My job for the last 24 hours had been to make sure Kasumi actually stayed alive. She had refused to leave Keiji's side for anything, so I made an effort to ensure she was fed, brought her a blanket and a pillow so she could get some sleep, and tried to keep her company as much as possible. I had suggested that she go get some proper sleep at some point, but she said she was fine where she was. And as I found out later, she was. Being short as she was, and unfathomably flexible for some reason, she somehow managed to curl up on the uncomfortable seat like a friggin' cat and sleep without having to move at all. I also noted that she only did so after asking me to stay while she slept. Clearly, she didn't trust anyone aboard the ship other than me.
Clever girl.
Between most of us we managed to get enough B negative and O negative blood to keep Keiji going. Apparently there is a limit to how much good synthblood can do, and Keiji had lost a lot. I was A positive, so there was sweet bugger all I could do about it. Regardless, and with blessedly little in terms of scares, Keiji made it through the night. It was still a long way for him to be out of danger, never mind recovery, but it was a good start. With the first signs of hope already on the horizon, I managed to convince Kasumi that she needed to take some care of herself and at least have a shower and stretch her legs. We were currently docked to the original small dry dock, and people and supplies were trickling in, although I wasn't exactly sure what or who. I didn't pay much attention really.
When Kasumi finally emerged from the medbay, she hadn't taken two steps before Miranda coincidentally caught up with us.
"Morgan, Miss Goto," she greeted us. "How is he doing?"
"Still not much change," Kasumi said, looking back to the Medbay. I had this feeling like she was going to walk right in again.
"He made it past the first day, that's a good sign," Miranda said.
"I hope so," Kasumi said, her eyes still lingering on the medbay. "Did you want something?"
"A moment of your time. Both of you," Miranda replied, and gestured towards her office.
I looked at Kasumi, Kasumi looked at me, and I gave a tiny nod before following Miranda. Kasumi didn't wait after that, and just followed us. A few curious glances were cast our way, but the amount of personnel around wasn't particularly high. We got into the office, Kasumi took the only free chair, and I was left to stand between Miranda and Kasumi.
I'm sure there's people out there whose favourite fantasy starts like that.
"What's on your mind Miranda?" I prompted.
"I am interested in knowing what your plans are, Miss Goto," Miranda said.
Kasumi raised a hand. "Kasumi is fine," she said.
"All right, Kasumi. I was thinking we should transfer your partner to a more suitable facility. You are, of course, free to join him, but I suspect we could use someone with your particular set of skills in our mission. I have asked HQ to put together a dossier of you, and they've come up remarkably empty. Lots of rumors, but no proof of anything. Both your and your partner's rap sheets were clean, for the most part. Couple of trials, all dismissed for lack of evidence."
Not giving anything away, Kasumi folded her hands on her lap and crossed her legs, leaning back on the chair with an air of patience about it. Tell me your secrets, she seemed to be saying. I had seen that one before. Sadly, there was little chance for me to drop a lore-bomb on her this time. Unless...
"What exactly is your mission?" Kasumi said, ignoring everything Miranda had mentioned about her.
Miranda gestured at me. Great. "Right. As you may or may not know, the Normandy was attacked not long ago ago, with me on board." I waited, but Kasumi didn't even blink. If she didn't know, she wasn't telling. "The attackers destroyed the Normandy, and took every single escape pod our there except mine. The crew, including Shepard, have been declared missing in action."
"So what's the mission?" Kasumi prompted.
"To rescue Shepard, and the crew," I said. Miranda didn't quite turn to look at me, but her eyes definitely went straight for my face and gave me a look at that. "Right?" I added.
"The primary objective is rescuing Shepard," Miranda said. "She's too important to risk even for the rest of the crew. But!" she interjected before I could protest. "If we are able to extract them too, we'll try."
I'll do more than try, trust me on that.
"So who took her?" Kasumi said, ignoring our byplay.
"Ever heard of the Collectors?" I said. "Most people think they're some spacer legend, but-"
"Oh they're real," Kasumi said. When both Miranda and I gave her startled looks, she smirked.
"You know? How?" Miranda said.
"Ah, ah, I don't kiss and tell. I mean, I kiss a lot and tell a lot, but never both at the same time," she said. "So you're going after the Collectors?"
"Yeah," I said. "It's not going to be easy. They've got advanced technology, and they've got a lot of tricks. We need to find the ship, board it, and take our people back."
"And how do you plan to do that?" Kasumi said.
"Once we have located the ship, there will be a fleet to run a distraction while we board it in secret," Miranda said. "This is a stealth ship, after all. The Collectors possess what Morgan has described as seeker swarms, swarms of biomechanical bots that can paralyze people with pseudo-biotic energy in a way similar to a stasis field, and that's going to require biotics to keep people safe. They also have stasis pods where they are keeping their captured victims. I have a good team of biotics, and people experienced in combat. What I don't have yet is a good tech that can break into computers and get into places even in a ship with extremely alien systems. We'll have an engineer on board, but I think a... stealth operative might bring something extra to the table."
"How alien are we talking here?" Kasumi said.
"Well, the Collectors are a remnant of the Prothean Empire, corrupted by the reapers, so pretty alien," I said.
To my delight, Kasumi once again gave me a startled, what the hell look at my words. This time, however, it only lasted about a second. "You have the best surprises Roy," she giggled.
"I try," I said, giving her my best smile.
"Tell you what. Keiji makes it, you can count me in. I'll even give you a discount," she said.
Miranda gave her this flat look in response, but Kasumi didn't even wait for a response. She gave me a wink, and made for the door without another look. Which left me alone with Miranda. Joy!
"Morgan," she said. "You trust her?" Her tone said that she had enormous doubts about Kasumi.
"Trust her not to go through my locker and take anything that looks interesting and shiny? No. Trust her with the fate of the galaxy? Absolutely. I've done it before, and we're still here."
"Really?" Miranda said, spinning her chair to face me, and smiling too.
"Really. She's the best thief in the galaxy. Just not the most famous."
I left Miranda's office soon afterwards, having pointedly dodged any questions about what, exactly, I had trusted Kasumi with and any other questions about my favourite thief. It was clear that she wasn't done asking, but let me go for the moment. Testing, probably not wanting to push me too hard after we kind of found neutral ground to stand on. To be honest, I wasn't too surprised that Miranda had tried to recruit her, and truth be told, I wouldn't have minded having Kasumi along for the ride. I trusted Miranda for now, but Cerberus as a whole was a different story.
Kasumi was sitting at a table with her legs crossed in a very complicated way, sitting on a chair and eating like someone was going to steal the food from her plate.
"Hey," I said, coming to sit besides her. "You in a hurry?"
"Just want to go back in ASAP," she said, speaking around a mouthful and putting her hand in front of her mouth to stop errant crumbs. "I don't want Keiji to wake up and not see me there."
"I see."
I looked back, but the medbay was as empty as ever. The only person in at the moment was Keiji, and he was behind a privacy curtain at that. I was still reeling a bit about how damn lucky we had been to be so close to Bekenstein. Oh, the Broker had a few assets he could have moved to try and buy us time, but still, if we had been in Omega or something, we'd have never made it on time. My original plan had been to ask Gee to keep an eye on the estate, but also to be close myself with some of his elite troops and wait for the right moment. Probably doing some training or something; Gee had reminded me that I needed to optimize my squishy organic platform. The plan went out the window so fast it might have been shot via explosive decompression.
"Roy, do you trust Miri?" Kasumi said, after we sat in silence for a while.
I laughed softly at the question. I figured I probably shouldn't say something like you're more alike than you think or anything like that, or I might find a nasty surprise in my locker the next time I opened it. "She just asked me the same thing about you," I said.
"And?" she said, giving me a sideways glance with suspiciously narrowed eyes.
"I told her the truth. I'd trust you with the fate of the galaxy. Done it before, will do it again."
She laughed and went back to her food, shoveling green beans into her mouth.
"As for Miranda," I continued, "it's... complicated. I am pretty sure I can trust her to try and get Shepard back. I want the rest of the crew, too, but I'm not sure she cares. For the moment I trust her that much, Cerberus is a different kettle of fish."
She gulped, downed half her drink, and looked at me. "You need someone to watch your back."
"I most definitely do."
"You think..." She trailed off, but shook herself and tried again. "You think I can trust them with Keiji?"
I sighed. That was a loaded question. "If Miranda gives you her personal guarantee... Yes. In that case I'd trust her."
"All right. I'll trust you then. Consider me recruited. Does Miri know just how expensive I am?" Kasumi said, and there was that mischievous glint in her eye that I hadn't seen in quite a while.
Two more days we were docked in place, and afterwards, with a full crew and a rapidly filling team, we were off. To my delight Gabby and Kenneth had already been recruited and were the ones taking care of the ship's engines. I knew at least those two would be solidly in Shepard's corner, so I decided to go down and pay them a visit.
"I'm telling ya," I could hear Kenneth talking even before I made it to the sublevel. "That small and with that figure, there's so many things you can do with a woman like that."
"I'd be careful," I said out loud. "She's a trained assassin and is probably listening. And she's got a stealth net too."
Kenneth jumped back in surprise, whereas Gabby just turned and looked at me without even blinking.
"Don't play with a man's heart mate!" Kenneth said, grabbing his chest with an overly dramatic gesture. "Nearly sent me to the other side!"
"Hah, I figured it was worth the warning," I said.
"And you are..." Gabby said.
"Oh right, sorry. Roy Morgan. Thought I should drop by down here and see who's hiding in the shadows," I said, offering my hand.
"Nice to meet you," Gabby said, shaking it. "I'm Gabby Daniels, and the knucklehead is Kenneth Donnelly."
"Nice to meet you too," I said, and shook Kenneth's hand as well. Hell of a firm shake he had.
"Wait, Morgan, are you the Roy Morgan?" Kenneth said.
"The?" I replied, blinking in surprise. "I'm not sure the applies, which Roy Morgan are you thinking of?"
"Battle of the Citadel? Kicked the geth in the daddy-bags and got a medal for it?" he said.
"Err... I guess yeah, that's me, how did you know?"
He made a squeaky noise as he laughed and tried to speak at the same time, and gestured at both Gabby and himself. "We were at the battle too!"
"Really?"
"Yeah!" Kenneth said.
"We were serving aboard the Perugia at the time," Gabby offered. "Craziest thing I ever did in that ship. I wasn't sure we were going to make it. We had barriers fail, hull breaches, and the core was so close to going critical I was sure the last thing I was going to see was a bright white light."
"I hear you. I ended up under a shuttle myself, Commander Shepard had to come to the rescue and saved my sorry ass. I heard it was pretty bad up there."
"Yeah, we lost several ships," Kenneth said, his voice low as he sobered up. "Eight full cruisers too, damn reaper just tore through them like they weren't there." In saying that, he looked up and made a disgusted face. "And then they threw Shepard to the side and pretended that the reapers weren't out there, if you believe that. I say pah, we're getting 'er back!"
"What he said," Gabby said.
Have to say, it was nice to chat with the two of them. They were as approachable and likable as they seemed to be in the games, and Gabby herself had a wicked, low-key sense of humor too. Had to, if she was friends with Kenneth. He did ask if I was serious about the assassin part, which I gleefully could neither confirm nor deny as there was no evidence of anything like that ever being associated with her, but that she did have a stealth net and was not afraid to use it. So I left him to draw his own conclusions. Sadly, Kasumi was far too preoccupied at the time to make a surprise appearance and give Kenneth a heart attack, so I made a note to ask her for a special show next time.
After our two day stint of dockedness, which is officially a word now, we made towards another one of Cerberus' installations. Another space station. I kind of recognized it from a distance, but to be honest, I had no idea where we were. I only caught a glimpse of it from a distance, since the only window that gave a full view was the one in the front of the cockpit, and it wasn't like I could just waltz through CIC whenever I wanted.
Once we were docked again, Miranda came out of hiding. Out of her office, that is.
"Where are we?" I asked as soon as she caught up with me, standing at the back of the corridor leading to CIC.
"Home," Miranda said. "The Lazarus Research Station. We have excellent medical facilities here," she added, gesturing towards the medbay.
After a decon cycle, a group of four people in medical outfits made it inside and headed for the medbay. I was about to follow them but I saw Miranda head for the airlock, and decided to leave Kasumi to handle the doctors and follow Miranda. I was actually curious to see if this was the same place where Mass Effect 2 started.
"Still no news," I said as we waited for the decon cycle to finish.
"Still no news," Miranda echoed. "It gives us time to prepare, but I'm starting to worry."
"We'll find them," I said, sounding as secure as I was feeling, meaning not very much at all.
"We will," she agreed, "what worries me is not knowing what they're doing. If they wanted to kidnap Shepard, why haven't they returned to their base?"
"They might be worried about the fleet waiting by the relay," I offered.
"I hope it's that simple."
Eventually the decon cycle finished, and we could make it out of the ship. I didn't immediately recognize anything I saw, but then again, the station itself was rather big. The docking area had a huge amount of space available, filled with high conveyor belts for cargo crates, many of which were parked in the platforms opposite of the landing area for shuttles. Yeah, definitely big. Miranda didn't seem to mind that I was following, and made it towards the nearby lift with me in tow. To my infinite surprise, the lifts in this space station were actually quite fast.
"I thought every lift in the galaxy was slow as shit," I said.
"Safety protocols in most ships are a bit overzealous, I'll give you that," Miranda replied.
The lift took us up several levels and opened to what appeared to be a full-blown hospital wing. Miranda walked off with a determined step, and I followed, at this point, not entirely sure why. We stopped in front of one of the nearest rooms, and she knocked on the already open door. Inside, a short-haired brunette looked up from her work. She was holding a sponge and appeared to be giving a sleeping patient a bath. I decided it was probably more than a bit intrusive of me, and took another step to be out of view.
"Julia, I told you to let the nurses do that," Miranda said and, for a change, it didn't sound like the usual ice queen.
"They never do it right, I have to take care of him."
"All right, all right. Can we talk outside?"
Steps. Miranda could be heard a mile away in those heels - except, mysteriously, when she didn't want to, and I had no idea how she did that - and this Julia followed her. She gave me a look when she came out, and Miranda did the introductions.
"Julia, this is Roy. Roy, Julia."
"Nice to meet you," I said, shaking her hand. Not a clue who this woman was.
"Same."
She had a straight nose, amber eyes, and I have to say, she was pretty cute. She was, however, built, in a way that betrayed the fact that gene mods had to have been involved at some point. She was about five foot ten, at least, so not only built but tall as well.
"Did you receive my message?" Miranda said.
"Yes," she replied. "I'm not happy leaving Jacob here."
Wait, what? No, that's- it's got to be the guy in the room, it's a common name.
"He'll be taken care of, you know that."
"So what's this mission you want me to run?"
"We are rescuing Commander Shepard. She was taken when her ship was attacked about a week and a half ago. Her ship, the Normandy, was lost, and all escape pods were taken. Well, all but one."
"Pirates?" Julia offered.
"No, the Collectors." Julia gave Miranda a weirded out look. "Yes, I know, but as it turns out," she gestured at me, "we just found out they're real."
"What do the Collectors want with an Alliance ship?"
"To be honest, I'm not too sure." She turned to me with a perfectly calm, composed look on her face. Not the overconfident, bitchy Ice Queen. Not a fake persona she might be putting up for someone. For once, it looked like she was genuinely letting herself relax. "Roy?"
"Ah... Well, I'm not sure either," I said.
"What do the collectors do with the people they... collect?"
"That's- Yeah." That's a story and a half. Turn them into reaper goo would probably fly like a lead balloon. Well, I could be non-specific and go with that, and the bits that are, if not know, at least suspected of the Collectors. "As far as I know they find odd people or interesting people and take those. Experiments I think. Nobody ever sees the people they take. They shove them into stasis pods and pack them up, then go home to unload when they're done."
Julia's face had morphed into this mask of horror as I spoke, which to be honest shouldn't have surprised me. It is a pretty freaking horrible thing to do. Maybe the fact that I had seen it only as 3D models on a videogame helped me not be horrified by it.
"They're... Is it true?" she said, and looked at Miranda like she was hoping the answer would be nah, just kidding.
"As far as we know," Miranda said. "We need biotics, strong ones for this mission. There might be combat, but we want it to be short and sweet. Grab Shepard, hopefully grab the rest, and get out. Are you up for it?"
She started rubbing her hands together, kind of twisting her fingers horribly as she did, and looked back inside the room. For what I had seen in my very short look, the man inside was hooked to quite a bit of hardware, an not moving a muscle. While she deliberated with herself, the lift behind us dinged again, and I turned to see the four people who'd boarded the ship, together with Kasumi, our own doctor, and all of them walking along pushing the gurney where Keiji was laying down. I locked eyes with Kasumi for a moment, and she gave me a small smile and a nod as they passes.
"W-Who's that?" Julia said.
"Friend of ours. I told you, we take care of our own," Miranda said.
Julia just nodded.
"All right." Miranda nodded, and gave Julia a smile. "We're going to be docked for a bit to stock the armory. We should be ready to go on a moment's notice, so get ready as soon as you can. Pack light, okay?"
"Okay," Julia said.
"Have you gotten used to the L5 yet?"
"Yeah, it's good. No problems. I should go say goodbye to Jacob."
"You do that, I'll see you aboard," Miranda said, and watched the young woman walk in and resume her task, carefully rubbing the man's skin with the sponge. I gave Miranda a look, but she just gestured me with her head and we headed for the lift again. Once we were inside, I huffed and looked at her again in annoyance.
"What the hell was that, I feel like I need a shower," I said.
"Wouldn't hurt," Miranda said.
"You know what I mean. Who's that?"
"That is Julia," Miranda said. "We rescued her and her boyfriend Jacob from a drifting freighter not long ago. She's a fairly strong biotic, and a trained Vanguard too. She'll be perfect for the mission."
"She didn't strike me as perfect for any mission."
"She might seem a bit fragile at the moment," Miranda said, "but believe me, she is a different person in a fight. She'll do fine. And doing something away from here will do her some good too, specially a rescue mission. She's dealing with some personal trauma."
"And you used me to butter her up? Keiji?"
"Used? Hardly," Miranda said. "I told her nothing but the truth. We take care of our own, Roy." She looked me up and down. "And speaking of that, head over to the armory and grab whatever gear you need. And a new hardsuit."
"What's wrong with my current one?" I said.
"It's an envirosuit, not a combat hardsuit."
"Excuse me," I replied, and for some reason felt compelled to defend my current choice of armor. "That's a hazard suit, not just any envirosuit. Self-contained, carbon scrubbers, oxygen recycling, and water reclamation all included. Can handle level two hazards like nothing, and you know that the second I gave it up I'll get stuck in some hellhole of a planet and boil to death wishing I still had it." I talked as she gave me a look of amusement, a smile on her lips that I thought she had been fighting to hide. "Besides, it's got a proper ballistic mesh and ceramic plates, Shepard did the upgrades. That suit got me through the Battle of the Citadel, even if it didn't handle crashing shuttles so well."
"And it's still just an envirosuit," Miranda said. "Grab a second one, just for me please? I need you in one piece until we get Shepard back."
I rolled my eyes at that. "Fine, fine."
We waited for a bit longer, and she didn't speak until the lift arrived to its destination. "At least give it a new coat of paint. Hazard yellow is not exactly discreet."
"Well it's distinctive, isn't it?"
"It sure is. You like being a distinctive target?"
I had to admit, that was a damn good point.
There weren't a lot of dark hidey-holes aboard the Hibiscus. The ship was tight and streamlined, and it made good use of the available space. Still, the lower level was mostly empty, and with the ship's guns being controlled directly from CIC, Jack had claimed the space as her own. Lights had been killed all over the room, there was a bedroll over a spartan cot tucked in a corner, and for the life of me I couldn't see where she was.
"Hey Jack!" I called.
"The hell do you want dumbass," she replied. I followed the voice and saw her silhouette behind one of the ammo racks, sitting down on the structural beam.
"You know everyone's off the ship right? We're docked to a space station. Come stretch your legs."
"A Cerberus space station," she snorted, and said nothing else. Like that was all the explanation she was going to give me. Maybe she thought it meant a space station full of horrible experiments or something. Couldn't be, otherwise all the scientists would have been killed and they'd have taken over the base by now.
"They have hot chocolate in the cafeteria, or so I'm told. I haven't been down there yet." I waited, and got nothing. Although she was looking at me. So maybe I was teetering closer and closer to the business end of a biotic shockwave. "Look, we're also going over the armory. Come choose your gear and see what you like. Guns, armor, the works."
A datapad flew through the room and landed with uncanny accuracy on her bunk, bouncing off the surface and hitting the wall. It didn't sound like it had cracked. She stood up and stalked to where I was standing.
"I don't need any stinkin' Cerberus shit," she said.
"What, the tattoos are bulletproof?" I said, looking her up and down.
"Keep looking." Her voice was a mix of sarcasm and more than a heaping serving of warning. "And who do you think I am?" As she spoke, a thick, visible biotic barrier coalesced around her. She was making an effort to ensure it was visible, too.
"Biotics are great. Biotics and guns are even better. Or are you going to make finger guns at the bad guys?"
She snorted and looked me up and down. Her eyes caught something, and she reached to flick the bauble hanging off my Striker pistol. It tinkled once, and she snorted again, this time with the clear intent of ridiculing it.
"You have a collection of toy guns in there?"
She reached again, but I swatted her hand away with the back of my own hand. "A friend gave me that."
"A friend. You? What, some six year old who took pity on you?"
"No. A quarian named Mika'Talae," I said. My voice had flattened on every syllable as I spoke. "And you know what? Yes, she took pity on me, even when she was in deeper shit than anyone else. Now she's dead, assholes like that are alive," I added, pointing vaguely in the direction of the Cerberus base, "and it goes to show how fucked up the universe is. So are you going to keep bitching, or are you going to go get some weapons and some armor? Because I don't want to have to carry your ass if someone shoots at you and you've got nothing but tattoos and bad attitude to stop it."
She looked at me with... I don't know, a mix of annoyance and disgust I'd have said, but it was hard to read in the low light. Then she shook her head and pushed me aside as she walked past me. "Just get out of my way you dumbass," she said, and headed for the ladder.
Yeah, we had a lift, but we also had a ladder. Nobody used the lift, unless they had cargo.
I mentally chided myself for having taken the bait, and took a deep, calming breath. I knew she had gone for that to get a rise out of me, to piss me off and because that's how she kept people away. Maybe easy to think about it that way in retrospect. Worst part is that now she knew this was a hot button issue for me, so I expected to hear more about it every time I talked to her. I headed out of the room and made for the stairs, my steps echoing through the silent engineering deck. Most everyone was on the station, we had been docked earlier but there were bugger all facilities in the dry dock compared to here. As I walked past the crew quarters, a hand shot out of the doorway and grabbed me by the chest, pulling me in without I even had a chance to blink.
"Hey there," a familiar asari voice said.
"Tela, what the fuck! You gave me a heart attack!"
She was still holding me by the neck of my jacket, smiling with her lips but drilling through me with her eyes. She drove me backwards a few steps until I hit one of the bunks. It wasn't forceful, not exactly, but she was doing it with intent. I was, however, much more confused when she pushed me down onto the lower bed, crawled on top of me, and grabbed me by the hair.
"What the h-mmmph!"
And she kissed me. We're talking deep, hard, drilling contact. And everything went kind of hazy, I lost focus, and soon she was in my head.
We need to talk, Morgan.
What the FUCK!
Relax! We got privacy. Hiding in plain sight. We- Oh my, it's your first time? Never even tried an asari hooker? That's adorable.
First time what? What the hell are you doing!
Melding, of course. Never done it before? Someone catches us, they'll think we're just burning some stress. We can't do anything else when the walls might have ears.
By now she was firmly lodged on top of me. No armor in the way, we were both in regular clothes, and I have to say, I'm only human. And despite that, I was freaking out.
Just relax. I'm not going to rape you, you lunatic. You never kissed a girl before? You're jumping out of your skin.
I have but what the fuck.
She eased up a bit, both physically and mentally, and let me catch my breath. My metaphorical breath, mind you, the physical wasn't getting any better.
You're going to have to participate a little, or this is going to look real bad for me.
There was a definite tease in her mind there. I did a mental plead not to get my brain fried, which she laughed at, and let my hands do a bit of work. She had very firm legs, and a seriously nice ass. Definitely not a lot of squishyness on her. Curves for days, but all of them firm. And after the initial surprise, I was finally calming down a bit.
Better. Now, watch, because I have questions, she thought, and yes, I pretty much felt her underlining the word.
Sitting at her terminal. She got a message which she didn't much like, that I could feel. It was weird having her thoughts feel like mine, but there it was. She made a mental quip about wanting me to see how she felt about it, and she went on to read the message.
It was from the Broker. She was being ordered, and I felt her spike of annoyance at the word, to find and join one Roy Morgan (see attached file) and assist him in the recovery of Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy. It was imperative to ensure the success of the mission and the safe return of Messenger of Morgan. It went on to describe the Collectors and everything else, and I realized, and by proxy Tela realized, it was pretty much a cut and paste of the message I had sent the Broker. Followed with resources that were being used to locate the Collectors. There was a definite tone of "or else" in that note.
So what the hell is going on Morgan. You're clearly connected to the top, yet I hadn't heard of you until Shepard's nomination for Spectre. You could have fooled the Systems Alliance, but not the Broker, or me.
That's my specialty.
She actually grabbed my hands, not breaking the meld, and pretty much put them over her boobs. It was such a mental shock that for a moment I couldn't think of anything. My next thought was that she had done that to try and get into my head, but the way she mentally laughed at me showed she had done it just for the hell of it.
This isn't the first time the Broker has switched on me, she continued. She offered me a brief flash of some memories. Messages and orders that didn't mesh with previous ones, changes in the way the Broker operated. But why the fuck are you involved and what am I getting into? I am not going to just take this blindly.
She stopped the "act", letting go of my hands and just being on top of me. No kissing, no nothing. Just her hands behind my head, and her fully darkened eyes looking down at me. She was taking a step back. Oh I knew she was not going to stop until she got answers - or I made a mess, whatever came first I guess - but she was abiding by what she had received from the Broker. She had a strong suspicion there was someone new at the top, and that I was linked very favorably with the new leadership. She wasn't going to do anything stupid about it.
I put my hands behind her head and brought her down, kissing her. And offering a memory. My trip inside the broker ship, after he was dead, going to find Liara. Bodies everywhere, me wearing full armor, gun in hand. Only me and the bodies. I remembered well what was happening at that time, and what was going through my head. Nothing fancy. Go to the detention level, make sure there was no sign of who had assaulted the base. That was it. No names or faces.
That's... You're saying that's the Broker's base? And you were there? Are you serious?
Yes I am. Can you keep a secret?
Of course.
So can I. That's all you're getting.
That's not enough. What does the new Broker want? How is he running the network? I need answers if I'm going to keep working with him!
And that's when I really understood. Tela Vasir, Spectre, antagonist, she wasn't as simple as all that. She worked with the Broker, not for the Broker. She used the information because she wanted to make the galaxy a better place. No. Not better.
Screw that. The galaxy is a spinning disk of selfishness and putrefaction. I can't fix that. But I can keep it safe. Someone wants to take on the job of making it better, I'll keep them safe. That's what Spectres do. That's what I signed for.
I... don't have a lot of answers right now Tela. But let me get back to you.
What's the new Broker going to do?
Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure he's not going to make things worse. At least on purpose. I have a lot of faith in him.
What do you mean on purpose?
I didn't answer. She broke the meld and leaned back, head against the bunk above and looking at me with an unreadable expression. She was still straddling me, with her hands on my chest, and the awkward thing is that I still had my hands on her ass. She seemed fine, but I swear I was both panting and sweating.
After a while, she sighed and got off me. Both relief and disappointment kind of fought for dominance at that point, but relief won. I was quite wary of the Spectre, and I know she knew too. The same way one is wary of a grizzly bear.
"Fine. Why don't we try again after we're done with all this?" she said.
"Probably a good idea," I replied. And as she left, I realized that I better hope nobody had heard that little exchange, or scuttlebutt would probably get around about my sudden lack of performance while having a hot asari right on top of me. Freaking hell.
Author's Notes: Trivia question! Can you identify Julia without looking at the Wiki? I'll wait.
...
Yeah. So I figured that Shepard & Co. didn't originally go through every single side quest available to them in-game, so there's loose ends out there that I can use at my leisure. Julia and Jacob are one of those ends. She is a biotic, and has both shotgun and pistol skills, so Vanguard she is.
As for Tela... I don't know, I just thought it was funny that she'd try it that way. If something like that has to happen to anyone, Convergence Roy is the prime candidate for it!
Anyway, by the numbers the team is starting to be good. Already a size comparable to ME1 - bit bigger if we consider in-game squad only. We'll have a couple of (IMO) interesting additions in the next episode, I promise. And as you might have noticed, Biotic heavy to boot, so looking good!
Reviews! Seems like Convergence is quite popular these days after the hiatus, I'm very thankful!
V-rcingetorix: I'll check out the fic, always on the lookout for good stuff. Thanks!
RIOSHO: I'm sure Roy will manage to screw up soon enough LOL
BJ Hanssen: Let's just hope I don't blow it with Jack, I like her but she's complicated to write. Interacting with Shepard is easy, because (s)he is a living legend and has a history of commanding respect. Having Jack interact with a nobody like Roy, that's harder.
NazgulBelserion: IMO, I think Miranda got the short end of the stick with the out-of-game lore. If she had been, like the rest of the Lazarus Cell, pretty much there for Shepard and not having been Cerberus for long, it'd have been one thing. But because she was a writer's favourite, she got put everywhere as part of Cerberus, and then it began to strain credibility that she wouldn't be aware of how awful and evil the organization is. Just my opinion. I can see why lots of people like her too.
Uemei: Hahaha! You know me so well! So far Keiji is alive and in the hands of the Lazarus cell. Surely nothing will go wrong with that plan. Unless he wakes up, kills the scientists, and takes over the base.
Tom712: Meld it is!
seabo76: We know from the in-game lore that the Corvettes are a thing, smaller than frigates but larger than shuttles, with a normal crew of 10. The Hibiscus itself is headcanon, and borrowing concepts from other fan artists/concepts.
Bolondka: Yes she did! I'm glad you noticed, I wonder who else realized that's what happened when Miranda offered a new outfit in this chapter :D
Rainsfere: Thanks for the in-depth review! All right, I admit it was a little cheeky of me to tease a "date" when "date" was just the keyword Gee and Roy were using to warn about Bekenstein. Luckily Roy has someone else to watch his back now. And yeah, something's got to be done about Talitha. As long as she doesn't find out about Tela and Roy that is! Although probably not, tempting as it is, that'd be a bit too clumsy even for me. If it was an anime fanfic I'd probably do something with that (Ranma 1/2 style).
bluemarlin, general-joseph-dickson, myafroatemydog... and Guest(said in Edna Mode voice), thanks for the encouragement!
Next chapter, as promised, some late additions to the team, and some PLANS. Oh yeah. Until then, thanks for watching! And by watching I mean reading, ta-ta!