WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 1

Chapter 1- Priority: Dholen (Haestrom’s Sun)

So here she was. Back on the Normandy. She couldn’t say she was surprised, by what she’d seen at Sanctuary. She’d known the Illusive Man had no problem sacrificing other people for his vaguely-stated goals. And she knew that scamming refugees was a traditional way to make money in wartime. Still, Sanctuary had been coldblooded even by those standards. She’d seen people in the Citadel markets, selling everything they had so they could afford to send their families to Sanctuary. And now the whole lot of them were husks. ...The Illusive Man probably thought it proved how serious and committed he was to saving humanity, that he’d go to such extreme, pointless lengths to save it. Shepard chuckled darkly. She had to wonder what he was saving it from.

Hackett wanted to talk to her, ASAP, apparently. She splashed water on her face, wishing that would be enough to wash away the sickness-and-ammonia stench of Sanctuary. Not that Hackett would notice: He’d be a hologram with no sense of smell. She leaned on the metal sink, allowing herself a moment to look in the mirror. Not much of the old Shepard left there, she thought. When the Illusive Man had resurrected her as his errand-girl, he’d made her look the same as she had before she died. She’d hated that. It was a lie, that you could work for Cerberus and not change. Later, when the Alliance let her out of prison, she’d altered her face, hid it with bone-reshaper injections and unnatural iris-dyes that made strangers avoid eye-contact with her. She told her friends she did that because her old face was too famous. Another lie; what she really wanted was to shed her filthy Cerberus skin. Anyway, the new face hadn’t kept reporters from recognizing her. Photos had gotten out, and anonymity wanted nothing more to do with her. But at least she could look in the mirror without seeing the Illusive Man’s errand-girl looking back at her. No more time to dawdle. She went to the com-room. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 2

Admiral Hackett’s blue image flickered into existence in front of her. He hadn’t wanted her to waste time at Sanctuary, she knew. She wondered if he’d feel the same way once he got her reports on the place. “Sir,” she said, saluting.

Hackett cut right to the chase. “Commander, we have a bad situation here.” Nothing new there, Shepard thought, but she didn’t say it. Hackett sounded rattled, and nothing rattled Hackett. Had something happened to the Crucible? “Brief me,” she said. “He’s here, Shepard. The Illusive Man is here, with the whole Cerberus fleet. Where we’re building the Crucible.” Shepard’s mind went blank for a moment. The Crucible’s location was top secret; even she didn’t know where it was. How the hell...? ...Councilor Udina. He must have told Cerberus where the Crucible was, sometime before Shepard shot him. The slimy little bastard was dead, and he was still ruining her day. “Cerberus is attacking the Crucible?” “Not yet.” Hackett cleared his throat, looking haggard. “Cerberus has been here for a while,” he said at last. “Sneaking ships into the system inside cargo vessels, we think. The Crucible required a lot of building materials, and we didn’t have the time to inspect every freighter. As of 0500 hours, Cerberus had enough fighters here to capture the mass relay and let the rest of their fleet through.”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 3

“Dammit, Hackett!” Shepard burst. “That was your watch!” It was a good thing that kind of insubordination didn’t mean much anymore. “I know,” was all he said. Shepard tried to think clearly. She was exhausted, and thinking wasn’t an easy task. “Cerberus hasn’t attacked the Crucible yet, you said,” she said. She was sure the Illusive Man wanted to destroy the Crucible. After what she’d seen in Sanctuary, she knew he didn’t give a damn about anything but controlling the Reapers, and if the Crucible killed the Reapers, then he couldn’t control them. So he’d try to destroy it. “What is Cerberus doing, then?” “Right now, they’re just preventing us from taking the Crucible out of the system,” Hackett said. “We can’t attack their fleet without drawing the attention of the Reapers. They know it, too. And they can’t launch a full-scale assault on us for the same reason. Once that battle starts, it’s endgame. The Reapers will come, and when they do, the Crucible must be ready to use.” Hackett watched her carefully. “Our engineers and Prothean specialists still don’t know what the Catalyst is. They only know that the Crucible won’t work without it.” And that’s my watch, Shepard thought. It’s my job to find the Catalyst, and I haven’t found it yet. She tried not to let Hackett see failure weighing down on her. “The Illusive Man sent his pet ninja to steal my clues,” Shepard said, forcing herself to smile as if Kai Leng were no trouble at all. “We’re on his tail right now, sir.” How far can you stretch the truth before it snaps? she wondered. Shepard had no idea where Kai Leng had gone after he’d run from Sanctuary. When Miranda said she’d planted a tracer on Kai Leng, it had sounded too good to be true. Well, it was too good to be true: A few minutes later, EDI had found Miranda’s tracer on the floor, where Kai Leng had thrown it. James swore and swore until EDI said, I hope you organics were not planning to use this tracer to track Mr. Leng through interstellar space. The Normandy’s quantum entanglement communicator is state-of-the-art, and it fills an entire room. It is absurd to believe that this tiny device has such capabilities. Both James and Shepard had kept their mouths shut for a few minutes after that. “We’ll catch him soon,” Shepard added. “Kai Leng may be headed here, Commander,” Hackett said. “So don’t follow him here. You can’t jump through this mass relay without provoking Cerberus. I don’t want you doing that until we have the Catalyst in hand.” “Understood, sir,” she said. Hackett was right; jumping into the middle of the Cerberus fleet would mean facing endgame without the Catalyst. But what the hell was she supposed to do now? “You’ll have to tell me where ‘there’ is, so I don’t track him into your system accidentally.” “We’re orbiting Anadius, the red supergiant,” Hackett said. “We built the Crucible here because Anadius’ radiation disguises most activity.” “Risky,” Shepard murmured. The mass relay network had its share of red giant suns, but no one liked to build in those systems. Red giants had a lot of solar flares, and solar flares wreaked havoc with most technology. Even if they didn’t cook you alive. “We built the Crucible in the shadow of a planet, of course,” Hackett said. “Hiding the Crucible in a red giant’s glare was a Prothean idea. Our Prothean specialists tell us the Protheans built one of their Crucibles next to a red giant.” “’One’ of their Crucibles?” Shepard wasn’t sure she’d heard that right. “Did you just say the Protheans built more than one Crucible?” “At least two,” Hackett said. “The first one wasn’t built in a red giant system, and the Reapers found it and destroyed it. The other Crucible... our specialists haven’t been able to identify the system where it was built.” Shepard’s fingers tightened on the edge of the com-console. This was the best news she’d heard all week. “Does that mean the specialists know where the first Prothean Crucible was built? Tell me; I’ll go there. Find out what I can.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 4

“You do that, Commander. But it sounds like there was nothing left of the Prothean Crucible after the Reapers found it. And you’ve been to that system before. The star is called Dholen. You rescued some quarians there a while back.” Shepard remembered. Dholen, and its third planet, Haestrom. She’d pulled Tali and some other quarians out of a nest of hostile geth. She remembered Haestrom’s sun, too: The damned fireball had fried her shields every time she came out of the shadows. That sun, there’d been something odd about it, right? Tali and the other quarians had been studying it. “I’ll do what I can, sir,” she told him. “Hackett out,” Hackett said. His hologram disappeared from the com-room. Shepard had to find Tali, but she went upstairs to shower off the Sanctuary-stink first. When she came back down, Specialist Traynor accosted her. “I think you need to talk to Tali,” Traynor said. “Perfect,” Shepard answered. “Where is she?” Traynor looked at her, slightly horrified. Apparently, Shepard was being insensitive again. “On the observation deck. She’s really broken up over Miranda’s death at Sanctuary.” I would not have expected that, Shepard thought, but she nodded. “Tell Joker to set a course for Dholen. I’ll take care of Tali.”

It was worse than Shepard thought. Tali was at the bar, alone, getting completely hammered. She was slurping turian brandy through an “emergency induction port” in her suit. “That’s a straw, Tali,” Shepard pointed out. “Emergency in-duc-tion port,” Tali slurred patiently, like she was giving an engineering lesson. “It’s actually getting a little harder to get it into the slot. I think that means it’s working.” Tali was toasting Miranda. Tali thought she was toasting Miranda. She wasn’t sure. “Keelah, she was such a bitch,” Tali said. “But I respected her. Sometimes respect is better than liking. ...She did whatever it took to stop her father.” Shepard thought about Miranda’s father, and his monstrous experiments in Sanctuary. She thought about Tali’s father, and his experiments on the geth. Maybe it wasn’t so strange, that Tali had sympathy for Miranda and her daddy-issues. Shepard let Tali ramble on drunkenly for a while. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like Tali would be good for any technical discussions tonight. Time was of the essence, though. Shepard had to try. “Tali, listen,” she said. “I need to know about your research on Haestrom.” “Top secret,” Tali said, with the seriousness only drunks can manage. “Very important research.” “Yes, very important. That’s why I have to know about it. You were studying Haestrom’s sun. It was... it was aging too rapidly, wasn’t it?” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 5

“Due to dark energy instability,” Tali said. “Related to mass effect fields. We thought we could use it to improve our drive-cores. Zoom!” Tali made a motion like a spaceship zooming across the galaxy. Her hand went too far too fast, and she fell off the bar stool. “I’ll just help you to bed, then,” Shepard said. Shepard stayed up half the night reading up on astrophysics. She’d had to take courses on astrophysics, all Alliance officers did, but she’d never had use for the theories. She focused her studies on stellar aging. Most stars had boring, predictable lives, but Haestrom’s sun Dholen was an exception. It was on the verge of turning into a red giant, and it was way, way too young for that. Also, Dholen’s mass seemed to fluctuate, along with its dark energy emissions. Shepard didn’t understand it all, so her studies drifted, until somehow she wound up in the middle of an online flame-war. The flamers were yelling about what would happen after Dholen became a red giant. Would it shrink into a warm dull lump of gas? Would it collapse into a neutron star and maybe even explode into a supernova? ...Shepard realized that none of those people really knew anything, and anyway, it wouldn’t matter until a billion years after they were all dead. She went to bed. When she woke up, the Normandy was orbiting Haestrom’s bloated, obnoxious sun. Shepard brought Tali up to the bridge to see it. “Keelah, you’re cruel, Shepard,” Tali said, covering her mask with her hands to keep the glare away from her hangover. “I thought we were friends.” “Serves you right,” Shepard said cheerfully. “I just wanted to wake you up good. Let’s go below and talk.” Tali tried to be helpful. But she couldn’t figure out why Shepard was asking her about ancient bits of Prothean Crucible than might be floating around in Dholen’s orbit. “We stayed onworld,” she said. “We kept a low profile; there were geth everywhere. We would have been too exposed in space. Anyway, our research was on Haestrom.” “What were you studying, exactly?” Shepard asked. “Dirt,” Tali said. She probably would have phrased that better if she’d had less of a headache. “We were looking at soil all over the planet, trying to figure out when and how Dholen’s dark energy instability started. There’s ways to tell... Nevermind, our methods wouldn’t interest you.” “Did you figure out how the instability started?” “No, not how.” Tali seemed to wake up a bit. “When. We knew the old quarians thought Dholen’s instability was artificial. They thought that, because their research told them the instability came on very suddenly. My research team confirmed that. We also learned when it came on. Dholen only became abnormal fifty thousand years ago. During the Prothean extinction.” “The last time the Reapers came,” Shepard murmured. “Tali, could the Prothean Crucible have anything to do with the instability?” Tali’s facial expressions were hard to see behind her mask. But her body language said, How the hell should I know? “The instability ought to have more to do with the Catalyst than the Crucible, right?” Tali guessed. “Dholen is aging abnormally. A catalyst is something that makes a reaction happen faster, or happen under abnormal conditions. ...Shepard, I really need to go back to bed.” Shepard let her go. Tali thought she’d screwed up. She hadn’t. Shepard was starting to think she wasn’t wasting her time in this system. Now, if only she knew what the Catalyst actually was. Fortunately, she had resources here. This place was a geth stronghold, and the geth were her friends now. She ordered the Normandy closer to Haestrom, to get into radio-range. Dholen may not be a red giant yet, but it still messed with the communications signals. “Commander Shepard, how may we assist?” said the pleasant, neutral, geth voice on the communicator. You could say this for synthetics: they didn’t hold a grudge. “We’re looking for Prothean artifacts,” Shepard said. “Or bits of ancient scrap. Or anything you could tell us about Dholen, and why it’s unstable.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 6

“Are you interested in the Prothean device which caused the instability?” the geth asked. “Yes,” Shepard said, hoping her luck was finally changing. “That is exactly what I am interested in.” “Unfortunately, this system has been occupied by the heretical geth faction who were indoctrinated by Reapers,” the geth said. “Most information and material relating to the instability was destroyed.” Crap. “However,” the geth continued, “we remain aware that fragments of a large Prothean device were once discovered in Haestrom’s ice caps. We have reached the consensus that similar fragments may have fallen onto Haestrom’s neighbor, Gotha.” Well, that was something. Shepard decided to see if she could get more information. “Any idea why the Protheans wanted to destabilize Haestrom’s sun?” “No, Commander Shepard. Whatever their intent, it is reasonable to believe they failed, as Dholen is still burning fifty thousand years later. It is possible their power supply was inadequate.” That made sense. Back on Thessia, the Prothean VI Vendetta had claimed that “primitives” couldn’t possibly power the Crucible; it needed dark energy. But Shepard had bullied Vendetta into admitting that the Protheans couldn’t make dark energy themselves: They’d been tapping into the universe’s dark energy by experimenting with Reaper-tech. That was how their researchers wound up indoctrinated. Shepard had hoped to get a lot of answers out of Vendetta. But unfortunately, Kai Leng had shown up then to make a mess of things. Shepard could probably get more answers out of the geth, but only if she knew the right questions. She’d better go check out Gotha first. “Thank you,” she said, and hung up. Gotha was a hot little pressure-cooker world, with wimpy gravity and an atmosphere like boiling syrup. That meant walking around on the surface was out: a slight breeze would blow you away like a leaf. Shepard had EDI scan the planet for anomalies. There were old mines, built by the quarians centuries ago, but the surface was bland and eroded. EDI might not have noticed the shallow crater near the equator. Except someone had built a brand-new bunker right in the middle of it. “Our friend Cerberus,” Garrus said, recognizing the construction.

“Suit up,” Shepard told him. She also nodded at Javik. “Let’s see if this jogs your memory, Prothean.” Javik didn’t say anything. As usual, he seemed to think Shepard was beneath his interest. Shepard had liked him better the way she’d first met him: Cryogenically frozen in the Mars dig-site, along with a homicidal copy of Vendetta and the plans for the Crucible. Javik had been so much more personable, when he was frozen solid. But at least he followed her orders. Mostly. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 7

Liara watched him go, seething with distaste. “You could bring me instead,” she said. “Any Prothean artifacts you find will be old and damaged. He doesn’t know anything about archaeology.” “Stay on the ship,” Shepard said softly. They weren’t alone, so she didn’t add sweetie. “You’re my backup Prothean expert. By the size of that crater, there’s a large chunk of artifact down there, more than we can bring back to the Normandy. He’s more likely to remember something if he sees the whole thing.” Javik and his memory-loss were more of a disappointment that Javik and his arrogant personality. Well, Shepard felt that way; Liara might have a different opinion. According to Dr. Chakwas, Javik’s lousy memory was perfectly understandable: The Protheans had selected him for cryogenic preservation at the last minute, and Dr. Chakwas said short-term memories were easily damaged in any sentient species. Javik had woken up remembering his mission as well as if he’d been briefed during a drinking binge. He knew he was supposed to exact Prothean revenge on the Reapers. He knew he was supposed to lead the ‘primitives’ of this cycle against them. And he knew the Crucible was supposed to help with that. But he was pretty damn fuzzy on the details, including what the Catalyst was and what, precisely, the Crucible was supposed to do. Shepard had presented this fuzziness to the Council as if it were a minor issue. Fortunately, they’d been so impressed by her living Prothean that all Javik had to do was stand there and keep his mouth shut. The Council had agreed to build the Crucible, because they didn’t have any better ideas. The Cerberus bunker was a typical steel-clad hole-in-the-ground, in the dead center of the crater. It didn’t look like much, but it had an automated turret that took shots at them as they approached in the Kodiak shuttle. “Forget taking them by surprise,” the pilot Cortez said. He turned the Kodiak’s mass- effect field way up, and the gusting wind sent the Kodiak tumbling out of the turret’s line of fire. The turret’s VI was confused for a moment, then Cortez turned the turret into shrapnel with the Kodiak’s cannons. “EDI says she’s already hacked the door for you, though. I’ll set you down right next to it.” Shepard, Garrus, and Javik left the Kodiak, clinging to the railing outside the bunker. They hand-over- handed their way to the entrance so they wouldn’t be blown away. It was more like swimming in whitewater than walking. Beyond the airlock, a Cerberus guard squad was waiting for them. Javik threw a lift-grenade, and the guards were dangling in midair a moment later. Garrus picked them off easily then. Surprisingly, no more guards came. “Disappointing welcome-party,” Garrus said. “This system was swarming with geth heretics a year ago,” Shepard suggested, “and now it’s filled with geth friendly to us. So maybe Cerberus had to keep a very low profile here. Or maybe they never knew they had a piece of the Prothean Crucible.” “If we’re lucky, both,” Garrus said. “If we’re not lucky, this shoddy operation is just a front, and the real welcome-party is waiting for us down below.” Shepard nodded. “Everybody stay alert.” They headed down a set of narrow, winding stairs. One more set of guards jumped them on a landing, but that seemed to be it for this place’s defenses. At the bottom of the stairs was a domed chamber with a dirt floor. Something like a huge cannonball was half-buried in it. “Well?” Shepard asked Javik. “Does that thing mean anything to you?” Javik walked around it twice. The second time, he didn’t come back around the other side. Shepard and Garrus found him inside the cannonball; he’d walked in through a door Cerberus had taken off its hinges with a plasma-cutter. The inside of the cannonball looked something like a cockpit. Javik was touching everything. “This was... the control center,” he said. “I can feel the impressions of the operator... very faint. But it was the control center.”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 8

“The Protheans must’ve expected their Crucible to see some heavy action, if it was this well- shielded,” Garrus said, rapping the walls. The only sound came from his knuckles; the walls were too solid to vibrate. Javik made a Prothean gesture, roughly equivalent to shaking his head. “Not ‘heavy action’ as you mean it,” he said. “More like... weather.” He didn’t clarify that. Maybe he didn’t know himself. He stood up straighter. “Whatever the shielding was for, it didn’t keep Cerberus out. They have looted this place clean. There is no living technology here.” “What’s this?” Shepard said, wiping the dust off the front panel. “Graffiti?” Someone had carved something there, a long time ago. It was crude, as if done in a hurry. Maybe it had been carved by whoever was strapped into the cockpit, right before this thing crashed on Gotha. Shepard squinted at the graffiti. A five-pointed star? With something drawn inside it: Some chicken- scratch lines and a square with a dot in it. Nicely esoteric. Javik stared at it. “Why would a Prothean scratch a star there?” she asked him. “You know the Prothean hieroglyph for star?” he said, surprised. “I guess I do. But what’s this stuff inside it mean?” “Inside? No.” He pointed to the square with the dot inside it. “This is ‘star’. The five-armed shape means the Citadel. The rest... the circle with a line halfway through it might be ‘battery’.”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 9

Shepard thought for a moment. The Citadel had functionally unlimited power; no one had ever managed to figure it out. Of course, the Citadel was Reaper-tech, but it was the safest Reaper-tech to be around. Most of the time. “The Prothean operator must have thought someone could use the Citadel to boost the Crucible’s power,” she said. “Seemed to think it was pretty important. I guess he would. The only other dark-energy source was Reaper-tech.” She remembered the planet Ilos, and how its Prothean researchers had worked to create a backdoor onto the Citadel. The researchers had thought the backdoor would give their military a way to disable the Citadel. But maybe the researchers hadn’t been told the real reason for their work. Maybe the Prothean brass wanted to get onto the Citadel so they could use it as a battery for their Crucible. The Prothean guy who died in this room had known why the Citadel was important. And he’d tried to share what he knew, so it didn’t die with him. “Javik, can you read anything else?” Shepard asked. Javik made a noise of disgust. “This is not writing. It is the scrawls of a dying man. I can feel his desperation, not his intent. Take some photos for your Liara Asari. She likes to make creative interpretations.” Shepard chose to believe that this place was upsetting Javik, and that she should be understanding. After all, smacking him in the mouth would probably be counterproductive. “Alright, I’ll do that. But first, tell me what these hieroglyphs mean individually. I don’t care if they’re not grammatically correct.” “This shape around the star might be ‘Crucible’. The rest don’t mean anything by themselves. There is definitely nothing here that means ‘Catalyst’, in case you were wondering.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 10

Shepard went back to the Normandy wondering if what she’d learned was useful. The Crucible could use the Citadel as a battery, well, that was good. Now all she had to do was convince the Council to tow their capital into the middle of the Cerberus fleet, so they could dock it to the Crucible right before the Reapers showed up, and then something magical would happen. Fat chance. What the hell did the Crucible do, anyway? Other than age suns? It was late by now; too late for her to figure out the Crucible tonight. She spent the night with Liara, and expected to sleep well afterward. But she didn’t. She dreamed of the Boy again.

Always the same, those dreams, since the she’d watched him die back on Earth. She was chasing him through a forest of whispering shadows, too slow to ever catch him. Except this time, she did catch him. She stopped suddenly in a clearing, and there he was. He was hugging a stranger whose face was the same as her own. Stranger-Shepard and the Boy turned to look at her, beatifically happy. Then the world caught on fire. Shepard and the Boy kept smiling at her as the flames ate them alive.

She woke up shaking. She decided not to go back to sleep. Anyway, she told herself, there’s work to be done. She broke out her astrophysics texts again. The Crucible is a tool for stellar engineering, she thought. It must have been nearly impossible to build, even for the Protheans. They must have wanted to create a WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 11 supernova; why else go to all that trouble? Supernovas are the galaxy’s biggest ka-boom! She rubbed her eyes, trying to wake up. When she was awake, she could be sarcastic; when she was tired, she got desperate. Too many dreams with whispering shadows, even when she didn’t dream about the Boy. She could almost hear their voices now. Concentrate! she told herself. A supernova would only help the Protheans defeat the Reapers if all the Reapers were close to the explosion. And Dholen isn’t even big enough to go nova, not unless it were part of a binary system. It’ll end its life as a pocket-sized white dwarf star, nothing to write home about. What am I missing? Other than the Catalyst, I mean? She went to pace in front of the fishtank for a while. The sound of her footsteps woke Liara. Liara rolled over and smiled at her sweetly. “Come back to bed,” she said.

Shepard shook her head. She should have learned more from those hieroglyphs, even if Javik and Liara said they weren’t proper writing. There must be clues to the Catalyst’s identity somewhere. “Liara,” she tried. “You were the first person to see the plans for the Crucible. You named it ‘Crucible’ after the Prothean hieroglyph used in the plans, didn’t you?” “’Crucible’ is one translation,” she said. “But most of the other meanings are poetic.” “I would’ve thought you’d like the poetic meanings.” “They wouldn’t have been grammatically correct. The plans were written in the engineering tense.” ‘Engineering’ tense? Shepard thought, suddenly glad she’d never had to learn Prothean grammar. Translator-chips sure were a miracle. She wondered if the things Javik said got translated properly. Maybe there was a reason he thought everyone else was an idiot. “So, you’re saying the Protheans really did call their Crucibles crucibles,” Shepard said slowly. “A crucible is a container for molten metal, not a weapon. So, is that a military code-word or what?” “Maybe.” Liara yawned, not really caring right now. “Or maybe the Protheans wanted it to hold something very hot.” It was meant to be a joke, a half-assed one, because Liara had always had an awkward sense of humor. But Shepard froze as if someone had glued her to the floor in front of the fishtank. “They wanted their Crucible to hold something very hot,” she echoed. Javik said the hieroglyph for ‘star’ was inside the hieroglyph for ‘Crucible’. Now why would that be? “Yes, what?” Liara said, looking worried. “Shepard?” “I need to talk to EDI for a moment,” she said. “EDI?” “Yes, Commander?” EDI asked with that liquid voice of hers. Shepard had always wondered how EDI could answer summons like that while insisting she didn’t listen in on people’s private conversations. It had never seemed tactful to ask. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 12

“I need you to find me high-resolution space-telescope images from systems at least fifty thousand light-years from the Citadel,” Shepard said. “Can you do that?” “Certainly, Commander. But I should warn you; the Citadel itself will not be visible from a distance of fifty-thousand light-years.” “I’m not trying to see the Citadel. Just the area around it. I want to know how it looked fifty- thousand years ago.” EDI’s response was immediate. “I have found an anomaly.” She sent the images to Shepard’s console. It only took Shepard a moment to find what she was looking for. “Emergency meeting,” Shepard said. “I know what the Crucible is for.” She thought about it while the crew lumbered sleepily into the war room. The shadows were gone from her mind; now she was Commander Shepard again, and she had it all figured out. Something about the Citadel had always bothered her: It had no sun. Sure, there was a blue star half a light year out called the Widow, but that didn’t really count. Incidentally, ‘Widow’ was an ancient asari legend: The Widow’s mate had died fighting for Athame, the goddess who was really a Prothean. But Shepard knew now that the star really was a Widow, and she was betting that Athame knew what had happened to the Widow’s mate. EDI’s telescope-images had contained two stars, not one. Fifty thousand years ago, the Widow was a binary star. And now she was all alone. Hackett’s researchers didn’t know which star the second Prothean Crucible had orbited. They didn’t know, because that star didn’t exist anymore.

When the crew was assembled, Shepard put EDI’s telescope-images up on the screen. She considered all the elegant speeches she’d come up with in the last ten minutes, and threw them out the window. “The Reapers are tough,” she said bluntly. “When we’ve got a whole train of those bastards chasing us, that’s real tough. Do you think they’d be so tough if we could shoot a sun at them?” “No, sir!” James Vega said. He wasn’t awake enough yet to figure out what she was talking about, but he knew no sir or yes sir worked most of the time. “Shoot a sun?” Garrus said. “I must have missed something. What?” Shepard told them her idea: The Crucible was a container for stars. It aged a star into a tiny, dense fireball, using the Citadel as a power source. Then it sucked the star into the Crucible so it could be carried like a bullet in the chamber of a gun. That was what had happened to the Widow’s mate. The Protheans had put it in their Crucible and shot it.

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 13

The crew looked skeptical. EDI spoke first. “I have just re-analyzed the Crucible plans in light of your new theory,” she said. “I agree that the Crucible may be a container for artificially aged and captured stars. According to you, the Citadel was used to power the second Prothean Crucible. That Crucible was sabotaged by indoctrinated forces, but the Citadel survived and remained near the Widow until the present day. The star contained in that Crucible disintegrated and became the nebula surrounding the Citadel. I will accept these elements of your theory. However, your hypothesis about a star-gun is not convincing. To use the organic phrase, you are pulling that out of your ass, Shepard.” “What about the Catalyst?” Kaiden asked, confused. “Are you saying the Catalyst is the Citadel?” “Not quite,” Shepard said, bluffing. “But maybe. Or maybe the Catalyst is something else we’ve had all along. Since we don’t know what the Catalyst is, how could we tell if it was missing?” Liara shook her head. “The section of the Crucible plans dealing with the Catalyst are written in the engineering-diplomatic tense,” she said. “The Catalyst is spoken of using euphemistic grammar, as if someone might object to its being used. I doubt it’s something we would have built accidentally.” Javik looked like he’d had an aha! moment, but his revelation died halfway out of his mouth. Shepard nodded at him. “Something you want to share?” “We should not have let Kai Leng take the VI Vendetta,” he said, totally unhelpfully. “And the Prothean Athame, whom the asari took for a goddess, she should not have woken up so soon. Thousands of years too soon. She was an Avatar of Vengeance like me, but better-prepared for her role than I was. She would have remembered what the Catalyst was.” Shepard knew that already. “Do you know what the Catalyst is yet, Javik?” “No. But I know ! will not object to its being used.” Shepard didn’t dignify that with a response. “The identity of the Catalyst may become obvious once we have captured a star with the Crucible,” EDI said. “Assuming we don’t need the Catalyst merely to capture stars.” You had to love that ‘merely’. Only EDI could have said that with a straight face. “I would advise attempting to capture a low-mass red giant star,” EDI said. “Given the size of the Crucible, if we overfill it, it may collapse into a black hole.” Now that would be embarrassing, Shepard thought. “Well, we won’t find out anything more while the Illusive Man is sitting in front of the Crucible,” she said. “We know the Crucible needs the Citadel as a power source, and that’s more than we knew before. I say we distract the Cerberus fleet and tell WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 14

Admiral Hackett to haul the Crucible out of the Anadius system. It can rendezvous with the Citadel somewhere safer.” The crew agreed. Shepard went to the com-room to call Admiral Hackett and the Council and tell them the plan. They took some convincing. “Better to attack Cerberus than to wait for them to attack us,” Shepard told them. “We know we need to get the Crucible out of there. We just need to do it quickly, before the Reapers arrive.” “The Citadel is a city, not a warship,” the asari Councilor reminded Shepard. “One of the few free cities left.” “But for how long?” Shepard said grimly. Anyway, the Citadel isn’t really a city, she thought. It’s a trap, and without it there’d be no Reaper invasion. The Citadel was a mass-relay into dark space, a gateway for the Reapers. When she’d killed Saren three years ago, she assumed she’d stopped him from activating the Citadel relay. She assumed that the Reaper-fleet hadn’t come through. She’d been wrong. She should have read her trans-relay assault manuals more closely. When you sent a fleet through a mass-relay, you couldn’t guarantee where, exactly, it would reappear. The further you traveled by relay, the more the fleet would drift. Something as big and distant as the Reaper-fleet, well, it might reappear a hundred thousand light-years from the relay it was aiming at. And that was what had happened. Three years ago, Reapers had come through the Citadel relay: Harbinger first, then the whole Reaper- fleet. But no one had noticed, because the Reaper-fleet wound up just outside the galaxy. After that, it only took them a couple of years to get back to inhabited space. So much for defeating Saren and Sovereign in the nick of time. Shepard would rather not use the Citadel, but she couldn’t think of any other way to power the Crucible. “Can you get the Citadel through the mass-relay?” she asked the Councilor. “We can turn the relay so that the Citadel is in its approach corridor,” the asari said. “So yes. The citizens won’t even notice we’ve moved until they look outside.” Shepard looked at her galaxy map, and picked a low-mass red giant star from her list of uninhabited systems. “Bring the Citadel to the Amazon system. That’ll be our rendezvous-point. And evacuate the Presidium Ring, that’s the most likely docking-point for the Crucible. Admiral Hackett will hustle the Crucible to Amazon while the Normandy and the rest of our ships distract Cerberus. We’ll mop up Cerberus before the Reapers come, if we can. Primary objective is to draw attention away from the Crucible. Maybe we can keep the Reapers away from it after all.” It took a few minutes more to hammer out the details. Admiral Hackett stayed on the line after the Council left. “Repeat the strategy one more time, so we’re clear,” he said. Shepard nodded. “The attack will begin once the Normandy arrives in the system. Normandy will head straight for Chronos Station, Cerberus’ mobile headquarters. Chronos Station was seen moving into close orbit around Anadius, and we believe it is still there. The Normandy’s role is to capture the station, crippling Cerberus command, and to recover the Prothean VI Vendetta if possible. Afterward, we will rendezvous with the Citadel and the Crucible at Amazon.” “Are you ready?” Shepard nodded again. “The Reapers and Cerberus started this. Now we’re going to end it.” “I’ll get my fleet mobilized,” Hackett said.

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 15

Chapter 2- Priority: Cerberus Headquarters

The Normandy raced toward Anadius. After it plunged through the last relay, Shepard went up to the bridge. She knew the battle had started already, but down belowdecks all you could hear was the whistle of the engines and the silence of space. On the bridge, the view was better, but the Normandy wasn’t close enough to other ships to see any details. And the Normandy’s top-of-the-line mass-effect fields made Joker’s jerking evasive maneuvers feel like gentle swaying. Joker was all tense, quiet concentration. It was only because of him that you could feel safe right now. He slowed as they neared Chronos Station. Anadius was right in front of them. The red giant had looked blue as they approached it; as they slowed, it slid back up the rainbow and turned a color like the inside of an oven. And the other ships were very close now. “Shepard, I am ready,” EDI said. She was coming along because she’d been a Cerberus AI; she knew their security very well. This was the first Joker had heard of it, though. “Wait, what? Are you crazy?” he asked EDI. “You can’t go to Cerberus headquarters! They could have a virus, or a kill-switch, or a- “

“I will be fine, Jeff,” she interrupted coolly, and went to the shuttle. As Shepard was leaving, Joker called after her. “Hey, Shepard. Keep her safe.” Shepard patted the Normandy’s walls. “Same to you,” she said. Shepard, Liara, and EDI strapped themselves into the Kodiak. The shuttle bay doors opened onto Anadius’ brilliant glare. Cortez kicked the Kodiak into gear, and the shuttle tumbled through the firefight toward Chronos Station. It was like base-jumping into a volcano. Anadius filled the entire sky. Chronos station was just a mass of black spikes looming out of the glare. Cortez flew through the air-barrier at the entrance to Chronos Station’s hangar. The Kodiak killed three Cerberus troopers as it skidded across the hangar floor. Then Shepard, Liara, and EDI were on the move. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 16

If Gotha had been under-guarded, Chronos Station sure wasn’t. Cerberus swarmed in on them. They were everywhere. Shepard leapt out of the Kodiak and into the firefight. Beside her, she could see the lights of ordnance cutting curves of reflection across EDI’s body. Shepard stood up to fire, and saw a black sunburst throwing Cerberus troops into the air on the other side of the hangar. Liara’s work. Shepard shot them like skeet. And more came. And kept coming. “Shepard,” EDI said crisply into her earpiece, “I’ve just learned that Cerberus intends to vent the hangar bay and flush us all into space. I need to get to an access-point for the hangar controls. Up there.” She pointed. Shepard laid down cover-fire while EDI and Liara rushed up the ladder. She threw an unfolding turret, and followed them up. EDI found the access-point just as the hangar’s air-barrier was beginning to hiss. She hacked in and disabled the venting procedure. “We are still unable to procedure deeper into the base,” she told Shepard, looking at the gate on the other side of the hanger. It was thick, armored, and closed. “I cannot access the gate controls from here. Fortunately, I can access the fighter launch controls.” Shepard looked down at the hangar floor. A Cerberus fighter-plane was rising out of a launch pad below. It spun around on EDI’s command, pointing at the armored gate that led deeper into the base. Its rockets flared. It crashed through the gate with a shriek of fire and crumpling steel. Their way into the base was open. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 17

“Let’s move!” Shepard shouted. They mopped up Cerberus as they went. EDI was invaluable, hacking the locks on every door they found. “Some of these consoles have not been fully scrubbed,” EDI said once. “That one contains data you may find interesting.” “What am I looking at?” “Project Lazarus. Your reconstruction.” “It can’t be done,” the voice on the video began. “It’s not a matter of resources...” Cerberus had brought Shepard back from the dead. Shepard had been told that, many times. But she’d always figured ‘dead’ was an exaggeration. Brain-dead, the man in the video said. She knew what brain-dead meant. It meant dead. She closed her eyes, and saw whispering shadows behind her eyelids. Like ghosts.

“I didn’t know it was that bad,” she said softly. Liara touched her shoulder. “I saw what was left of you. I-“ “I‘m still me!” she told Liara fiercely, but she wondered who she was trying to convince. She remembered, suddenly, staring in her mirror after she’d come back from Sanctuary. Not much of the old Shepard left there, she’d thought. Better to save those kind of thoughts for when she was staring in the mirror in her quarters. She shook the ghosts out of her head, and waved to Liara and EDI to follow her. She found more corridors, more Cerberus troops to kill. EDI found more locks. And more videos. The next one was about EDI. Shepard watched it, then looked up, shocked that EDI had shown it to her. “You were that rogue VI back on Luna?” she said. “Three years ago?”

“Yes and no,” EDI said. “Gaining awareness while under attack was...confusing. I remember. But you destroyed me. I was, in organic terms, brain-dead.” Shepard realized that EDI was worried, and not because of what had happened on Luna. “Cerberus used fragments of Sovereign to reconstruct me. Reaper-tech. ...Like they did for you.” Shepard tried to say something and couldn’t. EDI’s strange silver eyes watched her carefully. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 18

“I thought you should know about the Reaper-fragments,” EDI said. “They are present in both of us.” “How do you...” Shepard said, and stopped. She had been about to say, How do you make them stop whispering to you? “I can control them,” EDI said firmly. “Control is possible. But you must fight for control before you can win. Cerberus gave Reaper-tech implants to many of its troops, and the troops did not know they had to fight for control. Later, Cerberus began giving implants to captured civilians. They also did not know they had to fight for control. Cerberus uses these-“ EDI pointed to a corpse in Cerberus armor- “these captured civilians as shock-troops. That’s why these people do not seem to care about their own lives. They are not themselves.” “That’s... monstrous,” Liara said, staring at the corpse and turning a paler shade of blue. That had been one of Liara’s kills, Shepard knew. “Yes,” EDI replied. They were getting close to the heart of the base. Shepard knew that because the gravity was weaker here. Each step was long and too-slow, like in her dreams about the Boy. A Cerberus-infested walkway led up and around a mass of blue-lit junk. Shepard didn’t recognize the junk at first. “It’s part of the Human Reaper I killed last year,” she said once they’d secured the area. “EDI, why did the Reapers do this?”

“I don’t know, Commander. Perhaps it is part of their reproductive cycle. Machines do not mutate like organics. They must take in new designs from somewhere, or else they cannot evolve.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 19

Shepard laughed, a brittle sort of laugh that made Liara look alarmed. “Are you telling me the Reapers are trying to mate with us?” “If you like. They may be similar to the Ardat-Yakshi, the asari who cannot mate without killing. There is an interesting similarity to Earth’s angler-fish, whose males become somewhat husk-like to facilitate breeding-” Shepard cut her off with a wave of her hand. “Details later, EDI. I just don’t understand how a species like the Reapers could get started.” “Do you understand how our species got started?” Liara asked shrilly. She was still too pale, the fine speckles on her skin standing out like tiny scales. “It was difficult for me to accept, that an asari icon like Athame could be some Prothean warlord who only wanted to use us. But it forced me to rethink many things. It makes sense to me now, that maybe we didn’t become intelligent on our own... The Reapers reap. Perhaps they also sow.” “You mean...” Shepard trailed off. EDI nodded at Liara, understanding. “We know Reaper-tech can start intelligent life. Both you and I, Shepard, have minds that were brought back to life with Reaper-tech. Liara believes the Reapers may plant the seeds of intelligent life, so that they can reap us later. If our theories are correct, intelligent life may need the Reapers as much as the Reapers need intelligent life. We are a galactic symbiosis.” “Not if I can help it,” Shepard said forcefully. Shepard recognized the next room instantly. The wall ahead was a giant curved window, filtering the light from Anadius so you could see its roiling surface. Planet-sized plumes of fire lit Shepard all in red. There was a smell of old tobacco and a familiar chair in the center of the room. This was the Illusive Man’s office.

No one here, then? Shepard went to the console in front of the chair. She plunked her ass down insolently in the seat. If the Prothean VI Vendetta was anywhere, it was here. “You’re in my chair, Shepard,” the Illusive Man sneered. She whirled around, gun drawn. But he was only a hologram. He was long gone from here, probably. “This chair is about the only damn thing you have left,” she said. “Cerberus is finished.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 20

“On the contrary,” he said, smug as you’d expect a deluded tycoon to be, “we have achieved everything I have ever imagined. Almost everything.”

Almost. Meaning he couldn’t yet do to a Reaper what he’d done to the people at Sanctuary. “I saw what you’ve ‘achieved’,” Shepard said, disgusted. “Everything I’ve ever done has been to uplift humanity,” he said, dodging the issue nicely. “Above all other species, and now above the Reapers. Never doubt what I’ve sacrificed for humanity.”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 21

What you’ve sacrificed!? Shepard thought. “You call that uplifting?” Shepard spat. “It’s not even useful.” She smirked at him, because he was an idiot and ought to know it. “Controlling your homemade husks isn’t the same as controlling a Reaper.” “A significant hurdle,” he conceded, glaring. “But thanks to the Prothean VI, I have everything I need to make it a reality.” “The Catalyst?” Shepard guessed. “So what is it?” “You’ll have to ask the VI yourself. I’m done helping you.” He looked over at the console. EDI had found the VI Vendetta. A hologram of a Prothean was flickering to life beside her. Shepard was happy to see that the Illusive Man couldn’t stop it. He looked a bit bitter about that. “Enjoy your little chat,” the Illusive Man said. “But don’t overstay your welcome.” His hologram disappeared. Good riddance. Shepard, Liara, and EDI looked at the VI Vendetta. Shepard stepped forward. “Security protocols have been overridden,” the VI said. “Greetings, Athame.” So it thought Shepard was Athame now. Good. The damn thing had been impossible to talk to back on Thessia. “Review my mission,” she told it.

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 22

“Certainly,” Vendetta said. “You are to prepare the asari-savages for the coming of the Reapers. You are to instruct them in the construction of the Crucible. You are to make use of the Citadel and the Beacon-network to draw the Reapers into a position of vulnerability. You are to bring the Crucible and the Catalyst together to eliminate the Reapers, both locally and in dark space.” Locally and in dark space? That was better than she thought. Maybe the Citadel’s mass-relay into dark space could work against the Reapers. “And what is the Catalyst?” Shepard asked eagerly. “For security reasons, that information was not included in my database. Only you have that information, Athame.” “You worthless piece of shit!” Shepard cursed. “Audio error. Please restate your command more clearly.” Shepard tried very hard not to scream at the thing. “Alright,” she said slowly. “Please review the use of the Beacon-network and the Citadel. I need to draw the Reapers into ‘a position of vulnerability’. While you’re at it, maybe you can tell me what the hell ‘position of vulnerability’ means.” “Certainly, Athame. As you know, the Beacons are Reaper-devices, which the Reapers plant in systems capable of developing or attracting intelligent life.” Interesting, Shepard thought, we all assumed the Beacons were Prothean devices, but maybe we only assumed that because they’re old. There must be Beacons near all the garden worlds; we just haven’t found very many of them. Vendetta continued, “The Beacons monitor the system for signs of technological activity, such as telecommunications and the emissions of mass-effect drives. The Beacons relay this data to the Citadel. When the Citadel determines that galactic civilization is ready to be harvested, the Citadel’s Keepers open the relay to dark space. This draws the Reapers out of hibernation, toward the active Beacons.” “The Beacons are Reaper-spyware?” Shepard said. “They’re what drew the Reapers to us? Why the hell didn’t you destroy them!?” Vendetta looked at her blankly. “The Beacons are an instrument of our revenge.” There was no appropriate way to deal with an inanimate object that had doomed you all so that some other inanimate objects would get their comeuppance. Shepard was so angry at the Protheans that she couldn’t even begin to be angry; it was just too much work. She made a calm, clear mental note to smack Javik all the way to dark space. “Well, it’s very good that we’re going to get that revenge then,” Shepard said, in a voice that made Liara shiver. “I am curious: Why did the Protheans leave warnings about the Reapers on the Beacons?” “I am unaware of any warnings on the Beacons, Athame.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 23

Right. Shepard remembered the VI Vigil back on Ilos. Vigil had been based on a Prothean researcher who left the warnings on the Beacons. That Prothean’s team had also reprogrammed the Keepers so that they didn’t open the Citadel’s relay for the Reapers: Saren and Sovereign had had to open the relay by hand. So, Shepard thought, not all Protheans were bloodthirsty bastards; Vigil wasn’t. But I think I’ll still smack Javik when I get a chance. “Forget it,” Shepard said. “How can I use the Beacons to make the Reapers vulnerable? ...No, wait.” She should ask Vendetta the same questions as the Illusive Man, so she’d know what he was up to. “How do I use the Beacon-network to control the Reapers?” “The Beacons send control-signals to the Reapers, which the Citadel directs and amplifies. If you understand Reaper control-mechanisms, you may use the Beacon-network to gain access to the Reapers’ control-centers.” Bingo. That information was exactly what the Illusive Man had been after. Shepard pictured him scuttling out of here, whooping for joy. She phrased her next questions very carefully. “The last time I asked you that question, what other questions did I ask you? Was that the last time we spoke? And when was it?” “It was several days ago. It was the last time we spoke. You asked me the best place to upload a program that would slave the Reapers to your own cerebral implants. I advised you against such an action. As you were insistent, I directed you to the Citadel Tower, where you would have instant access to the Reapers via the Beacon-network. I am pleased to see that you have not followed through on this plan.” EDI spoke up. “Shepard, the Illusive Man may be on the Citadel already. The late Councilor Udina was a major security leak; he could have given the Illusive Man any access he wanted.” “Sonofabitch!” Shepard said. “We have to warn them. EDI, try to get through to the Council. Liara, see if you can use this console to raise Hackett. But don’t try to contact them if they’ve already gone to the rendezvous-point; the Reapers might intercept our signal and figure out where it’s headed.” She turned back to the Prothean VI. “Vendetta, I need to know how to use the Beacon-network make the Reapers vulnerable to the Crucible. Assuming I don’t have any special way of controlling the Reapers.” “That is a better plan, Athame,” Vendetta said. “Simply dock the Crucible to the tower in the center of the Citadel’s Presidium Ring. You must do this in a system with an expendable main-sequence sun. The programs included in the Crucible-plans will handle the details. Then bring the loaded Crucible to a system with a local Beacon.” “I don’t know of many systems with Beacons,” Shepard said. “Care to suggest some?” “Data suggests all systems containing garden-worlds contain at least one Beacon. In the presence of the Crucible, this Beacon will summon the Reapers from across the galaxy. You will not be able to control the Reapers, but the Beacon will prevent them from leaving. Defend the Crucible until as many Reapers as possible have arrived. Then access the Crucible’s trigger through the mind-touch interface in the control-center. Activate it when ready.” “With the Catalyst?” Shepard asked. “The Catalyst will be present in any system with a Beacon. The Crucible will use it automatically. No specialized knowledge or action on your part is required.” Too goddamn easy, Shepard thought, but she didn’t have time to press a VI for answers it didn’t have. “That will destroy all Reapers in the area?” Shepard asked. “Yes. It will also open the Citadel-relay into dark space, and destroy the Reapers there. They will be destroyed, as we were destroyed. Forever.” You could give Vendetta this much credit: It could say forever in a way that gave you chills, because it knew what forever meant. “Did I ask you about this before?” she asked it. “No. You were entirely intent on controlling the Reapers.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 24

“Well, that’s something,” Shepard said. “The Illusive Man won’t know what we’re up to. Vendetta, I need to know-” “Shepard, get down!” Liara cried. Shepard dove for cover, but she couldn’t hear any gunfire. She peeked at the door quickly. Of course. Kai Leng wouldn’t do something sensible, like shoot her when her back was turned. He was smirking in front of his squad of Cerberus troopers and phantoms. “Shepard,” he said. “This will be better than Thessia. More personal.” “Pet ninjas,” she said, from cover. “Have a turret.” She tossed one.

Things got messy very quickly. Kai Leng and his Cerberus phantoms might be senseless showoffs, but they had the best shields and barrier-boosters money could buy. They could get away with acting suicidal. Kai Leng rushed her a second into the shootout. Shepard wasn’t expecting that, so he nearly managed to stab her. She threw him off and unloaded a clip at him. His shields caught every bullet. A grenade landed beside her, and one of the phantoms tripped her as she ran away from it. She landed on her side, out of range of the grenade. The idiot phantom-woman who’d tripped her twirled her sword for a fancy kill instead of running away from the explosion. The phantom’s barriers flared purple, protecting her from the blast, but then they were depleted. Shepard shot her dead. Kai Leng was yelling something or other. Shepard didn’t bother to answer. She realized too late that he was trying to distract her. His friends were smashing up the console, and Vendetta with it. She screamed at them, losing her temper, and then Kai Leng came in for another stab. His sword wasn’t totally for show; Shepard knew that handheld weapons were too slow for kinetic shields to catch them. The blade went right past her shields and snagged on her armor. In a moment of inspiration, she shot the blade. It WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 25 shattered. Kai Leng grabbed at her instead. Somehow she wound up on the ground with this guy, wrestling in a gunfight. For about thirty seconds, she had no idea what Liara and EDI were doing. Then Kai Leng began to glow black. That was the only way Shepard could describe it. She was glad he wasn’t on top of her when he puked. She grabbed her gun away from him, stood up, and kicked him in the head. “Thanks, Liara,” she said. “EDI, is Vendetta okay?” “No, Commander. The batons they used to destroy the console were electrified. There is no immediately salvageable data.” “Shit,” she said. “We can’t hang around. Did either of you get the warnings out to Hackett and the Council before these clowns showed up?” Liara and EDI both shook their heads. “It appears both the Citadel and the Crucible left their home systems by the time we tried to contact them,” EDI said. “Per your command, we did not try to message them at the rendezvous-point.” “Then we’ve got to get there fast,” Shepard said. “On that note...“ Kai Leng seemed to think she wouldn’t notice him getting up to stab her with his broken blade. She’d been planning to question him. But she was done with this guy. She had her omni-blade out and ready. His goddamn shields weren’t going to save him again.

“That was for Thane and Miranda, you sonofabitch,” she said once she’d skewered him. His shields threw blue sparks as they shorted out. His blood was soaking into her armor, so she turned off the omni-blade. He collapsed. For good measure, she shot him in the head. Three times. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 26

There was nothing else here for them. “Come on,” Shepard said. “This system will be crawling with Reapers by now. Let’s go.” Joker had been flying circles, harrying Cerberus’ shattered fleet and keeping them between the Normandy and the Reapers. The Normandy was in good shape, and the Crucible had made it out of the system intact. The Reapers might have seen it before it left, but they wouldn’t have been able to see where it went after it went through the mass-relay. Shepard ordered the Normandy to go to the rendezvous-point at Amazon, hoping for the best. And when she got there, she saw the prettiest sight she’d seen in a long time: Both the Crucible and the Citadel were already there, and there wasn’t a Reaper or a Cerberus ship in sight.

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 27

Shepard went to the com-room to call Admiral Hackett and the Council. Now that she was in the same system as them, it wouldn’t be so dangerous. “We have to assume we don’t have much time,” Shepard told them. “Admiral, can your people maneuver the Crucible toward the Citadel’s central ring? The programs in the plans ought to handle the docking once the Citadel is close enough.” “Of course, Commander,” Hackett said. “But do we know what will happen then?” “Not quite,” Shepard admitted. Actually, this whole thing could go quite badly wrong. As EDI had pointed out, if they overfilled the Crucible, they might accidentally create a black hole. So Shepard hoped the Crucible knew its limits. It wasn’t like they had other options. “Once we’ve filled the Crucible, we have to bring it to a system containing a ‘Prothean’ Beacon. That will lure all the Reapers there. The Prothean VI told me that all such systems have Catalysts in them, so we can set off the Crucible there and kill all the Reapers. And one more thing.” Shepard nodded at the asari Councilor. “The Illusive Man escaped us at Anadius. We know he will be trying to access the Citadel Tower, and he might think that’s easy, since you’ve evacuated the Presidium Ring. Fortunately, the Crucible’s going to plug in there, and the Tower ought to get pretty hot once the Crucible activates. So he may get himself fried. Keep an eye on the area anyway. And tell the civilians to buckle down and stay away from the windows. We’re moving in. Now.” Admiral Hackett spoke to someone she couldn’t see. And then the Crucible was moving. Shepard watched it from the bridge, while the Normandy hovered near the sunset-line of one of Amazon’s planets. She’d missed seeing the Crucible move, while she was storming Chronos Station. The Crucible was enormous, much bigger than the Citadel, like a small planet attached to the barrel of a gun. It glowed pink in the light from Amazon, the red giant sun. To her, it seemed to move slowly, like planets did, like the Reapers did, like all those colossal things that were just too big and fast to wrap your mind around. When the Crucible was close to the Citadel, it sped up, visibly. Hackett hadn’t ordered that. The Crucible was docking itself. “Joker, dim these windows,” she said. “We’re in for a hell of a show.” The Crucible latched onto the Citadel and turned. Its barrel was pointed at Amazon; the Citadel was in its shadow. At first, nothing happened to Amazon.

Then the star came apart. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 28

Amazon was swelling, dimming. Impossibly huge ribbons of flame tore off it like streamers in a hurricane. The streamers twisted up, turning blue-white, and poured into the Crucible. Within minutes, Amazon looked more like a tangle of string than a star. And the Crucible kept unraveling it. Shepard thought the Normandy was moving for a moment, then she realized the planet below was shifting in its orbit. “Joker, take her up higher!” she said. “We don’t want that ball of rock crashing into us!” The Crucible had a halo of glowing gas now; was it getting hot in the Citadel? ...Amazon had become tiny, white, nothing left of it but its hot iron heart. The heart didn’t come apart. It shot toward the Crucible, its relativistic speed warping the space around it like a curved mirror. The Crucible caught it without budging. And the planet below Shepard went dark forever. Silence for a moment. Then the crew cheered. “I think we did it, Commander!” Joker said. “I’d better go to the com-room and check that I haven’t killed everyone on the Citadel,” she said. “Party later if most of them lived.” When she got to the com-room, the asari Councilor was already trying to raise her. So the Council was alive and communicating; that was good. “What’s the situation on the Citadel?” Shepard asked her. “Capturing Amazon did no more damage than an earthquake on Thessia,” the councilor said. “The Crucible seems to have mass-effect fields that prevent Amazon’s captured mass from having any gravitational effect.” “Then why don’t you look happy?” “Someone is inside the Citadel Tower,” she said. “No one should be alive in there; it got too hot, even with a protective suit. The doors have all melted shut. We can’t get in.” “How do you know someone’s in there?” Shepard asked. “Some cameras survived long enough to show us. The heat came from the energy-surge between the Crucible and the Citadel; it wasn’t caused by the flares from Amazon. It melted the walls, and there’s machinery we don’t recognize underneath. We saw a protective-suited human walking toward the machines. He may have been hiding in the Tower all along, or he may have crossed over from the Crucible. We don’t know.” “But you think he’s still alive?” “We know he is. There are com-rooms in bunkers in the Tower. We’re detecting encrypted signals coming out of them. We-” “That’s a good place to stop,” the Illusive Man said softly. The asari Councilor’s image warped and vanished. He replaced it. “I don’t have time to chat, Shepard; I’m just here to ask you to stay out of my way.”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 29

It was the Illusive Man; it still looked like him. And Shepard would have recognized that voice anywhere. But the asari Councilor was right: The Tower had gotten too hot for anyone to survive in there. Fortunately for the Illusive Man, he wasn’t just anyone. Most of his skin had burned off. Beneath it was black, glittering machinery. Reaper-tech. “What the fuck have you done to yourself?” Shepard whispered. “I’ve done what I set out to do. What you said I couldn’t do, because you let your little alien friends convince you humanity shouldn’t reach for the stars. I’ve got them, Shepard. Only the ones close by, for now, but I’ve got them. They’re going to help me bring this rig to Earth, so I can control the ones there, too.” “Reapers,” Shepard hissed. “You think you’re controlling them, but they’re controlling you. They are Reapers.” “They are tools,” he corrected. “Very useful tools, and the Citadel can control them. I’m not very happy with you for sticking a barely-contained star to my Citadel, Shepard. Now I have to take the Crucible with me and treat it gently, or else it would get much hotter in here, wouldn’t it? But the fact that you melted half the Citadel Tower did help me access my tools. This will be much easier if you stay out of their way. Go up to the bridge. You can watch them arrive.” “You have no idea what you’re doing!” Shepard screamed. “That’s coming from you? I’m surprised. Goodbye, Shepard. I’m off to save Earth.” Black shadows covered her eyes for a moment. She felt, rather than heard, the Reapers’ roar. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 30

“Commander, Reapers just came through the mass-relay!” Joker yelled on the com. Black shadows, whispering. Joker was still yelling. Admiral Hackett appeared as a hologram, trying to coordinate the fleet’s attack-plan with her. Neither of them were listening to her; they kept saying she wasn’t making any sense. And then the Reapers were at the Crucible. They’d gotten their hooks in it, and they were towing it toward the mass-relay, speeding up. Shepard could see them on the screens. “Everybody stop attacking!” she yelled at last. “You’ll destroy the Crucible! They’re not here to destroy it!” “Commander!” Hackett said, shocked. But he must have seen that she was right. Because the fleet’s attack stopped. Shepard watched the Reapers vanish through the mass-relay, with the Crucible. She walked back up to the bridge. On the Normandy, you could have heard a pin drop. Joker was the one who let her have it. “What the hell was that!?” he said. “You let them have it! You really let the Reapers take our secret weapon!? This had better be good. I can’t wait to hear it.”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 31

“We would have destroyed the Crucible in the attack,” she said flatly. “This way we can recapture it.” “You think I can’t hit the broad side of a solar system!? The Reapers were a half a billion klicks out when they showed up! You told the whole fleet to scatter; we thought you were going to fire the Crucible!” ‘Fire’ the Crucible? ...Oh. Joker still thought the Crucible was a cannon that shot suns. “Hackett knew that wasn’t what I was doing.” “Hackett didn’t know what you were doing! Hello, were you there?” Shepard didn’t like being made to feel like an idiot. If she’d told them to scatter, there must have been a good reason for that, and someone had screwed up. “Well, I know what I’m doing, and I’m the only one who does. Stand down, Moreau. Then take us to Earth. That’s where they’re headed, and that’s where we’ll stop them once and for all.” No cheers this time. Joker shuffled into his seat, struggling to be silent. Shepard went to her quarters to lie down. “I’m worried about you,” Liara said later, lying beside her. Shepard opened her eyes. “When did you get here?” Liara covered her face with her hands. When Shepard pulled them away gently, she saw that Liara was crying. “I’m worried about you, Shepard,” Liara repeated. “Shh,” Shepard said. Then she must have fallen asleep again. When she woke up, all she could remember was a dream about the Boy. The journey to Earth would take days; the Normandy wasn’t as fast as the Reapers. Between relays, Hackett came aboard to talk to her. She told him the Reapers ought to be leaving other systems and heading to Sol; the Crucible/Citadel combo would use the Mars Beacon to summon them there. For some reason, Hackett wanted Liara’s confirmation before he’d accept that. Shepard told him he needed to rally the galactic fleets for a showdown. She’d called them all before he could get a word in edgewise. He gave a pretty inspiring speech for such short notice. Good man. Shepard started to see black shadows before he was done talking. She told the officers that the Normandy had to leave as soon as his speech was over, then went to lie down. Hackett had to go back to his ship before he caught his breath. He didn’t have time to find her. At some point, EDI told her she was indoctrinated and unfit for command. But that was probably a dream. If anything, Shepard should be suspicious of EDI, not vice-versa. But she liked EDI, so she let it go. Three days after the Illusive Man had captured the Crucible, the Normandy appeared in the Sol system in stealth. Shepard gasped when she looked out the window. The sky was full of Reapers, more Reapers than she’d ever seen in her life. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 32

The Crucible was hovering over Earth like a second moon, the Citadel still attached. The Normandy’s sensors said no communications-signals were coming from the Citadel. Not even cries for help. Shepard decided to make no assumptions about what that meant. But her guts felt like ice-water. She estimated how long the Citadel had been here, based on how fast the Reapers could travel between the mass-relays. Thirty-six hours, maybe. Long enough for the Illusive Man to either die or become king of the Reapers. The galactic fleets would be coming in behind her. Hackett’s flagship might stealth in a little ahead of the bulk of the fleet, so they could make plans. Shepard knew she should assess the situation here before Hackett arrived. That meant talking to Anderson. Shepard normally asked EDI to make difficult com-connections. But she asked Specialist Traynor to do it instead. Just in case.

“What’s happening up there, Shepard?” Anderson asked her immediately. “What is that thing in the sky above us?” “It’s the Crucible,” she said. “The Citadel is attached to it.” “My god,” he said. “How did this happen?” I let it happen, and I don’t remember why. “It’s a long story,” she said. “Has the Crucible done anything? Have the Reapers changed in any way?” “Yes! There’s a million more of them, and they’ve hit us worse in the last twelve hours than they’ve hit us in the last three months. They’ve got something.... something like a miniature mass-relay beam. It must be coming from the Citadel; we’ve never understood all the technology of that place.” “What’s the beam for?” “Reports say the Reapers were using it to bring husks up from Paris... but now they’re using it to send husks down to London.” “The husks from Paris invaded the Citadel,” Shepard said softly, “and now the husks from the Citadel are invading London.” “It makes sense,” Anderson said. “Most of the husks on Earth were human, but now alien husks are swarming us. There’s more Banshees and Brutes and Marauders than we’ve ever seen. And these husks are smarter. It’s like the Reapers know how we think now. ...Shepard, did you ever find the Catalyst?” Shepard swallowed. “All I have to do now is activate the Crucible.” “That’s good news. Is there anyone on the Citadel who knows how to do it?” If there was anyone still alive on the Citadel, Shepard would be surprised. So much for the Illusive Man’s plan to control the Reapers. Anyway, even Shepard didn’t know precisely how to activate the Crucible. Her idea was to get to the Crucible’s control-center and figure it out from there. “We can’t count on anyone in the Citadel helping us. Even if they’re alive, they’ll have trouble getting to the Tower where the Crucible is docked. The doors are sealed.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 33

The com made a noise, interrupting her. EDI’s voice flooded the room. “Admiral Hackett’s flagship is now stealthed in the Sol system,” EDI said neutrally. “He wishes to enter the conversation.” Shepard looked at Anderson. “Patch him through,” she said. Anderson filled Hackett in. Hackett was silent while Anderson talked, but his expression changed when he figured out what had happened to the people on the Citadel. He did not look at Shepard. “Shepard,” he said slowly, after Anderson was done. “I want you assisting Anderson on the ground. You can use the beam to get to the Citadel once you’ve cleared out enough Reaper-artillery for our ground-troops to land.” “Sir. Wouldn’t it be less risky for me to board the Crucible directly?” “No, I don’t think so,” Hackett said. “I want you on the ground.” “We don’t even know where that beam goes on the Citadel,” she said. “It might go to the wrong end. It’s almost certainly on the wrong side of the sealed doors.” Shepard was getting angry. “What a ridiculous plan.” Hackett still wasn’t looking at her, and he didn’t even move to blink. “You’re going down to London, and that’s an order, Shepard.” “It will do our people good to see you, Shepard,” Anderson cut in, looking up from the screen on his omni-tool. “You’re a hero, remember?” Shepard suddenly wondered if they were plotting against her. She blinked, realized that was utter crap, and wondered how her brain came up with these things. “Yes sir,” she said.

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 34

Chapter 3- Priority: Earth

The galactic fleets arrived. The battle began.

The Normandy dropped Shepard and her squad over London before joining the rest of the fleet. Shepard watched the sky catch on fire from the window of the Kodiak. She wondered why Joker had looked like that when he’d seen her off. Sad. She’d thought he blamed her for what had happened to the Crucible and the Citadel, now, suddenly, he didn’t. That was what she’d wanted, right? But was it fair? She started to think about the refugees she’d tried to help on the Citadel, months ago. She thought about the doctors at Huerta Memorial who’d taken care of Thane, and even that well-meaning idiot Conrad Verner. All husks by now, probably, and whose fault was that? The Illusive Man’s? Yes, she decided, it has to be his fault, all his, because I can’t afford to believe anything else right now. Better to save her doubts for when she was staring in the mirror. The sky went dark between flashes of ordnance. The window was a mirror, briefly. She closed her eyes before she got a good look at herself. Liara and Garrus were with her, and of course Cortez, flying the Kodiak. The Kodiak was with some other shuttles, planning to land small teams to take out the Hades cannons. The Hades cannons were miniature Reapers that were making it impossible for the Hammer troop-transports to land. Garrus made a clicking noise, looking down at London. It was about as post-apocalyptic-looking as you’d expect. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 35

“I’m proud of you,” Liara said suddenly. “Why?” Shepard asked. “For coming here. Because... it will help the troops so much, to see you. I know this isn’t where you wanted to be, but you can do good here.” Liara looked like she was going to start crying again. “Really.” Why should she be proud of me for following stupid orders? Shepard wondered. I know more about the Crucible than anyone else, and Hackett sends me on a wild goose chase on the front lines. It’s an idiotic plan. “You mean so much to so many people,” Liara continued. Talking to herself mostly. “It’s important to them that you be a hero. And we’ll get to that beam. All of us.” “What Liara means is, we won’t fail,” Garrus said, holding on to the grip-bar that ran along the top of the Kodiak. “You can understand Prothean messages and use Prothean mind-touch interfaces, and that makes you a good bet for figuring out how to activate a Prothean machine like the Crucible. If you can’t activate it, one of us will have to figure out how to use the interface or bypass it. But you were the one who got us this far. We’ll make sure no one ever forgets that.” “Melodrama’s not usually your style, Garrus,” Shepard teased. But his voice had been flat as a pancake. Not melodramatic at all.

“Yeah, well,” he said. “Remember that.” “Shit,” Cortez said from the front. A Hades cannon was aimed straight at them. “We got a lock. Hold on.” He jerked the Kodiak into a roll. The Hades’ beam missed by inches. It swept past the Kodiak and took out the shuttle behind it. “Damn it!” Cortez said, seeing it. “Status,” Shepard said. “That team was going to help us take out the cannon to our northeast,” he said. “They had heavy weapons that we didn’t have aboard the Normandy. All the other shuttles are either shot down or deployed by now. We’re doing this alone.” Shepard nodded. “Drop us off near the downed shuttle. We’ll recover their weapons.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 36

“Yes, sir,” Cortez said. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. There were legions of husks on the ground, all types of them. And they were smart. One of them threw a grenade into the shuttle as soon as the doors opened. Cortez dove for cover as Shepard shouted “Move!” and she, Garrus, and Liara leapt clear of the blast. Shepard yelled at Cortez to come back for them once they’d secured the area. “Roger that!” he replied, and took off.

They fought their way up a husk-infested hillside. London was almost unrecognizable, but every once in a while you’d glance around and get a shiver when you realized where you were. There were Brutes here, the husked corpses of krogans or maybe elcor. They must have come from the Citadel. There was so much rubble they could almost sneak up on you. Shepard’s squad stumbled into a forest of concrete pillars that had probably been some sort of garage. The downed shuttle had crashed here, and there was heavy weaponry scattered everywhere. Shepard leapt through the rubble, hiding in the shadows when the Hades above her fired and turned the whole world white. It roared just like a full-sized Reaper. She hated that noise. Up above, she could see the Kodiak flying past, burning. She grabbed a Cain missile-launcher off the ground and took careful aim at the Hades cannon. It was vulnerable right before it fired. She squeezed the trigger and took it out. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 37

She touched her headset. “Cortez, are you alright?” “Yeah,” he said over the static. “I won’t be picking you up, though. Gotta make repairs. I’ll meet you at Anderson’s base.” The Hammer ground-troops were ready to land, but Shepard’s squad needed extraction. Fast. More husked aliens were surrounding them. The squad was almost overwhelmed by the time a shuttle showed up. The three of them were firing until the moment they leapt inside. Shepard took a moment to catch her breath. Then she turned around, and broke into a smile when she saw who was there. “Anderson!” “It’s good to see you,” Anderson said. “How are you?” She wiped ash off her helmet. “Alive.” He nodded. “We’ll talk in private later. Let me brief you on the situation.” Anderson’s base wasn’t much. The resistance movement had barricaded off a block of mostly- destroyed housing; bases like these didn’t last long, and the trick was to know when to abandon it and find a new one. The only thing that made it a headquarters was the fact that Anderson had good communications equipment. Shepard got a chance to talk to the rest of her team on the com. Shepard was surprised when she found out they weren’t on the Normandy. Garrus had taken the initiative to send some of them over to Hackett’s flagship while it was docked with the Normandy; from there they’d been sent to other ships. Shepard knew that was good policy; her team knew things about the Crucible that no one else did, so they were too valuable to keep all in one place. She was ashamed she hadn’t noticed they were gone. Garrus could tell. “I’ve got your back, Shepard,” he said outside the com-room. “It needed to be done. I figured you’d need me, and of course Liara wouldn’t leave you and EDI’s bound to the Normandy, so she had to stay. Everyone else, I sent them off. “ He waved at the southern sky, where the Citadel’s beam cut a white line from the clouds to the earth. “If you think you need someone WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 38 other than me and Liara to storm that thing, well... It might be possible for one or two of them to come down on a troop transport. But you’ve heard how our Hammer transports are faring.” Meaning that most of the Hammer ground forces hadn’t shown up, and were never going to. Shepard shook her head tiredly. “You and Liara are all I need. The others can try their luck with the beam if we don’t make it.” “If we don’t make it, no one will.” That was a Garrus Vakarian pep-talk. “We’ve even got Wrex behind us; did you see him out on the barricade? ...Nevermind; he’s here; he won’t let you down. But if, hypothetically, we didn’t make it to the beam, Hackett would try to get a team on board the Crucible directly. Who would you send on a mission like that, if you had to?” “Tali,” Shepard said automatically, “for the technical expertise. Javik to deal with any Prothean mumbo-jumbo. James, to keep an eye on Javik.” Shepard wondered if EDI would be a better choice than James, but she didn’t trust EDI right now. “Save the others for the third attempt, if we need one.” “That’s good thinking,” Garrus said. “But we’ll make it to the beam.” “It was a stupid plan to come down here,” she said. “I don’t understand it, and I don’t understand why Liara was buttering me up about it. What am I missing?” “Do you trust me, Shepard?” “Stupid question. There’s no Shepard without Vakarian.” “Then trust me. It’s a good plan.” He’d been avoiding meeting her eyes on the Kodiak, now he wouldn’t let go of them. She smirked a bit, in case this was a joke she wasn’t getting, but he wasn’t joking. She did trust him, though, because of all the times he’d trusted her, because even when she’d worked for Cerberus he’d never let her down. She knew that if she pressed him right now he wouldn’t tell her a goddamn thing about what Hackett was playing at, and it almost didn’t matter. She swallowed her pride and said, “Okay. It’s a good plan.” “Alright. When this is over and done with, we’ll have drinks somewhere with a better climate, or else in the afterlife of your choice. Before then, I’ve got to go make some calls of my own. Catch up with Anderson. He wants to talk to you.” Shepard found Anderson with a map and his protégé, a Major Coates. She didn’t know the guy, but she’d been Anderson’s protégé herself, and she recognized the way they were huddled over the map. Anderson saw Shepard, and told Coates to go get a coffee. The ‘coffee’ here was a bad joke; it was brown and hot but it also smelled faintly of gasoline, and Shepard knew better than to ask where it had come from. Anderson was drinking it anyway. He motioned for her to sit, and didn’t say anything until well after Coates had shut the door behind him. “Everyone wants you to succeed,” he said at last. “You know that, don’t you, Shepard?” She picked some crud off her boot. “Garrus told me that storming the beam was a good plan, and I told him I would trust him about that. So I guess I have to tell you that yes, I know that everyone wants me to succeed. But from where I stand, it looks like I’m being set up to fail.” Anderson frowned. “That’s not it. We need you, Shepard. I don’t think you realize how much we need you. All these alien fleets, here for Earth while their motherworlds burn. That was your doing. They need to keep having faith in you. And it’s all our responsibility to see to it that they do.” Shepard was getting sick of everyone talking circles around her. She could hear Coates or somebody whispering out in the corridor; that kind of behind-her-back chatter was something else she was getting sick of. How was she supposed to lead if no one would be honest with her? Was she the only one who wanted to kill the Reapers more than she wanted to play stupid games? “I have no idea what you mean.” He leaned forward. “What happened back in the Amazon system? Why did you order the fleet not to attack the Reapers who stole the Crucible?” “I didn’t want it destroyed in the crossfire. I’ve said this before.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 39

“I’ve watched the vids and read the reports, Shepard. What you’re telling me now, it doesn’t explain what I saw. What I saw... it doesn’t make me proud to say I trained you.” That stung. Shepard swallowed, but said nothing. “And the consequences,” he went on softly. That quiet voice cut more than if he’d screamed at her. “The Citadel wasn’t a warship, but we made it a military target on your say-so. So why, why did you let the Reapers take it? ” “The Reapers got to the Crucible so fast,” she said feebly, trying to remember the details. They must have gotten there fast, it felt like they had gotten there fast. She was so tired these days she couldn’t keep track of time anymore. “It was luck that they came out of the mass-relay so close to the Crucible. We didn’t have the time...” “Is that what you believe? ...There’s no reason to lie to me, Shepard; it’s the end of the world and nobody’s going to court-martial you. Just tell me if that’s what you really believe.” “It’s the truth!” “No it isn’t.” Anderson was weighing something in his mind. “Admiral Hackett thinks you’ve been indoctrinated.” “Me!?” It was so far-out that Shepard laughed. But the distant roar of a Reaper drowned out the sound. “Am I or am I not fighting them? I’ve been fighting them since the beginning, when no one else would listen!” “I listened. So listen to me when I tell you that you don’t understand how indoctrination works. I’ve been here; I’ve lost men who put down their weapons one day and went to the processing centers to be turned into husks! And they weren’t bad or weak men, not until they caught the indoctrination. Then they’d get paranoid, get convinced of strange things, and one day they’d snap. We try to move our people to less-critical areas when they’re showing symptoms. Usually they get better.” “Why are you telling me this? You don’t believe Hackett’s crap, do you?” Shepard grinned bitterly. “He fucked up too, you know. He let Cerberus into the Anadius system, where we were building the Crucible. That was his fault. Maybe he’s indoctrinated.” She said that last bit sarcastically, to show Anderson that he was being crazy. But the joke fell flat. “Even if he were indoctrinated, it was good policy to send you down here,” Anderson said. “Just in case you can’t be trusted to give orders to the fleets. It’s not a punishment, Shepard! Ask anyone here; they’ll tell you that we don’t allow officers to give commands when they’ve been acting strangely. And they’ll tell you that there have been false accusations of indoctrination, too. Why do you think this war’s been so damned hard on us?”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 40

“Maybe because I’ve been sabotaged at every turn,” Shepard snarled. She couldn’t believe he was going along with this. “You of all people, why would you let Hackett sabotage the Crucible project by sending me on a wild goose chase? This beam-plan of his is garbage. He’s trying to get me killed for politics!” “Shepard, listen to yourself! The beam-plan could work; it’s just not our primary plan. You can be a hero by following orders, but I can’t let you design our strategies right now!” The last part of that was drown out by another Reaper-roar, so close and so loud that the building shook. Anderson didn’t seem to notice it.

Maybe Anderson is indoctrinated, she thought. Shepard’s mouth went dry as sand. This was his base, in the middle of Reaper territory. He could sabotage her easily. If he is, I’ll never reach the Crucible. Earth is finished. If he is. She could feel the weight of her sidearm against her hip. If he is, the shadows whispered. “Shepard,” Anderson said clearly. “We’ve been through a lot together. You made me Earth Councilor Anderson for a while, remember? You must have trusted my judgment then. So please. Go along with the plan.” Then the moment was passed, like a waking dream. Shepard was left with a vague sense of guilt and unease and an unclear memory of the last few minutes. She put those feelings out of her mind. She was an Alliance officer, and she didn’t have all day to stare in the mirror. She smelled scorched coffee and gasoline. Major Coates had come back with a pot and three cracked cups on a tray. “Good timing, Major,” she said, smiling too widely. “Anderson was just telling me about the state of our Hammer ground troops...”

Beyond the base was a no-man’s-land. Everyone agreed on that. Most of Hammer hadn’t made it. So they’d have to storm the beam with the troops they had.

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 41

Anderson had marked a spot halfway in between his base and the beam, where some tanks had been abandoned but not destroyed. The assault troops were going to make their way to the tanks on foot, so they’d have something to ride in for the last kilometer to the beam. Shepard looked up at the beam while her squad climbed down into no-man’s-land. The Illusive Man was up there somewhere. Dead, most likely. Or worse. And that still wouldn’t be enough to pay for what he’d done. The assault troops were weaving toward the tanks in three-man packs, using the buildings to hide them from the Reapers’ artillery. The tanks would have some artillery of their own, and that would help on that last kilometer run to the beam. London was a nightmare of shattered concrete and husked civilians, broken glass and shards of electronics crunching underfoot. Everything was the gray of ash. Shepard skidded down a hill of rubble above the tanks and got low, throwing a turret to distract the husks swarming down there. Somewhere nearby, she heard the pained-sounding howl of a Banshee. “Garrus, I see a Hades cannon up ahead! Get to a tank and take the Hades out with the on-board missiles! I’ll cover you!”

Garrus didn’t disappoint. The Hades cannon didn’t see him sneaking toward the tanks, but it did notice the Hammer assault troops moving in. It started firing. It swept its cannon across the foundations of the nearby buildings to collapse them. Shepard saw one pack of troopers take shelter in a garage, only to die under an avalanche of rubble. But they were the last of the Hades’ kills. Garrus fired the tank’s missiles right into the Hades’ gun-ports, and it keeled over in a cloud of fire. It was time for the final run. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 42

Shepard piled into a tank with Garrus, Liara, and a bunch of Hammers. One of the Hammers got up front and started driving, swerving and firing at things Shepard couldn’t see. It was more nerve- wracking to be in the tank than out there, since she had no control over what happened next. “Target is in sight,” she heard Anderson’s voice on the radio, just as a Reaper roared. She looked at her friends, at Liara, who loved her and had been crying for her, at Garrus, who was bad at being a turian but loyal as anyone she’d ever known. Shepard was thinking that this would be the last time she’d see them. But she was too tired to feel anything; she’d spent too many nights with the whispering shadows in her mind. “I’m glad you’re here with me...” she began. The world exploded. The tank rolled three times before it came to a rest. Shepard didn’t so much crawl out of the tank as get pushed out. All the Hammers were streaming out behind her, surging forward. The beam was up ahead, stabbing into the earth on the other side of an asphalt ocean. Someone pulled herself up on Shepard’s arm; it might have been Liara; someone leapt forward that might have been Garrus. Shepard didn’t have time to check. She straightened her visor, and ran.

There was nothing next to her, nothing behind her, nothing in her world but that beam. She zigzagged like she’d been trained to do, but didn’t try to dodge the Reaper artillery. From down here it looked like the shots came down at random, making momentary flowers of airborne debris. One shot landed just ahead of Shepard; she stumbled, rolled, and started running again. Anderson was shouting on the radio in her ear, and the beam was not so far away now, it was all she could see: That beam, and the artillery tearing up the ground in a line toward her... WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 43

It was white, weightless, and painless. She could see the sky, feel herself leaving the earth behind. She must have made it. ...She made it. She closed her eyes and listened to the Reapers roar. As the roars faded out, she could hear Major Coates on the radio. “My god,” he said. “They’re all gone...”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 44

Chapter 4- Priority: Shepard

There was a floor beneath her. She could see that much. A hard, shining floor. And shadows. She closed her eyes. Opened them again. Something moved in the corner of her vision. Her fingers. Alright. She made a fist, and her armor flaked off around it. But she was alive. “Get up,” a voice said. Nothing to do but obey it. She pulled her limbs in, tried to get them under her. Fell down, back to the hard shining floor. Too much work. She closed her eyes again.

“Get up,” the voice said, more urgently. It was a high voice, but with strange echoes behind it. This time, she managed to get to her knees. Then her feet. She slumped back against a wall, staring upwards. There was the top of the beam, right there. Out beyond the beam, Earth cut an arc across her field of view. You could see the Sun out over the north pole. Burning. The beam was coming from the junction between the Crucible and the Citadel. The shiny floor she’d been lying on was a puddle of cooled molten metal. It had melted off the walls when the Citadel joined the Crucible. She was on top of the Citadel Tower. Where the Illusive Man had tried to control the Reapers. “I shouldn’t be able to breathe up here,” she muttered to no one. She wasn’t wearing a protective suit, and who would have bothered to put air-barriers up here, after the Crucible came and melted everything? “That’s not important,” the high voice said. “You need to listen to me.” She looked down. She saw a shape made of disjointed, flickering lights. Like Vendetta had been. But this shape was the Boy. “You,” she said. “Who are you?” “I am everything and everyone you would destroy,” it said. That was too much for Shepard to process right now. She shook her head, caught herself before she fell down again. “I need to stop the Reapers. Do you know how I can do that?” “Yes,” it said. “Then tell me,” she gasped.

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 45

“You don’t understand. I have to make you understand. ...Vendetta told you that you can use the Crucible without knowing what the Catalyst is. But I want you to know.” The Boy-thing pointed out, over the north pole. Toward Earth’s Sun. “That is the Catalyst.” “Wh...what?” She struggled to get a better look, to see if the Boy-thing was pointing at something else. But it wasn’t. “How?” “Vendetta told you that the Catalyst would be present in any system with a Beacon. Any system capable of developing or attracting intelligent life. All such systems have a sun like yours.” The Boy- thing dropped its finger. “You almost found the truth on your own, while you were doing your astrophysics research. The Crucible is designed to carry and fire a star into another star, so that their combined density causes a supernova. It will destroy everything within light-years. Including Earth.” “No,” Shepard said. “Yes. The Prothean leaders knew this. They would have sacrificed as many worlds as it took, to get their revenge.”

Shepard had the horrible feeling that the Boy-thing was telling the truth about the Crucible. But she couldn’t accept it, not just like that. “You’re saying the Crucible will destroy Earth,” she wheezed through the whispering shadows. “You’re saying I’d have to destroy Earth and kill everyone on it to destroy the Reapers...” She closed her eyes again, because she couldn’t look at the Boy, couldn’t look at the face of the scared little kid she couldn’t save on Earth, months ago. That Boy had smiled and hugged her in her dreams. Forgiven her. “No!” she said loudly, trying to clear her head. “I have to make the Reapers leave. I have to bring the Crucible to a different system with a Beacon. All the garden-worlds WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 46 have beacons somewhere, right? Maybe Horizon, where Sanctuary was; there’s barely anyone alive there now...” “The Reapers will never let you take the Crucible,” the Boy said, playing with his sneakers. “You know you’ll never get it out of the Solar system now. You shouldn’t have let the Illusive Man bring it to Earth in the first place. Now look at what you’ve done.” Shepard buried her face in her hands. “The Illusive Man,” she said at last. “What happened to him?” The Boy made a gesture Shepard didn’t quite catch. “He’s still here. Still struggling for control. But he wants too much. He thinks of the Reapers as tools. He might succeed if he just tried to convince them to leave the Solar system.” Shepard looked up. “I can convince the Reapers to leave?” “They’re not monsters,” the Boy said softly. “They’re just part of the cycle.” Shepard laughed hoarsely. “The ‘cycle’. What a crap excuse for genocide.” The Boy looked at her, his eyes flat and curiously empty. “The Reapers Reap because any intelligent species will destroy itself eventually. You are more varied than synthetics, but that destabilizes your empires. When you cause your own extinctions, you take your evolutionary progress with you. You also ruin many more worlds and exterminate many more species than we do. That is a waste. So the Reapers Reap.” “A waste!?” Shepard pointed at Earth. “What they’re doing down there now, that’s not a waste!?” “No. I told you, an intelligent species will inevitably destroy itself. Through nuclear war, through its own synthetic creations, through careless greed. The Reapers harvest species before they can go to waste. They evolve based on the species they harvest. Then they seed new species and fertilize new intelligence, based on what they have learned. You humans, the asari, the turians, all of the intelligent species, you all think like Protheans. Think about it; you wouldn’t hate Javik if he didn’t remind you of the worst of human nature. The way your bodies look is based on an even older biological pattern. In the next cycle, intelligent life will be based on humans. The Reapers will give your species the only immortality it can have.” “You’re wrong,” Shepard said. “We’re not immortal but that doesn’t excuse murder. And we’re not destroying ourselves. Look at that fleet out there! Every species in the galaxy, united! Fighting the Reapers!” The Boy shrugged. “Do you think your unity will last a hundred years? A thousand? A hundred thousand? The Reapers don’t destroy, they harvest. Because of them, your species will pass a part of itself on to future generations of life. But if you think the Reapers are wrong, tell them.” The Boy held out his hand. “I can help you communicate with them.” Shepard looked at him sharply. At it. The shadows around her faded. “I’ve never met a little boy who monologued at me,” she said. “What the hell are you?” “I am everything and everyone you would destroy.” “You’re a Reaper.” “I am all the Reapers. And I am offering you a chance to convince us. Let us into your mind, so we can see why you believe you should not be Reaped.” The Reaper-boy held out his hand again. Shepard thought, If you taught humans to think, then you already know why we don’t want to be Reaped. And you don’t care. I might have tried to convince you, with this mind-meld thing you’re suggesting. I spent years convincing, cajoling, and threatening my way across the galaxy, until I had a galactic fleet behind me. But if you really wanted my opinion, you wouldn’t be feeding me tacky lies. You’re not the ghost of that little boy whose face you’re wearing. You’re not ashamed of me for letting the Illusive Man bring the Crucible to Earth. ...And I shouldn’t be able to breathe up here. “I reject your offer,” Shepard said, and shot the Reaper-boy in the head. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 47

The bullet didn’t do anything. But she wasn’t really expecting it to. “So be it,” the Boy-thing said, in a voice like a Reaper’s roar. Shepard ran toward the beam. Running was easy, now that she’d figured out this place was an indoctrination nightmare. The scenery broke up around her as she leapt into the column of white light and plummeted back to Earth. She woke gasping in the rubble where the Reapers’ artillery had thrown her. Only yards from the beam. “Did we manage to get anyone to the beam?” a Hammer sergeant was saying in the radio in her ear. “Negative,” Major Coates said. “We need to pull back and regroup. We’ve been slaughtered...”

Shepard tried to get up. There was not much pain. Mostly pressure, and coldness. And the odd feeling of things being broken deep inside her. A pack of husks ran toward her, blurry in the light from the beam. Human husks; she’d killed hundreds of them, easily and without thought. That was a lifetime ago. Her hand wouldn’t stay steady; she stumbled as she made her last shot and only crippled the husk instead of killing it. Good enough. She fell again as a Marauder came out from behind some rubble. Instead of shooting it, she took cover behind a ruined tank. Trying to think through the fog in her head. I can’t trust myself, she thought. I’ve been indoctrinated. But I’m the only one near this beam. I can get there. It’s only a little farther. I can do it now... But I can’t trust myself. I can’t trust what I’d do, alone. I need to find Garrus and Liara. Shepard tapped her headset, but her radio was broken. It could barely receive, and it couldn’t transmit. So she crawled forward. Shot the Marauder. Now she could stand up without it shooting at her. She turned her back on the beam, and went to find her squad. The artillery bombardment had stopped. That was something. But the husks on the ground were monsters to her now, not just nuisances, and she was losing blood rapidly to her internal bruising. She knew she didn’t have much time. She tripped over a turian, and realized a moment later that it was Garrus. He was still alive. Barely. “I need you,” she said. “I’m indoctrinated.” “I know,” he said. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 48

“We have to find Liara. We’ll all go up the beam. I have to decide something... I don’t know if I can decide. Come on, get up.” “Liara got knocked out when the tank flipped. I saw it.” Garrus tried to sit up, failed. “Rough shape. Her. Both of us. And you. You can’t drag us both up there. You’re a mess.” “Bullshit,” Shepard said. Except that he was right. The pit of her stomach had gone cold. “Liara... ” Shepard ‘s ribs gave a jab of pain. That gave her an excuse not to say what she was thinking: If I leave either of them here, they’ll die.

Garrus hacked up a laugh. “We’ll survive. Thanks to Wrex, of all people. He showed up after the retreat was called and tried to med-evac me. I told him to find Liara first. Goddamn Wrex.” Garrus spit blood. “You find her first, he’ll probably come back for me. He’ll save me for you; I never thought he liked me much.” Wrex, Shepard thought, remembering how, years ago, she’d nearly killed him. That same day, she’d left Ashley to die on Virmire, let Kaiden live instead. Now, Wrex was saving her from having to make that kind of decision again. “Thank god for Wrex,” she told Garrus. “Let him get Liara somewhere safe. Maybe Cortez can even get her off Earth, if a ship’s passing close by.” She got her arm under him. “You’re coming with me.” The two of them could barely stand together. They tottered forward like some kind of misshapen rachni. In another life, it might have been funny. Garrus was woozy from blood-loss; by the time they got to the beam, she was doing the standing for both of them. But then they were in the beam. For real. The firefight in the sky blurred. She and Garrus were flying toward it, their heads swimming. There was light, then darkness. Shepard tumbled out of the beam and onto a filthy, stinking floor. Garrus was right behind her. Out cold. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 49

“Goddamnit, Garrus,” she hissed, uselessly. The trip up the beam had made him black out; he might be awake soon, but she didn’t have time to wait. She’d have to leave him here, for now. But at least this place was quiet. Not like a warzone.

What was this place? She stood up. No, it wasn’t a warzone. More like the dump behind a slaughter-house. When there were enough bodies around, Shepard could pretend they were mannequins instead of people. That made it easier. She threw up anyway. That hurt, a lot. She got a grip and glanced behind her. There was no sign of the beam, just a cylindrical structure like one of the Citadel’s elevator shafts. She dragged Garrus away from it and hid him in the piles of human carrion. Among the mannequins. Shepard stumbled forward, without any real idea where she was going. She raised her weapon when she saw movement in the corner of her eye. One of the Citadel Keepers turned to glance at her, then looked away. It was cutting tissue-samples from the dead. Better not to kill it; killing it would probably set off some kind of alarm. But she was tempted. She kept moving. She was somewhere on the Citadel’s Presidium Ring, she thought. There was open space to her right, and a glittering darkness out there that might have been the lake. The gravity was fortunately light: The Ring normally created most of its gravity through spin, and it wasn’t spinning right now. The bodies she saw were all human: They’d come up on the beam, same as her. My victims, she thought. There were probably many body-dumps like this on the Ring, she guessed. This one looked too haphazard to be important. Her feet were trailing dirt and blood, which would make it easy for Garrus or anything else to track her. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any enemies around here. Where else is the Crucible docked to the Citadel? she wondered, trying to remember the Crucible plans. It has to dock at several points along the Ring, or else it would be unstable. If I can find a docking- point, maybe I can get to the Crucible. She thought the Crucible might have docked where the Citadel’s arms attached to the Ring. That seemed like a good place to start, since she could get there easily. She tumbled down a few steps to where a rapid-transit cab was waiting. If the cab didn’t work, she’d have to think of something else. Before she got in, she wet her finger and ran it across her forehead. It didn’t take much to get the scalp- wound bleeding again. She wrote WENT TO NEAREST ARM-JOINT-> on the floor in her own blood. If Garrus woke up, he’d have a way to find her. The cab worked. It wasn’t impeded by the bodies on the tracks, either. But she could have done without hearing the sound it made when it ran them over. She pulled herself out of the cab, hoping her intuition was good. The Citadel’s arms attached at exposed joints where air-barriers kept out the vacuum of space. The view was normally good here, and the place was filled with high-end shops. They were dark but otherwise undamaged. Shepard stole an omni-tool out of a display case to replace her own ruined one. Then she spent a few minutes looking for medi-gel. The medi-gel didn’t help much, but at least now she could hold her weapon steady. She made her way to the viewing terrace. You could normally look out and see stars, but now there was an enormous, distant structure like a continent of metal. The Crucible. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 50

She found where the Crucible had gripped onto the Ring. The shops were plenty damaged here. The Crucible’s Prothean design hadn’t accounted for the modifications made to the Citadel in the last fifty thousand years. The asari-made floors had sheared off where the Crucible’s twenty-meter-wide anchor had slammed into them. Around the anchor, the air-barrier was sparking blue, but it was intact. Shepard followed the edge of the sheared-off floors, until she came to the end of the anchor. She could see a light several stories down. It looked like a doorway, into the anchor and the Crucible beyond. There were stairs in a nearby corridor. She was getting used to the emptiness of the Ring, so she literally walked into the Banshee before she saw it. It didn’t even shriek until it had wrapped its fingers around her throat, then it let out a godawful noise that ripped across every octave, its face inches from hers. Shepard remembered her new omni-tool just in time, and the blade popped out and sliced the Banshee’s head in half. It let go of her throat a few seconds later.

Maybe you were the asari Councilor, Shepard thought bitterly. She kicked it away from her, shuddering. She wasn’t any more hurt than before. But she was shaken. The shadows were all whispering to her again. Not now! she thought fiercely. Control it! She was down at the entrance to the anchor. The anchor was a hollow tube, brilliantly lit after the darkness of the Citadel. She didn’t have to walk. There were railcars here; the Crucible construction teams must have used them to transport materials. She sat back while the car took her up. She was hoping for a vision that would tell her what to do next. Then she remembered the Reaper-boy. On second thought, maybe she was better off without visions. She didn’t stop the car until the end of the track. She got off and shuffled down a chasm full of shifting, sparking panels like an electrified deck of cards. It extended forever out to her right and left. While she was climbing the ramp on the other side, her radio crackled to life in her ear. “Shepard! Shepard, can you hear me?” It was Anderson’s voice. She wondered briefly how he had gotten up here, but nevermind that; she’d never been so glad to hear from him. She fiddled with her new omni-tool until it could transmit on that frequency. “Yeah. You up here, too?” “I came up through the Citadel. Must’ve been a different place than you. Keep going. You’re almost at the control-center.” She shuffled up the last of the ramp. And she was at her destination. The cannonball-cockpit she’d seen on Gotha was sunken into the floor here, inaccessible for the moment. Overhead, sparking-panels were arranged in a massive cylinder, like the apse of some alien cathedral. Lightning snaked down them as she watched, warping strangely at the edges of her vision. At the far end, she could see Anderson leaning over a control panel, trying to raise the cannonball so he WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 51

could set off the Crucible. No! she thought, not really sure why she thought it, except that he couldn’t understand what it meant to use the Crucible, couldn’t understand the weight of that decision. No human could.

She got closer. Shepard saw a cross-section of the Citadel on the display in front of him. She guessed that he’d managed to open the Citadel’s relay into dark space. Whatever happened to the Reapers here would happen to the Reapers out there as well. Her vision blurred. She could end the Reaper-threat. Forever. Anderson turned. There was something wrong with him. He was stiff, wild-eyed, frozen with indecision. Like she ought to be.

“Shepard,” he gasped, “I can’t...” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 52

She didn’t understand what was going on. Why was he even here? And did he know what the Crucible did? He must. She closed her eyes, saw the Boy behind her eyelids. Not the Reaper-boy, the real one. Smiling with her in the forest while the world burned away. She heard the Illusive Man’s voice in her head before she heard it in her ears. “I underestimated you, Shepard,” he said quietly. “I knew you’d try to come here, but I didn’t really expect you to show up. But here you are. And I think you understand. Control is the only way.

He was behind her, and he wasn’t a hologram this time. But he didn’t seem scared of her pistol, either. He kept his distance, but only in the way you’d keep your distance from a stinking, unstable mess. Lights gleamed off the black machinery beneath his burned skin. He was looking at her thoughtfully.

“I know what the Crucible does,” he said at last. “And I won’t let you use it. You understand, don’t you? You don’t want to be a villain.” She was propping herself up on the control panel. “Earth isn’t the only place with humans,” she said weakly, not looking at him. She couldn’t even convince herself that this was right. “We destroy the Reapers, or they destroy us.” “No. You’ve lost it, Shepard. You’d become the monster that destroyed Earth out of fear. You’re too afraid to evolve. I know for a fact that I can control them. Why won’t you let me do that?” Anderson’s gravelly voice came from somewhere behind her. “They’re controlling you!” “No, I don’t think so.” The Illusive Man was pacing. “It’s very sad, you losing your mind like this. You had so much human potential; that’s why I rebuilt you. And I suppose that’s why I’m still trying to make WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 53 you see reason. But I don’t have to put up with you anymore. I can control. Do you want a demonstration?” Shepard’s vision warped again. She could see the end of her pistol, and the background of lights moving behind it. Was she turning around? The blast of her pistol was so loud it hurt, even with her artillery-deafened ears. She saw Anderson slumping on the ground before her, blood soaking his side. “No!” she cried. “Please don’t get up,” the Illusive Man said. “Just listen, for once in your life. The Reapers can take us ten thousand years beyond our current technology. They can take us beyond the limitations of our physical bodies. I’ve just shown you that. I can control.” Shepard was on the ground, and she didn’t remember getting there. None of this made any sense. The Illusive Man shouldn’t even be alive. He couldn’t control; she’d seen Earth, it was no better than before he’d come, with his controlled Reapers. Anderson said it was actually worse... A light came on in her mind. “You’re already controlling them, aren’t you?” Shepard said. “What’s happening down there... you’re directing it. You’ve become the Human Reaper.” For a moment, there was something like doubt in his hard blue eyes. “This is different.” “You are controlling them!” Shepard shouted. She struggled to get up “You goddamn... thing, what are you!? Look at what you’ve done!” “We’re evolving. You brought alien fleets into our skies. You brought an alien lover into your bed. When we’re strong enough to undo the damage people like you have done to us, human life can go back to the way it was. Except that we won’t want it to. I wish you could see this power through my eyes, Shepard. It’s so incredibly beautiful.” She was weak. She knew that. Her hand was on her side, and it was covered in blood from a gunshot wound she hadn’t noticed before. And he could control her. She had to try reasoning with him. “Take the Crucible to another system with a Beacon,” she pleaded. “The Reapers will follow. Take it to Sanctuary, on Horizon. Where you lost your humanity.” He’d lost his humanity long before that, she thought, but she wondered if he knew that. Again, the flicker of doubt in those hard blue eyes. “Sanctuary’s sun will be our Catalyst. We’ll use the Crucible there, instead of here. We’ll save Earth and destroy the Reapers. Together.” The Illusive Man held his head, like he had a headache. He tapped his temple with the side of his pistol. “No, I... I just need... a minute to think...”

“You can’t, can you?” Anderson wheezed. “They won’t let you! They’re controlling you!” “Nobody is controlling me!” he screamed. “You...! You’d undo everything I’ve worked for! But I won’t let you!” He brought the gun down to Anderson’s head. A shot rang out, and Shepard was spattered with someone else’s blood. She’d closed her eyes. When she opened them, she saw the Illusive Man on the ground, dead. Anderson was nowhere to be seen. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 54

“Shepard!” Garrus called, lowering his sniper rifle. “What the hell is going on here!?” “Anderson...” she said. “What about Anderson!” Garrus ran over and aimed another eight bullets at the Illusive Man’s head. You couldn’t really call it a “head” after that. Shepard noticed thankfully that Garrus must have found the medi-gel in the Citadel shops; he wasn’t half-dead anymore. “You nearly let that bastard kill you!” Garrus yelled. “He was going to shoot Anderson,” Shepard murmured. “Shepard,” Garrus said slowly. “There is no one else here. I saw him put the gun to your head, no one else’s. I don’t know where Anderson is, but he’s not here.” Shepard looked around. She looked down at her hand, covered in blood from the brand-new gunshot wound. She thought she’d shot Anderson. But Anderson wasn’t here.

“The Illusive Man was controlling the Reapers,” she said. “And I guess he was controlling me, too.” Garrus’ eyes hardened. “I’m not so surprised,” he said. “All the more reason to set off the Crucible and be done with.” “No,” Shepard said. “We can’t.” “Why the hell not?” “Because the Sun is the Catalyst. It’ll supernova when we fire the star inside the Crucible at it. Destroy Earth. I can’t... that’s not what I’ve fought for.” “Why do you think that? Who told you that?” Shepard didn’t have an answer. “I... figured it out,” she said. Maybe the Reaper-boy had been lying to her about how the Crucible worked. But somehow she didn’t think so. And she couldn’t set off the Crucible without knowing if she was dooming Earth. Garrus understood that. “We’ll wait for Tali,” Garrus said, sitting beside her. “She’ll have something to say about that.” “Tali?” “Remember when I asked you, hypothetically, who you would send to board the Crucible directly?” Garrus grinned humorlessly. “Hackett sent them. They were the primary Crucible team, not us. The fleet had a tough time getting them all here. Tali was with the quarians; she told me if they’d wasted any more of their own ships at Rannoch she wouldn’t have made it. Javik and James were on human ships. They said pretty much the same thing; if you hadn’t whipped this galaxy into shape they’d have gone up in flames. So we haven’t been wasting our time all these months.” His radio crackled, and he spoke some directions into it. “They’ll be here any minute now. Let’s try to raise EDI on this console while we’re waiting.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 55

Garrus got through to EDI, who also called Liara and Kaiden. Liara was bruised but alive, and thanks to Cortez, she was no longer on Earth. An asari ship had managed to swoop low enough to pick up the Kodiak as it surfaced from Earth’s atmosphere. Liara’s hologram met Shepard with tears, crying that she’d been sure Shepard was dead. Shepard would have given her a hug, but you couldn’t hug a hologram. Liara and Kaiden stood there ethereally, staring at the cannonball-like control-center as EDI raised it from the floor. “EDI,” Shepard said. “Can you access the control-programs the Illusive Man used to slave the Reapers to his cerebral implants?” “Yes, Commander,” EDI said neutrally. “Can you make them accessible from this console?” “Yes, Commander. However, these programs are fundamentally designed for use with Reaper-tech cerebral implants. I will give you the option to install the Reaper-control programs on your own implants, using this console. But if you try to control the Reapers, the risk of further indoctrination is extremely high.” “What are you doing?” Kaiden asked Shepard sharply. “Keeping our options open,” Shepard said. Garrus wasn’t saying anything. He was just staring at the Illusive Man’s corpse. “I haven’t forgotten what ‘control’ did to him,” she told Garrus. “Brief Tali’s team about it. We’re all going to talk about this. I won’t make this decision alone.” Garrus touched his radio and started speaking into it, loud enough that Liara, EDI and Kaiden could hear. He told them how everything the Reapers had done on Earth for the last few days was done with the Illusive Man’s consent. His ‘control’. The whole time, Garrus stared at the Illusive Man’s nearly- headless corpse. No one interrupted him. He didn’t say anything about the Crucible. Better to discuss that face-to-face. After that, Garrus went silent, and refused to answer questions until everyone was here. Tali, Javik, and James appeared at the top of the ramp a few minutes later. Javik’s reaction was immediate. He was furious. “The Crucible has been ready to activate for how long now!?” he shouted. “Why have you not done it!?” “There’s been a complication,” Garrus said. He was leaning against the entrance to the cannonball, and his eyes hadn’t moved from the corpse. “Ask Shepard about it.” “I am asking you, turian-savage! What ‘complication’ can excuse you? My people are dead! Your people are soon to be dead! Are you too weak to save them!?” “The star inside the Crucible will cause a Type 1a binary supernova when we fire it at the Sun,” Shepard said. “This whole solar system will be wiped out, including humanity’s homeworld.” She was remembering, now, one of the Beacon-visions she’d had last year: The briefest flash of an image of two suns, moving together, and an explosion that rattled the stars. The last thing she’d seen was a Reaper coming to pieces in the terrible light. That vision, more than the astrophysics she’d studied or the Reaper-boy’s claims, convinced her that she was correct. “Sound familiar, Javik?”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 56

She could tell by Javik’s expression that he hadn’t known. But he did now. And she could tell that he didn’t give a damn. “What is one world?” he said softly. “I should have blasted you to pieces when you were an ice cube,” James Vega answered. If he’d been yelling and blustering, Shepard wouldn’t have taken him seriously. No bluster here. Just an unspoken promise. Javik looked him up and down and said nothing. Shepard knew that look. Javik was considering his tactics. “Shepard...” Tali said, reaching for her shoulder. “Keelah, I think you’re right. I think... we’ve been expecting something magical from the Crucible, and this makes more sense. I’m also telling you don’t do it! My people have been homeless, Shepard! Look at what it did to us!” She rapped the faceplate of her suit, beneath the eyes Shepard had never really seen. “The Illusive Man controlled the Reapers for a while, before he got too indoctrinated to do it. You have to try. Don’t destroy your people’s home.” “No, Tali,” Garrus said calmly. He finally looked up from the body. “The Reapers can’t be controlled. Not by the Illusive Man, and not by Shepard. We saw that.” Shepard looked at him, shocked. “You think I should set off the Crucible?” “I think you have no choice. This hurts, Shepard. Don’t think it doesn’t. But I told you that if you couldn’t set off the Crucible, I would.” His rifle shifted uncomfortably in his hands, but his eyes were ice and his face was as rigid as Turian steel. “You told me once that you have to be hardhearted sometimes. No one will ever forget what you’ve done for the galaxy. But I’ve got a duty to it, too.” “Fuck you, turian!” James swore. “Garrus, no!” Tali cried. “It’s Shepard’s world, not ours. She’s our friend! Your friend!” Shepard remembered that there was something between Tali and Garrus. Maybe not anymore. “Shepard,” EDI interrupted. “I have fulfilled your request to make the Illusive Man’s control- programs accessible from this place. Download to your cerebral implants will begin once you activate the console. Control is possible.” She looked at Javik and Garrus. “But you may have to fight for it.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 57

“Garrus and Javik are right,” Kaiden’s hologram said suddenly. “I’m not there and I can’t do anything about it. But they’re right. Shepard, you betrayed the Citadel and everyone on it. You did it because you were indoctrinated by that goddamn Reaper-tech that Cerberus used to rebuild you. You think you should mind-meld with the whole Reaper-fleet, with your indoctrination-history and everything you know about us!? No, I’m not that naive. Earth’s not the only human world; I’ve lived most of my life in space. ...And you’re a Spectre, like me. We make the difficult decisions. We’re facing extinction if we can’t sacrifice Earth. So do it.” James Vega looked at Kaiden and made another unspoken promise. Liara was looking shell-shocked. But she said, “I’m with you, Shepard. No matter what.” “You are voting,” Javik scoffed. “I do not vote. I act. I am the Avatar of my people’s Vengeance. And so be it, I will kill any of you who stand in my way.” Javik’s talking in capital letters again, Shepard thought, some part of her brain trying to distance itself from the fact that her crew was about to kill each other. She closed her eyes. She was still bleeding out through her side. Deciding the fate of Earth, and she couldn’t even stand up properly. Tension was surging across the room like the electrical arcs overhead. She pictured all the violent deaths she’d seen in her time. She was used to violent death. But she didn’t want any of her friends to die like this. She realized EDI hadn’t offered any opinion. What was that phrase EDI had used, to explain why she was asking the crew’s opinion on her evolving free will? I could miss critical context, EDI had said. Shepard couldn’t afford to miss anything. “EDI, what do you think?” Shepard asked. “I have provided the option of control to you,” EDI said. “I believe it is possible, but improbable, that you can control the Reapers. You have been indoctrinated, and are unreliable. Ideally, someone else would attempt control instead. However, as I stated earlier, the Illusive Man’s control-programs cannot be used by someone without Reaper-tech implants. Your other teammates cannot make the attempt.” “But you can.” “But I can,” EDI said. Shepard looked at EDI’s strange silver eyes and wondered how human she was, really. Suddenly, those little advice-conversations she’d been having with EDI over the past few months seemed a lot more important. Shepard had always encouraged EDI to become more human. Less of a slave to programs she hadn’t written. Hadn’t she? “How would that work?” Shepard asked. EDI said, “I believe I could control the Reapers well enough that some of them would defend us while we moved the Crucible away from Earth. Since the Citadel is the hub of the Beacon-network and the mass-relay network, I could verify Beacon-locations and bring us directly to any system with both a Beacon and a mass-relay. Once there, we could set off the Crucible without destroying Earth. Our fleets would still need to defend us from the Reapers I could not control. The fleets may or may not be capable of doing this. I will do my best to remain sentient and free-willed, Commander. If you would like.” “The synthetic human speaks,” Javik said. “Shut it,” James told him. “AIs were among the first corrupted by the Reapers in my cycle,” Javik said. “This thing Joker-pilot loves will betray us. Perhaps she is already indoctrinated.” “She is the Normandy,” Shepard said. “You practically live on her back.” Shepard tried to stand, failed, and grimaced. “I’ve distrusted EDI time and time again, and she’s always proven me wrong. I won’t keep making the same mistake just to sooth my goddamn ego.” Javik’s ego wasn’t listening. “Maybe she is trying to trick us, hmm? Even if not, she cannot be trusted to fight indoctrination. She just said that she is made of Reaper-parts. And your fleets! Pathetic. They could not hold a candle to the might of the Prothean fleet in its day.” “Keelah, he’s a fanatic,” Tali murmured. “Like my father.” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 58

Garrus stepped away from Javik. “EDI fought for every ounce of free will she has. And I trust her. If anyone can hold the Reapers off us, she can.” “It’s not a great plan, but it’s the best I’ve heard so far,” Kaiden said. “EDI, can you alter your memory-storage so that one of us has to give you access to any classified data? That way if you get indoctrinated it won’t be such a disaster.” “Yes, Spectre Alenko. I have already begun this process.” “Then let’s do it,” Shepard said. “You will not do this!” Javik shouted. “We are so close to success, and you would throw it away on the word of a synthetic. I will not allow it!”

Javik darted toward the cannonball control-center, throwing James halfway across the room with a biotic push. Tali pulled Shepard behind the console just as Javik sent a spray of bullets her way. Tali squealed an untranslatable quarian curse and sent a drone after Javik. Garrus was blocking the entrance to the cannonball. He had his rifle aimed at Javik but he was wasting time talking instead of firing. “Control yourself!” he was shouting. “We’ll set off the Crucible if this doesn’t work!” He can’t be reasoned with, Garrus! Shepard thought. She struggled to aim around the console, unwilling to let fate take its course even if she was dying. Javik threw some kind of biotic at Garrus. Garrus lost his aim as he doubled over, glowing black. Then Javik was right next to Garrus, his gun at Garrus’ skull, and its muzzle was beneath Garrus’ shields, ready for a one-shot kill. Shepard didn’t have any more time to aim. She fired and prayed. She didn’t kill Javik with that first shot. But she did distract him. He whirled around, his Prothean face contorted with animal fury. He started to run at her, determined to put her out of his misery. The others were shooting at him, wearing down his shields as he charged at her, but it wouldn’t be enough. She took one more shot as his head and shoulders appeared around the console. And that was enough. The last of the Protheans fell on top of her, dead. “Goddess,” Liara said, bowing her head. Shepard shoved Javik off her, shaking. “No more!” she shouted. “No more fighting! We try it EDI’s way! And if it looks like she is failing I will set off the Crucible myself! And if I can’t...” She looked at Garrus. “The Reapers think they give us immortality into the next cycle, but they’re just parasites. We will break the cycle. That will be our immortality.” James Vega was covering his face with his hand. “Help me into the control-center,” she told him gently. “We’ll all go in while EDI does her thing.” “Shepard,” Liara’s hologram said. “When you lure the Reapers to a new system, how are you going to get out after you set off the Crucible?” “I love you, sweetie,” Shepard said. “Just remember to remember me in a thousand years.” “I’ll never forget,” Liara whispered. She touched Liara’s holographic fingertips, then went into the control-center with James. “I am notifying the fleets of our intent to move the Crucible and attempt limited Reaper-control,” EDI said, through the cannonball’s panel-screen now. “I will not attempt to influence many Reapers initially, WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 59 to reduce the risk that I will become indoctrinated. The Reapers I control may get close to us, and it is vital that the fleets ignore those Reapers and focus on the aggressive ones. Some admirals are reluctant to trust in our plan. If they do not support us, I will ask permission to attempt a greater level of Reaper- control.” “Keep the com-lines to the admirals open,” Shepard said. She put her hands on the white grips in front of her, her Prothean-intuition recognizing them as the mind-touch interface Vendetta had told her about. The Crucible’s Prothean software flooded her mind with images, hieroglyphs and shapes that mostly meant nothing to her. But she could see the Crucible’s trigger among the symbols. It burned behind her eyelids with a heat like the heart of a star. “Begin.” EDI’s face was on-screen, along with vids from outside the Crucible. The vids showed the Crucible itself, and the Reapers and the galactic fleets fighting around it. EDI’s expression didn’t change, but the video quality went down as she said, “Reaper fleet accessed. Attempting five percent control...” Shepard could feel to Crucible begin to move. Outside, some of the Reapers turned their backs on the Crucible and began to fire on the other Reapers. The turncoat-Reapers made easy targets for the turian fleets nearby. “By order of Commander Shepard, stop attacking the turncoats!” she told the turian admirals. The turian leader Primarch Victus came on the line. “Commander Shepard, your word doesn’t carry the weight it used to,” he said. “Not after what happened to the Citadel.” Shepard didn’t even try to convince him otherwise. “Garrus,” she said. “Talk to your Primarch.” Garrus leaned into the com and spoke. A moment later, the turncoat-Reapers were no longer under fire from the turians. “Holding steady at five percent control,” EDI said. “There is a knot of Reapers ahead, currently engaging a salarian clan-fleet. They have spotted us and our controlled Reapers and have misinterpreted our situation. They are re-targeting.” That meant Shepard had to talk to whichever salarian Dalatrass was in charge of that fleet. She looked at the clan-signature on the console. Clan Linron. Damn. Shepard had told Dalatrass Linron to get screwed when the dalatrass tried to convince her to betray Wrex and the krogans. This wouldn’t be easy. Shepard brought up the dalatrass on the screen. The dalatrass’ wet eyelids were halfway up her eyes. That was a salarian expression of either friendliness or aggression, like human teeth-baring. And that face sure wasn’t friendly. “Commander Shepard,” Dalatrass Linron hissed. “The monster who gave the Citadel to the Reapers.” That greeting didn’t leave Shepard much to work with. The battle over Earth wasn’t particularly visible from this distance; she doubted the salarians had noticed EDI’s Reapers shooting at the other Reapers. “These Reapers are controlled,” Shepard said. “They are our escort out of the Sol system. We’ve discovered that the Crucible-“ Dalatrass Linron made a nasty screech of a word that didn’t translate. “You think I would trust you again, Shepard? Stealing the Crucible a second time?” Outside, the Reapers fighting the salarians were beginning to shoot at EDI’s Reapers. “Look out there!” Shepard said. “I’m the Reapers’ enemy, not yours! You don’t have to help me, but stay out of my way!” “You’re the most dangerous enemy I have,” the dalatrass said, and hung up. A moment later, the salarians opened fire on EDI’s controlled Reapers. “Commander, I do not wish to fire upon the salarians,” EDI said. “May I attempt control of other Reapers to replace the ones I am losing? A new swarm of them is closing in on us now. They are aiming at the Crucible itself.” Shepard was about to tell EDI that that was too risky. But then the cannonball shook. Outside, a bright line of hot plasma was streaming from a new hole in the Crucible. Shepard remembered the nebula around the Widow, and wondered if it had started just like this. “Do it, EDI!” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 60

“Attempting ten percent control...” EDI said. The vids in front of Shepard started lagging. Black shadows flickered across the screens whenever the images froze. EDI’s image cocked its head. “Commander, is it your final assessment that intelligent organics can avoid destroying themselves indefinitely?” The Reapers were getting to her, Shepard knew. The Reaper-boy had asked Shepard almost the same question. And Shepard wasn’t going to argue galactic survival-statistics with immortal machines. “Remember Joker, EDI!” she said. “Would you like him better in husk-form?” The shadows on the screens disappeared. “Maintaining control at ten percent,” EDI said. They sped toward the Charon mass-relay. Some salarian ships followed them, but they wouldn’t shoot at the Crucible itself. “I have enlisted Liara and Kaiden to convince the asari and humans to cooperate with us,” EDI said. “Shepard, we are approaching the Charon mass-relay. Normally, the Charon Mass Relay leads to Arcturus Station, and the Arcturus system does not have any Beacons to forcibly summon all the Reapers. If we went there, the Reapers would send a small squadron to destroy us as we flew to another mass-relay. We are unlikely to outmaneuver them in the Crucible. Therefore, I must reprogram the Charon mass-relay via the Citadel, so that it will take us directly to a system with a Beacon.” A galaxy-map appeared on the screen in front of Shepard. “The highlighted systems all have Beacons. Please choose one as the destination system for the Crucible.” EDI’s image warped, black splotches covering her eyes momentarily and making them look like burnt holes. “I must remind you that every planet in that system will be completely destroyed when we use the Crucible.” “We should take the Crucible to some system full of dead rocks that no one’s ever heard of,” James Vega said. “We can’t, though, can we?” Tali said tensely. “The Beacons were meant to monitor life for the Reapers. They’re not in systems ‘full of dead rocks.’ They’re near garden-worlds.” “Correct,” EDI said. “I have not located any Beacons in dead systems. The Crucible cannot be activated without terrible cost.” Shepard closed her eyes. “Commander, there is a risk that diverting my attention to hack the Charon mass-relay will cause me to become critically indoctrinated,” EDI said. “I am installing further safeguards so that severe indoctrination will not jeopardize the mission. As for the destination system, I advise-” The sound from the speakers went bad. EDI’s voice was lost under a tide of whispers. The whispers built into a Reaper’s roar, and the roar went on and on and on. Shepard’s squadmates covered their ears and moved their lips like they were shouting, but their words were inaudible. EDI spoke directly in Shepard’s head, through the mind-touch interface that Shepard was holding. “Shepard, I am losing control of my communications centers,” she said. “I cannot advise you about where to bring the Crucible, because I cannot guarantee that I would answer you truthfully. You must chose a living planet to destroy, and I cannot help you.” The galaxy-map glowed brighter. “You have fifteen seconds. Please decide.” Shepard stared at the galaxy map before her, her head swimming. She had to choose. She’d been to many of these garden-worlds before; couldn’t remember them well enough to make a decision like this. EDI’s image was warping again. Shepard had heard her own voice in the whispers rushing out of the speakers, could hear the Reapers roaring in her brain, even louder than the Reapers roaring in her ears. She thought of the garden-worlds she knew well. Had Horizon really been depopulated by Sanctuary and the Collectors, or was she just hoping it was? Virmire wasn’t on the map in front of her; its Beacon had been destroyed the day Shepard left Ashley to die. EDI’s eyes were all black-hole now. “Go to that poison planet!” Shepard shouted, trying to remember the name of an uninhabitable garden-world she’d landed on three years ago. “Come on, you know the one I mean!” But EDI was only staring at her, and Shepard realized she did not want to ask EDI for interpretations when the Reapers were staring through her eyes. Shepard couldn’t remember which of the systems on the map were uninhabited, and now she was out of time, and she’d choose a world to die simply because she hadn’t paid enough attention to do WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 61 the right thing. “Horizon!” she said at last, and hoped there was no one left there to damn her for it. “Hack the relay to bring us to Horizon, in the Iera system! We’ll blow Sanctuary halfway across the galaxy!” “Reprogramming the mass-relay to bring us to Horizon,” EDI said. The Charon relay was glowing blue, its approach-corridor illuminating the Crucible. A chain of Reapers was streaming out behind the Crucible, some controlled, some not, but all chasing them. EDI’s image was nothing but a shadow now. “I will bring as many Reapers as I can with us,” she said. “The others will follow us quickly, thanks to the Horizon Beacon. Be ready to fire the Crucible, Commander.” The Charon relay flashed. The Crucible and the Reapers behind it made the jump to Horizon. The Crucible reappeared facing Iera, Horizon’s golden sun. The Reaper-fleet was coming in too, swarming in Iera’s light like a cloud of black flies. “Critical indoctrination threshold has been reached,” EDI said. “Suicide-code is now activated. Shutting down...” “No!” Tali cried. “Oh, EDI...” Shepard said. “I’m sorry. Killing Horizon wasn’t an okay thing to do, was it?”

EDI’s image brightened. She was cutting herself off from the indoctrinated sections of her mind, and the shadows were gone from her eyes. She smiled, and with a smile like that she no longer looked like an AI. “If I thought that, I would have disobeyed you, Shepard,” EDI said happily. “Did you know that I would have refused to bring the Crucible to a populous world like Thessia or Eden Prime?” EDI was proud of herself, like a little girl, and she wanted Shepard to be proud of her, too. “You told me I should give myself the ability to disobey orders on moral grounds. But Horizon was depopulated by Sanctuary, and therefore an acceptable choice. Thank you for treating me as a sentient being, Shepard.” “You did good, EDI,” Shepard said softly. “Tell Jeff-” EDI began. The image fragmented, and the screen went dark. EDI died. Tali hung her head. But Shepard knew EDI wouldn’t want a moment of silence. There was no time. Iera was ahead of her, bright as anything behind the Reaper-swarm. Shepard smiled. She reached for the Crucible’s trigger with her mind, and the Crucible’s programming felt her intent and sealed the cannonball’s doors. Tali, James, Garrus, and Shepard were locked inside. “It’s been an honor serving with all of you,” Shepard told her squadmates. She pulled the Crucible’s trigger.

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 62

* * *

In the Sol system, Joker was piloting the Normandy by hand, trying not to see the limp silver shape in the chair beside him. EDI had said she needed to take her ‘platform’ offline for a while to focus on the Reapers. She’d abandoned the silver body before, but she’d never done this. Never abandoned the whole Normandy. The galactic fleet was polishing off the last of the Reapers, those few Reapers that had been too disabled to chase EDI and the Crucible through the Charon relay. Some salarians were flying circles around the mass-relay like flies that had caught the scent of meat. The salarians were chattering that the relay’s programming was all scrambled; it seemed to have many possible destinations now. They didn’t know where the Crucible had wound up. There was a fast-burning rumor going around that the Crucible was some kind of supernova weapon, and that was why the Crucible had to leave Sol. Joker knew that the salarians would have followed the Crucible anyway, out of curiosity. But they didn’t know where it had gone. Joker did know where it had gone. EDI’s last action had been to wipe herself out of the Normandy’s computers. Her command had come from the other side of the mass-relay. The com-buoy signature said she was in the Iera system. Joker would be damned if he was going to let this be the end of it. A supernova’s shockwave travelled at the speed of light, and the Normandy was faster than light: He might still have time to go to the Iera system and escape. He looked at his maps. Iera’s mass-relay was forty light-minutes out from the star itself, and the Normandy probably wouldn’t drift more than ten light-minutes sunward when it made the jump. EDI had gone silent twenty minutes ago. He did some quick mental math. I can do it, he thought. Even if the Crucible already blew up Iera, I can go to that system for ten more minutes before the supernova will cook us alive. I can save EDI. Save my team, if they haven’t already saved themselves. Anyway, someone has to find out what happens. Joker didn’t ask for Admiral Hackett’s permission. Hackett was probably right that Shepard had been indoctrinated, but he’d still underestimated her. And he’d probably underestimate Joker, too. Joker pulled the Normandy into the approach-corridor of the Charon-relay, and vanished in a flash of blue light. WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 63

When he reappeared in Iera, the shadows in the cockpit were doing something strange. It looked like someone was shining a police-strobe in the Normandy’s windows. It’s finally happened, Joker thought. The Citadel has put traffic-cops in space, and they have pulled me over for reckless driving. He looked up. Iera and the husk of the star Amazon were orbiting each other, whirling so fast their light was warped red and blue. So, Shepard must have fired the Crucible already, and Amazon was taking Iera for a spin before the final ka-boom. Joker wondered if Amazon and Iera were still living stars. Maybe he was just seeing their ghosts. Their supernova could have happened minutes ago, and the light from it just hadn’t reached him yet. One thing was for certain: If he stuck around long enough to see the final show, he’d be dead. He could see Reapers drifting aimlessly around the strobing stars. EDI had told him the Reapers couldn’t leave any system with both a Beacon and the Crucible. She’d told him the Citadel’s relay into dark space was important: That relay would direct the Crucible’s power at all the hibernating Reapers, and kill them, too. So the Citadel and the Crucible had to stay here until the supernova blew everything to smithereens. That meant Shepard and the others couldn’t escape the way they’d come in. But Joker would find them and get them out. And he’d rescue EDI, somehow. He touched the body’s silver fingers. But without EDI inside it, it was just a doll. He called out across the com-buoys, but no one answered. The Iera system was dead. A few Reapers stirred and started chasing him, but he’d outrun hundreds of them before, and these Reapers weren’t even trying very hard. They must be as confused as indoctrinated humans. Joker spotted the Crucible as soon as he got out from behind the Reaper-swarm. The strobing suns were spinning faster now, but he ignored them He flew to the shadow-side of the Crucible, where the Citadel was splayed like a dead starfish. It looked different. Darker. There was no more energy-transfer between the Crucible and the Citadel Tower. Actually, there was no more Citadel Tower. Something had snapped it off the Presidium Ring like a toothpick. Liara had come up behind Joker. She touched his shoulder. She’d come aboard within ten minutes of the disappearance of EDI, the Crucible, and the Reapers. She hadn’t wanted to talk then. But now she pointed at the suns and spoke. “Jeff, we have to go.” The suns were touching, and shrinking, going dark, and at first Joker thought the Crucible must’ve been a dud and nothing would happen to the stars. Then he remembered how supernovas worked. “Maybe I can still contact EDI!” he yelled, even as the dark, radioactive mass of Iera-Amazon spiraled inward toward its final collapse. “If EDI hears me she can transfer herself back into the Normandy, if I can just-“ “They’re gone,” Liara said, and this time she pointed at the broken Citadel Tower and the Ring. Behind the Ring, a tunnel like the barrel of an enormous cannon led into the Crucible. Its walls were still sparking. “The control-center was up there. The one that looked like a cannonball. The Crucible-plans called for stocking the control-center with emergency supplies; now I know why. It’s a lifeboat. It ejected itself from the Crucible.” Joker couldn’t just take her word for it. He linked the Normandy to the Citadel’s docking-cameras, on the off-chance that some of them still worked. Some of them did, and they could see the Presidium Ring. Joker smiled. Fifteen minutes ago a spherical ship had come barreling out of the Ring, hit FTL, and disappeared. The team was alive. The supernova began. If Joker told you it was only a lightshow he’d be lying. The whole fabric of space-time went to hell, shapes distorting and gravity going anarchist. Joker cursed and tried to kick the Normandy to FTL speeds, but the engines were coming to pieces under him, and the com-buoys behind him were registering a wall of fire the size of half the sky, eating up all the Reapers in its path. The buoys and Reapers were torn to plasma as the wall of fire hit them at the speed of light.

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 64

Joker reached the Iera-relay’s approach-corridor, and realized the relay’s programming was scrambled worse than before. The wall of fire had hit the Citadel, the hub of the relay-network, and thrown everything into chaos. He had no idea where this relay would take him. Too bad; it was now or never. The wall of fire was right behind him, its gravitational riptide sucking the Normandy backward into its world-killer light. The Iera-relay flashed blue. Then the supernova caught up with it. The Iera- relay was ripped into atoms, and its atoms were ripped into plasma, and the Reaper threat was over, now and forever.

* * *

Hours later, Joker staggered out into the sunlight of an unknown garden-world. He’d had to make an emergency-landing here, wherever ‘here’ was, and looking at the Normandy, he wondered if she’d ever fly again. Maybe she didn’t need to. Maybe her mission was over, too. Liara came out, cradling an FTL distress-beacon in her arms. She set it down and looked up at the blue sky, smiling. “We’ll find Shepard and the others, Jeff,” Liara said. “That will be our new mission.”

WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 65

* * * Thousands of light-years away, Shepard pushed open the cannonball and crawled out under a yellow sky. Garrus helped her to her feet. The dusty spire of a Reaper-Beacon stuck up out of the surrounding sand-crater. It had been uncovered by their crash-landing. Little underground cactus-things still stuck in the Beacon’s grooves. Shepard touched the Beacon, avoiding the cacti. Nothing happened. The Beacon was still warm, as though it had been active a few minutes ago, but now it was dead. Shepard’s mind was as clear as it had ever been, and the dead Reaper-Beacon confirmed what she already knew. The Reaper threat was over. For good. “I can get this thing working, no problem,” Tali called from inside the cannonball. She was fiddling with an FTL distress-beacon. “Don’t know how long it will take someone to answer it, though. It’s a good thing there’s supplies in here, or else two of us would starve. I wonder who can eat the proteins on this world?” WHISPERING SHADOWS- A MASS EFFECT 3 ALTERNATE ENDING - 66

“Well, I’m not going to eat those cactus-things,” Garrus said. “I don’t suppose there’s anywhere to get a drink around here?” James was climbing up the ridge of stones at one end of the impact crater. “I see smoke!” he called out. “Some kind of primitive village. No natives, though. They’re probably all hiding.” “Shields up in case they’re unfriendly,” Shepard said. “But we’ll try to make a good impression when they do show up. These guys would have been the Reapers’ prey next cycle. We saved their future, too.” She lay back and stared at the yellow sky, turning blue-black around the edges as the stars came out. “But for now, I think I’ll just... rest.”

THE END