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Chapter 6

She said

I heard Kaidan cough behind me and I wondered if he'd done the old trick of disguising a laugh. Anderson's tired eyes were definitely twinkling in amusement. Udina, of course, sputtered. "I am still an ambassador, Shepard! You would -!"

"Enough, Donnell!" Anderson snapped, raising his hand. "I would like to hear what Shepard has to say so I can go back to sleep." He glared Udina into submission and turned back to me, "Shepard?"

"We have a problem. Cerberus hacked my ship and is autopiloting her away," I told Anderson.

He frowned, "How is that even possible?" I understood his doubt. Ships aren't usually able to be removed from dock on autopilot, much less navigate a Mass Relay. Autopilots were usually only used for short stretches of time to give the living, breathing pilot a short break on straight-line runs.

I glanced at the balding diplomat, wondering how much I could say in his presence. Kaidan would keep his mouth shut if Anderson ordered him to, but who could say what Udina would and would not do? "I'd prefer not to say in front of the ambassador," I told my former commanding officer. I smiled humorlessly at the fuming human representative, "Plausible deniability, you understand."

Councilor Anderson could tell where my thoughts were going, "All right. Udina, I'll fill you in with what you need to know later. Go home. At least one of us should be rested for the morning."

Udina glared at me and walked out of the office, mumbling about political shitstorms and incompetent Spectres. Amused, I caught Garrus' eye and we grinned in our mutual dislike of the slimy diplomat.

The turian peeled himself off the wall and walked closer to stand behind me. Pitching his voice low, he muttered, "Suddenly the room smells better."

I grinned and bringing my eyes back to Anderson, I caught an angry look crossing Kaidan's face before he quickly schooled it back to the blank neutrality he'd worn most of the night. My grin slipped and I merely looked at Anderson, "Cerberus installed an AI."

A sharp intake of breath from Kaidan and Anderson frowned and rubbed his own forehead. "Before you start yelling at me, let me explain. She'd been shackled, previously, with massive limitations on her abilities. But when my whole crew was abducted, we were forced to unshackle her to adequately defend against the Collectors. And after her performance on the other side of the Omega 4 Relay, I let her remain unshackled." I held up a hand to stop their comments when I paused.

"She's become as much a part of my crew as any other sapient being on board. I trust her. Still do, as a matter of fact."

"How do you know it didn't just go back to Cerberus?" Kaidan asked. His handsome face was scowling at me. I took note of his use of the gender neutral pronoun.

"Because they'll enslave her again," I told him. "It was in her best interests to stay with us, with me, where I could protect her. Look, when we first got on board, Joker and I were suspicious of her, too. We went snooping around in her programming and found something labeled 'Gamma Omicron.' When we asked her about it, all her interfaces turned red in warning and she started spouting off about clearance. When we checked the programs after unshackling her, the 'Gamma Omicron' files were gone. Even Tali'Zorah agreed that would have to have been the shackling protocols." I didn't mention Legion's investigation. I doubt they'd take the word of a geth as assurance an AI wasn't a danger. "EDI, that's the AI's designation and name, couldn't locate them anymore. I'm fairly certain, now, that they were there to recall EDI and the Normandy, should I go rogue from Cerberus. I'm grateful that's all they did, though. They could have done so much worse. Like put kill switches in the crews' brains or remote controlled cyanide capsules in their teeth or something else equally dramatic."

Anderson raised an eyebrow, "Are you sure they didn't do that, too?"

"Doctor Chakwas checked them all out when we got to the Citadel. She called in a few favors to use facilities that Cerberus couldn't possibly have monkeyed with in order to do it, too. She cleared them all," I informed them.

Kaidan cleared his throat, "You mentioned a geth, earlier?"

I glanced at Garrus who shrugged, "You're very helpful," I told him.

He just looked at me, "You brought the wrong XO for a meeting, Shepard."

I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. "While hunting the Collectors, we picked up several odd allies," Garrus snorted, I glared at him, then continued. "Apparently, the geth had a religious schism."

Anderson held up a hand, "Wait. An artificial intelligence had a Reformation?"

I laughed, "More like a jihad." Kaidan's eyebrows rose. I continued, "When Sovereign corrupted the geth, he corrupted only a few, not the whole. Those geth formed a consensus that the Reapers were their gods. The others didn't share the philosophy. The true geth objected to the Reapers' influence because it interfered with their concept of self-determinism. The true geth want nothing more than to be left alone to figure out their own future. The ones we've been fighting all this time don't. They think that the Reapers are their future and want to be guided. The true geth are isolationist. What they call the 'heretics,' are the expansionists, the faction we've been fighting. In acquiring the means to get through the Omega 4 Relay we came upon one of the true geth."

The crackle of my com interrupted me. I paused and brought my hand to my ear, "Shepard. Talk to me."

Tali's voice came over the unit, "We've got Legion, Shepard. Its's all right, but it refuses to speak."

"All right, tell him to go dark. The three of you bring him to Anderson's office," I told her. They weren't going to believe me that the geth meant no harm until they saw it for themselves. I felt a hum in my teeth and behind my jaw. I didn't look over at Kaidan despite feeling the static charge of his Barrier activating. How very trusting of him.

"You want us to do what?" Tali sounded incredulous.

"You heard me, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. Bring him here, fast. Shepard, out." I looked back at Anderson to find that Kaidan had pushed him backward away from me and was glowing with the dark blue energy of his Barrier and had a pistol in his hand its barrel pointed steadily at me, his whiskey dark eyes cold.

Garrus' rifle cleared its holster and he shoved me behind him faster than I'd ever seen him move before.