A/N:
Medical condition is improving but not fully recovered - nerve pain is still there. Plus, my mother may have lung cancer - thankfully, it was picked up on a routine scan to make sure she was fully over her previous cancer and they think they can deal with it with little trouble. Still, it has left me occupied and distracted.
I needed to go over some of what was in Shepard's head, but I'm not 100% happy with the way it turned out. At the same time, it's pretty much the best place to end Arc I on and move on with the actual story. Given that it took quite a while to even put this together I am not sure when the next chapter will come out.
Reviews are always welcome.
'Now we're being hunted on Omega, on Ilium, and in open fucking space?'
- Captain Thtek Erala, salarian 'organ facilitator' for Eclipse
After spending a day hurling biotics, modification of guns and armor, and then hours going over personnel reviews, Shepard retired to her quarters to listen to music and try to sort herself out a bit.
She wondered, as she lay on the extremely comfortable bed in her rooms, if she was still in a sort of shock or not. Surely, after realizing she'd lost not only her life, but that of her wife, some of her best friends, and hearing that her government was adrift and her father figure was in a nut house, she should be … affected.
She should be a weepy, useless wreck. Instead she just felt disconnected. As if she couldn't make herself believe it was real. The venting she'd done her first night 'awake', after seeing that horrible video, had just left her feeling empty.
The rage was there. But not the depth of sorrow she should have felt. Was that a good thing?
She sighed, closing her eyes. Thinking about it wasn't going to change anything.
The door chimed, and she sat up, brushing her hair back with one hand and stepping out of the bedroom into the main area. She glanced at the clock, it was just past 2300, and frowned. "Come in."
She didn't know who to expect, but it wasn't Kelly Chambers. The psychologist walked in, wearing a black Cerberus jumpsuit, and glanced around. "Evening."
Shepard frowned. "What do you want?"
Kelly gave her a thin smile. "Coming to check up on you, see how you're doing, and making sure you're adjusting. Miranda seemed to think you were okay, but she's got her own issues and wanted me to double check. So I thought I'd run through some things I wanted to go over with you...ask some questions. That kind of thing."
Shepard sighed. "More shrink bullshit? I figured you'd be along sooner or later to pick my brains, but it can wait until the morning."
The redhead shook her head. "No, not really. I mean … Shepard. You died. If you're going to stand here and tell a trained psychologist that you're hunky dory with that then I have to wonder if we didn't fuck up somewhere in fixing up your brain."
Shepard gave her the tiniest of smiles. "Maybe I'm not fine, but I don't really feel like telling you about my dreams and shit right now. The last time we talked you decided to call me out on not trusting you guys, as if Cerberus was all about cupcakes and flowers." She folded her arms. "Color me skeptical."
Kelly tilted her head. "Look, I'm sorry if I pissed you off when we first met, but that's my job."
Shepard gave her a hard look. "Your job is to piss me off?"
Chambers shrugged. "My job at that time was to engage you emotionally – which I did. You were, and in some ways still are, in a state of shock. And not to be a bitch about it, but you've spent a lot of your life hiding behind mental defense mechanisms, and we don't have time for that right now. A lot of what I do is useless if I'm not overt with it. It's not going to help you if I'm just observing, because you have this tendency to internalize your emotions and refuse to engage in constructive self-analysis. Some of what I do will probably always piss you off because you don't like psychologists."
Shepard nodded sourly. "And why should I? Most of 'em were fucking useless, and they weren't exactly trying to make me feel better after Torfan."
Chambers sighed. "I won't argue that. Most of the psychologists and psychiatrists in your life so far were only there to play CYA for your mental state in case you lost it completely and shot a civilian or something. They couldn't address any of your issues because you were a Z."
Shepard folded her arms. "Yeah, Jiong explained that to me. But at least when he talked to me about how I was doing and felt, he didn't try to fucking guilt-trip me."
Kelly's lips twisted in a smile. "Your Commissar, huh? Let me guess. He ran some kinda jazz on you about how 'psychology works', a bunch of feel-good BS about how you adapted as well as could be expected, and pretty much never called you out on anything? Never called you out on the situation with your wife, or your entire world-view?"
Shepard narrowed her eyes. "He gave me advice. I found him easy to talk to. He didn't insult me the way you do."
Kelly shook her head again. "Goddamned Black Hats. Look, Shepard. I'm not going to piss on the man and say he was telling you a lot of what you wanted – or needed – to hear. But I'll say he didn't have any more vested interest in fixing your problems than the earlier pack of mental health workers did. They – the Alliance – wanted you stable, and later on, in a semblance of being happy. You're smart enough to have figured that out on your own."
Shepard was silent a long moment before nodding.
Kelly's bright smile split her features as she continued. "Well, that's not the same as helping you. It's like dealing with pain from cancer by numbing the nerves rather than fixing the problem. It will make you feel better but it sure as shit won't save your life."
Shepard walked over to her desk and picked up her pack of cigarettes, lighting one. "And you're different how? I can't imagine the Illusive Man is very concerned about anything but my ability to do the job."
Kelly leaned against the wall. "And your mental stability is part of you being able to do your job. No one has done this before, coming back from the dead – and let's face it, right now you have more on your plate than that. The mess with Commodore Anderson, the fact that your wife and several friends died, the ugly things you found out about the Alliance." She folded her arms. "The Illusive Man would be stupid to assume you can deal with this sort of thing and remain perfectly stable."
Shepard tightened her jaw, then took another puff of her cigarette and blew it out angrily. "So you think I'm going to flip out?"
Kelly shook her head. "No, I don't. I think – in the short term – you are basically repressing a lot of feelings, emotions, and internal conflict. I'm different from the docs who worked with you before because I'm not locked into a certain way of proceeding or doing things, and I'm not hindered by someone telling me how to make sure you react."
Shepard arched an eyebrow. "The Illusive Man doesn't care how I act?"
Kelly waved a hand. "If you tell the Illusive Man to kiss your ass and walk away, or if you join the Dog – that's not any of my charge and has no impact on what I'll be working on with you. You have to be free to make the choices you think are right – now, and in the future. Using psychological tricks on you to make you agree with the goals of Cerberus won't work forever, and the very first thing the Alliance would do once you expose yourself as being alive again is attempt to 'break our brainwashing'. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Bottom line, Shepard, is that I'm just here to help – what forms it takes will be up to you, after I explain them."
Shepard folded her arms. "That sounds good, but what exactly can you do to help me? Laying on a goddamned couch and talking about my feelings isn't going to do shit."
Kelly sighed. "I'll level with you. There is a big difference in stopping you from falling apart and actually helping you get better." She adjusted her position."The methods I use are focused in a different direction than modern Alliance psychological theory. They're fixated on quantitative methods – lots of testing, data-gathering, theory making and statistical analysis."
She made swirly gestures with both hands and a silly face and Shepard smothered the impulse to grin. "Oh, it all sounds impressive, but they're only looking at people in abstract. Nothing is tailored to personal circumstances – everyone is expected to fit the mold, and the psychological stuff the Alliance does is never changed to fit the person. The stuff I do is always designed first and foremost to complement both the patient and what the patient wants for an outcome."
Shepard puffed on the cigarette, thinking. "Go on."
The redhead lifted one hand in a measuring gesture. "I, on the other hand, use different approaches, and tailor them to you specifically. You have trust issues, security issues, and emotional issues. You don't need me to lay you out and have you tell me about your dreams. You need clear advice on why you are going through what you are, and you need someone you can talk to who will give you practical, useful and most of all meaningful options and ways of dealing with the aftermath of … well, dying."
Shepard inhaled, blowing out smoke. "And what if I'm not interested in opening up my head to you, Chambers?"
Kelly shrugged. "I guess the bullshit answer would be you don't have to. But we both know that's bullshit. If you don't want to listen to me, then you can sit here and wonder just why in the fuck you feel empty and why you aren't a goddamned crying wreck, smoke and drink and chit-chat with the other anti-social rejects like Lawson or fucking Ezno, and do your thing. When the shit you've just gone through finally all hits you, given that you have the psychological stability of a volus at a ryncol drinking contest, you'll probably have a good old nervous breakdown."
Shepard hated the smug look on the doctor's face, but the fact that Kelly had nearly picked out exactly what Shepard was indeed feeling was pretty impressive. But that didn't mean Shepard wanted to go along with it. "If you're so smart, why am I feeling that way?"
Chambers pushed off the wall, walking past Shepard to take a cigarette out of her pack, then pulled out two glasses from the small table next to the desk, pouring scotch into each. She talked as she worked. "I could throw a lot of technical lingo at you, but the blunt way to put is is simple. Your mind doesn't want to admit it. It's a mental defense mechanism. You don't even know how to grieve, in a lot of ways, because in your mind you never had anything you valued before – so you don't know how to process losing it."
She handed Shepard the scotch, and sat down on the couch. Shepard eyed her a long moment before taking a drink. "Sounds like bullshit."
Kelly sipped the scotch with an appreciative smile before lighting the cigarette. "I think you had a fear of losing things – the respect of the people important to you, the trust of the Alliance – but you never lost anything really until Torfan. That pretty much destroyed you for weeks."
Shepard stiffened. "I'm not really wanting to talk about that."
Kelly shrugged. "Of course you don't. That's your mantra for everything that your mind can't fit itself around. Shove it down, ignore it, pretend it doesn't hurt. God fucking forbid you actually let yourself cry or someone might think you're not a robotic slave."
Shepard's hand tightened around the glass for a split second before she caught herself. She took a deep breath. "Is this supposed to be helping me?"
Kelly gave her a direct look. "Shepard, no matter what anyone has told you, the only thing I can do to help you is get you to admit your own issues. You have lots of them, and since you never had anyone you could actually trust who would help you work through them, you just try to shove them in a box."
Kelly puffed on the cigarette. "Newsflash, honey – you leave toxic materials in barrels long enough and they could start to leak. That's pretty much what is happening here. Leave aside that you died. That your wife is dead, your friends are dead, your father figure is in an insane asylum. Leave aside the fact that you had crazy literally crammed into your brain, that the first real friends you had tossed you away, or that everyone in your life – from the slavers, to the gangs, to the Alliance, to your wife, to even us, has used you."
Kelly gave her a sad smile. "Ultimately, even without all that, the biggest problem you have is that in order to function, you had to lie to yourself a lot. Almost every day. You had to tell yourself nothing hurt when it did. That you could endure, when you really couldn't. You lived in constant fear of rejection and failure because you never understood WHY the few people who believed in you did so, and worst of all? Even the people who cared about you the most didn't bother to understand that you needed to know why they cared, why they loved – otherwise you were sure that you'd fail them somehow."
The psychologist shook her head sadly, and took a shot of the scotch. "You can't process everything right now because your mind doesn't even know where to start. You never mourned your parents when they died, because they were pieces of shit – and that is how most people learn to deal with the passing of loved ones. You never had 'normal' relationships, so you had no grounding on how to deal with your wife – or her loss. All you can do is basically lie to yourself that you can handle it – and you can't."
Shepard was silent as the redhead continued. "To be fair, we all lie to ourselves. We lie and say being lonely doesn't hurt because we have to lower our defenses to achieve intimacy, and we get hurt when we do. We lie and tell ourselves that happy people are stupid, that optimists are delusional, and that we can make our own way, when none of us can really do that without going crazy or being a sociopath. But in your case, you've had to lie to yourself...about pretty much everything, for as long as you can remember. You never had a baseline to work from."
Shepard looked away. As much as what Kelly said stung, there wasn't any double talk or dishonesty in her words. "And you can fix all that?"
Kelly sighed. "Fuck, no."
She took another long slug of the drink, and Shepard frowned. After a moment, Chambers spoke again. "I won't lie to you. Even if I had ten years and you cooperated fully with me, there's always going to be damage. You don't have a functional outlook on friendship, really. Your mind is so conditioned to being double-crossed that your only real criterion for trust is not being double crossed. Your sexual issues are a complete mess. Then there's how you look at yourself. At best you're a high-functional social autistic, with a persecution complex and a penchant for rationalization of anything that conflicts with your worldview."
She folded her arms. "I could go on and on, but cataloging your problems won't do you much good unless you can process a method of either accepting or changing who you are. Accepting who you are means you have to stop lying to yourself. Changing who you are means you have to learn to deal with the damage and move on. I can't 'fix you' because you aren't' a machine. I can give you advice, and I can suggest goals to move towards – but you have to make the choices, and do the work. And ultimately – and I know this sounds trite – most of us pretend we'll magically become someone else. We say we want to be rich, or that we want to lose weight, or that we want to start a business. But we're lying to ourselves, because in order to change ourselves we have to define goals."
Kelly met her gaze. "I can work with you to help you decide what you want to do to address some of these things, but we have to figure out what you WANT to do first. A lot that process will piss you the fuck off, because unlike your Commissar I'm not going to sugar coat it. A lot of it requires you to trust me. Not just trust me to not screw you over, but really REALLY trust me, with shit you didn't even want to talk to Liara about. You may end up deciding you don't think you can handle … changing who you are."
Shepard sat down, drinking again. "That's a lot to ask for. Trust."
Kelly shrugged. "And I know that. I don't take it lightly. I already told the Illusive Man that betraying you is the single fastest way to alienate you, and I'm fully aware that in order for you to trust me you have to feel I'm worth that effort. But we can go over some other things first, and once you see what I'm doing actually works instead of just allowing you to ignore the problems in your life, maybe you will trust me more."
She drank again, and leaned back. "The first thing we need to deal with is helping you process the mess you're in right now. The process of grief and all that isn't something you can address quickly, no matter how many times people want to break it down into trite stages. Your mind has to unpack the reality. It has to deal with something that it doesn't want to deal with. Sitting here in this place, disconnected from everything, makes that hard to do. Talking to Tali and Joker may help with that, but ultimately you'll need to have it driven home before that defense breaks."
She puffed on her cigarette. "Then there's the whole mess of how exactly you're going to make it through day by day. Conventional psychology tells me that things like nostalgia, distance and time aren't going to cut it. There are multiple layers of problems with you."
Shepard eyed the woman thoughtfully. "And your answer? Sorry, it just sounds like you keep saying 'I can help you with this' or 'I can fix that' but not telling me how."
Kelly smiled. "I could bamboozle you with bullshit – cognitive-behavioral modeling, task-fixed reclamation schemes, reward and thought-model systems. It's just fucking words, though. There's two ways we can do it."
She held up her left hand, with the glass of scotch. "We can focus on getting you 'better'. We can try to slowly examine and discuss the damage you've gone though, and why it affected you. We can discuss the things you suffered, how they changed your outlooks. Why the choices you made were the only choices you knew how to take at the time."
She sipped the scotch. "We'll then explore exactly what you should be feeling, and more importantly, why you feel those things. Why your emotions react the way they do. Why people act how they act. Things that most people take for granted. Once we've done that, and you have some kind of framework of where you should be, then you have the tools to develop your own … well, frame of mind."
Kelly drained her glass with a grimace. "Personally, I don't think that's going to work, Shepard. You're not in a place where you can spend days and weeks reflecting, sorting yourself out, having weepy fits and punching shit and screaming at the universe for fucking you over. The other way we can do it is ...well, finish the patch job. Cover the things you need to get you through this mess, get you the kinds of support you need to endure, and then hope that at some point after you deal with the Collectors and Brokers we can back-track to a place where more conventional therapy and time to reflect and heal is possible."
Shepard thought over the words. "What does that entail?"
Kelly smiled, and handed her the empty glass. After a second, Shepard took it, refilled it, and handed it back. Kelly took another drink. "Goddamn, that's stuff is strong. Anyway. It's a … process. It's called rational emotive behavioral modification. The less fancy wording is that everyone has rational and irrational processes on a mental, every day level."
The slender woman leaned back again, puffing on the cigarette that had nearly burned down. "A lot of people end up stuck with things like self-blame, self-pity, shame, depression and anxiety because of their behaviors and tendencies. The traditional method of rational emotive work, therapy, tries a lot of different things to explain, educate, and work with a person to pick up on the signs of the negatives, accentuate the positives, and focus on questioning and disputing things that cause negative behavior."
Shepard nodded slowly. "Wordy but it makes sense."
Kelly smirked. "The behavioral modification version is a bit more … well, shyster. It argues that a good part of what makes our personalities the way they are is those very same irrational things. Some heroism isn't rational or positive. Some love isn't healthy or rational. Some deeply seated things like grief and honesty require very irrational mental gymnastics to arrive at or maintain – or move past."
Kelly sighed. "Rather than tear these things down, rational emotive behavioral modification uses them to prop a person up – to buttress the person they are or want to be with all aspects of their personality, both good and bad. It's often considered ethically wrong because it can take people to some really unpleasant ramifications pretty quick."
Shepard narrowed her eyes. "Like...what?"
Kelly shrugged. "Used correctly, it can allow people to accept their flaws and move on. Used incorrectly, it can allow people to justify their own flaws and work them into a completely fucked up ethical and moral framework. It's one thing to be merciless to those you hate, it's another to decide that mercy itself is injustice. Ardiente used it to condition the Sao Paulo Guard, for example."
Shepard said nothing for a long moment. She saw her cigarette had gone out, and lit another. Exhaling smoke, she finally shook her head. "Give me an example of what you think is wrong with me, then."
Kelly met her gaze. "Alright. A lot of people in your situation have a messed-up idea of justice and culpability. You had choices all your life once you got away from the sex slavers – you could have left the gangs. You had people who could have helped you with that. But you decided you liked the power of terrorizing others at the time – of not being the one who was scared."
Shepard grimaced, but Kelly continued in a harder voice. "And when you became a Marine, that didn't change – only the targets. Instead of the weak, like yourself, you went after those who preyed on the weak. But the reasons for that weren't just to protect others, no matter what you tell yourself. You liked their fear. You liked being strong. You pushed yourself to be the best because you didn't want to be cast away again – but also because you never wanted to be weak again."
Shepard gave her a hard stare. "So this is just about tearing me down?"
Kelly shook her head. "It's about making you face what you are and not fighting yourself internally over it. I'm not here to judge your choices in life, or your reasons. But I know that you aren't going to be able to internalize a lot of your own pain because it makes you feel weak – and a part of you won't accept that. Weakness in your mind leads to you being used again. You're accepting what we've done to your body after death so easily not because you're emotionally stunted – but because a part of you likes the idea of being deathless, of being stronger."
The redhead scrubbed out her now nearly dead cigarette. "You aren't reacting to this in a normal way because you aren't normal."
Shepard didn't answer for a long moment, and when she did her voice was tired. "I don't even know. I won't argue some of what you said made a lot of sense. I never had a chance to be normal."
Chambers shook her head. "No, that's not it. You had those chances. You simply never took them because you didn't recognize them – but they were there. That's the core of your problems, this … and don't get too upset, but this self-pitying denialism you maintain. You made choices along the way in your life, and they brought you to this moment."
Chambers finished her drink. "You chose to not bother to try to understand your emotions because it hurt. Because it was hard, and because you worried if you went to Anderson or Florez with your questions they would think less of you. You let yourself be dehumanized and brutal because you liked being feared. It gave you power, when you were once powerless and helpless. You chose to go along with what Liara offered you – not because it was the best thing for her, but because you were lonely and needed someone to cling to."
The psychologist folded her arms. "Now? That's all gone. So it really comes down to how you plan to live the rest of your life. You can chose to ignore the pain and emotions and emptiness. The more you do that, the more you'll end up channeling that into every action. You can chose to face it all head on and simply deal with it. If you do that, a lot of what you probably considered changes to the person you were will fall away, because they weren't built on truly understanding yourself or fixing your issues. Or you can choose to deconstruct it and fix it, which will take a lot of time we don't have. The first is stupid, the third out of reach, that means the second is the only approach that works."
Shepard drank, then shook her head. "And this has nothing to do with Cerberus wanting to use me?"
Kelly shrugged. "I've studied you enough to know you hate being kept in the dark, hate being lied to, and hate being manipulated. I consistently advised the Illusive Man not to do those things, ever. His idea of how you should be treated psychologically was simply to keep you busy and distracted with the fight, and on occasion to expect you to fall apart. Eventually you'd come to rely on Cerberus and would be more likely to join the ranks."
The psychologist folded her arms. "I'm not going to do that to you, because it would end up hurting you in the long run. I'm not going to lie to you, or try to get you to do anything you don't understand or feel like you can't go along with. You don't have full control of the Revenant Cell because the Illusive Man 'trusts' you, or thinks you'd be the best leader for it. You have it because I recommended – and Trellani agreed – that you wouldn't work with us in any other way, and that you needed the control."
Kelly cupped her chin with both hands, smiling."You don't have to make your mind up tonight about what you want to do. Right now, the most important thing is that you know you have options, that you have help available, and that you know you can trust us."
Shepard frowned. "And how can I be sure you are trustworthy, Chambers? I mean, you admitted you studied me for a long time – you could just be saying all the things I want to hear, like this set of rooms was designed to make me feel comfortable."
Kelly nodded. "The only way to earn your trust, I think, is to prove that someone is willing to risk losing something – or everything – and not double cross you. I don't expect to earn your trust overnight with a smile and comforting words. It's up to you to decide how we will earn your trust – and that you understand that we're trusting you in turn – not to simply sell us out to the Alliance or the Council, not to look at us as disposable because we're Cerberus, that sort of thing."
The woman folded her arms. "But ultimately? The biggest change you have to make before anything else can work – no matter what path you choose – is to realize that shutting people out and distrusting them hurts you more than protects you. Freud wrote about it. The more you distrust and don't let yourself be vulnerable, the less capable you are of actually absorbing the kind of shocks and hurt that betrayal causes."
Kelly gestured to the room. "You are right – we studied you for a long time. The Alliance never bothered to do that. We made adjustments to your needs. The Alliance never did. We don't have the kind of limits the Alliance did. We didn't spend billions to bring you back to life to double cross you, or to use you either – if we'd wanted to do that, our approach would be completely different."
The redhead arched her back, and then yawned. "If you want me to show you I can be trusted, you have to set the terms."
Shepard paused a long moment, then frowned. "I'll think about it."
Kelly nodded. "And really, that's all I ask. I'm not promising I can make you 'better'. I can help you deal with it, and I can help you move past it." She set the glass of scotch down and headed for the door. "Depending on how you want to move forward with the task of dealing with the Collectors, let's talk about this again over the weekend. Sound fair?"
Shepard nodded, and then Chambers was gone. Shepard sat down at her desk again, eyes drifting over to the haptic image of Liara, smiling gently.
She killed the lights to the room, sitting in the dark, staring at the image of her lost wife for a very long time.
O-TWCD-O
After breakfast, Shepard spent most of the next morning testing her weapons and making alterations to them, before sitting down with Miranda and Chambers to select and finalize the staff selections. That process was boring but necessary, and Shepard found herself more than a little shocked at the depth of talent the Cerberus scouts had to offer.
The people in question had already been approached and recruited by Cerberus, but only very recently. And she found that, given the high level of automation, she didn't really need a lot of people to get things moving. The ships, for example, would need only a handful of people to operate.
Most of the naval personnel Cerberus had selected were hardened Corsairs who had already worked with Cerberus in the past. Shepard recognized the names of more than a few. A lot of them had gotten in hot water with the SA for being too 'brutal' in attacks and raids on the batarians, and some of them didn't have a much better track record than Shepard when it came to taking prisoners.
The Corsair program had been drawn down sharply about six months after her death, when an overzealous Corsair chasing batarian pirates had ended up getting into a shooting match with Aria's Black Fleet. Many Corsairs were now forced to merchant escort duty rather than freely flying around looking for pirates, something that pissed a lot of them off.
She ended up picking about a hundred of them. The most senior of them was Commander Ronald Taylor, Jacob's father, who was actually retired from the Corsairs but was swayed by the offer to come back and get more pirate killing done. The captains and the crews did not know – yet – of Shepard's survival. They would be in-briefed upon arrival.
Given that almost all of them were strong supporters of her actions, though, Chambers was confident they'd have few problems.
The new Normandy – as she had decided to call her flagship – needed a few more specialists. A pair of engineers Tali had worked with on the Kazan were recruited, along with a handful of ECM and technical types, including the guy who'd come up with the IES stealth system in the first place. For the most part, however, the high levels of automation meant the Normandy only needed a very small crew as compared to the Kazan or even the old Normandy.
When it came time to select marines, though, the problems were more difficult. Cerberus had managed to locate all of her former surviving marine team, but the outlook on getting any of them to work for them was low.
Senior Chief Vega had gone into semi-retirement after his near maiming in Neo Berlin, mostly focusing on training his nephew, James Vega, and getting him up to speed as DACT commander. Her own DACTs, Florez and Montoya, were assigned with now Lieutenant Ashley Williams to some kind of secret operation in turian space.
Chief Haln, Sergeant Ownby, Sergeant Haskins, and Corporal Rodriguez, her only surviving Marines from the Normandy, were still being 'felt out' by Cerberus recruiters. Most of her Marines from the Kazan were still attached to that ship, which was now under the command of Captain Delacor, who had assumed her role as humanity's Spectre.
Jason Dunn was 'engaged elsewhere', and Shepard didn't want to disrupt Baby Blue's life on Tuchanka.
There were, of course, Cerberus soldiers she could have recruited, but she didn't like that idea for lots of reasons. Nor did she want to start cold-recruiting soldiers until she could explain who she was to them, and that wasn't going to happen right away. Instead, she would use the combat mechs she had, along with Vigil's assistance, until she could figure out how to best recruit a good fighting force.
As she worked, she compared Lawson and Chambers, and how they reacted.
Lawson was coolly efficient, with a meticulous memory and a tendency towards lists. Towards Shepard she was respectful but firm, not trying to order Shepard around but determined to get her own viewpoints at least heard.
Chambers, on the other hand, was somewhat disorganized at first glance, yet somehow managed to be able to pinpoint the candidates Shepard would approve of with ease. She was far less stiff than Miranda, and seemed to have no issues with drinking Shepard's scotch while she worked. She peppered the commander with simple questions that, on reflection, were designed to make Shepard stop and think rather than just answer.
The main difference in the two was the focus of what they wanted. Lawson preferred operatives – people who thought and acted strategically. She advocated those people who had ties to Cerberus in the past, as a way to make recruitment easier. And she constantly put forth suggestions on how Shepard could leverage Cerberus.
Kelly, on the other hand, picked candidates that acted much like Shepard herself – intolerant of slavers, tactically focused, and usually with one or two quirks that Chambers said gave them leverage. She pointed out that stronger connections to Cerberus might make things go faster and easier, but could bite them in the ass in the long run. The most interesting thing to Shepard was that Chambers didn't seem to think Shepard should associate herself with Cerberus at all.
Given the bewildering and draining conversation Kelly had subjected Shepard to the night before, she found it hard to pin down exactly what kind of game the redhead was playing.
After lunch, Miranda took Shepard into the medical labs, and explained some of the more dangerous or extreme features of her new form.
"Your cybernetic systems are powered by an Inusannon power star in your lower back. For the most part, this suffices to power the myomer muscles, subsystems and internal systems that you can trigger. However, like all power stars, it only regenerates energy very slowly. That means if you overexert yourself, you'll begin to run low on power."
Miranda gestured to the set of exercise equipment in a corner. "At full power, assuming no damage to your skeletal structure, you can lift significantly more weight than a human woman your size would be capable of. Your limbs have several power settings. At low levels, you are roughly as strong as a baseline human. Moderate level has you approaching krogan strength, and 'overclocking' has you fully capable of lifting over a ton of weight. Keep in mind, however, that it's still possible to lift incorrectly and damage your cyberware."
Shepard frowned. "In my quarters, I dented a solid steel wall. What level am I normally set at?"
Miranda winced. "The lowest level, usually. However, the system is designed to respond to adrenaline production, stepping up settings automatically. You can over-ride it, but that requires manual interaction from you. This is so you don't have to try to alter settings in the middle of a fight, or when taken by surprise – but it does also mean you need to watch your anger."
Miranda had Shepard bring up her internal HUD. "Along with superhuman strength, your speed was also augmented. Some of your reflexes are now wired directly into both your cybernetic eyes and a concealed band of sensors at the base of the neck. One reason for the gray-box for your eyes is to filter the content of what you see to prevent sensory overload. You will be able to evade and dodge very quickly, as well as run much faster than before."
Miranda folded her arms. "However, like the extra strength, the more speed you use, the faster you end up draining your energy. At the highest rates of speed you can probably outrun a salarian, but you can't operate at that speed for very long."
Shepard nodded. "What happens when I run out of power?"
Miranda tapped a control on the nearby panel, bringing up a large haptic screen, busy with outlines of Shepard's body and cyberware. "The system will automatically shut off enhanced strength and speed once you reach twenty percent charge on your power star. Should you lose power entirely, your cybernetics will shut down and you'll begin to die. Most of the critical systems have short power backups, but they won't last for more than ten minutes or so."
Miranda touched something on the haptic panel. "There's also a mode the team calls 'overclocking', which I referred to before. This mode sets all your systems at full power, which is more than you can usually access. You can only operate in this mode for roughly five minutes, so you need to make it count. The overclocking also affects your sensory input, which will probably make you feel like others are moving more slowly – which they are, compared to you."
Miranda looked at Shepard. "This mode is often going to leave you debilitated. Among other things, it tends to put a great deal of pressure on the remaining biological parts of your body, and generates so much waste heat you could literally cook yourself alive if you aren't careful. Coming out of it will make you feel extremely fatigued, possibly disoriented."
She tapped another control. "Your cybernetics are, in many areas, self-regenerating. The metal itself used in them is an Inusannon alloy that somehow 'remembers' what it should be and will consume resources and energy to repair itself. However, you can only carry so much omnigel onboard with your armor and inside your body. Once it goes through that stock, it will attempt to cannibalize less important systems to keep you alive, although that tends to cause more internal damage."
Shepard narrowed her eyes. "So if I take too much damage I can still get killed."
Miranda nodded. "And if enemies keep you under constant fire with no change to regenerate energy, it's possible for even weapons that would not conventionally be able to stop you to 'whittle you down', so to speak. That's not even taking into consideration that ion weapons and EMP weapons will damage some elements of your cybernetic systems."
Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. "Great."
Miranda explained how Shepard could trigger various systems – aiming modes and 'eye-gun sync' modes in her cybernetic eyes that worked with the gyros in her wrists, or how to activate the omni-blades embedded in her elbows and knees. Shepard had powered systems to provide air filtration (or even stored air, in small tanks below her lungs), and even a backup nervous system of sorts in case she was incapacitated by nerve-disruption attacks, although Miranda warned her that had even greater drawbacks to use, and could damage her biotics severely.
Shepard ate her dinner alone, in her quarters, reading documentation the medical team had prepared about her own body. Most of it was rather depressing – there was a long list of things that had unknown effects if overused, such as rapid blood regeneration or the augmentations to her nervous system. She sourly noted that she also had heat-sinks, to deal with the increased output of her biotics, and that they could overload and cause internal damage if she went overboard.
Pushing away her meal, Shepard thought carefully about how she wanted to proceed. At some point, she would have to leave the station and take action. How to present herself would be a problem – she couldn't just announce who she was. That meant never appearing in public without her full armor, and utilizing the voice-modulation it had built in.
Trellani and Miranda had both pointed out the possibility of passing as an asari, given that she could create weak singularities now, and she gave some thought to the best ways to utilize that. It gave her the kernel of an idea, and she called Miranda to have everyone meet in the morning for a briefing in operations.
Sara Shepard was dead, of course. But that didn't mean her legacy was dead. And given that she had to reach out to people who seemed to take a dim view of criminals, she knew just exactly how to act.
O-TWCD-O
Shepard stood in operations, arms folded, as the people she'd called into the first meeting of the Revenant Cell came into the room. She thought over what she'd planned as they filed in, keeping her face calm and empty of emotions.
So far, monitoring of every human wildcat colony hadn't revealed anything out of place, and Shepard wasn't about to just sit and wait for the next colony to get hit. On the other hand, they didn't know what they were dealing with in the first place, so she had to get some kind of fieldwork in to look over the clues. Finally, she had specialists she needed to recruit, but for most of them – Archangel, Solus, and the Sisters of Vengeance – Cerberus had no contact method or hard information.
Rather than simply storm out there, she brought together her people and planned to figure out what the first move should be.
Shepard glanced around the galaxy display, and then at the handful of people standing nearby. Miranda stood to her right, next to the ex-AIS agent, Trudy, with Taylor and Ezno just to one side of her. On the left Tali and Joker stood together. Across from Shepard floated the form of Vigil. A bit to one side stood the quarian engineer, Kiala'Dost, along with her human husband, the former Alliance lieutenant Dost. Doctor Sedanya and one of the other medical doctors, Doctor Wilson, were standing next to Dost.
Shepard exhaled, and spoke quietly. "Alright, let's get started." She folded her hands in front of her. "Right now, I've decided to go along with this … plan of the Illusive Man's. However, there's some caveats, and I'm putting them up front. Anyone who can't or won't abide by them needs to speak up now."
She glanced around the room. "I am not going to 'represent Cerberus'. While I understand that Cerberus is funding and providing this entire thing, I simply don't have enough information – or trust – to put myself in any kind of position where the Illusive Man can use me as some kind of propaganda. For the duration of my affiliation, I was told you all answer to me."
Ezno immediately spoke up. "That is not correct in all regards. There is data and equipment aboard this station that would implicate some Cerberus front companies. While I have no problems taking orders that go along with the stated goals of the program, if you decide to simply turn this facility over to the Alliance or the Council, my orders are to ensure nothing sensitive or compromising remains. In that I will not take any countermanding orders from you."
Shepard narrowed her eyes. "And what does this data and equipment entail?"
Ezno folded his arms. "Data manifests, communications systems, financial transactions, the QEC linking system, and some of the more esoteric medical equipment not strictly needed to keep you alive and functional. Some of this is being removed over time, and some functions are being researched by the medical staff, so that the equipment I'm talking about can be decommissioned."
The hardness in his eyes didn't relent. "Most importantly, your authority ends as far as I'm concerned once you decide to stop cooperating with the Illusive Man. The rest of these people were gathered to support you. I'm the Illusive Man's skin in the game, and my involvement outside of security will be very minimal."
She shrugged. "Fair enough. Anybody else?"
Miranda looked uncomfortable. "Shepard, I understand why you are making this statement, but your distrust of Cerberus – "
Shepard held up a hand. "Don't get me wrong, Lawson – I'm not saying I'm 'distrustful' of anything. But there's no value in me doing anything if the idea gets out that I'm working for Cerberus. There are those who will smear whatever I do at that point with your group's past actions, instead of focusing on the problem. It doesn't matter what you believe Cerberus stands for – only what the public believes. I've learned that much already, just by being branded a bloody-handed killer."
Miranda looked like she wanted to object, but Ezno nodded. "Ah. You fear the Broker and his ilk will attempt to poison the well."
Shepard didn't recognize the term, but Chambers smiled. "Yeah, that would fit. Poisoning the well is basically throwing stuff at the source of information instead of dealing with the argument or evidence put forward. If Shepard goes in representing Cerberus, the focus will be on her coming back to life and Cerberus's … views on aliens."
Tali folded her arms. "And the fact that Cerberus has aliens working for them?"
Shepard spoke. "Won't really count, Tali. I mean, we're talking two quarians and one asari – and if we're going to be totally Council-stupid about this, the first thing they'll say is 'the quarians are both exiles and the asari is a criminal'. The Council – and the Alliance – are going to look at the politics first, just like they did when I first brought the shit about Reapers to them in the first place."
Dost spoke. "Then what did you plan to do?"
Shepard smiled. "We don't know when the next colony will be hit. We don't know anything about who's doing this, and we have no hard evidence of who we would be facing. As such, I'm not planning to go charging in when one does go missing until we have a chance to scout remotely."
She tapped her omni-tool and the map shifted its perspective. "What I do know is that right now, everyone in the Alliance and Council is telling themselves this is a bunch of slaver activity, because there's a lot of slavers and pirates in this region after the fall of the Hegemony." A single system flashed. "At the same time, we have several potential issues in the region we need to look at too – one of the most useful recruits, called Jack, is in this system. Nearby, we have evidence that Okeer may be operating on Korlus."
Shepard glanced around, then continued. "Since sitting on my ass doesn't appeal to me, I'm going to kill multiple birds with one stone. I need to test my flagship, my ships, and my gear. I need to see how well these war-robots you've put together handle. So I need a live fire situation."
She touched several systems, which flashed red. "Cerberus intel tells us there are pirate or slaver bases in these Traverse systems, and at least some of the wildcat worlds were raided by them. My first order of business is to wipe these bases and their inhabitants out of existence." She smiled. "If I kill all the fucking slavers, and then more wildcat colonies vanish, it will be harder for the Alliance or Council to dismiss the vanishing as 'slaver activity'."
Shepard tapped one system. "Korlus is here, a ship recycling and hazmat processing world. Until recently it was run by the Blue Suns Military Corporation, but now there's heavy fighting on the world between elements of the Blue Suns. Details aren't clear. If Okeer is operating down there, I want to know why he is, and what he's doing. After we sweep these six bases, we'll hit Korlus before taking on two more – using the confusion and chaos to cover our movement."
She folded her arms. "Once we've taken out most of the big players, we'll stop by Purgatory and I'll talk with Warden Kuril and retrieve Jack."
Miranda spoke. "Is there a reason you decided not to attempt to recruit any of the others first, such as Doctor Solus?"
Shepard smiled. "There is. Jack has been on ice nearly as long as I was dead for, so recent events will be a blur to her anyway. But the rest won't know me from anyone else, and have no real reason to listen to me. According to the Illusive Man, this Kasumi Goto character is in Alliance space, and I have a side trip to make before this all starts anyway, so I can pick her up then. Mr. Massani is on Omega, and is conducting business of his own – he's not ready to join yet."
Shepard folded her arms. "By the time I get to Omega, I want to have already built up a reputation – not as myself, but as the person who took down the pirates and slavers. It will be a lot easier to convince this Archangel to work for us – or at least listen to us – if we can present ourselves as the people who just fucked up a bunch of criminals and slavers, not as an organization best known for cutting up aliens."
Ezno grimaced. "Are you going to run this as a military operation, then, or as some kind of cover?"
Shepard tilted her head. "I'm thinking that what I need is some kind of … message. The first few strikes I want to come out of nowhere. I want survivors, I want the story to spread, but no idea who's behind it. I want the ships we hit with to be unrecognizable. Eventually, after I crush several bases, I'll figure out how to announce that the pirates are being hunted."
She turned to Vigil. "Can you coordinate the fleet we have now and the war robots?"
The sphere pulsed. "With ease. I can also suppress the defense systems and other security features of the pirates, and conduct cyberwarfare on their systems … such as core containment or life support."
Shepard smiled widely. "The faster and more overwhelming the strikes, the better – I'll go for terror later on."
Miranda frowned. "What happens when the next colony vanishes, though? How do we respond?"
Shepard exhaled. "That depends on when it happens. If it happens before we get this off the ground, we'll investigate quietly. If it happens while we're purging the pirates, Vigil will send automated ships and mechs to check it out and secure the area. Hopefully, it won't happen until after we've crushed all the pirates, and preferably picked up Doctor Solus."
Trudy nodded. "So far, there's been about a three month gap between each strike – given the last attack was about a week and a half ago, we have time if you're quick and don't dawdle."
Shepard nodded. "In that case, we have time to do this right. The message I'm going to send will be pretty clear."
O-TWCD-O
It took a good week to get Shepard's forces organized, most of that taken up with producing more war mechs and doing preliminary scouting runs on various pirate bases.
A number of the pirate bases and anchorages were singled out as large enough to attract notice, but not so big that her fleets and mechs couldn't break them. Vigil was confident that with its cyberwarfare capabilities it could wreak havoc on pirate installations and ships, but Shepard didn't want any slaves or prisoners killed – just pirates.
At the end of the week, the strikes went out. She split her available ships into four groups. Two groups went out with one heavy cruiser, a pair of destroyers, and four frigates each. They would each hit two fueling stops used by pirates, before each taking out a single pirate base and falling back.
The third group consisted of the light carrier, three destroyers, and four frigates, and it was to hit a pair of pirate refit docks and slave-holding facilities. The carrier's fighters were more than a match for pirate defenses, and Vigil would ensure any slaves would be left alive.
Shepard herself would take the new Normandy, three destroyers, and three frigates and go after the trio of bases in the Ahiba system. Once she was done with orbitally bombarding those, the entire fleet would fall-back and group up near Umlor, where one of the more powerful pirate captains made his headquarters.
The entire fleet would attack that base and reduce it to ashes, then fall back through a loop of mass relays before doing a long FTL move back to a secondary relay system that would lead them back to home base.
Given that they had no crews yet, this assault would be the test of whether or not Vigil could handle the fleet solo. She made very sure to give the AI clear instructions about what she wanted accomplished, before she got on the QEC with the Illusive Man.
As usual, he was neatly dressed – a white silk suit of some kind, with a gray shirt, ribbon tie, and the ever present cigarette. "Shepard. Miranda says you're preparing to strike a number of pirate positions."
She nodded, folding her arms. "Yeah. The Council is blind, but not stupid – if we wipe the pirates out, it will be harder for them to claim the disappearances of colonies are just due to pirate activity."
The glowing blue eyes narrowed. "There has been a lack of anti-pirate operations in the past year due to the war with the geth and the fact that most of the harrying is being done on the borders worlds and independent colonies. Even so, some of the more powerful pirate commands are a bit much to take on with a pair of cruisers and a carrier."
She nodded. "I'm hitting the smaller bases first – we're going after one big target, but that's it. The big thing I want is an audience."
Jack Harper inhaled on his cigarette. "An audience to what, precisely?"
Shepard smiled. "Chambers said that if I don't plan to do this as a Cerberus operation, then I need some kind of … persona … for who is attacking the pirates, to cover our later operations. I can't just announce myself as being alive again, as you said – but that doesn't preclude me from taking advantage of my own reputation."
She tapped her omni-tool. "I recorded that earlier today. A message I want broadcasted on open channels once we drop the last pirate base."
The Illusive Man tapped a haptic panel next to his barely-visible chair, his image in the QEC flickering as he leaned forward to examine something. After a few minutes of silence, a thin, cool smile appeared on his features.
"I see. Quite the idea. Vigil can be of some assistance in making sure the message gets everywhere, and I'll have my people run this into the extranet and across several open comms networks and deploy it once you signal me to do so. Very original thinking."
She shrugged. "It was a mix of ideas I picked up by listening to both Miranda and Chambers. And besides, it's about goddamned time those slaving fucks remembered what fear feels like."
O-TWCD-O
When the signal hit the extranet, it was unprecedented. Something had spliced the transmission into over fifty communications networks, from the broadcast of Westerlund News to the booster signal for the Deep Space Gamma Burst Warning Network.
It played in bars and clubs, on the holoscreens in businesses and restaurants. The voice that spoke was modulated, female, deep and almost mocking.
The image was nothing more than the broken, shattered body of a batarian slaver, a warp sword shoved through his chest.
"There was once a time, I am told, when piracy was combated. A human woman, one of our lesser cousins, took to the stars to bring fire and death to those who would rape, and pillage, and enslave."
"She was brutal and she did not care how much blood she spilled, nor would she allow the criminals to escape justice. When the pirates thought they had her trapped, she crushed them instead, and then executed the guilty."
"For her justice, they called her a monster, a killer. They called her the Butcher."
"Pirates lived in fear of facing her. Slavers fled from the very hint she was in a sector. She saved lives and worlds, and asked for nothing in return. And …. as it happens, she was indeed given nothing. She was betrayed and murdered, and her own government forgot about her life to make money and propaganda out of her death."
"Sara Shepard is dead."
On far-away Ilium, Liara listened to the broadcast, jaw tight with old pain. On Dirth, a former president of the SA watched on his vidscreen, and a scarred, crippled man who was once her XO gave a faint, sardonic smile.
On Omega, the pirates jeered and the slavers snorted, and a single turian paused in his scouting of a gang hide out to listen to the strong, husky voice and its words.
"She is dead. Yet her mission, her truth, her vengeance – that lives on."
The image changed, to a real-time display of the wreckage of the pirate docks at Ratha, at shattered bases on Virtmore and Enera, to show the burning conflagration that was all that remained of the pirate city on Umlor. The whispers went silent. The jeers fell silent.
On Mindoir, savage cheers rang out. On Ilium, the markets for certain exchanges took a hit as investors pulled out of the known pirate-backed ventures.
"You have long thought you were beyond the reach of justice, pirates and slavers, criminals and walking filth. You are hunted like the vermin you are on Omega, where the Archangel slays you by the dozen, and you do not heed. You are slaughtered and driven out on Ilium, where my beloved sisters, the Sisters of Vengeance, deliver unto you what you have wrought."
"Siari says all things must balance in the end. An accounting is needed. The so-called leaders of our races, the Citadel Council, the CEOs, the military leaders – you have all stood by and done nothing as the innocent were raped and enslaved. As the helpless were murdered."
The image shifted again, to a view of the gleaming whiteness of the Presidium. "Sara Shepard died for you, and you cannot even show her the courtesy of protecting those she could not longer protect. If you will not act...I will."
"The Butcher cannot be killed, for one cannot kill justice, nor vengeance. The concept is eternal. Pirates, slavers, drug runners, cloneleggers, dustpushers – you have all been given your final warning. There will be no mercy, no chances for surrender, no arrests. Just death, as certain as the will of the Justicars."
"I am now the Butcher. And I am now coming for you."
