let's have a round for these freaks and these soldiers
a round for these friends of mine
(carey – joni mitchell)
once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
(henry v - shakespeare)
.
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Up close the galaxy looks ordinary, just the usual drill: exchange of credits, squabbling between Council races, your average slavers and spice dealers, ships full of refugees getting blown up or denied entry to the richer planets. If you squint you can fool yourself that nothing's going on but back away another inch and you'll catch the ugly truth.
Out here in the Caleston Rift, several hours away from the Milky way, it's easier to forget the threat to Earth and humanity.
Zaeed downs his second beer, eyeing a couple of inane-looking marines on shoreleave to his right. They are having a loud discussion about Commander Shepard and he feels like it concerns him - for reasons that he'd much rather not dig too goddamn deep into but there you go - so he keeps his wits about him. There's been a flood of shows and documentaries outlining the fate of humanity's first Spectre since her return to the Alliance and while he's not keeping track of all the bullshit or the direction it's headed, he'd say it's more or less common knowledge now that the commander came back with a few loose wires.
Goddamn idiots.
"... never heard if there really was a trial," of the soldiers say. He's young and scrawny with a spotty face. Zaeed wouldn't trust him to carry a razor, much less a rifle.
"Damn Shepard walks out of anything," another one cuts in. "Read that article about her time on Akuze. Some crazy shit right there."
"I dunno. Heard they took her ship this time," a third one – a thick-necked, red-faced son of a bitch – offers.
A woman by his side nods excitedly. "Locked her away in the brig, last I heard."
Music pulsates through the walls in this place: bass-heavy, tune-light. It has sharp edges and an underlining sense of hysteria that Zaeed can't shake, like an itch you can't scratch.
"She's real popular though," the red-faced one adds. "Crazy as a varren but popular. Anyone else saying what she's been saying, they'd question her sanity, strip her of her rank."
"What, you don't think you'd get away with blowing up all those batarians and blaming the Reapers, Sanderson?"
They all laugh as Zaeed calls for a third drink, clenching his teeth around the order and the irritation.
"Get those loud bastards another round on me," he tells the turian behind the bar. "If they agree to shut the hell up."
He's got a shitload of problems at the moment but a lack of credits is not one of those. Shepard had seen to that six months ago. And then she had, to the best of his knowledge, seen to her own imprisonment by returning the Normandy to the Alliance Navy and getting herself locked up like a goddamn war criminal. Stupid, stubborn bitch. He'd have talked her out of it if he could but he hadn't been around for it, had thought it best to disappear off the radar to deal with his own trouble instead of piling it up at her feet like everyone else in her goddamn life. Besides, it's not like you simply talk Commander Jane Shepard out of things she's got her mind set on – especially not of it involves her tight bonds to the military organisation that ate her whole and spat her out again when they were done with her, judging her experience implausible and her actions questionable. Last he heard from her she was in custody and her communication channels cut off.
Zaeed's fingers curl around the bottle, whitening. Suddenly his omni-tool flares up and as he flicks the screen open he notices the marines do the same, as do several other guests at the bar.
"Turn off the music!" Someone shouts. "Switch on the ANC, now!"
Within seconds several screens broadcast the same thing, in bits and pieces and stuttering, jarring noises: the Reapers have reached Earth, London has fallen, the planet is under attack. Emergency protocol is being activated and Zaeed's stomach lurches in a rare, painful way. He's felt it ever since he saw those goddamn pods in the goddamn Collector ship and he feels it again now, a protectiveness rising from some unknown depths inside him. You're not doing this shit to us, you ugly bastards. You're not taking my planet. He despises Earth and the very notion of patriotism alike, but that's not the damn point. If this isn't different, then he doesn't know what is. As he gets to his feet and passes the gaping marines he allows one perfectly placed elbow to hit the red-faced one right between his eyes.
That's for calling her crazy, jackass.
Then he fires up his comm links and heads for his ship. It's time to get back to work.