After everyone calmed down and properly processed the fact the Normandy had successfully escaped, emotions among the crew were…mixed to say the least.

Many of the crew members on duty had overheard EDI’s analysis of the distress call and the ones that hadn’t were filled in shortly after the ship jumped to FTL. A lot of them weren’t happy the Illusive Man sent them blind into a trap that almost got them all killed. It was one thing to know you signed up for a suicide mission, it was entirely something else to be sent to die for no reason.

Only a handful of few remaining true Cerberus faithfuls decided to believe in T.I.M.’s reasoning for keeping them in the dark. And even then it was more they were simply trying to convince themselves after the fact. All of them, even Miranda, felt betrayed on some level.

Despite the crew’s anger, the Illusive Man was right about one thing…they needed to find an intact IFF transponder from either a Reaper or Collector ship if they wanted any hope of reaching the Collector homeworld. EDI had managed to trace the navigational data back through the Omega 4 mass relay. Unfortunately, the data put the Collector base in the middle of the galactic core, an inhospitable mess of black holes and exploding suns.

Without the IFF to activate the relay’s more advanced protocols, it would be a one in a billion chance of surviving the jump. Nevermind actually being able to complete their mission afterward.

‘Fortunately’ T.I.M. had a lead on one, but…

-o-

“...we aren’t going anywhere near a Reaper right now.” Shepard said, leaving no room for argument in her tone.

Despite that, some people felt the need to argue anyway.

“The longer we wait, the more colonies that are going to be attacked.” Miranda pointed out. “Can we afford to take our time?”

“She’s right. Even if I don’t like it, the Illusive Man was right about one thing. We are at war.” Jacob agreed.

“We also just finished a highly dangerous mission that left several of our team wounded.” Shepard reminded them. “Grunt’s arm will take time to heal, Korgan or not. Jack is recovering from frying her biotic amp. Garrus had an armor breach. And you, Jacob, have some microfractures all over your body from getting thrown by that Shockwave. We are simply not in the condition to run another mission like this one so soon.”

“We still have Mordin, Thane, Kasumi, Samara, Tali’Zorah, myself, you, and Revan available.” Miranda disagreed, motioning to the rest of the team around the room. “More than enough to deploy two teams.”

“Except most of the people you listed are more suited for support roles or skirmishing. Not heavy frontline fighting while surrounded by the enemy. Which we will be if there is anything hostile in the Reaper ship. No, we are not going until the rest of the team is back on their feet. The Reaper derelict waited 37 million years, it can wait a little longer.” Shepard put her foot down.

“Where is Revan by the way?” Tali asked. “Is she running late or something?”

“No, Revan is assisting Dr. Chakwas in the medbay. Apparently she is helping Grunt’s hand actually works when it’s done healing.”

Thankfully no one else needed that level of intervention. The last thing her small team needed was members being permanently off the mission because of an injury they couldn’t come back from.

“Okay then, what will we be doing while we wait for the others to recover?” Her XO asked. “The Collectors won’t stop their plans just because we need to rest.”

“They may even accelerate them. Striking while they know we are injured.” Thane added in.

“It's a possibility.” Shepard admitted. “But we aren’t going to be doing nothing. Thanks to a few contacts, we’ve been able to secure some upgrades to the Normandy’s systems that should give us an edge. Not to mention there are other ways we can help. Smaller scale missions and such.”

“What kind of missions do you have in mind, Shepard?” Samara asked.

Shepard brought up a list of potential missions on her omnitool and forwarded it to EDI, who displayed it for the entire team to see. “Even if we aren’t getting much help from them at the moment, I’m still a Council Spectre. Combined with Cerberus’s own information, we can start snuffing out hotspots, pirates and the like, while we wait. I also know some of you have personal requests you wanted to bring up. If we have time we can look into them.”

She knew Samara was looking into someone and Jacob mentioned a distress beacon he wanted to follow up on the last time they talked. Unsurprisingly, several other members of the team seemed to have matters they wanted to bring up as well. She would have to talk to them individually later.

“That’s all for now, everyone. The more people we have on our side, the better chances of our success. Let’s just focus on building up the team for now. Go rest up.”

-o-

’Why do almost all my missions go sideways?’ Shepard wondered as she waited for the dropship to return to the Normandy. This last one had been the latest in a growing line of missions that seemed easy and straightforward, only to veer directly into ever increasing levels of madness.

It had started off…she wouldn’t say simple, because she couldn’t imagine ever being in a similar situation again, but reasonable enough at the time to help Samara track down the criminal she had originally been in pursuit of while they were making use of Omega’s docks to upgrade some of the Normandy’s medical systems. The Collector ship had proven what they had might be good enough to keep everyone on her team alive, but it wouldn’t let them get back into the fight without more recovery time then they could afford.

Finding Samara’s target turned out to be easy enough. Aria T’Loak kept an eye on practically every odd occurance she could. When she found out the asari they were after was an Ardat Yakshi, some kind of asari mind-succubus that killed the partners they slept with, the Queen of Omega had no issues helping them out. She wasn’t able to point out where their target was, but she was able to direct them to the home of her latest victim.

That…had been less than fun. Shepard didn’t consider herself much of a detective and was near useless while her team scoured the apartment looking for clues. Then to make things worse, the victim’s mother broke down in front of them begging her to avenge her daughter.

It had been one of the most uncomfortable moments of Shepard’s life.

It would have been higher on her list if for the fact not long after that, Samara told them that their target, Morinth, was also her daughter. And that the Justicar wanted Shepard to seduce her so they could corner and kill her.

…yeah, that was easily the most uncomfortable conversation she had ever had.

It must have shown too, because Revan of all people actually offered to take her place. But she was the Commander. And she should never give an order she wasn’t willing to do herself.

Even if she would rather forget the rest of the night forever out of embarrassment.

Their next mission wasn’t much better. Jacob had pulled her aside for a brief conversation regarding a distress call that he had received through Cerberus. He told her that ten years ago the frigate that his father served on disappeared with no trace, but less than a week ago a distress call from the same ship had been discovered. The only reason Jacob knew about it was because Cerberus was automatically filtering any news about the ship to him. Naturally, he wanted to investigate even if the crew was likely dead. For closure if nothing else.

What they found was so much more horrifying than that…

Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary when they first reached the crashed frigate. The wreck was intact enough that Shepard was confident that at least some of the crew could have survived the crash, something that was confirmed when they discovered the distress beacon and some officer logs explaining that the captain had been killed in the crash, Jacob’s father was raised to acting-captain, and…that the local plant life did severe harm to mental functions.

Something that was confirmed when they came across one of the survivors, a woman that could barely string sentences together and had told them her leader said people from the sky would save them. Something that might have been reassuring about the intentions of the leader if they hadn’t just confirmed the beacon had been ready for use nine years ago and only just activated recently.

And then they were attacked…and the attackers were just as swiftly crushed.

Normally Shepard would have more to say on something like that. Or more details she would have liked to include. But that short description was probably the best way to describe what happens when a group of ragged survivors that had spent ten years eating plants that eroded their mind were faced with a Sith Lord.

Revan didn’t even bother looking at most of them. She just raised a hand, made a fist, and all the attackers just fell over unconscious. All at once.

And she made it look like it didn’t take that much effort.

With Revan’s casual reminder that the Sith was honestly terrifying, the ground team moved away from the crash site towards some power readings EDI picked up while Shepard had Miranda start organizing more drops to the surface so the captured crewmembers could get looked over by Dr. Chakwas.

Jacob spent most of the time on the ground trying to rationalize away the delay, the officers hoarding food, exiling members, and all the other signs they had discovered, but that fell apart when they found the ex-CMO from the crew in a camp of only women and discovered how his father cooperated with the other officers to separate the crew, keep them stranded, and then pass out the women like pets once they had been forced to use the local food to survive…

It honestly looked like the only reason the beacon was activated was when the preservation systems for the untainted food supplies failed and everything else was spoiled.

Worse, when they finally managed to fight through the ‘insane’ guards and barely functioning security mechs, Ronald Taylor not only didn’t recognize his own son…he tried convincing the team that his actions were justified or the result of being raised to overall command when he wasn’t ready.

There weren’t many times Shepard let something cruel and unusual go uncontested, but Revan’s suggestion of leaving Ronald behind on the planet with a half-charged pistol ended up joining them. The acting captain had lived the last decade in a twisted fantasy that ruined the rest of his crewmates…

He could continue living it alone or die if that was his choice.

Compared to that nightmare scenario Thane wanting to stop his son from becoming an assassin seemed like it would be a refreshing break. Afterall, how hard could that be? Just show up, let Thane talk to his son for a bit, and hopefully everything gets resolved without issue.

Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

Not only had Kolyat already accepted the job and vanished into the seedier districts on the Citadel, Garrus caught word that Sidonis, the turian that betrayed his team and the one responsible for them all dying, was also on the Citadel.

So Shepard was pulled in a few directions all at once trying to make sure they didn’t miss Thane’s son and that Garrus wasn’t going on a rampage looking for the person who betrayed him. The split in focus meant that while they did successfully find Kolyat, it was after he had already made an attempt to murder his target. Thankfully they were able to talk him out of it and some recommendations to C-Sec Officer Bailey meant Kolyat would be doing community service rather than being arrested. Not a perfect situation but better than it could be.

At the rate she was going, Shepard might need to look into a career as a criminal negotiator considering she managed to talk Garrus out of murder as well. They had found the forger Fade, who turned out to be a disgraced ex-C-Sec officer Harkin, convinced him to set up a meeting with Sidonis. Garrus refused to back down for a bit so Shepard kept Sidonis talking long enough for her friend to see how hollow and depressed Sidonis had become.

She wouldn’t have judged her friend no matter his decision, but she couldn’t help but be relieved Garrus chose not to take the shot. Even if he said it was because he saw Sidonis was torturing himself with what he had done was worse than anything he could have done.

And then there had been this last mission with Jack…

-o-

“I’ve got thoughts like little bugs crawling in and out of my head. I can’t stop them.” Jack raged when Shepard cornered the tattooed woman after noticing she was acting off. Well, more off than normal.

And wasn’t that a wonderful way to start a conversation?

“You know I have a history with Cerberus. You know how far back it goes?” Jack continued.

“Not really.” Shepard knew Jack and Cerberus had a few run-ins from her file, but it wasn’t like she took those as absolute truth…or deluded her into thinking they were entirely complete.

“Your pal, the Illusive Man? Never seen him before, but Cerberus raised me. First thing I remember is my cell door in a Cerberus base.” Jack said, actually calming down as she talked. Shepard noticed the other biotic was using a breathing technique Revan had shown her. One she would have to start using herself when she heard what Jack had to say. “They did experiments. Drugged me. Tortured me. Whatever chance I had to be normal, they stole it by trying to turn me into some super-biotic.”

Unethical human experimentation on children, because why the fuck not with Cerberus? Still, why torture?

“Something about pain breaking down mental barriers, and how it might clear the way for more biotic power.” Jack explained when the Commander asked. “I'm sure there was a payoff due at some point, but I wasn’t going to see it. I was wired up in a cell.”

“And there were other kids there too?”

Another emotion joined the rage in Jack’s eyes. Bitterness. “I don’t know much about them. I was kept separate. They hated me, just like everyone else. When I broke out they came out of their cells and attacked me. So did the guards. I showed them though.” She said darkly. Meaning she killed her way through them. “Managed to get a shuttle off the ground and drifted until a freighter picked me up. The crew used me, then sold me.” Shepard really didn’t want to consider what used meant in this case. “That’s my uplifting escape story.”

So kidnapping, human experimentation, torture, and god knows what else. Yeah, Shepard wasn’t going to let this stand. She didn’t really need to ask if Jack was certain, the organization had shown it was fully capable of being that monstrous in the past after all.

“I’ll talk to the Illusive Man. And he better have some answers.” Shepard promised and was slightly surprised when Jack shook her head ‘no’.

“He’ll just deny everything, and that’s not what I’m after. I found the coordinates in your files. I want to go to the Teltin facility on Pragia, where they tortured and drugged me.” Jack stood and her voice started rising. “I want to go to the center of the place, my cell. I want to deploy a big fucking bomb. And I want to watch from orbit when it goes.” She spat.

Well, Shepard wasn’t going to try and stop her from leveling the evil science lab. And if Cerberus had issues with that, then they really didn’t know her when they brought her back.

“I’ll set a course for Pragia.” She promised.

All energy just seemed to flow out of Jack. “I owe you, Shepard.” was all she said.