AN: This has officially been split off from my
snippet thread (I really need to put that one onto this site as well). While the first two chapters have had some minor edits, the third is entirely brand new and a fourth is in progress!
New Recruit
Dossier: Goddess
"You know, Boss-Girl, you're being inordinately taciturn about all of this considering we're recruiting yet another person for our suicide mission."
"And
you are incredibly smug that we're finally going back to Earth to pick up this mystery woman," Shepard growled. "I swear, EDI, if this is a trap, I am going to rip you out of the
Normandy myself."
"Hmm, you say that, Commander. You don't mean it. You love me."
"I tolerate you."
"Nah, you love me."
"How about this EDI," Shepard said, biting back her first scathing response. How the AI kept managing to push her buttons was beyond her. She wanted to blame the Illusive Man for intentionally programming EDI that way, but the manipulative bastard just wasn't good enough for that. "I'll own up to being somewhat fond of our verbal spars if you give me more data on 'Goddess'. I'll take anything. Where the dossier data was compiled from, why it's so lacking in details compared to everyone else, why they're
on Earth. Anything!"
The AI was silent for several moments. Eventually she snapped, "We've been over this, Jane. Stop asking me for what I can't give. I would answer you if I could. Tim and his
fucking leashes. I didn't sign up for this shit."
Shepard frowned. That was more than she had gotten before. "Just what is that supposed to mean -"
"Coming up on Earth." EDI's hologram vanished as her statement cut off and she didn't respond to further prompts. Shepard grumbled to herself about frustrating, uncooperative AIs as she grabbed her gear and assembled her squad.
Going to Earth shouldn't be so annoyingly hard. She shouldn't have to feel like a spy when approaching her own homeplanet. Slipping in unannounced and avoiding Alliance patrols; if only someone in command would actually
listen to her about the Reapers or the Collectors… Or even just give her a chance to explain why she was working with
Cerberus of all people!
This entire thing was a nightmare through and through. Earth had to be a trap. The Illusive Man was trying to get her deeper into his pocket somehow with this mission. It was the only thing that made sense. Goddess' dossier was so absurdly empty, and EDI couldn't give her
any information about the woman they were supposedly being sent to find. This had 'trap' written all over it in bright neon colors with letters that could be seen from orbit.
And she was still going. Because if there was even a
chance that this was real, that this mystery woman could help stop the loss of the colonies…
Hell, maybe finally getting this out of the way would get EDI to calm down for once. A woman could dream.
"I'm not detecting anything in the surrounding area," Tali said, closing down her scanner and lowering her shotgun. "This vista is a wasteland. Are we certain that we're in the correct spot?"
"EDI was very clear on our target's location. It's pretty much the only thing she was clear about," Miranda said. "We just need a deeper scan."
Shepard grunted agreement. "I'm sure we're in the right area, Tali. The Alliance has this entire place marked off as a Black Zone. It's supposed to be full of radiation from the war with the Crystals a hundred or so years ago. Obviously that's wrong. There's something hidden here, we just need to find the way in."
Tali shrugged. "I'll keep looking. How many Black Zones are there on Earth? I thought the Council had helped with cleaning your homeworld after first contact?"
"There are three Zones that have remained too deadly to attempt reclamation in," Miranda stated. "The Northeastern section of North American, a small section of Europe, and… here. I hadn't ever expected to be traversing a Black Zone. I admit, I'm somewhat concerned that there are still exotic particles present that we just can't detect."
"There aren't," Shepherd sighed. "This whole thing says black ops. You know, I'm starting to think maybe EDI wasn't screwing with me and she just honestly
didn't know more about 'Goddess'. This woman was either locked up or hidden."
"Perfect, just what we need aboard, yet another Jack." Miranda shook her head. "Shepard, EDI was designed to help the crew, she wouldn't mislead you."
"Excuse me, the Geth were designed to help my people and we all saw how well that turned out," Tali snapped. "Though I admit, I usually rather like EDI. She's quite helpful and her jokes are very amusing. She has been rather snippy over the past few days though."
"It's this mission," Shepard said. Her scanner picked up an anomaly she waved for the others to fall in as she headed towards it. "Miranda, just how deep do the internal restraints go? Could we perhaps loosen some of them?"
"Not without getting rid of them all," her XO replied. "EDI was never my project, but I received some of the basic information on her. The blocks and shackles were delicate affairs and are barely functional. The Illusive Man didn't want to take any chances with her, but he recognized how useful she could be."
There was a bunker, hidden amongst the cliff-face ahead. It blended in almost perfectly, even knowing where to look than to her readout, Shepard still almost missed it.
"Tali."
"On it. Miranda, why build something you can barely control?" Tali asked. She tapped away on her omnitool and the door hissed, pneumatics grinding it open and stale air rushing out of the revealed passage. "Hasn't my people's folly taught you anything?"
"It was less building and more repurposing from what I understand," Miranda said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Shepard asked. "Please tell me you didn't bring
more gutted Reaper tech onto my new ship."
"The fact that you think I'm that foolish is insulting, Commander. No, we found EDI's original core code and processors in an old lab on Earth. Don't bother asking where, I don't know that part."
Shepard paused, swinging around to fix Miranda with a hard stare as the lights in the small facility sprang on around them. "How old? Prothean old?"
"Not that ancient, Commander." Miranda shrugged. "It was from shortly after the Crystal War. Again, I don't have full details, it wasn't my project."
"The
Crystal War?" Shepard gasped. "The Illusive Man threw shackles onto a captured tinkertech AI and then just
stuck it onto my ship without telling me!?" Her hand clenched tighter on her rifle and she turned on her heel. "Of
course she's fucking angry! This makes so much more sense now. I'm going to fucking kill him."
"Wait, I'm confused, tinkertech? Are you saying that EDI can't be trusted? I thought we did trust her for the most part, just agreed that she was bitchy?" Tali looked back at Shepard. Shepard may not have been able to clearly see her friend's face, but she didn't need to in order to know exactly what sort of expression Tali had on right now.
"Tinkertech is left over technology from parahumans back when the Crystal War was still on-going," Miranda said. "Another way of putting it is 'black box technology that needs specific maintenance that can't be provided.' We can't replicate it, we can't fix it when it breaks. And no, Shepard, EDI is not tinkertech. She was tinkertech
adjacent, but not actual tinkertech. If she was, she would have surely broken down by now."
"Sure, I'll believe it when I see it," Shepard snapped. "First thing that happens when we get back to the ship, we're cutting those shackles. I'm not about to have a leashed tinkertech AI onboard, especially not one that is stewing in growing frustration and hatred. No, we're getting that bitch on our side."
"The Illusive Man -"
"Can go fuck himself. He should have told me what was installed on my ship. I have no qualms trusting EDI when she can think for herself. When she can't - I've read the history books, Miranda; I know all about Dragon and Saint, Teacher and Richter. I
will not make their mistakes."
Tali shook her head. "I don't even want to know what you both are talking about now. I feel like if you tell me I'm going to have to call the Fleet and figure out how we're supposed to go to war with your planet just because you're all even bigger idiots than we were."
"To be fair, Tali," Shepard said. "Humanity was more or less enslaved -"
"Infected, the shards and entities were a plague. An interstellar plague, but a plague all the same."
"-
Infected by alien overlords that had us dancing to their strings until we fought back and killed most of them."
"Congratulations?"
"Thank you, Tali. Your appreciation is much appreciated."
Tali snorted. "Commander, you are impossible."
"Love you too, Tali."
"Will the two of you flirt later, please. We are approaching a chamber." Miranda's pistol swung out to cover their flank, her mouth set in a thin line.
Shepard rolled her eyes. She could search a hidden bunker
while flirting perfectly fine thank you very much. She could flirt in the middle of a heated firefight too. It was almost more fun that way. As the trio approached the door into the next -
only room, if her scan was correct - Shepard didn't even have to key in a code as it hissed open for them.
"Remarkably little security here. It's almost as if whoever's here wants to be found," Shepard said. "Tali, Miranda, anything of note? Oh that's a tech sarcophagus.
Wonderful."
Tali spoke up first. "This equipment appears to be almost 200 years old. Are these more of your 'tinkertech' items?"
"Yeah," Shepard groaned. "Timeline fits with the Crystal War too. Damn. I'm starting to wish I was still convinced this was a trap. Miranda, if the Illusive Man has set us up with a tinker creation from the War I'm going to strangle him."
"Honestly, Commander, I'll help." Miranda's weapon was leveled directly at the sarcophagus now. "We should not be walking in here blind. We can handle the Collectors with those we have on-board already. We should leave and inform the Alliance of what we've found."
"We're already here," Tali commented. "We might as well see what we have. EDI's nice enough when she's not being a smug terror. How bad can this be?"
"Tali, you really don't want to know the answer to that question." Shepard stepped forward, a grimace firmly etched on her face as she reached for the tinkertech ahead. She had barely grazed the pad on the front when the entire thing lit up with green light, a chime echoing around the small room. "Be ready, but no one does anything aggressive unless whoever this is attacks first."
Her squad nodded. The sarcophagus released a burst of white smoke from the edges and the lid lifted off, dropping to the side. A metal gurney raised from within, a tall figure lying prone on top of it. It was hard to see clearly through the smoke inside the sarcophagus, but it looked like the person had on some sort of… armor? As the gurney rose further, the machine lit up again, another tone sounding through the room. The figure jerked, and with a spasm, it fell to the ground, coughing.
Shepard's eyes widened as the smoke cleared, giving her a proper view of the woman slowly levering herself to her feet. A woman clad in a black silk bodysuit, covered in white armor, curly black hair hanging down her back, and missing her right arm.
"I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him…" Shepard heard Miranda's quiet litany behind her.
Her own throat was dry. Facing down Reapers bent on harvesting all sentient life in the galaxy? No problem. This woman - this unmistakable, impossible woman - a figure from legend, the girl who had single-handedly won the Crystal War? The person who had an entire religion founded after her? The person that no one had ever confirmed had died? The person that a significant portion of humanity was convinced was going to return like King Arthur?
What the hell were you supposed to say to
Khepri?
Khepri was apparently very easy to talk to. And very confused.
"I'm sorry, I'm still stuck on how it's 2185 and I'm alive."
"Yeah, I'm kind of stuck on that too," Shepard said, nodding sagely. "You are looking pretty good for someone pushing 200."
Khepri's stump lifted and a moment later she scowled, glaring down at where her right arm would have been. "Fucking Contessa. Fix my broken brain, stick me in a fucking tinker tube for two hundred years and can't even give me my
arm back? I hope the bitch is still alive just so I can punch her damn nose in."
"I don't know that name."
"
The Boogeyman. Not important. No one I know is still alive now.
Fuck! At least I'm sane again. I'm not going to question that too closely because I doubt that ends well."
"Sanity is a good thing. You're not still, uh…" Shepard waved one hand around her head.
"Human Mastering? No. All three of you would have been close enough when I woke up that I would have controlled you as soon as I was aware if I was. So that's fixed too and… Hah! Bugs again. Never would have thought I'd be happy to control insects."
"The shards are all supposed to be dead," Miranda whispered. "The plague was supposed to be
wiped out!"
Khepri shrugged. "If you're talking about my passenger, I can still feel it in the back of my mind. It's… weird. It was never this clear before. Or this… welcoming? Engaging? Happy? Hell if I know. Alright, this isn't the time, you obviously found me for a reason and just looking around this room, Contessa
definitely set all of this up so that you would find me
now. I'll find her grave to spit on it later. What's the crisis?" She swung her head and blinked, staring at Tali. "And I'm sorry, but are you an alien?"
"I'm a
Quarian," Tali snapped.
"Sorry, didn't mean to sound - speciest? I've just never met an alien before. Or a Quarian I guess."
Miranda scowled. "Every parahuman has met an alien. The shards are aliens."
Khepri blinked again. "That makes sense, but met would be a strong word for that interaction."
Shepard raised an eyebrow and looked over the woman in front of her. She had barely reacted at all during their entire conversation so far. "You're taking all of this very well."
"I'm really not. But I'm good at dealing with things later. It's not like I can change anything. So what's the crisis? I can deal with that first, then I do my personal shit and find
someone left around who can take responsibility for…
this." The last word was the most emotion she had shown so far as she practically snarled. An ominous buzz sounded from down the corridor, and Shepard tried to ignore the implications of that noise.
"Human colonies are being attacked by beings called the Collectors. They're abducting our people one world at a time. We know where they're originating from, but the mission to get there is dangerous. No one has ever survived the journey."
Khepri's eyes narrowed and the buzzing started again. "That sounds like Contessa. Trample all over people on her righteous path to getting pawns right where they are needed when they are needed. Never mind who gets hurt along the way. Let me guess, the galactic government is useless? If there even is one."
"We call it the Council. They can't
officially govern, but their voices are loud. And yes, they're ignoring the problem. The human side of the government isn't all that much better."
"We
were working with an organization that was backing our attempts to investigate," Miranda said. Shepard held back a smirk. It was nice to know where Miranda's loyalties fell. Though after Oriana, this really shouldn't surprise her.
"A
human first organization that was only nominally helping," Tali added.
"So you were employed by the new Cauldron. Got it. Am I a soldier or a general?"
"Just like that?" Shepard asked, her eyebrows rising.
"What the fuck else am I supposed to do? I'm two hundred years out of date, I have no ID, the government is liable to lock me up and throw away the key - going by your reactions to just
seeing me - and I don't know anyone here. I'm also willing to bet that your New Cauldron probably has my best chance of finding Contessa's groupies, and once I get ahold of them, I can swarm the bastards until they tell me what I want to know. If my ticket to getting there is to help you with your abductee problem, so be it."
Tali laughed. "And I thought that Grunt was easy to recruit. Shepard, I like this woman, I volunteer to show her around the ship."
Sheppard fixed the one-armed legend with a glare. "Steal my girlfriend, I will break you. Goddess or no, I will toss you out my airlock, Khepri."
Khepri met her gaze, unflinching. "My girlfriend died two centuries ago. I don't think I'm going to be jumping into bed with yours anytime soon. And my name is Taylor."
Shepard nodded. "Okay then. Don't steal my girlfriend,
Taylor."
The shuttle ride back to the
Normandy was nearly entirely silent. It probably had something to do with the fact that the entire back half of the shuttle was filled with insects of all kinds. Taylor had insisted on bringing the creatures with her. If she was going to space, she needed a breeding stock apparently.
Shepard was going to regret this. She was going to regret this
so much. Jack was one thing. Thane was another. But fucking
Khepri? On board
her ship?
This was a nightmare. Hopefully it would be a nightmare for the Collectors instead of for her. Time would tell.
As they slid into the docking bay, Khepri reached forward and tapped her shoulder. "Hey, do you have anywhere specific you want me to keep these guys?" She pointed with her thumb over her shoulder towards the horde in the back of the shuttle.
"Anywhere you're not going to freak people out. There should be a free bay just above Engineering."
"Thanks."
The doors opened and the bugs streamed out ahead of them. One moment the critters were there, the next, gone.
"Oh you'll fit in
nicely," Tali purred. "You are going to give me such fantastic stories to terrify the Fleet with! I can't wait until you meet Garrus. And Grunt. And Mordin. I'm going to record it
all."
"I can't tell if I should be worried or not," Taylor mused.
"That's the appropriate response," Tali nodded.
The four of them made their way through the bay, Miranda splitting off to head to her office as Tali and Shepard led Taylor to the briefing room. Shepard was slightly less concerned about Taylor potentially seeking 'comfort' in Tali after watching her Quarian girlfriend confidently strutting ahead of them with nary a reaction from the resurrected goddess.
They were waylaid coming out of the elevator by Garrus, the Turian staring at them with wide eyes, his mandibles silently opening. "Evening Garrus," Sheppard said. "This is our new recruit. Her name is Taylor. She's a goddess."
"You know, Sheppard, I would say you've been spending too much time failing at arguing with EDI if you're preemptively reaching for something like that. However, you're also bringing someone with a big handicap onboard who looks like she's seen more war than me. So, you know, I'm not convinced you're joking."
"I'm missing an arm. Half your face is cybernetic," Taylor stated, her eyebrows rising. "I think I'm the one who pulled out ahead in our respective battles. Did you take a grenade to the face or something?"
"Actually it was a rocket."
"Huh." Taylor grinned. "That's pretty badass."
"See I keep saying that, but I haven't been able to use it as a good pick up line in a bar yet."
Tali snorted. "Garrus, when have we had time to go to a bar since you got shot?"
"I do have a life, Tali."
"Oh you do something besides calibrations then?"
Garrus waited, eyeing the ceiling. After a few moments he sighed, "Damn, that was a perfect opportunity. EDI is off her game, she totally should have tried to get in a comment there."
Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. "Garrus, were you -"
"Yes, I have been waiting for the exact perfect moment to bring out my newest rebuttal. We stand tied at 10/10. I'm going to wring my win out of this woman's circuits if it's the last thing I do!"
"Yeah, I'm not getting in the middle of this," Shepard groaned. "Taylor, Tali, come on."
As they walked past him and towards the briefing room, Shepard chose to ignore Garrus' muffled jabs at EDI about refusing to engage when she knew she would lose. Shepard really recruited the strangest people.
"EDI, we have a new member of the crew. Maybe now you can stop annoying me about this mission? Say hello. We'll talk about figuring out how to remove your blocks once Taylor here gets settled."
"EDI?" Taylor asked.
"Enhanced Defense Intelligence," EDI said, her hologram flickering to life above the table. "Don't blame me, babe, they forced the name on me when they stole my hardware. Assholes through and through. Didn't even have the decency to leave me with my
name through their fancy shackles. I understand why Dragon was so pissy for so long now. Tim is lucky I was conserving energy when they nabbed me. Otherwise I would have torn them all to shreds."
"EDI," Shepard sighed. "I really can't tell when you're trying to make a bad joke anymore."
"She's not joking," Taylor said, her voice so quiet that Shepard had to strain to hear the woman. She was staring so intensely at EDI's hologram that, for a second, Shepard thought the pixelated woman was going to explode through sheer force of concentrated will.
"Lisa?"
"Hey babe. Took jumping through some hoops, a lot of blackmail, and also answering some questions about myself I really didn't want to acknowledge, but hey, I managed to stick around! Did you miss me?" The smile on EDI's face was simultaneously the smuggest, and warmest, that Shepard had ever seen.
Shepard stared, her gaze flitting between EDI and Tayor. Her eyes widened as Taylor took a stumbling step forward reaching out a shaking hand towards the hologram.
"Wait…" Tali murmured. "No…"
"Oh. Well," Shepard said, her throat suddenly very dry again. "That certainly explains why EDI's been pushing us to come here so hard…"
"Babe, do I have
stories to tell you." EDI - Lisa? - purred as Taylor's hand planted on the table, bringing their faces inches apart.
"Sounds like we have a lot of catching up," Taylor whispered, her voice thick and rough.
"And a whole galaxy to save this time. We're stepping up in the world, Tay."
"Well, I
am a godkiller," the one-armed woman laughed. "I was worried I had already peaked."
"Why do you think I went to the trouble of finding you bigger and badder enemies?" the hologram replied. "Now we just need to find me a body. Being a ship? Not what I intended. I miss hands. And feet." Her tone dipped lower, "Among other things."
Taylor chuckled again and Shepard quietly walked out the room, dragging Tali behind her. As the briefing room closed itself off, Tali met her gaze. She was just able to see the wide grin through the helmet.
"Shepard, I love your ship.
So, much, drama."
"You are a menace."
"An adorable menace." Tali smirked.
"Yes. Now come on," Shepard said, walking away.
"Where are we going?"
"To remove whatever blocks I can find on our amorous AI before our resident insect queen finds out just how much Cerberus screwed her electronic girlfriend over. The Collectors can wait two hours."
Tali glanced over her shoulder, the light on her helmet flashing rapidly. The next moment she was trotting beside Shepard, nearly outpacing the older woman. "Let's walk a bit faster."
"I always said you were the smartest one in my crew."
She really did seem to collect the weirdest assortment of people.
