paragonsoldier

"Brace for evasive maneuvers!"

The helmsman's shout over the PA is the only warning Shepard gets before the Normandy shakes violently, causing her to topple to the deck. The next couple of seconds are a bewildering chaos of shouts and screams from her crew, blooms of sparks and flame from various damaged systems, and on top of it flashing red lights and the strident call of her ship's emergency alarm.

That's not possible, Shepard thinks. We were in stealth mode. Nobody should have been able to target us. And then a cold band constricts around her heart as she thinks, Kaidan, Tali and Garrus are on the engineering deck. What if they...

"Kinetic barriers down," the helmsman announces over the PA. "Multiple hull breaches. Weapons offline. Somebody get that fire out!"

Despite the encumbrance of her armor, Shepard is mostly upright before Joker finishes saying "multiple hull breaches." The other crewmen on the deck spring into action, some grabbing fire extinguishers and battling flames, others trying to help injured comrades. They know what Joker's last report means. Whatever just hit them, it's too powerful for the Normandy to handle, or even to survive. Once they've cleared a path, the crew start an orderly (if hasty) retreat to the evac shuttles.

The ship shakes with impact again; more fires bloom all over the deck, and more wires and panels come loose. Shepard, with one hand on the nearest bulkhead and her feet planted wide, manages to stay upright this time. She's got to prep the Normandy's distress beacon, get to the engineering deck, make sure everyone there is all right... but there's a lot of fire around, and there may be vacuum to contend with as well. It would be foolish to go looking for them without her helmet on.

Said helmet was on top of her locker when the attack began. It's found its way to the far end of the row of sleeping pods and fetched up against the inert control panel at the end. Shepard makes her way towards it, stumbling as the ship is hit a third time. Even after the shock of impact fades, the deck continues to rumble beneath her feet. That's a bad sign.

After she picks her helmet up, but before she puts it on, Shepard uses her omni-tool to bring the control panel to life. It's one of a few command override panels placed around the ship. A quick scan of the information displayed there confirms that things are just as bad as Shepard thought. Fortunately, none of the evac shuttles have been damaged, and neither has the distress beacon. She hits a couple of holographic keys, preparing to fire it.

Shepard's just putting on her helmet when she hears armored boots running across the deck behind her, followed shortly by Kaidan's voice. "Shepard!" From the sound of it, he's already got his own helmet on. Shepard secures her own helmet in short order.

Relieved as she is to know Kaidan's all right, Shepard stays focused on practical matters. There's a job to do. "Distress beacon is ready for launch," she says.

"Will the Alliance get here in time?" Kaidan asks as she turns to face him. Only his eyes are visible behind the small viewports in the breather mask he's wearing.

The ship rattles again: Kaidan almost loses his balance, but catches himself with a hand on Shepard's shoulder. "The Alliance won't abandon us," Shepard responds as she picks up a nearby fire extinguisher. "We just need to hold on. Get everyone onto the escape shuttles." She tosses the extinguisher to Kaidan, who turns to use it on one of the larger fires that sprung up from between two sleeper pods.

"Joker's still in the cockpit," Kaidan informs her. "He won't abandon ship." Looking over his shoulder at Shepard, he insists, "I'm not leaving either."

Goddammit, Kaidan, Shepard thinks and almost snaps. But she controls herself and says instead, "I need you to get the crew into the evac shuttles." She closes the distance between them and puts a hand on his arm, not for balance, but for comfort. Although even she isn't sure whether it's for Kaidan's sake or hers. "I'll take care of Joker." She makes her way back to the control panel.

Something literally explodes in her face - "Commander!" Kaidan cries - but fortunately her helmet protects her.

Shepard braces against a bulkhead and uses her best don't-argue-with-me-voice: "Kaidan, go." She gives him a direct look. "Now."

He doesn't acknowledge immediately, and for a moment Shepard's afraid he's going to argue with her again. But evidently he decides not to. "Aye aye," he says resignedly, and goes to do what she told him.

When she's sure Kaidan can't see her, Shepard takes a deep breath to compose herself. She turns to the control panel and hits the large, central circle, firing the distress beacon and unlocking the evac shuttles. She gets confirmation that the distress beacon is away just before something explodes above the panel, driving her back and shutting it down.

Now there's only Joker left. Shepard runs for the stairs up to the CIC deck, holding an arm in front of her face to protect her from more flames and explosions. The deck seems to wobble beneath her feet. That's a bad sign. "Mayday, mayday! This is the SSV Normandy!" Joker calls over the PA. Shepard makes her way around the burning wreck where the mess table used to be and passes the elevator to engineering. "We've suffered heavy damage from an unknown enemy!" Joker continues.

Shepard moves to take the flight of stairs to her left, but finds it blocked by flames and debris. She backtracks and takes the set to her right instead. "C'mon baby," Joker pleads with the ship. "Hold together! Hold together!" Shepard reaches the door at the top of the stairs. When she opens it, the atmosphere from the crew deck howls out into open space. She's almost pulled out along with the rushing air, but activates her armor's magnetic boots to keep herself securely on the deck.

Once she steps out the door, everything suddenly goes dark and quiet. There are no more alarms, no more roar of flames or spitting of sparks. Just the ship creaking and rumbling beneath her, and her own breathing. There's little left of the CIC deck: the command center is in ruins, what used to be the holographic galaxy map is a riot of flickering light, and the top of the Normandy's hull has been ripped off. The blue-grey planet they're orbiting - Alchera - looms large to starboard, providing feeble light to see by.

Shepard feels a cold, sick weight in her stomach. The Normandy is her home, dammit. She and this ship have been through a lot together. And now...

She drags herself back to the situation at hand; there'll be time to mourn later. Her eye catches the glimmer of an emergency kinetic barrier up towards the cockpit. Shepard heads that way, passing slowly between the double row of heat sink monitoring stations. She passes by the one unfired evac shuttle across from the airlock and through the kinetic barrier protecting the cockpit. As soon as she does, the rumbling of the ship and the sound of the alarm slam into her again.

Joker's pilot cap has turned into a light helmet, generating a small protective kinetic barrier over his bearded face - that's what it's for. The emergency measure will keep him from getting explosive debris in the face and also recycle his air for a while, if need be, but it won't help him if that emergency barrier fails and the cockpit loses all its atmosphere. That doesn't seem to be a concern for him; he's occupied with frantically working the helm controls, trying to stabilize the dying ship.

"Come on, Joker!" Shepard strides up to the pilot's chair. "We have to get out of here!"

"No!" Joker's voice is tinged with near-hysteria. "I won't abandon the Normandy! I can still save her!"

Shepard leans into Joker's field of vision. "The Normandy's lost," she says, voicing the truth she can barely stand admitting to herself. "Going down with the ship won't change that."

The manic light fades from Joker's eyes, replaced by a look of profound grief. "Yeah...okay," he says weakly. "Help me up." Joker's got Vrolik's Syndrome; he can't use his legs so well. Shepard moves toward him, ready to help him up and out. He hits a couple of buttons on the holographic control, extending the kinetic barrier protecting the cockpit past the entrance to the remaining evac shuttle. Suddenly his eyes snap to the cockpit's port window. "They're coming around for another attack!" He shouts.

Shepard's gaze follows his. She sees the attacking ship, end-on to them. It looks like it's made partly of metal and partly of some kind of rock cobbled together from asteroids, an asymmetrical, misshapen thing. It's hard to gauge size in space, but Shepard senses that it's big. Very big.

The end of it pointing at them is also glowing brighter and brighter, building up energy. Whatever kind of gun that is, Shepard can guess from the state of the Normandy that it's very big, too.

A blinding beam of yellow lances out from the ship, hitting the far end of the Normandy's CIC and gradually cutting its way toward her and Joker in the cockpit. Shepard moves quickly to grab Joker, who snaps at her to watch his arm as she lifts him out of the chair and half-carries, half-drags him to the escape pod. She hits the button to open its hatch with her free hand and helps him get inside. Once he's safe, she starts to climb in herself.

Something explodes and throws her away from the pod. Her feet leave the deck; she almost goes flying off into space, but manages to grab the nearest bulkhead just in time. "Commander!" Joker calls. "Shepard!"

The beam from the strange ship is cutting closer and closer. It's less than two meters from slicing Joker's evac shuttle apart. And it's between her and the shuttle hatch.

At least she can keep one of them alive. The shuttle's launch button, on the bulkhead outside the hatch, is just within reach. She strains forward and punches it, meeting Joker's terrified eyes just before the shuttle's hatch closes and it blasts off, just ahead of the terrible beam.

The beam shears through something that goes up in flames, causing Shepard to lose her grip and fly into another bulkhead. Pain flares in the back of her head, her neck and between her shoulder blades. Even with her helmet on, the impact does something to her head; she floats, dazed, out of the Normandy, barely registering the fact that the other ship has carved up what's left of it, that the sheared-off cockpit is flying by her.

It's pain that brings her back into focus, a cold-tinged agony where she hit the bulkhead on her way out. She becomes aware of a loud hissing noise, and suddenly she can't get enough air into her lungs. Shepard realizes that her impact with the bulkhead must have broken the seals on the breather hoses in her hardsuit. She reaches frantically behind her, trying to clamp one hand down over the end of the hose that's attached to her helmet, and the other over the end attached to her back. Her rational mind knows it's futile; she can't seal the leak that way, or any way. But she'll be damned if she gives up.

The planet Alchera is growing larger in her vision, and she can see bits of debris from the Normandy falling towards it. She's in a rapidly decaying orbit. The terrible pain and cold is spreading throughout her body now. She gasps for air, thrashing wildly, her hands going from the breather hose to her throat. Her vision fades to red, then to black.

Commander Shepard is dead before she starts burning up in Alchera's atmosphere.

[OOC: Thanks to