After Priority: Mars, En-route to The Citadel
Shepard stomped into the stateroom that wasn't his anymore, trying to contain his emotions, a potent mix of frustration, desperation, anger, despair, hopelessness, determination, and so many others he didn't want to think about. His armor was still covered in dust as he paced around the room, releasing it onto the bed and table and table, none of which were supposed to be his again, staining them a rusty red color. But he didn't care. The war he had been fighting to warn his government, to mobilize his fleets and motivate the rest of the galaxy to prepare for a threat that was greater than their worst nightmares had been replaced by a war for survival in less than a day. Earth had fallen, the home world he never had called home except for the worst months of his life, center to the greatest driving force of his life had fallen in less than a day. The Illusive Man, a political character he despised on every level but considered to be only a well-funded minor terrorist threat had become one of his largest concerns and among the greatest threats to galactic safety in less than a day. It was a bit much to handle.
The Commander's pacing slowed with his racing mind, the excitement of the past 22 hours wearing off as his brain gained time to organize, categorize, and assimilate the information he had received. It all began to fall into a picture, if not making sense then at the very least becoming digestible pieces. Shepard's greatest strength had always been his mind, his mantra "A soldier's most powerful weapon is the one between his ears." Ringing true on multiple occasions. He had already possessed a natural ability to accept, process, and make judgements based off of new information before he enlisted, a skill he likely learned by watching his mother, and one quickly had been the key to his success in The Alliance, only being amplified by his experiences in boot camp and N7 school. It had saved his life on multiple occasions, and if he had been able to process the idea that Sovereign was a living machine in time to still destroy Saren's base (the thoughts of the casualties of such were, as always before, pushed to the back of his mind), then he could likewise make sense of what had happened in the past 22 hours.
First, though, his armor needed to come off. Then, he needed some coffee and thinking.
The pieces of the armor fell off with practiced precision, each component inserted into the auto-cleaner only to be stored in the foam-lined armor drawer with surprising care. The suit felt almost familiar – close enough to the new armor he had received from Cerberus for him to recognize that the design was near identical, but just different enough for him to feel out of place. Isn't that the way I'm operating though? Back to saving the galaxy and being "Commander Shepard" again, but with no crew I trust nor really any leads? He pulled his Service-armor off of its hanger, putting on the familiar leather-and-metal suit that felt like home and smelled of determination. Or maybe that was just the slight-panic turning to his trademark resolve.
As he touched the glowing panel on its front, the Coffee machine on the desk next to his couch started to spew coffee into a waiting cup, filling the room with the bitter aroma he associated so strongly with designs of victory and plots of success. While the plain white cup filled with the deep liquid, Shepard took a moment to regard the stateroom. It had been his not a couple of months ago, furnished by Cerberus in such a ridiculously civilian way that he was tempted to name it "Cruiseship Normandy"; and yet months of alliance overhauls and a completely different intended owner left it off. Just like his armor the room was close enough to be familiar but not enough so to be comfortable. There were a few panels missing on the walls, hasty fabric coverings protecting him from the conduits and wires that looked as a garish scar against the polished metal of the rest of the walls. The deck plates squeaked slightly as he shifted his weight, the bolts clearly not fastened all the way nor the alignment of the grav-plating underneath entirely confirmed. The entire room smelled of ship-board adhesive, and a light film of metal filings sat on some of the more seldolmly accessed horizontal surfaces.
The couch and table and bed and general architecture of the room was familiar to him, no clear change being made since the days this cabin had been adorned with the scratches of hastily removed Cerberus logos. And yet, the lack of fish in the tank and the absence of his plethora of models made Shepard feel slightly as though he were intruding on somebody else's room. There were no personal belongings of Anderson's anywhere – he hadn't had time to put even a datapad in here before he was left to defend a falling planet – but if anything, that made the feeling of intrusion all the more acute. Had the room felt to be Anderson's, Shepard might have been able to convince himself that he was simply sharing: bunkmates as life in the universe was challenged. But the austere sterility the room presented make him feel like he was in a place where nobody belonged, his infraction on the perfect non-ownership of the cold steel and cool lighting an affront to anonymity itself.
His coffee finished with a steam-propelled sputter and Shepard grabbed it, making his way immediately to the terminal at the – his – desk. He put in his spectre authorization quickly, commandeering the vessel for "Official Council business pertaining but not limited to the protection of greater council space or the apprehension of a convicted or known criminal." as the regulations had read. Anderson had, somehow since Shepard left Earth, transferred all the relevant data too his account, sharing everything that was available on The Normandy, the crew it had left with, the crew that was now being frantically transferred to The Citadel to meet them there; everything Shepard would normally take at least a week to review but he now had 38 hours.
Shepard settled into his chair for a long night of reading and memorizing as his comm channel went off, shattering his focus and threatening to send his brain into the same manic tail-spin it was in but an hour ago. Slowly, deliberately, he put down his datapad and pressed the answer key, anticipating some news of Reapers in the vicinity or Occuli on their tail. It was not nearly so exciting.
"Commander, this is 1st Lieutenant Dyphe. Uh, sir, we left in such a hurry that we didn't have any chance to establish department or division heads, the chain of command is sort of in chaos. The rest of the wardroom was wondering, sir, if you could give us some sort of a duty roster?"
The man sounded no older than 22, not quite fresh out of OCS but certainly fresh out of Space Vessel Officer Training Basic. His voice shook with the nerves an stress of not only the world falling apart around him, but also of having to approach his CO directly about something as mundane as a duty roster. Shepard could almost imagine the group of officers crowded around behind him, pushing him towards the comm panel, their sacrificial low-ranking lamb, anticipating with unsure minds a kind response.
"Thank-you for bringing this to my attention Lieutenant. I realize we've all had a hectic couple of hours, so I want you all to take a rest period for at least the next 6 hours." Shepard paused to collect his thoughts and glance at the clock. "I want you and the rest of the officers to establish a skeleton crew for the next 8 hours. In 6 hours I want to see the most senior officer in the conference room, the one just beyond the scanners?"
"Aye sir, will there be anything else?" The Lieutenant's voice was much more confident now, the young man seeming to at the very least overcome his fear of approaching his CO as orders came down for him to follow. Shepard heard low mumbling and rustling as the officers that were bound to be surrounding the young Lieutenant moved to execute his orders. The sound of a hatch opening and closing came faintly over the speakers.
"Yes, Lieutenant. As part of that working crew, I want at least 2 crewmen working our communications array. Disseminate word throughout the crew that each crewmember is allowed to send 3 personal messages across our systems to Alliance HQ. I don't want to drag you all into space without giving you a chance to tell your family you're alright. Also tell the comm-techs that all responses are to be held until we get to the Citadel, at which point they can be downloaded over their data network. Got it?"
"Aye sir. We'll get it done." Shepard still heard the sounds over the comm channel as more of the officers got up to arrange the crew – The Lieutenant hadn't hung up. Often, a Junior Officer would hang up the comm before their superior was complete and, while Shepard wasn't terribly big on military protocol, it did get annoying after a while to keep on having to re-call every junior officer to re-give an order. Perhaps he needed to check the roster to see if Dyphe was staying on at the Citadel.
"That'll be all, Lieutenant. Dismissed."
"Very well, sir." The intercom turned off as his cabin returned to the previous near-silent thrum of the engines at FTL.
Great, six-hours to not only learn a crew, but also to come up with a rotation for them. Oh no, Shepard, don't ask one of the other officers who know the people here to do it, no, this is clearly a job you have to do yourself – NO, Shepard, you know you should do this. Not only will it help you learn your crew, but you've always said these kinds of things should stay the concern of an officer, regardless of his rank or position. So, no help whining like a belly-aching eclipse – get to it.
The cup lifted to Shepard's lip as he took his first sip of the scalding hot liquid, burning his tongue in the process, and reminding him why he preferred his coffee at room temperature. But the gesture was more symbolic than anything: the beginning of a new task, the beginning of a new war. Shepard reached into one of the drawers of the desk and pulled out a stack of empty datapads. Most information could be transferred too and from terminal and omnitool with incredible ease, making it very easy to access. But besides the slightly better screen resolution and incrementally faster networking capabilities of the datapads, some information was best interpreted when physically partitioned. He began moving the information around, names and dates and qualifications streaming past his eyes, staring expectantly back at him as he began to commit them to memory.
Beep.
About three hours after he had started, Shepard looked, annoyed, at the little glowing dot on his terminal. For the past three hours he had done nothing but repeat names over and again in his head, trying to associate them to service jackets and qualifications, give himself enough information with which to build a workable ship's crew. For the past three hours nothing had existed beyond the datapads and terminals that surrounded his desk – his coffee cup even going dry about an hour ago but promptly ignored. For the past three hours, Shepard had existed in a state of uninterrupted focus, until now.
His finger slammed on the answer button, perhaps slightly harder than it needed to, the slight perturbedness clear in the hard edge of his voice.
"Go ahead."
"Sir, this is MM1 Broyles in Engineering. We got the orders a couple of hours ago from Lieutenant Christenson to operate off of a skeleton crew, but we just ran into a problem with the Drive Core, sir."
Panic ran through Shepard's body as he imagined every version of a Drive Core failure he had ever learned at Space Vessel Officer School Advanced. Images of melted bulkheads and mangled engineers as the slides had two years earlier as instructors warned the students of the grave danger FTL technology posed; gaping holes in the hulls of once great vessels, small fragments that barely made it through the atmosphere. Shepard worked to calm his breathing as willfully fought memories of spinning stars and an air-hose rupture closed off his throat and sent adrenaline running through his body.
"What's the problem?"
"Sir, the field-generators are misaligned by about 4.75 degrees, likely never properly calibrated nor fastened before we left Earth." Shepard relaxed, this was not a danger that could tear his ship apart. Render her Conventional-Speed-Restricted? Yes, if not addressed quickly. But destroy her? No.
Shepard was about to ask Broyles why this was not brought to the Engineering Department Head's attention, before he was cut off with his answer "Normally I'd bring this to the Engineering Department Head, sir, but seeing as I don't yet have one of those, regulations state that the XO is next. But…"
Shepard cut him off. "Seeing as we don't have one of those, I'm the highest authority. EDI, how much will it affect our drive performance if we don't correct the problem?"
The little blue chess-piece appeared on the platform next to his desk, but this time with a small little Alliance seal on the base, about five inches above the bottom. Shepard guessed that wasn't a change made by any of the technicians.
"Drive efficiency is currently at 82% and dropping at a rate of 5.768% per hour. At that rate, our journey will be lengthened by 2.75 hours. The problem will render us CSR for 24.896 minutes by my estimations, but will also require five crewmen to complete correctly, as opposed to the three currently stationed in engineering. Correcting the problem to field-generator alignment within the stated 0.568 degree operating recommendations will shorten the journey by 1.845 hours."
Shepard sighed and massaged his eyes, weighing the rest and recuperation his crew needed against Kaiden's life. If I think I'm strewn out, at least I didn't leave anybody on Earth. Some of these crew members have family there, they're terrified and unsure what's to come. But those hours could mean Kaiden's life, could mean help for Earth faster…
"Alright, thanks EDI. Broyles, rack out whoever you need to fix the problem, but try to use discretion with who you choose – some of us are bound to be more stressed than others, alright? Send me a report when it's done."
Great, just the way to re-assume command: "Alright, everybody get some rest. No, wait, get up and fix a drive core. Sorry guys." Next thing you know I'm going to be feeding them a Spaghetti Dinner before a mandatory crew PT…
"Aye sir, we'll get right to it. Anything else, sir?"
"No, that will be all." Shepard stood up, working the cramps that had been rapidly developing in his back out. Normally he could sit for hours in one position – he was a sniper, sometimes he had to. But something had tensed his back up, rendering him unable to sit still without comfort for much longer than three hours. I dunno, couldn't be THE ENTIRE GALAXY BEING ATTACKED, could it? Nah, definitely not.
He grabbed his now very cold coffee cup and walked down the stairs to his auxiliary desk. The Normandy, like any other space ship, was carefully climate controlled, advanced systems and feed-back loops on top of EDI's already dizzying capabilities ensuring that the crew got neither frozen by the vacuum of space that threatened them constantly nor fried by the heat produced by their drive core and engineering systems. That being said, the Captain's stateroom was the highest point of the ship, farthest from any ventilation ducts and closest too some of the heat-sinks, designed to harvest any radiation given off by the dorsal-portion of the hull, that were kept super-chilled when not "Running Silent". For all their monitoring and control, the stateroom was still unusually cold.
As Shepard's cup was filled again with the hot life-giving liquid, he walked over to his drawers and pulled out his old N7 hoodie. His mom had bought it for him when he had completed N-school, one of the few traditional-mom things she ever did regarding his service, and since then it had accumulated its fair share of wear and tear. It still held heat in as well as ever, and still carried with it a distinct smell, an odd combination of coffee (it was omnipresent after Shepard joined The Navy), gun-oil, and that distinctive filtered space vessel filter smell. He slipped it on over his service armor, retrieving his coffee as he heard the cup finish being filled.
As he walked back to his terminal, another "Beep!" sounded and his comm light blinked again. This is the way it's going to be for a while, John, better settle in and get used to it.
He hit the answer button, taking a sip of the steaming hot coffee before starting. Again, it burned his tongue and lips and again he recoiled slightly; but again it was more a symbolic gesture than anything else, building his fortitude against the tasks yet to come.
"Go ahead."
2 hours and 45 minutes later
Shepard stepped out of the elevator, smelling of fresh after shave and a new uniform but the bags under his eyes getting only heavier. The past roughly six hours had been a flurry of memorization and consternation, working through any mental blocks to try to learn his crew and this new version of his almost-familiar ship. He held in his hand two datapads, one with a duty roster that he was on his way to speak with… well, he didn't actually know who he was going to talk to, about. The other was a group of three personal messages, just like the rest of the crew, that he had drafted right before coming down.
He hadn't had much of an opportunity to look at the CIC on his way to his cabin before, his mind more occupied with making sense of the possible collapse of galactic civilization as we know it than taking in the minor changes made to a bridge he was already mostly at home in. Part of his reading for the past six hours had been the changes to the ship, checking every requisition and maintenance order from the auxiliary power supplies added to the back-up kinetic barrier amplifiers to the paint scratches on the bow from a sloppy docking job. But seeing the lack of Cerberus logos, the conduits snaking around the ship and the alliance uniforms standing at the terminals, few though they may have been, made him smile as his brain truly accepted that The Normandy was, once again, an Alliance Vessel.
He made his way to the dark-haired communications specialist standing at what used to be the Yeoman's terminal to the starboard of the galaxy map – Trenton? Tranning? Something with a T – and was about to talk before she turned around and snapped a crisp salute. One look at her – the impeccable fold on her sleeves, her oddly polished belt-buckle, the pristine white of her shirt's side panels – And it became obvious that she was not a space-sailor. Crewmen who went into space regularly kept their uniforms looking as clean as possible – Shepard had gained a reputation among his peers for being all but inspection-ready at a moment's notice – but the wear and tear of a ship was inevitable, and most crewmen did not bring their clean inspection-ready uniforms to anything that would be near a drive core. Looks like she's in for a hell of a ride Shepard thought as he rendered and cut an equally impeccable salute.
The woman stood at a strict attention, eyes peering straight through Shepard's forehead into whatever was a thousand yards away, body going rigid in a practiced motion.
"Commander, I'm Communications Specialist First Class Traynor." Traynor! That's it! "I've been assigned to handle crew messages to their loved ones. Do you have some messages you need to send?"
"At ease specialist." Traynor stood immediately at ease, making direct eye contact with Shepard now and clasping her hands behind her back. Here's hoping we don't have to have a talk with her about pulling the 2x4 out, I have a feeling things may get a little… unconventional around here real soon. He handed her the data pad with his messages. "I do, actually. Addresses are in there, hopefully I'm not too late for the sending window?"
"No, Commander, I was finishing cuing up the last of the crew's messages now. I'll get these out right away."
"Very good, Traynor, but please don't bump anybody else's messages on my behalf. And as soon as all the messages are sent, close down our communications to everything except for emergency and priority alliance channels. I don't want our position broadcasted like a blinking beacon."
"Aye aye, sir." Traynor stood again at attention as she rendered a second salute, returned by Shepard as he made his way to his meeting. Hopefully, we'll be able to make a ship out of these crewmen yet he thought as he was surprised by the security scanner that had been put in the corridor.
While Shepard made his way through the scanner and discussed a possible duty roster and rotation with Staff Lieutenant Tranning – I knew I had seen that name somewhere. I must be tired if I'm forgetting the name of the senior officer besides me on board – his messages were getting input into the cue of messages still to be sent, downloaded within the next 20 minutes to Alliance Command Communications Network:
TO: Captain Hannah Shepard (ALTERNATIVE: Admiral Steven Hackett for Forward)
FROM: Spectre John Shepard
SUBJECT: I'm safe
CONTENT: Hey mom, last time I took on the galaxy at large I forgot to send you a message and feel terrible about that. I got off of Earth alright and am back with a familiar ship again, (you know I can't give names – opsec), and rushing off to do what I can for the war. Love you so much, am so proud to be your son, and hope you're safe.
MESSAGE SENT;
ERROR: DENIED ADDRESS: Captain Hannah Shepard, ADDRESS NETWORK NOT FOUND;
MESSAGE SENT TO ALTERNATIVE ADDRESS;
MESSAGE RECEIVED: Admiral Steven Hackett, FF;
NEXT MESSAGE;
TO: Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy (In Absence: Liara T'Soni for Forward)
FROM: Spectre John Shepard
SUBJECT: I'm safe
CONTENT: Tali, I don't know where you are or what you've heard, but I got off of Earth alright. I hate that I lost contact with you while I was off active duty, but hope you're safe and well. I'm going to do what I can to find you – I'm back with your favorite over-powered too-quiet ship – but I hope you understand that I also have to do everything I can to stop this. Can't say much more – put a character restriction on these – but I miss you and will do everything I can to see you soon.
CONTENT FOR ALTERNATIVE ADDRESS: Liara, if this is reaching you then Tali's off the grid. I forwarded it to you in the hopes that you might have some way of getting it to her, I'd appreciate it, as a friend, if you could see what you can do.
MESSAGE SENT;
ERROR: DENIED ADDRESS: Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy, ADDRESS NETWORK NOT FOUND;
MESSAGE SENT TO ALTERNATIVE ADDRESS;
MESSAGE RECEIVED: Liara T'Soni, FF; ADDITIONAL CONTENT ADDED;
NEXT MESSAGE;
TO: Garrus Vakarian (ALTERNATIVE: Solana Vakarian for Forward)
FROM: Spectre John Shepard
SUBJECT: I'm safe
CONTENT: Garrus, I made it off of Earth, flying with a perfectly calibrated set of cannons again. Hope you're safe as well. See if you can't send me a message so we can find a way to pick you up: I could use a gun like you to fight with.
CONTENT FOR ALTERNATIVE ADDRESS: Solana, I'm Spectre John Shepard, Commander in the Alliance Navy. Your brother and I worked closely on the hunt for Saren as well as another still classified mission before. He mentioned you and I was hoping you would be willing to send this to him. I would be incredibly appreciative.
MESSAGE SENT;
ERROR: DENIED ADDRESS: Garus Vakarian, ADDRESS NETWORK NOT FOUND;
MESSAGE SENT TO ALTERNATIVE ADDRESS;
ERROR: DENIED ADDRESS: Solana Vakarian, FF;
MESSAGE FAILED;
END OF MESSAGES.