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[ Topic Reviewed - Post-War ]

“Can I assume you’ve put your past relationships behind you?” The tone was snide, probing.

“That’s none of your damn business.” she was quick to snap back, hands balling into fists, though it would have done no good.

“If it affects the mission, better you should leave it behind. Commander Alexandra Shepard, once you find a way through the Omega Four Relay to the Collector home-world, there’s no guarantee you’ll return.

If there’s any hope of surviving you, and your entire team will need to be fully committed to this.”

His patient, calm words, devoid of sympathy or emotion rang through her ears. No matter how she yelled, swore or threatened, his tone remained the same as ever, like an adult patiently explaining a simple fact to a child. Except he wasn’t, they’d just finished debriefing from their previous mission and he’d quite clearly led both her and her team into a trap. He’d jeopardised the life of an old friend in the process, simply because he needed bait.

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It was goddamn infuriating.

The familiar orange grid filtered over her as the hologram began to fade. The view of a dying star faded from view into utter darkness, then the bright white panels, steel floor and unforgiving comms room emerged into view. The electric static and flickering died, leaving only the soft hum of the light and the quiet rumble of the ship’s engines. As expected, the rest of the squad had come up to hear the news, to check on her. As she carefully flicked her gaze about the room, she could read plenty of expressions. Jacob, the soldier trying to maintain an impassive, professional front was concerned, conflicted. Next to him was the Turian infiltrator Garrus, though his bony face plates betrayed no emotion, she could see the knowing sympathy behind his eyes. Mordin, the Salarian scientist looked more deep in thought than anything, his brain ticking over what had just transpired and his usually talkative mouth shut, for once.

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Miranda, the Cerberus operative, was one of the few who could maintain a pretty damn good poker face, right along next to Kasumi, though her face was usually obscured by her permanently raised hood and that smirk that was almost always plastered across her face.
The only one absent was Grunt, but getting him to understand the need for these briefings was like trying to talk a brick wall into crumbling. Krogan were all the same, it didn’t matter how ‘pure’ they were.

“…” Shepard once again flicked her eyes across the room, grateful that she was still in her full body suit, N7 helmet masking her expression, though she was fully aware her problematic cybernetic scarred eyes were still quite clear under the orange tinted visor. “Look, I don’t like this as much as you but we won that battle. Mordin’s armour modifications worked, which means we’re immune to the swarm’s paralysis. We may have got their too late, but we kicked their asses once. We can do it again.”

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Speeches came easily, you didn’t have to think about them. Even if her heart was feeling like it had been broken in two. She couldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t let them see. This still was a suicide mission, she still needed them to think they’d survive; she needed them to still hope, if anyone was going to make it through this. Still, the Illusive Man’s words had struck a chord. “We’ve bought ourselves some time, I suggest you put it to use to get your affairs in order. If there’s any last places, things you need to do; if you have things that can’t be put aside, forward them to me and I’ll see what time we can spare. We need to be fully committed to this, okay?”

She swung around, this time with less faltering and more commanding authority. As her visor passed over them, as her dimly glowing red eyes examined each and every person, they stiffened, some nodding to acknowledge her statement.

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“Dismissed.”

At that, the crew began to disperse. Those she barely knew, like Jack and Zaeed were the first to leave. Jack and Kasumi were only as far in the room as their introversion allowed, which was barely at all and they was gone within seconds, Zaeed only interested in the debriefing was right along behind them. Some lingered a bit longer, Miranda, Garrus, Jacob, all of their piercing glances trying to see through that impassive mask, to gauge her reaction; years of military and Alliance work meant that they’d have to wait a hell of a lot longer if they wanted to see her falter though.

Eventually, they too left.

Thank god.

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She sighed, relaxing her shoulder muscles and rolling them for good measure, the ballistic weave of her suit unyielding and rigid. What she wouldn’t give to get this damn thing off and get into more casual gear. She never claimed her reasoning for leaving it on was good.

Her first thought was to head up to her quarters and get changed and she started moving, hands gesturing for the door to open and the bay doors sliding seamlessly away with a slight hiss. A warm hot shower, some comfortable clothes, a nice glass of wine and she could wash away her memory of Horizon, even if it was just for a night.

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Maybe, if she tried hard enough, she could pretend the Collectors and the Reapers didn’t exist either. It’d take a hell of a lot more wine to erase the image of those awful bug-like creatures though, more to hush the thoughts of what was happening to those colonists and she’d have to drink herself to sleep to forget those ugly blue-steel plated ships. That was providing she didn’t have nightmares either, of Sovereign destroying the Citadel, of Saren and his Husks and the fate of humanity if she couldn’t pull this off or of the flickering visions the Protheans had ‘gifted’ of flashing imagery of Reapers, Husks, meat mixed with robotics, screaming and eyes searing into her brain, pervading her skull.

She had a lot she wanted to forget and there wasn’t nearly enough alcohol in the Terminus Systems to deal with it.

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Also, there was no damn way she’d get that drunk, not on her ship. This wasn’t an Alliance ship but she still liked running it military. It would be terrible for morale and it would make her a hypocrite; it would just fire off thoughts to everyone on board that she was struggling. She wasn’t allowed to struggle.

“Commander I-” Her Yeoman, Kelly Chambers called out as she stalked past, the weight of her suit making it impossible to get through the navigation deck unnoticed. Alex sighed and reluctantly stopped, swinging around. If there was one person she didn’t want seeing her in a state, it was Chambers. She didn’t need the psychoanalysing, nor did she want this getting back to Cerberus. “You’ve got unread messages and an incoming transmission from Hackett, what do you want me to do?”

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Suddenly the desire to go upstairs was gone. Hackett would be waiting for her on the terminal in her quarters to speak with her privately. The fact that he was contacting her was curious, considering he was still extremely Alliance and she was some sort of a turncoat at the moment but she couldn’t deal with another issue, not tonight.

“Reschedule for tomorrow. I’m off-world, as far as he needs to know. Okay? Crew needs a rest after what happened today, me included.” she replied, dismissively waving her off and jabbing a button to call for the elevator. She’d have to lodge a complaint with EDI, this damn thing needed an upgrade. It moved too slow, and it definitely wasn’t because she was feeling a strong need to be antisocial right now.

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“Understood and… Commander?”

“Mm?” The hum was only barely loud enough to be picked up by her helmet’s auditory transmitters.

“Off the record, are you okay? I know… Horizon was hard, what with you and-”

“Yep! All good.” Alex swiftly cut her off, almost feeling lighter when the elevator made that beautiful soft dinging noise and her escape was finally opened up to her. “I should go, I have things I need to deal with.” She honestly could not move any faster onto the elevator. Behind her, she knew Chambers was looking dejected and there was that feeling of guilt but it had been a shit day.

She deserved some time off.

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Her fingers lingered over the holographic panel, soft orange glow catching on her suit. Shower or… she hit the button for the third floor. Private quarters would be a bad idea, if anyone wanted to check in on her, that’s the first place they’d look. On the other hand, sneaking across the crew quarters was risky but she had a specific place in mind…

“EDI, open up the Starboard Observatory.” she stated bluntly and to no one in particular.

Elevator slowed it’s descent, smoothly coming to a halt and opening up the doors. Alex carefully examined the hallway, before slipping out and moving as quietly as her combat suit allowed; needless to say, this was not quiet at all, as it weighed a fair bit and the hydraulics didn’t allow for much stealth. There was no one around though, most appeared to have taken her advice to get their affairs in order.

Good call.

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Well, she was almost alone. “Shepard, access is restricted to the Starboard Observatory. Can I recom-” the nondescript holographic head belonging to the ship’s AI, EDI, popped up in her allocated port, casting a soft sky blue light across the normally stark white interior of the ship. As the AI communicated in soft but polite feminine tones, red horizontal bands flashed across it’s interface.

“I swear to god EDI, if you don’t allow me access to areas of my own damn ship, I will march back up to the armoury, get the grenade launcher and get in here myself.” Alex barked back at the interface, glaring down. It was no wonder Joker had issues with this thing, it was far too much of a stickler for rules.

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“…” There was a deliberate pause, likely for her own benefit, the AI did not need that much time to think. The red faded from it’s display and the normally red hued lock panel on the Observatory’s door turned green. “Acknowledged.”

With a soft click, the panel faded and the door slid open, revealing an empty room. She stepped forward, eyes examining the room with interest. This was not one she’d seen before, though she was sure this was a room put aside for another potential recruit, like the Port Observatory on the far side of the hall. That one was occupied and she had no intention of bothering it’s owner today. The other room was designed to be something of a recreational room, with a bar and a small entertainment unit but this room was mostly barren, barring a few empty bookcases and was built out of more dark steel plates and less of the invasive white that pervaded the rest of the ship. Like the other, the far wall was taken up by a large window, at the moment covered by heavy metal shutters.

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“Open those.” She waved at the window, before moving to feign an interest in what little furniture there was.

On the command, the shutters began to retract, any scraping or groaning metal inaudible from the interior of the ship. Before her eyes, as the void was revealed to her, light from a nearby star began filtering into the room. Even though she’d been Navy for a very long time, the sight never grew old. Many either feared the abyss or simply grew desensitised to it.  Growing up on Earth, looking up into the stars, this had always been a dream, a wild fantasy. She knew it was achievable though, and she fought tooth and nail to get to where she was now.

And she wasn’t about to let some oversized ugly robot take that away from her.

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“Shepard I will allow this, because there’s nothing in my protocols that expressly forbids it. However-” Another pause, as if to emphasise it’s point. Whoever had designed this AI clearly had designed it to mimic human speech patterns. “-it would be in my recommendation to talk to someone about this. I can listen, though I may not be able to offer guidance, though I do know both Mr. Moreau and Garrus would be feeling similar. They were all in the same squad.”

Alex sighed, fingers reaching up to unhook the clips that kept her helmet secured and tapped a button to start the venting and depressurising procedure. There was an aggressive hiss as the helmet started venting the oxygen, and carefully she hooked her fingers under the sides of the helmet, carefully wiggling it until it came loose and fell into her hands easily.