"I don't think you should do it."
"I agree with Garrus, and not because I'm afraid that he's going to hit me with the stick up his ass, but because the alternative would be worse.
"Guys, come on. We can do it. I know that we'll survive if we stick together like a team."
"Shepard."
"Grunt."
"I'll have to kill you if you do it."
Shepard gives him a look that's skeptical. Then looks at the rest of the crowd and sees the same expression around her. Each face saying, "No. Bad Idea. We just survived and don't need another "suicide mission" before the Reapers come kill us all. We'd rather take the Reapers."
She sighs, and looks hopefully at Samara, thinking that maybe she would be unbiased-after all, she is a Justicar, which is kind of like a policeman-and say that this "mission" would be benifical to supporting races in the future.
"Samara, don't you think tha-?"
"No."
Penny looked at her with a confused expression, and Samar exhaled softly to explain.
"If it happened, I'm very sure it would be the death of me. I'd rather just enjoy this moment with everyone than try to go on another "suicide mission", as everyone else has called it."
"Alright, fine. You all think about this, and I'll get the next round. I hope to see some change in this circle of pessimism."
She gave them a stern look and walked over to the bartender.
"Do you really think she'll want us to do this?"
"She's out of her mind, she doesn't remember how bad it was last time! We barely made it out, and now she wants to do it again."
"Is her brain functions breaking down? No, no, then she would be able to purchase drinks. She would also stutter and stumble into inanimate objects."
"Well, while all of you were talking, I did a quick brain scan, and she seems to be perfectly fine. So she knows what she's asking for, and as her XO, I have to say that we should do it."
All the collective faces looked at her while screaming "WHAT?!"
"You're crazy!"
"She's been compromised, someone take her back to the ship."
"It appears as though the collective data of this group suggests that Shepard-Commander and Lawson are arguing for something that will wipe out the entire organic and synthetic life. We are against it."
Miranda looks at all of them and shakes her head. She doesn't like the idea either, but it seems like this will put the Commander at ease if they all just agreed to it.
Well, sometimes you have to take one for the team, but if Shepard can't convince them, I doubt they'll do it.
*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.**.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*
Penny sits at the bar, waiting for the drinks, and decides to go do the mission by herself. As she's pushing herself up, someone pushes her down, HARD.
She quickly looks at who it is before she punches this person in the throat, and realizes it's Garrus.
"What are you doing? I'm handling all the drinks tonight, remember?"
He looks at her with a grin, and realizes that she hasn't really been drinking that much tonight, and that was about to change.
"Sure, sure, but here, let me buy you one since we're good friends and all. Besides, we just survived Cerberus and the Collectors."
"Well..."
"C'mon. One won't hurt. Hey, one of whatever she wants," he yells at the bartender while pointing to Shepard.
The bartender looks over at her while getting her drinks ready on a tray asks, "What'll you have sweetheart? A Cosmo maybe?"
"Actually, make that a JD with coke. Thanks."
She smirks at him while he rolls his eyes and walks away.
"So, Shepard, is there a reason why you're not really drinking with us?"
"Well, I'll probably celebrate more once we get back on the Normandy and move this party there, but right now, I just want to make sure that everyone stays safe. If Grunt does anything stupid or Mordin decides to take a sample of a keeper, I'll have to be sober to make their case for them."
Penny smiles and points in the group's direction.
"Do you really think they can handle that by themselves?"
Garrus scoffs and is about to answer when he looks over, and sees that Jacob is attempting to teach Grunt how to "raindance". What the hell is a "raindance"?
"Well, I guess not. But come on, just a couple of drinks with your best friend is the greatest idea right now, why not take advantage of that?"
She downs her drink and he motions for another when she's not looking. She exhales sharply and blinks a couple times with a pinkish tint in her cheeks.
"Okay, a few more. But only because it's you Vakarian."
Shepard elbowed him in his chest and he laughed loudly as she took one more drink and seemed to be more lively. He again motioned for another one, and she smiled, and started going off on how the Illusive Man was going to pay and how she can't believe that he wanted her to save it.
Yep. This is the way to do it. Keep her drinking, she gets drunk, she forgets about the mission and then we all watch her dance and tell over-exaggerated war stories. A hell of a night better than doing the other "mission".
He smiled and grabbed the tray from the bartender while Shepard downed her fifth drink.
"Hey Garrus, I love you pal. I mean, I just, I love blue. And you're blue, especially your face, so I reeally mean to say is that I love your face." She laughs and pats his mandible a little harder than he expected, so he coughs and sneakily grabs her hand to put another drink into it.
"Thanks Shepard, nice to know that you go for the looks category rather than focusing on how I'm a much better shot than you are."
They both approached the group together, and was greeted by a loud cheer. Drinks came around again, but word quickly spread that it was everyone's job to get the Commander to forget about the "mission". So instead, beer was turned into root beer and tequila became sprite. By the seventh drink, the Commander was telling everyone of how she had guns strapped on her shoulders and had a Mako as her personal shuttle, taking out all the zombies that had attacked her hometown.
"BAM! Headshot! Then I went and started a fire on our street and then zombies came in and I was all "Die fuckers die!" and shot them all and it was just unbelievable that I got through that. Thankfully my ammo never seemed to run out." She was laughing and the crew was laughing even harder, as her hand motions looking like she was attempting to club someone in the face with an imaginary baseball bat.
Miranda and Garrus gave each other a mutual understanding look, and he finally took deep breaths to calm down and to stop laughing at her stories.
"So Pen, ready to head back to the Normandy? You said that we all needed to talk about the Reapers and how to deal with them after this shore leave."
"In a minute, first, one thing."
She got up, and stumbled but caught herself, then shook her body like a rag doll, and marched over to a table with a lone patron.
The crew became wide-eyed and yelled "STOP!"
Pen looked around for the commotion and even pulled out her gun, but then laughed when she saw their faces and started marching again.
"Garrus, I thought you said this is going to work!"
"It worked the other times, I guess when you rebuilt her, you made it to where she's either a lot more stubborn than before, or her system burns off the alcohol faster than before!"
"You better stop her Vakarian. Or else I'll shoot your goddamn face on the right side to match your left."
Garrus looked at Zaeed scornfully, but ran after her. He couldn't spot her, so he ran faster and accidentally ran right into Shepard, who then bumped into the table of the lone patron.
Spirits. This will be the suicide mission that kills me.
Penny looks at him and pushes him weakly away with a grin, and taps the patron on the shoulder.
"Hey Udina! Wanna get shitfaced with the rest of us tonight?"