Commander Shepard: Captain of the Normandy, Hero of Elysium, Savior of the Citadel and now, Destroyer of the Collector base.
The Normandy had managed to escape to FTL, just seconds before the shockwave from the exploding space station reached the ship, and thus had managed to get away with non-critical damage.
The commander had a little smile on his face as he congratulated his helmsman and good friend.
"Great flying Joker." He said, as he patted the pilot on his shoulder. "Take us to the Citadel immediately."
"Aye-aye captain." Was all that was returned.
The Commander made his way to leave when the avatar of EDI, the Normandy's Artificial Intelligence popped up.
"Shepard." The AI began. "The Illusive man has requested to speak to you… immediately."
"I figured he'd have something to say." Shepard replied. "And in fact… I have some things to say to him as well."
The Illusive man had asked him to 'save' the Collector base, all in the interest of 'saving humanity'. He argued that getting his hands on the equipment on that station would save countless human lives in the long run.
Shepard at the time however, did not believe that any data or technology they might get was worth the risk of the collectors, or worse, reapers somehow re-taking the base. Especially as he asked EDI to perform a data-mine as soon as they 'landed' on the space-station.
'The Illusive Man' was quite persistent on recovering the base though. He even went as far as ordering his XO 'Miranda Lawson' to stop him, and after she refused he offered vast amounts of money to his second companion and mercenary 'Zaeed Massani' to halt the destruction of the base.
Shepard had to smile briefly at the blunt answer the Illusive man got from the mercenary though.
"Piss off" the merc had said.
What Shepard didn't get, was why 'The Illusive Man' was so damned set on getting that station in his hands. The only good that station was for, was for making reapers!
Shepard stepped within the already waiting hologram of the ships quantum entanglement communications array. The only thing that made this form of live communication on such a distance possible in the first place.
"Shepard…" 'The Illusive Man' began right as he stepped in the hologram. "you're making a habit of costing me more than time and money."
Frankly enough, Shepard had enough of his little speeches and Cerberus propaganda, so he did away all the diplomacy.
"Cut the crap." He firmly said. "That Collector base had nothing in technology beyond the ability to create Reapers. So unless you were planning on building your own reaper, it was useless to you. Look through EDI's data if you like."
If 'The Illusive man was surprised by Shepard his outburst, he didn't show it.
"The technology in that base could have secured human dominance in the galaxy, against the Reapers, and beyond." 'The Illusive Man' argued.
"How?" Shepard shot back. "By building your own reaper? There's no way in hell that I'm going to give Cerberus that amount of power!"
"Cerberus IS humanity." 'The Illusive Man' bit out. "Strength for Cerberus is strength for ANY human."
Interesting. Shepard privately thought. He isn't denying he wanted to build his own reaper.
"I should've known you'd choke on the hard decisions. Too idealistic from the start." He went on.
"This wasn't a hard decision." Shepard shot back. "We can't take the chance that the Collectors, or hell even the reapers take the base back. Then we'd have to start all over again!"
Shepard looked down and closed his eyes for a seconds. The Illusive Man had finally come clean with his goal, and it went against everything Shepard himself stood for.
His next decision wasn't a hard one, but it would be an important one altogether.
"Harbinger is coming." Shepard went on. "And he won't be alone. This galaxy needs a leader who's looking out for them. From now on we're doing things my way, whether you agree or not."
'The Illusive Man' took a few steps forward, unable to keep his cool demeanor against the Spectre any longer.
"Don't turn your back on me Shepard. I made you, brought you back from the dead"
"And I'm going to do what you brought me back for, I am going to stop the Reapers. I am going to make sure that this galaxy survives, and I am going to try my damned hardest to save as many people as possible, human or otherwise. And if you have a problem with that, I dare you to just try and stop me."
Not wanting to waste another breath to this conversation he looked up in the direction of the camera he was sure Joker was watching him through.
"Joker, lose this channel."
Shepard made his way back to the fourth deck, where a large part of the Normady crew was already gathered to make checks and repairs.
They would not be able to make drastic repairs, like replacing the ships armor, but they would be able to re-attach varying cables, make temporary welds to support beams or clear the deck of debris.
At the far end of the deck, he saw both Jack and Grunt hauling with crates, an event that would have make him visit Kelly, the ships psychiatrist, to complain he was seeing things.
Now however, they had taken an active role on the Normandy, both in missions, and out of them. Good thing too… both Jacks biotics and Grunts hardiness had saved lives on the Collector station more than a few times.
Tali and Miranda were standing with each-other, another view he had not expected to witness in his lifespan, both with data-pad in hand and managing the repair and cleaning efforts.
As Shepard made his way to them he received a nod from Thane, who was helping Jacob with the weapons that were still lying there since the end of the mission.
Now he'd seen it all… Jacob had been pretty vocal about his reservations of working with assassins at the beginning of this mission.
"Shepard!"
The Commander in question turned around at the source of the voice, and was surprised to find his helmsman hobbling his way to him.
"Joker?" Shepard said. "Why are you out of your cockpit?"
"It's EDI…" He said. "She found interesting data from the collector base. It's schematics of the reapers!"
Shepard his eyes widened by a bit before plastering a victorious smile on his face.
"The council can't deny this evidence, no matter how far they stick their head in the mud."
EDI her avatar popped up at his words.
"I have analyzed and confirmed the origins of these documents. The Citadel council will be unable to classify these documents as forgeries."
Shepard nodded at EDI and turned himself to Joker.
"We've done it, we finally got the evidence we need to prepare against the Reapers."
"Does that mean we don't have to rely on Cerberus anymore?" Joker asked.
"Probably…" Shepard replied. "but after what 'The Illusive Man' pulled on the station, I'm not pained to see him go."
Joker looked pensive for a small second. "You'd have to wonder why 'The Illusive Man' wanted the base in the first place… managed to get any sappy gossip from the man?"
Shepard shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine. But he didn't deny he wanted to use the base for himself."
Joker actually wiggled his eyebrows. "Maybe he's a reaper in disguise, it would explain how he manages to big such a big ass-hole all the time."
Shepard actually let out a snort. "That it would."
He gave Joker a small clap on his back, careful enough not to damage any of his bones. "Well…" He said. "I'm going to get some rack time, God knows I need it."
"See ya Commander."
Whatever Shepard tried, sleep would not take him. He stayed thinking about the comment Joker made.
He had not thought about it until now but.. 'The Illusive Man' being a reaper, or working for the reapers for that matter, would explain a lot of things… more things than he was comfortable with to be honest.
In fact, if he remembered right…
"EDI?" he began.
The avatar of the AI in question popped up immediately.
"If I recall correctly…" He began. "You once told me that you are designed and built with the help of reaper technology, how did Cerberus know how to do that?"
EDI was silent for a few seconds, an eternity if you count the computing power she possessed.
"I'm sorry Commander. While I do know that a part of my cyber warfare suite is reaper technology, I can not specify how Cerberus got the data or recourses to implement it into my system."
"Ok thank you EDI."
"Logging you out Shepard."
Shepard let out a sigh. How did Cerberus manage to use and implement reaper technology, while the council's own researchers weren't even able to determine that it wasn't a Geth creation?
Something was terribly amiss here.
Thinking further ahead in the mission he could recall a very similar occasion. Just after they had attacked and infiltrated the derelict reaper. They had recovered Legion and a reaper IFF.
'The Illusive Man' had the data to integrate the system into the Normandy before even knowing what the IFF itself was like.
There was no way that the Cerberus personnel on board the derelict reaper would have been able to find everything out about the device from inside of the reaper.
In fact, it looked like the crew had just managed to recover the device before they were fully indoctrinated, if the location of the IFF was any indication.
How did he manage to get the data on how to implement a completely foreign IFF into 'modern' technology.
And then again, when Cerberus had asked Shepard to help take down a rogue AI.
Sure, being able to control a Geth could be helpful, but there was no way that 'The Illusive Man' did not realize that the Geth would not notice a single AI was trying to control them. Heck, even EDI herself had mentioned once that the Geth collective it's size was beyond her comprehension.
If taken into perspective, it could mean that 'The Illusive Man' was testing the integration capabilities of humans and machines.
Or way in the beginning, when he had not even agreed to do this mission. It could be considered as 'very' conspicuous that Cerberus had found the single attacked human colony that had any evidence as to who was behind the threat, just after Shepard woke.
Also, the Cerberus leader was convinced at the time that evidence would be found at that very place, even though all previous cases had suggested the opposite would happen.
And even right after that mission. When Shepard asked just why 'The Illusive Man' had expected the Collectors to be behind the attacks, he had responded with "The patterns are there, buried within the data."
The thing is, there weren't any patterns. He admitted in the same conversation that the Collectors tended to use slavers or smugglers to take 'specimens', and that their usual abductees numbered in the dozens, not in the tens-of-thousands.
Patterns hidden in the data indeed.
The Commander shook his head while pinching his nose.
Whatever the case, this he could not ignore. With a galaxy at stake, such risks could not be taken.
"EDI" he started again. "Crew conference with Miranda, Jacob, Tali, Garrus and Mordin. Please also contact Liara, use my Spectre privileges to bypass the extranet buoy waiting times."
"What shall I state as the reason of the conference Commander?" the AI responded.
"Tell them…" What should he tell them, this couldn't be public knowledge, not yet, not until confirmed. "Tell them I want to debate whether to cut ties, they will know what I mean."
"Very well Commander." The AI replied. "Message away. Logging you out Shepard."
Shepard hoped he was wrong, that everything was just a major coincidence, that everything he thought about just now was only his paranoia playing with his thoughts.
But if he was right…
If his fears were true, If 'The Illusive Man' and Cerberus really were reaper agents as Saren once was.
If Shepard was right, then this mission just got a lot more complicated.
A/N the things in this chapter have been bugging me for quite some time now. I have no idea if I'm right on even half the things I mentioned in this one-shot (context wise) but there was more doom-theory stuff I could come up with. (I did not use it though, as it would become a bit far-fetched).
As of why I publish now? I thought it pretty fitting to put this thing on here a day before the next game would come out. It wouldn't be original if I was spot on would it? Now it's still speculation, or as a certain merc would say it.. "One big god-damned mystery."
Also, this is my first story so please no flaming.. I appreciate constructive (useful) criticism but 'you suck and this story sucks' just isn't helpful.
You might have noticed I changed Shepards conversation with TIM a bit. This is because 'saving the soul of our species' sounded like a lame excuse to me, when a way better tactical explanation was present.