Mission 11

Ok. I think things are ok.

For starters we've about caught up to our doppelgangers, and they should be headed straight towards us. I'm monitoring the communications as I write this just to make sure, and K-QO probably is too.

We got to Eden Prime after two days of travel only to find five hyperion class cruisers orbiting the planet. Our stealth systems are good, but that doesn't prevent them from seeing our ship out their windows. I managed to hack into the satellites to try and locate the fake Saschen. Even though I got the information the Commander and Luthien somehow managed to lose it and so I had to go back in and get it again. There were two individuals fishing around looking for me... but of course they found nothing. Pathetic. Anyway, my team mates were able to find holes in the surveillance we could slip through and we flocated the fake Saschen. Getting onto the planet was surprisingly easy, and we landed about forty kilometres away from our destination, took the shuttle up close, and then began sneaking towards the ship. 

We were all being pretty careful - I mean, this crew was supposed to be us, and my team mates are pretty skilled at their respective...whatever it is they do. This, unfortunately does not include tech abilities for any... Cornelius did something to his omni-tool and short-circuited his internal computer. The plus side of that was is was something I could actually fix, since it was a mechanical problem. Still, they all really need to learn some basic technician skills before they seriously injure themselves.

Anyway, we didn't see anyone and so I snuck up to the ship. Terryck covered me, thankfully. It was very nerve-wracking. Once I was close enough to touch it, I hacked the ship and learned several interesting things: the doppelganger crew was away, the basic crew was all in crew areas away from the main door,  and there was not an AI on this ship (which was good, because I don't know that I'm that good...yet). So I locked of all incoming and outgoing communications, locked the crew into the areas they were in, and opened the door. 

Unfortunately the ship (it's actually the Triton) had no non-lethal gases we could use on the crew, and they had started to notice little things like that the elevators were not coming... So we decided maybe we could impersonate our impersonators. I took the crew off lockdown and the Commander and the rest of my squad persuaded the crew we had found us and to fly the ship over to the real Saschen. The best part is that they even managed to get the whole crew onto the Saschen under the premise of re-fitting it, and K-QO gassed them all... We left them tied up to a tree. I'm actually kind of surprised that the Commander didn't just have them all killed in the first place. Surprised but grateful. Maybe Tali was right about humans...

Anyway, we had to leave them tied up because K-QO also detected an outgoing transmission to the hyperion cruisers above us. I managed to steal the signal (their technician, by the way, didn't even seem to notice. So much for our doppelgangers having equal skill sets to us) and Nienna pretended to be a communications officer. We sent them coordinates to "their ship" (a location we'd picked that was far enough away we'd have plenty of time to beat them there and set up an ambush) and promised back-up (some of our marines will go in a shuttle with Cornelius and the geth to protect them). I've got the turrets ready to go, and now we just have to wait.

As crazy as all this is, this is more like what I expected when I joined the Alliance. I actually feel like I'm accomplishing something. And while my crew may be insane, I do trust them to get the job done. They are good at that. And I think I can trust them to have my back. So I just have to make sure I have theirs.

Missions 9 and 10

Just one day of peace, that's all I want right now. One day without people asking me to do ridiculous things or something going wrong with the crew. Is that really too much to ask?
Everything started out well enough - I was able to obtain many of the upgrades that my crew requested including a thermal scope for my Widow, muscle weaves in my arms and legs, and the internal computer I needed. Many of the crew opted for cypernetic upgrades, so most of us were in the hopital for three days. When we got out our Commander was nowhere to be found. Luthien decided to hit up some of the bars, and since most of the crew seemed eager to accompany her I decided to tag along as well. I thought it would help me maybe get to know them a bit better, plus I wanted to make sure they didn't get up to too much trouble here on Rannoch.
It's a good thing I followed, Luthien led us straight to bar of...less than desirable taste. It was disgusting. We weren't there long, however, before we got shot at. A Salarian STG team attacked us. No serious damage was taken, although I did have to save Cornelius - he really is rather reckless. At least now we're even - he saved my life, I saved his... although who knows, given his luck he may have been able to dodge the bullet. So I killed a Salarian today, but it was in defense of a team mate and I think I'm ok with it. President Tali'Zora did tell me to find a reason to kill... But I'll get to that in a bit.
Two salarians ran away during the fight and I headed off to take the second one down so we could bring him into questioning. I neural shocked him and he collapsed (I actually did it with the right amount of force this time!). I tried to drag him in with me but his arm had gone all funny and it didn't work very well. Luthien came up behind me and tried pulling him by his horns, which I guess worked a little better. Fortunately Terryck came along and hauled the salarian onto his back and we all went back to the ship.

As we came up to the ship the commander came out of a very official looking car, K8 running up beside him. I approached the commander and asked him about the scientist we had kidnapped last week - he gave me permission to interrogate him and then kill him to ensure the information could not spread. It was...odd, having the commander agree with me. I realized later that President Tali'Zora had filled him in more about my quest and she must have told him how important it was the information all be destroyed.
Anyway, the interrogation started out fine. Braxis and Cornelius decided to join so I warned them to be on their best behaviour. The Salarian was cooperating and he told us that the data from his ship was also stored in a vault back at his house... wish we'd known that the first time we were on Sur'kesh!
I was trying to convince him to tell me the location of the vault (other than that it was in his study) when Braxis and Cornelius... actually I'm not sure what they thought they were doing. Braxis was talking about eating the salarian, Cornelius was talking about doing it while the salarian was alive... the salarian went into cardiac arrest and Joe medic-ed him so they could torture him. I'm really not certain what's wrong with him - Cornelius that is. Healing someone so you can kill them slowly? That's abominable.

It's all kind of a blur, really. When I realized they weren't kidding I decided to kill the salarian (it seemed by far the more humane option) and sent a neural shock his way. At this point the geth decided to walk into the room and for some insane reason made the asinine move of jumping in front of my neural shock. Idiot. He's lucky he didn't die. I rushed over to fix him, leaving the unfortunate salarian in the hands of my two sadistic crew mates. Judging by his screams, I think the krogan may actually have bitten the poor guy.

Fortunately the chaos ended as I finished repairing the geth. The commander burst in (drawn, no doubt, the the screams of pain emanating from the salarian) and after staring in shock for a minute he shot the salarian in the head.

I really couldn't deal with all the drama and terror going on, so I may have kind of run away at that point.

And honestly, as horrible as all that was I would have been ok with that being my day. It's the rest of it that threw me.

In the first place, K-QO has somehow managed to upgrade the ships internal monitoring systems - as in there are camera's and microphones and thermal sensors EVERYWHERE. Including my room. And the washrooms...
Everywhere. And it won't turn them off. I asked why, and it said that it had been instructed to monitor the crew, and that this seemed the best way to understand organics. My arguments that organics really didn't make much sense to anyone didn't seem to do much to deter it.

In the second place, on top of his absolutely brutal behaviour in the interrogation room (and he wonders why I have a hard time explaining my feelings towards him...) Cornelius started yelling at me in a corridor. He started out by apologizing to me for his behaviour earlier - the whole pinning me down and asking me how I felt about him bit. But the apology aspect wasn't really there, it was more of a frustrated yell of "I'm sorry" followed by him yelling that we would be just friends before he ran off...
I don't really understand him at all, but I really don't think he's well. But hey - a friend! That's good, right?

Finally, the best part of my day wound up being the worst. When I told the Commander that we needed to go to Sur'kesh he agreed, but pointed out that we also had to stop the look alike Saschen and it's crew, who have apparently been flying around and causing mayhem and destruction in our name. Both tasks were urgent, so he decided we should ask President Tali'Zorah if she could offer any advise or assistance. I begged the Commander to take me with him so I could meet her, and eventually he caved and took Luthien and I with him on the condition that we remained silent. Which I did. I may, however, have waved at her when she looked my way. But, I mean, I was actually standing in the same room as Tali'Zorah vas Normandy! What was I supposed to do?
She waved back :)
And then she asked me to stay back when she dismissed the Commander and Luthien. I was so excited...
Until she started talking. President Tali'Zorah thanked me for the work I had done so far, and then added that it wasn't enough. She spoke for a while about humans and their emotions and influencing people... I really had no idea what she was talking about. But then she told me I had to get closer to my crew so I could help them grow and be better. I need to be friends with them, and... yeah.
Actually, I don't really want to think about it.

Anyway, I guess it's a good thing I pulled the crew's files a few days ago. Nienna agreed to help teach me how to make friends if I send an encrypted message for her, so hopefully she'll give me some helpful pointers. You know what, life's not that bad. I can do this friend thing. I really can. As for the rest, well... if I can get close to my crew and help them out, then nothing else should be necessary, right? It's all going to be perfectly fine.
Maybe I'll go check on the crew with K-QO. Watching the monitors should help me get to know people better, right?