The escape pod was dimly lit, only a couple of small red lights were placed inside of it. The pod, which had just ejected from the crashing Normandy, was shaking as it flew through the air. The crew had filled the seats , which consisted of Shepard, Joker, Ashley, Traynor, one Secret Service agent, and the rest of the seats filled with The Normandy's crew. They all were in shock, still taking in what had happened.

Then, the impact of the water hit. The velocity of the pod had suddenly stopped as it submerged itself in water. It, then floated back up to the surface just as soon as it hit the water. The crew shook along with the pod, all of them sideway as the pod floated in the water. They didn't know how long their rescue would take, but they had no way of communication due to the damages the pod had taken and their sudden departure from The Normandy.

Shepard was wounded, he had taken an Omni-Blade in his right shoulder, and still cringed in pain. Ashley looked up at him, she had sat next to him which had become the seat under him.

"Are you okay Skipper?" asked Ashley.

"Yeah," he managed to grunt out, "I could use a band-aid right now!" Shepard began to look at his shoulder, the skin had been burned right through along with the bone. "That's worst than I thought."

The Secret Service agent looked up, he was at the very bottom of the pod. He had been wearing a suit, something synonymous with The Secret Service. He took of the coat of his suit, balling it up and tossing it up to Shepard. "Here," he said, "Bandage that wound up, help will be here soon enough."

"Thanks," Shepard said as he wrapped the coat tightly around his shoulder. "How was that kid still conscience after that blow?" Shepard blurted out.

Joker, who was sitting across from Shepard at the top, responded, "I honestly have no clue," he said, "You nailed him right in the jaw, that's a kill shot!" "And yet he still was able to kill The President!"

"Don't remind me," The Secret Service agent said, "It was my job to protect him, and failure at my job means a fate worse than death." "If I'm lucky, I'll get blacklisted and let go, maybe reassigned to some janitorial job at headquarters."

The Secret Service agent looked across from him, Traynor was sitting across from him and appeared ill. "You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she softly said, "I'm just really sick... oh god, why won't these waves stop!"

Joker interjected, "Please don't throw up, because then everyone is gonna throw up... and gravity isn't going to bode well with you guys below!" Joker looked at Shepard and sighed, "This is the second Normandy we've lost."

Shepard tried to cheer Joker up, "At least you got to the escape pod and I didn't die...again."

Joker looked down, "Doesn't make me feel any better." Joker looked at the screen above him, "We don't have anyone in our radar," he said. "They are more than likely just realizing that we are late to the one year anniversary celebration..."

"How long do you think it is going to take?" asked Ashley to Joker.

"Well... they'll send out a look out party, then look for The Normandy... maybe... twelve minutes?" said Joker.

Ashley looked up at Shepard who was breathing very deeply and quietly as he had his eyes closed. "Skipper, stay with me..." she said to him.

"I know," he said, "It just freaking hurts!"

The crew stayed silent for the next ten minutes, only exchanging the briefest of words to one another. They sat in their chairs, slowly rocked back and forth by the waves of the ocean. Finally, they heard a shuttle lowering down from outside the sky. The heard a clunk on the outside of the pod, knowing it was a person. The door was hacked open, revealing a man in alliance armor and looking into the pod.

"I've got Shepard, Williams, some of the crew, and an agent," said the man into his Omni-tool. "Do any of you know what happened to the president."

"Dead," said the agent, "Killed via a gunshot from a pistol to the head from a Cerberus agent."

"Not just any agent, the leader of Cerberus," said Shepard.\ as he clenched his wound, "He got me in the arm with an Omni-blade."

"Did you get that?" softly asked the man into his Omni-tool.

A voice came over the Omni-tool a few seconds later, "Roger..." was all it said.

The crew was helped out, one by one. They had several ships flying over the sky, looking for more pods and the possible remains of The Normandy. Shepard was taken out as he was comforted by a medical doctor on the shuttle. Ashley helped, along with the agent, to rescue others out of the pod as they were loaded into shuttles.

Once they were loaded, the shuttles took off. The crew sat in silence as they listened to the announcements over the television. Everyone was in shock and grieving over this sudden attack of violence against their heroes. The celebration was canceled and people exited the streets to return home.

The news was speculating on who could have done this and why. However, being behind the scenes, The Normandy crew knew about everything that had happened and, for the most part, why. Cerberus did it for power and as a statement of their return.

The pilot broke the silence; saying, "We are headed to Alliance HQ at Paris, you'll meet up with others there as you plan your next strategy of attack."

The nurse who was tending to Shepard spoke, "Your gonna need some minor surgery on this, but you'll be back up and running within a few hours." She tightened Shepard's wound, making him shudder at the extreme amount of pain he felt within his entire right arm. Ashley leaned over to comfort him, her touch seemingly making everything better.

The ride was long, and only the chatter of radio communication occasionally filled the air. The shuttle flew into Europe, the recently new flora and animals graced the countryside. The city of Paris then appeared, large crowds of people were scattered throughout the city. Everyone was still taking in the news. New reporters had just broke the news and the entire galaxy was hanging on what the future of The Alliance Parliament.

The shuttle headed towards a large building, a curved architecture ran along the outline of it. A large-blue Alliance symbol was plastered on the side. Ships were flying in and out of the building, still looking for Cerberus and The Normandy. The shuttle slowed down, lining itself up with the nearest open docking station. A loud click paired with a slight shuffle signified that the ship had docked. The doors hissed as they opened up to The Alliance base.

Shepard stood up, still holding his shoulder as the rest of the crew got out as well. A couple of medical doctors greeted Shepard as he was taken away to the medical center. Ashley watched as he went off, hoping that he would be okay. She walked forward, into a large doorway that led to the entrance of The Alliance base.

The building was a whitish chrome; creating an Asari-Human hybrid of architectural style. The building was packed, the couple receptionist tables below had lines of ten to thirty people wanting to talk to various officials. Reporters were reporting at the entrance of the building, trying to get the opinions of people passing by. Ashley stood on a balcony above the lobby. She walked forward, trying to figure out where to go. She had no direction or no idea of who to talk to.

Just then, a man in an officer's uniform approached her.

"Commander Williams," he stated to her, "Admiral Hackett and the others are in the meeting room on floor seven." saluted back as he left to attend his other duties.

She approached the nearby elevator, pressing the button to summon it. She waited a little bit, finally opening to have several people pour out of the elevator. She got in it, still several others in it with her. She pressed the button for seven.

The ride was short, the elevators had been sped up to provide quick access through the base. She stepped out to the seventh floor, it was a long white hallway with several meeting rooms. She walked down the hallway, looking for where the meeting was being held. Eventually, she found where it was, the large circular briefing room. It had similar design as the war room from The Normandy, the exception was it was larger and didn't have a separate communications hub.

She stepped in seeing some familiar faces. Admiral Hackett was there, along with a couple of other Admirals. Garrus was there along with Liara, Wrex, and Tali. They were all waiting in silent for her to get to the center.

"Admirals," she saluted at them.

"At ease Williams," one of the Admirals said. "We are dealing with the biggest shit-storm in recent months."

"Where's Shepard?" asked Garrus.

"He was injured in the fight," she said, "He's getting fixed up, he'll be here soon."

Just then, the door opened to reveal Shepard. His shoulder was bandaged up, but he seemed to not be in much pain. He walked down the steps, greeting The Admirals with a nod and sat next to Garrus.

"Admiral," Shepard said as he looked at Hackett, "Do we know how Cerberus found us?"

"It's not that hard," said Hackett, "They probably just hung around the atmosphere and scanned for you." "You didn't have your stealth mode on, and you were giving public speeches." "We are still wondering how they infiltrated our air force."

"Cerberus loves sleeper agents," said Ashley, "The Citadel Coup and Mars should have proved that."

"True, but I thought we had all of Cerberus destroyed," said Liara, "I was there at the assault on their base, they seemed disorganized and done for."

"Yes, but they seemingly made a huge return," said Admiral Price, one of the admirals along with Hackett, "I don't know how they managed to secure that deep of a hold on our organization."

Ashley looked at Price, and said nothing. Her look said it all, she knew what had happened and why they returned. That their resources were Alliance backed, and worse, by the same Admirals in the room. Price met her gaze, simply looking away to hide his guilt.

"We can get to that later," said Hackett, "I wanna know why did they kill The President."

Shepard interjected, "Fear... maybe as a message." "All I know is that we need to take these guys out, and fast."

Just then, the admirals received a message from the outside. Hackett took it on a private channel, simply nodding as he heard the message. He listened for a good ten or fifteen minutes before it ended. He hung up, looking towards the crew.

"They found The Normandy," said Hackett, "It's badly damaged and was flooded with sea water, but it'll be months before it's back up and running."

"Damn," Garrus said, "Cerberus means business if they can do that to an advanced stealth ship."

"Also, something else was happening on The Normandy," Hackett said. "They apparently were trying to find something."

"Find what?" asked Shepard.

"A data file," Hackett replied, "Cerberus was looking for a package within The Normandy's computers, but failed to find it."

"What was the file?" Tali asked. "Was it from the diplomatic channels to and from The Normandy?"

"No, it was the files you found on Mars," Hackett said, "They have all been deeply hidden within government computers." "The entire file, the original, is with The Asari Government." He looked at Liara, along with the rest of the crew.

"Why would Cerberus want that?" asked Liara, "It contains details on The Crucible and some Reaper information, but nothing else."

"Cerberus probably thinks it's got weapon data, stuff to rebuild The Reapers and their technology," Shepard speculated.

"And that's why they attacked the ship," said Ashley, "Kill The President and obtain a bunch of info on advanced weaponry." "Sloppy work, even for Cerberus."

Shepard looked at Liara, "Liara, you need to delete that data."

"What?" she asked.

"There's still encrypted files on it, right?" Shepard asked.

"Yes, heavily encrypted, but."

"But nothing Liara, your government hid Prothean tech from all of us before, and it nearly killed all of us," Shepard said, "The best thing to do is delete it, make sure it'll never fall into the wrong hands."

"I can't do that Shepard," said Liara, "My government is heavily researching that data, it is in a safe location and protected." "It has about as much chance of falling into Cerberus hands as it would here."

The Admirals looked at one another, "We really can't enforce you to delete it, as long as you are not withholding information from The Council."

"Shepard," Liara pleaded to him, "I promise nothing bad will happen."

"I know," he said, "I just worry."

"Also," Hackett said as he pulled up the galaxy map for the room, "We were also able to figure out where the locations of many of Cerberus's bases are."

"How did you managed that?" asked Shepard.

"The Cerberus troops apparently don't know how to encrypt their data," Hackett said, "So, we were easily able to extract the data." Hackett pointed to several systems that popped outward from the galaxy. "There are several bases around the outer rim of the galaxy, mainly within The Terminus Systems." "They all are small, mainly devoted to troop brackets and minor ship repair." "This one is an R&D Lab."

"That's pretty big for an R&D," said Tali, "That must be a main base."

"Wait," said Ashley, "That's the base!" "Back on Kahje, when I was looking for my sister, I was looking for a base in that location." "I found no traces of life or discovery in that area."

Shepard looked at Ashley, "Do you think she's there?"

"I don't know," said Ashley, "But if Cerberus had ties to inter-galactic sex trafficking, then I wouldn't be surprised."

"Well I guess that raises the stakes then," said Hackett as he looked at the crew, "I take it you want to lead the charge there?"

"Obviously," said Shepard as he looked at his crew, "You guys up for one more run at Cerberus."

"Sure," Garrus said, "After Saren, The Collector's, and The Reapers; I think this will be a walk in the park."

Liara nodded at Garrus, signifying her willingness to join.

"I'm getting to old for this," said Wrex, "But it seems like old times, and I like it." "Just as long as we aren't at gunpoint again Shepard."

Shepard chuckled, "Of course."

"I guess I have no choice," said Liara, "I guess we are off to the base then."

"Yes," said Shepard, "I guess we are."

"One last thing before you go," said Hackett, "It has to do with The President's death." The crew looked at Hackett as they were turning away. "As you know, we have an election within the next couple of months, and the Vice-President, or rather President, isn't running," said Hackett.

"So whose running?" asked Shepard.

"We have two major parties, Terra Firma and The Alliance Party," said Hackett, "They'll decide their candidate within the next couple of weeks, but we need our candidate." "A couple of people were suggesting... you Shepard."

Shepard awkwardly looked at Hackett," No offense sir, but I hate politics," said Shepard. "I'm sure you'll be able to find another candidate."

"I'll run," Admiral Price spoke up, "I have more than forty years of Alliance services under my belt, along with my service in The Reaper War." "I'll be a shoo on against those xenophobic bastards over at the Terra Firma party."

Shepard and his crew turned to leave, knowing that they had a bigger issue to solve than political alliances.