The story so far...

The year is 2187 and the Citadel Council is forced to recognize the Reaper threat after a batarian attack on Arcturus station, with a Reaper at the helm of the invasion. This Reaper, using it's knowledge of the relay nexus, opened a portal to dark space and unleashed dozens of Reapers on an unsuspecting galaxy. It's only a matter of time before the Reapers reach their ultimate goal... the Citadel.

Commander Shepard was many things to many people. To some he was the Earth born war hero of Elysium, to others the first human Spectre and to many, he was the savior of the Citadel. He never cared much for those titles and right now he felt anything but heroic. The council had sent him to a turian planet on the edges of Citadel space which had gone silent. Upon arrival, he found the patrol that was stationed over the planet in ruins and EDI's scan of the planet showed the planet had been fired on from orbit. No life signs were detected.

Hoping there would be at least a few survivors, Shepard took the shuttle down any way. EDI was right, unfortunately, and much to Shepard's growing anger at not being able to do any thing for those colonists, EDI felt the need to share the fact that according to her scans, had they arrived there two hours earlier they could have saved those colonists.

He just finished reporting the mission to the council and they were less than pleased. This was the fifth colony to be completely destroyed or it's inhabitants missing altogether this month. The Council was telling the media that a hostile alien species was the cause for these attacks, which wasn't really a lie but the fact that all they really did was increase patrols in their own systems while colonies on the edges of council space were the ones being hit. Obviously dealing with this Reaper threat wasn't very high on their list of their priorities.

What upset him the most wasn't the council, it was the not getting there two hours earlier that got under his skin. He couldn't get to them fast enough just like he couldn't get to half his crew and had to watch some of them get melted down.

"You all right Shepard?" Tali asked from behind Shepard who was standing in front of the elevator, distracted by his thoughts.

"What...uh... oh it's you Tali." he stammered. "Yeah I'm good." he answered, giving the quarian a fake, halfhearted smile and rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"You're still bothered about the colony, aren't you?"

"Two hours earlier and I could have been able to do some thing." he sighed. "It's like the mess at the collector base."

"No. What happened there wasn't you fault." Tali stated.

"I could have gotten there sooner. I could have had some one other than Grunt lead the fire team. I shouldn't have let Mordin hold the line. I could have done something to make sure Thane came out alive to see his son again!" Shepard yelled, rubbing his forehead in aggravation. "Sorry Tali... I..."

"The collector base still bothers you doesn't it?" Her voice was laced with concern.

"It doesn't bother you?" he whispered, more to to himself than to her, looking away and entering the elevator.

The elevator seemed to take forever to reach his quarters, he glanced at the mirror-like wall of the elevator, seeing himself reflected back. His fist shot out and slammed the unyielding metal. He hated the scars the Lazarus project put on him and he couldn't stand the dim red glow in his eyes. Although the scars had faded, the glow in his eyes constantly reminded him of Cerberus, the Illusive man and his choices at the collector base. He laughed bitterly, realizing that the scars and eyes also reminded him of Miranda and the good work she's been doing as leader of Cerberus. After the suicide mission Miranda was assigned to the collector base to uncover it's secretes. She helped Shepard later destroy the base after what was left of the human reaper larva indoctrinated and killed most of the Cerberus teams.

She was now the leader of Cerberus and has allowed the help of Alliance scientists to analyze the technology found on the collector base. The Council and the Alliance do not trust her, this isn't helped by the fact that Miranda refuses to give exact numbers of Cerberus operations or release all Cerberus intell on the Collector base. All three are willing to get along as long as Miranda keeps playing nice.

Walking out of the elevator his eyes immediately went to the picture of Ashley Williams on his desk. Ashley had always helped Shepard when he needed it. Horizon was rough, but she evidently came around as she busted him out of a trial and helped him fight the reapers once again.

Shepard's computer chimed, it was a video chat with Ashley making the call.

"Speak of the devil." he thought to himself, opening the comm and sat down at his desk.

"Hey skipper." Ashley greeted.

Shepard smiled. "How's shore leave Ash."

"Can't complain. Went to Lynn's graduation ceremony, she really hates those graduation gowns." She laughed, "So hows that top secret Spectre mission the council has you on?"

Shepard sighed heavily and scratched his head. She raised an eyebrow, "That bad?"

"No survivors Ash."

"Damn it!" Ashley grunted.

"They're getting closer and closer to council space every month." Shepard sighed. "Soon they'll be in Citadel space and next... the Citadel itself."

"Is any of that stuff you got from the collector base working?" Ashley asked.

"We can't integrate collector tech fast enough and most of it is just out of our reach with out the rest of the base." Shepard explained. "Sometimes I wish I didn't keep the damn thing at all Ash."

"People died there, but with out it we wouldn't have known the Reapers were going to use the relay nexus at Arcturus." Ashley said, trying to ease Shepard's mind.

"I know." Shepard exhaled.

"Shepard you have a message waiting in the comm room." EDI interrupted.

"Who's it from?" Shepard ask, annoyed by the A.I.'s interruption.

"The council is waiting for you in the comm room."

Shepard turned back to Ashley. "Looks like duty calls." He sighed. "I'll call you back."

"See ya later skipper." Ashley said, cutting connection.

The Citadel council was, at this point in time, not his favorite group of people. They put him on trial for treason, they had a Spectre hunt him and now he, once again, was their last best hope for a safe galaxy. After the battle at Arcturus, Shepard's Spectre status was given back to him for the third time and for the last year they had him and the Normandy fighting Reapers.

The failure of his recent missions and the fact the Reaper got away only served to strain their relationship even more so. Shepard walked to the comm room and in there waiting for were the holograms of a very annoyed council.

"I'm so glad you could make it Shepard." The turian councilor growled.

"I missed you to." Shepard said sarcastically. "What's going on?" he asked curiously.

"How soon can you make it to the Citadel?" The salarian councilor asked.

"A day...why?" Shepard asked, now curious about the councils reason for this call. "What is this about?"

"We're calling all available Spectre agents in council space to the Citadel." The asari councilor answered. "That is all we can say on an insecure channel."

Shepard was caught off guard about the council's reason for the call. He had only met five Spectres in his time as an agent; Nihlis died on Edin Prime, he killed both Saren and Tela Vasir, and was hunted by two others. "I'll be there as soon as I can but..."

"Thank you Shepard that will be all." The turian councilor cut in, before closing the comm.

Shepard sighed in frustration and turned to EDI's terminal. "EDI, tell Joker to set course for the Citadel."

Releasing the button, he muttered half to himself, "It looks like this is the start of a very long headache."

End.

AN/ The end of the first chapter of Mass Effect: 2187. This story will be my best guess for ME3 and it is also the sequel to my first story "A Hero the Galaxy Needs" I can promise this will be one of the the most epic and more importantly different Mass Effect 3 stories out there .

I would also like to give a shout out to my awesome beta Blze001 !