As usuall I'm making this up as I write it. I have a generall idea of where I want the plot to go but I guess we just have to see if I get there. :) I do know that it will be lots of drama, action and hurt/comfort. I hope you'll enjoy reading it :)
I don't own MASS EFFECT. It all belongs to BioWare...
Shepard sluggishly raised her head at the hissing sound of the door sliding open. She shrunk back into the corner when the man entered the dark room where she was being held.
"Here", he said, shoving a bowl of a grey, bland stew towards her. "Eat up. You'll need your strength. It will be your turn soon... Commander..." He grinned luridly at her.
His words made her tremble. Don't let them see that you are frightened. She held herself very still, rigid almost, as the man stepped further into the small room. It was empty save for a stainless steel sink and the simple cot on which she was sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees. The man was grinning again as he towered over her.
"I've seen you on ANN. The Hero of the Citadel." He said. "You're real pretty under the cuts and bruises." He extended a hand as if to caress her cheek. Shepard slapped it away, but her normally fast reflexes were off, slow. Her feeble attempt made the man laugh. "Oh, you're feisty." He grinned again. "Good, I like a little resistance."
Shepard's eyes flashed. "Touch me and I'll kill you!" She managed.
The man simply laughed again before pulling out the hypodermic needle and jamming it into the muscles of her upper-arm. Shepard tried to jerk her arm free, a low whine escaping her as the drugs rapidly spread through her system and dulled her senses. "You'll welcome my touch when the Dealer is done with you", the man promised as she slumped over on the cot, tears trailing down her bruised cheeks. With that he left, locking the door behind him. It once again glowed an ominous red in the darkness.
Shepard stared at it. Her head was swimming and her vision fuzzy. She had to struggle to keep her eyes open. The Dealer... Even in the drug-infused state she was in she recognised that name. But it was hard to think. Her thoughts seemed to slip away before she could catch them. She couldn't tell how long she had been locked up in this dark and dank cell any more. Forever it seemed. Even the events prior to the abduction was slipping away. She had a hard time remembering the details of the Reapers' attack on Earth and the following missions. Mars, Menae, Sura'Kesh, Tutchanka...
She remembered the Citadel being under attack but not the details, it was all just a hectic whirl of violence, gunfire and blood. She knew Kaidan had been wounded at some point. She had a foggy memory of visiting him in a hospital. And she could recall standing in the main battery with Garrus looking down at her, his mandibles twitching in a smile. Then the image changed and she saw him laying in a pool of dark blue blood, his eyes closing... Omega, she thought dully. The gunship... It happened on Omega... He survived. He's alive... The thought gave her some comfort. But as the drugs spread through her body even that thought faded away and she slipped into a maelstrom nightmares and confusion.
The only vivid memories she had was of the abduction itself. She and Joker had been on their way back to the docking bay after having picked up some equipment from the market on Illium when they hit. Even taken by surprise and with no backup, she had managed to take out most of them before they shot her with a tazer. The last thing she could remember was seeing Joker crumble to the ground after being struck on the back of the head with the butt of a rifle. Then the world spun out of control and the darkness had swallowed her.
And when she woke up again she had been here, in this small dark place that smelled of mildew and decay.
When they came for her the first time she had fought, and she had continued to fight as they dragged her from the cell down a gloomily lit corridor and into a clinic. It was as dark and dank as the corridor and her cell and had a sickening stench of antibacterial detergents mixed with decomposing bodies assailed her nostrils and made her gag.
She had struggled and fought against her captors but to no avail, they were simply too many and too strong. They had torn her uniform off and strapped her into a crude looking chair of metal. The clamps held her in place no matter how she struggled. And then they had...
No. Don't remember that. It didn't happen.
Shepard closed her eyes and curled up into a foetal position, unaware of the tears that continued to run down her cheeks, as she sank into unconsciousness, escaping the despair and hopelessness of her situation.
"Two mercs entering from the south." Kaidan's low voice came across the comm.
Garrus shot a glance towards the house through the scope of his Black Widow sniper rifle. "Any sight of Shepard?" he asked although he knew the experienced Alliance Marine would have told him so.
"Negative."
They had been positioned around the camp for four days now, watching as the Blue Suns mercenaries moved in and out of the run-down buildings. The trail they had followed had taken them from Illium, where Shepard had been abducted, to Pragia in the Dakka System. And thanks to EDI's upgraded scanning and analysing software they had managed to pin-point the Blue Suns' camp.
Pragia was a planet of rainforests and swamps, overrun by choking hypergrowth caused by industrially mutated plant species. It was hot and humid and a thoroughly nasty terrain to move around in.
"I got movements", James Vega's voice came across the comm. "Two mercs entering building 02."
The camp was made up of three one-story housing facilities and a larger building that made up the northern border of the camp, directly beyond that the rainforest lay like a green, living wall. After having watched the camp in shifts for three days they knew the Blue Suns merc's held hostages prisoner in the three smaller buildings and it seemed likely that the Commander was being held there as well, but they still didn't know in which.
Garrus knew that he had to make a decision very soon. Any attempt to contact the Blue Suns and negotiate Shepard's release had been ignored. What ever the reason was behind the kidnapping, it wasn't credits. And that, more than anything scared him. He had the horrible feeling that time was running out.
Should they continue gather intelligence, or should they hit the camp in an attempt to rescue the Commander?
Garrus lifted a hand to his visor, activating the comm. "Return to the RV", he ordered. Having gotten James and Kaidan's 'affirmative's', he slowly crawled back from the little ridge that served as his observation point.
"So, Scars", James Vega said maybe half an hour later when they had gathered a safe distance away from the Blue Suns' camp. "Are we on or are we off?"
"We'll attack at first light tomorrow", the turian said, having mulled their options over for a few moments. "Kaidan, I want you and James here." He indicated a point just outside the camp on the holo map hoovering above his omni-tool. "I'll be up on the ridge overlooking the camp, taking out the guards patrolling the perimeters and providing you with back-up fire."
Garrus eyed his team. The two humans looked like shit with days' worth of bug-bites and dirt and grime smeared over their faces. Garrus himself wasn't bothered by the heat and humidity or the bugs.
Maybe his hide is just too tough to bite through? Kaidan thought with envy as he smacked a mosquito that had been brave enough to land on his neck.
"Finally, some action. Let's lock and load", James Vega said with a wide grin.
The cliché made Kaidan snort and roll his eyes at the young, eager Lieutenant. "What do we do with the other hostages?" he then asked, very serious again. "Do we free them too, or do we leave them?"
There was a moment of silence.
"Our priority is to get Shepard out of there alive", Garrus finally said.
"The Commander won't be happy if she finds out that we left others behind", James objected.
"Garrus is right", Kaidan said, albeit a little reluctantly. The thought of leaving others held hostage to their fate was not pleasant. " We'll need to get to the RV quickly, and it wont be quick if we have a group of scared civilians to deal with."
"Yeah, but it's not right to just leave the poor bastards to their fate." James rolled his shoulders a little, trying to ease some of the tension.
"I don't like it either", Garrus voiced in hard flanging tones. "But I'm not going to risk Shepard's life. We get her and we get as much distance between us and the Blue Suns as we can." Despite the determination colouring his dual toned voice, the decision to leave anyone behind in the hands of the mercs didn't sit right with him. To sacrifice the lives of innocents went against everything he fought for, but Shepard was more important than any amount of guilt or pain.
It was obvious the turian would do anything to save her, sacrifice anything. And as James met Kaidan's gaze he could read the same determination in the human biotic's brown orbs. The man loved Shepard still. And so did Garrus. And Shepard... if she had chosen between two of them she sure hadn't told her Arms Master about it. Not that James expected her to. The Commander seemed to want to keep her private life private. Or as private as it could be on board a ship.
He had more than a sneaking suspicion that the matter was still unresolved, and that meant that the tension between Garrus and Kaidan was thick enough to be cut with a knife. James couldn't help but to keep an wary eye on the two of them. They were both acting so casually about it that it made him nervous.
So, that was the first chapter... What did you think of it?