AN: I decided to skip over the rest of the Eden Prime mission.
AUDIO LOG # 0009877668
DATE: 5.8.2170
Within the hour salarian terrorist Jarum Vasola will abduct the daughter of asari diplomat Nila Axyria. There will be some kind of diversion, communications will be scrambled and he'll grab the girl. He wants to be in the Terminus systems in 36 hours and if you don't move quickly she will die. That's what I know.
Because I'm the one who got him into the Citadel.
Hahaha, no, of course not, I'm a criminal, criminals are notorious liars.
Everything about me is a lie.
Have fun saving the day, Detective.
Something burning itself into your mind is not a pleasant experience. First time that happened to me was on the Ishimura. The Prothean beacon burning visions about Reapers into my brain was the second time.
But, unlike Shepard, who passed out from the experience, I remained awake.
And now I sit in the Normandy med- bay, out of my armor, chatting with Doctor Chakwas, waiting for Shepard to wake up.
Pain that would make a krogan battlemaster weep worms its way into my head, making me wince slightly. The good doctor notices, naturally.
"I simply don't understand how you're awake. If the same thing that happened to Commander Shepard happened to you, you should be unconscious from the pain.", she asks me, intrigued.
"Don't worry Doc, I'm used to constant agonizing pain.", I say with a strained smile.
After several moments of silence, I decide to get out of the med-bay before Anderson shows up.
I exit the med-bay and decide to go down to the shuttle bay. Maybe I could buy some things from the requisitions officer.
As I walk over to the elevator, almost everyone I pass gives me dirty looks, obvious or when I pass them.
Guess Ashley told them who I am.
As the elevator makes its way down to the Engineering and Storage deck, I ponder what I should do now. I had originally planned to only help Shepard on Eden Prime, then make a plausible excuse and leave, return to being the elusive Raymond Reddington and prepare for the coming war. But now, with the Prothean visions burned into both our heads, any attempt at convincing her to let me go would be futile. And with Garrus joining us soon, hiding the fact that I am the person that he has been hunting for half of his career will be hard. I'm going to need some help. Maybe I could-
The elevator dings, snapping me out of my thoughts and signaling that I'm at the Engineering deck.
I walk over to the Mako, completely disregarding the fact that I originally wanted to buy something from the requisitions officer, and stare at the wheels.
Or well, the lack of wheels.
"What the hell…", I say under my breath.
I crawl under the Mako and see something so horrifying that it puts everything that I've ever experienced before to shame.
The gyroscope isn't properly aligned.
A sense of dread washes over me as I think about what we're going to experience when Shepard drives this thing.
I've gotta fix this thing before Shepard wakes up.
I get out from under the Mako and run over to the requisitions officer as fast as I can. Which is pretty fast.
"I need a wrench, plasma torch and four wheels and tires, ASAP.", I say to the requisitions officer with a crazed look in my eyes.
He regards me with some trepidation. "Wha-"
"There's no time to explain!", I shout, startling him and drawing the attention of Ashley and some engineers.
"Okay, okay, here!"
He hands me an adjustable wrench and a plasma torch. The torch is shit quality, nothing compared to my precious Plasma Cutter, but it'll do.
"There are some spare tires and wheels in those storage crates over there.", he says, while pointing a shaking finger at, you guessed it folks, some storage crates.
I run over to the Mako, going under it, and quickly download the gyro blueprints to my ocular implant. It seems the gimbal is completely screwed. Looks like this requires some engineering magic. Piece of cake. Guess the N7 Engineering course paid off.
When I get up from under the Mako, I see that I've attracted a bit of a crowd. Mostly engineers. Also Ashley, giving me a suspicious look. It's not like I planted a bug under the Mako so I can hear what Garrus will be saying, no sir. Or ma'am in this case.
Now that the main problem is taken care of, I walk over to the storage crate and pop it open with my biotics. I lift all four wheels and bring them over to the Mako. I then remember how many bullshit nuts and bolts I'll have to attach to get the wheel to stay on the vehicle.
After an hour and seven seconds of bolt attaching, most of the crowd is gone. Only Ashley remains, still trying to burn a hole in the back of my head with her eyes. Sorry Ash, you aren't Superwoman.
I turn my head to look at her "Shouldn't your legs hurt from standing up motionlessly for that long?"
She glares.
"Do you have cybernetics? Because I have them too, it's nothing to be ashamed of."
She glares.
"Nice talking with you, Ashley."
I turn back to my wheel, and just as I finish attaching it, something taps me on the shoulder.
I overreact intentionally, jumping up and swinging my wrench wildly in the general direction of the person who tapped me on the shoulder.
And there stands Shepard, with her arms crossed and an amused smirk on her face.
How the hell did she cross her arms that fast, you ask? I don't know, maybe she has magic powers.
"Having fun there, Engineer Walker?", she asks, her smirk only growing.
I disregard the jab at my choice of pass-times and pocket my wrench.
"I'm making some adjustments to the Mako so you don't kill someone with your driving.", I say dryly.
She rolls her eyes, but I can tell that this will be remembered.
"Captain Anderson wants to talk to you, Walker. He's up in his quarters."
"Yeah yeah, I'll be right there, ma'am.", I say, expecting a frown and a 'don't call me that'.
She frowns and says "Don't call me that, it makes me feel old."
"Well, your 30th birthday is in a couple of months, so…"
"Go talk to Anderon before I rip out your vocal cords out.", she says with a glare.
I give her a lazy two-fingered salute. "Aye-aye."
As I make my way up to the Captain's Quarters, I think about what he would want to talk to me about. Probably going to kick me off of his ship when we dock at the Citadel. Perhaps I should elaborate. In 2178 I was sent by Admiral Hackett to be a leader of a squad during a raid on Torfan, a small moon that was mainly used as a base for criminals, most of them batarians. Now, there were several reasons as to why I accepted this mission.
Reason number one: I needed to cement my reputation as a soldier who holds the 'ends justify the means' mindset which Anderson disapproves of, so he would focus less on me and more on Shepard, putting her in the spotlight.
Number two: I wanted Shepard to start distancing herself from me.
Number three: Some of my associates thought that selling the locations of my credit laundering facilities to the Blue Suns would be a good idea. In short, retribution.
Now, the mission didn't go exactly as planned, we had suffered heavy casualties and my attempts at flanking the batarians were all met with failure. So I made a call. I overruled Major Kyle's orders and ordered orbital bombardment of the moon. And, in the span of half an hour, the 100.000 criminals and Alliance marines were all dead and the moon's surface completely destroyed. Anderson requested a court-martial which was promptly denied. He was suspicious, naturally, and started looking into my past. Didn't end well.
The elevator finally reaches the Quarters.
I exit the elevator and swiftly make my way to the Captain's cabin.
I enter the annoyingly brightly lit cabin and hear the sound of running water coming from the bathroom area. Too long to be the toilet, too loud to be the sink, must be the shower.
I sit down at his desk and look at the datapads that were most likely thrown haphazardly on it the moment he entered this cabin.
Let's see here… Omega, Tuchanka, Titan Station, Luna Base, those are the ones that stand out to me currently. Titan Station… why does that sound familiar?
The sound of running water suddenly stops, snapping me from my thoughts.
I'll figure it out later.
I quickly download the contents of those four datapds to my omni-tool and walk back to the door of the cabin and lean on it.
And there he is, Captain David Anderson, in his hideous blue Captain's clothes.
"So, you finally decided to grace me with your presence, Walker?"
Well, he's in a chipper mood today.
"Just tell me why I'm here, Anderson.", I say, deciding to cut to the chase.
He sighs.
"I know that both you and Shepard were affected by the beacon. She already told me what she saw, I want to hear what you saw.", he says, looking me in the eye.
"Death, destruction, suffering, nothing I haven't seen before, that's for sure."
He stares at me for a couple of moments, almost as if he's trying to make some kind of decision about me.
"I'm going to be frank here, Walker, I don't like you.", he says bluntly.
"Yeah, I could tell when you tried to court-martial me."
He glares at me for a moment, then continues.
"But Shepard does. She trusts you. More than you know. And I know that you two were inseparable at ICT and beyond that."
I furrow my brow, wondering what he means by that.
"You know her. She can be reckless, stubborn, impulsive. That gets you killed. But you're not like that, you're cold, calculating, you plan every move and the next 30 moves beyond that."
Don't know whether I should take that as a compliment or an insult.
"Which is why I'm assigning you to be her... protector, for lack of a better word.", he says with a small smile on his face.
"Anderson, I hope you realize that all I have to do is make one call and I'm off of this ship, never to be seen again."
"Yes I know.", he agrees with a nod. "But I also know that you aren't going to make that call."
I pause, and for a moment I consider leaving, fighting Cerberus and the Reapers from the shadows.
And then I reconsider.
"Where do I sign?", I say with a small smile of my own.
You're pathetic.
Shut up.
See you later.