Lazarus Project: Mass Effect 2 (Shenko)

Chapter 22

Milky Way/Attican Traverse/SSV Saber

Earth year: 2185 CE --- February

Joker sighed with pleasure as he swiveled the pilot chair aboard the ship he was now flying. He might not be at the helm of the new Normandy yet, but after accepting Cerberus's offer, he was happy to be flying again.

The ergonomic, leather-backed chair was the most comfortable pilot seat he'd ever sat in and swiveled again while he waited for the latest cargo shipment to be loaded on board. Despite his early misgivings about working for Cerberus, he couldn't deny he was happy. He'd been certain the pro-human group was still up to no good, but over the past six months he'd seen no evidence they were still conducting illegal research. He was no fool and he was sure they still did it, but he hadn't seen evidence of it and it was enough to keep him from looking too closely at his cargo.

Miranda was a cold, powerful and scary biotic who always treated him with respect. But he didn't doubt for a second she'd end him without blinking should he ever decide to cross her or Cerberus. Jacob on the other hand...

He paused in his swiveling as he thought about the former Alliance soldier. Now there was a guy who was deadly with a weapon AND biotics. Jacob had left the Alliance after they'd side-lined him. Fed up with bureaucratic bullshit, he'd found his way to Cerberus. He shared Joker's misgivings about the former terrorist group, yet he worked for them because they weren't denying the Reaper threat like the Alliance and the rest of the galaxy. Still, Joker found it hard to know where he stood with Jacob. The guy was as cold and indifferent as Miranda - he just wasn't as obvious about it as she was.

Where Miranda was a full-blown, Cerberus supporter who endorsed and approved everything the organization did, Jacob did not. He wore his mistrust of everyone on his sleeve, yet did his job to the best of his ability, integrity being his most valuable characteristic.

In a brave moment, Joker had questioned Miranda about Cerberus's experiments with the rachni, creepers and husks, to which she gave him a perfectly reasonable explanation. Her rationalizations brokered no argument or loopholes and came across as nothing more than an exploited accident. He didn't believe her for second, but since she was now his boss he dropped it.

The frigate he piloted, the SSV Saber was a damn sweet ride by his standards. Not nearly as awesome as the Normandy of course, but she was fast. Equipped with stealth technology and a drive core that moved as smooth as butter. Most of his time was spent ferrying staff and research supplies to and from various ports. Pretty simple stuff, but he was flying and in his world that was all that mattered.

Milky Way/Far Rim/Dholen/SSV Galatea

Earth year: 2185 CE --- March

Tali stretched languidly on her bed aboard the Galatea. In the months following the message she'd received from Garrus, she'd been busy.

Following an attack on the Flotilla by Cerberus, the Admirals had ordered her team to increase their search for viable garden worlds suitable for quarian physiology. They'd also sent her on countless missions to recover any intel on the geth she and her team could find. There wasn't much of the latter though, she thought with a frown.

Since the attack on the Citadel, geth sightings had dwindled to almost nothing – making locating geth technology or damaged and intact ship parts tedious and time consuming. It was a rare thing for her to find anything she could analyze or send back to the fleet, since the geth used a self-destruct program on their mobile platforms. When or if a geth unit was damaged beyond repair, the geth were hard-wired to destroy all the software programs it carried.

Aside from the strain of jumping through relays between systems, Tali and her team were in constant short supply of both resources and fuel. A mission had to be thoroughly researched prior to plotting a course. They had little to trade for fuel and even less fueling stations were willing to let them dock. Since the geth attack on the Citadel, the galaxy's hatred of the geth had reinforced their dislike of the quarians as well. Which made leaving Far Rim or the Perseus Veil difficult.

In her down time, she let her thoughts drift to her memories of Shepard and wondered where she was now. She'd heard nothing from Garrus since his last message almost two years ago. She'd tried contacting him several times, but had discovered the security on the Citadel had extended to the extranet and her messages bounced back.

After a month tweaking and fiddling with both her omni-tool and the extranet security surrounding the Citadel, she'd got a message through, only to learn that Garrus was no longer on the station.

Lieutenant Bailey had responded to her inquiries within a day, saying only that Garrus had quit several months before without providing an address or a word of goodbye to anyone. At the time, Tali had thought it sounded very much like something he would do, but she worried about where he'd gone.

It saddened her that everyone aboard the Normandy had gone their separate ways and hadn't kept in touch. She missed them all –  Adams, Garrus, Kaidan, Liara, even Wrex. She didn't believe for a minute Shepard would approve of how they'd handled it. In the year following Garrus's message, she'd begun to have serious doubts about the whole thing. It made no sense that after everything Shepard had worked so hard for, she would then throw it all away for a mission.

Well, Tali thought, maybe an important mission, but that didn't explain what she'd done to Kaidan. She didn't know much about humans, but she did understand the way they'd looked at each other. That Shepard could have thrown that away without a second thought was something Tali could not accept. No matter what might be at stake, she knew in her heart that the woman she knew as Shepard would never have abandoned Kaidan like that – at least not willingly, which made Shepard's disappearance all the more puzzling.

"Tali?" Kal'Reegar called. "Are you awake in there?"

"I'm here Kal." Tali replied through the door. "Was there something you needed?"

"We just received a coded transmission from the fleet. They have a new mission for us. It's a human colony, a place called Freedom's Progress. I think you better get down here and find out what's going on."

"A human colony?" Tali repeated, getting to her feet. That was unusual. The quarians were less than welcome in any area of the galaxy, much less anywhere near a human colony.

"That's what I said." Kal told her as she joined him in the hall.

"Why a human colony? That's not in geth or quarian space."

"I don't know Tali, but I don't like it. The Admirals were very insistent that they speak with you immediately."

"Let's not keep them waiting then." Tali said, leading them down the hall to the communications room. "Whatever it is, it must be important."

"Agreed ma'am." Kal said, following close on her heels.

----------------- ----------------- -----------------

A/N: If you're enjoying this story, please consider voting. Thanks. ☺