Story Title: Mass Effect: Last Hope
Chapter Title: A Mysterious Message
Summary: Shepard receives a message from an unknown person saying that he would like to meet with Shepard in exchange for information that he has on the Reapers. Shepard is cautious at first, but he decides to meet the person. Upon meeting with the person, Shepard learns that there is a planet in a unknown star system that contains something that could possibly help save the whole galaxy from the Reapers. If you want to know more you're gonna have to read the rest.
Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect
A/N: My custom Shepard that I'm using is full Paragon, Spacer, War Hero, and Sentinel. Also, I would like for everybody to know that I encourage for everyone to leave reviews that are positive, and constructive, so please if you see any mistakes in this chapter let me know so that I won't make them again in chapter 2.
P.S. I would also like for everybody to know that while I have played Mass Effect 2 I have yet to play the first Mass Effect game, which is odd and doesn't make a lot of sense I know since it came over two years ago, so if I get anything wrong about the background of the characters please inform me right away. Now enjoy the story.
"Commander you have a new message at your private terminal." Kelly said, as Shepard arrived on the second level of the Normandy.
"Thank you, Kelly." Shepard approached his terminal and brought up the new message. One unusual thing about the letter was that it didn't say who it was from. He thought it odd, but went on to reading the message and decided he'd be concerned about it later.
From: Unknown
Shepard,
I have acquired the knowledge that you are searching for a way to stop the Reapers. If this is so I would like to inform you that I have information that could help you do this, but in exchange I would very much like to meet with you. Should you decide to accept, meet with me on Omega in Afterlife I'll be in the upper section of the club and don't worry you won't have to look for me... I'll find you.
After reading the message skepticism could clearly be seen on Shepard's face. 'This can't be true. Even if somebody did have information about the Reapers why would they so willingly give it to me.' Shepard thought as he marked the message as read and left his terminal. Shepard began to walk off when he stopped and considered what the message had to offer. 'It's more than likely a hoax, but it's more than what we've gotten these past several months.' thought Shepard as he started toward the cockpit to tell Joker about the change in plans. Originally, they had set a course for the Citadel to restock on supplies and such, as well as to get some much needed rest from their latest escapade which had involved taking out an entire heavily armed merc compound that they had accidentally stumbled upon while searching for more resources, since they had almost no palladium and platinum left. 'Damn those mercs,' Shepard thought to himself as he approached Joker. 'they always have to pick some remote planet to set up shop on.' Before Shepard could announce his presence in the cockpit Joker twirled around in his chair to face him. "Hey, Commander."
"Hey Joker, I came to tell you that we'll be changing our destination."
"To where?" inquired the pilot.
"Omega." answered the Commander.
"Why?"
"I just got a message that could be a lead to something on the Reapers."
"Who sent it?" Joker inquired.
"The message didn't say."
"Well, why Omega?"
"The message didn't say that either."
"So we're heading to Omega, one of, if not the worst, places to be in the entire galaxy, for info on the Reapers from a person who we know nothing about, and all because a message, from said nameless person, says so."
"Yep, that's it in a nutshell."
"Okay, I just hope that it's good info." Joker said, as he began to enter the coordinates of the Normandy's new destination with reluctance. "There all that's left is for you to set the new flight course Commander."
"Thanks, Joker." Shepard said. As he was heading back toward the CIC he heard Joker grumbling about missing a much needed vacation. After setting the new flight course on the Galaxy Map, Shepard began toward the Armory. Upon Entering he saw Jacob at his terminal doing some research, or looking up new improvements for everyone's weapons. "Jacob."
"Yes, Commander." Jacob said, as he turned to face Shepard..
"There's going to be a debriefing."
"Yes, sir." Jacob said, as he stopped what he was doing and followed Shepard, as he left the Armory and headed toward the Research and Tech Labs. "Mordin." Shepard said as he and Jacob entered.
"Yes, Shepard."
"Debriefing." Shepard announced in one word, and it was all it took to get Mordin away from his terminal and join Shepard and Jacob. As they entered the Briefing and Communications Room Shepard spoke out, "EDI would you please inform the rest of the crew to meet me in the Briefing Room."
"Of course Shepard." EDI replied, as she began to make the announcement over the intercom to the rest of the crew.
"Thank you EDI."
5 to 10 Minutes Later:
"What is it Commander?" Miranda asked as she and the others arrived in the Briefing Room.
"Yes, I think we all are curious as to why the sudden meeting." Mordin said in agreement with Miranda.
"We're making a deviation from our original course to the Citadel." Shepard announced to them all.
"To where?" Jacob asked.
"Omega."
"Why Omega?" Garrus asked.
"Because I've just received a message about there being a possible chance of information on the Reapers there."
"Who was the message from?" asked Miranda.
"It didn't say." Shepard replied.
"Are you even sure that this message is genuine?" Miranda asked with skepticism evident in her voice.
"No, but it's better than what we've been turning up these past few months." Shepard answered.
"He's right." Garrus said as he nodded his head in agreement to Shepard's words.
"Shepard if by some chance this person does have information, it is highly probable that it is either useless or not enough to give us any decent help." Miranda said with a clear matter of fact tone of voice.
"Well it could be that, but what if by some chance this person does have info that is reliable." Shepard in a firm, but not harsh tone of voice.
"There is that slight chance, but I still say that is not enough to humor this person by meeting with him." Miranda stated in a cold voice.
"Granted that there has been a high ratio of failures to successes of acquiring reliable information relating to the Old Machines, there still remains the possibility of success, or as some humans would say 'we are well overdue for success.'" Legion interjected.
Silence filled the room for a few brief moments as Legion's words settled throughout the small area. "Thank you Legion." Shepard finally said as he nodded his head in Legion's direction.
"Shepard Commander." Legion replied.
Shepard, as well as everybody else, looked back toward Miranda,waiting for her response. "Well, is there anything else you would like to add that?" Shepard questioned, but received no more than a look from Miranda that said they would be talking about this later. "Good," Shepard turned his attention back to the rest of his crew. "Now, due to us being close by we'll be arriving at Omega in a couple of hours. Any questions?" The silence that followed was efficient enough as an answer for Shepard's question. "Dismissed then." Everyone soon left the room after the words had left Shepard's mouth, save one person: Tali.
Shepard couldn't help but smile at her as she made her up to him. Every movement she made didn't go undetected by Shepard's eyes. He still couldn't believe that such a beautiful creature was his. He wouldn't lie, after he had made the decision to send her into the thermal vent on the Collector base he nearly had had a heart attack when he almost failed to open the valve that was obstructing her path. The sound of Tali's panicked stricken voice still haunted him at times. Shepard was taken out of his dark recollection by a covered hand gently touching him on the shoulder.
"Shepard, are you alright?" inquired the soothing voice of Tali.
"Huh, yeah I'm alright." replied Shepard as he shook his head slightly in an attempt to rid his mind of the memories.
Tali doubted it, but chose to not pursue it any further. "Anyway, are you sure that the person who sent that message can be trusted to come through with the information he promised?"
"I don't know," Shepard replied as he rubbed his forehead with his left hand and leaned on the table in the center of the room, that had the holo model of the Normandy on it, with his right hand. "but we should at least see what this person has to say."
"But what if Miranda's right and this info is unreliable?" Tali said in a slightly worried voice. She knew how important it was to Shepard that he stop the Reapers; anyone who would actually acknowledge that the Reapers did exist and were really a threat would see why Shepard wants to stop them so badly. The slight worry in her voice was due to the fact that ever since the Collector base was destroyed Shepard had been searching high and low for any possible intel on stopping the Reapers, and due to there being little to almost no info on them he would always take any bits of intel he could get. And whenever he got what appeared to be a solid source of intel he would become completely focused on it, but due to him being so focused on it he would always take it quite hard when the source turned out to be a dead end. The reason for this hard was mainly because he had both not gained any information, or not any useful information, and had wasted time searching either for useless or nonexistent information. It was that look of severe disappointment on Shepard's face that would always send waves of pain over Tali's heart. It was a look that Tali never enjoyed the sight of.
"Well, the only way we're gonna get an answer to that question is if we go and meet this person."
"I just don't want to see you get disappointed again if this turns out to be another bad lead." Tali said as she wrapped her arms around Shepard's midsection and gave a firm squeeze.
"Don't worry," Shepard replied as he responded to Tali's embrace by wrapping his arms around her in return. "I'm sure that this time we may have actually gotten a solid lead." Truth was though, Shepard wasn't sure at all. For all he knew this could be another wild goose chase like most of the others leads. Well that wasn't entirely true, because a good bit of the leads that weren't dead ends actually did have decent info, it was just that over half the time the info wasn't very much to go on. 'Hopefully this time we might actually get reliable enough info that will give us more to go on.' Shepard thought to himself as he and Tali separated from their embrace and headed out the doors of the Communications and Briefing Room and out into the hall behind it.
"I've got some things to attend to." Shepard said as he faced Tali.
"And I have some duties to attend to as well down in Engineering." Tali replied as she and Shepard shared one last embrace.
"I suppose I'll be seeing you later then." Shepard said as he took Tali's hand in his and kissed it lightly.
If not for Tali's visor Shepard would have clearly saw the blush growing on her face. "Yes." With that Shepard and Tali parted ways.
Four Hours Later:
The Normandy slowly docked at Omega. As soon as the ship was firmly secured Shepard, Garrus, and Grunt disembarked, and as they stepped through the second set of doors of the Decontamination Chamber they walked down the long corridor that would lead them from the ship and into Omega. Once they were in front of the entrance to Afterlife, Shepard noticed immediately that the security around the entrance and as well as everywhere else was much heavier. He saw about six or so armed batarians with M-27 scimitar shotguns near the taxi cab shuttle landing bay station. Next he saw close to ten turians armed with M-15 vindicator assault rifles near the doors to that lead to the lower section of Omega and the apartments and markets. Finally he saw that there were nearly fifteen guards at the entrance to Afterlife; this large group was composed of batarians, turians, and krogans and they were all better armed than the two previous groups Shepard had noticed. "Looks like they ready to go to war." Garrus stated openly.
"Yeah, wonder who they're going to war with?" Shepard asked, not expecting an answer.
"Hopefully, we can a stay a little while longer to find out." Grunt said with anxiousness evident in his voice.
"I wouldn't mind that." Garrus replied with a grin.
"Sorry to disappoint you guys, but as soon as we meet with the person sent me that message we're leaving." Shepard said. It was the truth to, the last thing Shepard wanted to do was to get into an unnecessary fight, which would only lead to them using medi-gel that they had yet to resupply on.
"Come on Shepard can't ya let us have some fun?" Garrus inquired, but only received a stern look from Shepard as an answer. "Fine." As they approached the entrance to Afterlife they were immediately stopped by a large krogan with a M-22 eviscerator shotgun pointed at them. "Where do you think you three are going?"
"Thought we go and have a couple drinks is all." Shepard replied.
"Think again." replied the krogan as he prepared to fire. Shepard saw Grunt began to reach for his weapon, he made a move to try and stop him, knowing full well that if Grunt fired he would have the other fourteen well armed guards on them within half a second, but before he could stop Grunt a voice spoke up. "Let them in." All heads turned to where the voice had originated from. A turian stepped up and with a glance caused the krogan in Shepard's way to move aside. Shepard looked at the turian, getting the feeling he had seen him somewhere before. 'That's it.' "Gavorn." Shepard said, finally having recalled the turian's name.
"Nice to see you again, Shepard." replied the Captain.
"Same here." Shepard said as he firmly shook Gavorn's hand. "By any chance can you tell what's with all the extra security and firepower?"
"Well, for the past four or six months this new group of mercs, who calls themselves the Lupus Group, have been causing problems for Aria, and from what I heard they haven't just been makin' trouble here they've been givin' hell to all the other merc groups out there."
"Blue Suns, Eclipse, and Blood Pack?"
"Yep, and they ain't happy about that."
"I wouldn't think so." Shepard commented. "Hey, I thought Aria had you on vorcha control, so what you doin' with these guys?"
"Well, I was on vorcha control, but due to these Lupus guys givin' her all this trouble I've been reassigned to captain her men." Gavorn said with slight irritation. "If you ask me I think I prefer shootin' vorcha that shoot back at me to my front, than to captaining men that are more likely to shoot me in the back if they take the notion to."
"Why didn't you say no to Aria then if you don't want to command men that are likely kill you?" Shepard inquired.
"Well, she gave me two options: this or death. When you're given a choice like that it's not really hard to see the option that is most favorable to you now is it?"
"No, I suppose not."
"Well anyway, what are you doing Shepard?" inquired the captain.
"Like I said to your friend over there we're just stopping by for a drink." Shepard said.
"I doubt that, but go on in." Gavorn said.
"Thanks." Gavorn replied with only a nod as Shepard and his men walked past him.
Inside Upper Section of Afterlife:
The loud, booming music crashed into the ears of Shepard, Garrus, and Grunt as they entered the upper section of Afterlife. After a few moments of letting their ears get use to the volume of the music Garrus spoke out. "So where do we meet with this guy again?"
"He didn't say where he just said that he'd be in the upper section of the club, and that he'd find me."
"Well, I suppose we just wait until he does." Garrus said as he surveyed the area.
"That seems like our only choice at the moment."
"Well, I be over there if ya need me Shepard." Garrus said as he went off towards a table.
"Same here Shepard." Grunt said as he went off towards where the asari dancers were performing and leaned against the railing with pleased eyes. And with every move the asari performers made his pleased look grew.
"Well, at least I know they've got my back." Shepard said as he went off towards a bar, sat down at an open seat, and ordered a drink. It was probably somewhere between the moment he sat foot in Afterlife to the moment he ordered his second drink that Shepard realized he was being watched, though he didn't know exactly who it was that was watching him since there was well over a dozen people in this room. 'I'll just have to wait until whoever it is makes his or her move.' He would occasionally glance around him, taking care to make the glances as subtle as best as he could. About halfway through his third glass, Shepard felt a hand clasp over his right shoulder. Shepard quickly glanced over his shoulder to look at this person. The person smiled lightly as he parted his lips to speak. "I really should have mentioned for you to come alone."