It took three days before anyone showed up to rescue us. Three days cooped up inside a pod waiting, with no clue as to whether someone would show up or not. I was fairly certain someone should show up, at least at first. As time went on, I started to feel less positive about it. Which wasn't ideal, because in that pod I was about the only one who was in a positive mindset. Talitha had spend the tree days just talking. Constantly. She couldn't shut up. I knew everything there was to know about Shanxi, since I was a dumb hick from the sticks or something - she wasn't as direct, but I wish she had been, she'd have used less words. And every so often she'd just stop talking and we'd have the same exchange, over and over.
"What if nobody comes?" she'd say, anxiously looking out of the tiny window.
"They will," I'd reply.
"But what if they don't? What if they don't find us?"
"They will."
"How do you know?"
"I do."
No reassurances were ever enough, but at the very least, she managed not to break down in a panic. Joker was having the worst of it. There were medical supplies on the pod, together with food (what else but emergency bars), drinks, and a very inconvenient way to get rid of "waste", but he needed a lot more care than we could give. We managed to secure a chest wrap for him - not the best idea, but given the zero gee conditions and the fact that he had multiple fractures on one side, it made him more comfortable - and kept him on a steady dose of pain killers and anti-inflammatory pills. Talithat did know first aid, learned in basic apparently, though she had rarely had to use it.
But after three days, as my patience started to wear thin, I caught a flash of light through the window. It was just an instant, but it was followed by a loud clanking noise that shook the entire pod, waking up both Talitha and Joker.
"Wha-What's happening!" Talitha yelled.
"I think the cavalry is here."
As if agreeing with me, we could feel the pod moving along, shaking a second time as it docked with another ship.
"They're here! They're here!" Talitha was yelling, almost crying of happiness. "We're going home!"
I chuckled and, while I wanted to say something like I told you so, decided to just let her have her moment. Joker just groaned something unintelligible, which became an obvious groan of pain as the pod regained artificial gravity. The interior lit up brightly, and the door finally opened with a hiss.
And the sound of kinetic weaponry powering up.
"Identify yourselves!" someone yelled.
"Woah woah! Hold on! We're the good guys!" I yelled, raising my arms.
"Talitha Draven!" Talitha replied, yelling even louder. "SSV Normandy! 4331-AN-3301! We have wounded!"
Touchy fellows.
The guns went down, and immediately two people boarded. Alliance colours, one of them with a doctor's armband.
"Come on out," someone called from the outside. "You're safe now."
They didn't have to tell me twice. I only stayed behind to make sure they had Joker, warning them to take it easy on the guy with brittle bones, and explaining the kind of drugs and medical assistance we had provided. After that, I gratefull got out of the seat and stepped inside the ship. Curious eyes were looking at me, probably wondering who the heck was the guy in the yellow envirosuit.
"Sir!" I heard Talitha say, squaring up and saluting. "Ensign Talitha Draven, SSV Normandy."
"Captain John Swift," came the reply. I turned around to see a man return the salute. Tall, dark skinned, white hair on the sides of his well kept, short, curly hair. "Welcome to the London."
"Err, Roy Morgan," I added lamely. "Freelancer."
The captain looked at me, then at the pistol attached to my thigh - the same Striker pistol Mika had had with her - and smiled. He offered his hand and gave me a firm handshake.
"Morgan. Welcome aboard son."
It was weird, and looking around I saw a couple of people whispering and gesturing at me with their heads. Huh.
"Thank you sir."
"Just the three of you?" he said.
"Yes, in this pod. We were the last ones out. Pilot-" I stopped talking when they brought Joker out on a stretcher, not even stopping to say hello to the captain before moving on towards the medbay. "Pilot was the last one out," I finished.
"I see. Get to the medbay and have the doctors check you out, I'll want a full report ASAP."
"I'm fine sir," Talitha replied. "No need for that. Has... Has anyone else made it?"
"You're the first pod we've found," the captain replied. "I was hoping you could help us retrace the steps of the Normandy."
"Can do, sir," Talitha said. I just nodded in agreement.
Five minutes later we were discussing the details of the attack with the captain in his quarters. The ship was easily three times the size of the Normandy, but even then, all quarters were just as cramped and tight as they were in the frigate. A bigger ship just meant one could cram more people and systems inside it, not just give more space. Talitha did most of the talking, given that she had been at the helm, while I just sat back and listened. I had been in the mess at the time, just cooking some food, so I hadn't caught a single detail of the attack. The only thing I could offer was when I saw the pods launch.
"Last pod before ours must have been... About twenty seconds earlier. I hit the launch before heading to the cockpit to get these two," I said.
"Which pod was that?"
"Behind the stairs to CIC?" I offered.
Talitha looked to be doing some mental Maths at that. "Port or starboard?"
"Err, left. Looking at the cockpit," I replied.
"That'll be A3," Talitha said.
"And your trajectory in those twenty seconds?"
"Joker will know better than me, sir," Talitha replied, "but we were giving the ship all the H2 power we could get."
"Plus three days of drift," the captain said, nodding. "It might be a while before we recover the rest of the pods. I'm going to be sending you to the Citadel right away. The Council has questions."
"Sir, is there a problem?" Talitha said. "The transponders should make it easy to find the pods, even after three days."
"The transponders aren't being picked up," the captain said. Seeing our alarmed reaction, he just raised his hands, gesturing for us to calm down. "It probably means they're on the planet, if you were on a close orbit they likely re-entered. Should be safe enough, but we won't find them until we do the scans. Don't worry. We'll find them."
That was reassuring. Not. Nonetheless, after a medical exam and some clean clothes, we were put on a shuttle and sent flying back to the Citadel. And in a strange reversal of fortunes, it was Talitha's turn to be full of positive feelings, and for me to wonder if I had screwed up catastrophically.
"The captain is right," Talitha said. "If they're on the planet it'll be harder to pick up the transponders. They'll be fine! It wasn't a dangerous planet. I mean, it wasn't Elysium but all the scans showed a boring stable planet. They'll be fine!"
"Sure hope so..."
"I'm sure!" I wasn't sure if she was trying to convince me or herself. "Those pods are very tough! They can do re-entry automatically, no problem! Besides, everyone was in a hardsuit, if they have to they can just walk outside."
"I hope you're right. I hope Shepard..."
The conversation fell for a few seconds, until Talitha picked it up again - told you she couldn't shut up - this time in a more subdued tone.
"You know, when I took off the hardsuit and saw all the damage... I think it saved my life."
"That's what they're for," I replied, tapping the plates of my envirosuit. I was wearing it, whereas Talitha was now in a regular Alliance uniform. I didn't want to wear one of those myself, so I stuck to my envirosuit, after giving it a good clean.
"Yeah. But it was your idea. You saved our lives."
My mind went back to the two corpses I walked by on my way to the cockpit. Yeah, it was supposed to save some lives. And act as a decoy for the now blessedly silent AI, but...
"Not everyone's," I replied, my voice somber.
"Mine at least," Talitha said, undeterred. She reached out and grabbed my arm. "And if it saved me, you bet it saved some more people. So thank you."
"Worth the dry ice down my neck then," I said.
Talitha sniggered at that and patted my arm, then sat back on her seat. The crew had NOT been happy about my 48-hours-in-a-hardsuit suggestion, at least at the time. Hell hath no fury like a crew forced into hardsuits during ship operations.
Our trip to the Citadel was faster than I was used to. The pilot was clearly in a hurry, or for some luck we kept being bumped to the front of the queue on the busy relays. Even so, we arrived at the Citadel behind schedule, at least according to the pilot, who was complaining loudly about a Volus merchant ship two jumps ago that had set his whole schedule back. Given the late hour, our meeting with the Council was postponed till the following morning, and we were given accommodations by the embassies. A very luxurious hotel the likes of which neither of us was used to.
"Wow. I think I might not sleep and just live it up for the night!"
Talitha seemed to be in better spirits, but I knew for a fact it was just a front. Sure, being rescued lifted all of our spirits, but the loss of the Normandy still weighted heavily on her. We both had a chat with a counselor aboard the ship during our medical exams, and I knew that she had spent a lot more time with hers than I had with mine. The fact that I had expected the attack didn't soften the blow, but knowing I had managed to pull Shepard out of the fire had helped a lot. Moreso thinking that at least one person had survived that attack who otherwise wouldn't have. Two, counting Shepard.
"You do that, I'm personally going to sleep like a log," I replied. "Good night."
"Oh. Err... Yeah, good night," she replied.
She hesitated for a second, then just turned around and headed for her room. Huh. Oh well. I decided to live up to my promise, and headed for mine, at the end of the corridor. When I opened the door, I realized that despite the luxury, this was still a space station, and this was prime real estate. So the room was small, if comfortable. I headed for the bed, hesitated, and instead decided to lay down on the floor behind the sofa. My visits to the Citadel were anything but boring, so I was feeling a bit paranoid. If I doubted that, a quick look out the window to see the state the place was in would have been enough to remind me to be cautious.
It wasn't even an hour before my abundance of caution proved to be right. Sleeping on the floor was easy enough, but my mind was too excited to think about sleep, despite the exhaustion I was starting to feel. The door to my room opened silently, and in the dim light I looked under the sofa and saw a pair of feet walking on the other side. Silent and careful movements, despite the fact that it looked like a pair of high heels. I waited until they had walked past me, saw that nobody else had walked in, then stood up, my trusty Striker in hand.
"Not another step," I said, the sound of my unfolding gun giving a dire warning against any shennanigans.
The woman raised her hands without letting go of her pistol, and turned around. Thanks to the light filtering in from the corridor I could finally see her face. And the shock came through my voice because it was as unexpected as it was worrying.
"Miranda?!" I almost yelled. "What the-"
The sound of a gun powering up interrupted me, followed by a male voice it took me no effort to recognize.
"Put it down Morgan, we're not looking for a fight," he said, pointing a heavy pistol at my head.
"Jacob?" I said, catching a glimpse of the man through the corner of my eye. I couldn't tell from that angle, but he seemed to be a little shocked at my recognition of him. "What the hell are you doing here?"
It was Miranda who answered. "We need to talk ab-"
"Shut up!" I snapped. "Jacob?"
"I... Just put it down, we're here to talk. That's all."
"Morgan, we need to-"
"I said shut up!" I snapped again. "Why don't you wait outside?"
I gestured at her with my head, and maneuvered around the back of the sofa so she couldn't get close to me. Miranda didn't look happy at all with the turn of events, but I did not trust her as far as I could throw her. And the chances of her letting me throw her anywhere were nonexistent. As soon as she left the room, I lowered my pistol and folded it, breathing out in relief.
"Are we good?" Jacob said, his gun still pointed at me.
"I don't trust her," I replied. "Wouldn't recommend you do either. What do you guys want?"
I walked around to sit on the sofa, and gestured for Jacob to do the same. He seemed a little bit confused, but he put away his weapon and followed suit, clipping the folded pistol to his shield harness. I just realized I was in naught but my underwear. Oh well.
"We need to talk about Shepard," he said. "As I understand, you were aboard the ship when it was attacked?"
"Yeah," I replied. "I managed to push her into one of the escape pods before the ship exploded."
"That's what we're worried about, she wasn't aboard yours?"
"No, why?"
For an answer, Jacob brought up his omni-tool, so I did the same, and he flicked me a message. I opened it and saw something I didn't understand. There were a bunch of dots in a three dimensional space with labels attached to them, and one by one, they were disappearing.
"Cerberus recovered the transponder data from the Normandy's distress beacon," he was explaining, skipping the question of how exactly they had gotten that data out of the London. "The signals disappear one by one. Do you know who was attacking you?"
My chest felt icy cold as Jacob spoke, fear gripping my insides as I realized what it meant. No way. No. Why. No.
"I thought the pods landed on the planet," I said.
"That doesn't seem to add up. They were plucked out of space, that's for sure. Only one pod still remained intact. Do you know who hit the Normandy? Cerberus thinks the pods might have been taken, and I have to agree, looking at-"
"SHIT!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, shooting to my feet.
My head was in a whirlwind. No fucking way. No way. The data was there, and now I knew what the text next to the dots was. The ID of the pods, the Normandy's, and finally the pod designation. One by one the dots disappeared until the one ending in A3 did. Shepard's pod.
The fucking Collectors had Shepard.
A million thoughts were going through my head, but the most important one was clear as day. If we didn't prevent the Collectors from going back home, we'd never see Shepard again.
"Shit, shit, SHIT! Miranda!" I yelled.
I was already putting my undermesh on and going through my envirosuit pieces. Too slow. I didn't have time to put all that on. I grabbed the armor case and just rushed out of the room in nothing but the undermesh, gun and armor in the case. I nearly bumped into Miranda, but I deftly dodged and kept going for the lifts.
"Finally decided to-"
"There's no time!" I interrupted, completely unaware this was the third time and that the Ice Queen was probably on a short fuse with me. "I need to talk to your boss, right now."
"What do you know? What happened to Shepard?" Miranda said.
"She's been taken by the Collectors," I replied.
"The... What? Are you telling me those are real? And why would they-"
"There's no time! Where are we going? I need to speak with the Illusive Man, right now. We need to find out if they've gone back through the Omega-4 Relay, and if they haven't, we need to figure out a way to stop them from going through no matter what!"
Miranda took it all in stride, and if she was annoyed at me for interrupting her, she wasn't letting it show. As soon as we got to the lift she hit the ground floor and turned to her omni-tool, her hand flying over the interface so fast I couldn't tell what she was doing.
"The Collectors?" That was Jacob. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, they're real. And this was not supposed to happen," I said.
Without another word I brought up my own omni-tool and started to write a message. One of three. I had three one-use keys I could burn to send Gee a coded message, and get a reply, without any possibility of them being intercepted.
Gee buddy, I need help like you won't believe. Shepard has been taken by the Collectors. They attacked the Normandy over Alchera three days ago and took all the escape pods except mine. I need to find out if they're still around, where to find them, anything. Please.
The response was almost instantaneous.
We will leave no stone unturned to find your Commander Shepard, Messenger of Morgan. We will update you through this channel. Shadow Broker.
I knew for a fact that the message read very different from what Gee might have sent, but I had found an excellent VI to transform his speech into more natural-sounding language, so that's what he was using at the moment. It used a lot of colloquialisms that would likely start raising flags sooner or later - too different from previous Shadow Broker communications - but it's not like anyone could do anything about it. It might make obvious there had been a change of leadership, but as long as someone was the Broker in charge, there was diddly squat anyone could do.
As soon as the lift arrived we legged it towards the rapid transit terminal, just as a transport was landing. Perfect timing. Before I could even open my mouth, the transport's door opened, and out stepped none other than Nihlus Kryik. We both stopped at the same time. Looked at each other. Then he just rushed me at full speed.
I saw him coming, and so did Miranda and Jacob. Both of them got their pistols out in the blink of an eye, but Nihlus ignored them. He simply stopped in front of me and grabbed me by the mesh.
"Morgan! What the hell happened!" he roared. "What happened to Shepard!"
"Get your goddamn hands off me!" I snapped. I tried to push him, but he wouldn't budge, so instead I ended up reciprocating the favour and grabbing him by the collar of his armor.
"She was with you! What happened!" he demanded.
"What happened? Why don't you tell me Spectre!" I yelled back. By now we had drawn the attention of the few people milling about at that late time of night, including a couple of C-Sec officers. Miranda and Jacob had, wisely, chosen to put their guns away.
"What?"
"Yeah! We were on a Spectre mission, remember? Who knew where we were, huh? Who?! And why's the Council sweeping this under the rug? Why don't you look at that, Spectre?"
I pushed him back, and this time he did let me go.
"I want answers!" he demanded.
"So do I," I replied. "So fuck off and find them, because I don't have any."
With that, I picked up my armor case and headed for the transport. I brushed roughly against Nihlus as I did, but he didn't make to stop me this time. He didn't move an inch. I could have stopped to think about it, but I wasn't in the right frame of mind. I needed TIM, and I was hoping to hell the SR2 was ready, because we didn't have a lot of time.
"Just step inside," Miranda said, gesturing towards the empty room. "The comms will come online when you do."
I didn't wait for an explanation - didn't need one. She had taken us to a Cerberus safehouse not far from the Presidium, one of the few that had survived mostly untouched after the battle of the Citadel. It was clean, spartan, and rather nondescript. An apartment on the 20th floor of a 32-floor building, lost in a forest of equally nondescript buildings. Absolutely perfect. I walked inside the room, a projector in the corner scanned me as I walked, and soon I was greeted by the holographic projection of the Illusive man. I would have loved to meet him in different circumstances, but beggars can't be choosers.
"Mister Morgan, it's good to finally get to talk," TIM said. "I have been trying to set up this meeting for quite a while."
"Yeah, charmed," I replied. "Tell me the SR2 is ready for deployment, because we don't have a lot of time."
He took a moment to pull a drag of his cigarette, never breaking eye contact with me.
"It is not," he replied. No questions about how I knew, nothing. "We have just finished the first iteration of the new Tantalus Drive Core, the rest of the ship hasn't even begun construction."
"Shit," I muttered. There goes that plan.
"Miranda says you believe the Collectors are behind the attack."
"They are," I replied.
"What makes you so sure?"
I furrowed my brow as I thought of the right response. Going with I just do was always a possibility, but I could lay it a bit thicker.
"They're the only ones with Reaper tech. Other than the actual Reapers. The beam weapons are pretty distinctive."
Once again, the Illusive man took that moment to smoke, something I started to realize was a way for him to give himself a moment to think.
"Interesting thing. The Omega-4 Relay last became active just two weeks ago, after years of being silent."
"Two weeks? Nothing after the attack?"
"Not as far as we know. I have sent a crew to observe the relay and make sure-"
"You can't just observe!" I interrupted. "If the Collectors try to go back we'll lose Shepard forever. We need to STOP them!"
"Very well. I will send Miranda the details."
"What details?"
He paused to smoke once more, then looked at me. "If we want a fleet by the Omega-4 Relay, we will need to ask for permission," he said, his tone completely nonchalant. "What kind of capabilities do these ships have?"
"As I said, It's Reaper tech," I replied. "Not a full Reaper, but pretty damn deadly. Ship should be a couple of kilometers long. Defensively t's not as tough as the Reaper, but offensively, yikes. The Normandy went down without a fight, and with Joker at the helm."
"I see. After we have secured the Relay we can discuss the rescue mission. I will need all the details you can give me. But I must warn you, the Collectors have been considered a legend for a reason. They will be hard to track down."
"Yeah, you telling me," I said. "We're going to need a ship, and we're going to need a team."
"You have a suggestion?"
"Yeah, get the strongest biotics you can afford, and lots of them. For starters."
"Can do."
With that, the transmission ended, and I was left in an empty room. It was very... odd. The Illusive Man was even more unsettling in person, so to speak, than he was in the games. Sure, I didn't have a clear image of him and his artificial eyes and whatnot, but the unsettling part was how he took everything without even blinking. SR2? Sure, it's not finished yet, we have barely started, and you know about it, nice. Collectors? Okay, let's find them then. I wondered if he didn't actually believe me, or if he had some other information that corroborated what I had said, or what.
I stepped outside the room with more doubts than anything else. Miranda was waiting for me, and so was Jacob.
"Omega," Miranda said.
"Lovely place this time of the year," I replied.
"You really think it's the Collectors, don't you?"
"I have zero doubt," I said. "Your boss seemed to agree."
"He always seems to agree," Miranda replied. "If you're wrong, however..." she added, letting the phrase hang in the air.
"Right. I assume we're not the only people looking for Shepard?"
"I wouldn't know," Miranda said. "And I prefer it that way. Let's go."
"We have a ship?" I said.
"We'll find one," she replied.
Author's Notes: Oh boy, it's been, what, 2 years? Did I seriously wait as long as Shepard did between ME1 and ME2? Apparently I did! So, if anyone's still reading, hi! Welcome back to this resurrected fic! Now with extra orange glow and badass renegade facial scars. I started with a shorter episode to set up the next leg of Roy's journey, and to get me into the swing of things.
The last time we were here, we left our intrepid time traveler kicking Shepard into an escape pod, and in the process, somehow, making the AI that had so haunted his adventures terminally malfunction. Now, it turns out that the Collectors have Shepard, and there's no AI backup to save the day. What the hell am I going to do? What does it mean? Will Roy ever have a chance at a proper meal? Find out next time!