Chapter Twenty-One

The Normandy swoops in close to the dreadnought, and Joker and EDI take out one of the escape pods with one blast of the main gun. The squad waits in the airlock, and the ship drops in next to the puncture in the hull. The docking tube extends, finding a little purchase on the smooth gap. The shot from the cannon managed to blow a hole straight through the pod and its connection with the ship, leaving the actual hull no more than scorched.

Tali breathes deeply as the oxygen hisses out of the airlock. The sensation of stepping into outer space is at once frightening and exhilarating, and though she has done it once before, the thrill is brand new again as the portal pulls back and the cold rushes over her. She looks to Shepard. He motions, and she steps out onto the dreadnought's hull.

Legion and Tali break off from the group and, locking their boots to the side of the ship, they tread heavily up the hull twenty meters. The carrier is no less imposing from this distance. Its sable length stretches flatly off and away, and Tali feels the queazy tilt of vertigo as a vast expanse of stars comes into view around the Normandy, and she suddenly has the feeling she's dangling upside-down off the ship, like a tiny insect. She shakes her head, locking her eyes on the hull beneath her feet. No time for that now. Shepard and Garrus are counting on her.

Her commlink buzzes, and Shepard's voice fills her helmet. "Tali. Are you two in a good position?"

Tali looks at Legion questioningly. The geth nods, having received the same transmission. "Alright," she says. "We've got the airlock. Get ready."

Legion plods over to her, its feet sticking magnetically to the ship's hull. It speaks, and she hears its voice through the speakers inside her suit. It's a strange feeling, as if the geth is talking inside her. "Tali'Zorah, we will open a way into the ship. You must follow behind us and keep the pathway open, and when we reach the mainframe locate the airlock override."

"Why not take control of the whole ship?"

"Each portion of the ship's mainframe will have separate security protocols. A brute-force attack could bypass the main firewalls and override the entire system, but we do not have the necessarily time. This way is much more precise. Come. There is no time to lose."

Tali activates her omni-tool and links it to Legion's. Panels of data flash on the transparent display. Within moments she sees the opening. The power of Legion's attack is startling, and as it tunnels into the ship's security it leaves a wide tunnel behind it. Tali navigates her code into the gap, patching the remaining programs left in the wake of Legion's assault. The program reacts, trying to replicate itself and trap the invasive script in loops, and Tali has to work equally fast to close it off and prevent it from trapping them.

The two engineers lapse into a kind of trance as they fight a silent battle inside the ship's mind. Tali's fingers flick across the face of her omni-tool, mirroring Legion's pose across from her. They stand stooped over their devices for a minute, two minutes, and then Legion breaks through the wall of the computer's defenses for a second. It's all Tali needs, and she darts inside. Her eyes scan the data, she scrolls through quickly and selects the correct conditions, editing the code. The value for the airlock switches, and she backs away, planting backup programs to shore up the gap, and then she and Legion pull out and deactivate their omni-tools.

The geth and the Quarian look up simultaneously, sharing a moment of mutual appreciation.

Legion's voice in her ear breaks the silence. "Tali'Zorah, we have never seen an organic process that fast."

Tali blinks away the floating rectangle seared into her eyes by the screen. "Legion, that was just... Wow. We should work together more often."

Legion nods. "Agreed. Now, we must return to Shepard."

…

Shepard waits for Tali and Legion to reappear before signaling the squad forward. The escape pod tube stretches into the ship for about twenty meters. Spiraling grooves are carved into the sides of the tube, like rifling in an old fashioned firearm. At the end of the short tunnel lies a portal, opened by Tali and Legion, the squad's entry into the ship.

Shepard checks his own gun again, setting the battle rifle to fire cryotechnic rounds. The squad marches up the tube and pull themselves over the lip and into the corridor beyond. As he predicted, Shepard sees they're inside a small peripheral hallway. The walls are close around them, and as the squad creeps single file up the corridor the airlock slams shut behind them.

Shepard comes to the end of the hallway. He's greeted by a single door. He turns to the rest of the squad. They stand alert, weapons ready. Air hisses around them as the hallway begins to equalize. The light on the door before them glows red. Something thumps on the other side. They've been noticed, and time is running short.

"Looks like the door will only unlock when the hallway's back to normal," says Garrus.

Shepard nods. "I'll go in first. Everybody else, fan out. Try to find cover once we're inside. Once we clear out the hostiles we'll try to find the bridge of the ship." He turns back to the door. Unseen fans whir, then slow down and stop. The lock flashes green.

Shepard breathes. The door opens and he launches himself through it. Beyond is a large room scattered with crates and metal parts. The floorspace is long and rectangular, stretching from left to right and ending in a set of consoles and an elevator up to the balcony that lines the walls.

Shepard takes all this in in a heartbeat, and then his focus shifts to the helmeted head two feet in front of him. A gun fires, the sound muffled as if underwater, and his shield ripples. He moves, and the batarian stumbles backwards, and then Shepard's bullets rip apart his shields. Armor provides a temporary resistance, but the first rounds freeze the shell and the following shots break it apart. Fast acting chemicals shoot through the batarian's body, encasing him in frost and cooling his flesh hundreds of degrees below zero in seconds. Shepard slams the butt of his rifle into the soldier's chest and he shatters.

Legion and Garrus come into the room behind him, spreading out as he ordered. He hears their rifles crack, and soldiers fall from the balcony. Storage crates and large, metallic ship parts lie scattered across the deck at the far end of the room. Shepard makes for a stack of boxes now, his muscles and mind feeding off the last of the adrenaline, pushing him fast enough to escape the shots fired after him. He spins, hits the crates with his shoulder, and hears a sound like violent rainfall as bullets hit the sides of the crates and ricochet away. He waits for them to die away, and as the shooter reloads he springs to his feet and fires a burst at his attacker. His shots hit, driving the batarian back and decimating his shield. Shepard pumps the trigger again, but the gun clicks uselessly at him, its heat sink filled. The batarian raises his weapon towards Shepard, and then his helmet erupts with a spray of blood and shrapnel. Shepard looks over his shoulder to see legion coolly slotting a fresh clip into its rifle.

The fight continues. Shepard is lulled into the mindlessness of combat, feels the methodical killing machine slip over him like a helmet visor. His gun blasts, an extension of his will, spraying metal and coating the walls and deck with batarians' blood. All around him other living creatures die violently by his hand, but he doesn't care. The beast is in control now, a cold and unfeeling monster taking hold of him, not from the outside but from deep within. It lashes out, and people die.

And then, just like that, the ringing clamor of wild shots and explosions is gone, and the room is silent. The squad stands alone, eight batarian soldiers dead around them.

Shepard knocks the full thermal clip out of his rifle and slots in a fresh one. He looks around the room, taking a better look. The parts he noticed before fill most of the floor space, hoses and wires and metal boxes stacked in piles or strewn randomly over the deck. At the far end of the room, behind the piles a large door is set into the wall. Shepard guesses it connects to the hangar bay. But if they needed to get to ships, all this crap wouldn't be piled in front of the door. What's in there?

A balcony wraps around the sides of the room, fifty feet or so off the ground. Doors lead off to different parts of the ship.

Garrus pushes back his visor and points to the front of the room. "That looks like the way up. I'll bet the bridge is behind one of the doors up there."

Shepard beckons to his squad and, picking his way around dead batarians, makes his way across the deck. An elevator is set into the wall, with a set of screens arrayed around its base. They don't seem to be working. Shepard turns to his team, and what he sees pierces his heart. There they stand, strong and brave and covered in the blood of his enemies, ready to give everything they have for him. The beast pulls back, its icy fingers melting away from the warmth washing over him. Shepard looks at his squad, at Garrus and Tali and Legion, and with a slight twinge at that last face, he knows that they are more than just his squad. They are his family.

He coughs, pushing the lump in his throat back down. Now is not the time. "I don't know what we'll find when we get to the bridge," he says, blinking away the burning in his treacherous eyes. "But be prepared for the worst. These are extremists we're dealing with. I don't expect to be able to reason with them. In all likelihood we're going to have to get off this ship fast, so be ready."

Tali nods. "We're ready," she says.

They step onto the elevator platform and it begins to rise, seemingly of its own decision. The squad levels their guns, alarmed, but the lift doesn't stop at the balcony. Instead it continues rising, up through an opening in the ceiling and through a darkened shaft. The lift begins to slow, and finally it stops before a single door. It hisses open.

A figure stands silhouetted against a wide screen offering a panoramic view of the void. He stands with his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed, face away from Shepard. The rest of the room is empty, save for a single control desk right in its center. The small blue screen flickers as a digital clock ticks backwards. Four minutes and twenty two seconds. Four minutes and twenty one seconds.

Shepard eases slowly into the room. He keeps his rifle up, finger sitting on the trigger guard. He's still trying to think of something to say when the figure turns abruptly.

As his full body comes into view Shepard sees that he is also a batarian. He is dressed in a suit, alien in design but obviously expensive. All four eyes blink, and he smiles at Shepard. "Commander Shepard. How fortuitous of you to arrive. And with impeccable timing, too. I would offer you a seat, but, haha, there are none." The batarian's laugh is deep and resonating, completely confident and self-assured.

Shepard steps closer, carefully. "What's going on here? What are you trying to do to the Citadel?"

The batarian sighs, turning back to the view screen. The stars twinkle silently. "Ahh, Shepard. You are not one for subtlety, are you? You are, I suspect, a 'small picture' man, yes? Always the little, immediate things. Never the grand scale. What a pity."

Shepard blinks a bead of sweat out of his eye. He tightens his grip on his gun. "I'll ask you once more," he says. "What is going on here?"

"You've got one chance to explain yourself," says Garrus from behind him. "Don't waste it."

"I suspected it would come to this," says the batarian man. "Threats and brute force, that's your way, commander. Shoot me if you feel it's necessary, but I hope you realize that there's nothing at all you can do to stop this."

The clock reads two minutes, forty-nine seconds.

"Stop what?" Shepard yells. Another drop of sweat collects at the end of his nose.

"Why, the end of an era, of course. That is all. The end of the subjugation and oppression of the batarian people. The end of the unjust rule of a corrupt empire, an alliance of thieves and liars. Nothing to worry about, Commander. If you hurry, you might even make it off the ship before we reach the relay. After that it will be too late, I'm afraid."

"Uh, Shepard," murmurs Tali. "Did you notice that clock over there?"

"You're going to attack the Citadel," says Shepard. "Talek as good as told me."

The batarian laughs again, more softly this time. "Yes, Talek, the wonderfully disenchanted C-sec sergeant. He was a link in the chain, although not so large a link as he would like to have believed, I dare say. He was an idealist, and naïve in his own special way, just as all idealists are."

"Only, ah, it's counting backwards," says Tali. "Kind of quickly."

"I, on the other hand," continues the batarian, "am no idealist. I am not a silent plotter or a dreamer of unattainable dreams. I am a doer, a righter of simple wrongs. Surely you can understand that, of all people. Or do you only claim to support justice?"

"There are innocent people on that station," says Garrus. "Civilians, hundreds of thousands of them! You can't just sentence them all to death! That's not justice."

"Is it?" The batarian man paces down the deck toward them. He shakes his head. "They chose to live there, so comfortable under the thumb of evil. They gave their lives to the alliance. No, no, they are already gone. Don't stand in my way, commander. I do the galaxy a favor today."

Shepard's eyes narrow. "You can do yourself a favor," he says, voice hard. "And tell me where the bomb is. I know you have one, Talek hinted at that, too. Tell me where it is, and we can take it off the ship and let it detonate in space somewhere. You won't have a million innocent lives on your hands, and I won't have yours on mine."

This time he truly laughs, tilting his head back and letting loose a throaty chuckle that fills the bridge. "Ha. Hahaha! But Shepard, the bomb is the ship!"

Shepard freezes, his mouth open in horror. It all makes sense now. The crates and ship parts everywhere. They must have stripped down the hangar bay, once large enough to hold a small fleet in its bowels. The amount of explosive it might contain could be enough to vaporize the entire Citadel in one deadly blast.

Tali shakes off the shock first. "This is insane!" she cries. "You'll never escape the blast radius in time!"

The batarian shakes his head. "But my dear, you misunderstand me. I must pilot the ship to her final destination. There is no escape for me. The knowledge that I have brought the batarian people back to their former glory shall suffice."

"You think the hegemony will be happy that you did this?" asks Shepard. "You'll start a war! You're just making things a thousand times worse for them."

The clock continues its methodical count. One minute and one second. One minute.

"The hegemony is weak! They couldn't do what needs to be done, so it falls to me! Step aside, Commander! Nothing will stand in the way of justice now, not even you. Some called you the savior of the Citadel. I think it was luck. What do you think? Does your luck hold?"

"Shepard, you were right!" calls Garrus. "We can't reason with him! Just kill him!"

"And what will that accomplish? This ship is on its own course. Even if I die, we still make the jump. Speaking of which, here we are."

The mass relay has come out of nowhere, suddenly looming enormous in the view screen.

"Shepard!" Yells Tali. "We have to do something, now!"

And then the deck shudders. Shepard looks down automatically, searching for the source of the tremor. It comes again, and this time the whole ship seems to lurch to the side. Shepard staggers, catches himself and regains his feet. He turns back to the squad. "What was-"

Then with a scream of disrupted particles and tearing steel, a brilliant yellow beam rips through the side of the cabin. It cuts a wide swathe through the room, separating the squad from the batarian man with a moat of burning metal. Then it's gone, and Shepard screams into his helmet, "Activate your boots! Hull breach, hull breach!"

The squad begins to skid towards the rift, and then their boot magnets clamp firmly down to the deck. Fire and sparks spit wildly from the torn sheeting of the wall and ceiling, and the ship shakes, groaning as the particle beam makes another pass further down the ship. Shepard catches a glimpse of something gigantic and bulbous, like a long ship made of rock and spines pass by through the viewport, and then the screen vanishes in static. He whips his head back and forth, searching for the rest of the squad. They stand behind him, looking around franticly for the source of the confusion. The walls shake again. Something has clamped onto the ship. Shepard's earpiece buzzes as Joker tries to contact him, but the batarian ship's jamming relays are still up and nothing but static gets through.

The deck lurches upwards, but Shepard keeps his feet. A gout of flame erupts from the chasm running across the deck, and he catches a glimpse of the batarian man on his knees, scrabbling to put on a breather mask, and then the beam cuts through the room again and Shepard loses sight of him in the storm of flame and flying metal.

The back wall is gone, twisted and mangled beyond recognition, and there's a clear drop to the deck below. Shepard shields his eyes, trying to see through the chaos. Then he turns and makes a split second decision. "Go!" he yells to his squad. "Get back to the Normandy!"

Legion's voice sounds urgent through the speakers. "We will not leave you, Shepard!"

Shepard shakes his head. "I'm right behind you! I have to make sure we miss the jump, then I'll follow! The best thing you can do is clear me a path." A girder falls, sending up a billow of fire. The ship creaks. "Go!" screams Shepard, and then without looking back he plunges toward the center of the room.

…

Tali stands stock-still, feels her body rooted in indecision, then with a growl of frustration she tares herself away and waves to the rest of the squad. "Come on," she yells. "This whole ship could blow at any second. We won't do the Commander any good back here!"

Reluctantly, they follow her through the torn wall and down the elevator shaft. Tali uses her magnetic boot soles to cling to the wall, letting herself down a little bit at a time. They reach the bottom and stop, staring at the sight before them.

The main room is cut to pieces. Black empty space shows through through jagged gaps in the ceiling and walls, and little fires burn throughout the room, feeding off pockets of gas hidden in the walls. But worse than any of this are the figures swarming the room. They stand as tall and with the same structure as a human, but with the chitinous exoskeleton and angular head of over-sized insects. They march along the deck and balconies, coming out through the open doors above them. They carry with them floating coffin-like pods, and in the ones with open lids Tali can see the bodies of batarian soldiers. They move with a single-minded purpose, carrying their prizes to the hole ripped in the wall where their cavernous docking extension is connected to the ship. And then, as one, every body stops, and every head turns to look at them.

They raise their weapons.

…

Shepard runs, leaps over the burning furrow and, just before the ship's artificial gravity sucks him back down, he catches a brief sight of open space through a gap in the broken deck. Then he hits the deck and his boots clamp down firmly again, locking onto the steel with a resounding clang. He looks around, and through the smoke that begins to fill the cabin he catches sight of the batarian man.

He clings to the control desk, an oxygen mask strapped to his face, the arm of his jacket smoldering, fingers feverishly typing something into the computer. Shepard bares his teeth and charges.

The batarian doesn't even look up. Shepard picks up speed, closing the distance fast, and he's no more than a meter away from him when the batarian casually throws out his arm. A fist of biotic energy hits Shepard in the chest, throwing him backwards. He hits the deck hard, skidding to a stop against a fallen beam. Dazed, he picks himself up.

The batarian stays bent over the computer. He speaks, and there's still enough air being pumped into the cabin by the life support machines to carry his amplified voice to Shepard's ears. "So it seems you can be lucky twice. But not lucky enough. I'll enter the jump coordinates manually if I have to. Nothing is going to stop me! You will not stop justice, Shepard! It is inevitable!"

Shepard steps closer, trying to distract him. "You honestly think murdering all those people is justice?"

"That's close enough, Shepard!" says the batarian, looking up sharply. "Do you really think the opinion of a human matters to me? Your species is new to the galaxy, practically in its infancy! What do you care for the alliance? What have they ever done for you?"

Shepard blinks, and suddenly he sees the skies of Akuze. He remembers the words honor, duty, and loyalty, and how much they meant then. He remembers the heartless voice, reading the list of names. He remembers thinking dully, there's one missing. Wondering where his own name was on that emotionless list of casualties, the bill for the alliance's mistake.

He shakes his head slowly. "No. It's not about the alliance. It's not about the politics, or the councilors, or any of that. It's the people, the ordinary people, who wake up and go to work and come home to their families every day, it's about making a galaxy where they don't have to live in fear that some lunatic like you is going to end their lives for the sake of some stupid grudge they have nothing to do with!" He realizes he's shouting. He draws in a deep breath. "Maybe you're right," he says. His voice is quieter now, low and dangerous. "Maybe I am a small-picture man. But when all you look at is the grand scale, you forget that peoples' lives mean something. Maybe the alliance is guilty of that, but if you think this is right, you're a thousand times worse."

The batarian man stares at him for what seems like a long, long time. Then he shakes his head slowly. "No. What's done is done, Shepard." He taps the screen before him, making a final adjustment. "It is too late to turn back now. I suggest you prepare yourself." He raises his finger. "No matter what you say, I cannot ignore this wrong. The Citadel must burn for the alliance's sins. I'm sorry you can't see that." He raises his face to the heavens. He closes his eyes, and his body seems to relax, finger poised over the screen to give the final command.

Shepard opens his mouth, lips twisted in a soundless cry. He tries to move, pushing off from the deck, arm outstretched, but even as he does he knows he will be too late. He sees the inch between the man's fingertip and the screen, and he moves anyway, because there is nothing else he can do. And then, as if in divine answer to the batarian's upturned face, a yellow particle beam scythes down through the ceiling. As Shepard watches, unable to stop his trajectory, it cuts a wide crescent directly through the middle of the room. The beam sweeps across the deck, and as it hits the console a fountain of flame explodes into the air, wrapping the computer and the man behind it in a cloud of sparks and spiraling debris.

Shepard leans back, sliding on his side as the beam cuts away from him and exits out the other side of the room. The nose of the cockpit is now nearly completely detached from the rest of the ship. Shepard's boot catches a jagged strip of metal, catapulting him upright. He pushes off, hurling himself over the widening gap and landing safely on the other side.

He takes one last look over his shoulder at the twisted remains of the console. He thinks he sees the shape of a body in the flaming wreckage.

Shepard turns away and runs for the elevator shaft.

…

As soon as his boots hit the deck of the main room, Shepard takes one look and sets off running. Bipedal bug-creatures lie dead around him, but there are plenty of the monsters still alive, collecting around the opening to a strange docking tube attached to the side of the ship. Collectors! Shepard ignores them, and as he runs for the escape pod corridor their shots ricochet off the floor and his shields.

He barely feels the impact, racing onwards, through the door and down the narrow hall to the tube the squad entered by. The door is open again, circuitry dead and smoking. Shepard is forced to slow down, relying on his magnetic boots for traction as he exits the ship's artificial gravity field. He looks around, but the Normandy is nowhere to be found. He tries his comm again. "Joker! Where the hell are you?"

The pilot's voice crackles in his earpiece, faint but audible. "We're coming around again, Commander! Had to move when the other ship got here, it was that or get cut to pieces. Look up!"

Shepard obliges, and sure enough, the side of the Normandy comes into view over the lip of the tube. The airlock opens, and Shepard doubles his pace. The magnets hold him back, hobbling his stride, and it seems to take an eternity to reach the end of the tube. He deactivates the magnets and pushes off with all his strength.

The open hatchway glides closer, and he tumbles inside, catching hold of a handle. Then the doors close and the Normandy pulls away, speeding away from the wreck of the batarian ship.

The pressurization cycle complete, the inner door opens and Shepard jogs out of the airlock and into the cockpit. Tali and Garrus stand around Joker's chair, looking out the window. Shepard follows their gaze. What remains of the batarian ship hangs languidly in space, engines dead, hull in pieces. As they watch, the collector ship disengages its tube and, pulling away, turns its particle beam on the wounded ship one last time. This time the beam cuts straight into the belly of the ship. The vessel shudders, then blossoms into a silent fireball that for a moment outshines the stars. The collector ship pulls away, twirling as it picks up speed. It shrinks away, then vanishes completely as it jumps through the mass relay.

The cockpit is silent. The light from the explosion dies away, leaving nothing but disperate particles, floating in space. Shepard feels a shiver run up his spine as he thinks of what those particles could have been.

A feeling steals over him of something being not right. He looks around the cockpit, then with a mounting sense of unease he says, "Where's Legion?"

The question hangs there for a second. Tali wrings her hands, eying the deck. "Shepard, when we were coming back... We got seperated, during the fighting, and..."

"Legion got taken by the collectors," interjects Garrus. "A praetorian was blocking our escape route. Tali and I took it down, but when we looked back Legion was already disappearing down the tunnel. I don't know what they wanted with it, but it looks like they meant to take it alive."

Shepard doesn't say anything. Instead, he turns and walks silently out of the cockpit.

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Commander Shepard looks out the window of the observation deck. Beyond the glass, the stars race by as the Normandy's FTL drives bend matter into new dimensions, shooting itself across space impossibly fast. Shepard looks out at the void, and wishes they would go faster.

The Omega-4 relay is hours away. The so-called suicide mission awaits, but Shepard will survive. He knows this because it is not a suicide mission; it is a rescue mission. He will survive because somewhere beyond the relay is Legion. It is that simple.

The call of the bottle is strong now, but stronger is the memory of a certain face, a round, flash-light like eyes and the touch of soft hands on his face. He holds the memories close to him, a tether that ties him to the real world. A world he has a reason to stay in.

John Shepard turns away from the glass. He makes his way back to the armory. Weapons will need to be looked over, armor will need to be prepared.

Legion, he thinks.

I'm coming.

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...END PART ONE...

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...TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's Note: A brief retrospective

(Added April 4, 2017)

I began writing Sparks over six years ago now. When I first sat down to write the story, I had no idea that anybody would want to read it, much less that I would find the warm welcome and positive response that I did. The process of writing this story, its sequel The Lightning Strike, and my parallel stories about Kal'Reegar and James Mikaelson, has meant much more to me over these past six years than I think can be accurately described.

With the passage of time we have seen the Mass Effect franchise travel through its natural progression of ups and downs. The game industry has continued to shift and heave as it grows, and we ourselves have grown and changed. I, and the readers who took this journey with me, have moved on in our lives, careers, and educations, but I'd like to think that some things remain the same.

I'd like to to believe that whenever we become attached to a group of characters, their space and time becomes a real place which we tap into when we read their stories or play their games. Six years later, opening that door feels just as magical to me as it did when I first sat down to write this story.

I hope that for those of us to whom the world of Mass Effect - or any other tale - was a refuge and comfort, that magic never dies out. I hope that people will continue writing and reading fan fiction for Mass Effect long after the games are antiques, and I hope that there will be still more new universes for our imaginations to populate with wild and fantastic adventures. I can't tell the future though, so for now I'm content to look back on Sparks and its companions: six years well spent.

Keelah se'lai.