Many Paths Converge
I was on the bridge of the ship when we jumped through the Mass Relay to the Tasale System. There was something about watching all the space around you disappear in a great flash of blue, only for a new sector of space to welcome you on the other side in mere seconds. Even with all the research that had gone into studying the corpses of the Reapers and gaining valuable insights into their technology, the species of the galaxy were still quite far away from being at a level where we were capable of building new Mass Relays ourselves.
To that end, a specially selected team of scientists had gone to the ancient Prothean world of Ilos to study the Conduit that I had chased Saren through back in 2183. Combining the research on the Reapers with what data could be obtained from Ilos, our levels of technology soon began to grow again. Many imagined that it would not be long until Humans, Turians, Quarians and all the rest would be able to build more Mass Relays, or even amazing constructions like the Citadel. It had excited me the first time I travelled through a Mass Relay, and I still got that buzzing sensation even now.
It would be a few hours flight time from the relay to Illium, but Liara sent a message confirming that she was ready and waiting for us at her hidden base on the planet. Illium was actually a planet with extremely high surface temperatures and so the grand Asari cities, such as Nos Astra, sprawled across both of the polar regions of the planet. In the more equatorial regions of Illium, there were only a few arcology skyscrapers where people could live high above the heat of the surface. It was in one of these skyscrapers that Liara had established her secret base on Illium.
The skyscraper had been abandoned during the Reaper War and no one had gone back there to live afterwards, so Liara removed all information about the building from the extranet and deleted it from maps of Illium before claiming it for herself. She was not denying anyone a home by doing this, since the huge cities on the planet had more than enough room to fit Illium's vastly reduced population after the Reapers had attacked.
As we approached the dense blue planet, there suddenly came a hail over the comm which caught the bridge staff by surprise as there were no other ships showing on sensors in our proximity. There was an initial rush of panic from the pilot and commander who thought that they were about to come under attack from an undetected foe, when I calmly put a hand on the pilot's shoulder and said,
"Put the call through, I think I know who it is."
The pilot looked at me like I was mental, but then it must have clicked in his mind as to who the hail could be coming from. A rather embarrassed grin appeared on his face. When the call came through, I heard a very welcome voice over the comm,
"Man, your standard of ship has really dropped, Commander!"
"At least the pilot doesn't talk back nearly as much, Joker," I quipped without missing a beat. From the bridge, everyone's heads turned to gaze at the beautiful, sleek form of the Normandy SR2 pass by and slow down to fly level with us.
"That's part of my charm," the plucky pilot of the SR2 replied.
"How did you put up with this, Commander?" I heard a woman's voice ask me.
"Ash! Just tell him he'll get decaffe. Or that you'll release his extranet search history to the galaxy."
"Ouch, unfair!" Joker complained.
It was good to be able to laugh a little, but I was sorely aware that soon we would have to get down to business.
"I really appreciate you guys coming," I told them, "we need to put this shitty situation right."
"Tali is our friend too, Commander. We'll do everything we can for her."
"The Shadow Broker already has a plan in place for when we link up with them," I heard EDI's voice now.
"Good, the last thing I want to do is wait around. What's the plan?"
"The Broker found the base from where the enemy leader broadcast their speech, the one in which they named you as an example to further their cause."
"I remember," I tensed up at the thought that the enemy had the nerve to think they could hold me up as an example to the galaxy in such a way and not have me respond. I responded with words and now they had forced me to respond with bullets.
"The base is on an asteroid in this system," EDI explained, "we will go there to find whatever we can."
"It's a start," Ashley said. Having a plan in place made me feel better. As the two ships entered Illium's atmosphere and our vision was momentarily obscured by the flames, I was able to take a few deep breathes and relieve some of the tension that was building up in me.
During the time that we had been flying from Therum to Illium, Ludwig's men had made numerous attempts to coax information out of the prisoners that we had taken. However, it was soon clear that a couple of them were too low down in the ranks to know anything important, and the other two were not going to give it up easily. One of the Asari had made a sudden and violent attempt to break free with her biotics, breaking the dampeners that had been placed on her to prevent just such an attack. A few bullets put an end to her as she posed a huge risk to us and the ship we were on. If she had been able to get free, she might have tried to destroy the ship from within, and I did not fancy getting sucked into the vacuum of space for a second time.
As the pilot guided us towards Liara's base, we had the remaining three prisoners ready to be transferred over to more of Liara's people. The man whose hand I had stamped on back on Therum started to really annoy me when he simply held a firm stare in my direction. I shot him a threatening look back, but his eyes did not move from me.
"You have something to say to me?" I spat at him.
"Of all the people in the galaxy," he said weakly, "you should understand why we're doing what we're doing. You should be with us."
That was too far, and I charged over to him and held him by the neck up against the bulkhead,
"How can you ever think what you lot are doing is right? Your leader claims to be seeking revenge for lives lost that might have been saved… but what are you doing to try and reinforce your point? Taking more innocent lives! The Reaper War is over. We all have to put it behind us, but you want to bring up old grudges. I would never join a cause as despicable as that… and then you had to go and make it personal. I'm going to tell the Shadow Broker to keep you somewhere safe just for me so that, if I find out that Tali has been hurt, I'll show you what revenge really looks like!"
The man fell silent after my grave warning. As the prisoners were escorted into Liara's base, he now refused to look anywhere near me.
"I'd hate to be on your bad side," Ludwig chuckled as he passed me. "The Broker said to tell you to take the elevator up from the hanger to the top floor, they said your Omni tool will give you clearance."
"Ok. Thanks for all your help, Ludwig. Hopefully we'll work together again."
"So long as we're after these scum… count on it."
From the outside, the building was a typical skyscraper of elegant Asari design, though no one could see into the building from the outside. The hanger had been built into the mid-section of the skyscraper and was large enough to enable large transports like the one I had arrived in to dock. There were quite a large number of shuttles already there and many ground crews checking them all over and making sure they were ready to head out again as soon as they were needed. The fact that the workmen seemed to be checking almost all of them told me that they had only arrived recently.
The Normandy landed on an exterior landing pad a few floors below and I got word that Ashley and EDI would be heading up to the top floor as well. The elevator answered my summons, and when the door opened, I was greeted with the cheery faces of my two friends.
"Ash! EDI! Great to see you both."
"You too, Skipper," Ash replied, "some of the team are here already and everyone else has promised that they'd be here soon."
"With all of the former Normandy crew present, there will be little that we cannot overcome," EDI said encouragingly. Sometimes it still took me a few moments to get used to seeing EDI's body with fair skin, black "hair", ears and other normal features that a Human would have. Having served with her without these details through the Reaper War it took some adjustment, though I suspected Joker was still very much enjoying it.
"There's not much we cannot do together," I agreed with EDI, "and while we are making getting Tali back safely our first priority, we will move on to taking down the terrorists once she's secure."
"Liara gave us the details about their attack on your home," Ash sounded disgusted, "those lousy rats should be scared, because I'm certainly not going to show them much mercy after a stunt like that!"
"All because I spoke out against them," I growled. "And then they got Tali because I left her to hide while I tried to get back to Church, our Geth friend."
"Liara said that too. You need to stop blaming yourself, Commander," Ash said. "Everyone knows you would do anything for Tali."
"I would… and I will. Any more news about this asteroid we're going to?"
"We got its name from Liara but nothing else," Ashley replied, "it's called Teukria. There used to be nickel and iron mines all over it, but it has been abandoned for a long time. Perfect place for someone who wanted to hide. When we're all together, we'll run over the brief."
Ashley had been serving diligently as a Council Spectre since the Reaper War had ended and had made a good name for herself. She always managed to get the job done with whatever was available to her and stuck closer to the rules than most Spectres did, even me. Ashley and Garrus teamed up regularly to help each other take down a bad guy or a gang of pirates. To back up both of my Spectre friends there was, of course, Liara with her never ending wealth of Intel that she could supply to them. Naturally, Ashley and Garrus got their information for free since they were all very close friends, while other Spectres that came seeking aid still had to fork over the credits.
I was certain that having everyone from the Normandy on this mission was complete overkill, but I was certainly not going to complain. The terror factor for any enemy that had to face us was only going to be multiplied for every friend of mine that turned up to help with a gun in their hands. We were truly going to be a force to be reckoned with. However, when we reached Liara's secret lair at the top of the skyscraper, I soon found out that I was going to get a lot more help than I could ever have expected.
As we neared the top floor a scanner appeared and it registered the Omni tools of Feron, Ashley, EDI and I. With an approving chime, the doors opened and revealed to us a true marvel of modern operations centres. The whole floor was pristine, clean white like a laboratory or a hospital. Computer terminals lined every wall and there were a series of Quantum Entanglement Communicators along the far side of the vast room, each in their own private cubicle.
Strategy tables were located around the centre with holographic images showing ongoing operations in real time. Everywhere I looked there were screens displaying messages sent between high-ranking officials all across the galaxy, some business in nature and some very, very personal. The whole setup was incredible and as we walked through the hive of activity, I saw a very familiar figure giving out some orders to some of the techs and information analysts.
"Go and speak to Samantha, Commander," Feron said as he started to go his own way, "she'll take you to Liara in a moment."
"Will do. Thanks for everything, Feron, I really appreciate what you've done for me."
"Don't thank me yet, Commander," he grinned, "I'll count us even after we've won."
With that he strode of in the direction of the QEC section while Ash, EDI and I headed for Samantha Traynor. The former Alliance Comm Specialist saw us approaching and I saw that bright spark in her eyes that was so trademark of the energetic young woman. This woman was personally responsible for the lives that we had saved on Grissom Academy when Cerberus had attacked the station. Traynor was the one who had found the lead that led us to the discovery of the horrible experiments that Cerberus were conducting on Horizon under the guise of providing a sanctuary for war refugees.
This, in turn, led us to Miranda, who gave us the location of the Illusive Man's base when Kai Leng had reported back to him with a tracer attached to him. Samantha had found Jacob and the Cerberus scientists who had run away from the organisation and allowed us to recruit them for the Crucible project where their knowledge proved invaluable. Traynor had done all of this off of her own back and by being ruthlessly efficient when it came to analysing the vast amount of data that she was handling from multiple sources. Samantha Traynor may not have been at my side during the fighting, but she was no less a hero.
Traynor, wearing her customary sweet smile as she greeted us, looked fantastic. Wearing a beautiful black dress adorned with a blue floral pattern, her shiny black hair brought around to cascade down over the front of her right shoulder. Typical Traynor, taking everything in her stride and looking resplendent all at the same time. She had obviously taken to the official role as the Shadow Broker's chief analyst well, but I knew that she and Liara were very happy together. Perhaps, in a world full of cloak and dagger, having someone to share the burden with greatly helped both Traynor and my Asari friend.
"Commander Gardner! I'm glad to see you're alright. When I heard what happened… well… I wish we could have warned you sooner."
"Sam," I said, "Good to see you. We can't worry about that now, though I'm curious as to how you knew they were coming for Tali and me at all."
Samantha led me over to one of her consoles which showed a live image of one of the terrorists in one of Liara's cells. The Asari did not look too worse for wear, torture was not exactly Liara's style, but she did wear the demeanour of a woman who was broken and defeated.
"I guess that is the terrorist that the police on Nevos could find no trace of," I grinned at Sam, who returned the smile in acknowledgment.
"That's the one. She was persuaded to tell us about any other operations that were planned by her organisation, and that's how we heard about their attempt to capture you two. We tried to contact you as soon as we found out but…"
"I know," I said, "I know you would have told us as soon as you found out. Thanks."
I checked around the operations centre, and while there were a few other people of various species, I could not see Liara anywhere.
"So where is… the Broker?"
"Oh, no need for secrecy like that, Commander," Sam giggled, "everyone allowed onto this floor gets to see Liara, even if they don't know who she truly is. Every single person here has earned her trust enough that they know her. It means she doesn't have to stay hidden away like the old Broker used to, so I hear anyway."
I remembered the first time that I saw that ginormous Yahg stand up tall from behind his desk on the old Shadow Broker's ship where we eventually tracked him down and eliminated him, paving the way for Liara to take over the post. Physically speaking, Liara did not strike the same kind of fear into the hearts of her enemies, but her intellect was as sharp as any blade and bit harder than any bullet.
A message appeared on the terminal addressed to Samantha and she swiftly read over it.
"Aha, looks like Miranda's arrived. She's brought some backup with her that I think you'll be impressed with."
I instantly knew what she meant and there appeared a child-like giddiness inside me as I spoke,
"Spartans?"
"A squad of them," Sam said, "Tali means a lot to all of the Normandy veterans, Scott, we'll do anything to get her back."
"Good. I'm lucky that we've got so many friends to count on. I always knew Liara had an agent inside the Spartan project."
Suddenly, I heard a woman laughing softly to herself as she drew nearer. I turned and finally laid eyes upon the Shadow Broker herself.
"Such measures are not needed," Liara chuckled to herself, "Miranda and I are practically in business with each other these days. When she gained access to all the Illusive Man's resources and Intel, she freely shared them with me, so I returned the favour. We help each other in many regards. I am glad to see you, Scott. It has been too long."
The thought of both Miranda and Liara having access to every secret in the galaxy was a daunting one. In the end, I thought myself blessed to be on good terms with them both. Liara was dressed in a suit of combat gear and looked ready to depart on our mission to Teukria, but that did not stop her giving me a friendly hug.
"Definitely," I agreed, "we need to up those Normandy reunions to two per year, I think. But first we have to make sure everyone can go in the first place. What's this base you've found on the asteroid then?"
It was great to see some of my friends again, and if Tali had not been a prisoner somewhere, I would have been loving every second of it. In truth, however, the more of my friends I met, the more pressure I felt to get out there on the search for my missing wife.
Liara briefed me quickly and the information was the same that EDI had told me earlier. This base had been the source of the galaxy-wide broadcast that the terrorist leader had made.
"Do we have a name for this group yet?" I asked Liara, "did your Asari prisoner give you anything?"
"Yes, in fact," Liara said, "with a name like theirs, it is clear that they take themselves seriously. They refer to themselves as the "Blades of Retribution"."
"Blades of Retribution?" I said it over to myself. I did not know if the name was indeed scary and serious, or just comical. However, their intentions were there in the name of the organisation for all to see. They sought retribution for the Asari government hiding the beacon on Thessia for so long, and not preventing the Reapers invading. However, it was already clear to all that they were prepared to use more than just blades to make their voice heard. It was strange, but now that I had a name for my enemies, I only hated them more.
After spending some time ironing out the details of our planned mission on Teukria, Liara, Ashley, EDI, Samantha and I headed back down to the hanger bay where we had docked earlier to meet those that were still arriving.
"A few of the others have arrived by now. It will be quite strange going back on board the Normandy again with all of you," Liara said.
"I hope you've not done anything terrible to my ship, Ash," I grinned at the Spectre. A cheeky smile appeared on her face,
"It's my ship now, Scott, and it seriously needed some redecorating when you were in command… but I guess that's men for you. Would live in a pig-stye if they could get away with it."
"So now everything's pink and fluffy?" I chuckled, "Little ribbons and flowers everywhere? fit for a princess?"
"One more word and you're going out the airlock," Ashley shot back happily. I missed that about the Normandy: No matter how dire things were, the team could always lift each other's spirits.
The hanger bay was busier than when I had left it only an hour or two before, and a few familiar faces made themselves present as soon as I arrived. Garrus, my best friend, strode towards me dressed in full battle armour and his favourite Viper sniper rifle slung over his shoulder, with a few new attachments. Miranda, Jack, Javik and James also appeared form the crowd, all geared up and ready to go. While Ashley had the SSV Normandy SR2 as her ship, Garrus had been given a state-of-the-art Turian Frigate by the Hierarchy called the Tibmius.
Seeing as the original Normandy and her stealth system had been jointly developed by the Human Alliance and Turian Hierarchy, the Tibmius also had stealth technology. This allowed Garrus to be exceptionally effective in his role as a Spectre. Indeed, there were accounts claiming that the Normandy and Tibmius had both been spotted attacking the same pirate gang or mercenaries who had gone outside the law, swooping down and deploying their lethal strike teams in tandem. Both ships were going on our little recon trip to Teukria and were being fuelled as we spoke.
Wrex, Grunt, Kasumi, Zaeed and Samara were still enroute to Liara's Illium base but were not going to arrive any time soon, so the mission was going ahead without them. As for Jacob Taylor, Miranda informed me that he could not leave Mia and Brynn, though he wished he could for the sake of Tali. I sent him a message telling him that I completely understood, and that I would never ask him to put himself in any danger that could leave poor Mia without a father. Perhaps I was unerringly understanding of his decision because of the thought that I would soon be a father, hopefully.
Writing out the message to my friend, I could not help but try and imagine Tali and I with our little baby Quarian. Once the message was away, I looked at the others. None of them knew yet. I did not know whether to tell them. It would certainly make them even more determined to rescue Tali. On the other hand, it could make some of them reckless, like it had in my own case.
"Hey Scott, you ok?" Garrus came to me. "I know things are bad, but you look like you're thinking of something in particular."
Did I tell him? It was not as if none of them deserved to know, but maybe it just was not relevant to the mission.
"I'm just scared, Garrus," I admitted, "Tali's in the hands of these Blades. We're not even sure what we'll find on this asteroid. They wouldn't make it that easy."
"Sometimes the bad guys are stupid," the Turian said. "And Tali can handle herself. If I know her, she'll make enough trouble for them, and that might give us time to track her down."
He was making light of the situation, but from the way his mandibles were twitching, I could tell he was concerned as well.
"Thanks a lot for coming, Garrus," I told him, "It means everything to me."
"I've been trying to find out more about these guys since they first showed up," he said, "but whoever they are, and whoever their leader is, they're damn good at not leaving much of a trail behind. This lead is the most we've had. And with all of us… we'll get it done."
"If we can stop the Reapers, who can't we stop?" I sighed.
"Exactly," the Turian said.
That was when I caught sight of a group of Humans standing in the middle of the Hanger. They stood quietly in suits of armour like I had never seen before with their weapons in their hands, silently watching my friends and I. All four of them were easily the tallest Humans I had ever seen. I was no short-arse, standing at just over 6 foot 2 inches, but these guys made me look like a dwarf.
"Who are they?" I asked Garrus. He laughed to himself,
"Not seen Miranda's new recruits yet, have you?"
Without thinking I found myself heading over to them and Garrus followed in tow,
"The Spartans?"
When I got within a few strides of the gargantuan men, they stood to attention in perfect unison and saluted me. Instinct from my Alliance days kicked in and I saluted back.
"Sabre Squad, reporting for duty. Waiting for your orders, Spartan I," the OIC stepped forward.
"Spartan I?" I raised an eyebrow.
"It's a running joke with the Spartans," Miranda said as she appeared next to me. "Since the procedure to create them has largely been adapted from Project Lazarus, they refer to you as the first Spartan, so officially they are Spartan II's."
"I think I can let that happen," I said with a great sense of pleasure. "They're very impressive."
The four super-soldiers wore the same black armour, except each one had a different colour stripe on his helmet and shoulder pads. The OIC's armour was drab black with no colour other than a small gold crest upon the sheathe of his knife, which was worn across his chest piece. Two of the soldiers carried Valkyrie Assault Rifles, one wore a red stripe while the other wore blue. The soldier carrying a heavily customised Widow Sniper Rifle sported a gold stripe and had a Paladin handgun at his side. The officer carried a Typhoon machinegun, modified for greater stability and the trademark face-shields had been removed.
"So do you have names? I'm looking forward to seeing what you Spartans can do!"
"I'm Mace," the officer replied, "then we've got Axel and Misha with the blue and red stripes, respectively. Our sniper is Dexter. We'll serve you well, Sir."
"This will be the first operational test for any Spartans, Scott," Miranda said. "They've been training hard for this. Since they were enhanced, they've been going even harder than before. They've trained in lethal environments all over the galaxy, but never in a real combat situation."
I turned to Mace and addressed the others too,
"Tali, my wife and one of the heroes of the Milky Way, has been captured by an organisation of sick terrorists that have killed and maimed innocent people. This is more than just an operational test, this is a service to the galaxy. I need you to put everything you've learned into practise and do Miranda and I proud. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir," they Spartans replied.
The Spartans headed for the Normandy and I watched them go.
"I've never seen gear like that," Garrus said with obvious admiration for the Spartan's armour.
"It was specifically developed for the Spartans under another project we dubbed "Halo".
"Does it come in Turian sizes?" Garrus said with a faint glimmer of hope. Unfortunately for my Turian friend, Miranda kindly laughed him off.
"I'm afraid not. Even regular Humans can't wear it otherwise their bodies would be crushed inside the suits. Their bone structure had to be hardened too."
"What are all the enhancements you've made?" I asked her.
"Just about everything Commander: They're physically fitter, faster, stronger and more durable than any other Humans alive. Their mental processing is faster, they can retain far more information and their memories are as perfect as a Human's can get. Not quite Drell or Salarian standards, but not far off. All their senses have been greatly enhanced as well as reaction time, coordination and situational awareness. The subjects for the Spartan program have to be young for maximum results as their bodies are still growing, there is more room to add more improvements."
"You make it sound like putting a bit of machinery together," I stated.
"Just as I did when I was rebuilding you, Scott," Miranda told me. "I always go for the best. Speaking of which, when you go onto the Normandy there's a special suit of armour waiting that has been custom built for you. It's called Hyperguardian. The most heavily shielded armour to date, and the N7 helmet that I'm giving you with it has some improvements over the original as well. I think you'll be very impressed."
"Thanks, Miranda," I said, "I appreciate all this, and I'll put Sabre to good use."
"They know what's at stake, they'll prove themselves. I promise," she gave me a wink.
Garrus went to assume control of the Tibmius while EDI, Miranda, Ashley, Jack, Javik, Liara and I went aboard the Normandy so that both ships would fly together for the target. It was a very strange experience stepping onto my old ship again. I had wondered in the past if I would ever do this again, but I felt glad to see her. The Normandy was a friend as well, of a sort. She had been right there with us through all of our battles, on station to provide aid at a moment's notice if it had been required. She had taken us to the galactic core to deal with the Collectors and brought us all home again to get ready to fly us around the galaxy while the Reaper War was waged in just about every system.
As I stepped aboard, my hand glided across her outer hull before passing inside with me. Once I was inside, the first thing I noticed was how it looked far more complete than I remembered it from when I was in command. I forgot that the ship was still undergoing a retrofit when we had had to escape from Earth when the Reapers first hit us, and that retrofit was never fully completed until after I left the military. Before, I had to watch my footing as there were bands of wires criss-crossing the deck and some storage crates that had simply been stuffed into a corner so that they were out of the way. Even when the Normandy had gone in for maintenance during the war, the retrofits had not been completed, as that would have kept the ship in dry-dock even longer when she was sorely needed out on the front lines.
When I heard the engines power up, I felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia as it brought back all the memories of being aboard that wonderful ship. I was about to step up to the galaxy map when Ashley moved to do the same thing. We looked at each other and burst out laughing before I made way for Ash to take her place as Normandy's Captain. She selected Teukria on the map and Joker set the course.
With the Normandy and the Tibmius under way, I settled in on the bridge and chatted with Joker until we were out of Illium's atmosphere. He did not have a complaint in the world as he still prided himself on being the best pilot in the Alliance and flying around Humanity's Spectre.
"Since the first Human Spectre seems to be sitting around with his thumb up his ass these days," he fired the joke at me.
"Just got tired of dealing with the Council," I laughed, "they still as tight as ever?"
"Even tighter now with this new Asari Councillor," he said, "always wanting to know what we're doing."
"Do you tell them?"
"Ashley's hung up on her more than once," Joker looked pleased at saying this. "I think she's less patient than you were."
"Can't be patient with politicians," I said, "either they get in line, or you tell them to shut the fuck up."
"I like the sound of that," Jack's voice echoed down the corridor from the CIC. She walked to us with her heavy boots clomping on the deck. She still sported the studded leather jacket that I had seen her wearing on Grissom Academy. As a sign of further growth and maturity, she seemed to believe in wearing full length t-shirts now, covering her tattoos and the gruesome scars which had been given to her by Cerberus in her childhood. Jack had also allowed her hair to grow in a bit more and looked a lot more sensible, though I would never say that to her in case she decided to rebel and shave it all off again.
It was good to see Javik as well. Since the end of the Reaper War, Javik had always felt a little lost. He had spent much of his time writing his books and had been co-writing a few with Liara as well. To know what was going through the Prothean's mind was impossible, as none of us could imagine how drastic the transition into peace time must have been for him. The Prothean had been fighting since he was old and strong enough to hold a gun as his people fought a desperate but doomed war against the Reapers in his cycle. Waking up from cryo-sleep fifty-thousand years later into our own war, he once again took up his rifle to fight for the survival of all species.
Where most of us who had fought in the Reaper War were fighting to bring back the peace that we had once known, Javik had only ever known conflict and suffering. Now he was free to do what he willed, and did not have a clue what to do with that freedom. He had made speeches at educational campuses about the history of our modern species as they had been back in his cycle, as well as about his own people. These proved popular, and after a riveting presentation he made about the Rachni as they were in his time, he became involved in a massive documentary focused on educating everyone about the Rachni as we were welcoming them back into the galactic civilisation. When he had received the call about the attack on Tali and I, I suspected that he had jumped at the chance to find some action again. He was sporting his battle armour that had seen him through the Reaper War, two of them in his case, and carried his powerful particle rifle.
There was a moment where I felt terrible as Javik came over to me. I shifted about and when he held out his hand to shake mine, I pretended that I did not see it and moved past him. I felt the guilt rise inside me, but there was something inside me that was scared of letting Javik touch me. I knew from experience the Prothean ability to "read" people, and I purposefully avoided contact with him for this reason.
It went back to my days when I really was "Commander Gardner" and in charge of the Normandy, charged with defeating the greatest enemy any of our races would ever face. It was imperative that I appeared to everyone that I was focused, steady and as if I was in control of whatever situation we found ourselves in. The only ones who had come close to knowing how terrified I had been all that time were Garrus, Liara and of course Tali. Yet, even then, I had not divulged all of my inner-most fears to them, the doubts that gnawed at me incessantly as we ploughed through the Reaper War.
With Tali as a prisoner of a terrorist organisation, with no clear intentions who now had a personal grudge against me for speaking out about them, I was an emotional wreck inside. Every second, I felt like I could collapse to the ground in a fit of tears and scream until my guts were spilling out of me. Perhaps that was why I avoided Javik. Out of all of them, he would be the one who could expose my true feelings. Outwardly, I made sure to appear eager as if having a mission ahead of us made me feel like we were making progress, when I actually wondered if we were going on a good old wild goose-chase.
Finding a quiet moment in the lounge, I was glad to see that Ashley made sure to keep her drinks cabinet stocked and I grabbed a cider and swallowed it down as if it was the last pleasure I would ever enjoy. Taking a note out of Samara's book, I took a seat and gazed out at the millions and millions of twinkling stars in the great beyond, controlling my breathing as if I was steadying myself for a long-range shot with my sniper rifle. Eventually, I decided that I had to fill the journey time with as much activity as possible to stop the dreaded dwelling. I shook myself off, told myself that Tali had the best people in the galaxy looking for her, and went to find the Spartans.
