Chapter 4

When they jumped into the Utopia System, the SR-2 immediately adjusted its heading to Asphodel (the moon of Zion, the third planet in the system). Vectoring themselves to the moon's dark side, they soon found themselves staring down five ships from the Alliance Navy's Third Fleet. He counted a cruiser, three frigates and an ITDS (Interstellar Transport Dock Ship – effectively a troop transport that could deploy any embarked combatants through the use of shuttles and other designated landing craft). He presumed the marines were on the latter.

"Lift stealth protocol," he instructed to the command deck's Nav-Q (the Navigator Quartermaster, who was engineering's liaison to the CIC, and kept an official log of their heading and velocity at all times).

"Aye, sir," the Nav-Q replied before relaying his orders to both the cockpit and engineering.

The ambient hum of the SR-2's Tantalus Drive grew quieter, as the heat sinks expelled the thermal build-up of their previous 'silent' travels. Less than ten seconds later, all five Alliance ships adjusted their headings to face the Normandy, but otherwise remained stationary relative to the SR-2's position. Subconsciously, Shepard flexed the fingers on his right hand, which, as with the rest of his body, was clad in his signature N7 armour. They would be heading straight for Terra Nova after they received the marines, doing the briefing while in FTL transit, which left little room for prep-time.

"Incoming transmission, sir," called out the Comm-O (Communications Officer).

"Receive and transmit back," Shepard said.

"Unidentified vessel, unidentified vessel, this is the SSV Gwangmyeong," came the voice of another man – presumably the Captain of the cruiser, or the Rear Admiral in charge of the five-ship Task Unit (if such a Rear Admiral had been assigned). "You have entered a sector of monitored Alliance space. Identify yourself, over."

"SSV Gwangmyeong, this is the Normandy SR-2," Shepard replied, his words being picked up by a series of miniscule microphones installed in the Galaxy Map's guardrail. "Be advised for monitor verification: Sierra-Hotel-2-Bravo-1-2, over."

The code he'd been instructed to give was the abbreviation of Admiral Hackett's initials (S.H.), followed by the exact formation of the marines he'd be paired up with (2nd Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion of the 2nd Marine Force Reconnaissance Regiment). There was a short pause as whoever was on the other end processed and double-checked the authenticity of his response.

"Normandy SR-2, SSV Gwangmeong, roger that. Adjust heading to achieve G-Sync with Asphodel at point one-five Kilos with restriction of one-zero Sierras, out."

"SSV Gwangmeong, Normandy SR-2, solid copy, out," Shepard acknowledged, before signalling the Comm-O to stop transmitting, then telling the Nav-Q, "relay our new heading."

"Aye, sir."

The Alliance had told Shepard to achieve a G-Sync (geosynchronous orbit) with the moon, which meant the SR-2 would be matching the moon's rotation at a fixed point above its equator. It would hold that orbit at 15 Kilos (15,000km) and move with a velocity of no more than 10 Sierras (10,000km/h – the use of Sierras was to represent sub-FTL velocities in the thousands of kilometres per hour) towards the moon.

In short, they were being told to move at a snail's pace with no wiggle room once they arrived at their destination. Such restrictive parameters highlighted just how cautious the Alliance was being with Shepard and Cerberus. While the speaker hadn't specified what would happen, should the SR-2 deviate from or accelerate above the given limit, Shepard could guess that it would involve the rapid cessation of what little pleasantries they were exchanging at this moment.

"Well…looks like they're happy to see us," said Garrus who, along with Miranda, was also present at the CIC, standing off to the side to minimise their interference with the other crew's duties. Shepard planned to have the three of them be the initial welcoming party, while the rest of the GCE was waiting in the conference room.

The reality of the situation finally sank in. Despite Hackett's supposed blessing, the Alliance wouldn't be playing around here. At best, the following mission would be a desperate act of convenience. He just hoped the incoming marines would be able to see it that way too.

As they reached their assigned holding point above Asphodel, Shepard received frequent updates from the Task Unit on what was going to happen. First, they were going to let the Alliance ships form a semi-circle around the SR-2. Then, the ITDS, which had identified itself as the SSV Yishun, manoeuvred itself parallel to the SR-2 in preparation for the transfer of marines. The SR-2 had to provide constant verification that it had powered down its weapons, sensors, and stealth drive.

The distance between them and the troop transport grew closer, and Shepard felt the knot in his chest, which had been present ever since they had jumped in system, grow just a little bit tighter. Aside from visiting Anderson on the Citadel and running into Kaiden on Horizon, these would be his first face-to-face contact with the Alliance. These men and women would be a window back into his past – a past without all the grey and black that had come into his life in the last few months. They could receive him in any number of ways, from professional to distant, or outright hostile. But that didn't matter. What mattered was that they were on a mission to look into the batarian threat that had festered in their territory. Hackett said he trusted these marines. That didn't mean they had to like Shepard, just realise that they would have to see past whatever side they were all on to address a common foe.

The ship shuddered slightly as the Yishun's docking module made contact with the SR-2's primary airlock. The sound of hydraulics and servos working to seal even the most miniscule of gaps between them was followed by the hiss of atmosphere being injected in the module.

"Normandy SR-2, this is the Yishun. You've got FORECON coming aboard, over."

"Roger that, Yishun. We're coming over to meet them. Standby, out," Shepard said.

"Copy, Normandy SR-2. Yishun out."

With that, Shepard stepped down from the Galaxy map and circled around to the left, gesturing for Miranda and Garrus to follow him with a quick, "let's go."

The two of them nodded and fell in behind him on the short walk to the airlock.

When the bulkhead's door opened, Shepard was surprised to find only a single marine in the middle of the docking module. Clad in the signature blue of the Alliance, they had the stock of a collapse rifle sticking out from their back, as well as a sidearm magnetically attached to their right thigh. Their armour, as expected from the specialist role that they occupied, looked to be a modified or augmented version of the standard Alliance infantryman's OCS (Onyx Combat Suit). It had a hardened remote sensor module on the helmet's forehead, a CP-H (Compact Para-Harness) on the waist and sides, a whole series of webbing and pouches for extra ammunition and equipment, and likely a dozen other internal and material upgrades that he wouldn't be able to pick out with his eyes alone.

Shepard, having assumed the position of parade rest with Garrus and Miranda, watched as the lone marine walked up to them and unsealed their breather helmet to reveal a woman's face with short, straight brown hair. When she reached Shepard, he offered a hand, noting the slight hesitation in her expression before she accepted it.

"Commander Shepard of the Normandy SR-2," Shepard said. The introduction was more an act of formality than genuine hospitality, as he figured the marines would have been quite well informed on who the Alliance would be throwing them together with.

"Major Kretschner, Force Recon," she answered back smartly.

As they released each other's hands, Shepard gestured to Garrus and Miranda.

"These are my Team Leaders, Operatives Vakarian and Lawson."

Both of them moved to similarly shake the Major's hand. Kretschner received Garrus well enough, more taken aback to see an alien on a Cerberus vessel than anything else. The short interaction with Miranda, however, contained ice from both sides. Neither Shepard nor Garrus had any markings that designated their affiliation to the Illusive Man. But Miranda? She wore the logo with pride, and had the confident defiance to tilt her head up slightly at the marine, whose neutral expression quickly hardened.

Sensing that things were liable to get unpleasant, Shepard decided to follow up with the obvious question of the docking module, which aside from the four of them, remained otherwise empty.

"I'm glad you're here, Major, but I thought we were meant to pick up a platoon."

Major Kretschner looked away from Miranda and nodded.

"Don't worry, Commander. We're all here. Just taking some extra precautions on the transfer."

Shepard understood. The Alliance was worried that this was a trap. In the event that the SR-2 wanted to go to weapons loose and terminate their connection with the ITDS, they wanted as few marines to get caught (and lost) to the ambush as possible. Hell, for all they knew, the marines could have opened the airlock, only to face down a wall of machine guns. No doubt the Task Unit's ship VIs and cyberwarfare technicians were on high alert too, looking for any Cerberus attempts to sort through the Alliance's databanks. That Major Kretschner was standing here, and not one of her subordinates hinted that she had volunteered to be the potential sacrificial lamb that would feel out their temporary partners.

They were dragging their feet for as long as they could, giving the SR-2 as little opportunity to catch as few of the marines out as possible. Once the transfer was complete, and they made the jump to Terra Nova, there would be nothing they could do. But until that moment came, they were doing everything in their power to make Cerberus work for the kill. It was to be expected, but nonetheless frustrating to Shepard – another reminder of just how wide the gap had become between him and the Alliance.

Major Kretschner had activated her omni-tool and was speaking to into it, saying, "We're good. Let's move in, two at a time."

"Roger that, ma'am," said another voice, before the connection was closed.

The sound of boots on steel filled the air as an additional pair of marines came into view, their heads turning slightly to look at Shepard, then his companions. Unlike the Major, they kept their rebreather helmets on, leaving Shepard with nothing more than dark, polarised visors. When they were about three quarters of the way across the docking module, two more marines appeared at the far end. Major Kretschner looked to Shepard.

"We can go over proper introductions when we're all aboard. But for now, I'm wondering if you could show me to the briefing area."

The trepidation was still there. Despite her steady voice, Shepard could see Kretschner's tense body language. For all the marines knew, the entire ship had been rigged into one giant death trap. By going ahead on her own, she would be searching for signs of potential ambush points and, if need be, hopefully get a warning out to her platoon, even if she herself might not make it back to the docking module.

Shepard nodded. As much as he hated the gross amount of suspicion being levelled at him, there wasn't exactly anything he could do to assuage the Alliance's fears right now. Best to go along with their precautions, rather than accidentally fuel their paranoia even further.

"Garrus, Lawson, make sure to lead these marines to the conference room when they're all aboard."

"Yes, Commander."

"You got it, Shepard."

"Right this way, Major," Shepard said as he turned to walk back in the direction of the CIC. Major Kretschner fell in beside him, eyes scanning the various consoles and taking in the Galaxy Map in the middle of the room. During his time on the original Normandy, Shepard had found the novelty of staring into the massive holographic projection of the Milky Way wearing off within a week or so. But for an infantryman like Kretschner, who despite being a senior officer, likely hadn't even been on the bridge of an Alliance ship (let alone an experimental one whose design had been co-developed with the Turian Hierarchy and then refined by Cerberus) he wouldn't blame her for being just a little transfixed.

"Have you been briefed by Admiral Hackett?" he asked as he directed them towards the lab, which they would cut through to get to the conference room.

"Not in person," Kretschner said. "We were holed up at Arcturus when we got the call. Barely had 20 minutes to throw on our gear and board the ITDS. We got an info dump on our omni-tools that we were able to skim through."

"A whole 20 minutes?" Shepard grinned, his mind harking back to some less than fond memories of boot camp, N-School, and his various deployments, when he'd been woken by the roar of alarms or drill instructors that pushed him from 'snoozing to shooting' without forewarning. "They're starting to go soft on you."

Kretschner snorted.

"Better not let MARFORCOM hear that, or they'll make us do another set of pullups for PFT."

"Copy that, Major," Shepard said. The short exchange that had kept them occupied in their walk had changed the atmosphere into something a lot more comfortable. The underlying tension was still there, but if there was anything a pair of service members could count on to bond over, it was the pains of their chosen careers. Thus, it was with an inward sigh that he stopped before they went through the final door that he brought the mood back down to reality. "I assume you've also been told that this is a temporary partnership."

Kretschner's face, which had relaxed slightly, withdrew back into a neutral expression as she crossed her arms.

"Yeah…something like that."

She paused for a moment, then turned to face him.

"No bullshit from me, Commander. A lot of my guys are pissed at our orders. Cerberus is persona non grata in Alliance space and being told to go on a joint-op with them is…well…more than one of us thinks we've been hung out to dry for something we could have already done on our own."

"Is that your opinion on this as well, Major?" Shepard asked.

Kretschner exhaled sharply through her nose.

"My opinion is that you were listed as KIA two years ago, and that before you were KIA, you were the poster boy for the fight against the 'geth'."

Shepard raised an eyebrow when Kretschner punctuated her last word with finger quotes.

"I was with the Fifth Fleet when they jumped to the Citadel," she said in response to his silent query. "Bravo Company was one of the first non-C-Sec elements to make the sweep through Tayseri Ward."

Shepard nodded. Even after Sovereign had been toppled and the geth fleet routed, what infantry and armoured platforms that had been stranded on the Citadel had kept up the fight, continuing to inflict death and wreak havoc across the station until they were manually deactivated through sufficient firepower. His brief time with Legion might have made Shepard understand that there were multiple sides to the geth's 'people' and actions, but the months that he had spent trading bullets with the synthetics and seeing their own atrocities conducted in tandem with the Reapers ensured a vast reserve of malice and resentment.

"Bastards just didn't know when to quit," he said, feeling the muscles in his face form an involuntary scowl. Kretschner grunted in agreement.

"Lost a few friends that day. And I saw the wreck of that dreadnought the Navy shot down. I don't care what intel says. That thing didn't come from the Perseus Veil."

"Glad to hear someone else thinks that way," Shepard said. "But how does that factor into Cerberus?"

"I've got no idea if you're really Commander Shepard and, if you are, what Cerberus told you to get on board," said Kretschner. "And I'd much rather hack one of my legs off than side with the sick fucks who engineered Akuze. But I come aboard your ship, half expecting to get gunned down the minute I step on, and one of the first things I see is a turian? Colour me ignorant, Commander, but that ain't the Cerberus we know."

"I wouldn't say this is what Cerberus would label a traditional op," Shepard conceded.

"So what kind of an op is it?"

Shepard considered if he should reveal his mission. On the one hand, it would be an egregious violation of OPSEC (Operational Security). On the other, he really didn't give a damn about disseminating information related to Cerberus, just as long as he didn't wear out the Illusive Man's patience and trigger a kill switch or something similar that would prematurely terminate their agreement. And if he was going to get the marines to trust him, he figured honesty was as good a place to start as any.

"We've found that the Collectors have been taking entire colonies in the Terminus Systems," Shepard said. "Our objective is to launch an assault through the Omega 4 Relay and hit them at the source."

For a moment, there was silence, and Shepard could practically hear the gears turning in Kretschner's head. At the source, Omega 4, no return from previous attempts, practically–

"A suicide mission, then."

Shepard nodded.

"You remember Horizon?"

Kretschner nodded back. "You were there?"

"We arrived shortly after the Collectors did," Shepard explained. "They were using swarms of organic drones to paralyse the entire populace, stuff them in pods, and load them up on their ship. We managed to cut through to the colony's defence towers and drive them off, but they still got over 300,000 people."

Kretschner let out a sharp exhale.

"Well…shit."

"Roger that," Shepard said. He hadn't expected his explanation to be so readily accepted. Hell, he hadn't even been sure if the Collectors were real until he'd seen Veetor's footage on Freedom's Progress. But it seemed the Major had a good head on her shoulders – either that or she was looking for any excuse to expedite her platoon's withdrawal from Cerberus hands. It didn't particularly bother him on why. At this point, he was just grateful for any modicum of cooperation between the two parties. "We're pulling out all the stops on this one, recruiting from everywhere we can to draw out the best."

"That include other aliens, Commander?"

The corners of Shepard's lips twitched upward at the half-sarcastic, half-genuine query.

"Quite a few, actually. We've got a drell, a quarian, salarian, krogan, asari, even a…"

He trailed off, remembering Kretschner's mention of her participation in the Citadel's cleanup.

"A what, Commander?"

She was looking at him intently, waiting for him to finish. Shepard sighed.

"A geth."

Kretschner blinked a couple of times, then narrowed her eyes, her face deadpan.

"A geth," she echoed.

"A geth," Shepard confirmed.

"You fucking with me, Commander?"

Shepard couldn't help the little snort of amusement that came out of him.

"I'm afraid to say it's the truth, Major. We call it Legion."

He saw Kretschner's fingers, still locked on her folded arms, twitch while her eyes flicked in the direction of her sidearm. Considering what she'd gone through against the synthetics, it was a reasonable response.

"And how the hell did that happen?"

Shepard made an uncomfortable sound in the back of his throat.

"Apparently, before they hit Eden Prime, the geth split into two factions – the isolationists and the heretics. Turns out these past few years, we've been chipping away at just the second group, while the first one chose to stay behind the Veil."

Kretschner lifted an eyebrow but let him continue.

"For some reason," Shepard shrugged, "the isolationists caught wind of my fight against the heretics and sent one of their own (he left out the part of Legion being made up of over a thousand programs) to look for me."

"And you just let it in?" Kretschner asked, her tone guarded and more than a little bewildered.

Shepard shook his head.

"I kept it behind a barrier for three days before letting it roam the ship. Our cyberwarfare suite monitors it 24/7 and we block all of its outbound comms. After it was let out, it was always accompanied by at least two of the crew and I made sure to keep a gun on me for a week after."

"But you trust it now?"

Shepard paused. He hadn't really thought of it consciously, but as the GCE had shifted into its final form, he realised that, just like anyone else he'd been under fire with, he and the majority of the crew had come to accept Legion as one of their own. There were still times that he tensed up when he saw the eery silhouette of a geth trooper standing in the mess hall, or heard the familiar synthetic whirs of movement around the medbay. But outside of that…

"Legion's earned its place here," he said. "As strange as it is for me to say, it's gotten us out of a few close calls. And it's also helped us root out the last of the major heretic strongpoints. Without its intel, the Council and Alliance could have been stuck combing the Attican Traverse for another half decade. It's undoubtable that Legion greatly expedited the whole process."

After another short silence, Kretschner unfolded her arms and shook her head.

"Alright, Commander. You haven't quite sold me on fighting with a geth, but if what you're saying is true…"

She trailed off, the rest of her sentiment unspoken.

If what you're saying is true, I can put up with it for the mission's sake.

Her displeased resignation was all too familiar to Shepard. It had been a feeling he'd been saddled with for the past six months, being effectively tied to the very enemy he'd been hellbent on destroying, in light of a greater looming threat. No matter what happened after they went through the Omega 4 Relay, his time on the SR-2 would forever be blackened by his association with Cerberus. And was willing to bet that Major Kretschner was thinking along similar lines now.

"In that event," Shepard said, taking a step towards the door. He triggered the motion sensor that made it hiss open to reveal his waiting GCE. "I'll introduce you to my ground team."