by Colin Cook
surrounding the ship being completely empty after their docked vessels had departed sometime prior to my arrival. It was at this moment, when I had closed to within
three piers of my getaway ship, that I heard a familiar voice whispering over to me.
"Psssst, Iron Man! Yo Iron Man over here!" Alec's voice called over after I had begun moving past the second pier closest to the Corsica's. Spinning my head in the
direction of the sound, my eyes widened and a confused scowl formed on my face as I saw the Guardian kneeling behind several discarded shipping containers near the
Briskly crossing over to his location while remaining as quiet as possible, I managed to move up the length of the pier without being seen by anyone.
"What the hell are you doing here? I said stay on the ship!" I hissed to the Guardian as I moved into cover beside him, jabbing a finger over toward the Corvette across
the pier next to us. Alec held up both hands in surrender, but with an eager smile on his face.
"I know you did, but on a hunch I had the Replicators check into the manifests for all the docked ships in this area," he began, twirling his finger in a circle above us to
indicate all of the Military Docks.
"So?" I asked tersely, glancing back to the main platform stretch on the lookout for any marines or C-Sec agents that may have been coming this way.
"So, look at what they just found!" Alec's mad grin was already spread wide across his face as he pointed down underneath the pier across from us on the other side,
motioning back in the direction I'd just run from. Squinting as I leaned closer to the edge of our own pier, my eyes suddenly widened when I saw what he was talking
about.
About half a kilometer away from us, jutting out from the surface of the purple wall-mass less than fifty feet below the underbelly of the Docking platforms we were
connected to now, was what appeared to be a small private docking pier.
However, it was what was attached to this pier by two magnetic clamps that immediately caught my attention.
It was a familiar black and silver Alliance Frigate, with eight bold white letters painted across the side of its main hull.
NORMANDY was the iconic name they spelt out.
A wide grin of astonishment materialized as I snapped my head back to Alec with an obvious question in my eyes, getting an enthusiastic nod of confirmation from him
without a single word.
"You know what's weird? Just a few hours ago I was standing on that very beach while the Allies were shelling the crap out of it," I commented with a chuckle to the
Guardian while jabbing a thumb over to the Normandy.
"Look who's showing up now," Alec said before briefly pointing to the ship as well. Squinting again, I could just barely make out two blurs stepping from a concealed
entrance; one a deep blue colour while the other was a plain white. Neither of them were very discernable from this distance, but I could tell right away who they were.
It was Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina, both of them moving forward until they had disappeared behind the frontal body of the Normandy. Several seconds of
nothing happened until the two were followed by six more blurs, one of them being a massive figure dressed in bright scarlet red.
"Looks like Shepard finally added Wrex to the team," I remarked on the easily discernable appearance of the Krogan Battle Master, also recognizing the jet-black armour
of Commander Shepard as he walked ahead of the group.
"So since you showed up back here without your cloaking device on, all of the marines left in this area are swarming toward some taxi crash farther back, and the
Corsica's radio channels started picking up transmissions about the Council Chambers getting hit by a terrorist scare, I'm just going to assume that your little venture was
a success," Alec listed off with a deliberate look of expectancy. Immediately I nodded with a thin smile, lifting up my right arm so that it was in between us.
"Haxon, would you please activate the Dart's listening device so that we can find out where our first destination is going to be?" I asked politely in a proud tone.
"With pleasure," Haxon answered, his voice reflecting my feelings. For a moment a low garbled blare of white noise screeched out from a small speaker built into my
gauntlet before several familiar voices began to clear through.
"…ard, Captain Anderson is stepping down as commanding officer of the Normandy…" Udina's voice started filtering through, beginning somewhere in the middle of one of
his lines. However Alec and I didn't get to hear the rest of it because of several radio-tinged voices echoing out near our position, coming directly from several Council
marines that were patrolling past our pier!
With a quiet gasp in unison, Alec and I both scrambled to push ourselves into deeper cover.
On the Normandy's private docking pier placed far overtop of C-Sec Academy, Commander Shepard stood at attention with his hands placed behind his back. The motely
crew of Ashley Williams, Kaidan Alenko, Garrus Vakarian, and Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya stood quietly at his flanks, along with the team's newest addition that they had picked
up at the foot of the elevator leading up to this very pier, the fearsome and intimidating Krogan bounty hunter Urdnot Wrex.
At the moment they were all listening to Captain Anderson and Ambassador Udina speaking directly with Shepard, giving the Commander the necessary parting
information on the Normandy, most of which he already knew about.
What none of them knew about however was the invisible Replicator Dart silently latched onto the back plating of Shepard's N7 armour, it's hidden listening device picking
up on every word being spoken!
"...treat her well, Commander," Anderson finished saying, folding his arms with an indication of his head over to the sleek Frigate docked next to them.
"I'll take good care of her sir," Shepard replied, giving his own nod of respect to the newly retired Captain. An almost sad smile came across Anderson's face as he nodded
in return, both men locking their deep brown eyes with each other.
"I know you will Commander," he said softly. Suddenly Shepard raised one of his hands as if to belay his former superior's relief.
"However, I do want the truth before we leave. Why are you stepping down Captain?" the Commander asked with a quick point of his finger.
"You needed your own ship, a Spectre can't answer to anyone but the Council, and it is about high time I stepped down," Anderson answered with a small shrug.
"Come on Captain, come clean with us," Kaidan pressed as he stepped forward, coming up next to Shepard.
"You owe me that much Anderson," Shepard nodded in agreement with his lieutenant. The Captain cocked an eyebrow before giving a quiet huff of defeat, his shoulders
dropping as if a great weight were being lifted from them.
"I was in your shoes twenty years ago Shepard. They were considering me for the Spectres," Anderson conceded, first gesturing to the Commander before lightly tapping
himself on the chest. Most of the Normandy squad, except Wrex who was eyeing the whole meeting with barely veiled disinterest, widened their eyes and looked at each
other in shock at this revelation. Shepard kept his own eyes level with Anderson and made sure his features remained in a firm poker-face.
"Why didn't you ever mention this?" Shepard finally asked with a cocked eyebrow (he actually does that quite a lot). Anderson's aged face suddenly became hard with
carefully controlled anger, reminiscent of a time long ago when that anger had been far less controlled and ten times more potent.
"What was I suppose to say? 'I could have been a Spectre but I blew it'? I failed Shepard. It's not something I'm proud of, or very willing to talk about. Ask me later and I'll
tell you the whole damn story. For now though, all
you need to know is that I was sent on a mission with Saren and he made sure the Council rejected me. I had my shot
Commander. It came and went. Now you have a chance to make up for my mistakes," he said firmly, raising his voice slightly before shaking his head and calming down.
Shepard closed his eyes and gave an understanding nod, signaling that the subject was dropped for the time being.
"I won't let you down, sir," he responded sincerely.
"Saren's gone. Don't even try to find him. But we know what he's after, the Conduit. He's has his legions of Geth scouring the Traverse, looking for clues to its location,"
Anderson started saying, steering the topic back to the main concern.
"We had reports of Geth sightings in the Feros system shortly before our colony there dropped out of contact. And there have been sightings around Noveria," the
Ambassador said, deciding now to begin adding his knowledge to the conversation after having remained oddly quiet for the duration of Shepard and Anderson's
exchange.
"Find out what Saren was after on Feros and Noveria. Maybe you can find out where the Conduit is before he does," the Captain said with a sweeping gesture out to the
vast emptiness of air and space just off the end of the Normandy's pier.
"The Reapers are the real threat," Shepard reminded to both men.
"I'm with the Council on this one Shepard, I'm not sure they even exist," Udina said with a dismissive shake of his head. Anderson raised both eyebrows and gave a
plausible nod to the Commander.
"But if they do exist, the Conduit's the key to bringing them back. Stop Saren from finding it and we stop the Reapers from returning." A small smile of deadly promise
formed on Shepard's face after that.
"I'll stop him," was his only answer, earning a small nod of understanding from Anderson.
"We do also have one more lead. Matriarch Benezia, the other voice on the Quarian's recording…" Udina began with a raising of his hand. Shepard could faintly hear a quiet
huff of annoyance and an accented "my name is Tali," muttered from his Engineer squad-mate near the back of the group.
"She has a daughter, a scientist who specializes in the Protheans," the Ambassador continued without interruption.
"We don't know if she's involved but it might be a good idea to try and find her, see what she knows. Her name's Liara, Dr. Liara T'Soni. We have reports she was
exploring an archeological dig on one of the uncharted worlds in the Artemis Tau Cluster." The mention of Benezia having a daughter caused Shepard to narrow his eyes in
suspicion, his mind conjuring up images of some evil Biotic apprentice to Saren's second-in-command secretly searching across desolate planets to steal Prothean
artifacts in order to further the rogue Turian's goals.
"Sounds like the Artemis Tau Cluster should warrant our immediate attention," Shepard said after a moment of thinking it over. Anderson held up his hand.
"It's your decision Commander. You're a Spectre now, you don't answer to us." Immediately Udina jabbed a reminding finger, his voice and tone containing a firm warning.
"But your actions still reflect on Humanity as a whole. You make a mess and I get stuck cleaning it up."
"Hey, who knows what can happen out there. But I will keep it in mind to try and not make things harder for you, Ambassador. I'll make the Artemis Tau Cluster our top
priority; if Benezia has her daughter acting as a shadow-recon agent for Prothean ruins, bringing her in could help us a great deal in finding out what Saren's up to or
where he's hiding."
"Got it!" I whispered in victory with a snap of my fingers, followed by Haxon shutting off the listening device soon after Shepard's voice finished speaking.
"So he's going after Liara. That means Therum is our first stop," I said to Alec enthusiastically. Alec's wide grin returned as he clasped his hands together.
"Captain Sorenson, we finally have our heading!"
An old pain suddenly stung at me as Alec mentioned my rank, one that caused me to close my eyes and shudder slightly without him noticing.
'…it is the decision of this Board to promote you to the full rank of Captain…' my eyes opened immediately as the memory echoed faintly within my mind.
"Uhm, remember Alec I only reached the rank of Lieutenant, I never actually took command of an Army Company in my career," I corrected as casually as I could
manage, silently testing to see if the Guardian truly possessed all of my memories. But to my surprise, and extreme relief, Alec only shrugged with a slightly sheepish look
on his face.
"Oh, well my mistake. I just said Captain because you're leading this rag-tag group of ours. I don't think I mentioned earlier that I only have the general memories from
your life; I can't look into the more personal or repressed ones like promotions or traumatic events. So even if you did make Captain, I wouldn't know unless you told
me."
"Well I'm telling you now, I didn't. I only made lieutenant and stayed a lieutenant until I found the ring and ended up here," I lied in a normal friendly voice as I held up my
ring hand, convincing the Guardian that my story was genuine.
'If he can't see into my repressed memories, then he doesn't know what happened…' I thought to myself, causing another needle of emotional pain to stab at me as the
images of my last trip through Afghanistan began to materialize. Forcing those thoughts back down into the dark pit of my mind that I had locked them in for the last two
and a half months, I forced a broad smile and clapped Alec on the shoulder.
"Come on, our job here is done and we've got a ship waiting for us. Lets get the hell off this station!" I announced before standing up and vaulting over the container we
were hiding beside.
"Right behind you boss!" Alec said as we both began running down toward the main platform stretch, branching off from the pier we were on and quickly moving over
toward the Corsica as stealthily as possible.
"When we get onboard, how long do you bet it'll take me to Mind Mend with the ship?" I asked humourously to either of my comrades as we began passing the last pier
right beside the Corvette's.
"Judging from the last time you flew a vehicle, maybe I should…" Alec began saying before we both stopped abruptly, the ring catching our attention as it lit up it's usual
bright silver, the same radiant silver it would give off whenever it was summoning something!
Drawing and activating my Phalanx while Alec pulled out the Predator's Combi-Stick, we quickly caught sight of a blinding silver glare coming from behind a large stack of
shipping crates, showing us that whatever the ring was bringing into this universe would be coming from that direction. After a brief period the silver light vanished without
a sound, bringing no fictional characters or movie monsters out to suddenly attack us. This lack of anything made Alec and I look over at each other with stunning frowns.
Had the ring just malfunctioned, or was it trying to fool us into letting our guard down?
"What do you suppose that was all about?" Alec asked as we began taking tentative steps closer to the area. I had just opened my mouth to reply when all of a sudden
several heavy bootfalls came running nearby, followed by a harsh Turian voice coming out from behind the crates.
"Hey you! Hold it right, AHGG!" the voice suddenly yelled in pain after barking an order to some unseen person. The sounds of fists striking blows against armour and flesh
began permeating the air afterward, followed by more yells and gasps from the Turian before he seemed to be brutally slammed against the opposite side of the crate
stack.
"Someone's being attacked," I said to Alec urgently, both the Guardian and I now running over to the source of the struggle. We only managed to come within a few fe
et
of the stack before a badly beaten Turian marine was thrown out into view in front of us, landing sprayed out on his stomach with a deep groan of agony before losing
consciousness and lying still. Before either of us could approach the marine to see if he was alright, his attacker stepped out into the open.
It was a Human man, and an intimidating one at that. Although he was only an inch or so taller than Alec and I, he was broad-shouldered and big, very big. Rigorously
trained muscles covered every ounce of his enormous figure, his massively developed arms being large enough to probably span a greater width than that of a normal
man's head. The same could be said for the rest of his torso, particularly his pectoral, abdominal, and neck muscles. He wasn't freakishly large like Arnold Schwarzenegger
or Sylvester Stallone had been at the peek of their bodybuilding careers, but if compared to them he would have come close. He had casually trimmed black hair, with
thick black eyebrows and a visible Five-O'clock Shadow going across his strong jaw. On his person the man was wearing military cargo-pants and combat boots, coloured
in a complementing array of browns and beiges used for desert camouflage patterns. Wearing a half open tight-fitting camo-dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up just under
his elbows over top of a black T-Shirt, the man had a wide selection of pockets and pouches both on his shirt and the utility belt wrapped around his waist. On this belt
was also an assortment of weapons, including two fragmentation grenades, a large sheathed combat knife, and a thick strap connected to an empty holster that was
meant for holding a 9mm pistol wrapped around the thigh of his left leg. In the man's hand, both of which were encased in fingerless black leather combat gloves, was an
activated Kessler pistol that he had most likely just wrestled from the Turian marine.
Out of all this however, the thing that caught our attention right away was the patch sowed onto the left shoulder of his camo-shirt amongst several others, a miniature
flag coloured in blazing red and white. It was the flag of my homeland, the patch given to all those in service to the Armed Forces of Canada.
