It was about half a week after Horizon.
Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko had failed. That much was clear. All but a tiny handful of colonists had been abducted by the Collectors. The only intel of any worth that had been gained from the entire debacle was that Commander Shepard was indeed alive...and working with Cerberus. The colonists would be repatriated elsewhere.
But what to do with the errant Marine? He'd been a changed man after Horizon. He hadn't said anything afterwards and had taken the debrief from Vice Admiral Hokulani well enough, but it'd been eating him up inside. The initial plan was for him to be pushed to the next possible target, Fehl Prime.
A psychological report in the resounding negative had altered plans, though. He'd been blaming the L2 implants for his stress, but Dr. Kong believed that what he needed would be a total change of environment for a while.
Eventually, the decision came down to the man who had given him the assignment in the first place.
Councillor David Anderson's QEC image finally said, "Tag him to Phase 2 of Ascension. Let him soak in some of that Terra Nova air for a while. Then get him back on the mission."
Those three sentences morphed into the conclusion of a page-long report and it multiplied every step of the journey down the chain of command, finally concluding in Staff Commander Alenko being ordered to pack his things and take the next transport out from Horizon.
Kaidan didn't like the ship he was on, the SSV Midway. It reminded him too much of the SR-1, being the third Normandy-class vessel built. He lay back on his his temporary bunk, drafting a note. It was silly. He shouldn't have bothered. He'd said everything he needed to about Shepard and Cerberus back on Horizon. So why was he writing this? Why the need to explain himself?
It was Shepard's fault. The Commander Shepard he knew, who'd tracked down Admiral Kahoku's killers, who had shot Dr. Wayne between the eyes for everything he'd ever done to Corporal Toombs...it just didn't connect. Jumping right into Cerberus's open arms? It just couldn't be.
But there she'd been...and even somehow dragged Garrus along with her. Maybe they were right about the Collectors being the threat. Kaidan didn't know. It wasn't his decision to make. Admiral Hackett could order a hit on everything four-eyed and chitinous tomorrow, and he'd go along with it.
Kaidan shook his head. There still was something wrong with the whole picture. Just seeing Shepard, working on her own...then, in one terrible moment, he realised just what was wrong.
Shepard would never have been working for (with?) Cerberus if I'd been there for her. All of this could've been avoided, and we'd be battling the Reapers or Collectors or geth or whatever if I'd just been there for her two years ago. When they came for us, I should've...I could've...
The thought trailed off in his head. He tried his best to put it aside, and pain throbbed in his temples. Damn implants. No. It wasn't all Shepard's fault. That, at least, was worth acknowledging. She'd left her extranet-mail address for him, trusting him to keep it to himself. That much he'd done.
After a few more seconds of vacillation, he sent it. He'd left it open, but figured the Commander had better things to do than follow up on his worrying. Terra Nova and the alleged other branch of Ascension were waiting. Time to move on from Shepard. Again.
Oriana Davis blinked as she looked in the mirror. Two neat scars on her forehead were all the trace of the relatively unintrusive surgery she'd just undergone. She would be immobile for at least a few more days as nanomachines constructed electronic relays along her nervous system, fully installing the Armali Council biotic amp.
It had been a long discussion to get to this point, but she eventually had convinced her foster parents that it was the right move. Henry (she could never consider that man father) was willing to go to the extent of hiring an entire merc detachment to get her back, and the galaxy was seeming like a more and more dangerous place, what with the Collectors rampaging in the Terminus Systems, hunting down humans wherever they could find them. She had to be able to defend herself.
The process was less drastic than a full set of biotic implants, thanks to the genes programmed into her that had led her to become such an 'asset' and her sister to steal her away from Henry when she was little more than a baby, and again when he was back on her trail. Never again. She might never become the hardened warrior her sister had eventually turned into, but she couldn't let her talents go to waste.
After much talking and weighing of options, it'd been decided that she'd go to Terra Nova to learn how to use her biotics, as part of the Alliance's attempt to 'reach out' to the biotics in the colonies. She smiled, thinking that this was just the sort of thing that would drive her sister mad.