XI. Slipspace
They found Joker slumped in the cockpit. Shepard and her team had left the Normandy in a small, uninhabited system in shuttle range of the Citadel, while the IFF code uploaded. Now she listed alarmingly on an unstable orbit around one of the outer dwarf planets.
"Someone find Dr. Chakwas!" Shepard said in desperation, but she knew the Normandy was horribly empty. Even when they had found pools of blood where crew members must have died - nothing remained but drag smears and oddly shaped, bloody footprints.
"Shit. Okay. Mordin, help him. I need him talking, at least. I need to know what happened."
"The Normandy was attacked by the Collectors," EDI's voice said as her display lit up. "They took the entire crew. There was a locator virus hidden in the IFF beacon."
"Why didn't you do something!" Shepard screamed.
"Mr. Moreau unlocked my subroutines. I took control of the ship, but it was too late. There was too much damage, and I could not help Jeff."
"You - he - "
"He saved the Normandy, Commander," EDI said softly. "I regret that we could not save the crew."
Joker woke up slowly. Two hundred and six bones in the human body, he thought muzzily - he knew that number by heart. He wondered how many he had now.
"Dr. Chakwas?" he said, his voice cracking. God, I sound like a kicked puppy.
"She's not here," a deep voice replied, and Joker remembered everything.
"Where's Shepard? Is she safe? Is everyone else safe?" He struggled to sit up, but his body wouldn't respond.
"Everyone who went to the Citadel made it back," Jorge responded gently. "Shepard is fine."
"Where is everyone? I need to see her. Help me up!"
"Easy does it." Jorge eased one hand under Joker's back, lifting him up like a baby. "Mordin's got you pumped full of medigel - he said you'll be dizzy for a bit."
"Mordin doesn't know jack shit about - whoah, that actually feels okay. Nothing hurts." Joker stood and took a tentative step.
"He also gave you some pretty strong painkillers, so don't run around too much yet."
"First time in years that nothing hurts. Figures."
"Mordin said - "
"Don't - just shut up about Mordin, okay?"
The Spartan fell silent as he helped Joker to the head.
"Sorry," he said when he was finished. Jorge nodded. "What they did to you, when they made you a Spartan..." He trailed off, too doped up to figure out what he was going to say.
Jorge seemed to know what he wanted to ask, though. "It hurt a lot. I was only fourteen, and one of my friends died from it."
"Sorry," Joker whispered again.
"Don't be."
But he wanted to tell everyone how sorry he was - that people had died because of him, that he couldn't save the rest of the crew. There wasn't enough sorry in the world. There never would be.
He was starting to feel it now. The fractures would never heal completely. He could bruise if he even hugged anyone. But he visited everyone in turn, Jorge supporting him with every step.
Miranda looked at him as if he was a speck under a microscope. Tali was sniffling under her mask. Garrus and Grunt were easier - they started talking about plans to take the fight to the Collectors, finally.
The Commander was the hardest to deal with. She tried to tell him that it wasn't his fault.
When it was over, Jorge picked him up and carried him back to the medical bay. Joker was too tired and sick to complain. After reattaching Joker's IV patch, the Spartan dimmed the lights and quietly settled into a nearby chair for the night.
"Thanks, Mom."
Jorge chuckled. "You're welcome."
Joker was back in the cockpit. He and EDI were working together seamlessly now, like old friends. The repairs were progressing - mostly fixing computer systems that the IFF virus had shredded, but Shepard had gone out personally on an EVA with a wrench.
It was just - so empty. No chattering, flirtatious Chambers, no Ken and Gabby trying to act like they weren't an item (and fooling no one).
Without Gardner, they were down to basic rations in the mess. She found Jorge spooning down slop while studying a datapad. After serving herself, she sat down across from him.
"They don't look like what our scientists think the Forerunners looked like," he said, gesturing at the diagram of a Collector his datapad showed.
"I bet Mordin has an explanation for that," she said. "God, this stuff is disgusting."
"Talked to him already. He said they started changing, after they came here. Something about their original cellular makeup, chemistry, whatever, not working right in this universe."
"So - they evolved, or maybe they engineered themselves. It makes sense: some of the Prothean statues I've seen look nothing like the Collectors."
Jorge grunted and swallowed another spoonful of glop.
"Hey - you're not going to change, Jorge. Those pictures that showed the species they brought with them? The only recognizable ones are the humans. I guess we didn't have to adapt too much to this universe. And even if you woke up as a bug-eyed monster tomorrow, we'd still love you."
There was an awkward silence. Shepard's spoon clanked against her bowl as she scooped up another hurried bite. "Seriously, how can you eat this crap? You look like it's the best thing you've ever tasted."
"Had worse." He took another bite. "You're wrong, though."
"How so?"
"Chakwas said to expect changes with my implants. It's already started."
"What? Are you all right?" She put her hand on his, but he flinched away. "What's going on?"
The Spartan actually blushed.
Shepard had read the report from Mordin. It had talked about implants that heightened some of the normal physical responses, like combat reflexes, or dulled others, like shock reactions - and sex drive.
A thousand snappy answers flooded her mind - Have you asked Garrus about how turians blow off steam? - but she shoved them all away. She shifted uncomfortably, and her leg accidentally brushed his; he stood up to go.
"Sorry, Commander. Tali wanted my help in engineering - "
"Jorge." He stopped. "Relax. No one on this ship is offended by the changes I think you're talking about."
"I - "
"You're an attractive man. A good man. Whoever you've got your eye on is very lucky." If you break his heart, Miranda, you bitch -
She didn't get to finish the thought. Jorge sat back down again, studying her. How could she have ever thought his eyes were unreadable?
He took her hand, and their fingers laced together perfectly.
Floating out in the black, Jorge thought things over as he worked. En route to the Omega relay, they had met up with an STG prowler which had transferred the Forerunner/Prothean crystal to the Normandy. Now he was installing the crystal in the repaired remains of a slipspace drive. Cerberus had been busy with the half of the Covenant supercarrier that had brought Jorge here.
He couldn't go home again.
Miranda had theorized that the supercarrier's slipspace drive had been warming up or on standby when Jorge had triggered the Shaw-Fujikawa core - or that the energies of the bomb itself had somehow triggered the Covenant drive. Either way, the strange harmonics of overlapping fields had produced the exact energy frequency needed to make the transfer here.
Every Covenant alien on board alive at the time of the transfer died when they hit this reality. From what he'd seen of the Cerberus recordings, it hadn't been pretty.
Jorge had survived, though. He decided that was a good thing.
He bolted down another arm of the casing. He still didn't understand why human - biology, chemistry, whatever - adapted so smoothly, while the Forerunners had rapidly changed, and the Covenant races had simply died. Everyone he asked about it had shrugged and said it was just one of those things.
The slipspace drive wouldn't work the same anymore, of course, but it would provide a hell of a boost to the energy signature of the crystal. If the Collectors had anything left of their ancient selves at all - ancestral memories, maybe - they would come running. That was the theory, anyway.
Most high technology from Jorge's home universe was useless here. Mordin had given Jorge his final diagnosis: he would keep his strength, his night vision, and he would probably never have to worry about a broken bone; but the implants had failed, and would have to come out. The chemicals they secreted to prevent his systems from reverting to human normal were now slowly poisoning him.
Adjusting the magnetic coil, Jorge thought about Leigh-133, who had been his shadow, his other half, all through their training. They'd been holding hands just before their beds had been wheeled into different areas of the hospital bay. Even that small display had been against the rules, but when Lieutenant Keyes had spoken to him just before the procedure started, he hadn't mentioned it.
His feelings for Six had been there, but - muted. Maybe if they'd been normal...
He closed the drive casing. They had been normal. They were normal Spartans, and messy relationships played no part in their lives or their missions. People died because of that sort of thing.
Spartans never died, though. They were only ever listed as MIA or WIA. Jorge wondered who had changed his status. Carter, probably. By now Noble Team would have been reassigned to another world, another mission; they would have a new Noble Five, just like Six had replaced Thom. Kat and Emile would be pissed about it. He hoped Six would be okay.
He stowed his tools and triggered a short burn on his thruster pack that would take him back to the Normandy airlock. Commander Shepard - Jane - would need to know that everything was ready.