A/N: Bonus chapter!
Chapter 11 – Wake Me Up, Before You Go-Go
HUUUUUAAAA!
That was Samantha Shepard's first word in over eight months, if a guttural animalistic sound could be called a "word." After a touching reunion with her crew (many who literally dropped what they were doing to rush to her bedside), being told the Reapers had in fact been defeated, and that she had yet another new ship, Sam learned her new foe came in the form of a chart. A physical therapy progress chart.
Once everyone had been shooed out of the room, Mordin Solis appeared.
"Shepard. Will need to run tests on legs, necessary to…"
She didn't let him finish before bounding out of bed.
"Unce! Unce! Unce! Unce! Uh-Unce! Unce! Unce! Unce!"
Shepard's beatboxing and hip-banging elicited only the smallest of changes in Mordin's face.
"I—OW!"
As she doubled over in pain, Sam realized her hips hurt. A lot. And her shoulder was still heavily maimed from an ill-advised excursion with a Widow rifle at the firing range.
"Unwise decision. Should have let me explain process. Things you don't know. Possibility of self-injury."
She grimaced as she sat back down on the side of her bed. "I noticed."
"Nearly died again. Used temporal stasis to stabilize."
"I think I remember…something…being crushed…" Sam squeezed her eyes shut as if this would help her remember. Also, to fight the pain now coursing through her that might have been related to the over-exuberant celebration.
"Correct. Pinned by Brick. Attempt to keep you out of final battle on Pandora. Used deactivated artillery shell originally intended to destroy base, commit suicide" (inhale) "clearly successful in removing you from fight."
Memories started flooding back. The insanity, the violence, the loss of a sense of purpose, the insanity, the catfights with Lilith, the insanity… Maybe she had also been severely depressed; Liara's death didn't help with any of the above.
"Developed two personalities. Unsure why. Depression not normally manifested in physical form" (he held up a datapad with a picture of the object found next to her).
"A giant…space raisin?"
"Unknown. Dangerous. Destroyed using engines of Revenant Phoenix. Neural scans show one personality. Mental instabilities likely dealt with."
The fight. Lilith… Angel… It took all she had not to start crying. She felt as though for her to keep living, others kept having to sacrifice themselves. It made so little sense, but she knew the strange battle against, was it her "other" self, really happened! It seemed Samantha Shepard, too, would have a chance to redeem herself. If she hadn't already broken something that would keep her in the hospital even longer.
She looked at her lame shoulder. More painful memories began to surface. She controlled herself. Commander Shepard does not cry!
"Shoulder still damaged. Can be fixed upon arrival at Citadel."
I'm erasing any surveillance videos of this med bay from the past five minutes. She grinned. Likely, if she didn't, it would be all over the extranet. "Commander Shepard Can't Dance, Round 279631."
"Okay Mordin, what do I need to do?"
"Minimize sudden movements. Legs far stronger than before. Must learn to use new strength."
"Stronger? What'd you do, pile on muscle fibers?"
A sharp inhale. "Replaced entire body from lower chest to feet."
"WHAT?" she exploded. She winced as her enthusiastic speaking had twisted her damaged shoulder. "Cerberus managed to rebuild it—you cut it all off and replaced it?"
"Photographs available. Can show you." The salarian manipulated controls on a computer to bring up the images in question.
She looked. Her face, her torso… Where were…oh what…holy hell!
Immediately following: "Hurk…bluuuuuargh…"
"Take cup. And towel."
"Thanks Mordin. I can't imagine there was much left. I guess my armor helps more against planetary re-entry than crushing."
"Correct, Shepard. Information about procedure, resulting changes to anatomy. Net result: more difficult to kill than ever before."
He handed over a datapad, which she eagerly began to read the executive summary. "I like being hard to kill."
Patient's lower torso and legs replaced by cybernetic technology borrowed from Combat Human Replica Droid Project. Integrated nano-batteries provide forty-eight (48) hours of combat-ready energy should organic sustenance be unavailable. Batteries may be recharged wirelessly or organically. Ensuring room for advanced filter modules meant not replacing or reconstructing reproductive system, though hormone/endocrine duties are handled by biofiber glands near the batteries…
"Wait a minute. So I can't…ever…." Her face fell.
Mordin smiled as much as a salarian could. "Recommend reading rest of summary."
Sexual function preserved, minus reproductive capabilities. All inputs processed by waste filtration systems.
"Inputs? Really?" She broke out into a wicked grin. "Seriously? That what you calling them now?"
"Will need to test all replaced systems. Instructions included on datapad."
"I'm a woman, Mordin, I know how to…"
"Additional information not necessary" interjected the salarian, probably louder than he intended. "Suspect you fully capable of conducting all necessary exercises. Still, will answer any questions."
"Well" drawled Sam, "since we've covered the most important part, can I kick in doors now?"
"Affirmative, Shepard. Also capable of jumping at least ten meters vertically while standing still. Can run at speeds exceeding some land vehicles. For several hours. Metabolic rate consummately increased."
"Nice. So I can eat anything I want like biotics do, put my foot through armor plate, and still get it on."
"Will take time to reach maximum potential as demonstrated by first use of tech which" (inhale) "caused pain."
"More physical training. Nothing I haven't seen before. Besides, I'll need it for this damn shoulder."
"Must follow regime carefully. Failure to do so would be" (inhale) "risky."
The doctor pressed a small device against his patient's hip, which caused the device to beep.
"Torque and horsepower now artificially limited. Self-injury no longer possible."
Shepard climbed slowly to her feet. The fiery pain around her lower chest had begun to fade. She took a step. Then another. She tried to move faster, but her legs refused to obey, as if she were trying to run against a particularly resistant mass effect field exercise machine. Teeth gritted in concentration, to no avail.
"Legs computer controlled. Digital restraints relaxed as progress made with therapy. Learn to walk. Then run."
"Mordin, if you didn't just save my life I'd stew your liver and eat it. You've turned me into a grandma!" She shook her fist on her undamaged arm at him, a devilish grin undermining the meaning of her words.
"Shuttle will take you to your ship. Affinity for surviving the impossible intact, Shepard."
The salarian regretted not being able to add internal bacta dispensers, but by the time the Trans-Galactic Republic revealed that technology and ensured it would not harm the denizens of Citadel space, no further modifications to Shepard would be possible without rearranging virtually everything.
Shepard found herself greeted by Anna Erickson once the rest of her crew/friends dispersed off to their own various tasks.
"Sorry to do this to you, but we need to get down to business right away." Anna consciously avoided looking at the other woman's deformed shoulder/arm.
"When has that not happened?" Sam imitated a computer voice. "'Commander Shepard, you've recently been dead. Please find a way to stop our colonists from being abducted.'"
"Some of us can just never catch a break" Anna agreed. "At least this time the only thing you'll need to shoot off is your mouth."
Her memories were slightly fuzzy. Mordin had said she'd need to have several follow-up imprintings to make sure her original memories were properly preserved. She vaguely remembered having a loud confrontation with…the quarians? Something about Tali and the geth. Whatever she'd done, it worked—Tali's late father did not see himself dishonored nor was Tali found guilty of committing treason.
Wait, if I can't remember why that happened, where'd all the detail come from?
"Who do I need to yell at now?" she asked.
Anna felt bad. The woman sounded…tired. Worn-out. Exhausted. Samantha Shepard cheated death twice now. Perhaps she would go down in history as a lesson in why living forever could be a bad thing.
"Who do you think?"
Tali grimaced upon seeing what the Commander had done to herself—she'd heard the stories, but had the presence of mind to not press the issue. She acted as though she'd seen nothing.
Neither had seen that Tali had not left. With carefully disseminated news that Commander Shepard was back on her feet, the elements of First Flight went into overdrive. Many more were briefed into the program, which as one would expect, drastically increased the chance of a leak. So the intent was to get things going so quickly that there wouldn't be time for leaks.
"Creator Tali'Zorah is correct. The divide between the Creators and geth remains."
Sam Shepard let out an audible sigh, before half-shouting. "Can anything in this galaxy get sorted out without me sticking my hands in?"
"There are many items which have been positively resolved without your involvement, Shepard-Commander."
Another sigh. "I know, Legion, it's just, can't I ever have a day when no one asks me to do anything?"
"We were given information on plans to reintegrate the geth into Creator society" continued Legion. "A cession of hostile actions against the geth will serve as a significant factor in convincing the uncommitted geth consensus to support reunification. Shepard-Commander, your destruction of geth heretics will most likely enhance our ability to convince others as well."
"What about the combined geth-quarian ships used during the Reaper War?" queried Tali. "Does that cooperation mean anything?"
"The joint venture is one of the reasons the geth have not sought to destroy the Creators despite several of them posing a significant threat."
"Wait, wait, what'd I miss?" Not this again…
"Sam, during the Reaper War, two quarian admirals, shall we say, ran afoul of the Trans-Galactic Republic. They kind of locked them both up."
Shepard saw a bit of the scared girl off on her Pilgrimage poke through the otherwise-confident exterior Tali normally displayed.
"What happened?"
To her surprise, Legion re-entered the conversation. "Creator vessels attacked geth scouts. While we understand why the Creators would wish to keep military advancements gifted to them from outside forces hidden, we nevertheless sought to understand more about possible Creator threats."
"Gerrel is an idiot" spat Tali. "He shot first, when approaching geth ships had their weapons powered down."
Tali had to catch herself. "Here I am defending the geth—no matter what you say, Sam, this galaxy needs you. Working with Legion helped me to start overcoming the prejudices I've been taught…"
Her head drooped. She remembered the vicious verbal lashing Sam Shepard meted out to both herself and Legion when she'd threatened the geth for scanning her omnitool. The words burned her ears as if they were yesterday—"What the hell were you thinking? Are you trying to undermine this whole operation? You can either fight at my side or be crushed under my heel, but you will not stand in my way."
"The worst part is that the Trans-Galactic Republic captain in charge of defending Rannoch had actually ordered all ships to cease fire and 'save it for the Reapers.' Gerrel ignored her order and got thrown in a Trans-Galactic Republic brig for it."
Shepard's face took on a thoughtful look. When she next spoke, it was slow, deliberate. "How does the Trans-Galactic Republic assert legal authority over people who neither serve in its armed forces nor are even its citizens?"
Tali had an answer ready. She'd been warned the Commander might not remember everything, and even if there wasn't another near-resurrection, memories of the tumultuous time could be fuzzy.
"After the Trans-Galactic Republic showed up, the Citadel Council signed a treaty called the Status of Forces Agreement. It gave the Trans-Galactic Republic authority over any and all military assets acting in defense of the galaxy at large."
"So the Council gave an extra-galactic entity authority over races that don't even have Citadel embassies? Am I the only one who thinks that doesn't make any sense?"
"Shepard-Commander, you are correct. Organic thought processes do not always follow a logical pattern."
"Really" continued Tali sheepishly, "it came down to the Trans-Galactic Republic being able to blow us all away by sneezing. Those with the most powerful ships make the rules."
"I hope they didn't say it that way" gasped Shepard.
"Oh no, the Council just decided it wasn't worth it to try to fight with someone who would both steamroller their fleets and possibly be useful against the Reapers. So when the Trans-Galactic Republic made the suggestion, they just went along with it."
Sam could sense Tali had more to say, but for some reason had difficulty speaking.
"There was another issue…" she began, before trailing off.
"Come on Tali, you can tell me."
"It's really embarrassing."
"I promise I won't tell the Trans-Galactic Republic if your admirals blew up one of their ships or something" laughed Sam. "I mean, what could possibly…"
"That's actually it" whispered the quarian. "Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh designed a virus meant to cripple geth systems, but it got into the hands of Cerberus and its allies. Remember the huge battleship Admiral Grayson commanded?"
"What about it? It got blasted into..."
Comprehension dawned on Sam Shepard's face. Her expression hardened. "The virus came from the quarians?" she yelled.
"Not directly" parried Tali. "Cerberus, at the time part of Sapiens' Shield, an even more anti-alien organization than it had been, infiltrated the Migrant Fleet. They stole anything they could. Including code left on unsecure servers…"
If burning shame produced heat, Tali's visor would have melted off. The best computer specialists in the galaxy had left dangerous code laying around for anyone to grab.
Confusion reigned. "Wait, I thought the Special Tasks Group couldn't even interface with Trans-Galactic Republic systems. They got caught trying to break in before they'd even figured out how to log on!"
"This code was designed to attack geth systems with adaptive operating processes" replied Legion. "Analysis of its structure suggests executing on outsider hardware actually increased its capabilities, though we are not yet sure why or how this occurred."
"So the virus that disabled Revenant was a quarian design. Can't say I'm surprised."
"Not sure whether that's a compliment" said Tali. She lightly slapped the Commander's intact shoulder. "At any rate, Xen wasn't even supposed to be working on those viruses anymore—but she kept at it. Then it got stolen."
"I can't imagine" responded Shepard "that she'd just up and give the code to Sapiens or Cerberus—them being so anti-alien and all. So what the hell could the Trans-Galactic Republic charge her with?"
"Negligence and defiance of orders" replied Tali.
"Her actions were not directly responsible for the result, but they significantly contributed" chimed in Legion. "We believe an appropriate analogy would be placing a weapon near dangerous individuals."
"So the Council wants me to yell at the geth and quarians until they stop shooting at each other, am I getting this right?"
"Why don't we go see your new ship?" suggested Tali. "Worry about that if you end up standing in front of the Council again. Should that happen, try to make sure we can make songs out of it later!"
"Laugh it up, Tali…"
Shepard's recovery took place a galaxy away from her new ship. This, combined with not wanting the galaxies at large to know Samantha Shepard lived quite yet led the Trans-Galactic Republic to drag the mostly-completed ship designated for Samantha's use from the SETTLE Center to Pandora's orbit, in which Shepard had been put mostly back together aboard RNS Veritas.
Some weapons would need to be fitted upon the commander's return. The ship carried only a token crew on her outbound flight, as well. That said, a key advance on Maxthon ships came from their propulsion systems—exponentially faster than anything used by either Citadel navies or the Trans-Galactic Republic.
Traditional hyperdrive travel between galaxies could take weeks or months; an advanced hyper-zero drive could make the same journey in days. Transits measured in less than an hour might be possible with extreme modifications to the drive and ship, but such changes pushed operational parameters outside acceptable safety ranges.
Hyperdrives were somewhat affected by ship mass—the larger the ship, the slower the hyperdrive tended to be up to a point. Fighters and smaller ships carried 1.0-level drives. Larger vessels tended to carry Class 2.0 or slower units. Element Zero ("eezo") changed that relationship. Careful application of eezo cores drastically improved the efficiency of most hyperdrives (as opposed to exploding the ship in question as happened to RNS Regal River—reducing mass to absolute zero, then firing up the hyperdrive intended to push the ship's unmodified mass was a very poor choice). This permitted Shepard and the skeleton crew loaded aboard Revenant Phoenix to make a return journey in roughly six hours.
During those six hours, Shepard spent some time looking over her mostly empty ship. Several barbettes lacked the triple barreled Variable Munition Mass Drivers which would be installed upon return to the SETTLE Center. These weapons were a collaboration between Gaige's elemental charging and Tali's mini-fusion designs. The "shock" variant had rendered the Trans-Galactic Republic's "ion cannons" redundant in the design, saving mounting points which were used for extra GARDIAN defensive systems.
Speaking of GARDIAN and smaller ships, the Maxthon-class Revenant Phoenix had a much better fighting chance against such foes than the single-purpose Aspirations Toward Infinity (in addition to a much shorter class name). More often than not, the secondary armament of Infinities ended up being shut down to allow greater power to be fed into the primary battery (which was no good against fighters).
Maxthon ships carried fighters of their own—three squadrons. Composition varied depending on mission, but anything fitting into Trans-Galactic Republic Standard Volume for Embarked Vessels up to Level III would permit thirty-six vessels. Additionally, boarding actions were possible thanks to five Thranta-class assault shuttles. More maneuverable than but slightly less tough than assault transports, assault shuttles needed less protection from fighters.
The Maxthon vessels seemed to be the Holy Grail of military construction: affordable, mission-suitable, and easily mass-produced. While only three were on order, the Citadel Council had encouraged both member and associate races to step up by providing new construction facilities. As the premiere line of defense against extra-galactic threats, it would be advantageous to build as many of these ships as was possible.
Tali, Gaige, and their teams worked extremely hard to avoid "hindsight syndrome"—designing solutions which would win 100% of yesterday's battles, but had no claim against tomorrow's. The gigantic forward "super-Thanix" cannon incorporated lightning-gun tech, superlaser tech, and the base Thanix. It would be a much simpler way to destroy Reapers, or any other heavily armored, shielded target for that matter. Some theorized it might be able to rip open space itself at a high enough power setting. The fixed, forward-facing weapon had a limiter placed on it (~65% of theoretical energy) as a result. Though one initial design rule was "no more fixed, forward-facing weapons," no one seemed to mind since the vessel's armament was not solely tied up in the "F3W" the way Infinities were.
Sam wandered into engineering. Unlike the quad-core Tantalus systems of her last ship, Revenant Phoenix had a pair of "eezo channeling" cores built into its primary hyperdrive. They ran front-to-back along a cylindrical hybrid hyperdrive which followed the ship's centerline. The whole assembly glowed an eerie, bloody red. It also produced enough power to run the ship three times over due to incredibly energy-dense hypermatter annihilation. Downsizing the core brought no benefits, so designers left in a massively overpowered heart, in the hopes that some future development might find a use for all the energy. In case of catastrophic overload, braces permitted the whole thing to be ejected in less than five seconds. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to dump the power core—she'd seen enough of that in omnitool vids like "Persephone's Predators." It always ended badly.
"Commander Shepard" would now be uttered by a crew of several hundred—smaller than the complement of an Infinity but significantly more compared to an Alliance (or Cerberus) frigate. When she found out about EDI, a fresh wave of pain flowed through the still-recovering Spectre. She (not "it") had been as much a member of the crew as any flesh-and-blood, providing key intel at just the right moment on several occasions. Once First Flight reached a stage where it could be openly acknowledged, Sam planned to hold a ceremony honoring both Lilith Cashlin and EDI, anti-synthetic prejudices be damned. It might also help win peace with the geth…
It just wouldn't be the same. Though the Trans-Galactic Republic remained freakishly advanced, their insistence on silent, "dumb" ships made her feel sad for them.
Still, the primary armament of this ship was, as Lilith might say, "the tits." Variable Munition Mass Drivers borrowed Citadel-native technology, flinging tiny particles at huge speeds for massive damage. In Fusion mode, slightly larger pellets were used as ammo—these were specialized and limited compared to nearly-infinite standard fare. In exchange for a lower fire rate and shorter effective range, these pellets were essentially bombarding enemies with tiny suns—bringing the pellet into a state of fusion, then hurling it out of the barrel at extreme velocities. Hence all the fuss about inertial confinement lasers. These were part of an optional stage—just before any "special" effects would be applied. While both types of munition could be fired through the same barrel, fusion could not be combined with corrosion, fire, or electric shock.
The turrets themselves contained a fast-track mechanism which in theory enabled them to target small craft—though at the expense of only being able to fire "standard" shots. Besides, actually having dedicated point-defense systems was a hallmark of the class compared to its predecessors, so this ability would likely not be tested excepting very trying circumstances.
Since the Trans-Galactic Republic was integrally involved in the ship's design, it maintained some of the comforts that Systems Alliance, Hierarchy, Union, or other Citadel forces could only dream of on home-built vessels. Crewmen had assigned berths (no hot-bunking), ration quality drastically improved, and leisure facilities were expanded. For instance, an omnitool library, small movie theater, shockball suite, and swimming pool were all built into the vessel's interior.
"Well, let's see how they did on the most important part of the ship" she said to no one in particular as the door to her cabin opened.
She took quick stock. Large work area (since being in charge of a ship meant lots of bureaucracy), a sitting space, a dining table with optional view outside… "Damn, no fish tank" she muttered. Apparently, the architect(s) responsible for her cabin maintained the same sense of humor as Alliance and Cerberus before them—the shower (or "refresher," as the Trans-Galactic Republic called it) was right behind her desk. Translation: You are going to spend so much time there that you might as well have your 'fresher right next to you.
A look of childish delight crossed her face as she realized there were no display cases for the ship models she enjoyed collecting and assembling. No cases meant she could finally achieve a long-held dream of having the models simply float around the cabin on miniature eezo cores. The tiny ships would auto-adhere themselves to suitable surfaces if the Revenant Phoenix went into battle, just as the skylight and dining-table window armor plate auto-closed in such a circumstance.
Sam Shepard lay back on her bed. The skylight at the moment showed a sickly greenish hue, patches of green interspersed with white and black. The official reason was that light normally blue in regular hyperspace travel slightly redshifted from the vastly increased speeds of a hyper-zero drive. She'd once looked at the math behind it, realized it made her head hurt, and turned to other tasks. Still, the light was soothing to her, so she left the armor plate retracted.
For the first time she could remember in years, Samantha Shepard drifted off into peaceful sleep.
