Author's Note: I took a lot of creative liberties. Don't be jelly of my liberty taking. And this is a fan fiction website, it goes without saying that I'm effing poor. I don't have a beta either, so don't be jelly of my not having a beta.

Chapter 5: Brightly Burning Blaze

She opened her eyes to a wicked sight.

Computer screens lay shattered across the floor, mixed with bits of human and bits of stuff she had no idea where they had come from. Thick electrical wires hung down from above like the claws of an ugly monster, reaching down at her to tear her to pieces, showering her with bright yellow embers. The Normandy was breaking, her hull shredded, her veins mangled, dead but for the little humans that could have been mistaken for desperate ants squirming for air inside of her.

Commander Jane Shepard opened her eyes to this wicked sight. It took her several seconds, where she couldn't hear anything but her own shallow breathing, before she painstakingly lifted her head despite the dull ache she felt where her neck met her shoulders. She was lying on her back on the floor of what had been the CIC. The galaxy map flickered on and off beside her, an empty rifle next to one of her motionless hands. She tasted blood – a steady stream from somewhere under her helmet.

You need to get up.

She groaned, a sudden pain stabbing her in the ribs as she struggled to her knees and then to her feet. One knee gave away, and she fell down on it hard. A scream might have escaped her, but she didn't notice anything past the blinding white light that crossed everything out – the ship in it's glorious destruction, the dead frozen in their last moments of dumb surprise when a piece of metal the size of a little nail went and gutted them. For a moment, where the pain was so intense it vanished completely, she wondered what she could have done differently, if only to see Liara one last time –

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams called for covering fire. Two marines ducked out from behind a pair of stacked crates, fingers hard on the trigger, and sent lead into the hole crawling with geth soldiers trying their hardest to clear the funnel. She almost felt sorry when she threw a high-explosive grenade into their midst, jumped behind a steel crate, and felt the flood of hot air as the explosion rocked the cargo bay. She cautioned a look around the corner of the crate, and saw that the grenade had done its job. The hooks used by the boarding ship had broken, and the ship itself was floating away serenely and leaving a trail of tittering robots in its wake.

"We're good. Get to the escape pods!" She ordered the marines still left alive.

They didn't need a second order. The ones on their knees hopped to their feet, the ones already on their feet bounced away before she had finished her sentence. She followed them up to the second deck, but as they veered off to the pods, she turned the other way. A stray marine stopped and looked back, calling after her in a preposterously clueless tone.

"Aren't you coming, Chief?" As if he were asking her to the beach for a tea party.

"Go." She said simply, and made her way up to the CIC.

The stairs had disintegrated into a chasm littered with body parts and pieces of seared wall that had been chipped off by bullets being shot from close range. She palmed the doors to the CIC open, and Ashley ran at a full sprint across the open expanse. A trail of enemy fire chased after her footsteps, missing her by a hair before she ducked behind the wall that shielded the doors of the communications room. Wrex was already there, stubbornly firing his rifle into the fray even when a bullet grazed the thick skin of his huge neck.

"Are you crazy?" She yelled at him over the din.

He finally spun around behind cover, calmly reloading his weapon as he did, and he looked at her as if he had never even see her before. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't know the answer to that question herself. All she knew was, she had to get to the Commander.

"Where's Shepard?" She never usually referred to the Commander so bluntly, but if Wrex was surprised, he didn't show it.

He merely pointed in the direction of the gunfire and the geth. "She's over there."

"Alone?" Ashley asked incredulously.

"No." Wrex said, and Ashley breathed a sigh of relief. "She's with Joker." Her face fell.

Ashley checked her ammo, she was full. "We have to go after her." She said to Wrex, who had once again bent his large frame out from the wall and began firing wildly. She dared a peek past her side of the wall, and saw to her horror that the geth numbers had doubled. A good portion was headed in their direction, and another seemed to be headed towards the cockpit where a wild ruckus was seemingly taking place. "Coming with?" She asked once she was safely behind cover again.

Wrex followed suit, reloading his weapon once again. His wild eye held steady for once while he made his decision. "Shepard ordered me to stay here." He said slowly, "But since when did I care. I go with you, Chief Williams."

Ashley never felt more at ease with something Wrex said. For today at least, she was glad orders were not being followed.

She braced herself for the sprint that would take her from cover to cover, having memorized the layout of the CIC from walking along it's utilitarian steel floors many times before. "I'll take point, and you–" She turned to make sure Wrex heard her, only to watch the big dumb alien lunge into a hail of bullets without her.

You idiot!

She threw herself into the foray after him. He was on the left, she was on the right. Together they began tagging geth soldiers like it was a competition, each an expert marksman. One was fueled by sheer adrenaline, and the other by sheer terror. Ashley didn't have time to think before she pulled the trigger, only enough time to react by instinct. Her body flowed smoothly, her mind surprisingly blank for a moment so intense, full of moving figures half-hidden behind objects they perfectly blended with, each with a deadly weapon in hand. It felt like a game, but she knew better.

"Area clear." She heard Wrex growl.

She hadn't realized she had stopped breathing at one point, and gasped for air. They had reached the cockpit, a jumbled mess of geth skeletons in their wake. Commander Shepard was standing next to an immobile Joker, who sat limply in the pilot's seat.

"I got my marines out of here." Ashley said hastily, "Cargo hold's secure."

The Commander's face was unreadable, but her voice was sharp.

"Since you're here instead of where I told you to be – get Joker to an escape pod." She said immediately to Ashley.

"I passed Tali on the way up here, she needs more time." Ashley blurted.

"No time."

"She says she can fix it."

"Oh yeah?" The Commander's voice, even with the bloody mess happening around them, sounded sarcastic, "She's got until you get Joker and her to the escape pod."

The Commander picked up the unconscious pilot by the armpits and deposited him like a rag doll into the Chief's arms. Ashley hadn't even had time to protest before the Commander shoved her in the direction she had just come from as a fresh wave of geth soldiers began to flood in through the Normandy's airlock doors. She didn't look back, just heard the rapid tat-tat-tat of gunfire and the high-pitched snap each bullet made as it collided with metal. Joker's head swayed back and forth all the way to the staircase leading down to the deck below, all the way to the opened electrical panel that Tali had been working at, and was still working at. The Quarian didn't even turn around when Ashley called to her.

"Come on."

"I need more time." She said, helmet flashing with every word.

Ashley wanted to give her all the time in the world. She wanted the Normandy to not fall apart around them, for the walls to be not pocketed with holes, and for the oxygen inside the walls to not be slowly seeping out. Orders were orders, and she would only go so far when it was lives ticking away and not just time.

She grasped a hold of the Quarian's forearm, and her attention. "We don't have anymore time."

Tali didn't reply, crouched there over the spilled guts of the Normandy. Ashley pulled her to her feet, and with one arm aching from carrying a fully grown man, and the other arm guiding a shell-shocked alien, she led them all the way to the escape pods, half of which were already gone. She sat the pilot in an empty seat, buckled him in, and hailed the Commander over her helmet mounted radio.

"Commander," She said breathlessly, "We made it to the escape pods."

"Good." Came the reply through a haze of loud popping noises – they were still in the midst of a firefight, "Get out of here, Williams."

"I can launch the pod from the ship." She replied quickly. I can fight too, she was about to say before the Commander cut her off.

"No." Ashley had only ever heard that urgent tone of voice once before, when Kaiden died. "You will follow my orders, Chief Williams. You're making it a bad habit of disobeying them." Though Ashley had done worse in her career, the statement somehow stung. "Get in that pod, and go."

"Yes, Commander." She said for the final time. She stepped into the pod, seated herself, and watched the doors of the small vessel close with a certain dread. She hoped she wouldn't remember this moment with regret in the future, but she knew that wasn't true. She would regret every breath.

The escape pod shot into space, away from the Normandy burning brightly.

Tali looked at the open panel in front of her. Every wire she could see was burnt or completely severed. Behind her, the door to the engineering bay opened.

"Tali." It was Chief Ashley Williams jogging towards her, sweat running down the sides of her face inside her helmet, "What are you still doing here? Didn't you hear the Commander's order for a general evacuation? You see the explosions? You enjoy being in this room way too much, my friend."

Still joking when everything was falling apart around them. Tali often didn't understand humans and their sometimes cynical sense of humor.

"Emergency power didn't kick in when it was supposed to. There's a break somewhere here. I just need to find it."

Ashley seemed to hesitate before grabbing a hold of Tali's arm. "Orders are orders. Now, come on."

"No!" Tali tore free of the marines grip, "I can do this – I just need a few more seconds to pinpoint the break in the connection. We can still win this! Now go!"

Two engineers with her, one limping about on a wounded leg, stared at Ashley expectantly. She stared back.

"You two get out of here." Tali told them while burying her head in a mass of wires and electronics.

The engineers looked a little abashed, but they dropped their tools and hurried out. Ashley stared after them, suddenly unsure of what to do. She could always force the alien to follow her to a pod, but if "a few more seconds" was all the difference between abandoning ship and victory...

"You got your few seconds, Tali." She told Tali.

"What about Commander Shepard?"

"I'll worry about her." Ashley said grimly, "I've got a problem in the cargo bay. I'll be back."

She heard Ashley Williams march out of the room, barking orders to marines in the escape pods to leave without her. Tali was alone. She knew she had exaggerated the truth – it would take a miracle to fix this in just a few more seconds. She remembered faintly hearing Adams talk about a problem set of connections in one of the panels, but for all the terror unfolding around her that could be stopped with that one fact, she couldn't remember which one of the hundreds of panels was the right one. If only Adams was here, but he was probably gone – one of the many chunks of gore littered about the floor around her. She began moving down the wall, opening one and then the other, hoping that she'd see the right bunch of wires frayed or cut apart – but she searched in vain. She felt the tears begin to well up in her eyes – she knew she was on the one to fix this, but she couldn't. She knew how, but she didn't know where.

She mused sadly out loud, "If only my father could see me now."

Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau was losing the Normandy, and there wasn't much he could do to stop it, like a husband holding the hand of his dying wife at a hospital, he watched her breath her last shallow breaths before the inevitable was surely to come. For the first time in a long time, his hands were held still over the controls of the ship – powerless, useless, completely beaten. The display in front of him shattered suddenly, and he ducked his head as bullets flew by overhead. His stomach tightened up into a sack of meat the size of a cotton ball, his hands on his head in a death grip.

He turned his head to look behind him. The Geth were standing there seemingly dumbfounded, held back by one lone figure running towards them from the opposite end of the CIC like a banshee. It was the Commander, her stride impossibly long, her eyes ablaze behind a bloodstained visor. Another bullet crashed into the ship's control panel behind him. One Geth soldier had turned it's attention back onto the pilot, while his fellows made a push towards the Commander. Blood boiling and nerves firing off warning signals at about a hundred miles an hour, Joker curled up as small as he could make himself in the pilot's seat. His legs were killing him.

"Joker," He heard the Commander yell in her scariest voice, "Take cover!"

Oh no. She's not going to–

The Commander wound up like a pitcher and threw a grenade into the thick of those Geth soldiers, detonating it mid-air just feet away from the pilot's chair, only a few plush cushions separating Joker from a blast that knocked the crowd of Geth into pieces. He slowly raised his head over the top of his chair, and saw the Commander walking towards him briskly. A single moving and dismembered Geth soldier laid among the remains of his comrades and stared strangely at Jeff Moreau. He felt a chill travel from the back of his head down towards the rest of his body as they shared a gaze that was horribly intimate. Joker watched the Commander, her attention nor her stride ever faltering, pull out her pistol and fire a single shot into the geth's lamp-like head as she passed it, causing it to explode like a piñata into thousands of small colorful fragments.

She ran the rest of the way up to him, standing there like an angel from God's army, with one hand gripping his forearm like a vice.

"Ouch." His mouth managed to say, though his mind still felt numb.

She lightened her grip, "Sorry. Are you alright?"

He nodded, "Commander, she's gone."

He watched her facial expression change from one of absolute confusion to understanding. No one knew how much he felt for the Normandy, nobody knew but the Commander. She gently, but urgently lifted him to his feet.

"We need to get you to the escape pods. I left Wrex by the comm room." She checked his helmet, made sure there were no leaks. "Can you get there on your own?" She was talking about his legs.

He nodded, "We're leaving the ship?" The idea seemed ridiculous. It was still in one piece... in general.

She looked at him strangely, "Yes." Her tone of voice offered no other alternative, but he wasn't convinced.

"There's no power." He tried in vain, "If we can get someone to the engineering deck, we can diagnose where the breaks are, fix it. We can-"

"Stop right there." Shepard interrupted. "You are going to the escape pods."

"No!" Joker replied. "We can-"

Shepard interrupted him once again, only this time it was with a quick jab to his face with a gloved fist. She sighed, shaking her head at what she had just done, and was about to radio Wrex to move his heavy ass up to her when a fresh wave of Geth soldiers began to filter in. Dropping Joker back into his seat and quickly grabbing cover at a vantage point, she could keep the Geth pinned down within the airlock at this angle.

She was shooting into the mass of moving mechanical parts, heard Wrex do the same, when she thought she heard a third rifle join them.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Wrex and, with a tinge of irritation, Chief Williams fighting through the CIC towards her.

Doctor Chakwas tripped over the outstretched leg of a man sleeping in a chair, and nearly falling into the charred man being carried in by a pair of marines. She didn't recognize the man, naked but for a few pieces of dark clothing that had melted into his raw skin.

"Where do you want him, Doctor?" One of the marines, she recognized as PFC Fox, asked.

She waved at an empty bed still stained red from its previous occupier. She donned a new pair of gloves, and peered into the charred man's eyes. One was swollen shut, and the other was barely open. The one bloodshot eye peered into hers, silently pleading and praying.

"He looks..." Fox failed to finish his sentence, looking at the charred man like he was already dead. "What should I do?" He asked.

Doctor Chakwas stared at the young man, a mix of emotions ranging from annoyance to the same distress that Fox was feeling crowded her judgment. She didn't know what to say to him.

"Doctor." Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams placed one hand on the Doctor's shoulders, and turned her around so the marine could face her, "General evacuation. Get your wounded into the escape pods."

"What?" The Doctor asked. "What's going on?"

"You heard me." Ashley told her sternly, but not without some sympathy. "Power's out, hull's breached. We're running out of air." And the Chief said a little more quietly, "You're not going to be able to get everyone out. We don't have time. You're going to have to choose."

The words echoed in her head.

"I'll need help." She said slowly, barely a whisper.

"Fox." Ashley got the attention of the marine still standing dumbly over the charred man, "Help the doctor." Ashley also pointed to a second marine, "And you too."

"Roger that, Chief." The other marine nodded, obviously a veteran used to seeing the gore that came with the job.

Doctor Chakwas looked down the aisle at beds occupied by bodies – some writhing in agony, and some eerily still. There was the ache of urgency in her stomach, the tug of guilt in her chest, and when she moved it was with an invisible hand clutching at her ankle and begging for her to stop. She moved more out of instinct, jogging along the torn bodies, dipping her finger in a pool of their blood, and marking their foreheads while the two marines marched behind her and carried them away. The ones she didn't mark lay silently, and although many were already dead, she imagined their accusing eyes staring after her as she moved on.

She made it to where the burnt man lay silently. He was conscious now, his red eyes moving to and fro across her face. Her hand, finger poised, hesitated when he opened his mouth and tried to speak, but only blood boiled to his lips. His eyes rolled backwards into his skull, but he struggled to focus them back onto her. She knew he wanted to say his last words; a goodbye to his wife, encouragement for his children, a plead to save his life. She leaned in, her hand no longer held up, and her finger joined together with the others in a tight fist.

His voice cracked, but she could just barely make out his words.

"Power out. Ship defense system out." He said, taking long breaths between every other word, "Panel two-three. Emergency power. Tape. Understand?"

The burnt man's eyes rolled back once again, but they didn't return. He breathed one last breath, and exhaled it like a soft sigh. Doctor Chakwas turned around, numb from her toes up to her eyelids, and she saw PFC Fox standing behind her. He was just as pale.

"All of the others are at the escape pods, Doctor." He told her. He pointed at the burnt man, "What did he say?"

"Something about panel two-three. Emergency power. Tape?" She shook her head, "It's too late. Follow me."

Her steps were brisk when she walked out of the infirmary. She was glad to breath in the air of the corridor – just a little less fragrant with the smell of blood and guts and raw meat. Her feet took her straight to one of the escape pods occupied with her patients, there was a second being operated by the veteran marine. Doctor Chakwas assumed Private Fox was with him, she palmed the doors shut, and the escape pod shot off into space.

Engineer Adams surveyed the damage done by the first volley of geth missiles. The ships armor had done its job, and there was only surface damage. No leaks. The crew was probably just shaken from the blast.

"Alright, people!" He yelled over the commotion. Several of his engineering crew were knocked to the floor by the blast, there was cursing galore. "I want everyone back at their stations. That was just the first volley. I want power lines checked, systems checked – you know the drill. We can't lose anything!"

"Yes'sir!" They chorused, and bounced on their feet.

He stood by the engineer decks main console. Tali stood next to him, and was remarking on how well the Normandy had taken the hit when he was shoved backwards off his feet. Before he even fell to the ground, he knew it was a second hit. His mind worked on the double; the second volley had hit too soon after the first to be from the same enemy ship, there had to a be a second ship. His back touched the steel floors behind him, his spine felt the crush and the air was knocked out of his lungs. He lay there dazed for only seconds before he jumped to his feet, a single thought repeating over and over in his head: if there was a second ship, why not a third?

The odds were against the Normandy, and he didn't know by how much. He bent over his console, his crew doing the same at their stations, and tried not to think about the possibility that perhaps the Commander's luck had run out. That Joker's skill could not save them this time. That maybe the next order he gave to his crew would be the last.

"Damage report!" He demanded.

"Armor held up." An engineer grinned.

"Power's stable." Another reported.

"Weapons online." A third cheered.

He smiled, but just as the edges of his lips began to touch the bottoms of his eyes, he was once again thrown off his feet. Time seemed to slow for another dreadful thought to float to the surface of his mind: there was a third enemy ship. Only this time, there was no backbreaking fall to wait for. Engineer Adams felt the hot fire of an exploding HE armor-piercing missile engulf his whole body. He could smell his own flesh cooking, the hair on his head burning, and his eyeballs baking. When he did fall to the ground, he could hear the sizzle of his bare back on the hot steel floors. He could barely breath, the air in the room had suddenly disappeared, sucked out of the holes torn into the Normandy's side. There were dozens of them along the once beautiful walls of the engineering bay. His red eyes were transfixed on one in particular, a ginormous opening where the missile had clearly torn through before blowing up in their midst – a clean cylinder shape that seemed like it was made from a cookie cutter. He felt two strong arms lift him from behind, and carry him out of the room. In the corridor, he could breath again.

He was being dragged to the elevator. He noted with satisfaction that it was still running. Tali was inside, she seemed fine if not a little singed. She pressed a button, and the elevator began it's slow journey up to the second deck.

"How are you, Tali?" He wanted to say to her with a little smile and a chuckle, but all that came out of his mouth was a bit of his tongue.

"Shit." Someone remarked at the bloody piece of meat that tumbled down his chin and chest and finally rested on the floor of the elevator.

"Who else made it out?" Someone asked.

"Just us."

There was a sob.

"Holy Christ."

"Who is that?"

Adams felt the strong arms lifting him give a little shrug. "I don't know."

"Poor bastard."

Another sob.

"Are you alright?"

"Just my leg. Some shrapnel got me."

"We still have power?"

"The elevator's still running."

"The elevator runs on its own batteries in emergencies."

"Get him to the infirmary, and then meet me back here." Tali told them, taking charge. He felt a surge of pride in his bleeding chest. "We're going back down. The fight's not over."

"You got it."

"What about your leg?"

"I can handle it."

Adams heard the elevator hum to a halt, and the doors slide open. He was dragged out, this time a second pair of arms lifted his feet off the ground. He blinked, his eyes glazed over with a sort of film. He tried to raise his hand to his face, but his arm hung limply as if it wasn't even there. The arms that carried him placed him gently on a bed, and he heard their boots fall heavily on the tiled floors of the medical bay as they raced away. He wanted to thank them, but his throat burned.

He lay there looking up at the florescent lights above him – how they flickered on and off – and Doctor Chakwas' face loomed over him. The lines of her face were creased with stress, and the way she looked at him was anything but reassuring. There was a pain in his ears that grew steadily worse. The more painful it became, the less he could hear of the writhing bodies lying next to him, the blood-curdling screams, the moans. Soon, all he could hear was his own shaky breathing and the clicking sound his eyeballs made when he looked around. The pain ebbed away, but his hearing did not return. He tried to move, but his limbs refused. He realized that he may be dying. The thought wasn't as terrifying now that it was actually happening. He remembered trying to imagine how it be while he sat alone in the toilet with nothing to occupy his mind, and none of the scenarios matched this. He thought he'd say some glorious or meaningful last words, thought that he would cry from the sadness in it all, maybe even have a few close friends hold his hand when all life slipped away from him. There was none of that. Only the workings of his mind as he replayed his last moments in the engineering bay over and over again. Even now, when his life was ending, he could only think of that room and the upset state he had left it in.

Once again, Doctor Chakwas appeared over him. She held a blood-stained finger up in the air, as if it were a pen, and suddenly he understood. He tried to beckon her, but he couldn't will his fingers or hands to do anything. Simply breathing was becoming harder and harder to do as the seconds ticked by, and he felt exhausted – all he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep. Or die, whichever one came first. His mouth moved, trying to form words with lips that weren't there anymore. She leaned in closer.

"Power out. Ship defense system out." He struggled, sacrificing a breath of air for every word, "Panel two-three. Emergency power. Tape. Understand?"

She backed away from him, and he closed his eyes and sobbed.

Pressly darkly remembered the decision to jump into the fray. They peeled out of faster-than-light travel like a mustang around a tight corner, three dark purplish mass' hurtling towards them at breakneck speed. The CIC that had been quiet just seconds before burst into activity. Voices broke into a song of battle reports and technical readouts, feet scampered to and fro with headsets pressed into ears, eyes danced in their sockets to take in as much information that could be processed from the console screens. The only body that remained as composed as before stood at the helm silently behind Joker as he maneuvered the Normandy in acrobatic somersaults – Commander Shepard stared down the three enemy ships with an oddly expressionless gaze.

Volley after volley of enemy missiles were being fired in their direction. Pressly knew Joker was waiting to get in closer, he could see the pilot's fingers itching at the red trigger on the ships controls. He turned back to his console, seeing a group of four yellow blips churning towards the Normandy. Joker broke to the left. The four blips turned into eight, just a few meters separating them. The first volley clipped the Normandy's side – no damage. Pressly sighed with relief, but there was little time to celebrate – the second set of blips collided with the Normandy on his console. Only a fraction of a second later, Pressly felt the jolt of an explosion knock him from his seat. The scene of the CIC in disarray blinked in and out – panicked yells, barked orders, sounds of metallic scraping and hissing. He tried to get up, but a second explosion yanked him back down onto his side. He couldn't believe it, but the situation was what could be expected when the odds were three against one.

"Joker!" He heard the Commander.

"I got it!" He heard the Pilot retort.

The quiet click of the trigger being pressed, the muffled sound of the Normandy's weapons unleashing its payload of four laser guided armor-piercing missiles.

Pressly counted off in his head – one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four...

"It's a hit!" Joker reported jubilantly.

"Break to the-" The Commander couldn't finish her sentence.

There was a third hit, and this time Pressly could feel the warheads barreling into the skin of the ship. After a mighty lurch, the Normandy drifted lifelessly forward, the hum of the engines dead silent, and the screens of the ships consoles shutting off with a final sigh.

"Pressly." The Commander helped him to his feet, "You're arm."

He looked down to see a bit of bone sticking out of his forearm. He couldn't believe it – he couldn't feel it at all.

"This isn't good." Joker reported. "Two of them heading our way. They're not firing."

The Commander's soft gaze hardened as she turned her gaze from Pressly's arm to the view port. She knew, just as he and Joker certainly knew, that the fight was about to get far too close for comfort.

"They're launching boarding parties." The Commander said. "Prepare to be boarded."

Joker relayed the message to the entire ship, paling ever so slightly as he did. An alarm blared loudly from one of the consoles – O2 levels were dropping steadily, power levels were woefully low. All around him, Pressly could see the crew members pulling on helmets, pulling pistols out of their holsters, sharing grim looks and last words of encouragement. The enemy boarding ships were on them now, he could see every detail on their dark purple hulls.

"The cargo bay." Joker reported, his console the only one still powered up.

He didn't have to report the second breach, as sound of screeching metal under a blow torch could be heard through the doors Normandy's airlock.

"Commander..." He began to say, but he was cut off.

He stood unsteadily, cradling his broken arm of shredded meat and brittle bone, and he closed the gap between him and the view port. Two monstrous geth battleships were holding pattern at a safe distance, observing the eventual takeover of the Normandy from afar. Commander Shepard stood next to him, watching them silently. But then a small gray speck darted towards one of the giant ships, one single speck that was so miniscule and insignificant in comparison, but it sped towards the battleship undaunted. Suicide.

It was the Juno.

"What are they doing?" Pressly wondered out loud in horror.

He heard a sharp intake of breath, the Commander was pale.

The Juno, in all its old glory, fire blazing from several holes punched into her hull, sped into the geth ship in a plume of color. Blue and purple haze blossomed magnificently from the point of impact – Pressly had never seen anything like it. The geth ship lumbered on its course, seemingly unharmed, but the crew of the Normandy watched as the gargantuan thing slowly began to sink – fire and light erupting from every crevice. Slowly, it began to fall apart on its way down towards the planet below.

Some of the crew cheered, but it was halfhearted. He watched the Commander carefully out of the corner of his eye, the color had gone from her cheeks, and the way her body hung – she looked exhausted.

"Pressly." She turned towards him, "Get to the infirmary."

"Yes, ma'am." He nodded.

One last look around the cockpit. It felt wrong to leave now, though there was the selfish gratitude for being ordered to go. He wasn't the first one to the medical bay. On his arrival, he watched several others being carried in. Some were burned beyond recognition, others torn apart by bits of metal, and others already turning gray and rigid. He looked down at the little bit of broken bone that had cut its way out of his neatly pressed blue uniform – it began to sting a little, and he was sure that it would be hell in about a minute or so – but for now, he sat numbly to the side and allowed himself to be ignored by the medical staff.

"What's that sound?" He heard Doctor Chakwas ask an aide.

It was the rattle of gunfire. He realized he was still wearing his headset when he heard the voices of marines and static erupt into his ear.

"They're everywhere!"

"Grenade!"

"I'm hit – get me a fucking medic!"

"Chief Williams." The Commander's voice was the one calm voice of the bunch. "Report."

"We've got a ton coming in from the cargo bay. We've got them pinned down for now." Came the garbled reply.

"Good. The Juno just took out the second geth ship. All the geth that's left down there with you is it – they'll be no more coming your way any time soon. I want you to close that hole, then get to a pod. I'm issuing a general evacuation. Clear out the medical bay. We're dead in the water. Copy?"

"Good copy."

Pressly sighed. His arm began to ache sharply, the pain ebbed in and out of a bearable range. He sat there quietly with his back against the dull gray walls, his head leaning back ever so gently. He wondered why getting his arm nearly ripped off didn't hurt more, but he was glad it didn't for whatever reason. So blissfully grateful was he, that he didn't notice the beads of red blood dripping from his thoroughly stained dark blue uniform. His eyes blinked, each time a little slower to open again, when finally his eyelids stayed shut and he slumped backwards into his seat.

Commander Shepard stared at the handsome face of Staff Commander Jerome Harding. His stoney features were falling apart, his breathing ragged, and his lips trembling. By the navigation computers estimate, the Normandy was only minutes out. This was the last transmission.

Three enemy ships; one in the atmosphere of the planet. We believe the facility is under attack. We've engaged the other two. We're outnumbered – can't last long. Requesting immediate assistance. Shepard, we can see you on our sensors – please, hurry!

The image froze, and then reset as the message replayed itself. Her eyes never leaving his, Shepard let the transmission play itself out again and again and again.

Wrex told her not to blame herself. Strange words coming from him.

"Are you sure about this?" He asked her.

"I'm sure."

The boarding ship had fallen away, all the geth aboard that particular craft had been expended. Already they could see a second on its way, and a third headed towards the cargo hold. As tired and injected with adrenaline as she was, Commander Shepard knew they had little time. They rigged the outer airlock doors with all the Semtex and C4 they could muster – it wasn't enough to destroy the whole ship, but enough to constitute a parting gift to their attackers. She clipped the detonator on her belt, armed the explosives, and took one last look around her. The bodies, the debris, the general lack of life around her was something she'd never forget.

"To the escape pods?" Wrex asked.

Commander Shepard nodded. She reloaded her rifle, checked her ammo, and simultaneously moved towards the staircase. Wrex moved beside her, looking back every now and then to ensure that there weren't more geth lurking behind them with rifle barrels trained on their backs. They were halfway to the comm room, when he turned his head once again. This time his whole huge frame went rigid, and he managed to growl quickly, "Get down!" before a tremendous force thew them both to the floor. Wrex was on his feet in a matter of seconds, crouched and moving backwards, firing his rifle the direction of the airlock doors.

"Shepard!" He clapped a new heat sink into his rifle, "Get up! Can you hear me, get up!"

You need to get up.

She lifted her head – a rocket flew by, exploded in the air between Wrex and herself, tossing the huge alien off his feet once again. Something cold hit her shoulder, leaked down her arm and collected in her glove. She heard the hiss of air escaping her punctured suit, and that feeling of urgency in her stomach doubled to outright fear and dread. She felt faint as the oxygen in her suit thinned, and she hardly noticed when suddenly her body lifted off the floor. Nor did she notice the geth soldiers spun into a confused mass as they took lost their footing on the deck of the Normandy. The last bit of power the Normandy had clung to was gone, and gone with it was gravity.

A geth pointed its rifle at her, steadying itself the best it could for a shot. She flinched, spotted her rifle floating out in front of her just within reach. She stretched out her uninjured arm, her fingers brushing up against the cool metal buttstock. She grabbed a hold of it, forced her finger onto the trigger, and saw the flash of a rifle.

The force of a bullet pushed her backwards towards the end of the CIC.

The geth flew back, its lamp-like head bursting.

Her back hit a wall. Through the haze she saw an army of geth pushing off the walls of the cockpit, the CIC, wherever they could get a foothold. They were making their way towards her.

"Wrex." She spoke into her radio. She hoped it still worked. "Get out of here."

She let go of her rifle, and held the detonator in her hand. A finger rested on the red trigger, and she waited.

Private Fox didn't know what he was doing, but he went ahead and made his way to the engineering deck. He tried to ignore the bodies floating about him, clinging to the walls hand holds as best he could, he found the open panels Tali had left behind. He spotted panel two-three beside two opened panels on the right, and three on the left. Tali had been so close, she had opened practically all the panels but the right one. He pulled himself towards it, one hand reaching out to grasp a handhold, and then the other. He pulled open the panel, and to his horror, watched as a mess of wires spilled out at him like dead snakes.

"Oh God." He whispered to himself.

He rummaged through them with one hand, the other grasping a hand hold firmly. All the while, he couldn't help but berate himself for not putting his ass in that escape pod, for coming out all the way over here just to die trying to put together a puzzle he could never possibly solve.

"Way to fucking go." He seethed. His fingers pulled apart a group of wires grouped together by black electrical tape – a temporary fix if he ever saw one. Barely able to keep the grin off his face, he isolated the group, and saw with some amount of trepidation that this could be the one – the "emergency power" the charred man had spoken of, the "break" in the chain that Tali had insisted was somewhere in this maze. He found it.

"Now what am I supposed to do?" He asked woefully.

Private Fox squeezed each wire, each one colored a different color, and he found one that was somewhat frayed and in a bad way compared with the rest. He wondered why the engineering team, the ones who managed to keep everything else about this place in tip-top shape, decided to use tape instead of replacing the thing. He maneuvered himself so that he could put his foot under the hand hold, and left his hands free. With one hand he held the frayed wire, and with the other he snipped one end with a multi-tool, and then snipped the other. He peeled back the blue plastic covering from the copper wire underneath, and he twisted the two exposed good ends of the wire together. He had never done this before, he hoped it would work.

"I hope this works." He said to himself, and watched the twisted wire in his hands expectantly. Nothing happened for what seemed like ages. He floated there, his face growing grave and then absolutely crestfallen with every second that ticked by.

Then there was a humming to be heard that wasn't there before. Then he realized he could hear, then he was falling – hitting the ground hard, then the engine glowed brilliantly blue, and then he looked up at it with tears in his eyes. Then a voice, a woman as calm as a cow grazing in green fields, said something that stole the smile from his lips, and the color from his skin.

Emergency power: manual control not detected. Auto-pilot activated. Landing program initiated.

There was air – yes. There was gravity – yes. But he was painfully aware of the sound air makes when it escapes through tiny little gaps that were previously air tight – the very gaps in the armor-plating of the Normandy that allowed him to watch the planet below grow larger and larger. Frozen where he lay, he could only watch as the sides of the Normandy grew red with heat. He couldn't even scream.

Commander Shepard opened her eyes to a wicked sight.

A woman was speaking, but she couldn't hear a word. Stumbling on legs that felt paper thin, she knew of a safe haven. She should have ran; past the galaxy map, through the doors, down the stairs – there waited a craft made of air-tight steel and bolts. She tried to imagine seeing Liara again, how ridiculous she was, remembered how scared she had been to say three simple words, and how easy it would be now. She only wished she could.

Jack Shepard held her hand, helping her along her first steps; he waved, and the next time she saw him he could fit in the palm of her hand.

Liara blushed ever so softly; a clumsy slip of the tongue.

Jim Farrell sat next to her, humming a tune while they paid hardly any attention to the oily weapons they cleaned; he split his blood on her boot.

Liara kissed her so passionately; she loved her.

Commander Jane Shepard choked on the feelings that threatened to spill. She had hoped, like any other sane human being, that a happy ending awaited her, but she knew it wasn't the truth. No white picket fence, no little children, no sunny-side-up with two slices of bacon and toast on the side for her. She knew all this, because she had already known that the deep dark gnawing depression that clung to her like vines on a stone wall was from running away. She ran from her father, she ran from Jim Farrell, and she had taken a great wide stride away from Liara.

She wasn't going to run from this – the sound a bullet makes when it barely misses, the feeling of your heart in your throat when the fear takes hold, the uncontrollable tremble of your hands as you pull that trigger time and time again, the pleading and agonizing scream in her head begging her to just stop. How many times was she going to survive, when so many had died?

She still held the detonator in her hand, and squeezed the trigger. A bright flash blinded her. She felt suffocated.

A scaly hand snatched her out of the air as she hurtled away from the blast. A hand laid her down gently onto her back, a pair of dark fathomless eyes looked down at her. She was barely aware of the sudden quiet surrounding them. They were in the comm room. The walls shuddered and seemed to sway. Wrex was putting her into a chair, and buckling a harness around her.

"Shepard." Wrex grumbled, and he went on to say something she couldn't hear. Her eyes shut, and she didn't wake up for a long time.

Note: I hate all of you. Hahaha. Leave a review. Or a nickel. Something!