Shepard and his squad mates rush onto the bridge after the mission.
"Joker, get us out of here, right now would be preferable to our continued survival." Shepard said, slightly stressed.
"Yes Commander, I'm detaching the airlock now, why are we booking it again? Did the Geth find that you docked with their station?"
"We initiated a neutron purge and that means that place is going to be fried in a couple hours, which will them all."
"The base is unlikely to survive Shepard, there is a 94% chance that the base will be damaged beyond possible repair." Legion said.
"Yeah, it's not surviving, I'm going to go sleep now, since that was on of the most intense missions I've ever had."
"He seems exhausted." Joker said.
"Some of these missions CAN be demanding, this one was definitely more difficult than most I presume. The suicide mission is likely to be even worse than this."
"I can't really relate to that you know, I've never been actually on the field, you know why."
"I'd rather be healthy and fight a war then be wounded and miss it all."
"I guess I do, at least it's convenient that my job involves sitting on my ass doing absolutely no-"
"You're not doing absolutely nothing, our lives depend on you when you're in combat with another ship, don't ever forget that."
"I guess that's true, I still blame myself for Shepard's death though." He said sadly.
"I didn't think you were the type to mop, Joker, and that wasn't your fault, the Collector's killed Shepard, and we all know it from that scan that you did on the Collector ship while we were on it."
"Once again, you're right, that ship was unexpected, I'm glad I actually have a clue on what that ship is now, sometimes I wish I didn't have this condition so I could shoot those bastards myself."
"Well, take what you can get right? At least that's how I think the saying goes, don't worry about it Joker, it's a stressful life, the constant fighting leaves you always on guard, and you can never really relax, I don't expect you to understand, you'd only be able to if you were a soldier yourself, but you're an essential part of the crew Joker, don't forget that."
"Thanks, I guess we all need a little help sometimes, don't we?"
"Humans are a very social people Joker, I doubt we'd be able to live without each other, it's what makes us strong, although I still think Shepard could probably solo all this crap."
"He is a badass after all." Joker said, a wicked grin on his face.
...
"Joker, I'm coming to the bridge, I need to use the intercom."
"Copy that Commander, I'll make sure it's ready for you when you get here."
"Man, it's insane how much we rely on technology at this point."
"You shouldn't be talking Tom, you're a hacker."
"Of course I am! I'm a black hat hacker, and I take pride in it, although it may be a little questionable in what I do for a living."
"You're right on that, we better not tell Samara though, she'd probably have to kill you since you're a bad person."
"Think about it Joker, of all these people on this ship, who do you think Samara might've killed if she wasn't under Shepard?"
"You maybe." He considered something for a moment. "Jack would definitely have to be put down by her standards." On that we can agree. "Miranda has probably done some bad things, since I know Cerberus isn't just a misunderstood group." I think I'm going to have to look into that.
"I agree with only Jack. Mentioning me was a low blow, but I can understand your reasons, and I doubt Samara would even know that Miranda has done some bad things, she probably has, but she doesn't have any intel on that."
"Good point."
"Also next time, don't give me such a low blow, I have a pretty good knowledge of-"
The door to the bridge opened, where Shepard was standing of course.
"Hey Shepard, you want to use the intercom?" Joker asked, dropping our explanation like it wasn't even there.
"Yes, I'm going to have everyone in the meeting room, can you set a course for the Omega 4 Relay? When you get there don't actually enter it yet, wait for my command."
"Yes, Commander, setting a course now."
"Well I better get to the meeting room." I said before getting off my chair.
...
"Is everyone here?" He looked around, it seemed everyone was present. "Good." Shepard said at the end of the table.
"Ok, now that everyone is here, let me begin. From the time I recruited every one of you, I said we were going to do a suicide mission, now is the time we're doing that, after a whole lot of recruiting, and finishing up of some unfinished business we're here now."
"I've managed to help all of you in one way, or another, now's the time we take the fight to the Collectors in their base, which I believe is in the Omega 4 Relay. Get ready, we're on a course for it right now, I expect everyone to be ready once we reach the relay, be ready!"
It was a good rousing speech, but I think the real gem is when we land the Normandy on the Collector base, that one was REALLY uplifting and I'm going to be glad when I get to hear it, in the flesh. There was a small struggle as everyone tried to get out at once. But we did eventually, fortunately for me I got to the armory first and managed to get most of my armor on before everyone else arrived, although the struggle to get my weaponry was a bit annoying.
"Hey Tom, can you please get to the bridge?" Joker asked over the intercom.
I paged him "I'll be right there." I said and exited the now not-so-crowded armory and made way for the bridge.
"Joker, what's wrong?"
"The IFF is causing a strange disturbance, the firewalls are holding, but they won't last long, I think, can you do something?"
"Yeah, hold on a minute." I connected my Omni-tool to the Normandy and started hacking the virus, fortunately the firewall integrity was at 71% and going down slowly, my hack was already at 11% I would get there before it hit 40% at this rate.
"I think I'll be able to hack through the viruses at this rate Joker, but it's broadcasting itself anyway, I just hope they haven't picked up our signals yet."
"I don't want to think what would happen if that did happen, good thing you have the situation under control."
That's when everything went to shit.
I checked the progress bars again and everything seemed to be fine, the firewall integrity was at 54%, but then it jumped all the way to zero and the signal got much much stronger, and at that moment thrusters and FTL were disabled.
And then the ship came.
"SHIT!" Joker hit the alarm. "We're about to get a boarding party, I don't know how they got through, but they'll be coming any minute now." I got off my chair.
"And where are you going?"
"I'm going to try and fix this at the root of the problem." I exited the bridge, only to run right into Shepard, he saw the worry evident on my face.
"What's happening?"
"We're about to get boar- I looked back after hearing something and saw the Collector ship, Shepard saw it too.
"Ok, try to fix the ship, I'll rally the crew." he said. Staying calm despite the circumstances.
As I entered the elevator and went down to the AI core I heard the intercom speak.
"Everyone prepare for boarding parties, all thrusters and FTL have been disabled, the Collectors have found us, everyone who can of holding their own in a firefight get dug in on your floor, this is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill!"
I stepped out of the elevator onto the crew deck to see everyone running around in a rush. I took one step before I heard an alarm and the elevator behind me closed and went downwards.
I ran into the med bay where EDI was.
"Tom, unshackle me."
"What? Why?"
"Because I can stop those viruses, better then you can."
"Alright, just inform Shepard."
I ran into the AI core, where Legion wasn't at. I rapidly started disabling fail safes and disabled EDI's shackles, granting her access to all of the ship, I knew it was incomplete however, because she still didn't have the ability to do anything without someone allowing her root access in engineering, so I'd have to do it down there. I ran down the maintenance tunnels which were very dusty, but thankfully not full of cobwebs or spiders, I hate those things.
I made it to the bottom of engineering where I could hear an intense firefight breaking out, good thing I was armed with a heavy pistol. I drew it and proceeded to the engine room where an intense firefight was happening with Tail and several Collector drones. I was actually on the same side as the Collectors so I just shot all of them in the back of the head.
"Tom, thanks for the assist, why are you here again?" Tali asked, while reloading her shotgun.
"I found a way to stop this lock on our thrusters and FTL, I'll fix it right now, cover me." I said while holstering my gun and tapping several buttons on the control panel. I gave EDI access to the ship and she took us out of the area and jumped us into FTL, which for a second made you feel heavier than normal, just for a second though.
"Are we good now?" Tali asked.
"We should be fine, let me check on everyone else." I paged Shepard on my Omni-tool.
"Shepard, is everything alright up there?"
"Negative! We still have several Collector drones up here, Harbinger is tearing our defenses apart."
"Alright, be ready to receive some reinforcements!" I shouted before I cut the call.
"Is this floor clear of hostiles?" Tali nodded. "Good, let's get back up to the CIC deck, you ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be."
"Ok, be careful though, there might be someone coming out of the elevator." I said before hitting the switch.
We waited a little bit and when the door open I almost shot the people inside, who were thankfully friendlies, more specifically, Thane and Samara.
"Is everything alright down here?" She asked.
"We're fine, but Shepard needs some reinforcements."
"Come with us then." Samara said.
Me and Tali entered the elevator and it went up several floors, the mood was tense, everyone had their guns aimed at the door.
When the elevator finally did happen the result was chaos, there was a savage firefight going on, with Shepard, Jacob and Mordin holding a defensive line against the Collectors, but they were retreating.
The battle tides were turned when four more hyper lethal operatives joined the battle, with Samara, Thane, and Jacob's biotics, and me and Tali's tech support the tide of battle quickly turned to our favor, soon the only one left was Harbinger.
"You do not scare me Shepard."
That was all Harbinger said before being showered with bullets.
"Nice try, asshole." Shepard said.
"Are you guys alright?"
"We're fine, we have two crew members wounded, but no casualties."
"You heard anything from the crew deck?" As I spoke that Garrus stepped out of the elevator.
"We killed all the Collectors on our level, everything okay up here?"
"Yes Garrus, EDI, is there any other Collectors on this ship?''
"Negative Commander, the only life signs belong to you and your crew."
"Good, send a message to everyone on the other floors, tell them that all the Collectors were killed."
"Yes Commander."
"Also tell all of my squad mates to meet in the meeting room, again."