Who Saves the Hero by Kudara

Chapter 7

Normandy Briefing Room

"Shepard, good work on Horizon," the Illusive Man greeted her, straightening in his chair, "hopefully the Collectors will think twice before attacking another colony." As usual he was smoking, and Shepard wondered whether it was truly a habit or just a way of distracting people's attention, like a magician's handkerchief.

"It's not a victory, we only interrupted the Collectors. They still abducted nearly half the colony." She corrected him with only a slight edge to her tone. She hadn't walked in here and begun this meeting until she was sure she was ready for it. She would let him see nothing more than the same confused and angry woman he had been dealing with before. He didn't need to know she had stopped just reacting to what was happening to her and started thinking and putting facts together.

"That's better than the entire colony, and more than we've accomplished since the abductions began. The Collectors will be more careful now, but I think we can find another way to lure them in."

Her light grey eyes focused in on him, he was openly letting her know, why? Ah, her meeting with Ashley...this was bait then to see what she knew. "Ash said the Alliance got a tip about me and Cerberus, was that you?" She made the bold accusation and accompanied it with a look of open distrust, only the simple soldier here, nothing more.

He drew on his cigarette, "I may have let it slip that you were alive, and with Cerberus."

Her eyes narrowed, "You risked the lives of my friend, the crew and that entire colony, just to lure the Collectors there?" she asked angrily.

"A calculated risk," he responded to her anger as evenly as he always did, which was well, their dance remained unchanged. She was the emotional one and he the calm tactician instructing her. "I suspected the Collectors were looking for you, or people connected to you. Now I know for certain." He ground out the cigarette, looked back up at her. "I told you I wouldn't wait while the Collectors and Reapers gathered strength. Besides, they would have hit another colony eventually and without a way to predict which one they would have abducted everyone." She hated his reasoning, but in this case she knew he was right, the only way they had been there in time to stop the Collectors was because Cerberus had been watching that colony closely. That didn't mean that she had to like it however, and it didn't mean he didn't stand to gain something else from it.

"We have to make sure they don't abduct anyone else," she responded.

"I want the Collectors stopped for that very reason," she wasn't sure if that was a lie or not. "That's why we're doing this Shepard." Lie. There was no doubt in her mind, lie, not that it was exactly a surprise to her. "I'm devoting all resources to finding a way through the Omega 4 Relay. We have to hit them where they live." He shifted in his chair, "Your team will have to be strong...as will their resolve. There's no looking back. The same goes for you," now his tone shifted into the one which implied they were friends, and as always it angered her, "Can I assume you've put your past relationships behind you."

She glared at him, "None of your damn business."

"If it affects the mission better you should leave it behind," his voice shifted back to a reasonable tone in response to her anger. "Shepard, once you find a way through the Omega 4 relay to the Collector homeworld...there's no guarantee you'll return." Shepard fought to hide the chill that hit her then, was he threatening her? No, but there was something there. "To have any hope of surviving, you...and your entire team...must be fully committed to this." Whatever it had been it was gone now.

"Let me worry about them, you just find a way to the Collector homeworld," she responded.

"I just want to be up front about your odds, you'll need everyone at their best. I've forwarded three more dossiers. Keep building your team while I find a way through the relay. And be careful Shepard, the Collectors will be watching you." Funny, Shepard thought as the three dimensional holographic image of the Illusive Man faded out, she worried more about him and Cerberus watching her than she did the Collectors. She paused a moment to say a quiet prayer that Ashley would get the information she had given her back to the Council both safely and secretly.

Jacob was not a particularly welcome sight as she turned around to leave. How long had he been there watching?

"I guess we're really going to do it, hit the Omega 4 relay. Take the fight to the Collectors in person." Shepard relaxed; this was just Jacob being his usual self. "Looking forward to the action. After seeing what those bastards did on Horizon though, makes you think," the former alliance soldier commented, his demeanor very serious.

"They're powerful," Shepard admitted, "but we've got a few tricks for them." Thanix cannons, Silaris armor, this Normandy was a lot more capable of meeting a Collector attack than the previous Normandy. "If anyone can stop them we can," she declared confidently. Let the Illusive Man constantly bring up the dismal odds of their survival, she wouldn't undermine her crew's confidence in her or themselves the same way. Any competent leader knew that was a good way to lose a battle before it even began.

"No argument there Commander," he lowered his head for a brief moment, "Horizon just made it hit home, what we're doing, what we're up against." He sighed, "Going to go take care of a little unfinished business, I imagine everyone else is too...get some closure you know?"

Shepard watched him leave, she didn't want closure. She didn't want to put her relationship with Liara behind her. She wanted someone and something important to live for, important enough to come back to. Illium, she had to find a way to get there before going through the Omega 4 relay.

Normandy - Medical Bay

"Dr. Chakwas?" the older woman seemed to be completely engrossed in whatever she was reading as Shepard entered the Medical bay.

The grey haired woman swiveled around in her chair to face her, "Commander, is there something I can do for you?"

Shepard hesitated, she had promised Garrus that she would do this and she had the feeling if she dragged her feet the turian would come down here and inform the doctor about what had happened on Horizon himself. "I've been having problems with my memories," she reluctantly admitted, dropping into the other chair. The same one she had sat in when they shared that bottle of Serrice ice brandy.

The doctor frowned, "For how long?"

"Ever since I woke up," Shepard admitted sheepishly, already knowing that Chakwas was not going to be happy with her not coming forward with this before now.

The doctor frowned at her, but the expected lecture did not follow to Shepard's surprise. Instead she asked, "What kinds of problems are we talking about exactly?"

"My memories are..." Shepard lowered her head for a moment thinking of how to explain it, "their too accurate, too fresh," she struggled to find the words, but failed. Perhaps an example would work better, she looked up, met Chakwas's concerned gaze. "I can remember my sixth birthday party, who was there, what gifts I got and who gave them to me. My mother made me a German chocolate cake with cream cheese icing, my favorite kind. There's pieces missing from my memories of it, I can tell because things jump around and some memories are just sensory snippets like how the cake tasted, and how warm it was that day, how the insects sounded in the distance and the sound of the other people in the colony talking and working, but the bits I remember don't seem any different than any of my memories of what happened yesterday."

"And even those are wrong," Shepard continued, her voice low, troubled, "I shouldn't remember so well what the grass on Horizon looked and felt like, how it smelt as if I'm there right now lying behind a retainer wall knowing there's a Collector with a sniper rifle about forty feet ahead waiting for a clear shot."

"Interesting. Your memories sound almost drell like," Chakwas observed thoughtfully.

"Drell..." Shepard dredged up what little information she remembered on the reptilian humanoids whose world had failed due to over industrialization. Those that remained had been saved by the hanar and now lived on Kajhe, the hanar home world. "I've never met one."

"There aren't many of them; it's not surprising we've never run into one." Chakwas stared at her thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again, "I'd like to run a full neural scan on you," she indicated one of the medical beds, "and I believe we need to consult Ms. Lawson to see if she knows why your memories have been altered. The only possibility I can think of is it's a side effect of a process they used during their reconstruction of your body."

Shepard allowed herself one resigned sigh before she sat down on the medical bed that Chakwas had indicated and then laid down on it while the doctor set up for her scans. That was what she had suspected as well, and one of the reason's she had remained silent about it for so long. She didn't like the idea of giving Cerberus any more information than they already had on her. Not one bit.

Normandy Medical Bay - one hour later

Miranda frowned, tapped her lower lip for a moment with one finger, looking introspective. The Cerberus operative raised her head, "An unexpected side affect from our efforts to preserve your memories," Miranda commented her frown deepening, "though perhaps we should have anticipated it."

"Ms. Lawson?" Chakwas inquired, she was standing beside her desk, the monitor on it showing the results of Shepard's neural scans. The doctor and Miranda had just been going over them while Shepard watched and hid how much she disliked having to pull in the Cerberus operative into this, but she needed answers and Dr. Chakwas hadn't been able to give them to her.

"We knew it would take a significant amount of time to repair all the damage to Shepard's body," Miranda responded to Chakwas's question, then she turned to address Shepard directly, "We were concerned about your memories degrading past any hope of recovery before we were done. Wilson suggested we use a cocktail of drell neurochemicals and flood your neural tissue with them to keep your memories stable for as long as needed. Drell have perfect long term memories, they don't degrade over time or become less accessible like human memories. And of course it worked, you remember who you are and you remember your past. The fact that your memories seem to have improved however, and still seem to be affected...that is surprising."

"Not really," Chakwas spoke up, gaining their attention, "the drell neurochemicals may have permanently changed the long term potentiation or LTP of the synaptic connections that control memory in the commander's brain and altered the functioning of the transfer of memories between short term and long term memory through the hippocampus. Drell brain structure allows for perfect recall due to three main reasons, they have improved tetanic stimulation of a single pathway to a synapse; they have improved synaptic cooperation in accessing their memories; and they have better LTP synaptic pathway persistence."

Seeing Shepard's confused expression, Dr. Chakwas tried a slightly different explanation, "In the human brain often only one memory pathway will be activated and that may be too weak a response to actually access the memory, but if several associated pathways are activated for the same memory then there is a greater chance of success. Commander it's impossible for your memories to have actually changed, but what might have improved is your ability to activate the synaptic pathways to them. Or to put it in another way, you may be accessing them in a more drell-like manner allowing you to recall memories that were always there but you were simply not able to access before."

Alright, neuroscience was not her field but she thought she understood what Chakwas was telling her. "So my memories will always be this way, be drell-like, from now on?" Shepard questioned uncertainly. She didn't know how she felt about that, would she always be in danger of getting caught up in her memories?

"I'm not certain" Miranda didn't look pleased at having to give that answer, probably because she didn't know the answer Shepard suspected. Ms. Lawson did not like to appear in any way as less than perfect. "Unfortunately Wilson was the one who came up with the idea and had the best understanding of it. I'll send out a message, ask the other scientists who worked with the Lazarus Project for answers."

"Ok," before she could leave Shepard decided to ask about the other thing bothering her, "My biotic abilities are much stronger than they were before, more than can just be accounted for by the new implant. Did Cerberus do something else to me besides replacing my old implant?"

"Yes," Miranda gave her an openly appraising look, "I'm surprised you haven't asked about that before now."

Shepard just shrugged, "Other things have been on my mind, and I've been more concerned with learning how to control it than asking exactly how it happened. This just seems like a good time to get all my questions on the table so to speak."

Miranda dipped her head in graceful agreement, and then answered, "We exposed your eezo nodules to element zero, to increase their density."

Shepard frowned, "I thought element zero exposure only caused the development of eezo nodules in fetus's or even more rarely young people with underdeveloped eezo nodules during puberty."

Miranda hesitated a moment before admitting, "Normally that would be true, but we used an experimental process to temporarily force yours into a receptive state similar to the condition underdeveloped nodules are in during puberty."

"So this process could be used on anyone to increase the density of their mass effect nodules?" Shepard questioned curiously. She didn't want to think about how Cerberus might have found this information, but it did have some interesting implications for human biotics.

"Perhaps with more research work, it might, but for now the process is too random and unstable." Miranda's blue eyes met hers, "Quite frankly it would have killed a living person, but you were frozen at the time. We were able to temporarily insulate your eezo nodules from your neural tissues and drain the mass effect field fluctuations that occurred due to the additional exposure so that they didn't send you into convulsions and burn out your neural pathways."

Shepard remembered the report about her body being exposed to vacuum and subzero temperatures. "I was a Spectrecicle?" she couldn't help it, she started chuckling, it just struck her as funny to her right then and it was better than getting bent again over the way she had died.

Both Chakwas and Miranda stared at her, with slightly shocked expressions. Miranda recovered first, a smirk curving her lips, "Yes you were, if you hadn't been we wouldn't have even attempted it."

Somehow it didn't surprise Shepard that Miranda at least sort of understood her black humor, she quirked a smile at the black haired woman, "So you made my eezo nodules larger and that along with the new L5n amplifier increased my biotic abilities."

"Correct, and the procedure worked much better than we had hoped, your eezo nodules more than doubled in size. Eezo nodule size is only a rough measurement of biotic ability of course, but judging from the data we have on asari your abilities should be on par with the median to upper range of their species. I'm very curious to see how you progress as is the Illusive Man," Miranda's tone sounded odd. Shepard eyed her more closely, she had sounded jealous? Of course, Miranda had been engineered to be a powerful biotic by her father, but on the team Jack, and now Shepard, were more powerful human biotics. Shepard didn't really have much sympathy for the woman's jealousy though; dying and being experimented upon or being experimented on and tortured as a child by Cerberus verses better biotics through genetic manipulation. No, there was not that much sympathy for Miranda's insecurities here.

"It certainly seems to have," Shepard confirmed.

"Well, you know just as much as I do about biotic training and how to develop your abilities and control," Miranda stated it but there was an unspoken question in her words as well.

Shepard nodded, "I've been doing some training and concentration exercises every day," she confirmed.

The Cerberus operative nodded, turned to leave and then hesitated looking over at the Commander. "Shepard, when you have a moment I would like to speak with you about something...a personal request," she added, obviously uncomfortable with even asking.

"Of course, I'll stop by your office as soon as I'm done here," Shepard assured her.

She crossed over to Miranda's office as soon as Dr. Chakwas was finished with her, whatever this request was it was weighing on her first officer. Miranda didn't do hesitant and uncertain, at least not if she could help it. "Shepard," Miranda greeted her as soon as she entered, "I find myself in the unpleasant position of needing to ask for your help. I don't like discussing personal matters, but this is important."

"Miranda, you're one of my crew," Shepard reassured her, "what's on your mind?"

"Remember what I told you about my father building a dynasty?" Miranda asked, and then paused, a disconcerted expression flitting over her face. Undoubtedly realizing what an inane question it was given their discussion less than an hour ago with Dr. Chakwas.

"Yes I do," Shepard resisted the urge to tease the other woman; she probably remembered their discussion better than Miranda. But the other woman was too tense to joke with right now; she probably wouldn't take it very well.

"Yes I guess you do," Miranda commented, then continued on with a determined expression, "anyway there was another reason I went to Cerberus for protection." She paused, staring at Shepard her gaze troubled uncertain, and searching.

Amanda met that gaze calmly, trying to encourage Miranda to open up, to trust her. The other woman stood up, came around the desk to face her, "I have a sister, a twin, and he's still hunting her." Evidently Miranda did trust her, at least enough to tell her this, "Cerberus has kept her safe until now. She's living a normal life on Illium, safe and hidden from my father."

And there it was the other reason Miranda had so much invested in trusting and believing Cerberus and the Illusive Man. "So you think your father has tracked her down," Shepard stated, it was obvious that was the reason behind this revelation. So, not as much trust as she had hoped. This was a forced and uneasy trust, and driven by necessity, but at least it was something. Miranda trusted that she would agree to help her protect her sister.

"Precisely Commander, my sources indicate that he knows she's on Illium. I've tried to keep her hidden without impacting her life, but I'm out of options," Miranda admitted. She turned took a few paces, and then leaned against her desk. She looked back over at the commander, "He's too close; I need to relocate my sister's family before it's too late."

"Can you tell me a little bit more about your sister?" Shepard asked, curious about the person she was about to agree to help.

"She's my genetic twin, we're identical. But she deserves a normal life," Miranda's expression hardened in determination, "and she's going to get it no matter what," that definitely sounded like a vow. It actually made Shepard respect Miranda more, she could understand doing what was necessary to protect your family.

How exactly would this work though, Shepard wondered, "Does your sister's family know about this? Are they ok with being relocated?"

"They know nothing, their completely uninvolved. Normal," Miranda replied, then before Shepard could begin to worry, "I told Cerberus and their coming up with a positive reason to move the family."

Well at least they wouldn't have to come up with that part, Shepard thought, this was starting to sound like a stand by and watch mission. Of course, those could fall apart rather quickly if you weren't on the ball so it wouldn't do to assume this would be easy, "What do you need me to do?"

"My father is extremely persistent; I'd like to go to Illium when Cerberus is moving the family to make sure none of his agents get too close," Miranda responded promptly.

Shepard frowned there was one potential problem with this, one of the three recruitment dossiers they had gotten was for Tali. During their meeting on Freedom's Progress the quarian had mentioned a mission in geth controlled territory and that was where she was, on Haestrom deep in geth territory. Upon finding out, Shepard had immediately given the order for them to head directly to Haestrom. Shepard knew Liara would understand, getting Tali out of a dangerous situation was more important than arriving on Illium a week earlier. "We're currently on course for Haestrom, can..."

"We have time before Cerberus is ready to move her, Commander," Miranda interrupted her, "I fully understand the need to find Tali'Zorah first; it sounds like she's potentially in a very dangerous situation."

"Thank you, Garrus was bad enough," Shepard admitted, remembering how close they had come to losing the turian.

"I understand Commander," Miranda reassured her.

Shepard nodded, she didn't make any move to leave however, there was something else on her mind and this seemed like a good time to bring it up. "While I'm here I do have one piece of ships business I need to discuss with you."

"Of course," Miranda returned to her chair and looked at her expectantly.

"The funds we've gotten from Cerberus haven't been as generous as I'd hoped," Shepard stated. "We're on our way to Illium next and from all accounts that will be the best place to purchase cutting edge upgrades. But they will be expensive."

"We probably won't have the credits to buy everything you might want to Commander, you'll have to prioritize," Miranda didn't look very pleased as she said it.

"Perhaps not," Shepard raised one hand to stop Miranda from replying. "We had the same issue with credits on the original Normandy. But that was before we started taking the time to scan systems for mineral deposits and before we started salvaging armor and weapons for resale."

"Yes I know about that," Miranda confirmed leaning back in her chair and eying Shepard thoughtfully, "You had quite a healthy ships account before the Collectors attack," she sounded respectful.

Shepard nodded, there was a reason for that respect, there had been almost nine million credits in the ships account before the first Normandy had been destroyed. They had done very well for themselves. "The majority of the previous Normandy's accounts were paid out to the crew when I was declared dead as per my instructions. We're facing the same issues now as we did then; we need armor, weapons and upgrades for them, as well as any other upgrades which might tilt the odds in our favor when we go up against the Collectors. We need credits," she finished plainly.

Miranda nodded, "You want us to do the same thing," she commented sounding intrigued.

"I'm sure there's still a market for any excess resources and salvaged armor and weapons, things can't have changed that much in two years," Shepard confirmed. "It's the way I afforded the best armor and weapons for the crew before; I don't see any reason not to go the same route again. There's no reason while the team is on a mission that the crew can't scan the system we're in for minerals. And no reason for us not to collect salvageable weapons and armor to bring back to the ship for refurbishing and resale. I'd just like to make sure they don't end up back in the hands of mercenaries we're likely to be fighting."

Miranda frowned, "I do have to admit I'm concerned about the lack of funds now that this mission is started," she admitted, "it seems odd, but perhaps there are larger funding issues that the Illusive Man is currently facing that I'm not aware of."

Shepard shrugged, "As I said, being a Spectre didn't pay well before so this situation is nothing new to me." She waited a moment for the other woman to say something, but Miranda appeared deep in thought. Probably already considering how to accomplish what she wanted, or she hoped that was what the woman was thinking about. "So can I leave the rebirth of the Normandy Mining and Salvage Consortium in your capable hands?"

Miranda focused back on her, "I believe I can locate contacts for us to sell any extra mineral resources we might have on hand. We definitely have more element zero on hand than I can see us ever using that should bring in a decent amount. As for weapons and armor resale contacts that might take more time. Selling it back to the mercenary companies would be easiest, but I agree it doesn't make sense to arm them when we find ourselves going up against them so often in the Terminus Systems." Miranda gave her a confident looking nod, "I don't see any reason why I shouldn't be able to set this up within the week. With any luck we will be able to afford the upgrades that you want to buy, and if not this trip, then I'm sure we will be visiting Illium more than once."

Continued...