Bioware owns all, and probably my imagination too at this point!
Evaluation
Shepard was sitting in the cargo area with the team. Adams and the tech team were working on the engines again to see if they could get them more efficient. Too bad Tali wasn't here, Adams really missed her input.
"Okay this is what we know. A batarian ship, by the drive signature, made contact with the ship that attacked the Normandy. After making contact with the attacker, they went to a human colony and took a family that had two biotics in it. It seems that these two biotics were targeted. Now the attack ship had to have returned after the Normandy was destroyed for us to have picked up the new traces of their drive core. We know that we missed the batarians by only a few hours. What we don't know is if the batarians have discovered a new way to control biotics and that's why they wanted the two they took, or if it has something to do with our attacker. Okay thoughts?" Shepard asked.
"Seems a waste of time to take all the family members if they only wanted the biotics." Wrex said. "That's just a bad battle stratagy."
"I can't think of any reason the batarians would want twin biotics, Shepard." Kaidan said. "I have been trying to come up with something... It just doesn't make sense."
"And stopping at only one family, that doesn't sound like batarians either." Garrus continued "plus the complete lack of violence, that also doesn't ring true."
"Could the batarians have changed so much that they are kidnapping people non violently?" Liara said. "That would be completely out of character for them, I don't see them changing that much."
"But not all batarians are violent or slavers, that's a fallacy." Shepard said. "Could it be that we have some kind of business man instead? The thing that gets me is the complete lack of evidence. I can't even really say that the batarians did this for sure because all we have is pooled exhaust that matches batarian signature and a dead watch animal." Shepard said frustrated. "But my gut tells me if we can figure out what is special about twin biotics then we can figure out who the attackers are and maybe figure out what we need to do to beat them."
"Well one thing is twin biotics are rare." Kaidan said. "I mean human biotics are rare to begin with, with an only one in ten chance of developing biotics and surviving. Twin biotics that both survived, and developed strong biotics that would be rarer still. Liara and I were able to lift that generator easily, but we are very strong biotics. The twins being younger it's damn near certain they were strong for L3s. I would say that the odds were pretty high that they were possibly the only twin biotics in this area."
"Okay well than that being the case, why would batarians want them?" Garrus asked. "What use would they be to anyone really?"
"Well they would be a strong ally if they could be controlled, but a liability it that control wasn't complete." Wrex said.
"Well" Liara said "the thing that I think of as a scientist is study. If it is rare, and in this case we know it is, then scientists want to study it. Now batarians are not known for there scientific knowledge. I would hasten to guess that if this be the case, I mean if the twins were being studied, and they are human, that it would be a human scientist that would be interested in that study."
"Well there is one agency that comes to mind when talking about studying the effect of something on humans." Kaidan frowned. "Cerberus."
"But would Cerberus hire batarians to do the kidnapping, I don't think so." Shepard told him. "Cerberus is a pro human group. They would hire human mercs or more than likely use their own people. There is no way the ship that attacked the Normandy was a human vessel, the trail can't lie."
"Shepard, those people turned a whole colony into husks. They allowed rachni that were separated from their queen to infiltrate three stations and kill a lot of humans. I would say that their pro human outlook was based more on self preservation rather than species preservation." Kaidan said.
"Yes, you have a point, but we don't know anything about their objectives. Kidnapping, I wouldn't put that past them that is for sure, but to take the whole family in such a way, that had we not been there no one would have even suspected... well, what we suspect. That just seems a bit odd. Then again this is all heavy speculation because we just don't have enough information." Shepard let out a frustrated sigh.
"Okay well lets just not rule Cerberus out Shepard." Garrus said. "Kaidan is right, we did see them do some horrific things and they could very well be behind this kidnapping. Hell we don't even know if the twins or their family for that matter are still alive."
"Yeah, Yeah I know." Shepard said and she put her head down on her arms for a moment, then lifted it again." Liara, lets say they wanted to study these twins, what kind of things do you think they would want to investigate?"
"Well that is not my area of science, but I think they would first study their DNA makeup since they are identical..."
"Wait, did anyone say they were identical twins?" Shepard asked.
Liara looked confused "Twins are always identical, Shepard."
"Maybe asari, but not human. Human twins are identical if the egg splits evenly into two eggs that then develop side by side. They are not identical or fraternal we call it, if there are two eggs that are fertilized at the same time and then develop simultaneously but separate. If they were identical that means they could use one as a control subject and experiment on the other. If they were not identical that means they could study the differences and maybe figure out what made the whole." Shepard said. "Or something like that, don't you think."
"Well I don't see anything wrong with your hypothesis, although I am not sure what they would find out from only one set of twins." Liara advised her.
"Maybe they aren't after just one set" Kaidan offered "Maybe this is the only one we know about."
"So what you all are basically telling me is we need more data." Shepard said.
"Yes Shepard." Liara said.
"I think so." Garrus advised.
"Right Shepard," Wrex told her.
Kaidan hit her with "You've got it."
"Yeah and why does it feel like that's a bad thing?" She put her head back down on her arms again.
Kaidan woke in the middle of the night. Something had woken him up, he wasn't sure what it was. He got out of bed and looked in the top bunk and he knew what was wrong. Shepard wasn't there. She must have moved the bed enough to cause him to wake slowly. He went to go look for her, she hadn't been sleeping well and he was pretty sure he knew where she would be.
He walked into the cargo bay and there she was in the corner running on that damn treadmill. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but she was on it all the time. She was losing weight and sleep. He went over to her and said "Shepard..."
"Kaidan if you have come here to lecture me - I am going to take you out!" She said, but she didn't slow down.
"Okay, no lecture. So, what about sleep?"
"It's highly overrated" she told him.
"How about something to eat then."
"I have not lost that much weight!" she snapped at him.
"But you admit that you lost weight" he asked.
"A few pounds maybe, yeah." she admitted.
"Well, okay what do you think we should do about that." he asked her.
"I could get smaller armor, no one would know." she said.
"I would know, you muscle to fat ratio was always small to begin with. Could you just stop running for a bit and talk to me? Please." Kaidan asked her.
"I don't see what the big deal is, okay" she stopped running walked over to the table she has been using as a desk and plops down in the chair. "Happy now?"
"Not even close to happy right this second." Kaidan told her. "How much sleep have you had in the past few days."
"You said no lecture." She said.
"I am not lecturing I am asking you, how much sle-"
"Enough sleep, I've had enough sleep Kaidan." she tells him.
"Shepard, I know it's crowded, I know there is no privacy, I know we haven't found the ship that attacked the Normandy and I know that your frustrated about the Council not believing that the Reapers are a threat."
"And I miss Tali." She added.
"And you miss Tali" he added to make her happy he had been walking around the table and sat down next to her facing her, He took her hands in his. "Listen, no lecture okay but I am just going to make a small request."
"A small request" she eyed him suspiciously. "What kind of small request."
"I want you to eat all your meals with me, that's three meals a day, not just dinner and a snack before bed."
"But I always eat with you anyway." she told him.
"But you haven't been, not in the past two weeks actually. You have just been at dinner." Kaidan told her.
She looked away two weeks! She looked back at him, it couldn't be two weeks, Could it. "Okay that seems resonable, what else."
"That's it. I just want you to eat with me. I want to make sure you're getting enough food and actually eating it." He told her.
"Okay, that seems very reasonable. What's the catch?" She looked at him sideways.
"No catch Shepard, just like I said, just want you to eat. Now can we go back to bed?"
Keeping his hands in hers she pulled herself to him and kissed him, getting up and working herself into his lap. He let go of her hands and pulled her to him while she put her arms around his back and ran her hands through his hair. She finally pulled away and said "there is one more thing that I am missing" as she watched him looking her body over.
"Yes, and I am missing that also."
"It doesn't seem to be bothering you as much."
"Oh it is, I have just been hiding it better than you." He pulled her in for a kiss again.
This time when the kiss was finished she stood up. "Okay lets go back to bed." She walked towards the hallway "oh and Kaidan."
"Yes Shepard?"
"When I figure out what your ulterior motives are, I will torture you for it, you do realize that, don't you."
"I wouldn't have it any other way" he said with a chuckle as he followed her to bed.
Sitting in the cockpit Shepard asked Garrus "Okay Garrus what kind of trail it this one, batarian again?"
"No, I think this one is vorcha."
"What the fuck is a 'vorcha'?" She asked.
"The are violent pests and savages with a very aggressive nature. Intelligence is not one of their strong points, they are primitive and short lived." Garrus explained
"Why haven't I heard about them before?" Shepard asked him.
"They usually confine themselves to the darker areas of space like in the Terminus system."
"Well what are they doing here?" Joker asked.
"Well meeting with a ship that has the same signature as the one we are looking for. It was really lucky we came upon that trail or we never would have known. It disappears again just further on, but we can follow the vorcha." Garrus said
"Yes, we had better do that." Shepard said, "call me when we get a location or something we can run with."
She left Garrus and Joker to their task and went to keep her lunch appointment with Kaidan, she still hadn't figured out what he was doing yet, but she would. It was only a matter of time, after all.