name.
Creating this work was at times arduous, and sometimes seemingly insurmountable. But it became a very personal - and public - journey of exploration and discovery for the writer inside of me. It is an imperfect thing. It is an emotional thing. Above all – it’s a Mass Effect thing. It is my fond hope that you – whether a fan of Mass Effect or new to the whole concept – are able to identify with the characters, themes and story that follows. I have laughed, agonized and wept during creation of this work for the best part of nine months, and I hope beyond all else that some of the emotion reflected in it reaches out to the reader.
Please – if you read this novel and enjoy it – recommend it to other Mass Effect fans that you may know. Share it with them, because it exists purely to enrich the world Bioware created. I welcome all comments, reviews, questions, critiques and letters – and I would be delighted to hear from and talk with any of my readers. I can be reached numerous ways, however the first option (personal email) is always my preferred mode of communication:
[email protected] (E-mail)
VakarianGirl (XboxLive Gamertag)
@VakarianGirl (Twitter)
And with that, I will log out of my private terminal, set the CiC to snooze, and retire to my cabin as we all have done. I hope you enjoy the journey and story of EndShard.
Karen E. Politte
March, 2013.
For my husband Jason, who provided limitless, enduring advice during this project
…
and anyone who has ever ejected a thermal clip.
Prologue
The trees loom again – stark and black and overbearing. Grasping branches…the same watery sky, streaming at an unholy pace above my head to somewhere, to nowhere. Somewhere the air shifts – and although I resist it, I hear. My feet stumble uncommanded through the leaves towards the sounds. Moving. Can’t stop it. The whispers bleed into my subconscious…nauseously familiar tones of the dead. A woman’s confident voice teases me with the same phrase that haunts my waking mind; ‘I think we both know that’s not going to happen, Commander.’ Ashley. I can hear her laughing – at me.
The ske
letal branches watch my macabre journey as I traipse forward. I feel his warmth on my cheek before I see him…but the little silvery figure in the distance is there, as always. The only place he would ever be now – my dreams. As if circling a singularity, I cannot resist his image. It reassures me and horrifies me. They told me to rest, after all. He told me to sleep – so I am!
I stumble forward again, to bring his little face into focus. But before I can reach him, he scurries away as always. ‘Hurry Shepard.’ Panic! My child…the rustling of the bare branches overhead mock my frantic search. It’s darker now – and for the first time I notice them. The woods are thick with shadows – oily, sickly streaks that falter on the edge of my vision, like I’m the problem. Their slender forms seem…familiar. No. No no no no no. I claw at my ears as Mordin’s hurried speech assails them. The ache of hopelessness and dejection snarls my stomach as I watch him walk to his death a hundredfold. I can’t tell what he’s saying, can’t make him out - he whispers too softly, too quickly…but his voice fills the forest. Tears stain my cheeks for the dead salarian’s sacrifice as surely as the oily shadows stain my vision, and I press forward through the thicket…need to find him…don’t know why. Need to end this.
Lungs bursting…but I see him again…he’s stopped his scurrying. Crouching in the dead leaves, playing. I walk confidently now…my legs respond better. Gently I draw up behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder to let him know I am here. He doesn’t look at me, his toy ship is far more interesting…but I want him to see me, want to know he knows.
Then, he finally looks up at me, and the ice of helplessness pierces me…so cold in my veins, draining everything I ever had. So very, very cold as he looks at me with dead eyes. I laugh but it comes out as more of a shriek. But it’s not me laughing – it’s the trees again. They won’t stop coming…can’t stop it. The all-encompassing, black-blue shadow descends, and as every disembodied night before this one, we are bathed in red. Our eardrums are shattered by the sound of an Old Machine…so old. So tired. The flames can take us. Take our flesh. Take our hearts. Take our purpose. End this. End this with the permanence of death…of harvest. So I can finally rest.
“You will end – because we demand it.”
Her body was jolted into consciousness in the dead of night, the firm grip of reality slowly constricting her dreams into nothingness. Clothing damp from sweat, Karen Shepard propped herself up from the still-warm pillow and ran a hand through her hair as if to comb the nightmare from her mind. The reassuring sound of the Normandy’s drive core told her that this was reality – even as she realized that if she closed her eyes, she could still see the shadows…still hear the whispers. Shuddering, she realized just how cold her cabin had become overnight.
Staring at herself in the bathroom mirror, she willed her mind to stop for just a brief moment, but it refused. Thoughts racing, hands shaking, this was probably the tenth night in a row she had stood in this spot – the bathroom’s spartan metal fixtures doing nothing for her frame of mind. So alone. So many nights – so many downtimes shattered by the dreams. Always the same – always the boy, always the child, always the flames, always death, and always no choice. But with subtle differences…she sighed, looking at her drooping eyelids in the mirror. Can’t stop my mind any easier than I can stop the Reapers. The Reapers…the all-consuming threat to life that they now faced. The alliances she had forged over the past weeks and months had given them the entire galaxy at their backs, and still they were unsure if it would be enough. She couldn’t even sleep at night…what hope did she have for saving humanity? Saving life as all beings in the galaxy know it?…
Another sigh – this time while listening to the shower water as it heated up her void-cold cabin, watching as the steam curled in smokelike tendrils. It may be close to one o’clock in the morning, but another six hours and she would be expected to be back on her next command shift. There would be no more sleep this night – of that she was sure. Shedding her last garments, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror before entering the steaming water. Pale, naked, stark – scarred in body and mind amidst this world of aluminum and glass. Shepard stepped mercifully into the hot water. It was probably too hot, but its sting on her skin reminded her she was alive…and that in itself was a miracle. How many others have been given the chance at what was basically a second life?
Miracles. She snorted to herself while towel-drying her hair. Here they were in the ninth decade of the 22nd century, her skin a perfect organic overweave on top of powerful and expensive reconstructive cybernetics, and she couldn’t even get a decent night’s sleep! Too many horrors – too many responsibilities, and all she wanted to do was just rest…just for a moment. Everything – every place seemed to have ran together in her mind into a sea of pallid slideshows. Eden Prime, Ilos, Horizon, Tuchanka, Rannoch, Cronos Station. Wrex, Eve, Mordin, Thane, The Illusive Man - all the things she had been through in the past few weeks were crammed inside her constantly pounding head until she felt as though it may burst. The torture and change she had undergone the past three years would have broken most. But she persisted.
Having found a clean, crisp soldier’s uniform from the well-stocked closet, Shepard lifted a stack of datapads from the in-tray on her desk and took them over to her bed. Lately, she had developed the habit of avoiding sitting on the hard sofa in her quarters – her sore muscles and aching bones preferred the relative comfort of the mattress.
Taking a deep breath and feeling the muscles in her lower back spasm, she sifted through the glowing screens of the datapads with obligated precision. All this data literally at her fingertips. It would cause her to stop and marvel, if it weren’t for the fact that she was playing with fleets…and with lives. So many of them, so much at stake. This fleet – that system, this loss – that triumph. All we do is give and take – an inch here, a solar system there. The Reapers gave as good as they got, and while humanity and their allies had the upper hand in some systems, others had fallen to the Old Machines in the most spectacular fashion. Ream after ream of information scrolled past her eyes on the datapad’s holographic screen – ammunition reports, acquisition orders, fatality lists, soldiers’ correspondence to their families. The Alliance expected her to have her finger on every pulse of this war, and she couldn’t even sleep at night.
The throbbing in her head started again…and Shepard felt her eyelids getting heavier. So tired…‘close your eyes…just for a minute’…no! She sat bolt upright. ‘No! No more sleep tonight – no more dreams.’ She’d rather hallucinate from lack of sleep than from a nightmare. Sighing again, she rubbed her brow and begun on a new set of support coordinates for the quarian’s fleets…
Barely two minutes had passed when the door to her quarters activated quietly. Shepard looked up, waiting for her eyes to adjust from the bright datapad screens to the darker cabin which was lit only by her aquarium wall. She smiled weakly as the one person she actually wanted to see slid inside her quarters and re-sealed the door behind him. Garrus regarded her quietly as his hand left the control panel of the bulkhead.
“Thought I’d find you up here.”
Shepard shifted on the edge of the bed, half-digging herself out from underneath the stack datapads. She gestured at them feebly.
“As ever…” She looked at the turian as he approached her. He seemed…older. Much older than the hot-headed C-Sec officer that she had first befriended at the beginning of her quest to stop Saren. A hip-shooter all his life, Shepard had counted on him in more ways than she could recall…through their pursuit of Saren, during the fight against the Collectors, and, now, in this hopeless war against the Reapers. Always there, always the steel in her backbone, he had never let her down. Not something she could say for very many in this world.
The pleasurable mixture of comfort and excitement she felt as she watched him approach made her quarters seem a little less cold. His speci
es afforded him an odd grace even with a height of almost seven foot, and his gold-trimmed, stiffly-styled turian officer’s uniform only gave him more caliber. She was beginning to see what would probably pass for lines on the turian’s face…beneath the scars and the metallic sheen and the blue-lit eyepiece. She cocked her head, overtaken by sentimentality.
“You’ve put your visor back on.”
Garrus slid himself onto the edge of the bed deliberately and sat close to her, making one of the distinctly turian gestures with his mandibles that Shepard always found so inexplicably striking. He gave a soft laugh.
“Meh…I always thought it hid my best side, but then Joker pointed out that I don’t actually have a best side, so I figured – ‘what the hell?’”
Shepard felt her face crack in what was probably her first laugh in weeks…months maybe. It was too easy to lose track of time – at least, easier than it was to keep track of it. She pushed the datapads further away from her. Their presence now seemed to violate something.
“You’re good for morale, Garrus – you know that?”
They both laughed, now…something small. Some tiny part of a past that they both shared from a time when the burdens seemed so miniscule. But Garrus fell quiet again, his trademark attitude muted. Perhaps it was dulled by war and struggle, perhaps it was his own burdens, perhaps it was…something else. He looked at her, a seriousness passing across his face that she had rarely seen. He cleared his throat softly, his voice at once soft and metallic…and wistful.
“You know the best thing about waging a war against genocidal machines that decides the fate of the whole universe?”