The hum of the Normandy's engines thrummed low in the belly of the ship, a steady pulse beneath the storage deck where Ashley Williams sat alone. The familiar scent of gun oil clung to the air, her hands moving by habit over the rifle in her lap. Her armor was stripped down to the underlayer, sleeves rolled to her elbows, dog tags resting against her collarbone.

Her thoughts drifted to her father’s baritone sax, the evenings when her sisters bickered over dinner chores, to her mother reading Plath by a sputtering heater on Sirona. It all felt galaxies away now. Like another life.

The door hissed open.

She looked up, seeing Shepard enter.

“Commander,” she said, putting the rifle down. “You got a minute?”