"Are you excited?" a voice tinted by light modulation asked. Shepherd felt a slender pair of gloved hands wrap themselves around his waist. "We're going back to your home - Earth."

Shepherd looked around the luxurious captain's room. Cerberus had made it far more spacious than the cramped military quarters he'd enjoyed on the previous Normandy. Admiral Squiggles jogged excitedly on his wheel, occasionally letting out a high-pitched squeal of joy. To his immediate left, seventeen fish were floating belly-up in an illuminated tank. Fucking Kelly, he thought to himself. Maybe he shouldn't have made all those comments about redheads' lack of souls to her. Or tried to bang Tali on her desk. Or slapped her the forty-second time her annoying ginger voice said "You've got a new message, Commander". Okay, so maybe he could have treated her a little nicer. Still, he was the commander of a mission that could possibly save the universe one day, and he really didn't have time to feed any goddamn fish. Kelly had like, two jobs, at the most: watch the computer for new e-mails, and feed the fish. That's it. Come to think of it, why couldn't the ship's hyper-intelligent AI system, EDI, do that? Sure, she had a lot on her plate, but automatically feeding his fish and just illuminating a button when Shepherd had a new e-mail would have been enough. All in all, Kelly was an utterly worthless part of the team, and should the chance come that some otherworldly force decide to flash-liquidate her, Shepherd would make sure to stare her right in the eyes, unmoving, as it happened. This would be the punishment for her disobedience. This would be retribution for those seventeen fishy souls.

Shepherd turned to face the Quarian, realizing he'd been staring blankly off into space for three minutes. "I - um, yes. I'm very excited. I was actually born on a colony, you speciesist bitch, but yes, I'm grateful to be visiting Earth for the first time. How long have we been dating again? This is basically the equivalent of you seeing an Asian and assuming they're from China".

"Commander Shepherd," Kelly's voice grated over the intercom speakers like razor blades across piano strings. "We've arrived in Iowa".

"Fuck you, Kelly," Shepherd called back. "You're staying here this mission to think about how goddamn racist you are," he told Tali, exiting his quarters. As the doors shut, he thought he could hear autotuned crying, but he wasn't sure. Did Quarians even have tear ducts? Wouldn't releasing your body's toxins to the insides of a fragile biosuit be counterintuitive? "Flounder. Kitty." he motioned to Mordin and Garrus. "You're coming with me. I don't know what we're going to be up against, so I think taking a frail scientist with gills and an unchecked God Complex on this mysterious mission would be the best course of action.

...

"His file calls him "The Puppeteer", Mordin briefed the Commander on the shuttle ride to their destination. "He's one of the most powerful biotics known to man, and an extraordinarily dangerous criminal."

"So Jack," Shepherd interrupted. "We're getting another Jack. I swear to god if Cerberus puts one more bald, tatted-up lesbian on my ship..."

"Not quite like Jack," Mordin assured him. "His powers are... different. They are unlike anything we've ever seen before - it's quite exciting."

The shuttle touched down with a mild jolt, and the doors opened to allow exit. "We're here," Garrus announced somewhat unnecessarily. "Sesame Street."