Shepard woke up on a wheeled stretcher, still a little exhausted and out of focus. Even despite the golden visor, his vision felt even more cloudy than before.
He inhaled and braced for stomach pain as he quickly twisted himself about into a sitting position with one swift move, and was greeted with the things that he started to really hate having to see.
A medbay? Again? Someone get the damn glue.
He groaned at the sight of the usual things a medbay would have. Beds, heaps of medical equipment, white curtains. At this point he felt like he would get sick or shot just by being in one. It was like him and any places with medi-gel are just begging to be together nowadays.
At least I got plenty of homes throughout the galaxy now.
He rolled his eyes at the idea.
The back of his mind recalled the recent events that had occurred. He still couldn't quite believe it himself what had happened. There he was, about to talk to Tali about her father, but then he was...saved? He was saved from having to have that dreaded conversation, to be specific, when he saw Garrus get knocked out by Dyad. Then he was picked up and knocked out himself. Next thing he knew, he was waking up on a shuttle headed to Chimera's base of operations, which was just a single ship that floated through space.
It was a pretty extreme interruption that helped him save a little more time before he really does have to have that talk with Tali, someday in the future. And everything after that...It was a lot of things to take in for one day.
Because back when he was being taken to the base, one of the rescuers on the shuttle filled him in about everything that was actually going on. About how Chimera left Cerberus after The Illusive Man's indoctrination, about how Chimera ended up in two split factions with one of them wanting him dead, and how he was captured by that faction but then rescued by this one and so on.
Sure, he still had plenty of more questions that needed answering, but right now he just felt happy to have some allies. Ones that knew more about how the other Chimera worked.
Keelah. He hissed in thought.
He took a deep sigh, and found himself a wheelchair sitting right next to him by the stretcher, which he was incredibly grateful for. His legs skillfully maneuvered off the white sheets of the stretcher and carefully sat himself into the soft black cushions of the wheelchair. He was happy to have the familiar feel of wheels below him, and it surprised him when it even felt better than his own wheelchair.
Whatever happened to it anyways?
Shepard realized now that he also felt hungry, and was so glad when he found that there was still a tube of nutrient paste in one of his many pockets. He pulled it out and inspected it. Pofikref.
He instinctively turned around and found the little white machine still sitting on the stretcher, which was strange since he didn't recall it being with him on the shuttle. He could've sworn that it was torn out of him when Dyad picked him up. He wasn't going to complain that it was here now, though.
Popping open both the compartment of the machine and the tube of paste, he carefully poured in a solitary crumb and prepared for the small pinch of his blood being drawn. To his surprise, he didn't feel anything and the machine began to whir anyways. He double checked the connection of the machine to his suit, and everything seemed to be in place. Perhaps he had gotten so used to the feeling that it no longer stung. He wouldn't be surprised, with how many times he had to go through this annoying process.
It didn't take long for the machine to beep green, and Shepard cheerfully took the tube and lifted it to the little hole just under his mask, and began sucking on the thick paste. He was disappointed that it was all texture and no taste, which was depressing, because usually it was pretty salty and buttery like delicious crackers. He must be really tired if his sense of taste hasn't kicked in yet.
After his small snack, he instantly felt thirsty, but could find no water tube in his stash. Well that's disappointing.
After a quick look around, he discovered a silver sink. Even though it was obviously used for cleaning medical tools, he was somewhat tempted to go over and try to drink out of it. He kept himself away from the idea, though.
Even if he did try, he wouldn't be able to because for one, he didn't have a straw or a cup, and for another, he couldn't spy any sort of decontamination unit in the room.
He hummed a single note of simple unhappy acceptance, and turned in his wheelchair to take in the rest of the room. There really wasn't much to look at. But he needed to do something. If he was honest, he just wanted to take the fight to the, "bad Chimera," already. He was getting tired of worrying about guns pointing to his head when he clearly has other worse things to worry about.
I'm sick of wondering if I made a mistake about Tali's father...and the admirals, what might they think...and the Normandy, God, I hope they're alright.
Shepard contemplated on whether he should leave the room. Surely a doctor would come by to check up on him at some point, so he didn't want to cause trouble by not being there when they come around. He didn't like it, but he settled for being lazy for the next however long.
It sure wasn't easy being alone with his thoughts, though, but at least it was more peaceful on the outside. Still, it wasn't long before the storm began to rage on in his mind when he thought back to the attack at the gravesite, with questions and frustrations and anger raining down like burning hail.
Damned Chimera. How did they get us? Why did Dyad go crazy? What's Tali and Garrus up to? What about the rest of my crew, where are they? How did they get us? How did they get Dyad? How are the other admirals going to respond to this? How did they get us?
Getting attacked while at Tali's father's grave and putting her in danger definitely wasn't going to make things easier for him to assimilate into quarian society.
Raan was right, I should've taken greater care at keeping her safe.
He fumed at the other Chimera. They were always making things more difficult for him. All he wanted was to peacefully retire on Rannoch and protect his beautiful, ass-kicking quarian goddess, but he had to put obstacles in front of himself, and the other Chimera weren't helping by tailing him for who knows how long trying to abduct and kill him.
But at the same time, part of him just wanted to put a bullet in whoever was the leader's head and go home and have a proper sit down to think things through. But when thinking about Tali's father, another part of him hoped he could drag out the fight long enough so that he wouldn't have to. For awhile, at least.
He sighed and made a load groan into the palms of his gloved hands. His thoughts were starting to get confused. Months ago, as a military man, the only thing he had to worry about was protecting people. He would be happy to take a gun fight to the other Chimera. Hell, he still would. After all, they made it personal by shooting Tali. But now, as a...retired veteran...he was more worried about keeping people.
Politics...personal problems...somehow these things were making him feel even more stressed than he ever did in his life, and he died before.
"Are you doing alright, Captain?"
Shepard lifted his head out of his hands to see a familiar blonde, short haired woman in a normal scientist uniform. He rolled his shoulders as if to wear off his stress and exhaustion and nothing else.
"Yeah, still a little tired," he replied, his voice dry.
"Would you like a glass of water?"
"I would love one, but...I think I would need a straw," he said with a mild chuckle.
"That's alright! I got everything right...ah! Here we go!" she said, opening a nearby cabinet and pulling out a black plastic drinking straw stuck inside a glass.
Shepard raised his eyebrows. "Do you usually keep stuff like that in here?"
"I..." She started off, sounding a little embarrassed as she turned over to the sink to fill it with water. "I work a lot in here...Always focused on something, looking for the next breakthrough. Doesn't really give you time to walk all the way to the mess hall."
"Makes sense," he responded simply, still tired. He had to remember that not everyone was right next to a kitchen like Doctor Chakwas, and noting the size of this ship, the Normandy was small in comparison. It really must take awhile to get anywhere.
The blonde haired woman walked over with the glass of water. "There you are, clean as water can possibly be. Completely safe to drink, even with your health," she smiled warmly.
"Thank you." Shepard gratefully received the glass and stuck the straw in the same little hole in his mask that he used to eat his nutrient paste, glad that water was the one thing that didn't need scanning for compatibility. Even so, he was again disappointed when the water had no taste. Probably because it was, "medical water," but at least it flushed away the rest of the clumps of paste that were lingering in the back of his throat.
"So," Shepard said in between sips, "What do you do here?" He asked.
It was an attempt at some small talk. With the amount of time he had spent in a medbay, he had felt like he reached the title of master when it came to chatting with doctors back on Earth. Still, he needed to find some way to keep himself occupied until the time for when he could get back to Tali and Garrus. Then him and the rest of his crew could join up and figure out a counterattack for what happened at the gravesite.
The woman gave a small laugh. "Ha! What don't I do here? I organize our resistance, I plot our courses, I set plans of attack, and I make sure everyone's fine...I do everything here except any actual fighting."
Shepard made to quickly finish a sip. "So, you're a higher up in the...what, chain of command? I'm sorry, I'm not familiar about how things work around here."
The woman laughed again. "It's alright, and so you know, I am the up in the chain of command. Everyone on this ship answers to me."
"Oh!" Shepard responded, realizing who he was talking to. "Nice to meet you...Miss..?"
"Jana," the woman warmly answered. She then turned shyly away, as if somewhat afraid of him. "I assume you understand the situation, about how you ended up here...but I...I wanted to tell you something that's been on my mind for months...that...that I helped The Illusive Man go batshit insane."
Shepard made to ask her what she meant, but she started to ramble, pouring out whatever guilt she had.
"I stuck a control chip in his head to help him control Reapers...I didn't mean to-"
The name, the face, and the small piece of information caused a memory to flood back to Shepard's mind, and he immediately put two and two together. "I remember!" He interrupted. "I saw a video log about it back when I was taking Cerberus down!"
Jana was taken aback slightly, and was immediately quiet. She curled her fingers underneath her chin and looked away. "So you have, have you? I just wanted to...get that off my chest."
Shepard took note of her pain ridden reaction, and made to be friendly. "Cerberus was bound to burn. It was smart that you got out when you did."
"Sooner would've been better," she admitted softly.
"Then you would've been hunted down."
"I guess so. Still, I should've known once he set sights on the Reapers to, 'advance,' humanity. Too many unknowns to deal with." She paused and looked back, a bit more confident now that she was in deep thought. She took one sweeping glance over her medical supplies. "He should've recognized the strength of human creativity. Our ability to build rather than to take."
Shepard couldn't help but feel nothing but respect for this woman. He had to remind himself that not everyone in Cerberus were bad, some were simply stuck and couldn't find a way out until it was almost too late.
"We sure could've used you when we were trying to convince him to join us rather than fight us...What'd you do for him, exactly?" Shepard asked, sensing a frustrated passion in her voice.
"Neuroscience, mainly." She walked over to her table of various tools and inspected them, almost absentmindedly. "I wanted to dig my hands into Artificial Intelligence, but The Illusive Man kept me focused on medical and Reaper control systems and its possible applications to human nervous systems. Hence, why I did surgery on him...and fun fact, I may have had a small hand in your own revival all that long ago."
Shepard groaned internally.
"Oh! Wow! Uh...thanks."
"Don't mention it," she happily replied.
Don't worry, I won't. I don't ever want to mention it again...
"So, Artificial Intelligence, huh? You like creating synthetic life?"
Jana made a light laugh. "I like advancing forward, it's my fascination in Artificial Intelligence that made me realize that they are the best way to do that, so they go hand in hand."
"You know," Shepard started with a little cautious tone in his voice. "That's the reason why Reapers existed, to stop us from wiping ourselves out with synthetic life."
Her eyes widened with interest at this new information, but made no comment. "Well, the Reapers aren't here anymore, are they?" She said instead, and turned back and smiled for a moment.
Then a concerned expression clouded her eyes as a thought came to her mind. "Captain Shepard, I need to ask something of you."
"Ask away," he gestured with his hand.
She nervously fumbled with her fingers. "Earth is still under heavy reconstruction, and we're still hundreds of years away from returning to what we once were. Sure we had help from other species, but as the months go by, those species has started abandoning that help and going back to their own planets."
"Can you blame them?"
"Well, Earth is where the war ended. I was hoping we could shave down some of that time."
"Okay, so, what is it that you want me to do, exactly?"
"We need the quarians, or rather, we need their geth to help us out."
Shepard raised his eyebrows. Well, that's a tough ask.
"I'm not sure about that. The quarians and the geth are too busy building up Rannoch. No reason why you can't ask them yourself?"
Jana sighed. "We did...recently, in fact, in order for us to help fight our...rogue faction, and to rescue you and your friends. But because of our past history of being Cerberus and our general connection to this rogue faction of ours, and their attempts on yours and their admiral's life...they were, reluctant, to say the least. I don't think we'll ever get around to a negotiating table anytime soon."
Chimera contacted the quarian admirals? Shit, so they already know! But why wouldn't they help? Why wouldn't Raan? She'd definitely would've wanted to help in rescuing Tali. Shepard mentally growled and rolled his eyes. Must've been the other Admirals! secretive and as untrusting as ever! It's almost as if they want us to die! But speaking of Tali...
Shepard thumbed the speaker light on his mask, reminding himself of his and Jana's discussion. "Yeah, I can understand that...but before we come up with anything, I need to talk to my fireteam, can I see my–er, the Admiral Zorah please? She must be pretty rattled after what had happened. Garrus Vakarian, too."
Jana instantly looked crestfallen, and Shepard's heart instantly began to beat faster and his suit started to get hot.
"I'm sorry, Captain. We failed to retrieve your fellow team members after you were captured. We were so close to rescuing Mr. Vakarian yesterday...unfortunately he was recaptured, and, needless to say, he's most likely under a much closer watch."
So they weren't rescued?!
Shepard gave a mixed cautious sigh of relief that his turian brother was still alive, and a strong breath of pure anger at the other Chimera. The bastards made it even more personal now, and if it was a fight they wanted, it was a fight he was absolutely going to give them.
"He insisted that he wouldn't leave your engineer," Jana added.
"Tali." So they're together...
He rested his mask in the diamond of his thumbs and index fingers, trying to keep his rage under control and think clearly, taking deep and heavy breaths.
"Thanks, Garrus," he whispered to himself. "You're the best friend a guy could ever ask for."
But damn are you a dumbass.
Shepard took another deep inhale to help cool himself down and recollect his thoughts, focusing on channeling his seething hatred for the other Chimera.
After a few solid moments of sitting there and staring at the ends of his fingers until he nearly went cross-eyed, he finally looked up at Jana, who was standing there nervously but still patient.
"So we know where they are?" He asked, still calmly pissed.
"I do. I have been trailing them since your capture, but I believe it'll be more difficult now. The Rogues may have suspected that Mr. Vakarian hasn't managed to get as far as he did without help. We've already noticed them sending out scouting parties...and I can only imagine what they might be doing to suspects of our own people that they have in there. I made a mistake with that one," she said, with more remorse in her tone.
"What about their defenses?"
Jana glared. "Immense. They've taken the best of everything we had when they mutinied. Our ships, our weapons, our people. If we tried a full frontal assault...well...we would be slaughtered, to say the least."
"Don't worry, Jana, I wasn't thinking of an assault. Do we have any idea of what they're up to right now?"
"Well, we did take away their most prized possession," she answered, gesturing towards him. "I'm willing to bet that they're going to try to cut a deal between you and your fireteam. How they plan to do it is completely unknown. I'm thinking they might do a ransom broadcast with your life being the price. But so far they haven't done anything...It's strange."
Shepard chuckled. "If they do, we got a good plan right there. Get me aboard and I'll break them out myself."
Jana's eyebrows furrowed. "That's not possible!"
I know it isn't! But at this point I'm so sick and tired and confused that I don't even care!
His thought unexpectedly took a turn, and he the back of his eyes begin to burn and his throat constrict to go along with his fear beating heart.
I just want her to be safe! He begged to himself.
The feeling of rubber on rubber underneath thin sheets came back to him now. The beauty hidden from the galaxy by a purple mask. The feeling of her being pressed up against him. The unique experiences and perspective that only her glowing eyes had. The eyes that seemed to hold all the answers to the universe.
He was falling in love all over again. But the confusing guilt he had was making it bittersweet. She didn't know how Tali would react once she found out about this secret of his about her father. All he knew was that it was going to hurt in some way. But it would hurt much worse if he didn't find some way to rescue her so she could find out.
And she can't find out if he died trying to rush in guns blazing to free her.
And Garrus. Dammit, I'm sorry that you had to get caught up in this, man. Gah, This is exactly why I didn't want anyone else involved! It just gets them hurt!
He released a deep depressive sigh. He needed to focus.
"So we can't begin an assault, and I can't just hand myself over," he finally clarified, his blood less fuzzy.
"It seems we just have to wait for them to make their move," Jana nodded.
"No. Absolutely not. They're bloodthirsty mercs and I don't trust them with another second with my fireteam. We need to think of something and we need to think of something now."
"But we have no options?"
"Then we make one, somehow," Shepard said determined. "We need...something."
A small idea crawled into his mind. He hated it, but as Jana said, they had no other options. He groaned.
"We need the Normandy."
"Sorry Captain," Jana answered rather quickly. "That geth transport ship you brought along turned against them. With the Rogue fleet support, the Normandy had no choice but to retreat. We were the only ones able to track you after you were taken. And due to an ongoing jamming signal coming from the fleet, we can't send out any messages...We don't know where the Normandy went."
"Well they went back to Rannoch, obviously. Let's just head there. I even have a few choice words for the admirals."
"Captain, we're just one ship! If we break course now, we may never find them again."
"Then use the shuttle!"
"Our shuttle is the one thing that's keeping us alive. It's our scout, our eyes. It's the way we actually manage to follow them undetected. If we send it away, then it means that we have to follow up close behind them, and a ship our size would definitely stick out like a sore thumb to a whole entire fleet."
Shepard was beginning to get tired of options squirming out of his grasp, but this one he wasn't one was going to let go easily.
"Jana, we can't do this without the Normandy."
"I'm sorry, Shep-"
"I know it's a gamble," he pressured. "But this is the only way I can think of that will get my people out of there, and if you help me, we can get your people out of there, too."
Jana looked on to the floor in reluctant thought. Shepard knew he was asking much from her, but she was also asking much from him. Jana and her faction seemed like good people, and the quarian admirals would be grateful if they helped in rescuing one of their own. Perhaps a little push about that would help.
"If we manage this, I will personally throw in a geth support negotiation meeting in there as well. I can make sure of it."
Her eyes immediately perked up. "You'd actually do that?"
That got her attention.
"Absolutely. But first we need to get to the Normandy." He extended his hands towards her earnestly. "So...do we have a deal?"
Jana's eyes returned to the floor, still thinking, her hand went to support her chin instead of sealing the deal.
She'll say, yes. I'd be surprised if she would pass this opportunity up.
Just then, her hand began to flash an energetic orange, her omni-tool blinking so fast that he could only guess that it was nothing short of an emergency.
"Hold on," she said simply, and moved to get a full look at her forearm. The orange light crawled along and up into the air to display a rectangle of information. Her eyes squinted as she studied it.
"What is it?" Shepard asked. "Is it the Rogue Faction?"
"No."
"No?"
"No. No, no, no, crap. Quick, come with me, now." Jana took a swift turn out the door, almost leaving a confused Shepard behind.
"Wait," Shepard said, but Jana was already out of sight. "Hey, hold on!" He put his arms to work as he chased after the fast walking scientist, regaining sight of her after leaving the room. "What's going on?"
Jana didn't answer nor slow down, but kept going as she interwove between crew members through the warm lit metal passageways. Not a single one paid attention to her.
"Jana, wait!"
Shepard put his forward strength to the test as he passed the crew, keeping his sights after the scientist's legs in between the bodies. It was stressful to say the least, especially when he would lose track of the blonde haired scientist every time she took a corner.
Wait up for God's sake!
He began to lose track of how many times he said, "Excuse me," and, "Pardon me," to passing crew members after about the tenth time. But it wasn't long before he took a corner and was surprised to happen upon an open space, with Jana standing on a small set of steps with bars that raised up into railings in the middle.
Upon further study, Shepard found that the open space he and Jana were positioned on was really just a raised platform overlooking something similar to a large hanger bay. Except the bay was dimly lit and ominously empty. The only source of life came from Jana herself and a few absent minded crew members tapping away at glowing terminals along the wall of the corner he turned on. It was such a strange change from the bustling bodies he had to get through a few seconds prior.
"Miss Jana, what is going on?"
If the blonde haired scientist heard him, she paid no mind as she flicked her wrist. With the gesture, the largest galaxy map that Shepard had ever seen in his life appeared before her, with the far side of the bay simultaneously lighting up with white speckled dots of white that soon became the stars of that galaxy, visible through the massive virtual windows.
Woah.
Jana studied the galaxy map closely, and Shepard could barely see a red holographic line trailing around the map, like the plotting of a ship's course. The scientist kept her eyes furiously focused on it, and she made several noises of what Shepard could describe as annoyed but worried.
Shepard didn't want to interrupt whatever thought process she was having, but his own curiosity got to the best of him as he cautiously rolled himself over to her.
"Excuse me? What's happening?"
Jana made on last grunt, and plotted something on the galaxy map and shut it off before Shepard could get a better look. "I'm sorry, Captain, it seems like we're going to have to do this all on our own," she finally acknowledged, then turned her head somewhere up to the ceiling.
"Pilot, follow the galaxy map's course...the pack is moving."
"Yes, ma'am," came the sound of the female pilot on the intercom.
Shepard still sat there silently confused, and Jana twisted herself around and rested herself upon the railings. "Looks like our Rogue Faction is already on the move, and it seems like they're planning something big."
"Yeah? Like what?" Shepard asked, glad that he was finally getting some answers.
The scientist looked off to the side as she mentally prepared an explanation, then jumped right into it.
"Back when our organization split, the Rogue Faction took all of our best resources, including our experiments with various aspects of Artificial Intelligence and simulations technology. We found it strange because, well, they're more military based, and shouldn't have need for those kinds of things. The only conclusion we could come up with is that they wanted to weaponize it. Of course, we figured they weren't smart enough to do so because we never seen any of it in action."
Shepard nodded his head as he followed along.
"But it was only yesterday when we attempted to rescue Mr. Vakarian that we came across a sign of one of these experiments, we weren't sure at first, but all our previous understandings about the Rogue Faction were just proved wrong when we were able to confirm it only just now. It looks like this experiment in particular has indeed been weaponized, but not in the way we would've dared thought."
"What do you mean? What is it?"
Jana sighed, seemingly reluctant. Shepard could tell that she was withholding information. But he kept himself patient.
"Captain Shepard, it is to my belief that the Rogue Faction is currently testing this weapon on your team member," Jana finally announced. "Using him as a way to bait you out. But Mr. Vakarian sure won't be the only one that they test this weapon on...The Rogue Faction are following in The Illusive Man's footsteps and wanting to create more soldiers. And they're doing it by going back to the place where he planned to do the same with the Reapers."
"They're testing a weapon on Garrus?! Shit, wait, back to the place where The Illusive Man made soldiers? You mean, they're going to...and Garrus-?"
"Yes, Captain Shepard," Jana interrupted in exasperation. "They're headed back to Sanctuary."