SSV Harriet Tubman

Her knees buckled forcing her to latch onto the twin bars that she was trying to walk across trying to prevent her from sprawling onto the deck.

Abby Shepard grunted frustrated to her gritting her teeth pushing up again on the exercise equipment trying to right herself.

"Easy." Her therapist came over in a rush putting a steadying hand on Abby's elbow. "Maybe we should take a break."

Abby hissed out through her still clenched teeth. "No, I'm fine let's keep at this."

"If you say so." The therapist said unconvinced.

Abby nodded determinedly to herself before starting the process all over again. First one foot, and then the other, and then the next slowly marching to the end of the matt and twin parralells. In a desperate bid to get her mobility back again. To get back into shape so that she could return to active duty, or if nothing else make herself useful again in the effort to rebuild the Galaxy and the planet that the ship was orbiting.

These were her only concerns. To maybe get command of a ship again and be out there leading the efforts instead of stuck here in a hospital ships rehab area.

She never truly appreciated what Miranda had done for her with Lazarus. Not only had Miranda put her back together again but had done so perfectly.

With all of her limbs and her memories intact, all of her ligaments, and in the same general physical condition she was at when she had…died. Control chips and extra cybernetic circuitry not included. Kept her pretty much the same while making a few basic 'improvements' in the basic design inherent in the technology.

She looked down at her chest and frowned…ah yes a few 'basic' improvements.

But yet Abby never had to go through rehab from that major incident because of that. Something that was a boon at the time but was a detrement to her current developing health.

So she had to deal with this, get back to full health like the rest of the people who had faced a major incident.

Abby frowned chagrinned as she headed over to her next series of exercises. She had never had to experience this before, by some miracle of life. Throughout all of her career, then onto the special forces, Torfan, and then onto her more recent exploits she was never injured enough to need rehab like this.

She'd seen so much but never truly experienced anything even close to this in her life somehow just able to avoid major injury or where only slapping a little Medi-gel on her was good enough.

The exercise room on the Tubman was large enough. It had various exercise mats and bars strewn throughout the floor. Only she and three more groups were there though making the room look even more spacious, two sets of basketball hoops were detracted over the ceiling.

Reminds me of gym class…God that was another life time. She thought.

She sighed and then got back to her work, as long as her therapist would let her get away with anyways, probably would have to call the guards on her to get her to go anywhere.

Mess hall little while later.

Abigail Shepard walked out of the long line just in front of the serving bay and glanced quickly around the hall. It was divided into two sections, one with circular 'officer's benches' spread over the deck, and the other was in two sets of five rows seating a lot of orderlies and noncommissioned officers who were chatting amicably. They all had something to do, and they were all chatting lightly with a small buzz of constant chatter. Obviously happy to be alive.

Abby smiled to herself.

No sports news, no major political coverage going on, so they had to be primarily making the pure definition of 'small talk.'

But she found a table off in one corner smack dab under a viewing port with a vid screen on the opposite wall.

She sat down and put her plate of food down and glanced around the mess hall watching the people eat and enjoy themselves. She started to eat shoveling a bit of the food into her mouth and frowning. New supplies were hard to come by and it seemed that the medical ship was only getting the dregs.

But it was still edible and that was all that mattered.

A young woman came up to her from the food bay nodding politely before sitting down.

Abby watched her wearily but said nothing as the young woman sat down, doing nothing to stop her or discourage her.

This wasn't the first time that she had done this; in fact it was the third time that this particular woman came to sit next to Commander Shepard.

Each time not saying a word, with a plate of assorted vegtables and some kind of cheesy sandwich. Chewing her food lightly enough rolling it around, clearing her throat, and then beginning to repeat the process.

Abby tried to eat her food but curiosity got the better of her. She glanced at the young woman, and then looked closely at her, trying not be rude, but also trying to take the woman in, study her, try to divine her intention.

She was a young woman, no more than twenty two or maybe even twenty three years old. Obviously an officer but had a young and open face.

It was then that Abigail knew where she had seen the woman. During the resistance movement she was one of the people Abby saw in the background trying to maintain the resistance movement's communication nets.

So the woman was a communications specialist. Young, probably fresh out of the academy or…Abby shivered…drafted into the resistance straight out of college for her specific skill sets. Thrust into a world that no longer made sense.

Abby also noticed that one of her cheeks looked a tad discolored as if she were still recovering from a bruise.

Abigail knew that she had maintained a reputation in the recent months, not only being proven right about the Reapers but then being responsible in large ways for defeating them she was a bit of a legend. The young woman was probably trying to have Shepard rub off on her through a process of pure osmosis.

Abigail smiled before glancing down at her food, picking up her drink to sip at her cup, but was drawn by the vid screen suddenly. A reporter was going through some last minute reports.

It had been six weeks since she had been forced to board this vessel, six weeks of her surgery and her gathering physical rehab. The relays were still apparently spazzing out, only allowing a trickle of ships through, so the Coalition forces began to let their vessels through slowly getting them back to their home worlds while relief and supply ships trickled in to Sol to try and relieve the burden placed on the vessels orbiting the planet.

Abigail knew all of this. But what she saw on the screen wasn't a report about any of these things. Instead she saw masked figures with glowing eye slits staring at whatever recorder they were using. They were in a large group and some Asari were in the group milling about and carrying candles and torches of some sort.

Abby didn't know any better but she got the nastiest of feelings in the pit of her stomach that she was witnessing a religious prayer service.

She glanced up as the passing of a shadow, it was an orderly that looked like he was busy checking on the patrons of the hall in order to make sure all was running well.

"Excuse me." She cleared her throat, the orderly turned. "Can you turn that up a bit?" She pointed at the screen.

The man followed her gesture glancing at the Vid screen before turning back to the Commander as well.

"I'm sorry ma'am I'm afraid I can't do that." He frowned.

Her eyes arched up. "Why? I'm a Commander in the Alliance Navy, at least until someone tells me otherwise on account of my injuries."

"Sorry ma'am hospital policy. But I can go get you something just wait one moment." The man hurried off beyond the serving bay before Shepard could open her mouth to ask.

He returned practically running holding a pair of digital headphones; she could've sworn under oath that she could already hear muffled noise coming out.

"Here it's already set on the proper frequency." The man said offering them to her.

"Thanks." She blushed slightly before taking them. Why am I blushing? She shrugged supposing she hadn't gotten her fine motor controls under direct control.

Turning to the TV, which now had a split screen image of the reporter in the newsroom on the one side, and the picture of exactly what was being reported, she placed the headphones on her head.

"…and exactly what are these groups calling themselves?" The reporter on the left asked.

"Well they are calling themselves the Disciples of the Reapers. Apparently they have growing support here in this area of space and throughout many planets throughout Council Space. From the reports through the Relays anyways. These are by far not the only group."

The reporter leaned in slowly looking into the camera her brows furrowing and then arching up giving her face a highly puzzled look. "But why would anyone worship the Reapers, Jessica?"

'Jessica' cast a glance over her shoulder checking on the swelling crowd who was steadily advancing on the poor woman, that much was obvious even from Shepard's vantage point.

"Well I honestly don't know." She sighed catching her breath. "It seems that they believe that defeating the Reapers was a mistake and got in the way of the cosmic imperative, or the natural order of life and death in the universe, and that they were the keepers of the cycle and without them we will face a much worse fate."

Shepard scowled at the screen. That sounds all too familiar.

"What's going on?" The blond spoke in Abby's ear causing her to jolt in her seat.

The Ex Citadel Spectre…since there wasn't much of a Citadel to be a Spectre of…at least not yet… turned on her compatriot and scowled. She sighed. "I don't know just seems someone called the 'Disciples of the Reapers' is running amok."

"Disciples of the Rea-"

Abby held up a shushing finger turning back to the vid.

"Is the Council or Alliance doing anything to look into this and protect us?" The reporter asked to Jessica.

Jessica shook her head tucking her head into her chest a bit glancing at the camera sideways. "Well as you know the Galaxy is still trying to rebuild our Governments, there isn't even really a Council left since the Reapers moved the Citadel just over our heads. And the Alliance is treating these people as a legitimate religious organization. At least until they become a threat, or until the Alliance is able to rebuild their Government."

"That's crazy." Abby muttered.

"That's insane!" The reporter concurred.

Abby smiled ruefully before looking over at the blond, who now had a pair of headphones for herself.

"Well what is the makeup of this group?" The reporter asked gaining control of her mental facilities.

"Mostly Drell and Hanar it seems, especially beyond the Charon relay. But smatterings of humans, Asari, and others. Only race that is really been absent to this point according to reports are the Batarians."

"Interesting….well keep us up to speed if anything else happens."

Her eyes rolled as she was contemplating taking the headphones off since they were apparently done with the time allotted for this very unimportant story…this was quickly confirmed.

"Up next we have a breaking report…the Trygerisch corporation out of Tip Tree Colony has won the rights to begin to rebuild several of the major Earth cities along the West Coast of the US and London…they'll begin to build in a few…"

Abby ripped the headphones off and sighed.

She excused herself from the table nodding to the blond before going back to her quarters to get some sleep; it was another busy day tomorrow.

AN/AC: Well a friend of mine suggested that I try this since that something keeps on messing with my Fem Shep character code when I try and update it so if anyone has happened to try it they have probably got MUTANT! Shep.

Anyways.

743 . DJE. UFC. G5J. QMU. 471. 5EB. 1D7. C46. G8H. 2B3. 132