"Wake up Captain!" A familiar, heavily accented, voice woke him from his dreamless sleep.
Shepard groaned as he opened his eyes, a dull ache throbbing through the entirety of his body as a shockwave swept through the station, the vibrations shaking him slightly as confusion about his predicament was settling in.
"Shepard wake up! This facility is under attack and you need to get moving!"
He sat up rubbing his jaw as his mind started to fill in the details. He was in a medical facility of some sort, the voice over the PA system belonged to the woman he vaguely remembered from when he woke earlier. On everything else he was drawing a blank.
"There's some armour and a pistol in the locker to your left. You don't have much time, GO!"
He continued to process his situation as he followed the directions of the voice he now recognised as being Australian. He thought back to before he woke, the last thing he recalled was...
Being spaced as the Normandy was destroyed?
"Oh Shit!" he exclaimed as he froze in what was a rare moment of panic for the Captain.
'What had happened to his crew?' 'What had happened to Ashley?'
A shockwave from another explosion brought him back into the moment as his ally spoke again.
"You need to take cover the canisters by the door are going to blow!"
He looked over to the door and saw that they indeed were about to explode, his instincts as a soldier finally coming into play as he dived behind a bench, narrowly avoiding the bits of shrapnel that were scattered across the room behind him.
Staff Lieutenant Ashley Williams flopped down onto her bunk, physically exhausted after yet another day of failure. After five weeks on Horizon, she was yet to discover any hint of Cerberus activity in the colony. Of course the 'official' reason for her presence was to improve the public opinion of the Alliance through 'acts' of good will, with 'acts' being a communications station and defense turrets, which funnily enough seemed to annoy as many of the locals as it pleased.
Despite being tired, Ash wasn't quite ready to sleep so she decided to check her messages, scrolling over the latest batch of health and safety messages that almost every Alliance soldier seemed to ignore, she came across a new message, just received from Tali.
Seeing the name of the energetic little Quarian automatically brought her mind back to her time on the Normandy which sub-sequentially brought her mind onto John. It wasn't the first time that day that she had thought of him. It was in fact a daily occurrence that she would stop for a minute or two to think about Shepard, it had been ever since he had died, ever since she met him if she were really honest with herself. What it ultimately meant was that every day she had to live with the pain, every day she mourned the loss of the love of her life just for a little while before she could distract herself with work or something else.
Sighing deeply she refocused opening Tali's message.
Tali: 'I'm finally getting away from the fleet for a bit, they've given me a new assignment rescuing someone who's gotten trouble on their pilgrimage, thank the ancestors!'
As soon as she finished reading a second message popped up.
Tali: 'Not that I'm happy he's in trouble, I am just happy to get away from everyone for a bit.'
A smirk had formed on Ashley's face as she read the message from the woman who was like a little sister to her. She moved onto the third message from Tali that she'd received while she was reading.
Tali: 'Not that there's anything wrong with everyone aboard the Neema, oh you know what I mean.'
Ash chuckled, a rare occurrence since John had died, but it was something that made her grateful that she was still in close contact with Tali. She quickly sent off a response.
Ash: 'Is it strange that I Imagined you saying "Oh Keelah" multiple times as I read your messages.'
Tali: 'Not as strange as I want it to be, but my point is that I will be out of contact for a while. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Talk to you when I get back, Cya Ash.'
Ash: 'OK Tali, Keep safe.'
With that Ash closed her message account and leaned her head back on the pillow, pleasantly surprised by Tali's ability to cheer her up when she needed it most. She turned off the lights and tried to sleep.
When she finally did succumb to sleep she dreamed of her John.
'Cerberus... Fucking Cerberus'
John had been angry from the moment he learned who Lawson and Taylor worked for, and a part of him was screaming at him to just shoot them in the head and be done with it. After all he had uncovered the evidence of the terrorist groups crimes, he had seen his sisters scars from the thresher maw attack on Akuze and had heard what happened to her first hand.
Shepard was not one for summary executions though, and like any good soldier he understood the need for intel, so he stayed his hand and decided to hear 'The Illusive Man' out. On top of this he realised that he had no serious hope of any backup, since everyone he knew thought he had been dead for the past two years.
'Two years'
The thought that he had lost all that time, that his friends and family had dealt with his death and probably at least for the most part, moved on with their lives was a blow to John. The fact that the Council and Alliance had ignored his warnings about the reapers, despite all the accumulated evidence and testimony, was just salt in the wound.
But now he had to compose himself. He had to be ready for a his meeting with Cerberus' leader, so he cleared his mind of other thoughts as stepped onto the communication platform.
"Captain Shepard" The shady figure began, almost seeming to hide behind the smoke from his cigar as he deposited some ash into the tray beside him.
"Illusive Man" Shepard replied coolly as he adopted a stance that was intended to slightly intimidate without putting any real effort into it. "I thought we'd be meeting face to face?"
"A necessary precaution for people that know what you and I know."
"And what is it exactly that you and I know?" John asked probing for information.
"That Humanity is facing the greatest threat of our relatively brief existence."
"The Reapers." John snarled as he replied, not even attempting to hide his disgust at the mention of the sentient machine race.
'Well at least I know for sure why they rebuilt me' he thought to himself.
"Good to see your memory is still intact how are you feeling?" the Illusive Man enquired, almost as if he was an old friend or acquaintance.
"Cut the crap, I'm obviously not here for small talk."
"Cerberus isn't as evil as you believe, we are in fact on the same side, we just have different methods."
Johns blood boiled as he angrily responded "I know a few people that might disagree with you on that. Admiral Kahoku, Corporal Toombs, my own sister..." he let his voice trail off.
"Those were actions by outlying cells, as regrettable as their actions were they don't change the fact that humanity is at war. Nobody wants to admit it but while you've been sleeping entire Human colonies have been disappearing. We believe it's someone working for the Reapers, just like Saren and the Geth aided Sovereign."
The Illusive Man continued to elaborate as he moved towards the Captain. "You saw it all yourself and you bested them all with little more than a stealth frigate, a mismatched crew and pure will power. And that's just two of the reasons we chose you."
"Nothing you say is going to get me to trust you, I'll need more than just words."
"I'd be disappointed if I could convince you that easily. We've just lost contact with Freedom's Progress, go see for yourself and take operatives Lawson and Taylor with you." he paused for a moment before continuing. "If you then decide that you wish to part ways, you are more than welcome to. However if you stay we have a ship and crew being arranged for you as we speak, and you will have Cerberus' full backing in dealing with the threat to the colonies."
With that the communication ended and Shepard turned to leave, A small smile appearing on his face as he had already begun formulating a plan. He would play along with this and the moment he had dealt with this new threat he would hurt Cerberus badly. He would do as much damage from the inside as he could possibly manage, but in order to do this he would need help, as much as he could get. He would need his friends, he would need Ash and he would need the Alliance.