Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau was torn. Admiral Hackett had given the order to leave the Sol system and meet at the rendezvous location. Because they hadn't had access to the Catalyst, no one knew for sure what would happen when the Crucible fired. Therefore, the plan had been for all ships still capable of faster than light travel to jump out of the Sol system to another nearby system still in the local cluster. Then a decision would be made as to when and who would go back to the Sol system to assess what the Crucible had done.
The Charon relay was to be avoided. Flight time to get to the relay would be a problem. Better the immediate FTL jump. Plus, how the Crucible would affect the relays, if at all, was another unknown. But there was the possibility that it would and no one thought it would be a good idea to be in the middle of a relay jump if the relay were to go off-line.
But Joker was concerned with none of that. His only concern was finding Commander Shepard. She was on the Citadel. She was triggering the Crucible and he didn't want to leave until she was on-board. But they couldn't find her. It was like she wasn't there and the rest of the team was pressuring him to jump. In his head he heard Shepard saying, "Go, Joker. Now!" Under his breath, EDI heard Joker say, "Okay, Commander, but I'm coming back for you."
The Normandy jumped to FTL and was out of the system in front of the Crucible wave. Joker pushed the ship to give him everything it had. The ship had never been in better shape, with Adams, Donnelly, Daniels, and Tali, "especially Tali," Joker thought, feeding off each other and making improvements. Still, the wave caught the Normandy and forced it out of FTL.
Joker had just a moment to react and course correct. The ship was in the atmosphere of a planet but Joker maintained enough altitude to keep the ship from crashing. Joker hadn't liked it at the time, but was now glad for those last retrofits at the Citadel. He got the ship to a stable orbit and asked, "EDI, any damage to the ship?"
EDI didn't respond. He noticed her body was slumped over in her chair and she appeared to be off-line. There was a moment of panic and then he saw that she was re-initializing. "EDI, are you okay?"
"I'm sorry Jeff, but the pulse reset my processors. In human terms, I blacked out but I'm fine now," EDI responded.
"Well, run a diagnostic check to be sure and then run a check on the Normandy's other systems. I need to know if we're able to jump back to Earth."
Specialist Samantha Traynor, who had been one of the ones urging Joker to jump, said, "Joker, we're supposed to rendezvous with the fleet."
"I don't care, Samantha. We tried to get there and the pulse didn't let us. Now we're going back to look for the Commander."
It was obvious to everyone that arguing with Joker wasn't going to get them anywhere. Plus, despite the objection, Traynor and the others wanted to go back as much as he did. One way or the other they wanted to know if Shepard was alive. If she was alive and injured, then getting to her quickly was important and all of them would take whatever punishment they had coming if they could save her.
There were some minor issues that needed to be fixed before they could jump back but nothing compared to the damage that would have been done if they crashed. Other repairs would be needed eventually but were not required for FTL so once Tali gave the okay, Joker moved the Normandy out of orbit and jumped back to Sol space.
The first thing they noticed was the dead Reapers just floating in space. Whatever else they might find, it appeared that here, close to the Citadel, the Crucible had done its job. The second thing Joker noticed was all the debris from the Allied ships that had been destroyed during the battle. Somewhere among all that debris there were almost certainly some life pods with survivors, but he couldn't worry about them now. He was looking for one specific survivor.
Based on the signal from her omni-tool from just before the Crucible was fired, they had a general location for where Shepard should be. Cortez had both shuttles ready to fly, with him piloting one and Joker piloting the other. Garrus and Tali would be one search team; Liara and Javik another; and EDI and Vega the final team. Dr. Chakwas was standing by with a couple of marines and a stretcher if they were needed.
Finding a spot to land the shuttles was hard. There was rubble everywhere and the chances that anyone survived this seemed small. But they wouldn't give up without trying. The teams went off in different directions, calling out, "Shepard," and, "Commander." Then they'd be quiet and listening for a response. On their omni-tools, Tali and EDI both picked up a signal, and Tali indicated to EDI that she and Garrus would check it out.
Moving in that direction, Tali spotted a body just as she heard Vega call out, "Over here, it's the Commander." She and Garrus turned and ran in that direction. To one side a little ahead of them Dr. Chakwas was making her way to Vega as well. They could see James struggling to move a big piece of debris, which suddenly floated up and then was gently set aside. Then another piece moved. Tali didn't need to look to know that Liara was carefully grabbing the pieces with her biotics to free Shepard.
"She's alive," Tali heard Dr. Chakwas say, "but she's badly injured." The doctor was already busy scanning Shepard to see what Shepard's injuries were and what treatment she could do here in the field. Liara had knelt beside Shepard's head and was telling her that it was going to be all right and to hang on. Tali saw that Shepard was trying to speak and knelt beside her on the other side.
"Don't try to talk, Commander. Your injured but Dr. Chakwas is here and we're going to get you back to the Normandy," Tali said. Shepard struggled to turn her head towards Tali and then back towards Liara. It looked to Tali like she was trying to shake her head to indicate "no."
Then Shepard spoke again. "Where's who, Commander? I didn't understand," Tali said.
"Where's Bobby?" EDI said, and Tali was sure the corners of Shepard's mouth turned up and that she nodded slightly.
"Bobby?" Liara pondered. Shepard had never mentioned a Bobby nor had any of the intel that the Shadow Broker had on her listed a Bobby in her history.
Tali stood up, grabbed Garrus, and said, "Come with me." She headed back toward where she had spotted the body.
"Where are we going? Shepard's back there," Garrus said.
"I know, but she's fighting through pain because she's concerned about someone else and I saw a body. When she gets better do you want to explain to her why we didn't check it out?"
"Good point," Garrus said.
As they approached the body, they both recognized it. Bobby was not a name they associated with The Illusive Man and neither thought it was who Shepard meant. They confirmed that he was dead, by what Garrus surmised was a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. "He was indoctrinated and Shepard convinced him of it, just like she did Saren," Tali said.
"Looks that way, at least. I saw several suicides working for C-Sec and we wouldn't waste much time on this one. It's obvious he did this to himself."
Tali checked her omni-tool. They were close to the signal source but not quite there. She turned towards the source and could see an arm underneath some rubble. She motioned to Garrus and he saw it too. Garrus called out to Vega and James reluctantly started toward them. By the time he got there, Garrus had moved enough debris that they could see that the arm belonged to Admiral Anderson, who Garrus had confirmed was also dead. "No, not the Admiral," Vega said when he saw the body.
"How was Shepard doing?" Tali asked.
"Doc gave her something to knock her out. She refused to be still and kept asking for Bobby according to EDI. Doc thinks she'll make it but she's got some broken bones and other injuries that will take some time to heal," Vega said. "She'd called the marines to bring the stretcher."
"Hey," Garrus said, "There's another body here. Vega, give me a hand."
Garrus and Vega moved a large piece of debris that had covered the body. Other debris had kept it from crushing the body, though there were visible signs of injury. Garrus heard Vega say, "That's odd."
"What's odd?" Garrus asked.
When they had uncovered Shepard, most were so glad they had found her they missed the obvious. But James had worked with Cortez in maintaining the armory and was surprised that Shepard wasn't in armor. She was in what appeared to James to be a man's sized N7 t-shirt that came down to her thighs. This guy was wearing the white version of the same shirt and, James guessed, it was the same size. He pulled the tags out from the shirt and read, "Lt. Commander Robert Anthony Edwards." Vega looked at Tali and said, "Bobby." He then turned to Garrus and said, "I think the Commander is wearing this guy's shirt."
"Wait a second. She wasn't wearing her armor, was she?" Garrus asked though he knew the answer now that Vega had pointed it out.
"Nope," was all Vega said.
"But how do you get Bobby from Robert Anthony Edwards?" Tali asked.
"You just do. Bobby, or Bob, is short for Robert. Some people use Robbie or Rob, but most people shorten Robert to Bob. I'm not sure why, they just do," James said.
Garrus called for Dr. Chakwas, who came over after the Marines had Shepard on the stretcher and were taking her back to the shuttle. Liara, Javik, and EDI went with Shepard. Dr. Chakwas scanned Bobby and said, "He's not in as bad a shape as the Commander, but I've given him something to keep him sedated. The Commander's injuries appear to be mainly from a fall, like she was on a platform that collapsed. Most of his injuries are from debris falling on him. Fortunately, it doesn't appear they were big pieces."
They called for the Marines to bring a second stretcher for Bobby, and Dr. Chakwas went to the shuttle with Shepard. Once she was on-board, Joker took off to get them back to the Normandy. The Marines loaded Bobby on the second shuttle with Tali watching over him. Garrus picked up the Illusive Man's body and James grabbed Admiral Anderson. Once all were on board, Cortez flew the shuttle back to the Normandy. Joker made an FTL jump to get to the rendezvous point, where there would be larger ships with better medical facilities.