Rupert Gardner
From FABT
- "The Alliance and the Council have got their heads buried so deep up their butt puckers they can't see squat."
- — Gardner and his opinion on the Citadel Council, c. August 2185 CE.
Mess Sergeant Rupert Gardner was a former member of Cerberus, later a volunteer in the Systems Alliance Navy, and the mess hall cook and custodian for the Normandy SR-2. Born on Earth in the United North American States, Gardner was only three years old when the Prothean Archives were discovered on Mars by explorers. He was 12 when the First Contact War broke out and ended, with both of his uncles killed in the war, leaving him bitter towards turians. In 2169 CE, he left Earth to start a life in the outer colonies, finding work as an eezo miner on the Voidcracker eezo rig in orbit over Calypso, where he would later meet his future wife, Ellen Gardner, having two children with her and living in Calypso's capital of Elstown, spending the next 12 years of his life as an ordinary family man. In 2181 CE, his entire family would be killed during an Hegemony-funded slavers raid on Elstown, with the Alliance response causing the raiders to bomb the city out of spite before having to withdraw empty handed. Losing his job after descending into alcoholism, Gardner got his life back after a year and decided to join Cerberus, wanting to make a difference and further the cause of mankind. He became proud of the work he did in Cerberus, serving on Walker Station, and later Polyphemus Station, as a simple custodian and cook. In 2185 CE he was reassigned to the Lazarus Cell, hand-picked by the Illusive Man as the mess sergeant and custodian for the Normandy SR-2 in a mission of great importance to the survival of the human race. While much of the crew disliked his cooking, Gardner considered himself a jack-of-all-trades, able to simultaneously serve as the ship's cook, janitor, plumber and overall custodian of the ship. Despite the reservations held by his commander towards Cerberus, Gardner remained an unwavering supporter of the Illusive Man and the rest of the organization, frequently supporting them in issues where Shepard's attitude clashed with the overall Cerberus high command.
This pro-Cerberus attitude would change towards the end of the Collector campaign when Gardner and the rest of the Normandy's crew would be abducted by the Collectors in a surprise attack on the ship. With the rest of the crew, he was kept in a pod and taken back to the Collector Base with the intention of being melted down into an organic paste that would be pumped into the Human-Reaper and used to build it. However, the Normandy Squad arrived and assaulted the Base in time to stop this, rescuing Gardner along with the rest of the crew. Terrified and believing he was about to die, Gardner was indebted to Shepard, who proved his loyalty to his crew in spite of their Cerberus affiliation, and after the Base assault, upon hearing that the Illusive Man had advocated keeping the Base intact, joined with the rest of the crew in leaving Cerberus, going rogue and siding with Shepard. Gardner would remain as the ship's cook and custodian until after the Bahak Incident, in which he was forced to leave the ship along with the rest of the former Cerberus crew in order to avoid arrest by the Alliance when Shepard turned the ship and himself in. He would temporarily go into hiding on the Citadel where he found a job as a cook at a local restaurant. After the outbreak of the Reaper War, he was found by Shepard and offered his old position on the Normandy, which he happily took, as he had been living in paranoia of Cerberus finding him ever since he left the ship. He'd continue to serve on the ship throughout the Reaper War, surviving the Cerberus raid on the ship, and participating in the in the final battle over Earth. After the war Gardner chose to retire, buying himself a home in Honolulu, Hawaii where he would spend the rest of his life. He later died of natural causes in 2243 CE.