Just a BioWare Fan

War of the Words

The nature of the place wasn’t the only surprise Pragia had in store for us. Halfway in we found a freshly-shot varren. I tried not to think of Urz, all alone on violent Tuchanka without me, while Jack, already edgy from the revelation that she perhaps hadn’t been the worst-off kid in the galaxy, paced about raging. It got tougher when the wild dog-lizards started rushing us from dark corners and corridors.

We soon began running into mercenaries, as well. Miranda made half-hearted attempts to counsel us on control, more to prevent Jack from bringing the whole place down on our heads than actual training. I remembered to toss the occasional blast at someone between sniper shots but mostly I just pegged idiots in the head from behind cover. At that I’d had plenty of practice and Miranda barely noticed.

We passed down a hallway of cells that seemed to frustrate Jack even more. “What the hell?” she finally asked. “These cages are even smaller than mine.” Her entire memory, everything she’d believed about herself, had been undermined by what we’d found here. Instead of the most-abused victim of Cerberus she’d been protected from the absolute worst because she’d been the strongest all along.

Some Powerful Therapy

Kaidan and I finished eating and he tucked everything away in that clever basket. It had begun to get dark by the time he finished and he came over to sit close, pulling me into him. We watched the sun set over the far hills, the lake turning a dozen unlikely colors, and a sense of unreality washed over me.

In all my life, I’d never known something like this. My defenses had dropped, even with my heart so exposed. It wasn’t that Kaidan would be with me forever, it was that he would never use my emotions against me. I trusted him never to exploit this weakness, something utterly new and wonderful. And so I sat with him, the most content I’d ever been, watching the sun go down on Horizon.

There were some other things soon after that that you don’t need to know about in detail. Suffice it to say that the springy grass under the blanket made for a comfortable surface and that we spent quite some time working off those sandwiches.

Fool Me Once, Shame on You The afternoon went as badly as I’d suspected it would. We popped out of FTL travel and cruised to the coordinates we’d received. Garrus and I stood behind Joker, staring as the ship came into view. All of us recognized its design. Indeed it looked identical to the one that had been abducting colonists on Horizon which had been, coincidentally, the very same one that had killed me two and a half years earlier.

I heard Garrus growl beside me and I put a hand on his shoulder in agreement. No matter how comparatively well things had turned out so far we still had a score to settle with the bastards. They’d wrecked our first team, the one that hadn’t included thieves and liars and turncoats. The bastards had killed some of my closest friends and destroyed the only home some of us had had. If I could find a way to blow up that pile of crap I was going to do it today, no matter what TIM wanted.

Miranda and Jack met me at the shuttle and we flew over to land on an outcropping of sorts that I presumed served as a cargo bay. We worked our way in cautiously. Along the way we found piles of rotting corpses, colonists discarded like table scraps, that made all three of us gag in our helmets. I angrily considered the thousands upon thousands of pods stacked throughout the corridors and lining the walls of vast chambers.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

I fell into bed, still fully clothed, and slept like I’d been shot. Four solid hours later I blearily opened my eyes, feeling like I’d had a very long and refreshing blink. I hadn’t moved a muscle in all that time and various parts of my anatomy had failed to wake with my brain.

I hobbled my way across the room, pins and needles jabbing me, and settled into the chair at my desk, glancing at the photo that Councilor Anderson had given me. Kaidan leaned forward and looked awfully grim, like he was rushing the person who took the picture. I wondered what had been going on when it was taken. I brushed my fingers over his fiercely-drawn brow, mentally wishing him a good morning, and turned to my terminal, still active from the night before.

Leaping in with both feet, regardless of how numb one of them remained, I went straight for the message from TIM. Instead of a dossier, it asked me to give him a call in the holo chamber. Wow, I thought. That was easy. I read through the rest of the notes quickly, smiling at a couple of thank you notes and a bit of spam from a merchant with whom I’d dealt on the Citadel back when we’d still had the SR-1. It looked like I really was alive again if I showed up on such mailing lists once more. I’d almost missed offers of help to increase the size and function of my imaginary man-parts.

Doesn’t Everyone Live by a Code? Thane seemed a serious fellow but he accepted my request to join the team for what was considered a suicide mission by explaining that he was dying anyway so why not? You had to respect his spirit and it saved me a fair amount of time negotiating his fee. Apparently he was out to atone for some evil deeds, not too hard to believe for a man who had so ably demonstrated his ability and willingness to kill. I hoped that his assassin credo wouldn’t make him balk at the clean-up work we’d be doing on merc bases around the galaxy along the way. We were hardly a peace-loving, spare-the-ammo bunch and there were geth galore to wipe out between TIM's Collector hints. It wouldn’t live up to his high-profile targets but we’d definitely keep him busy. When we’d returned to the Normandy I got Thane settled, brushed off Jacob’s tiresome objections to bringing yet another killer for hire aboard, and stopped on the way to get some breakfast, though the ship’s clock read 3:04 AM. I’d shown Miranda the extent of what I’d learned, burning off the huge dinner I’d eaten hours earlier. I hammered down a big mug of cold coffee and made myself some sausages and toast. I wrapped one in the other and brought them with me to the trash compacter. I didn’t want to get sidetracked again before I’d had it out with Zaeed.

Who Did What to Whom

After spending almost my entire stash of credits and arranging to have the loot delivered to the Normandy I let Joker know that we were ready for that drink. He promised to meet us there. I notified EDI that non-essential crew, including Garuus and Jack who were with me, were off-duty and on shore leave until 0800 the following morning, ship time. That gave us the cover to shut off our comm units and secrete them in a potted plant on the way. Joker would probably just leave his on the bridge.

I’d give the skeleton crew that provided security and replenished supplies with a day’s leave tomorrow but I wanted to be sure that we could leave at a moment’s notice should the need arise. We browsed through a souvenir shop to kill time as we made our way to Eternity, the nearest bar. We found Joker in the farthest, darkest corner booth, behind some cheery, fern-like trees, sitting with the package.

I froze, unsure whether my eyes were playing tricks on my or if Kaidan really was grinning up at me, eyebrow raised in amusement. I’d missed that quirked brow so much over the past weeks. I wanted to fling myself on top of him and run my tongue over it, but first I had to convince my mouth to close and my feet to move. “It took you long enough to get here,” he said. I didn't know if he meant the lounge or Illium in general.

And Baby Makes Three

Garrus, Jack, and I made our way back to the Normandy, leaving Joker to do whatever it was that he did to get aboard when no one was looking. He must have some secret cloaking abilities because he turned up in his seat without anyone being able to say how or when he arrived. At times I suspected Cerberus had installed a secret passage between the bridge and his bunk. No one wanted to know how he relieved himself considering how rarely he was out of that seat while on duty. I mean, would you ask him how he peed without ever leaving his leather chair? I left calls of nature between him and EDI, hopefully not literally.

I delivered the goodies I’d picked up on the Citadel to muster morale and loyalty among the crew. As I’d be relying on them for the foreseeable future I wanted to make sure they had no reason to distrust me or sabotage my ship. Donnelly in Engineering was excessively grateful, not at all to my surprise, but I let him down as easily as I could while holding down my lunch. Sure, he was attractive, but he came on awfully strong.

While meandering around the bowels of the ship I was reminded of another piece of waste that I’d forgotten: Zaeed still occupied his spot by the trash compactor. As we’d already left dock I resolved to deal with him on our next vaguely-civilized stop. He’d not actually performed any service other than riding around the galaxy and eating my food so I hoped he wouldn’t insist on my completing the agreed mission before he’d leave. I’d hate to have to jettison a cube of bounty hunter regardless of how convenient the machinery to his bunk.

If I'd had any doubts about the privacy of my conversations with Thane they were proven over the coming days. It started with a comment from Joker when I was giving him the coordinates for the theoretically-derelict Reaper vessel. The Illusive Man had thoughtfully decided to share the information that he had sent a team to investigate months earlier and that they'd stopped sending reports and responding to messages. I headed to the bridge to watch the jump.

"You and the green guy, hunh?" asked Joker. He'd been friends with Kaidan and I wondered how badly this conversation was about to go. Joker must have seen something on my face because for once he didn't crack any jokes.

"Look," he said, "I saw what happened on Horizon and I know it's been hard on you. Go for it, Commander. At least one of us should be getting some on this ship. I kinda figured it was my turn after you and the lieutenant but you beat me to the punch."

The Game’s Afoot

Once we’d recovered from the idea of Garrus rubbing up against Joker in a dark closet Anderson briefed us on our objectives and procedures. “Trust me, you wouldn’t want to see the encrypted forms of the messages he sends,” Anderson assured me. “He hides them in the sorts of pictures that have made him infamous on the extranet.”

I cracked up again at the idea of some staid intelligence handler opening cross-planetary, 3-D porn every time Joker had something to report. I supposed it was someone with whom he’d served on another ship so that it would look natural for him to keep sending smut like he did to half of the people he’d ever met. On certain subjects Joker was pretty easily entertained.

We finished the actual details and left the Cone of Silence, wandering over to Anderson’s desk. Garrus, Jack, and I replaced our comm links and chatted about how little Anderson enjoyed his diplomatic duties on the Council. As we did so, I became more and more curious about the photo on his desk. He’d never mentioned family to me and I had been under the impression that he’d been as much a loner as I always had. Spectre status didn’t lend itself to spouses and children.

Raising the Specter of a Spectre

Captain Anderson was the man, or at least he had been. His long and storied career with the Alliance contained enough daring exploits and classified ops to make a rank private green with jealousy. He would have been the first human Spectre but for the sabotage of his turian evaluator, the same Saren who’d later been indoctrinated by the Reaper, Sovereign, whose defeat had been a spectacle of human-alien cooperation and had led to Anderson’s place on the Council. I guess the Captain had gotten the last laugh, after all.

I respected him like I had no other commanding officer in my career. But by the time I was shown into his office I was ready to kick him somewhere completely impertinent. Not only had he put Hackett into the uncomfortable position of pissing me off but he’d kept me waiting more than half an hour for the appointment that he’d scheduled. Whatever shady dealings were going on between Anderson and the Alliance the time I’d spent pacing in the reception area for the Council had me ready to spit nails. Even Jack was more relaxed than I.

Evasive Maneuvers

Admiral Hackett looked a little older and a little greyer than I remembered but not dramatically so. The battle with sentient robots and the ship creature they had worshiped as a god had taken a heavy toll on both the Alliance and Citadel fleets alike. The aftermath had been near-chaos, particularly without a Council to make overarching decisions and enforce cooperation between the various species.

The mess of politics that had existed when I’d died must have been settled by now, at least in part. I had recommended the original Normandy’s previous captain, Anderson, for the human seat on the new council but who knew how that had all shaken out in the end.

The ambassador for us Humans had been a slimy, life-long politician named Udina. Choosing between an Alliance officer who was almost ready to retire anyway and a professional snake like Udina had been vastly easier than deciding to let the old Council fend for itself in battle. I imagined Udina making an argument before the Council while Anderson yelled at him to stand up straight and stop waffling. That made me smile as Hackett waved me in. He smiled in return though his eyes seemed guarded.

Everything Old Is New Again

The mass relays tossed us across the galaxy until we finally reached our destination. Joker let me know that we were within thirty minutes of docking and I made my way back to the bridge. I intended to be ready, in the airlock, the second we were cleared to open the door.

As I strapped on pieces of armor I imagined taking the chest plates in to have the hateful logo removed. I wasn’t about to throw away perfectly good armor any more than I’d let Cerberus have the Normandy back just because they’d built her but both needed a new paint job. At least my guns don’t have little traitorous symbols on them, I thought as I clipped them into place on my back and my hip. I wasn’t expecting trouble but I wanted to look as large and in charge as I possibly could.

I’d already asked Garrus and Jack to get suited up as well. They met me on the bridge. I should have thought to ask Jack what she had for armor because apparently she considered a belt around her nipples to be all the protection she needed. Biotic barrier or not, that left an awful lot of carefully-applied ink to get wrecked. Maybe we could stop somewhere and charge a new chest plate and some greaves to Cerberus before they figured out I’d jumped ship.

Jumpus Interruptus

Unfortunately, it was not time to go home. No sooner had I left the bridge than Kelly cornered me by the galaxy map and told me that I had messages on my private terminal. I must have looked confused, probably because I was trying to figure out why the hell she was checking something labeled “private”, so she explained again that it was part of her job as my personal assistant. The simpering way she kept emphasizing personal in that phrase promised that I would be finding myself locking her in a room with Miranda at some point in the near future to keep from lining them up for a double slap. The only personal assistance I wanted involved Kaidan and breaking in my new quarters.

I opened my messages to find that TIM had sent me more dossiers on possible recruits including the minor detail that he had purchased a convict named Jack for me from a prison ship. I already distrusted his choices after meeting Zaeed and now he wanted me to bring a violent criminal on board. Maybe I could lock him up with Miranda and Kelly. That ought to solve some problem or other and I'm sure Joker could pick up some extra credits broadcasting video of the results. Then again, a man long deprived might be susceptible to their feminine flaunting and they'd all survive the encounter. I derailed that train of thought before it could reach its repulsive station. The warden of the prison ship, some Turian named Kuril, had imposed a time limit on our pick-up which meant that my wool-gathering would have to wait. I fed the coordinates to Joker and he changed course accordingly.

I flicked through the dossiers on my data pad, considering our fuel-to-credit ratio and how much time each step might take. The missions thus far had been unpredictable in the extreme, ranging between merely picking up Zaeed on my way into the Omega station to then fighting half of the mercenaries in the galaxy only to discover my old friend Garrus at the other end disguised as a vigilante. I didn't trust any of the scenarios presented to be as simple as they appeared but I had hopes that we could execute at least one more pick-up without leaving a trail of corpses behind us. Well, maybe a small trail but how hard could it be to simply retrieve someone who had been purchased to join my crew?

I decided that this Jack character sounded like a good bet and we weren't too far from Purgatory, the prison ship from which we were supposed to retrieve him. If The Illusive Man had already arranged things with the warden it should be quick and easy and I could do some mining of the system to calm Doctor Mordin Solus's concerns about materials with which to continue his research. Of course, more probes would cost more credits, too. I was going to have to look for opportunities to pick up some work along the way.

All of this accounting and administrative work gave me a headache but I could hardly go crawling back to Cerberus for my allowance every time I needed cash for upgrades or trinkets. Having been reinstated as a Spectre meant that I was drawing a salary again but it wasn't enough to pay for everything that Cerberus hadn't thought to fund. The Illusive Man may have thought he'd covered everything but he had completely forgotten to set up accounts at the fuel depots near each mass relay. I wasn't about to add another reason to be indebted to the xenophobe but it did make my planning more difficult.