Spoilers: obviously content from the games including the Ending.
For the most part this will follow ME lore, just adding and adapting.
Rated M since i don't want to limit what i can and can't do as the story progresses.
Prepared
Hannah sat at her desk, the work piling up in front of her. They had finally gotten a handle on most of the urgent problems. Just one remained, but that one was hard to understand.
Kaidan had called in after Hacket had asked them to sent a spectre on a stupid retrieval mission. Sending one of the very few spectres in the system to retrieve a corpse was ridiculous enough. But the message Kaidan had sent back to the council was worrying her.
Mission a complete failure. The package is gone. Need to go off grid for now.
How could a simple pick up become a complete failure? And how was she going to explain to Hacket that nobody was bringing Anderson home. The man was coming to the council meeting today, She had really hoped to have a bit more time to find out what happened on the citadel before being the bringer of bad news.
She grabbed a coffee and some of her files and headed to the council chambers. Wen she arrived the others where already waiting.
"Hey Hannah, should we just start or wait for Hacket to make our day horrible? Wrex said with a grin. "Or you know we could just tell him we have better things to do."
"Ha you believe he would leave it at that? No, we probably should start, we have enough to do already." Hannah grinned at Wrex.
"Good, so as always the first point on the agenda. Should we release Shepards body for a funeral memorial Service. The Alliance is pressing hard that we do, saying closure should be good for morale blahblah... Hannah how do you vote?" Matriach Aethyta Started by reading of the daily schedule.
Hannah looked sad. "Release his body for a funeral."
"So the council votes for no... Wait what? You're sure about that?"
"Yes, I have to face the truth sometime. But I would ask if I.. We could handle this ourselves. I don't want him turned in to some Alliance posterboy again."
"Sure, we can just overrule the Alliance about that. Anyone against that?" Aethyta looked with a hardened face towards her colleagues.
But everyone was behind Hannah in that matter. It was her son after all.
"Well then that's settled Hannah you say what you wish to do and we will take care of it. I will prepare the forms for Admiral Hacket." Aethyta grinned. The Asari had taken a liking to telling people to shut up.
A knock on the door interrupted the meeting. Admiral Hacket had arrived.
"Excuse me for the delay councilors, There is a bit more traffic at the docking bay then usual."
"No problem Admiral, We have used the time and come to a conclusion that we shall release Shepards body for a Funeral." Aethytas smile widened as she spoke.
"Good, we shall make the preparations." Hacket was relieved.
"No, You won't. We decided to handle the funeral of the most important spectre ourselves." Aethyta had a wicked spark of joy in her eyes.
"But what? He was an alliance marine. We should do a military funeral."
"No SPECTRE. So now that's out of the way we can continue..." Aethyta looked like she enjoyed this way to much.
"Anyway Admiral about your other ehm delivery. We sent one of our free spectres. Since you asked so nicely. We have the sad duty to inform you that the mission failed. Also Aria has locked all travel to and from the presidium down. Without her direct approval no one gets near that place."
"Wait what how can a simple pickup end in a failure?" Hacket looked stunned by the news.
"We only know that the spectre in question is looking in to the matter. Also the Spectre had to go off grid and authorized Aria complete control over the travel near the Presidium. Commander Bailey confirmed the Spectres Identity."
Hacket tapped his omnitool trying to contact the Normandy "Admiral Hacket to Normandy come in Normandy."
"This is the automatic message answering system VI for the Normandy. The Normandy is currently unavailable. Please leave your message with the nearest Alliance outpost."
"What the?" Hacket cut the connection.
"Yeah, well the Spectre in question is on the only stealth ship that was available at the moment." Aethyta said with a grin from ear to ear.
Hacket wasn't happy, but he knew the council wouldn't tell him more then that. Sure he could guess that Major Alenko had pulled rank for some reason. But what reason could the Normandy crew have to go completely dark. Why would his own people keep this from the Alliance. Heck he could even read in Hannahs eyes that the council didn't have an idea what it was all about. But the one thing Hacket knew, it would get really hard to make everyone move on without a proper memorial for Shepard and Anderson.
Something else bothered him. Why was the Destiny Ascension stocking up on manpower, on his way here he had seen at least two dozen heavily armored men. Normally nobody who wasn't preparing for a mission was armored on board.
He didn't have to wait long to get an answer to that question. Suddenly the alarms went off everywhere and a Salarian stormed in the room carrying a bag full of weapons.
The Salarian dropped the bag and ordered everyone to arm themselves. "We have a security alert, Gunshots near the tech labs. Every floor is being sealed off. Councilors I must ask you all to grab guns and barricade yourself in. My team will set up post down the corridor."
Wrex was the first to grab himself some weapons "Finally something fun is happening here."
At least the councilors all had combat experience. Victus took command inside the room.
"Wrex pull those cupboards from the wall I want two cover positions on either side of the room. Kirrahe help me with the table in front of the door. Aethyta your with zaal'koris on the left side, Hannah your with me on the right Kirrahe and Hacket take the front position and Wrex I want you direct next to that door."
Wrex grinned and turned to the Salarian who had warned then "You know the drill spectre. Knock before you come in, or I might accidentally shoot you."
Hacket was nonplussed this council moved like a battle hardened unit through the room and within 2 minutes they had rearranged the room in a decent defensible position. "Wait the drill? You mean you practiced this?"
"Off course those meetings get boring after a while. So we spiced them up by random attacks." Wrex said exited.
"What Wrex means to say is. We got bored and at some point decided to spice it up by having Jondum Bau and his men randomly attack us with paint ball guns. After what happened with Cerberus on the Citadel we thought it wasn't a bad idea to prepare for anything." Victus explained While loading his weapons.
"People silent now we need to wait and hear of something is coming our way." Aethyta said and everyone
Kaidan sat in the Med bay for his checkup, waiting until Dr. Chackwas was done with her tests. He had to rethink the last few days. After they had found out a bit of what happened to Anderson and Shepard they had speculated who could be behind the attack. But it didn't lead to much some theories, a lot of question and nothing that would lead them to solid proof.
Chakwas had told him to be careful but he was healed enough and ready to go. Just go where, Liara and EDI had a hard time finding anything. After they couldn't make out where those mercenaries are or even how they recruited their people. For now they stuck to monitoring communications and placing a few of the Shadow Brokers agents in strategic positions.
Kaidan had only send a short message to the council before he had taken the Normandy off grid, which meant they used the asteroid belt to hide in so no one could see them and pretended their communications where offline. Well they where offline except for the shadow Brokers and a single communications line that recorded messages from whoever tried to contact them. Glyph had fun pretending to be a answering machine. If a VI can have fun that is.
Kaidan had decided to go to the shuttle bay and play some bowling with James. Since the long travel back to earth, where they hadn't much to do for days they had made a habit of using the Cargo bay for bowling. Since they had not much to do but wait anyway it became a more and more normal that everyone was just down there.
"Hey Kaidan I told you no cheating by using biotics man!" James yelled to him.
"I don't cheat."
"Yeah right, If you ever get more then 120 with you Biotics offline I will wear a dress to the next party." Vega joked.
"I'll remind..." Before Kaidan could finish EDI interrupted their game.
"Kaidan, Tali has sent a distress signal from the Destiny Ascension. Also immediately after receiving the message the ships communications are offline. Not even the Brokers network can reach the ship."
"Joker bring us in range. EDI, Liara hack those systems I want Intel. What is happening over there and see if you can get contact to Tali. Garrus, James prepare for combat."
"Kaidan, we will be out of the meteoroid belt and in range of the Destiny Ascension within 30 minutes. Also I must ask to close all shutters and dim the lights to minimize the chance of early detection as much as possible."
Everyone prepared, guns checked, shuttles ready.
Hopefully they would reach the Destiny Ascension in time.