A/N: I'd like to thank my friends Craggidor and AudaciumLux for their beta efforts :)

2185
Disabled Collector Vessel

The group exited the shuttle into a landscape of contradictions. At least, that was the Doctor's first impression. They were standing on a rocky, uneven floor that abruptly transitioned into a surface as smooth and black as obsidian. Up ahead, the smooth walls were bisected with rocky formations, and the ceiling looked … like the inside of a hive.

"Never seen a ship like this before," Grunt said, his cadence slowing slightly from his fast talk earlier. The young krogan was also in awe, it appeared.

"Looks like a giant hive," Garrus said, echoing the Doctor's thoughts. "Rachni, maybe?"

"The rachni are dead, aren't they?" the Doctor asked. "Except for-"

"The one queen, yeah," Shepard replied. "Ah. Before I forget." She pulled up her omni-tool and pushed a few buttons. "There. You're linked into our comms, Doctor. Try not to get lost."

"Thank you, Shepard," the Doctor said. They started moving forward into the ship.

EDI's voice came from the speakers on his omni-tool. "Penetrating scans have detected an access node to uplink with Collector databanks. Marking location to your hardsuit computer."

"Roger that, EDI," Shepard replied, pausing. "Okay. Grunt, got your shotgun ready?"

"Never without it," Grunt said. "Ready to burn some Collectors."

"Garrus, hang back and snipe anyone that looks like they're getting too close," Shepard said. "If we run into anything."

"Understood."

"Doctor … with me, I guess," Shepard said. "I can cover you if things get hot, and I suspect you'll have some insights to offer."

"I can handle myself, Shepard," the Doctor said, knowing that he sounded slightly petulant.

"If you'd carry a gun, I wouldn't be so insistent about it," Shepard replied. "Let's move out."

They took only a few more steps forward before EDI spoke again. "Shepard. I have compared the ship's EM signature to known Collector profiles. It is the vessel you encountered on Horizon."

"Maybe the defense towers softened it for the turians," Shepard said, continuing to move forward. The Doctor had to work to keep up with the pace she was setting.

"Maybe the missing humans are on it. Unless they're dead," Grunt said.

"Horizon?" the Doctor asked, looking around at the other three.

"Where we first saw Collectors in person," Garrus said. "A human colony that they were targeting. A ship - this ship, apparently - arrived to, well, collect the humans. The Alliance had recently installed defense turrets that we got working, and we chased the ship off." The turian sighed. "We weren't fast enough. They took about half the colony before we could do anything about it."

Shepard paused by something that was fused to - growing out of? - the floor, near one of the rocky walls. "Huh," Garrus said, coming up behind her. "These look like what the Collectors used on Horizon. Except they're empty."

The Doctor brought out his sonic screwdriver and activated it, the familiar green light tracing over the pod. Shepard watched him curiously. He held up the screwdriver and listened to the vibrations, watched the subtle shifts in the light. They likely thought he was just staring at it. "It's been empty for quite some time," the Doctor said. "Very minimal residual traces. Humans were in here, definitely."

"I guess that thing isn't so useless after all," Shepard said. "Let's keep moving."

The path forward took them through a doorway, and they could see the hallway curving off to the left. In the corner formed by the curving hallway was a pile of - something. They stopped to inspect a pile of dead bodies, each of them expressing disgust over what they saw, before moving on.

When Shepard said "keep moving", she really meant it, the Doctor thought as he walked - jogged, really - with her. The Doctor did his fair share of running, it was true, but he wished he had the chance to really observe the ship. There was so much that he could find out. But Shepard seemed to want to get in and out as quickly as possible, and he supposed that was reasonable.

Shepard paused again at a row of pods interspersed with computer consoles. She walked up to one of the consoles and activated her omni-tool, presumably to interface with it. Garrus, still carrying his sniper rifle, leaned over and inspected one of the pods. "That's a Collector," he said, surprised. "Were they experimenting on one of their own?"

The Doctor joined him, bringing out his sonic screwdriver again and starting to take readings. The Collector's body fit with the general insect vibe they were all getting from this ship, a thick brown and gray exoskeleton with multiple small limbs. It had four eyes - two roughly where a human's would be, the other two set slightly back and above the larger set.

Shepard reached up to touch something on the side of her helmet. "EDI. I'm uploading the data from this terminal. See if you can figure out what they were up to."

"Data received," the Doctor heard. "Analyzing." He wasn't getting anything from the screwdriver yet, but he kept at it. He wanted to beat the computer to a useful answer, if possible.

"The Collectors were running baseline genetic comparisons between their species and humanity," EDI said. Blast.

"Collectors have a quad-strand genetic structure," the Doctor said, peering into the light of his sonic screwdriver. "Not that similar to humans. But- it's been tampered with. Extensive genetic rewriting. Someone was trying to achieve - what?"

"If the Collectors are working for the Reapers, that would make sense," Shepard said. "From what Vigil said back on Ilos-"

The Doctor's brain helpfully supplied him with images. Ilos. A dead world. They were chasing Saren (rogue turian Spectre, working for Sovereign), and his trail lead them there. Vigil was a Prothean VI. He remembered Liara's excitement when she heard that bit of information, though she'd been on the Normandy and hadn't gotten to interact with Vigil.

"- the Reapers often work through intermediaries, manipulating organics to get what they want, through indoctrination or - well, whatever," Shepard continued.

Another flash of images. His mother - no. Liara's mother, Benezia, cowering on the floor in a lab on Noveria, talking about being trapped inside her own mind, doing only Saren's will. The Doctor shuddered. Denial of free will was one of the things that really made him angry.

"Shepard," EDI said. "I have their preliminary results. The quad-genetic structure is present in only one other race: the Protheans."

"My god," Shepard said slowly. "The Protheans didn't really vanish. They're working for the Reapers now."

"You said they work through intermediaries," the Doctor said. "After the last cycle, they kept the Protheans alive, manipulating them so that they could use them when galactic civilization grew again."

"What a horrible fate for them," Shepard said. "Twisted and turned into monsters. A final insult after losing to the Reapers."

"No species should have to suffer through that," Garrus agreed.

"The Reapers have much to answer for," the Doctor said, setting his mouth as he put the sonic screwdriver away.

"Let's find what we need before the Collectors come to inspect the vessel," Shepard continued.

The Doctor finally noticed that while he, Shepard, and Garrus had been inspecting the console and pod, Grunt had kept his shotgun out and positioned himself so that he could see down both corridors. At Shepard's words, he nodded - the only expression the Doctor could pick up through the hard masks all three were wearing - and took a step to the side to let Shepard take the lead again. In doing so, he apparently got a good look at something on the ground, because he put the shotgun away as he bent to look at it.

"A cache of weapons," Grunt said, looking up at Shepard as she walked over to see what had caught the krogan's attention. "Including my shotgun."

"Your shotgun is something special, then?" the Doctor asked.

"Humans can't handle it," Grunt said. "Would break their arms the first time they tried."

"Ordinary humans," Shepard said, bending to look at the cache. "I'm not exactly ordinary any more."

"You might be able to handle the kickback," Grunt said, straightening up and taking his shotgun out again. "Don't know what it's doing here, but if I were you, I'd be taking it."

Shepard picked up the shotgun that was so interesting to her and Grunt and examined it. "Garrus, want an Eviscerator?" she asked lightly.

"Nah, I'll stick with my sniper rifle," Garrus said, flaring his mandibles in what the Doctor guessed was amusement. "I prefer shooting from a distance. They never-"

"See you coming," Shepard finished, chuckling. She handed the shotgun to Garrus while she unclipped one of her weapons from behind her back, emptying the ammo clip and leaving it in the pile. Garrus handed over the new shotgun and she loaded it, fiddling with a setting, before holding it out in front of her. "Let's move out."

As they moved forward, they were treated to the delightful observation, from EDI, that many of the pods covering the ceiling contained humans, but there were no life signs. The Doctor looked up and tried to estimate how many humans had died on this vessel, and the number he came up with just made him even angrier.

The next time the silence was interrupted, it was by Joker. "Commander, you've gotta hear this," he said earnestly. "On a hunch, I asked EDI to run an analysis on this ship."

"I compared the EM profile against data recorded by the original Normandy two years ago," EDI said. "They are an exact match."

"So this is the ship that blew the first Normandy out of the sky," the Doctor said. "Can we call this a trap, yet?"

"This has definitely moved out of the realm of coincidence," Shepard agreed. "But we have to keep going. We don't have enough intel yet - and it looks like we're still alone. Not saying I buy that, necessarily."

"We're right behind you, Shepard," Garrus said.

"It would be disappointing not to get to shoot something," Grunt added.

The Doctor finally got the difference between a Sontaran and a krogan. A Sontaran would never miss a war. A krogan would never miss a fight.

Shepard was decidedly unnerved by the time they got to a place where they could link up with EDI. To get to the platform with the control panel, they'd had to pass through a vast open area where the ceiling was filled with pods - too many for Shepard to even begin contemplating. The sense of wrongness had only increased with Grunt's observation that, aside from the one in the pod, they hadn't seen a single dead Collector. Unless their bodies magically vanished when they died (and Shepard hadn't observed that on Horizon) they should have been there. The fact that they weren't was still more evidence that this was one big, giant trap.

And she was still walking into the middle of it.

Shepard holstered her new Claymore shotgun as she walked up to the command console, nodding to Garrus and Grunt to keep an eye out for trouble. The Doctor was by her side. He'd demonstrated his value here more than anywhere else, and she was hoping he'd have further insights to pass to her.

She touched the mic in her helmet. "EDI, we're at some sort of command console. I'm setting up a bridge-"

"Let me see what I can find, first," the Doctor said before she could finish the sentence. Shepard looked over at Garrus, who shrugged.

"All right. Stand by, EDI," Shepard said, stepping aside to let the Doctor inspect the console.

"Thank you, Shepard," the Doctor said, pulling out the - what was it again? Oh yeah, sonic screwdriver - and doing … whatever it was the thing did.

"Right, you definitely should not have EDI interface with this," the Doctor said after a minute.

"Why?" Grunt asked.

"It's a trap, isn't it?" Shepard asked with a sigh.

At that moment, the lights on the command console blinked out, and the tubes spaced along the stone walls began to slide - open? closed? Shepard couldn't quite tell.

"Yes, definitely a trap," the Doctor said. "They tried to hack my screwdriver. Hah. I'll show them." He picked it up, tossing it from one hand to the other, then bent over the command console and turned the screwdriver back on. "If I can just - disable that -"

"Company!" Garrus called, noticing movement behind him and swinging his sniper rifle around.

The platform they were on shuddered, and then lifted, starting to rotate away from the ground.

"Oh no you don't!" the Doctor said, gripping the screwdriver with both hands. "Come on- come on-"

The platform stopped, and then fell back into place with a hard thud that had everyone falling to the ground.

"There," the Doctor said. "Won't move again." The platform groaned as it twisted to fit back in the space it had previously occupied.

"… won't move again after that."

"You sure about that?" Shepard asked indignantly.

"No, this time, it's staying put. Now, I have to clear the virus out of the system. Once that's done, it should be safe for EDI to interface with the databank." The Doctor looked over his shoulder to see another platform come flying in. "I think this is the part where you shoot things."

"Or knock them the hell over," Shepard said, expressing her anger and fear for only a moment before locking it down and preparing to fight. She ducked behind one of the platform's edges, Grunt right besides her. Garrus had retreated further back, but she noted he hadn't left the platform entirely.

"Don't let them get near the Doctor," she called to the two of them. "Garrus, try and pick off anyone with a barrier so that Grunt and I can finish them."

Shepard spared one moment to hope that the Doctor really did know what he was doing before her amp started humming and her entire body flared blue, charging forward and knocking one of the drones off the second platform. She followed the charge up with a shotgun blast to her right, hitting another drone. She heard a thunk-thunk-thunk coming towards her, and rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the Scion's blue blasts. Damn. Those things were hard to kill.

"Grunt, I'm going to take out the Scion, so keep the drones off of me," she yelled to the krogan, holstering her shotgun and pulling out the Collector weapon she'd grabbed on Horizon. She'd found it to be an effective weapon when she needed to take out something tough. Shepard took a couple of deep breaths to steady herself, waited for the next series of blasts from the Scion to pass, and then popped out of cover to click on the Collector beam and aim it at the Scion. The one time she'd been close enough to one of those to see it, she'd instantly regretted the sight - it looked like the Collectors had just jammed multiple husks together and added a blue bulbous covering at the 'shoulder'. It was a misshapen monster and it almost made her want to throw up. Luckily, she'd dealt with the battlefield gag reflex a long time ago.

Shepard kept shooting, ducking in and out of cover as needed, until the Scion fell over, at which point she switched back to her shotgun and tried to reassess the situation. Most of the drones were dead, but there were still a few-

"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL."

Shit. Harbinger had decided to put in an appearance.