Normandy, orbit around Omega
Miranda looked up from the screen as Shepard walked out of her quarters. For a brief moment she wondered if she needed to report this to Illusive Man, Shepard's reaction to his revival and the immediate combat situation was much calmer than she expected. Taking another sip from the cup she decided against it. After all it was only natural that Shepard would be curious as to what exactly was done to him but she also knew that she could not tell him the whole truth. She had been in charge of the project but even she barely believed that it was actually succesful. Calling up his medical file she quickly stripped out most of the specific medical jargon and summarized the modifications done to him, at least the ones that Shepard would sooner or later find out for himself, through Dr Chakwas or through Mordin Solus when they recruit him. She took another sip from her cup and smiled as she worked with one hand while holding the cup. Today's mission was not something that she or Cerberus did, most of the time her actions fell within the greyer area of the morality that most people viewed the galaxy through. Shepard was supposed to be one of them, a paragon of good judgement and a knight with a sniper rifle. But his actions during the brief conversation with Aria T'Loak, various other denizens of Omega and during their infiltration of the merc base of operations showed that he could be quite ruthless when someone stood between him and the mission objective. She was most of all surprised by the way he adapted himself to the situation, with Aria's henchmen he was rude, confrontational, asserting his own superiority the way that they would understand but with Aria he was conversational, relaxed as if she was one of his old friends. Surprisingly Aria either did not notice that or just went with it, him in full combat armour, armed to the teeth sitting on the couch with her, sipping a drink while letting the Queen of Omega talk only occasionally prompting her with a few words. It was really a sight to behold, as if instead of heavy polyalloy and ceramic armour he had been wearing the finest suit of the kind that Illusive Man favoured. Well possibly for Shepard wearing body armour was exactly that she thought taking another sip of coffee.
And taking Zaeed into a merc base seemed like a mistake, especially since a full third of them were Blue Suns but it was thanks to him that they managed to get a fully detailed plan of attack. Without it they might not have made it out. She wondered for a moment if there was a need to revise Shepard's intelligence profile, he had of course been rated quite high especially for tactics but his skill at analysing and adapting in difficult social situations suggested a side to him they had never seen.
Drinking the last of her coffee she stood up, gathering a few toiletry items so that she could take a long hot shower before going to sleep. She wished that she could have her own private bathroom but the ship designer's only did that for the captains quarters not XO's. Last time she showered there were a few other female crew members in the bathroom and it seemed that even the ones that were not interested in their own sex could not help but stare even if for a moment.
As she passed by the kitchen area she dropped her cup into the recycler and wondered how did Shepard know how she liked her coffee?
Arcturus Station, several days later
Rear Admiral Charles Baudin had been quite brief in his orders for her. 1St Lieutenant Ashley Williams(1) was to report to the MSV Niven for transport to a colony out in the Terminus systems to install some defensive weaponry as a show of Alliance support. The ship was also carrying several technicians and the cannons(2) to be installed. Her rapid promotion to Lieutenant over the past two years did make her a target for someone who still remembered that she was a Williams, especially after her involvement with Shepard surfaced. She had been prepared to hear how she had slept her way to her promotion but after Shepard died that was quite impossible to imply.
Now that there were rumours that Shepard was back and working for Cerberus. Ashley knew Shepard was dead and it was just a ploy by Cerberus to gather public support but it still stung. Well at least the Alliance was doing something about those colonies going missing, sending her and those cannons, the Council had politely refused to get involved in human matters, same as last time with the geth and even the presence of Anderson on the Council did not help.
But she knew her duty, to protect the Alliance and its citizens even if they had ran as far as possible to get away from it. Her thoughts ended as the elevator deposited her near the docking point of MSV Niven.
Her orders had said to report by 1200, and it was 1115 as she stepped out of the airlock connecting the ship to the station, waiting for her stood a middle-aged man in a standard shipboard jumpsuit which had clearly seen better days.
"Hi, I am Larry the owner of this ship. I have to say this is the first time I have seen cargo loaded this fast."
"1st Lieutenant Ashley Williams, is everyone else on board?"
"Those guys who came with the cargo? Yeah they are, they are sleeping now, they arrived in the middle of the night and have been loading since then. You are the last one I was told to expect."
"I would like to get my gear stowed." Ashley said tapping the crate that she came with, it held her armour and weapons, they were not the top of the line models that she used when she was on the Normandy but she had enough credits to buy a similar Phoenix Mark IX armour manufactured by Sirta Foundation as the fully modded Mark X she was using back then.
"Of course, let me show you the way." Larry said and gesturing for her to follow stepped deeper into the ship
"You don't have to worry about pirates on this ship, Niven is armed and armoured to about the same level as the older Kestros-class frigates, but without the main cannons." Larry explained, "I served on one during the First Contact war as an ensign."
"How did you manage to arm your ship?"
"Oh, that part was easy, Alliance navy always needed someone to run secure cargo without drawing too much attention so they helped old navy dogs like me to get set up and from time to time when they need something to be delivered into Terminus they go to me." he said that as they reached a door and he unlocked it with a quick tap on the panel next to it.
"Well this is your quarters, the bathroom is shared, same as any other ship this size but you will have plenty of privacy. The trip is going to take a week even if we cut corners so get comfortable. I need to start the undocking procedures"
And with that Larry walked away leaving Ashley alone. She stepped into the room, it was large enough for a bunk bed and a small folding table with just enough floor space in between to squeeze through. Dropping her crate on the floor she closed the door and jumped on the bed. A separate room was indeed a luxury, even aboard the Normandy she was in a shared NCO berth and the Normandy was larger than any alliance frigate built before it and had been running with a smaller crew. Tapping a command into her omni-tool she opened the email client and started dictating a message to her family. Ashley did it now every time she was heading out for an assignment, she had regretted that last conversation with Shepard and so every time she was heading into a situation she might not come back she recorded all those things she wished to say, to be delivered to her family if she did not return.
Illium, Nos Astra, Trade District
Liara T'Soni was reviewing the report that one of the contacts on Omega had forwarded earlier in the day. It briefly described Shepard's meeting with Aria and his rescue of Archangel, the infamous turian vigilante on Omega. She had suspected it was Garrus, it just seemed like something he would do but he was quite careful to maintain his real identity a secret. At the end of the report there were several image files embedded, showing Shepard, Miranda Lawson and an unknown human male. She had given Shepard's body to Cerberus, to Miranda Lawson but seeing him, even on a terminal screen brought back the memories she fought hard to suppress. The time in her life when she felt happy, needed and useful. When she felt that decades of study on protheans were worth it even if quite a bit of it was wrong. When she had briefly returned to Thessia to publish a treatise on Reaper role in the fall of the prothean civilization she was met with the scorn and dismissal from her academic peers.
She also felt a pang of her old infatuation with Shepard, her initial interest in the prothean message had become something more as she learned more about humans and Shepard. And the times when she melded with Shepard in order to pass information, it felt far more satisfying than melding with her own people. Shepard's mind was resistant to melding but somehow that made it so much more rewarding as she shared her knowledge with him. She remembered the disappointment she felt when it become clear that he was more interested in Ashley, but she could not blame him, after all she was human like him. She did wonder if she could even join with Shepard, if his normally resistant mind could actually form a bond strong enough to create a complete joining. Maybe not without some prolong physical stimulation at least. At that thought Liara blushed and closed the report. She did not have time to entertain thoughts of that nature right now, she had a job to do and every minute she wasted meant Feron was spending a minute more in captivity, or getting tortured. She did not think that Shadow Broker was a forgiving person whatever species she or he belonged to.
Normandy SR-2, docked to Omega
Shepard had just finished taking a decon shower after he, Miranda and Jacob went into the plague sector after Mordin Solus. He had to admit as first impressions go he liked the salarian. He was obviously smarter than anyone else on board, including EDI, at least for the moment and his self-assured pragmatism made it quite clear that he would do and go far to get the mission done.
He had also enjoyed the quiet non-verbal duel that Miranda had with Aria after he visited her the second time, doing that little job for Patriarch's sake was worth it. Both Aria and Miranda had the same air of superiority but even a cursory glance at Aria could tell you that she enjoyed the violence caused by her or because of her. She was a predator, sharp and dangerous, ready to bite into your neck if you threatened her. Miranda while capable of similar level of violence did not enjoy it, even in combat against the Blue Suns and vorcha earlier today she obviously lacked that response so clearly present in soldiers like Jacob and him, that combat high you get after a firefight, the satisfaction of a well placed shot.
Shepard liked that, unlike Jacob and the rest of the crew she was high in Cerberus rank and so far the only Cerberus he had met were some of the worst examples humanity could offer. She was different and that meant a lot.
1) I am not sure if they stated her rank in ME2 but I took a look at the official rank chart and thought that it would be more natural if she got promoted gradually than just in one go to the rank she had in ME3
2)Both the cutscene that was shown to us and the premise that the colony was getting GARDIAN lasers seems to me a bit weird. After all a laser would need more power, it wouldnt shoot like it did in ME2 and considering the atmospheric interference it would make more sense for them to be just normal mass accelerator cannons.
