Chapter Text
The room was dim, lit only by the slow pulse of a holographic Earth turning in orbit. Its light fell across a man’s shoulders, blue and cold, tracing the hard geometry of the space around him. The air carried the faint sting of ozone, the smell of circuitry running too long without rest.
He sat at a desk, half-shadowed, the glow catching in the silver of his cigarette as it burned. The terminals whispered beneath his hands, lines of data sliding soundlessly across their glass.
Opposite him, a woman stood. Her posture was deliberate, every inch of her trained to stillness. When she spoke, her voice was smooth, but the control in it was a kind of strain.
“Shepard did everything right. More than we could’ve hoped for.” Her words lingered a moment before she continued, sharper now. “Saving the Citadel. Even saving the Council. Humanity has the trust of the entire galaxy—and still it’s not enough.”
The man’s gaze flicked toward the hologram behind him. The blue light broke across his face in slow rotations. Smoke curled upward, thin and restless. “Our sacrifices have earned their gratitude,” he started. His tone was calm, but there was no warmth in it. “Shepard remains our best hope.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “They’re sending her to fight geth.” She said it with so much distaste, the man couldn't help but share her annoyance.
“The geth?” He took another drag and exhaled. “We both know they’re not the real threat.” His attention drifted back to Earth’s projection, as if he could find in its still orbit some proof of what he already knew. “The Reapers are still out there,” he said at last, voice low, measured. “And it’s up to us to stop them.”
She drew a breath, slow and deliberate. “The Council will never trust Cerberus. They’ll never accept our help—not after everything.”
He didn’t answer. The silence held between them, humming with unspoken inevitability.
When she spoke again, her tone softened, not with doubt but conviction. “But Shepard—she’s a hero. A bloody icon. Still, she’s only one woman. If we lose her…” She hesitated. “Humanity might not recover.”
His jaw tightened. A faint tremor passed through the ash at the end of his cigarette before it fell.
“Then see to it,” the man replied, quieter now, but no less certain. “That we don’t lose her.”
***
One month after the devastating geth attack on the Citadel, the galactic community struggles to rebuild.
The Alliance fleet made a tremendous sacrifice to save the Citadel Council and earned humanity membership in their prestigious group. Now the Council is forced to respond to evidence that the Reapers—enormous machines that eradicate all organic civilization every 50,000 years—have returned. To quell the rumors, the Council has sent Commander Shepard and the Normandy to wipe out the last pockets of geth resistance. Officially, they blame the invasion on the geth and their leader, a rogue Spectre named Saren.
But for those who know the truth, the search for answers is just beginning . . .
***
The Normandy trembled. At first, it was only a shiver, barely perceptible, like the ship had drawn breath and held it. Then came the groan, deep and wounded, reverberating through every deck. Lights flickered overhead, thin shadows slicing across the walls. The air carried the scorched tang of overheating circuits.
Commander AJ Shepard stopped mid-step. Instinct locked her in place; every nerve screamed before the data did. Her hand snapped to her omni-tool. Scans flared to life, orange light rippling across her armor. Then the lights dimmed.
The quiet chatter of the deck dissolved into alarm. Sirens wailed—a long, mechanical scream—and her omni-tool flooded red. Shield breaches. Thermal spikes. Damage reports scrolling too fast to read. For an instant, her pulse kicked high in her throat. Then command settled in—the muscle memory of control. Fear could wait.
Her jaw set. Focus narrowed to the data streaming past. The glow washed her face in amber. All happened in the millisecond before her comms chattered.
“Commander!” Pressly’s voice cracked through the noise. “Unidentified vessel just dropped out of FTL. They’re firing on us—”
The Normandy lurched. Metal split with a noise like bone breaking. The first blast tore their shields apart. Shepard didn’t wait for the rest.
“Get me Joker.”
She pushed through the CIC, crew scrambling at their stations. The floor shuddered beneath her boots. A console blew out, throwing an ensign off balance—Shepard caught his arm, pulled him upright, kept moving.
“Joker here!” His voice hit her comm, clipped and breathless. “Unknown ship’s lighting us up like a damn Christmas tree, Shep! Shields are toast—”
“Options?”
“Run or…” a pause, sharp with static. “Run faster.”
Her mouth twitched. “Punch it. Get us out of range.”
“Already on it, Commander.” But strain edged every word.
The next impact tore through the starboard hull. A blinding flash. Warning lights snapped on in waves. Sparks rained from the ceiling. One more hit like that and they’d be dust.
“Belay that, Joker. We’re abandoning ship.” She pivoted to Pressly. “Evacuation protocols—now.”
She was already sealing her helmet before he answered. Pressly’s face had gone pale, but his nod was steady. “Aye, Commander.”
Another explosion threw her sideways into a bulkhead. Pain flared down her shoulder, but she was already moving again. The ship howled a sound that didn’t belong to machinery anymore. Smoke rolled down the corridor as she forced her way through, boots striking metal, breath tight in her chest. Crew members rushed past, some shouting, others too shocked to speak. The rounded a corner and almost collided with Liara. Her asari was already armed, her expression unflinching through her helmet.
“Shepard! Joker’s refusing to leave.”
Her stomach turned. “I’ll get him.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No,” she said, too sharp for her own liking. “I need you to get the crew to the pods.”
She wished there was time to take off their helmets and kiss each other. It felt like it’d been more than a couple hours since they’d last spoken, and even then they’d been arguing.
Liara had been trying to convince her to slow down—to stay docked at the Citadel a little longer, let the repairs finish properly, wait for clearer orders from Alliance Command. Shepard had brushed it off, saying she couldn’t stand sitting still while the galaxy came apart by degrees. It hadn’t been a fight so much as a fracture, one of those quiet ones that formed when neither could admit they were scared of different things. Or maybe, they were really just scared of the same thing and equally unable to admit it.
Liara feared what Shepard might become if she kept running on empty; Shepard feared what would happen if she stopped. Neither of them had said it aloud. They rarely did.
Now, with the ship breaking apart around them, she almost wanted to laugh at how small that silence had been. How could she be so stupid---
Liara hesitated. The air between them hummed with everything unsaid. “Allie—”
“Go, Liara!” Her voice cut harder than she meant. The sound of it startled even her. It lodged in her chest like shrapnel. For a second, the armor felt too tight—each breath catching against the inside of her lungs. She wanted to say please go because I need to know you're safe, but the words wouldn’t pass her throat.
Liara faltered, then nodded. “Aye, aye.”
Shepard didn’t look back. Couldn’t. She ran. The deck pitched beneath her as she fought through the smoke toward the cockpit, the Normandy was coming apart, she could see stars through scorched steel. Fuck she needed to hurry.
Joker was still at his post, his thin frame bent over the controls. “Shepard! We’re losing the ship!”
“Joker, if we don’t leave now, we’ll lose a hell of a lot more than the Normandy.”
Flames erupted along the panels. Shepard lunged through the fire, grabbed his arm. “Come on! We’re getting out of here!”
“My leg—”
“Damn it, Jeff, move!” She hauled him up, muscles searing. The hull screamed. Somewhere behind them, the ship’s spine gave way. More stars flashed through the breach, cold and unfeeling even through her suit. Joker only had his breather helmet, and with exposed skin, they had less than 60 seconds before his skin would freeze. You've got worse issues than a broken bone at that point, she thought. She didn't say it out loud. No time. She thrust him forward and into an escape pod, pushing him in. N7 training kept her moving forward--that and adrenaline--but she was still human, terrified of what was happening around her. Her fingers! She couldn't get a grip enough to pull herself in after him.
The next blast hit before she could react.
It threw her backward and away from the pod, away from him. Joker reached out, but the vacuum had already claimed her. She felt the jerk of her tether snapping, the sudden, terrible silence. She reached out instinctively for help she didn't want him to offer. Close the door, I'm gone, I'm gone. He closed the door, he's okay--he closed the door, right? He's safe? Her helmet slammed against debris. The oxygen line tore loose. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Then came the heat. Fire without air, pain without sound. Metal and light, the body’s betrayal. Her lungs seized, desperate, dragging in nothing. The vacuum clawed everything from her—breath, warmth, control. Reflex made her gasp again and again, throat raw against the emptiness. Her body fought on instinct, convulsing for a kind of mercy that space didn’t offer. The pressure collapsed inward; the pain behind her ribs burned clean white. I'm dying. I'm going to die. N7 training prepared her for this, but even that couldn't prevent the painful truth. She could force her breathing to slow, and she did; she could force away her panic, and she did, but her body, her mind--her training, all knew the truth. She did.
Her vision blurred, flecks of black swelling at the edges. She could feel the blood rushing upward, swelling behind her eyes, in her skull, in a place where fear meets awareness and borne anxiety. Her fingers twitched against the cracked readouts on her suit—reaching, repairing, praying. The suit hissed, bleeding air. She tried to think, but thought had weight, and she was sinking fast.
The Normandy was breaking apart before her, glass and fire drifting through the void.
And in the static haze of her failing mind she could just think of Liara. The echo of her consuming her as she wished for one more moment with her, one second to tell her she was her first and last thought, to tell her she loved her. But here, in death’s throes, she had only the shape of her memory flickering like a dying star. Shepard reached for it, but her brain moved too slow, her body too far gone. No time. No Goodbye? What color were Liara's eyes? Hers? Her mother's? Father's? Jace's?
I’m not ready.
The thought slipped under, carried off by the silence.
Cold crept in, absolute and certain. Her lungs no longer fought. Her HUD flickered, final pulses of red and gold. She watched the Normandy disintegrate, its body scattering like dust across the dark. Her own suit followed: slow leaks, tearing seams, light fading out.
Her mouth opened once more in reflex, a final reach toward breath that wasn’t there. I’m dying, she thought. I'm dead. It's over. This is it. This is how it happens. Liara’s mother was right—there really was no light. They always said there’d be a light.