EDI looked through Shepard's helmet camera. It rattled and shook as Shepard moved and dodged and fought, covered at times in thick, roiling grey smoke. Now, the feed had steadied, and EDI could see what the Commander saw - a disappearing Mantis gunship, the cloudy sky above the rolling hills of jungle, and the hungry, flickering flames at her back. It was strange to consider - that this was all a human saw. This one perspective, through the lens of one set of faulty, organic cameras.
"Shepard," EDI spoke through the helmet's ear piece, "the Normandy can intercept."
Shepard made no indication she'd heard.
His heatsink spent, Zaeed whirled on Shepard, eyes wild. The sizzling heatsink he ejected hissed as it net concrete. The barrel of his rifle pointed square at Shepard's chest.
In a moment, her own pistol was in hand, and the weapons of Vakarian and Tali'Zorah were also pointed at the mercenary. If Zaeed did shoot first, Shepard's squadmates would gun him down in an instant. EDI pinged Miranda in her office.
In her office, Lawson swore and muttered something about how you just couldn't trust mercenaries. The XO grabbed the pistol she kept under her desk and alerted the rest of the ground team in case she needed to intervene.
On the planet's surface, Zaeed's voice rose into a roar. "We had a fuckin' deal, Shepard! You just cost me twenty years of my life!"
"I cleaned up your mess," Shepard said coolly. Then she moved, quickly and purposefully in a flash of blue, one hand knocking Zaeed's rifle from his grip, and the other punching him square in the jaw. It wasn't the full force of a biotic punch, which could crush bone and tissue, but it was enough to cause Zaeed to stumble and fall as if drunk.
"Fuck!" he grabbed at his jaw.
Shepard stood over him with her pistol pointed at his head.
"Gonna shoot me, Shepard?" Zaeed sneered, "that's not your style."
"You pointed a gun at me," Shepard pointed out, "I've killed people for less."
"Then you would've just knocked my block off," he snapped.
Shepard's huffed laugh lacked any humour. "I suppose so. I guess that leaves us with something of an impasse."
"You fucked me over, Shepard," Zaeed grit out.
"You screwed this mission," Shepard said pitilessly, "you changed the parameters. You got angry and you got stupid. I don't need a man like that on my ship. Not on this mission. Beyond that Relay, it's not gonna cut it to watch your own back. You act like this there - we're all fucking dead, and I'd do us both a favour by putting a bullet in your skull right now."
"Fine," Zaeed's jaw clenched, skin stretching over old scars. Organics wore their history on their skins. There was nothing on the Normandy's sleek hull to note where EDI had been, or what she had done. "You've got a point. I'm not gonna pretend like I want to spent my retirement in a galaxy with those bugs running around anyway."
Shepard put her pistol back into its holster and extended Massani a hand. After a moment's hesitation he took it, and she heaved him to his feet.
"Ever point a gun at me again," she said pleasantly, "and I'll kill you." Vakarian and Zorah were watching the mercenary carefully, hands near weapons. The quarian made a soft noise of dissent, clearly in favour of killing the mercenary now.
"Yeah, yeah."
"EDI?"
"Yes, Shepard?"
"Take out that gunship for me, would you?"
Joker already had the Normandy angled in low orbit for an intercept. The GARDIAN laser sliced cleanly through the escaping Blue Suns gunship's tail. It went into a descending spiral that ended with an explosion as the gunship hit the jungle trees. EDI watched through one of the Normandy's long range cameras at the resulting flower of debris and fire.
"Target down," she reported to Shepard.
From Shepard's helmet cam the explosion wasn't visible - but the distant slash of red light descending from orbit was.
"Thank you, EDI." Shepard looked over at Zaeed who was gaping at her. "C'mon. We'll take the shuttle and make sure he's dead. You might be lucky and get to shoot him."
Considering the debris field spread across several hundred square metres of jungle, EDI didn't think that was likely. She pinged Miranda to inform her that the situation was resolved. In the comm room the QEC hummed - the Normandy had received a long distance request for a video call.
"Commander, when you return to the Normandy, the Illusive Man wishes to speak with you," EDI told her.
Shepard sighed, the exhaled breath whistling inside her sealed helmet, "Of course he wants to talk to me now."
The weeks since the incident with Chance Toombs had been spent refitting the ship and in training exercises, run by Shepard relentlessly despite her own injury that forbade her participation. Although the commander had remained calm and collected in front of the crew, EDI had noted an increase in behaviours associated with stress, such as alcohol consumption with Ms Goto and a reduction in sleep.
This mission had attracted mentions of relief from the ground team members - and fierce competition to be the ones who accompanied Shepard and Massani.
"He may have further leads for you to investigate."
"Anything would be great right now," Shepard muttered darkly, "I feel like a hamster on a wheel."
With an idle query to her databanks, EDI located an image of 'a hamster on a wheel' - a small, round, furry animal similar to 'Arancino', the small rodent Shepard kept in her cabin.
"Talking to yourself?" Tali'Zorah asked teasingly, raising a three fingered hand as the shuttle eased towards them, the thrusters throwing up dust and leaves.
"Nah. EDI."
"Ugh," the quarian's gaze was somehow baleful through the visor when it met Shepard's helmet cam, "do you really need to let that thing spy on us?"
"It's not spying if I invite her," Shepard said mildly, "and she did help us with directing us through the on fire fuel refinery."
Tali was unmoved. "You shouldn't trust any AI, let alone one built by Cerberus."
She stepped onto the shuttle before Shepard could reply.
"Well," Shepard said, her shrug causing the helmet cam to shake, "thanks for saving our bacon today, EDI."
EDI didn't need Shepard's gratitude. She had done as she was programmed to do.
"You're welcome, Shepard."
"You should let me confine him to quarters, at least," Miranda argued as she lengthened her stride to keep up with Shepard. The Commander hadn't changed out of her armour yet - the smell of smoke drifted off her, cutting through the filtered ship air.
Shepard glanced over at her. "Unnecessary. Massani and I have an understanding."
"He pointed a gun at you!"
"A little threatened mutiny keeps me on my toes," Shepard said lightly. At Miranda's disgusted glance, she shrugged a little. "Look, if I didn't think he'd come around, I'd be throwing him off the ship myself. If you can't trust him, trust me."
Miranda did, which was something that had seemed inconceivable just months prior. "If he tries to shoot you in the mess, I'm going to say 'I told you so'. And then I'm going to airlock him."
"Roger that," Shepard replied agreeably. They stepped into the elevator together, the door humming shut behind them, and Shepard's expression sharpened. "Do you know what the Illusive Man wants?"
Shepard's patience had noticeably waned with the lack of intel on their objectives. They had a state of the art ship and a deadly ground team - one that mostly worked together, but no way through the Omega 4 Relay. Shepard had run them hard in the sims, hard enough that some of the crews' tempers were starting to fray just like their commander's.
"I don't," Miranda said honestly. The Illusive Man had always kept his cards close to his chest. It was part of why he'd succeeded, even thrived, when so much of the galaxy was out for his blood.
"I think he likes keeping me in suspense," Shepard complained. The elevator doors split open and they stepped out. Hawthorne had the deck, standing on the captain's podium and frowning down at the various readouts - the Commander called out to him. "How're we doing, Hawthorne?"
"We're sitting in geosynchronous orbit, ma'am, running silent. There's a lot of activity from the Blue Suns in system, but we're undetected. EDI has picked up some of their radio chatter - they're confused about who is in charge right now and whether to go after 'whoever iced Santiago'."
"Take us out of orbit and burn for the system's edge - I want us making the FTL jump to the Aquila system as soon as possible. Let's take advantage of the confusion and get out of here before they get themselves unfucked."
"Aye aye ma'am," Hawthorne agreed.
"Let me know immediately if any Blue Suns vessels comes within ten thousand kilometres of us, okay?"
"Will do."
"Or if any of them start suspecting the Normandy's involvement," Miranda added.
"Of course, Operative Lawson."
They passed through the armoury, where Jacob was cleaning a handgun - offering them a small wave, and into the comm room.
"Patch us through, EDI," Miranda instructed, and familiar bands of light washed over the pair of them.
As usual, the Illusive Man was smoking, the slow-burning star at his back. It filled the dark comm room with dim, orange light.
"Commander Shepard, Operative Lawson."
"Sir," Miranda murmured. Shepard just crossed her arms.
"You're done with your sideshow on Zorya?"
Annoyance flashed across Shepard's face. "Vido Santiago is dead, yes."
"It'll be interesting to see who fills that particular power vacuum. Some of the alternatives are even less palatable than he was."
"And yet," Shepard said acidicly, "you promised Zaeed Massani I'd help kill him."
The Illusive Man breathed out a curling cloud of smoke, "You'll be pleased to know we've had something of a breakthrough. An Alliance scientific team recently determined the 'great rift' on the planet of Klendagon is actually an impact from a truly massive mass accelerator weapons. A very old mass accelerator cannon. I tasked a cell with locating the weapon or its target - they found both. The weapon was defunct and the Alliance was already looking for it, but we were able to use it to plot the trajectory of its intended target.
"It was a derelict Reaper, Shepard, damaged and caught in the gravity well of a brown dwarf, Mnemosyne."
"We can get a copy of the IFF we need from it," Shepard's expression lit up.
"Exactly."
"Are we certain this Reaper is...dead?" Miranda asked.
"It hasn't moved since mammals took their first steps on Earth," the Illusive Man replied, "but we lost contact with the Cerberus cell I sent to investigate it. I wouldn't exactly call a Reaper corpse 'safe'. Expect danger."
Shepard nodded shortly. "We'll go immediately."
"Good. I'll send through the coordinate and what communications we did receive from Doctor Chandana's team. Locate and retrieve the IFF, then leave. We can't risk you on a search and rescue mission, not when we don't know the long term effects of staying on a Reaper."
Miranda expected anger from Shepard at that - being dictated to on her mission objectives and the refusal to look for operatives he'd sent into danger.
Instead the commander just nodded. " Send it."
"Thank you, Commander. If you'll give Operative Lawson and me a moment?"
Shepard's dark brown eyes narrowed, darting in between Miranda and the Illusive Man. "Fine."
When the door closed behind the Commander, the Illusive Man's electric blue eyes fixed back on her. "Operative Lawson, I want your assessment on Shepard's mental state."
"Sir, I'm no psychologist-"
"Shepard doesn't trust Chambers," he said flatly, "she's cordial to her, but hasn't said anything of more importance than how she likes her coffee. And Operative Taylor has become...reticent in sharing his own observations."
Oh Jacob. He had the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
The Illusive Man was frowning. He was...concerned? About the mission, about Shepard? Or worse, about Jacob or even the entire crew's loyalties?
"Shepard was...upset by the incident with Chance Toombs," Miranda said carefully, "but in the past few weeks she appears to have put it behind her. I haven't noted any differences in how she treats me or other Cerberus crewmembers."
"You believe she's unaffected?" he raised an eyebrow.
"Unaffected is the wrong word," Miranda replied. "She seems to me to be focusing on the mission to the exclusion of everything else."
"You think she's dedicated to the mission?"
"Yes," Miranda nodded firmly, "her recent frustration has no doubt been at least partially fueled by Toombs' death, but she's concentrated it on training the crew. I believe she'll see this through, sir."
He was silent for a few, long moments, smoke drifting lazily in front of his face. "Good. Too much is riding on this, Lawson."
"I know, sir." Millions of lives.
"You seem to have changed your opinion of Shepard."
It was an innocuous statement but it made Miranda's spine prickle. "You were right in your assessment of her. We don't see to eye to eye on all matters, but we have established a working relationship."
"Be cautious," his gaze was steady, piercing, "Shepard is more cunning than you might give her credit for, and she has a very strong personality."
Miranda lifted her chin, "I'm not one to get swept up in cults of personality."
"No, you're not. Keep an eye on her, and on Taylor." He stubbed out his cigarette.
"Yessir."
"That is all."
"Sir, was Cerberus aware of Chance Toombs' activities?" she couldn't help the question. It had been sitting at the back of her mind.
"He was under observation," the Illusive Man conceded.
"The Lazarus cell should've been informed of such a threat," Miranda frowned.
"Being aware of Toombs' antagonism would've distracted Shepard," he dismissed, "and if we'd had to take action, she would've responded poorly had she known."
"You could've told me," she objected, "we were taken completely by surprise."
"A security lapse on your behalf," he responded coolly, "I needed to keep our options open in terms of how we dealt with him. Regardless, you have my apologies, Operative Lawson."
"Thank you, sir."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, thank you. I'll go prepare for the Mnemosyne mission."
"Very good, Ms Lawson."
The QEC feed cut out and left her alone in the dim comms room.
"This is going to be rough," Joker warned, shifting in his seat. Shepard crossed her arms, Miranda hovering at her shoulder. He wasn't sure he particularly liked that they were in cahoots now. Miranda was a stickler about reports. "The Normandy isn't meant to operate in the atmosphere of a star."
"Failed star, technically," Shepard said.
"Hypersonic winds, Commander," he said dourly, "radiation, extreme heat."
Shepard's expression became serious, "Can you fly through it?"
"Over the short distance to reach the Reaper's mass effect field? Yes."
"It has raised shields?" Miranda sounded worried. So she should be. It was a whole goddamned Reaper and they were about to cozy up to it.
"It is a large mass effect field preventing it from falling into Mnemosyne," EDI responded, her avatar blinking, "the Reaper appears to have some last functional self-protective mechanisms, but the power signatures I do detect are small and localised. They are in no way comparable to the reading the Alliance recorded of Sovereign. In addition, there are multiple detected hull breaches that have not been repaired."
Shepard rubbed her hands together, a pensive expression crossing her face. "Could it have internal protective - mechanisms or whatever?"
"That is a possibility, and would account for the disappearance of the other Cerberus cell."
"Great. And close quarters..." Shepard trailed off, thoughtful. "Miranda, I'm thinking we split the ground team into two - an assault team and a team to protect the ship, and to act as a reserve if needed."
"Logical."
"I'd like you to lead the reserve team."
Miranda didn't like that. "Commander-"
"We're walking in blind to a Reaper, Miranda. Putting both senior officers in the assault team would be foolish."
The Cerberus agent nodded grudgingly. "Just don't come back indoctrinated."
"No promises," Shepard's joking if grim tone fell flat in the tense cockpit.
"Five minutes," Joker announced as he set the Normandy's nose on a collision course with the brown dwarf's atmosphere.
"EDI, shut down lighting on deck one and transfer excess power to kinetic barriers and inertia dampeners," Shepard ordered.
"Yes Commander. Which system should I priorities?"
"Whatever Tali thinks is more important."
"Here we go," he said, concentrating. He was in the zone now, focused only on his ship. The winds of Mnemosyne stirred the atmosphere into whorls of brown, orange and red. In the moments before the Normandy dipped into the storm, alarms popped up in front of Joker, the cockpit filling with the protesting shriek. The sensors saying the fuck you doing pilot.
The entire ship shuddered when the winds caught her, inertia dampeners or not. She started to shake like she was in the grasp of a particularly enthusiastic toddler, and Shepard grabbed onto the bulkhead next to her for support. The Normandy threatened to jerk or twist right off course - with steady, gentle hands he kept her on course.
"Can you adjust number three -" he looked to his left, but the seat beside him was empty. There was no one sitting next to him in an Alliance uniform, just the still blue hologram of the AI. He grit his teeth and started again. "EDI, I need you to adjust the power levels to each thruster to compensate."
"Yes, Mr Moreau."
The ride smoothed out - somewhat - each thruster flaring or lessening with each unpredictable gust of wind, quicker than any human could've reacted.
"Alert," EDI said suddenly, sounding almost like the old Bitchin' Betty on the SR1, "second vessel detected docked with the Reaper."
"The Cerberus ship?" Shepard asked.
"Negative. Another ship. Its hull profile and heat signature fit that of a geth corvette."
"Geth?" Shepard's eyebrows shot up, "you're sure?"
"Yes."
"Well," Miranda said, "that makes things somewhat more complex."
"I'm taking Tali and Reegar with me then," Shepard replied, "if we're lucky this Reaper really is dead and the geth killed the scientists."
"If that's good luck..." Joker tugged at his hat.
"Scrapping geth is something I'm experienced in," Shepard shrugged, "sue me."
The buffeting winds abruptly cut out and the Normandy yawed for a split second before EDI adjusted to the sudden smooth sailing.
"What happened?" Miranda demanded.
"We just passed inside the Reaper's mass effect field," Joker glanced over at Shepard, "eye of the storm, right?"
The haze shifted and the Reaper loomed, a dark shadow against a backdrop of orange. It filled the viewports, dwarfing the Normandy. It floated on its back, sections of long sloughed-off hull drifting sedately around it. The pose reminded him a little of the moment after the Fifth Fleet had knocked Sovereign off its perch.
"Bloody hell," Miranda breathed.
Joker smiled grimly at her. "Yeah, you never forget your first time."
Shepard called back to the CIC. "Mr Hawthorne, bring us to boarding stations."
The familiar alarm sounded. "Hands to boarding stations, hands to boarding stations, hands to boarding station. Set material condition two throughout the ship."
"We should get to the briefing room," Miranda told Shepard.
"Agreed. Joker, stand off until I give the order for final approach."
"Roger that," he was all too happy with that.
"If that thing so much as twitches a tentacle..."
"I'll get us outta here before you can say 'oh god, it's not dead'," Joker promised.
"Good man."
Codex:
Letter of Reprimand - Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau 2184:
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
63rd SCOUT FLOTILLA, FIFTH FLEET
ARCTURUS STATION NAVAL BASE
MEMORANDUM FOR F-LT JEFFREY MOREAU 03/02/2184
FROM: 63rd Scout Flotilla Command
SUBJECT: Letter of Reprimand
1. Investigation into your actions during the loss of the SSV NORMANDY SR-1 has disclosed that you refused to follow the lawful orders of your commanding officer. You refused a direct order to evacuate the vessel and failed to follow the appropriate standing order on abandoning ship. Your conduct violated Article 7 (Willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer) and Article 9 (Failure to obey order or regulation) of the Systems Alliance Defence Force Uniform Code of Military Justice.
2. You are hereby reprimanded. Your failure to follow the lawful orders of which you were aware resulted in your fellow crewmates attempting a rescue effort to prevent your injury or death - a rescue effort that would not have been otherwise necessary. This led to the death of your commanding officer, Commander Emilia Shepard. Your conduct showed a lack of concern for your shipmates and disrespect for the chain of command. As a commissioned officer you are expected to lead by example. You are hereby advised that the Flying Evaluation Board you appeared before on January 28th has recommended that you be suspended from flight status, and this recommendation has been accepted by Fifth Fleet Aviation Command, effective immediately. Your conduct is unacceptable and any future misconduct may result in more severe action.
3. You will acknowledge receipt of this letter immediately by signing the acknowledgment below. Within three duty days from the date you received this letter, you will submit any comments in extenuation, mitigation, or rebuttal, together with any supporting documents you wish to be considered in regards to this letter. Any comments or documents you wish to be considered will become part of your record.
Rear Admiral Dimitri Mikhailovich, SAN
Commanding Officer, 63rd Scout Flotilla
