Disclaimer: Nah, I don't really care.
R&R like good kids. Seriously, though, like how many favorites and only one person who wasn't a fan reviewed? Sad. Seriously. Like, a couple hundred hits too. Per day. And not a goddamn 'nother one. I'll be the first to admit that I don't write for the reviewage, but I don't think ya'll are tryin' anymore. The only excuse I accept is the one that I made up, about how everyone who read my story except for that one shim SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTED after being exposed to the first chapter. And honestly, if that's what really happened, I don't blame you for not reviewing. Your gooey remains obviously will have some difficulty with the typing and clicking. My god, you poor fools must be dropping faster than the drummers of Spinal Tap! For Chrissakes, stop reading this! Stop reading my shit! You and your loved ones are all combustible!
Spontaneous combustion, people: a serious issue in the world today.
This has been a public service announcement from MFJ.
The Veetor Is Manifest
Commander John Shepard, N7 marine, first human Spectre, proud fiend of slavers, casual drinker, armed lunatic, etc. was most certainly not drunk, and thank you for asking, Miranda. Because nobody asked you.
"I didn't ask, I was telling you. If you're drunk, that means you're a liability, and I don't tolerate liabilities."
Shepard rolled his eyes. "Well, I didn't see any water on the shuttle, did you, Ms. Lawson? And as for that tolerating bit, I'm not sure you have a choice in the matter. That mini-bar was all the work of your boss, so thank him for it."
Jacob laughed raucously from his seat in the Cerberus shuttle and loaded a thermal clip into his shotgun. "I can't believe the Illusive Man put a mini-bar on a shuttle."
The commander grinned from his seat and adjusted his gloves. "If Cerberus weren't so evil, I'd say this is the best job I've ever had."
"Speaking of the job," the White Witch spat icily from her unfriendly seat, "we have a job to do. We can either do it, or talk about doing it, but only one actually accomplishes anything and the other is a waste of time and effort."
"It's the first one, right?" Shepard guessed. "It's always that one."
Miranda Lawson stared at Commander John Shepard with something between desperation and frustration, combined with an overtone of sadness and a skosh of nutmeg and cinnamon. Or hate and disbelief, Shepard was discovering that it was hard to tell with Ms. Lawson. But he was far from an idiot – he knew that he was starting to get under her skin in the bad way, and that wasn't the way he wanted. "I'm just teasing," he assured her in his best calming voice. "Relax."
"I cannot relax," she said through grit teeth, her accent getting harsher by the second, "because I cannot tell when you're joking and when you're being serious. It's impossible, and you're impossible."
"Is that your way of complimenting my straight face? Gracias," he grinned, "it comes naturally. As a plus, I'm very good at poker. We should play sometime, you know, when everything's not in immediate peril."
Miranda didn't dignify that with a response. Except for a flustered, "no, I don't think so. And Cerberus is not evil. We have only humanity's best interests at heart!"
Jacob frowned at his compatriot operative. "That was a bit delayed, Miranda. You a'ight?"
She only scowled at him. Shepard then remembered something. "What was that about doing a job and then talking about it and wastes of time?" Miranda turned her icy glare to Shepard who shrugged it off and jumped out of the shuttle as it touched ground, feet hitting hard concrete.
They had landed on the former human colony of Freedom's Progress, the most recent colony to go dark, according to the Illusive Man. There were no known survivors, no clues, no signs of conflict, and most importantly, no way to track who or what bastards had done this. And in truth, Shepard wasn't exactly drunk. At least that's not the way he would've put it. The microscopic bottles of asari liquor were delicious, but they were hardly enough to get him good and roaring drunk. A result, he carefully stifled his urges to provoke Miranda and sing songs and his more ridiculous feelings of joy and blatant sexism safely away where no one could be privy to them and took out his assault rifle. If he was lucky, his aim would only be slightly impaired. Just to check, he shot a random wall a few times. And by a few times it is, of course, meant 'fifty.'
Jacob blinked. "Damn, did that wall kill your family?"
Shepard shrugged and tested out his scope a bit, noting in his head that he didn't get dazed and dizzy from the zoom at all. Drunk. Hah! Miranda was full of it. "For all I know it could've. I was just testing something."
"Testing if the wall killed your family?"
Shepard didn't like the word 'family,' nor did he like talking about that word, nor did he like Jacob's strange brand of stupid. "Mr. Taylor."
"Commander?"
"That thing that you do, when you talk? I need you to stop doing that for the duration of this mission, unless it's really important." Shepard paused when he remembered who he was talking to. "As I'm not sure I can trust you to gauge whether or not something is really important, if you have something to say to me, please say it to Ms. Lawson first and she can then field your message through to me."
"Aye ,aye!" Jacob cried with a hearty salute.
"VI is not in my job description, Shepard," Miranda muttered sarcastically.
"It is now," he told her. "Enough chit-chat, let's move out. This wall is finished."
The three commandos made their way into the colony, passing through empty rooms and abandoned homes. The entire place gave off an eerie feeling that Shepard was having a hard time describing, but if pressed would call "susurrus," not because that made any sense in any context whatsoever as susurrus is a noun, but because Shepard liked that word and was disappointed that it didn't get the attention that it deserved.
They had just entered one particular building which was full of empty chairs at empty tables and once again made Shepard feel like breaking into song, which he most certainly did not do, as that would utterly ruin his reputation.
"It's like...like…" Jacob was struggling with words and had also forgotten Shepard's no-talky-from-Jacob policy earlier, but Shepard excused it the once. "Like they all just got up in the middle of dinner and never came back. What the hell happened?"
"More importantly," Miranda cut in, "why did it happen? We need answers."
"And payback," Jacob vowed.
They continued on into the colony until fate had another spasm and sent a few mechs their way. It was unexpected, but in a strange way Shepard completely anticipated the event. "What's with all the Shepard-hating mechs?" He wondered aloud as he gunned two LOKI mechs down and hid behind yet another conveniently placed crate. He ordered his two subordinates to more tactical positions, as the two Cerberus operatives were just dumbly standing about looking confused and vaguely shooting at whatever was lying around, which is strange considering how competent Miranda had seemed earlier. He supposed maybe they just needed direction, is all. He switched to incendiary ammo and put those thoughts out of his head.
"Three FENRIS mechs at three o'clock!" Miranda suddenly shrieked and Shepard turned to a previously unseen hole in the logic of space-time that included an entirely new set of stairs and crates and was also full of mechs. One biotic pull and a warp later and there were two less. Shepard switched to his shotgun. It was time to get personal.
The mechs didn't last long, needless to say.
Miranda Lawson wasn't happy with this turn of events. She pouted a bit. "Those mechs should've recognized us as friendlies," she told no one in particular. "Someone must have hacked them."
"They're always hacked," Shepard responded with an eye roll. "Don't you know anything? There's always a downside. VI goes crazy, security's been hacked, rogue AI, everyone was kidnapped, bad guy commits suicide. There's always something."
"Still…"
"Why do you think I carry a doctor's arsenal everywhere I go?"
Miranda thankfully ignored that comment. "I suppose my point here is that this place is supposed to be abandoned. I can't imagine who or what was left behind, but we're definitely not alone here."
"If it's zombies or those geth husks," Jacob leaned in close and whispered to her, "I'm outta here."
"Whatever," Lawson dismissed and pushed the black man away.
"Forward that message to Shepard since I'm not supposed to talk to him," he added. "It's really important."
"No, it isn't," she muttered and sighed the long-suffering sigh of she who has suffered much at the hands of the fate.
"So, does Jacob have any messages for me yet?" Shepard asked her unhelpfully. Miranda only responded with a frosty glare. It was starting to become her default expression.
After wandering aimlessly through courtyards while Shepard shamelessly rifled through all the missing colonists' belongings for creds, and of course after destroying several more rounds of mechs, the ex-Spectre and the two Cerberus commandos stumbled across a room that was randomly full of quarians.
Shepard's initial reaction was confusion, followed by recognition, followed by more confusion, regarding one specific quarian that had no feasible reason to be standing in front of him. A part of him was relieved at seeing a friendly face (so to speak, no one knew if quarians had faces because of their environmental suits), but that part was quashed by the confusion.
Luckily for him, that quarian in particular was equally confused: "Wha—Shepard?"
"Tali?" he blurted.
A moment of awkward silence ensued.
Shepard then realized that he had his gun pointed instinctively at the other quarians in the room that weren't Tali, of which there were four or so. One of them was obnoxious and had a shotgun and was glancing back between the commander and his crew of three with something that would've been described as bewilderment, if only Shepard could read quarian body language. It was just too damn hard, with all of them stuck in those damn suits.
Shepard lowered his gun quietly, figuring Tali at least knew him well enough not to give the order to shoot him in the face no matter how much of a jerkass he may have been in the past (although he did always have a bit of a soft spot for her, since she was an irrevocably nice and optimistic person with a funny accent, and that was rather charming). He motioned for Miranda and Jacob to do the same, and Jacob automatically (and thankfully wordlessly) complied while Miranda put hers down but didn't put it away. He couldn't blame her.
Tali'Zorah vas Neema was at a loss for words. She stuttered for a bit before realizing her squad was still pointing their weapons at one of her best friends. Dead best friends. It was all very confusing, needless to say. "Prazza!" She barked to the obnoxious quarian with the shotgun behind her, "put those guns down!"
"I'm not taking any chances with Cerberus operatives!" Prazza decried in a fit of paranoia and stupidly aimed his shotgun a bit more precisely.
Tali saw the Look cross Shepard's face and a sinking feeling grew in her gut. The Look didn't last very long but the fact that it made an appearance at all was ominous. Tali'Zorah had no idea how it was possible that he was standing here right in front of her, or even why he was here at all, or what the heck was going on anymore, but that Look was one she knew all too well. It was the Look that said, with one strange human facial expression, 'you're on ice thinner than a fingernail, son, and you're one inch away from me fuckin' your shit up to next Sunday.' Or that was how Chief Williams had described it to her once; she didn't really get it, figuring it was a human thing and probably out of her realm of understanding. It was apparently very similar to a batarian phrase she'd once heard that she had difficulty pronouncing, but understood it translated back into her native language as something like 'you're all doomed.'
"Tali'Zorah," Shepard began in that careful, stern, slow tone of his that all but screamed 'warning,' "you served on my ship and know how well I respond to threats."
Oh, she did. She remembered very vividly the last time someone had dared to threaten Commander John Shepard. The whole thing had been rather exciting, really:
Hot Flashback Action Time!
"Like hell we'll surrender!" The nameless human cultist screamed. "We'll kill you all!"
"Nope," Shepard informed him obligingly and obligingly proceeded to violently beat the hell everyone in the room that wasn't a friend of his or didn't owe him money. The shabang involved bullets, blood, and knives, and at one point Tali recalled that the three were combined for somewhat surreal effect that reminded her of an old gore-horror vid she'd seen back on the Flotilla once.
Garrus Vakarian had to ask to no one in particular by the time it was all over, "Was that necessary?"
"No," Urdnot Wrex answered with the krogan equivalent of a smile, Tali couldn't tell – "but it was worth it."
"We're done here," Shepard announced, kicking aside one dead cultist. "I could use a drink right now."
Sexy Flashback End!
By the time Tali was done with her funky flashback, Prazza had managed to get in another insult to Cerberus and Shepard's Look was starting to look like it was there to stay.
"PRAZZA!" Tali screamed, voice raising several octaves and startling everyone in the room, and began to feel like killing the quarian herself before her former commander could get to it. "You put those weapons down NOW!"
The quarian was obviously unused to hearing his leader get so worked up over something and so put down his weapons, albeit suspiciously, and his future (soon to be short) life silently thanked him.
Tali huffed angrily and looked back to Shepard, unsure of what to do or say. "Shepard," she murmured, unsure of what she was feeling. Obviously relief that he was standing in front of her, and yet … the Cerberus logos. What was going on? Was this really Shepard? How could she know? "Shepard, is it … really you?"
The commander folded his arms grumpily and stroked his chin in thought. "Damn, what's something only I would know …" He suddenly snapped his fingers and his expression brightened. "Got it – Tali, you remember that geth data we got after running that errand for Admiral Hackett, right? And you took a copy for your Pilgrimage? Did it help?"
All her suspicions about his identity promptly died. There was still the issue of Cerberus, but for the moment, she could be assured that this was definitely her old commander standing in front of her – alive, well, and most importantly alive. Spending two years thinking he was dead was just hell, plain and simple, and all that time and grief wouldn't just suddenly wash away, but it was definitely a start.
Tali smiled underneath her mask, not that anyone would ever see it. "Yes, it did," she said with a nod, the relief coming through in her voice. She turned to Prazza and her fellow quarians disappointedly. "This is undoubtedly Shepard, and you're lucky you all put those weapons down or I would've had to explain to the Fleet how Stupidity is a viable, natural cause of death."
Prazza was too stupid to get the insult, obviously. "Why is your old commander working for Cerberus?" He wondered. It was a really good question, one that was going to go unanswered, because Prazza was dumb.
"How'd you even know we were Cerberus?" Miranda demanded suspiciously.
"What?" Tali adjusted her hood and laughed a bit. "Are-are you joking? As if the logos weren't obvious enough, then you just confirmed it for us."
"Way to go, Miranda," Jacob laughed as the Australian gave everyone a pale imitation of Shepard's Look. "I told you the logos was a bad idea, but nooooooo—"
"Jacob," Shepard warned, "now is quiet time." Jacob nodded and went back to being quiet like a good boy while the N7 turned to Tali and her quarian squad. To avoid talking to Prazza, who was clearly a challenged individual, he addressed Tali alone. "I'm not working for Cerberus, Tali, I'm working with them. There's a large gap between the two. As for why I'm here, this is a human colony – human colonies all over the Terminus have been disappearing the same way this one seems abandoned. Since entire colonies of colonists don't just up and leave, not even with slavers to persuade them, nor do they leave so little evidence if they all randomly dropped dead or spontaneously combust, Cerberus, as a sadly pro-human terrorist organization, is interested in what happened here."
"That does not explain why you are here, though, Shepard," Tali said, a frown evident in her voice.
Shepard sighed wistfully and yearned inwardly for a stiff drink. "I'm here with these cultists because for the moment, there's a mini-bar back on the shuttle and our goals happen to coincide. They also resurrected me over the last two years and they're under the delusion that I owe them."
Jacob nudged Miranda in the ribs. "Hey! Tell Shepard I'm totally not a cultist!"
"Jacob and I are not cultists," said Miranda icily. "And we did not resurrect you. We rebuilt you."
Shepard rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Same thing, Lawson."
"No, there's a significant difference. One is a legitimate scientific endeavor, and the other is something that only occurs if you're a member of some passé religious institution or are possessed by the insane belief that sorcery and Galaxy of Fantasy are real and quantifiable mediums."
Shepard didn't want to pull Arthur C. Clark on her so he just crooned, "Whatever you say." He paused and turned back to Tali, who waited patiently throughout the entire exchange. "It was mostly the mini-bar, to be honest. Not to say that the missing colonists don't concern me. They don't, but I'm concerned anyway, just not for the same reasons Cerberus is. And I really was dead. God help anyone who makes a zombie joke," the zombie commander reminded everyone in the room with an evil eye.
"I wasn't planning to make a joke," Tali answered honestly. "What are zombies?"
"It's a human thing," Miranda cut in. "Don't worry about it. Shepard just explained why we are here, but why are you here, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya?"
"It's Tali'Zorah vas Neema now," the quarian spat, "thank-you-very-much."
"Of course, my apologies," Miranda assured smoothly.
Tali gave a dignified 'harrumph' and folded her arms haughtily. "We are here because one of our own is missing as well – Veetor came here on Pilgrimage and we were sent to find him."
Shepard scratched his nose thoughtfully and leaned against the nearest wall. "That's not strange, a quarian coming to a human colony for a Pilgrimage?"
Tali shrugged. "We can choose wherever we'd like to go for our Pilgrimage, even if it is outlandish – I should be one to talk, though, since mine started with joining your crew, on a human ship no less. Regardless, we need to find him."
"And you're sure that he's still here? Why wouldn't he have disappeared with the other colonists?"
"I'm not sure about the second question," Tali answered in wavering uncertainty, "but he's definitely still here. He thoroughly reprogrammed all the mechs to attack on sight, and no one but a quarian could have done that. There was also the message he left us on the wall over there," Tali added with a gesture towards an illustrated nearby wall, "so that was helpful too."
Shepard squinted. The message said, in bluish-black blood or possibly squid ink, dripping down the walls, THE VEETOR IS MANIFEST AND PROGRAMMED MECHS TO KILL YOU LOTS.
"What poor grammar," Miranda criticized.
"I don't know," Shepard frowned, but for something other than poor grammar, "if Wilson could hack all the mechs in a facility, how hard could it be? He made pyjacks look smart, with a capital 'smar.'"
And everyone ignored him. "We need to find Veetor," Miranda announced with finality.
"We're not working with Cerberus!" Prazza valiantly declared.
"Tali," Shepard said in the calmest and most rational voice anyone had ever heard, "I think your friend has made the fatal mistake of misunderstanding me. Namely the fact that if he speaks again, I'll shoot him in the kneecaps." Prazza gulped at the ex-Spectre's murderous, unwavering gaze.
"Don't bother," Tali said with an invisible mask-hidden eye-roll, "he's stupid."
"We'd be doing natural selection a favor."
"Nature gets along just fine without favors," Tali pointed out, "and besides, I do not want to have to write a nasty letter to his relatives about it."
Shepard sighed mournfully. Next time, though, whatever idiot that threatened him was going to get it so hard that they'd be killed twice. "Right. Veetor. Missing colonists. Priority. Mission."
"Thank you!" Miranda said earnestly.
Shepard wondered absently if maybe Miranda would like to play Jacob's quiet game too, but decided that muting his only competent companion wouldn't be in his best tactical interests, at least for the duration of this particular mission. "We'll split up into two teams to find Veetor," he told Tali, going into Officious-Shepard Mode, "keep radio contact. I'll see if we can't take care of the majority of the mechs left."
Tali nodded. "Will do. See you on the other side." She made an obscure hand motion to her quarian allies and Prazza and the others reluctantly trudged out one of the side-doors of the room, opposite the doorway Shepard would be taking. She turned back to look at him, and if Shepard had ever bothered to figure out a goddamn thing about quarian body language he probably would've picked up on something important right there, but as it were it just seemed to him that she was being weird and plucky as usual. Same old Tali. "Whatever the case," Tali said softly, "and whoever you're working with now … I'm glad you're back, Shepard."
He gave a veiled, snarky, lop-sided grin and swiftly pulled his assault rifle from his back. "Least that makes one of us."
The three commandos dashed out the door, guns at the ready and on the alert for any mechs. Tali alerted them to a squad of security drones headed their way as they exited one of the colonists' offices and they swiftly took care of the problem with a few overloads and a couple thermal clips.
It was after the security drone issue that the real trouble appeared – Tali, over the radio again:
"Prazza and his squad have rushed on ahead!" She shouted into the radio, causing the three humans to flinch at her shrill tone.
"What have I said about yeell-lling," Shepard sing-songed, but Tali didn't listen:
"I tried to tell them no but they wouldn't listen—"
"Aren't they your squad?" Shepard murmured under his breath. "Do quarians have authority issues or something?"
Tali continued frantically—"They want to find Veetor and take him away before you get here! B-but Veetor reprogrammed a heavy mech and it's tearing Prazza's squad apart. Hurry, Shepard, we're past the loading bay!" And then she cut off.
Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob all shared a look, each one tinged with another emotion. Jacob's was trepidation, Miranda's was anger, and Shepard's was just pure exasperation.
"I hate idiots," the commander complained bluntly. "They really ruin my life."
"We should've expected this treachery," Miranda spat and stomped her heeled foot on the ground.
"Says the Cerberus operative who wanted to put a control chip in Commander Shepard's head," Shepard muttered.
"Quarians hold no love of Cerberus," Miranda said flatly, "it's not just us, there's a mutual distrust here. We shouldn't have agreed to work with them."
Shepard shook his head. "I can tell there's a story there, but I just don't care enough. The only reason this happened is because Tali isn't Sun Tzu, she's a techie. And Prazza was clearly a moron, and morons tend to do stupid things, it's their disease. Now hurry up, we've got a heavy mech to take down … apparently."
The two squabblers and blessedly quiet Jacob wormed their way, somehow, someway, to the docking area where Shepard took point and Tali opened the doors from a remote location. On the other side, the sounds of quarians being crushed and shot and mutilated to death by machinery gave way to the sight of the heavy YMIR mech that was, quite literally, tearing Prazza's squad apart.
The three got behind several conveniently located crates and shared the same looks they'd shared earlier. Shepard noticed that he was standing over Prazza's corpse, and the thought of it made him a little happy. Morons get as morons deserve. Sometimes, he really loved the way the universe worked.
"This is going to be one tough son of a bitch to take down," Miranda growled.
Shepard just shook his head. These poor, sad little amateurs. What did they know? What sort of people was Cerberus hiring these days? Were they all this underfunded? God, he could use a drink. "Jacob, you don't understand how warps work despite being a biotic, so you just sit tight and be quiet over in the corner there. Miranda, hit it with a few warps while I ready the grenade launcher." John Shepard reached behind his back for the said grenade launcher. He didn't altogether trust the device – he was far more used to hand grenades – but grenades are grenades, he decided, and as long as shit gets blown up it didn't matter.
The tactic was quite simple – Jacob even proved himself useful by disobeying Shepard's orders and firing at the thing to draw its attention – a useless endeavor, since his bullets were doing less damage than if he'd thrown pillows (pillows might have even confused the mech enough to blow itself up like those LOKI back on the Cerberus facility Shepard had woken up in – hey, anything was possible). It was still a useful distraction and Miranda's biotics were doing enough damage by themselves. Shepard had only to aim, aaaaaaaaand—
"Dammit!" He yelled and dashed to the side into a roll as the mech fired a missile at him. Who the hell armed these bastards with missiles? And what did these colonists need with heavy mechs anyway? Why would—
"Fuck-a-duck!" he shouted again as his inner theorizing was interrupted, and the mech fired its second projectile at him. Luckily, Shepard had managed to dodge behind yet another conveniently located crate, a crate that was surprisingly fire-retardant, so it all worked out fine.
Jacob began firing frantically at the thing again, preventing its shields from coming up, and Shepard, now actually pissed at that point, shot a grenade at its mechanical head.
"I hate mechs," he muttered as he watched the glorious explosion of the mech and put away the grenade launcher. He vaguely wondered if the Illusive Man could be persuaded to keep cigarettes on the shuttles, in addition to the mini-bar.
"Glad that's over," Miranda announced as the three rendezvoused around the exploded remains of the mech.
"I'm hungry," Shepard announced right back. "Don't suppose any of you have any food on you? Miranda, does Jacob have any food-related messages for me?"
Miranda Lawson responded only with an icy glare, which was definitely her default expression now. Commander Shepard just sighed. "Had to ask. Explosions make me hungry. Let's hurry and find that quarian – I want to see if I can persuade your boss to include a mini-fridge on all the shuttles just for delicious snackables."
Jacob's eyes lit up at that and he slapped Miranda on the arm as an idea sprung upon his mind. She turned her icy glare to him instead, but apparently he was numb to it. "Ooh, tell the Commander to ask for a microwave too – I want me some tacquitos."
Miranda, very reluctantly, turned back to Shepard. "Jacob says there should be a microwave on the shuttles as well," she informed in monotone.
Shepard blinked. "Ooh, for tacquitos you mean? That's a great idea!"
"Shoot me, stuff me, mount me," Miranda muttered under her breath and kicked the remains of the YMIR mech around to sate her recently-discovered fountain of undying rage. She wondered absently if Commander John Shepard had this effect on everyone, or if it was just her. She supposed it didn't matter because she ended up irritated either way, but if he had this effect on everyone, it was a wonder how he made it through the galaxy and saved anything at all. Her extensive research into his life didn't indicate he'd be this difficult, though she had been fully prepared for his drinking, his rampant, random sociopathic tendencies, and his sour personality, but nothing about that had led her to believe that he would be this difficult. It just wasn't fair. Miranda looked over at Jacob, who was still blissfully silent and unaware, and sighed in sudden, deep and abiding depression.
Yeah, it was definitely just her.
"Yo, Miranda!" Jacob shouted. He and Shepard had wandered off towards one of the locked buildings that likely housed Veetor or at the very least, something for Shepard to rob. "What's the hold-up?"
She shook her head and stalked over, safely compartmentalizing all her annoying thoughts of depression and fury in her mind. She had a job to do, and she would do it, Shepard's annoying tendencies be damned.
A few seconds later the three were in a narrow, dark room lit only by the connected grid-screens of a huge orange console at the far side with a sickly quarian attached to it. The quarian was muttering something about 'swarms' and 'kill lots' and 'mechie mechie mechie' so it was understandable that the three were a bit uneasy approaching him. Shepard had balls of steel, however, and approached the crazy and murderous quarian with a clear of his throat, announcing, "Veetor, I presume?"
Veetor did nothing apart from mutter some more about killing and swarms and possibly something about take-away boxes. Shepard couldn't be too sure.
The commander thought long and hard about the situation, stroking his stubble thoughtfully. There were several ways out of this situation, but most of them involved Veetor possibly cracking (not that he wasn't already completely cracked), and that wasn't what he wanted. Veetor needed to be in a sane, stable, and at least semi-coherent state of mind for them to question him. But here he was, muttering away about mechs and killing and swarms, typing away at some inexplicable thing on his little computer.
"Veetor?" Shepard said loudly. Veetor did nothing, not even a budge. It was almost insulting.
"I don't think he can hear you, Commander," Jacob said with a frown, and Shepard excused this violation of the no-talk-from-Jacob policy because his comment was semi-intelligent.
"Huh," Shepard nodded. He pulled out his pistol and shot at the computer, and two of the screens went dark.
Veetor, naturally, reacted … by going into shock.
Miranda reacted too, unfortunately. "Shepard!" She cried annoyingly. "Was that really necessary?"
"I didn't see any other options," he said, and it was his turn to frown. He didn't like people questioning his decisions, and he liked the questioning less when it came from Cerberus Operatives.
"I mean you could've hacked the computer with your omni-tool," she explained quickly at the sight of Shepard's disapproving expression, "or something of the sort, something not involving shooting the screen which would have gotten the quarian's attention just as easily and would likely not have sent him into shock."
Shepard guffawed at this. "What, this thing?" He pulled out his omni-tool and the orange hologram appeared over his arm. Shepard started typing randomly at fake buttons and waving it around in the air. "I don't know how to use this thing! I've been dead for two years and they've made all kinds of crazy updates to it. I miss it back when these stupid things made sense. Hell, I don't even know what these buttons do! What do they even do? Nothing! They're meaningless! Hell, what is this, the iPod?" He growled as he tapped violently at the thing. He eventually snorted in disgust and put the omni-tool away. "Whatever. I don't even care. Tell you what, you can use your omni-tool to do that thing you described the next time we run into a crazy quarian, Ms. Lawson. I'll stick to what I'm good at – guns, and the shooting with thereof."
Veetor chose that moment to stop being in shock. "You – what are you doing here? But you're human!"
"Good eye," Miranda murmured under her breath.
"Last time I checked," Shepard replied wryly. "What's more interesting is what you're doing here, Veetor."
"But—how?" Veetor was apparently having trouble getting passed this idea. He fidgeted with his suit – the former marine thought he might have even spied a rupture, which wasn't good. "The Veetor knows all the people get taken away," he said in a creepy undertone, "but not you."
Shepard wasn't completely unused to dealing with crazy people, having been quite crazy himself for a time. Those were the times before he discovered the Alliance's sad mental health coverage, and then the wonderful prowess of alcohol and all its benefits. He'd claimed he was the Queen of England for about a month, and then he became The God of Napkins and Light-switches. Denial did funny things to your head. He sighed wistfully at the memory. Good times.
He turned to Miranda and Jacob, a rare look of pity coming into his eyes. "We're not going to be able to take him back for debriefing in this state," he told them quietly. "He's got a suit rupture there on his side and that means he's going to be running a fever for weeks, if he doesn't die. We'll be lucky to get any information out of him in this state." He paused, a memory coming to him. "I remember when Tali had a suit rupture back on the ship. Babbling nonstop for a week, screwing up the engines. Fun times." He turned back to Veetor, a quirky smirk coming over his face. "He's not completely crazy but he's not exactly coherent yet." He raised his voice to get Veetor's attention, "Does the Veetor know what happened to the people? How'd they get taken away?"
"How come you're not away?" Veetor wondered honestly.
Shepard didn't really have an answer for that, for the wrong reasons. "I technically should be," he laughed half-heartedly. "Not that it matters. We just got here, Veetor, we weren't here when the colonists … disappeared."
Veetor gasped in realization … or in constipation … it was so hard to tell with quarians. "You don't know," he murmured reverently. "You didn't see … but the Veetor sees! He is manifest! He sees eeeeveerryyythiiiing…"
"This is getting creepier by the minute," Jacob announced.
Veetor began typing away more at his funny computer and the screens that Shepard hadn't shot to hell lit up as camera footage began to play – what they saw was something rather amazing.
Bugs, a swarm of bugs that looked like humongous mosquitos clouded every angle the cameras caught, fluttering over vestiges of what appeared to be people frozen in space. The three commandos realized that the bugs were responsible for the freezing of the colonists, as demonstrated by one of the strange bugs biting or pinching or doing something to the neck of one of the colonists, who suddenly became enveloped in fuzzy energy of some kind (the cameras didn't have colors, really).
What was more surprising than the swarms of bugs, or as Veetor's babbling would have you call them "Seeker Swarms" was the presence of a big bug-monster thing hauling the colonists off in chrysalis coffins. Veetor paused the footage when the image of the bug-thing came on screen and the three commandos stared, one in confusion (guess who) and the other two in recognition, and also confusion.
"My god," Miranda said, shocked, "I think it's a Collector!"
Collectors were nasty little fairy tales out of the Terminus Systems that liked to do bad things like kidnap people. Shepard knew more than the common man, which meant he knew that Collectors were actually real and weren't just made up stories to scare colonists out of the Terminus Systems and back into warm Alliance arms. "What's it doing here?" He wondered aloud. "I thought they kept to themselves."
"Normally, they do," Miranda answered, despite the fact that Shepard's question hadn't been directed at her and had probably been rhetorical, "they operate in small groups, usually operating with slavers to acquire rare genetic specimens. If the Collectors are responsible for the missing colonists, than everything makes sense. They have very advanced technology that could possibly disable an entire colony at once."
Shepard eyed the delusional quarian in front of him. "Mind if I ask the Veetor a few questions?"
"The Veetor does not mind," Veetor replied loftily.
"What exactly do you know about these Seeker Swarms?"
"They find you, freeze you," Veetor said shakily, "and they come … to take you away … no one escapes … they'll be back for me …"
"Sure, chief," John Shepard muttered. "Why didn't they take you?"
"No one escapes … come to take me away, ha-ha! They'll be back for me… Use the precious mechie mechie mechies to stop them … take me away…"
Shepard turned back to Miranda for input, since Jacob was being quiet like a good boy. "Maybe these swarms are miniature probes," she theorized. "It could be they used technology specifically designed to detect humans – human colonies have been the only ones attacked, after all, and that could explain why they skipped over Veetor."
"The Veetor," Shepard instinctively corrected, "and that's a thought. Could be his suit masked his appearance too. I suppose we don't know either way." He turned back to Veetor and decided that he really needed a drink. "Thanks, Veetor. You've been a hoot."
"Ooh, ooh!" The Veetor cried, tapping at his omni-tool. "The Veetor was manifesting and found a lot of data on Seeker Swarms. Recorded. Measured. Could do nothing else. Will come to take the Veetor awaaaaaaayyy… But you will take data, yes?"
"Sure thing, bud. I hope that manifesting thing works out for you – you've been really helpful."
"Well, that settles it," Miranda said officiously and clapped her hands. "Let's grab the quarian and get out of here."
"What?" Came Tali's upset cry from the doorway. She was clearly outraged by something Miranda had said, as she was spluttering all over the place. She stomped in and stuck a finger in everyone's faces, and Shepard inwardly rolled his eyes at her dramatics. "Veetor needs intensive medical care, not an interrogation! He needs to come back with us to the Flotilla!"
Before Shepard could stop her, Miranda went on, "your people already betrayed us once," she reminded pointedly. "How can we trust you to get the data that we need?"
Tali raised her arms in the air and gave an exasperated sound. "You're free to take all of Veetor's omni-tool data but we have to take him back with us. I'm not about to stand by while Cerberus takes one of our own – an injured, mentally ill one of our own. It's not happening. Not even if you're in charge, Shepard," she added when Shepard opened his mouth to object.
He frowned. "You could just take Veetor and come with us, Tali. Best of both worlds – we get the debriefing and the Veetor gets to stop manifesting and killing lots with mechie mechies."
"…What?"
"I think I've been talking to Veetor too long." He blinked. "Yeah, you know what, take him with you back to the Flotilla, that's probably best."
"Thank you," she thanked earnestly. "I'll send you along anything useful we find, Shepard. I promise. I'm glad you're still calling the shots here."
"Who else would be?"
Commander John Shepard, N7 marine, first human Spectre, proud fiend of slavers, grudging savior of the galaxy, professional armed lunatic and notorious bamf, was having another lovely chat with the Illusive Man. He was in a much better mood than he'd been in last time, since he'd had a nice drink on the shuttle ride.
"The quarians gave us the data from the Veetor's debriefing," the zillionaire tyrant informed as he carefully tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. "No new data," he assured, "but it's a surprising olive branch given our history."
"Whatever," Shepard said happily, "just tell me I don't have to go on another mission with the Ice Queen and Old Spice any time soon."
The Illusive Man quirked an eyebrow at the nicknames. "Probably not, no, but don't get your hopes up. We've got a mission ahead of us, and we have to stop the Collectors. You're going to be in charge of that mission, and Miranda and Jacob will be accompanying you, in addition to several other people you'll find along the way. The idea is that you'll come up with a ragtag band of misfits with clashing personalities who learn the true meaning of friendship and save the galaxy."
"Not on my ship, no siree," Shepard vowed darkly.
"We'll see," the head of Cerberus said uneasily. He cleared his throat and reached for the glass of whiskey next to him. "Either way, Collectors, you, something happens, and profit. Comprende?"
"Loud and clear." Shepard shifted from foot to booted foot in the hologram of the Illusive Man's office. "Since I'm not nearly drunk enough to overlook it, I assume you already knew about the Collector thing from the way you're avoiding the subject?"
The businessman shrugged. "I had my suspicions. You confirmed them." He stood up in his chair, a rare gesture, and took a long drag from his cigarette, eventually putting it out in the ashtray on the arm of his chair. "The Reapers are the real threat, though. You and I both know that."
"Do I?" the commander said sarcastically. "All I know is there are a bunch of bug-faced aliens being dastardly and kidnapping colonists for no good reason. They're being very sneaky about it all. Reapers may be bug-faced but they were more into the galactic extinction arena. Why would they be interested in a bunch of random human colonies?"
"Two reasons," the Galaxy's Most Illusive Man began, "one, you're human. The Reapers clearly have a vested interest in you, and that likely has something to do with it. Two, the Reapers wanted to extinguish all life – I don't know why they're bothering to kidnap the colonists, but entire human colonies disappearing over night falls under the category of harvesting all life in my book."
"Your racist book," Shepard said pointedly. "You are Cerberus, remember."
"Like I said, all life," TIM repeated firmly.
"Let's start over: tell me something I don't know yet involving Reapers and Collectors," Shepard said pleasantly. "Where's the connection?"
The Illusive Man frowned, artificial eyes glinting in the faint light. "The connection is there, even if it's unseen. It's in the methods. At the end of the day, though, does it matter? They're a threat and they need to be destroyed."
"True enough," Shepard agreed. "Where do I start, then?"
"Omega," The Illusive Man told him. "There you'll find a former STG doctor by the name of Mordin Solus. Word has it he's working in the clinic. I'm sending you his dossier, as well as the dossiers of several other people you'll likely need along the way. I suggest acquiring Mordin since as a scientist, you will likely need him to develop some kind of defense against the Collectors should you encounter them again – something to combat these 'Seeker Swarms.'"
Shepard stroked his chin, a bit surprised. "You know, I was just going to say that in order to do this, I'd need a good team, or a decent army, but it looks like you have that covered. Anything else?"
The Illusive Man smirked as he folded himself back into his chair. "I have a pilot you might like," he said flippantly. "I hear he's one of the best – someone you can trust."
"Sounds good," Shepard shrugged, not really caring or just being too buzzed to care. "Now that that's done, how about we talk about putting a microwave and a mini-fridge in the shuttle?"
"Oh," the Illusive Man smirked, "I've got something better. It ties into the pilot thing I mentioned."
Something better than tacquitos on demand? No, Shepard didn't believe it. Some things were just too good to be true.
