As it turned out, the engineers did know where EDI had gone. Roughly. When it came to the specifics, though, even EDI herself wasn't sure.
"Commander," EDI said calmly, "please confirm our mission objectives." She raised her Shuriken and fired six quick rounds into the nearest enemy. Reapers. It was always Reapers. "I am unsure of our destination, and I sense heat signatures approximately one hundred meters from our current location."
Commander Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy and Possessor of the Worst Luck Possible in Choosing Missions, sighed loudly. "For the sixth time, EDI, I have no idea! This was supposed to be a routine data pickup. Plans have changed." She broke off to aim her Vindicator rifle at an approaching Marauder. Four shots to the head took it down. "Your guess is as good as mine. I'm just following the instructions we were given...which, by the way, did not include a warning about a metric ton of Reapers appearing between us and the damn data pack." This last line was muttered under her breath, but carried clearly to the others thanks to the radio in Shepard's helmet.
"Ease up, Lola," James Vega said, coming up on Shepard's other side and clapping an armored hand on her shoulder. "We're makin' good progress here. A few scumbags never stopped you before, am I right?"
Shepard laughed and shrugged off his hand. "Yeah, yeah, thanks for the pep talk, Vega. But I'm still gonna let Barla Von have an earful when we get back." Quickly she scanned the horizon. Seeing no immediate threat, she turned to her other squad-mate. "EDI, where did you last sense those heat signatures?"
"There," she answered, pointing. "Over that rise. Sensors indicate approximately twenty inorganic life forms, most likely geth."
"Friendlies?" James asked hopefully. Shepard and EDI turned to him with twin expressions of flat disbelief. It was a little creepy. "Alright, alright, assuming hostiles, got it," he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. Who was he to argue with two determined women? Especially when both of them probably outranked him? James tilted his head thoughtfully. Could a ship's AI even have a rank?
"Come on, Vega, you can contemplate the meaning of life later. Now we gotta go find that data. In and out, nice and easy." Shepard grinned, holstering her rifle and marching off in the indicated direction. EDI and James trotted behind her.
-0-0-0-
"Fuck the data packet," Shepard muttered. "Barla Von can just have someone else do his next errand in some empty, wet place of misery." She leaned out of her cover behind a rocky half-wall and fired off a few quick shots at the enemy geth down below.
At Shepard's right, EDI raised her omni-tool and released an incinerating blast with a flick of her wrist. She knew better than to argue with Shepard in the heat of battle. Instead, she opted for a joke. "I doubt that a data packet would make for a good bed partner, Commander."
At EDI's left, James laughed. Shepard just rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, at this rate, I'd rather do a data packet than see another—damn! Vega, hunter at your three!"
He whipped around without a second thought and fired his shotgun at the approaching shimmer. The geth staggered, and another two shots to the face brought it down. "Woo! Headshot!" he shouted.
"You don't get to say 'headshot' when you're shooting point-blank with an Eviscerator, Vega," Shepard retorted, but her amusement was evident. "Pick up a Viper or Mantis next time we're at the range and then we'll talk."
"I think I'll leave the sniping to your spiky boyfriend, if it's all the same to you," James teased as he aimed his gun at another trooper.
"That is a wise decision, Mister Vega," EDI chimed in, picking away at the muddle of enemies with her pistol. Her decoy mimicked her actions a little further ahead. "Although you might ask Officer Vakarian for some sniping tips when we return. He seems quite willing to give shooting lessons to the Commander."
James burst out laughing. Shepard choked. "Urk, EDI, let's focus on the mission for right now, huh?"
EDI blinked oh-so-innocently. "Of course, Commander."
Shepard squished her boots around in the mud. "You know, I really was hoping this would be an easy mission."
"Seriously? Since when is any mission they assign to you 'easy'?" James asked incredulously. He popped a heat sink from his shotgun, and it hissed as it hit the wet ground.
"Good point," Shepard said, sighting down her rifle at another trooper. She fired twice, then pulled back. "But why did there have to be Reaper-allied geth on this dead planet, of all places? And why do they all have fucking rockets?" As if on cue, a missile soared over her head and exploded on the rocks behind them. The projectile hit a little too close to EDI, and the AI's shields flickered as they took the brunt of the blast. Shepard winced. "Ah, dammit. How many are left, can you tell?"
Heedless of the danger posed to her now-shieldless body, EDI popped out of cover to fire a few more rounds at a nearby enemy. "There are fourteen hostiles remaining, at least nine of whom are able to fire exploding projectiles." A bullet whizzed by her ear, clipping off a tiny bit of of her helmet-hard "hair." EDI frowned. (She had not yet attempted any repairs to her new body. Perhaps she would give herself a hair buff later. Engineer Daniels—Gabby—would know what to do.) "I do not detect any other hostiles in the immediate area."
"Wonderful," muttered James in-between shotgun blasts. "At least that means there aren't too many more hunters around."
Another geth went down in a fit of angry squeals and blips. "Alright, well, that's some good news at least. And the packet?"
"My sensors indicate that there is a shielded crate of some sort in the shelter that the geth are guarding," said EDI. She ducked back into cover just in time to avoid a rocket to the face. Having seen Officer Vakarian recover from a similar injury, she was in no hurry to experience it. And she had yet to determine exactly what kind of damage her new body could handle.
The Normandy was never in any danger on missions, EDI knew, due to the fact that she had isolated copies of her core personality processes in her body and left the Normandy in charge of the rest of her AI core. She could exist comfortably in both her body and the AI core when she was within 50 meters of the Normandy itself. Her firewalls tightly controlled the flow of information when she was outside that range. When she was only "in" her physical self, the AI core stored her essential memories and communicated information to her, nothing more. No injury that her body incurred (no sensation at all, for that matter) could affect the Normandy or its crew. Still, perhaps because of all her time spent around vulnerable, relatively short-lived organics, she was not eager to test her physical unit's limits. Nor did she wish to endanger her crewmates. And so she was very careful when Shepard took her out on missions.
Shepard reached up over their cover to fire a biotic blast into the fray. "Then that crate is our target." She moved, staying low to the ground, and signaled to her squadmates to follow with a gesture. They hurried to another clump of rocks and ducked behind them. Shepard ended up sandwiched between a rock and two human-shaped hard places, but managed to raise her rifle anyway. "EDI, can you set your decoy back a little? We need some cover to move forward."
With a flick of her omni-tool, EDI complied. The damp air was beginning to get to her, separating her synthetic hair into soft strands instead of the hard shell she was used to. It wouldn't be much longer until it provided no protection at all. Only six enemies were left, though, so EDI decided not to bother the Commander with the information. Flicking a wet strand out of her eyes, she stood to aim her pistol at a nearby geth unit.
But as she rose, something strange happened. A wave of...dizziness? she had never felt dizziness before...swept over her, and she staggered. A distant alarm bell rang. Something was...trying to get in? Trying to hack her—the Normandy—through her body? EDI's mind buzzed as her onboard security protocols activated. Whatever it was, it had to be close.
The geth. They had Reaper technology, bolstered by Cerberus's knowledge. Why hadn't this seemed important before? She'd overlooked an enemy, focusing only on the immediate threat of weaponry. She hadn't noticed the geth infiltration unit (a memory—"geth don't infiltrate...don't intentionally infiltrate") crouched behind the well-protected crate of data.
Data crate. That almost rhymed. Wait, why was she thinking about poetry? Something was—
Dimly, she heard Shepard shouting at her to move, get down, and James was yelling too and shooting at something...behind her? EDI turned.
A rocket trooper ran toward them. EDI had a split second—an eternity—to watch the cloud of steam blossoming out behind the missile that was headed toward their little hidey-hole. A second to wrench some control back from her overclocked security module, to plant her feet in the muddy earth and jump as hard as she could, between the rocket and her crew.
It wasn't a choice. Just instinct. Please—!
Impact. The blazing-bright flame of an explosion, her body a shield. Success.
EDI's footing gave out and she fell to one knee, gun slipping from nerveless fingers. The world went quiet, her vision narrowing down to a single bright pixel...and then even that tiny light winked out.