Arcturus Station
"Prime Minister, Prime Minister!" His aide came in waving a data pad in the air and running towards the desk breathlessly.
The Prime Minister, who was meeting with his 'staff' turned around to face the aide, "Yes? What is it?"
"Our listening posts and intelligence experts have been mining the data of the Normandy combat operations in the Terminus Systems. They believe there is only one place they can be, the pirate station Omega."
"Figures," Admiral Jameson grumped.
"Omega?" Nathan said via hologram, "Weren't we planning a strike on the station soon?"
"I was going to advise against it, until our new forces come online we are spread a bit thin throughout the entire Galaxy trying to fight and secure and throw off our enemies throughout the region. We are just plain running out of ships and man power." Jameson explained.
"Well this changes things." Soren grinned.
"It does?" Courtney arched her eyebrow.
"Yes, our greatest threat is there now, we need to keep up the pressure on her and not give her a second to breathe. Not one second to gather her wits and come up with a new way of kicking our butts. The time to strike is now, just days after she has been on Earth." Soren pointed out.
"We don't have the ships." Courtney grunted.
"We do, we take them from other commands. This will only be temporary for if we defeat Shepard then we can build the new fleet at our leisure."
Courtney folded her arms over her chest, "If you say so but she is just one woman. A very skilled woman, but a woman."
"No, Shepard is a symbol, a powerful one. People rally behind symbols, and the more time we give her more time we give her to realize that. Plus if we take out Omega we will remove our last major obstacle in the galaxy, the rest of which is divided into camps of what they should do about our growing aggression, again giving us and the Turians time to commission our battle fleets and VI assisted infantry."
"Still, unless Kurl has removed the station's defenses that Petrovsky put in when Omega was under Cerberus management, and he is a Krogan after all, this makes Omega a fully armed battle station capable of ripping opposing fleets to shreds."
"If they get close enough, we can send in Frigates and Fighters to take them out, we have the ability, they don't, unless they have conjured a major battle fleet to defend the station Omega's defenses are ripe for the taking." Nathan blurted.
The Admiral cocked her head to the side and arched an eyebrow, "True, I guess."
"Work out the details, we will draw some of our forces off from other assignments and then coordinate with the new research division for our mechs." Soren steepled his fingers.
"Orders?"
"Use the forces to pin Omega down and engage their forces, and then either in space or on the station kill Shepard and her crew, or capture them if you can. But either way they are the priority target, if you have to abandon the attack on Omega then do so, but Shepard goes." Soren explained.
"Yes sir." Courtney nodded.
"Nathan, you will take point on this. Use whatever forces you have to obviously but you are specifically trained to bring her and her crew to justice. I trust you implicitly on this."
"I will do my best sir."
"We need success."
"Yes sir."
Omega Markets
Abigail and Cameron Shepard marched down the center aisle of one of Omega's many corridors and alleyways, they were chatting amicably picking up some things for the Normandy, and some luxury items for the crew. Abigail's voice stopped mid-sentence, just talking about some bit of interesting and trivial minutia from her career, swapping war stories with her male doppelganger, and she turned to see that Harrot's emporium was all set up and sitting there delicately.
"Hey look," She said pointing and then turned to Cameron with a wry smile.
"Harrot? Never liked him that much, seemed sleazy, and what was with the cigar in his mouth?"
"Yeah I know, but come on, what do you say we throw the guy a bone?" Abigail piped up and winked at him.
Cameron smiled, "Not sure I know what you have in mind… but I think I have the idea."
She nodded as they both began moving their way over to the emporium, the Elcor seemed to notice them as his head slightly swiveled in their direction, waiting for them.
"Courteously: I hear you have been promoted to Captain, welcome Shepard. Bluntly: Congratulations Captain."
Shepard nodded, "Thank you Harrot."
Harrot took a long puff from his cigar, "Suspiciously: Do not expect a discount."
Abigail chuckled, "That's OK, we have an offer to make for you," She leaned forward, "maybe something that can even get us a discount."
"Curiously: What is it?"
"Ready Cam?" She turned to him.
"Ready."
She started, "We're Captain…"
"…and Commander." He added in smoothly.
They both finished "… Shepard, and this is our favorite store on Omega."
Harrot made a grunting noise, "Enthused: Oh yeeeaaaahhh. With Gratitude: Please, take any of the mods you want."
Cameron and Abigail grinned at one another, but the mod selection left a little bit to be desired. Any of them that looked good, they had, and some of them in better model too.
Together they nodded their thanks to the dejected Elcor, finally deciding on a series of biotic specialty power bars for Cameron to take back to the Normandy. They left making their way slowly through to the airlock where the Normandy was docked at on the other side of Omega. Already working out with Kurl what they came to work out. It took them a few minutes to get there.
Normandy-Airlock
"I guess no matter what universe you're in, Omega is always Omega." Cameron muttered as soon as the whir from the decon finished.
"Oh?" Abigail replied raising her voice into an innocent feminine purr. "Just as dark, dank, depressing, and full of the scum and villainy of the universe?"
"Something like that." Cameron grunted in ascent.
The human Captain grinned to herself, but the grin disappeared into a nervous frown as her husband, the illustrious James Vega, stood waiting for the two of them on the other side. He leaned against one of the bulkheads directly opposite the airlock doors, arms folded across his chest. Though it looked like he was trying to sleep as his eyes were fluttering open at their appearance.
"Have fun." Cameron whispered in her ear.
Abby nodded stiffly marching forward. Her mind was racing what should I say? But nothing was occurring to her after several minutes, what seemed like several minutes of staring. Finally she settled in on "James, I'm-I'm sorry."
To her slight surprise the Lieutenant Commander beamed a smile at her as he nodded, "Hey it's OK Lola."
"What?" The Valkyrie asked growing incredulous, "After the way I have treated you it's suddenly back to business, no questions asked?"
The husband of the Valkyrie nodded, "Well, I love you, if I didn't I don't think this would've worked in the first place. But that love entitles you to a certain leeway, so you are forgiven. Hell I've been there, been driven a little insane when I've broken due to combat, but ultimately it seems you pick yourself up and just get back to work. I mean on Fehl Prime I ran screaming and crying into the night in grief, not exactly my prettiest hour."
She smirked, "Wait, what, you, the manliest Vega in the entire universe cried once?"
"Ha, well that was certainly one of the craziest shit storms I've ever seen. It would have been more unnatural not to try at that point."
The steely human Special Forces operative, savior of the entire Galaxy, nodded gravely. But suddenly she was seized by an impulse and leapt at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. The Lieutenant Commander almost as instantly reciprocated by attaching himself to her and holding her tightly.
"Uh, Shepard?" He asked haltingly.
"Thanks James," was all the woman managed to croak out, "thanks for being here, for waiting for me."
"Hey, don't mention it Abby, we all lose our heads, and you'd do the same for me."
She laughed sobbed and brought up a bright smile, "Well, I would hope so." She sighed. "Truth be told I took out my anger on the universe on all of you. Garrus, you, Cameron, any random terrorist that got in my way. Here the universe put me in a major crisis, again, after all we have been through, I just wanted to rest and to deal with the occasional threat. But now we are dealing with an enemy who may even be even more dangerous than the Reapers, an enemy which is threatening all of our lives…felt like the universe broke a promise."
He gripped her tighter, "I agree, but the universe isn't always fair, it doesn't give us what we want. But if we weren't capable of making a stand then we wouldn't be in the position to do it in the first place."
Abby nodded stiffly, "Yeah, I know, I forgot that lesson once, it shall not happen again."
"I know Abby, I know, but hey this is all a little public and…"
His voice drifted off as if on cue Miranda Lawson appeared at their side. "Am I interrupting something?" She announced.
Abby smirked ruefully as she released the much larger man and detangled herself from his bear like reach, "no, not at all, what is it Miri?"
"Well, our intercepts have picked up something. Soren knows we're here, and has sent a battle fleet to us, they'll be here by the end of the week."
Abigail scowled deeply at that display of information, "War Room, now."
War Room
The Senior Staff all the way from Shepard down to Joker was gathered once more around the table looking at a projected invasion path, a line extended from Horizon to Omega, at the Horizon end of the line showed a bunch of ship types along with the estimated numbers.
"The Alliance sixth fleet and eighth frontier division have received their attack orders for Omega… or at least a newly organized unit made up rom combat sections from the Alliance representing the sixth fleet." Miranda explained.
"What are we dealing with?" Shepard asked peering nervously at the numbers.
"Over a hundred warships and at least ten landing craft," Miranda replied dryly.
James whistled dramatically off to the side. The perfect punctuation to the bleak report, Abigail thought bitterly. She looked around the table and saw similar sentiments in the faces of her crew, Traynor, Garrus, Paul, and Cynthia, all of them stared wide eyed at each other and were waiting for her to do something, anything.
"That's a lot of ships." Cameron cut in.
Yeah real helpful Cam, "And what do we have?" She asked.
Miranda shrugged, "hard to say, not until we begin coordinating and seeing what the allies in the region have, but I doubt they will be willing to do much to help us."
"Right, the Quarians are dealing with their problems. Gee, makes you wonder if that was the plan all along." Cynthia remarked from her corner.
"She probably isn't wrong," Ashley mused, "We're outnumbered and outgunned, staying here would be suicide."
"And yet we have nowhere else to go." Abigail shook her head.
"Come on there must be someplace." Ashley protested.
"Where?" Abby fixed the Normandy CO with an eagle's glare. "Akesh? Hagalaz? Aite?" She said pointedly, and sighed, "Besides anywhere else we go we will have to start over, likely with fewer resources then we have here. This is our last stand. Either we win, or we don't."
Cameron sighed, "How did it come to this anyways? How'd they find us?"
Miranda bit her lip, "Well, running combat operations in the Terminus, and this is a base in the Terminus, it could be a logical hypothesis."
"Yeah," Ashley cut in, "but then you send in a scout ship, not an invasion force."
"Its irrevlevant," Abby countered, "they are coming, we have to stop them."
"Our success is less than assured," EDI commented.
James snorted, "Gee where have I heard that one before?"
"Alright, alright," The Captain asserted her authority by calmly raising both of her hands palm outward, "Now that we have decided we are staying, we have to decide how we are going to stay."
Miranda shrugged, "We have a lot of forces to divide even if they are nothing compared to what we are facing."
"Exactly," Abby agreed, "We have people here who have fought impossible odds before. We just need to do it again. And besides, we have an ace in the hole, we have two Shepard's."
"Right I will get out my magic boom boom stick that I keep just for impossible situations." Cameron retorted.
"Hey, it's better than last time we had to face an impossible situation." Abigail smirked.
Her crew shared her view, finally smiling and glancing at one another. She could feel the spirits, the morale, and more importantly, the hope rising in the room. Enough for her to work with.
"Alright, Cameron, you'll be leading the ground team on Omega. Coordinate with Kurl and whoever else is down there, as a matter of fact I might want to do that before too long. Take whatever personnel you need, though Garrus might be needed here. EDI, Traynor, get in contact with the Geth and Quarians, ask for whatever help they can send our way, remind them how we helped them and apply directly to their leadership." Her eyes moved around the table. "Miranda, see what else is out there in terms of a resistance or mercenary forces that we have available to us."
She saw nods greet her appraisal.
"And what will you be doing?" Cameron asked suddenly.
"Leading the space forces, at least a first. You'll be on the ground team; Ashley is CO of Normandy so she works. I will be doing what I can to coordinate what forces decide to show up."
Miranda shook her head, "Omega is a defensible position, and even if we only get a couple of squadrons of ships we might make a fight of it. Assuming they aren't successful in neutralizing Omega's defenses."
Abigail smiled, "Then that is your job, make sure we're secure, and draw me up a line of battle."
Miranda smirked, "Wonderful, speak up; get saddled with more impossible tasks."
"Hey," Abby grinned, "impossible is our middle name." She turned to the group again. "Alright, we have a lot of work to do. But we've been here before, we know the drill, do your jobs, and whatever else happens, we'll give them a hell of a fight."
Heals clicked together at her announcement as the crew saluted and marked her words in various forms.
"Dismissed, and James, could you come to my quarters please."
It took a few minutes to get there but when they did, the door barely closed before she was on top of him, slamming him into the bulkhead with enough gentleness to not cause a concussion. Her lips pressing down on his hungrily, both his and her hands trying to find the creases in their uniforms to get them off, finding it difficult with their passions grazing their bodies and hitting their erogenous zones, drawing sharp hisses. But eventually they managed it, and off they went on a blinding carefree rollercoaster, the stress leaving their bodies almost as quickly as they gathered up a sweat.