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Their Finest Hour	By : draygon Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 8648 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or EA, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 9
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- 11
Shepard raced toward the other end of the room, not bothering to slow down as she slammed the two guards emerging from the door way with a biotic push into the wall and left them where they fell as she slapped the controls to the door. She pulled her Phalanx from her hip holster as she crept down the hall. She stopped cold when she saw Dr. Kenson standing in front of Shepard, separated only by a transparasteel window. "Don't try to stop me, Shepard. I have to do this."

"I've already activated the Project. We can still escape this rock!" Shepard tried again to appeal to the Doctor. There had to be something of her left.

"There is no escape." Kenson turned her back on Shepard, holding the railing so tightly her knuckles turned white. "There is no redemption for what you've done! I will die never having seen the Reapers' blessings!" She turned toward Shepard, absolute anguish distorting her face. "And you will just die!"

"Dammit, Kenson!" Shepard could only watch as the Doctor took off running for the eezo core. Shepard slid against the wall as two more guards entered the room, locking the door behind themselves. "I don't have time for this!" Shepard threw a Singularity at the two guards, and as they were both caught in it, tossed a grenade into the door way to finish them off.

"Shepard is trapped," Kenson again used the comm to direct the other guards. "Keep her in there."

Shepard tried to hack the door, but the lock was too complex. She cast about, looking for anything that could either unlock the door or provide an alternate route to the engine core. She found a panel that had been blown off by the grenade she had used that housed the emergency bypass for the door's lock. It took her all of a few moments before the door slid open again and she ran into the elevator, slapping the controls.

One level up, and Shepard took off again. "Safety protocols disengaged. Core temperature rising."

Shepard cursed as she threw one of her last grenades at a group of guards, sending them flying over her head as she quickly made her way to the core's VI terminal. "How do I stabilize the reactor core?"

"All automatic safety protocols have been overridden. To stabilize the reactor core: Manually reinsert Cooling Rod A from this control station." Shepard looked down at what was clearly marked 'Cooling Rod A' in front of her. "Manually reinsert Cooling Rod B from Control Station B. Doing so will stabilize the reactor core."

"Sounds simple enough," Shepard grunted as she pushed the Cooling Rod down into the Control Station with a loud and very satisfying click.

"Cooling Rod A reinserted. Reactor Cooling process has begun."

"And now to find Control Station B," Shepard sighed, hefted her Incisor and peeked around the corner. "Three... no shields." She lined up her shot down the hallway and pulled the trigger, the guard flying across the hall and into a planter. She holstered her Incisor and took out her Mattock as the other two guards came running down the hall. She waited until they were nearly on her before she popped out of cover and sprayed the two guards with bullets. Neither one had a chance to fire their weapons as she hopped over their still steaming bodies and ran down the hall and to the right. She felt every second tick away now. Every delay bringing the Reapers that much closer.

The hall led into another elevator and Shepard rode this down, springing from the lift before it even touched the ground. The door ahead was locked so Shepard went right and found the controls for the Plasma Vents.

"Plasma Venting aborted." Shepard nodded to herself as she checked the door across from the elevator and found it unlocked and sprinted across the vent room and into the next door.

"Plasma Venting in progress."

"Shepard is in the Maintenance Area. Go!" Shepard had the distinct urge to break something. The moment she fixed one thing, Kenson would screw something else up. It was almost like being in basic again and having to deal with Cpl. Butterfingers' antics all over again.

Shepard didn't stop running as she let her Mattock rip and tore through the pair of guards stationed at the other end of the hall, not slowing down for one moment. Around the turn she ran into four more guards and she stopped just long enough to get her Incisor out. One, two, three down in the space of a few seconds, two more guards, one shielded. Shepard sent the un-shielded guard over the railing with a biotic push and out another triple shot into the shielded guard, jumping over the railing as his body hit the ground.

The door was locked, however, someone had put a barrel of coolant in a small gap in the wall. Two shots from her Phalanx and the barrel exploded, leaving a convenient spot for her to heft herself up and bypass the locked door completely. "This is Williams," Shepard flattened herself against the wall, listening. "I've got Shepard locked in the Maintenance Area. Requesting backup."

Sneaking around quietly, Shepard found the guard calling for backup, lined him up with her Incisor and shut him up mid sentence. She tapped a few keys at the security console the guard was at and the door was unlocked. As soon as she entered the door, the lift across the room descended and two guards came out with guns aimed at her. She dropped one immediately with a triple round to the gut, the other opened fire. Shepard rushed this guard and knocked him out with the but of her rifle and jumped on the elevator.

It quickly ascended and Shepard found herself in a small lobby like area. She picked up the spare clips the guards likely stored for emergencies and took the next elevator up another level. "Where is that Control Station," Shepard hissed as she looked around. There was only one way to go, and as soon as she opened the door, she was fired upon by more guards. "How many guards are there? You'd think they stored them in the walls like sardines!"

Keeping behind the divides, Shepard picked off the guards one by one with her Incisor.

"Reactor temperature reaching critical."

"Crap..." Shepard decided to rush things along a little and ran toward one of the guards hiding behind a pillar, kneeing him in the gut and cracking him in the head with her rifle butt and tossed her last grenade into where the rest were hiding, taking cover as it exploded. The door opened and three more guards were waiting for her.

"Burn, Shepard!" Shepard took cover as fire rushed at her.

"You first!" Shepard shouted back as she fired blind with her Mattock, making the Pyro hesitate just long enough for Shepard to come out of cover with her Incisor and blow her head off. The other two followed shortly as the next triple shot found it's mark in both their skulls. Shepard jumped over the three and toward the locked door. This one, unlike the last few, was easily bypassed and it only took a few moments of fiddling with the circuitry before it slid open.

"Finely!" Shepard burst through the door and practically jumped on the Coolant Rod as she pushed it into it's seat with another audible click.

"Cooling Rod B reinserted. Reactor meltdown averted. Core temperature dropping."

Shepard rushed into the elevator, slapping the controls, descending another floor.

"You've done nothing, Shepard! I can still override power to the engines! Try to stop me!"

"Oh, no you don't!" Shepard shouted at the comm as she rushed the doors and into the reactor control room. "Step away from the reactor." Shepard had her Incisor targeted at Kenson's head.

The Doctor pulled her head, nearly screaming. "You've ruined everything!" She sounded as though everything reasonable had gone out the air lock a long time ago. "I can't hear the whispers anymore!"

"Turn around, now!" Shepard was not about to put up with this bullshit anymore.

"You've taken them away from me!" Kenson continued on as though she didn't hear anything Shepard said. "I will never see the Reapers' arrival." She finely turned around, a plasma grenade in her hand.

"All you had to do was stay asleep. None of this had to happen."

"Kenson!" Shepard shouted at the Doctor, trying to get her to snap out of her delusions. "We can get off this asteroid!"

"No," Kenson shook her head, all life drained from her eyes. "We can not." Shepard tried to turn and run as Kenson pressed the button on the plasma grenade only to be caught in the explosion, striking the wall as her world went dark.

"Warning: Collision imminent."

Shepard groaned, her head throbbing as she picked herself up off of the floor.

"Warning: Collision imminent."

She cleared her vision as the warning kept repeating, her eyes finding the console Kenson had been standing in front of. She quickly made her way to it and opened up a channel to the Normandy. "Joker, this is Shepard. I need a pick up. Now."

"Communications system damaged."

"Dammit!" Shepard stepped back, thinking.

"Evacuation protocols in effect. All personnel to escape shuttles."

"Where can I find an escape shuttle?"

"Take the lift from this room to the external access. From there, proceed to the communications tower. The remaining escape shuttles will be located on the tower's landing pad."

"I have to get to that comm tower and take a shuttle. It's my only chance." Shepard didn't wait for a moment longer, she bolted out of the newly unlocked door, barely taking a moment to appreciate the relay as it loomed ominously close and sped through the long hall way.

"Warning: Alpha Relay collision is imminent. Evacuation is recommended."

"Where do you think I'm going?" Shepard muttered as she sped through the door and down a flight of stairs. The station seemed to be even more of a maze. She wondered how in the hell they had built all of this without the batarians taking notice of all these materials coming into their system. She sped through another door and hammered the controls for the air lock. The change in air pressure automatically activated the helmet built into her suit as it extended and sealed to encase her in an air tight environment.

As soon as she stepped foot on the landing area, however, she was assailed again by guards firing on her. She had no choice but to hide behind a cargo crate. She picked off those she could from her hiding place, however she was beginning to run low on clips again. She couldn't afford to miss.

As soon as she cleared out a few of the guards, she advanced again, finding more crates to take shelter behind. She popped a clip after taking down two more guards when her jaw dropped. Someone was taking a shuttle. From the guards chatter, it was the last one.

"Shit! I have to get to that comm tower. Hope the Normandy's listening." Shepard twitched the trigger again and took the head off of another guard. She dove behind another pile of crates as another YMIR mech came trudging out again, raining a hail of bullets on her position. On the positive side, it looked like there were no more guards. On the negative, she had three clips left.

Shepard stowed her Incisor for her Mattock and popped one of her remaining clips in. She set the ammo type to Cryo and waited for the mech to come out into the open. She sprayed the thing until it's shields went down, switched to Pyro rounds and chewed on it's shields all the while dancing in and out of cover. She popped a clip. Down to two. She took her Incisor out again. She had at least two good shots left with this clip. She aimed and fired. The mech still came at her, however her shot seemed to have scrambled it's targeting computer because it was firing wide and to the right. One more shot, and the thing's head flew apart in a shower of metal and sparks before it exploded, nearly knocking Shepard off of her feet.

Once the way was clear, she made a mad dash for the comm tower, weaving around cargo containers and flying down the low set of stairs and nearly crashing into the tower itself.

"External comm channel open."

Yes! "Shepard to Normandy. Joker, do you read me!"

Just when she had gotten through, the signal was blocked. Shepard looked up, and saw the one being who had the power to make her blood run cold. It was just a holo, but his true form was intimidating, none the less. She approached the holo, her strides slow and deliberate.

"Shepard. You have become an annoyance." She almost laughed at that. She had a habit of annoying people who wanted to use her. "You fight against inevitability. Dust struggling against cosmic winds. This seems a victory to you. A star system sacrificed. But even now, your greatest civilizations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to serve us."

"Some humans are afraid the Reapers are too powerful. But when the Alpha Relay breaks, everyone will see that we can fight the Reapers. And win. However 'insignificant' we might be, we will fight, we will sacrifice and we will find a way. It's what humans do."

"Know this as you die in vain: Your time will come. Your species will fall. Prepare yourselves for the Arrival." With that, Harbinger's image faded from existance as the Alpha Relay loomed closer than ever.

"No fair, Shepard!" Shepard had never been so happy to hear Joker's voice. "You said I couldn't play pong with passing ships and here you are playing dodge-ball with a fucking relay!"

"Not my choice, Joker," Shepard took off running toward the opposite side of the landing area, the landing hatch popping open as she jumped from a stack of cargo crates and right smack into the Normandy. Hitting the inner doors face first had never felt so good. As the doors opened, Shepard took off toward the cockpit, running at full speed. "Get us out of here, Joker!"

"You owe me a steak after this, Commander," Joker spoke through nearly clenched teeth, maneuvering his baby from the awkward angle into a path suitable for travel through the relay. "Not that vat grown shit, either," he punched the controls to accelerate and send their coordinates through to the relay's targeting controls. "I want an honest to God dead cow on my plate!" The Normandy fell into the field, and streaked away from the system as the asteroid made contact with the metal of the great machine.

"With horseradish," Shepard agreed, rushing to the CIC, her eyes on the map of the galaxy. She stared at the area that represented the Bahak relay as darkness spread. First, it was just a pin prick, and then in ballooned out, leaving the entire system as dark as the void between the galaxies. It wasn't until right then, that the full weight of what she had done hit her. She was grateful for her full helmet blocking Kelly's view of her face as she laid her forehead on her fist.

Shepard took a deep breath and straightened up, fighting the urge to scream. "I'll be in my quarters" If Kelly heard the crack in Shepard's voice, she didn't say anything as Shepard slowly walked toward the elevator and tapped the controls to go up to her cabin. She had a lot to think about.

Shepard sat up as Chakwas finished her examination. She'd found nothing out of the ordinary. Well, what passed for ordinary for Shepard, anyway. Shepard had spent the last two days first sleeping, then talking. She talked to Kelly, then to Garrus trying to figure her way around her own head. She knew she had done what she had to, but that didn't assuage the guilt she felt over it all.

She looked up as she heard Chakwas speaking softly across the room. At first she couldn't make out who she was talking to, but as she left and the man turned around, Shepard straightened up and slid off of the table.

"Huh, looks like you've recovered."

"Admiral Hacket." Shepard saluted, but the Admiral waved it off. There was no need.

"It sounds like you went through hell down there. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Shepard leaned back against the table to rest her legs. "No more visions if that's what you mean. I didn't expect to see you here."

"You went out there as a favor to me. I decided to debrief you in person." Shepard nodded, she knew better though. "That was before the mass relay exploded and destroyed an entire batarian system." Shepard hated being right. "What the hell happened out there, Commander?"

"Have you received any intel about what happened?"

"All I know is I sent you there to break Amanda Kenson out of prison and now an entire system is destroyed. I hope you can fill in the gap of logic between those two events."

Shepard had expected there to be no intel, but she had to ask. She stepped forward and handed her completed report to Hackett, standing as straight as she could. "I confirmed Dr. Kenson's proof. The Reapers were coming and destroying that relay was the only way to stop them." She watched as Hackett quickly scanned over the report, his face unreadable. "Kenson sedated me for almost two days. I started the engines with little more than an hour left. I tried to warn the batarian colony, but... time ran out."

"The batarians report no survivors from Aratoht. At least you tried." Hackett turned from Shepard, walking a few paces away. "And you believe the Reaper invasion was really a threat?"

"No doubt about it." Shepard closed the gap. "We literally had minutes to spare."

Hackett turned to face her again. Shepard had to take another deep breath. Hackett wouldn't be here if he didn't believe her implicitly. "I'm sure all the details are in your report. I won't lie to you, Shepard. The batarians will want blood, and there's just enough evidence for a witch hunt. And we don't want war with the batarians. Not with the Reapers at the galaxy's edge."

Shepard backed away a few steps, not liking the meaning behind his words. "What are you saying?"

"You did what you did for the best of reasons, but... There were more than three hundred thousand batarians in that system. All dead."

"They died to save trillions of lives." Shepard felt her anger rising again. Anger at having been forced to make that kind of monstrous decision. "If I could have saved them, you bet your ass I would have."

"You're preaching to the choir, Commander." Hackett stood his ground, familiar with the rage soldiers had in this situation. "If it were up to me, I'd give you a damn medal. Unfortunately, not everyone will see it that way."

Shepard sighed, sitting on the edge of Chakwas' desk. "So what do you suggest."

"Evidence against you is shoddy at best. But, at some point, you'll have to go to Earth and face the music. I can't stop it... But I can and will make them fight for it."

"I'll gladly stand trial once this mission is done."

Hackett nodded. "Glad to see working with Cerberus hasn't stripped you of your sense of honor." Hackett turned toward the doors to the med bay. "Do what ever you have to do out here. But when Earth calls," he turned toward her again. "you make sure you're there with your dress blues on, ready to take the hit. In the mean time... you keep this." He handed back the report she had written out. "I don't need to see your report to know you did the right thing."

"Yes, sir." Shepard took the report, and saluted the Admiral.

"You've done a hell of a thing, Commander." And with that, Hackett left the med bay.

Shepard sank into Chakwas' chair, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. She knew she should count her blessings. Hackett understood what was going on and had faith in her that she had one the right thing for the right reasons. She had to stop herself from asking more 'What if' questions. All she was doing was running around in circles in her own head. What happened, happened, and couldn't have happened any other way.

Levering herself up, she exited the med bay. Chakwas and Gardner were busy talking quietly in the mess, so she let them be and went around to the elevators her way up to her cabin. She wasn't the least bit surprised to find Garrus still sitting on the couch, reading. It was where she had left him earlier and since the main guns weren't being constantly upgraded and used, there was no need for endless calibrations.

Garrus looked up from his data pad, watching as she walked in, took her jacket off and plopped down beside him, leaning on his shoulder. "I heard Hackett talked to you personally."

"Yea," Shepard nodded, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet under her seat. "He wanted to know what happened."

Garrus nodded and scrolled down to continue reading. "The batarians have any evidence?"

"No,"

Garrus draped his arm around Shepard's shoulders, running his knuckles against her back as he continued to read. "Good." Both enjoyed the companionable silence, relaxing into the mundanity of the moment. Both knew that, from now on, nothing would ever be the same.
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Their Finest Hour