Chapter 15
On board the downed collector vessel, John's team advanced forward, while Ashley's team hung back guarding the exit.
They advanced quietly coming across the dead bodies of the colonists.
"Awww that's some sick shit man" Joe said looking down in disgust at the corpses.
"Completely inhumane" Tali chimed in.
"Come on let's keep moving, we can't help them now" John said moving forward. They came across a chamber with billions of pods coating the walls.
"They could take every human in the terminus systems and still not have enough to fill these pods" Miranda said looking around.
"Damnt John they're going for Earth" Joe said angrily.
As they advanced forward to the platform John set up a link for EDI. As she connected the power surged.
"What's going on guys" John asked scanning the area.
"We lost power for a minute, but we're back up" Joker said.
"Commander I scanned the Turian distress signal, they were using a secondary distorted encryption, there is no way that the Illusive Man would believe it was real" EDI informed.
"How do you know that" John asked.
"I detected it with Cerberus decryption code, he wrote them, Shepard this was not a mistake, this was a trap" she said.
God damnt, that dirty bastard set us up, fuck" Joseph yelled readying his weapons.
"No, we don't know that" Miranda said.
"God Miranda will you just listen to yourself, stop it" Joe said speaking to her in a way he never spoke to her before causing Miranda to look at him in shock.
They fought their way through the ship as EDI tried finding ways out for them. As they were approaching the exit Ashley radioed John.
"Commander we're encountering heavy resistance up here, you guys need to get out of there fast" Ashley said gunfire in the background as her team shot down husks and collectors.
"We're coming right now Chief" John said breaking out into a sprint with the rest of the team.
They finally reached the landing area boarding the Normandy with ease thanks to Ashley's team providing cover fire.
As Joker flew them to safety John informed Ashley's team of the trap, Joseph dropped his weapons storming towards the elevator with Miranda following close behind.
"Joseph calm down" Miranda said looking at him with her arms folded. Joe was fuming not saying a word to her storming back to her room ripping his shirt off.
"Joey I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for th-" she was cut off by Joe .
"Miranda will you wake the fuck up, your boss is a sorry, lying, sack of shit. He doesn't give a damn about you, me, or anybody else on this ship. The sooner you open your eyes to those cold hard facts the better off you'll be" he said fuming. Grabbing another shirt out of her dresser slipping it on over his head. "I'll talk to you later" he said walking out of the door to head back up to the briefing room with the rest of the team.
As he stepped in John was coming out of the QEC Mordin and the others were all standing around listening. They agreed with the Illusive Man's methods exiting the room as John's "crew" stayed behind.
"Alright guys he's willing to fuck us up the ass to get results, it wasn't worth it I don't care" John said.
"So we should prepare for a coup attempt then John" Garrus asked.
"Not just yet, we still need their help" John said "Joseph I know your upset but you need to go and fix things with Miranda, if we have her on our side no doubt Jacob will follow" .
"I don't even know what to say to her right now, cmon let's go to the cargo bay I need to blow off some steam" Joe said walking out of the room for the elevator.
"Joker set a course for Pragia, we're gonna go take care of that thing for Jack" John said walking over to Kelly who informed him that Samara and Thane wanted to see him.
He saw Samara and Thane agreeing to help them out before heading down to the cargo bay where his brother was doing sit ups.
"What's up Joey" he asked stepping in to help his brother up.
"Let's talk and dance" Joe said cracking his knuckles
"Alright" John said taking his shirt off.
"No street fighting just straight up boxing Johnny, I don't wanna hurt you" Joe said squaring off with his brother.
"Ok, so you wanna tell me what's wrong" John said throwing a few jabs.
"Everything's in her face yet she still refuses to see" Joe said throwing a lazy jab receiving a hook from John.
"That's her choice man, you know what her life was like before him, you should expect a certain loyalty from her to him" John said taking an uppercut from Joe.
"I know and I do understand it, hell I even respect it to an extent, it's just..." Joe said dodging John Shepard's famous right cross.
"Just what Joe" John said taking a few body shots from Joe.
" I love this woman John, but I know in my heart that if it came down to it she wouldn't choose me" Joe said dropping his head putting his hands down.
"Shit man you don't know that she might surprise you" John said defending Miranda.
"Or she might not Johnny, if she pulled a gun on me right now as many ways as I know how to get out of the situation, I wouldn't be able to stop her. I wouldn't be able to kill her John." He said sitting down with his back against the bulkhead.
"Joseph you may not see it but she's not the same woman I met on Lazarus Station, I didn't think it was possible but you melted some of that ice off the Ice Queen" John said joking.
"Yeah, still won't stop her from putting a bullet through my head if TIM told her too" Joe said looking at his brother. "You should go check on Ashley she didn't look to good in the briefing room, like she was getting sick or something" he told him.
"Alright, you gonna be good here" John asked.
"Yeah I'll be fine, gonna work out a little longer" Joe said dropping down into a push up position.
Miranda turned off her terminal after watching the feed of John and Joe's conversation in the cargo bay. It hurt that he didn't trust her more but in a way she knew what he was thinking was true. Miranda was always quick to follow orders, but she couldn't kill Joseph... Could she. With that Miranda stood up walking towards the elevator to take it down to the cargo hold.
"Hey Ash you ok, Joe said you weren't feeling well" he said walking into the cabin to find Ashley laying in bed.
"I just have a headache John, I'll be fine" she said looking over to him.
"You know they say sex makes headaches go away right" he said seductively.
"Not right now John, I'm really tired" she said laughing and looking away.
"Ok Ash" he said climbing in bed with her wrapping his arms around her waist.
"Ewwww John you stink, shower now" she said covering her nose.
He got out of the bed laughing his way to the bathroom for a shower.
Miranda stepped off the elevator in the cargo bay looking at Joseph, he was doing crunches now. She walked over to by his legs waiting for him to sit up.
"Hey" he said stopping to look at her.
"Hey, can we talk" she asked.
"Yeah, what's up" he said drying himself off with a towel.
"Leave the sweat it looks good on you" she joked
"Yeah" he said chuckling "hey I wanna apologize for yelling at you earlier, I didn't mean to raise my voice with you".
"It's fine, you were just expressing yourself" she said sitting down next him.
"Yeah, but you didn't do anything wrong, I shouldn't have taken that out on you" he said looking at her "forgive me".
"Only on one condition" she said looking in his eyes.
"What's that" he asked
"Kiss me like you trust me" she said wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Yes ma'am" he said pulling her close kissing her with all of his energy until they were both breathless.
"I love you Joseph, never forget it" she said looking in his eyes.
"I love you too Miranda, I won't forget" he replied
When they reached Pragia John decided to take Miranda with him and Jack so she could see a little more about Cerberus. They worked their way through the facility uncovering all kinds of disturbing things about Jack's past with Cerberus. The sick experiments they did on the kids trying to create the perfect biotic. They encountered Bloodpack Mercenaries while trying to find Jack's cell. When they made it to the cell they encountered another survivor from the facility named Aresh, John convinced Jack to spare his life. He allowed her to look around the cell for a while before planting the bomb and boarding the shuttle back to the ship.
When they arrived back on the ship Jack had followed Miranda up to the crew deck. Storming into her office an argument ensued, Joe was heading over to talk to Miranda about what she saw down there with a cup of coffee as he heard the commotion.
"Touch me and I'll smear the walls with you bitch" Jack screamed sending a chair flying. Miranda deflected the flying chair out of the way, sending it back at Jack. Who sent it out the door directly into the unexpectant Joseph Shepard knocking him out cold. Miranda looked down at Joe's unconscious form and back to Jack, filled with anger lifting her into a biotic field.
"You'll die for that bitch" Miranda yelled throwing Jack out of the room into the crew deck.
Miranda stalked over, biotics still flaring with a rage on her face that could make a Krogan shit himself. Before she could move in for the kill Samara had both her and Jack in a stasis field as John made it down there.
"What the hell Is going on down here" John said clearly annoyed at the situation.
"It is simple commander, young Jack and Ms. Lawson were having a fight, Mr. Shepard went to intervene and was knocked out in the process. I'm assuming by Jack as Miranda slammed her out of the room threatening to kill her" Samara explained still holding the stasis.
"Thank you Samara, release the stasis field I need to speak to both of them" John said as Samara released the stasis.
"Are you two serious, we have too much at stake for you two to be trying to kill each other" he said.
"The cheerleader wont admit that what Cerberus did to me was wrong" Jack said.
"It wasn't Cerberus, not really but you clearly were a mistake" Miranda shot back.
"I don't care who's right or wrong you both need to get it together right now, the mission is too important to let personal feelings get in the way" John said grilling both of them down.
"I can put my personal feelings aside for the sake of the mission" Miranda said.
"I won't let you die before I get a chance to flay you myself, and tell dickhead I'm sorry" Jack said walking away.
Miranda and John walked back over to Joseph who was coming to but still out of it.
"Joey can you hear me" John asked looking at his brother with concern.
"Johnny, Johnny is that you, John it was about eight or nine of em man" Joe said unaware of what just happened.
"Yeah man eight or nine huh" John said trying to hold in a laugh.
John and Miranda carried Joe to the medbay as John set a course for Tuchanka to help Mordin and Grunt.
Joe woke up in the medbay two hours later looking around. Uhhhh, what happened" he said sitting up holding his head.
"You took a chair of biotic force is what happened" Doctor Chakwas told him.
"Oh yeah, owww, I'm gonna lay back down now" Joe said laying back on the bed. John walked into the medbay seconds later, "how you feeling big man" John asked walking over to his brother.
"Feeling good Johnny, after this nap I'll be ready to go" Joe said.
"Well good because we're gonna kill two birds with one stone down on Tuchanka. I'm gonna take Mordin and you take Grunt and then we'll meet up afterwards" John said.
"You got it Johnny" Joe said closing his eyes.
"You want me to get Miranda" John asked.
"Nah, I'll be alright let her work, she's a busy woman" Joe said as Miranda walked into the medbay.
"Busy yes, but that doesn't mean I won't come to check on you" she said walking over to him.
"Hi babe" he said looking up at her. Chakwas and John smirking at the nickname as Miranda blushed.
"Alright I'm going to tell Mordin and Grunt to be ready we should be on Tuchanka in about 12 hours" John said leaving the medbay.
"I'm going to have something to eat, Joseph you can go after you finish your nap or before" Chakwas said getting up to leave the medbay.
"How are you feeling" Miranda asked rubbing his head.
"I'm alright, just need to sleep off the damage and I'll be good to go" he said smiling at her.
"I can't believe that bitch actually hit you" Miranda scoffed still mad about the attack.
"Well babe technically you hit me, she just deflected your chair" Joe said looking into Miranda's eyes.
"It shouldn't have happened Joseph, plain and simple" she said defending herself.
"Ok baby, whatever you say, so what'd you guys find down there" he asked.
"God it was awful, how can you do that to children, apparently the Teltin Cell went rogue, stopped reporting in to the Illusive Man, it was just horrible" she said looking down.
"Are you sure they went rogue" he asked staring in her eyes for answers.
"I asked the Illusive Man personally, he told me that after he realized the facility went rogue he moved in to shut it down" she replied confidently.
"After he saw how successful his experiments were, by sacrificing every scientist in the facility to be destroyed by Jack, for doing his bidding" Joe said.
"I don't believe it went that way Joseph" she said defensively.
"Ok, so if Johnny goes rogue today and kills everyone within Cerberus on board this ship, what happens then Miranda" he asked her.
Miranda said nothing looking away from him, " Miranda Lawson becomes a beautiful memory of someone he 'use' to value, but the resurrection of John Shepard was a success, your expendable to him Miri" he said grabbing her hand.
"Hey look at me" he grabbed her face sitting up looking into her eyes " but not to me, you mean everything to me Miranda" he said placing a short kiss on her lips.
"Get some rest, I'll come by and check on you later" she said standing up and leaving the room, she had a lot to think about. Joseph made sense but she had to believe the Illusive Man was doing the right thing, Teltin wasn't his fault, it was the damned scientists they took everything too far. Walking back into her room to finish up her reports to the Illusive Man, but what Joseph said stuck in the back of her mind "but not to me".