"Commander, the Illusive Man would like to speak to you."

"Of course he would," Shepard mutters to herself, pausing once in front of Mordin's lab before the door finally slides out of her way and lets her through. She's on her very last nerve with the head of Cerberus and she's certain that he knows as much. Some part of her wonders if he's playing with her, but logic overrides her sense of paranoia and she keeps her peace. Why would he aim to anger her when she's doing the job he spent billions of credits to complete? It's not like him…well, what she pretends to know of him. One can never be certain when it comes to the man.

Clenching her hands into fists, she stalks into the debriefing room and smacks the button that establishes a link. She shifts impatiently as she waits to be patched through, her mind on her bed…and the inexplicably large stack of data pads beside it. She has too much work to be doing, and the Illusive Man surely wants to pile on even more. It's one thing to be doing active work that directly influences their battle against the Collectors – and ultimately the Reapers – and another thing entirely to take out Cerberus's trash.

Part of her is glad that she's been brought back, and doing some cleaning-up for the organization that did it seems a fair price.

Most of her, however, is bitter.

She unconsciously straightens as he flickers into view, her hands clasping together behind her as her gaze hardens. "What do you want this time?"

His lips pull up into some semblance of a smirk, and he takes a quiet second to puff on his cigar. "Testy."

Her eyebrow cocks, stance loosening and arms crossing over her chest. "You haven't seen testy."

He seems ready to say something back, but instead moves on from an argument they both know they won't win. "A small team of Cerberus operatives have begun an exploration on Aeia."

"The planet we just left?"

"Yes. The team searched the Hugo Gernsback for any useful technology."

"And? Did they find anything?"

The Illusive Man puts his cigar back to his mouth, taking his sweet time in answering her. If she had any inclination that he enjoys to see her fidget, she would find him and shoot him. "No."

"There's gotta be a 'but' to this situation." Her stare speaks leagues about how far she has already sunk into impatience.

"But," he agrees, "They did find something much more interesting." Reaching out with his free hand, he taps on something invisible to her, and a large rendition of the planet appears between them. "Not too far away from Jacob's father's…ah, camp, we found a radio broadcast that was much weaker than the beacon signal. It's not a distress call – from what we can best decipher, it's a call of interest. A greeting, if you will."

Shepard cocks her head to the side as a spot on the planet begins to blink, signifying the location of the signal. "Are you telling me there's someone else there?"

"Who or what is uncertain. The team answered the signal, but thus far there has been no reply."

"The team is checking in with you regularly? What if this is a trap?"

"They're still alive, and perfectly fine. I've ordered them not to wander farther into the forest. I don't know what's out there, but I'm curious."

"You need more firepower in case something happens."

He only nods in reply, and she's given the chance to wonder how the fuck he has enough balls to ask her to help with this. The signal is probably either left over from one of the survivors from the crash, or it's a trap set for anyone stupid enough to believe it. It's silly. It's out of the way.

…fuck it all if she's not interested.

"Why can't you get some of your goons to back up the goons you've already got there?"

"Because I want you there, Shepard. This could be…something big."

Suddenly, harsh suspicion overrides her senses. "You know something more than you're letting on," she accuses, her voice low.

"Maybe, but I'm going to keep my suspicions to myself until you complete the mission." Seeing that her lips are parting to surely spew more anger concerning her team's health and his surprises, he quickly adds on, "I assure you, Commander Shepard, this isn't like the derelict Reaper."

"And how the fu—how am I supposed to hold you to that?"

"Go find out for yourself."


"What've we got?" Shepard asks as she grips the metal doorway of the shuttle, watching the pilot do his job.

"There are four Cerberus members waiting in the landing area, ma'am."

"Should land on them," she muses.

A sharp laugh echoes from somewhere behind her. "Maybe wait until after they piss you off in some form or another?"

Shepard's face lights up with the prospect, and she whirls to face her two chosen team members. "You think I could fly the shuttle if they did?" she asks, a note of excitement in her tone.

Garrus closes his eyes for a second, shaking his head. "…No. No, you couldn't."

"Yes I could!"

"Shepard, you can't fly. You'd miss the operatives and kill us."

"Goddammit, Garrus."

"Ahem, Commander. Haven't we got something more important to be worrying about than your flight skills – or lack thereof?" Miranda's voice has slowly lessened from the cold and formal tone she had used when Shepard had first met her, but so far, that has yet to lessen her adherence to duty.

Not that Phaedra Shepard would ever trail away from duty.

Might skirt around orders once in a while, though. She can't deny that.


So, yes, I went through and edited this chapter to present tense. I've been writing so much in present tense that I just had to change this to match it all. I feel a lot more free with this tense than I do in past tense, so yes. 8D