After The Fall

Scream

"Alright people, talk to me! Throw me some ideas!" Shepard paced, her well muscled arms crossed over her chest. She could feel her own heart thudding against her forearm and it was all she could do to keep herself under control. Faces kept flashing in her vision. Casualties of the Reaper war. Casualties of her mistakes. Her skin vibrated with angry energy like bees walked over her. One wrong move and they'd all sting, killing her outright.

The rest of her crew was there in the briefing room as well. Only Joker sat. Everyone else ignored the chairs, pacing, sometimes bumping into one another. Their faces were tense. Some still wore their pajamas. Liara was not there in person, but her tired face was visible on a small screen in the middle of the oval table. She was monitoring the transmission from the Illusive Man's base.

"So the Reapers are alive and well in the rest of the galaxy?" Vega asked for the third time. No one seemed able to wrap their heads around it. The home worlds they had thought they were protecting, now conquered by the Reapers.

Tali was crying quietly. Grunt had a hand on the guairan's delicate shoulder as she hugged herself, shaking. "They wouldn't have been able to hold Rannoch. Not with most of the geth here," Tali sniffed. "My home world is lost again."

Garrus stalked like a wild thing, mandibles flared. "Palaven was holding. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit."

"Are the geth alive out there?" Joker asked his voice quiet, almost lost amidst all the frenzied, directionless motion.

"I don't know," Shepard admitted. She reached out and Garrus crossed the room, taking her hand firmly in his own. "Liara, anything?"

"Not yet," the asari answered. Liara's voice was the firmest. The least hysterical. Shepard was grateful for her friend. Who would have guessed that the frightened asari scientists that Shepard had rescued from a cave years ago would be one of the strongest people she knew?

"I just...I just need to talk this out," Joker said, taking off his hat and running a hand through his hair. "The Reapers here died when you activated the Crucible. Maybe the Crucible weapons range just didn't reach outside the system. It would make sense. We're a long way away from anywhere else."

"Maybe," Kirrahe said, pacing around to stand near Joker. "This doesn't feel right. The Reapers must have known it was dangerous, otherwise why would they all come here to stop us from using it? Why not just let us fire it off and disarm a few nearby Reapers and our own geth troops?"

Shepard squeezed Garrus' hand and let go to begin pacing again. "Right. So the Reapers wanted to stop us from activating the Crucible. They sent the Citadel to earth. We followed with the victory fleet..."

"Why earth, do you think?" Kaidan raised his head, having previously been studying his shoes.

Shepard blinked. "Why earth? That's a good question. Why bring the Citadel to earth for the last battle? Why gather in the Sol system?"

"It's secluded," Liara suggested.

"Other systems are just as secluded."

"It has humans."

"Right," Shepard tapped her lips with her finger. "It has the greatest concentration of humans."

"Didn't Mordin say something about humans and Reapers?" Garrus titled his head, trying to remember. "We were on a mission together. Tuchanka, I think..."

"Yes," Shepard snapped her fingers as she recalled, "he said the Reapers were targeting humans. Because of our genetic diversity. We'd make the best replacement Reapers. Well, our DNA would."

"Turns out we're also the most likely to have that thing in our brains," Joker sat forward. "That thing that blocks indoctrination."

"So maybe they came here in hopes of knocking out a threat, and using the remaining humans to make more Reapers?" Kaidan sounded unsure.