A/N: This takes place before the events of the first game and is the initial meeting between my renegades Rache and Kaidan.
Shitfuckfuckityshit.
She muttered the litany under her breath as she slammed her back against the burning mako, her assault rifle cradled in her right hand as her left pressed hard against the steady stream of blood pouring from her waist. Around her she could hear the whine of gunfire and the occasional explosion of an RPG far too close for her comfort.
She was going to die here. And she couldn't even remember the damn name of the planet they were on.
Rache Shepard activated the med-gel in her armor hoping it would stop the blood. Scrambling up on her feet she shoved her way back toward the front of the vehicle she and her team had been riding in when the ambush hit them.
"You okay, Commander?" Roac, a veteran soldier who'd spent more time in space than he had planet bound spared her a glance as he returned fire.
"The batarian who can kill me hasn't been born yet." Rache snarled with an old hatred. The med-gel was kicking in, blocking the pain and hopefully replacing the blood she'd lost. "How many of us are left?"
Roac swore and hit his knees as a daring batarian in full armor rounded the burning mako. Surging up under the missed punch aiming for him, the veteran smashed the butt of his rifle into the alien's helmet shattering his face plate before turning it about and sending a single shot through the slaver's brain matter. "Magnes, Johnson, Cotton and Mbekuo. Turner and Stavros never made it out of the mako."
Shit, what a way to die, Rache mused with a shake of her head as several varren trained for battle came from their left. Ignoring the gun in her hand she tossed a biotic field that sent them flying through the air and brought sparkles to her eyes. She was running low on energy, burned out by using her biotics too quickly, too fiercely.
But, hey, she wasn't dead yet.
"How many against us?" Rache used her gun this time, taking a steady aim and clipping the meaty thigh of one of the pirates who'd thought his entire body was hidden by the large boulder. He went down, not dead, not yet, but give him a couple of minutes and he'd bleed out.
"Let me check…" Roac sent a burst of fire going forward, his head ducking out for a visual and then darting back. "Uh, hunh. Yeah, that'd be the whole fucking galaxy, Commander."
"Magnes, Johnson, form on me! Cotton…shit!" Rache hissed in anger as the other woman took several hits to the head and fell having never heard the beginning of the command. "Mbekuo! I want a tight defensive position here!"
The rest of the squad made their way to her side, their backs heading toward Rache as they continued to fire.
Rache let them take the brunt of the assault, her gaze going toward the terrain about them. They had to get clear of the mako before one of the Einstein batarians realized that a well placed RPG or sticky bomb would blow the ordnance still in the vehicle and the rest of them with it.
"We need to move away from the mako." She said in flat tones before pulling up a map on her omni-tool. "We've got a hill two clicks west that has cover on it. We'll head there and make a stand."
"Ma'am, how about we blow the mako ourselves as a cover and run like hell?" Mbekuo asked a white teethed grin on his lips.
"Shit, Mebbe, we'd be in the middle of a damn kiddy amusement park and you'd find an excuse to blow something to hell." Magnes mock groaned even as her skilled aim killed two varren rounding toward them.
"Don't be jealous of my hobbies, Maggie. It's beneath you." Mbekuo retorted managing to finish off the rest of the pack the other soldier had missed.
"Do it, Mebbe." Rache ignored the interplay between the two the way she ignored the fact they were sleeping together during their down time. So long as it didn't interfere with their duties, Rache figured it was none of her business, commanding officer or not. "I'll cover…shit!" The oath exploded from her as did a surge of biotics sent blasting up and over the top of the burning mako where a daring batarian had tried to ambush them with a grenade. She sent both flying back to the enemy line. The screams of pain when the grenade exploded made the fact she sank to her knees, the world spinning in circles about her, only marginally better.
"Commander's running on empty." Johnson called out as the few survivors closed in about her in a protective stance.
"I'll make it!" She snarled furious at the weakness in her body. She would not let her team down. She would not stay protected and safe while they died screaming in agony because of batarian slavers. Never again. "Mebbe, set the charges. Roac, you and I will lay suppressive cover fire. Johnson, Magnes, take whatever flashbangs you can find. When Mebbe gives the word you toss them and we run like hell. Feel me?"
"Yes, ma'am!" Came the enthusiastic response.
Rache managed her feet and snarled at the effort it took. She'd never make it on a run. Not as she was now, her body had lost too much blood, burned too much energy fueling her biotics. No choice for it. Moving next Roac, she deftly slid the small hypo out of a pouch on her belt and broke the seal all in one smooth move. Roac caught the movement and gave a single nod of approval before returning his gaze to the brief lull in the combat about them, blocking her body from view of the rest of their squad as she unsealed a small portion of her armor covering her neck and slid the needle under her skin.
The rush soared through her, fueling her, giving her power, giving her purpose and making her invincible.
If only it weren't a fucking lie, Rache thought grinding her teeth as she rode the drug's wave and centered herself. Yes, she could access her biotics again, use them as often as she wanted until her brain imploded and she would never feel a damn thing until the lights went dark. The black market drug known as Fidget was a red sand derivative specifically for biotic soldiers. Find yourself in the middle of a firefight with no biotics left to either defend or protect you and your squad? No problem! A shot of Fidget would break down the body's natural limits and let you kill anything with your brain until there was nothing left to kill. And the great thing about the side effects? If you burned your brain and body out leaving nothing left but an empty, drooling husk you wouldn't be aware enough to suffer from any!
Roac, her TWIC, was the only one who'd ever seen her use the stuff and that was because he'd had the bad luck to have served with her the longest through some of the toughest firefights the Alliance could toss them into.
He'd also been the one to sit with her through the withdrawal shakes after they were back safe on base. The addictive nature of red sand wasn't contested by anyone, not even Rache, but she would use any means necessary to get the mission done and get her people home. And she would be damned if she let some drug crawl its way into her brain and body for a permanent stay when there were still batarians out there who thought torturing humans was a quaint and amusing pastime.
"Two minute countdown, Commander." Mbekue called out.
"Give the mark, Mebbe. The rest of you, when you hear it toss those flashbangs and then you run like hell. We meet at the hill rendezvous point." Rache inhaled deep through her nose, feeling the power surging through her, buzzing her, pleasuring her.
"Mark!" Mbekue shouted with his customary lack of foreshadowing and took off running with a maniacal laugh.
Rache let her team go first, Roac leading the way in a full out sprint. She followed more slowly, her attention more on the barrier that she had raised, guarding the vulnerable backs of her soldiers as they retreated. Thick and strong, the enemy's weapons had no chance of penetrating the biotic bubble and they gave it their all.
High on the drug she'd ingested, Rache faced the pirates, laughing, her arms raised, retreat all but forgotten under the heady power of her biotics.
"Come on!" She shouted, daring them. "You bastards couldn't kill me when I was teenager, you can't kill me now!" Some far off portion of her brain screamed at her to get to safety but she was beyond hearing. Beyond caring. There was her and the enemy and nothing else mattered.
Except the exploding mako.
The blast knocked her off her feet and sent fiery pieces of batarian raining down about her, the barrier flickering and almost falling as she lost her balance under the brutal heaving of the world under her feet. The drug surged through her refusing to allow her biotics to be extinguished. About her body a small bubble formed blocking the still incoming debris and shrapnel, shunting it off to the side as she lay on her back all but helpless to do anything other than watch the fire rain.
That's when she saw one of the mako's tires begin to fall toward her.
Roac would be so pissed if he had to identify her body, Rache thought in the abstract wing of her mind palace.
Refusing to give up, she strengthened the barrier while surging her right hand forward as if to catch the huge tire. Once again her power began to fail, the drug burning up in her veins as she demanded more and more from the sweetly addictive serum deciding that she'd rather be burned out than squashed like a bug. Of the two biotic displays, her attempt to pull the tire out of its trajectory and away from her was definitely the weaker. It was enough, however, when combined with the barrier that bounced it to the left to hit the ground safely away from her.
The barrier flickered about her and died.
She had nothing left. Again.
Her body began shaking then, screaming for more of the drug, more of the sweet, sweet freedom. Rache managed to roll to the side, her knees drawing up into a fetal position as she convulsed weak and helpless.
Voices speaking a low, guttural language that sent shivers of fear racing through her spine drifted over the rocky landscape.
Please don't let them find me. The old litany came back, the hated treble of a coward that hid while others died. She'd thought she had left that girl behind, thought she had banished her to a place only memory could find and now, left pathetic and groveling in the dirt and filth, Rache learned that she'd never left her teenage self behind at all. She was still at the core of who she was.
"Well, well, what have we here." The language was translated this time, the better to scare her with.
Rache's eyes opened to slits, her teeth clenching to prevent her from biting her tongue, as she glared up at the tall and very bloody batarian.
"It's her! I know that armor." Another crowed with satisfaction crouching next to her. "I saw it during the vids of Torfan." He snapped the straps on her helmet loose and jerked it free until her head bounced off the sand, her auburn hair spilling about her. "It's Commander Shepard. The Butcher of Torfan."
A hand slid into the thick mass on her scalp and pulled her up with little concern for any pain she might be feeling.
"Is that true, human?" The first voice demanded.
Rache tried a pathetic kick that earned her a backhanded hit that tried to knock her head back but the grip on her hair never lessened enough to allow the movement.
"Oh, it's true. You know the price her head will bring in the Terminous Systems?" The second one laughed. "And here you have the body still attached to it and breathing."
"Give me five minutes and we'll see who's breathing." She snarled at them, blood running from her nose and down her mouth.
That defiance earned her another hit, this time to her stomach, driving her breath from her. No sound of pain escaped, though. She would never give them the satisfaction of hearing her scream. Not if she had to swallow her own tongue…
The head of the batarian who still held her popped like an overripe melon. The second one, the one who'd recognized her, was suddenly launched in a blue field of power and slammed down with a sickening thunk on the ground beside her.
She blinked, trying to understand. Her biotics were depleted. She couldn't have made that slam, not with her body still coming down from the worst of the shakes. Exhaustion set in then as she slowly slumped over right into the growing blood puddle of the now headless slaver, the stench and the warmth proving unable to raise enough revulsion in her to get her body to move.
"Lieutenant Commander Shepard, can you speak?" A confident and calm voice questioned as a shadow blocked out her sun.
She could hear weapons fire in the background now. The remaining slavers were being attacked by someone and if the blue uniform above her was anything to go by, the Alliance had finally sent a damn rescue mission in to help.
"My team." She managed, trying to focus on the face above her.
Brown eyes took up most of her field of vision as a clean face bent closer to her. "The surviving members of your team have been recovered, Commander." Hand moved over her then, rolling her onto her back. "I'm Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, ma'am. You're safe."
A bitter laugh welled from her shuddering body. "Really? Where have you been all my life?" She closed her eyes and let the tension seep from her.
She didn't have to fight anymore. She could let someone else take the burden of living, of surviving. She could just…sleep.
"SSV Normandy, I need immediate medical evac. Patient is in shock and convulsing…"
Rache opened her eyes again, listening to the medical jargon that might as well have been a different language for her. She liked his voice. Calm. Controlled. Sexy. There were worse ways to die than listening to that voice.
Who knew that better than she?
