Aftermath
Shepard was literally incandescent with rage, Kelly noted with growing dismay and not a little fear. The scarring in the Commander's face, until now healing steadily, had flared, burning with a hard amber light almost exactly matching that of the cockpit displays. Even as the frigate left the 'crippled' Collector vessel behind, Shepard emerged from the elevator onto the combat deck, still armoured. Her green eyes wide with concern, Kelly saw where parts of Shepard's hardsuit had been damaged. In most places, the damage was superficial, ceramic plates cracked or partially melted where they had prevented a mass accelerated projectile or particle weapon from fully breaching the armour.
Yet Shepard had not escaped the Collector trap unscathed; blood slowly oozed from between two interlocking pieces of her hardsuit's chestplate, an area protecting the ribs. Oh God, she's hurt! Kelly's hands gripped the sides of her station; it was all she could do not to rush to to Shepard's side and check to see if she was all right.
Voice more a guttural growl than her normal tones, Shepard snapped at Kelly, "Set up a link with The Man and get Lawson and Taylor in the debriefing room." Kelly flinched at the harshness of Shepard's delivery but did as she was ordered. When she looked up from her console, Kelly noted with some relief that the warlike avatar Shepard had become was gone.
"Someone's about to cop an earful," Hadley muttered after Shepard had left.
At the station beside his, Matthews nodded. "Hell," he replied, "Even I'm pissed off at how things happened. Shepard almost died in there. Lawson too."
In the debriefing room, an uncharacteristically edgy Miranda paced the length of the room, waiting for Shepard. "He wouldn't set us up like that," she told herself repeatedly. "He just wouldn't"
Jacob looked up as the door slid open with a hiss and Shepard entered the room. She was just in time to hear Miranda's last statement. "Are you brain damaged, Lawson?" she almost shouted. Miranda spun on her heel, hair flying about her face. Jacob remained silent; he had a few choice things to say to the Illusive Man himself but was content for now for Shepard to take the floor.
Miranda and Shepard stared hard at each other for several long moments. A grimace of pain flickered across Miranda's face for a moment and was gone. Under fire from a Collector's particle beam, her kinetic barrier had collapsed, the beam inflicting moderate burns to her left side. Medi-gel had removed the worst of the pain but it lingered still. Before Miranda could answer, Shepard pressed on, "He knew damn well the ship wasn't what it seemed. A simple heads up, Lawson, would that have been too much to ask? By the way, the ship is likely a trap, be careful."
Miranda crossed her arms over her chest, feeling defensive and off-balance. "He must have had a reason," she persisted.
Jacob raised his hands, "Maybe we should talk to him first, see what the deal is?" he suggested.
Shepard nodded curtly. "Chambers?" she said into the intercomm.
"Commander?" the young woman replied instantly, voice professional.
"Patch us through."
The table at the centre of the room sank into the floor as the holographic image of the Illusive Man flickered into being. A line of static rippled across the image before it stabilised. If the head of Cerberus was surprised to see Miranda and Jacob alongside Shepard, he did not show it. Instead he raised the ever-present cigarette to his lips and drew deeply on the smoke.
"I imagine you have some questions regarding events on the Collector vessel?" he began.
Even as Shepard opened her mouth, Jacob felt compelled to step forward. "You're damn right we have questions!" he spat. "What the hell are you playing at, you knew that ship was a trap!"
"I see your crew stands united behind you, Shepard," the Illusive Man said dryly, tapping the cigarette into an ashtray. "Yes, I was aware that the ship was a trap but I was confident of your abilities to handle it. And you did."
Shepard took control of the discussion, "Don't try to sweet talk me. You say I'm important to the survival of humanity, you sank over four billion credits into me yet you don't trust me enough to be straight with me?" Shepard indicated the Cerberus operatives, "Or even your own people?"
"Shepard...has a point, sir," Miranda said guardedly, entering the conversation for the first time. Shepard's eyes widened with surprise and even Jacob looked stunned.
"Does she?" the hologram replied. "We needed the data from that ship to establish precisely where the Collector homeworld is and this data also confirmed our assumptions that Collector vessels use a specialised IFF to pass safely through the Omega-4 relay."
Shepard waved a hand irritably. "Fine, I don't really give a damn about that but you have to start trusting me - us - with this sort of information."
The Illusive Man appeared to consider this. "The Collectors needed to believe they had the upper hand. If there was any other way of doing things, I would have informed you."
Jacob could tell Shepard was only slightly mollified by the Illusive Man's words and Miranda's bearing suggested she didn't much like the ways in which the operation was progressing. Jacob stood listening attentively as the Cerberus head outlined the next phase of the so-called 'suicide mission' - boarding a derelict Reaper and salvaging the IFF for use with the Normandy. Shepard exchanged glances with the Cerberus personnel before addressing the Illusive Man. Jacob's features revealed almost nothing of his thoughts, Miranda's even less so.
The Commander uttered a low chuckle, utterly devoid of humour, "Another 'derelict' ship? I only believe you because I doubt you'd repeat yourself so soon."
"You may question my motivations as much as you like, Shepard, but the truth is we need that IFF if we're to find a way-"
Shepard cut him off with a raised hand. "Enough with the we already. You aren't the one being played like a violin out here. I know my job. My crew," Shepard nodded at Jacob and Miranda, "Know their jobs. We'll get it done." With that, Shepard cut the link.
One by one, those team members Shepard believed she could trust entered the captain's cabin. Tali arrived first, bearing witness to Shepard gently scratching the space hamster beneath the chin before placing him back in his enclosure. The fish tank, Tali noticed, was still empty of fish.
The quarian tech specialist wondered what this meeting was about but guessed it had something to do with the mission to the Collector vessel. Tali had never seen Shepard so angry before and was glad the Spectre's rage had not been directed at her.
Though she hadn't been part of the team accompanying Shepard, Tali's expertise had been required to fend off an attempt to breach the AI's firewalls and corrupt the Normandy's systems. The young quarian was doubly incensed - it was bad enough that bosh'tet the Illusive Man appeared to have played Shepard for a fool but a hacking attempt on the frigate's systems? Tali'Zorah had taken that as an affront to her personal honour.
"Shepard," Tali greeted the woman, "How are you feeling?"
"Tali, glad you're here. I'm fine, hardsuit took the worst of it," Shepard replied and gestured for Tali to sit. As she waited for the others to arrive, Tali studied Shepard's cabin. This was so different to life on the quarian Flotilla, she marvelled. With so many people and so few resources, even the ship captains could not claim so much space for themselves. Aboard a quarian vessel, Shepard's cabin would accommodate two adults and a child, with the rest of the area used for storage. Still, Tali could not begrudge Shepard this oasis.
The cabin door slid open, admitting Garrus and Mordin into the room. Tali's eyes narrowed in thought - what was Shepard planning? With the door closed once more, Shepard addressed the AI. "EDI, activate privacy filters."
"Filters activated, Shepard," the AI replied. "Enjoy yourselves," it added. Tali thought she detected a hint of sardonic humour in the AI's synthesised inflections.
"What was that about?" Tali enquired.
With a half-smile, Shepard explained, "The filters are so the commanding officer can...enjoy certain privileges without the AI logging them."
"In other words," Garrus weighed in, "The AI thinks we're all up here to take part in a cross-species orgy? Joker's going to love this."
"Keelah!" Tali gasped, shocked at the idea.
"Wise to limit exposure of such things," Mordin put in, "Could damage crew morale otherwise. Curious as to true purpose of gathering, Shepard."
Shepard held her hand up, forestalling any further discussion. "First, I want to make sure the room is clear of any bugs. Mordin?"
The salarian nodded and activated his omni-tool. Slowly he turned in a circle, sweeping the room with his own customised scanning algorithms. A sharp beep indicated the presence of no less than five surveillance devices. One each in the fish tank, armour locker, private terminal and two more in the ceiling panels.
"Five bugs located," he announced, "Can suggest numerous means with which to deactivate them, feed false data to Cerberus or-"
Shepard sighed, "Just jam 'em for now."
"Of course," Mordin nodded, tapping a series of commands into the omni-tool. The device flashed green. "Surveillance devices neutralised."
"All right," Shepard announced when everybody had seated themselves. "Here's how things are: we're close to the end of this and after what happened with the Collector ship, I trust The Man about as far as I can throw a piano."
Tali and the others nodded in agreement though the quarian wondered how musical instruments came into the equation.
Shepard continued, "I don't trust Lawson not to shaft us if she receives any such directive from her boss. Jacob....he's never trusted the Illusive Man but he still believes in Cerberus' long-term goals. The rest of the crew...I honestly don't know where they'll stand if we're forced to cut ties with Cerberus. Could be we'll have a mutiny on our hands." Shepard shrugged. "I'll worry about that if it becomes an issue. For now..." she paused to look each of the others in the eye, "I need to know if I can count on your support if things go badly wrong."
Tali and the others nodded silently. "Realise that stopping Collector threat requires certain compromises but not willing to compromise own self, Shepard," Mordin said, speaking both for himself and all of them.
"I'm with you no matter what happens, Shepard," Garrus assured her.
"Me too. I could never have completed my Pilgrimage without your help...I may not even be alive now if it weren't for you stopping those assassins on the Citadel," Tali added her voice to the chorus of support.
"What of other team members?" Mordin enquired. "Grunt, Zaeed?"
Shepard smiled, " Grunt strikes me as a straight-forward fighter. I trust him not to sell me out but I want to keep this between us for the moment. The same is true of Samara and Thane. We don't know either of them well enough to know where they'll stand."
"Samara did swear an oath to you personally," Garrus reminded the Commander.
Mordin bobbed his head up and down. "Yes. Vow of Justicar absolute. Samara would not break oath lightly."
"As I said, we'll keep this between us for the moment," the Commander emphasised. When the others acquiesced, she rose, signalling that the meeting had come to a close. "Dismissed," she said softly. Smiling, she added, "If anybody asks what you were all doing up here...make something up."
With great difficulty, Kelly managed to keep her expression neutral and her emotions in check. The shipboard rumour-mill was clattering like a YMIR with mis-aligned servos. The Commander, the turian, quarian and salarian all in her cabin at the same time! The Yeoman buried herself in work, struggling not to hear the whispered innuendoes and comments like I had no idea Shepard was into that kind of thing.
"She's a grown woman, she can behave in whatever manner she wishes," Kelly told herself. So why did the thought of Shepard...doing that discomfort her so?
The elevator opened and Kelly's already-straight back stiffened further. Without looking around, Kelly knew from the clicking of talons on the deck that it was Garrus. Garrus returning from....Kelly swallowed. "She's a grown woman," she said again, "She can behave in whatever manner she wishes."
The clicking paused. "Is something wrong?" Garrus enquired.
Motions stiff, Kelly turned to face the turian. Was it possible to know just by looking into his eyes if he and she had...Kelly shook her head, "No, nothing wrong." Garrus held her gaze for several moments before nodding and moving aft. Shortly after, the elevator opened a second and then a third time. Kelly felt an almost-physical pain in her breast as first Mordin then Tali exited.
"Tali!" Kelly reached out to the quarian. Tali turned to face the young woman, expression invisible behind her reinforced visor. Only her eyes and a hint of her nose were distinguishable through the the faceplate. "Tali," she said again and paused. Kelly swallowed, felt a pulse thudding at her temples. "Did you...enjoy your meeting with Commander Shepard?" she finally managed to get out, almost choking on the words.
"Oh...yes," Tali answered after a moment. "We were just talking about old times. Garrus, Shepard and I."
Kelly folded her arms. "What about Mordin?" she countered, voice flat, accusatory.
Tali sighed. "I know it's difficult to believe but it's not what you're thinking, Ms Chambers. I can't say anything else but please...trust Shepard."
Kelly watched helplessly as Tali turned away.