Chapter 4: In Which Shepard Gets a New Ship
Later that day Shepard found herself back in the comm-room with Tim.
"Shepard. Good work on Freedom's Progress. The quarians forwarded their findings. No new data but it's a surprising olive branch, given our past. You and I have different methods, but I can't argue with your results."
"You mean my results that don't end up with everybody turned into the walking dead? Judging by all your crap I had to clean up during my spectre assignment I'd say you're giving the reapers a run for their money."
"Judging by the Shepard-proofed contracts they sell on Illium I'd say you don't have the right to make those kind of comments." Tim calmly replied. "More importantly, you confirmed the Collectors are behind the abductions."
"Confirmed? Why do I get the feeling you already knew about them?"
"I had my suspicions but I needed proof. I also have massive amounts of free time and nothing to do with it so I resurrected you to go play Nancy Drew. Until now we've had no evidence of direct aggression from the Collectors. They're enigmatic at best. On random occasions in the past they've come through the Omega-4 Relay to make some bizarre transaction in exchange for some of their superior technology, then they leave again."
"What kind of transactions?"
"Always odd stuff. A bespectacled salarian, a tap-dancing elcor..."
"Huh. I kind of want to see that."
"Well you can't. The Collectors have them all now."
"Bastards!"
"Precisely, and no one has bothered to stop them because they always return through the unmapped relay."
"Why's the Omega-4 Relay unmapped?"
"Because nobody who went through it has ever come back."
"Have we tried sending probes?"
"Nobody wants to fuck around with the probe system so we just leave the relay alone."
"Right." Shepard nodded. "Well...there you have it then. Seems you know all about it. Am I done here?"
"What? No. We haven't actually defeated them yet."
"I'm not working for you, you're Cerberus! Everything you do is a complete disaster! I'm still waiting for my own head to fall off."
"Shepard, don't be stupid here. I'm not the enemy, the reapers are." Tim flicked the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray. "What else are you going to do anyway? Your ship got blown up and all your possessions were donated to charity."
"Charity!" Shepard was aghast. "I didn't ask for that!"
"You were dead, so nobody cared. It made the Alliance look good so they pawned off all your stuff for war veterans."
"Damn it..." Shepard cursed and turned away to the side. "Surely the Alliance will compensate me. Or the council will help me out. I'm one of their best operatives."
"You were one of their best operatives. You've been dead for two years, Shepard. They didn't even bother to investigate the crash site. If you think you can convince them, by all means. Just remember...you've been gone a long time. Things have changed."
Shepard shuffled uncomfortably. "Well, what about my crew?"
"Most of them have moved on."
"Did you bother to contact them? Have you spoken to Kaidan Alenko?"
"He's on some classified Alliance mission."
"Hmm, figures. Liara T'soni?"
"Personality crisis. Working for the Shadow Broker apparently."
"Weird. Urdnot Wrex?"
"Pissing about on Tuchanka."
"Right. What about Garrus Vakarian?"
"About that...no idea. Went missing a few months after you died."
"What do you mean missing? He's not...dead, is he?"
"Not that we know of, and we would know." Tim leaned forward in his seat. "Look, you're a leader, Shepard. People follow you, though only god knows why..." He glared at her. "For my part I've compiled a list of some of the most skilled agents in the field. I'll forward you dossiers on the best of them. For now, at least meet with some of these people. Get them to work with you." He noticed her reluctance. "Annnd if you don't feel like doing that maybe we could stay here and talk about how you're feeling instead? What was death like, Shepard? How are you feeling now you're back? Hey, did Jacob tell you about the button incident?"
"Aw shit..."
"Exactly. We got you one, though. Don't let anybody say I don't give you anything. He's a pilot. One of the best. Someone you can trust..." Tim turned off communications and the room went dark.
Shepard immediately perked up. "No. Freakin'. Way."
"Hey Commander!"
"Just like old times, huh?" Joker said, grinning.
Shepard stepped off the communications platform and the pair of them began a walk through the facility. Joker limped and stumbled, but he seemed to be doing pretty damn well for himself compared to all the times she'd seen him...sitting down.
"Joker! You can walk now?"
"Really, Commander? I could always walk. How do you think I got to and from the cockpit?"
"I never saw you get out of the pilot seat."
"That's because you never bothered to visit me."
"Well, you're looking pretty good anyway."
"I could say the same thing! I saw you get spaced."
"Yeah, I imagine you got a great view from your cosy seat in the escape pod - we'll talk about that later by the way. For now, what're you even doing here?"
"Apparently my world just revolves around you. After you died, everything fell to pieces. Everything you stirred up - the council just wanted it gone. Team was broken up, records sealed, and I was grounded. The Alliance took away the one thing that mattered to me, hell yeah I joined Cerberus."
"That seems like a rather flippant disregard of your values...you're okay with this bullshit?"
"Come on Shepard, it's not all bad. They brought you back, let me fly again and well, there's this...they only told me last night..."
Dramatic music began to well up in the background and they looked out through a window into a huge, expansive room that had previously been hidden in darkness. Violins began to play sharp, striking chords. One by one, overheard lights began to switch on dramatically illuminating a ship so big that it dominated the space. It was probably twice as big as the previous Normandy had been, but built to specifications so close to the original that it was like it had never been gone at all.
Joker turned to the commander to comment but was cut off before he could begin. "Commander are you...are you crying?"
Shepard rubbed the back of her hand across her face. "What! No! I just got something in my eye...where is that music coming from anyway?" she sobbed, turning off the transparency on her helmet visor.
"Music? Riiight."
"Well," she recovered. "Guess we'll have to give her a name."
"Yeah. Why don't you start writing a list of possibles and I'll go tell them to just paint the old name back on."
"Welcome aboard the new Normandy, Commander." Jacob said as he and Miranda accompanied her through the airlock and into the CIC.
Inside the ship was even more impressive. The Normandy SR1 had been state of the art back in the day, but as Shepard had to keep reminding herself, that was over two years ago. The improved SR2 made that ship look like a Ford. It was more spacious for one, and this time around somebody had the good sense to add lighting in it. No longer did walking from the airlock to the central controls feel like crawling down a tunnel.
Miranda got straight to business. "I suggest you start the mission by acquiring Mordin Solus, the salarian doctor. He's on Omega."
"Omega? I'm not taking my new ship to Omega. That place is a shithole."
"We don't really have a choice, Commander. We'll need him to develop a counter-measure to protect us against the Collector's swarm technology."
"But people will touch it! I'll come back and there'll be graffiti all over my new Normandy. Isn't there someone else we can pick up? In a nicer place?"
"Two on Omega, one on a prison ship and..." Miranda tapped through the dossiers on her omnitool. "One on a recycling planet."
"Those places are all filthy! Find me some squaddies from a clean place."
"Acquiring Professor Solus seems like the most logical place to start." interrupted a tinny voice from no discernable position.
Shepard looked around for the source. "Who're you?"
"I am the overlord of your destruction. The crew like to refer to me as EDI." A glowing blue, upside-down vase popped up from the command centre dashboard.
"What the hell? I don't need one of those!"
"Have I offended?"
"Do you even care?"
"Not really, but I do like to gather data for future reference."
"So my ship is controlled by an AI? What's Joker doing then?"
"Currently - watching extranet pornography, but I am not piloting the ship. Due to the suspicions involved with rogue AI, Cerberus has severely limited my capabilities. I am limited by my hardware and am independent from most of the ship's functions. I can observe and offer analysis, nothing more, so you needn't worry about me shooting you out of the airlock at the first opportunity."
"Huh. Well that sounds pretty cool actually. I don't suppose we can change your appearance?"
"I can appear as my current form, a paperclip, or a dog. Which would you prefer?"
"Uh...never mind." Shepard sighed.
EDI minimised herself and Miranda and Jacob disappeared to their posts, wherever they were.
"Final preparations for take-off are complete, Commander." Joker's voice sounded out over the intercom. "When you're ready to go just pick a destination from the CIC and I'll plot a course."
Shepard complied. Just like old times.