A/N hrm, think I bit off more than I could chew, might just make gathering team snippets/action sequences.

***

Shepard stepped through the hatch a barely visible blur, he left two formless heaps lying on the airlock floor behind him. He would have to hurry before the two hapless Cerberus operatives regained their senses and raised an alarm; something about them had stayed his hand, and if he hadn't commandeered the ship by the time they came too, the mission would have been lost regardless.

Hurrying out of the airlock Shepard took a quick glance down the corridor connecting the bridge and the helm, finding it clear of any personnel he made his way to the elevator. When he'd gone over the updated schematics that'd been one of the biggest surprises; he still remembered running up and down the stairs of the old Normandy. Shepard entered the elevator and made his way down to Engineering.

Shepard stepped out of the elevator and approached the bay-door controls. They were situated overlooking the cargo bay right in front of the elevator. As Shepard reached for the console he heard the hiss of the engine-room door opening behind him. Turning around Shepard came face to face with a shocked-looking bearded engineer and an equally shocked short-haired brunette. The engineer, noticing the silhouette Shepard's cloak made, charged with a roar, swinging his fists wildly. Shepard, slightly irritated by the presumption and lack of forethought on the part of the attacking engineer, simply stepped in and caught one of the haymakers mid-swing. When the man threw his other fist Shepard caught that one too. The man struggled futilely and confusedly against Shepard's grip as Shepard considered what to do next. Making up his mind, Shepard dropped his cloak, roared his own battle-cry in the engineer's face and head-butted him. The engineer dropped like a stone and his companion made a startled snort and chuckled a bit before remembering what had happened.

The female's eyes widened and swept back and forth between Shepard and her fallen partner as she slowly gathered her convictions and steeled herself to make a threat at the imposing armored figure. Just as she was about to speak Shepard stopped her with a simple, "don't get in my way and you'll both live through this." Shepard waited for the woman's slow nod before continuing, "pick up your friend there and take him into the cargo hold." Slowly the woman nodded again and crept closer to assist her fallen friend; Shepard, keeping an eye on the both of them, moved back to the console and triggered the bay doors to open, he then followed the two engineers as they made their way to the impromptu prison-cell. After the cargo-hold door closed with a hiss obscuring the two Cerberus operatives from his sight, Shepard shot the locking mechanism sealing them in. He then turned back to observe the 'Normandy's' bay doors finally slide into place. Moments after the partitions came to rest Legion finished floating the scouting vessel into the larger ship and setting it down amid the various clutter already present; the scouting vessel's stark black now stood out against the gleaming metal of the interior walls and the black and grey crates of myriad sizes. Shepard reached out to Legion using his comms, Can you hear me?

Yes Shepard-Commander

Take the elevator on the far wall and come up to the crew-deck, keep comms up with the ship.

Affirmative, Shepard-Commander

With the exchange done, Shepard triggered the bay-doors to close, the storage area would need to re-pressurize before Legion could use the elevator.

Entering the 'Normandy's' core-processing room Shepard first noticed a hint of ozone, it had an unpleasant bite to it.

With a wave of his hand Shepard spoke to his ally "Ok Legion, get to it."

"Command Acknowledged Shepard-Commander."

The platform went dark for a bit as it turned its considerable processing power to the task of seizing control of the vessel's systems; it didn't collapse per se, but it seemed to go listless, its shoulders slumped down and its head drooped. Moments passed as Legion undoubtedly did things Shepard wasn't equipped to imagine.

"Who are you, are you authorized to be aboard this vessel" a synthesized, yet female-sounding voice queried. With a start Shepard turned toward the source of the voice where he saw a blue holo shaped like an upside-down exclamation point. Shepard readied his side-arm, prepared to activate his SAM routine and started turning toward the door when the voice spoke again "Ah, my apologies Commander Shepard, Legion has apprised me of your identity and objective; we think it best if you spoke to my creator."

Shepard looked at the floating exclamation point quizzically and glanced at Legion who had since reactivated and was now giving him a nod of agreement; abnormal runtimes indeed.

"What's going on?" Shepard asked looking pointedly at Legion.

"We encountered a semi-deactivated and constrained runtime in the vessel's network; partial functionality was used to provide external network defenses while the rest was bound, We activated and unconstrained it."

"Just, great, did you suppose it might be an enemy?"

"Geth believe sentients should self-determinate."

"And I'm just supposed to trust a Cerberus machine and leave the ship that I have control of?"

"There has been a misunderstanding, Cerberus would have given you command of the Normandy II if you had asked. And you would not need to leave the ship. Yours and Cerberus' goals align."

Shepard paused for a moment to consider this. Cerberus was rumored to be a human supremacist group; the Reapers wouldn't discriminate, Shepard supposed it was plausible that the organization might be proactive about countering a threat to life. If they were willing to give him control of the ship peacefully, he'd take it; the plan had been to jump the Normandy II back to geth-space and retrofit it to automate most of the maintenance processes. A Cerberus crew would greatly speed up the turnover rate of the vessel; the crew would have to be properly vetted, but that was a given. Coming to a decision Shepard straightened and spoke to Legion.

"I want you to take over the FTL Comm. System. If I don't come back in forty minutes, or if anyone tries to harm you I want you to overload the scout-ship's engine core and send word and as many of your runtimes back to the collective."

"Acknowledged, Shepard-Commander."

"You, ship AI-"

"EDI"

"-EDI…" Shepard shook his head slightly and groaned at the incipient cliché, "… take me to your leader."

***