Chapter 3: Debrief on the Normandy

June 10, 2183 CE

John Shepard

Normandy Med Bay

0500 hours "

I'm a traitor, but I don't consider myself a traitor." -Aldrich Ames, former CIA

John opened his eyes and immediately regretted that when the bright lights of the med bay screamed in his face. He groaned and threw an arm over his face.

"Doctor Chakwas? I think he's waking up." He heard from his bedside. It was Mia. So that mission hadn't been just one big crazy dream.

John sat up on his bed, putting his head in his hands for a minute to get his bearings.

"You had us worried there, Shepard. How are you feeling?" She asked, examining him briefly.

"Minor throbbing. Nothing serious." He said, rubbing his head gently. "How long was I out?"

"Fifteen hours. I triggered the beacon, some sort of…images started flooding my brain, and then you pushed me out of the way, and the beacon exploded." Mia said, frowning. "The Lieutenant and I carried you back here."

"You saw the images too?" John asked, his eyes widening as he sat up. "I couldn't make any sense of that, I thought it was just a crazy combat dream."

"Just a few flashes," Mia said, closing her eyes and frowning. "All I remember is death and destruction. More of a feeling of it than anything."

"I did run some tests while you were out, Shepard. I detected some unusual brain activity, abnormal beta waves. I also noticed an increase in your rapid eye movement, signs typically associated with intense dreaming." Mia nodded, looking at John.

"You were in the beam for longer than me. Perhaps it was supposed to only transmit a message to one person at a time. You jumping in could have caused it to short circuit?" She suggested. "That's why I only got flashes of it," she said to herself.

"And why my version is so garbled. I couldn't make sense of anything. There was no message, just images. Places I didn't recognize, garbled alien voices. But there was a feeling that it gave me. Danger. Something's coming." he said, staring a hole into the bed between his knees.

"I'd better add this to my report," Dr. Chakwas said, turning away to give the siblings space just as the door opened and Captain Anderson entered. "Oh, Captain Anderson."

"How's our XO holding up, Doctor?" He asked, moving over to John's bed. John scrubbed a hand down his face and looked up at the older man as the doctor replied.

"All readings look normal. I'd say the commander's going to be fine." She reported, though her eyes still watched him like a hawk.

"Glad to hear it, Shepard. I need to speak with you. In private." He said, his eyes finding Mia, who still sat in her chair next to her brother's bed. She nodded and got to her feet, saluting Anderson.

"Aye, sir," Mia said, then she turned to John, placing a hand on his knee. "I'll be in the mess if you need me," she told him softly, then turned and left the medbay. Chakwas followed quietly.

"Sounds like that beacon hit you pretty hard, son. You sure you're okay?" Anderson asked, examining his face.

"I don't like soldiers dying under my command," John said, looking down. He'd lost half of his team and was unable to get that poor squad evac. He felt like a failure.

"Jenkins wasn't your fault. And neither was Nihlus. You did a good job, Shepard." Anderson said, taking a seat next to the bed. John sighed. He didn't feel like he'd done enough. He never felt he'd done enough. His thoughts drifted to his sister, and he looked up at Anderson.

"Why is Mia here? She's not on the crew." John said, hoping Anderson would tell him she could stay. At least act as transport. He missed having his sister around.

"I figured we could use a soldier like her. She's been reassigned to the Normandy." He said, though his eyes darkened. "Most of her unit were killed or are still MIA. She's your sister, Shepard. And Alenko likes her. That's enough for me." he reached out and placed a hand on John's shoulder.

"Fucking geth outside the Veil." John groaned, finally getting into the meat of the debriefing. "No intel, who could have seen it coming? Got a lot of strange reports of a ship emitting some kind of signal. They said it sounded like it was coming from inside their heads."

"Listen, Shepard. I won't lie to you. This is bad. Nihlus is dead. The beacon was destroyed. And the geth are invading. The Council's going to want answers."

"I did my job, sir. As far as I'm concerned, this mission went from a fetch errand for the Council to the start of a damn war. I have some questions for the Council of my own." He said, frowning.

"I'll stand behind you and your report, Shepard. You're a damned hero in my books." Anderson told him with a smile that faded quickly. "That's not why I'm here. It's Saren, that other turian. Saren's a Spectre, one of the best. A living legend. But if he's working with the geth, it means he's gone rogue. A rogue Spectre's trouble. Saren's dangerous. And he hates humans."

"Why?" John frowned. It wasn't unheard of, a turian hating humans. The turian First Contact war wasn't quite far enough in the past for the two races to fully heal. Unfortunately, some of them, humans and turians alike hadn't gotten over the conflict as well as the rest of the galaxy would have liked.

"He thinks we're growing too fast, taking over the galaxy. A lot of aliens think that way. Most of them don't do anything about it. But Saren has allied himself with the geth. I don't know how. I don't know why. I only know it had something to do with that beacon. You were there just before the beacon self-destructed. Did you see anything? Any clue that might tell us what Saren was after?" he asked, leaning forward and bracing his forearms on his knees, clasping his hands together.

"My sister and I… She was examining the beacon and a light enveloped her. I pushed her out of the way, but we think two users caused the device to short out. She got flashes of a sort of vision. I got the brunt of it, but it was… garbled. Couldn't make much sense of it." He explained.

"A vision? Of what?" Anderson asked, frowning.

"Like I said, it was hard to make out. But it was a warning. I saw synthetics. Geth, maybe, or something like them. Slaughtering people. Butchering them." He said, resting his head in his hands again.

"We need to report this to the Council, Shepard," Anderson told him.

"Are they even going to believe us? My sister and I had a vision planted in our heads by Prothean tech. Hell, it happened to me, and I'm not sure I believe it myself." He barked a laugh, humorlessly.

"We don't know what information was stored in that beacon. Lost Prothean technology? Blueprints for some ancient weapon of mass destruction? Whatever it was, Saren took it. But I know Saren. I know his reputation, his politics. He believes humans are a blight on the galaxy. This attack was an act of war! He has the secrets from the beacon. He has an army of geth at his command. And he won't stop until he's wiped humanity from the face of the galaxy!" Anderson said, getting to his feet.

"Oh, he'll stop," John said, rolling his shoulder and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "We'll go to the Council, tell them what happened. I have witness testimony. We prove Saren's gone rogue, the Council will revoke his Spectre status." Anderson nodded, seemingly reassured.

"I'll contact the ambassador and see if he can get us an audience with the Council. He'll want to see us as soon as we reach the Citadel. We should be getting close." He said, patting John's shoulder to make sure he was okay. "Head up to the bridge and have Joker bring us into the dock."


Mia Shepard

Normandy Mess Hall

0520 hours

"No, I ain't happy yet, but I'm way less sad." -AJR, "Way Less Sad"

Mia had been a little miffed when she was asked to leave, but she knew she'd just ask John about it later. It'd been such a relief for her to be able to join her brother's crew after an attack like that, and she'd been using any free time she had to look at the after-action reports, hoping, praying some of the gray MIA names would turn green. And trying to avoid looking at the amount of red on the screen. Even now, as she waited for her brother and Anderson to finish up, she flicked through another report on her Omnitool. She heard the elevator activate behind her and glanced up as Kaidan strolled past her, a box of weapons mods in his arms. She returned her attention to the screen, flicking to another report. Then she heard her name.

"Shepard, you're a weapons expert, what mods should I put on my pistol?" Kaidan called, rummaging through the box. "I can never get the rate of fire right."

Mia knew what he was doing. She smiled at his question and closed her Omnitool. She'd so much rather help a clueless sentinel with his gun than watch those names turning red.

"Well, what are you using?" She asked, standing and crossing the room to join him.

"Currently it's a Striker I," Kaidan said with a little shrug. "I don't have much formal weapons training. Mostly hand to hand and biotics." He explained.

"Yeah, that explains a lot." She laughed, picking up his gun. "Throw the whole fucking thing away. Get a Stiletto or a Brawler. Better yet, Carnifex. That's what I use. More damage, more accurate, bigger clip." She tossed the gun back to him and he caught it easily.

"Thanks, I'm clueless with this stuff sometimes." He said sheepishly.

"Don't worry." She said, offering him a sly smile. "It's cute."

Kaidan looked down and she swore she could see him blush. "Cute, huh? Not my usual style but I'll take it." He said, his eyes flicking up at her with a little grin.

"What's your normal style, then?" Mia challenged, smiling up at him. He laughed at her assertion, setting his pistol down.

"Hey, I was just checking on you, and you give me this cute shit?" He teased, though she could see his blush now. She paused at that but smiled softly.

"Checking on me? You lost people today, too. Honestly, I should probably be checking on you." She chuckled softly.

"Losing Jenkins was hard on the crew. Losing you, Amelia. That would have destroyed the Commander. Getting you off Eden Prime was, in my opinion, the only success in our mission." He confided.

He used her first name. No one did that. John called her Mia. Everyone else got Shepard. But despite her instinct to panic at the hint of someone getting too close to her, she found she liked it.

"Were you close to Jenkins?" She asked, watching him carefully. He smiled sadly.

"Yeah. We enlisted together." He said, then looked up at her. "I'd feel silly asking if you were close to anyone you lost. I'm sure it's been a hard day." He said, lifting his hand to place it on her shoulder for a moment.

"It's… not the first time I've lost most of my crew." Mia sighed looking down. "Not that it makes it any easier, but I wasn't that close to anyone on the ground at Eden Prime because of it. I mean, aside from John." She smiled fondly through her frown, a mix of emotions causing her to look down.

"Akuze, right?" Kaidan said softly, ducking his head to meet her eye. "I read your service record, Amelia. Had to know what kind of training led to your level of performance."

"It was a nightmare." She said as an explanation. "But it taught me one thing: how to survive anything." Kaidan laughed at that, then met her eye.

"The Commander likes to act like he's unkillable, too. Must be a family trait," he said.

"Doubtful. We didn't grow up together." Mia admitted, looking away from Kaidan.

"Oh? I didn't realize-" Kaidan said, his eyes going wide. "He talks about you a lot. Always reading one of your emails before briefings. I asked him about it one day." Kaidan shrugged sheepishly. "I shouldn't assume."

"Wait," Mia said, a small smile on her face. "He'd talk about me?"

"All the time." Mia jumped as she heard John's voice and whipped around. "Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop. But you are in the middle of the mess hall." He smiled at her, then nodded to Kaidan, who saluted him.

"Glad to see you up and moving, sir." Kaidan smiled at the man.

"Thanks to you, Alenko. Heard you two dragged my ass back to the ship. Couldn't have asked for a better ground team back there." He told them.

"I'm just glad it was you who got my call." Mia smiled up at her brother. "So we're headed to the Citadel? How long are we supposed to be there?"

"I'm not sure. I'll keep you updated, though." John said, then smiled at his sister. "The Normandy's going to be undergoing minor repairs, though, so we'll be setting you up with a hotel."

"Oh," Mia said, "That won't be necessary. I've got a little apartment on the Citadel. Where I spend my shore leaves, mostly. Anything to get away from Mom." She said, meeting John's eye, but avoiding Kaidan's.

"Why don't we do some catching up, after my meetings are taken care of? It's been too long since we talked." He said meaningfully.

"Yeah. I'd like that, John." She told him with a smile.

"So I guess if you've got an apartment there, you wouldn't be interested in watching the approach run," John teased, moving to the staircase. "I'm sure you've seen it a thousand times."

"Wait, you'd let me come watch the approach? Joker would be okay with that?" Mia asked, her eyes going wide. "I've never gotten to see it. I'm usually stuffed into the back of some Alliance transport vessel." Kaidan chuckled at that. She was sure he knew the exact type.

"He loves it when people watch him work. Careful, though. He lets too much praise go to his head." Kaidan informed her.

"Noted," She grinned, following John up the stairs to the CIC. She paused, looking back at Kaidan for a moment. "Thanks, Alenko. For your help." She told him with a smile. He smiled back, nodding at her quickly.

"Any time, Amelia." He said softly, and Mia could feel John's shit-eating grin from across the room. She quickly followed him, wanting desperately for her cheeks to return to their normal color.