Chapter 8

Normandy SR2 (airlock)

John greeted Miranda and informed her they were waiting for Joseph to grab some weapons from Jacob. She nodded as they waited, Joseph walked up about 10 minutes later with a Predator pistol, a Shuriken sub-machine gun, and an M29 Cain attached to his back.
"Alright let's do this" he said , ready for action.
"Uhhhh Joe, what the hell is that on your back" John asked looking at the Cain questioningly.
" This Johnny is an M29 Cain, Jacob asked me to test it out and I'm looking forward to it" he said with a sadistic grin.
"Ok, let's move, John said as the three of them stepped off the ship they were greeted by a Salarian, who was quickly chased away by a Batarian who worked for somebody named Aria that they were supposed to go see.

They stepped inside Afterlife after Joe scared off some wannabe tough guy Batarians while John purchased some brandy for Chakwas. They regrouped and walked up to meet Aria T'loak, as John approached her guards drew their weapons, which made Miranda and Joe draw theirs in reaction. Back to back Miranda had her weapon trained on the Batarian in front of her, while Joe drew on the one directly in front of him as well as Aria, locking down right between her eyes,
"I hear your the person to talk to if I have questions" John yelled over the music to Aria, while her guard ran a scanner over him.
" Depends on whose asking" she stated nonchalantly waving him over to a seat as her guards lowered their weapons Joe and Miranda did the same turning to face John and Aria.
"You run Omega" John asked.
"Hahaha I am Omega, I'm the boss, CEO, queen if your feeling dramatic, Omega has no titled ruler and only one rule... Don't. Fuck. With. Aria" she said looking John dead in the eye.
"I like it, easy to remember" John said to her trying to keep things peaceful.
"Good because if you forget, someone will help you to remember" she shot back.
"Then I toss your ass out the nearest airlock" her Batarian guard said.
Upon hearing that Joe began to walk up to the Batarian and Aria to test the theory but was quickly stopped by Miranda who he thought didn't see him.
"Don't even think about it Shepard, here now"she said pointing at the spot next to her.
"But Miranda I wasn't going to do anything I just wanted to know some of the rules on that list" he said to Miranda sounding childlike.
"You don't fool me Mr. Shepard." She said pulling him to the side and whispering to him " We are not I repeat not, going to do battle with an entire space station unless your brother finds a reason we should, understand" she whispered to him harshly.
He couldn't help but notice her perfectly glossed lips and powerful blue eyes as she spoke to him.
"Your wish is my command Ms. Lawson" he replied with his charming smile.
Standing a little too close for comfort Miranda pulled away returning her focus to John and Aria as he got up and walked to them, they walked down to the bar as John informed them of the situation.
"I say we go after the doctor first Johnny, I'd rather not be paralyzed by bugs in our first run it with these collector assholes, I think vigilante guy can wait a little longer" Joe said taking a sip of his beer.
"I'm actually inclined to agree with him Commander, the sooner Mordin is working on that countermeasure the better, there's no guarantee to know when the collector's will hit again and we need to be ready" Miranda chimed in.
"Well that makes it two to one, Mordin it is, let's go find this doctor" John said stepping away from the bar.

They made their way to the apartments that were being blocked off by a Turian trying to contain the plague, John easily persuaded him to let them in to deal with the plague.
They fought their way through blue suns mercs, Vorcha, Krogan and varren before making it to Mordin's clinic. When they finally got there Mordin agreed to go with them if they helped cure the plague which John quickly agreed to. They fought their way through another wave of Vorcha and Krogan until they got to the control room, after killing the Vorcha and Krogan defending the area the cure was dispensed and the fans were turned back on. They made their way back to the doctor, who thanked them for helping with the cure and saving his assistant Daniel. Mordin gathered a few things before joining the trio on the trip back to the Normandy.

Normandy SR2

John explained everything about the collector's to Mordin and had Jacob show him to the lab where he could begin working on the countermeasure. As soon as Mordin was in the lab John grabbed Jack and Joseph to go back out and rescue Archangel as he was in trouble and time was of the essence.

Omega

Walking back into the Afterlife club the three walked to where the mercs were recruiting and joined up quickly. As they were walking out a kid no older than 17 walked in ready to join up.
"Aren't you a little young to be freelancing as a merc" John asked the kid.
"I grew up on Omega I know how to use a gun" the kid replied.
"So does Archangel and I'm pretty sure he might be a little more trained than you" Joe said to the kid.
"Listen I just spent 50 creds on this gun and I'm gonna use it-" the kid said before being cut off by John who took his gun and jammed it.
"Trust me kid you'll thank me later" John said giving the kid a thumbs up walking away.
"Dumbass" Jack shot over her shoulder catching up with the Shepard's.

Before they boarded the merc shuttle John made sure to pick up the couplings for Donnelly and Daniels. When they got there they were told to go see Sgt. Cathka, reconfiguring the heavy mech and picking up a datapad that Aria might find interesting on the way while working their way through the various merc groups scoping out what they may be up against. When they got to Cathka he was fixing the gunship stopping to explain the plan somewhat of how they were going to take out Archangel. John saw an opportunity to take Cathka out but walked past to join the rest of the freelancers, unfortunately for Cathka Joe didn't as he jammed the electrified object into Cathka's back to prevent him from fixing the gunship. They made their way across the bridge not alerting the mercs of their affiliation until inside the building where they unleashed hell on everything in their way. John was shocked to find out that Archangel was none other than his favorite Turian Garrus Vakarian, that made John happy one more person that he could trust for his ground team.
They took out the Eclipse and Bloodpack mercenary groups with ease then Garrus took a rocket to the face from the Blue Suns gunship. Joe took out the gunship with the Cain quickly, Garrus needed medical attention and there was no time to waste, they hastily got him back to the ship.


John was standing in the briefing room with Joe when Jacob walked in to give John an update on Garrus' condition.
"We've done all we can for Garrus the rest is up to him and his body." Jacob said
"He'll be alright Johnny don't worry , Turians are tough." Joe said trying to calm his brothers worries.
"I know thanks Joe" John said quietly
Suddenly Garrus walks into the room face and armor burnt up. "Tough son of a bitch" Jacob said amazed.
"Does anybody have a mirror I didn't get to see the damage" Garrus said coolly.
"Hell Garrus you were always ugly, slap some face paint on there and nobody will even notice." John joked with his friend.
"Haha well everybody was always ignoring you and all over me, its about time you got a fair chance" Garrus shot back at John.
The four of them laughed at the banter between the two old friends. Garrus waited for Jacob to leave the room before addressing John again "Frankly I'm more worried about you, are you sure we can trust Cerberus" he said to John.
"Absolutely not, I fully expect them to betray us at some point" John said with a grin. "But that's why you two are here Jacob's ok but Miranda is way too loyal to Cerberus for me to trust right now, keep an eye on her Joey that's your special project." John said looking at his brother with a smile.
"You got it Johnny, I do enjoy getting on Lawson's nerves she hates me and I love it" Joe said laughing.
The three left the room as John told Joker to head for the Citadel to meet Anderson and pick up Kasumi. Joe headed down to the crew deck with Garrus to get food as he had been starving from over using his biotics.
"What you got for me Gardner" Joe said to the mess sergeant walking over to the counter.
"Chef Surprise today " Gardner informed with a smile.
"Uggghhhh, Gardner you seem like a good guy so I'm gonna be honest with you, your cooking is atrocious and you should kill yourself for serving this shit to human beings" Joe said in all seriousness.
"Well shit if I had some better supplies I could cook some better food, hopefully the Commander didn't forget about my list, being that we're headed for the Citadel and all" Gardner shot back at Joe.
"Trust me I'll make sure he gets it and some more because this torture has got to stop, you'd think Cerberus would put out for decent food being that they set us up on a suicide mission, I'm gonna go complain to Lawson about this, later Gardner" Joe said walking towards Miranda's office having lost his appetite, he knocked on the door.
"Enter" Miranda's voice came through the door.
Joe walked in taking a seat on the chair across from Miranda's desk "Lawson can I ask you a question? Joe asked looking at Miranda
"Mr. Shepard, what can I do for you" Miranda asked not looking up from her terminal.
"How does Cerberus afford to pay for all these mercenaries and assassins, rebuild a man from the dead, put leather seats in the cockpit but can't even put out for decent grub around here" he asked genuinely " and why are there no chairs in the briefing room, I like to sit when listening to Johnny complain".
"Simple oversight Mr. Shepard, the food we can get from the Citadel, as for the chairs we can put in a requisition order if it really bothers you that much" she returned looking up at him in his piercing grey eyes.
"Tell me about yourself Miranda" he said with his disarming smile.
"Really" she asked staring at him "the other day you wanted to kill me, now you want to get to know me, what are you playing at Shepard" she asked genuinely annoyed.
"I'm not playing at anything Miranda, we have to work together we're pretty much stuck on this ship together, we may as well be friendly towards each other" Joe said.
Miranda did her best to read him to figure out what he really wanted, then she came to the conclusion to play along to see what his motivations were. The next two hours were spent with her giving reserved details about herself to him not wanting to reveal too much about herself to a man who was technically a stranger. While on the other hand Joseph was pretty much an open book telling her about his childhood and growing up with Savior of the Citadel. To her surprise the conversation was actually interesting though she could tell he was holding certain things back out of shame maybe she thought.
"Well I'm hungry again so I should go, let's do this again sometime Miranda" he said getting up walking out of her door.
"Goodnight Joseph" Miranda said holding in her smile as she watched him leave the room, she chuckled as she heard him tell Gardner to fix him a plate of death with vegetables.