The Five of Swords, Upright: Defeat, loss, failure, a need to accept the inevitable and swallow pride. Negative thoughts and attitudes.
"Trying out a new look, Commander?" Traynor said as Shepard walked onto the CIC.
Shepard looked down at her outfit - a pair of dark blue trousers, regulation boots and a short-sleeved black blouse - since wearing her BDU didn't quite feel right any longer. No rank insignia or Alliance symbol to be found.
"I'm going for not-quite military casual," Shepard said with a shrug, trying to make light of her experiment. "We'll see if it works."
"Very chic," Traynor said, leaning against her workstation, a sly smile on her face. "If Diana Allers was still on board and reporting, I bet you could start a whole new trend."
"Never again," Shepard said, her jaw clenching when she thought of Allers. There were times Shepard didn't feel comfortable in her own ship back then, knowing anything the reporter heard or saw could be considered fair game. "Military ships and reporters do not mix."
The elevator doors opened and Cortez walked out, holding two cups of coffee. He handed one to Shepard. "Ready when you are, Shepard."
"Don't I get a coffee?" Traynor asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Are you my commanding officer?" Cortez said, taking a sip from his own cup.
Hearing the casual banter pleased Shepard more than she could say. Granted, the Normandy had only left Earth two weeks ago, but everyone still seemed in good spirits. She hoped morale would stay high, considering just how open-ended the mission seemed to be.
Their next stop was Camala and once there, they would make the decision if making a trip to Thessia would be worth the resources. Perhaps she should start scanning again. They could never, ever have enough element zero on hand. But after that, what Shepard did next would be in the Council's hands. She just wished she trusted the Council to make the right decision. Hopefully her recommendation would be enough to guide them.
Shepard knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to destroy all the damn artifacts and find the three planets where Leviathan resided, and then quarantine them. If Leviathan couldn't get their hands on thralls, problem solved.
Somehow Shepard didn't think it would be as easy as that, though. Already she worried. What if Leviathan took control of this place or that? Would she even know if they had? Fighting the Reapers was a cakewalk compared to Leviathan. Damn Reapers just came blaring down, announcing their presence to the world they intended to conquer. Leviathan… They were a blanket of fog, where you didn't even realize you couldn't see your hand in front of your face until it's too late.
But she would figure it out. She and Garrus and the entire damn crew of the Normandy would figure out how to stop them and then maybe the galaxy could have a moment of peace.
"Alright, with me, Cortez," Shepard said after taking a sip of coffee. No sense worrying about the what-ifs when she had work to do. She'd leave that for her off-duty hours, which seemed to decrease with each passing day. Those peaceful evenings with Garrus in the prefab felt like a dream sometimes. She missed those moments. Looking at Traynor, she added, "Let me know if you find anything interesting."
"Will do," Traynor said, her attention back on her workstation.
Their footsteps seemed to echo loudly in the fairly empty CIC. Only six crew members on duty, when during the height of the war, every station had a body, ready to salute and follow her orders without question. The dynamic felt different, she found, without an immediate threat to their lives.
The cockpit door opened automatically and Joker turned around in his chair. "Oh boy, Shepard and Shuttle Guy today!"
"It's your lucky day," Shepard said dryly. "So how's everything up here?"
"Camala is a nightmare, Shepard," Joker said, his voice turning serious. "We don't have a permit yet to orbit the planet."
"We need a permit to orbit the planet?" Shepard asked, trying to hold back her frustration. No other planet had a restrictions like that. "I can understand to land, but just to orbit?"
Cortez brought up his omni-tool. "Reapers killed almost ninety percent of the population here, Shepard. A lot of the cannibals you fought during the war were from here."
Shepard ran her hand over her head. "And I can't evoke SPECTRE authority because the batarians don't recognize the Council. Just great."
"I've been in contact with Governor Pazness' aide," Cortez said. Shepard heard the familiar ping of a data transfer and brought up her own omni-tool. "He seems to want to help. I'm hoping to have everything settled by the time we get there."
"Good," Shepard said, skimming Cortez's report. Her face turned serious and she allowed a hint of censure to enter her voice. "And gentlemen, I appreciate you taking the initiative to deal with this, but in the future, I really need to be informed of these developments."
"Yes, ma'am," Cortez and Joker said in unison.
"How long before we reach the planet?" Shepard asked, lightening her tone so they knew the dressing-down had finished.
"Three hours," Joker said. "But don't worry, I found us a place to park if we need one. Sweet little moon orbiting the fourth planet in the system." He grinned, slow and sly. "I checked and there's a shitload of platinum down there if you want to do some scanning, Shepard."
She rolled her eyes. "You laugh, but scanning's a great way to beat insomnia," she said, thinking of all the nights they would stop by planets to try to find some resources. Four billion credits Cerberus spent to reconstruct her and they had refused to hand her the company credit card. Crossing her arms over her chest, Shepard glanced at some of Joker's screens. Truth be told, she didn't really know how to read any of them. She supposed at some point, she really needed to learn every aspect of the Normandy. Until then, she'd be content finding competent people to do their jobs and do them well. It did get them through the Reaper War after all.
"Let me know the moment you hear something," Shepard asked. "Cortez, you're in charge of the CIC. I'm going to talk to Wiks."
Cortez nodded, and Shepard walked out of the cockpit, unbuttoning the top button of her blouse, feeling too constricted otherwise. Her hands went to where pockets should be, and she groaned, realizing the pair she pulled on this morning had none. She'd just have to try a new look tomorrow.
Fitch stood in the mess, making sandwiches for lunch. As soon as the Yeoman saw her, she moved the coffee machine, probably to put on a fresh pot. Shepard gave her a nod as she walked into Liara's old room, now Padok's office. There was no trace of Liara left in the room. All of the terminals and viewscreens were gone, replaced by flat surfaces, full of machines and gadgets. The engineer in her wanted to tinker with everything; to take things apart and not put them back together again until she understood just what made them tick.
Instead, she sat down, folding her hands in her lap so she wouldn't be tempted to touch anything. "You wanted a word, Padok?" she asked.
"Received some information from the STG today," Padok said, sounding cheerful as he stood at a console. "We finally discovered the operative who informed Cerberus of the female krogans."
"Really?" Shepard said, crossing her legs. It had been a mystery at the time, and Shepard hated mysteries. "We always assumed indoctrination was involved."
Padok nodded, handing Shepard a report. "That's a correct assumption. It was an STG operative, Ganto Imness."
Shepard repeated the name in her head, trying to figure out why it sounded familiar. And then she remembered. "I let him go on Virmire," she said, her voice dry as dead leaves. She folded her hands in her lap so tightly she could see her knuckles turning white. "Does the STG blame me?"
"No," Padok said, shaking his head. Shepard heard no censure in his voice, only honesty. But it didn't matter, because already Shepard blamed herself. How could they have known? The idea of indoctrination had been so new then. How were they supposed to have any idea what the consequences would be for a decision made almost five years ago? "But they did want to make sure you were aware of what happened."
"Of course they did," Shepard muttered. She could just picture Dalatrass Linron, back in salarian space, one of the systems better off after the war, making sure this information made its way to Shepard. She stood up, suddenly feeling the past of this room closing in on her, the memories of conversations with Miranda, then Liara, everyone always needed something, wanting pieces of her until she had nothing left to give. "Is there anything else?"
Padok blinked rapidly, and Shepard forced herself to stay still. Her feelings of annoyance had nothing to do with Padok. It would be completely unjust to take it out on him. "I wondered, Shepard, if I could ask a personal question."
Shepard raised her brow in surprise. "Why not?" she said, sitting back down. She had time, and it would be good to get to know Padok a bit more. Part of her wondered if he felt like the odd man out at all on the ship, being the only one who hadn't worked with her on a previous mission. Though she had heard through the grapevine that he seemed to be making friends; he and Samara seemed to speak a great deal.
He seemed pleased by her consent and rubbed his hands together. "I've been curious," he said, sitting down across from her. "What was it like being dead?"
She let out a low whistle. "Not many people have the quads to ask me that." Not even Garrus had asked her anything about those two years. Miranda had, of course, but at the time, Miranda seemed to feel like she had right to every aspect of Shepard's life, both on-duty and off.
"Do you believe in a religion?" Padok asked, tilting his head. Shepard suddenly had the feeling that she was under observation.
The truth was she didn't know. She had vague memories of attending church as a child, then mosque with a foster family. She winced, thinking about the Khalibs and Yasmin. But then fate drove her to the Alliance and orders became her religion. ICT cemented the idea, especially when bomb diffusion became her specialty. She had worshiped guns and tech and anything that could help her feel alive until the next mission.
Religion never seemed to matter, not when she went to each mission expecting to die.
Garrus believed in turian spirits, a belief that seemed to have only gotten stronger the past few years. Shepard liked the idea of spirits, especially because they made no demands. Quiet deities without the need to be worshiped was something she could believe in. Unlike Leviathan and their quest for thralls.
"I'm not sure," Shepard said, deciding to turn around the question, not quite ready to answer. "What do you believe?"
"I believe in the originator," Padok said at once, a quiet conviction Shepard couldn't help but feel slightly jealous of. "The being that started this all. I have to believe that every species in this galaxy, even in this universe, serves some greater purpose. Even Leviathan."
"Their job was creating the Reapers," Shepard said bitterly.
"True enough, but they might have another role to play."
Commander, came Cortez's voice over the intercom.
She stood up, stretching her arms behind her back. "Anything from Camala?"
The pause before Cortez spoke again told Shepard plenty. It's not… good news.
With a quick wave to Padok, Shepard started out the door. "Page Garrus and meet us in the war room."
#
"What do you mean I can't go down there?" Shepard asked, crossing her arms over her chest. The batarian on the QEC tilted his head to the right, and Shepard took a step closer. "I don't appreciate your insults."
The batarian straightened. "You heard what I said, Butcher of Aratoht," the man said, practically snarling. "We will not have you polluting our planet."
Shepard put her hands behind her back, opening her chest up a bit, a sign of humbling oneself. She only remembered a few of the batarian body language cues now, when back in N7 training she could list off dozens. "We've been in contact with Pazness' aide-"
"And he's been dealt with," the batarian said. "The only reason we've kept ran-Perah alive is out of Pazness' memory. He wanted the batarians to work on our galactic policies, but looked where that got him. Dead."
One of the things she had learned over the years was when to pick her battles. She had no chance at winning this one. "Fine. I'll stay on the ship, and my second will go down."
"We'll accept that," the batarian said, bringing up his omni-tool. "You have permission to orbit and to bring one shuttle down to the surface for six hours."
"How generous," Shepard said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Any other restrictions?"
The batarian tilted his head to the right again. Smug bastard, Shepard thought. The man held all the cards and he knew it. "Yes, actually. As I'm sure you can imagine in these times, security paramount. Therefore there can be no communication between your ground team and your ship."
"Absolutely not," Shepard responded at once. "I need to be able-"
"You are in no place to make demands, Butcher of Aratoht," the batarian said, the venom in his voice unsettling Shepard a bit. She refused to show it though. "Your shuttle can let you know it arrived safely, but we will not compromise Camala's safety for anyone."
Shepard folded her hands in front of her, acquiescing not just in words, but in her body language. "I accept your terms. Shepard out."
With far too much force, she pressed the interface, ending the transmission. That impotent feeling threatened her again. First Altahe, now Camala. When would it end? The thought of sending Garrus down to the surface and not being able to find out what was going on galled. But Shepard trusted Garrus, more than anyone. He would know the questions to ask and get the information needed.
"Shepard?" Garrus asked behind her.
"Looks like you're running this one, too," she said, hands on her hips, not turning towards him. "I had thought to bring Samara down with us. Apparently batarians have some respect for Justicars, but bring who you want."
"James," Garrus replied quickly. "I want some sort of Alliance presence down there with me."
She rubbed her eyes with the back of her palms. "Good thinking. How soon can you be ready?"
"Give us an hour and we'll be on the planet."
#
The Butcher of Aratoht.
Shepard slid her palms down her thighs and tried not to let the words overwhelm her. The first time she killed a person - a living, breathing person - it had taken some time before she wanted to pick up a gun again. And then when she started with explosives, all she had to do was build a bomb and other people did the dirty work for her.
Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conqueror, Shepard heard once. Choosing which path to walk down in the Crucible, she had effectively touched every being in the galaxy. Even so, it was the smaller decisions that weighed on her shoulders.
Why had Benning been more important than other colonies being attacked by Reapers? Why had she chased down artifacts and treasures when she could have been out there helping the evacuations? How many men and women joined Cerberus because Commander Shepard had been a part of it? Conrad couldn't have been the only one. So many little decisions she had made since stepping onto the SR-1 the first time.
Seemed like a million years had passed since she first saw the Normandy. Oh she had such plans back then. Shepard wanted to be Anderson's second for years, learning as much as she could before getting a ship of her own. But when had fate ever let her go through with her plans anyway? If Shepard had her way at 18, she would been a student at MIT and a structural engineer for a colony. And at 23, all she wanted was to join the Alliance Engineering Corps, but then a Thresher Maw changed everything.
Would she have been happier on either of those paths? Building and creating instead of killing and destroying? But who would have stopped Saren? Or the Collectors? The Reapers? And eventually Leviathan?
Perhaps she would have been happier for a time, working for a colony or the AEC, but the awful truth was she would also probably be dead.
The silence of the war room felt unnatural, almost unnerving, like a tomb. There was no comfort in this silence, not like when the silence was her choice. Strange how a quiet room could feel artificial to Shepard now while the silence she experienced without her implants seemed perfectly normal.
A light appeared on her console, the one signal the batarians allowed Cortez to send, letting her know they arrived safely on the planet. Shepard took a breath, knowing she had a long six hours ahead of her.
She turned off her implants, relaxing at once, and plowed into a stack of datapads. Time seemed to crawl as Shepard went over requisition requests, SPECTRE reports, the latest intelligence from the Alliance.
Only three hours after the shuttle landed, did Shepard realize that the signal light had activated. She stood, twisting her torso a few times, trying to shake off the feeling of disuse. Once she turned her implants back on, she stared at the datapads she hadn't finished. EDI would have done those reports during the war. Shepard's heart lurched, thinking about EDI and how much she came to depend on the AI.
And now she and the geth were gone, all thanks to an unfucking fair choice.
Shepard pushed the thoughts aside as she started her way to the cargo bay. Once in the elevator to the shuttle bay, she tried putting her hands in her pockets with no success. "Why do I even own these?" she asked out loud, before remembering she kept them because of a compliment Garrus paid her once. Well, compliments weren't worth the hassle of no pockets.
As the elevator doors opened, Shepard winced at the sound of the alarm, warning those in the shuttle bay to get behind a forcefield as the shuttle docked. Shepard nodded to Ng and Watson, two of her engineers, as they stepped next to her. The forcefield activated and Shepard waited as the shuttle bay doors opened.
There was something majestic about being so close to space. She had worried, once, that space wouldn't be the same after dying out in its vastness. But Shepard didn't have to worry; she still loved it. Loved the mysteries and especially loved the possibilities.
The shuttled glided into the Normandy effortlessly before docking. Shepard crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for the shuttle bay doors to close and the area to become pressurized again. And within minutes, Garrus and the others exited the shuttle. "Debriefing in an hour," she told them, trying to get some idea of how things went based on everyone's body language. Samara looked serene as always, while James fidgeted a bit. Garrus' mandible were drawn in tight to his face, which told her things either didn't go as planned or he had bad news. Or both.
"No need to wait, Shepard," Garrus said. "We barely broke a sweat down there."
Shepard tilted her head and the sorrow she heard in his subvocals. What had happened down there? "Alright," Shepard said. "Let's head to the war room now, then."
A few minutes later, the four of them were back in the war room. "Shit," Vega said, settling into one of the chairs. He slumped as he covered his eyes with a hand.
"Overview?" Shepard asked, looking at Garrus.
Scratching the back of his neck, Garrus said, "Same thing as the others. Everything went cold and dark and he didn't know he had killed Pazness. Apparently the two were actually really good friends." Garrus sighed, a deep one that seemed to use every cell in his body. "The batarians destroyed the artifact Ran'perah had with him, so that's good, I guess."
"It's disconcerting how easily Leviathan controls people," Samara said softly.
"The batarians give you guys any trouble down there?" Shepard asked.
Garrus shook his head. "Samara was a huge help."
"They respect the Justicars," Samara said. "Many species called Camala home before the war. But with so much of their population decimated, I do not believe their world will open up again soon."
"Would you?" James asked. "You saw that Reaper processing camp. I didn't see anything that bad on Earth."
Just the words processing camps set Shepard on edge, feeling a cool sort of dread glaze over her skin. Every planet the Reapers invaded had horror stories like the processing camps. Some camps turned living beings into Reapers, like cannibals or husks, while others continued the work of the Collectors, even after Shepard had destroyed them.
"Any luck on getting Ran'perah out of batarian custody?" Shepard asked. It was a long shot, but the Council hoped the batarians might be willing to let them take custody of the Ran-perah, since he had been working for an multi-species Alliance team.
The war room went silent, never a good sign.
"What happened?" Shepard asked, her voice quiet.
"Fucking wrong, man," James muttered.
"There were batarian officials in the room, listening to every word we said," Garrus said.
"To be fair," Samara said, her voice not quite the steady solace Shepard was used to, "the turians had someone listen in on Shepard's conversation with Corinthus and it would be naive to assume Aria did not have the prison cell where I spoke to T'Prim bugged as well."
Garrus flexed his mandibles, a move Shepard understood as him conceding Samara's point. "They killed him, Shepard," Garrus said, his subvocals betraying his pain. "The moment I said we had what we needed, they shot him in the head."
Shepard blinked a few times, curling her fists tightly. And they dared to call her a butcher. She wanted to be outraged on Ran-perah's behalf, on the Alliance's behalf, but she couldn't find it in herself to muster the emotion. This was a tragedy, certainly, but how could she find the energy to fight for one man when she needed to fight for millions? "We'll let the Council know," Shepard said after a moment, wondering if the person she used to be, the one who walked her original path would let this go so easily. "They can decide what they want to do about it."
"Understood," Garrus said quietly.
"They won't do shit," James said, pounding the arm of his chair with his fist. "So we just have to watch a man get his brains blown out and do nothing."
"It is not the Normandy's role to correct every wrong in the galaxy," Samara said. Shepard heard the pain in her voice and wondered how much it cost the Justicar to stand there, watch a man be killed and do nothing. "There is only so much one ship can do."
"Truer words, Samara, truer words," Shepard said. "So now we just have to decide if it's worth going to Thessia to talk to the other T'Prim or go back to earth to wait for the Council to decide what to do next."
And as if fate had everything tied up in a neat little bow, Joker's voice came over the intercom.
Shepard, I've got a priority communication from the Council.
"Thanks, Joker," Shepard said, shaking her head. She looked at Samara and James, who both simply nodded and headed towards the door. Once they left, Shepard added, "Patch it through."
Shepard? Antella here. I need you to head to Dagnes right away. There's a situation brewing.
"Regarding Leviathan?" Shepard asked, bringing up her omni-tool and searching for the planet; she hadn't heard of it before.
Regarding the krogan. Dagnes is a salarian breeding colony. A group of krogan attacked it, going specifically after the eggs. They managed to destroy some, too, before they were stopped.
"Send over everything you can, please," Shepard asked. She knew she should ask questions, try to get as much information as she could. But reading a report will give her just as much information.
The transmission was audio only, giving Shepard the chance to slouch in her chair. And here she thought things had been going so well with the krogan. Shepard felt her stomach turn and refused to believe this could be the start of bigger problems. Wrex wouldn't allow it. Bakara wouldn't allow it.
"Turians have anything to say about the incident?" Garrus asked.
Wrex has disavowed the attack, saying it was just some angry rebels. But I want you there, Shepard. If this gets ugly…
"The last thing we need is a situation between the salarians and turians," Shepard sighed, and a tendril of worry coiled around her thoughts: would the galaxy truly ever know peace? "We'll head there now."
That's what I hoped to hear, Shepard. The Council appreciates it. Antella, out.
Shepard ran her hand over her shaved head before Garrus took it in hers. She laughed, brittle and uncomfortable. While Garrus called her a peacemaker once, it was a mantle that never quite fit right on her shoulders. Never the less, she'd do whatever she could to help. "And here I thought we had gotten to the easy part of the mission."