A/N: OHMYGOD, I'm completely overwhelmed by how well received the first chapter was! I never thought I'd get that much attention! Thanks to anyone who read the story, special thanks to anyone who favorited/followed, and EXTRA special thanks to you people who've reviewed so far (I realize I really should have named the story 'Swedish Space Vikings' (SSV, get it?), but then again, hindsight is 20/20). You readers are the reason I'm doing this, so keep it up, please! :D
Also, sorry for not updating sooner. I got distracted by The Fappening, and school's been riding me hard (no pun intended).
As a side note, I don't really get 's view on explicit sexual material. In the "do's and don't's" of publishing here, they say they don't allow any explicit material what-so-ever, but I've read numerous lemons here, many of which are really old, and still haven't been taken down. So someone please enlighten me on that. Still looking for a beta, so if you're interested - hit me up!
Also, I forgot to mention this last chapter; Valhallavägen is a large road in Stockholm. It translates to 'Valhalla Road'. Just in case anyone was curious :P
Anyway, enough about me, on with the story!
2:34 PM, January 1st 2173, Stockholm, Sweden, Earth
'Winter. Snow. I hate snow. I used to like winter, and the snow that came with it. I used to go skiing with my family. Now I'll never do that ever again. Now the snow is just an encumbrance, and the winter freezing.'
I came here four months ago, confused and disbelieving. I soon realized I'd been transported over 150 years into the future, to the Mass Effect universe. I admit, it was quite a lot to take in, but I managed to not become crazy somewhat okay, largely thanks to reading all those self-insert fanfic's. Thank god for fanfiction.
'I never thought I'd miss walls so much, but when it's –20 degrees, an intact building is all you can dream of.'
When the leader of the Vikings "offered" me to join I didn't have a choice, so I accepted, figuring I'd make up for it later in my life, somehow. I figured I'd just glide along, not drawing any attention to me; staying under the radar. Fate had another plan. A month after I had joined, I'd unfortunately drawn enough positive attention to myself that I found myself commanding a small team. After that, my team grew. The high-ranking officers said I had "a natural ability to lead". What a load of bull.
First I managed to save a Quarian from certain death on the first mission I commanded, and after a while, other people wanted to join too, noticing my squads' members had a tendency to die a lot less than in other squads.
When I found the Quarian, we had just completed the first mission I was in charge of. We assaulted a poorly fortified warehouse belonging to a rivaling gang, hoping to get at their stash of red sand.
Someone was shouting, and there was a lot of commotion coming from one of the storage rooms. "Hey, don't hog the alien, I want some too!"
'Alien? What are they doing?'
As I approached the storage room the noise was coming from, I started hearing an accented female voice begging someone to stop. I started to move faster.
When I got there a couple of seconds later, I saw all of my subordinates standing in a corner, looking at a form lying on the ground, with my second in command standing above it.
"What's going on in here?"
The crowd parted so I could see the entire situation. What I saw made me see red. The form lying on the ground was a Quarian woman, and my second in command was in the process of trying to find the clasps to undo her suit.
"Oh, hey Sarge. We found this girl chained here, figured we'd have some fun with he-" I interrupted him both physically and verbally before he completed that sentence.
"WE." I shouted as I biotically lifted him the few yards up to the ceiling. "DO NOT." I continued as I slammed him with non-lethal force into the ground. It still hurt. "RAPE PEOPLE!" I finished while walking up to him and pistol-whipping him hard in the face. "Any questions?" I turned around to my other subordinates to make sure I got my point across.
They all shook their head, looking frightened. 'Good. At least they won't be doing that again.' I turned to the prone Quarian. "Are you okay? Has your suit integrity been compromised? I have some medi-gel if that's the case, but I'm afraid there aren't any clean-rooms nearby."
"I- No, I'm okay. My suit's okay too." She looked up at me, confused. Her voice was pretty accented, and had a metallic tinge to it. It was kind of cute.
"All right, good." I offered her a hand to help her stand up. "Come on, let's go into the office."
After accepting my helping hand, we made our way to the office next door, from where they had handled all the business around here. We sat down on the chairs that stood in front of the desk at the back of the room.
"Thanks for… You know, for saving my life and all." She sounded quite awkward about all of this.
"Oh no, don't worry about it. It was my fault for having undisciplined men to begin with." I tried to sound apologizing. "My name's Eric, by the way." I continued, sticking out my hand to offer a handshake.
"Well, nice to meet you Eric, my name's Seya'Gerrel nar Neema." She said as we shook hands.
'Holy shit, Gerell? I'm in the presence of royalty here! Almost.' I couldn't help but notice the prefix to her ship name. "So, 'nar', eh? How's the pilgrimage been working out for you?"
"How did you… Actually, never mind. It's been going to hell so far."
'Quite literally if it brought you here, if you're asking me.' I thought as she continued.
"I started out by going to Illium, thinking I could get rich fast there. What a bosh'tet I was. I just got more and more indebted, with no way off-planet. I was forced into indentured servitude." She sounded, somewhat understandable, sad at how her pilgrimage had turned out.
"Slavery, you mean?"
"Yes. I was sold to this gang as a mechanic. A mechanic! I can fight, and they have me stuck doing maintenance on their guns or adding mods or something."
"Yeah, you sure were a tough opponent back there for my good-for-nothing subordinates." I couldn't help but be sarcastic; she had been utterly helpless.
"That's not my fault, I'm a biotic, and they put this stupid biotic dampener on me when I was sold!" She motioned to her collar, which I noticed just now. "You can't expect a biotic to fight with just her fists."
"Wait, you're a biotic? I thought there didn't exist any Quarian biotics?"
"Well, there aren't many of us. There are totally 5 biotics in the Fleet. When my mom was pregnant with me, she worked on one of the oldest ships in the fleet. Its core gave off a constant, low dose of eezo radiation. Low enough not to be noticed, that is, but large enough to influence us. It caused fetal-me to develop eezo nodes all around my body. She… She died of radiation poisoning when I was just a few years old."
"I'm… So sorry." I sheepishly looked down at the ground, truly sorry for making her relive such a terrible experience.
"It's all right. I mean, I was sad when she died, but that was so long ago. Now I'm instead tormented by having to live up to my father's, and everyone else's, expectations." Her voice suddenly took a sad tone again, as she found the ground very interesting, looking down at it, lost in thought. "He's an admiral, and everyone's expecting me to bring back a grand pilgrimage gift, carry on the family tradition, you know?" She looked up at me again, those bright glowing eyes boring into my very soul.
"Well, no. I don't actually know; I'm an orphan." I couldn't well tell her the truth.
"Oh… I'm sorry." Now it was her turn to look sheepish.
"Don't be, I never knew them, and like you said, it was so long ago, I don't really feel it anymore." It was hard keeping up a façade of indifference when in my mind, I had parents just four months ago, but I think I managed it, at least somewhat. "How big would your pilgrimage gift have to be?"
"A ship, or something of equal value would be enough."
"A ship!? You're kidding?" I couldn't believe what she was saying.
"No."
"Well, that might take a while to get enough money for…" I trailed off as I realized something. 'Time to make some connections.' "You say you can fight?" She nodded. "Well, you could join my squad. It's not like we make silly amounts of creds, but the pay isn't bad." She tilted her head, deep in thought. "Hey, at least it beats being a slave, right?" I joked.
She had a short laugh before answering. "Sure."
2:41 PM, January 1st 2173, Stockholm, Sweden, Earth
I looked over my squad, struggling with walking through the roughly ten inches of snow occupying the ground, currently on our way back to base after our latest mission. They all stood out from the snow quite harshly; none of them had matching armor but Seya, and she couldn't exactly re-paint her suit to blend in with the surroundings. I was the only one who was even remotely stealthed, having at least painted my armor in winter-land camouflage; white with a few black patches. 'They'd be sitting ducks if we were to happen upon an…'
With my mind lost in thought, I was startled when a shot rang out and Seya's shields flared up.
"AMBUSH! GET INTO COVER!" I shouted while sprinting towards the nearest concrete block lying on the road, trying to dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge the fire coming our way, while coalescing a barrier around me.
As my back slammed into the impromptu cover, I drew my sniper rifle and checked out the status of my team. Seya was taking cover right next to me, but all the others were either dead or bleeding out on the ground, having been too slow to scramble for cover. Seya and I had been dead too, if it weren't for our biotic barriers.
"I'm gonna see if I can spot where he's at, stay in cover." I commanded before leaning around the edge of our cover, trying to find the sniper with the help of the scope on my rifle.
I searched for almost ten seconds before seeing a reflection of the sun coming from a house, without any wall facing us, about a quarter-mile away. As soon as I spotted it, I recoiled back into the safety of the cover, and not a moment too soon. While my form was still retreating, a shot rang out, and the snow flew up in a small cloud where I had just been a millisecond ago.
"I think I can take him out, hang on." I said as I leaned out around the concrete block again. Where there had just been a flash of light last time, now stood a man, inches away from the several-story drop a step backwards for him would mean. He was holding a pistol, talking animatedly to another person, standing further into the room.
Suddenly, the second man reached for his gun, but before he's even reached it, the sniper shot him in the shoulder, making the victim spin from the force of the impact.
I immediately shot the sniper in the knee. 'No one else is dying on my watch. Not today.' As the projectile hit him, he lost his balance and started to fall backwards. 'Oh no, you don't!' I was going to look the man responsible for all this carnage in the eye before he died. As he was falling, I used my biotics to slow his fall to a halt, slowly setting him down on the ground.
I turned to Seya. "I shot him in the knee, he's lying on the ground in front of the building. You go and subdue him while I check out the house, he shot someone up there."
"All right." She rose and we started walking towards the house, keeping the sniper in our sights.
When we reached him, she crouched and got out some sort of restraining device she had in a pocket. "You go. I've got this."
I replied in the affirmative and made my way up the stairs.
When I got up there, I saw an unconscious man lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. It gushed out of a hole in his left shoulder; the shot had penetrated both his shields and his armor. His armor was black, except for his right arm; it had a red stripe with two white stripes on either side of it. 'N7? Here?'
I quickly crouched down and began administering medi-gel as fast as possible. 'Don't die on me, Mr. N7…' "Seya, get up here when you're done, and bring the prisoner with you."
"Will do."
I stopped the bleeding fairly quickly, and since we'd gotten there so relatively fast, the N7 marine was stable – unconscious, but stable. Without us arriving in such a timely manner, however, he would've surely bled out right there on the floor.
As it was now, he was sitting, perched up against a wall. Seya and I were sitting across from him, simply waiting; the situation was out of our control, we couldn't do much else. Seya had put some sort of handcuffs on the sniper, who was now lying face down on the ground between the unconscious marine and us. He had also been given medi-gel for his knee wound, but when he had woken up after a couple of minutes, all he'd done was spew racist remarks against Seya and calling me a "race traitor". After a while I grew sick of him and knocked him out again.
"You think this guy can actually help us?" She didn't sound too convinced.
I looked over at her with a reassuring smile. "He's an N7, they are the finest warriors humanity has to offer. If he can't do it, no one can."
Suddenly, I heard the telltale whirr of a gun unfolding. I looked over at the only possible source of the sound; the marine had his gun pointed at us. He was still sitting down, but he was very much awake. "How did you know I was an N7?" His voice was harsh and commanding. He was used to giving orders.
I rolled my eyes in a very dramatic manner. "Duh." I said, motioning to his right harm. "Good to see you're okay, by the way."
"Not many civilians recognize N7 markings… Who are you?" He sounded pretty suspicious.
'Good, he's not an idiot.'
"I'm the guy who saved your life, that's who. As for names, you can call me Eric." I motioned to the Quarian sitting next to me "This is my friend and the sole survivor of my team, Seya'Gerrel nar Neema."
"Hah," He barked out a short laugh. "I guess that's all I'm gonna get, huh." He seemed to have eased up somewhat. "Why did you save me, exactly?" He still wouldn't put down his gun, though.
"I dislike it when more people than necessary die."
"But you didn't have any qualms about killing him?" He pointed to the sniper's prone form.
"Oh, he's not dead, I just shot him in the knee. Besides – shooting up my entire squad, having a heated discussion with a team member which ends in drawn guns and him shooting you… Where I come from, that's called going rogue."
"But he fell several stories to the ground…" The operative sounded disbelieving.
"Biotic." I said and smirked as I coalesced a blue shimmer around my right hand, before letting it go. "Besides, I wouldn't tie up a dead man, that'd just be bad manners."
"Oh." He lowered his gun, but didn't put it away. "Listen, I need to contact my CO, get me his helmet." He motioned to the man lying prone on the ground between us.
I put my hands up to show I wasn't going to attempt anything, before moving over and taking off the sniper's helmet.
"Why not just use your own?" I asked as I passed the helmet to him.
"Comms. must have broken from the fall when I got shot. He must have disabled his own, so we couldn't track him down that way. He did go rogue, by the way."
When he removed his helmet, I finally got a look at his face. He was a white middle-aged man, with hard features and a large scar on his face. One started on the right side of his forehead, went down through his eyebrow and ended around his right cheekbone. Surprisingly, he still appeared to have normal vision on that eye. His hair was short-cropped and dark. If it had any gray spots, they weren't noticeable.
"Sir?" It apparently didn't take him very long to activate the comm. device after he put on his helmet. "Yes sir, it's me. I have him under control, but I can't explain over comms." He was quiet for a while, presumably awaiting further orders. "Affirmative, I'll hold position and wait for you."
"So he's on his way here?" I inquired.
"Yes. You'll have to explain the whole situation to him too, I'm afraid."
When the CO arrived, he reacted very much the same way the first N7 did when he woke up. I explained the situation to him, and he too let go of at least the immediate hostility. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something familiar about him throughout the conversation, though.
When I started reaching the end of my explanation, I decided to tell the new operative what I hadn't told the first one. "I had another reason for saving you." I gestured at the man whose life I'd saved less than an hour ago. "We actually need your help."
"I knew it. There is no such thing as a free lunch!" He apparently didn't appreciate his life being used as a bargaining chip.
"You may or may not know this, but me and my friend here are members in the local gang Valhallavägen Vikings."
In an instant, all the progress we'd just made was thrown out the window. We were now looking down two gun barrels instead of one at a time like before.
"Relax, that's what we need your help with. We want out. And you can't just leave a gang just like that, they'll track you down and kill you, or worse."
They both lowered their guns, but didn't holster them, obviously not completely at ease sitting down and having a friendly chat with two gang members.
"So what's this you need our help for?" The senior officer asked.
"Simple." I said, sporting a smile even the Joker would be proud of. "We kill the gang."
They shared a look and collapsed and holstered their guns.
"The reason we were here in the first place…" The leader said as he reached to take off his helmet. "Is to take down or incapacitate the Valhalla Vikings. It seems our goals coincide."
If I thought his voice felt familiar, there weren't any words for his face. He, too, was in his middle ages, with short black hair, but unlike his subordinate, his skin was black; almost coffee-colored. His face was much more round, but still had a harshness to it. If the other man was used to giving orders, this man was born giving them. Still, his most noteworthy feature was that I knew who he was.
'Holy shit, it's David-fucking-Anderson!' I tried not to let my recognition sink through and show on my face, but I'm not sure whether I was successful or not. He didn't comment on it, at any rate.
"I'm Lieutenant Commander David Anderson, and this," He gestured to the man who owed me his life. "is Staff Lieutenant Michael Shepard."
'Shepard? He should be a teenager, barely having joined the military yet… Not a middle-aged N7 Lieutenant…' I thought before realizing what I was doing. 'Or, you know, it could be someone else named Shepard. It's not that uncommon a name. Get a hold of yourself Eric, stop seeing what you want to see.'
This time I definitely didn't manage to hide my surprise, since Shepard asked, "What about me?" while looking very pointedly at me.
I came up with something that wasn't even a lie. "I knew someone with the same name. He was a good man."
Anderson continued, "Anyway, we were sent here with this racist, insubordinate idiot to put an end to the Vikings' red sand pipeline into areas directly under Alliance control. While we were scouting everything out, he must've seen your Quarian friend here…"
As he started telling how things ended up like this, I found myself quoting Tali in my mind. 'She has a name.'
"because he just yelled 'race traitors' over the comms., and then switched everything off. Next thing we knew, we heard gunshots from where he was situated, so I sent the Lt. to check things out." He continued, starting to pace around the room while he was talking.
"He tells me he's climbing the stairs to see what's up and I hear two shots not a minute after. Then I don't hear a word from him for a long while, and I don't even know what to think." He stopped and faced me, hands gesturing wildly. "Each scenario seems worse than the next, so I just sit tight." He started to pace again. "Couple of minutes later, Shepard is contacting me from a presumably rogue operative's comm. unit, and tells me to get here."
'Well, this certainly is a strange turn of events, I have to give him that.'
"When I get here, I found out a member of the gang we're here to take down has saved his life and has taken down our little traitor using non-lethal force and is offering to help us with our objective, without us even asking for it." I understood Anderson in having a hard time believing all of this.
"Trust me, it's true. I never wanted to join the Vikings in the first place; I was forced and threatened. Seya only joined because I saved her life. We have no love lost for that gang." Not sure if I'd persuaded them, I continued. "There is a condition, though."
"There's always a catch, isn't there?" Shepard asked no one in particular.
"We get to keep all the credits we find in there, to help fund our new legitimate lives."
"What credits?" Anderson asked with a grin.
'Someone knows how to play.' "And another thing. You need to help me get into the Alliance Marine Corps. I have a feeling they're not too keen on letting in old gang members." 'Who technically also doesn't exist.'
"That shouldn't be a problem, we'll figure something out." Anderson assured me.
I smiled and leaned forward. "All right then, this is how we're gonna do it…"
11:46 PM, January 1st 2173, Outside Valhallavägen Vikings' Headquarters, Stockholm, Sweden, Earth
"Are you absolutely sure about this?" Shepard's doubt was obvious.
"Yeah, don't worry about it. Besides, your shields are pretty powerful, you could probably survive a couple of shots from the pea-shooters the Vikings have." I tried to reassure him as Seya and I led the two, now handcuffed, marines to the Vikings' HQ. We had tied up the last one a ways back, and for now he was unconscious too. Even when he'd come to, he wouldn't manage to get away before we got back.
"'Probably'?! Wow, that's inspiring!" Shepard apparently still wasn't convinced.
"Relax Lt., when they've taken us to the holding cells, we'll be out of these shackles and holding our guns again, you'll feel much safer then." At least we'd managed to convince Anderson.
"Yeah, just make sure to give us enough time to knock out the security measures or we'll be swimming in mechs trying to kill us."
"You know who you're talking about right now, right?" I'm not sure if Seya was genuinely insulted or were just feigning. "As soon as I'm in range, I'll have them down before you manage to say 'bosh'tet'."
"All right, enough bravado, we're almost there. Don't want them to shoot us before we can infiltrate the base, now do we?" Anderson did have a point.
As we approached the large double doors that led into the old abandoned warehouse, which served as the headquarters for the Vikings, one of the two guards standing outside the door called to us. "Halt! Where's the rest of your squad, Eric?"
"These Alliance scumbags managed to kill them off before we got to them. I was thinking we take them prisoners and ask for a ransom." I thought I managed to pull off the hateful slant quite good, and apparently the guards agreed with me, because they let me in without any more questions.
"All right, get them to the cells, in that case." The other guard gave me the go-ahead.
When we passed through the doors, Seya brought out her omni-tool and immediately went to work.
Being so late, the headquarters was almost completely devoid of life, with the exception of drunken people in the various rec. rooms, sleeping people, and a skeleton crew to run the bare essentials. Still, we didn't want any unnecessary attention, so we didn't release our would-be captives just yet.
The warehouse itself was mainly composed of a large room that served as a staging ground for the gang. It had a couple of weapons benches, and several doors along the walls, each leading to a small set of smaller rooms. These smaller rooms could serve as anything varying from personal rooms where people slept, to holding cells, to recreational rooms where there were couches, tables, vid screens and the likes.
We made our way toward the holding cells, greeting the man currently on guard duty outside the cells. Reaching the vacant cells, I went into one with Anderson, while Seya took Shepard into the one right next to it.
"Right, let's get you out of those shackles." I said as Anderson turned to face me.
Halfway through removing them, my omni-tool flared up; I'd gotten a message from Seya.
We're ready, moving on your mark.
I finished with the shackles and handed Anderson my pistol. "Here, unless you want to use a sniper in here, this is the best I can do."
"It'll have to do. Let's go."
"Sure. Let me go first, I'll take out the guard quietly."
I quickly sent a message to Seya, letting her know I was moving out, and telling her to stay put, before exiting the cell and moving towards the guard.
He was facing away from me, currently patrolling towards the entrance. I moved up behind him and drew my knife, before plunging it into the side of his neck where his armor was the weakest. With my knife still embedded in his neck, I thrust it forward, severing his throat and disabling his ability to scream. He never stood a chance. As he started to collapse, I caught his armored form, laying him down carefully on the ground so as to not make any noise.
"All clear, you can come out." I said as I wiped off my knife before sheathing it again.
They came out of their respective cells, weapons drawn.
"I'm gonna go check out the main room, you guys wait here."
I moved down the corridor and put my back against the wall before opening the door and peeking through.
Like before, there was almost no one there, with the exception of one man, presumably on guard duty, who sat at one of the weapons benches looking out at the room.
I called out as I walked over to him. "Hey, anything interesting happen today?"
"Nah man, it's all been cool." He replied as I closed in on him.
Coming up right next to him I asked, "So, when's the next shift change?"
"It's at one o' clock, I've still got over an hour to kill." He seemed dissatisfied at that fact.
"Yeah, I feel your pain, I've got some shit I need to kill too." I said dryly, before I quickly reached out, grasped his head and twisted. I was rewarded with a sickening crunch; his neck was positively broken. 'Sweet, I didn't even make a mess.'
I dragged his lifeless body over to the others; they had placed the first body in a cell, so I dumped the new one in there too, before rejoining them.
They had made their way to the door that lead to the bedroom of the Vikings' current leader. Between when I originally joined the Vikings and now, there had been a total of five changes in leadership. If you managed to become leader, you couldn't expect to stay that way for long. You either stepped down, or were killed by someone else aspiring to become the leader. It seemed the current leader had over-stayed his welcome.
The door was locked, but thankfully, we had our very own Quarian, so locked doors didn't count for a lot; she had the door opened in less than five seconds.
Walking inside, it became obvious he was asleep. Lying right next to him on the bed was a nude human woman, probably a slave. I pointed to Shepard and then to the woman. He nodded his acknowledgement. We walked up on each side of the bed, standing above the people lying there.
I drew my knife and held up three fingers to Michael. Two. One. We both reached down and placed our hands over the mouths of our targets, Shepard more carefully so than I. When the leader opened up his eyes and realized the situation, trying to scream, I slit his throat. As the woman woke up and realized she was lying next to a dying man, she tried to scream and escape the marine's strong grip.
I climbed over the dead man's body and looked her in the eyes, trying to calm her down. "Listen to me, we're not going to hurt you." I said quietly. She settled down at that, but didn't seem any less shocked. "I can't promise you're not going to get hit by any stray bullets, though. You need to leave, now, and go someplace safe. Can you do that?" She nodded. "Good. Release her and let her gather her stuff." Michael did, and she immediately set to gather her belongings, mostly being her clothes.
When we walked out into the main room, the girl having already escaped, the sight of a full squad returning to base met us.
"Hey, Eric!" The leader greeted me. The rest of the squad turned to face us as I greeted him back.
They started whispering amongst each other. "Where's the rest of his team?" Someone asked louder than the others. The whispers turned into murmurs of discontent. "Why do they have N7 armor?" Someone in the crowd almost shouted.
The leader raised his weapon towards us. "Yeah, good question. You wanna answer them, Eric?"
"Look, there's a perfectly reasonable explanatio-" I was interrupted by one of the squad members firing his gun at us.
I threw myself into cover behind a pillar, watching as my allies did the same behind other pillars. 'Looks like they're not interested in hearing me out.' I thought when I was finally in cover.
Taking a few pot shots at our assailants, I shouted over to the marines. "This is what I brought you for, make yourselves useful!"
Peeking around the corner quickly, I noticed the other squad had taken cover as well. I threw a grenade in their general direction and waited for it to explode before I coalesced a barrier and twirled around the pillar, out in the open, ready to fire at them.
As soon as someone stuck out their head, we were there, ready to fire. If not by me, they died from someone else. Admittedly, the marines were less helpful than I'd hoped, but all they had were our lousy pistols, not the hi-tech equipment they were used to.
Before long, the only ones still standing were Seya, Shepard, Anderson and I; all the others were either dead or dying.
"Good thing we brought you guys." Seya said to the N7 operatives as she put her weapon back in its mag-clamp.
"Yeah," I agreed, "couldn't have done that without you." I marched over to the door leading to the so-called "treasury". It was really just the room we stored the safe in. "Come on, if there's anyone else here who hasn't shown up from all that noise yet, they're not in a condition where they're a danger to us. Let's see what our prize looks like."
I opened the door and we all filed in. The room was empty except for a desk with an extranet terminal, and a wall-safe on the far wall, right behind the desk.
"Seya, do your thing." I said, gesturing towards the terminal and the safe.
"With pleasure." She responded as she made her way over to the safe.
She had the safe hacked within minutes. "Check it, I'm moving on to the terminal." She said as she moved towards the computer.
Inside the safe laid only one thing, a tiny, little credit chit. I checked it for its balance.
'Holy shit, that's a lot of credits.' I thought as I weighed it in my hand. "How's it looking?"
"This is amazing, Eric! There are enough credits here to buy a ship!"
"Take it." I said flatly, putting the chit down on the desk as well.
"Right, I'll wire half to you and half to me." She replied, as she was about to finish.
"No." I interrupted her, pausing for effect. "You take it. Take it and buy a ship for your pilgrimage gift."
"Oh no, I couldn't take all this, besides, you deserve your share and-" She started babbling. I had to interrupt her.
'Cute. Like Tali.' "No, I want you to have it. Don't make me pull rank." I smirked.
"I… I don't know what to say. Thank you." She said before she jumped up into my arms and hugged me, hooking her legs behind me.
I returned her embrace, holding her tight for a while. I pulled my head back as I spoke softly to her. "Just remember that not all humans are racist assholes."
I put her down and she took a step back, holding me at arm's length, looking right into my eyes. "I could never forget about you, Eric. Thank you, again." She hugged me again for good measure.
When she was finished hugging me, I turned to the marines who'd stood by watching awkwardly throughout the entire exchange. "Now, how about we blow up this place?"
"Sounds great."
We made our way to the armory where we placed incendiary explosives. "Right, after I set this charge to blow, we have two minutes to get out of here before the entire place blows up. We ready?" Shepard explained what the plan looked like. We all replied in the affirmative.
He readied the explosives. "All right…" He started as he finished up with the explosives. "GO!"
We made a mad dash out the door, down the corridor leading to the main hall, through the hall and out the front doors. We continue running for half a minute before turning around and looking at the compound.
As we waited for it to blow up, I started to get a bit worried. "Shouldn't it have blown up by now? Are you sure y-" I was interrupted by a loud explosion and large flames coming out of every window of the warehouse.
Shepard slowly turned his head to look at me with a grin. "… Nevermind." I conceded.
"Come on, let's head back so we can finally get out of here." Anderson suggested. I agreed, and we headed back.
1:06 AM, January 2nd, 2173, Stockholm, Sweden, Earth
We stood in the hole in the wall that was supposed to pass for a window, looking at the twisted, burning wreckage that was all that was left of the old warehouse. 'It's kind of beautiful, in a weird, corrupted, and psychotic way.'
Anderson woke me up from my thoughts. "Eric, you ready to go? We are all set, the shuttle is nearby, waiting for us."
"Just give me a minute, I'll be right with you." I said absently as my eyes went back to the fire.
'Well, this is it for now, Earth… I'll see you around, I guess…" I thought before following the others.
1:13 AM, January 2nd, 2173, Stockholm, Sweden, Earth
The shuttle looked like an older version of the UT-47 Kodiak, and I quickly realized it probably was, too. As I approached the small ship, I noticed Seya, Anderson and the rogue sniper sat in the troop compartment, with Shepard in the cockpit.
I was the last to go aboard the shuttle, and as I did so, I closed the door behind me and called to Shepard. "We're all good; ready when you are, Shepard."
I felt the small ship lurch as I sat down on a bench in the troop compartment. Shepard soon came out of the cockpit after we had taken off, the shuttle obviously flying on autopilot.
"So, you wanna discuss how you plan on getting me into the marines?" I looked at Anderson.
"Let's talk about that later. It's getting late; we should try to get some sleep. Today has been a long day."
"Fuck that shit!" I got angry. 'That fucker promised me. Joining the military is my biggest, and probably only chance to meet Shepard before the shit hits the fan. And I'm going to fix everything this time.' "You promised me you'd get me in, now tell me how you're gonna do it!"
"I…" He was very obviously uncomfortable with what he was about to say.
"Well, spit it out!" I was starting to get furious. 'Surely Anderson of all people can't screw me over?'
He gathered up some courage and began. "There's no way they're letting in an ex-gang banger into the marines. It doesn't matter if you helped us with this mission, they're never gonna trust you." I stared at him in cold fury. "However, they will have no problem letting in the son of a decorated special-forces officer."
'What's he talking about?' I had no idea what was going on, and voiced my lack of understanding. "What?"
"I'm planning on adopting you." He said, fully serious, before continuing in a more joking manner, "Welcome to the family, son."
"WHAT?"
A/N: Didn't see that one coming, did you? :P
Next chapter is a ways away, I haven't started on it yet, and I have NO idea how I'm going to write it, so don't expect it before a week, at least. You guys should probably know that I don't have every detail planned out so far, just a couple of major plot points. So I basically make everything up as I go. Fun, huh?!
