Author's note: So, yeah. This happened.
I admit I've been going a little stir-crazy waiting for March to finally arrive, so in an attempt to delay my eventual descent into madness I've started writing again. It's sort of working? I'll warn you right now, this is going to follow the events of Mass Effect fairly closely, so if you're not interested in yet another retelling – not that I blame you – then this is not the story for you. That being said, liberties will be taken and extra bits included. Hopefully you'll forgive me.
Bioware owns my soul.
In less than a year everything we thought we knew about the Protheans, about our world and about ourselves had been thrown into question. The Citadel lay ruins, the Council betrayed by its best, and the public was clamoring for answers only one person seemed to have. It seems ridiculous in retrospect to think that the fate of an entire galaxy full of sentient, sapient life could rest upon the shoulders of one individual, that galactic civilization could depend upon a single point of entropy. And yet we had managed it all the same.
– Excerpt from Crucible: The Forging of Humanity's First Spectre by Jessica Wong, 2207
Rumors regarding the identity of their mysterious executive officer flew about the Normandy with the velocity only the confined walls of a small ship could manage. The brass was being unusually tight-lipped and in the absence of any real information, the crew's inventions grew wilder with each passing hour. Names were flung about like so many grenades; Lieutenant this, Commander that. Pakti had a friend, Tanaka's cousin just made Captain, Barrett's sister was a Major; the list went on. As the acceleration approached terminal velocity and the banality of reasonable possibilities finally became too much to bare, conjecture took a turn for the farcical. After dismissing such mundane potentials as the legendary Jon Grissom and Admiral Hackett himself, speculation moved on to the even more fantastical, real-life aliens. Not to be impeded by actual logic – or the fact that the frigate's construction had been a co-op venture between both humans and aliens, and a member of said alien race was still on board – the prospect of alien involvement seemed to inspire the crew to reach new creative heights.
While he found the image of a round volus shouting commands from atop the navigation platform - suited head barely eye-level with most the crew even with the added elevation - particularly entertaining, the inherently ridiculous nature of the chatter around him in no way warranted his active attention let alone his participation. Alenko was more than happy to leave the palaver to the professionals. Asari matriarchs, krogan battlemasters, turian Primarchs. All had their time in the speculative lime-light, only to be lost in the fickle tide of military scuttlebutt. Gossiping marines could put seasoned fishwives to shame. Right around the time the airlock cycled open at Gagarin Station and the crew was called to form rank in CIC the churning mill hit its peak; nothing less than the Shadow Broker would satisfy now.
It was most likely because no one had really expected an actual celebrity, but the truth seemed somehow more impressive. The Hero of the Elysium. The Alliance poster-child herself.
Who hadn't seen that ridiculous series about the Blitz? Recruitment had spiked to an all-time high after the first segment hit the net, a trend the Alliance had been quick to seize upon. Join the army; see the galaxy, save new and interesting people from vicious marauding aliens. He was beginning to suspect several of the crew may have rode in on that particular train, not the least of whom being the corporal to his right, judging by his seeming inability to pry his eyes away from the commander.
To be fair, it was an understandable problem.
That she was pretty was not wholly remarkable in an age where genetic modification was as abundant as viral inoculations, and Shepard's fictional counterpart had her at a rather severe disadvantage on that account. Not to mention the benefits of a plethora of modern cosmetics, the existence of which the commander seemed willfully indifferent. Though her hair was admittedly a fantastic and rather improbable shade of red.
Neither was her trim figure a surprise given that over-weight marines were about as frequent as gene-mods were infrequent; and here again her doppelganger had several gifts from nature and science the real-life version lacked. And despite being nearly as tall as himself, she was somehow shorter than he had imagined.
No, there was something else about the commander the series had failed quite spectacularly to capture. Somewhere between reality and screen something vital had been lost that rendered Vid Shepard a pale imitation when compared to the real thing. It probably didn't help that her biotic resonance was humming in his teeth like a swarm of angry bees. That and she was kind of terrifying.
Still in civilian wear but looking no less out of place she stalked past the assemble crew with the easy grace of someone who'd spent a lifetime relying on sharp reflexes and sharper thinking. No mincing actress, this one. Her eyes raked through the line, sparing each officer only the briefest of glances before moving on. Those under scrutiny seemed to wilt under her gaze and he suddenly had less trouble imagining her fending off a hoard of raiding pirates armed with nothing more than a mai tai and a wedge of lemon. Of course that was completely ridiculous. Wasn't it?
He was already beginning to wonder.
If nothing else working with another biotic would be new. While many ended up enlisting, biotics were not so numerous in the fleet that they often served together for any length of time. Alliance opinion seemed to hover somewhere between the stance that they were assets too valuable to risk assigning multiple operatives to the same ship and the sentiment that if they were allowed to assemble in any sort of number they would invariably begin plotting their subjugation of the rest of humanity. That the brass had broken their first tenant did not bode extremely well for this so-called shakedown run. And if any more living legends showed up the Alliance was going to exhaust its supply. David Anderson, Joker, and now Commander Fucking Shepard? Just what the hell was going on here?
Something of his doubt must have shown on his face, as he suddenly found himself the subject of his new XO's impressive attention. He carefully blanked his expression and tried to straighten his posture as surreptitiously as possible. The ghost of smirk that played across her mouth told him she'd caught the subtle movement. Doesn't miss much, he observed as he stared determinedly at the point just over her left shoulder. She regarded him for a second longer as the grin vanished as quickly as it had come, to be replaced by something that looked suspiciously like... well, suspicion. She narrowed her eyes and he felt their laser focus boring straight through him and out the other side.
And then the moment was past and she was turning back to the captain, face once again impassive. As the two moved off down the corridor and the crew relaxed around him, he was not the only one to risk a sidelong glance at the pair as they disappeared into the comm room. Absolutely terrifying.
An elbow in his side brought his attention back to the soldier beside him. "What was that about?"
"I -" he began.
"Can you believe it?" the kid plowed on. "I was way off. I owe Scott ten credits, but it's totally worth it. But I thought she'd be taller."
Kaidan offered him a pained smile, his own enthusiasm curbed by the growing misgivings that there was far more at play here than any of them was aware.
The transition into the Arcturus Prime Relay went all but unnoticed by the crew around her, save the steady narration from the pilot. A flash of blue and like magic they were transported half-way across known space with little more than a blip on the main screen. Shepard was impressed despite herself, but knew better than to let on. A pilot's ego was a delicate thing; too much attention and it was liable to grow unchecked until nothing short of a precision orbital strike could blast it back into place. She kept her expression neutral as she pretended not to listen to the muttered conversation between helmsman and lieutenant. Privately she agreed with Alenko; Moreau was clearly paranoid, but she was willing to forgive a few personality quirks in light of his impressive service record. And the sneaking suspicion that in this case he may be right.
"They don't send Spectres on shakedown runs," she commented blandly. The lieutenant sent a glance in her direction as Joker continued to theorize about their upcoming mission. Don't encourage him, the look pleaded.
As if he needed any encouragement, she thought wryly.
She liked pilots. It took a special kind of crazy to maneuver a flimsy tin can through the hostile vacuum of space as other hostile and equally flimsy tin cans hurled about sharp objects and lasers while the entire hostile environment (or rather a disturbing lack thereof) collaborated in the most horrific attempts to kill you. Not to mention an incredible amount of training, talent, and guts, all which made for some very interesting and very strange individuals. She made it a policy to get to know those to whom she entrusted her life on an hourly basis for the same reasons she serviced her assault rifle personally, double-checked the seals of her hard-suit before planet-fall, and tried not to piss off those who prepared her food; because Murphy was a Dick, and she took special pleasure denying him as many opportunities to screw her over as possible. The bastard didn't need any more help.
The comm chirped as the captain interrupted Moreau mid-rant. "Joker. Status report."
"Just cleared the relay, stealth systems up, boards are solid. And you've got a turian inbound with a depressingly absent sense of humor."
"He's already here, Lieutenant."
She rolled her eyes at the unseeing view-port and Alenko shook his head, clearly as impressed as she to learn that Moreau's entire foot could fit so comfortably inside his overly large mouth. For his part, Joker seemed entirely unmoved by the audible reproach in Anderson's tone.
"And tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room."
"You catch that, Commander?"
"Tell the Captain I'm on my way," she supplied, turning away. She grinned as the voices of the two remaining marines followed her down the corridor.
"Is it me or does the Captain always sound a little pissed off?"
"Only when he's talking to you, Joker."
Well, on the list of things she had not been expecting from that briefing, this had to rank pretty high. Right up there with being asked to provide uncensored audio commentary for VMR's award-winning mini-series Skyllian Savior. Ah man, if only. Nihlus has been spending way too much time with that Jenkins kid, she mused as Anderson laid out the details of the operation. A Spectre? Her? It was like something out of that damn vid.
The admission that they were here for more than a routine assignment came as no surprise, given the impressive amount of talent Anderson had assembled on his shiny new ship and that one of the Council's best operatives was here to babysit, but the reality of the situation had caught her completely off-guard. Humanity was a lot closer to gaining a foothold on the Citadel than she had thought if the Council was seriously considering allowing a member of such an upstart young race into one of their most highly esteemed inner circles. A Spectre. She knew she should feel honored, but all she really felt was bemusement. On second thought, maybe she should have seen this coming. It was just like something out of that damn vid.
Her woolgathering was cut short as Joker's uncharacteristically tense voice broke in. "Captain, we've got a problem."
"What wrong, Joker?"
"Transmission from Eden Prime, sir. You better see this."
Gunfire and barked orders filled the room as the screen before them came to life. The camera jerked and dodged with the movement of its bearer, but through the chaos they could see a handful of soldiers under attack, pinned down by an unseen assailant. As they watched the view bucked again as the operator was pulled to the ground by another marine and the area surrounding the two was peppered with fire.
Shepard's eyes cut involuntarily to her captain, but his own were intent on the screen. The reflected light cast the fine lines developing around his eyes and mouth in stark relief and he suddenly seemed much older than his mere forty-six years. Beside him Nihlus was equally still. She was no expert on alien body language, but she was pretty sure she could recognize grim in any species. She forced her attention back to the message before her. The view stabilized on one soldier's face as he reached out to hold the camera steady.
"We're under attack, taking heavy casualties, I repeat, heavy casualties! We can't – need evac – they came out of nowhere. We need -" He was cut off abruptly as a neat round hole appeared in the armor plating over his heart and he staggered, falling out of the camera's frame. In the sky above a giant ship hovered, and then the message cut out.
The three stood in silence, eyes fixed on the dark screen. "Everything cuts out after that, no comm traffic at all. It just goes dead."
"Reverse and hold at thirty-eight point five," Anderson commanded. The image of the strange machine consumed the display, lightning dancing over its surface. It looked like a giant grasping hand. "Status report!"
"Seventeen minutes out, captain, no other Alliance ships in the area."
"Take us in Joker, fast and quiet. This mission just got a lot more complicated."