Disclaimer: I do not own either Star Wars or Mass Effect. They're just two of my favorite franchises and I wanted to play in the sandbox.

Chapter Twenty Five: Prelude to a Mission

Five weapons. Five old friends. They kept her alive as much as her team had. She knew them so well, she could dismantle and reassemble them in her sleep. Trusted, reliable, and steadfast. Where people failed her, betrayed her, her weapons didn't. Her life lay within their metal and eezo construction. She hadn't go so far as naming them the way Zaeed had, but thought had crossed her mind on occasion.

Shepard sat in the empty armory at the weapons bench. Spread around the surface were the components of her maintenance kit. Oil, carbon remover, towels, barrel rods, spare ammunition blocks, charge packs, and a polishing cloth were laid out in then precise order she needed them. As a creature of habit, she cleaned in ascending order by size. On the bench to her right lay her M-11 Suppressor and M-25 Hornet, cleaned and ready. The M-22 Eviscerator was disassembled before her. To her left her M-96 Mattock and Black Widow waited patiently for their turn under her caring hands.

Cleaning her weapons had become a ritual before a significant mission. In truth, she found the process calming and therapeutic. It gave her time to process the mission and the objective. Before Ilos, the Collector Base, and retaking Earth, she spent time alone with her kit. The major difference was those missions were the endgame, the final push. The culmination of everything they had been working toward.

Her mind briefly slipped to Thane's visit to her cabin before they went through the Omega Relay. Although her heart undoubtedly belonged to Rex, over the course of the prior two weeks, she found herself missing the stoic Drell's quiet wisdom and calming presence. Above all else, he had been a friend and confidante. Someone of greater experience that helped her see beyond the mission. That was the perspective she so dearly missed.

Her turn as a bodyguard had been without incident, but that wasn't to say it was boring. In fact it had been quite eye-opening. As she silently listened and observed from the background of a dozen closed door meetings, she realized the amount of unrest brewing within the Republic Senate itself and the rather reasonable reason systems chose to remaining neutral. She certainly appreciated what Padmé and Bail were trying to accomplish, but they didn't seem to secure the kind of support they were hoping for. Most refused to commit while the Supreme Chancellor still held his post.

Early into the trip, Shepard noticed a curious change of behavior in Padmé. The usually energetic young politician was chronically fatigued, needing meetings to begin later in the morning and requesting the opportunity to rest in the in the middle of the day. During the requisite diplomatic dinners that took place everyday, she seemed to have little appetite, pushing the food around on her plate. Likewise, she didn't consume the wine or cocktail she was given. Using it as a prop, she carried it, brought the glass to her lips, but the volume of liquid never seemed to change.

She was, however constantly drinking water with the watchful Bail subtly refilling her glass when it got low. In isolation, the clues meant little and if not for her constant presence around the Senator on the trip, they likely would have gone unnoticed. However, when viewed together, Shepard was faced with only one conclusion.

Padmé was pregnant.

Shepard of course said nothing, and merely tucked the piece of information into her helmet. She wondered if Anakin knew yet. It seemed plausible it was the reason he assigned her to act as personal security, but at the same time her gut felt otherwise. Given his hyper-protective nature, it seems unlikely he would have allowed her to go, to whatever extent he could actually restrict her actions as a senator.

Thst was another concern percolated in Shepard's gut. Anakin. In their last private conversation, she thought she had reached him. Maybe even been a tempering voice amidst the endless extremes of his reality. But between her departure and return to Coruscant, she felt a wall constructed between them that wasn't there before. She certainly understood the necessity of such defenses, but those constructed by the young Jedi felt like the were built from lies and manipulation.

When she broached the subject of revealing the truth to the Council, his voice was guarded and distant. There was a hardness that hadn't been there before in telling her he would make up his own mind. She let the subject drop, knowing all too well that her persistence would only make things worse. In asking Rex of Skywalker's recent demeanor, he dismissed it as pressure for the upcoming campaign. Though even he sounded unconvinced.

The sounds of reassembling the shotgun carried through the empty room. She wished the news of Padmé's pregnancy had been the the only surprise during the mission. Shepard sat back from the beach to stretched her arms, roll her shoulders, and cracked her neck. The message she received from Kaidan and been one she was anticipating, but the longer the Normandy's mission in the Outer Rim lasted, she began to wonder if they'd be there until the war ended. Alas, it seemed not.

Halfway through her two week mission, she received an encrypted message from Alenko. Before parting ways, they agreed he would provide her full report on the implants they discovered in the clones and their suspected function as validation for her continued service to the Republic and the Normandy's support. Unfortunately, after much deliberation, the Citadel Council canceled his mission to investigate Reaper tech in the Outer Rim. She knew he argued all he could and that they all resented the recall, but the nature of politics being what they were, there was nothing to do.

Shortly thereafter, she received a message from Council Tevos. The Asari expressed the Council's gratitude at her work and their continued support of her protecting their sector's interests in the Republic. But, without clear findings of additional Reaper tech and the experiments on the Krogan an apparent dead end, they couldn't justify the expense and risk of keeping the Normandy beyond their borders. She closed the brief message by wishing Shepard well and looked forward to her return at the conclusion of contract.

She may not have been a Spectre for very long, but Shepard knew a damage plan when she saw one. With all they had stumbled into, the Council was running scared. Shutter the windows, brace the doors, and hope they're ready for whatever comes next. It was more or less their response to the Reapers. At least they seemed to take her seriously this time.

So, she was alone. No, not entirely alone. She was grateful Vod had stayed, though Skywalker had denied her requests for him to accompany her in the field for their next mission. He cited a concer for Vod's safety. The troopers were not accustomed to combat ready droids fighting on their side and her Geth companion maybe viewed with suspicion or get hit with friendly fire by accident. Although his rationale was logical, it left her with an uneasy feeling.

Setting the cleaned and assembled Eviscerator aside, she moved on to the Mattock. Perhaps it was just the same old pre-mission jitters she always felt coupled with exhaustion. In three days since returning from the senatorial tour, the nightmares which had abated, returned with aggressive fervor. She kept finding herself in the burned out forest, but she no longer chased the lost boy. Instead she was surrounded the haunting figures of those she couldn't save until a rolling, inky shadow consumed them. Within the darkness, she felt a looming, disembodied evil circling around her.

Try as she might, she struggled to wake from the dreams. Instead she was left vulnerable and alone with heavy limbs and a strangled voice. Her body was impotent and useless in herown defense. The rolling shadow encroached and seeped into her, she heard whispers that drew on her deepest fears about failing and losing the people she loved. As before, when she was finally released from the mental terror, her body was taxed and drained but Rex slept undisturbed at her side.

She knew the nightmares were meant to be a distraction. Something to dull her mind and body. More and more as she lived with the shadows and dark figure twisting her dreams, she was sure Palpatine was involved, if not responsible for it. Not that she had any proof. It was purely a feeling in her gut.

But if that was true, how could she see it and not the Jedi? For all their wisdom and sight, did they not see the connections or were they ignoring them? And the mystery of Order 66 still plagued her. Whomever requisitioned the Grand Army of the Republic had something very specific in mind when those damn implants were placed in the head of every last trooper. A chill set into her bones at the reality million or more soldiers, good men, walking around with trip wires pre-installed in their minds. Among them was the man she loved.

A deep yawn pulled in her chest as she set the Mattock aside. The recent weeks were catching up with her. As she cleaned her rifle, Shepard mentally set the prior events aside. The hidden pregnancy, the nightmares, and every unanswered question wouldn't matter the next day. It was time to focus on the next mission: Ringo Vinda.