The Next Mission

by Tennant

Summary:

The Reaper war is over, but Admiral Hackett's most crucial mission remains: find Commander Shepard's body. When two soldiers discover her alive in the ruins of London, the mission shifts from recovery to survival. With catastrophic injuries that should have killed her six times over, Shepard faces her hardest fight yet, and this time, the battlefield is her own body and mind.

Chapter 1: The Cost of Victory

No matter the cost.

The taste of iron was in the air. The acrid smell of ozone and burnt wiring stinging the nostrils.

For entire minutes, there was just silence.

Then... shouting, sounds of heavy boots on the steel deck floor. The ship’s death throes, the frantic beeping of hazard alarms, the distant thud of emergency bulkheads sealing, the shudder of the deck as auxiliary power fought a losing battle against the darkness. Vibration of the deck plates underfoot as emergency generators were trying to kick in.

Steven Hackett’s eyes were darting in every direction possible without moving his head an inch, his face an iron mask, and his hands firmly behind his back.

Cold sweat on the back of his neck.

Several officers were requesting orders at once, but he wasn’t paying attention. His ears were ringing, and everything felt like it was in slow motion.

She’s done it. She’s actually done it. It’s over. Those were the words in Hackett’s head, stuck on a loop.

Sparks were being aggressively ejected from most of the ship’s hardware. The crimson red wave of unfathomable energy fried most of SSV Orizaba’s systems, making it effectively just a hunk of lifeless metal floating in space.

Everyone had already jumped into action, making sure they wouldn’t lose oxygen, gravity, life support, everything, to make sure that they wouldn’t follow the same fate as the Reapers just minutes later.

Hackett finally turned his head, but still hasn’t answered any of the officers spewing questions at him. In the corner of his eye, he looked out one of the viewports. He saw other ships, completely functionless and non-operational, the same as his. They were just steel boxes. And they could be steel coffins soon.

One of the officers, a Junior Lieutenant Alida Witte, was young, her voice cracking with panic. “Admiral, comms are down across the fleet! We’re blind!”

No response.

Another one was a veteran at sight; Lieutenant Tanja Sam, her face ashen but voice steady. “Sir, primary power is offline. Life support is on backups, and those are hanging by a thread.”

No response.

The last one, Lieutenant Malwin Forman, did not finish his last request, as he caught a sight of the viewport in the corner of his eye and became paralyzed at what he was witnessing.

The three officers finally stopped, two of them looking at each other, unsure of whether Hackett was in shock, disbelief, awe, or all of the above.

Hackett finally moved, clearly making his way toward one of the viewports to get a better view.

Excluding entire fleets of aimlessly floating ships, twisted spars of metal, still glowing with orange heat, some tumbled right past the viewport, its origin; Turian, Reaper, human, impossible to determine.

He saw the Citadel. Or what was left of it. In the aftermath of the inconceivable explosion, a lot of it was gone. And that rubble was lighting up ablaze as it was raining back on Earth. Once so monumental, now shattered like glass. The Citadel arms, once holding the fate of countless cycles, now broken and twisted. The sight felt catastrophic.

She couldn’t have survived it. Shepard was impossible, but this was beyond impossible. Hackett’s mind was racing. Even if she somehow survived the initial explosion, the very structure she was standing on was now on fire, raining back onto Earth, falling thousands of kilometers. He had seen her file many times. She has cheated death before. But there were only so many miracles left to be given out by the cosmos.

It wasn’t just parts of the Citadel raining down on Earth. Chunks of metal the size of dreadnoughts. The atmosphere was a canvas of explosive oranges and deep reds, sickly colors of burning eezo. The view was not meant for human eyes. Terrifying means to a terrifying end of a terrifying war.

He had given the orders. He had sent Shepard up there. He had asked the impossible of her one last time.

No matter the cost. She knew the risks as much as he did. The Reapers were dead.

Victory.

The word tasted like ash, sweat, blood, fire, tears, dirt.

But it didn’t taste like victory.

A certain cold finality settled in Hackett’s stomach. She was gone. No one at the heart of the explosion survived.

“Admiral?” Only one officer, Junior Lieutenant Witte, spoke now. Her voice hushed. “What do we do? What happened?”

While Hackett didn’t know what exactly happened, it was easy enough to deduce.

“Junior Lieutenant Witte, make sure all life-endangering emergencies are taken care of, effective immediately. First priority: oxygen. Stabilize the ship’s orbit. Then we can start establishing communications with the other fleets. It is imperative that we are able to communicate with our allies.”

“Yes, sir.” The officer swiftly walked away. Lieutenant Sam followed her to make sure the junior officer relayed the commands clearly.

“S-sir.” Lieutenant Malwin Forman stuttered, still stunned from the view. “We’ve got… We’ve got reports from deck- deck seven. A conduit rupture… casualties…” He didn’t finish; he just looked at the Admiral, hoping to get a clear order he could follow.

“Lieutenant Forman. Fixing the ship is the utmost priority. Set up triage for the wounded. Administer aid to personnel in life-threatening and immediate danger, but helping the wounded is currently a secondary objective. Understood?”

“Understood, Admiral.” Lieutenant Forman, slightly relieved, wiped his forehead from sweat and also rushed away.

Hackett’s gaze remained fixed on the burning scar across Earth’s atmosphere. Images of the millions of dead seared into his mind, though out of those millions, the death of one individual burned more painful than any other.

Jerking his head slightly at an ominous hiss, he saw several engineers frantically sealing a ruptured oxygen line.

On the other side of the bridge, the distorted chatter of comms of countless other ships attempting to communicate through the interference.

He felt the deep, groaning shudder of Orizaba's hull settling through the deck plates, a vibration that reached his bones.

His mind still lingered over Shepard. Also, over Anderson, he hasn’t heard from him either. He knew Shepard made it onto the Citadel, but he had heard nothing from Anderson.

Hackett wasn’t sure how much time was passing around him. Orizaba’s crew was working like a clock; they mostly didn’t need his direct orders to know what to do in an event like this. Everything was directed by Hackett’s officers.

In the corner of his eye, Hackett noticed the operations lieutenant Ravinger Bonfield, a veteran technician, and decided that he has enough of just staring and sprang into action.

“Status report.” The Admiral requested.

“Sir, backup generators and our auxiliary power are… for the most part stabilized, and we are out of the most immediate danger. Oxygen and all other life support systems are out of the deep water, for now. We are working on the comms systems, attempting to clear the interference. We are able to catch some chatter, but it’s mostly too broken up to make anything of it.” Bonfield reported extensively.

“Any reports on the Normandy?”

“No, without proper comms infrastructure, there’s no chance we’re contacting them, even if they are out there, Admiral.” Bonfield knew why he’d asked about Normandy in particular. “It’s… It’s possible they might be trying to get through to us, but right now it’s impossible to determine.”

“Any news from Earth?” Hackett knew that the same issue persisted, but he hated flying blind and was hoping the answer would be different this time.

“Sir, a lot of indistinguishable chatter across many different channels, but nothing concrete that we could pick up on at this moment.”

“Let me know as soon as the situation changes.” Hackett sighed.

“Yes, Sir.” Bonfield turned to oversee the intense repairs of the entire comms system.

Each minute passed excruciatingly slow; the wait felt like hours. It might’ve been hours; the admiral didn’t know.

Hackett stood on the bridge. Waiting for any update, anything at all. However, he didn’t interfere; he didn’t question further. He knew his crew; he knew everyone was working hard and doing their best.

Then, so many sounds at once. So many voices. Hackett turned his head abruptly. The comm panels lit up like a dozen Christmas trees. All the comms personnel started plugging in their headphones, immediately relaying information to superior officers, every one of them talking over each other, unable to hear anyone but themselves and the voice on the other side of the frequency.

People were running around, frantically writing down and transcribing messages, emergency requests, signals, everything.

The admiral didn’t move until Bonfield signaled him; then he rushed over.

“Status update, Lieutenant.” He urged.

“Sir, our comms are now for the most part fully operational. Some of the chatter we’re receiving is still unclear and gets interference, though that’s likely due to faulty and compromised comms systems of the other ships and fleets.” Bonfield explained.

“Go on, anything important?”

“Sir, the information I’m receiving is that every fleet is in partial or total disarray, and nobody knows what to do. They’re salvaging and saving what and who they can, but they need directions fast. I’ve received reports of non-operational human and turian frigates colliding, resulting in a massive explosion… nobody survived.” Bonfield paused, searching for something in the admiral’s eyes. “Ehm… And- And we have more reports like that coming in.”

Admiral only sighed and kept his gaze upon Bonfield, expecting more news.

“We’re… we’re receiving hails from the Destiny Ascension… the Idenna. They’re asking for orders. And they’re… they’re asking… asking about the Commander’s status.”

Bonfield choked up. He’s seen the same explosion that Hackett has seen. He knew where Shepard was standing.

“Anything from the Normandy?” The admiral initially seemed to brush off everything else.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but no reports from the Normandy thus far.” Bonfield’s voice hushed, knowing that the answer disappointed this admiral.

Hackett released a weary breath and lowered his shoulders slightly. “Bonfield, open a fleet-wide channel. Encrypt it according to Council security protocols. Patch in the Destiny Ascension, the Idenna, and any command ship that can currently acknowledge a hail.”

Bonfield signaled to one of the comm officers, who only nodded his head, and his fingers began flying over the console. The same officer then spoke directly to the admiral.

“Channel open, Sir. You’re live.”

Hackett’s voice, stripped of all but the barest emotion, echoed across the silent, drifting fleets of a hundred worlds.

"This is Admiral Hackett to all allied vessels. The Crucible has fired. The Reaper threat has been neutralized." He allowed a single beat of silence for the magnitude of that statement to settle. "We have won."

He could imagine the cheers, the tears, the stunned disbelief on ships throughout the system. But his next words were sharp, urgent, dousing any celebration in cold, hard reality.

Hackett allowed another pause. As if he was letting the universe itself take that declaration in.

"The immediate fight is over. The next one begins now. The Crucible's pulse has disabled every ship in the fleet. We are dead in the water. Life support, communications, and primary power are failing or non-existent on countless vessels. We have thousands of wounded, and we are sitting in a graveyard of our own making."

He leaned forward, his voice intensifying. "I am issuing an immediate, system-wide priority order. All able-bodied engineers, from every species, are to begin emergency repairs. Focus on life support, comms, and primary power, in that order. We need to stabilize our fleets before we have a catastrophe on our hands that rivals the Reapers themselves."

His ship was now mostly operational, but he knew that many ships in the Alliance’s fleet and in the fleets of his allies didn’t have the necessary resources or engineers to repair the life support systems sufficiently.

He then addressed his allies directly, his tone shifting to one of grim necessity. "To Primarch Victus, Matriarch Lidanya, Admiral Raan, and Dalatrass Linron, or whoever now leads in this hour. The Alliance will coordinate a system-wide repair effort from the Orizaba. Share your status reports and available engineering teams. Our survival now depends on the same cooperation that won this war. We share our resources, our expertise, and our intelligence without reservation. There are no human ships or turian ships in this fleet anymore. There are only our ships."

Lastly, his voice lowered again, to a sorrowful note. “I hear some of you are asking about Commander Shepard’s status…” He paused. “Her status is currently unknown. We don’t have any information from Earth as of now. The Commander may have sacrificed her life for us. All of us. We will keep you updated.” Hackett let out a slow, long exhale. “I’m leaving this channel open for incoming connections.”

“Hackett out.”

Hackett stood on the bridge, waiting if some of the other fleet’s commanders would contact him back. He didn’t have to wait long. This conversation could no longer be heard by everyone, only by Hackett and the incoming connection.

“Admiral…” Admiral Raan’s face appeared in front of him as a hologram.

“I’m listening.” Hackett nodded subtly.

“Our fleet… We’ve sustained catastrophic losses. We still are. Most of our ships are not prepared or equipped to deal with this kind of blackout. Almost our entire fleet is still in the dark.” There was anxiety in Raan’s voice.

“I will do everything in my power to get you the help you need. I’m sending any and every engineer I can spare, Admiral.” Hackett’s head then turned away from Raan, though the connection was still established. “Bonfield, contact the Turians, Asari, and Salarians. Inform them of the Quarian situation.”

“Yes, Sir.” Raan could hear the words from a distance on Admiral Hackett’s side.

“One more thing, Admiral…” Raan paused for a longer moment. “It’s about the Geth.”

“Right, why aren’t they helping-“ Hackett was interrupted.

“They are all gone, Admiral.” Raan leaned forward. “All their ships are corpses. Complete and utter radio silence.”

Hackett’s face remained hard as granite, but he began connecting the dots. Entire fleets knocked out, all systems fried. The Geth gone. Whatever Shepard did, it didn’t just get rid of the Reapers. It got rid of all synthetics and, by extension, most of technology. There was no discrimination.

Admiral Raan continued after Hackett’s silence. “What happened, Admiral? Where’s Shepard? What did she do?”

Raan assumed the answer to at least one of those questions. She saw the explosion as much as anyone; the request for Shepard seemed futile, but she held naïve hope that Hackett would give more information than he gave in his fleet-wide hail.

“We don’t know. All our fleets were disabled when the shockwave hit our ships. The assumption is that Shepard or someone else activated the Crucible, causing the event. Whether Shepard knew of the ramifications is currently unknown. What’s important is that the Reapers are gone. If Shepard had to sacrifice the Geth and our technology to save the entire galaxy, it’s a choice I would’ve made too.”

Hackett’s voice held firm, defending Shepard’s decision, if it even was Shepard’s decision. He didn’t have the slightest idea of what happened up there. Whether Shepard knew what would happen, whether Shepard even had a choice, or if what happened was even caused by Shepard. So many unknown variables.

Now it was Admiral Raan who paused. She had no right to judge Shepard. And knowing her, she did the absolute best she could, and the Reapers were gone. No matter the cost.

“I understand, Admiral. Thank you.” Raan sighed and promptly disconnected from Hackett’s comm channel.

Another face appeared in front of the Alliance Admiral.

“Matriarch Lidanya.” Hackett acknowledged her before she even said anything.

“Admiral.” Lidanya’s word held respect. Humans took the initiative. And they didn’t use their current upper hand to seize control or try to establish dominance. Hackett’s speech moved her. Humanity has truly earned its place in the galaxy, perhaps more than anyone ever did.

Hackett assumed Lidanya contacted him for a reason and so remained silent, awaiting requests for support.

“Destiny Ascension acknowledges Orizaba’s orders, Admiral. We are nearly fully operational, and we have spare engineers on standby; some of them are already en route to the Quarian fleets.”

“Good, we need to work together if we truly want to come out of this victorious.” Hackett reiterated.

“I agree, Admiral.” Lidanya got quiet and looked down. “Admiral… I’d like to express our deepest condolences. For the entire Destiny Ascension. In fact, for all Asari. Commander Shepard has paid the ultimate price. I can’t begin to fathom what her final moments were that led to this outcome, but… but her sacrifice shall never be forgotten…”

Lidanya looked at Hackett whom she could only see as a hologram. His teeth were clenched in order not to show what he really felt. Lidanya was the first one not walking on eggshells about Shepard’s situation.

“If… If you need support in any arrangements… Regarding Commander Shepard. The Asari are at your full disposal. She saved us all, Admiral. She is the greatest hero this galaxy has ever seen.”

“Thank you, Matriarch.” Hackett sighed and shifted his posture. His appreciation was sincere, but there was a sour taste in his mouth. “Shepard has only ever wanted to be a soldier. She had no desire or drive to be a legend to the entire galaxy. To be the hero. She did what needed to be done. No matter the cost.”

No matter the cost. Hackett repeated those words in his head. Perhaps the cost was too high. Those were some of the last words he had said to Shepard, and it was the last time he had seen her. But there was no one else who could’ve done it. No one else. No matter the cost.

“I understand, Admiral. Whenever you’re ready, we will be ready.” Lidanya interrupted Hackett’s train of thought and acknowledged his grief.

Hackett only nodded, and Matriarch Lidanya disconnected.

The Admiral only had a few moments for himself before Bonfield spoke. “Admiral, I’m patching in Primarch Victus.”

Hackett only patiently waited.

“Admiral. Glad to see you. How’s the situation up there?” The Primarch appeared in front of Hackett.

“We’re managing resources and personnel. Some fleets are still at a risk of floating into one another and causing more senseless casualties.” Hackett wasn’t too interested in what was happening in the orbit. He wanted to know what was happening on Earth, where Victus was still located. “We will relay any relevant and important information to the Turian Hierarchy. What’s the situation down there?”

“There was a lot of uncertainty. Suddenly, a big red shockwave painted over everything, and the big, scary Reapers fell without a bit of resistance. Gigantic, metal corpses. I’ve seen people who had already lost hope, embracing death. People who were mere seconds away from being evaporated by one of their lasers. Nobody could believe it.”

Victus paused to see if Hackett had anything to add, but upon his silence, he continued. “The ground forces and personnel have begun receiving updates and orders from the Alliance since then, and so things are moving quickly.”

“Any updates on the rubble that fell from the sky?” Hackett’s question was intentionally vague; he didn’t want to ask Victus about Shepard directly.

“Some of it is still falling, Admiral.” Victus noted but continued, he understood what Hackett was talking about. “Some of your officers are organizing SAR teams, looking for wounded. However, I was going to ask you the same thing… About the Citadel.”

“We don’t know much more than you, and anything important that we do know has already been relayed via communication channels. Commander Shepard’s status is currently unknown, but there has been radio silence from her.” Hackett stated with a grim tone.

Victus knew that they both knew what Shepard’s fate was, just as almost everyone else. Only a fool could hope for a different outcome if they had witnessed the same event. He wondered what were her final moments.

“Understood, Admiral. I will remain organizing ground Turian troops and working alongside your officers; we will help in Humanity’s rescue efforts.”

Hackett nodded, and Victus ended the connection.

Many officers heard the conversations Hackett was having. It was impossible for everyone not to think about Shepard. Someone even stopped to briefly glance at their admiral. The ones who didn’t know Hackett as well almost considered him heartless for the lack of visible emotion. Most of them had never met Shepard, and yet they felt like they were at the edge of total despair caused by the loss. Some suspected that the only reason a lot of men and women were still holding it together was that there was still that looming, non-existent chance… That she might live. There was still no official declaration, confirmation, or announcement from Hackett that would hit the last nail in the coffin.

Hackett contemplated his options.

“Lieutenant, patch me through to Major Coats.” Hackett ordered after some moments of silence. He had some hard, but important decisions to make.

“Yes, Admiral. Patching through…” Bonfield nodded.

“Admiral, Sir.” Major Coats announced himself. He was both visibly and audibly exhausted, and even through the hologram, it was obvious he was covered in grime and dirt.

“Major Coats.” Hackett acknowledged him. “Do you have any news for me down in London?”

“Admiral, currently we’re organizing SAR teams. I can confirm that all Reapers have been destroyed and no longer pose any threat. We want to minimize further death, but it’s proven… difficult. Many things are still in disarray and utter chaos. I don’t know where most of my men are, nor do many other officers. Radios are still barely functional, limiting our communication.”

“Understood, Major. Any news on Admiral Anderson?” Hackett didn’t have high hopes, but he still had no idea what had happened to him.

“Negative, Admiral. The last time we had any sort of communication with him was shortly before he rushed the Citadel beam with Shepard. We assume… We assume that he was killed by the same Reaper laser that we thought killed Shepard as well, but as we know now… Shepard defied odds one last time and got to the Citadel. Perhaps, Admiral Anderson got up there, too, but there have been no updates or attempts at communication.” Coats lowered his head. “…and considering what happened to the Citadel… what happened to Shepard… I think we know Admiral Anderson’s fate either way, Sir.” Coats' voice was raw.

Hackett frowned and took a few moments to breathe it all in. He lost both Anderson and Shepard. Unfathomable loss for Humanity.

“Major Coats. I will have an order for you. An order that might be difficult to carry out, but I want you to carry it out regardless.”

“Anything, Admiral.” Coats was taken aback by the words the admiral chose, but didn’t hesitate in his response.

“First, get me a direct line to any and every SAR commander on the ground in the London sector.”

“Yes, Sir, in a minute.” Coats' fingers were moving across the console, and now there were many voices reporting in.

“This is Major Coats to all SAR teams. Admiral Hackett will be speaking; stand by for his orders.” Coats announced.

“Admiral Hackett to all SAR commanders.” Hackett announced himself, making sure everyone could hear him clearly. The order he was about to give out felt like an eulogy.

He met the eyes of many of the officers on deck.

“The mission is to find her.” He started vaguely, but immediately added. “The mission is to find Commander Shepard. I want the best teams we have left. I want every piece of wreckage scanned, every life sign investigated. This is a priority Alpha order. Helping civilians and other wounded personnel is a secondary objective. Major Coats will lead this operation.”

Hackett’s words were sharp, not leaving anything up for discussion.

The unspoken words hung in the air, colder and heavier than the ones he voiced. Some of them thought that the admiral had gone mad. They wouldn’t be looking for anything but a body. Maybe not even that. The explosion might have completely evaporated her. Meanwhile, there were living civilians, living soldiers in need of immediate, urgent medical care. In need of rescue.

Even if it’s just for the body. Hackett thought.

Then Hackett made his stance clear, and at least some of their worries were lifted.

“The galaxy needs to bury its hero.”

Chapter 2: Sliver of Something

The air over what was left of London was thick with dust and the smell of ozone, burned wiring, and death. It was a mist that clung to the inside of the lungs, a gritty taste that no amount of water could wash away. SAR teams and anyone else who wanted to look for survivors had to wait until the aftermath of the Crucible explosion stopped raining further death upon Earth. The Citadel's rubble had rained down for what felt like an eternity, creating a new, jagged mountain range of smoking metal and shattered concrete that gleamed under the sickly dark orange sky.

The Earth in the London area was unrecognizable. Anywhere you looked, there was scorched ground, pulverized glass, bones, and colors of only black, red, and orange. It was a painter’s palette of hell.

Two figures, caked in grime, moved through the hellscape. The ground was unstable, each step making them uncertain of whether the piece of metal was solid or if it would send them tumbling several meters. Everything around them was jagged and sharp; one wrong move guaranteed tearing the soft parts of their armor, cutting them, risking infection.

To their left, the husk of a Reaper Destroyer lay half-buried in what was once a park, a cold, dead god felled by a weapon they still didn’t understand.

Corporal Eva Reyes and Sergeant Ben Kano were part of the 7th Forward SAR, or what was left of it. Ground resources of the Alliance were so thin and spread apart that sending rescue teams in just pairs was not uncommon, although they now had radio contact with other groups with just a little bit of interference. Their bright orange armor was grey with ash, rendering the reflective features a futile attempt at visibility in the perpetual storm of dust.

Kano was a few meters ahead, his broad shoulders blocking the worst of the wind that kicked up stinging clouds of ash.

The goal was to cover as much ground as possible, even if it meant sending out understaffed teams. The goal was clear, even if nonsensical to many. Finding Shepard’s body should not have been the priority.

“Life sign scanner’s on the fritz again,” Reyes muttered, smacking the side of the device. It whined pathetically. “Power cell’s almost shot. Command says no replacements until tomorrow. Tomorrow.” She emphasized.

Sergeant Kano didn’t look up from prying a twisted beam of Reaper alloy out of the way with a grunt. “Stop complaining and start helping. The old-fashioned way still works.” His voice was a gravelly rasp, worn raw by dust and exhaustion.

“It’s a needle in a damn haystack, Sarge,” Reyes shot back, brushing a strand of her short, blonde, but ash-covered hair that was peeking from under her helmet away from her forehead. Either way, she holstered the scanner and grabbed a crowbar.

“Hackett wants us to find one body in all of this? We got whole battalions buried out here. Civilians. We should be setting up triage, not going on a wild goose chase for a ghost.”

Kano stopped, straightening up with a wince. He gestured with his chin towards the vast, smoldering field of debris. “That ‘ghost’ won us the war, Corporal. Show some damn respect. And it’s not a request. It’s an order.”

As Kano and Reyes were making their way through the unforgiving terrain, they could hear the moans of shifting wreckage, the dripping of water from a ruptured pipe. The crackle of a fire they couldn’t see. The distant, earth-shaking thud of a large piece of a dreadnaught ruin finally settling.

“Yeah, well, orders won’t mean much to the family of that kid we had to leave back there because we’re on this VIP body recovery,” Reyes snapped, the frustration boiling over. It was just tens of minutes ago, the very fresh, very raw memory of the small hand sticking out of the rubble, too still… too cold. She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head at the thought. She lost her little sister and both her parents in this war, while her older brother was still MIA.

“Or the soldier missing both his legs. Or the two kids tugging at their lifeless father’s body. Or the woman with her arm pinned by a ton of debris. Or the recruit who was pinned to the heated metal below him with a steel rod piercing both his cheeks. Or the--”

Kano’s expression hardened with shared pain, but also anger. “We follow our orders, Reyes. We find her, we bring her home. That’s it. Then we can help everyone else. Now, check that pile over there. The composition scans said this sector has a high concentration of Citadel-grade alloys. If she’s anywhere…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. They both knew the ‘if’ was a massive one.

They picked their way through a skeleton of an APC, its hull peeled open like a tin can. The frozen shapes of the crew silhouetted against the glowing embers of a nearby fire. Reyes shuddered and looked up at the dark sky.

Moments later, Kano kicked against a child’s toy, which had half-melted into a puddle of solidified pavement. He didn’t stop to look at it.

“Right… if. If, Sarge. What if there is no body? I didn’t see the explosion myself, back from where I was, but if it was half as bad as everybody said, there might not even be a body! That kind of explosion could vaporize anyone to ash. So what are we doing here?”

“We are following orders, that’s what we’re doing!” Kano’s teeth were now clenched, the same as one of his fists.

Tension was in the air; they were working in silence for a little while. Removing black concrete from their path. Each time Reyes heard a cry from the distance, or from the radio chatter. A cry that was sure to be ignored, she grew more agitated.

“From what I’ve read up and seen from the vids, if Shepard blindly followed every order she’d been given, she wouldn’t be the hero she is. Blindly following orders is what got her killed, too.” Reyes took it too far.

“Listen!” Kano turned to her so abruptly that it made her flinch. He wiped the sweat off his wrinkly forehead, his dust-covered gloves leaving his face even dirtier than it was before. His teeth clenched even harder. “If Shepard wasn’t ‘blindly’...” He grimaced at that word. “…following orders, you wouldn’t be standing here to complain. I wouldn’t be standing here. There wouldn’t be anyone left to save, because there would not be one human alive! I could have you court martialed for this! Damn it, Reyes! We’re soldiers, following orders is what we do! And sometimes the orders and the choices we have to make are difficult!”

Reyes frowned. She realized she had overstepped and wasn’t going to fight back any longer, but she was far from satisfied. “I wonder if Shepard would’ve wanted us to do this. To abandon all these people to find her body.”

“Well, it’s not up to her now, is it? Corporal… Reyes… I understand you’re tired, you’re angry, and frustrated. You feel like you’re betraying them because you can’t help all these people. I really get you. You’ve lost family. I lost family, too. It’s not easy. Trust me, I know.” He looked into her eyes with compassion. “But we need to keep going. Please. Let’s go.”

Kano turned back around, considering the ordeal a done thing. Reyes let out a weary sigh and tightened her grip around the crowbar.

Reyes felt guilty. Vindicated but also isolated. She knew what Shepard had done for them. What Kano had been saying was true. Without them, there wouldn’t be any survivors to save in the first place. She felt guilty both that she didn’t want to find Shepard’s body and that she wasn’t out there saving living people. She lost a sister and her parents. But maybe she could save someone else’s sister, someone else’s parents.

She stared at Kano’s back as he was slowly moving forward. Despite their altercation, she respected him. She served with and under him for a while; they saved a lot of lives together. And perhaps failed to save even more. Even though she has been with the alliance for several years now, many would still consider her a rookie compared to the seasoned Sergeant. She knew he was also conflicted, but was too proud to say anything but continuously repeat that orders needed to be followed.

Kano needed to put his foot down, but he felt with Reyes. He just couldn’t let her frustration get out of hand. He wished he didn’t have to be so hard on her, because he fully understood. In fact, he’d also much rather be saving people who still had a chance. But if nothing else, he had too much respect for Hackett and Shepard to disobey that kind of order.

They worked in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds the screech of metal and the distant cries of other rescue teams. Moving any debris around them was a monumental effort. Reyes groaned as she strained her muscles trying to move a big metal plate. Kano squinted his eyes as the sweat dripping down from his eyebrows was stinging in his eyes. The ash was clogging their throats, making it hard to breathe, swallow, and talk.

The carelessness wasn't born of callousness, but of sheer, overwhelming volume. They couldn't be careful. There was too much ground to cover, too many signals, both real and false, bleeding through their damaged equipment.

Another team's radio chatter crackled over their shared comms, a broken, staticky loop of desperation.

"...negative on grid seven-echo... moving to seven-foxtrot..."

"We need a med-evac! We've got a live one! Alliance Marine, crushed legs, bleeding out bad! Does anyone have a drone for an evac? Anyone?!"

"...just more bodies. Spirits, there's so many..."

“…any-… out there?! A large beam-… fell on our Sergeant! He’s-… -… need help!”

Reyes kicked a chunk of debris, sending a skitter of pebbles down the pile. "Look, Sarge… I’m not going to fight you, but…” Her voice was softer now. “It's useless, Sarge. She's gone. They're all gone. We should be there," she said, pointing a shaking hand towards the distant sound of the other team's urgent call for a med-evac. "We should be where we can actually do some good."

Before Kano could reply, Reyes’ boot dislodged a larger piece of plating for a huge pile of debris. It clattered away, revealing a narrow tunnel that looked like it was one wrong move away from collapsing. Reyes frowned and scoffed. The tunnel was so low that she had to get on her knees to look inside. But to no avail, it was covered in darkness.

Reyes took out her flashlight and cursed as it only flickered, refusing to turn on. “Damn it. Sarge! Come back, I’ve found something. I need a flashlight.

Kano was at her side in an instant. “What is that?” He questioned while already handing her his own flashlight.

Reyes held her breath briefly. “I… I don’t know, I’m taking a look.” She pointed the flashlight at the hole. She squinted her eyes and crawled closer, without going into the hole just yet. Kano’s flashlight also flickered at times, but at least it was working.

“Be careful, Reyes. I don’t want to lose you.” Kano warned as Reyes was getting dangerously close to the unstable wreckage.

Reyes ignored him and crawled even closer, struggling to get a good look at the very end of the tunnel.

She froze. Her grip on the flashlight was tightening enough to almost crush it. “I see a body!”

"What?" Kano’s response was distant, his attention still on his scanner.

“I’m saying I see a body, Sarge! Scorched, but armored!” Her voice was charged with drive.

“Wait a sec, Corporal.” Kano unholstered his life scanner and pointed it at the debris. He frowned after not getting any readings. “I see nothing on here, Reyes.”

“You said we’re looking for a corpse, not a living person. Of course, you’d be getting no readings.” Reyes noted bluntly. “I’m going in.” Suddenly, when she thought that Shepard was possibly within her grasp, she really wanted to find her. So that they could give Hackett what he wanted, give the whole galaxy a peace of mind, and also then they could be reassigned to help people who were actually in need of it.

The thought of finally ending this grim treasure hunt sent a surge of desperate energy through her.

“Wait, Reyes! This whole thing could collapse. I’m not losing you, too!” Kano shouted, but Reyes was already scrambling inside the hole. “Damn you, Reyes! You’re crazy!” When he said that he didn’t want to lose her, too, he wasn’t talking about Shepard. He was talking about the dozens of other soldiers and medics he had under his command. Almost all of them were gone now.

Kano thought about grabbing one of her legs to pull her out, but he didn’t want to risk that she’d get startled, hitting a piece of debris upon her. Instead, he kneeled where she was just kneeling and observed her. The tunnel was so narrow that even Reyes’ rather small body completely obstructed the light that she held in front of her.

“Ouch! It’s really, really tight in here, Sarge!” Reyes complained as she dragged herself over the sharp metal and concrete. She could feel it digging right through her armor, in some places right into her flesh. “Damn this place!”

“I said be careful! I definitely can’t fit in there, so if you get stuck, I won’t be able to get you out.” Kano eyed and judged the tunnel, even the walls and the ceiling were made of sharp metal. That place was a death trap.

Meanwhile, Reyes was getting closer and closer to the motionless body. By miracle, it didn’t seem to be pinned down by anything. The very end of the tunnel was a bit wider and higher. The body was in a sitting position, slouched over. She could see the body a bit more clearly now.

“I see… Uh. Ehm.” Reyes coughed. “I see. Oh my… I see an N7 insignia! By the spirits! I see it, Kano! On the armor!” Reyes’ voice was teeming with excitement. "I see an N7 insignia! On the armor!" She repeated.

“You’re kidding?! Are you serious???” Kano squinted his eyes in an attempt to get a better look into the tunnel, even though it was still just as impossible for him to see anything inside.

Reyes tried getting closer to the body. Most of the armor was burned. One leg was surely broken. Missing fingers on one of its hands. The black body suit under the armor melted with the scorched skin. The head seemed to have taken the worst of it.

“I think I can pull the body out, Sarge! You just need to pull me out!” Reyes shouted, her eyes fluttering as they were getting increasingly irritated by the dust.

“What?!” He exclaimed in disbelief. “We need an entire team for this, Reyes. It could collapse and kill both of us! Let me call for reinforcements!”

“Wait! Come on! That’s going to take too long, let’s just do it, I’ll be careful!” Reyes urged. “It might as well collapse on me while we wait here for reinforcements for hours!”

Kano thought about it. The tunnel didn’t seem that long. Reyes just took a long time getting to the body because it was full of that sharp metal. He could reach her legs with just barely getting his head in. He contemplated the options. If Reyes died right there, he would definitely blame himself. And it would be on him. They were instructed that if they found Shepard, they had to call it in. But they didn’t really have a confirmation either. They just saw the N7 insignia. He would look like a fool if he called everyone to their position only to find out that they didn’t find Shepard.

“Alright, Reyes. But for God’s sake, take it slow.” Kano sighed.

Kano couldn’t see it, but Reyes smirked. “Got it, Sarge!” Reyes eagerly grabbed both ankles of the N7-marked soldier. “I’m holding her! Very, very slowly pull me out, Sarge!”

His mind briefly stopped at the fact that Reyes had already gendered the still unidentified body, but there was no time or reason to dwell on it.

Kano also got down on his stomach, crawled forward a bit, hissing with pain as the metal dug into his belly, and then reached into the tunnel for Reyes’ ankles. “I’m pulling! Stay as still as possible! If anything goes wrong in there, even in the slightest, tell me immediately, understood?”

“Understood, Sarge. You can trust me.”

It was hard to pull Reyes from that position. She alone wasn’t very heavy. But with her armor, and her pulling another, lifeless body. It was incredibly hard, even for someone like him. The exhaustion didn’t help either. He was audibly struggling, letting out heavy breaths and groans. Reyes tried to help him, make it easier, but her options inside the tunnel were very limited.

With each movement, the ceiling was creaking above her, and with each movement, she grimaced in pain as more shrapnel tore apart her armor. She clenched her teeth, hoping to just power through it. The body fell backwards as she pulled it away from the wall it was leaning against. It caused a louder, unsettling sound in the metal that made both Kano and Reyes hold their breaths.

“Everything alright?” Kano asked, his voice almost a whisper, worried that even the vibration in his voice might make things fall down on top of them.

“I… ehm… I think so.” She wasn’t confident at all, but she needed to get out either way.

Kano waited a few more moments and then grabbed her ankles tightly again.

“Ouch!” Reyes exclaimed as her ribcage grazed against a particularly sharp rock.

“Hold on, Reyes, you’re almost out!” Kano already sounded a lot more relieved, with his body being completely out of the hole, and now more than half of Reyes’ body too.

It only took a few more moments before Reyes was up on her knees. She was breathing heavily.

“Are you okay?” Kano asked, but upon moving around to see her face, he answered himself. “No, you’re definitely not, that’s gonna need cleaning.” Reyes’ chest was covered in countless bloody slashes. Her armor saved her from the worst of it, but it was still far from good.

“Leave it for later, Sarge.” She tried to brush him off, but at the same time hissed in pain as she stood up. She grabbed the body at the shins now and dragged the rest of it out completely. “Let’s check if it’s Shepard.”

Kano leaned over the body, immediately checking for any confirmations. The face was nearly completely gone. All the hair burned away. It was a gnarly sight, although not really bloody, as the whole face was basically cauterized. Whoever this was, there was no doubt that they were dead.

Reyes couldn’t properly see over Kano’s broad stature and kept moving from side to side to have a better viewing angle.

“So, Sarge? Who is it? Is it Shepard? It must be. Look at the N7 insignia. Who else would have an N7 insignia on their armor, buried under the Citadel wreckage?” Reyes’ voice almost sounded hopeful.

Kano kept checking. He needed to be absolutely sure. The body was tall and lean. The insignia definitely meant that this was an N7 marine. It would be a hell of a coincidence. But there was one big glaring issue.

“Reyes…” Kano sighed. “This is definitely a male body.” He saw the hopeful light in her eye extinguished. “Look. That armor is fitted for a male physique. I’ve only ever seen Shepard in vids, but this is definitely not what she looked like. I can tell you that much even without the face.”

“Fuck!” Reyes shouted, placing her hands on her helmet in frustration.

Kano sat down next to the body and placed one of his hands on its stomach compassionately. Regardless of who it was, this was another fallen soldier, an N7 marine at that.

They both had very complicated emotions about this find. Kano was disappointed. Disappointed that their search had to continue. That their mission wasn’t over yet. But he was also relieved. In a sense, he didn’t want to be the one. He didn’t want to be the one to confirm Shepard’s death. The many people from various SAR teams he has briefly talked to still held the naïve hope that they would find Shepard breathing. It was a twistedly interesting contrast to some others who thought that there wouldn’t even be a body left to find. Even he had a speck of that naïve hope inside him. He thought that every human must’ve had at least the tiniest bit of it.

Reyes was similarly frustrated that their mission had to continue. She was hopeful at first, but not because she had hoped for Shepard’s death, and this was a sight of an obviously lifeless body of an N7 marine. She was just hopeful that she could finally go and help others in need. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about Shepard. She was relieved when she thought she had found her. That she would be the one to give the galaxy its devastating news, and then the resources could be allocated elsewhere. It wasn’t like she didn’t want Shepard to live; she was just being realistic.

Out of frustration, Reyes took off her helmet with such force that her blonde hair flew in every direction, and with an angry scream, threw it on the ground. Then she turned to Kano with a devastated gaze.

Kano faintly smirked. “You care.”

“What?” Reyes’ voice was raw with emotion.

“You care about Shepard. You care about this mission. You might be frustrated and really angry, but you know that by finding Shepard you’re also helping people.” Kano slowly took off his helmet and, unlike Reyes, gently placed it down next to him. He ran one of his gloves across his hairless, scarred, sweat-covered scalp and sighed with relief.

“Maybe.” Reyes hissed as she took a step toward Kano. “What do we do, Sarge?” She didn’t want to admit that she cared as much as she did.

“I will call in what we found, and then I’m going to clean your wounds.” He placed one of his hands back onto the scorched armor of the unknown N7 marine and lightly tapped his palm on him. “This might not be Shepard, but this body still deserves to be found, identified, and deserves to have a proper burial.” He looked at the missing face, a strange wave of grief overcoming him. “I don’t know who you were. But thank you for your service. You will not be forgotten.”

His speech moved Reyes. She sat down next to Kano and looked over his shoulder to get a view of the body. Her eyes were getting ever so slightly glassy. There were millions of others like him. And everybody lost someone in this forsaken war.

“This is Sergeant Kano from the 7th Forward SAR. Does anybody copy?”

“-…copy.” The interference made the voice on the other side scratchy, but just intelligible enough.

“We’ve discovered the body of an N7 marine. Confirmed not Shepard, identity unknown. Request for evac of the body at grid… uh...” Kano had to remember where they were. “Six Bravo.”

“-…Copy. -…once-… more resources-… available-… will be picked up...”

Kano probably got about half of the message, but he understood. “Thank you. Over and out.”

He gave his body one more long glance, then pointed at what looked like a stable metal plate placed horizontally nearby. “Let’s sit over there.” Not wanting to stay right beside the deceased marine, they moved.

Kano also had a few scratches, but it was nothing compared to Reyes’ slashes.

“Lean back a little for me.” Reyes did as instructed and leaned back, supporting herself with her arms.

“Just don’t lecture me, Sarge.”

The Sergeant’s omni-tool flared to life, its orange light sweeping over her torso. “Lacerations are superficial. No organ perforation. You’re lucky. The armor took the worst of it.”

First, he sprayed a cold, mint-scented mist over her abdomen. “Decon spray.” He grunted. “Who knows what kind of Reaper crap was on that metal?”

The freezing sensation made her gasp.

“I won’t lecture you.” He kept applying the decontamination spray. “You did well in there. Reckless, but good. You didn’t freeze… Alright, that’s it.”

Reyes let out a silent chuckle, though her face grimaced. “Was that intentional?”

“What?” Kano was clueless and looked up at her face.

“Freeze.” She emphasized and gestured towards the spray he was using by raising her eyebrows.

“Damn it, Reyes.” He wasn’t scolding her. In fact, he himself couldn’t stop his lips from crooking into a smile for a brief moment.

Kano pulled a cylindrical applicator from his kit. With a soft hiss-whirr, it dispensed a thick, clear-blue layer of medi-gel over the deepest slashes on Reyes’ torso. The gel shimmered for a second as it began its work. Reyes shivered, as the sensation was quite cold.

“Who do you think he was? The marine?” Her voice softened.

“Another soldier. Someone who fought to the end, same as us.” He paused, looking at the applicator. “I served with an N7 once. Good man, though his ego was through the roof. Most of the N7s are like that. The point is, they’re not gods. They’re just people. Meat in the grinder. They are just better and not being able to shut up about it.” He didn’t mean any disrespect to the N7s, certainly not to someone like Shepard, but he tried to lighten the mood.

He gave it several seconds and then retrieved the dermal regenerator, a flat, palm-sized device.

“This’ll sting a bit.” He warned before passing it over the wounds.

All of this was standard procedure that Reyes knew very well herself, and it was the exact same step-by-step process she would’ve done had Kano needed it, but it still felt comforting when he was talking her through it.

A low hum filled the air, and Reyes flinched as a wave of heat followed the device’s path.

“My… my little sister wanted to join the Alliance. Before… all this.” Reyes preemptively turned her head slightly upward and away from Kano. In case a tear slipped from her eye, she didn’t want him to see. “She would’ve loved to have met Shepard. She was a hero to her.”

Kano didn’t look up, focusing on his work, though his voice was gentle. “She was a hero to all of us, Reyes. And we’ll make sure she gets the send-off she deserves. Then she and your sister will meet. Up there, in the stars.” He gestured vaguely toward the smoke-choked sky with his chin.

“You truly believe that?”

“Maybe. What’s more important is if you believe it. Alright. That’s done.” Kano brushed his gloves and clapped them to get some of the dust off, but it didn’t help at all.

The dermal regenerator left only a freshly sealed pink skin in its wake.

Kano didn’t wait and started packing up his medkit, while Reyes was examining his work by touch.

He then offers her a hand. “Come on, Corporal. Let’s get our helmets, and let’s go find Shepard. We can do it.”

“Alright.” Reyes was still by no means happy about leaving other people to potentially die while they were retrieving Shepard’s body, but she was now more resigned to it and understood that it was an important mission that meant a lot to a lot of people. And Kano gained more respect from her, and she didn’t want to disrespect him by disobeying or complaining any further.

What followed was a much more organized advance in unison. They were predominantly silent now, but more efficient. Swapping places, sometimes Reyes would lead the way, sometimes Kano went first.

The silence was heavy, punctuated by sounds of the no man’s land around them and the thuds of their own boots and grunts. They were still getting radio interference from the other SARs.

Now they were a team more than ever. Kano pointed, and Reyes immediately knew where to go and what to do. Reyes would spot an unstable path, and Kano would test it. She would warn him of a metal plate about to collapse, and he would listen and choose a different route. They were like one singular search entity.

Despite that, they weren’t immune to the environment. It was still wearing them down both physically and mentally. And they were growing ever so tired.

Reyes stopped momentarily while Kano was scouting ahead. Right in front of her was a half-buried child’s shoe. It was blue. Or at least used to be. It was partially burned, and the rest was covered by dark ash, but the hint of blue was there. She shook her head, getting rid of the image of the kid whose shoe it belonged to.

Along the path, they found many more bodies, and beyond heartbreaking scenes. But finding lifeless bodies was actually easier on their minds than finding living ones. Because their objective was still clear, and with corpses, they weren’t abandoning someone that still could’ve been saved.

Hundreds of meters of incredibly difficult terrain later, Kano would find a cracked datapad. Picking it up, he realized it was a love letter. An unfinished one. He skimmed through it.

“Baby… we’re hiding in one of the ruined houses… if they find us… know that I always love you, dear… Please, take care of-...“ That’s where it ended.

“What’s that?” Reyes questioned as she caught up to him.

“Nothing, you don’t wanna read that.”

“Why?”

“Trust me, you don’t.” He dropped the datapad back onto the ground, leaving it for Reyes to pick up if she wished to do so, but she didn’t and, with slight hesitation, stepped over it.

An hour passed, and their search was becoming more and more futile and grim. They were moving along a ridge line. The ground was relatively stable, but next to them was a sharp drop off into a newly formed crater. It was a pretty big crater, but not humongous, certainly not the biggest they’ve walked past and checked out. This one seemed about 30 meters across and about 20 meters deep, but that was just their estimate. Even then, it was really steep. Though they couldn’t see the bottom properly because of a few sources of dark smoke. The smoke didn’t seem to be coming all the way from the bottom, just from various debris on the edges.

“No one should see this much death and suffering. No one.” Reyes’ voice cracked a tiny bit. “After this, I want out. I don’t want to ever see another dead body if I can help it.” She admitted.

Kano let out a weary breath. “I won’t try to convince you… If that’s your position, I will do everything in my power to get you out with some nice benefits. But…” He paused. “I just want you to know that you are an amazing medic. And I’m proud that you’re here with me.”

He truly understood her. He had been serving for about 15 years longer than she. He was more jaded, and even for him, this was worse than anything he had ever seen. He wasn’t that far from his breaking point either. If he could make his Corporal’s life comfortable after this, with pretty flowers, green grass, clean sky, and blue water, he would do it, even if it meant losing someone as valuable as her. He feared she wouldn’t be fit to continue being a medic after this anyway.

She was retreating back to complaining as a defense mechanism, but her eyes were still scouting dutifully, out of instinct. “I just… All the people we’ve passed. All the radio chatter we’ve ignored. I will never forget all those cries, all those faces, all those pleas… It’s inhumane. And all this for just that one N7’s bod-“

Reyes didn’t just pause her heart-wrenching speech; she stopped in her step, too. Kano was behind her at that moment, and so he immediately stopped too. He observed her. She was intensely staring into the chasm on their right side.

“What’s going on, Reyes?”

“I think… I saw… I don’t know. Sarge. I think I saw some… Color, or something down there.” Her voice was uncertain, hollow, hesitant.

“What color?” Kano rushed to stand directly next to Reyes, his eyes peeled in the exact same direction she was now squinting her eyes towards.

“I… the smoke covered it instantly, but it looked like… red.”

“Fire, maybe?” Kano attempted to rationalize.

“I don’t… I don’t think so. I think I would’ve been able to tell fire apart. Plus… do you hear any fire, Sarge?”

He didn’t. He could see the smoke, which could mean fire, but he didn’t hear any crackling.

Kano squinted his eyes in the exact same direction and was looking very carefully. Then he saw it too. A slash of deep, bloody crimson amidst the universal grey and black.

“I saw it! Definitely not a fire. Get out your binoculars, come on!” Reyes almost forgot that she had a pair and, upon Kano’s instructions, brought her binoculars to her eyes.

The thick smoke was still obstructing them just as much. They saw the red streak a few more times, but it still practically meant nothing to them.

“We need to get a better point of view, get lower, maybe.” Reyes suggested.

“Don’t start getting crazy on me again. See how steep that is? We could easily slip, and then the landslide of metal would bury us dead.” Kano absolutely rejected the idea.

“How about over there, see?” Reyes pointed at a point further along the ridge line in front of her. “There’s like a path leading down, we could maybe get under the smoke, though probably not all the way down.” Obviously, there was no man-made path there, but there was a section that really looked a lot less steep for a few meters.

Kano shook his head. “Uh. Alright, Corporal. Let’s check it out, but don’t start going down until I allow it, understood?”

“Yes, Sarge.”

The path they wanted to examine was only several more meters ahead.

Kano took a few quick steps to pass Reyes, so that he could observe the route first, and that way, he also prevented the eager Corporal from immediately going down if she decided to disobey his order. He very attentively examined it. It seemed stable, though in his mind, not enough to risk his life and perhaps even more importantly, Reyes’ life. But he had this urge. This instinct. They definitely saw something in there. Trusting reason or trusting his gut was the decision.

Reyes impatiently stood right behind him, silently hoping he would make the right decision.

“Alright. It seems good enough. No sudden or fast movements, though, is that clear?” He finally made up his mind.

“Of course, Sarge, let’s go and let’s find out what’s down there.” She was relieved and replied eagerly.

They moved down the makeshift path, very slowly and very carefully, just as Kano wanted them to. As they moved closer towards the smoke, they covered their mouths and coughed, the black smog completely obscuring their view. Nonetheless, it didn’t make them panic, and even through the smoke, they moved slowly and paid extra attention to not making any erratic movements.

Finally, they made it through the smoke.

“Seems like it leads down further than we thought.” Reyes noted, now that the view was much clearer.

The path still didn’t lead all the way to the bottom, but it was definitely far enough to give them a very good view of whatever they managed to glance at from the top.

Kano stopped, even though they could still follow the path for a few more meters, and brought up his binoculars. “Maybe, we’ll see it from here. I don’t want to risk more than necessary.”

Reyes shook her head slightly and also grabbed her own pair.

They began scouting the same area they were looking at before. Now looking from a different side, it was slightly disorienting and a little difficult to find the exact same place, as the bottom of the crater looked the exact same everywhere.

Reyes noticed that one part of the crater went deeper than the rest. They were right about their estimate of it being about 20 meters deep, but in one corner, it went deeper, about 5 more meters. It was actually not far from where they were standing. And she saw it again.

“Look! There, in that smaller crater! I see the color!” Reyes exclaimed loudly.

Kano looked at the exact same spot and saw it too. Though he still couldn’t really tell what it was. “What is it? I can’t say!”

They both looked intensely. They saw the red line, but it was almost like it wasn’t connected to anything. It wasn’t a piece of fabric or blood. There was still a little bit of smoke obstructing them from having the clearest view, but it was much better.

“By the spirits.” Kano exhaled. “That red streak. It’s a… It’s an armor. A red lining of grey armor plating.”

As soon as Kano noticed that, they suddenly both knew what shapes and what colors to look for, and immediately they began noticing more.

“The… the armor… It’s torn apart, I think I see… I think I see… I see bare skin. Cut up and bruised. Covered in… covered in ash.” Reyes struggled to get the words out.

“I think I see the outline of the body… There’s one hundred percent someone down there. But it seems like half of the body is buried under debris… I need to- I need to get a better look.”

Kano now, a lot more carelessly, followed the path a few more meters. Reyes didn’t hesitate and immediately followed him.

He was about to put the binoculars back up to his eyes when Reyes grabbed his forearm.

“Wait!!! Shhhh!” She put a finger up to her mouth. “Listen.”

They both stayed absolutely silent, not moving an inch, not letting out a single breath.

A rhythmic, wet, clicking gasp.

It wasn’t the moan of the wind through the wreckage.

It was weaker. Shallower. Labored. Heavy but faint at the same time.

Both of them froze. Their blood running cold.

“Re-Reyes. Could you- Could you, shine the flashlight down there?” Kano was surprised at his own voice shaking.

At first, Reyes was stunned, completely ignoring the command.

“Reyes.”

“Ye-, yes, Sir.” Her hands were trembling as she fumbled with the flashlight, almost dropping it.

Kano now brought the binoculars back up to his eyes, his own hands also trembling uncontrollably. He scanned.

The light pierced some of the dust and smoke, illuminating a nightmare. The hole seemed to be even worse than the rest of the crater: sharp rebar, metal, concrete, everything scorched. And right in there. Pinned at an unnatural angle was a flash of familiar armor. Cracked, charred, now visibly also stained with blood, but unmistakable.

N7.

He saw the N7 insignia.

“Reyes…” He muttered in disbelief.

“What???” She exclaimed, almost panicked. While holding the flashlight in one hand, she picked her binoculars back up with the other.

She saw the chestplate of the armor. Definitely the female N7 design. But what was perhaps even more harrowing. The chest. It was moving. Up and down; in rhythm with the wet gasps they could just barely hear. Reyes’ hand was trembling so much that she could barely keep it focused on the body.

She moved her hand slightly upwards at the same time as he did. They both saw it. There was no helmet. Then the red hair. Red hair that would usually be vibrant, now blackened with ash and dust. The sharp jawline.

“Holy shit, Sarge.” They both lowered their binoculars in unison, but both had their gaze still pinned on the crater.

Reyes exhaled, even the wind coming out of her mouth shaky.

“I think… I think it’s Commander Shepard. And she’s fucking alive.”

Chapter 3: Convergence

It was as if the entire world had come to a halt.

Commander Shepard.

Alive.

Impossible.

Many soldiers harbored that naive hope, deep within themselves. But nobody really believed that hope. It was just that foolish voice at the back of everyone’s head. Pretty much nobody really thought she could be alive, at least nobody who saw the explosion or anyone who had heard someone else talk about it.

Kano was in shock. At first, it was as if he had forgotten all of his training. His hand was tight around the binoculars, shaking.

Reyes was panicking. Shouting at Kano, who was ignoring her completely. She knew that every second they wasted was a second that could’ve been crucial for Shepard’s survival.

They still had no definitive confirmation of the N7’s identity, but what other female N7 marine with red hair would’ve been buried in debris right there?

She was grabbing Kano’s shoulder, trying to snap him out of it.

“Sarge! Are you listening?! We need to call this in immediately!” She harshly shook him, but he still just stood there. “Sarge, if we don’t do anything right now, she might as well just be dead already! We need to get down there and call it in, do you hear me?!” Her voice was raw, raspy, and full of emotion. Her throat was stinging from all the ash; she felt like it was going to give out any second.

“Sarge!” Reyes decided to do something she thought she might regret later, considering that Kano was still her superior, but at that moment, it didn’t matter. She forcefully took off his helmet, threw it to the ground so carelessly that it almost rolled off the ridge, and then slapped her Sergeant as hard as she could.

The slap cracked through the air, a shocking, alien sound in the perpetual din of the ruins. For a heartbeat, nothing changed. Then, a red mark began to bloom through the ash caked on Kano's cheek, and his eyes finally flickered, focusing on her.

“You’re- You’re right, I’m sorry, Corporal. Uh. I need to- We need to- We can’t go down, not yet. We could cause a landslide and bury Shepard right there. Imagine what they’d do to us if they found out we found Shepard alive and then killed her.” There was more sweat on Kano’s head now than there was before, after hours of working through the debris.

Reyes didn’t expect to see the Sergeant like this, though she herself was far from being composed either; she just had a different response.

“We need to- need to call it in, right now.” Kano finally acknowledged as he began pulling out his radio. His hands were so shaky that it almost fell out of his hands. Reyes grabbed one of his forearms with both of her own trembling hands to support him. He gave her a short appreciative glance.

Kano intended to patch into the all-channel frequency that Major Coats had established. That would enable not just all the other SAR commanders to hear him, but also Major Coats, and most importantly. Hackett himself. Though Coats established this frequency, it was strictly forbidden to use it for any reason except for one. Only under one condition could anyone from the SAR teams patch into this frequency; if Commander Shepard was found. Alive. Nobody expected to hear anything on this frequency.

“This is… This is Sergeant Ben Kano of the 7th Forward SAR to all ground SARs and to every commanding officer in the fleet. I have a- I have a message of utmost importance to relay, does anybody copy?” His voice was trembling.

There was silence for a while. Kano wasn’t sure the frequency was even working.

“Sergeant. Why are you using this frequency? Were you not briefed on the protocol?” That was Major Coats on the other side.

There was a slight hesitation on Kano’s side. “I report- I report- my team has discovered Commander Shepard. I report, we have discovered Commander Shepard…” He paused for the slightest moment, not giving enough time for anyone on the other side to speak up. “We report positive signs of life. I emphasize, Major. Commander Shepard is alive.”

There was silence. For long enough that Kano thought he had somehow lost the signal.

“That’s- That’s impossible. Sergeant. Do you have a positive ID?” Even Coats’ voice was now uncertain.

Nobody else was speaking up on the frequency, as every SAR commander knew that the channel needed to stay clear of interference.

“I report- I report visual confirmation of an N7 marine armor. And confirmation of some of the aesthetic characteristics described, and shown to us in the briefings. Major Coats, with all respect. We need help here, IMMEDIATELY. With every second, Commander Shepard is closer to dying. The situation is dire.” Kano was gaining composure. He knew that for now, he was the most important person to ensure Shepard’s survival, and he couldn’t fail her.

“We-“ Kano could only hear a snippet of Coats’ voice.

The channel crackled, and a new, gravelly voice cut through the static, laced with an authority that brooked no hesitation.

“Sergeant Kano. Enable your transponder. This is a direct order from Admiral Steven Hackett to all ground SAR teams. Immediately lock in on the position of the 7th Forward SAR and move toward that position with utmost urgency. Priority Alpha. Nothing else matters.”

Kano was stunned for a brief moment. He never imagined that Admiral Hackett himself would be speaking to him directly. He didn’t let that shock hinder him, though, and his free hand instinctively turned on the transponder as ordered.

“Admiral, I-“

“Is the transponder active, Sergeant?” Hackett cut him off.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good. What’s the situation? Are you with Shepard? Have you assessed the extent of her injuries? Is she conscious? Have you administered first aid?”

Kano could sense how tense Hackett was just from his voice over the radio. And he felt like he would disappoint him with his answer.

“Sir, we- we found Commander Shepard in a crater. My- my Corporal- Corporal Reyes, she had noticed her first. However…” He hesitated. “However, we were unable to reach her as of this moment. We were able to descend a few meters into the crater, but the slope is simply too steep to get all the way down without extra equipment, which we don’t have. We would risk our own lives as well as Shepard’s.”

“Any assessment of injuries through your life scanners?”

He had to disappoint Hackett again. “Negative, Sir. We are only close enough for the life scanner to pick up a signature, but not close enough for it to give us more descriptive readings… We do, however, have a visual and acoustic contact.”

“Is she talking?” Now Kano could hear both a hint of surprise and hope in Hackett’s voice.

"We hear her breathing. Shallow, labored, wet gasps. It sounds like... blast lung, Sir. She's drowning in her own fluids... I see 2nd and 3rd-degree burns over large portions of her body. Lacerations are a given. The bottom half of her body is buried… Possibly under tons of metal and concrete.

“Buried? She’s entombed?” Hackett’s voice was as if losing some of that hope as Kano continued in describing possible injuries that he didn’t even need to get close to assess.

“Y-yes, Sir… Ehm. We assume… We assume a crushed or badly fractured pelvis, perhaps even crushed hips. Broken arm or arms, probably crushed bones in both legs.” He himself was horrified at the descriptions he was giving to Hackett. In the corner of his eye, he glanced at Reyes, who was looking at him in horror. He defeatedly lowered the radio.

“Do you… Do you have any further assessment to give to Admiral Hackett, Reyes?” He offered to hand her the radio. “You were the one to notice her, you were the one who found her. You deserve to speak to the man.”

Reyes very hesitantly and very reluctantly grabbed the radio and put it up to her ear.

“Sir. Admiral. This is- This is Corporal Eva Reyes from the- from the 7th Forward SAR. My- My assessment is that from what we can currently see… The Sergeant’s description is accurate to our best knowledge. We know- we know you’re doing everything you can, but we must urge… Get someone here as soon as possible, as quickly as you can. And as many as you can. We are only a two-person team. We don’t- we don’t have the equipment or personnel to handle this, Admiral. The fact that she’s breathing is an impossible miracle. With all respect.

“Understood, Corporal, thank you. The SARs closest to your location will be with you very shortly. I cannot stress enough that this is currently humanity’s most important mission.” Hackett chose to keep the entire conversation on the all-channel frequency, just so that anyone and everyone who would arrive at the scene of Shepard’s discovery would already have all the information and wouldn’t need any crucial time-wasting briefings.

“Umm, Admiral, if I can say something…” Kano added hesitantly.

“Go ahead, Sergeant, we need every piece of info we can get.”

“Maybe… maybe it would be a good idea to not bring any heavy machinery, including shuttles like Kodiaks… Just not yet. The ground around the crater seems stable enough, but an evaluation should come from a technician, just so that we don’t accidentally bury Commander Shepard for good.”

“Acknowledged, Sergeant. The alliance appreciates your input greatly.” Kano felt proud. “Let’s get off this channel. The next time I need to contact you, I will do so directly, Sergeant. For now, everything will be handled through Major Coats.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Hackett out.”

Once it was over, Kano let out the longest, most exhausted exhale of his life. Reyes looked at him in disbelief and awe.

“We should probably get out of the crater, so that the others can see us.” Kano stated and immediately started making his way up the crater using the same route they used to get those few meters down, with Reyes following him, not losing that starstruck gaze. They both grabbed their helmets from the ground but decided not to put them on, as they felt like they were obstructing their view.

“We just talked to Admiral Hackett.” Reyes was stunned. “THE Admiral Hackett. We- I talked to him!”

“Focus, Reyes.” It felt strange to tell those words to Reyes when it was she who had to snap him out earlier. Without her, he might’ve never made that call in time. And maybe it was still too late, the situation was dire regardless. “We need to be prepared for when the others start arriving.”

“Right… Sorry, Sarge.”

“Don’t apologize, Reyes. I’m damn proud of you. You got us- I mean, you got me out of a tough situation there. I shouldn’t have gotten paralyzed like that. What a shitshow.”

“This whole thing is a shitshow, Sarge. Nothing’s normal here.” Reyes felt like she just did what she needed to. Her stance on Kano didn’t change.

Kano chuckled very faintly. “Not to mention it was you. You found Shepard. I would’ve completely missed her. I would’ve killed her by not noticing her.” There was some guilt in his tone.

Reyes didn’t want him to dwell on it. “Sarge… I just appreciate what you did… I mean what you said. Not everyone would immediately give credit to their subordinate. Especially for something as monumental as this. They’d take the credit for themselves. I’m glad I followed you.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, hoping it wasn’t crossing professional boundaries.

Kano didn’t seem to mind as he gave Reyes an appreciative smile. “Well, it’s not like-“

He paused and looked into the distance, behind Reyes. First, it was voices that disturbed him, but very soon after, he could see silhouettes in the dust and smoke.

“Look, someone’s here already, just like the Admiral said.” Kano pointed out, and Reyes turned to see them.

The early arrivals weren’t exactly what Kano and Reyes were expecting. They were in pairs of two, similarly to their own team, and some of them were even showing up alone. Still, in total, around 7 people were arriving within 10 minutes of Hackett’s and Kano’s relay.

They didn’t look too good. Some of them looked worse than what the 7th Forward SAR went through. Some of them were covered in blood, some of them looked shellshocked.

The first to approach Kano seemed especially shaken. He was visibly younger than Kano and wasn’t wearing a helmet.

“Good to see you. We really appreciate all the help we can get here. What’s your rank and squad?” Kano intentionally didn’t want to bring attention to his state.

“I’m, eh… I’m a medic, Sir. Lance Corporal Marenus Epley from 6th REU. I’m actually… What’s left of it, sir. We… we were a group of three, but both of my… both of my squad mates were killed by falling debris during the search n’ rescue efforts, Sir.”

“Don’t call me, Sir.” Kano grimaced. “Do you need to rest, Corporal? I’m very sorry to hear about your squad.”

“No, Sir-, uhm. Sarge. I’m ready to do what’s necessary.”

“At least sit down for a minute, I insist. We need more people here to be able to organize the operation anyway.”

“R-right.” Epley nodded and nervously grabbed his short, brown hair as he carefully sat down, paying attention not to sit on any sharp metal.

Right after, another lone soldier walked up to Kano, this one seemed of similar age, though maybe slightly younger. He had a surprisingly well-kept mustache and short, black hair; together with a face full of grime, he was also missing a helmet. “4th Company of Terra Firma Engineering Corps, Operations 1st Lieutenant Gustaf Hayter.” He offered to shake Kano’s hand.

Kano shook his hand, momentarily taken aback. An officer. It had been a long time since he'd been in the presence of someone who outranked him, reminding him how scattered the chain of command had become.

“Terra Firma Engineering Corps? You guys are the elite. Is this all that’s-“

“Yes, Sergeant, I’m afraid so.” Hayter predicted what Kano wanted to say. There was no one else left. “I’ll get right to work. I’ve heard the debrief. We need to evaluate the surrounding terrain to see if we can clear it or deny it for heavy machinery and vehicles’ approach. I hope we get more engineers soon, otherwise this is gonna take ages, and I bet Shepard doesn’t have that kind of time.” Hayter gave a quick glance toward the crater, though at that moment they were far enough from it that he couldn’t see over the edge. Though even if he could, they wouldn’t be able to get a visual on Shepard from the very top. His voice was raspy from all the inhaled ash and dust, the same as everyone else’s.

“Right, Sir. I won’t hold you.” Kano nodded. He appreciated Hayter’s no-nonsense attitude. He was quick to action, and most importantly, an engineer, which was something they really needed. Because it didn’t matter how many medics would show up. Not a single one of them could get to Shepard and administer any kind of aid until the engineers and technicians were on site to make way for them.

Every second lost was excruciating. Kano thought about the worst possible scenarios. What if those wet, clicking gasps they'd heard were Shepard's last? What if she had stopped breathing the moment they climbed out of the crater? Or maybe she was still breathing, but he felt like everything was moving so slowly. How was it possible that there weren’t dozens of engineers on-site already? Just one engineer so far.

Kano and Reyes all greeted the other early arrivals. To Kano’s dismay, they were all medics, all from various broken-up, nearly wiped-out battalions and squads. Some of them were attempting to help Hayter with his task, but unfortunately, none of them were rated or qualified to assess what he was assessing, and there was definitely no room for error when it came to Shepard’s rescue.

Kano sat down, frustrated and exhausted. He kicked his helmet, which rolled a few centimeters before being stopped by scorched concrete protruding from the ground.

“Sarge. They will be here soon. Shepard can do it. The fact that she even survived is insane. But it means she will definitely not give up now.” Reyes tried to give Kano a boost of hope and confidence.

He opened his mouth to speak, but then his radio cracked. The words he was about to hear were like balm on his soul.

“Sergeant Kano, this is ‘Breacher’ Actual, 17th Combat Engineers. We see your transponder. Stand by for structural assessment. Do NOT attempt to move the debris. We will make sure you can get your medics to Commander Shepard in no time.”

Kano just exhaled into the radio. “How- how many people do you have? When will you get here? Every second counts, Sir.” He wasn’t sure whether he was talking to a superior or not, but the other person’s voice sounded like it carried a lot of authority.

“Sergeant Kano, this is ‘Breacher’ Actual.” The voice repeated. “We’re moving on foot, we will be at your position in T-20 minutes. A cavalry of 11 engineers and technicians is coming your way. I repeat, T-20 minutes to point.”

“Good, hurry please.” Kano urged.

“We’re moving as fast as we can, Sergeant. Over and out.”

Kano glanced at Reyes, who was already grinning at him, hearing the conversation.

“See? They’re coming.”

“Right.” He wiped the sweat off his forehead. “But it’s still going to be a lot of work. Eleven engineers are a whole lot more than one.” He glanced at Hayter, whom he definitely wasn’t dismissing; he hadn’t taken a single break since his arrival. “But… There should be like fifty, or even more, working at this.” He remained pessimistic.

“More will come.” Reyes, on the other hand, remained optimistic.

Kano’s radio cracked again.

“Sergeant, this is 9th Mobile CSAR. Do you copy?”

“This is Sergeant Kano of 7th Forward SAR, I copy, what’s your status?” Kano instinctively stood up and looked around to see if he’d see anyone new.

“Sergeant, I repeat, this is 9th Mobile CSAR. Do you copy? We’re bringing in transport.”

For some reason, whoever was on the other side couldn’t hear Kano. “What?! This is Sergeant Kano, 9th Mobile CSAR, have you not been briefed?! No heavy machinery or vehicles of any kind near the proximity of point zero until further clearance!” His heart banged against his chest, and he banged the radio a few times in hopes of getting in working.

“I repeat, this is 9th Mobile CSAR. ETA 5 minutes.”

“Damn it! No vehicles, no transport, do you hear me, you bastard?!” Kano was now yelling, which attracted Hayter’s attention, who quickly ran up to him.

“What’s wrong, Sergeant?”

“I don’t know, my radio’s not working or something, 9th Mobile CSAR is about to bring in vehicles, and I can’t call them off.” He hurled at Hayter.

Hayter basically tore the radio out of Kano’s hands and started tinkering with it, undoing the cover and throwing it to the ground. The inside was full of wires and pins, which he was adjusting.

“9th Mobile CSAR, do you copy? This is 1st Lieutenant Hayter of 4th Terra Firma Engineering, I repeat, do you copy?!” Hayter’s voice was firm and had a tone of aggression to it, but he wasn’t yelling the same way Kano was.

“We copy, Lieutenant, what’s going on? We are experiencing bad interference over here.”

“Stop your goddamn vehicle right now, for god’s sake! Have you not heard it from Hackett or Coats?! No vehicles or heavy machinery on-site as of now! Unless you wanna finish off Shepard and spend the rest of your life in prison!”

“What- Uh- We are sorry, Lieutenant. We had heavy interference moments ago; we must have missed these orders. We are stopping immediately and continuing on foot.”

“Good. Next time, use your head. If you know that someone’s stuck in a crater full of unstable material, you don’t wanna roll over in a fucking tank. Over and out.” Hayter immediately threw the radio back to Kano and didn’t waste a second as he went back to his task.

Kano and Reyes exchanged looks. “Remind me not to make him angry.” She whispered.

Despite the stressful situation, Reyes once again managed to get a smirk from Kano. “Damn it, Reyes.”

Just a few minutes later, silhouettes of the 17th Combat Engineer squad began appearing in the thick dust cloud. Kano didn't wait for them to arrive; he moved to meet them, desperate to get them operational immediately. Reyes followed him.

As their leader stated on the radio, there were 11 of them. Though they also didn’t look like a parade-ground unit. They looked exhausted but determined. Professionals who were making their way through hell. Their gear scuffed, faces grim, but movement purposeful.

One man approached the Sergeant and reached out. Kano shook his hand.

“Captain Sam Straker from the 17th Combat Engineers, reporting in. I assume I’m talking to Sergeant Kano?” The man grinned. His face was blackened by ash. He had a stubble that he was probably unable to properly shave, though his right cheek was burned all the way down to his neck, going underneath his armour. His helmet covered the upper and back part of his head.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good to finally meet the man who’s in the middle of all this… Finding Commander Shepard, and alive? Holy shit.”

“Well, Sir… It’s mostly not thanks to me. Commander Shepard is doing all the hard work of staying alive. And, my Corporal here, Eva Reyes, was the one who noticed the Commander first. She deserves recognition, Sir.”

Sam Straker glanced at the corporal and reached out his hand to her as well. Reyes accepted the handshake. “Good job, Corporal. We are all proud of you here.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Okay. Let’s stop wasting time. Do you have any other engineers on-site, Sergeant?”

“Just one, Sir. Lieutenant Gustaf Hayter.” Kano instinctively yelled out for him, knowing Straker probably wanted to speak to him.

Hayter ran over to them, being tens of meters away, examining the rock and metal.

“What do you need, Sergeant?”

“This is Captain Sam Straker of the 17th Combat Engineers.” Kano informed.

Hayter saluted. “Sir.”

“At ease. Lieutenant Hayter, what’s the status?”

“Well, Sir, so far, I’ve only been assessing the terrain and calculating the risks of bringing in machinery. I don’t have the tools or the manpower to start digging a safe path towards Commander Shepard. A lot of the ground is solid, but the closer you get to the ridge, the more controversial it gets. I think it’s going to be impossible to get vehicles to Shepard's position from this side of the crater."

They walked closer to the ridge so that they could see over it. All of them squinted their eyes and grimaced as some of the smoke from the crater blew right in their direction.

“I haven’t been down there yet, but as per Sergeant Kano’s words. Commander Shepard is actually stuck deeper than the average depth of that crater. The Crater is apparently 20 meters deep, but Kano and Corporal Reyes estimated that Commander Shepard is stuck inside a hole inside the crater that’s another 5 meters deeper.”

The faces of both Hayter and Straker were grim, but focused and ready to do anything to save Shepard.

“I will let you decide, Captain Straker, once you evaluate the situation further, but I think the best course of action is to start digging here, closest to Shepard, just for on-foot access for the engineers and mainly the medics. But transport and heavy machinery will have to go from the north, the far end of the crater. It’s far enough that even if we have a collapse, it hopefully should not affect the Commander directly, but further estimates will have to be made. And if Shepard is truly pinned, as Sergeant Kano has said, we will need heavy machinery regardless of how stable or unstable the terrain down there will be. So that will be our job.”

Sam Straker took all of that information and compartmentalized it in his head into separate tasks. “Alright, Lieutenant. This information is crucial. Please, continue in your assessment of the terrain. Our squad will immediately start digging towards Shepard, also hopefully making you a path to the bottom of the crater, so you can start assessing the stability of the terrain there. I will give you two of my engineers to speed up the process; however, we will need more engineers soon.”

“Understood, Sir.” With those words, Hayter saluted again, which Straker reciprocated.

Straker turned around to his engineers. “Alright, boys, set up a perimeter. Tools and scanners ready. Everybody is relying on us. We’re the first line of offense. All these medics will help no one if they can’t get down to our hero. We need to make way for them. Get me seismic sensors and drones, get me…”

Kano and Reyes listened to Straker give out the orders and watched as his squad sprang to action immediately. They were observing as slowly as they were going to be pushed aside, as more competent and more important people were showing up.

Even now, the battle for Commander Shepard’s life has just barely begun.

Chapter 4: The Only Way Down, The Only Way Up

Eva Reyes was standing alone.

Some moments felt like she was watching the entire thing from another perspective. Like she was watching a vid on the extranet.

Kano left her alone as the 9th Mobile CSAR finally showed up at the scene. He was sure to give them his piece of mind, as did Hayter.

The 9th Mobile CSAR arrived with 6 medics, the highest ranking one being another Sergeant. However, all they could do for the time being was sit on their asses as engineers were doing the hard work. Straker’s team was working fast but not carelessly. They needed to get to Shepard as soon as possible, but at the same time, causing a landslide and killing her would’ve been a catastrophic outcome.

As more and more people were arriving, Reyes felt like there was only more and more chaos. While engineers were arguing over what the best approach to clearing the debris was, the medics were already arguing about what would be the best way to treat Shepard, despite the fact that none of them had seen her yet, and all they had was Kano’s evaluation.

Another bigger group of engineers from the 3rd USAR Specialist Team arrived; there were 14 of them, though none of them outranked Captain Straker, so he effectively took all of them under his direct command, which definitely helped to make things more efficient.

When another team of about 10 medics showed up, things between all of them were really getting heated. They were from the 2nd Forwards SAR.

Reyes slowly approached the chaos. Kano was almost in the middle of them, his head snapping from side to side between what seemed like two groups forming. It was obvious he was no longer in charge. A few times, it seemed to Reyes like he tried to calm them down, but many of them were Sergeants like him, some even outranked him; nobody was listening.

Reyes finally got close enough to understand their words.

“We need to get a central line in and start a bicarb drip before they lift the debris. If we wait, the toxin release will send her into cardiac arrest the moment the pressure is off.” One of them shouted.

“You want to try a central line on a near pulseless, hypotensive patient in a dark hole? You'll perforate an artery! We need wide-bore IVs and a pelvic binder, that's it." An angry medic pointed at the other with a dirty finger.

Reyes felt powerless before, when it was just her and Kano, staring into the abyss, but somehow this made her feel that same emotion a few times over.

“If it's a true flail chest or tension pneumothorax, we need to do a needle decompression or even a field thoracotomy down there. Letting her drown in her own blood isn't an option."

“A needle decompression? With what landmarks? Through all that burned tissue? You'll cause a hemothorax. If she's breathing, we stabilize the flail segment and bag-valve-mask her on the way out.”

All of them were arguing based only on the not exactly medical evaluation Kano had done earlier. Nobody still knew the exact extent of Shepard’s injuries, yet everyone was already at each other’s throats.

"We need to get plasma expanders and tranexamic acid into her now to get ahead of the coagulopathy." The medic’s vocabulary was medical, but his tone was almost venomous, looking at the other group with anger in his eyes.

"Our priority is the 'Golden Hour.' Every minute we waste debating here is a minute off her survival clock. We need to get her to the MASH unit, then you can play trauma surgeon." One of them brushed the other off.

All the medics were exhausted, and some of them were on edge. A lot of them didn’t exactly want to be there, same as Reyes originally. Even now, with Shepard seemingly alive, some of them believed that she was a lost cause based on Kano’s description of her injuries, and they still believed they would’ve been more useful helping elsewhere.

Reyes felt a cold knot tighten in her stomach. Both sides made sense. One side made medical sense. But the other argument felt like the brutal, practical truth of war. They couldn’t perform elaborate surgeries on Shepard in a hole, even if they disregard everything else, the infection alone would be awful. She imagined trying to start a difficult IV with the imperfect lighting, on shaking knees, with Shepard’s life in the balance. The idea was nauseating.

Kano was increasingly frustrated. It was palpable. He and Reyes were the ones to find Shepard; without them, she would’ve been doomed for sure. And now with all this chaos, it felt like she was slipping away once more.

“Enough.”

The voice was calm and weathered, cutting through the argument. It came from a person who remained quiet until now, despite listening to the whole ordeal attentively.

The voice belonged to Major Evans. A Doctor who immediately enlisted in the ranks of medics due to his military training at the beginning of the Reaper war. Among many, he was already a hero of his own right. He was the commander of the 2nd Forward SAR. He didn’t interrupt the argument until now, because he wanted to hear what kind of ideas would be thrown out there. But it was getting bad for both sides.

All heads turned to Major Evans. He didn’t seem annoyed, just profoundly tired.

“You're both right, and you're both wrong,” he said, his eyes scanning the faces of the medics. “The Sergeant’s report gives us a list of potential injuries, not a diagnosis. Arguing about treatment plans without a patient assessment is an academic exercise, and the Commander doesn't have time for our academics.”

He pointed a finger toward the crater where the engineers were working. “Our mission is not to cure her in the dirt. Our mission is to get her from that hole to my or some other doctor’s operating table alive. That means we follow the MARCH protocol to the letter. We control Massive hemorrhage. We secure an Airway. We manage Respiration. We maintain Circulation. We prevent Hypothermia. Nothing more, nothing less.”

His gaze was stern. “We will not attempt field surgeries in an active collapse zone. We will not push medications without a baseline. We will be ready with IVs, a pelvic binder, a chest seal, and a warming blanket. We will stabilize, package, and transport. We will adapt as the situation develops. Is that understood?”

People started nodding their heads hesitantly.

“Yes, Sir.”, “We are sorry, Sir.” Was heard several times.

Kano sighed with relief. The conversation tired him out, and he wasn’t even really a part of it. Even Reyes felt some of the tension getting looser.

Reyes wanted to regroup with Kano and approached him, but Kano didn’t notice her, and he instead went over to talk to Major Evans. Reyes felt out of her depth there, and so she refrained from pursuing him. Instead, she changed her direction towards the crater. Not too close to get in the way of the engineers, but she wanted to see their progress.

She allowed herself a relieved smile as she noticed how efficiently the engineers were working. They were doing loads of work while the medics were bickering. Even among the engineers, there was a certain tension, but unlike the medics, they were actually able to make a difference at that very moment. They were even using the precarious path she and Kano had found, and had now descended even deeper. They were almost at the bottom of the crater. Many other engineers were also broadening the pathway to make sure more people go up and down at the same time.

Stepping back and forth for what felt like ages, she felt a lot more nervous than she expected herself to be. She almost felt protective of Shepard, despite having never met her, despite not even getting a closer look at her, yet. She assumed they wouldn’t even let her be one of the ones performing first aid on her. But she was the one to find Shepard; she needed to know that she’d survive it.

Kano startled her as he placed his hand on her shoulder from behind. He pulled her aside. “I know it’s hard, Reyes. But our job right now is to just wait and be ready. We might get to go down there; we might not. We’ll see. We have to stay sharp. The most important part is still ahead of us.”

“You’ve been busy, Sarge.” Reyes almost whispered, not really replying to Kano’s words.

“Yeah…” He scratched his head, his fingernails hiding tons of dirt underneath. “Major Evans is currently the highest-ranking officer present. Everybody is reporting to him. It’s probably going to stay that way until Major Coats arrives, if he even arrives before Commander Shepard gets extracted. Apparently, he’s had some setbacks, and he’s still ways away.”

Reyes was quiet.

“I talked to him a bit.” He glanced at Major Evans, who left the big group of medics to talk to Lieutenant Hayter. He was holding his helmet under his arm. He had a shaved head, and somehow he also kept his face cleanly shaven. His face was covered with grime, the same as everyone else’s; even majors weren’t safe from that. But from a distance, it seemed like he only had a few scratches on his face and head, no substantial or serious scars or other injuries. In this war, that was like a miracle, especially since he’s heard that, despite his position, Major Evans was not afraid to get to the front lines to help as many as possible. Even though sometimes he was disobeying direct orders, as his superiors didn’t want to lose him senselessly.

“I think he’s the right man to lead the operation... I mean, if Major Coats shows up, that’ll be even better. But Major Evans will handle it. I’m sure he will keep a cool head, no matter what we will really find down there.”

“It’s just… Sarge. We found her. We should be there.” Reyes complained.

Kano looked at her, his expression full of compassion.

“I know, I know…” She sighed.

“You have to believe that we’ve done our very best. And we’ve tried our hardest. And maybe we will still play a part, and if not, that’s okay. I didn’t join up for recognition, that’s not what this is about.” He kept his hand on her shoulder.

“Sergeant Kano! Over here!” Major Evans shouted his way. Kano turned his head and saw Hayter walking away from Evans.

“I’ve gotta go. Don’t lose your head. Keep it cool, stay sharp.”

Kano was already walking away when Reyes replied plainly and simply. “Yes, Sarge.”

If there was a ‘Golden Hour’ for Shepard, it has passed. The engineers’ work was extraordinary, but getting to Shepard within an hour was physically impossible. That was not even accounting for all that time before the engineers even got there and all the time before Reyes and Kano found her. All they had was hope that Shepard was strong enough to make up for their sluggishness.

But they got to the bottom of the crater.

Pretty much every medic and engineer moved down. Hayter and several other engineers continued with their terrain evaluations to decide whether it was safe for heavy machinery to approach Shepard from the other side of the crater. The medics were attempting to assess Shepard’s status now that they could see her better, and they could use their life scanners at closer range.

One engineer attempted to snake a flexible line with a micro-camera down the hole, but it returned covered in ash just moments later, the lens smeared. “No good. Can’t see a thing. Just… shadows.”

Shepard was still another 5 meters deeper, as predicted, but now she was so close. To everyone’s relief, they could still hear the wet, clicking gasp that Sergeant Kano had described. But it wasn’t just relief, it was also horror. The medics and engineers alike thought about the suffering, the pain. All they had was hope that Commander Shepard was not conscious enough to feel any of it.

“Commander Shepard?! Can you hear us?!” One Sergeant shouted into the hole. No response.

“Commander Shepard?! Do you copy?!” Some assumed that because they could hear Shepard’s faint breaths, she could be conscious, but alas, there was no response.

“Commander! What’s your status?!” No response.

Even now, they couldn’t get a proper reading or even a proper visual on Shepard. The lighting conditions were getting worse, with dark ash covering the skies, and them being inside a crater, and Shepard was inside a crater inside the crater. But they could see enough of her to make some people feel sick. Everything that Sergeant Kano has described, and even more. What could be seen of Shepard’s face was covered in lacerations, bruises, blood, and even burns. Her armor was burned to a crisp, thought it still might’ve been what saved her. Without that armor, she would’ve been dead.

Most of the medics had years, if not decades, of experience. Yet, they were still getting sick, not just because of Shepard’s condition, but because of who Shepard was. For most of them, Shepard was a legend. Someone above human. Someone undefeatable, maybe even immortal. Seeing her like that messed with a lot of people’s heads.

“Men, get out of the way. Commander Shepard does not need your pointless shouting right now. Right now, she needs you to make way for the engineers so we can actually get to her, so move. Now.” Major Evans warned the few medics who were shouting at Shepard and trying to peek at her.

“Alright, team,” Straker announced to all his engineers, nodding towards Evans subtly. Now there were around 40 working under him. “This will be the hardest part yet. The Commander is close, but don’t let that cloud your judgement. Don’t let that make you careless. We will clear those 5 meters centimeter by centimeter if we have to. We need to make a path wide and stable enough so that our boys here…” He gestured with his hand toward many of the medics. “…can approach her. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir!” Sounded in unison.

“Good. Let’s get to work, people.”

The engineers worked around the clock. Working in short shifts. Whenever one felt too exhausted, he was replaced by another one. But they were all exhausted regardless, so nobody lasted too long.

The medics were at least helping them with the exhaustion where they could. They were growing restless. They knew that soon, their medical expertise and prowess would be tested by the biggest and most important trial of their lives. Some of them were kicking dirt around, some were walking back and forth like Reyes had earlier, and some were talking. Nobody could hide the anxiety in their tone.

“See? We’ve almost got her.” Kano was standing next to Reyes. They were observing as the engineers were already widening the hole. They needed to make it bigger before they could even make a path down.

“Sorry, Sarge. But I’d say we’re still pretty far from ‘almost’.” Reyes glanced at Kano’s face, but quickly turned her head back towards the hole.

“Yeah, you’re right… That slab that’s right on top of Commander Shepard is going to be a problem.”

“If we don’t get some heavy machinery here, nobody is ever lifting that. Shepard might as well be dead if that doesn’t happen.” Reyes was speaking her thoughts.

“I’m sure it’ll work out… We didn’t get this far only to lose her.”

“I know you’re trying to make me feel better, Sarge. But the others are right. The hardest part is yet to come.” Kano was silent, and Reyes wiped her brow. “I… I’ve heard Evans talking about assembling the medical team that will get to Shepard first… Our names were not among the names.”

“Ah…” Kano looked up at the black sky. “I’ll try to get you in there, Reyes.”

“Wait, Sarge, you’re not gonna-“

“Yes, I’m gonna talk to Major Evans, Reyes.”

“But- but-, I’m not-“

“You’re a damn good medic, Reyes. And you stay focused under pressure, that’s gonna be needed down there. I know this matters to you, though I don’t know why it matters to you THIS much… But I’m going to get you there.” He caringly tapped her shoulder, and without letting her raise any more protests, he walked away.

“Sarge!” Reyes shouted, though Kano didn’t even turn his head.

Minutes passed, and the engineers were still working as hard as before. All the debris was like a house of cards. One wrong move and it could all come down. Now there was the risk of it burying some of the engineers, too. They even stopped using plasma cutters, hand tools only.

“Easy… easy…” Straker murmured.

“Hold it, it’s shifting!” One engineer shouted.

An engineer scrambled forward, sliding a support strut into a newly created gap. “Locked! You can release pressure.”

The structure groaned but held.

“Damn this slag! It's like trying to dig through a damn mountain!” one of the engineers snarled, throwing down his wrench in a burst of frustration. The tool clanged against a beam, sending a shower of grit down into the hole. Everyone froze, listening. The shallow breathing hitched, then continued, weaker than before.

“Easy, damn it!” Straker barked. He was kneeling by the opening, his knuckles white where he gripped his medkit. “Every vibration-“

“I know! I know!” the engineer shot back, running a filthy hand over his face. "It's just... listening to that... It's torture. She's right there. We should be down there already!”

“We will be there in no time… Keep it together.”

The labor was brutal, but finally… they’ve managed to make a direct path to Shepard.

“Major Evans! We’ve reached her. I repeat, we’ve reached Commander Shepard!” Straker yelled out of the crater.

Major Evans walked over to the hole and looked down. “What’s the status?!”

“I… I don’t know. But she’s still alive.” It was the first time Captain Straker hesitated in saying anything.

The engineers immediately began working on widening the path so that medics could get to the commander more effectively and safely.

Major Evans turned. “Vale, Billock, Farran, Solley, Benedict, Howarth… Reyes. Come here and be ready. Be ready for everything.”

When Reyes heard her name, her heart almost started beating anew. She didn’t know whether Kano’s words to Major Evans did anything. He didn’t return to talk to her. She immediately walked up to Major Evans and stood at attention next to the other called-out medics.

Straker walked up the path and, indifferent to formalities, grabbed Evans’ attention by grabbing his shoulder. “We’ve cleared the path. Some of my engineers will still be widening it, but they will stay out of your way. The road forward is yours, my friend. It’s your turn. Save her.”

Major Evans acknowledged his effort with a nod. “Excellent work, Captain. We will make sure that your effort has not been in vain. Thank you.”

“Follow me, and watch your step. It’s still not safe. Prepare flashlights.” Evans signaled, and everyone who was chosen obeyed his order. The last order wasn’t just for his medics, but also for people on top, and along the path, they needed to see everywhere.

Kano watched from a few meters away, proud that at least one of them was going down there. And somehow, he felt that with Reyes, Shepard was going to live through it.

As they went down, the flashlights illuminated hell.

“Oh god.” Even Evans’ voice was now losing its calm composure. The other medics were able to spread out around him in the confined space, which a few engineers were still attempting to enlarge for them.

The very first thing he noticed was the large metal rod sticking out of Shepard’s abdomen.

Evans could hear a quiet sob from one of the medics right behind him; he didn’t know who it was, and he didn’t care. It was understandable.

“How…” One whimpered.

All they could hear was the wet, clicking gasp. The labored but faint breathing. And the static subtle movement of Shepard’s chest. Otherwise, there was no movement. No twitch, no groan. Just the mechanical rise and fall, the strenuous effort.

Only now it was revealed that while most of Shepard’s lower body was covered by a huge slab of debris, one of her legs was sticking out from under it, encased in the familiar ceramic plating of the N7 armor. However, it was twisted at a sickening angle. Her right arm was trapped underneath her own body, and the other one lay at an impossible angle, similar to her leg.

Pale, waxy, smeared with ash and blood. It was a mask of agony even in the seeming unconsciousness. Trickles of blood had dried from her hairline down her temple. More seeped from the corner of her mouth. Her red hair matted with dust and ash. Her eyes were closed, the lids bruised in violent purple. Other than the breaths she was taking, the only other sign of movement was very brief flutters of her eyelids, nothing more. She never opened her eyes.

For a very brief moment, nobody spoke, but time was of the essence, and Evans gathered himself.

“Everyone. Snap your gloves on. Farran, Vale, get the life scanners out and start scanning. Let’s start working on what’s obvious. We follow MARCH. Nothing more. Everyone, pay attention to my directions.”

“Y-yes, S-Sir.” Based on her voice, Evans judged that Vale was the one who let out a choked sob earlier, but he wasn’t going to mention it; he wasn’t going to look down on anyone there.

First, he wanted to get the things they were NOT going to pay attention to out of their way.

“Signs of significant Traumatic Brain Injury and elevated intracranial pressure. Nothing we can do here. The exposure has certainly exacerbated it.”

“Shit…” Sounded from one of them.

“Burns are extensive, second and third degree. We will treat them here. Risk of infection is secondary to keeping her heart beating.”

“Fuck.”

“No pupillary response. Likely cortical blindness from the TBI or optic nerve damage. No response to auditory stimuli. We'll assume deafness is also present. Both are untreatable here.”

“Blind and deaf…?” It was as hope was dissipating from the room.

“I'm getting anomalous readings from her neural and cybernetic implants... severe power fluctuations, system failures. It's beyond our scope. Likely linked to the Crucible's pulse.”

Evans’ readings read like a death sentence. But Evans knew not to linger, and he knew not to give medics enough time to despair and doubt. He moved on immediately to the important objectives at hand.

“Primary hemorrhage is the impalement in the right lower quadrant DO NOT REMOVE IT. It's plugging the wound. Billock, pack and seal around the base with hemostatic gauze. Apply a structured pressure dressing to stabilize it in place.” Evans barked.

“Yes, Sir!” Billock moved over, closer to Shepard, and began working.

“We’ll need more medical equipment here!” Evans shouted to the top.

“Secondary hemorrhage from the compound fracture in the left arm. Solley, apply a combat tourniquet high and tight on the humerus. Now!”

He pointed. “Airway is compromised by debris and positioning. Reyes, perform a jaw-thrust maneuver. Do not hyperextend the neck. Suction the oropharynx, clear that blood and debris so she can breathe.”

Reyes hesitated. She couldn’t believe it. She was really there. Helping save Commander Shepard, the same person she wanted to abandon the search for.

“Reyes!” Evan’s voice brought her out of her mind.

“Yes, Sir! I’m on it!” She moved with purpose.

“As presumed… Pulmonary Barotrauma.” Evans mumbled, his voice so low that even the medics around him could barely hear him. “Respiration is critical. I'm reading a significant flail segment on the left lateral chest wall and massive pulmonary contusions consistent with blast lung. We need positive pressure ventilation.”

“Look at her,” Farran whispered, his voice cracking. “Just… look. It’s a miracle she’s breathing at all.” The word ‘miracle’ felt like a curse.

“Don’t pay attention to that. Just continue scanning her and relay me the information, Corporal.” Evans commanded. “Now, let’s get her oxygen and help her lungs… Solley, are you done with that tourniquet? Good. Get on this.”

Solley placed an Oropharyngeal Airway and began bag-valve-mask ventilation. Providing Shepard with the necessary oxygen and forcing her damaged lungs to inflate.

Several of the medics were coughing; the confined space with so much ash and dust, it hard to breathe.

“Alright, we can’t do anything about this until we remove that armor…” Evans paused. “…spirits, I hope it’s not fused to her skin.” He whispered those last words. “Reyes, try the quick-release.”

“It’s slagged, Major. Not responding.”

“Of course it is. Nothing will be easy on us here… Howarth. Hand me the trauma shears.”

Before cutting anything, Evans checked the places where the armor was completely burned away, revealing her skin, to see whether the surrounding areas were fused to Shepard’s skin or not.

“…I don’t know what Commander Shepard’s N7 armor was made out of; it’s probably the only thing that kept her from being pulp, but it’s now the main thing in our way. The chest plate is compromised and buckled inward. It’s actively compressing the flail segment, making it harder for her to breathe. But it seems like whatever alloy it is made out of prevented it from completely melting, and it does not seem to be fused with her skin. Which helps us immensely… I don’t know about the bodysuit, but we will deal with that later.”

Evans hoped that the diamond-filament powered shears would be tough enough to cut through the broken, burned N7 armor. He didn’t trust this task to anyone but himself.

“Initiating cut.” Evans’ voice was steady, the shears whirred to life with a low, aggressive grind, biting into the advanced ceramic.

Evans was straining, gritting his teeth. “It’s tough… The laminate is fighting back. Keeping steady pressure.”

The sound was harsh and jarring, the sound of the armor being violently dismantled. Mangled shards of the armor were falling off by themselves. Evans’ entire body was shaking under the precise pressure he had to have kept applying. Too much and he would’ve cut right through Shepard’s body. Too little and he would get nowhere.

With a final, sickening crack, the entire chest plate gave way. Howarth helped Evans peel it away, revealing the brutalized chest beneath. The black bodysuit, despite also being made out of some cutting-edge fabric, did fuse with Shepard’s burned skin in a few places, but luckily, it wasn’t all of it. And it wasn’t obstructing their work.

Some of the medics instinctively looked away from Shepard’s bare chest out of respect, but quickly realized that there was no room for modesty. Currently, Shepard’s body was just that, a body, a body that needed fixing.

“Okay, let’s get on it. Howarth, stabilize the flail segment. Place a rolled blanket against it and tape it down. We need to splint it externally to improve ventilation efficiency." Evans continued to navigate the impossible situation.

“Alright, next-“ Evans coughed. “Uh- Next, let’s-“ He coughed again. “Damn it. So hard to breathe in here. Ugh-“ He stepped back, almost knocking over one of the kneeling medics. “Let’s get back up. We all need to catch our breath. We’ll be back in a few minutes, and we’ll give room for the engineers to clear more of the debris.”

A few minutes later, all the medics were showered with interrogative questions back on the surface. Evans allowed a few Lieutenants to go and see Shepard but instructed them not to attempt any kind of aid without his direct approval. He just sent one medic to keep constant watch over her until they’d be back.

Kano went directly to Reyes; his questions weren’t much different from the others.

“So, what’s the status, Reyes? How’s the Commander?”

“It’s bad, Sarge… Very bad.” Reyes scratched her left cheek and looked past Kano into the distance.

“Damn... Well, she’s still breathing, right?”

“Yeah… I think, unless something goes wrong, we will be able to stabilize her, but… A lot of things can still go catastrophically wrong. And I’m thinking…”

“What are you thinking, Reyes?”

“Just… I’ve seen her, Sarge. Up close. I’ve never met Shepard before, but whoever she was before this, I don’t think she’s going to be the same. Hell, I don’t know if she’s ever going to move from a bed.” With her wrist, Reyes tried to wipe away a black smudge under one of her eyes.

Kano looked at her. In a way, he was glad he didn’t have to see Shepard the way Reyes could, though if he was offered to help down there, he would definitely accept without hesitation. “You can do this. Just keep your hands steady, follow Major Evans’ lead, and you will get Shepard out. We can worry about who she’ll be later.”

“I know, Sarge. Thank you.”

Both of them jerked their heads back toward the bigger group, as they could hear some argument brewing. This time, even Evans seemed invested. Kano and Reyes rushed over.

A grizzled engineer with a cynical twist to his mouth voiced a thought that had crossed more than one mind. He threw down his heavy cutter with a clang. “This is a waste of time and resources we don’t have! I’ve been down there and I know what’s what! There are people we can actually save!”

“What the hell are you talking about, Lieutenant? We are doing good work down there!” Evans opposed,

The engineer violently gestured towards the path he helped carve. “She’s gone. You all know it. We’re risking our necks and burning through equipment we need for live, salvageable patients to retrieve a corpse that just forgot that it’s already dead.”

“What are you-“ Straker took a sharp step towards the engineer, but the lieutenant didn’t let him finish the sentence.

“It’d be a mercy to just… let her finish. Getting a body out is one thing. Getting a living person out of that? Impossible. You might stabilize her for now, but what about an hour from now? What about when you decide to lift that slab? We’d need a full mobile hospital and an engineering battalion. We have neither.”

The reaction was immediate and violent.

Kano didn’t care that the lieutenant was his superior and lunged forwards. “You shut your damn mouth! That’s Commander Shepard in there! Have some respect!”

The engineer opened his mouth to shout that the brazen Sergeant.

Major Evans intentionally stepped between the engineer and Kano to prevent a physical altercation, but he was not about to play around. “You continue that line of thought, and I will have you arrested for dereliction of duty and treasonous sedition so fast your head will spin, Lieutenant.” He snarled, his voice low and imposing. “This is not ‘a body’, this is not ‘a corpse’. This is the woman who just saved every last one of our lives and the entire galaxy. We are not ‘letting her finish’. We are going to move heaven and hell itself to get her out, and you will help, or I will personally see you court-martialed and thrown in the brig for the rest of your miserable life. Do you understand me?”

The engineer, cowed by the ferocity of the response, nodded mutely, picking up his cutter with trembling hands. The dissent was silenced, but the grim atmosphere remained.

“I better not see you again, you make me sick, Lieutenant.” Evans finished and scoffed.

The immediate danger was extinguished, but the atmosphere about many remained tense. The engineer was not the only one with that thought; he was just the only one to give it a voice.

“She’s still fighting.” Another Operations Lieutenant who had to witness Shepard’s condition whispered, though it sounded more like a lament. “Why is she still fighting?”

The cynical thought, once voiced, now hung in the air, unspoken but felt by all: This wasn't perseverance. This was something else. A final, cruel joke by the Reapers. A punishment for defiance. To have endured so much, to have won, only to be left like this... broken, trapped, and suffering... it felt less like fate and more like vengeance.

Major Evans got so angry that he cut any extra time he wanted to spend outside the hole and signaled his chosen medics to get back to work. “Let’s go. She needs us down there, no more standing around.”

In just those few minutes, the hard-working engineers managed to make the path down even more spacious, and now they even had more space around Shepard.

Evans was back in full focus, kneeling over Shepard, inspecting every millimeter of her.

“She's in profound hypovolemic shock. Pale, cold, hypotensive. I need two large-bore IV lines, NOW! Billock, if you’re done, get on this; start a massive saline infusion. We need to flood her system before we even start thinking about lifting that debris to dilute the toxins.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Reyes was performing her duties, but was thinking at the same time. In a strange way, Shepard reminded her of her sister and parents. Did they fight this hard? Were they alone? Am I using this chance to save someone I couldn’t save then?

She shook her head to stay focused.

“Vale, put that scanner away for now, and add sodium bicarbonate to the second bag. We need to alkalize her urine to prevent the myoglobin from crystallizing in her kidneys when the crush injury is released.” Evan calmed down from the exchange a few meters above them, and now his voice was low and direct again.

Billock was trying to find a vein for an IV, his fingers trembling against Shepard's cold, ash-covered skin. "I can't get a line. She's too shut down. Vasoconstriction is extreme."

“Then we go IO, left arm, humerus, be mindful of the fracture,” Evans said, his voice leaving no room for argument. Intraosseous. A needle is directly inserted into the bone marrow. It was brutal, but it was the only way.

As Billock prepared the brutal-looking device for the humerus, Evans held up a hypo of painkiller. The most powerful, fast-acting opioid they had. He looked at it, then at Shepard's barely-there vitals on the scanner.

“This could stop her heart,” Evans said, not to anyone in particular, just voicing the terrifying calculation. “Her system is hanging on by a thread. But the pain of what we're about to do...” He glanced at the IO gun. “...could also stop her heart.”

It was a terrible choice. To leave her in agony was inhuman, though they really didn’t have a proper idea of how much of all of this Shepard was feeling. She seemed unconscious despite the breaths and some brief flutters of her eyelids, but they didn’t want to take risks. Though to ease her suffering could kill her.

“Do it,” It was Reyes’ voice that came through the doubt and darkness. “She's a fighter. Give her the chance not to feel this.”

Evans nodded, a single, sharp motion, though he gave Reyes the faintest smirk. He pressed the hypo against the less-injured side of her neck and administered a minuscule, carefully calculated dose. Shepard’s breath stopped. “Come on, Commander,” he whispered, his clinical facade cracking for just a second. “Stay with us.”

For a long, breathless moment, nothing changed. Then, ever so slightly, the terrifying tension in her jaw seemed to ease. The ragged, wet gasps continued, but the agonized hitch in each breath softened just a fraction.

Everyone just sat down in exhaustion for a moment. But there was no time to waste.

Evans observed the debris around Shepard, and he scratched his head. “We need to warm her up. But I don’t think we’ll be able to slide anything under her, but… Reyes cover her with an insulating blanket. Enough prying eyes have seen her like this.” He gestured with his chin at her bare chest.

Reyes grabbed the blanket and leaned over Shepard to cover her properly. She made very sure she was exposed as little as possible. As she was leaning over the Commander, her face was just a centimeter away from hers. Though she now had the Bag valve mask over a big part of her face. Reyes stopped for a split second. She felt pity for Shepard. A quick tear that she didn’t even manage to register fell down on Shepard’s cheek. When she realized it, she quickly moved away, but nobody else noticed.

“I know it’s hard, Corporal. But you’re doing good work. Keep at it.” Evans briefly placed his hand on Reyes’ shoulder. And then called out. “Scan confirms catastrophic orthopedic injuries: crushed pelvis, bilateral femoral fractures, complex arm fractures. We do not touch them. We do not try to straighten anything. Splinting is impossible and would waste time. The pelvic binder is all we can do, but we have to wait until this crap is lifted.”

Everyone kept to their tasks, making sure Shepard was stable, checking her conditions.

Evans looked at the one half-visible leg, the one twisted at a sickening, unnatural angle. “Tibia and fibula are... pulp.” He didn't need a scanner for that. He couldn’t see the femur, but he assumed it wouldn’t look good either.

He then shone his light at the monolithic slab that entombed her from the waist down. The scanner in his hand emitted a frantic, continuous shriek as he pointed it at the rubble. "No reading. It's too dense. I have no idea what's under there. Could be crushed to paste. Could be... I just don't know."

“Major, Sir!” A voice from above.

“Yes? Who am I talking to?”

“Sergeant Parrott, Sir! We’ve got some news, and a… situation here, Sir. We need you here.”

“I’ll be right up, wait!” Evans stood up. “You stay here, make sure she keeps breathing, make sure she’s warm and stable. We are not losing her.”

“Yes, Sir.” Sounded in quiet, grim unison.

Evans walked up with haste. “What’s happening?”

“Well, uh-“ The sergeant who called out for him before was cut off.

Straker, who was speaking to Hayter up until then, turned to Evans. “Major, Lieutenant Hayter, and his team finished the evaluations. The terrain is safe for heavy machinery. With just a tiny bit more preparation, we will be able to get a vehicle here to lift that slab from Shepard.”

Evans glanced at Hayter, who nodded with affirmation. He looked beyond exhausted.

“That’s… that’s great news!” Evans exclaimed, almost in disbelief, that something was working in their favor.

“Yeah. Engineers Corps, 10th ‘Titan’ Heavy Company is bringing in the toys. They’re only minutes away.” Straker confirmed, grinning.

“I can’t…” Evans paused. “Well… and what’s the situation?”

“That, Major.” Straker pointed towards a ball of chaos that Evans was too tunnel-visioned to even notice. A towering giant was fighting his medics. The Krogan was shouting insults, pushing medics around with ease, knocking over several at a time.

“Damn it.” Evans ran.

“Hayter, let’s prepare the site. We gotta work with hand tools first, let’s make it as easy and as quick as possible for the Heavy Team,” Straker stated, almost indifferently to the situation.

“Yes, Sir.” Hayter grinned under his mustache, both of them observing the panicked Evans sprinting towards none other than Wrex.

“I WANT TO SEE SHEPARD! YOU WORTHLESS PYJAKS!”

“Urdnot Wrex!” Evans yelled and waved at the Krogan. He wanted to de-escalate, but he also knew that with Krogan, he needed to show strength and resolve. Wrex will consider him weak if he tries to meekly calm him down.

Wrex loomed over him, his plates flaring in aggression. “You her doctor? What’s going on here?! Tell these pipsqueaks to stand aside. I’m going down there.”

“I am Major Evans. And you are not,” Evans said, his voice level but firm, a contrast to Wrex’s roar. “That crater is a surgical site, not a viewing gallery. One wrong step could bring the whole thing down on her head. She’s very seriously hurt, Urdnot Wrex. Very badly. Hanging on by a thread.”

“Nonsense! Shepard doesn’t get hurt! She’s my friend and my sister!” Wrex bellowed, gesturing violently towards the pit. “I fought a war beside her! I have more right to be down there than any of you!”

“And that’s the only reason you’re still standing here and not sedated on the ground,” Evans shot back, his own temper fraying but his control absolute. “This isn’t about rights, Urdnot Wrex. It’s about physics. You weigh over a ton. The ground down there is held together by a prayer and a few strands of rebar. You take one step onto that slope, and you won’t be visiting your friend; you’ll be burying her.”

He took a half-step closer, his voice dropping, layering intensity over the logic. “Is that what you want? After everything she’s survived, you want her death on your hands because you couldn’t wait five minutes?”

Wrex let out a guttural growl that vibrated in Evans’s chest. He leaned in, his head lowered like a battering ram. “Don’t you dare question my loyalty, human.”

“I’m not,” Evans said, holding his ground. “I’m questioning your judgment. Right now, my judgment is the only thing keeping her alive. So, you have a choice. You can stand here, help us by keeping this perimeter secure, and be the first person I bring to her side, the second it is physically safe to do so.”

He paused, letting the offer hang in the ash-filled air.

“Or, you can try to force your way past me. And my medics will fill you with enough tranquilizer to drop a thresher maw. Either way, you are not going down that crater. What’s it going to be?”

Wrex stared him down, his massive fists clenched. The silence stretched, thick and heavy. He snorted, a cloud of dust puffing from his nostrils. He took a single, deliberate step back.

“Hmph. You’ve got a quad on you, human. I like you,” he grumbled, the fight draining from his posture, replaced by a restless, looming anxiety. “Fine. I’ll wait. But your five minutes had better not turn into an hour.”

“It’ll take as long as it takes to do it right,” Evans said, finally allowing a breath of relief. He turned to the gathered medics, who were slowly picking themselves up. “Everyone, back to your stations. The show’s over.”

He looked back at Wrex, who had planted himself on a stable-looking chunk of rubble. For now, that brooding, impatient Krogan was contained.

Things were moving; engineers were still working as hard as ever. Evans didn’t go back down. He trusted the medics he picked and left them alone with Shepard. He needed to see the heavy lift team. He ordered a few more medics to do regular checks on his team and Shepard.

The heavy lift team arrived not with a roar, but with a low, electric hum. Their equipment was not a huge crane or an excavator. The equipment was massive, silent, and precise, a series of powerful, localized mass effect field generators and kinetic stabilizers designed to lift immense weight without shifting the surrounding structures.

Evans took the moment to run back down into the crater, to make one final, personal check. He could see the engineers, already cleared a lot of rubble, revealing the very slab that was stopping them from getting Shepard out of the hellhole. Or it was also stopping Shepard from dying.

Evans entered a scene, where just as he hoped, the medics were still monitoring Shepard with a terrifying, slow-motion precision. The IO line was established, fluids and painkillers trickling directly into Shepard’s bone marrow. They suctioned her airway, clearing some of the bloody fluid, making each breath sound marginally less like drowning.

The blanket over her chest rose and fell with that same shallow rhythm.

“The heavy team is here,” Evans informed them. “Soon, they will start lifting the slab. We all need to be prepared, but for now, you all need to get out of here. We are not risking more lives if a collapse happens.”

“But- but, Major! Someone needs to- ugh.” Reyes coughed. “Someone needs to stay and keep her stabilized. Someone needs to keep making sure.” Her voice was more raspy than ever.

“We can’t do that, I’m not risking-“

“I volunteer, Major. Please. I need this.”

Evans sensed the genuine urgency in Reyes’ eyes. He looked around the claustrophobic space. “…Alright. You can stay. You will keep monitoring Shepard, and you will scream at the top of your lungs if anything down here goes wrong, got it, Corporal?”

“Understood, Sir, Yes, Sir!” Reyes stood up and saluted

“We will come rushing back as soon as the slab is lifted; those moments will be critical. Commander Shepard still has very hard times ahead of her… Let’s go.”

Evans glanced at his team, and all of them except Reyes started making their way up the crater.

When the Major got back up, the leader of the 10th ‘Titan’ Heavy Company was already conferring with Straker in low, technical tones, pointing at key pressure points on the slab. When she noticed Major Evans, she paused her conversation with the Captain and shook Evans’ hand.

“Major Evans. You’re a legend.” The ‘Titan’ Company leader was a no-nonsense woman with a scar across her brow called Captain Anastasija Brenner.

“No, that’s not true.” He brushed off the compliment. “I’m just doing what needs to be done. The real hero is the woman we’re saving.”

“Right,” Brenner replied simply, searching for something unknown in Evans’ face.

“But I’ve heard my fair share of stories about you, Captain Brenner.”

“You have?” Her surprise wasn’t feigned. “Glad to hear that, Major Evans. Anyway, we’ve got work to do. Give me the status, Major. Spare me the medical explanations, just tell me whether it will be safe to lift the slab.”

“It’s impossible to know. We’re prepared for the expected outcome of the crushing pressure being lifted. The moment the pressure is lifted from the crushed muscle tissue, it will flood the bloodstream with myoglobin, potassium, and-“

“I said spare me the medical lingo, Major.” Brenner sighed impatiently.

“Right, I apologize. Well, it could lead to cardiac arrest and kidney failure. We are prepared as best as possible, but it could happen no matter what we do.” Evans paused. “We will also need transport ready. Once we move Shepard and re-stabilize her, she will need the transport immediately.”

“Already handled, Major. A Kodiak is on its way.” She noticed the worry on his brow. “They’re going to be very careful, don’t worry.”

The plan was simple; its execution was impossibly complex. They would use the fields to gently, minutely lift the slab pinning Shepard just enough to slide a reinforced rescue stretcher underneath her. The margin for error was zero. A shift of a centimeter could collapse the entire delicate ecosystem of rubble keeping her alive.

“Wait, you’re not planning to lift it completely?” Evans questioned.

“Of course not, Major, what did you think? I thought you were prepared.” Brenner scoffed almost dismissively.

“Then I need two more medics down there, Captain.” Evans didn’t let Brenner shake him and turned from her. “Vale, Billock, Farran, Solley, Benedict, Howarth. I need two volunteers with a stretcher to go down to Reyes. As soon as the slab pinning Commander Shepard will be lifted, you will immediately slide the stretcher underneath her and pull her away.”

“Me, Sir. I volunteer.” Farran and Solley both volunteered at the exact same time.

“Good. Did you understand the objective?”

“Yes, Sir.” They answered at once, again.

“Then go. And spirits be with you.”

The two brave medics saluted, grabbed one of the reinforced stretchers, and got themselves down to Reyes.

The atmosphere became electric with tension. Everyone held their breath. Everyone observed from a safe distance. The only sound was the hum of the generators powering up.

“Field is live. Initiating lift on my mark,” Brenner announced, her voice calm. “Three… two… one… mark.”

The massive slab groaned. Dust trickled from its edges. It shuddered and then, imperceptibly at first, began to rise. A collective, silent prayer seemed to go up from all the teams.

As it lifted, millimeter by agonizing millimeter, the full, horrifying extent of the damage to Shepard’s lower body was slowly being revealed to Reyes, Farran, and Solley down in the crater.

Evans let out a sharp, involuntary hiss of air through his teeth as he could see the slab fight against the mass effect fields.

Meanwhile, down in the crater, the three medics could only confirm what was already revealed earlier by scanners. The pelvis was crushed. The somewhat visible leg that could already be seen before had a compound fracture of the femur. It was so twisted that it was, in fact, hanging by a thread at the knee, which was pulverized.

Reyes immediately applied a tourniquet for the open fracture.

The other leg, the one that was completely pinned, surprisingly looked like it was in better shape at first glance. It was clearly mangled, crushed, and broken, but it wasn’t twisted in a way it shouldn’t have been.

Still, the damage was catastrophic. Reyes’ first thought was that both of those legs would have to be amputated.

Solley made a small, pathetic sound in the back of her throat and had to look away for a brief second, pressing her forehead against the cool dirt of the rubble wall.

But the slab was up. It was held. The space was clear.

“Go! Now!” The voice was like a boom, and it actually came from the Brenner. Her sensors showed that the slab was lifted high enough.

“Go! Now! Come on! One medic parroted the words, relaying them to the small team below.

That snapped the three medics out of shock and sprang them into action. They immediately slid the stretcher underneath Shepard with practiced efficiency.

Farran supported her head and C-spine with an iron grip. “Easy! Easy with the legs! Remember what Evans said, don’t try to straighten anything! Just get her on!”

Even without straightening anything, they did move the right arm that was up until that point trapped underneath Shepard’s own body. It was also broken, together with several fingers, but there was no compound fracture.

For Reyes, the few seconds felt like hours. It was a nightmare of careful, brutal movement. Shepard’s body was utterly limp, like a doll made of broken sticks. They were watching Shepard’s heart rhythm like hawks.

She was out.

The field generators powered down. The slab settled back into place with a ground-shaking thud that felt like a period at the end of a horrific sentence.

Reyes didn’t know how much time had passed, but Evans seemed to have been down there with her, together with the rest of their team, in the blink of an eye.

“Get the pelvic binder on, now, now NOW! Keep those fluids wide open! Watch her rhythm! She’s going to try to code on us, don’t let her!” Evans yelled. “Log-roll on three! One, two, THREE!”

The team rolled Shepard's broken body just enough to slide the wide, strap-like binder under the small of her back. As they rolled her flat again, Evans pulled the straps tight over her hips, cinching the device with a sharp, ratcheting sound. The goal was to squeeze the shattered pieces of her pelvis back together and staunch the internal bleeding.

“Binder secured! IO status?”

“Line is patent! Fluids wide open! Bicarb infusing!” Solley exclaimed.

"Vitals?!" Evans barked.

“BP is sixty over palp! Heart rate 140 and thready! She's crashing, Major!” Reyes yelled, almost hysterically. She wasn’t going to lose Shepard. Not when they’ve gotten this far. This was the Crush Syndrome hitting her system like a tidal wave. The toxins from her crushed muscles, now freed, were flooding her bloodstream.

"She's in cardiovascular collapse from the reperfusion! Push a unit of O-neg universal, now! Get the crash cart ready! Watch for V-tach!" Evans felt waves of heat washing over him. He could only see Shepard.

“Unit of O-neg running!” Benedict scrambled.

“Good! Now, calcium chloride! Push it! We need to protect her heart from the potassium!”

Medic Vale jammed a syringe into the IV port and depressed the plunger. “Rhythm is still sinus tachy... but it's holding. No V-tach yet!”

“Keep that saline and bicarb flowing! We're flushing her kidneys out!” He then shifts focus to the next immediate threat. “Bag her! Don't stop! I want her oxygen saturation above ninety! Billock, secure that airway!”

Billock, who had been managing the bag-valve-mask, swiftly exchanged it for an intubation kit. With a laryngoscope, he guided an endotracheal tube down Shepard's throat, securing a definitive airway. Now, a machine could breathe for her, guaranteeing oxygenation.

“Tube is in! Breath sounds equal bilaterally!” Billock exhaled.

“Pressure's coming up! Seventy over forty!” Reyes' eyes were peeled at the vitals. It was still catastrophically low, but it was no longer falling.

Evans took a full breath, his own heart hammering. “Alright... alright. She's holding. Let's move! Get her ready for transport! I want her on that Kodiak in eighty seconds!”

Everyone was working like a robot, in automatic mode. They secured her with straps across her chest, hips, and thighs, immobilizing everything.

Shepard was out of the crater.

Wrex was immediately by her side, but this time recognized the medics needed space.

“Shepard.” He growled in disbelief at the sight of her body.

An emergency trauma unit was set up in a matter of seconds, more IV lines were placed, full-body scanners were run, their screens displaying a catastrophic map of injuries that made even Evans’ extensive evaluation look incomplete.

The results were transmitted directly to the waiting mobile field hospital.

A voice, crisp and urgent, crackled over Evans' comm. “Major Evans, Huerta Mobile Surgical. We have the scans. Prep for immediate medevac. The clock is ticking. Get her here now.”

The whump-whump-whump of a Kodiak shuttle descended through the smog, its searchlight piercing the dust like a beacon.

Within eighty seconds, Shepard was on that Kodiak just as Evans promised. The Kodiak had its own medical team, and Evans very briefly ordered everyone to stay behind. Out of all the heroes, all the relentless, tireless men and women working on the ground, only Evans got on that transport… and Wrex, who forced himself into the Kodiak no matter what. Everyone else watched. Watched and hoped.

Reyes finally found Kano again in all the chaos. They looked at each other, and both allowed themselves a tired smile.

They stood side by side, grabbing the other’s shoulder compassionately, staring as the Kodiak ascended through the ash, its lights disappearing into the darkness.

Chapter 5: Medevac

“We did it.”

A Light breeze blew dust into their faces, making them squint their eyes at the sky.

“We did it…” Reyes parroted Kano’s words, quieter. “What’s going to happen now, Sarge?”

“I don’t know… Guess we just wait, Reyes.” Kano patted her on the back.

The adrenaline was wearing off for everyone. Straker and Hayter were sitting on blocks of cracked concrete, chatting, surrounded by several medics and engineers. Brenner did not waste time, and her ‘Titan’ team left immediately upon mission completion. However, most people stayed. They were too tired, and technically didn’t have any direct orders, though the default should’ve been to return to regular SAR missions. Kano could even see a few engineers just sleeping in the debris.

“You’re late, Major. The party is over.”

“I know, Captain. Couldn’t get here sooner.” Major Coats reciprocated Straker’s salute. “Where’s Sergeant Kano?”

“Over there.” Straker pointed off into the distance. “He and Corporal Reyes are having a moment… for a while now.”

“Sergeant Kano, Corporal Reyes, I need you here!” Coats gestured at them and turned back to Straker, turning his head to his right. “You’re Lieutenant Hayter, I assume?”

“Yes, Major.” Hayter saluted sluggishly.

“At ease.” Coats raised his eyebrows as Kano and Reyes arrived. “I’ve received the scans, but I need to hear it from all of you… How’s Commander Shepard? Will she be okay?”

“Can’t tell you, sorry Major, I wasn’t there.” Hayter scratched his brow.

“Can’t tell you much either, Major, I was in charge of carving the path to her, not much in charge of taking care of the Commander herself. That was Major Evans’ job, but he left on the Kodiak with her.” Straker stared at the ground.

“Major Coats, I believe my corporal, Eva Reyes, can tell you. She was one of the medics assisting Major Evans in treating the Commander’s most life-threatening injuries, saving her life.” Kano glanced at Reyes and gave her a faint but noticeable smirk.

Reyes glanced back at Kano, almost cursing him for putting the spotlight on her. She was flustered from the attention, especially from someone like Major Coats.

“Corporal Reyes?” Coats prompted her.

"It was... extensive, Sir," Reyes began, her voice regaining its professional steadiness as she detailed the procedures. “We saved her life for now, but if I’m to be bluntly honest, Sir… She might- She might still die. She’s very far from a stable condition. Anything and everything can still go wrong, so I hope she will have the best doctors ready for her… Sir.”

“I will make sure Commander Shepard has exactly that, Corporal. Thank you. Your service to the Alliance is appreciated now more than ever.” Coats slowly made a 360 turn, his eyes briefly stopping at each and every medic and engineer in the vicinity. “Captain Straker. I want everyone’s names. Everyone who has been here and helped. Effort like this shall not go unrewarded or unrecognized.”

“Yes, Sir.” Straker saluted. “Wanna help me out here, Kano? You were here first, after all.” He grinned.

“Of course, Sir. Reyes will help too. We need something to do anyway, we’re still a bit shocked, I think.”

“Some work will take your mind off things, don’t worry, Sergeant.” Straker chuckled and immediately walked over to one of the medics sitting nearby to note down his name.

“Good luck, soldiers. You will receive new orders soon, so keep your radios on and stay on your frequencies. I’ll be going to the nearest field hospital to see Commander Shepard. Once again… good job. You made the galaxy very proud today.”

Everyone who could hear Major Coats stood up and saluted. Major Coats reciprocated the salute and nodded, and then left with the squad that he arrived with earlier.

As they were writing down the names of all the medics and engineers, Kano and Reyes smiled at each other. So it seemed that their efforts might not be forgotten after all, but they still had plenty of work ahead of them. Both of them had secretly hoped that they’d see Shepard again. They didn’t expect thanks or some overwhelming gratitude. They just wished to see Shepard alive and better; they wished to see that their enormously hard work paid off.

***

On the bridge of the Orizaba, Admiral Hackett stood, waiting. The reports of Shepard's extraction had been fragmented, chaotic. The only consistent word was "alive." Now, the full medical transmission from the Kodiak was coming in.

The comms officer, Bonfield, his face pale, handed him a datapad. “Sir... the initial trauma assessment from Doctor Major Evans. It's... It's comprehensive.”

Hackett took the pad. His eyes scanned the clinical, brutal list of injuries. Cranial hemorrhaging. Deviated trachea. Flail chest. Crushed pelvis. Compound fractures. The list went on; it was a cold, itemized invoice for the price of victory. His knuckles turned white around the pad. His jaw tightened, but his expression remained a mask. Inside, he felt a cold void opening up.

He keyed the fleet-wide comm; his voice, when it came, was gravelly but steady, stripped of all but the barest emotion.

“This is Admiral Hackett to all Alliance and allied vessels. At 20:47 local time, Commander Shepard was successfully extracted from the Citadel wreckage site. She is alive.”

A faint, hopeful cheer started on some decks, but Hackett cut through it instantly.

“Commander Shepard’s condition is critical. The injuries sustained are... extensive. The fight for her life is now our highest priority. We will devote every resource, every ounce of our resolve, to this effort. That is all.”

“From the Destiny Ascension, Sir,” Bonfield announced.

“The Asari Republics offer their deepest sympathies and their finest medical experts. She has the prayers of Thessia.”

"A message from Primarch Victus,” Bonfield followed.

“Turian Hierarchy stands ready to provide any and all resources for the Commander's recovery. We owe her everything.”

“Admiral Raan on the Idenna, Sir.” Bonfield finished.

“The Migrant Fleet sends its hopes. We will share all our medical data on cybernetic integration.”

The offers were heartfelt, from species who had themselves lost countless lives and were running on fumes. It was a testament to what she meant to them all.

Hackett absorbed it all, his gaze fixed on the stars. “Any news on Admiral Anderson?”

“Still MIA, Sir.” Bonfield studied his datapad meticulously as if new information were to suddenly materialize on it, giving Hackett the information he wanted. “We’ve gotten new reports that some witnessed him running into the beam after Commander Shepard, which would align with Major Coats’ suspicions, but it’s currently unconfirmed.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Hackett allowed himself a faint sigh, a rare concession to the weight pressing down on him.

The atmosphere on Orizaba’s deck was still tense, their comm lines were still overwhelmed, all the comms personnel were working nonstop, but knowing that Commander Shepard was alive, a feat that pretty much everyone thought impossible, gave many people a second wind, a new will to fight and survive this terrifying aftermath of the Reaper war.

“Where are they taking Shepard, Bonfield?” Hackett turned his head slightly towards the lieutenant, but before he could answer, Hackett followed. “AMSH-7?”

“That’s right, Sir.” Bonfield frantically tapped into his datapad. “Uh, it’s not- It’s not the closest field hospital, but it’s the best of what’s left, not just in the London sector, but perhaps in all of Europe.”

“What’s the status there?”

“The hospital is understaffed, underequipped, and heavily overwhelmed by affected civilians and soldiers alike, Sir… but regardless, it’s still the best chance the Commander has.”

“What was the name of the Major who led Shepard’s treatment on the ground?”

“Major Evans, Sir. According to the report, he’s the only one that extracted with Shepard. Well…” Bonfield nervously scratched his nose.

“Well?” Hackett raised his eyebrow.

“Urdnot Wrex… he also jumped on board.”

“Urdnot Wrex…” Hackett repeated the name. In a way, he was glad that someone who knew Shepard was with her, even if she wasn’t conscious to appreciate it. “Just make sure he doesn’t touch her, Lieutenant.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Make sure that upon arrival at AMSH-7, Major Evans has proper clearance to authorize Commander Shepard as a priority Alpha patient. She will be the priority for any doctors and nurses available. The hero of the galaxy will not be waiting in any lines, and she will not get a shoddy tent to stay in. She will get the best.”

“Yes, Sir.” Bonfield's response was automatic, but a flicker of unease crossed his face. He understood the logic, but the morality of triaging a single life over thousands in a gutted galaxy was a bitter pill. He understood why Shepard was getting the preferential treatment; he knew she deserved it. Still, it seemed wrong to deem her more important than the thousands of civilians and soldiers in as much need as her.

“And make Major Evans her primary doctor for the time being, I don’t want him back in the field. He’s going to be instrumental in her treatment. I’ve heard he’s a spectacular physician and surgeon.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Hackett walked over to one of Orizaba’s viewports and stared at the Earth below. Even now, the once beautiful blue planet was still burning. There wasn’t enough time to put all the fires out. There was one more order to give.

“Now.” Hackett turned back to Bonfield. “Open a channel to all operational patrol units. New priority target.”

“Sir?”

“The SSV Normandy SR-2. She was lost in the Crucible’s pulse. I want every drone, every scout ship to begin a search pattern. Last known trajectory was away from Sol, who knows where they ended up. Find that ship.”

Hackett needed to find her crew. They needed to be here. For her. The galaxy felt desperately empty without the frigate’s presence, and the thought of Shepard facing the upcoming fight alone was a burden too heavy for one man to bear.

***

It took a few seconds before the initial shock wore off of everyone. When Shepard was first escorted into the Kodiak, there was a brief moment of a low, collective gasp throughout the crowd. Some even turned away, unable to bear the sight. Others simply stood frozen, their faces grimaced in horror and disbelief.

Shepard on the stretcher looked like a marble effigy of a martyr, pale, still, and brutally broken. The full, horrifying extent of her injuries was on display in the unforgiving light. The blanket covering her torso was the only mercy.

“By the Goddess...” One Asari medic whispered, her voice trembling. "No one... no one can come back from that."

“God in heaven.” Another medic breathed.

"Don't just stand there!" Evans barked, his voice cracking with exhaustion and stress.

The inside of the Kodiak was then a cocoon of frantic, focused noise, layered over the constant, terrifyingly weak sound of Shepard's assisted breathing. Monitors beeped and whined, their screens a frantic dance of erratic heart rhythms and plummeting blood pressure readings. The medics worked in a controlled panic, adjusting IV drips, checking the oxygenator, calling out numbers that were never quite right.

“BP's dropping again! Sixty over forty!” One of the new medics called out, his voice tight.

“Increase the dopamine drip! Now!” Evans ordered, his hands never still, his eyes flicking between the monitors and Shepard's waxen face.

A young female medic, her name tag reading 'Lt. Corwyn', was trying to hold pressure on an arm wound that began bleeding anew on the Kodiak. However, her face couldn’t be torn away from the metal rod still sticking out of Shepard’s lower abdomen.

A choked sob escaped her. “It’s not fair.” Her voice breaking. “She saved everyone… everyone… and for what? To end up like… like this?” Just like most of the Alliance, she has never met Shepard in person. She’s only heard her speeches and has seen her vids. Nothing more. And she wasn’t unprofessional; she wasn’t normally shaken by sights like this. She has seen many horrors of the Reaper war. As with almost everyone who was shocked by Shepard’s injuries, it was more about the person underneath them, not the injuries themselves, for most doctors and medics, a lot of her injuries would be nothing new.

“It’s just so cruel. It’s just so… cruel.”

Evans glanced up, his expression initially sharp, ready to bark an order to maintain professionalism. But he saw the raw, unfiltered grief on the young lieutenant's face, the human reaction to the inhuman damage before them.

“Look at her, Lieutenant,” Evans said, his voice lower, gruff but not unkind. He nodded towards Shepard's face, still and almost peaceful in its mask of agony. “She's still fighting. After all that. She hasn't quit. So, we don't quit. We don't get to fall apart. She needs us to be as strong as she is. Understand? Channel it. Use it to focus.”

Corwyn took a ragged breath, nodding. She tightened her grip on the bandage, her jaw setting with determination. “Yes, sir.”

The Kodiak was shaking, wobbling around, throwing small medical equipment all over the place, and making the job for the medics harder, having to make extra sure that Shepard was stable on her stretcher.

Evans squeezed past a few of the medics and grabbed the headrest of the pilot’s seat.

“Can you PLEASE keep the thing steady? We have a patient here that’s very susceptible to injury as a result of a violent thrash.” He yelled at the pilot.

“This is the best I can do, Major. You try flying through all that ash and smog.” The Pilot didn’t seem too bothered by Evans’ request, but he was truly working with what he got served.

Evans shook his head, but he knew there was no use in arguing with the pilot. “Got it… We’re going to AMSH-7, right?”

“Alliance Mobile Surgical Hospital 7, that’s right, Sir.”

“I know what it is.” Evans was slightly annoyed, but it was more due to the sheer exhaustion. “What’s it look like there?”

“I don’t know, Sir. Haven’t been there.”

Evans squeezed the headrest of the pilot’s chair tighter.

“…But I’ve heard it’s bad. Like everywhere else.”

“Thanks, Pilot.” Evans was about to turn away and go back to Shepard, but the Pilot continued.

“By the way, Major. We’ve got a message from SSV Orizaba.”

Evans froze and quickly turned his head back to the pilot. “What message?”

“You are to make sure that upon our arrival, Commander Shepard gets priority Alpha treatment. You’ve been given clearance by Admiral Hackett himself to enact these orders. “They said Commander Shepard's survival is the paramount objective, superseding all other triage protocols.”

The last words were especially bitter to Evans’ ears. While it felt like his entire universe at that moment was Shepard’s survival, his sole objective, his only mission, he was still a doctor. And he was supposed to save all lives, not just one. He wasn’t supposed to trade lives, especially not one for many.

“We’ve tried relaying this to the hospital as well, but their comms to the outside world are still down, so we’re gonna come down on them with a small surprise.” Pilot broke his train of thought.

“I’m not sure that’s what the Commander would’ve wanted,” Evans mumbled mostly to himself, but the pilot heard it.

“I’m just relaying a message, Major.”

“Yeah.” Evans scratched his cheek. “What’s our time to point?”

“T-15 minutes, Sir.”

“Damn it…” Evans ran his fingers over his scalp. “Well, keep it up.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Each minute felt like an hour. It felt like they were never getting to the hospital in time. No medic was resting. Even when nothing was happening, they were constantly ready for the ‘what if’, with Shepard’s condition, a catastrophe could happen at any given moment. One second, everything could be fine, the next, she’s having a cardiac arrest.

“Shepard… You’ll get through this. This is just a scratch on your way to a bigger battle.” A low growl rumbled through the Kodiak.

The medics were trying to ignore the towering Krogan quietly looming over them in the shuttle. As instructed by Evans, he was standing as far away from Shepard as possible, but the Kodiak wasn’t that spacious, and he was still taking up a considerable chunk of its free space.

About half, if not more, of the medics were also uneasy around Wrex, even after Evans told them that he’s Shepard’s close friend.

Minutes later, the shuttle began its descent, the roar of the engines changing pitch. “Brace for landing!” the pilot's voice crackled over the intercom. “It's a hot zone down there!”

Evans looked out the Kodiak’s viewport. Even though at that moment, everything was too hard to see properly, he knew it was going to be bad down there, and he could only prepare himself mentally the best way he could.

“One last thing, Major.” The pilot’s voice cracked over the intercom. “You’re now Shepard’s primary doctor… Admiral Hackett’s orders.”

Evans gulped. Giving her field treatment, saving her from the initial inevitable death, was one thing, but being given full responsibility over Shepard’s wellbeing, being the main and first person to decide which surgeries were necessary and how Shepard’s recovery would look, that was an entirely different thing. He had expected to hand Shepard off and return to the field, saving more people, finding MIAs. He got used to not being stuck in a hospital, but now he was about to gain new weight on his shoulders. Weight that couldn’t be refused. It was Hackett’s order after all.

The Kodiak touched down with a jolt that made everyone gasp and reach to stabilize Shepard's stretcher. The rear ramp hissed open, and the controlled chaos of the shuttle was instantly swallowed by the overwhelming bedlam of the field hospital.

The scene was a vision of hell. The "hospital" was a sprawling encampment of tents and repurposed buildings, all overflowing. The air was thick with the sounds of moaning, crying, and shouted orders. The smell of blood, antiseptic, and death was overpowering. Lines of wounded, both military and civilian, stretched into the distance. Medics and doctors ran between patients, their faces drawn with exhaustion and despair.

For a moment, even Evans froze, overwhelmed by the scale of the suffering.

He shook his head. "Move! Now!" Evans recovered first, his voice cutting through the din. They pushed the stretcher down the ramp, its advanced medical systems and the fragile, famous patient it carried looking utterly alien in this place of primitive, mass triage.

They were immediately met by a harried-looking chief surgeon, her scrubs stained dark with blood. “What's the priority?” she asked, her eyes already scanning the new arrivals, assessing.

“Priority Alpha!” Evans snapped, not breaking stride. “Commander Shepard. Catastrophic poly-trauma. Crush injuries, internal hemorrhaging, compromised airway, neuro unknown. We need an OR and a surgical team. Now.”

“Wait a minute-“

“We don’t have a minute, doctor!” Evans cut her off.

“Who are you? Who gave you authorization for such an order?” The chief surgeon didn’t let Evans dismiss her.

“My name’s Ryley Evans. I’m an Alliance Major and a doctor like yourself. The order is coming directly from Admiral Steven Hackett.” Evans clenched his teeth with frustration. “It would be unwise to disobey that kind of order… We don’t have time.”

The surgeon's eyes went wide as she finally processed the unmistakable, iconic N7 armor, despite it being cut apart and scorched… still attached to a body. She looked from Shepard to the hundreds of other wounded waiting, a terrible conflict on her face.

“Doctor,” Evans said, his voice dropping, deadly serious. “I know what you're looking at. I know what you're thinking. I agree. But that woman is the reason any of us are still alive to need a medic. She is the priority. Your entire facility is now dedicated to her survival. Is that clear?”

The surgeon swallowed hard, then gave a sharp, single nod. “Clear. Follow me. We're commandeering OR 1.” She turned and began clearing a path, her voice rising to a shout. “Make a hole! Priority Alpha! Move! I need Dr. Pearcy paged immediately, and anyone with vascular experience to OR 1, now!"

The journey through the overcrowded triage center was a surreal nightmare. Eyes turned towards them: wounded soldiers, crying children, exhausted nurses. Whispers spread like wildfire, the name “Shepard” passing from lip to lip in tones of awe, horror, and disbelief.

They finally pushed through the crowds into a relatively quieter pre-op area of a repurposed building, the door swinging shut behind them, muffling the chaos outside. Now, they had to keep her alive long enough for the surgeons to even have a chance.

The doors to the operating room stood like a daunting gateway. Just moments later, a battle just as desperate as any battle against the Reapers was about to begin.

Chapter 6: The Miracle

Evans stared at himself in the mirror. The mirror was cracked, and one quarter of it was missing completely; a few of the shards were spread around the restroom. The porcelain sink he was bracing himself against was stained and had a few cracks, too, but it was holding together. Most of the tiling in the room was completely ruined. It was grimly lit, with only one, flickering light. Muffled sounds could be heard throughout the hospital, muted through several layers of brick wall.

He turned the faucet and raised his eyebrows when a small trickle of water actually started pouring down. In a futile attempt, he gathered the water in his palms and attempted to clean the baked-on dirt. Then he did it again, the process taking painstakingly long, to splash his face.

“One life for many. Since when did Hackett… or anyone become authorized to make that calculation?” He mumbled to himself.

In the reflection, he could see the face of a man who’s had enough of everything. Tired, brown eyes, black bags would be underneath them if his face wasn’t covered in grime so thick even the water couldn’t get it off completely.

“What if we save her and she's... nothing left of who she was? What if we sacrificed countless lives to save a ghost?”

***

In the OR, the frantic movement of the entire surgeon team perfectly encapsulated the atmosphere of the upcoming surgeries.

“We need to take care of the burns before we start cutting her up, Dr. Lynds!” The chief surgeon argued.

“Of course, we do, but every second counts; we should start our surgery immediately, Dr. Arden!”

Dr. Lynds’ team was supposed to operate on Shepard’s flail chest, while Dr. Arden was waiting for Dr. Evans to take care of internal bleeding and the metal rod sticking out of Shepard’s abdomen.

“I won’t allow it. Let’s take care of the burns while we’re waiting for Dr. Evans. That’s an order.” Dr. Arden nodded towards one of the nurses.

With two of the nurses, Dr. Arden gently flushed the vast burned areas with a sterile, cooling solution to lower the skin temperature and wash out the gross debris.

“Applying the hydrogel now. Nice and steady.” Dr. Arden informed the room.

They applied a sterile, advanced hydrogel dressing, impregnated with broad-spectrum antimicrobials and nanofibers, halting the tissue necrosis.

“Do we have any burns compromising blood flow or breathing?” Dr. Arden questioned after she spent a good amount of time, together with the two nurses, applying the hydrogel over a large percentage of Shepard’s body.

“Surprisingly… not.” The anesthesiologist noted. “The hydrogel must be working wonders already.”

“Good… These are just temporary fixes; we don’t have time for a full surgery. We just had to make sure she doesn’t die of infection due to those burns. Now let’s proceed. I don’t know where Dr. Evans is, but we can’t wait forever.”

***

Each minute of the day kept running through Evans’ head. Even though he would never voice the thought, a small part of him wished that Shepard had never been found. Not because he wanted her dead, because now that she was there, he would do everything to save her, but maybe letting her die right there would’ve been the more dignified end. Now, when they save her… if they save her, she might still end up in a state where she’ll wish she were dead.

“She's a person. Not a symbol. In there, she's just tissue and trauma. Can I remember that?”

And he knew that if Shepard was aware of how many people they left behind in the search for her body, and how many were not getting the treatment the people desperately needed because of her, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. Not that any of that was her fault, or really anyone’s. It was an impossible situation. Impossibly awful situation.

“Get it together. Do your job. Keep your hands steady, and save the patient.” Evans let one deep exhale escape his lips, and then he lightly slapped both of his cheeks, turning from the window and walking towards the OR.

Evans covered his face with a mask, entered the room, and snapped on his gloves. The surgery was already underway. The first thing he saw was the large, vertical midline incision from sternum to pubis. It’s the trauma surgeon’s ‘universal key’. Another thing that couldn’t be missed were tens of IVs running from and inside Shepard’s body, mostly fighting the toxins released by the crushed tissue from her lower extremities.

It was controlled chaos. There were surgeons, different teams performing entirely different surgeries on Shepard at the same time. He saw the chief surgeon, who he now knew as Dr. Arden, scrub nurses, the circulating nurses, and the anesthesiologist.

As the abdomen was opened, dark, non-clotting blood welled up and spilled over. Her body’s clotting factors were exhausted.

“Suction! I need more laps! Where’s all this even coming from?” Dr. Arden snapped, and a suction device immediately plunged in to clear the field.

This battle was not fought with guns but with scalpels, clamps, and transfusions.

“Goddamnit, where’s doctor Pearcy?!” Dr. Arden’s voice cut through the chaos.

“Unavailable, Ma’am.” One of the nurses replied with haste.

Dr. Arden could only hiss in frustration.

“We’ll probably have to amputate both legs; these are lost.” One of the surgeons contemplated. “She’ll be paralyzed anyway.” He attempted to lighten the decision.

Evans rushed over to Dr. Arden, ignoring the other surgeon.

“Packs! Now! Evans, get me packing in the right upper quadrant. I’ve got the left.” They worked in tandem, stuffing the abdomen with gauze. The goal was to compress the bleeding sources.

All thought Evans might’ve had previously disappeared from his head as soon as he saw Shepard’s body on the operating table. He was a surgeon and she was his patient. He ran on learned instinct.

The nurses were moving with purpose all around the room, getting the surgeons' sterile equipment for every new step.

Dr. Arden looked at Evans. “Okay, the packing is in. Let’s address the elephant in the room. Evans, you saw this in situ. Guide it out.”

Evans nodded and looked down at the metal rod, carefully placing his hands on it. “Ready with clamps and suture? On my count. One… two… three.”

In one smooth, controlled motion, he pulled the rod straight out. At that very moment, blood started pouring from the wound tract. The surgeons immediately plunge their hands and instruments in, following the path of blood.

“There’s the source! Clamp! It’s the inferior epigastric. Suture ligate it! Now, check the bowel. I see perforations.” Dr. Arden yelled. “Damn it, the spleen is pulped. Not salvageable. Evans, clamp the hilum. We have to take it.”

“Wait!” Evans exclaimed, even reaching out towards Dr. Arden to stop her. “If we have any Biodesiccant meshes and L-Weave, we could perform splenorrhaphy.”

Dr. Arden took a split second and snapped her head towards one of the nurses. “Do we?”

“Y-yes, I think, but I’d have to- I’d have to run for it.” One of the nurses stuttered out.

“Then run for it, for god’s sake!” Dr. Arden gestured with her arm aggressively, and the nurse followed the instruction immediately.

A second team of surgeons had decided to begin the other immediate surgery that needed to be performed. The issue with the flail chest. They were supposed to start the procedure simultaneously with Dr. Arden’s work, but throughout all the chaos, the overlapping commands, they hesitated, but now they had a window.

Suddenly, while waiting, the second as crucial as the one before it, a soldier, his military fatigues covered in dust from head to toe, barged through the doors of the somewhat sterile room.

Dr. Arden immediately lashed out at him. “What- What are you doing here?! You’re not authorized to be in here! Get out! Get out now!”

“But-but-I have-“ Apart from his uniform, he was carrying a radio.

“It can wait! We’re trying for a sterile environment here, and you’re endangering Commander Shepard with your stupidity!”

“It can’t wait! Orders from Admiral Hackett, ma’am!”

“Spirits… Evans with me.” Dr. Arden conceded.

“Watch over her.” Evans pointed at one of the nurses.

Dr. Arden walked up to the soldier and harshly started pushing him out of the OR.

“You truly have to be dense to just walk in like that! Do you realize what you could’ve done! Pure stupidity!” Dr. Arden scolded the soldier further.

“I’m sorry, doctor, but this is urgent. Orders from Admiral Hackett. We’ve finally managed to establish some communication with the outside world, and the Admiral has direct orders for Dr. Evans and you, regarding Commander Shepard. He’s waiting.”

The soldier didn’t seem particularly apologetic, but it was a waste of energy to scold him further. Evans grabbed the radio from him.

“This is Doctor Major Ryley Evans speaking, do you copy?”

“We copy, Major. Admiral Steven Hackett speaking. I have direct orders for you, everyone else in that room operating on Commander Shepard, and everyone who will ever operate on her in the future.”

“I’m listening, Sir.” Major Evans nodded, even though Hackett obviously couldn’t see the motion.

“Preserve her. I don’t want you to just save her, Major. I want you to do more than that. I want Commander Shepard to come out the other end, not someone else. Are we clear?”

“I’m- I’m not sure we are, Sir. What are we supposed to do?”

Dr. Arden was staring at Evans with an intense but slightly puzzled expression; she couldn’t hear Hackett. At the same time, she was nervously rubbing her hands; she wanted to be back in the room, focusing on her patient.

“That means no amputations, no mind-altering neurological interventions, no organ removal, remove the cybernetic implants if you must, but no more than that.”

“But, Sir…” Evans sighed. To him, it felt like Hackett wanted miracles. In Evans’ mind, Hackett was obviously no medical expert, and it almost seemed like he was just ordering nonsense as it seemed fit, no matter the cost. “The amputation is necessary; the toxins released into Shepard’s body from her crushed extremities could cause cardiac arrest. It’ll be way safer to amputate and clone later, I-“

“No amputations, Major.”

“But how-“

“Solve it, Major. I’ve heard you’re one of the best. And you have other spectacular doctors around you. Solve it.” Hackett repeated.

“But, you might not get the same Commander Shepard once-“ Evans paused. “If she ever wakes up. There’s no guarantee. Some of the damage will be permanent. You don’t come out scarless from an ordeal like this… and we don’t have the equipment necessary to remove the failing cybernetics in her body. Lastly, we haven’t had time to properly scan her brain to see the extent of brain injury she might’ve suffered; some of that will be irreparable, Sir.”

There was silence.

“Sir?” Evans prompted.

“Have you heard of Project Lazarus, Major?”

Evans furrowed his brow. “Not really, Sir. Only rumors.”

“Then I can assure you, Major, that those rumors are true, and medicine can achieve so much more than most people can imagine. A few years ago, Commander Shepard was brought back from the dead by Cerberus. And now I’m launching a new project to make sure we have Commander Shepard back as she was before. Understood?”

Evans, briefly shocked by the revelation, still considered Hackett’s view naive. Even if what was being rumored was true, that Shepard was revived by Cerberus, reconstructed from what was basically just a head and a bag of flesh, Cerberus back then had near infinite resources. Post-Reaper war galaxy felt like it had very finite resources. And a lot more to concentrate on than just one human, however legendary that human might’ve been. Even though he felt Hackett’s orders were wrong, he knew he had to follow them, and arguing with Hackett only meant wasting time.

“Understood, Sir.”

“Glad to hear it, Major. Hackett out.”

Evans had a blank stare as he gave the radio back to the soldier, who only nodded and walked away.

“So, what were the orders?” Dr. Arden questioned.

Evans gave Dr. Arden a condensed version of what Hackett told him as they made their way back into the OR. She considered it just as crazy as he did.

“Nonsense!” She shook her head violently.

“I know. Hackett will end up killing Shepard in an attempt to save her, but we have to follow the orders and be at our best to make sure he doesn’t succeed. The Admiral will for sure want to see her later, and if he shows up and he sees her without legs, he will have all our heads.”

Evans couldn’t see it under the mask, but Dr. Arden clenched her jaw and sharply nodded.

“Damn it, where is the nurse?!” She changed topics.

Evans just looked around the room as if the nurse were to magically materialize in front of him.

Meanwhile, the other surgery was in full progress.

A Cardio-Thoracic surgeon called Dr. Lynds was standing on Shepard’s left side, his full focus on her chest, two sets of instruments open and ready.

The anesthesiologist was the conductor of all the chaos.

They made an incision along the line of the fractured ribs.

“Incision is made. Retractors in. Let's see what we're dealing with.” Dr. Lynds’ voice was a calm, determined baritone.

“Confirming the flail segment. Fifth, sixth, and seventh ribs, anterior to the mid-axillary line. Completely detached. The lung is contused... a real mess in there. But I'm not seeing a major vessel tear. Small mercies.”

“Pulmonary compliance is trash. Anesthesia, how's her saturation?” Spoke out Dr. Lynds’ assistant.

The anesthesiologist’s voice was strained. “Holding at 90%, on 100% FiO2. You’re fighting me, people. Her pressures are still in the basement.”

“Understood. We’ll fix the cage, you fix the pressure. Hand me the first plate. The 8-centimeter.” Dr. Lynds gestured at his assistant.

A high-pitched whirr of a surgical drill powering up was heard throughout the room.

“Stabilizing the sixth rib first. This is the keystone.” One of the nurse’s jaw clenches at the sound of the drill biting into bone, a sharp, gritty noise. “Screw in. Good. Plate is seated.”

From the other side of the table, the nurse has finally come rushing back, almost out of breath.

“Finally! Did you run to get them to some other hospital?!” Evans let out his frustrations.

“I’m sorry, Doctor. The resources around here are very, very scarce. I basically had to bargain for these, and I had to pull Commander Shepard’s name.”

“It’s okay, Sibyla.” Dr. Arden reassured her, addressing her by name and nodding sharply. “Dr. Lynds, we’re about to perform splenorrhaphy, so be careful on your side!”

“Acknowledged. We’re secured here, go ahead.” Dr. Lynds’ focus shifted back to his own tack, his voice dropping to a murmur to his assistant. “Let’s get the fifth rib locked down before they give her heart a reason to quit.”

Another screw screeched as it was being set. “Second plate is on. Good bony contact. The segment is already looking more stable.” Dr. Lynds glanced at the anesthesiologist. “Any improvement on compliance?”

“Marginally. Peak pressures are down. It's something.”

Evans, on the other side, was focused, examining the torn, pulpy surface of the spleen further.

“Here’s our best shot…” Evans glanced at Dr. Arden for confirmation.

“Alright… Let’s hope it works. Sibyla, hand Dr. Evans the L-Weave.” Dr. Arden pointed at the nurse and gestured towards Evans.

Evans was handed a specialized applicator. He positioned it over one of the oozing tears. He depressed the trigger, and a thin, bioluminescent blue polymer was laid down in a precise, cross-hatched pattern over the wound. On contact, it seemed to contract slightly, pulling the edges of the laceration together.

Evans looked up at the anesthesiologist, and when they gave him a nod, he repeated the process over every other tear.

“L-Weave applied. It’s sealing the parenchymal tears. But the capsular tension is still a problem.”

Dr. Lynds made himself heard. “Tell me about it. We’re onto the final plate. Let’s do it.” The drill whirred one last time. “Done. The flail segment is stabilized. Chest tube in.”

Dr. Lynds took a step back, allowing his assistant to place the tube. He looked at the anesthesiologist and felt a weight coming off his shoulders. His part of the battle was over for that moment.

“The cage is solid. The rest is up to you and the miracle workers in her abdomen. Let’s hope we’ve done enough.” Dr. Lynds finished, ready to leave the OR.

“Now’s the time for the Biodesiccant mesh.” Evans gestured at Dr. Arden with his chin. “You have the honor, doctor.”

“Understood. Biodesiccant mesh.” She parroted. “The 5-centimeter.”

Dr. Arden took a flat, gossamer-thin sheet that looked like a synthetic spider silk. With practiced ease and professionally steady hands, she wrapped it around the body of the spleen. The moment the ends touched, it self-adhered, contracting with a gentle, sustained pressure that uniformly compressed the entire organ.

“Mesh is active. Look at that. Bleeding has stopped.” There was a sound of genuine surprise in Dr. Arden’s voice. She wasn’t a rookie, far from it, and she had used this device a few times before, but never on organs as damaged as this. “Not slowed, stopped.” She emphasized.

They all watched the monitor. Shepard’s blood pressure, which had been seesawing, began a slow, steady climb.

“Pressure’s responding. Eighty over fifty. She’s stabilizing.” A note of audible relief was in the anesthesiologist’s voice.

Evans let out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. “Well, that’s one calamity avoided. I can’t believe we might actually be pulling this off.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, doctor. She will be fighting for her life for the coming weeks, if not months. No less thanks to Admiral Hackett.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds without saying a word. Even the nurses stopped in their steps, and didn’t know how to react. Dr. Arden knew she had taken it too far.

“I apologize, I overstepped.” She admitted, lowering her head.

“Let’s not talk about it. We need to focus on her legs now. We can’t pump her full of drugs forever; we need to stop the toxins.”

“Right. One crisis down. Let’s see what else this warzone has to offer.” Dr. Arden shook her head, letting the ‘Hackett’ thing go.

“So, it’s time for the amputation then?” Another surgeon, who had been preparing in silence the entire time, entered the conversation.

“No, Dr. Kaelen.” Dr. Arden gave him a sharp look.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Doctor Kaelen stared at Dr. Arden like she was out of her mind. “That’s the obvious, and might I add- the only course of action here, doctor.”

“Orders from Admiral Hackett directly. No amputations. Is that clear?” She didn’t just announce it to Kaelen, but she made sure it could be heard by everyone in the room. She did well to hide her own doubts in her voice.

“So what? You really think we’re fixing this with molecular fields and kinetic energy? I don’t know who is crazier here.” Dr. Kaelen threw his arms in resignation, though in his mind he was already adapting a new strategy.

“We have no other option. Failure is not an option either.” Dr. Arden finished bluntly.

Evans gave her a nod of approval.

“Hm… Alright, people. The fun’s over. We’re on the clock. Hackett apparently fancies a miracle, and we were ordered to deliver it. Let’s try our best regardless.” His voice was now clipped, meaning business.

Doctor Kaelen’s orthopedic team stepped closer, all of them shifting focus on Shepard’s mangled, broken legs. Everyone else took a step away to make space, but Dr. Arden and Dr. Evans stayed close to observe.

“What are you planning, Kaelen? You can’t just wish those legs back together.” Now, Dr. Arden voiced her doubts at a lower tone.

“We’re not.” He didn’t even look up. “Just giving the Commander a fighting chance. External fixators first. I want pins in the tibial plateau and calcaneus on the right, femoral head and distal femur on the left. Now! We need mechanical stability before we can even think about biology.”

The sound of pneumatic drills biting into bone echoed gruesomely. The fixator frames were locked into place, creating a crude metal cage around each shattered limb.

“Fixators are locked. Legs are stabilized.”

“Good. Now, the real work. Hand me the bone-weaver.” Kaelen acknowledged one of his assistants and reached out with his hand.

The assistant handed him a device that looked like a large, flat paddle connected by a cable to a console. He placed it directly against the skin over the worst of the femoral fracture on the left leg. It activated with a low, resonant HUM.

“Bone-weaver is active. It’s emitting a targeted molecular field, instructing the stem cells in the bone marrow and periosteum to start laying down a new collagen and mineral matrix. It’s not healing per se; it’s… giving the bone the blueprint to heal itself. I have no idea how long it’s going to take. I’ve had to use this less than five times, and each time it was with extremities not nearly as pulverized as these… It might take months, depending on how well the Commander’s body will be taking this.”

He didn’t expect anyone to engage with him in conversation; he was simply talking everyone through his process and thoughts. He moved the device to the next major fracture site.

“But a blueprint is useless without workers. That’s where this comes in.” He nodded to his assistant. “Apply the osteo-stimulators. Max safe frequency.”

The assistant attached smaller, disc-like devices directly to the fixator frames, aiming them at fracture sites. They clicked into place and immediately began emitting a rapid, percussive tick-tick-tick sound.

“Osteo-stimulators engaged. Delivering pulsed ultrasonic waves.” The assistant confirmed.

“The stimulators provide the kinetic energy. They’re essentially agitating the bone cells at a microscopic level, forcing them to metabolize faster and respond to the weaver’s field.” Kaelen explained.

Evans was watching, fascinated but also slightly horrified. Even with his extensive expertise, he had never seen those devices in use. That was because amputation was always the preferred method. The healing process wasn’t as painful, in some cases, even faster. And with cloning technology and very advanced prosthetics, there was no reason not to amputate in scenarios like this. All of it was more reasons why he considered Hackett’s orders nearly insane. “The pain from that must be incredible.”

Kaelen answered grimly. “It would be, if she were conscious. It feels like the bone is being vibrated apart while it’s trying to knit together. It’s a brutal process. But it’s also the only way to save the limbs without amputation. Her legs are not a biological construction site.”

He took a step back, surveying the work. Shepard’s lower body was now encased in a framework of metal and humming technology.

Everyone now had one thing on their mind, though. If things were going according to plan, and she were to get better, she’d get out of the coma eventually. And the pain would be at the very least… unpleasant.

“That’s all we can do for now. The weaves and stimulators need to run continuously. We’ve stopped the toxin pump and given the bone a path to regeneration. The rest… is up to her body, and whether or not the tissue damage is too extensive for the blood supply to return.”

Dr. Arden let out a long, weary sigh. “So, we’ve traded a quick, clean amputation for potentially months of agonizing, uncertain reconstruction.”

Dr Kaelen nodded and even subtly shrugged his shoulders. “That’s the ‘miracle’ your Admiral Hackett ordered. We’ll see if she thanks us for it if she ever wakes up.”

“We just need to get her to the ICU now. Her own private room should already be prepared.” Evans stated, ignoring Kaelen’s comment.

“You’re kidding, right?” Dr. Arden took a quick step towards Evans, her voice lowering to a near whisper. “Her own room?” She repeated Evans’ words. “We could fit twenty people in one of those rooms!”

“Doctor…” Evans glanced away for a brief second. He understood and agreed to an extent. “She’s very fragile. And very prone to infection. I know that’s many other people here. But… It’s Commander Shepard. Nobody else can have access to her. She will have guards stationed in front of her room 24/7. A small, vetted, dedicated medical team. Everything.”

“This is not fair.” Dr. Arden opposed, her voice now hoarse from exhaustion. She knew she wasn’t going to change a thing when it came to Commander Shepard, but she needed Evans to know what she thought of it.

“I know. It’s not. But the weight of the entire galaxy being put on Shepard’s shoulders alone was not fair to her either, and she has paid an indescribable price. We’re repaying that debt.”

Dr. Arden remained silent, and Evans nodded as a result. “Let’s go.”

***

The final sutures were placed on the chest tube dressings, the whirring osteo-stimulators were silenced for transport, and their work was paused. Shepard’s torso and abdomen were covered with a vacuum-assisted closure dressing. They couldn’t close her up yet due to the risk of swelling.

“Alright. Time to move. ICU team, she’s all yours. Be careful with that VAC unit. If that seal breaks, we’re back to square one, if not worse than that.” Dr. Arden ordered with resolution.

The transfer was a ballet of controlled urgency. With practiced synchrony, the team slid a sturdy transfer board beneath Shepard, then carefully lifted the board and her together, moving her from the OR table to a waiting transport bed.

Evans' eyes never left the VAC dressing on her abdomen, a large, transparent patch of adhesive drape over a spongy interior, with a tube snaking out from it to a portable suction pump that gurgled softly with a sinister, rhythmic sound.

The journey to the private ICU was a hushed, solemn procession. The bed glided through the corridors quietly. The medical personnel were intentionally attempting to block the view from onlookers.

At last, with a hiss, the doors to Shepard’s private ICU opened.

With great care, they repeated the sliding-board maneuver to move Shepard from the transport bed to a fixed ICU bed. Every wire, every tube, the endotracheal tube, the IV lines, the chest tube, the Foley catheter, the VAC line, everything was carefully managed to ensure not a single one was snagged or displaced.

A nurse immediately called out connections like a pilot running a pre-flight check. “Ventilator to wall oxygen… connected. Monitors… online. Suction… active.” The portable equipment was switched over to the room’s permanent, more powerful systems.

Another nurse carefully re-engaged the osteo-stimulators on Shepard’s legs. The rapid, percussive tick-tick-tick filled the room, mostly overpowering the other humming and beeping sounds of the room.

Evans himself leaned in, inspecting the VAC dressing seal. He placed a hand on the cool, transparent drape, checking for any leak. Satisfied, he gave a sharp nod.

The lead ICU nurse did a final, head-to-toe assessment, her eyes scanning every readout, every line, every dressing. She adjusted the flow rate on a dopamine drip, her movements calm and precise.

Then, it was done.

The medical team slowly filtered out, their job complete for now, leaving only Shepard’s newly assigned, dedicated ICU nurse and the rhythmic symphony of the machines. Evans moved to the room next door, which had a viewing window to Shepard’s room, shoulders slumped as the adrenaline was finally draining away.

Commander Shepard was right there, in the center of it all, a pale, broken body enmeshed in a web of machines. Her fate was handed over to time, her own impossible resilience, and the cold mercy of science.

Chapter 7: Damage Control

Steven Hackett’s brow furrowed as he stared through the viewing window into the most important room in the entire hospital, if not on the entirety of Earth.

He didn’t recognize the person lying in that bed, covered in specialized warming blankets. It all seemed like a nightmare.

Evans stood silently beside Hackett, staring at him in the corner of his eye. Hackett’s neutral expression did not reveal the millions of thoughts running through the admiral’s head.

He sent her on that mission, not just the last one that caused her all this, but also all the ones leading up to it. In his brain, he knew that she signed up for it; she knew what she was getting herself into. Probably better than anyone, better than him. And he knew that soldiers die, and that’s the cruel part of every war. But Shepard was no mere, ordinary soldier, even if she thought herself to be one. And she might’ve signed up for near-certain death to save the galaxy, but did she sign up for this?

“Status?” Hackett did not reveal any of his inner workings to Evans.

At that moment, Evans and Hackett were the only ones in the room, observing the commander. On the other side of the glass, there were two nurses, making sure Shepard’s vitals were at least somewhat stable, monitoring brain swelling, fighting the toxins, and constantly checking all their IV lines, correcting coagulopathy with massive blood product transfusions, ensuring all infusions were running smoothly. The fight was nowhere near over while Shepard was seemingly peacefully lying in her bed.

“Well… she’s alive, that’s the most important thing.” Evans began with the good news. “However, her condition remains critical, and will most likely remain critical for the foreseeable future. She’s not out of it, and at any point, one of her vital organs might fail, and we could lose her within seconds.”

Evans glanced at Hackett, looking for any change in his expression, a subtle twitch, anything at all, but he saw nothing, so he straightened his gaze forward.

“We still haven’t had anyone bring in the equipment to properly scan her brain or scan her cybernetic implants. I know they’re en route, but it’s taking excruciatingly long… At least, we’ve performed a full-body, contrast-dye angiogram to map her vascular system… During the first surgery, we stopped whatever bleeding we could, but we didn’t have time to fix everything… she can still bleed to death.”

Evans paused and now looked directly at Hackett, though he only stared at his profile because the admiral did not turn to him. He admired the admiral but was also quite puzzled by his agenda. He admired how efficient the admiral was. Only 16 hours have passed since Commander Shepard was moved from the OR to her own ICU, and in the meantime, Hackett arrived on Earth in a shuttle, because Orizaba was still too damaged for a proper landing, and immediately set up his temporary headquarters just outside the hospital grounds, though he intended to move his headquarters back to Orizaba once it would be able to land.

“The pelvic binder and external fixators are holding her shattered pelvis together mechanically, but they didn’t magically seal all the torn arteries inside the pelvic bowl.” Evans brought up a datapad. “The scan shows a massive, contained bleed is growing behind her abdominal cavity. It’s now putting critical pressure on her kidneys, which are already on the verge of failure, and also on the inferior vena cava, the main vein returning blood to her heart… Speaking of the heart… we’ve got some… some bleeding around the heart too, her heart was also bruised in the explosion.”

Evans wasn’t sure if Hackett understood all the medical jargon and if he understood human anatomy, but he didn’t want to treat him like a fool, and gave him the information like he would to any other doctor or nurse.

“Most of the nurses are currently running errands, gathering necessary resources for the commander’s next series of surgeries that will have to happen very soon, otherwise all of this will have been for nothing,” Evans noted. “We haven’t given her poor body nearly enough time to recover, but desperate times require desperate measures.”

Hackett nodded in approval; that sentiment he agreed with.

Evans didn’t know what Hackett wanted to hear next, or if wanting to hear more at all. Hackett was in his mind an inspiration, someone deserving of unending respect. Hackett was no less a legend than Shepard was, though he was just as humble about it as Shepard. He also considered him to be highly intelligent, but given his achievements, that had to have been given. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Hackett’s agenda, and his actions regarding Shepard, were… irrational.

“May I ask something, Sir?” Evans swallowed.

“Go ahead, Major.”

“With no disrespect at all, Sir… Why? Why are we doing this?”

Hackett frowned. “I don’t follow, Major.”

“This… preservation, Sir. I know you realize amputating her legs would be the easier, cleaner, safer, and in the end also the less painful option for the commander. We can clone, we have advanced prosthetics… So why?”

“I understand, doctor...” Hackett refrained from using his military rank this time, “…that for a man of medicine like yourself, this may be hard to grasp. But everything Commander Shepard has gone through… it will all come crashing down on her, hard, now that the war is over. If she- once she wakes up.” Hackett hesitated, but he was resolute that there was no option but for Shepard to wake up. “The last thing I want is for Shepard to feel like her body isn’t hers or find herself missing half of her body before you clone her a new one. She may have handled it when the situation in the galaxy required her to operate like a robot, but now she would have nothing but time to ponder on the circumstances she will find herself in once she gains consciousness.” Hackett didn’t look at Evans throughout his entire monologue; he stared into the room at Shepard.

Evans truly wasn’t sure if he understood, but he couldn’t fight Hackett’s orders regardless. He also wasn’t sure whether Hackett should be so confident about Shepard waking up, but considering she had survived thus far, it wasn’t as unlikely as he thought it to be just a day earlier.

“You mentioned a project, Sir?” Evans probed, hoping Hackett would give him crumbles at the very least.

Hackett remained silent.

“Sir… Admiral- I don’t know what’s in the works, but if I’m to be Commander Shepard’s primary doctor, I feel like I should know the details about any project regarding her well-being and recovery.”

“The project… Major- has not yet launched officially. I’m searching for the right people to work on it, and we still need to assess its scale and scope. Regarding the secrecy, we will work on a strictly need-to-know basis, and thus far, you don’t need to know anything…” Hackett now looked at Evans. “…just don’t butcher my commander.”

Evans wasn’t sure what to say; he was frustrated, but he was hesitant to show it. He wasn’t one to let people stomp all over him. Even when it came to his superiors, he would always give them a piece of his mind, but this was Hackett standing in front of him.

“Understood, Major?” Hackett was the one to break the silence.

“Y-yes, Admiral.” Evans hated that he stuttered.

“Thank you, Major.” Hackett turned his back to Evans, ready to leave the room, but stopped after one step. “I understand your reservations about my approach, but if you trusted me to help lead humanity against the Reapers, then I ask you to trust me one more time. And do not take my sense of urgency as an attack. I value your services greatly, the whole Alliance does, Doctor Evans.” Hackett didn’t wait for a response from Evans, and this time he promptly left the room.

“Thank you, Admiral,” Evans mumbled to himself. He appreciated Hackett’s words greatly. Even though one speech or even an order was not going to erase the hesitations he had, at least Hackett showed him that he had understanding for his situation, and that he was not being hard on him due to his hesitancy.

Evans gave Shepard one more long glance. He wished he could just fix her with the snap of his fingers. At the very least, he was in a sense glad that her Normandy crew wasn’t there to witness her in this state. He just hoped they were better off than their commander was.

Upon exiting the room, Evans turned his head to his left side, sizing up the two guards standing in front of Shepard’s room. A thought that those two could’ve been two more helping the wounded outside and inside the hospital buildings crept into his mind, but he quickly let it go. Hackett had guards stationed in front of Shepard’s ICU; they were to be there at all times, and only those with proper clearance could enter. Evans subtly shrugged his shoulders and made his way to prepare for the next surgery.

***

The surgery was already in progress, though at the very beginning. Shepard’s body lay at the center of the room, her abdomen open once more, exposed under the surgical lights. The VAC dressing was gone for the time being, and a few nurses were getting rid of all the pooled blood that gushed out after they had released it. Dr. Evans, Dr. Arden were already at work, with Dr. Lynds and Dr. Kaelen preparing for their second-look surgeries in a different room. A new specialist, Dr. Zaharova, was invited to join the procedure due to the plan Evans had in mind.

The osteo-stimulators had also been turned off temporarily to get rid of unnecessary instability. Shepard was being pumped full of drugs, sodium bicarbonate, and calcium chloride. They were keeping a close eye on not giving her too little, but also not too much, so that she wouldn’t be overwhelmed.

“Vitals?” Evans asked, his voice muffled by his mask. He and Arden stood opposite each other, hands at work.

“Holding,” the Anesthesiologist replied from the head of the table. “Pressures are in the gutter, but we’re holding them there with the drip. She’s on 100% FiO2. We’re balanced on a knife’s edge, doctor.”

“Don’t expect anything different, doctor.” Arden replied curtly. “Suction. Let’s start the lavage. I want this cavity clean.”

A nurse guided a sterile irrigation tube, and warm saline flooded the abdominal cavity, washing over the dark, bruised organs. A second tube, held by Evans, suctioned the now-cloudy fluid away.

“It almost looks the same as when we first opened her…” Evans murmured, more to himself than anyone. “Damage seems to be everywhere.”

“Not everywhere,” Arden said, using a retractor to gently lift a section of the stomach. “Look at it, Evans. The spleen.”

Evans leaned in. The Biodesiccant Mesh he and Arden had wrapped around the pulped organ was no longer a gossamer sheet; it had bonded with the tissue, becoming a translucent, supportive film. The L-Weave had sealed the worst of the tears, leaving a pearly, almost-synthetic scar.

“No active bleeding from the capsule,” Evans confirmed, a note of grim satisfaction in his voice.

“Don’t celebrate yet,” Arden warned, her focus moving lower. “Irrigation. More suction... wait. There. The mesentery.”

Evans’ eyes followed her instrument. “Damn it.”

“What is that?” the Anesthesiologist asked, his voice tight with concern. “A new bleed?”

“A hidden bleed,” Evans corrected. He pointed to the delicate, fan-like tissue that anchored the intestines. It was stained with a dark, spreading bruise, a hematoma that was slowly, but actively, growing. “The impalement rod or the blast wave must have torn a branch of the superior mesenteric artery. It was masked by the catastrophic pelvic hemorrhage before.”

“We can’t clamp that,” Arden stated flatly. “We’ll cut off the blood supply to the entire bowel. She’ll go necrotic.”

“We’re not clamping it,” Evans said, stepping back. “We’re plugging it. Dr. Zaharova, the field is yours.”

Dr. Zaharova, who had been standing by a separate, humming console, stepped forward. She was all calm precision. An imaging arm slid over Shepard’s body, projecting a live, 3D holographic map of her internal arteries above the table.

“This is the target,” Evans pointed to the bloom of dark contrast dye on the hologram that marked the bleed.

“I see it,” Dr. Zaharova acknowledged. Her voice was a calm monotone. “I’m already in. Advancing the micro-catheter from the femoral line.”

Evans and Arden watched the hologram. A paper-thin guide wire snaked through the complex map, taking impossibly sharp turns.

“She’s navigating the entire arterial tree from the leg,” Evans whispered to a nurse. “It’s high-tech plumbing.”

“Pressure’s dipping,” the Anesthesiologist warned. “Ectopic beat. The catheter’s irritating the artery wall.”

“Hold,” Zaharova commanded. “Tip is at the branch. The field is stable. Deploying platinum-filament micro-coils.”

On the screen, a tiny, glittering corkscrew of wire began to spin out of the catheter's tip, nesting directly inside the ruptured vessel.

“Coils deployed,” Zaharova said, her jaw slightly clenched. “Activating coagulant polymer seal.”

She pressed a control. The holographic image of the bleed fuzzed, and then... stopped. The dark stain ceased to grow.

“Bleed is sealed,” Zaharova confirmed, her eyes still on the monitor. “Perfusion to the bowel is intact. The artery is plugged.” She stepped back, nodding to Evans. “She’s all yours again, doctors.”

“Spirits,” Arden muttered, visibly impressed. “Alright, Evans… let’s finish this washout and hand her over to Lynds.”

***

“Abdomen is stable for now,” Arden announced, “Dr. Lynds. You're up. The pre-op scans showed a significant effusion.”

“As I’ve read,” Dr. Lynds, the cardio-thoracic surgeon, moved into the primary position at Shepard's chest. “She's in tamponade. The blast wave bruised the myocardium, and it's been leaking ever since. She's strangling her own heart.”

“Vitals confirm it,” the Anesthesiologist called out. “Her pressures are narrow, and they're fighting my pressors. She needs this, Doctor. Fast.”

“This isn't a simple needle drain,” Lynds informed, speaking more to his team than to Evans or Arden. “The fluid will be clotted. We're going in surgically. Subxiphoid approach. Scalpel.”

A nurse slapped the handle into his waiting hand. Lynds made a precise, vertical incision just below Shepard's sternum, cutting through the layers of tissue.

"Retractor. Deeper... there. I see the pericardium."

He gestured for a portable ultrasonic scanner, which a nurse rolled into place. On its screen, an image flickered to life, showing the heart in real-time. It was a terrifying sight: the familiar, rhythmic beating was visibly dampened, crushed by a “dark halo” of fluid that encased it.

“Look at that,” Evans murmured, leaning in to observe. “The right ventricle is collapsing on itself. She's got minutes.”

“Then we won't take that long,” Lynds stated. “Guide wire.”

With his other hand, he took a long, reinforced catheter, a bi-polymer drainage cannula. His eyes were locked on the scanner's screen, his hands moving with meticulous care.

“Puncturing the pericardium... now.”

There was a tense silence in the room, broken only by the monitor's beep and the ventilator’s hiss.

“We're in,” Lynds said, his voice flat. He advanced the flexible cannula over the wire, deep into the sac. “Guide wire is out. Attach the sterile line. Low, continuous suction.”

A nurse connected a clear tube to the cannula. Almost instantly, a dark, thick, crimson-black fluid began to snake down the line, filling a collection canister on the floor. It was old, deoxygenated blood.

“My God,” one of the junior nurses whispered.

“She's been collecting that since the explosion,” Lynds explained. "The flail chest was the obvious injury to take care of, but we should’ve noticed this, too.”

“Vitals!” the Anesthesiologist suddenly almost shouted, his voice alive with relief. “Pressures are responding! Systolic is coming up. I've got one-ten over seventy! Heart rate is settling. She’s improving fast.”

On the scanner, the change was immediate and dramatic. The “dark halo” was shrinking, and the compressed heart muscle leaped, suddenly beating with a full, powerful stroke.

“She just needed room to work,” Lynds noted, a rare note of satisfaction in his voice. "We're not done. I'm leaving the drain in. Suture it to the skin. If that sac fills again, I want to know about it.”

“Good work, Doctor,” Arden nodded, her gaze already moving to the next problem. “One less thing to worry about.”

Lynds looked up at her, stripping off his bloody outer gloves and tossing them into a biohazard receptacle. "Not done yet, Doctor. The heart was just being squeezed. Now, the lungs..." He motioned to the ventilator, which was still hissing, fighting to push air into her damaged tissue. "That’s what I care about right now. Let’s not neglect those poor things any longer.”

***

“The heart has room to beat,” Lynds stated, his eyes moving to the ventilator. “But it's useless if it's only pumping unoxygenated blood. Now, we deal with the real problem.”

“Her saturation is holding at 90 percent, but only on 100 percent oxygen and max pressure,” the Anesthesiologist called out, his voice tense. “Her pulmonary compliance is still trash. I'm having to force every single breath into her. Those lungs are like concrete.”

“As expected,” Lynds nodded. “It’s what we saw in the first surgery. It's not a major vessel tear we can suture. Her alveoli are pulverized, collapsed, and full of fluid.”

“It's a real mess in there,” Evans quoted Lynds’ own words from the first operation, his arms crossed as he observed. “So, what's the plan? We can't put a patch on a bruise.”

“No,” Lynds agreed. “You can't patch a swamp. You have to drain it and rebuild it. We're going to perform a full, bilateral pulmonary lavage and deploy an alveolar scaffold.”

He turned to his assistant. “Get me the A-LEV Surfactant and the Bio-Static Foam kit.”

Arden, who had been quietly monitoring the abdominal site, looked up. “A liquid-breathing lavage? On a patient this unstable? That's a hell of a risk, Lynds.”

“It's the only option,” Lynds countered, not looking at her. “Her lungs will not heal on their own. They're too damaged. We have to clear the contusion byproducts and force the alveoli open.”

A nurse handed him a long, dual-lumen catheter, which he carefully fed down Shepard's endotracheal tube, advancing it deep into her airway. He nodded to the Anesthesiologist.

“Stop ventilation... Now. Lungs are static.”

The rhythmic hiss of the ventilator ceased. Now, the only sound in the room was the monitor's steady beep.

“Beginning instillation of the A-LEV Surfactant, left lung first.”

The team watched as a pre-warmed, pearlescent liquid flowed from a bag into Shepard's lungs.

“He's filling her lungs with fluid,” a young, junior nurse whispered, horrified. Normally, green nurses like this one wouldn’t be present for a surgery as important as this one, maybe only as observers, but the hospital remained understaffed, and neither Evans nor Hackett could be picky. The fact that the hospital had geniuses like Lynds, Kaelen, and Zaharova was a miracle by itself.

“It's a perfluorocarbon solution,” Evans explained in a low voice. “It's super-oxygenated. It allows for gas exchange while it washes the blood and edema out of the air sacs. It's the only way to clean a lung from the inside out.”

“Flush is in,” Lynds announced. “Now, activating surfactant recovery.”

He flipped a switch on the attached console. A pump whirred, and the return-line canister began to fill with a dark, frothy, pinkish-red fluid.

“That,” Lynds pointed to the canister, “is the blast lung. All that fluid is what was drowning her.”

“Vitals are dropping!” the Anesthesiologist warned. “Heart rate is spiking! She's hypoxic!”

“She'll hold,” Lynds remained calm. “Almost... done. Surfactant recovered. Now, deploying the Alveolar Bio-Foam. Anesthesia, prepare to resume ventilation on my mark.”

Lynds injected a new, amber-colored substance through the same port.

“The foam is a nano-polymer,” Lynds explained as he worked. “It expands to fill every air sac, providing a physical scaffold. It holds the alveoli open, and the foam itself is saturated with broad-spectrum antibiotics and oxygen-diffusing molecules. It's a temporary, internal lung.”

“Foam deployed,” Lynds said, pulling the catheter out. “Resume ventilation. Now!”

The Anesthesiologist hit the controls. The ventilator hissed back to life. For one agonizing second, the pressure alarms shrieked.

And then... silence.

“My God,” the Anesthesiologist breathed. “Pressures are... they're dropping. Compliance is improving. I'm... I'm getting better gas exchange. Saturation is climbing! 94... 95 percent...”

Lynds nodded, satisfied. “The foam will dissolve and be metabolized over the next 72 hours, just as her own tissue begins to repair. We’ve given her some time.”

The doctor stepped away from the table. "Get Kaelen in here, it’s his turn," he called out to one of the nurses.

***

“All yours, Kaelen, try not to break her.” Lynds attempted to alleviate the situation with a bit of banter, and a few corners turned underneath the masks.

“I only fix what's already broken, Lynds,” Kaelen grumbled, not looking up. He and his orthopedic team moved in, taking over the space. “Alright, people, the doctors playing with flesh had their fun. Let's get to the real work.”

He pointed to the hologram, which showed a stark 3D image of Shepard's left arm.

“The left humerus is a compound spiral fracture. Nasty. The right is a clean transverse, but the hand...” Kaelen grimaced, glancing at Shepard's limp, mangled right hand. “Phalanges are dust. We'll start with the left.”

An assistant irrigated the open wound on Shepard's left arm, where the bone had punched through the skin.

“Debriding fragments... now,” the assistant murmured.

“Give me the 12-centimeter nanofiber-laced titanium plate,” Kaelen ordered.

A nurse slapped the precisely-milled piece of metal into his palm. As he positioned it against the shattered bone, he spoke to Evans, who was observing.

“I assume Hackett still wants his miracles, Evans? This is the best I've got. Standard titanium just holds bone. This,” he stared at Evans, tapping the plate, “is a smart-scaffold. The nanofibers are laced with osteo-inductive proteins. They don't just hold the bone; they command it to heal, tricking the osteoblasts into bonding directly with the metal. You won’t believe how many strings I had to pull, and how many favors I had to ask for, just so I could get all of these just for myself.” Kaelen jabbed at the fact that Shepard was getting all the state-of-the-art treatment in the already beyond-struggling hospital.

The situation for Earth was even more grim upon the realization that this was the best hospital, with the best people far and wide. Most other hospitals, mobile or not, probably had just a fraction of people like Kaelen, Lynds, Zaharova, Evans, or Arden. And even AMSH-7 had only a few.

The high-pitched whirr of a surgical drill cut the air.

“Drill. Screw. Good.” Kaelen's movements were fast and mechanical. “Second screw. Lock it down. The plate is seated. Suture the fascia. That's one.”

His team worked with rapid efficiency, closing the primary wound before moving to her right arm. Kaelen set the simple transverse fracture in her right forearm in under a minute with an audible snap.

“Done,” he exhaled. “Now... the hard part.”

He gently took Shepard's right hand. “This is like reassembling a crushed eggshell. We can't use plates; we'll just have metal dust. Give me the cryo-set polymer applicator.”

An assistant handed him a device that looked like a precision-nozzle injector. Kaelen began the painstaking work of manipulating the tiny, shattered bones in her fingers back into their general, anatomical shape.

“We mold the fragments,” he explained, “then we inject the polymer directly into the fracture lines and marrow cavities. It acts as an internal, bio-neutral cement.”

He angled the injector's needle. “Injecting... now.”

A thin, clear gel flowed into the unseen cracks.

“Good,” Kaelen’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “Now, hit it with the cryo-pulse.”

A different assistant aimed a thin nozzle at Shepard's hand. A sharp, loud hiss of super-cooled nitrogen gas enveloped her fingers in a white cloud for a split second.

“The cryo-pulse flash-hardens the polymer,” Kaelen released the hand. “It's now as strong as the bone it's holding. It's not pretty, and she'll need months of physical therapy to get any dexterity back, but... the hand is whole.”

He stepped back from the table, stripping his gloves.

“That's it. Arms are plated, fingers are set. The legs...” He glanced down at the pelvic binder and the drapes covering her lower body. He shook his head, knowing amputation would’ve solved half their problems down there. “...are still their own special kind of hell. But for now, we're done here."

Evans let out a breath he felt he'd been holding for hours. “Good work, Kaelen. Everyone... good work.”

He took a step towards Shepard and very gently placed his arm on one of her shoulders. “Good work, Shepard. You’re doing amazing. Honestly, nobody else would’ve survived these injuries and the demanding surgeries following right after.” He hoped that she could hear him, maybe giving her even more strength that she would definitely need.

Everyone else nodded in silent admiration of the Commander.

Then he turned to Dr. Arden, who was already preparing the dressings. "Dr. Arden. Let's get that new VAC dressing on. We're done. Let's get her back to the ICU before something else blows.”

“Y-yeah, right.” Arden was briefly taken aback by Evans’ speech to Shepard directly; she looked away to hide her expression. “Time for her to rest some more, she’ll need it like nothing else in the world.”

Chapter 8: The Architect

The room that served as the department’s “Headquarters” had clearly been nothing but a larger supply closet in a former life.

It was a suffocating box of concrete walls, barely two meters wide. In a functioning hospital, it wouldn't have been fit for a resident to take a nap in. Here, at the edge of the apocalypse, it was the shared office for three senior physicians.

Major Evans sat on a worn-down but sturdy crate that had been dragged in to serve as a second chair, his knees knocking against the metal leg of the room’s single, scarred desk. Opposite him, squeezed onto a rolling stool, Dr. Aris was reviewing a scrolling list of casualty reports on a datapad, her brow furrowed in both exhaustion and frustration. Leaning against the doorframe because there was literally nowhere else to stand, Dr. Vance was holding a cup of lukewarm, sludge-like coffee.

“We’re down to twelve units of synthetic plasma,” Aris muttered, rubbing her temples. “And the regenerator in Triage B just burned out its power cell. Again.”

“Cannibalize the one from the burnt-out dental clinic down the street,” Vance suggested, her tone of voice suggesting she was at the very least sleep deprived. “It’s not compatible, but if you strip the safety limiter, it’ll run.”

“It might also explode,” Aris countered softly.

“Then don't stand next to it.”

Evans rubbed his face, feeling the grit of forty-eight sleepless hours embedding into his skin. The air in the room was hot, recycled, and smelled faintly of ozone and antiseptic. Commander Shepard was perhaps the only person in the entire string of run-down buildings and tents they called a hospital who had the luxury of having her own room; everyone else lived on top of each other, it didn’t matter whether they were patients, soldiers, nurses, or doctors. That included Evans himself. He obviously found it less than ideal, but on the other hand, it was still better than the places he had to reside in during the war, so there was no room for complaining in his head.

A sharp, priority chime cut through the low hum of the ventilation.

Evans glanced at his omni-tool. The encryption code flashing on the display made his spine straighten instinctively, even though he wasn’t just expecting this; he was waiting for it. High Command.

“I’m sorry,” Evans said, looking up at his colleagues. His voice was gentle and apologetic. “I hate to do this, but I need the room. Secured channel.”

Dr. Vance didn't even hesitate. She pushed off the doorframe instantly, capping her coffee. “Don’t worry about it, Major.”

“We were just leaving to check on the post-ops anyway,” Dr. Aris added, standing up and tucking her datapad under her arm. She paused for a second, looking at Evans with a gaze that held unspoken respect. They knew where he had been. They knew he had dragged wounded soldiers out of craters while Reaper destroyers stepped over his head. No doctor had it easy during the war; AMSH-7 looked calm right now compared to what it had looked like just a week earlier. Not to mention, sometimes hospitals would be targeted by Reapers as both easy and important targets, especially to destabilize humanity’s morale. Still, for one to choose and become a medic, be under direct line of fire, many times being required to fire back, those were just a few of many things most doctors couldn’t do, and that’s why they respected Evans and many similar to him. Of course, for Evans, it had been easier, since he already had Alliance military training from before, but it didn’t diminish his bravery or achievements in the slightest. He wasn’t just any doctor.

“Get some rest after the call, Ryley,” Aris softly placed her hand on his shoulder. “You look like hell.”

“I’ll try,” Evans lied with a faint, tired smile. “Thank you.”

Aris squeezed past him as it was impossible not to brush shoulders in the tiny space, and the door hissed shut, sealing him in the sudden, heavy silence.

Evans waited for the lock to engage, ensuring absolute privacy. He took a breath, composed his features into a mask of professional stoicism, and tapped the acceptance key.

The holographic image of Admiral Hackett flickered to life, the blue light casting long, unstable shadows across the cramped walls. The connection was stable, but the occasional lag showed that the comms relays were still far from being fully repaired.

“Report, Major,” Hackett’s voice was as steady as bedrock, revealing nothing of the anxiety Evans knew had to be stirring beneath the surface.

Evans rubbed his face again. He couldn’t shake off the exhaustion; he really needed the sleep, but he was worried that the moment he’d allow himself the luxury, he would wake up to some catastrophe, and he would never stop blaming himself for Shepard’s death. He glanced down at the datapad; the list of broken things.

“We finally got the scans, Admiral,” Evans began, his voice hoarse. “An Asari neuro-specialist called Shiiraa Lonus from the Destiny Ascension’s relief team arrived with a high-grade resonance imager. And Reli-Vonn vas Ziron, a Quarian engineer, managed to patch together a diagnostic tool for her synthetics based on their medical data. I think we have the full picture now.”

“And?”

“It’s… It’s a mixed bag, Sir. But mostly heavy.” Evans took a breath. “I’ll start with the head. The TBI, uh… Traumatic Brain Injury is severe, but arguably the most manageable part of this nightmare. We’re…We’re seeing diffuse axonal injury and significant edema in the frontal lobes. It explains the coma.”

“Prognosis?”

“We can manage the swelling with hypertonic saline and targeted mass effect fields. We can repair the vascular tears in the cranium. The deafness? She has ruptured tympanic membranes and damage to the cochlear nerve. It’s bad, but fixable. We can regenerate that tissue.”

“And her higher functions?” Hackett’s eyebrow raised, his voice sharpening. “I’m not talking about autonomic reflexes. I’m talking about executive function. Broca’s area. The motor cortex. Is she going to be able to speak? Will she remember who she is? Or will she wake up a blank slate with a pulse?”

Evans hesitated. It was the question every doctor dreaded because there was never a clean answer.

“The scan shows the hardware is intact, Sir, but the software… that’s a different story. The edema is pressing on the temporal and frontal lobes. We can see the pathways, but we can’t see the traffic. Until she wakes up and tries to form a sentence or track a moving object, we are guessing.”

“Guess, then,” Hackett commanded.

“She will likely have significant cognitive deficits,” Evans admitted, his tone professional but grim. “Aphasia, difficulty speaking or finding words, is almost guaranteed initially. Memory loss, likely retrograde, is probable. As for dexterity… even if we fix her hands, the neural signal from her brain to her fingers might be garbled. She might have to relearn how to hold a spoon, let alone a rifle. And yes… some of that loss could be permanent.”

For a moment, there was just silence.

Evans tapped the miniature console, which allowed the hologram to project itself even in a room as small as the one he had to call his office. “Admiral? Sir? Has the connection been lost again?”

“No, Major,” Hackett answered promptly, but without explanation.

Evans paused, pretending to scroll through his report, even though the next section was right underneath. He understood the silence. The dim light from the datapad was falling on Evans’ tired expression. He waited for as long as Hackett needed.

“Continue, Major.” Hackett’s voice suddenly filled Evans’ office again, though Evans hesitated, knowing that he had basically no even remotely good news left.

He exhaled deeply. “We can deal with the deafness, but her eyes are gone, Sir. The thermal flash burned her retinas, the photoreceptors are destroyed. We're also seeing significant optic nerve damage from the cranial fractures, and there may be additional visual processing impairment from the TBI.” Evans looked up at the hologram. “If we want her to see again, she needs transplants as a first step. We have donor matches available from the casualties. We could do it tomorrow.”

“No.” The refusal was instant.

“Sir, again, with all due respect-”

“No transplants, Major. You treat the injury, you deploy any temporary measures, you regenerate what you can to make sure she doesn’t die. But you do not replace parts of her with someone else. Is that clear?”

“Crystal, Admiral,” Evans said, fighting the urge to throw the datapad across the room. He couldn't understand the logic. Why save the hero only to leave her blind? He pushed the thought down and moved to the next disaster.

“Regarding the cybernetics… the Quarian engineer ran a full diagnostic. It’s not good. Her systems, the ones Cerberus put in, are cascading. They’re throwing out error codes we’ve never seen. The interface with her central nervous system is degrading. Simply put, Sir, they are rejecting. It’s a slow process, but the bio-feedback loop is toxic. If we leave them in, they will eventually fry her neural pathways. They will kill her.”

“Can you stabilize them?”

“The Quarian said he can dampen the feedback loop with the help of Dr. Zaharova, buy Shepard some time. But the medical consensus is removal. We need to strip that tech out before it cooks her brain.”

“Denied,” Hackett ordered again. “You dampen the signal. You keep her stable. But those implants stay exactly where they are. You don’t know what removing them might do to her physiology. We can’t risk the shock; maybe the only reason she survived is the implants.”

Evans clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached. “Sir, keeping toxic tech inside a patient goes against every oath I’ve ever taken.”

“I am aware of your oaths, Major. I am giving you an order.” Hackett’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What else? You’re holding back the worst of it.”

Evans sighed; defeat in his tone was apparent. He tapped the final image on his pad, the spinal scan. The picture was grim.

“It’s her spine, Sir. We knew the pelvis was crushed, but the M-Spec confirmed the damage was higher up. It’s the L1 vertebra.”

“Fractured?”

“Obliterated,” Evans corrected. “It’s a comminuted burst fracture. The bone didn't just break; it exploded under the pressure. We have retropulsed fragments; shards of bone that have been driven backward, directly into the spinal canal.”

Evans looked up, meeting the Admiral’s holographic gaze.

“The spinal cord is completely transected. Cut in half. There is a two-centimeter gap of macerated tissue at the conus medullaris. The dura, the protective sac, is avulsed, torn wide open.”

Hackett remained silent for a long moment once more. “Fix it.”

“I can’t.” Evans’ tone was quiet but plain and absolute.

“Why?”

“Sir, I can attempt to plate the bone. Maybe I can fuse the spine so she can sit up without collapsing. But the cord? That tissue is gone. Modern grafts cannot bridge a gap that wide, not in the central nervous system. The pathways are severed; we’d have to reconnect millions of such microscopic pathways. Even if she wakes up… even if we save her brain… she is a T12 paraplegic. She will never walk again. Not with Alliance medicine. Not with any medicine I know of.”

He waited for the Admiral to argue, to demand another miracle, to order him to find a way.

Instead, Hackett’s expression shifted. The hardness remained, but the tension in his shoulders seemed to settle, as if he had just confirmed a suspicion he had been dreading.

“Do what you can for the bone stability, Major. Plate it. Do not attempt to touch the cord itself. Leave the nerves alone.”

“Sir?” Evans blinked. “Leaving it alone guarantees paralysis.” He was surprised, and his subconscious almost wanted to prompt Hackett to order him that next miracle.

“I know. Just stabilize the structure. Keep her alive, Major. Keep her heart beating and her brain intact. That is all I ask of you right now.”

“And the rest?” Evans gestured helplessly to the list of injuries. “The blindness? The paralysis? The failing implants?”

“Let me worry about the rest,” Hackett said decisively, his hand reaching out to cut the feed. “Hackett out.”

The hologram vanished, plunging the room back into the dim light coming from a flickering ceiling LED array. Evans sat alone in the silence, staring at the datapad, wondering if he was saving a woman or just preserving a monument for Hackett to display on a parade somewhere.

“What are you doing, Hackett?” He shook his head, whispering to himself.

***

The room was not a room. It was a hollowed-out concrete shell that had once been the basement of a bank. Now, it was just a tomb for dust.

A woman sat on a crate in the center of the darkness, illuminated only by the blueish, unstable light from a damaged glow panel. She was meticulously cleaning a heavy pistol, her movements stiff but precise. Her usual pristine white bodysuit was far from being pristine or white. It had tears in more than a few places and was covered in grime and dust.

She winced as she reassembled the slide. A deep, ugly bruise blossomed across her ribs, one of many souvenirs she suffered after her fighter was shot down by Reapers above London and turned into scrap metal. There was a cut on her forehead that had stopped bleeding but throbbed with every heartbeat.

She checked her omni-tool. Still offline. The local comms buoys were done for. She salvaged the vid comm from her fighter, but nobody has attempted to contact her, nor was she sure whether it was even working still.

She wasn't waiting for rescue. She was waiting for the strength to walk out of London on her own. She had done it before; she would do it again. The Reapers were dead, she had felt the shift in the air, seen the husks drop like puppets with cut strings, but the chaos that followed was often just as dangerous.

A static hiss cut through the silence.

The woman froze. It wasn't her omni-tool. It was the heavy transmitter she had dragged from the wreckage of her fighter and hooked up to a backup battery in the corner of the basement.

“...ecured channel... Encryption Alpha-One... Identifying signature...”

She stood up, ignoring the sharp protest of her ribs, and walked over to the console. The encryption code flashing on the screen was high-level Alliance.

She hesitated. The war was over. She was a former Cerberus operative, and not just any average henchwoman; in her eyes, maybe even helping "save the galaxy" might not fully erase that in the eyes of a military tribunal. It was one of the reasons why she decided to hide out in the basement instead of approaching the soldiers she had heard many times searching for survivors above her.

But she accepted the hail.

The hologram that flickered to life was grainy, but the face was unmistakable. The hard lines, the uniform, the weight of command.

“Miranda Lawson,” Admiral Steven Hackett’s voice cracked through the faulty connection.

Miranda straightened her posture, instinctively falling back into the icy composure that had been her armor for as long as she could remember. She didn't salute. She wasn't a soldier.

“Admiral Hackett,” she replied, her voice cool, masking the fatigue. “I assume you’re tracking my transponder signal. If you’re sending a squad to arrest me, you should know I’m not currently in the mood to be taken quietly.”

“I'm not sending a squad, Miss Lawson. And I'm not interested in arrests.” Hackett’s eyes scanned her appearance, the bruises, the dirt, the torn-up bodysuit. “We know about your fighter. We lost your signal during the orbital descent. Many assumed you were KIA, but I tend to be stubborn.”

“I'm hard to kill, Admiral. Though not for a lack of trying on the Reapers' part.” She crossed her arms. “If this isn't a court-martial, then what is it? The war is over. My usefulness to the Alliance ended the moment the Crucible fired.”

“Your usefulness ended. Your necessity has just begun.”

Miranda raised an eyebrow. “Cryptic. I don't have time for games, Admiral. I need to get out of this sector before I have to start dealing with looters and scavengers.”

“We can extract you. A shuttle can be at your coordinates in twenty minutes. But first, I need to know if you’re still the woman who rebuilt a dead Commander Shepard when she was nothing but hunks of flesh and a brain.”

Miranda flinched. It was a subtle thing, a tightening of the jaw, but Hackett saw it.

“Shepard…” she said, her voice dropping an octave. “My worst fear…” She whispered to herself. “I saw the Citadel arms open. I saw the explosion. If that truly was Shepard who caused that explosion, if she- if she succeeded and saved us all, then… then I’m sorry. Nobody survives that. Not even her. There would be nothing left."

“You're wrong.”

The silence that stretched between them was heavy. Miranda stepped closer to the hologram, her eyes searching his face for a lie.

“Excuse me?”

“Shepard is alive,” Hackett stated. "We found her approximately two days ago in the ruins of the Citadel tower. She was buried in one of the impact craters."

Miranda felt the blood drain from her face. Shepard. The person who probably saved her more than enough times for a lifetime, the one who drastically changed the trajectory of her life, certainly for the better. The one who helped her fight her father and save her sister. That person needed her help, and instead of looking for her, she was hiding out in that basement, worried about getting arrested. She felt guilty.

“That's... physically impossible. She had to have fallen from the orbit… The- the reentry heat alone...” She shook her head, her scientific mind rejecting the outrageous claim. “Even if she survived the blast, the fall...”

"She is alive, Miss Lawson. But barely. She is in critical condition at AMSH-7. The best surgeons are working on her, but they have hit a wall. A wall, I think only you can climb.”

“What kind of wall?” Her curiosity was warring with her disbelief.

“Catastrophic. A comminuted burst fracture of the L1 vertebra. Complete spinal transection. The cord is severed. Her brain has suffered massive trauma, blindness, cognitive functions unknown, and her systems, the cybernetics you installed, are failing. The crucible explosion fried them, and they are not working properly, if at all. My doctors want to strip them out, but they don't know what it would do to her.”

“Fried them?”

“We won’t get a clear answer until Shepard is able to talk, but whatever Shepard did, it destroyed all the Geth, and heavily damaged all synthetic hardware.”

Miranda’s mind began to race, involuntarily cataloging the injuries. L1 transection. Paraplegia. Retinal damage, optic nerve trauma, possible visual cortex impairment. Critical failure of Shepard's cybernetic implants.

“Why not transplant her eyes? That’s common practice.” She questioned.

“Out of the question. I want the original Shepard. That’s non-negotiable.”

Miranda glossed over Hackett’s request and focused on the next issue.

“They definitely can’t remove the implants…” she murmured, almost to herself. “Removing the cybernetics would surely kill her, or in the best-… best case scenario, lobotomize her. They almost act like her extra organs; her body would fail without them, especially if she is as weakened as you say.”

"That was my exact impression," Hackett’s hologram nodded. “That is why I need you.”

“Admiral...” Miranda sighed, turning away from the blue light to look into the dark corners of her hideout. “Project Lazarus took two years. It took four billion credits. It required the full, unchecked resources of the Illusive Man, dozens of top-tier scientists, and a facility built for that specific purpose. Look around you.” She gestured to the ruin. “The economy has surely collapsed. The fleets are destroyed or heavily damaged. People out there are scavenging for clean water and food. You cannot rebuild a Project Lazarus in a graveyard.”

“I don't want Lazarus,” Hackett’s voice was sharp. “Lazarus was about resurrection. Shepard is not dead. This is about rebirth. We are calling it Project Phoenix.”

“We?” Miranda raised an eyebrow again. “Do you already have someone?”

“I take it you can imagine that when it comes to Shepard’s wellbeing, more than a few people are willing to put their knowledge and skill to work, when she just saved everything they’ve ever known.”

Miranda smirked, looked down, and then back at Hackett. “A fitting name... Phoenix… But poetry doesn't fix a severed spinal cord, Admiral.”

“No. But a genius does. And loyalty.” Hackett leaned in. “I’m not sure I can give you billions of credits. I will only try my best to give you a pristine station. But what I can guarantee you is the full authority of the Systems Alliance. I can give you whatever staff you name, whatever equipment we can salvage. Rest assured, the Citadel races will work together to save one person when that one person is Commander Shepard. I am asking you to take the lead on this. To be the Architect of her survival. Again.”

“Why me?” she asked softly. “Why go through the trouble of finding me when time is of the essence? There are other geneticists. Other cyberneticists. Probably more trusted than me.”

“Because you know her,” Hackett said simply. "You were her crewmate, her companion, her friend. You know her physiology better than anyone. And more importantly... You won't let her die. Most of my doctors just see a patient. I’ve gotten the information that many wanted to leave her for dead when they found her.”

As Hackett paused, Miranda’s eyes widened in shock. How could anyone dare to even think of doing that?

“But you. You see Shepard.”

Miranda closed her eyes. She thought of the hours she had spent staring at Shepard's vital monitors two years ago. She thought of the impossible woman who had defied collectors, Reapers, and death itself.

“If I do this...” Miranda started, her voice gaining strength. “I do it my way. No oversight from ethics committees. No red tape. If I need a piece of tech, you get it for me. If I need a specific surgeon, you draft them, no matter their past or how trustworthy they are.”

“Done,” Hackett promised. “You answer only to me.”

“And one more thing…” She rubbed her hands nervously. “I want to see her. I want to see Shepard right now.”

“Of course.”

Miranda Lawson looked down at herself, being covered in this amount of dirt was a sight she rarely saw, then she looked back up at the Admiral. The fatigue seemed to evaporate, replaced by a familiar, razor-sharp focus.

“Send the shuttle, Admiral. And tell your doctors not to touch those implants at any cost. Even if they move one accidentally, it could cause a catastrophic chain reaction. I won’t be able to remove them right away; I’ll have to figure out a workaround.”

“The shuttle is already inbound. Hackett out.”

The hologram vanished. Miranda stood alone in the dark for a moment longer. She holstered her pistol and walked toward the exit.

“I’ll need to ask for a new suit too, can’t save Shepard looking like this… Definitely not accepting any Alliance-issued fatigues, they have no sense of style.” Miranda spoke to herself as she glanced at the now powered-down transmitter for one last time before going up the stairs.

Shepard was alive. And Miranda had work to do.

Chapter 9: The Oath and The Friend

Miranda silently stared from the viewport of the shuttle. She sat alone in the passenger bay, her arms crossed over her chest. The vibration agitated the deep bruise on her ribs, though she did her best to keep up her porcelain-like expression. Excluding her, only two Alliance soldiers and a pilot were inside the shuttle. She hadn’t spoken a word to any of them.

The small speck on the ground below, called Alliance Mobile Surgical Hospital 7, was becoming bigger and bigger as the shuttle was closing in. She could only sigh silently as the suffering she could only hear about from the pilot’s comms earlier was turning very real.

Hackett had called it a hospital, but from the air it looked like a refugee camp.

The tents stretched possibly for kilometers, a sea of drab military canvas stained with mud and soot. Between them, thousands of figures moved like ants: wounded soldiers, displaced civilians, overworked medical staff. Even through the shuttle’s hull, she already imagined what kind of sound she’d hear once she’d leave the shuttle.

The shuttle descent was not smooth. It was a jarring, rattling drop through layers of atmospheric ash that turned the midday sun into a bruised, purple smear.

I hope this is not where I’m supposed to work on Project Phoenix. She thought to herself. This was absurdity.

“Be advised! We’re about to land, Miss Lawson!” The pilot informed through the radio.

The shuttle touched down on a reinforced concrete pad with a bone-jarring thud. The ramp hissed open, and Miranda was greeted with the same smell that Evans had been when he first arrived with Shepard, though Evans was much more used to a sight like that. The ozone, unwashed bodies, antiseptic, and the cloying, metallic tang of old blood.

She barely stepped out into the chaos and was already momentarily stunned.

“Move! Clear the pad! Incoming wounded!”

A triage officer screamed orders nearby, directing a team of medics toward another shuttle that was landing hot. Nobody paid Miranda any attention. In this place, she wasn't a high-priority asset or a wanted fugitive; she was just another survivor in dirty clothes.

“I need some help here! Quick! She’s dying on me! Medic! Doctor! Anybody!”

Miranda only glanced at the way that noise was coming from. A nurse, both her arms covered in blood up to the elbows. And an alliance soldier lying in the mud. Everyone was so busy and concerned with themselves that nobody seemed to care. Yet, in another moment, one doctor was at the nurse’s side, trying to help.

“This place is hell! Is this supposed to be a real hospital?! They are treating us like animals! We’re human beings, goddamnit!”

One civilian was yelling, venting his frustrations at the world. Nobody was paying attention to him.

Miranda just stood, finally snapping out of the initial shock and instinctively smoothing out the front of her white bodysuit. It was torn at the thigh, both knees, and it had a large tear over her ribs, revealing the nasty bruise. Usually, the projected perfection, now she looked far from it, she tried hard for that fact not to get under her skin. Luckily, she had spent so much time with Shepard; without her, she probably would’ve crumpled just because she didn’t look pristine. Not mentioning the suit, her lips and skin were dry, and her hair was messy and unwashed.

She scanned the area with her eyes. Looking for the building that had been described to her in the Kodiak. Maybe she just needed to follow the noise.

Above the din of the engines and the shouting medics, a roar, distinctly non-human and distinctly angry, shook the air.

“GET OUT OF MY WAY, PYJAKS! OR I WILL EAT YOU WHOLE!”

Miranda stopped. She knew that voice. It was a sound that usually preceded gunfire and the crunch of breaking bones.

She turned toward the main entrance of what looked like a repurposed office building, the biggest sturdy structure in the immediate vicinity. A small perimeter had been established there, guarded by four heavily armed Alliance marines.

Or rather, four terrified Alliance marines who were currently being backed up against a wall by a mountain of angry red muscle and plate.

Urdnot Wrex.

He looked massive, even for a Krogan. His armor was scarred and scorched, painted with the blood of what she assumed were Reapers, husks, and anyone else foolish enough to stand in his way. He was currently lifting a human sergeant off the ground by his tactical vest, shaking him like a ragdoll.

Miranda only knew Wrex a little bit. They missed each other during their respective times on the Normandy, but they went to the same party that Shepard hosted. Other than that, she has only heard about him and researched him when helping assemble Shepard’s squad back when she raised her from the dead.

“I said I want to see her!” Wrex bellowed, his head plating flaring. “Shepard is in there! I smell her!”

“Sir! Put him down! I said put him down, there’s no need for violence!” With the four marines, there was also a doctor, who was perhaps the most horrified out of them all. He was trying to de-escalate the situation, but the Marines weren’t helping.

“Put him down, Krogan! Or- or we will- we will open fire!” One of the marines shouted, his assault rifle leveled at Wrex’s head. His hands were shaking.

“You think that pea-shooter scares me?” Wrex snarled, dropping the sergeant in a heap and turning on the gunman. “I've taken rockets to the face, boy. You pull that trigger, and I'll beat you to death with your own severed arm.” He grimaced and took one more step towards him. “Do you know who I am? I’m Urdnot Wrex, and if you try anything, you can be sure your entire bloodline will be annihilated.”

The marine's finger tightened on the trigger, though his aim only got shakier.

“Stand down!” Miranda’s voice cut through the confrontation, sharp and commanding. It wasn't a scream; it was an order, the authority of a woman used to being obeyed.

Wrex froze. He didn't turn immediately. He let out a low, grumbling snort, like a varren denied a meal. Slowly, he rotated his massive head.

"Well, well," Wrex rumbled, his red eyes narrowing. "If it isn’t the Princess. Come to get your hands dirty?”

Wrex very quickly scanned Miranda from head to toe. “Ah. See, you already did. Broke a nail? Hehe.”

“Urdnot Wrex,” Miranda ignored the mockery, walking toward the standoff with a calm she didn't feel. She ignored the marines, keeping her eyes locked on the Krogan. “I see your diplomacy skills haven't improved since the war ended.”

“My diplomatic skills have improved greatly. If it hadn’t been for Eve, I would’ve eaten two of these already.” Wrex nonchalantly pointed at the marines, who cowered at the thought. He scanned her once more. “And I see your fashion sense has finally matched your personality.” He retorted as his stare stopped at the biggest tear over her ribs, and traced the dirtiest spots of grime and dust on her suit. “Trash.”

“Charming,” Miranda deadpanned. She made her way all the way to the Marines, putting herself between him and the nervous soldiers. “Let them be, Wrex. They're just following orders.”

“Stupid orders,” Wrex growled. “They won't let me in. They say Shepard is 'Priority Alpha.' No visitors. Not even me. It’s not like the entire building is reserved for Shepard; I could take a little peek in.” He grimaced.

“They are right,” Miranda said bluntly. “She is in critical condition. If you barge in there roaring like a thresher maw, especially if you breach her room looking like that, you'll compromise the sterile field and kill her faster than the Reapers ever could.”

Wrex flinched. The aggression drained out of his posture instantly, replaced by a looming, heavy lament that seemed to weigh down his massive shoulders.

"She's... that bad?" he asked, his growl now turning into a hoarse whisper. He obviously had seen Shepard, but it all played out so fast. When they finally brought her out of that crater, she was on the shuttle within seconds. And when he was up there with her, most of his view was covered by the annoying medics. He knew it was bad, but Shepard was the toughest non-Krogan he had ever met. He just assumed she was already up on her feet.

“Hackett called me,” Miranda announced, lowering her voice so only he could hear. “If he called me not just as Shepard’s friend, but a scientist, Wrex... It's worse than bad. It's impossible.”

Wrex stared at her for a long moment, searching her face for deception. He found none. He let out a long breath through his nostrils.

“Can you fix her?” he asked. “Like you did before?”

“I don't know,” Miranda admitted with a slight crack in her voice. "But Hackett thinks I'm the only one who has a chance... I am the best after all." The little hint of cockiness immediately mended the crack, and she smirked at the Krogan who shook his head in annoyance.

She turned to the Marines. The sergeant was picking himself up from the dust, checking his vest.

“I am Miranda Lawson,” she announced loudly and clearly. “I have clearance from Admiral Hackett to take command of Commander Shepard's medical detail. Code: Phoenix-Zero-One.” She toned down her voice near the end. She was just hoping that the news had already gotten to them; otherwise, this would’ve been a little bit awkward.

The sergeant blinked, then tapped his omni-tool. His eyes went wide as the clearance was verified. He snapped a hasty, confused salute. “Ma'am. Uh... affirmative. You're clear.”

Miranda wasn’t too used to salutes, but she liked it, as long as she didn’t have to salute any Alliance officer. “Good.” She turned back to Wrex. “You. Stay here. Stand watch. Don’t let in anyone who looks like a reporter or some curious gawker. Can you do that without eating anyone?”

Wrex crossed his massive arms. “I make no promises about the eating. But nobody gets past Urdnot Wrex.”

“I'll take that as a yes.” Miranda nodded. "I'll go in. I'll assess the damage, get my scans, get everything I can, and once I’m done… I will come out and tell you everything. Deal?"

Wrex grunted. “Deal. But don't make me wait long, Lawson. I'm running out of patience.”

Miranda turned and walked toward the doors of the hospital, feeling the Krogan's eyes on her back. She took a deep breath, steeling herself.

Wrex was an unexpected obstacle, but not a particularly difficult one. What was hidden away behind those doors, that’s what she really feared.

***

The doors were barely soundproof, but as she went further and further down the hallway, the roars of engines and shouts of doctors outside were getting more and more muffled. But the hospital was anything but silent; she heard chatter from every corner of the building. There were many people just standing, sitting, or even lying in the hallways. Some hallways were even filled with stretchers and people on them, having Miranda squeezing past them.

She didn’t run. Running would imply panic, but her stride was long and purposeful.

She was getting stares. Miranda was very unusual in those hospital corridors. She wore white like most of the doctors, but her outfit was far from a doctor’s coat. The tears and the suit's dirtiness didn’t do it any justice either. However, she didn’t care. She might’ve had a split lip, a wound across her forehead, but she still walked with the arrogance of an Admiral.

Miranda noted every detail as she passed each corridor. The exposed wiring, the broken pipes, and the air filtration not functioning properly. She knew she definitely couldn’t conduct the project here.

Hackett didn’t exactly give her directions, but she had an idea of where to go, and the hospital had enough signage for her not to get completely lost.

Finally, she found the room marked “Surgical HQ”; the door was open with three names written on it: the office belonged to Major Doctor Ryley Evans, Doctor Amarante Vance, and Marisa Aris.

Inside, a man in a doctor’s coat, covering a worn-down Alliance military uniform, was slumped over a small metal desk, his head resting in his hands. He looked like he hadn’t slept since the Reapers landed.

Miranda didn’t bother knocking on the wide-open door. She stepped into the doorway.

“Major Evans.”

Evans jerked his head up, blinking rapidly as if waking from a micro-sleep. His eyes, red-rimmed and shadowed, focused on her. Confusion crossed his face, followed quickly by a flash of recognition that hardened into suspicion.

“Miranda Lawson,” he said, his voice rough with fatigue. He didn't stand up. “I'd say it's a pleasure, but I make it a rule not to lie to people whom I share a patient with.”

“Hackett told you I was coming,” she stated, stepping fully into the room.

“He told me he was sending ‘someone.’ Someone who’s going to take all those things I said were impossible or stupid and make them happen. He didn’t even bother telling me through the vid comm… just sent me a quick message. What he didn't tell me was the fact he was sending the former XO of a terrorist organization.” Evans stood up slowly, wincing as his joints popped. He leaned back against the edge of his desk, crossing his arms. “And frankly, looking at you, Miss Lawson, you look like you need a trauma bed, not a briefing.”

Miranda ignored the jab at her condition and her past alliances. She also ignored the pain in her ribs that flared every time she took a deep breath.

“My condition is irrelevant, Major. Commander Shepard's is the only thing that matters. Hackett briefed me on the L1 fracture and the TBI. I need the full charts. The raw data from the M-Spec and the Quarian's diagnostic. Now.”

Evans held her gaze. He wasn't intimidated, she realized. He was just tired. And protective.

“If that’s all he briefed you on, you’re in for a surprise.”

“Obviously, I realize he only told me the worst of it.” Miranda also crossed her arms.

Evans couldn’t refuse himself a sharp chuckle. She really didn’t know what she was walking into.

"Listen… Miss Lawson. She's in a fragile state. We just finished a several-hour marathon surgery, and she will need many more. She is stable, but only just. I don't know what kind of 'miracle science' you're planning, but if you go in there and start pulling wires-"

“If I don’t start ‘pulling wires,’ Major, you will never save her the way Hackett wants you to.” Miranda cut him off, her voice cold.

“The way Hackett wants us to,” Evans smirked as he whispered that to himself. That sentence seemed utterly ridiculous. Saving her in any capacity would be a miracle. Why does he want more? Why does he want to play God?

“I’ve heard a bit about you, Major.”

Evans raised one of his eyebrows, as he was actually surprised at the fact. He knew he was a bit famous among the men, but why would someone like Miranda Lawson, who wasn’t even Alliance, know anything about him? He stayed silent.

“You’re apparently a spectacular surgeon, medic, doctor, soldier, all of the above. But your medicine can’t do what Hackett is asking. Maybe you can wake her up, maybe you can fix the internal bleeding, but can you make her walk? Can you make sure she can even form sentences when she wakes up?”

Evans now lunged towards Miranda in a surprisingly aggressive manner. Though Miranda didn’t step back or flinch at all. “The thing is… we can make her see again. We can make her walk. We can.” His tone was sharp and intense. “But Hackett doesn’t want us to. He wants her original legs, her original eyes, for what? An eye transplant is a matter of a ten-hour surgery. Prosthetics, which would make her walk even with the state her spine is in, are not far from standard procedure. Yes, we can’t fix everything, but we could do a whole lot more if Hackett weren’t stopping us! Can you explain this?”

Evans knew that Hackett had already explained it to him, but he still couldn’t understand.

Miranda was the one who was silent now. Her whole life was about being perfect in every way. Now, Hackett wanted Shepard back, exactly the same as she was before. Perfect. Was he doing it simply because Shepard was a useful tool he wanted back under his command as soon as possible? Was it because he felt guilty? Or was it just because Hackett genuinely believed it was in Shepard’s best interest, and if it was the latter, was his judgment even correct?

“Major Evans. You're oversimplifying the medical picture. You keep proposing the eye transplant, but would it even work? We know that the issue is multi-layered, a simple eye transplant could do absolutely nothing.” Miranda’s voice was surprisingly lower now. Softer. It took Evans by surprise. “If you woke up, after something as terrible as this… Wouldn’t you want to be as much of you as possible?”

Evans sighed, he knew that she was right about the transplant.

“You- you’re right, but I think I would just be glad to be alive, Lawson, I-”

“I understand…” Miranda cut him off again, though again with a much softer tone. “…the instinct to want to fix what you can, even if it's incomplete. But even setting aside the medical complications, if you replace her legs or give her mobility with prosthetics, you're taking control away from the person who once thrived while being in control. The person who did the best things in this galaxy while being in control of herself and her actions.

“I don’t know Shepard personally. So maybe you can enlighten me, but do you really think Shepard would be as vain as to care about looks? To care about who the eyes belonged to as long as they worked? To care about how or what is making her walk as long as she’s walking?”

“The eye transplant alone will not fix her eyesight, but it still gives us one less problem to worry about.”

Miranda chuckled somberly. “No… that would be me. I would care about that.” Evans didn’t even want to, but that self-reflection made him chuckle as well. “But Shepard cared about her looks. Maybe she’d never admit caring, but she was… is a beautiful woman. She cared about looking good and presentable. Knowing her, she will surely tell us we made all the wrong decisions, that we shouldn’t have cared or done this or that. But subconsciously, it will help her. Whether she’ll admit it or not. And I think that’s what Hackett cares about. That’s what I care about now, too.”

“But help with what? With what?” He repeated. “It’s what Hackett talked about, and now you parrot his words, too. This is all going to help her with what?” He raised his voice slightly again, though now he wasn’t annoyed with Miranda directly, but rather the entire situation.

“Major. If the rumors are right... If Hackett’s suspicions are correct... Shepard is the one who caused the Crucible to fire, which, among other things, apparently caused the genocide of Geth. I bet Hackett will try to keep the truth away from her for a little while, but she will learn sooner or later. And it’s not just that- the pulse knocked out all hardware, right? That means entire fleets were disabled. How many more humans, asari, quarians, turians have died on board those spaceships as a result of Shepard’s actions? And what if she knew? What if she knew what would happen, and she still did it? Was there any other option? Could this all have been avoided? Maybe, she hoped to die so that she wouldn’t have to face the consequences. Maybe the Reapers had the last laugh.”

Despite Miranda’s best efforts, her lower lip was quivering ever so subtly. She couldn’t imagine the mess that would be Shepard’s mind once she woke up if all those rumors turned out to be true. Nobody knew what happened up there, nobody except Shepard.

“My point…” Miranda paused to wipe her cheek where she thought was a tear, even though there was none. “My point is that wouldn’t you want to give a person like that EVERY chance to get through it? No matter how small? If Shepard wakes up with her own functional eyes and her own working legs, it’s a small victory she’ll need. Hackett is thinking ahead and wants to give Shepard’s mind no quarter. The possibility that Shepard doesn’t wake up is not a thing in Hackett’s worldview. And now that I know she’s alive, it’s not a thing in mine either. I don’t think the Admiral is going to get the old Shepard back. No. I don’t think that either. But in a different way than Hackett fears. The guilt will be unbearable, I mean, just the resources-”

The moment Miranda mentioned resources, Evans unwillingly flinched.

Miranda paused immediately and narrowed her eyes. “That’s what it’s about, isn’t it?”

“I swore an oath. To save everyone. Or try to. To see… To see so many people dying because one person is more important than a thousand others is… It’s not fair.” When he saw the look in Miranda’s eyes, he reassured her. “Make no mistake. I’m a doctor, and I’ve been trusted with her well-being. I will do everything in my power to save her. But to sacrifice so much. It feels wrong.”

“It will continue to feel wrong. It will never be right. But we all have to make hard, unjust decisions. Right now, that decision is to help the person who made perhaps the hardest one, the most unjust one. But the person who saved us all. Maybe you’re just saving another patient, Major. But I’m saving my friend. And I don’t want to fight you for it. We need to work together, and I will need your help. I can save her.”

“Can you?” Evans challenged. “Admiral Hackett told me that Project Lazarus was more than just a rumor. That Cerberus literally raised Shepard from the dead. And you definitely had something to do with it. But that would require a billion-credit budget, a space station, and the top-tier scientists. Now you have a tent in a crater and a toolkit salvaged from the trash. More precious resources we could use elsewhere.”

“Have you ever thought about the fact that maybe… just maybe… people want to help? From no obligation other than the fact that Shepard deserves it? I bet so many would be willing to sacrifice a bit of themselves to save the woman who saved them. The woman who brought them all together to fight a common enemy. I know I would sacrifice myself without hesitation to save her. There’s only one other person in the entire galaxy I would do that for. That’s how much Shepard means to me.” Miranda exhaled deeply. “I will get the resources necessary to perform miracles in the thinly stretched galaxy, but only because everyone will be willing to help. You will see. And trust me… once Shepard learns of the sacrifices made to save her, nobody will blame themselves for it more than her. Shepard has one of the strongest minds I’ve ever seen. The resolve of that woman is unmatched. But everyone has their breaking point. Everyone.”

Miranda’s words still didn’t make it feel okay in Evans’ head. But he felt like only now he had finally accepted it. Maybe part of it really was the fact that, unlike Hackett or Lawson, he never met her. Never talked to her. He only heard the stories and saw the vids. Maybe if she’d ever wake up and he got the chance to talk to her, he would change his mind, too.

After a few seconds of silence, that arrogant smirk returned to Miranda’s face. “Plus... I have my mind, Major. That’s the most expensive part of the project.” She took one step closer to Evans. She was right in front of him, just barely shorter than him. “So… are we on the same page? Are you going to get me to Shepard, or do we have to get Hackett involved?”

"No need for the Admiral," he muttered, pushing himself off the desk. He grabbed a datapad and held it out to her. "Here. The charts. But you can’t go in there looking like that. If you want to go near Shepard, let alone touch her, you can’t contaminate her. You need to be clean, and you need to have clean clothes. Take a shower and get your wounds checked out for Spirit’s sake.”

“You have running water here?” She raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Yes, though it’s not exactly utilized for showering too often. I don’t think you will be pleased.”

“Fine,” Miranda said, her eyes already scanning the charts on the datapad, absorbing the catastrophic data. “Lead the way.”

Evans led her from the cramped office, back through the bustling corridors, to a door marked "Staff Decontamination." He pushed it open, revealing a large, tiled room that smelled strongly of industrial-grade sterilizer and mildew. It was clearly a repurposed semi-public shower room, with a dozen open stalls lining the walls.

“It’s empty,” Evans said. “We run it on a cycle. You’ll have privacy. I’ll wait in the adjoining locker room.”

He turned to leave, then paused. “Lawson... if you need anything, just... yell.”

Miranda just nodded, her attention still buried in Shepard’s vitals. The door hissed shut, leaving her alone in the echoing space.

She placed the datapad on a dry metal bench and began to take off her suit. The pristine white layer of clothing, now ruined, peeled away from her skin. For a moment, she stood under the flickering overhead light strip, observing her own damage.

The gash on her forehead was an angry red line. The tear on her thigh had left a long, shallow scrape. But the worst was the bruise on her ribs, a violent, purple-black smear that spread from her side halfway to her back.

She stepped into a stall, the cold tile shocking her bare feet as she took off her boots, too.

She activated the water.

Evans was right. The pressure was abysmal.

A lukewarm, sputtering sprinkle wept from the showerhead, just barely enough to wet her hair. A pathetic imitation of a shower. She sighed in annoyance but made do, stepping under it and tilting her head back.

The water traced cold paths through the grime on her face, making the gash on her forehead throb with a dull, stinging pulse. She closed her eyes, letting the weak stream run over her. The shower didn’t feel as cleansing as what she was used to. Showers used to refresh her mind and body, this just felt like nothing.

She reached for the bar of harsh, lye-scented soap. As she lifted her arm to wash her hair, a sharp, electric pain shot from her side. She hissed, freezing in place. The bruised ribs screamed in protest. She almost threw the bar of soap on the floor in frustration. For a moment, she just stared down at her own body.

She felt strangely vulnerable. Uncomfortable. It was a feeling she loathed, a state of being she had genetically engineered herself to avoid.

Enduring it, her movements became short, precise, and economical. Running her hands across every centimeter of her smooth skin. She scrubbed the soot from her arms, the dried blood from her thigh.

She leaned her healthier shoulder against the tiled wall, now tilting her head forward, letting the water fall onto her head and back. She felt every drop of that cold water. Her arms pressed against her chest, squeezed between her and the wall. For just a second, she finally felt some sense of calmness. Fighting through the pain, she reached up with both her arms to properly clean her hair.

Miranda wasn’t sure how much time she spent under that pathetic stream of water, but after a while, it felt peaceful. She felt every drop on every curve. But the peace couldn’t be allowed to last.

The door to the locker room hissed open.

“Sorry, I thought you'd be robed by now,” Evans called out, immediately turning. “Spirits, Lawson, I’ll wait outside.”

Miranda didn’t move to cover herself. She simply turned off the water, her expression one of neutrality rather than embarrassment. “Don't be ridiculous, Major. We’re both adults. We don't have time for your modesty. What is it?”

She could hear the flustered tone in his voice, even with his back turned. “Right. Well. Admiral Hackett… he, uh, he sent a package for you. It arrived just after you did. He said you'd need it.”

He stepped backward into the room, arm outstretched, and placed a sealed, black Alliance-issue case on the bench before turning to leave again.

It wasn’t that Evans would be uncomfortable with nudity. He was a doctor, for medical reasons, he had seen tens if not hundreds of nude people, surprisingly not even just humans. During the Reaper war, he really didn’t have time to care whether someone was clothed or not. In fact, even with Commander Shepard, he had to see her naked too, but she was an unconscious patient, and he looked at her through a purely medical lens.

But this was Miranda Lawson standing in front of him.

Miranda grabbed a thin, coarse towel and began to dry herself, her eyes on the case. She popped the seals. Inside, folded with military precision, was a single article of clothing.

It was her bodysuit. Identical to the one she had just taken off, but new. Perfect. Not a single tear or speck of dust.

A faint, humorless smile touched her lips. “How could he possibly...” The speed of it was unnerving. Hackett not only knew she’d need one, but he also knew her precise measurements. The Admiral certainly was resourceful.

Evans cleared his throat from the locker room. “I’ll, uh, I’ll wait out here.”

Miranda finished drying, the rough towel irritating her bruised skin. She picked up the new suit, holding the cool, familiar fabric against her torso, and walked barefoot into the locker room.

Evans was facing a bank of metal lockers, his back still resolutely to her. “Are you decent?”

“Not yet,” she said.

He flinched and started to turn. “Lawson, what are you doing? I said I’d wait-”

“You also said to get my wounds checked,” she interrupted, stopping a few feet behind him. He was pointedly staring at the wall. “You're a doctor. You have a medkit. Or is your oath only for the Commander?” She was now enjoying how uncomfortable she made him, though she didn’t let it be known in her tone. It was a bit of payback for how he greeted her earlier.

Evans let out a long, weary sigh. He finally turned around, his eyes professionally landing on her face and staying there. “Fine.”

He unlatched a medical kit from the wall and pulled out a stool. “Sit. Can’t have you fall ill with infection, while you're supposed to be saving Shepard.”

Miranda sat, still holding the suit over her chest and torso. Evans worked with a detached, clinical efficiency that she found both respectful and amusing. He was all business.

“This will sting,” he said, opening a sterile, isopropanol-laced wipe. He cleaned the gash on her forehead. Miranda hissed but didn't flinch.

“It’s shallow,” he murmured, more to himself. “No stitches needed.” He applied a thin line of dermal sealant that immediately cooled the skin and pulled the edges together.

“Now, the ribs. Let me see.”

Miranda moved the suit out of the way enough for him to inspect the massive bruise. Evans’s gaze was purely medical.

“Deep contusion, but it doesn't feel like a fracture. You’re lucky. Another inch and it would’ve cracked your lung.” He took out a small, foil-wrapped square. “This is an anti-inflammatory trauma-patch. It’ll draw out the blood and deaden the nerves. It’s going to feel cold.”

He peeled the backing off and applied the patch directly to her side. The shock of the cold was intense, and Miranda gasped.

“Breathe,” he ordered. He quickly sealed the other minor lacerations with the sealant. “Alright. You're patched. I’m sure you’ll be at your 100 soon enough.”

“Thank you, Major,” she said, her tone genuine.

Evans nodded, packing the kit away. “Get dressed, Lawson. It’s time to see the patient.”

He walked out of the locker room, giving her the privacy he had wanted from the start.

“One more thing,” Evans called out from the corridor. “Look under the bench.”

Miranda did just that and smirked as she noticed the same, identical pair of black boots she wore, except these were as pristine as the new suit.

A few moments later, Miranda emerged, fully suited in the new, pristine white. The familiar, form-fitting armor made her feel whole again. She noticed Evans was holding the datapad showing Shepard’s charts. He had to have grabbed it while he was stuttering about, getting her the clothing.

They began the walk to the one restricted room, their step in unison.

“One warning, Lawson,” Evans said quietly as they were approaching the guarded double doors. “You've gone through the file. I assume you know the injuries now. But reading it… isn't the same as seeing it.”

Miranda looked at him, her composed, perfect mask of confidence firmly in place.

“I reconstructed her from nothing but flesh, Major,” she said, her voice cool and dismissive. “I have seen worse.”

Evans stopped at the door. He looked at her, his expression unreadable.

“Have you?”

He nodded at the guards, swiping his access card. The doors hissed open.

Chapter 10: Terms of Engagement

The chaos of the hospital, the shouting, the distant alarms, the rattle of gurneys, was instantly severed, cut off as if by a knife as soon as the doors closed behind them.

The silence inside was not empty. It was a heavy, pressurized quiet, filled with the rhythmic, mechanical sounds of life support. The steady hiss of the ventilator. The low, liquid gurgle of the VAC pump. And a sound Miranda couldn't immediately place, the ticking noise.

Miranda stepped closer, her heels clicking on the sterile flooring.

And she froze.

Any words she might’ve had died in her throat.

It wasn’t like she was lying to Evans before. She had seen worse. She had seen Shepard’s charred, fragmented remains from the aftermath of the Collector ambush, just flesh and a mostly intact head. The state Shepard was in back then looked more like something to be shoveled rather than saved.

Still, that had been a corpse, it was unknown, static, unmoving, silent. And it had been a person she questioned the abilities of, a person she didn’t know at all.

This was a nightmare. This was her friend. The only immediate consolation was that Shepard wasn’t conscious, but she knew her body was suffering. This was what Evans warned her about.

Evans never really understood how close Shepard and Lawson were. From the vids, he only had very surface-level information. He considered them more acquaintances by circumstance. Colleagues. Not much more. Even with what Miranda told him earlier, there was the smallest doubt in his head that she was telling him all of that to manipulate him into compliance. It seemed very heartfelt, but it wouldn’t be above an ex-Cerberus operative to lie like that. But when he saw Miranda’s unfiltered shock on her face, he was sure Shepard really meant a great deal to her.

Miranda let out a quiet sigh that she was holding in. She barely recognized the woman lying in that bed as Shepard.

She was enmeshed in a web of machinery, a pale, broken body at the center of tubes and wires. The thermal blankets were pulled up to her waist, but Miranda could see the titanium plates bolted directly into the shattered bones of her arms. Considering the report she read about Shepard’s lower body being crushed, her legs were presumably looking much worse. The blankets looked strangely bulky, and a metal frame was emerging from underneath them, and the rapid ticking she heard was the sound of the osteo-stimulators, vibrating her bones and tissue.

A clear, corrugated tube, the pericardial drain, snaked out from just below her sternum, draining a sluggish flow of dark, old blood. Another, thicker tube ran from a large, sponge-like patch covering her entire abdomen to the gurgling suction pump, the VAC dressing.

And her face. The face Miranda had spent two years designing, the one she perhaps knew better than her own. It was a ruin. Swollen, bruised, and deep, sickening purple and black, covered with medi-gel and other salves to help the healing process. Her eyes were taped shut. The ventilator tube was strapped to her mouth, forcing air into lungs that couldn't breathe on their own. Where it was possible, Shepard was bandaged heavily, and where it wasn’t, she was covered in various colors of ointments, gels, and salves. The burned skin looked horrible.

Miranda felt a cold, acidic knot tighten in her stomach. She thought she had prepared herself by going through the data, but seeing it was truly different.

"Spirits," she whispered. The word escaped before she could stop it.

Evans said nothing. He simply stood back, giving her the dignity of a moment, just as he had with his own team. He had seen this reaction before.

Miranda forced her legs to move. She walked to the bedside, her movements stiff. She reached out, her hand trembling almost imperceptibly, and hovered her fingers over Shepard’s unblemished shoulder. The skin was cool, waxy.

“You're keeping her on the edge,” Miranda murmured, her voice regaining its cold, analytical tone as she turned her attention from the body to the glowing consoles beside it. The shock was fading, replaced by a familiar, focused anger.

“We're keeping her here, period,” Evans replied quietly. “It's a miracle she's survived this long. The people I’ve worked with- the people who saved Shepard. They are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Not just the doctors here. But also, the engineers who helped us get to Shepard in the first place. Everyone was doing their job to their fullest capability. If even one of those people failed, Shepard wouldn’t be here, breathing. It’s almost as if fate spared them a terrible death during the war for these moments.”

Miranda acknowledged the sentiment but remained silent. She activated her omni-tool, the orange light flashing as it synced with the room's central monitoring system. A cascade of holographic data shimmered to life around her.

She needed the data; that was her way to Shepard.

She didn't need to pay much attention to the heart or lungs; whoever was the surgeon did a stellar job, and the numbers were stable. She focused on the unknowns. Her eyes scanned the flat-lining brain activity, the catastrophic spinal imagery, and the cybernetics that seemed to be the most glaring issue.

She winced. Whoever did the original diagnostics was good, but the data was incomplete.

“The feedback loop is worse than your engineer's scan showed,” she said, her fingers flying across the holographic interface. “It's not just failing. It's actively fighting her.”

“What do you mean?” Evans stepped closer, observing her work.

“The implants are, in a way, acting like dying organs,” Miranda explained, her voice sharp and fast. "The Crucible pulse didn't just 'fry' them; it corrupted their core programming. They're trying to heal, just like the rest of her body, but their 'healing' protocol is to draw bio-electric energy from the nearest source, her central nervous system. It's a parasitic loop.”

She pointed to a fluctuating wave on the monitor. “That's her brain stem. And that's the implant drawing power, causing a micro-seizure. It's not just toxic; it's accelerating the swelling. I don’t think you’ll be able to wake her up while that’s happening. You might reduce the swelling, possibly using mass effect fields, or whatever else you have available here, but that thing is going to swell her brain again."

“So, Hackett was wrong,” Evans stated, almost a hint of satisfaction in his tone. “We have to remove them. Now.”

“No. Hackett was right; he just didn’t know the extent," Miranda countered. “Look at this.” She isolated another data stream. “When we implanted those into her, we gave each of those a vital function. Shepard’s body needed to remember how to do certain things; without them, we could’ve never brought Shepard back from the dead. Her body relies on them. The implants have been in her for so long, her autonomic nervous system has learnt that it can rely on those cybernetics. That's her heart rate. That's her endocrine regulation. It's not just her brain they're connected to, Major. They pretty much are her nervous system."

She turned to face him, the gravity of the situation settling on her.

“If we had Shepard standing here, healthy as ever, even then removing all those implants would have a high likelihood of killing her, removing them in this state? Her body would certainly collapse, but if we leave those in, they’ll eventually overwhelm and kill her brain inside the next few weeks. We might not have months for this one, Major.”

“Then what do we do?” Evans asked, his voice raw. "I’m not planning to lose Shepard after everything we all went through to get her where she is now. And after what she went through. What ‘miracle’ are you supposed to perform:"

Miranda looked back at the monitors, her mind racing, calculating, designing.

“This isn’t a repair job. I can’t repair these implants. They’re compromised. I need to replace them. Build new ones. Every single node, every pathway.”

“But you said removing them will kill her. How are you planning on removing them and putting in new ones without losing Shepard in the process?”

“Very quickly and very precisely.”

“And the spine? The eyes?”

Miranda shook her head, the full, crushing weight of the task finally revealing itself. This wasn't Project Lazarus. This was, in some aspects, harder. Lazarus was building from a blueprint. With Lazarus, there was no deadline, because there the lifeless body couldn’t suddenly die on her for a thousand different reasons. What she did in two years, she now had to do in much less time, with not nearly as many resources.

“This... this isn't a one-woman job. Lazarus had many teams of specialists working in a dedicated facility. I need a sterile lab. I need a bio-printer, a molecular forge, and a team of neuro-cyberneticists who won't ask too many questions. And I need them yesterday.”

“We don’t have any of that,” Evans spoke flatly. “We have this hospital, we do have some advanced equipment left over, much of which saved Shepard’s life on multiple occasions already. But what you’re asking is above anything we could muster… I thought those were the resources Hackett would get you.”

“He is getting them, Major,” Miranda countered, her voice tight with impatience. She was already tapping a new command into her omni-tool, preparing to open a priority channel to Hackett herself. “I can’t build anything here. This... place... It's not meant for it. I need more space, more equipment, an isolated environment with dedicated power, and all the machinery I could ask for. I can’t do it on salvaged backup generators and scrap metal.”

“And where do you expect him to find you that kind of lab?” Evans shot back, his frustration returning. “In a city that’s been under orbital bombardment for months? In fact, not just the city- the planet! We’re glad the facility is even running. We can’t be picky; we could have twice as much equipment, twice as much space, and we’d still be underequipped and overflowing with patients. Hackett can't just materialize a research station.”

“That is his problem to solve,” Miranda snapped. “Mine is-”

A soft, two-tone chime interrupted her. The door to the ICU slid open.

Evans spun around, his irritation flashing. “This is a sterile room. What is it? We’re in a critical consult.”

It was the Asari neuro-specialist, Dr. Shiiraa Lonus. She stood at the threshold, her hands clasped, her expression one of calm urgency. She gave a slight bow of her head and entered so that the doors could close behind her.

“My apologies for the intrusion, Major, Miss Lawson. I was instructed to find you the moment I had confirmation. A priority-one dispatch has just come through from the Destiny Ascension.”

Miranda’s focus sharpened instantly. “From the Ascension?”

“Yes,” Shiiraa reaffirmed, taking a step closer. “I would say Admiral Hackett has been very persuasive, but he didn’t have to be. I have been in contact with my superiors since I performed the M-Spec scan, relaying your data. The Matriarchs have been in a joint session with the Admiral. Given Commander Shepard’s status, and your... arrival... they are more than willing to help.”

Evans and Miranda exchanged a look.

Shiiraa continued, her voice clear and formal. “The Asari Republics, in cooperation with the Systems Alliance, are placing the full resources of the Destiny Ascension at your disposal. The Matriarchs have authorized the transfer of two of our primary advanced research laboratories for your exclusive use. They are fully-equipped, sterile, and have and have most of what we think you will need, however, should any need arise, you will be authorized to bring in any equipment needed for the Commander’s recovery.”

Evans’s jaw went slack. He had been fighting just to get synthetic plasma and power cells, and Hackett had just conjured two of the most advanced science labs in the galaxy. But at the same time, it showed him something that he didn’t fully understand until now, something Miranda told him about earlier. Hackett wasn’t stealing or ordering resources for Shepard. The galaxy was willingly giving them to her.

“Furthermore,” Shiiraa continued, her gaze landing on Miranda, “a joint-species team is already being assembled. Twelve of our top neuro-cyberneticists and geneticists from the Ascension have volunteered, along with a human engineering support team from the Orizaba. They are all being transferred to the Ascension’s labs as we speak. I’m sure while I’m here, talking to you, more are already responding to Admiral Hackett’s call. We could definitely use some Salarians on board.”

She took a datapad from her belt and offered it to Miranda.

“They are waiting for you, Director Lawson.”

The title hung in the air. Evans looked from the Asari to Miranda.

Miranda allowed herself a small, humorless smile. “I have to say it again- the Admiral is resourceful, more than I thought.” In her mind, she was secretly comparing Hackett to The Illusive Man. And how much he sacrificed to bring Shepard back, how many resources he poured into her. The reason she thought Cerberus was better back then was that Cerberus was not held down by bureaucracy, by regulations. And she didn’t expect Hackett, the head of that system, to be this direct, this resolute.

“He is, indeed,” Shiiraa agreed. “And the Matriarchs are... grateful. Commander Shepard saved Thessia. This is how they repay the debt.”

Miranda took the datapad, her mind already shifting from assessment to logistics. The next glaringly obvious problem immediately presented itself.

“Good,” she said, her voice all business. She turned to Evans. “Major. What’s her transport viability? The ideal solution would be to move Shepard to Destiny Ascension. As soon as possible.”

Evans’s expression, which had been one of shock, hardened instantly into disbelief.

“Move her?” he exhaled, as if she had just suggested throwing Shepard out the window. “Absolutely not. She is on a ventilator, a VAC pump, three pressor drips, and a pericardial drain. She is hanging by a thread. Moving her with a Kodiak from the rescue site to this hospital was already a tremendous risk to her health, but it had to be done because we would never get her help in time by going on land. But moving her to space? To Destiny Ascension?! She’s not nearly stable enough. We can’t move her.”

“And we can't build those miracles here,” Miranda countered, her voice just as firm. “Listen, Major. We have weeks, not months. We have to find a way. I’m going to-”

“No, you listen, Director.” Evans put special emphasis on the last word. “You keep saying that we have to find a way. How about you find a way so that you can do your work up there and also work on her here? There are still many surgeries she needs to undergo here. Many of the best doctors and surgeons available have been working on her here, and she still needs them. And they aren’t going to move to Destiny Ascension just for her; they have other patients, too.”

“I’m sure Destiny Ascension has amazing doctors of its own-”

“Then they can come here. This place might not be as advanced or even as clean as the Ascension, but it’s sterile. We’ve performed two high-risk surgeries on the Commander already, and she’s still here, no infection. There’s no reason to claim that you can’t work on her here.”

“I can work on her here, but I can’t build here! I’d have to go back and forth for any analysis and evaluation!” Miranda barked, but Evans wasn’t budging.

“You’re resourceful, I bet you can figure it out.” Evans crossed his arms.

Miranda thought about it. This was a large hurdle, and she didn’t expect the pushback from Evans. But he was right in a way. Moving her that far was a risk. At the same time, she will be wasting more time and resources travelling from Destiny Ascension back to Earth each time she needs to see Shepard, which could end up being quite often.

“Fine.” Miranda surrendered. “Keep her here. But I want constant, live updates on even the smallest thing that goes on with Shepard, understood? If I can’t have constant access to her, I need constant, updated access to data about every cell of her body.”

Evans placed his hands on his hips with satisfaction. “You got it, Miss Lawson.”

“And it will be my surgeons doing those surgeries,” Miranda added.

“No objections there.”

“Good. Let’s go, Dr. Lonus.” Miranda gestured towards Shiiraa.

Shiiraa instinctively followed Miranda, but as soon as they left the sterile environment of the ICU, she stopped.

“Miss Lawson, Director.” Shiiraa stopped her as well.

“What is it?”

“Your shuttle won’t be here for another… uhh… hour.” Shiiraa put on a weak attempt at a nervous smile.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Guess you’ll have to find something to do around here,” Evans added with a subtle chuckle, walking out of the room soon after them, his arms crossed.

Miranda sighed with frustration. “I’m going to talk to Wrex, I promised him as much anyway.”

“Urdnot Wrex?” Evans questioned.

Shiiraa inserted herself into the conversation with an urgent cough. “Ugh- so. Miss Lawson, once an hour passes, be ready to board a shuttle at platform Beta 0-A.”

“Right, right.” Miranda brushed off Shiiraa’s last remark, but did remember it. “Yes, Urdnot Wrex.”

Shiiraa, noticing the conversation was no longer concerning her, slowly squeezed around Miranda and left them.

“Well, good luck, I thought he was going to destroy the building, trying to get to Shepard.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, you do seem to know… how to… how to handle yourself.” For a moment, Evans was just lost, staring at Miranda, her pose, one hand on her hip, impatiently tapping the surface of her bodysuit.

“Right,” Miranda replied a little awkwardly.

“Right.” Evans was perhaps even more awkward.

There was a short moment of silence that felt like it was at least a minute long.

“Well… I should go.” Miranda blurted out.

“Yes, you should.” Evans scratched his head and quickly turned around.

Miranda turned in the other direction and walked down the corridor.

“I should go? I don’t say that.” She whispered to herself, shaking her head.

***

Immediately upon leaving the hospital building, she couldn’t miss the huge red-plated Krogan sitting on a low concrete barrier, arms crossed, his back turned to her. The Alliance Marines were now keeping a respectable distance from him.

She approached him, and as if he could smell her, he instinctively turned his head. His red, scarred eyes found hers. “Well? I didn’t think you’d show up.”

“I keep my promises, Wrex,” Miranda said, stopping a respectful distance away. She noticed he quickly scanned her new, clean suit and didn’t say anything, which she was satisfied with. “Shepard is alive. But she's worse than I thought. Worse than Hackett told me.”

“Worse?” Wrex’s voice was low, but there really wasn’t a hint of worry in it. He didn’t really have a point of reference to what ‘worse’ was anyway; he didn’t receive any report, any information. He only saw Shepard covered in blood and burns, some bones sticking out of her, nothing a strong Krogan couldn’t fix with a good night’s sleep.

Miranda nodded, choosing her words with clinical precision. “The spinal cord is completely severed at L1. It's the highest degree of paralysis, permanent. We're keeping her legs attached, but they are pulverized and bolted into fixators. Her brain is damaged, her vision is gone, and the implants I built to save her are now actively poisoning her nervous system. Burns, internal injuries, many other fractures, I feel I don’t even need to mention."

She waited for the expected grimness or shock. Instead, Wrex let out a short, guttural laugh.

“See? I told you,” he rumbled. “She's not a normal human. She's got a Krogan soul. If anything else on this miserable planet took that hit, it would have been dust on impact. A severed spine? No problem. She’s too strong to die. Wouldn’t let the Reapers take her down with them."

His conviction was absolute. It wasn't denial; it was a fierce, almost religious faith in Shepard's strength.

“It’s not that simple, Wrex,” Miranda countered, her voice sharp with frustrated pragmatism. "It's months of delicate, impossible work. The implants are on a timer. If I don't fix the parasitic loop, her brain will be mush in weeks. And I can’t build it here, and I can’t bring her up to Destiny Ascension with me either.”

“You want to bring her to the Asari?” At first. Wrex scoffed with contempt, but then added, “Guess they are better engineers and doctors than Krogan.”

There was a moment of silence, then Wrex spoke again, “I didn’t like you all that much, maybe I still don’t, but you were able to rebuild her when she was dead, so I bet you can do it again.”

“I am trying,” Miranda sighed, dropping onto a nearby crate, ignoring Wrex’s initial remark. The fabric of her new suit hissed faintly as she settled. “The difference is, when I rebuilt her before, I had limitless resources. Now, I have scraps and a ticking clock. I can't build the replacement cybernetics here. I have to commute to the Ascension and manufacture the parts there, then fly them down for the surgeries.”

Wrex listened, his head cocked. He didn't interrupt, respecting the logistics of the battle.

"So, what do you need?" he finally asked.

"I need time. I need a miracle. And I need a team," Miranda replied, looking across the ruined landscape. "Hackett is securing a team of specialists; he’s giving me as much as he can. But this project demands so much. We need equipment, materials, and perhaps even protection. There will be bandits, pathetic scavengers, who won’t care who we’re trying to save. This is where the Alliance stops and loyalty begins.”

“Loyalty,” Wrex repeated, a faint, proud rasp in his voice. "If Shepard taught us anything, it’s loyalty. I was just a mercenary. I gun for hire. And then I was a part of a multi-species crew, under a human Commander, not for the pay, but for something bigger. Never thought it would happen. And now I’m reuniting the Krogan people."

Miranda gave him a faint, but genuine smile.

“I don’t know how she got you to turn on Cerberus, though. With that big head of yours, I don’t know how she ever convinced you that you were wrong.” Wrex laughed gutturally.

Miranda just stared at him in disbelief for a second, her smile gone. “Even I make mistakes,” She crossed her arms. “I owe her everything, Wrex. She changed my life. She helped get my sister back, and she gave me purpose when I was nothing but a pawn. I won't let her end like this.”

“Me neither.” Wrex nodded simply. “She’s my sister. Very few Krogan could ever get the honor of being called that by Urdnot Wrex, and somehow it’s me who’s honored to call her that.”

Wrex shifted, his massive hands resting on his knees. “I’ll send a word to a few Krogan veterans. Mercenaries. They owe me. If you need muscle on any planet to get any equipment, they’ll make sure no one will bother you on your way to get it. They’ll make sure no petty, weak mercs or bandits will try to steal from you or attack you. That’s my contribution.”

Miranda felt a wave of relief that surprised her. She didn’t expect this kind of help from Wrex; maybe he really was better than she thought.

"Thank you, Wrex. That actually helps more than you know."

“Don't thank me,” he grumbled, looking back toward the doors of the hospital. “Just get her out of that stupid box they won’t let me in.”

“I will,” Miranda promised. "It's going to take months, Wrex. I’m not sure how long, but it’s going to take a while. She might have a Krogan soul, but not a Krogan body; she’s going to be healing for quite a bit.”

“Eh,” He waved his arm dismissively. “She'll wake up and she’ll walk," Wrex said, his eyes blazing with certainty. “You'll make her walk, Lawson. Because if you don't, I’ll drag myself up to that Asari ship, and we'll rebuild you until you can. Now get to work.”

“Yes, I think my shuttle is just about to arrive either way.” Miranda’s suit creaked silently as she stood up. Urgency returned to her, but Wrex wasn’t going to let her go just yet.

“How’s that new suit that would never work as actual armor?” Wrex grinned and lightly tapped one of his big, red plates.

“A little tight.” She admitted.

“Maybe you’ve just gotten fatter. Hehehe.”

“Funny.” Miranda briefly put her hands on her belly as if she was subconsciously actually checking the truth of Wrex’s words, but quickly let them fall down her waist. “You should look at yourself first.”

“What? This is hundreds of pounds of pure muscle, power, and armor princess.” He thumped on his chest just once, but the sheer power of that made dust fly off the barrier he was sitting on.

Miranda shook her head dismissively.

“I’ll see you around, Wrex.”

“Hmph. Just hurry up and fix her quick. I hate this place. I should be back on Tuchanka. I’ve got a lot of breeding to do, but I can’t let Shepard be here alone without some Krogan presence around. With all your tinkering, you might make her go soft in the process.”

Miranda could only let out a single sound. “Ugh.”

“Hehehe.”

With that final, deep, raspy laugh coming from Wrex’s mouth, she walked past him and hurried to the shuttle that would take her to Destiny Ascension to undertake perhaps the greatest challenge the galaxy could’ve given her, which was saying a lot, considering she already had to revive Shepard once and also fight her dad, Cerberus, and the Reapers.

However, this was her mission, and for Shepard she would see it done.

Chapter 11: The Launch

The deck plating of the Destiny Ascension hummed beneath Miranda’s boots, a resonant thrum that she wasn’t used to from any other ship she had been on board. After spending around three days on Earth’s surface in the aftermath of the Reaper war, this was an unusual change, but one she welcomed.

Destiny Ascension was in a much better shape than anything she had seen on Earth and certainly in a better shape than the hospital Shepard was in, but it was still obvious how damaged the Asari flagship was both by the Reapers and the following Crucible blast. There were engineers working on repairs practically at every corner and in every corridor.

Miranda was following a graceful, elderly Asari called Matriarch Ilena, who led the Scientific Guilds of the Ascension. Ilena moved with a quiet dignity through the sprawling corridors, some of which still had exposed wiring and damaged plating.

The deeper they progressed into the ship, the more evidence of the war surfaced. Though Matriarch Ilena maintained serene composure, Miranda couldn't ignore the frequent stretches of exposed fiber-optic bundles strung temporarily across bulkheads. The ship's internal climate control struggled against the external war damage, resulting in pockets of cool, stale air alternating with sudden blasts of overheated ventilation. The sheer volume of labor was apparent, too: every few meters, an Asari or Turian engineer, covered in oil and soot, was working on a temporary patch or a critical repair, oblivious to the high-ranking Matriarch and the human Director walking past. Miranda could only guess how much harder it was for the engineers to repair Destiny Ascension with the new allocation of so many resources to her directly.

“This is the primary facility the Matriarchs have allocated for your use, Director Lawson," Ilena said, gesturing toward a large access door. “It was our premier xenobiology research hub, but its molecular fabrication units are exactly what you will need.”

Miranda nodded, scanning the datapad Shiiraa Lonus had given her. “The structural integrity should handle the power draw of the forges. We will need a dedicated line run from the main reactor, but the space is adequate.”

“It is equipped for growth,” Ilena confirmed, stopping at the door. “The entire section will be sealed off for Project Phoenix. You will find that some of your team is already waiting.”

The door dilated open with a soft sigh of filtered air.

The lab was immense. It was a cavernous space bathed in soft, cool blue light, dominated by complex holographic projectors and arrays of gleaming machinery. Along one wall stood a series of massive Bio-Printers and Molecular Forges, the tools Miranda needed to weave element zero into neural tissue.

Miranda walked forward, placing her palm on a massive housing unit of a Bio-Printer. It was slightly warm to the touch, indicating it was powered by a repurposed auxiliary line.

Arranged around a central consultation table was a diverse group of specialists, a joint-species team that had grown rapidly even during Miranda’s shuttle flight.

There were seven Asari neuro-geneticists, their movements smooth and deliberate. Seated among them were three slender, twitchy Salarians, already running diagnostic loops on holographic screens. Miranda instantly spotted four Quarian engineers (who she correctly assumed were there to manage the sheer amount of failing hardware) and five of uniformed Human Alliance engineers from the Orizaba.

Miranda stepped into the room, her presence silencing the low murmur of conversation.

A matriarch who stood a head taller than the others, her face lined with millennia of experience, approached Miranda.

“Director Lawson, I am Matriarch Visiana.” She said, her voice was a deep, calming resonance. “Welcome. We are honored to be here.”

Miranda straightened herself. “Matriarch Visiana. I am grateful for the allocation of this facility. The resources are precisely what the project needs.”

Visiana smiled, the gesture reaching her wise eyes. “No, Director. The gratitude is ours. That woman, Commander Shepard, saved Thessia, saved us all. This allocation is the least we can do. Your mission is our mission.”

From the edge of the table, one of the Salarian scientists, a man with intelligent, quick eyes, spoke up. “Major Maraan, Project Liaison for the Salarian Special Tasks Group. We are here, Miss Lawson, with the full support of our best minds.”

He shifted uncomfortably, flicking his gaze toward Matriarch Visiana before continuing.

“I must also express the shame of the Salarian Union. As you may know, officially, our government, the Dalatrass, did not approve of Commander Shepard's actions regarding the Genophage. They thought she had made a huge mistake. But we knew better. Now she has saved our homeworld regardless. There is no greater debt. We are here to see this done.”

Miranda nodded, absorbing the implicit political weight. She knew Shepard was a legend, but saving the entire galaxy lifted her to something she couldn’t describe; her survival seemed to have been above petty politics and bureaucracy, at least for the time being.

“Major Maraan, thank you. Matriarch Visiana. The debt will be repaid not in gratitude, but in results.” Miranda turned to the assembled specialists, her gaze sweeping the room.

“Project Phoenix starts now. We have the data, and now we also have the team and the place where we can make it work .” She tapped the datapad, bringing up the holographic wireframe of Shepard’s failing cybernetic system. "I know that some, if not most of you, still didn’t have time to go over Commander Shepard’s condition; the data is available to you now in full extent. Please go over it quickly, but with great attention to detail. First priority: Reverse-engineering and replacement. More than two years ago, Commander Shepard died. The Illusive Man started Project Lazarus and poured every resource available, with me at the helm, to get her back. During that time, we installed several cybernetic implants into the Commander’s body to kickstart neurological function, and those became vital to her continued existence. The same implants are now killing her. I want the Quarian and human engineers on structural analysis. Everyone else, find your stations. We have years of work ahead of us, and I want it done within months. The clock is ticking, fast.”

***

Major Evans leaned back against the concrete wall of his office, the worn-down crate beneath him protesting with a tired squeak. The air in the tiny room was still close, but the chaos of the hospital was muted. Both Dr. Vance and Aris were performing different surgeries, so he had some privacy.

A holographic image of Miranda Lawson, sharp and crystalline against a clean, cool blue backdrop, floated above his desk. She was in the laboratory with cutting-edge technology, while the paint on the cracked wall behind Evans was peeling off.

“Major, confirm receipt of the Project Phoenix Live Data Stream,” Miranda commanded, her voice clear and devoid of any previous awkwardness. She was all business.

“Confirmed, Director Lawson,” Evans replied, rubbing his eyes. “We have the feed locked. Dr. Lonus' team did good work setting up the protocol. We are about to deploy the cybernetic dampening with the help of- what was his name- oh- Reli-Vonn to give you- and Shepard more time.

“Get to that right away,” Miranda stated, tapping a command that projected Shepard's live TBI scan onto Evans's main datapad. “You will have to maintain the dampening field at maximum viable strength. Before you bring her in for any other surgery, this is your priority. If the parasitic loop accelerates, her brain stem will destabilize faster than you can react.”

“Understood. We're on it,” Evans sighed. "But if you think that's the only problem-"

“I don't,” Miranda cut him off smoothly. “Which is why we need a schedule. Major, I assume your team already knows what to do, but just in case…”

She switched the view to a surgical schedule. It was starkly detailed, with no allowance for delays or setbacks.

“The final surgery on the spine. The L1 fusion must be done first, Major,” Miranda dictated. “We need structural stability before we risk rotating her. I want Doctor Kaelen to begin plating that vertebra in 48 hours. No sooner. After that, Arden must get the abdomen closed. I don't want any infection risk when we start installing the new neural relays."

Evans’ eyes scanned the schedule, and he didn’t like it. “Plating the L1 is a massive trauma, Lawon,” He protested. Leaning forward. “Same as the pelvic reconstruction, we can’t run these surgeries on two-day intervals.”

“You have already had two days of stabilization. You will manage the recovery in the ICU. The TBI is the priority, and the implants are on a clock you and I cannot see. The structural work must be done now.”

“It will be done, but are you taking for amateurs? We already have our schedules for the Commander laid out. We would rather uphold those and not risk Shepard’s life by causing a catastrophic body shutdown due to the frequency of her surgeries… no offense.”

“I’m just trying to help you, Major.” A slight tone of arrogance in her voice. “You should be advised that you’re actively risking Shepard’s life by delaying those surgeries and letting the cybernetics poison her damaged body.”

“We are monitoring her neural activity at all times now. If we see that the decay is advancing too fast, we will change the schedule. Don’t worry about us, Lawson; we’re professionals.” If Evans were in a better mood or less tired, he would smirk, but he couldn’t even manage that.

“You should get some sleep, Major. You can’t operate on Shepard if you’re struggling to keep your eyes open.” Miranda recommended.

“Message received…” Evans yawned, “I’ll get some before the next surgery, it will be Kaelen doing most of the work there anyway.”

Miranda was not particularly satisfied with how their conversation was going, but she knew that if she wanted to be efficient, she couldn’t fight with Evans, and she knew that despite Shepard being a stranger to him, he only wished for her to heal and get up from that ICU bed, so she trusted him and his judgment.

“There’s one other thing, Major.”

“What?”

“Really be sure that you’re monitoring Shepard’s brain activity closely… I don’t know what it is with her, but she has a habit of being… restless. She woke up on us during Project Lazarus once way before she was supposed to. I wouldn’t put it past her to do it again, even if she’s in a worse state now. This is imperative, because as you certainly know, just her waking up could cause a shock and her death.”

“Hmpf.” He hummed, more to himself. “Got it, we will monitor her brain activity with more attention.”

“Do that. We can manage this, Major. One miracle at a time, we… we will get Shepard back. We have to.” Miranda’s voice betrayed her with a hint of her own fatigue. “I probably won’t be back on Earth until we have the implants ready, so maintain her, Evans. Keep her alive.”

The holographic image of Miranda Lawson flickered and vanished, leaving Evans alone once more in the cramped silence of his office, the glow of the distant TBI scan now the only light.

***

The ICU room felt smaller than it had an hour ago. The air was thick with the hum of additional machinery, portable generators, and frequency modulators that Reli-Vonn vas Ziron had dragged in.

Major Evans stood near the foot of the bed, arms crossed, watching. Beside him, Dr. Arden was nervously tapping a stylus against her datapad, her eyes flicking between the comatose Commander and the Quarian engineer.

“This feels wrong,” Arden murmured, her voice low enough so only Evans could hear. “We're treating a brain injury with an electromagnetic jammer. If the frequency is off by a decimal, we could scramble her temporal lobe.”

“It's not a jammer, Doctor,” Evans replied, though his own stomach was tight. “It's a containment field. And right now, it will be the only thing stopping those implants from cooking her brain.”

At the head of the bed, the Quarian engineer, Reli-Vonn, was working with a frantic, fluid dexterity. He was prepping a series of silver, segmented emitters that looked less like medical equipment and more like engine components. Dr. Zaharova was assisting him, her hands carefully navigating the space around Shepard’s neck brace.

“Careful with the cervical vertebrae,” Zaharova warned, her eyes glued to a vascular ultrasound scanner. “We have significant swelling around the C2 and C3. Do not compress the jugular.”

“Understood, Doctor,” Reli-Vonn said, his voice filtered and tinny through his enviro-suit. “The array is designed for proximity, not contact. I am positioning the emitters to encircle the brain stem.”

With Zaharova guiding him, they slid the curved emitters into place, forming a high-tech, silver collar that hovered just millimeters above Shepard's skin, targeting the base of her skull.

“Emitters in position,” Reli-Vonn announced. “I am calibrating the induction fields now.”

He typed a rapid sequence into his omni-tool. The collar hummed to life, emitting a faint, violet light that cast strange, sharp shadows on Shepard’s bruised face.

“Status?” Evans called out.

“Implants are... resistant,” Reli-Vonn said, his head tilting as he read the scrolling data on his visor. “They are detecting the dampening field as a system error. They are trying to draw more power to compensate.”

On the main vitals monitor, the heart rate spiked. 120... 130... 140.

“She's tachycardic,” Arden snapped, stepping forward. “BP is rising. 160 over 90. The feedback loop is accelerating!”

“It's the parasitic draw,” Reli-Vonn said, his fingers flying across his holographic interface. “The implants are panicking. They are pulling bio-electricity from the autonomic nerves to override my field.”

Shepard’s body, which had been terrifyingly still for days, suddenly twitched. A spasm rippled through her shoulders. Then another. Her hands, even the one with the freshly set fingers, attempted to clench.

“She's seizing,” Evans yelled, his voice dropping into command mode. “Zaharova, back off! Arden, get the anticonvulsants ready!”

“No!” Reli-Vonn shouted back at him, a burst of authority that surprised everyone. “Do not sedate her! If you slow her brain activity now while the implants are pulling this hard, you will cause a stroke. I need to match the frequency!”

The monitor began to scream a high-priority alarm. The TBI readings were flashing red. The intracranial pressure was spiking.

“Do it, Reli!” Evans yelled over the alarm. “Whatever you're doing, do it now!”

Reli-Vonn slammed a command into his omni-tool. “Modulating... harmonic resonance... locking it in!”

The violet light on the collar flared bright white for a split second, accompanied by a sound like a cracking whip, a sharp snap of static electricity.

Near silence returned to the room.

The alarm cut off.

On the bed, Shepard’s body went lax again, the tension draining from her muscles.

Evans let out a breath, his eyes instantly locking onto the heart monitor. 130... 110... 90. The rhythm was smoothing out.

"Report," Evans demanded. Shock was still apparent in his eyes. Those were the first movements he witnessed from Shepard outside of the shallow breaths back in that crater. Even if those movements were not voluntary, it caused a reaction inside him.

“Field is stable,” Reli-Vonn said, sounding breathless even through his mask. “I have isolated the Lazarus nodes at the brain stem. I've created a... think of it like a Faraday cage for her central nervous system. The implants are still active in her body, but they can no longer draw excess power from the brain. They are dormant.”

“For how long?” Zaharova asked, checking the skin under the collar for burns.

“Unknown,” the Quarian admitted. “They are adaptive. They will eventually try to re-route. But this should hold them for the timeline Director Lawson established. Weeks, perhaps.”

Evans walked to the side of the bed. He looked at the readout for the intracranial pressure. For the first time in forty hours, the number was going down.

“Good work,” Evans nodded toward the engineer. “Secure that array. I don't want it moving an inch.”

He turned to Doctor Arden.

“The brain is safe for now. The bleeding is stopped. The lungs are clean.” Evans glanced up at the ceiling, thinking about his words for a split second. “That means we're out of excuses.”

“Dr. Kaelen?” Arden asked, knowing the answer.

“Get him prepped,” Evans said, looking at the ruined, caged legs hidden beneath the thermal blanket. “Tell him he has forty-eight hours to prep for the spinal fusion. We start rebuilding the structure on Tuesday.”

Evans rubbed his eyes again. “In the meantime, I’m going to catch a few hours of sleep. Wake me if an emergency arises.”

“I’ll try my best not to.” Arden smiled at him warmly. “You look like hell, Evans.”

“Yeah... thank you.”

***

The walk from the ICU to the “Staff Quarters” was a journey between worlds. He left behind the sterile hum of million-credit machinery, stepping back into the humid, overcrowded reality of the hospital.

The sleeping area was located in what used to be a call center on the third floor. The cubicle walls had been torn down ages ago, leaving a vast, open cavern of gray carpet and fluorescent lights that were mercifully dimmed to a low, amber hum.

There were no beds. Every bed frame in the sector was occupied by a dying soldier or a crushed civilian. Instead, the floor was a patchwork quilt of scavenged mattresses, sleeping bags, and piles of blankets.

Evans stepped carefully over a sleeping radiologist, navigating the maze of exhausted bodies. There was no privacy here. Men and women, surgeons and orderlies, lay side by side, separated only by their backpacks or a few inches of floor. The air was thick with the smell of stale sweat, unwashed uniforms, and the collective, heavy breathing of a hundred people who were too tired to dream.

He found his spot near a window that had been boarded up with plywood. It was just a thin, stained mattress with a single, scratchy wool blanket, but right now, it looked like the most luxurious thing in the galaxy.

He sat down, unlacing his boots with trembling fingers. His feet throbbed as the pressure was released. He stripped off his outer tunic, folding it into a makeshift pillow.

He could have tried to go home. Technically, his apartment complex in Greater London was only six kilometers away. But he knew what he would find there. He had checked the impact maps, and he was close enough to the area to paint the picture. The building where his apartment used to be was gone, vaporized by a Destroyer’s cannon.

There was no one waiting for him there, anyway. No parents to call. No brothers to check on. He lost his parents almost immediately, almost half a year ago, when the Reapers first invaded Earth. They were shot down as they were trying to get away from their home in Liverpool in an evacuation shuttle. Both of his brothers died in battle, one of them right in front of his eyes. Vaporized by a Reaper’s laser beam. He never found out what exactly happened to his other brother, but after he had been MIA for months, he was declared KIA.

He didn't dwell on it. He couldn't. He couldn’t break down during the war, as many people depended on him. And now he couldn’t break down because Shepard depended on him. If he started thinking about the empty chairs at a dinner table that no longer existed, he would most likely have to request that Hackett replace him with someone else immediately. Grief was a luxury he couldn’t afford, not yet.

He lay back, the carpet hard beneath the thin foam. He closed his eyes, listening to the chorus of snores and shifting bodies around him.

He took one deep breath, let it out slowly, and let the exhaustion drag him under.

Chapter 12: Drill and Bone

The scrub room was a sanctuary of white noise. The only sounds were the aggressive hiss of water hitting stainless steel and the rhythmic, rough friction of bristle brushes against skin.

Major Evans stood at the middle sink, staring blankly at the grout line between the white tiles on the wall. The water was cold, the heaters were diverted to the recovery wards, but he barely felt it. He was counting the seconds in his head, a habit he couldn't break.

Next to him, Dr. Arden was scrubbing with a ferocity that suggested she was trying to wash away more than just microbes.

“We lost the kid in Triage 4,” she said, her voice low, not looking away from her soapy hands, brushing away a strand of dark hair from her forehead with her wrist. “The one with the crushed thorax from the collapsed metro tunnel.”

Evans didn't stop scrubbing. “I thought he was stable.”

“He was. Then he threw a clot. Pulmonary embolism. We didn't have any anticoagulants left on the crash cart because they were all routed to the ICU reserve.” She paused, the brush hovering over her knuckles. “He was nineteen.”

Evans shut his eyes for a second, the grit of the last forty-eight hours grinding behind his eyelids. “I'm sorry, Marisa.”

“Don't be sorry, Ryley. Be efficient,” she snapped, though the bite in her voice was aimed at the situation, not him. She rinsed her arms, the water sluicing away the sud. “Make sure this surgery is worth the price of admission. That’s all I’m saying.”

The door to the scrub room swung open, admitting a blast of noise from the corridor before sealing it out again. Dr. Kaelen walked in, holding a datapad. He looked surprisingly awake, bringing a strange energy to the heavy atmosphere in the room.

“Morning, campers,” Kaelen greeted them, tossing the pad onto a dry shelf. He walked to the sink on Evans’s left and triggered the sensor with his knee. “I hope you’ve had your coffee. I reviewed the latest CT scans from this morning. And as you know, the L1 vertebra is basically gravel. It’s going to be like trying to drill into a bag of marbles.”

“Good morning to you, too, Kaelen,” Evans muttered, switching the brush to his left hand. “How's the team?”

“Prepped and terrified,” Kaelen replied, pumping a generous amount of antiseptic soap. “Nurse Hali is shaking. I told her if she drops a screw into the spinal canal, I’m feeding her to the Krogan outside.”

“Urdnot Wrex is still there?” Arden asked, glancing at the door.

“I’ve been told he's currently eating an MRE or something… hopefully not someone that looks like a brick, and staring down anyone who walks within ten feet of the entrance,” Kaelen chuckled darkly. “I like him. He keeps the press away. I haven't had a single reporter try to shove a camera in my face, yet.”

“There’s press?” Arden questioned. “I haven’t really seen anyone. I thought that Shepard being here was supposed to be a secret.”

“It’s a secret, but not a very well-kept one. The word spreads around. We weren’t very secretive about her being here; keeping her alive mattered more. Luckily, there are plenty of stories to be had out there, so they’re not trying to climb through the windows, yet.” Kaelen smirked.

“What about Lawson?” Evans changed topics, rinsing his hands up to the elbows. “How is the remote link? Is the signal stable?”

“Crystal clear,” Kaelen confirmed. “I checked in with her ten minutes ago. She’s sitting somewhere warm on Destiny Ascension, watching our telemetry like a hawk. She reminded me, twice, that we are not to disturb the Quarian’s dampening coils. Apparently, if we jostle the neck array, Shepard’s brain might just melt.”

“Reli-Vonn secured them,” Evans noted. “They shouldn't move. But we need to be careful with the rotation. We could use mass-suspension fields to elevate her, but the hospital is all out of those. I looked and asked everywhere. We’ll need to log-roll her the standard way, but we’ll need to be extra careful."

Arden turned off her water, dripping hands held high. “Dampening coils, remote directors in orbit... I miss the days when surgery was just cutting and sewing.” She sighed, though she very well knew that her job was never that simple or easy.

“The cutting part is about to start,” Kaelen said, his voice losing its joking edge. He looked at Evans. “You ready for this, Major? This is going to be a long one.”

“Weren’t all of them long ones?” Evans questioned Kaelen’s line of thought, shaking his head slightly.

“I guess.” Kaelen raised his eyebrows. “Just trying to prepare you mentally.”

“I don’t need that, Kaelen.”

“Alright… Once we open her back up, we are committed. We have to fuse the L1, stabilize the T12 and L2, and make sure the spinal column doesn't collapse in on itself. It’s going to be eight hours of drilling, minimum.”

“I'm ready,” Evans nodded. He stepped away from the sink, water dripping from his elbows, keeping his hands elevated.

A circulating nurse was waiting with a sterile towel. Evans dried his hands, one end of the towel for the left, the other for the right, a precise, practiced motion to ensure no cross-contamination. He tossed the towel into the hamper and stepped into the center of the room.

“Gown,” he ordered.

The nurse shook out a blue surgical gown, holding it open. Evans slid his arms into the sleeves, thrusting forward but not through the cuffs. He felt the familiar, stifling weight of the fabric as the nurse moved behind him, tying the fastenings at his neck and waist. It always felt less like clothing and more like armor.

Next to him, Dr. Arden was tucking her hair, which stopped just above the shoulders, into a blue bouffant cap. She adjusted it twice, ensuring not a single strand was loose, then pulled her surgical mask up from her neck. She pinched the metal strip across the bridge of her nose, sealing it tight.

“Shields down,” Kaelen said, his voice muffled as he pulled his own mask into place.

They all donned clear plastic face shields, protection against bone dust and arterial spray. The world was now filtered through layers of plastic and fabric. Evans looked at his reflection in the stainless steel dispenser; he was just a pair of tired brown eyes floating in blue sterility.

“Gloves. Size eight.”

The nurse held the packet open. Evans plunged his right hand in, snapping the latex over the cuff of his gown. Then the left. He interlaced his fingers, checking the fit. They were tight, like another layer of his skin.

“If we have to log-roll her manually,” Arden said, her voice tinny behind the mask, “we need to be perfectly synchronized. If the pelvis shifts while we're turning her, she could bleed out before we even make the incision.”

“I'll take the head and neck,” Evans said, stepping toward the door. “Zaharova will manage the lines. Kaelen, you and Arden manage the hips and legs. On my count, slow and steady.”

“Right,” Kaelen nodded, his humor now fully gone. “Let's go build a scaffold.”

Arden kicked the door release plate with her hip. The three surgeons, hands held high, were walking backward into the operating room.

The air inside was frigid, kept cold to inhibit bacterial growth and keep the surgeons from sweating under the lights. The overhead array was blindingly bright, focused entirely on the draped, supine form of Commander Shepard. Zaharova was already waiting for them in the room, along with several others.

Evans stepped up to the head of the table. He looked down at Shepard. Her face was mostly obscured by the endotracheal tube and the silver, humming collar of the dampening field, but he could see the tension in her jaw even in sleep.

“Anesthesia?” Evans called out.

“Patient is deep,” the Anesthesiologist replied from behind the drape wall at the head. “Paralytics are on board. Vitals are stable. You have the floor.”

“Alright,” Evans addressed the room. “We are turning her to the prone position. This is the most dangerous part of the day. Watch the IVs. Watch the drain. And for God's sake, watch the dampeners and the spine. On my count. One... two... three.”

With agonizing slowness, the team lifted and turned the Savior of the Galaxy, settling her face down onto the padded surgical frame. Every eye was glued to the monitors. The heart rate fluttered, then steadied.

Evans let out a breath. “She's stable. Kaelen, she's yours.”

Kaelen nodded, stepping into the primary position at her lower back. He held out his palm open.

“Scalpel.”

***

Kaelen didn't hesitate. With a single, smooth stroke, he made a long midline incision over the lumbar spine.

“Bovie,” he ordered.

The smell of cauterized flesh instantly filled the room, a sharp, acrid tang that cut through the sterile air. Smoke curled up from the wound as Kaelen used the electrocautery tool to dissect through the thick layers of muscle and fascia, sealing smaller blood vessels as he went.

“Retractors,” Kaelen said. “Arden, give me exposure on the left. Major, take the right. Deep.”

Evans positioned the metal blades of the retractor and pulled. It took significant force to hold back the strong paraspinal muscles. He locked his elbows, settling into a stance he knew he would have to hold for hours.

“There it is,” Kaelen murmured, peering into the incision. “Or what's left of it.”

The L1 vertebra was in ruin. Where there should have been a solid, white arch of bone protecting the spinal canal, there was a chaotic jumble of fragments. It looked like a grenade had gone off inside the spinal column.

“It looks worse than what I imagined from the scan,” Arden noted, her voice tight. “The lamina is pulverized. I see dural tears. The spinal fluid is leaking.”

“Suction,” Kaelen commanded. “Gentle. If you suck up a nerve root, we're done.”

The room fell into a tense silence. For the next hour, the only sounds were the wet gurgle of the suction tip and the clink of bone fragments being dropped into a metal basin. Kaelen worked with unrivaled focus, using fine rongeurs to pick out shards of bone that were pressing against the exposed, severed spinal cord.

“Fragment removed. And another,” Kaelen narrated softly. “Easy... that one is close to the aorta.”

Time began to dissolve.

Evans felt the familiar burn start in his shoulders. The lactic acid building up from holding the retractor static against the muscle tension. He shifted his weight from his left foot to his right, then back again.

“Nurse,” Evans requested quietly. “Sweat.”

A circulating nurse stepped in, dabbing his forehead with a sterile gauze before a drop could fall into the open wound.

“Vitals?” Kaelen asked, not looking up.

“Stable,” the Anesthesiologist replied. “BP is dipping slightly. I'm adjusting the pressors.”

“Adjust them faster,” Kaelen snapped. “I'm about to start the pedicle screws. I need her rock solid.”

Another hour passed. The pile of bone fragments in the basin grew. The air in the room seemed to get heavier, the oxygen thinner.

“Decompression complete,” Kaelen finally announced, straightening up and stretching his neck with an audible crack. “The canal is clear. The cord is... well, it's transected, but it's no longer being impaled.”

He looked at the clock on the wall. They were three hours in. They hadn't even started the reconstruction yet.

“Change gloves,” Kaelen ordered. “Everyone. We're moving to instrumentation. Let's put some steel in her.”

The team stepped back for a micro-break, stripping off their soiled gloves. Evans flexed his hands, feeling the cramps seizing his fingers. He briefly glanced at Shepard’s back, then looked back at the surgeons.

"Alright…” Evans’ voice was raspy. "Let’s do this, stay sharp."

Kaelen returned to the table first, his fresh gloves snapping. He picked up a specialized drill guide, checking the alignment against the exposed vertebra.

“Starting instrumentation,” he announced. “T12 left pedicle. Drill.”

The high-pitched whine of the surgical drill filled the room, a jarring, mechanical scream that vibrated in everyone’s teeth. He watched as Kaelen drove the bit into the bone above the injury site.

“Depth check,” Kaelen murmured. “Good. Tap.”

He switched instruments, threading the hole. Then, he took a heavy, titanium pedicle screw from the nurse.

“Screw going in.”

The ratchet clicked loudly a few times as he torqued the screw into the vertebra.

“Solid purchase,” Kaelen said. “T12 right pedicle. Drill.”

The process repeated. Drill. Tap. Screw. The clicking sound.

By the time they reached the L2 vertebra below the injury, the sounds had blurred into a monotonous loop. Evans felt his concentration drifting into a trance state, his world narrowing down to the bloody field and the gleaming metal. He held the retractor, suctioned the field, and passed instruments, his body moving on autopilot while his mind cataloged the damage.

Four screws were now seated, two above the fracture, two below.

“Rods,” Kaelen instructed, his voice thicker now, strained.

The nurse handed him two contoured titanium rods. Kaelen laid them into the heads of the screws, bridging the gap where the L1 vertebra used to be.

“This is the reduction,” Kaelen warned. “We are forcing the spine back into alignment. Evans, Arden, I need counter-pressure on the pelvis and the thorax. Don't let her twist.”

Evans pressed his hands firmly onto Shepard's upper back, feeling the unnatural warmth of the fever through the drapes. Arden secured the hips.

“Torquing down,” Kaelen grunted. He tightened the locking nuts on the screws.

The spine groaned. It was a wet, shifting sound that made Evans's stomach turn. The rods pulled the vertebrae back into line, forcing the column straight.

“Hold it...” Kaelen hissed, sweat dripping past his brow and soaking into his mask. “Almost... there. Locked.”

He released the wrench. The spine held together. The gap was still there, the empty space where the spinal cord should have been connected, but the bone structure was rigid.

“Alignment looks good,” Arden said, checking the fluoroscope monitor. “She's straight.”

“She's fused,” Kaelen corrected, stepping back and leaning heavily against the instrument tray. “That hardware isn't going anywhere. She could take a rocket hit, and that spine wouldn't buckle.”

“Won’t matter if she still can't feel her legs,” Evans said quietly, looking at the severed cord visible between the rods.

“Not my department, Major,” Kaelen said, wiping his face with his shoulder. “I stabilized the spine. Lawson has to do the rest, if she’s as smart as she says.”

He looked at the clock. Seven hours.

“Bone graft,” Kaelen ordered, rallying for the final push. “Let's pack the lateral gutters and close her up. I'm done.”

The closure took another hour. Layer by layer, they stitched the muscles back together, burying the metal scaffolding deep inside her body. The skin was closed with staples, a long, silver zipper running down the center of her back.

“Dressing,” Exhaustion in Evans’ voice was evident.

They applied the sterile pads and taped them down. The dampening collar around her neck hummed on, undisturbed.

“Turn her back,” Evans commanded. “Supine. Careful with the lines.”

They rotated her again, settling her onto her back. She was still very far from looking like the Shepard they knew from vids, but one step at a time, they were fixing her, and maybe at some point in the future, she’d open those green eyes.

Evans stripped off his gown, the fabric heavy with sweat. He felt lightheaded, the adrenaline crash hitting him all at once.

“She's stable,” the Anesthesiologist confirmed. “ICP is holding. No spikes.”

“Good,” Evans exhaled. “Get her back to the ICU. Resume the full monitoring protocol.”

He looked at Kaelen and Arden. They both looked beyond tired, especially Kaelen, though he did his best attempt at looking cheerful. Their masks were hanging loose around their necks.

“Go, get some rest, the nurses know what to do,” Evans told them. “I need to talk to Lawson… or Hackett… or someone. I need to inform them of our success.”

“I’d tell you that you should get some rest too, but I’m too tired to argue.” Arden gave him a tired smile.

As they shuffled out, Evans stayed behind for a moment, looking at the wall, just thinking.

One miracle at a time.

***

Evans made his way back to the office, his legs feeling heavy, like he was wading through water.

He collapsed onto the crate, the wood groaning under his weight, and activated his desktop console. His fingers felt clumsy as he keyed in the priority encryption for the Destiny Ascension link.

The connection took a moment to stabilize, the holographic emitter sputtering before resolving into the cool, blue-tinted image of Director Lawson.

She wasn't standing in the center of the lab commanding a room full of scientists this time. She was seated at a personal terminal, surrounded by floating data streams that Evans couldn't begin to parse. The background hum of the Ascension was a soft, high-tech drone compared to the hospital's rattle.

“So, how is it going down there, Major?” she said, not looking up immediately from her work. “I saw the telemetry spike during the reduction. Did the cord sustain further trauma?”

“No,” Evans rasped, clearing his throat. “The cord is untouched. The L1 is fused. Kaelen locked down the hardware. She’s rigid. It took a lot out of her, though.”

Miranda finally looked up, and even though he could only see Miranda as a blue hologram, there was something strange about her. He blinked. Her hair was all over the place, and there were darker shades under her eyes that makeup hasn’t quite hidden. She almost seemed like someone else. It wasn’t like Evans had much personal experience to know what Miranda was usually like, but from the few things he had heard and even from the time he met her, it seemed so unlike her.

"Good," she exhaled, a genuine tension leaving her shoulders, ignoring the part where Evans said that the surgery was demanding. She rubbed her temple with two fingers. “That’s... good. We’ve been running simulations on the spinal graft. Without that bone stability, the nerve channels would have misaligned within days.”

“You're welcome,” Evans said dryly. He leaned closer to the pickup sensor. “Lawson, how long have you been at that terminal?”

“I don't know. Twelve hours? Fourteen?” She waved a hand dismissively. “It doesn't matter. The Salarians found a discrepancy in the enzyme-bonding rate for the neural tissue. If I don't correct it, the graft will be rejected before it even bridges the gap.”

“You look like I feel,” Evans noted bluntly. “And I just spent seven hours holding a retractor inside a human spine.”

Miranda let out a short, tired breath that might have been a laugh. “Flattery isn't your strong suit, Major.”

"Just trying to make sure some data doesn’t get corrupted when you fall asleep at your desk and smash your forehead into that terminal.”

Even though this holographic emitter didn’t project the entire body of a person, and he could only see from the chest up, Evans recognized how she readjusted and crossed her arms.

“Anyway, I thought the main priority was the cybernetic implants? Why are you working on the spinal fix?”

“We’re working on everything at once, Major. The team has expanded again and again. I can allow myself to allocate resources to every department.”

“Hmpf… Must be nice.” Evans said quietly, almost whispering the words.

There was a moment of silence.

“I get what you’re getting at, but I can’t sleep, Major.” Miranda broke it. “I see the data, I see what needs to be done, and I can’t have that luxury. I need to work. We are behind.”

“We just caught up a little,” Evans reminded her. “The spine is fixed. The dampeners are holding. You really should sleep.”

“Fine,” she lied through her teeth. “But if anything happens-”

“I know the drill,” Evans said. “Get some rest. Evans out.”

He cut the connection immediately. The hologram vanished, leaving him alone in the dim, cramped room. He stared at the empty space where she had been, shaking his head.

She seemed just as stubborn and determined as the woman lying in the ICU. Maybe that’s why they were friends.

Evans stood up, his joints popping painfully. He grabbed his tunic. Now, he could finally follow his own advice.

Chapter 13: Closure

The days began to blur. There was no sun or moon inside the restricted ICU, only the relentless cycle of the shift changes and the digital readouts on the monitors.

Major Evans didn’t really pay that much attention to how much time was passing. He measured time in the regularity of check-ups on Shepard; he slept whenever and even wherever he could.

The forty-eight hours following the spinal surgery had been filled with anxiety. He had watched the monitors with an obsessiveness that bordered on paranoia, waiting for the crash. He waited for Kaelen’s screws to slip, for the spinal cord to swell, for the dampening coils to fail.

They didn't. The structure held. The field held.

But the body has a way of protesting when it is being continuously dismantled and rebuilt.

It started on the evening of the sixth day post-rescue. The sinister peace was not broken by an alarm, but by the quiet, urgent voice of the nurse on duty.

“Major.”

Evans looked up from his datapad. He was sitting in the corner chair he had claimed as his command post, a half-eaten nutrient bar forgotten on the table beside him. They were monitoring Shepard from the viewing room.

Standing by the monitors was Elias Harman. He was a senior nurse Evans had pulled from the general ward, a man in his early thirties with gentle hands and a calmness that seemed impervious to the chaos of the hospital.

“What is it, Elias?” Evans asked, standing up and crossing the room in two strides.

“Trend variance,” Elias pointed to the thermal readout. “She’s been holding steady at 37.5 since the surgery. In the last hour, she’s climbed to 38.9. And it’s not leveling off.”

Evans looked at the monitor. The red line tracking her core temperature was creeping upward. He only nodded Harman’s way and they both immediately left the viewing room, and they were next to Shepard within the same minute.

“Heart rate?”

“110. Tachycardic, but regular,” Elias reported, his eyes not leaving Shepard. He reached out, placing a hand gently on her forehead, careful to avoid the dermal seal and the humming dampening collar. “She’s radiating heat, Major. She’s flushed.”

Evans leaned in. Elias was right. Sweat was beading along her hairline, soaking into the pillow.

“It could be the inflammatory response from the spinal hardware,” Evans reasoned, though his gut tightened. “Titanium rods and pedicle screws are foreign objects. Her body knows there’s an invader.”

“Or it’s the abdomen,” Elias countered softly. He gestured to the large VAC dressing covering her open stomach. “That cavity has been open for four days, Major. You’ve lavaged it, sealed it, but it’s still a massive biological vulnerability. If the bowel edema hasn't resolved, we could be looking at early sepsis.”

Evans checked the canister of the VAC pump. The fluid inside was serous, yellowish, and clear, not cloudy or purulent. That was good. But the fever was a warning shot.

“We can't let her stay like this,” Evans noted. “If her temp crosses 40, the metabolic stress could overload the heart's repair. And Miranda... Director Lawson warned us that thermal spikes could also destabilize the cybernetic loop.”

“I'll start the cooling protocols,” Elias announced, already moving. He didn't wait for a specific order; he knew the drill.

They worked in tandem. Elias stripped away the standard thermal blankets, replacing them with a specialized cooling blanket that circulated chilled water. He tucked it efficiently around her, mindful of the external fixators on her legs.

“Increasing saline drip rate by ten percent,” Evans ordered, keying the command into the IV pump. “We need to flush the heat out. Draw a full panel, CBC, lactate, and blood cultures. I want to know if we're fighting inflammation or infection.”

“On it,” Elias nodded. He prepped a syringe, finding a port on her central line with practiced ease.

As the cooling unit hummed to life, Evans stood by the head of the bed, looking down at Shepard. She didn't move. The sedatives kept her deep in the coma, but the fever was, in a way, a sign of life, a sign of activity, a sign that something was going on inside her. Another kind of war.

“Tomorrow is Day 7,” Evans murmured, watching the temperature readout fluctuate between 38.9 and 39.0. “We were supposed to close the abdomen tomorrow.”

Elias looked up, the blood vial in his hand. “If she's febrile, Dr. Arden won't touch her. We can't close a potentially infected wound, Major. We’d just be sealing the bacteria inside.”

“I know,” Evans said, frustration leaking into his voice. “But we can't leave her open forever, Harman. It's a ticking bomb; we are already hazarding. We should’ve closed her days ago. If we don’t close it now, the muscles will pull back too far, and we won’t get it closed again without using a permanent mesh graft.”

“Let's see what the blood work says,” Elias noted calmly, deflecting Evans’ understandable worries. “Let’s just keep her safe for now.”

Evans nodded, sitting down in a chair, his eyes fixed on the red number on the screen. 39.0.

It wasn't going down.

***

The morning came, but the mood in the ICU hasn’t improved a bit.

Evans hadn't slept. He had spent the last six hours in a chair in the viewing room, watching the temperature readout fluctuate. 38.8... 39.1... 38.7... 39.2.

The cooling unit hummed aggressively, pumping chilled water through the blanket wrapped around Shepard’s body, but she was still radiating heat. Her skin was flushed a deep, unhealthy red beneath the bruising.

The door hissed open. Harman walked in, carrying a datapad. His usually calm face was tight.

“Lab results are back,” Elias said, not wasting time with greetings. He handed the pad to Evans. “It’s not inflammation.”

Evans scanned the highlighted rows. WBC: 22,000. Lactate: 4.5. Blood Cultures: Positive - Gram-Negative Bacilli.

“Sepsis,” Evans breathed, the word tasting bitter in his mouth. “It's in her blood.”

Just like the evening before, both Evans and Harman moved from the viewing room right into the ICU.

“Likely translocation from the bowel,” Elias added, moving to the IV pump to check the fluid levels. “The edema in the intestinal wall compromised the barrier. Bacteria leaked into the bloodstream.”

Evans rubbed his face, feeling the stubble scratching his palms. This was the nightmare scenario.

“Get Arden down here,” Evans ordered with a frustrated exhale. “And tell the OR to hold the room.”

Ten minutes later, Dr. Arden swept into the room, fully scrubbed, her eyes bright with the false energy of caffeine.

“We're prepped,” she announced, looking at the wall clock. “0800. Let's get her moved. If we don't close that fascia today, we might never.”

Evans didn't move from the bedside. He just held out the datapad.

“We can't move her, Marisa.”

Arden took the pad, her brow furrowing as she read the numbers. Her expression shifted from impatience to resignation in a heartbeat.

“Damn it,” she hissed, lowering the pad. She looked at Shepard, really looked at her, noting the flush, the sweat, the way her chest heaved against the ventilator. “She's septic. If we close her now, we trap the infection inside. We'll create an abscess the size of a football.”

“I know,” Evans said. “But look at the lactate. It's rising. Her kidneys are taking a hit from the toxins. If we wait another twenty-four hours for the antibiotics to clear it, the abdominal wall will most likely retract too far. We'll lose the chance.”

Arden crossed her arms, staring at the ceiling. “So, we're stuck. We can't close her because she's infected, and she's infected because she's open.”

“We have a window,” Evans’ eyes shifted from Arden back to Shepard. “We hit her with a pulse-dose of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Meropenem and Vancomycin. Max safe dosage. We flush the system.”

“That will take twelve hours to show effect,” Elias pointed out from the other side of the bed. “Minimum.”

“Then we operate tonight,” Evans decided. He looked at Arden again. “Midnight. That gives the antibiotics around sixteen hours to knock the bacterial load down. We do another washout, check the cultures, and if the fever breaks... we close.”

Arden looked at him like he was crazy. “Midnight? You want to start a complex abdominal reconstruction in the middle of the night shift, on a patient who is actively septic?”

“Do we have a choice?” Evans countered. He gestured to the VAC dressing. “Every hour that sponge stays on is another hour the bacteria have a highway into her blood. We have to seal the breach, Marisa. Tonight. 0000 hours.”

Arden sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to deflate her posture. She looked at the feverish woman in the bed.

“Fine,” she relented. “I'll tell the OR to push the block. But you'd better pray that fever breaks, Evans. Because if she's still burning up at midnight, I'm not cutting. I won't kill her just to stick to a schedule.”

“She'll be ready,” Evans promised, though he wasn't sure who he was trying to convince.

Arden turned and marched out, already tapping her comms to reschedule her day.

Evans turned back to Elias. “Load the antibiotics. Double line. Let's cool her down.”

Elias nodded, moving to the med-station. “It's going to be a long day, Major.”

“It's been a long week, Elias, I thought my longest days would be the months of the Reapr war…” Evans muttered, sitting back down in a chair to resume his vigil. "But when we got this… so, what's another sixteen hours?"

***

The hospital at midnight was a different creature from the hospital at noon. The frantic energy of the day shift had bled away, leaving behind a heavy, muffled silence. Even then, the hospital was not resting. Complications didn’t pick a particular time when to occur, and there were thousands of patients with complications at all times.

Evans sat in the same chair, in the same position he had held since dawn. The only difference was the pile of empty nutrient paste wrappers on the table and the depth of the shadows under his eyes.

He checked his omni-tool. 23:45.

Fifteen minutes to the deadline.

“Temperature check,” Evans called out, his voice cracking from disuse.

Harman was already at the bedside. He didn't look at the monitor immediately. Instead, he slid his hand under the cooling blanket, resting his palm against Shepard's neck, just below the humming dampening collar.

“She’s wet,” Elias noted, pulling his hand back. His glove was glistening. “Soaking wet. Diaphoresis.”

Evans stood up, the sudden movement making his head spin for a split second. He moved to the bed.

Shepard looked like she had been pulled out of a lake. Her hair was matted to her skull, and beads of sweat were rolling down her temples, pooling in the hollow of her throat. The flush in her cheeks had drained away, leaving her pale, almost grey.

Evans looked at the monitor. The red line that had been flat at around 39.2 all day had taken a sharp, vertical dive.

38.1... 38.0... 37.9.

“The fever broke,” Evans exhaled, the relief hitting him harder than the exhaustion. “The antibiotics worked. The bacterial load is crashing.”

“Heart rate is down to 95,” Elias added, wiping Shepard’s forehead with a sterile cloth. “BP is stabilizing. She’s cooling off, Major. And she’s doing pretty well.”

The doors hissed open.

Dr. Arden walked in. She wasn't wearing her usual scrubs; she was already fully gowned and gloved for the OR, holding her mask in one hand. She looked sharp, awake, and ready to call the whole thing off.

“It's almost midnight, Evans,” she announced, stopping at the foot of the bed. She didn't look at Shepard; she looked at the Major. “Do I tell the team to stand down, or are we doing this?”

Evans didn't say a word. He simply pointed to the monitor, his arm moving quite sluggishly.

Arden’s eyes tracked the numbers. She watched as the temperature ticked down one more decimal point. 37.8.

She let out a short, sharp breath through her nose. “Well. I'll be damned. You actually pulled it off.”

“She's ready,” Evans placed his hands on his hips, moving to unlock the wheels of the bed. “The window is open. We seal the abdomen now.”

“It's still risky,” Arden warned, pulling her mask up. “The tissues will be friable. If she's still shedding bacteria, we might trap a pocket.”

“It's less risky than leaving her open for another day,” Evans countered. He nodded to Elias. “Prep for transport. Disconnect the wall monitors. Switch to portable oxygen.”

Elias moved with efficient speed, swapping the lines. At this point, a few other nurses came in to help him.

“Transport ready,” Elias confirmed.

“Let's go,” Evans commanded, grabbing the foot of the bed.

They rolled Commander Shepard out of the ICU, the wheels rumbling over the threshold. They moved through the dim, somewhat quiet corridors of the restless hospital.

***

The doors to Operating Room 1 parted, and the transition was jarring. They left the dim, hushed corridor and entered a world of aggressive light.

Dr. Arden didn't waste time. She was already at the scrub sink as Elias and Evans rolled the gurney into position alongside the operating table.

“Transfer on three,” Evans commanded, his voice raspy but firm. “Watch the external fixators. Watch the neck array. One, two, three.”

They slid Shepard onto the table. The movement was smoother now than it had ever been before; the team had learned the specific, terrifying geometry of her broken body. Elias immediately began locking down the restraints and connecting the OR’s life support systems.

“Ventilator connected,” Elias called out. “Swapping IV lines to the main pump. Pressors running.”

Evans stripped off his outer tunic and moved to the scrub sink next to Arden. The water was cold, acting as a shock to his system that he desperately needed.

“You realize this is a gamble, Evans,” Arden was scrubbing her forearms with mechanical precision. “If I open that VAC dressing and find necrotic bowel, we aren't closing anything. We'll be resecting. And she won't survive a bowel resection in this state.”

“The lactate dropped,” Evans reminded her, rinsing his hands. “The tissue is viable. It has to be.”

“Hope is not a clinical indicator,” she muttered, but she stepped back, dripping, and pushed through the door into the sterile field.

Evans followed. They gowned and gloved in silence; the ritual was both familiar and grounding.

When they approached the table, Shepard was already draped. Only the large, sponge-covered mound of her abdomen was visible, framed by blue sterile sheets. The suction pump gurgled rhythmically, a sound Evans had come to associate with the constant threat of failure.

“Anesthesia?” Arden asked, stepping up to Shepard’s right side.

“Patient is deep,” the anesthesiologist replied. “Paralytics on board. She’s stable, Dr. Arden. But she’s fragile. Keep it tight.”

“Cutting the seal,” Arden announced.

She took a scalpel and sliced through the clear adhesive drape that held the VAC sponge in place. The vacuum seal broke with a wet hiss.

Evans moved in to help peel back the adhesive. “Gentle. The skin edges will be macerated.”

They lifted the large, fluid-soaked sponge away from the open cavity. The smell hit them instantly, though not the foul, rotting stench of dead tissue, but the sharp, metallic tang of raw biology and old blood.

Arden leaned in, her eyes scanning the exposed organs under the bright lights.

“Irrigation,” she ordered.

A nurse handed Evans a sterile hose. He flooded the cavity with warm saline, washing away the fibrin and clots that had formed over the last few days. The suction tip gurgled, clearing the view.

Arden reached in, her gloved hands exploring the intestines. She moved with extreme care, checking the color, the texture, the blood flow.

Evans held his breath. This was the moment of truth.

“The bowel is... pink,” Arden was almost surprised. She gently palpated a section of the small intestine. “Edema has significantly reduced. It’s angry, but it’s viable. No grey spots. No necrosis.”

“And the mesentery?” Evans asked, leaning over to see the site of Dr. Zaharova's coil embolization from the previous surgery.

“The coils are holding,” Arden confirmed. “No new bleeding. The retroperitoneal hematoma hasn't expanded.”

She looked up at Evans, her eyes visible above her mask, crinkling slightly. It might have been a smile or just relief.

“You were right, Major. We can do it. The fascia edges are retracted, but they aren't frozen. We can pull this together.”

“Then let's do it,” Evans said, feeling the tension in his shoulders loosen just a fraction. “Let's close her up before anything else goes wrong.”

“Fresh gloves,” Arden ordered the room. “We're switching to closure instruments. Get me the heavy-gauge PDS suture. We're going to need some torque to get this wall back together.”

“Load the needle,” Arden commanded, extending her hand without looking away from the open cavity. “Number one PDS on a looped needle.”

The scrub nurse slapped the heavy needle driver into her palm. It looked more like a tool for leatherworking than surgery, a thick, curved needle trailing a heavy, purple monofilament thread.

“We start at the xiphoid and work down,” Arden directed, positioning herself at the top of the incision. "Evans, I need you on the Kocher clamps. Grab the fascial edge. You have to pull hard, Major. If we don't get the edges to kiss, the suture will tear right through the muscle."

Evans nodded, picking up two heavy, toothed clamps. He reached into the wound, biting the metal teeth into the tough, white layer of fascia on the patient’s left side. Arden did the same on the right.

“Ready?” Evans tightened his grip on the handles. “Pulling.”

He leaned back, using his body weight to drag the abdominal wall toward the center. The tissue resisted, stiff and swollen from days of trauma. It felt like trying to close an overpacked suitcase.

Arden drove the needle through the fascia on the right, then crossed over, biting deep into the left. She pulled the suture taut.

“Tension holding,” she grunted, locking the first stitch. “Again. Move down two centimeters.”

They developed a grueling rhythm. Clamp. Pull. Stitch. Lock.

The room fell silent except for the sounds of the needle driver and the heavy breathing of the surgeons. It was manual labor. Evans’s forearms burned, the muscles cramping from the sustained force required to hold the abdomen closed while Arden threw the loops.

“Vitals?” Evans asked through gritted teeth, sweat rolling down his nose behind the face shield.

“She's tolerating it,” Elias reported from the head of the table. “Heart rate 105. BP is stable. Paralytics are maxed out. She’s not fighting you.”

“Halfway there,” Arden muttered. She was working faster now, her movements sharp and aggressive. “The tension is high here at the umbilicus. Evans, cross your hands. Give me more torque.”

Evans adjusted his grip, crossing the clamps to leverage the tissue closer. The gap narrowed. Arden threw three rapid stitches, cinching them tight.

“Got it,” she exhaled. “Passing the midline.”

The lower abdomen was easier. The swelling was less severe near the pelvis, though Evans was careful not to disturb the binder that was still holding her shattered hips together beneath the sterile drapes.

Thirty minutes later, Arden tied off the final knot at the bottom of the incision.

“Fascia is closed,” she announced, dropping the needle driver onto the tray. She ran a gloved finger along the suture line, checking for gaps. “It's tight as a drum, but it’s closed.”

Evans released the final clamp, his fingers stiff. He looked at the abdomen. At last, it was no longer a gaping hole covered by a sponge; it was a continuous, albeit battered, surface.

“Skin,” Arden ordered. “Staplers.”

The final layer went fast. Two surgeons working in tandem, the sound of the skin staplers echoing. They sealed the long incision from sternum to pelvis, leaving a silver trail of metal in their wake.

“Done,” Arden finished, handing off the stapler. She stepped back, stripping off her bloody outer gloves. “Dressings. Get a sterile pressure bandage on that. I don't want to see this wound again until the staples come out.”

Evans watched as the nurses applied the clean white gauze. It seemed impossibly simple compared to the horror of the VAC pump.

“VAC unit is off,” Elias confirmed, silencing the gurgling pump that had been there with Shepard for a week. “Disconnecting.”

The sudden silence was profound.

Evans slumped slightly, bracing his hands on the edge of the operating table. “We beat the clock.”

“We got lucky,” Arden corrected, though her eyes were soft with relief. She looked at the monitor, where the temperature readout sat at a miraculous 37.6 degrees. “The fever broke, the bowel survived, and the wall closed. I'd say that's enough miracles for one night.”

She looked at Evans.

"We did it, Major. This part’s over. I don’t want to get foolishly hopeful, but it feels like we might actually pull this all off."

Evans allowed himself a hesitant smirk. "Transport," He called out, his voice hoarse. “Let's get her back to the ICU. Gently.”

As they unlocked the wheels, Evans placed a hand on the side rail. For the first time in more than seven days, Commander Shepard looked... whole. Broken, horribly scarred, and comatose, yes. But whole.

Chapter 14: Foundation

The observation deck on the fourth floor wasn't really a deck anymore. The windows had been blown out weeks ago during the siege, replaced now by heavy sheets of translucent, reinforced plastic that rattled whenever the wind picked up off the Thames.

It was cold, drafty, and smelled of ozone, but it was the only place in the facility where you could see the sky.

Dr. Lynds stood by the plastic sheeting, holding a cup of awful coffee that had long since gone cold. He was looking out at the skyline of London, or what was left of it.

Even just a little more than a week ago, when they already had Shepard on the operating table, the view had been nothing but smoke and fires. Now, the smoke was thinning, replaced by the dust of construction. In the distance, massive Alliance heavy-lifters were moving debris, their spotlights cutting through the grey haze like lighthouse beams. He could see the skeletal frames of prefabricated shelters rising in the cleared zones. The city was far from dead; it just needed to be repaired.

“You're going to freeze to death out here, Lynds,” a voice rumbled from the doorway.

Lynds didn't turn. “It wakes me up better than the caffeine. Besides, the air filtration inside is starting to smell like recycled despair.”

Dr. Kaelen walked up beside him, leaning his elbows on the makeshift railing. He looked tired, the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that sleep didn't touch, but his eyes were sharp as he scanned the horizon.

“I hear the 5th Fleet engineers finally got the water processing plant back online in Sector 4,” Kaelen nodded toward a distant cluster of industrial towers. “Real water. Not just purified reclamation.”

“It's civilization,” Lynds took a sip of his coffee. “I saw a shuttle transport bringing in fresh produce this morning. Actual vegetables. Grown in a hydroponic bay, sure, but green.” He took another sip of his sludge. “It feels strange, doesn't it? In here, we're fighting for every heartbeat; in here, it barely looks different from a week ago. Out there... the world is just moving on.”

“Hell, the world doesn't have a choice," Kaelen grunted. "Stop moving, you die. That's the rule.”

He watched a distant crane lift a massive slab of concrete, clearing a blocked roadway. “My brother is out there somewhere. He’s with the Corps of Engineers. The last message I got, they were trying to stabilize the foundation of the Parliament building. Or what's left of it.”

“You haven't seen him?”

“Not since the landing. He's busy moving rocks. I'm busy fixing bones.” Kaelen shrugged, a gesture that was more about releasing tension than indifference. “We do the job in front of us.”

“Speaking of jobs,” Lynds turned to him, his expression shifting from reflective to professional. “Tomorrow is the big day. The hips.”

“Yeah,” Kaelen rubbed the back of his neck. "Day 12 since she was found. Evans finally gave me the green light. Her white count is down, the abdomen is soft. She’s as ready as she’ll ever be.”

“It's going to be a bloodbath, Kaelen,” Lynds warned quietly. “The vascular map Zaharova built is a minefield. The iliac arteries are sitting right on top of your fracture lines. One slip with the reduction clamp...”

“I know,” Kaelen cut him off, though not unkindly. He looked at his hands, broad, steady hands that had spent the entire war piecing people back together. “I'm not going in blind. I've spent the last three nights running simulations on the Ascension's data feed, which the Ice Queen herself had so graciously provided.” He couldn’t stop himself from smirking. “Anyway, I know exactly where the mines are.”

“Ice Queen?” Lynds raised an eyebrow.

“Miranda Lawson. Or should I say… Director Lawson.” Kaelen grimaced.

“You don’t like her.”

“How’d you guess that?” Kaelen chuckled. “I haven’t even talked to her properly, I don’t know how Ryley’s head doesn’t explode.”

“Why? What do you know about her?”

“Not much, apparently ex-Cerberus. Worked with Shepard, they were crewmates and friends or something. Bloody hell. I know the Alliance was taking in anyone to fight the Reapers, fuck- I mean, they took those mercs all the way from Omega, but I’d expect them to arrest her right after. Guess her war effort contribution was far too great.” The sarcastic tone couldn’t be missed.

“That didn’t explain why you dislike her.”

“Ugh- she just- she just thinks too highly of herself, sitting up there in Destiny Ascension. I don’t need that kind of equipment to perform miracles here every damn day. I can feel the bitchy energy even when Evans just relays orders from her.”

Lynds knew that this wasn’t a productive conversation; he was indifferent about Miranda Lawson, he had no reason to like her, but he didn’t have a reason to really dislike her either.

“Hmm…” His deep voice vibrated. “Either way- that’s good. The data. Because if you nick an artery, I have to jump in and fix it. And I really don't want to spend my Tuesday elbow-deep in a pelvic hemorrhage. Or spend my day saving an asshole like you.” Lynds grinned as Kaelen shook his head disapprovingly.

“Asshole or not, you'll jump in, and I won’t even have to ask,” Kaelen retorted, though there was no heat in it. He turned back to the plastic sheeting, his breath fogging the cold surface. "Besides, if I botch the hips, Evans will have my head. And then the Krogan will have the rest of me.”

Lynds smiled, swirling the dregs of his coffee. “Urdnot Wrex hasn't left that post in twelve days. I heard a private tried to bring him a blanket last night. He almost took the kid's arm off. Said that Krogan don't get cold.”

“He's loyal,” Kaelen’s eyebrows furrowed, his voice dropping a register. “They all are. It’s... unnerving.”

“What is?”

“The way they talk about her. Wrex. Lawson. Even Hackett.” Kaelen gestured vaguely toward the general direction of the ICU wing. “I’ve operated on generals, ministers, hell, during the Reaper war? Even Spectres. But this? This feels different. It’s like we’re not fixing a soldier. We’re rebuilding a religion or something.”

Lynds leaned back against the railing, considering. “She did save the galaxy, Kaelen. That buys a lot of loyalty and a lot of appreciation in people.”

“It's not just that,” Kaelen insisted. “You've seen the charts. You saw her on the table. Any other human would be dead three times over. The sepsis alone should have shut down her kidneys. The spinal shock should have flatlined her. I mean, who survives a free fall from the fucking atmosphere after already getting blasted by an explosion, plus I’ve heard a rumor that even before that, she got- she got a near direct hit by a Reaper beam?! She just... holds on. It’s unnatural.”

“She’s resilient,” Lynds grounded Kaelen’s outburst. “There's a difference.” He himself didn’t fully understand how or why Shepard survived. He saw the impossibility of it, though he wasn’t sure if he trusted all the rumors.

“Is there?” Kaelen looked at him sideways. “Lawson’s data streams show her physiology is running at 110% efficiency even while comatose. Her clotting factors rebound faster than we can transfuse. Her bone density, even shattered, is denser than a heavy-worlder. Whatever Cerberus did to her the first time... they didn't just bring her back. They upgraded the hardware.”

“And now the upgrades are killing her,” Lynds pointed out. “Or trying to.”

“Yeah,” Kaelen sighed. “Irony at its finest. The machine parts are failing, and the flesh is too stubborn to quit.”

He looked out at the city again, where the heavy-lifters were still moving rock.

“I stood over her yesterday,” Kaelen admitted quietly. “Checking the fixators. And for a second, I swear the atmosphere in the room changed. It wasn't the dampening field or the AC. It was... weight. Gravity. Like the whole room was tilting toward that bed.” He shook his head, looking embarrassed. “I need sleep. I'm starting to sound like a mystic.”

“You're sounding like a man who's been staring at a ghost for two weeks," Lynds looked back at the hospital, where that ghost has been residing. “She's just a patient, Kaelen. A damn important one, but she bleeds like the rest of us. Don't let the legend shake your hands.”

“My hands don't shake,” Kaelen snapped, the professional pride flaring instantly. “I'll put those screws in perfectly. I'll rebuild that ring so she can carry the weight of the world again if she wants to. But I won't pretend I'm not wondering what happens when she wakes up.”

“She wakes up, she screams, she heals,” Lynds said pragmatically. “Same as everyone else.”

“Maybe,” Kaelen murmured. “Or maybe she wakes up, and we realize we're just the mechanics who tightened the bolts on a tank.”

Kaelen turned his head back up to the view, his hands gripping the railing tight enough to whiten the knuckles. The wind snapped the plastic sheeting again, a sharp crack that sounded too much like a bone breaking.

“And if-if we're just mechanics,” Kaelen muttered, “then Evans is the one trying to drive the wreck.”

Lynds nodded slowly, attempting to take another sip from his cup, but then looked at the sludge with a slight grimace. “He’s barely sleeping. I checked the logs. He’s clocking four hours a night, maximum- sorry, I meant every other night. And that’s sleeping on the floor in the call center, not a real bed.”

“It’s not just the sleep,” Kaelen countered. “I’ve seen men run on adrenaline for weeks. We all have. This is different. He’s... eroding.”

Kaelen turned around, leaning his back against the railing, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yesterday, I saw him walking through Triage B to get to the stairwell. He stopped. There was a woman, a civilian, with shrapnel wounds, septic. Terminal. She grabbed his hand. Begged him for water.”

Lynds lowered his cup. “And?”

“He gave it to her. He stayed with her for five minutes. He listened to her.” Kaelen shook his head, looking down at his boots. “But the look on his face... it wasn't just compassion, Lynds. It was also guilt. So much guilt. He looks at every patient in this hospital like he’s personally failing them because he’s hoarding his time for the Commander.”

“He’s following orders,” Lynds' voice lacked conviction. “Admiral Hackett gave it to him. He doesn't have a choice.”

“We always have a choice. That’s what’s killing him. He knows he’s the best trauma surgeon in the sector, I mean- he’ll never agree with you on this, but he’s a damn war hero, and now, he’s spent twelve days sitting in a chair watching a monitor while people are dying in the hallway and nurses are scrambling for scraps.”

Kaelen looked up, his expression hard.

“He’s lost everything, hasn’t he? I haven't seen him take a single personal call. No updates from family. No check-ins.”

Lynds looked away. “He doesn’t talk about it, but I checked his file. His entire immediate family died months ago. Parents, brothers, all gone.” He felt slightly guilty about going through Evans’ personal information.

Kaelen let out a long, heavy breath. The condensation hung in the cold air.

“So that’s it,” Kaelen murmured, thinking he might’ve figured it out. "Shepard is all he has left. Of course, there are other patients, and he never even knew Shepard personally, but saving his family- seeing his family again- is impossible, and healing Shepard is like beating the impossible. It also gives him something to focus on.”

“It makes him dangerous, unpredictable,” Lynds warned quietly. “A man with nothing to lose pushes too hard. He takes risks.”

“Or it makes him the only one who can actually pull this off,” Kaelen countered. "He’s no fool. He might take risks, he might push too hard, but he knows this is too important; he won’t endanger her. And his moral compass is too strong to disregard the other patients, but butting heads with Hackett is no easy feat; he’ll manage. And he won't quit. He can't. If she dies, he’ll lose that thing to focus on. As long as she’s on that table, he has a reason to stand up.”

“You’re acting as if you’ve got him all figured out,” Lynds noted, and grimaced. “From the things I’ve heard, I think you got it all wrong, not sure if for the better or worse.”

“What do you mean?”

“As grim as it sounds, I think he’d be relieved,” Lynds paused for a moment to study the expression on Kaelen’s face. “If Shepard died- under the assumption Hackett wouldn’t have us all arrested- he’d be relieved. He could do what he wanted to do from the start. Focus on helping everyone equally. His soldier’s sense of duty, and his doctor’s oath won’t allow him to do anything less than the best for Shepard, but even if he truly understands why Shepard is getting all this preferential treatment, it’s surely still eating away at him.”

The heavy steel door to the observation deck creaked open, metal grinding against metal.

Both surgeons straightened up instinctively, the casual intimacy of the conversation vanishing instantly. They turned to see who was interrupting their brief escape.

Major Evans stepped onto the observation deck, the wind immediately catching the loose fabric of his doctor’s coat. His eyes were shadowed, and there was a subtle tremor in his hand as he pushed the heavy door shut behind him.

He didn't seem surprised to see them there. In fact, he looked like he had been hunting them down.

“I thought I'd find you two hiding up here,” Evans’ voice was as rough as ever. He walked over to the railing, standing between them but not looking at the view. He just stared down at the concrete floor, as if checking its structural integrity.

“We were just discussing the view,” Kaelen lied smoothly, leaning back. “And the miraculous return of hydroponic vegetables.”

“The view is rubble, and the vegetables are tasteless,” Evans muttered, though a faint, tired smile touched the corner of his mouth. “But I'll take what I can get. There were days when it was much worse during the war.”

He looked up then, meeting Lynds's gaze first, then Kaelen's. The smile vanished.

“The white count is down to 8,000,” Evans announced without preamble. “Lactate is normal. The abdomen is soft and non-tender. The fever has been gone for seventy-two hours.”

Kaelen straightened up even more, the casual slouch fully disappearing. “So we're clear?”

“We're clear,” Evans confirmed. "I just authorized the OR schedule. Tomorrow morning, 0700 hours. We rebuild the pelvis.”

Lynds let out a low whistle. “You cut it close, Major.”

“We cut it safe,” Evans didn’t look at Lynds. “She’s stable enough to survive the hemorrhage risk. Barely. But if we wait any longer, the bone fragments will start to knit in the wrong positions, and you’ll have to re-break them to set the ring.”

He turned to Kaelen. “I'm giving you four hours, Kaelen. That's the limit. Zaharova and Lynds will be on standby for vascular control, but I don't want them to have to scrub in. You keep it clean. You keep it fast.”

“Four hours for this level of pelvic reconstruction?” Kaelen raised an eyebrow, though there was a glint of professional challenge in his eye. “I know usual reconstructions take about as long, but in very, very different conditions. You're asking for a sprint in a marathon, Evans.”

“I'm asking you not to kill her on the table because we kept her under for too long,” Evans defended, his voice hard. “Her systems are fragile. The dampening field Reli-Vonn set up is holding, but prolonged anesthesia weakens the synaptic barrier. If she crashes during the surgery...”

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to.

“I'll get it done,” Kaelen promised, his tone serious. “I'll have the external fixators off and the internal plates seated before lunch.”

"Good… I know you will." Evans rubbed his face, the tremor in his hand visible again before he shoved it into his pocket.

“Major,” Lynds asked gently, probing the wound they had just been discussing. “Are you scrubbing in?”

Evans hesitated. He looked out at the city, at the rebuilding world that he wasn't part of.

“No,” Evans said finally. “I can't. I have... administrative duties. Coordination with the Ascension. I'll be in the viewing gallery. But Dr. Arden will assist you.”

Kaelen and Lynds exchanged a quick, meaningful glance. Administrative duties. It was a lie, or at least a partial one.

“Understood,” Lynds straightened his coat. “Get some rest tonight, Major. If Kaelen is doing a sprint, you're going to need your energy to yell at him when he’ll be running late.”

“Shut up,” Kaelen grumbled.

Evans nodded, pushing off the railing. “0700 hours. Don't be late.”

He turned and walked back toward the heavy door, his shoulders hunched against the wind.

As the door clanged shut behind him, Kaelen looked at Lynds.

“See?” Kaelen murmured. “He's stepping back. He can't watch it anymore.”

“Or,” Lynds countered softly, “he’s actually gotten some sense knocked into him, and getting a full rest, and he trusts you. Let's hope you're right about the four hours, Kaelen. For all our sakes.”

***

The digital clock on the OR wall turned to 07:00.

Dr. Kaelen didn't wait for the second hand to sweep past. He snapped his gloved hands together, the sound sharp in the frigid air.

“Clock is running,” Kaelen announced, his voice tight. “We have four hours to rebuild the structural core of a human being. Nobody speaks unless it’s vital. Nobody slows down.”

He looked up at the viewing gallery. Behind the thick, tinted glass, a solitary figure stood with arms crossed, Hackett. Evans must’ve let him or Lawson know that he wasn’t going to be there for the surgery, so the guess was that Hackett wanted to make sure, personally, that the surgeons wouldn’t screw up without Shepard’s primary doctor.

“Especially with the Admiral breathing down our necks…” Kaelen whispered. “Alright. First step. Get the cage off,” He ordered.

The External Fixator, the crude, scaffolding-like metal frame that had surrounded Shepard’s hips since her rescue, was the first obstacle. It had done its job, keeping the shattered pelvis from shifting and slicing her femoral arteries, but now it was just in the way.

Kaelen took a heavy wrench from the nurse. He locked it onto the first pin screwed into her iliac crest.

"Counter-traction," he barked.

Arden pressed down firmly on Shepard's opposite hip.

Kaelen torqued the wrench. With a wet, grinding sound, the metal pin broke its seal with the bone. He twisted it out, the threads slick with serous fluid.

“One,” Kaelen counted.

He moved to the next pin.

It was brutal work. Within ten minutes, the frame clattered into a biohazard bin. Shepard’s hips were free, but now they were dangerously unstable.

“She’s loose,” Arden warned, her hands hovering over the abdomen. “The pelvis is floating. If we shift her wrong, we shear the veins.”

“I know,” Kaelen said, swapping the wrench for a scalpel. “Zaharova, eyes on the vascular feed. If you see a bleed, you scream.”

“Vascular map is live,” Dr. Zaharova replied from the monitoring station, her eyes darting across a complex holographic web of red arteries projected over the patient. “You have clean margins for the anterior approach. But the internal iliac is looped tight against the fracture line on the left.”

“I'll stay wide,” Kaelen promised.

He placed the blade against the skin, tracing the line of the inguinal ligament, the crease between the hip and the thigh.

“Incision.”

He cut deep. Unlike the spinal surgery, which went through thick muscle, this approach went through complex layers of fascia, nerves, and vessels. Kaelen moved with terrifying speed, dissecting tissue, clamping bleeders, and pushing whatever needed to be pushed out of the way.

“Retractor,” he demanded. “Deep blade. Pull hard, Arden. I need to see the bone.”

Arden leaned back, hauling the heavy metal retractor against the abdominal wall. The wound opened up, revealing the catastrophe underneath.

“Spirits,” Arden breathed.

The pelvic ring, the bowl of bone that supported the spine and legs, was shattered. It looked like a ceramic plate dropped on concrete. The pubic ramus was snapped in two places, and the main wing of the ilium was a jagged puzzle of fragments.

The assistant nurses in the room could only wonder in shock that Shepard was even alive.

“Yep, it’s gravel,” Kaelen muttered, even though they knew his from the scans, seeing it like that was a different experience. “Okay. We can't plate dust. We have to find the main structural pillars and bridge them.”

He reached into the wound with a gloved finger, palpating the sharp edges of the bone shards.

“Heart rate is climbing,” the Anesthesiologist called out. “115. She’s reacting to the manipulation.”

“Push the fentanyl,” Kaelen ordered, not stopping. “I have to reduce this fracture before I can plate it. Arden, get the reduction clamps. The big ones. We’re going to have to force this ring closed.”

Zaharova’s voice cut in, sharp and urgent. “Warning. Dr. Kaelen, your clamp tip is three millimeters from the external iliac vein. Adjust your angle ten degrees medial.”

Kaelen froze. He shifted his wrist slightly, guided by the vascular specialist's voice.

“Better,” Zaharova confirmed. “Clear.”

“Alright,” Kaelen exhaled, sweat already prickling his brow. “Clamps going on. We are about to squeeze this thing back together. Everyone brace.”

Kaelen positioned the jaws of the massive reduction clamp around the two largest fragments of the iliac wing. It was a tool built for leverage, not finesse.

“Arden, I need you on the femoral head,” Kaelen directed. “Push up and in. We have to rotate the hip back into the socket while I close the ring. If we’re out by a millimeter, she’ll walk with a limp for the rest of her life.”

Arden nodded, her hands disappearing into the deep wound, gripping the top of the femur. “Ready. Applying traction.”

“On my count,” Kaelen prepared, his grip tightening on the clamp handles. “Three. Two. One. Push.”

He squeezed the handles. The metal teeth bit into the bone. Kaelen put his entire upper body weight into the motion, forcing the jagged edges of the pelvis to meet.

A sickening grind echoed in the silent room, bone grating against bone.

“Heart rate 130!” the Anesthesiologist barked. “Pressure dropping! 80 over 50!”

“She's vagaling,” Arden hissed, straining against the resistance of the muscles. “The pain response is triggering a drop. Kaelen, hurry!”

“Almost... there!” Kaelen grunted, sweat rolling into his eye. He didn't blink. He couldn't. “Locking the clamp!”

He slammed the ratchet mechanism down. The clamp held. The two massive pieces of bone were forced together, held in place by the brute strength of the steel tool.

“Vascular check!” Kaelen shouted.

“Flow is... turbulent,” Zaharova called out, her voice rising an octave. “The external iliac vein is compressed. You're pinching it.”

“Damn it, fuck!” Kaelen swore. “I can't release the clamp, or the whole thing explodes. Arden, retract the vein. Get a vessel loop around it and pull it medial. Gentle!”

Arden abandoned her position on the leg and grabbed a soft rubber loop. She fished it around the throbbing blue vein that was dangerously close to the sharp edge of the fracture.

“I've got it,” she moved her hands with efficiency, gently pulling the vein away from the bone. “Flow restoring.”

“Vitals stabilizing,” the Anesthesiologist reported, though he sounded breathless. “BP coming back up. 100 over 60.”

Kaelen let out a breath that was more like a growl. “That was too close. We’re not doing that again.”

He looked at the clock. 08:15. They were an hour and fifteen minutes in, and they had only reduced one side.

“Hand me the reconstruction plate,” Kaelen ordered. “The long curved one. And the drill. I want this locked down before she decides to crash again.”

The nurse slapped the heavy, contoured titanium plate into his hand. Kaelen molded it against the curve of the pelvic brim. It fit perfectly.

“Drilling,” Kaelen tightened his grip.

The high-pitched whine returned, cutting through the tension.

He drove a long screw deep into the dense bone of the sacrum, anchoring the back of the ring. Then another into the ilium.

“That’s one side,” Kaelen wiped his forehead on his shoulder. “The hip is stable. Now for the pubic ramus.”

He looked at the front of the pelvis, where the bone was snapped in two places.

“This part is delicate,” he stepped over. “The bladder is sitting right behind these fractures. If I plunge the drill...”

“...we have a urological disaster,” Arden finished. “I'll shield the bladder with a malleable retractor. Just aim straight.”

Kaelen nodded. He glanced up at the gallery. Hackett hadn't moved. He was still standing there, watching them rebuild, and almost losing his hero.

“Alright,” Kaelen muttered to himself. “Don't miss.”

Arden slid the malleable retractor deep into the wound, creating a steel wall between the drill bit and the bladder. She held it steady with both hands, her forearms trembling slightly from the strain.

“Shield is set,” she confirmed, her eyes locked on the surgical field.

Kaelen didn't acknowledge her verbally. He just aligned the drill. He couldn’t apply the same approach as earlier. The pubic bone was thin, and the margin for error was nonexistent.

The drill bit bit into the bone. Kaelen applied gentle, consistent pressure.

“Through the cortex,” he kept making sure, he was aligned perfectly. “Approaching the far side. Easy...”

He pulled the trigger back, stopping the rotation instantly. “Depth reached. Screw.”

He drove the screw home by hand, feeling the torque to ensure it didn't strip the fragile bone. He repeated the process three times.

“Anterior ring is stable,” Kaelen exhaled, stepping back for a split second to roll his neck. An audible crack echoed in the room. “Now the left side. We have ninety minutes to beat Evans’ clock.”

The team shifted positions. The rhythm changed from cautious precision back to controlled aggression.

The left iliac wing was in better shape than the right, but it was still a mess of fractures. Kaelen worked with a terrifying efficiency, leveraging the reduction clamps, forcing the bones to submit to his will.

"Plate. Contour. Drill. Screw."

The pile of bloody gauze on the floor grew. The air in the room grew heavy with the metallic smell of blood and the ozone tang of the cautery tool.

Zaharova watched the vascular feed like a hawk. “Flow is good. You have three millimeters of clearance on the gluteal artery. Keep that angle.”

“Keeping it,” Kaelen grunted, driving another long lag screw into the sacrum.

At 10:45, Kaelen tightened the final locking nut on the left-side plate. He dropped the wrench onto the tray.

“Hardware is in,” he took a step back and placed his hands on his hips. “C-arm. Give me a picture.”

The radiology tech rolled the massive C-arm fluoroscope over the table. The monitor flickered to life, showing a black-and-white X-ray of Shepard’s pelvis.

It was a web of metal. Plates, screws, and rods formed a rigid, artificial skeleton holding the shattered natural one together. But the alignment was perfect. The hip sockets were round and true.

“It’s geometric,” Arden sounded impressed despite her exhaustion. “You rebuilt the ring.”

“It’ll hold,” Kaelen stripped his outer gloves. “Zaharova, final vascular check. If she’s dry, we close.”

“Perfusion is 100%,” Zaharova confirmed from her console. “No leaks. No compression. The pipes are clear.”

“Irrigation,” Kaelen ordered. “Let's wash it out and get out of here.”

The closure was rapid. They placed two suction drains to prevent blood from pooling around the new hardware, then sutured the heavy muscle layers back over the metal. The skin was stapled shut, two more long, silver zippers joining the scars on her abdomen and spine.

“Dressing applied,” the nurse called out.

Kaelen leaned back against the wall, sliding down until he was crouching, his elbows on his knees. He looked at the clock. 11:10.

“Ten minutes over,” he smirked. “Evans is going to give me hell.”

“Evans is probably asleep,” Arden pulled her mask down. She looked up at the viewing gallery.

The glass box was empty. Admiral Hackett was gone.

“And apparently, the Admiral has seen enough,” she added.

“If he didn't storm down here to arrest us, I assume we passed,” Kaelen groaned, forcing himself to stand back up. “Let's get her to recovery. Slowly. I don't want a single vibration hitting that new hardware until the muscle sets.”

They unlocked the table. She was a masterpiece of trauma surgery. And still, it could’ve all meant nothing if others didn’t pull their weight.

***

Major Evans jerked awake, his heart hammering against his ribs before his eyes were even open.

He was in his office, slumped sideways in his chair, his cheek imprinted with the ridges of his sleeve. The room was bathed in the strobing red light of the facility’s emergency alert.

He scrambled to his feet, checking his omni-tool. 13:15. Two hours post-op, assuming Kaelen was on time.

“Status! What’s going on?!” he barked into his comms, grabbing his sidearm from the desk drawer. It felt heavy and unfamiliar in his hand after weeks of holding nothing but medical equipment.

“Breach in Logistics! Sector 4, Ground Floor!” a frantic voice crackled back. “Multiple hostiles! We have injured!”

Evans didn't wait. He sprinted out of the office, ignoring the stiffness in his legs. He took the stairs two at a time, the sound of his boots echoing in the stairwell.

He burst onto the ground-floor corridor. It was chaos. Smoke, thick and smelling of cordite and pulverized drywall, hung in the air. Alliance Marines were shouting, moving in a tactical wedge toward the main supply depot.

“Clear the hall! Get the civilians back!”

Evans pushed through the confusion, scanning for the source of the alarm. He saw a figure slumped against the wall near the depot doors, clutching a bloody cloth to her head.

“Zaharova!”

Evans holstered his weapon and slid to his knees beside the vascular surgeon. She was pale, her usually immaculate white coat stained with dust and blood. A nasty laceration split her brow, bleeding freely.

“I'm fine,” she hissed, batting his hands away as he tried to check her pupils. “Just a concussion. They hit me with a rifle butt." She wiped some strands of her long, brunette hair from her eyes.

“Who?” Evans demanded, pulling a penlight to check her eyes anyway.

Zaharova spat, wincing as the light hit her retina. “Scavengers. Human. Maybe a dozen of them.”

She gestured toward the supply room. The heavy security door hadn't been hacked; the wall next to it had been blown inward.

“I was running inventory on the vascular grafts,” Zaharova explained, her voice shaky but furious. “The wall just... exploded. They swarmed in before the dust settled. They were grabbing anything they got their hands on; they didn’t seem picky.”

“What did they take?”

“I don't know. They had sleds. They grabbed crates and ran before the marines could respond.”

A lieutenant jogged over, his weapon lowered but ready. “Perimeter is secure, Major. They blew a hole in the loading dock wall and vanished into the ruins. We lost them in the subway tunnels.”

“Did they get to the ICU?” Evans asked, his blood running cold.

“Negative. They never went past Logistics.”

Evans helped Zaharova to her feet. She swayed, gripping his arm for support.

“We need to do a full inventory,” Evans said, looking at the smoking hole in his hospital. “If they took the antibiotics or the plasma reserves...”

"Whatever they took, we will miss it," Zaharova stated firmly, looking at the scattered debris. "I think among other things, they took some pretty high-tech stuff, though. The spare parts.”

Evans looked at her, a sinking feeling in his gut. In a city where people were starving, scavengers stole food or medicine. People were desperate, but Evans believed the Alliance was doing their best to support everyone.

“Get yourself to Triage,” Evans ordered Zaharova gently. “Get that head stitched up.”

“I'm fine,” she repeated, but she didn't argue as a medic took her arm.

Evans stood in the dissipating smoke, watching the marines secure the breach. The war might’ve been over, but the peace was seemingly not as peaceful either. And somewhere out there, someone was now potentially killing patients in his hospital.

Chapter 15: Collateral

Major Evans stormed through the second-floor corridor, his boots slamming against the linoleum. His sidearm holstered, but his hand hovering near it out of reflex.

He didn't head for an exit; he headed for the center of the command cluster that had formed near the main stairwell.

Admiral Hackett stood in the middle of the hallway. He was surrounded by three high-ranking Alliance officers and a Turian captain, reviewing a holographic map of the facility’s perimeter projected from a portable emitter on the floor.

Evans didn't wait for a gap in the conversation. He didn't salute. He marched straight through the circle of officers.

“Why wasn’t I woken up?”

The conversation died instantly. The officers bristled, turning to face the interruption, but Hackett didn't flinch. He held up a hand to silence his subordinates, his eyes never leaving the map for a second longer before deactivating the display.

He looked up, his face unreadable.

“Clear the hallway,” Hackett ordered his officers quietly. “Give us a minute.”

The officers hesitated, glancing at the furious, disheveled Major, but they saluted and scattered, leaving the two men alone in the middle of the busy thoroughfare.

“You’re awake now, Major,” Hackett stated calmly.

“I woke up to a siren!” Evans stepped closer, ignoring the rank difference, leaning in with raw frustration. “Kaelen finished two hours ago. I missed the post-op assessment. I missed the transfer to recovery. And then a hole gets blown in the side of the hospital, and I’m sleeping through it because nobody bothered to buzz my comms?”

“You were sleeping because I ordered your staff not to disturb you,” Hackett replied, his voice level, contrasting sharply with Evans’s fury. “I watched the surgery from the gallery. Dr. Kaelen and Dr. Arden performed admirably. The patient is stable. There was no medical reason to drag you out of your bed or chair.”

“It’s my patient, Admiral.”

“And it’s my asset,” Hackett countered, his tone hardening just enough to remind Evans who was actually in charge. “I’ve been receiving reports, Major Evans. You are seen swaying on your feet. A surgeon with hand tremors is a liability to this mission. You needed sleep, not another four hours of staring at a monitor.”

Evans ran a hand over his shaved scalp, looking away, frustration radiating off him in waves. He knew Hackett was right, medically, strategically right, but it didn't stop the guilt from gnawing at his gut.

“And the raid?” Evans pointed a finger down the hall, toward the very faint smoke still drifting up from the stairwell. “Was I too tired for that, too? Hospital staff got hit. Zaharova has a concussion.”

“It was a security failure; if you were awake, you wouldn’t have changed anything. By the time anyone got there, they were gone.” Hackett’s expression darkened. “The perimeter was breached. My Marines responded. The situation is contained.”

“Contained? They got away, Sir. They blew a hole in the storage wing and vanished.” Evans turned back to the Admiral. “We need to know what they took. If they hit the narcotics or the trauma kits, we’re going to be fighting a shortage for weeks.”

Hackett glanced down the corridor, spotting a breathless junior officer jogging toward them, holding a manifest.

“The logistics officer is approaching now,” Hackett nodded towards the man. He looked back at Evans, his gaze softening slightly, shifting from commanding officer to something almost paternal.

“Stand down, Major. You’re vibrating. The surgery was a success. Take the win.”

Evans let out a sharp breath through his nose, the adrenaline finally beginning to fade into a dull ache in his limbs.

“It doesn't feel like a win,” Evans muttered. “It feels like we’re bleeding from a thousand cuts.”

“There were more than a thousand.”

Before Evans could respond to that, the junior officer slowed to a halt, saluting sharply, looking terrified to be interrupting the Admiral and the intense-looking Doctor.

“Admiral. Major,” the officer panted. “I have the preliminary damage report.”

The logistics officer, a young Lieutenant whose name badge read Lt. Park, swallowed hard as he looked between the two senior officers. He held his datapad with both hands, as if it were a shield.

“Report, Lieutenant,” Hackett commanded. “What did we lose?”

“Sir, the breach point was in Sub-Sector 4, adjacent to the Cryo-Storage wing,” Park began, his voice trembling slightly. “The raiders scrambled for whatever they could, but a few of them seemingly bypassed the general medical supplies. They ignored the plasma banks and the standard antibiotic reserves.”

Evans frowned. “What did they go for? Antibiotics would seem like the most important resource.”

“Yes, Sir. They went for the specialized biologics.” Park tapped his pad, projecting a short list into the air between them. “They took three crates of high-grade Omni-Gel canisters. Two portable tissue-knitting lasers. And... Sir, they cleared out the entire stock of the experimental regenerative compounds.”

Evans stepped closer to the hologram, his eyes scanning the list. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the item highlighted in red at the bottom.

ITEM: BIO-MIMETIC PROGENITOR CULTURE (TYPE-4). QUANTITY: 3 UNITS (ALL REMAINING STOCK).

“No,” Evans was glad his eyes didn’t fall out of their sockets. “Tell me that's a clerical error, Lieutenant.”

“Sir?” Park looked confused.

“The Progenitor Cultures!” Evans pointed at the red line, his voice rising. “Did they take the containment units?”

“Yes, Major. They took the cryo-cases. All of them.”

Evans spun away, running a hand over his face. “Damn it. Damn it!”

“Major?” Hackett asked, his tone sharp. “Context.”

“Those cultures are the base for the Bio-Mimetic Matrix,” Evans explained, turning back to the Admiral, desperation seeping into his voice. “It's the skin graft technology. It's the only thing advanced enough to heal Shepard’s burns without scarring her for life or leaving her with zero tactile sensation. We have 60% body coverage to treat. Without that matrix, we are looking at months of painful skin grafts that will leave her stiff, scarred, and numb.”

Hackett’s expression didn't change, but the temperature in the hallway seemed to drop ten degrees.

“Are there other sources?” A slight change of urgency could be sensed in Hackett’s voice. “Can we synthesize more?”

“Definitely not here,” Evans gestured with his hand. “Miranda- uh- Director Lawson could print them on the Ascension in theory, but the lead time for culturing stem cells is weeks. We don't have weeks. Shepard’s burn debridement is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. If we don't cover those wounds soon, she enters a high-risk window for systemic infection again.”

“So, we need those specific canisters,” Hackett concluded.

“Yes. And they are temperature sensitive,” Evans added, the realization hitting him. “If the raiders crack the seals, or if the power cells in the cases die, the cultures degrade in twelve hours. We are on a clock.”

Hackett looked at Park. "Do we have a track on the hostiles?"

“Yes, Admiral,” Park hurled out, eager to deliver some good news. “A drone picked up their heat signatures exiting the subway tunnel in Sector 9. They’ve holed up in a ruined residential complex. It looks like a fortified scavenger camp.”

“Sector 9,” Hackett mused. “That’s the 'No-Go' zone near the old Thames barrier.”

“I want them back,” Evans said, stepping forward. “I need those cases, Admiral. Intact.”

Hackett looked at the map, then at Evans. He tapped his comms earpiece.

“Admiral Anderson-,” Hackett choked into the channel, a slip of the tongue, calling a dead hero's name before correcting himself. “Admiral- Captain Stirling. Prep a strike team. I want a squad of Marines ready to move on Sector 9 in ten minutes. Rules of engagement are search and secure. High-value asset recovery.”

“I'm going with them,” Evans sounded resolute.

Hackett looked at him, his brow furrowing. “Negative, Major. You are now a non-combatant asset. You stay here.”

“With respect, Admiral, I am not asking,” Evans shot back, his voice dropping an octave. “I am telling you. Those canisters are volatile. If your marines breach that complex and start throwing grenades, the concussion alone will shatter the cryo-seals. If they expose the cultures to open air for more than two minutes, the cells die.”

Hackett didn't blink. “Captain Stirling’s team is trained in asset recovery. They can follow orders.”

“They are trained to recover data drives and weapons, Sir. Not living tissue that degrades at room temperature.” Evans stepped closer, invading the Admiral’s personal space. “I am the only one around who both knows how to stabilize the matrix if the containment fails, and has the necessary military training and experience. I am the only one who can verify if the cultures are still viable on site. If you send them alone, they might bring back a box of dead sludge, and by the time we find out, we will have wasted too much time.”

Hackett held his gaze, evaluating him. Evans was beyond disrespectful and ready to disobey direct orders.

“You are the primary physician for the most critical patient in the galaxy,” Hackett noted slowly. “If you take a stray round in Sector 9, Shepard loses her doctor. The risk is unacceptable.”

“If we lose those cultures, Shepard loses her future,” Evans countered. "You want her preserved, Admiral? You want the whole Shepard back? Then let me go. And frankly, I’m replaceable. There’s no reason why Dr. Arden can’t be the Commander’s primary doctor. I’m flattered, Admiral, but I’m not that important.” He felt like he was risking quite a bit, telling the Admiral who he was making quite angry, that he was replaceable, disposable.

The hallway was silent. The junior officers around them had stopped moving.

Luckily for Evans, Hackett didn’t share his sentiment of being so easily replaced.

"Major," Hackett’s voice was quiet but carried effortlessly. "If you go down there, you are not a doctor. You are a combatant. You follow Captain Stirling’s lead. Those men and women are, by all accounts, criminals, and engage as Stirling sees fit. And if the situation goes FUBAR, you extract. The asset is secondary to your life. Do you understand?”

“Understood, Sir,” Evans straightened his posture. “But I'm bringing that case back.”

“Stirling. Update on the strike team. You have a specialist attachment. Major Evans is joining the squad. Get him a kit and a rifle. You move in five.”

Hackett cut the line and looked back at Evans. There was no warmth in his eyes now, only the cold calculus of command.

“Don't make me regret this, Evans. Get your gear.”

Evans nodded once, sharp and military. He turned on his heel and sprinted toward the armory, stripping off his white coat as he ran. Beneath the doctor was the soldier, and for the first time in two weeks, it was the soldier going back into battle.

***

The interior of the Kodiak shuttle smelled of hydraulic fluid and gun oil, a scent Evans hadn't realized he missed until the moment the hatch sealed. It was the smell of the war.

He sat on the hard metal bench, the weight of his hardsuit pressing down on his shoulders. He checked the charge on his assault rifle for the third time, the motion automatic, a muscle memory waking up after weeks of dormancy. Across from him, five marines sat in silence, their visors down, weapons locked across their chests.

Captain Stirling sat near the pilot’s bulkhead. He was a sharp-featured man with eyes that looked like they had seen too much and felt too little. He was checking a holographic map of Sector 9, his finger tracing potential breach points.

“LZ in two minutes,” the pilot called out over the internal comms. "Scouting reports say you’re looking at around twelve contacts.” The pilot couldn’t bring them all the way to the point of contact, as the Kodiak would surely alert the scavengers, so they had to land at the edge of the sector.”

“Copy that,” Stirling killed the map and looked at his squad. “Alright, listen up. We are hitting a fortified scavenger nest. Hostiles are armed and have demonstrated a willingness to attack medical personnel. They are to be considered hostile combatants.”

Evans looked up from his rifle. “They’re most likely civilians, Captain. Desperate ones.”

Stirling turned his gaze to Evans. It wasn't disrespectful, but it was cold. “They breached a secure Alliance facility, assaulted a doctor, and stole critical assets. That stops being 'civilian desperation' and starts being insurgency.”

“Trust me, I want to get them as much as you do. They stole from many people who need it, probably as much as they do. But they didn’t kill anyone,” Evans argued, his voice tight. “They grabbed what they could and ran. If we go in there guns blazing, executing people who stand no chance against us, what example are we setting for the remaining population?”

“I’d agree, Major, but they didn’t just steal bread or painkillers. They stole high-grade tech,” Stirling tapped the side of his helmet. “And they cracked your colleague’s skull open to get it. If they’re willing to hurt a doctor, they’re willing to kill a marine. My priority is the safety of this squad and the recovery of the asset. In that order.”

“The asset is biological,” Evans reminded him, leaning forward against the restraints. “If you turn that place into a shooting range, you risk rupturing the containment units. If that happens, the mission is a failure. We need those cultures alive.”

Stirling’s jaw tightened. He didn't like having a doctor on his bird, and he liked it even less that the doctor outranked him, even if Hackett had given Stirling tactical command.

“We won't use explosives,” Stirling conceded. “Precision fire only. We drop the targets before they can react. Clean headshots. We clear the complex, room by room if need be, you grab your box, and we leave.”

“I want a chance to talk to them first,” Evans insisted. “If they surrender, we take them into custody. We don't just execute them.”

Stirling looked at Evans for a long, heavy moment. He checked his rifle, sliding the thermal clip home.

“You can try, Major. But keep your head down. If one of them so much as twitches toward a weapon, my men will put them down. We aren't here to hand out aid packages.”

The shuttle banked hard, the inertial dampeners whining as they decelerated.

“Touchdown in ten,” the pilot announced. “Ramp dropping.”

Stirling stood up, grabbing the overhead rail. “Helmets on. Weapons free. Let’s go get the Admiral’s property.”

Evans pulled his helmet on, the HUD flickering to life. The world turned digital and sharp. He glanced at the weapon he was holding, and as the ramp lowered into the dust-covered ruins of Sector 9, he prayed he wouldn't have to use it.

***

This housing complex in Sector 9 had once been a dense grid of affordable, at least affordable for London’s standards, modular apartments. Now, it was a skeleton. Entire blocks had been sheared off by orbital fire, leaving rooms exposed to the sky like dollhouses. The courtyard, once a park, was a muddy wasteland of churned earth and jagged rebar.

Stirling moved with silent, fluid efficiency, his squad fanning out behind him. They advanced methodically, using the rubble piles for cover. Evans followed in the center, his boots crunching softly on broken glass.

His HUD painted thermal signatures in the distance. Twelve distinct heat sources were clustered in the center of the complex, where the ground floor of a collapsed tower formed a makeshift, three-walled shelter.

“Contacts ahead,” Stirling murmured over the squad net. “Range 50 meters. I see two sentries on the perimeter. Poor discipline. They're watching the road, not the flanks.”

Evans peered through his scope. The sentries were young, too young. One looked barely eighteen, holding a scavenged Mattock rifle that was clearly too heavy for him. He was shivering.

“They're kids, Captain,” Evans whispered.

“They're armed,” Stirling brushed him off. “Hunkins, Perks, Spooner, flank left. Hasher, Travers, high ground. I want Overwatch on that courtyard.”

The Marines melted away into the shadows. Evans and Stirling moved forward, using a fallen slab of concrete as cover until they were within shouting distance.

In the clearing, the scavengers were busy. They had pried open the Alliance crates and were sorting the loot on a tarp. Evans saw the gleam of the silver cryo-cases stacked haphazardly near a small fire.

A woman with ragged ginger hair tied into a short ponytail was directing them. She wore a mishmash of civilian clothes and scavenged armor plating, a heavy pistol strapped to her thigh. She moved with a sharp, angry energy.

“What do we do now, Sarina?” One of the younger-looking scavengers asked the woman.

“Pack it up!” she shouted, her voice carrying over the wind. “We move in five. If the Alliance isn't here yet, they're coming.”

“We hold here,” Stirling ordered his team. He looked at Evans. “You wanted to talk? This is your window. But if she reaches for that pistol, I drop her.”

Evans nodded. He stood up, stepping out from behind the concrete slab, his hands raised but his rifle slung prominently across his chest.

“Alliance!” Evans shouted, his voice amplified by his helmet's external speakers. “Nobody move!”

The reaction was instant panic. The scavengers scrambled, dropping crates and diving for cover behind rubble piles. The young sentries swung their rifles around wildly.

“Hold fire!” Evans yelled, stepping further into the light. “We are not here to kill you! Put the weapons down!”

Sarina didn't dive for cover. She spun around, planting her feet, her hand hovering over her pistol. Her eyes were wide, but fierce.

“Stay back!” she screamed. “We’re armed! You come any closer, we burn the crates!”

“Don't!” Evans took a step forward, lowering his hands slowly to show he wasn't reaching for a trigger. “Those crates contain medical supplies that will save lives. Critical lives. I'm Major Evans. I'm a doctor. I just want the medicine.”

“A doctor with a hit squad?” Sarina spat, gesturing to the shadows where she knew the marines were lurking. “We know how you operate! You hoard the supplies in your fortress while the rest of us rot out here! We just took our share!”

“You took specialized equipment you can't use!” Evans countered, trying to keep his voice calm despite the dozen rifle barrels he knew were currently aimed at Sarina's head. “Those cultures degrade in hours. They're useless to you. But they are vital to some of our patients. Give them back, and you walk away. We can even leave you some of the food rations.”

Sarina laughed, bitterness was in her tone. “Walk away? So your snipers can pick us off as soon as we try to leave? We know the Alliance's 'rules of engagement.' Someone plays against your rules, and you don't leave witnesses.”

“That’s not true, I am giving you my word,” Evans protested. “Surrender the cryo-cases. Nobody dies today.”

Sarina looked at him, then at the crates, then at the terrified teenagers aiming their weapons with shaking hands. Her resolve wavered for a split second.

“Prove it,” she demanded. “Have your men stand down. Step out where I can see them.”

“I can't do that,” Stirling's voice cut in over Evans's internal comms. “She's stalling. I have a clean shot.”

“Hold, Captain,” Evans whispered back. He looked at Sarina. “I can't expose my men. But I can come to you. Unarmed. Just me.”

“Major, negative,” Stirling barked.

“I'm going in,” Evans said, and before Stirling could stop him, he unslung his rifle and set it on the ground. He raised his empty hands again and began to walk across the open, mud-slicked courtyard toward the armed girl.

“I'm coming over,” Evans announced. “Just me. Let's talk.”

Evans walked slowly, keeping his hands high and open. The mud sucked at his boots with every step.

He stopped ten meters from Sarina. Up close, she looked even younger than he had thought, maybe twenty-two, but with eyes that were aged by weeks of hunger and fear. The scavengers behind her were a ragtag collection of civilians: a man in a torn business suit clutching a shotgun, a teenage girl with a modified welding torch, two boys who couldn't be older than sixteen holding pistols with trembling hands.

“That's close enough,” Sarina warned, her hand resting on the grip of her pistol.

“I'm unarmed,” Evans was calm. He gestured to his medical patch. “I'm not here to arrest you, Sarina. I'm here because those cases contain the only chance for burn victims to heal without scarring. If they don’t get those, they spend the rest of their lives in pain. Is that what you want?”

Evans intentionally eluded the fact that this was meant for one specific patient, as he was worried the scavengers would then use this as leverage.

“They?” Sarina scoffed. “You mean some high-ranking officers? Or maybe even a councilor? We saw the labels on those crates. That stuff isn't for people like us. It’s for the elite.”

“It's for soldiers who gave everything to stop the Reapers,” Evans tried to appeal to her conscience. “Just like you.”

“Like us?” Sarina laughed, her voice sounding brittle. “We didn't give anything. It was taken. My brother died because the Alliance pulled out of Sector 9 to defend something they deemed more important. They left us here to rot while they saved the politicians.”

“The Alliance was stretched thin.” It was an excuse, but a truthful one. “We're trying to rebuild now. If you come back with us, I can guarantee you hot food. Clean water. Medical treatment for your people. No charges.”

“Liar,” a voice shouted from the rubble behind Sarina. It was the man in the suit. “We saw what you did to the looters in Kensington! You lined them up against a wall!”

“That wasn't us,” Evans insisted, desperation creeping in. He could feel Stirling’s scope burning into the back of his neck. "That was a rogue militia. We are trying to stop that chaos. Please. Just give me the cases.”

Evans made that up. He might’ve been right, but also maybe not. He was a Major, so he heard things, but he had no idea how the rebuilding efforts were proceeding, and what the Alliance was generally doing outside the hospital. He knew that during the war, the Alliance had to make harsh, tough decisions, and he even had to make a few himself. But that was war. Still, he held a belief in the Alliance that they wouldn’t execute regular looters, especially during desperate times such as these. And he felt a bit surprised that some people like Sarina were abandoned like this.

Sarina looked at the silver boxes, then back at Evans. Her finger twitched near the trigger guard.

“We can't eat bio-gel, Doctor,” she said quietly. “But we can sell it. The Blue Suns from Omega are paying top credit for medical tech. With that money, I can get my people off this rock. I can buy them a future.”

“You're selling to mercenaries?” Evans grimaced underneath the helmet, horrified. “They'll just use it to fuel more trouble for everyone.”

“At least they pay,” Sarina spat. “The Alliance pays in promises and bullets.”

“That’s not true, that’s-“

Evans tried, he really did, but Sarina had already made a decision, perhaps before he even spoke for the first time.

Her posture hardened.

“Grab the crates!” she shouted to her crew. “We're leaving! If he moves, shoot him!”

“Sarina, don't!” Evans took a step forward.

“Contact! High ground! Ambush!” Stirling’s voice roared in Evans’s earpiece.

Above them, on the shattered second floor of the apartment block, movement flickered in the shadows. Six more scavengers rose from concealment, leveling rifles at the marines' flanking positions.

A gunshot rang out, not from the marines, but from a nervous scavenger on the balcony who panicked at Stirling's shout. The round sparked off the concrete inches from Evans's boot.

“Contact front! Open fire!” Stirling commanded.

The courtyard exploded.

“Get down!” Evans screamed, diving toward the mud as the air filled with the supersonic snap of mass accelerator rounds.

Sarina didn't dive. She drew her pistol, yelling out an order that was lost in the roar of gunfire. The crate next to her shattered, spraying medical supplies into the dirt.

The negotiation was over.

The scavenger on the balcony who had fired the first shot didn't get a chance for a second. Stirling’s marksman dropped him instantly, a single round punching through the flimsy railing and sending the boy tumbling backward into the ruined apartment.

“Ambush left! Suppressing fire!” Stirling yelled over the comms.

The marines in the rubble piles opened up, their rifles going off in disciplined bursts. The scavengers returned fire, but it was ragged and desperate, shotgun blasts that went wide, pistol rounds sparking uselessly off the marines’ cover.

A few of the scavengers dropped before they could even try to get behind cover.

Hunkins, Perks, and Spooner were closing in from the left, while Hasher and Travers covered the courtyard from atop the rubble, cleverly hidden, blending in with their surroundings.

Evans scrambled through the mud on his hands and knees, debris biting into his palms. He wasn't moving toward safety; he was moving toward the crates.

“Major, pull back!” Stirling peeked over his cover. “You are in the kill zone!”

“They're destroying the assets!” Evans didn’t stop crawling. Bullets were flying above his head, the sounds making him tense up.

Another crate exploded nearby, hit by a stray round from the scavenger line. Evans watched the contents be made instantly useless, his stomach lurching. He felt guilty for being glad that neither of the destroyed crates was the one he needed for Shepard, because those crates were still important for many other patients.

“Cover me!” Evans ordered, abandoning cover. He lunged for the nearest intact case. It wasn’t exactly what he needed, but he was going to save as much as he could.

A round impacted his Kinetic Barrier, the shield flaring blue and shoving him sideways. He grunted, hitting the ground hard, but his hand closed around the handle of the case. It was heavy. He immediately hid from the gunfire behind a few crates.

“Target the heavy weapon!” a marine shouted. “Two o'clock!”

The teenage girl with the modified welding torch stepped out from behind a pillar. The flame wasn't a cutter; it was a makeshift flamethrower. A jet of liquid fire erupted, washing over the concrete slab where two marines were pinned.

“Man down! Spooner is burning!”

The screaming started then, a high, terrible sound that cut through the gunfire.

“Drop her!” Stirling aimed his rifle.

Three rifles concentrated fire on the girl. Her shielding, a jury-rigged generator strapped to her chest, flickered and failed. She crumpled, the fuel tank on her back hissing but thankfully not detonating.

“Push forward!” Stirling moved, sensing the break in the enemy line. “Close the distance! Don't let them flank!”

Just as Stirling, the other Marines left their initial cover and tightened the grip they had on the poor scavengers. Only the two Marines picking them off from high up stayed in their positions.

In the center of the chaos, Sarina was still standing. She was firing her pistol with surprising accuracy, forcing Evans to keep his head down behind a stack of crates. She wasn't retreating. She was trying to drag the remaining supply boxes with her.

“Leave it!” Evans shouted at her, though he doubted she could hear him. “It's not worth it!”

She looked at the crates where Evans was hiding, her face a mask of rage and fear. She fired again, the round pinging off the crate.

“You don't get to take it back!” she screamed. “It's ours!”

She grabbed a crate with her free hand and turned to run toward the tunnels.

“Captain, she's taking the asset!” Evans called out.

“Not for long,” Stirling looked down his scope, his voice cold and flat.

Stirling didn't hesitate. He exhaled, steadied his aim, and squeezed the trigger.

The shot took Sarina high in the chest through her back, barely missing her spine. The impact spun her around, a spray of crimson mist painting the grey rubble behind her. She stumbled, dropping to one knee, but she didn't let go of the crate.

“Target hit,” Stirling reported, his voice devoid of emotion.

However, she didn't fall. With a scream of pure, adrenaline-fueled rage, by some miracle, she forced herself back up and, with great difficulty, hauled the heavy crate around the corner of a collapsed wall.

“She's running,” Stirling noted, already moving. “Squad, if they don’t start surrendering, finish them off.”

Behind him and Evans, the firefight turned into a mop-up operation. The Marines advanced on the pinned scavengers. Evans heard the sharp, rhythmic cracks of precision fire. None of them tried to surrender.

Just the thud of bodies hitting the mud.

Evans didn't look back. He saw a scavenged Mattock rifle lying in the dirt near his boot, dropped by one of the boys who had been standing behind Sarina earlier. He grabbed it. The weapon was heavy, caked in grit, but the thermal clip gauge showed green.

He racked the slide and sprinted after Stirling.

They rounded the corner of the ruined wall. It was a dead end, an alleyway blocked by a fallen ceiling slab.

Sarina was there. She had collapsed against the debris, her legs splayed out in the mud. The silver cryo-case was pulled tight against her chest, hugged like a child. Blood was dark and frothy on her lips, bubbling with every jagged breath. Her armor plate was cracked, the wound beneath it catastrophic.

Stirling raised his rifle, aiming for her head.

“Wait!” Evans barked, stepping into Stirling's line of fire. He kept his own weapon raised but lowered the barrel slightly. “She’s done. Look at her.”

Sarina looked up at them, her eyes glassy but burning with hatred. She tried to raise her heavy pistol, her hand shaking violently. It barely cleared the mud before her strength failed, and the gun clattered back onto her thigh.

“It's over, Sarina,” Evans turned to her, his voice pleading. “Let go of the crate. We can still... I can stabilize you. I have Medi-Gel. Please.”

She coughed, a wet, hacking sound that sprayed blood down her chin.

“You...” she wheezed. “All of...you… this is… what the Alliance… does to… to people.”

“You’re wrong,” Evans took a step closer. “I'm trying to save your life. Let me.”

She stared at him, and for a second, Evans thought she might yield. But then her gaze shifted. She looked down at the silver case in her lap.

"No… If we... If we aren’t allowed... allowed to get he-ugh-” She gurgled. “get help… nobody will.”

She didn't raise her pistol at them. Instead, she jammed the barrel hard against the locking mechanism of the cryo-case.

“Drop it!” Stirling shouted.

Evans saw her finger tighten on the trigger. A point-blank shot would shatter the cooling unit and expose the cultures to the air. Shepard’s future.

At that point, Evans stopped thinking; he didn’t hesitate. He was a doctor, but during the war, he killed countless, because the Reapers did not differentiate between medics and other soldiers. He had to sacrifice human beings to keep more alive, or the most important ones.

He raised the Mattock.

Two shots. Center mass.

Sarina jerked violently against the rubble. Her pistol slid from her hand, unfired. Her head fell back, her eyes staring up at the grey, bland sky, unseeing.

The silence that followed was deafening. A light drizzle started. It hissed against the hot barrel of Evans's rifle.

Stirling lowered his weapon slowly. He looked at the dead woman, then at Evans. There was no judgment in his eyes, only a reassessment.

“Clear,” Stirling said quietly.

Evans stood frozen, the rifle stock pressed against his shoulder. His breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. He lowered the weapon, his hands trembling slightly.

He walked forward, his boots feeling extra heavy. He reached down and gently pried the silver case from Sarina’s dead grip. He checked the display.

STATUS: SEALED. TEMP: STABLE.

“Secure,” Evans whispered.

He looked down at Sarina. She looked so small now. Just a girl who wanted to have a future, not just for herself, but for a few of the unfortunate bunch. And he had killed her to save a graft for a woman who might never wake up.

“Major,” Stirling’s voice cut through the mental fog. “We're moving out. Assets recovered.”

“Yeah,” Evans turned away from the body. He gripped the handle of the case until his knuckles turned white under the gloves. “Let's go.”

Stirling’s chatter to his Marines and the pilot was only a background noise to Evans; he passed the bodies of the scavengers without looking down once. He wasn’t sure how he was ever going to justify this to himself.

***

The flight back to AMSH-7 was quiet, save for the rhythmic thrum of the Kodiak's engines and the occasional moan from Spooner, who was moderately burnt, though he was mostly saved by his armor. Evans sat opposite Stirling, the silver cryo-case secured on the floor between his boots. He stared at it, the red indicator light blinking in the dim cabin like an accusatory eye.

“What she said back there,” Evans started, his voice barely audible over the hum. “About the Alliance abandoning them. About executing looters.”

Stirling didn't look up from his rifle, which he was wiping down with a rag. “What about it?”

“Is it true?”

Stirling paused. He looked at Evans, his expression weary and stripped of the earlier combat adrenaline. “Major, look out the window. Look at the city.”

Evans glanced out the viewport. Below them, London was a patchwork of scars. Smoke still rose from a dozen different sectors even after almost two weeks.

“All conventional hospitals in England were destroyed during the war. All of them, you know that. What we have right now is several makeshift, mobile hospitals across London for hundreds of thousands, and we are still finding more and more are finding us,” Stirling stated flatly. “Your facility is the best one we have, and you're running on backup power and scavenging for plasma. While most of the others? They're triage tents in the mud at best. We don't have enough food. We don't have enough water. And we definitely don't have enough medicine.”

“That doesn't justify lining people up against walls,” Evans countered, though his conviction felt hollow.

“It justifies order,” Stirling shifted on the bench. “We can't save everyone, Major. We barely have the resources to save the ones we can save. If we let the scavengers raid the stockpiles, the system collapses. The strongest take what they want, and the weak die in the streets. Is that better?”

“Most of them were just kids, Captain. They were starving, scared, and felt abandoned by their government.”

“They were armed combatants who raided a military hospital,” Stirling seemed to have little empathy. “They made their choice. And you made yours.”

He pointed a gloved finger at the silver case.

“You have the cure, Major. You have the asset that helps you save your Priority Alpha patient. Would you have traded it? Would you have let that girl shatter those cultures just so you could keep your hands clean?”

Evans looked down at the case. He thought of Shepard lying in the ICU, burned and broken. He thought of Hackett’s orders. He thought of Sarina’s dead eyes staring up at the rain.

“No,” Evans shook his head in resignation. “No, I wouldn't.”

“Then welcome back to the war,” Stirling turned his head back to his weapon. “The uniforms changed, but the math is the same. We trade lives. We just have to make sure we're getting a good price.”

The pilot’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Approaching AMSH-7. Touchdown in two mikes.”

Evans leaned back against the bulkhead, closing his eyes. He had the Bio-Mimetic Matrix. He could fix Shepard’s burns.

But as the shuttle banked toward the landing pad, Evans realized that every once in a while, when he fixed a piece of her, he seemed to break a little piece of himself.

Chapter 16: Integration, Part One

The silver cryo-case hit Admiral Hackett’s desk with a heavy, metallic thud.

Hackett's temporary office outside the hospital grounds was nothing fancy, but he had it to himself. Damaged like everything else on Earth, though his staff had cleaned the room well enough. Digital maps of London covered the walls, sectors marked in red and yellow, and the occasional green.

Major Evans stood opposite the desk, no salute. His armor was caked with mud, dried blood smeared across the greaves, clearly not his own. His hands rested on the lid of the case. Steady. But the knuckles had gone white.

Hackett glanced up from his console, scanned Evans from boots to shoulders.

“Is the asset intact?”

“Temperature stable. Seal integrity 100%.” Evans reported. “The cultures are alive. But we lost the rest. The Medi-Gel, the tissue lasers... destroyed in the crossfire.”

“And the hostiles?”

“Neutralized.” Evans briefly shifted his stare past Hackett to the window overlooking the hospital. “Eighteen dead. No prisoners.”

Hackett pushed back from the desk and stood. He crossed the room, stopped directly in front of Evans.

“You led the breach?”

“I ended it,” Evans met Hackett’s gaze. “Their leader... the girl... she tried to destroy the case. I had to kill her.”

The silence pressed in. Outside, the reconstruction continued: drills grinding, loaders beeping, voices shouting orders. Inside, the air felt compressed.

Evans exhaled through his nose. “She was twenty. Maybe younger. Not a soldier, Admiral. A kid trying to sell stolen supplies to buy passage off-world. She told me the Alliance left them to rot.” He paused. “Today, I didn't exactly prove her wrong.”

“You secured the medical resource capable of saving Commander Shepard from a living hell,” Hackett replied without hesitation. “That was the mission. You weren't there to win hearts and minds, Major. You were there to secure the asset.”

“It felt like a slaughter.” Evans dragged a hand down his face, fingers pressing hard against his temples. “Maybe it was necessary. But it felt like a slaughter.”

“You traded a few lives for a person who saved trillions. Possibly more.” Hackett's tone didn't shift. “Because if Commander Shepard hadn't destroyed the Reapers, they would've returned in fifty thousand years and done it all over again to new civilizations. I traded far more lives during the war. Shepard did too. You've faced hard choices before, Major. So, what's different?”

Evans’ hand dropped to his side. He stared at the cryo-case. “This wasn't war. The war's over.”

“Is it?”

Evans's teeth ground together audibly. “The girl said the Alliance executes people for small offenses. Purposefully withholds aid from certain groups. Is that true?”

Hackett held his gaze for several seconds before answering.

“The Alliance is stretched thinner than it's ever been. We want to help everyone. But resources aren't limitless, they're barely existent right now, as you've noticed.” He crossed his arms. “If it wasn't for the Turians and Krogan on the ground, we'd be worse off. Water, food, medicine, shelter, it's all worth its weight in gold. We can't allow theft to destabilize what little distribution we have.”

He paused.

“But I never gave orders to execute anyone in cold blood. Ground communications are still fragmented. Chain of command is... inconsistent. If you have someone to report, now's the time.”

Evans straightened. “I don't have hard evidence. But Captain Stirling implied he wouldn't hesitate to execute looters. If I hadn't been there, he would've killed everyone during this mission without even attempting negotiation.”

Hackett's expression hardened. “Captain Stirling is a good officer. A good soldier. I know he has Earth's best interests at heart. But if his methods are that extreme...” He uncrossed his arms. “I'll speak to him. We're not tyrants, Major. Thank you.”

Evans nodded once. He wasn't sure Stirling would face real consequences. But if Hackett could change the man's approach, that would be enough. It had to be.

“About the procedure,” Hackett prompted.

“We'll be able to do it. But I'm delaying the debridement.”

Hackett's eyebrow lifted. “Delay? We have the cultures. Why wait?”

“Because that case was dragged through a firefight and nearly took a pistol round.” Evans tapped the lid with two fingers. “The matrix is delicate. If the biologicals suffered stress-degradation or micro-fractures in the lattice during transport, they won't bond. I need to run a full viability assay and culture a test sample before grafting it onto 60% of Shepard's body. If we apply a dead matrix, we damage, or even kill the skin underneath.”

“How long?”

“Forty-eight hours. To be sure.”

Hackett studied him. The fatigue was there, visible in the blood on his armor, the grit under his nails, the way he held himself upright through sheer discipline. But the professional resolve was stronger.

“Agreed.” Hackett placed both hands flat on the desk. “Secure the cultures in the Cryo-Vault. Run your tests. Schedule the burn treatment for Day 16.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Hackett reached out, placing a hand on the cryo-case, acknowledging the victory.

“Dismissed, Major.”

Evans stepped back. Saluted. Left the silver box on the desk and turned toward the door.

***

Just like most of the hospital, the burn unit corridor never really slept. Voices dropped from barked orders to murmurs, footsteps shifted from urgency to routine, alarms gave way to the soft, constant hiss of filtration.

Evans walked it like a man returning to a crime scene.

A thousand thoughts competed for space, but one dominated: the clock. A fragile, living clock sealed in silver and ice, locked down in the Cryo-Vault two floors below. Forty-eight hours of assays. Sterility confirmed. Lattice activity present. Adhesion kinetics within range.

They'd never be absolutely sure. But there was no more testing to do.

Good enough to risk it.

He stopped outside OR Three and pressed his palm flat to the glass strip in the door. Inside, the room was bright and empty-looking, too clean to be real, too prepared to be anything but temporary. A pair of techs laid out sealed packs on stainless tables: blades, suction tips, micro-burrs, dermal staplers, pressure frames. The smell of alcohol wipes and sterilant hit the back of his throat.

Someone had already written on the board.

PATIENT: SHEPARD, J.
PROCEDURE: ESCHAR EXCISION + BMPM APPLICATION (TYPE-4)
GOAL: TBSA ~60% - STAGED / PRIORITY ZONES

Below it, in block letters:

NO SHEAR. NO TURNING. 72H CRITICAL WINDOW.

Evans pressed the pad. The door slid open with a hiss.

A nurse in scrubs, hair netted, eyes sharp, glanced up from the cart of warming blankets. “Major. We're waiting on you for the final time-out edits.”

Evans crossed to the instrument table. On a separate, smaller surface sat the Type-4 carriers, sealed, opaque packets with warning labels usually reserved for explosives or pathogens. A tech handles them with extreme care.

“Where's Dr. Arden?”

“Scrubbing. She's in a mood.”

 

Evans gave a faint, humorless exhale and crossed to the sink alcove. He stripped off his coat, hung it on the hook, and stared at his own hands for a second. Steady. Clean. Nothing like two days ago. Nothing like the mud under his nails, the crackle of gunfire in his ears.

He turned the faucet. Let the water run scalding.

The outer door to the scrub area split open. Dr. Arden stepped in, already elbow-deep in antiseptic foam, sleeves rolled, eyes narrowed.

“You’re late,” she didn’t bother to look at the clock.

Evans moved over and joined her at the second sink. Soap, brush, fingers, nails.

“We’re on time.”

Arden rinsed and held her forearms up, dripping, waiting for the sterile towel, not answering.

A tech handed her the towel. Arden dried her hands with efficiency, then shoved her arms into a gown.

Evans did the same. The familiar constriction of sterile fabric, the snap of gloves being pulled tight. His pulse sat high in his throat.

The door parted once more. Zaharova appeared in the doorway, cheeks pale under the fluorescent glare. A faint bruise ran along her hairline.

She held a slim data slate against her chest, a device slightly different from the standard datapad.

Arden’s gaze flicked to the bruise. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Zaharova’s mouth tightened. “And if I’m not here, what are you going to do? You need me for this one.”

“You got hit in the head.”

“I got hit in the head,” Zaharova echoed, as if repeating it made it less dramatic. “I’m not dead. I can still read a multispectral map.”

Evans watched her adjust her grip on the slate, fingers tightening then relaxing, as if the act of holding something steady took effort she didn’t want to admit. “How’s the vertigo?”

“Only when the world spins. So. Constantly.”

Arden snorted, but there was something softer behind it. “Sit down if you start seeing double.”

Zaharova stepped fully into the scrub area and tapped the data slate awake. A three-dimensional overlay of Shepard's body bloomed into the air between them, hovering in transparent layers: thermal gradients, perfusion zones, tissue viability heatmaps. Areas of dead tissue delineated sharply, like borders on a battlefield map.

Evans's breath caught in his chest.

So much red.

Zaharova's finger traced a segment along the torso. “Latest perfusion scan. Distal edges improved since the hydrogel coverage. Central zones didn't recover. Full-thickness necrosis.”

Arden leaned in. “Priority zones?”

“Anterior torso first. Closer to core. Highest infection risk. Then neck and shoulders. Limbs are lower priority unless you want to burn through your hemodynamic tolerance in an hour.”

Evans glanced at Arden. No argument.

He took the slate from Zaharova carefully. “Any surprises?”

“Two.” Zaharova toggled another layer. “There’s a pocket of borderline tissue along the left flank; it could live if you don’t get greedy with the excision. And there’s this.”

She highlighted a narrow band near the right hip.

Arden’s expression sharpened. “That close to Kaelen’s work.”

“Exactly,” Zaharova confirmed. “Hardware shadowing on the scan. The blood supply is compromised there. If the Type-4 doesn’t integrate, that zone becomes your failure strip.”

Evans looked at it too long. The pelvis had been a mountain. They’d climbed it. It was holding. And now, here was a thin line down the side of her body that could ruin everything anyway.

The nurse from earlier leaned through the doorway. “Major, ICU called. Patient's transport is five minutes out.”

Evans didn't look away from the holo. “Copy.”

Arden snapped her gloves once, releasing a sharp sound. “Alright. Let’s talk about the part everyone keeps pretending doesn’t exist.”

Zaharova’s brows lifted. Evans already knew.

Arden’s voice dropped. “Immobility.”

Evans’ throat went dry. “Seventy-two hours.”

“Seventy-two hours minimum,” Arden raised her finger. “No turning. No friction. No ‘we have to reposition her because her pressure points-”

“We manage pressure with the frame,” Evans cut her off quickly.

“And we manage airway with suctioning that won’t yank the whole sheet off,” Arden continued, like she hadn’t heard him. “We manage lines carefully. We manage staff panic when she spikes a fever. We do all of that while she’s basically a statue.”

Zaharova’s lips pressed together. “If she needs CPR-”

Now it was Arden who cut across it. “If she needs CPR, the Matrix isn’t your biggest problem anymore.”

Evans could already hear it in his head: the alarms. The scramble. Someone grabbing her shoulder wrong. Someone rolling her even a centimeter too hard.

He forced himself to breathe through it. “We’ll lock her down. Paralytic. Deep sedation.”

“And her implants?” Arden’s eyes flicked to him. “How long can you ride her under?”

Evans hesitated. Somewhere outside of surgery, a reasonable doctor would’ve admitted they didn’t know. Somewhere outside of this hospital, someone might’ve talked about risk in percentages.

Here, they could only assume and predict.

“Reli-Vonn says the dampening field will hold,” Evans said. “Miranda’s- Director Lawson’s telemetry agrees, within limits.”

“Within limits is not comforting.”

“It’s what we have.”

Arden leaned closer, close enough that Evans could see the tired red webbing in the whites of her eyes. “Then we do this in phases.”

Evans swallowed. “Torso. Neck. Upper back if she tolerates. Then we stop.”

Arden’s gaze didn’t soften. But she nodded once, crisp. “Good.”

Zaharova shifted her weight. For a second, her eyes glassed, the way concussion fatigue does when it punches through. She blinked hard, refocused on the holo. “There’s also the question of… bonding kinetics. Your assay said adhesion is within range.”

“It is,” Evans glanced at her.

“And if it isn’t in vivo?”

Evans stared at the map. “Then we’ll see it early. Drain output changes. Perfusion mismatch. Edge lift.”

Arden’s voice was quiet now. Not gentle. Just… less sharp. “And if it fails?”

Evans didn’t answer immediately. Saying the words made them real.

Zaharova did it for him, clinical and blunt. “Then she gets the numb skin, wax-like shell, she won’t feel anything on the affected areas. An insensate pseudo-dermis. No follicles. No sweat function.” She exchanged a glance with everyone and added. “Which, may I remind you, could happen either way if Shepard’s cells just decide that they don’t recognize the matrix and refuse it.”

Arden turned toward the OR. “Then we revise, and we salvage. And we pray she doesn’t decide to start having unexpected autonomic spasms after more than two weeks of stillness.”

Evans’ stomach twisted, but he knew there was no way Shepard would be anywhere close to waking up, or even unconsciously moving, despite what Miranda had told him.

He stripped the holo down to the simplest overlay: excision lines, priority zones, and avoid zones. Clean. Contained.

“Alright,” he decided. “Time-out amendments. Arden’s lead on excision. I’ll manage the Matrix application and integration checks. Zaharova, you guide margins and watch the pelvic strip.”

Zaharova nodded. “Understood.”

Arden started toward the inner door. “And someone tell ICU that if they bring her in with the blanket snagged on a bed rail, I’m going to staple it to their face.”

Evans raised his eyebrows subtly at Arden’s snappy mood, following her, and then pausing just long enough to look back at Zaharova. “If you get dizzy in there-”

“I’ll sit,” she finished his sentence, already moving. “I’m not dropping a map on a table where blood is going to be measured in liters.”

He didn’t argue.

The inner door opened and the OR’s light hit them full in the face. Stainless steel. Monitors. The pressure distribution frame sat on the table, already padded, already adjusted.

Evans crossed to the head of the table and checked the anesthesia machine out of habit. The anesthesiologist called out values. Someone confirmed blood products in the cooler. Someone else verified the Type-4 packets’ serial numbers in a quiet, reverent voice.

The room was assembling itself around a future event.

Then the doors at the far end hissed open.

A gurney rolled in, escorted by ICU staff in yellow gowns.

Shepard lay under a thermal blanket, her head secured, collar in place, lines running from her like roots searching for soil. The ventilator tubing bounced softly with each movement of the gurney.

The room tilted toward her without anyone saying a word.

Arden stepped to the side of the bed, eyes scanning the setup. “Any instability during transport?”

“No,” the ICU nurse responded. “BP held. Temp stable. Array is stable.”

Evans moved to the foot of the bed, careful not to brush the blanket against anything. He’d learned to treat fabric like another instrument, one wrong drag and you lost time, skin, blood.

Arden’s gaze met his over the gurney, sharp and impatient.

Evans nodded once.

“Alright,” he said, and it came out quiet, almost to himself. “Let’s begin.”

The room shifted into its final arrangement the moment Shepard’s gurney locked into place beside the table.

Everything got quieter. Voices dropped. Movements tightened. Even the ventilator’s rhythm sounded louder.

Evans tracked the ICU team like a hawk while they maneuvered her.

“Rails clear,” someone called.

“Lines free.”

“Drain bulbs secured.”

“Collar stable,” the ICU nurse added, glancing at the small readout on the dampening array, even though they just checked minutes ago.

Arden’s eyes flicked over Shepard in one fast sweep, then to the staff. “If anyone catches that blanket on a hinge, I’m going to-”

“We heard you,” the circulating nurse cut in, deadpan, already holding the thermal blanket edge.

Evans slid to the head of the bed, close to anesthesia, close to the airway, close to the numbers.

The anesthesiologist looked up from the monitor wall. “She’s already intubated. We keep the tube, switch circuits, confirm placement. You want paralysis for the bonding window?”

“Yes. Deep. No spontaneous movement.”

A pause. Not resistance, just someone weighing risk in their head.

“Paralysis for seventy-two hours,” the anesthesiologist repeated.

Evans kept his eyes on Shepard’s face. What was left visible under the blanket, under the collar: her mouth taped, bruising faded to yellow, lashes stuck together in places.

“Seventy-two hours minimum,” he said again, and hated himself for how calm it sounded.

The anesthesiologist nodded once and pointed at the screen. “Then we ride her under, and we pray her lungs are done punishing us for it.”

Zaharova stood at a side station with her holo-slate mounted on an adjustable arm, its projector humming faintly. Her face was pale. Her posture was rigid.

Evans leaned in close enough that only she could hear him over the air handlers. “You feeling steady?”

Zaharova’s eyes didn’t leave the slate. “I’m functioning.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

Arden’s voice cut across the room. “Time-out.”

The entire OR stopped.

The circulating nurse read off the board. “Patient: Commander Shepard. Procedure: staged eschar excision and Bio-Mimetic Progenitor Matrix application, Type-4. Priority zones: anterior torso and neck/shoulders planned; stop point based on hemodynamic tolerance.”

Evans watched the anesthesiologist’s eyes track each item as it was spoken. The nurse continued.

“Allergies: none known. Antibiotics: on board. Blood products: available and in-room. Special notes: no shear, no turning, seventy-two-hour critical integration window. Implant instability risk: dampening collar dormant, field stable. Emergency plan: airway and hemorrhage override Matrix preservation.”

Arden’s gaze landed on Evans. “You agree with the plan?”

He nodded. His throat felt too dry for anything else.

Zaharova lifted her chin. “Margins are mapped. Failure strip identified near right hip hardware. Recommended conservative excision in that zone.”

Arden grunted, accepting it.

The circulating nurse looked around the room one last time. “Any objections?”

No one moved.

“Time-out complete.”

The room exhaled. Work resumed.

They transferred Shepard off the gurney with precision. Slide sheet. Counted lift. No jerks. No snagging tubing. The pressure distribution frame waited on the OR table.

When they settled her into it, the frame’s sensors lit in a quiet sequence and then stabilized, indicating pressure points. The goal wasn’t comfort. It was immobilization without tissue death.

Evans glanced at the readout. Even pressure. No edge loading.

Good.

They stripped away the blanket in stages.

The burns looked worse in the OR light.

Not just red and black, not just char and blister. They looked like geography, ranges and valleys of tissue viability, islands of skin that had survived in spite of physics, and whole, much bigger patches that hadn’t. It had to have been the armor that protected her. The hydrogel coverage made everything gleam wetly, preserved and awful.

Arden didn’t hesitate.

She took the first instrument from the scrub tech and set it against the sternum.

A micro-debrider, mass-effect stabilized, the tool that could shave dead tissue in controlled layers instead of tearing living flesh underneath. It had been invented for burns on civilians, for accidents and ship fires, and industrial tragedies.

“Marking,” Arden said softly.

Zaharova tapped her slate. The holo overlay adjusted over Shepard’s body as if it were being projected directly onto her skin, transparent lines mapping edges, thickness, perfusion. The bruise at Zaharova’s hairline seemed to darken as the projector’s light caught it.

“This area,” she indicated the upper chest. “Full-thickness. No salvage.”

Arden began.

The sound wasn’t dramatic. Not a saw. Not a slash.

It was a wet, controlled rasping as the debrider ate necrotic tissue and the suction whisked it away immediately. A faint smell followed, burned protein, old blood, the sharp bite of antiseptic.

Evans stayed near the head, eyes on the monitors, hands hovering over knobs and settings he wasn’t supposed to touch. Anesthesia glanced at him once, then looked away.

“BP drifting,” anesthesia called.

Evans glanced. The systolic pressure had dropped enough to be meaningful, not enough to be panic.

“Pressors,” the anesthesiologist murmured to their assistant, and the drip rate changed on the pump with a soft beep.

Arden worked in careful sections, never staying in one place too long. Dead tissue off. Bleeders identified. Coagulant polymer applied, sealing small vessels with a shimmering membrane that hardened in seconds. A few larger bleeders got micro-clips, tiny, stubborn pieces of metal.

Zaharova guided with minimal speech, pointing more than talking. Each time she shifted her weight, she blinked twice, slow.

Arden paused at the edge of the left flank, the “borderline” zone Zaharova had flagged.

The debrider hovered a centimeter above the tissue, waiting.

“This could live,” Zaharova’s voice was careful. “But only if you don’t get greedy.”

Arden’s eyes narrowed.

She angled the tool and skimmed, shaving just enough to remove nonviable surface without cutting into the pink beneath.

Evans let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Temp’s climbing,” anesthesia called again.

Evans’s gaze snapped to the temperature readout.

“That’s inflammation,” Arden didn’t look up. “It’s going to climb.”

“And implants don’t like climbs,” Evans kept his voice flat.

The collar readout at Shepard’s neck stayed neutral. The dampening field signature remained stable on telemetry.

Arden moved lower, toward the right hip.

The failure strip.

Hardware shadowing under the muscle. Compromised blood supply.

Zaharova leaned closer to the holo, fingers tapping to magnify. Her hand trembled slightly, then stopped.

“Here,” she said. “Conservative. You go deep, you’ll expose the scaffold around the reconstruction.”

Arden’s mouth tightened. “And if I don’t go deep enough, I leave dead tissue.”

“Dead tissue can be revised,” Evans noted quietly from the head. “A failed strip becomes permanent.”

Arden glanced at Evans and sighed.

She changed angle, took the dead tissue in thinner layers, stopping at the first sign of viable bleeding.

The suction canister filled slowly.

Evans watched the arterial line trace on the monitor. Watched it wobble each time Arden hit a sensitive area, and the body reacted even through coma and paralysis.

When Arden finally stepped back from the chest and torso zone, her shoulders rolled once.

“Field’s ready,” she said. “Viable bed. Hemostasis is-”

“Acceptable,” the scrub nurse finished, holding up a pad stained a specific shade of red, which translated to the fact that they could proceed, but remain watchful.

Evans moved.

The Type-4 packets waited on their own table under a sterile drape, kept chilled until the last possible moment.

He nodded at the tech.

The tech tore the first packet open with a careful, elegant motion and folded it back. Inside was a translucent sheet suspended in a nutrient gel, shimmering faintly under OR lights, not synthetic shine, not plastic. Something closer to a living membrane.

The room shifted again.

He lifted the first sheet with sterile forceps, letting the nutrient gel drip back into the tray.

The matrix felt light, almost like nothing.

He carried it to the exposed wound bed.

“Lowest setting,” he warned.

The circulating nurse immediately swung the laminar hood output down to the lowest safe setting. The room’s background hiss softened. Even a gust could shear a micro-bridge before it formed.

Evans lowered the sheet onto the bare chest.

It didn’t flop. It settled.

It was like laying a thin veil on water and watching it find the surface tension.

He smoothed the edges with a gloved fingertip, barely touching, checking alignment against Zaharova’s projected margins. The sheet responded with a subtle, almost imperceptible tightening as it made contact with viable tissue.

Zaharova lifted a corner of the holo overlay. “Alignment good. Don’t stretch it. If you stretch it, you shift pore geometry-”

“I know,” Evans kept his tone neutral because he didn’t have spare patience.

Arden watched without speaking. Her hands were still.

Evans applied micro-anchors along the perimeter, bioresorbable tacks that held the sheet in place without strangling the tissue beneath. Each tack clicked softly.

Then he triggered the low-level integration field.

A subtle change in the sheet’s surface texture, like condensation forming. Micro-bridges beginning to seek blood.

On the monitor, a perfusion trace line flickered and stabilized.

“Capillary ingress starting,” Zaharova’s voice was suddenly more awake.

Evans swallowed.

One sheet down.

Dozens to go. But not all of them today. Not if the body started to protest.

He laid the next sheet over the upper abdomen and lower sternum, overlapping by millimeters, not enough to create a ridge, enough to avoid gaps. Each overlap was a future seam. Each seam was a future risk.

Anesthesia spoke again. “Pressure’s soft.”

Evans didn’t look away from his hands. “How soft?”

“Soft enough that if you keep going, you might start paying.”

The collar’s dim light remained violet, but the telemetry on the dampening field showed a minor oscillation.

Arden saw him glancing.

“Don’t look at that like it’s going to behave.”

Evans laid a third sheet along the right upper chest, careful near the shoulder where movement, even in a paralyzed patient, could create micro-shear from ventilator-driven chest rise. He anchored it more heavily there, spreading the load.

He worked his way toward the neck, where the skin was thinner and the stakes strange. A little too close to the array.

Zaharova’s holo margins tightened. “Here. Stop. You go higher, you’re interfering with the array footprint.”

Evans held. “We leave the lower jawline for stage two.”

He returned to the right hip, failure strip territory. The sheet for that zone was smaller. Narrower. Cut to avoid hardware shadowing.

Evans positioned it with care and respect.

He lowered the matrix.

For a second, it didn’t settle.

The sheet quivered.

Evans’s fingers froze.

“Come on,” he breathed under his mask quietly.

Zaharova adjusted the holo overlay half a centimeter. “Your placement is slightly lateral. Move it medially by-”

Evans didn’t move the sheet. He changed the strategy.

He tapped a control on the integration field, lowering the stimulus, then raising it in a slow ramp. Encouragement instead of force.

The sheet settled.

A perfusion trace bloomed weakly on the monitor, then steadied.

Arden’s eyes flicked from the sheet to Shepard’s face. “How close are we to her limit?”

Anesthesia answered that without hesitation. “Close.”

The pressure dipped another few points. Not catastrophic. But it had direction.

Evans looked at the board. Torso. Neck. Upper back if tolerated.

Upper back wasn’t happening today.

He forced himself to make the decision before the body made it for him. “Stop point.”

Arden sighed, she knew it was the right decision, in fact, surprisingly responsible from Evans. “Alright. Let’s protect what we can.”

They covered the newly applied sheets with a sterile protective veil, an ultra-thin barrier that prevented incidental contact and retained moisture without bonding to the matrix itself. Evans anchored the veil at the outer edges only, keeping it from tugging.

Zaharova’s holo faded as the projector dimmed. She swayed slightly when she stepped back, and this time she did grab the edge of the counter for half a second before straightening.

Evans saw it. Didn’t comment.

Arden began calling out counts. Instruments. Sponges. Anchors.

The circulating nurse confirmed. “Count correct.”

Anesthesia leaned in toward Evans. “You made the right call.”

Evans didn’t answer.

They completed the immediate surgical wrap-up in silence and beeps. Additional drains weren’t added; drains meant tubes, tubes meant tug risk. They left what was already necessary and nothing more.

“Transport protocol,” Evans announced. “No bedding drag. No lifting under the sheet edges. Frame stays with her.”

The nurse nodded. “We have the ICU bed prepped with the matching pressure frame.”

“Good.”

They transferred Shepard back onto a gurney in a coordinated, almost choreographed motion. It took longer than any normal transfer. It was worth it.

The sliding doors parted with a hiss as they rolled out.

The corridor lighting felt dim after the OR.

Evans walked beside her the entire way, one hand hovering at the rail without touching. Arden flanked the opposite side, eyes locked on the blanket.

Zaharova followed behind with her slate hugged to her chest, posture stiff, breathing measured.

The ICU doors opened, and the atmosphere changed, less sterile-bright, more lived-in, more exhausted.

Elias Harman was there, the senior nurse already in motion, already anticipating.

He took one look at the veil coverage, and his eyebrows rose slightly. “Partial.”

“Stage one,” Evans confirmed. “Torso and neck/shoulders. Stop point for hemodynamics.”

Harman nodded. No judgement. Just cataloguing what his next seventy-two hours had become.

“Orders?” Harman asked.

Evans stepped to the bedside and lowered his voice, forcing himself into clarity.

“Paralysis continues. Deep sedation. No turning unless life-saving. Pressure frame settings locked; check sensors every hour and document. Suctioning only with two-person stabilization, one on the tube, one on the lines. Linen changes: none. Hygiene: sponge only, lateral reach only, no drag across the veil.”

Elias absorbed the information.

“And if alarms?”

Evans met his eyes. “If the collar goes amber, call me. If it goes red, call me and Miranda. If she spikes a fever, call me before anyone touches anything. We don’t ‘just check’ the sheets.”

Elias nodded once. “Understood.”

Zaharova lingered at the foot of the bed for a moment longer than she needed to. Her gaze traced the failure strip region, where the veil covered the narrow band near the hip.

“If that strip fails,” she said quietly, “we’ll see it before it calcifies.”

Evans nodded. “We’ll watch it like it owes us money.”

That got a weak, brief huff from Harman.

Zaharova’s eyelids fluttered once, slowly. This time, she did sit on the stool pushed toward the workstation, the concession small and late.

Evans stood at the head of the bed and looked down at Shepard.

So much of her was hidden again under a veil and blanket, under collars and lines and machines he had to trust with everything he had.

He watched the collar display remain its dim violent shine.

Watched the ventilator breathe.

Watched the pressure frame readout hold steady.

And somewhere under the veil, a living scaffold began trying to convince her body to remember what skin was supposed to be.

Evans exhaled slowly.

“Alright,” he murmured, largely to himself. “Now, let’s make sure she stays this way until the next procedure.”

Chapter 17: Integration, Part Two

The first twelve hours passed the way ICU time always passed. Slowly.

The room remained dim for control over comfort.

Shepard lay in the pressure distribution frame as if it had been built around her, not a bed, not quite a brace, something in between. The ultra-thin veil over the newly applied Matrix caught the low light and turned it into a faint, wet sheen. The most fragile thing in the building. Everyone who stepped through the door treated it like it might shatter from a careless breath.

Elias Harman ran the first check himself.

He didn’t touch the veil or lift an edge. He stood at the bedside and read the information through instruments: pressure sensor maps, drain bulbs, the status on the dampening array, and the ventilator’s rhythm.

“Cap refill match is holding,” he said to the night nurse, voice low. “Edges look flat. No lift.”

“Vitals?”

He glanced at the monitor. “Stable enough to be quite boring.”

When it came to Shepard, anything that was ‘boring’ was a gift.

Every hour on the hour, the routine repeated. Two staff in, one out. One person anchored tubes and lines. One person checked the frame sensors and documented. No bedding changes. No dragging cloth over skin. Hygiene reduced to the bare minimum, kept away from the veil's margins. Suctioning performed like a ritual, slow, counted, hands steady.

Evans appeared at hour three with a mug he didn’t drink from and restless eyes.

He paused at the threshold.

Harman met him there. “Collar is still stable. No alarms. Temp’s steady.”

Evans’s gaze flicked to the collar readout, then to the perfusion strip monitor mounted near the foot of the bed. “Any oscillation?”

“Minor. Within what Engineer Reli-Vonn called acceptable.”

Evans didn’t look reassured, but he nodded anyway. “Good. Keep the laminar flow down in the room. Minimum safe.”

“It’s been down since she came back.”

Elias glanced at Evans briefly, “You look better, Major.”

Evans scratched his cheek, “Yeah, well… I’ve been doing my best, taking everyone’s advice and resting more. I won’t do you or Shepard any good if I can barely stand on my two legs.”

Even though Evans still blinked too long, at least he was no longer pulling all-nighters every other day.

Evans stepped closer, stopping where the machines ended, and Shepard began. He observed. The veil held. Everything seemed to be going according to plan.

At hour six, Zaharova arrived, hair pulled back so tight it made her temples look sore. She sat before anyone told her to.

She checked the overlay logs and compared them to the bedside perfusion readings, eyes flicking between numbers and her own memory of what the margins looked like in OR light.

The first night ended without incident.

The second day began with a small, uncomfortable change: a temperature climb of half a degree.

It wasn’t a fever. But the movement was uncomfortable.

Evans was called, and he arrived fast. Dr. Lynds was already inside.

Evans tracked the numbers for a long beat. Arterial trace. Ventilator pressures. The room's quiet hum.

“Any new secretions?”

“Minimal,” Lynds had already checked. “Lungs sound unchanged.”

“Chest wall?”

“Stable.”

Evans turned to Harman. “Any reason to touch anything?”

Harman shook his head. “None.”

“Then we don’t,” Evans made it sound like a principle instead of a decision. He adjusted medication orders and left strict instructions not to escalate interventions unless a threshold was crossed.

The temperature drifted back down over the next four hours, slow as a tide.

At hour twenty-nine, the first real sign of integration arrived, not visible, but measurable.

Zaharova confirmed it, pointing at the perfusion trend line.

Capillary ingress stabilized faster in the chest region than expected. The edges that had looked like the place failure would begin instead stayed smooth. There was no seepage at the margins. No micro-lift. No change in drainage color suggested the Matrix was not being rejected.

They still hadn’t won, but they were moving in the best of directions.

Evans stood on the opposite side of the bed and watched the line with her.

“How long until we can breathe?”

Zaharova didn’t look up. “Better to always hold your breath, with stakes as high as these, you don’t want to start fooling yourself.”

“Comforting.”

“Accurate,” A flicker of humor crossed her face.

“You doing better?”

“Yes, yes, stop worrying about me all the time, I barely feel it anymore.” Zaharova brushed him off with a hand gesture.

Evans briefly glanced up at the bruise. “Why haven’t you had that sealed with Medi-Gel or some other sealant?”

“Seriously? I’m not dying, Major. The Alliance medics cleaned the wound, and that’s all I need. Save the supplies for those who actually need them.” Zaharova shook her head disapprovingly but gave Evans a smirk.

The second night brought the most tedious part: maintaining immobility without causing new harm. The pressure distribution frame did its job, shifting micro-load through its sensors, preventing tissue death in places that would otherwise become their next crisis.

Still, the situation demanded compromises.

An IV was infiltrated near midnight. A small thing, easy to fix. A line change was needed.

They did it with three people and a held breath, stabilizing everything that could tug, keeping hands away from the veil, working as if the slightest motion might translate through tissue like a ripple.

It took ten minutes.

When it was done, the Matrix margins were unchanged.

By hour fifty-eight, everything felt rehearsed; voices low, movements identical each time, everyone in sync with the idea that the patient was made of glass.

Arden was beyond busy with plenty of other patients, but she took the time to appear briefly, standing at the foot of the bed with her arms folded, eyes scanning the veil.

“How’s it holding?” she asked.

Harman answered before Evans could. “Exceptionally.”

Arden nodded once. “Good.” She paused, then added, “Nice work.”

On the morning of the third day, at hour seventy-two, Evans arrived before the shift change.

He stood over Shepard, searching for threats, reading lines, looking for the moment a calm surface became a trap.

Harman met him with the chart and a tired expression, which showed that he was as dedicated to Shepard as Evans.

“Seventy-two hours,” Harman ran his finger over a datapad. “No shear events. No collar alarms. Perfusion in the chest and upper abdomen is trending up. Hip strip is still weak, but stable.”

Evans’s eyes moved to the collar and stayed there. The collar was fine.

“Okay, can we turn her now?”

Harman’s response was immediate. “We can start turning her. Incremental.”

Evans almost smiled. Almost.

He exhaled slowly and looked down at Shepard again.

She hadn’t woken; she hadn’t even as much as moved. She hadn’t given them any heroic sign that she was still in there. But she had endured.

The veil over the Matrix remained smooth and unbroken.

Under it, the scaffold had been given a chance to become something else.

Evans reached up and adjusted the bedside light, only a little brighter, enough to see without bleaching everything sterile-white.

“Prep OR Three,” he told Harman. “Stage two as soon as anesthesia confirms she’s fit to tolerate it.”

Harman nodded and stepped back toward the door, already on the move.

Evans stayed for another moment, alone with the machines and the quiet.

Then he turned away from the bed, carefully, and left, so they could finish what they’d started.

***

The first incremental roll had happened hours after the seventy-two-hour mark, two degrees at a time, frame sensors compensating, hands braced to keep any tug from translating into the veil.

Evans stepped in just after shift change, his buzz cut grown out a few millimeters, coat open, eyes clearer than they’d been a week ago.

Harman met him with a datapad already open. “Vitals stable. Collar is good. No shear events. Perfusion trends are up across the chest and upper abdomen.”

“And the hip strip?”

Harman angled the screen. “Still the weakest. Still flat. Still stable. Drain character hasn’t changed.”

Zaharova leaned over the readout from the workstation, long hair tied back in a practical knot. The bruise on her hairline had faded to a dull yellow shadow. She wasn’t swaying anymore. Her voice was steady.

“We got what we needed, the first set integrated enough to proceed. If we wait longer, we’re just extending the open-burn risk on the untreated zones.”

Arden stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded, mouth set in that neutral line that meant she was already in OR mode. “Transport?”

Harman nodded once. “Bed frame is compatible. We keep the same support surface. No blanket drag. Lines secured. Veil margins protected.”

Evans’s gaze moved to Shepard. The veil still covered most of the torso and neck/shoulders like a second skin, edges smooth, no curling. The collar array glowed violet at her throat, humming quietly.

“Alright, OR Three. Same team.”

They rolled her out with the same choreography as three days ago, less fear, no less care.

Sliding doors parted. The corridor lights washed over the bed. People moved aside without being asked.

In OR Three, the atmosphere was setting itself before they arrived: tables laid out, packs sealed, chill tray ready, Type-4 packets counted and logged.

The anesthesiologist didn’t waste words. “Same plan. Deep. Paralysis for application. Shorter immobilization requirement this time?”

Evans glanced at Arden, then Zaharova. “Not seventy-two hours full-body. But the new zones need the same respect as the ones on the first day. We’ll localize it, no friction over fresh sheets, minimal repositioning, frame settings updated.”

“Understood,” anesthesia acknowledged, already adjusting parameters. “We’ll keep her proper.”

Arden nodded toward the board. “Time-out.”

The room stopped on command.

“Patient: Commander Shepard,” the circulating nurse read. “Procedure: Stage Two eschar excision and BMPM application, Type-4. Planned zones: posterior torso, remaining neck margins, jawline, upper extremities as tolerated. Stop point based on hemodynamics.”

“Allergies: none known. Antibiotics: on board. Blood products available. Special notes: protect existing Matrix; no shear; collar stable. Emergency override: airway/hemorrhage.”

Zaharova lifted her holo-slate as the projector arm hummed to life. “Updated margins mapped. Conservative near reconstruction hardware and any zones with compromised blood supply.”

Arden turned to Evans. “You good?”

He nodded once.

“Time-out complete.”

Work resumed.

They transferred Shepard onto the table with the same counted lift, then adjusted the pressure distribution frame for prone positioning. The frame accepted the new geometry with a series of soft beeps, pressure maps blooming on the monitor, and then smoothing out as pads redistributed load.

“Even,” A nurse called from the foot of the bed, monitoring the frame readout.

Evans moved to the side table where the veil edge met the previously treated areas. He eased it back millimeter by millimeter where they needed access, keeping the integrated surfaces protected and moist, never dragging across the skin.

The previously treated zones looked different up close, not fully healed, but no longer raw. The surface had a matte, living sheen instead of the wet glare of hydrogel. The margins were quiet.

Nobody needed to comment, everybody could see it.

They rolled Shepard to access the posterior zones with the kind of care that made every movement take three times as long. Hands stayed under hard points, not soft tissue. Lines were stabilized carefully.

Once she was positioned, Zaharova overlaid the viability map, greens and yellows, and the hard red patches.

“Upper back first, then posterior shoulders. After that, we decide if she can tolerate arms. If we get there, watch out for the titanium plating and her fingers, they’re still mending.”

Arden took the debrider, checked the settings, and got to work without fanfare.

They didn’t narrate the mechanics this time. Everyone knew them. The debrider rasped. Suction followed. Bleeders were sealed as they appeared. Clips placed when needed. Half the room already anticipatory, passing instruments before they were asked for.

Evans tracked the numbers, then the collar, then the pressure maps attentively.

“Pressure’s holding,” anesthesia announced after a few minutes, tone almost surprised. “Better than last time.”

“Good,” Evans replied, and kept his voice flat.

Zaharova’s guidance came in short corrections. “Stop there.” “That zone is borderline.” “You’re close to viable. Don’t chase it.”

Arden listened and adjusted each time with stunning precision.

When the posterior torso bed was clean and hemostasis was acceptable, Evans stepped in.

The Type-4 packet opened with the same careful motion as before. The sheet inside shimmered faintly in nutrient gel, translucent and alive.

“Laminar down,” Evans said.

The airflow softened to a minimum safe setting.

He placed the first sheet over the upper back, aligning it to Zaharova’s projected margins. The membrane settled without resistance. He anchored the perimeter in small, evenly spaced tacks, then triggered the low-level integration field.

A perfusion trace flickered on a side monitor and stabilized.

“Capillary ingress,” Zaharova murmured.

They moved faster now, because they could, they were efficient. Overlapping by millimeters. Avoiding ridges. Anchoring where the ventilator’s subtle chest movement could translate to shear. Protecting the edges.

Evans paused at the posterior shoulder where the line of movement was worst.

“We reinforce here,” Already placing additional tacks, distributing load across a wider perimeter.

Arden shifted her attention back to the next debridement strip without comment.

When they reached the remaining neck margins and lower jawline, Zaharova adjusted the holo overlay and leaned closer.

“Here, you can take it now. We’re clear of the collar footprint.”

Evans nodded. The collar stayed stable, faintly humming at her throat.

The sheet for that zone was smaller. Evans placed it with the same care he’d used near the hip strip during the first procedure, then anchored it without tension.

“Stable,” Zaharova confirmed.

Evans didn’t let himself relax. He gave the sheet one last glance for lift, nothing, then moved his hands away slowly.

“Posterior neck margins are clean,” Arden already shifted positions. “Back’s sealed. We’re not leaving this half-finished.”

Zaharova’s holo map rotated with a flick of her fingers, pivoting from torso to limbs. The arms lit up in bands: the areas still untreated, the areas already protected, and the zones where reconstruction hardware cast faint shadows through tissue.

“Upper arms first,” Zaharova instructed. “Keep clear of the plating corridor on the left arm. And don’t torque the wrist, Kaelen’s work isn’t done mending.”

Evans glanced toward Shepard’s right hand, where it lay supported, splinted, immobilized in a position that looked more like engineering than medicine. The fingers were held in alignment for stability.

“Copy.”

Anesthesia answered with numbers. “Pressure is acceptable. Heart rate steady. She’s tolerating.”

Arden’s eyes flicked up. “Then we do it now.”

They adjusted the table in careful degrees, frame sensors responding with quiet beeps, pressure maps blooming and smoothing out as pads compensated. A tech stabilized the arm at the elbow. Another anchored the shoulder.

Zaharova kept her voice clipped and useful. “This strip is viable. That patch is not. Stay shallow here, blood supply’s already compromised from trauma.”

Arden resumed debridement on the left upper arm with efficiency. The rasp of the instrument was brief, contained, never lingering long enough to invite the body to complain. Suction followed, clearing the field before anything could pool.

“Hardware shadow,” Zaharova warned, and traced a narrow corridor with her finger where a part of the titanium plate sat bolted beneath tissue, holding the outside fixator stable. “Do not chase margins into that line. If you expose too close to it, integration suffers.”

Arden shifted angle without argument and took the dead tissue in thinner passes. The wound bed pinked up where it should, stopped where it must. Hemostasis held.

“Ready for sheet,” Arden stepped back.

Evans moved in.

The Type-4 membrane for the arm was narrower, cut for the contours, and the fact that elbows didn't forgive mistakes. He placed it, aligned it, and anchored the edges with smaller tacks spaced closer than on the torso.

The integration field came online. The sheet changed texture subtly, then settled into stillness.

Zaharova checked the perfusion trend and nodded once. “Ingress started.”

They repeated it on the right upper arm, where they mainly needed to avoid the splint and the polymer cement.

Anesthesia spoke again, and this time the tone was more satisfied than cautious. “She’s stable. Better than expected.”

Zaharova’s projection tightened over the wrist joints. “You can cover the dorsal forearm to the midline. Do not wrap around. Leave the wrist margins alone. Fingers are off-limits; they do not need the treatment either way, they’re viable and protected.”

Arden glanced at the hand again, those carefully aligned digits, rigid under the splinting. “Understood.”

Debridement here was lighter, more selective. The burns weren’t the same severity as the core zones; the armor had done its job unevenly, sparing some areas and sacrificing others. Where tissue was viable, they saved it. Where it wasn’t, they didn’t pretend.

Evans applied the final sheets in short segments that respected movement lines: one panel, then another, edges overlapped by millimeters and anchored with an almost obsessive symmetry. No ridges. No tension lines.

When the last forearm segment settled and the perfusion trace stabilized, the room quieted.

Zaharova dimmed her holo overlay and let the projector arm retract with a soft mechanical sigh.

Arden stepped back, shoulders rolling once, a small reset. “Coverage?”

Evans looked at the board, then at Shepard, and did the mental map one last time. Torso, neck margins, posterior zones, upper arms, and forearm panels. The only untreated islands left were either intentionally spared because they were already viable.

“As complete as it can be without compromising reconstruction… No future stage.”

Arden nodded once. “Great.”

They laid the protective veil over the new zones, thin, non-adherent, anchored only where anchoring wouldn’t create drag. Edges checked. Margins confirmed. Nothing lifted. Nothing curled.

Counts followed, fast and precise.

“Count correct,” the circulating nurse confirmed.

Transport was controlled, just like before. The bed frame was matched. The sensors were synced. Lines secured. Hands placed with intent.

Back in the ICU, Harman was waiting at the door, datapad already open.

Evans didn’t waste words. “New coverage includes posterior torso, neck margins, upper arms, and partial forearms. No unnecessary handling. No friction over fresh veil.”

Zaharova stepped to the workstation. “Perfusion trends every four hours for the next twenty-four. If an edge starts to lift, we catch it early.”

“You’ll have them,” Harman confirmed.

Evans stood at the head of the bed again, eyes on the dampening array.

Calm violet.

The ventilator cycled, steady.

The pressure frame map smoothed itself out.

They finished it.

Notes:

I hope the first chapter was good enough, I will attempt to release a new chapter at least once per week.