Fire on the Horizon

Chapter 47: Beacons of Light

Jane was exhausted. She had never been as exhausted as she was at this moment. They were two days away from Earth, at most. She had to stop on the way to check on an issue with a Dr. Bryson. Long story short, at least shorter than her report on the matter, was a series of issues that included the usual suspects. Indoctrination, brainwashing, a hidden possible allegiance, and a near death experience by the Commander herself. The end result was some information and an ally in the fight.

When they had returned to the ship, they found out that the Citadel had been moved to Earth. The catalyst was in place. It was real now. Jane knew it, the crew knew it, Garrus knew it. Everyone was gathering to end this for good or bad.

They had faced this before, but this time it felt different. Jane wished it was just her that felt different. She knew that wasn't true. She could see it on everyone's face. They all knew. This was it. The big it.

Garrus had gone to take care of some final calibrations and make sure engineering was ready to go. That's what he had told her. She knew better. He was saying his farewells. He knew that he would be down in the trenches with her and his chances were about as good as hers. It was odd in a way. Jane felt calmer than she ever had. Was she ready to die? No, of course not. But her mind and body seemed to have synced with the idea that there was truly nothing more she could do. Nothing more she could say. Nothing more she could do but fight the final battle and be done.

Over the course of the next two days she and Garrus acted as if nothing was really happening. This was a mission like any other. They were just going on a mission. Even when they arrived on Earth and say the truth of what they were facing, they still looked at it as a mission. And now, here they stood. Looking at each other. This was it. This was the rush to the finish.

Garrus joked about a turian human baby. It was a half joke. They had talked about it before. Briefly. They agreed that neither of them had ever thought they would get here or to a point that they would be married, much less having kids. They agreed adoption would likely be best. This talk now, in the streets of London, was to keep their minds off the truth. As Jane hugged Garrus and kissed for what may be the final time, he caught her off guard.

"Commander. Forgive the insubordination, but your bondmate has a request for you. Come back to me alive. The galaxy would be an awful lonely place without you. And not because other people need the great Commander Shepard. Because I need my wife."

It took everything she could to hold it together as she walked toward the war room. Hackett was on coms, Anderson was waiting, and there were a few soldiers and generals she had never seen. She let it sink in for a moment how young some of the looked. Not surprising. It had always been said the fastest way to rank was a war and death. She shook off the thought and stepped up to the table.

It was a fairly quick discussion. The basic idea was to rush through, get to the hammer, press "the button", activate the catalyst, and then hopefully win everything. The problem was getting there. Fighting their way through. Shepard made her speech and began the walk to the battlefield. It was like hell out there, but she had battled through hell before.

As she walked out, she looked at Garrus, waiting until everyone was out of earshot. "Did adrian get in place?"

Garrus moved closer to her, nodding and putting his hand on her shoulder. He dropped his voice to almost a whisper. "Yeah, he got to the Normandy. He gave some bullshit speech about how he needed to be closer to the Turian fleets but far enough away to survive should something go wrong. Joker gave me the protocol signal that the plan is in place."

Shepard nodded. She didn't like the escape plan they had come up with. It relied on too many what if's. The first and main one being that the four people that knew about it lived long enough to enact it. The second thing was making sure they could actually pull it off. Shepard knew the second she had talked to Hackett about the citadel moving towards Earth that this was a suicide mission. She would be damned if she would lay down her life for the Alliance again just because they were too lazy to come up with a way for her to get out. Lay it down on the field for humanity? Sure. Lay it down for Hackett so he got the pat on the back and didn't have to really do anything? No. She learned her lesson with that man the hard way through the Batarians.

Shepard, Garrus, and James made their way to through the reapers on the ground. Fighting through buildings and killing or clearing anything they could to make sure the final push team could even make it to the front lines. Medical supplies had been left in locations throughout for them by previous teams. It reminded Shepard of what they found when they helped Grunt.

She kept hearing things like "being slaughtered out here Commander" and reroutes of companies and teams. That always bothered her. Not just because it meant the death of soldiers, but also that it came off like she was in the middle of her nail filing hour rather than fighting. Yeah, Garrus was right. They had done this too long. It was time for them both to retire. She laughed a little at that making Garrus turn his head from behind the building cover he had taken. She shook it off and smiled at him, making him shake his head and go back to fighting.

She looked up to see Anderson, his small team, and a beacon of light ahead of them. The beacon was in a tower near them. It was to give them a directional source to the control room. The room had been set up my engineers and would act as a way to get to the citadel. A small team would get to the beacon, get on the citadel, and find the control room to set off the crucible. The fact that they still didn't really know what the crucible did, other than dock and open it's arms, didn't seem to bother anyone. Well, anyone but Shepard.

A few people had thought it was a beacon from a reaper, until Garrus and Shepard explained that they had reddish beams or blue tint beams, not pure white like this was. The whole light beacon was a hell of a risk, but one they had to take to get this done. There was no way they would have found the control room and tower in this hot mess of shit without it.

They finally began to get close when they saw, directly in the way of the beam, a reaper. Luckily for Shepard's team they had EDI on the Normandy. She could target it and take it out just like on Rannoch. That's exactly what she did. Once they met up with Anderson, they discussed everything one last time and got on the shuttle.

The shuttle landed hard in front of an open field directly in line with the beacon. The small team stood and looked for a second then began to move. Hammer squad was on the move. It took what seemed like an eternity to make it across the field. Shepard felt like the closer they got the farther away the beacon was. She was close. She could hear Garrus behind her. The last thing she saw was a beam of light and an explosion. She could still hear her coms though.

"My God, they are all gone."

She looked around trying to sit up. Everything was hazy. She could still make out the beam.

"Did anyone make it to the beam?" Shepard tried to answer, but couldn't get her jaw to move. She stood up and began to fight toward the beam slowly.

She felt sluggish. Like she was walking through mud. Finally making it to the beam, she felt a warmth and heard a voice.

"Shepard...Shepard."