The silky sheets covered Jane up to her chin, giving her warmth as she opened her eyes in her bed. The first thing she saw was something she never saw before: a certain turian laying next to her, sleeping in complete peace. His silver plates were smooth, his mandibles relaxed, and his chest was rising and falling in a stable rhythm. It was a strange sight to see him at such calm.
It filled her with comfort, putting her at ease.
She didn't want to look at the clock, she wanted to remain in this silence a bit longer.
This was a side of him that only she saw, that he chose to share only with her. This moment was hers, and she was thinking of how far they had come. He was her bondmate now, and that feeling she couldn't compare to anything.
She saw his eyelids slowly open, his blue eyes sparkling up as the light hit them. He moved closer to her instinctively and started to comb her hair with one of his talons. She had a very strange look on her face.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked quietly, still a bit sleepy.
"Do you think..." she started, wondering "Would have we met, had it not been for the reapers?"
His mandibles moved, just a bit. "Of course." He was so certain and confident, it gave her chills. Not the world could break him down anymore, it seemed. He was everything she ever wanted.
[ETA to relay is 1 hour.] came the comms from EDI. After they pass this relay it will only be minutes till they arrive to Cronos station, where the Illusive Man resides. Saren rose up from the bed just like he was, and Jane followed him with her eyes, realizing he came around the bed to her side, and reached for her.
He lifted her up into his arms, and took her to the bathroom, and the hot water was streaming down on them after a minute.
"Ugh, Commander" called Joker with a worried face, looking at the monitors. Jane was standing above him with Saren and EDI. She turned to him upon hearing his voice. "ETA is 3 minutes. But there is no traffic coming from Cronos, it seems the station went silent."
"How is that possible?" Garrus asked in the background.
"Well..."
The station appeared in the space around them, in the distance.
It was almost impossible to spot, its surface blending into the darkness. The only light coming from it was the still glowing, hot ash that formed a coat around the station. Part of its plating was completely missing, revealing the naked structure of the object, showing that the whole thing burned down in and out.
"But… how did this happen?" Garrus exhaled. It was hard to believe that the Cerberus headquarters they were looking for for so long was now in ashes. Jane snorted.
"It looks like the reapers have finally found them."
"We need to investigate, and soon." Saren started "If the reapers took Vendetta, we're done for."
She looked at him.
Is it possible that the reapers are currently sailing away with the information on the Crucible as they speak? Is it possible that it is already too late and all their efforts until now were for nothing?
He saw the darkness on her face as her thoughts raced on, but he also witnessed her pushing the panic down, and overcoming it. She needed to concentrate, and she brought herself back into focus in a second. This was the first time Saren really picked up on her doing this on her own. He still remembered the length he had to go to bring her back into focus once she strayed.
Maybe, finally, she learned how strong she is.
"Then let's go, we have no time to waste!" she commanded and left to the docking tube.
When they arrived on the station, it was in complete ruin and awfully empty. It seems all the Cerberus operatives evacuated, and the ships left behind were useless. They found nothing and no one, but they proceeded to the higher levels of the station - looking for the Illusive Man, or any trace he might have left behind. The further up they went the more complicated the levels became, but they proceeded relentlessly, up until they ended up in front of a door leading to a maintenance area.
Saren looked at EDI confused. "Are you sure it's this way? This is a maintenance area.."
"Yes, it is this way. I am 99.99% sure."
"But why would the Illusive Man setup his control room behind a maintenance area? It doesn't make any sense." Jane said, while bypassing the door on her omni tool.
"Maybe he wanted to hide it, like his whole identity." Saren replied.
The door then opened, and things got more complicated.
As they walked in, they saw that the maintenance area wasn't exactly what it's supposed to be. A giant hole opened up for them in the station, with a silver eezo core in the middle hanging, held up by an intricate support structure mounted on the high ceiling, possibly the peak of the station. Ten claws resembling ribs hugged the core for what seemed protection. They all knew now that the Illusive Man wasn't hiding his office behind the maintenance area: The label hid the giant core of the station, that was awfully familiar.
Both EDI and Jane exhaled heavily as they realized what it was.
"What the hell is that?" Saren asked, realizing this is not a regular eezo core.
Jane looked at him, than back at the structure in awe. "I think it's the core of the human-reaper the Collectors created.. If you read the reports, than.."
"It was handed over to Cerberus." Saren continued, having read the reports. "I understand. They have the best resources to be able to use something like this in research. Destroying it or handing this over to the Council wouldn't have helped much."
"That is correct." EDI commented "But there is no indication on the rest of the reaper, I cannot see any of its other parts here."
Saren looked at Jane with a question coming up in his eyes. She answered before he could ask: "It used to have arms and a head as well with powerful laser cannons. I'm not sure where that went..."
"Possibly used in research" continued EDI, standing over at the terminal mounted at the wall, hacking through the data "It appears this core functions as a superactive eezo drive core, flooding the station with energy."
"Yes, but where was that energy used? This station has no weapons, it's not a classic space vessel that would need much movement - Where does that energy go then?"
EDI ran some processes, but only found errors. "Access is denied. I cannot get into that part of the system, I have no clearance and I cannot hack that code." Saren proceeded to look at the terminal with EDI to see if they could somehow break through the security firewalls, but it appeared fruitless. Jane started closing in on the core, walking the path along the railing they were on.
The core was absolutely beautiful.
Without the face and arms of a reaper, it looked like a giant, silver jewel hanging in the darkness, lighting up everything around it. It was so familiar to her deep down, it intrigued her. She wasn't sure why.
"We have to proceed, this is pointless. I can hack through reaper structures, but it appears Cerberus outdone themselves this time" Saren commented as he stepped away from the console and turned to look for Jane. She was far on the railing now, examining the core.
He couldn't help but notice as they started to make their way too, that this core was something different. It almost spoke to him. He felt faint, barely noticeable waves hitting him gently the closer he got. He was suddenly calm, almost at peace. He saw Jane and he stepped closer, brushing his shoulder to her to let her know he was standing behind her.
She just stood there, aware of him, looking at the core.
For some unknown reason she reached for his hand in secret, and grabbed his talons.
Why was something so alien, created by reapers so beautiful? But then again, this was a question that came into her mind every time she looked at Saren.
"We should proceed." he whispered lightly, then left. She took another look, then they all left the core. They passed the railing to the door on the other side, EDI hacked it and they proceeded through.
This was what they were looking for, the lair of the Illusive Man.
It was a giant room with one single chair and computer in the middle, looking at the red, shining supergiant.
"They're not here, obviously.." Jane commented to herself, visibly annoyed. "EDI, can you check if Vendetta is here?"
"Of course, Commander." she said as she ran to the computer to try and hack into the system to get any data possible. Saren stepped to the edge of the room to observe the view on the supergiant while EDI was working, and Jane decided to sit into the chair of the great leader of Cerberus. The turian looked back at her, and despite their worrying situation, he could see the smile on her face.
"That's a hard blow for the Illusive Man" teased Saren, a smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.
"Of course!" she said, casually dangling her crossed foot high in the air, like a bored queen on her throne "This is the least he deserves!"
"Commander, I have found something." came from EDI.
Jane stood up immediately: "Already?"
"There is not much I can see in here… Mostly organizational, regular data about Cerberus and it's activities. Nothing regarding Vendetta. Maybe there was some research done on it so that way…" she stopped talking, typing away at the console before suddenly stopping: "Saren, this might be of interest to you."
He looked at her, his face making an unexpected expression.
"Bring it up." was all he said.
Pages of data flooded the holoscreen, that Saren could not understand. It was mostly a bunch of code that he did not recognize. "What is this?" Jane asked.
"I need to refer back to our discussion regarding the data stored in the reaper of Haestrom" started EDI, looking at Saren "Specifically the data that you recovered when bringing back the Commander."
"What?" Shepard asked, surprised "You also recovered data from that reaper?"
"Yes." Saren exhaled, looking at the data on screen "When in the nav system, I found turian space destinations, including Palaven, and I decided to dig deeper. I've found some largely damaged blueprints for what seemed turian organs. I let EDI know, as I found the data highly suspicious, even though large amounts of it were missing, including the data that provided the reaper with these blueprints. The reaper was gathering information on turians, but it wasn't complete."
"Correct. Coincidentally, these data caches appear to be large amounts of turian genetic data. A quick search showed they are corresponding to most of the blueprints found on the Haestrom reaper. This is part of the data that those blueprints must have been prepared based on." said EDI. A moment of silence fell on the room as the information sank in, and Jane looked at Saren once again.
She asked only one crucial question: "Why would Cerberus have this data?"
"They didn't mine it themselves, that is for sure."
"The most probable scenario according to my calculations is that Cerberus stole it from the reapers." EDI added, waiting for a reaction.
Saren stepped back. This was concerning. Cerberus stealing turian genetic information from the reapers? This fit into none of Cerberus' (so far) presented plans regarding the reapers, it just didn't make sense. Why would they need genetic data? Above all, about turians, when they are a pro-human terrorist group? They wanted a turian reaper, similar to the human one?
Jane saw his inner battle with his thoughts and stood up to step to him, planting her hand on his shoulder in a move of comforting him.
"EDI, is there anything regarding Vendetta or this trash of a man?" she asked, knowing that this topic would come back up later in discussions. For now, they needed to focus on their objective, which was getting Vendetta and learning what the Catalyst was exactly.
After a couple minutes, EDI provided an answer: "I have found no direct information regarding any of them, but from the station emergency logs, it appears that there was one ship leaving the station just before the attack. It was a high class ship, heading to..." she stopped.
"What's wrong?"
"I.. " she looked confused, bringing the data up on screen to replace the previous one "I don't recognize these coordinates."
Saren and Jane looked at the screen, then immediately right at each other. It has been almost three years since they saw these numbers, and it was immediately clear to them, that they both knew what this was.
"The Mu Relay" they said in unison.
Jane immediately turned around with Saren hot on her heels, not waiting for EDI to catch up who just pieced the information together.
"JOKER" Jane shouted into her comms, her voice strong "Heading back now. As soon as we return, I want the Normandy immediately to be on course to the Mu Relay!"
[What?] came from the other side [I must've misunderstood. The Mu Relay?]
"Damn right, Joker!"