"Staff Commander, you have a message from Alliance Command waiting for you."
Kaidan nodded and made his way to his quarters, doing his best to hide a smile. He hadn't been with the Turian crew for more than a few weeks, yet he had apparently earned enough respect that some had begun to acknowledge his military rank. Being a valued officer was a higher honor for the service-minded race than being a Spectre, even if the latter came with greater galactic recognition. It was much needed progress with a crew that had a general dislike of biotics, especially since they had made no progress locating the Collectors or the source of the Turian distress call. If they didn't find something soon, the cruiser would have to go back on its normal patrol, and Kaidan would be left without any idea of what to do next.
He had been given a small cabin with barely enough room for a bunk and a private terminal, but he had it to himself and didn't have to sleep in a pod, so, as far as he was concerned, the captain's quarters wouldn't have pleased him more. He sat down at the terminal, loaded the decryption software from his omni-tool, and opened the message. It was a video file from Admiral Hackett. The short message read, "Intel intercepted this transmission from a human researcher based on Omega. Thought it might explain why you haven't had any luck. Report back to the citadel, unless you've found something since your last report."
Kaidan frowned. The video showed a mass relay, but the eezo core was a sinister orange instead of the brilliant blue every other relay he had ever seen was. He checked Hackett's message again. Omega? Then perhaps this was the Omega 4 Relay…it was no wonder that a researcher would want to film it, though Kaidan wondered what he could possibly learn about the Collectors from footage of a relay. The feed started to shake, and a large frigate appeared in view flying directly over the probe that housed the camera. The ship turned to align itself with the relay's approach corridor, and a brilliant orange thread snaked out to encompass it, illuminating the lettering on the side…'no…it can't be…' he thought, rewinding the video and playing back the jump in slow motion until he could pause it at the exact frame he wanted. But there was no denying the proud silver gleam on the side of the ship that read Normandy SR-2 the moment before the frigate was launched off into space.
Kaidan stared at the monitor, shaking. It wasn't possible. She wouldn't have. Shepard had always been a little reckless, sure, especially when she had her mind set on something she thought was important, but she wasn't suicidal. Or, if she was, she certainly wouldn't drag an entire crew down with her. He did a quick search on the extranet. Maybe the video was of one of the other Omega relays, but, after skimming a few articles, his initial suspicion turned out to be accurate.
He stood up so fast that his chair hit the deck, and blue fire started sparking across his vision as he clenched and unclenched his fists. She hadn't even bothered to take five minutes to send him a brief reply to his letter, not even to apologize for letting him get his hopes up again, when it was all for nothing. She was an absolute coward without so much as an ounce of compassion. He was going to wring her neck if he ever saw her again…
His biotic energy dissipated with a snap, and he collapsed on his bunk, suddenly weak. He was never going to see her again. Again. He wouldn't even be able to search the wreckage for her this time. He stared at the frozen image of the Normandy, trying to make it tell him why, why had she done something so pig-headed. Maybe he should replay the video, to try and find something, anything that would contradict what it told him the first time through…only, he hadn't let it play all the way through. The marker was only halfway across the play bar.
He leapt up and hit play, wondering what else could possibly be on the recording. A few seconds after the Normandy's jump, the timestamp jumped forward almost an entire day. And then there was a blur in the distance behind the relay. A blur that turned into a ship as it slowed from its jump through space-time and headed back towards the camera…Kaidan wouldn't have believed that they had actually used the Omega 4 Relay were it not for the new scratches along the Normandy's belly and a few holes clean through the hull. Shepard had found something on the other side of the relay—something incredibly hostile, from the looks of it—but she had survived, and she had returned.
Kaidan quickly shut down the terminal, took a moment to make sure he wasn't a complete mess, and hurried towards the bridge to tell the helmsman to chart a course for the Citadel. He wanted to be there. Yesterday. And when he found that woman, he was never letting her out of his sight again.