Mass Effect: After the Smoke Falls

Aftermath

“Holy shit! Brainwaves are off the Charts!” was the first thing Shepard heard when he woke up. He screamed as pain coursed through him. Not the pain of a bullet or scratch mark, but the familiar pain of new L5x implants for biotics.

“Shepard, stay with us!” screamed a Turian medical examiner as he put an oxygen mask over his face. “Just take deep breaths.”

Shepard listened to the doctor and breathed in the fresh oxygen. As soon as he did he started to calm down. He spoke in a hoarse voice. “Where am I?”

“Huerta Memorial Hospital, Commander Shepard.” The Turian said. “You’ve been out cold for nearly four months or so.”

“Huerta Memorial? But I thought the Citadel was destroyed when the Crucible fired, did you rebuild it?” Shepard was amazed.

“No, sir. The Citadel was damaged, but not completely destroyed. We just needed to fix a couple of the wings and we were back in business. “

“What happened to the Normandy?” asked Shepard.

“I can answer that one.” Said a familiar voice. Shepard looked over, the effort causing his neck to crack.  Admiral Steven Hackett of the Alliance Navy walked into the room. He was around sixty-five years old, with thin grey hair and scanning blue eyes. He wore an Alliance Admiral uniform and a scar that stretched from his cheekbone to the upper lip. “Shepard, how did you-?”

“Survive that explosion? Your guess is as good as mine, sir.” Shepard said. “What happened to the Normandy?”

“She crashed on an unknown garden planet after the Crucible fired. The crew was able to repair most of the damage and they flew back to the Alliance Space.” Hackett explained.

“How much was damaged?” Shepard asked.

“Most of the Mass Relays were damaged by the Crucible’s beam. Some have been repaired, but others are still under repair. All AI as we know it was destroyed by the blast, but from what I hear the Geth installed into Quarian suits managed to survive and they are trying to rebuild. Joker repaired EDI to her former self before the strike on Earth by using encrypted Data files.” Hackett continued. “The damage to yourself was surprisingly minimal. Your L5x implants were destroyed so we replaced them with fresh ones and you only received minor burn scars, the most prominent would be the logo on your armor.”

Shepard looked down on his bare chest and saw, sure enough, the N7 logo of his Armax Arsenal Armor burned onto his chest, the skin red where the lettering was. He sighed and looked out his window to see multiple ships fly past. “Where is the crew of the Normandy at?”

Hackett explained everything. As the second human spectre, Kaidan Alenko spent most of his time hunting down the last of Cerberus forces. Garrus Vakarian was offered the Spectre status, but refused, spending most of his time on his homeworld, Palaven. James Vega passed his N7  training and now leads his own squad against anything that threatened the galaxy. Liara T’soni, the Shadow Broker, disappeared after the Normandy returned to alliance space. Javik, the last of the Prothean race, spent his time alone, his last known location being Garvug. And Tali’Zorah, she was last reported on Rannoch, spending most of her time stargazing.

“I know you and Ms. Zorah had a relationship during your time together.” Hackett said. “And I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you alive and well, but until you’re fully healed, we suggest that you refrain from inviting visitors in here.”

Shepard sighed again and looked over at Hackett. “How long will that take?”

“Well as of now, an hour tops.” Hackett said with a smile. “After that you are free to go where you wish.”

“Thank you, sir.” Shepard said.

“For you Shepard, you deserve anything. You did what most in the galaxy wouldn’t fathom of doing.”  Hackett said as he turned to walk out of the room.

As the door closed, Shepard caught a glimpse of a human staring at him. He had pale eyes, like those of a newborn child, and was completely bald. Several glowing Implant scars donned his face and he wore a Medical Doctors uniform. But that wasn’t the thing that scared him.

The thing that scared him was that the man had Shepard’s face.