Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all related trademarks, characters, story elements, and likenesses are the property of Bioware, not me.

Chapter 1

The Citadel: Flux

Club Flux was one of the hottest places on the Wards, or so its advertising ran. Gambling, dancing, exotic liquor, it contained diversions fit for virtually any sentient species in Citadel space. Between off-duty personnel from the nearby Citadel Security headquarters, tourists, and slumming diplomats and dignitaries down from the Presidium, spending a night at Flux greatly increased your chances of finding someone interested, and compatible, to go home with.

Commander Kaidan Alenko, Systems Alliance Military, sat staring into his drink and ignoring all of the above.

Three months. Three months since I… saw… her on Horizon. Almost one month since the Normandy was reported disappearing into the Omega-4 relay. And here I sit, fiddling around on the Citadel waiting to deliver my testimony to some damned Biotics Reparations Subcommit-

"Good evening, Commander. I'm very glad to find you here." A very familiar voice broke into his thoughts. Turning around on his stool, Kaidan then shot to his feet at the sight of his old CO.

"Admiral Anderson, sir!"

"At ease, Commander," said Anderson gently. "Civilian clothes, no salutes. That having been said, congratulations on your promotion. It was well-deserved."

"Deserved, maybe sir. But not as well-deserved as some others," Kaidan said wistfully.

"I know how you feel, Commander," Anderson sighed. "I miss her too. You think you're the only one who comes down to this club from time to time because it's the place we planned how to break the original Normandy out of lockdown and stop Sovereign? How do you think I knew where to find you?"

Kaidan looked thoughtfully at Anderson's serious expression, and thought over the implications of his last remark. "This isn't just a chance meeting to talk over old times, is it sir?"

"No, Commander," Anderson said gravely. "It's not. We'll talk in the shuttle."

Alliance Citadel Defense Squadron: SSV New Mombasa

Both men, now clad in their uniforms, stepped out of the transport shuttle's airlock and into the Alliance cruiser, one of many doing combat space patrol around Citadel Station. Kaidan, his face set in an expressionless mask, wasn't even conscious of the ship's VI calmly announcing "Admiral, Alliance Navy, boarding. Commander, Alliance Navy, boarding." Or of the ship's commanding officer, saluting and welcoming Admiral Anderson aboard before being dismissed with a nod. He only had ears for the news Anderson had given him in the transport shuttle, news still ringing in his ears.

"You're certain Commander Shepard is dead, sir? We believed that once before." I believed that once before.

"And if it wasn't for Cerberus being willing to spend 4 billion credits and a lot of highly experimental nano-technology helping restore the tissues of a vacuum-desicaated… survivor… we'd have been right the first time. No, Commander. The man I debriefed said that she took fire and went down hard… and can personally testify that her body was not taken back abord the Normandy before they left the Collector station, which means it was left behind. And the station was immediately purged afterwards. We can't even hope for another miracle like the one before."

"I… I don't mean to… I just can't believe she's finally gone. Admiral." Kaidan forced out. Keep it together, Alenko. You can't break down on the main deck of an Alliance starship. You can't do it in front of the Admiral!

"I don't want to either, Alenko." Admiral Anderson whispered. "But we have to. I'm sorry."

"At least… at least she did it saving the galaxy again, huh Skipper?" Kaidan said, as he and Anderson started moving down the corridor again. "That's… something, right?"

"It was something amazing, all right. One experimental, upgraded frigate and a squad of misfits recruited from every corner of the galaxy, and she went through a mass relay no ship has ever returned from before, took on an entire army of Reaper servitors in the center of their power, and defeated them all." Anderson said heavily, stepping into the ship's elevator.

"And died in the process," Kaidan spat out. "God damn the Illusive Man for setting her up on that suicide mission! If he had proof about the Collectors' involvement, why not give it to us? We could have sent a dreadnaught! Or a fleet! We could have-"

"Yes. We could have." Anderson interrupted, as the elevator doors slid open and they stepped out. "And we didn't. And I will never forgive myself for not doing more."

"You couldn't have done more, Admiral. You couldn't even convince Udina and the Council to give her and her evidence a hearing. They just… didn't want to listen." And neither did I, Kaidan thought to himself reproachfully.

"Which is why it's up to us to do something, Commander. That's why I quietly pulled a few diplomatic strings to have you brought to the Citadel, ostensibly for the reparations subcomittee. In reality it was so we could meet, unofficially… and I could introduce you to someone."

"Someone? Your… eyewitness, sir?"

"Yes," Anderson said with a flicker of distaste. "Used to be one of ours, a former Alliance soldier. Before he became one of the Illusive Man's."

The two men stopped outside one the cruiser's briefing room, and Admiral Anderson nodded to the marines on guard outside it. After being ID-checked and scanned, they entered the room… and Kaidan looked up at a man almost a head taller than himself, and outweighing him by eighty pounds, with a close-shaven head and dark-colored skin, darker even than Anderson's. The man, somehow looking military even in plain civilian clothing, got up out of one of the chairs and stood to attention as the two officers entered.

"Mr. Taylor," Admiral Anderson stated evenly. "This is Commander Kaidan Alenko. I invited him here because he used to be one of Commander Shepard's crew on the original Normandy. And you're going to finish telling the two of us everything that you started to tell me."

* * * *

"And that's the story, Commander." Jacob Taylor finished, having spent over an hour bringing Kaidan up to date on all the events involving Commander Shepard's resurrection, mission against the Collectors, and second death.

"So the Collector base wasn't destroyed?", Kaidan interjected. "But wouldn't that mean-?"

"Not physically destroyed, Commander," Taylor said. "But Miranda - Operative Lawson – re-set the bomb to cause a measured neutron pulse from the core reactor, instead of an uncontrolled explosion. Any organic life in or within half a mile of the base at the moment of detonation would have been sterilized."

"So Cerberus has possession of the Collectors' base, and all the Reaper technology within it?" Anderson said, shocked. "Are you certain? From your account, you'd withdrawn from the battle before the final conclusion."

"Yes sir, Admiral. I was one of the two people – our krogan, Grunt, being the other one – that Commander Shepard had detailed to escort the Normandy's surviving crew back to the ship. But I was present at the initial debriefings the Illusive Man held after we returned, and heard Operative Lawson testify both to Shepard's death, and what she'd done to the bomb immediately after Shepard died fighting the… proto-Reaper, I guess you'd call it. The base's survival I know from firsthand experience, on the Normandy's exterior view as we pulled away. Likewise, the headcount of who we had onboard… and who we didn't."

"And Garrus? Tali?" Kaidan asked, thickly.

"I'm sorry, Commander. Garrus Vakarian never returned to the ship either. Thane Krios told me that Garrus had taken a direct particle beam hit to the head from a Praetorian, as they were fighting together to hold the door while Commander Shepard, Operative Lawson, and Justicar Samara went to place the bomb. As for Tali'Zorah… her and Legion had gotten cut off from the rest of the team by falling debris when they were retreating back to the Normandy after the bomb was placed. They weren't onboard when we pulled out… which means they're dead. Neither were Garrus' or Commander Shepard's remains. It was a complete 'whoever fell behind was left behind' clusterfuck."

"Dear God," Kaidan husked out. I can't believe it. A friendly geth? A friendly geth fighting alongside Tali, a quarian? And Tali dead? That sweet kid, dead? And my old friend Garrus, also dead? Dear God, how much more?

"Do you need a minute, Alenko?" Anderson asked gently.

"I'll… be fine, sir. So… Taylor. You were Cerberus. You obviously believed in what they were doing. What made you decide to jump ship back to the Alliance? Especially considering that you had to know what kind of welcome you'd be in for? Hell, if the Admiral wasn't afraid that the Illusive Man's information network would pick up on you the instant formal charges were filed or you were detained, you'd be in an Alliance prison right now, not just informal house arrest on this cruiser."

"My service with Cerberus was under certain conditions," Taylor shot back forcefully. "Conditions the Illusive Man violated with how he acted after we returned. Especially with what he tried to do with the Normandy survivors who weren't Cerberus."

"You mean locking them up incommunicado, and with every appearance that it would be indefinitely." Anderson stated.

"And having them shot when they protested," Jacob said flatly. "Samara was the first to go. She said her oath had been to Shepard alone, and only for the duration of the mission, and that Cerberus had no right to detain her once she'd debriefed herself. And then she started to walk right towards the shuttle bay, and moved me aside when I asked her to stop. Just threw me into the wall… and she could have biotically crushed me like a coffee cup, if she'd really wanted to. And then the heavy security mechs opened up, and before I could get back on my feet they'd put enough rockets into her to vaporize a tank. I only found out later that day that the Illusive Man had been monitoring the situation in real-time, and activated the defenses manually."

"This was the day after you returned? And the fight with the justicar… that's when the krogan made a break for it?" Anderson asked.

"As soon as he heard the gunfire from down in his quarters. We'd been having enough trouble keeping Grunt confined as is. I wasn't present for that fight, but I saw Grunt in combat several times on our mission. I'm certain he did some major damage before they brought him down, but I saw what was left of him being carried down to the medical labs later."

"And this… retired assassin? that Shepard recruited? Thane Krios?" Kaidan asked.

"Vanished as soon as the trouble started, from what I was told. Not surprising. Krios was the best at what he did when he was active, and I'm sure he'd already been measuring the defenses of the base and planning his escape routes ahead of time. I still don't know how in the hell he could have gotten from where he started to the shuttle bay and away, but that shuttle damn sure didn't fly itself."

"But he was dying already, from what you told me. Kepral's Syndrome." Anderson said.

"That he was. He had about six months left to live when we recruited him… less, now. But Krios was all about dying on your own terms, not anyone else's. I guess he didn't want to do it stuck in a space station while the Illusive Man figured out what the hell to do with people who knew too much."

"So… you, this Operative Lawson, Grunt, Thane Krios, and Samara all made it back to the Normandy," Kaidan said. "That means you lost…"

"Garrus Vakarian, Tali'Zorah, Legion, Professor Mordin Solus, and Subject Zero… Jack. They all died fighting like hell, but… the odds were on none of us surviving. I suppose only half was better than we could have expected."

"And what about Joker? Dr. Chakwas?" Two of my old shipmates in Cerberus too? What was that about? Does the Illusive Man have mind control powers like the Reapers? … you watch too much bad holovid, Alenko.

"Still alive and healthy… and working for Cerberus… as of the time I left the station. Which was as soon as I could get myself on a courier mission planetside, and then disappear. Three days after Samara and Grunt caught it, and Krios escaped."

"And it took you several more weeks to make it to Alliance space, and get discreetly in contact with me." Anderson interjected. "How did you manage that, Mr. Taylor?"

"I might be a grunt, Admiral, but that doesn't mean I'm an idiot. I didn't spend a couple years as an Alliance Corsair without learning a little something about how to fake a shuttle crash, or how to do interstellar travel off-grid. Figuring out who in the Alliance Military to contact without running straight into a Cerberus sympathizer was harder… but I remembered what Commander Shepard had said about you once, when the subject came up. 'The most honorable CO she'd ever had.' And we'd come here with the Normandy right after we scouted Freedom's Progress, so she could speak with you."

"And so here we all are," Kaidan said. "You didn't bring me here just to hear about the Commander's death, Admiral. And you didn't go to all this trouble to keep Taylor here out of a cell and Cerberus from knowing he's still alive, unless you had a use for him."

"You're right, Commander. I didn't. We're here because the greatest threat to all life is still out there, and the Council and the Alliance still don't believe it exists. And we can't just sit on our backsides any more and wait for Shepard to save us. Shepard's gone. It's time we did something. It's past time we did something."

"Admiral, if you're going to try and fight the Reapers, I'm with you." Jacob Taylor stated passionately. "You want me to testify on the Council floor on live galactic TV, I'll do it. You want me to debrief to Alliance High Command from a cell on death row, I'll do it. You find another Collector base and want me to charge it single-handed with a backpack nuke, I'll do it. Whatever you need done. I won't just sit and wait for the Reapers to harvest us all, no matter what else anyone is or isn't doing. I screwed up trusting Cerberus. For all I know, I'm screwing up by trusting you. But as long as I'm alive I will keep fighting, however I can."

Damn, Taylor, you really are a fanatic, aren't you? But… wouldn't Shepard have said the same thing, in your place? Wouldn't I? … not that I'm going to be joining Cerberus in this or any other lifetime.

"Me too, Admiral." Kaidan said, hot on Taylor's heels. "Except for the single-handed with a nuke part. Once was enough."

Anderson smiled, almost involuntarily, before continuing on. "The Council adamantly doesn't want to believe in the Reapers. Alliance High Command thinks I'm either naïve or a crackpot, what with me always protesting to them about the Reapers. The galaxy needs to unite against them, and that won't happen until solid proof is delivered. Proof even the most ostrich-like politician can't ignore. And right now, one person and one person only holds this proof."

"The Illusive Man." Taylor spit out.

"You want me to track down someone that every intelligence agency in the galaxy hasn't gotten so much as a sniff of in over a decade of trying, Admiral? I'll do my best… but I can't make you any promises." Kaidan said.

"No, Commander. I don't expect you to single-handedly bring in the Illusive Man. But from what Mr. Taylor has told us, right now the Illusive Man's primary focus is going to be on something that we know exactly where it is."

"The Collector's base at the galactic core." Kaidan said.

"Which can only be reached through one place – the Omega-4 relay – and by only one ship – the second Normandy." Taylor said.

"Unless the Illusive Man has dismounted the Reaper IFF you mentioned, Taylor, and placed it on another ship," Admiral Anderson pointed out. "Which is why I'm making your mission to find that device, and bring it in to the Alliance. With it, we can cut off the Illusive Man's continued access to Reaper technology, and at the same time send a ship to bring back undeniable proof for the Council!"

"And… Mr. Taylor's role in this?" Kaidan asked. Jacob leaned forward attentively.

"That's… what I'm debating with myself, Commander." Anderson stated gravely. "I've seen your record, Taylor. You were a first-class soldier, one of the best. And your actions in the Arcturian Jade incident and the biowarfare plot against the Council immediately following would likely have gotten you the Star of Terra, if you'd still been in Alliance service at the time. But Cerberus? You know what kind of scum they are even better than I do! And how they work… even your defection, your testimony… how can I trust this isn't all some smoke and mirrors by the Illusive Man? How can I trust you?"

"Then don't trust me, Admiral." Taylor said. "Send the Commander here out with whoever else you can pick for him, and lock me up somewhere they have to pipe in the daylight. I can't say I don't have it coming, and while I think I could be a valuable asset to the mission you're setting up, I'll be nothing but dead weight if Commander Alenko spends all his time just waiting for a shot in the back."

"I'll take him, Admiral." Kaidan interjected.

"You'll… Alenko, are you sure? You've just met him! How can you judge?"

"Admiral, I know how you feel about Cerberus, especially after what they did to Admiral Kahoku. If Taylor's record is impressive enough that it'll make you even consider putting him anywhere other than an isolation cell, then it must be something stellar. And… I'm N7 special operations trained, sir, and I was right alongside the Commander when we learned everything we originally knew about Cerberus, but they've outwitted and outfought some of the best in the galaxy when it comes to espionage. I'm going to need a Cerberus insider-"

"Former insider." Jacob stated forcefully.

"- if I'm to have any real chance."

And if I can't believe in second chances, then I might as well not go on this mission myself.

* * * *

Author's Notes: Yes, Commander Shepard is really dead. They will not discover her miraculously alive later. Not only did ME2 canon already use up the quota of that, this story is intended to a continuation fanfic about how the various people she led from ME1 and ME2 will continue on without her, inspired by her example.

As the nature of the Mass Effect games ensures that Commander Shepard is a character who potentially comes in infinite variety, I feel it necessary to outline that the Shepard of this continuity is such: femShep, largely Paragon, Kaidan romance, Ashley died on Virmire, Wrex lives, Council saved, Udina becomes Councilor.

And for people who don't like Kaidan; sorry, but he's going to be the main protagonist of this fanfic. This story is being written with only partial attention paid to who is and is not the author's personal favorite: regardless of my feelings on a character, I'm not going to grossly violate the internal logic of the setting or canon just to shoehorn people in or out. If I really don't' like a character, I'll just try not to use them at all, but who I use and how I use them will be only partially dictated by emotional bias. The only tweaks to continuity I will try to make will be those to remove elements that were mandated in order to make the game playable, at the expense of story logic (such as the game not allowing Commander Shepard to die on the Suicide Mission unless the entire party had been lost first, which is not the case here).

As for the Kaidancentric: its pretty much necessary that if any of the game's old playable cast is going to be tapped to "replace" Shepard as senior Alliance officer active on the mission, its going to be Kaidan. Even with her promotion in ME2, Ashley is still only senior enlisted, not officer material: she's not going to be commanding any ships or going around the galaxy getting mixed-up in high-level intrigue or politics. But hey, I'm giving him Jacob Taylor for his senior NCO, and other cast members will be showing up and joining in as soon as the storyline allows, so hopefully even people who aren't Kaidan fans will still have something to emotionally invest in.

At any rate, thank you all for reading, and hope you like the fic. Now, on to the next chapter.

With thanks to ChaosBurnFlame, my first beta reader, and Pendaran, my best friend who is better at coming up with titles than I am.