If people like it enough, I can write more, otherwise I’ll
probably just move on to something else. Either way, I hope you enjoy this!
So, without any more blah blah, this is a small portion of
Mass Effect 3’s ending, redone. I did my best to do this incredible series
justice. Keep in mind that I couldn’t adapt it to fit everyone’s game. Kaiden
is the Love Interest here, so replace him with whoever you romanced. I also
tried to go easy on the Commander’s gender pronouns. I only included one
renegade option (in red) at the end because I ran out of time, but for the most
part, this is pretty paragon-y. Sorry if that doesn’t jive with your
playthrough.
So, place yourself back in ME3.
Open a new tab, and listen to this while you read.
(or something else if you don’t like that
)You’ve just kicked
the **** out of Cereberus and taken control of the Illusive Man’s base. Only
this time, the Illusive man didn’t get away. You trapped him in his command
center, and killed Kai Leng in front of him while he watched from his chair.
Now it’s his turn...
~ ~ ~
“You will bring Cerberus to heel, or I’ll put you down here
and now.”
The illusive man looked up, past the muzzle of the gun, and
at Shepard’s face. He saw death, and it frightened him. This was not the brash,
idealistic Shepard he’d brought back to life. This Shepard was hard and
desperate, a woman willing to do anything, sacrifice anything. He glanced over
at the gory ruins of Kai Leng’s corpse. It didn’t take him long to decide.
“All right, Shepard, fine! Cerberus is yours. God help us
all.” He touched his earpiece and gave the stand down orders, explaining that Cerberus
was to be folded into the Alliance forces, under the direction of Commander
Shepard.
Shepard nodded in approval. “Smart man.”
The Illusive man got to his feet and brushed off his suit.
His shoulders were slumped in defeat. “I hope you know what you’re doing,
Shepard.”
After the marines escorted him away, Shepard remained,
staring at the fury of the nearby star. “Me too.” She said.
It took a few days to strip the Cerberus base of valuable
materials and supplies, but no one dawdled. The news from Earth was
increasingly grim, and the rendezvous date was nearing. The hour of truth. When
the Normandy finally set her course for home, Shepard wondered once again:
would they come?
~ ~ ~
“Joker...Anything?”
Joker scanned his panels briefly, though he knew the answer
already. No one had come. The only fleet at the rendezvous was Admiral Hackett’s
battered Fifth. Joker’s heart fell. He knew how hard the commander had tried.
All the blood, the sacrifices, for a handful of promises that might have saved
earth. Promises not kept.
“I’m sorry, Commander. Nothing.”
Shepherd’s hands shook, but everyone in the cabin pretended
not to notice. They knew what this meant. Humanity was doomed.
“DAMMIT!” Shepard roared. “DAMMIT!” The commander lashed
out, cracking a display panel with a bunched fist, sending sparks flying. The
squad scrambled out of the way as the Commander headed for the door. No one
missed the tears of frustration and despair glimmering in the Commander’s eyes.
Joker was half turned, watching the commander go with a sick
feeling in his stomach, when his screens bleeped. In fact, he missed the first
alert. EDI saw it first.
“Commander.” The AI’s cool voice sounded over the intercom. “Please
come back. You will want to see this.”
Joker spun back to his controls, and what he saw sent a jolt
of adrenaline through him. He double checked the readings. There was no
mistake. The Turians were here. Not just the promised flotillas either.
“Gods...” Garrus said. “They must have brought every damn
ship they had.”
Joker heard leather creak, and he looked up to the see the
commander leaning over him, hands gripping the chair so hard they were
stretching the leather.
The Vidcom crackled to life. “This is Primarch Victus. I
hear you humans needed a hand with your little Reaper problem. The entirety of
the Turian fleet is here to help.”
The Commander leaned forward and activated the com with
trembling hands. “Primarch...Thank you...I didn’t think you were going to come.”
The Primarch’s crackling hologram laughed. “I convinced the
hierarchy that we had to fight the Reapers main force head-on somewhere. We all
agreed we’d rather it be Earth than Palavan.”
“Commander!” Joker interjected. “I’ve got more signatures incoming...A
lot more!”
The screens lit up, the readouts sparkling with hundreds,
and then thousands of symbols. Joker did his best to keep track.
“Asari, commander! Looks like three fleets worth, at least,
and the Destiny is leading them!”
“You did it, Shepard.” Liara’s voice was quiet but proud.
“Incoming for you commander.” Joker interrupted.
“Put it on.” The Commander said, and jubilant noises that
had filled the deck died down respectfully.
“Commander Shepard.” Came the calm, dignified voice. Shepard
didn’t recognize the Asari Matriach onscreen, but then the Asari Councilor came
on screen as well.
Both asari inclined their heads. “The Asari will stand by
Humanity in their hour of need, Shepard.”
The commander replied in a solemn tone, fighting hard to
stifle an enormous grin. “Councilor, Matriarch, thank you. My species will
never forget this. We owe you a great debt.”
A ragged chorus of cheers rang out aboard the Normandy.
This time Vega was the one who spotted the next incoming
group.
“Wow, salarians.” He said in disbelief. “When was the last
time they went to war?”
“Holy ****!” Joker yelled, pointing excitedly. Everyone
turned to look, and were confused at what they
saw. It wasn’t a big fleet. In fact, it wasn’t even a fleet at all. It
was a disorganized, motley collection of shipping vessels, tugs, passenger
liners, with hardly a warship among them.
Garrus understood first. “I don’t believe it.” He said,
incredulous. “The Krogan.”
“No way.” Kaiden said. “The Krogan don’t have any ships.”
Wrex’s image popped up on the vidcom. Whether intentionally
or not, it was a general broadcast, not a private transmission. Shepard smiled.
You never could tell with Wrex.
“Now or never, Shepard. Isn’t that what you said? I didn’t
want the Korgan to look bad at this party of yours, so I brought them all.”
Wrex leaned forward, and spoke with obvious pride. “Minus the fertile females
and children too young to fight, I brought them all.”
Wrex pounded the console for emphasis. “ Every. Single. Krogan. Remember that, the rest of you, when this
is done. We did our part. We’ll have earned
our place in the galaxy.”
Shepard’s eyes went wide. “Wrex...I...”
Wrex waved the commander’s attempted thanks aside. “I know,
I know. I’m incredible. I’ll come aboard later, Shepard. Wrex out.”
The display fizzled, and Tali shook her head. “Five million
angry, cooped-up Krogan with something to prove. That’s enough to ruin anyone’s
day.”
The Quarian and Geth fleets arrived next, but that wasn’t
what sent comm channels buzzing. It was the fact that arrived together, in
mixed formation. Indeed, it was more accurate to call it the Quarian-Geth
fleet. When Admiral Koris and Legion addressed the assembled fleets together,
the sight of the two of them standing side by side was enough to make Admiral
Hackett’s jaw drop. When faced with the reality of the peace she had fought so
hard to bring about, Tali jumped up and down and clapped her hands girlishly,
much to her chagrin.
Admiral Hackett commed Shepard shortly afterwards, laughing
in utter disbelief and asking if she had any plans to walk on water or conjure up
a Prothean fleet. A few hours later, when the Rachni arrived, he sent Shepard a
bottle of wine.
The hours that followed were the best anyone on board the Normandy
had had in a long time. With each new arriving fleet, each little group of
frigates, each tiny contribution from every corner of the galaxy, a little of
the enormous weight resting on the commander’s shoulders was lifted, and the
lines in that weary face eased. They’d kept their word. All of them. It was an
alliance the likes of which the galaxy had never seen, cobbled together out of
desperation and prayer. And all of it hung together on iron resolve and reputation
of a single person. Shepard.
For Shepard, the Quarian and Geth fleets arrived side by
side. For Shepard, the Krogran clans united for the first time in history and
left Tuchanka to die willingly on alien soil. For Shepard, the Salarians
stepped into the line of fire. Even the riffraff, pirates and mercenaries from
Omega, courtesy of one Aria T’loak, floated beside the precise ranks of Turian dreadnaughts
and shared battle plans.
It began to feel like Earth, and what was left of the human
race, actually had a chance.
Later, Shepard slipped away from the Normandy’s lounge. The
crew was celebrating in the bar, knocking back the last of the beer aboard the
Normandy. She sat before the viewport on the observation deck and stared out at
the assembled ships for a long moment. Then, alone and unseen, she broke down.
Silent sobs racked her body, and tears dripped down her cheeks, but she
clenched her fists. She would not
cry.
Shepard didn’t hear Kaiden enter the room, so he stepped up quietly
behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. From him, she didn’t need to
hide what she was going through.
“Kaiden...is this real? Did we really do this?” She asked,
and that voice, usually so stern and steady, quavered and broke.
“No, Commander. You did this. I knew you would.” Kaiden
started massaging her shoulders, trying to ease away the tension. Had anyone
ever carried such crushing responsibility? He didn’t think so. It had broken
his heart, these past few weeks, to watch the woman suffer so.
They spoke no more words, but the commander reached up and
held Kaiden’s hand, and together they watched the silent ballet of the fleets
assembling as Admiral Hackett tried to organize the largest and most diverse
fleet in recorded history.
~ ~ ~
Shepard adjusted her uniform for the hundredth time. She
wasn’t all that comfortable giving speeches on the best of days. Today, she was
addressing the largest and most politically unstable assemblage of disparate
races that had ever been, and all of them were armed to the teeth. She didn’t
really think anything would happen, not with the Reaper threat so close at
hand, but that didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking.
She ran over the speech her and the team had spent the last
few hours putting together. At the end, she’d had to shoo them all out and
finish it herself, but it had been heartwarming to see how much they cared.
“You’ll be fine.” Kaiden said soothingly, reaching down and
holding her hand. She was grateful he’d come over from the Normandy with her.
It was comforting to have a familiar face amongst the strange ones on Hackett’s
bridge.
Admiral Hackett waved her up.
Kaiden squeezed her hand, and whispered in her ear.
“Remember.”
She squeezed his hand back, and then strode up to Hackett,
all her nervousness fled. How could she forget?
Hackett clasped her hand warmly, and smiled at her.
“Commander, I don’t know what to say. What you’ve
accomplished here...If anyone had come to me a year ago and told me about just
one of the many things I’ve seen today, I’d have called them crazy. Humanity,
this galaxy, is lucky to have you.”
He paused, grinned, then shook his head and left the podium.
It was just her and the vidcom now. Just her and well-nigh a
billion soldiers. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and then
activated the display.
“Warriors of the galaxy. Look at us. Look out and see our
strength, our unity. No one ever believed this was possible. No one has ever
seen anything like this. In the millions of years the Reapers have been
butchering and enslaving the species of this galaxy, they’ve never seen
anything like this. Yet here you are, all of you. And, you know what? They’re scared. And they should be.
“But not you. Fear has no meaning for any of us anymore. You
know the truth of that as much as I do. We have nothing more to lose, no more
ground to give. For many of us, today will be the last day of our lives. But
this isn’t about us. It’s about everyone and everything that we hold dear. We
are fighting for tomorrow. “
“When you’re out there, fighting, dying, I want you to
remember. Remember Earth. Remember Palavan. Remember Thessia. Remember
Tuchanka. Remember Khar’Shan. Remember what we’ve lost to the Reaper’s proxy
wars. Remember the Citadel.“
“When you stand before the
enemy, with your weapon in your hands and your lives on line, I want you to
remember what they’ve done to us. We’re fighting to avenge every last man,
woman, and child they’ve taken from us. When we’re finished with them, the only
proof that they were even here will be smoking ruins. We’ll rebuild our cities
on their broken corpses.”
“When you stand before the
enemy, with your weapon in your hands and your lives on line, I want you to
think about why we’re doing this. You’ve seen the refugees, the devastation,
the slaughter. We’re fighting so that life will go on. So that one day, our
children will look up at the sky and listen to stories about the great war, and
the brave men and women who drove the monsters back.”
She stopped, and saluted. That was it. Her speech. The
speech that, if they were lucky, would get its own page in the history books.
That made her smile.
“Admiral Hackett, take it away.”
Admiral Hackett stepped up to the Vidcom, and began issuing
orders to the still-assembling fleets. He was like a conductor, preparing his
masterpiece, and clearly loving every minute of it. Shepard didn’t think she’d
ever seen anyone handle chaos so well.
Kaidan mumbled to himself as they left the bridge. “They
came. I still can’t believe it. They all
actually showed up.”
~ ~ ~
When Commander Shepard
stepped off the shuttle, the whole squad was waiting, and they gathered round,
offering their congratulations. The mood became grim, however, as the general
call to stations sounded. The fleet was getting ready for the final jump to
Earth.
“What now, Commander?” Joker asked, via the general channel.
“Are we staying with the fleet?”
Shepard headed for the lift, and answered without breaking
stride. There was fire and iron in that voice, a strength and assurance that
the squad hadn’t heard since the old days.
“Hell no. It’s all hands on deck today, Ladies and
Gentlemen.”
Shepard reached the elevator, and turned the face the squad.
“Everyone, gear up and get ready. We’re gonna be boots on
the ground in 30 minutes.”
The elevator doors slid closed with a hiss.
The commander was back.
~ ~ ~
“Joker!”
Joker turned in his chair, surprised. The commander was
supposed to be prepping the team before the dropped into Earth’s atmosphere.
They were only minutes away.
“Yes, Commander?”
“I need you to do something. You won’t like it.”
Joker’s back stiffened. The commander’s tone was grave. “I’ll
do anything you ask, Commander.”
The Commander leaned in and whispered, though no one else
was close enough to hear. “I need you to keep this ship intact. Stay out of the
battle. If things go badly...I want you to save Kaiden. Get him and get out. I’ll
assign EDI the same detail.”
“Commander, I...That’s not fair. I have to fight!”
“I know, Joker, I know. I’m sorry I have to do this, but I
don’t have another option.”
Joker was about to argue it further, but one look at the
Commander’s face told him that it would be pointless. He sighed heavily.
“Okay, fine. But how am I even going to get them on the
ship? They won’t just leave you.” Joker knew Kaiden, and getting them on-board
without the commander would be well-nigh impossible. He wondered absently how
EDI would react.
“Just do it, Joker. Tell them ‘Commander Shepard’s orders.’”
The Commander’s tone brooked no argument.
After the commander left, Joker sighed and rubbed his face
wearily. Why did he always get the **** jobs?
~ ~ ~
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