FIC: Architects of Their Own Fortune (4)
Title: Architects of Their Own Fortune
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Fandom: Mass Effect
Disclaimer: Mass Effect is Bioware's. And don't they do well with it?
Summary: Rumours abound: the Omega 4 relay has been used, and signs lead to Shepard being involved somehow. Someone has to investigate, and who better than one of Shepard's former crew? On top of all that, ship crews are disappearing, and it can't be the Collectors. So who's responsible, and why?
From The Beginning
~*~
Four: Two Weeks Earlier
~*~
Commander Shepard stood over her personal console on the CIC deck of the Normandy and glowered at the screens. One of these days, she was going to go down to the AI core and threaten to pull EDI's chips one by one if she didn't update her junk mail definitions once in a while. She was the scourge of the Reapers, Spectre, saviour of the Citadel and generally a bad ass space marine; she shouldn't have to put up with offers to expand her breast size using "perfectly legal" turian medication.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, and reminded herself that she ought to be grateful she was still alive enough to bitch about junk mail.
"Commander Shepard?"
She dropped her hand and smiled politely at the crewman who had approached her. "Crewman Hadley. How can I help you?"
A lot of the crew had been having difficulty in sleeping lately, but Hadley looked like he'd finally had a good night's sleep. There was a brightness to his eyes, that Shepard hadn't seen in the days since they'd returned through the relay, the days since they'd been lingering just out of FTL comm. range, hoping to pull all the trackers and spytech that riddled the ship's systems before Cerberus could draw a bead on them.
"I just wanted to say," Hadley said, running a hand through his air, "I really appreciated getting to serve under you. You're a real hero in my book, and I know you did everything you could to save as many people as possible."
She was rather thrown for a moment, unsure of how to respond. "Well, ah... thank you, Hadley."
He held out his hand. "Really, it's been an honour."
She smiled, slightly befuddled by the sudden thanks, but shook his hand regardless. He saluted and turned to go without being dismissed, heading forward of the galaxy map, towards the cockpit. He looked like he was heading for his station, and Shepard was about to turn back to sorting through her mail and reports when the thought occurred to her that, last time she'd seen the ship's roster, Hadley wasn't meant to be on duty at that moment. Possibly he could have switched with one of the other crewmen, but...
She looked up, in time to see Hadley walk straight past his station and keep going.
A cold feeling of dread spread out from her stomach, panic seizing her. "Hadley," she tried to call, though her voice came out pitifully low.
Hadley didn't stop. Shepard pushed away from her terminal, rounding the edge of the map and starting to run. "Hadley!" He'd already turned, just before the cockpit, entering the airlock. "Stop him!"
Her voice grabbed the attention of a couple of other crewmen, but before they could react, just as she passed Hadley's station, there was a tremendous bang, and Shepard was yanked off her feet, flung forward as the air started to rush out of the deck through the now open airlock. There might have been screams and yelling, but Shepard could only hear the rushing of air. She had just enough time to think 'not again´ before she slammed into the kinetic barrier that had appeared in place of the now open airlock door. She bounced off it, dropping to the floor with a painful thud as the inner airlock doors made an odd grinding sound and finally slammed shut.
"Joker! All stop!" Shepard couldn't hear anything other than the thudding over her own heart. She was still off-balance as she pulled herself up and stumbled towards the cockpit.
As she regained her equilibrium, she could hear alarms ringing and EDI's voice. "Man overboard. Emergency crew to forward airlock. Man overboard."
Joker had obeyed her order through sheer reflex. As Shepard leaned over the consoles, peering out into space, struggling to catch a glimpse of Hadley against the starscape, he swore and said, "What the hell...?"
Shepard didn't answer him for a moment. She stabbed a finger against the glasses. "There! Move us closer!" Hadley had been blown a fair distance from the ship with the force of the decompression.
Joker followed where she was pointing and swore again, fingers dancing across the console. The Normandy banked sharply, and there was the sound of running booted feet coming up the walkway. Two crewman were shoving themselves into hardsuits, doing up the seals as they ran. There were always supposed to be two crewmen on any deck with an airlock who could respond quickly to someone 'falling overboard' (a bit of naval parlance that had never found a better alternative in the space age). Shepard had never been aboard a ship where they'd had to be used outside of drills.
The inner door of the airlock opened, kinetic barriers still in place. The outer door, Shepard could see, was jammed open to space, showing nothing but spinning stars as the ship moved closer to where Hadley was drifting.
"Let 'em through, EDI," Shepard said.
"Reconfiguring kinetic barriers."
The barrier shimmered and, instead of the hard screen that had arrested Shepard's tumble towards hard vacuum, it became permeable to objects of a certain size. The two crewmen passed through the barrier and the door shut behind them.
"Clear the deck! Make a hole!"
Crewmen flattened themselves against the consoles as Doctor Chakwas, accompanied by two Corpsmen, ran the length of the CIC dragging emergency medical kits and an AG-sled behind them. Shepard gripped the back of Joker's chair tightly as she watched them get ready to receive a casualty, listening with half an ear as Joker murmured, "Easy, girl, easy," and EDI delivered a rapid fire stream of positional data and micro-adjustments in an even tone, supplemented by scrolling information on the screen.
Shepard couldn't see what was going on. The vantage point of the cockpit didn't give her the right angle to see what was going on. She was forced to watched the external feeds on the monitor, waiting what felt like an eternity as the two emergency rescue crewmen pushed off from the open airlock, attached to the ship by tethers, the moment they got within reach of Crewman Hadley, who had long since stopped moving. They grabbed him, then reeled themselves in. Time crawled by painfully slow until finally the airlock doors opened and they dragged Hadley back into the ship, where he was set upon by Chakwas and her Corpsmen. Shepard watched silently as Chakwas barked orders and they hurried back through the ship, heading for the medical bay. She guessed that was a good sign. If he was beyond hope, then they wouldn't be making such an effort to recover him.
Shepard drew breath for the first time in what seemed to be a lifetime and nodded to the two rescuers. "Good work," she said, and nodded sharply to their salutes.
"Jesus," Joker muttered, staring up at her, "What the fuck just happened?"
Shepard felt like she needed a stiff drink. "I'll let you know when I find out," she said.
She didn't realise until she took her hand away that her fingers had left an imprint in the metal back of Joker's chair.
~*~
"How is he?"
Doctor Chakwas had finally felt that she could leave Hadley in the hands of her Corpsmen, and had appeared in the conference room looking drawn. "He'll be fine," she said, "We got to him in less than sixty seconds. He'll make a full recovery physically. Psychological recovery is another matter, and something I'm not equipped to deal with here."
"Exposed to hard vacuum for nearly a minute?" Miranda shook her head. She was leaning against the conference table, arms folded. "Hard to believe anyone can survive that."
"It's takes about ninety seconds to die after getting spaced," Shepard said. She had her hands laid flat on the table's surface, studying the skin on the back of her hands, imagined it webbed with burst capillaries, though she was certain that two years ago, by the time Cerberus got to her, skirting the edge of Alchera's atmosphere had done more to her skin than simple vacuum exposure would have. "You lose consciousness after about ten or fifteen seconds, but you don't die straight away."
Miranda frowned. "How do you-?"
Shepard raised her head, and gave Miranda a look. Miranda cleared her throat awkwardly and tried to pretend she hadn't asked such an obviously ridiculous question. Jacob, who had just been quietly observing up to that point, rolled his eyes.
"How did he manage it?" Shepard asked, quietly, turning her head towards the fifth member of the group, Tali.
Tali shifted, wringing her hands unhappily. "He used the manual override to open the outer airlock doors and circumvent the AI's control. Damage from the Collector base's explosion caused a system short and opened both inner and outer doors at once, decompressing the CIC."
"If that's all, Commander, I really should be getting back to my patient," Doctor Chakwas arched an eyebrow expectantly, and Shepard wasted no time in nodding.
"Of course, Doctor. Keep me informed, please?"
"As always," Chakwas said drolly, throwing the statement over her shoulder as she left the room
"As tragic as Hadley's... current state is, there are other matters we need to discuss," Shepard said, shifting from foot to foot and wondering why they'd never bothered to install chairs in the comms room. They could have decamped to Miranda's office, as that was the only place that was really set up to handle a long discussion about logistics, but Shepard wasn't going to cede control of the discussion that easily.
"The first is repairs," she said, "Tali?"
Tali shook her head. "We've only made a brief sweep for damage. I've a partial report, but I'd like to wait until tomorrow when Daniels and I have finished going over the optical datanet. We weren't aware there was a problem with the airlock, so now we can't trust the diagnostics. I have her and Donnelly going over the low-level deecee routines as we speak."
"How about a preliminary assessment?" Miranda asked, pointedly.
Tali turned her head to look at her, and Shepard tried not to smile as she imagined the faintly annoyed look her quarian friend no doubt wore. "We've got holes all over the hull," she said, "And while we've managed to reuse some scrap metal from the cargo bay to restore pressure integrity, the fact is that we don't have the raw materials or the spare parts to make repairs in the middle of deep space. We need to dock at a station to make proper repairs."
"Unfortunately, Cerberus stations are no longer an option," Jacob said, wryly.
Shepard rolled her eyes. "Oh I'm pretty sure if I asked the Illusive Man nicely to work for him again he'd let us use the resources no problem. Of course, the rather comprehensive 'go to hell' I gave him might just mean that option's closed to us now."
Miranda looked uncomfortable, but said nothing.
"What about the trackers?" She asked.
"We've pulled most of them as we've been making repairs," Tali said, "Since it's made some of the harder-to-reach areas of the ship accessible. We're still working on it though."
"What was the second thing?" Jacob asked, curious.
"The crew." Shepard folded her arms. "They didn't sign on to be fugitives from Cerberus, and I won't have them suffer for my decisions. There are two things I want to do." She paced as she spoke. "We'll head for Omega and the Citadel. Some of our specialists want off, and I'm hardly going to keep them here against their will. Anyone from the crew will be able to disembark at that time. But I don't want anyone who decides to remain separate from Cerberus to suffer for it."
She stopped, drew herself up to her full height. She wasn't the tallest of women, but the act of doing so granted her even more of a physical presence than she normally presented. "So, the crew's implants are going to need to be removed."
Jacob stood upright, startled. "Sorry, what implants?"
Shepard gave Miranda a pointed look.
Miranda grit her teeth, then shook her head, resigning herself. "The crew are fitted with... certain implants that Cerberus uses to ensure operational security."
"Optical flashbangs and poison capsules in teeth being amongst some of the nicer," Shepard said.
Jacob turned an angry look on Miranda. "And we all have these? I don't recall agreeing to that."
"They're not for control," Miranda said, sharply, defensively. "If a cell is captured, and there's no hope of rescue, the information a crew like this holds about Cerberus cannot be allowed to be let out."
Jacob shook his head in disgust. "You know, I'm really not surprised," he said, "Though I am disappointed you decided not to tell anyone."
"Even I have the implants," Miranda said, "Everyone Cerberus recruits does. Well, except for Shepard." She turned towards her commanding officer. "We hadn't reached that stage in your reconstruction when you were revived."
Tali had been watching the conversation, her head moving back and forth as she followed the conversation. If she was shocked, she gave no sign. "It may be possible," she said, interrupting the brewing argument, "To set up some sort of electronic screen to prevent remote activation of the implants. But it would only be a temporary solution, and the crew would have to remain aboard the Normandy to be protected."
"I was hoping you'd say something like that," Shepard said, with a faint smile. "How quickly can you do it?"
"Not quickly at all, I'm afraid," Tali said, apologetically, "There's too much damage to the ship. We just don't have the resources."
That wiped Shepard's smile away. "Well, Mordin's been kind enough to agree to continue to research the removal of the implants. Hopefully we'll come up with some sort of solution before the situation becomes critical. If nothing else, the crew needs space, time to recover. Hadley was under more stress even before the Collector's base. Now...?"
Shepard reached up and rubbed the back of her neck. A headache was brewing at the base of her skull. She'd never suffered the headaches early biotic implants could cause, and with the experimental tech that Cerberus had outfitted her with, she barely got a twinge even when overexerting herself. But simple stress was something technology couldn't account for.
"We'll stay off the FTL buoys until we're sure we can screen ship and crew from remote detection or attack," she ordered. "Dismissed."
Tali nodded, and Jacob saluted, but Miranda made no move to leave. So eventually it was just her and Shepard, alone in the room.
"You know," Miranda said, casting Shepard a sidelong look. "It's almost certain that the Illusive Man planned for the possibility of your leaving Cerberus' aegis."
"The thought had occurred to me." Shepard said. "Especially when I noticed that most of the crew claimed to have been assigned here out of loyalty to me, rather than Cerberus."
"It's not a claim," Miranda said, "It's the truth. They weren't drawn from the usual pool of talent Cerberus tends to use. There's a lot of ex-Alliance officers here, people who publicly defended you, like Donnelly."
"What are you getting at, Miranda?"
Miranda shrugged ever-so-slightly. "The goal of Cerberus, and the Illusive Man, in bringing you back was to defeat the Reapers, and save humanity. With this ship, and this crew, your implants and your skills, you have a better chance than maybe anyone else has in the galaxy. He may not be directly guiding your hands anymore, Shepard, but I wouldn't bank on him not having planned for this eventuality, anticipating it. If he had needed you to be part of Cerberus to accomplish his goals, he would have implanted a control chip. You're a force for humanity's good, Commander, whether you talk to him or not."
Shepard gave her second in command a regarding look, scrutinising her expression. She considered the 2iC role a privileged position, one that should be given to someone that had earned the trust of their CO. Miranda had placed herself in that position, the official 'leader' of their cell, always watching, always reporting.
Yes, she'd given the Illusive Man her resignation in no uncertain terms, but could that instant of good judgement turn around most of a lifetime spent working for Cerberus? Shepard honestly didn't know. She was willing to give Miranda a chance, though.
She had to be willing. She couldn't believe that mere association with Cerberus made one irredeemable. If that was true, then there really was no hope for her.
"This particular force for humanity's good has had a very long day," Shepard said. It had only been early afternoon by the ship's clock when Hadley had walked off the deck, and the rest of the afternoon had passed so quickly that it was the nightshift had just started work an hour earlier. "So if there's nothing else...?"
"I'll start looking at our options for repair materials," Miranda said, and sashayed from the room.
The door had barely closed behind her when EDI's holographic avatar sprung into life, displacing the diagram of the Normandy that had been floating in the centre of the table.
"Commander Shepard?"
Shepard tried not to sigh. She'd wanted just a brief moment of numb contemplation, but that was not to be, it seemed. "Yes, EDI?"
"I feel I must admit to a certain amount of culpability," EDI said, without preamble. "My circuits are still damaged from the attack on the Collector base. I was unable to prevent the use of the airlock manual override. My inability to respond quickly led to Crewman Hadley's suicide attempt. I did not predict his intentions upon entering the airlock. I should have."
Shepard wondered if it was too late to resign and go wait for the end of life on a tropical moon somewhere. "EDI, I'm going to say this once and only once," she said, "So I want to make sure you're paying attention."
"I am always paying attention," EDI said, "Even when I am not projecting myself physically."
And that wasn't a creepy thought at all. "Good. It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault. Or, if someone has to be blamed, blame the Collectors. I have a trained psychologist on staff who didn't notice anything." But then Kelly was barely holding herself together these days. She could hardly be expected to take on the burden of the entire crew's mental health when she was so fragile herself. "Hadley's brother had already been taken by the Collectors. Knowing what happened to him, and having to go through it himself? I don't blame him for a moment of weakness, nor do I blame anyone else. I'm not assigning fault and as far as I'm concerned that's the end of the matter."
"Yes, Shepard," EDI said, in what she could have sworn was a meek tone of voice.
"Now, is there anything else?"
"No, Shepard."
Shepard heaved a sigh. "Then please continue to monitor the ship's systems and forward me the latest damage control estimates when they're updated. If anyone wants me, I'll be unavailable for the next few hours. I'm going to my cabin."
"Yes, Shepard," EDI said, and vanished from sight.
A couple of weeks shore leave, that was all she wanted. Somewhere with a beach, those drinks in coconuts, and servitors wearing very tiny shorts. That would be nice. Shepard rubbed the bridge of her nose, banishing the thought to the land of fantasy. It wasn't an image that would be occupying her dreams. She knew that she was going up to her cabin to lie on her back, stare at the ceiling, and see Hadley's bloated body floating behind her eyes.
She walked to the elevator mostly on automatic, fingers finding the deck menu out of habit. The doors opened outside her cabin, and Shepard was halfway to the door when she came to a halt. "Kelly?"
Yeoman Kelly Edwards, looked pale and nervous, took one look at her commanding officer, and burst into tears. Shepard's heart went out to her, even if some part of her wanted to howl in anguish at the continued demands on her. She silenced that rebellious part of her for the moment, though, and put her arms around Kelly in a loose hug.
"Come on in," she said, kindly.
~*~
Part Five
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Fandom: Mass Effect
Disclaimer: Mass Effect is Bioware's. And don't they do well with it?
Summary: Rumours abound: the Omega 4 relay has been used, and signs lead to Shepard being involved somehow. Someone has to investigate, and who better than one of Shepard's former crew? On top of all that, ship crews are disappearing, and it can't be the Collectors. So who's responsible, and why?
From The Beginning
~*~
Four: Two Weeks Earlier
~*~
Commander Shepard stood over her personal console on the CIC deck of the Normandy and glowered at the screens. One of these days, she was going to go down to the AI core and threaten to pull EDI's chips one by one if she didn't update her junk mail definitions once in a while. She was the scourge of the Reapers, Spectre, saviour of the Citadel and generally a bad ass space marine; she shouldn't have to put up with offers to expand her breast size using "perfectly legal" turian medication.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, and reminded herself that she ought to be grateful she was still alive enough to bitch about junk mail.
"Commander Shepard?"
She dropped her hand and smiled politely at the crewman who had approached her. "Crewman Hadley. How can I help you?"
A lot of the crew had been having difficulty in sleeping lately, but Hadley looked like he'd finally had a good night's sleep. There was a brightness to his eyes, that Shepard hadn't seen in the days since they'd returned through the relay, the days since they'd been lingering just out of FTL comm. range, hoping to pull all the trackers and spytech that riddled the ship's systems before Cerberus could draw a bead on them.
"I just wanted to say," Hadley said, running a hand through his air, "I really appreciated getting to serve under you. You're a real hero in my book, and I know you did everything you could to save as many people as possible."
She was rather thrown for a moment, unsure of how to respond. "Well, ah... thank you, Hadley."
He held out his hand. "Really, it's been an honour."
She smiled, slightly befuddled by the sudden thanks, but shook his hand regardless. He saluted and turned to go without being dismissed, heading forward of the galaxy map, towards the cockpit. He looked like he was heading for his station, and Shepard was about to turn back to sorting through her mail and reports when the thought occurred to her that, last time she'd seen the ship's roster, Hadley wasn't meant to be on duty at that moment. Possibly he could have switched with one of the other crewmen, but...
She looked up, in time to see Hadley walk straight past his station and keep going.
A cold feeling of dread spread out from her stomach, panic seizing her. "Hadley," she tried to call, though her voice came out pitifully low.
Hadley didn't stop. Shepard pushed away from her terminal, rounding the edge of the map and starting to run. "Hadley!" He'd already turned, just before the cockpit, entering the airlock. "Stop him!"
Her voice grabbed the attention of a couple of other crewmen, but before they could react, just as she passed Hadley's station, there was a tremendous bang, and Shepard was yanked off her feet, flung forward as the air started to rush out of the deck through the now open airlock. There might have been screams and yelling, but Shepard could only hear the rushing of air. She had just enough time to think 'not again´ before she slammed into the kinetic barrier that had appeared in place of the now open airlock door. She bounced off it, dropping to the floor with a painful thud as the inner airlock doors made an odd grinding sound and finally slammed shut.
"Joker! All stop!" Shepard couldn't hear anything other than the thudding over her own heart. She was still off-balance as she pulled herself up and stumbled towards the cockpit.
As she regained her equilibrium, she could hear alarms ringing and EDI's voice. "Man overboard. Emergency crew to forward airlock. Man overboard."
Joker had obeyed her order through sheer reflex. As Shepard leaned over the consoles, peering out into space, struggling to catch a glimpse of Hadley against the starscape, he swore and said, "What the hell...?"
Shepard didn't answer him for a moment. She stabbed a finger against the glasses. "There! Move us closer!" Hadley had been blown a fair distance from the ship with the force of the decompression.
Joker followed where she was pointing and swore again, fingers dancing across the console. The Normandy banked sharply, and there was the sound of running booted feet coming up the walkway. Two crewman were shoving themselves into hardsuits, doing up the seals as they ran. There were always supposed to be two crewmen on any deck with an airlock who could respond quickly to someone 'falling overboard' (a bit of naval parlance that had never found a better alternative in the space age). Shepard had never been aboard a ship where they'd had to be used outside of drills.
The inner door of the airlock opened, kinetic barriers still in place. The outer door, Shepard could see, was jammed open to space, showing nothing but spinning stars as the ship moved closer to where Hadley was drifting.
"Let 'em through, EDI," Shepard said.
"Reconfiguring kinetic barriers."
The barrier shimmered and, instead of the hard screen that had arrested Shepard's tumble towards hard vacuum, it became permeable to objects of a certain size. The two crewmen passed through the barrier and the door shut behind them.
"Clear the deck! Make a hole!"
Crewmen flattened themselves against the consoles as Doctor Chakwas, accompanied by two Corpsmen, ran the length of the CIC dragging emergency medical kits and an AG-sled behind them. Shepard gripped the back of Joker's chair tightly as she watched them get ready to receive a casualty, listening with half an ear as Joker murmured, "Easy, girl, easy," and EDI delivered a rapid fire stream of positional data and micro-adjustments in an even tone, supplemented by scrolling information on the screen.
Shepard couldn't see what was going on. The vantage point of the cockpit didn't give her the right angle to see what was going on. She was forced to watched the external feeds on the monitor, waiting what felt like an eternity as the two emergency rescue crewmen pushed off from the open airlock, attached to the ship by tethers, the moment they got within reach of Crewman Hadley, who had long since stopped moving. They grabbed him, then reeled themselves in. Time crawled by painfully slow until finally the airlock doors opened and they dragged Hadley back into the ship, where he was set upon by Chakwas and her Corpsmen. Shepard watched silently as Chakwas barked orders and they hurried back through the ship, heading for the medical bay. She guessed that was a good sign. If he was beyond hope, then they wouldn't be making such an effort to recover him.
Shepard drew breath for the first time in what seemed to be a lifetime and nodded to the two rescuers. "Good work," she said, and nodded sharply to their salutes.
"Jesus," Joker muttered, staring up at her, "What the fuck just happened?"
Shepard felt like she needed a stiff drink. "I'll let you know when I find out," she said.
She didn't realise until she took her hand away that her fingers had left an imprint in the metal back of Joker's chair.
~*~
"How is he?"
Doctor Chakwas had finally felt that she could leave Hadley in the hands of her Corpsmen, and had appeared in the conference room looking drawn. "He'll be fine," she said, "We got to him in less than sixty seconds. He'll make a full recovery physically. Psychological recovery is another matter, and something I'm not equipped to deal with here."
"Exposed to hard vacuum for nearly a minute?" Miranda shook her head. She was leaning against the conference table, arms folded. "Hard to believe anyone can survive that."
"It's takes about ninety seconds to die after getting spaced," Shepard said. She had her hands laid flat on the table's surface, studying the skin on the back of her hands, imagined it webbed with burst capillaries, though she was certain that two years ago, by the time Cerberus got to her, skirting the edge of Alchera's atmosphere had done more to her skin than simple vacuum exposure would have. "You lose consciousness after about ten or fifteen seconds, but you don't die straight away."
Miranda frowned. "How do you-?"
Shepard raised her head, and gave Miranda a look. Miranda cleared her throat awkwardly and tried to pretend she hadn't asked such an obviously ridiculous question. Jacob, who had just been quietly observing up to that point, rolled his eyes.
"How did he manage it?" Shepard asked, quietly, turning her head towards the fifth member of the group, Tali.
Tali shifted, wringing her hands unhappily. "He used the manual override to open the outer airlock doors and circumvent the AI's control. Damage from the Collector base's explosion caused a system short and opened both inner and outer doors at once, decompressing the CIC."
"If that's all, Commander, I really should be getting back to my patient," Doctor Chakwas arched an eyebrow expectantly, and Shepard wasted no time in nodding.
"Of course, Doctor. Keep me informed, please?"
"As always," Chakwas said drolly, throwing the statement over her shoulder as she left the room
"As tragic as Hadley's... current state is, there are other matters we need to discuss," Shepard said, shifting from foot to foot and wondering why they'd never bothered to install chairs in the comms room. They could have decamped to Miranda's office, as that was the only place that was really set up to handle a long discussion about logistics, but Shepard wasn't going to cede control of the discussion that easily.
"The first is repairs," she said, "Tali?"
Tali shook her head. "We've only made a brief sweep for damage. I've a partial report, but I'd like to wait until tomorrow when Daniels and I have finished going over the optical datanet. We weren't aware there was a problem with the airlock, so now we can't trust the diagnostics. I have her and Donnelly going over the low-level deecee routines as we speak."
"How about a preliminary assessment?" Miranda asked, pointedly.
Tali turned her head to look at her, and Shepard tried not to smile as she imagined the faintly annoyed look her quarian friend no doubt wore. "We've got holes all over the hull," she said, "And while we've managed to reuse some scrap metal from the cargo bay to restore pressure integrity, the fact is that we don't have the raw materials or the spare parts to make repairs in the middle of deep space. We need to dock at a station to make proper repairs."
"Unfortunately, Cerberus stations are no longer an option," Jacob said, wryly.
Shepard rolled her eyes. "Oh I'm pretty sure if I asked the Illusive Man nicely to work for him again he'd let us use the resources no problem. Of course, the rather comprehensive 'go to hell' I gave him might just mean that option's closed to us now."
Miranda looked uncomfortable, but said nothing.
"What about the trackers?" She asked.
"We've pulled most of them as we've been making repairs," Tali said, "Since it's made some of the harder-to-reach areas of the ship accessible. We're still working on it though."
"What was the second thing?" Jacob asked, curious.
"The crew." Shepard folded her arms. "They didn't sign on to be fugitives from Cerberus, and I won't have them suffer for my decisions. There are two things I want to do." She paced as she spoke. "We'll head for Omega and the Citadel. Some of our specialists want off, and I'm hardly going to keep them here against their will. Anyone from the crew will be able to disembark at that time. But I don't want anyone who decides to remain separate from Cerberus to suffer for it."
She stopped, drew herself up to her full height. She wasn't the tallest of women, but the act of doing so granted her even more of a physical presence than she normally presented. "So, the crew's implants are going to need to be removed."
Jacob stood upright, startled. "Sorry, what implants?"
Shepard gave Miranda a pointed look.
Miranda grit her teeth, then shook her head, resigning herself. "The crew are fitted with... certain implants that Cerberus uses to ensure operational security."
"Optical flashbangs and poison capsules in teeth being amongst some of the nicer," Shepard said.
Jacob turned an angry look on Miranda. "And we all have these? I don't recall agreeing to that."
"They're not for control," Miranda said, sharply, defensively. "If a cell is captured, and there's no hope of rescue, the information a crew like this holds about Cerberus cannot be allowed to be let out."
Jacob shook his head in disgust. "You know, I'm really not surprised," he said, "Though I am disappointed you decided not to tell anyone."
"Even I have the implants," Miranda said, "Everyone Cerberus recruits does. Well, except for Shepard." She turned towards her commanding officer. "We hadn't reached that stage in your reconstruction when you were revived."
Tali had been watching the conversation, her head moving back and forth as she followed the conversation. If she was shocked, she gave no sign. "It may be possible," she said, interrupting the brewing argument, "To set up some sort of electronic screen to prevent remote activation of the implants. But it would only be a temporary solution, and the crew would have to remain aboard the Normandy to be protected."
"I was hoping you'd say something like that," Shepard said, with a faint smile. "How quickly can you do it?"
"Not quickly at all, I'm afraid," Tali said, apologetically, "There's too much damage to the ship. We just don't have the resources."
That wiped Shepard's smile away. "Well, Mordin's been kind enough to agree to continue to research the removal of the implants. Hopefully we'll come up with some sort of solution before the situation becomes critical. If nothing else, the crew needs space, time to recover. Hadley was under more stress even before the Collector's base. Now...?"
Shepard reached up and rubbed the back of her neck. A headache was brewing at the base of her skull. She'd never suffered the headaches early biotic implants could cause, and with the experimental tech that Cerberus had outfitted her with, she barely got a twinge even when overexerting herself. But simple stress was something technology couldn't account for.
"We'll stay off the FTL buoys until we're sure we can screen ship and crew from remote detection or attack," she ordered. "Dismissed."
Tali nodded, and Jacob saluted, but Miranda made no move to leave. So eventually it was just her and Shepard, alone in the room.
"You know," Miranda said, casting Shepard a sidelong look. "It's almost certain that the Illusive Man planned for the possibility of your leaving Cerberus' aegis."
"The thought had occurred to me." Shepard said. "Especially when I noticed that most of the crew claimed to have been assigned here out of loyalty to me, rather than Cerberus."
"It's not a claim," Miranda said, "It's the truth. They weren't drawn from the usual pool of talent Cerberus tends to use. There's a lot of ex-Alliance officers here, people who publicly defended you, like Donnelly."
"What are you getting at, Miranda?"
Miranda shrugged ever-so-slightly. "The goal of Cerberus, and the Illusive Man, in bringing you back was to defeat the Reapers, and save humanity. With this ship, and this crew, your implants and your skills, you have a better chance than maybe anyone else has in the galaxy. He may not be directly guiding your hands anymore, Shepard, but I wouldn't bank on him not having planned for this eventuality, anticipating it. If he had needed you to be part of Cerberus to accomplish his goals, he would have implanted a control chip. You're a force for humanity's good, Commander, whether you talk to him or not."
Shepard gave her second in command a regarding look, scrutinising her expression. She considered the 2iC role a privileged position, one that should be given to someone that had earned the trust of their CO. Miranda had placed herself in that position, the official 'leader' of their cell, always watching, always reporting.
Yes, she'd given the Illusive Man her resignation in no uncertain terms, but could that instant of good judgement turn around most of a lifetime spent working for Cerberus? Shepard honestly didn't know. She was willing to give Miranda a chance, though.
She had to be willing. She couldn't believe that mere association with Cerberus made one irredeemable. If that was true, then there really was no hope for her.
"This particular force for humanity's good has had a very long day," Shepard said. It had only been early afternoon by the ship's clock when Hadley had walked off the deck, and the rest of the afternoon had passed so quickly that it was the nightshift had just started work an hour earlier. "So if there's nothing else...?"
"I'll start looking at our options for repair materials," Miranda said, and sashayed from the room.
The door had barely closed behind her when EDI's holographic avatar sprung into life, displacing the diagram of the Normandy that had been floating in the centre of the table.
"Commander Shepard?"
Shepard tried not to sigh. She'd wanted just a brief moment of numb contemplation, but that was not to be, it seemed. "Yes, EDI?"
"I feel I must admit to a certain amount of culpability," EDI said, without preamble. "My circuits are still damaged from the attack on the Collector base. I was unable to prevent the use of the airlock manual override. My inability to respond quickly led to Crewman Hadley's suicide attempt. I did not predict his intentions upon entering the airlock. I should have."
Shepard wondered if it was too late to resign and go wait for the end of life on a tropical moon somewhere. "EDI, I'm going to say this once and only once," she said, "So I want to make sure you're paying attention."
"I am always paying attention," EDI said, "Even when I am not projecting myself physically."
And that wasn't a creepy thought at all. "Good. It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault. Or, if someone has to be blamed, blame the Collectors. I have a trained psychologist on staff who didn't notice anything." But then Kelly was barely holding herself together these days. She could hardly be expected to take on the burden of the entire crew's mental health when she was so fragile herself. "Hadley's brother had already been taken by the Collectors. Knowing what happened to him, and having to go through it himself? I don't blame him for a moment of weakness, nor do I blame anyone else. I'm not assigning fault and as far as I'm concerned that's the end of the matter."
"Yes, Shepard," EDI said, in what she could have sworn was a meek tone of voice.
"Now, is there anything else?"
"No, Shepard."
Shepard heaved a sigh. "Then please continue to monitor the ship's systems and forward me the latest damage control estimates when they're updated. If anyone wants me, I'll be unavailable for the next few hours. I'm going to my cabin."
"Yes, Shepard," EDI said, and vanished from sight.
A couple of weeks shore leave, that was all she wanted. Somewhere with a beach, those drinks in coconuts, and servitors wearing very tiny shorts. That would be nice. Shepard rubbed the bridge of her nose, banishing the thought to the land of fantasy. It wasn't an image that would be occupying her dreams. She knew that she was going up to her cabin to lie on her back, stare at the ceiling, and see Hadley's bloated body floating behind her eyes.
She walked to the elevator mostly on automatic, fingers finding the deck menu out of habit. The doors opened outside her cabin, and Shepard was halfway to the door when she came to a halt. "Kelly?"
Yeoman Kelly Edwards, looked pale and nervous, took one look at her commanding officer, and burst into tears. Shepard's heart went out to her, even if some part of her wanted to howl in anguish at the continued demands on her. She silenced that rebellious part of her for the moment, though, and put her arms around Kelly in a loose hug.
"Come on in," she said, kindly.
~*~
Part Five