The Normandy soared through the darkening depths of space at faster-than-light speed, but without a specific destination it was simply heading away from the Sol system on a general direction of travel where the mysterious radio signal had originated from. They still had no location, but couldn't waste time waiting. Without the mass relays it would take days or even weeks to reach the point of origin once it was discovered.
The mass relays had been like arteries for galactic trade and civilization. Everything from military vessels to civilian transports and merchant ships transited through those veins like corpuscles carrying oxygen to the brain. But they were no longer an option, at least for now. Whatever Commander Shepard had done aboard the Citadel had not only destroyed the Reaper menace, but it had also severely damaged every mass relay in the entire galaxy. The end state of this meant that travel from system to system happened at a snail's pace—at least in relative terms.
Flight Lieutenant Jeff "Joker" Moreau, the Normandy's competent and cocky pilot, thought of how odd the whole notion was. He was rocketing through space at immense speeds via conventional FTL thanks to the Normandy's powerful mass effect fields, but the pace was nothing compared to the instantaneous travel the mass relays afforded.
He suddenly felt silly for taking the monolithic technology for granted for so long. As much as he loved to fly, long trips through space could be maddening. His attention was drawn to the holographic haptic adaptive interface in front of him by a warning light indicator that began to blink at an increasingly rapid rate. There was venting from one of the lithium heat sinks, a common problem aboard the Normandy that was easily quelled.
"EDI, can you see about shutting down the valve to the number six…" he stopped abruptly, realizing he was talking to himself. He let out a sigh and took it upon himself to shut down the valve. It was a task that was often picked up by his co-pilot… EDI. She was Cerberus' Enhanced Defense Intelligence, unshackled by Joker in an attempt to save the Normandy from a Collector incursion. She was the ship's AI, she was Joker's co-pilot—no she was so much more than that, but she was gone.
Jeff's mind wandered back to the moments after the catalyst had been triggered as he daringly whisked the Normandy away to rendezvous with the remainder of the Alliance fleet well away from the fallout of the Crucible firing. The exhilaration they all felt when reports started coming in had been intoxicating—the Reapers were succumbing to the blast. It had been their single greatest objective for years. And they had won. The Reapers were defeated.
Jeff embraced EDI for the first time unabashedly in the view of others in that moment- too overwhelmed with happiness and relief to care about being unseemly or strange. But the joy of victory turned sour fast. Within moments of the Normandy being engulfed in a cascade of red luminescence EDI suddenly became non-responsive. She uttered only his name before her physical form began to convulse. Then suddenly her body stopped shaking and she collapsed, taking Jeff with her as she fell.
He lay there motionless, too weak under the weight of her frame that lay upon him and too distraught to force her over so he could rise—or perhaps it was terror that gripped him—terror that held him there. He called to her, said her name again and again but she didn't respond. He pleaded, begged her to respond but the body was as vacant as it had been after Shepard and his team had recovered it on Mars. Desperately he called out to the portion of EDI that resided within the Normandy's mainframe; at least he could have that. It wasn't about her physical form for him—it was so much more. But there was no reply. EDI, the voice he had become so accustomed to, the voice that had comforted him in the silent hours of the night on the bridge when he was alone and most vulnerable, the voice that joked and teased him in only ways he could appreciate, the voice that had assured him he was the best pilot in the universe—was gone. And now he was alone.
"Joker?" A voice disturbed the memory, but Jeff was still floating in that horrible moment when the most important piece of his life ceased to exist. "Joker, are you okay?"
The skilled pilot blinked, suddenly remembering where he was. He was on the bridge, behind his flight controls and the memory was months and months past, but the pain it wrought was as fresh and raw as the moment it had happened. He suddenly felt the loneliness of space ensnare him like a hunter's trap as if he were a defenseless hare. Never before had he felt this way. Space was a cosmic adventure, a place he could be more than the sickly kid with frolic syndrome. It was his arena to do extraordinary things in expensive ships. But no more.
"Joker?" Specialist Samantha Traynor, Normandy's communications specialist and dear friend stood just behind the Normandy's pilot. She had been there some time.
It hadn't taken her long to witness the turmoil Joker was suffering from. She knew something had been amiss from the moment EDI had ceased to exist. The loss of his father and his sister, something he learned about weeks later, had only confounded a severe change in how Joker acted. He was scarcely the sarcastic, lively pilot she'd come to know. That man had been replaced by a subdued, brooding individual that rarely spoke to others.
"Traynor, what's up?" Joker responded with attempted levity as his chair spun about so he could greet her.
"Just came to check up on you," Traynor said in her quaint British accent. It was an act she'd performed frequently of late, but he usually rebuffed her attempts at lengthy conversation. He seemed to prefer the solitary existence the cockpit offered without EDI.
"I'm golden," Joker assured her. "See?" An embellished smile appeared upon Joker's bearded visage. His eyes betrayed the internal pain he suffered, however.
Traynor crossed her arms, seemingly unconvinced by Joker's half-hearted attempt to avert suspicion. This was not the Joker she knew when she came aboard. She had often visited Joker and EDI in the cockpit when she had a break during her watch. Joker enjoyed hot chocolate and often chided others for drinking coffee. He always mentioned the dubious claim that coffee stunted your growth and then joked that a kid with frolic syndrome couldn't afford to stunt his growth by drinking coffee. When Traynor argued the point with him he told her to check the extranet and then reaffirmed his position by explaining how delicious his chosen beverage really was. Later, Traynor would bring him hot chocolate when she had the chance.
He always lavished her with praise regarding her technical skills, something he always said more 'kids these days should appreciate'. He made her feel welcome aboard the Normandy and seeing him with EDI—seeing how happy she made him—had warmed her heart. But she could see Jeff struggling now and she could relate. Despite her embarrassing comments regarding EDI's voice when she thought EDI was only a VI she had grown to consider the synthetic shipmate a true friend and loved to encourage her inquisitive nature. Traynor could feel her absence, but it must have been so much worse for Jeff.
"You know we haven't enjoyed a good cup of hot chocolate in a while," Traynor reminded him, trying to find common ground in a shared memory.
Joker's face contorted by the mention of it, as if it were a nail driven into his heart. Any memory from before EDI's loss seemed to be one that reminded him she was gone. "Yeah. Hot chocolate is for kids," he said bluntly with a dismissive wave of his hand.
There were bittersweet memories of cups he'd shared with his sister on Tiptree, long before he'd ever dreamed of being a pilot.
Traynor leveled caring eyes upon him. She took a seat beside him, leaning against a nearby console. "Jeff, I don't want you to shut me out. I'm your friend."
The pilot let out an exasperated sigh and let his head roll back. His eyes fixated on the control panels above and the stars beyond. Then he turned to face Traynor and felt two of his soft fingertips pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I just… I miss her so much."
"You don't have to apologize, Jeff. Not for that. Never for that," Traynor comforted him, trying to sound motherly.
"I know it's just… I feel… strange you know? She was an artificial intelligence… she wasn't… real," he muttered lowly, trying put some order to his thoughts. He just wanted the pain in his heart to stop.
"She was real, Jeff, you know that. She was so much more than an AI. To you—to all of us," Traynor reminded him softly. "Don't do that to her, Jeff. She deserves to be enshrined in your heart and in your thoughts. She deserves to be remembered for who she was, not what."
Jeff sighed once again and massaged the bridge of his nose. He sniffed the recycled air aboard the Normandy and stifled a lump forming in his throat. "I've never felt like this before," he admitted, looking up at Traynor. She could see his eyes shimmering even in the low light present on the bridge. He had lost so much, more than just EDI or his Commander. "It just hurts so much."
Traynor leaned forward and offered a warm, loving hand upon his shoulder. She could feel the tension in his body as she consoled him with her touch. "I know, Jeff. She deserves to be mourned, but you can't go internal. You can't forget you still have friends on this ship."
She heard another breath of air escape his trembling lips and could see the pained expression upon his face. After a few moments a single tear drop rolled down the side of his cheek, only to get lost in the whiskers that populated his jaw. Then more tears came. Tears he had stowed away in the weeks following EDI's demise. Tears he had not allowed himself to shed because he labored fiercely to get the Normandy airborne once again, tears that he had fought back and obscured even further when he learned his father and sister and never made it off Tiptree—because he still had a mission and his Commander needed him.