Lazarus Project: Mass Effect 2 (Shenko)

Chapter 18

Milky Way/Attican Traverse

Earth year: 2184 CE --- November

In the months following their trip to Grissom Academy, Anderson directed Kaidan and his crew to return to every known Cerberus base in the galaxy. He wanted them to recover as much information as they could find that might help piece together who was behind the experiments the Normandy crew had uncovered.

At first it had seemed a simple enough assignment, but with a small ship and crew, their investigation took months. They spent much of their time avoiding mercenaries and smugglers, traveling in stealth and walking long distances whenever they reached an outpost known to have connections to Cerberus. Since their ship was too small to accommodate a ground vehicle, they did a lot of walking.

It wasn't the most engaging or interesting assignment Kaidan had been on, but he was okay with that. After everything he'd been through and lived to tell about, a nice calm assignment was a welcome relief. When Dlaney griped about the lack of combat and that it was negatively impacting her combat prowess, he just smiled and shook his head. Or when Zima, their tech expert began tinkering with the ships' tech systems out of boredom so much that it eventually caught fire, he didn't even bat an eye.

"I know you're bored Private." Kaidan had said after dousing the fire. "But do we really need this kind of excitement this far from Alliance space?"

"Sorry Lieutenant." Mason had replied, flushing red. "I just got carried away."

"Just a little. But we only have two locations left to check out. Think you can keep your hands to yourself a little longer?"

"Yes sir, sorry sir."

That had been a month ago. Since then, Kaidan had begun to share Mason's and Dlaney's frustration. At first, they'd headed to the Argus Rho cluster and docked with the ship that had been filled with Rachni. Anderson wanted anything they could find that might indicate how long the ship had been under Rachni control. But they'd found nothing other than dragon's teeth - the same thing the geth had used to turn humans into husk creatures, though they were a lot smaller than the ones on Eden Prime.

Once they'd secured a few to send back to the Alliance for study, they'd scuttled the ship into a nearby star as per Anderson's orders. He hadn't wanted to risk bringing the ship into dry dock for fear of contamination – either by rachni or something else that couldn't be detected.

After leaving that system, they'd moved on to the Maroon Sea Cluster to deal with the MSV Cornucopia, where Shepard had attempted to arrest Dr. Saleon, aka Dr. Heart. Anderson wanted them to recover any or all of the doctor's research data. The Alliance still had not figured out how husk creatures had been present on the doctor's ship. There was no explanation for how the doctor had been in possession of the same technology as the geth. If the  husks weren't a result of Saleon's  experiments, why had the ship been overrun with them?

The results of that mission had been the same. More questions with no answers. The doctor's research had only made mention of some ancient artifact he'd discovered, but there was no mention of geth or dragon's teeth. It also didn't tell them where this artifact was now or what the doctor might have done with it. In the end, they'd scuttled that ship too.

From there, they'd gone to Chasca to try to discover how the colony had been turned to husks, but found nothing but more dragon's teeth. With each new location they searched and checked, the more frustrated and dejected Kaidan and his squad became when they found nothing new to bring back to the Alliance.

Their final stop was the Artemis Tau Cluster where Kahoku's team had been lured to a Thresher Maw nest that had killed them. None of them held much hope they'd find anything that hadn't already been discovered by the original Normandy crew.