Salarians lack the ability to dream. Their brains actually remain in a constant state of processing subconscious information and events throughout the day, where they are able to fall into atony without an actual REM cycle. Maybe that's why everything they do is so fast-paced.
I imagine an exhausted salarian falls into a state between lucid dreaming and hallucinations.
Besides perhaps the hanar, most other species are quite susceptible to the voices in their heads during semi-unconsciousness. To turians, a very auditory species, this is quite literally sound. Asari dredge up lots of imaginary cosmos—some ideas not even their own. Drell solipsism is its own memory monster.
Humans in particular seem to have a nasty habit of falling into all three patterns while we sleep. Scientifically speaking, our minds spend hours at a time rotating through a cycle to synthesize an entire series of images, noises, thoughts, and memories. And for a stressed or very young mind these lovely collaborations can be congruent with a completely terrifying psychedelic trip.
Night terrors.
My father had them. I had them. On more than one occasion I sat up in my bed, clinging to my stuffed toy, screaming for my mother to come to my rescue.
Cross-legged on the edge of her bed, more than a little exhausted, Miranda sat halfway through a request for an emergency docking slip on Illium when EDI made her omnipresence known.
"Miss Lawson," she chimed in a voice so silky and smooth, it felt like she'd been wrapped in satin and comfort. "Your presence is requested on the bridge."
"I'll be right up." Miranda stood and stretched her arms above her head. The fatigue in her legs washed away instantaneously, but a set of cracked ribs on her left popped and screamed in protest. Averse as she was to the notion, it required all her willpower to avoid buckling.
So long as she didn't make a fuss, Miranda remained sure she could avoid Dr. Chakwas for at least another full shift rotation. Chakwas had so many other crew members to watch over and treat-Hadley's shattered leg, Miss Chamber's burns and shock, Kasumi's fractured skull, Tali's infection, Patel's ruptured spleen-that she hadn't quite taken care of those able to still effectively stand and speak. In retrospect Miranda was quite lucky.
Or at least, that's the impression she had given her commanding officer. He likely hadn't seen her naked since before they hit the Omega-4 relay.
The mess stood vacated during what would normally be Alpha shift's third meal of the day. Only three crewmen loitered in Gardner's territory, vacating a fabricator of its contents. Patel, Rolston, and Goldstein nodded in greeting and the latter actually grinned.
"Care to join us for a bite, Miss Lawson?" she chirped, waving an empty plate above her head.
Miranda smiled with a flood of warmth in her chest. It didn't make the ache that plagued her heart all day go away, but certainly soothed the pain. "Thank you, Jenny, but I'm needed on deck."
"If you're done in time, let me know. You and the ground team deserve a swanky dinner after pulling our asses out of the fire."
The other two murmured their resounding thanks as Rolston discarded his burden, took three big steps forward, threw his arms around her, and squeezed. The breath in her lungs disappeared, and Miranda could swear on any holy text something important snapped above her waist. Uncomfortable as she was, though, she held little contempt for his gesture.
He brought her to an arms length and said, "I get to see my daughter again because of you."
Miranda blinked, and suddenly felt as though Jack really had smeared the walls with her body. No longer did breath allude her solely from physical damage. A lump formed in her throat and she opened her mouth to offer something. Anything.
Then the entire ship shuddered.
A flanged stream of turian expletives were flung from the main battery, and half of them completely flooded Miranda's translator with misinterpretations. Klaxons clanged across the bulkheads and bounced from the grooves on deck, startling off-hours and injured crewmen alike awake for standby.
"EDI," Miranda called out as she charged to the elevator, winded, and hammered away at the button for the CIC. Inside a cramped metal box, she suddenly despised the alarm as it pounded its way beneath her skull.
The responding synthetic voice remained cool and collected in the midst of the sudden madness. "Yes, Miss Lawson?"
"Status report," she demanded with a clipped edge to her tone. "What the bloody hell just hit us?"
"Debris from a nearby frigate has collided with Normandy's anterior hull, aft of the cargo hold due to-."
"We collide with debris constantly. It's supposed to ricochet off our barriers, not split the ship in half!"
"Correct. However, Normandy's shields are not at optimal capacity with only twenty percent output due to static-electrical buildup in the mass effect drive core. Remaining power has been rerouted into the mass effect fields covering Normandy's hull breaches," EDI relayed.
"Even ten percent is sufficient for something," Miranda snapped because she knew from personal experience a mass effect field acts as a fly swatter for incoming projectiles, and the only property capable of breaking them is a constant heat build up.
Heat built from sources like laser canons.
Laser canons attached to hostile warships.
Which meant they were all in quite a bit of danger.
"Also," EDI added, "an enemy ship is in range and has opened fire."
"Perfect."
Running lights flashed crimson in the CIC gangways, and the reserve left on shift twitched in anticipation. Course plotters rambled off data near the galaxy map with Hadley and Matthews, who fumbled at their space warfare consoles, predicting incoming trajectories. The acting comm specialist, Alison Ramirez, sent away a flurry of jamming signals.
She sensed a subtle shift in their actions. Humbleness she had not felt a few days ago. Normandy was no longer untouchable.
When Miranda reachd the bridge, her ears were bombarded with the voices of three different men arguing as heatedly as a set of children in the middle of a schoolyard spat. The most vocal of the trio loomed over the back of the copilot chair, spitting venom at the turian on the monitor. His brows furrowed so deeply, his face just might have stuck that way. If the tiny, resurfacing scars provided any indication.
Each time Garrus spoke or Lieutenant Moreau chimed in, Shepard grew a bit more tense. When EDI offered insight it became evident very quickly that the opposing sides remained severely unbalanced.
A small, biased part of Miranda wants to reach out to Shepard, to defend him. But when she looked into his eyes, she hesitated. Wild, untamed, unnerved. Something unreasonable, but restrained resided within the microscopic hints of crimson in his pupils.
Miranda braced her shoulders and placed her hands on the back of Joker's chair. "Who the hell is shooting at us?"
"XO? Oh, perfect. You're finally here. We could have totally used you three minutes ago," Joker huffed, not once removing his bony fingers from the flight console. "The LC here just blew up a truck."
Shepard's reproving stare darted over his pilot. "Rephrase: a cargo freighter."
Joker's shoulder eased an itch on his neck. "Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night. Either way, pirates really hate when they lose their booty."
On the vid chat Garrus' mandibles twitched, and Miranda could be almost positive Shepard wanted to reap the benefits of a double entendre.
Except the joke never came. Instead he snapped, "Shut up and fly, Joker."
Jeff sighed, "Another opportunity squandered. Hey, remember the time we dropped out of FTL to discharge, and tripped over a Batarian crime syndicate's flag ship? Almost on accident, right? A sitting duck, like it's freaking Christmas morning! Except, they totally saw us first, flagged us as Cerberus, and opened fire. You were all, 'Jinkies! Who cares if everyone goes zap in twelve hours? They shot at us. Let's use this sweet ass Thanix Cannon again!'"
Garrus coughed, head ducked as he eyeballed his craft. "The one I haven't finished recalibrating. Still recharging by the way. I wouldn't recommend giving it another go just yet. Unless you like your turian on the crispy side."
Mirth overwhelmed Jeff's voice to the point he may have burst. "So instead of shooting the main baddies, you decided to hit their en route supply truck!"
"Freighter," Shepard growled, folding his lithe arms across his chest. Knuckles blanched as his fist tightened. "They'll all go a little hungry now."
"Whatever." Joker snorted and swept an array of useless data from his dash. "So here's the plot twist: a shitload of their fighters drop out of FTL, and swarm us! Good times. You remember? Of course you do. It just happened. Now they've got a whole squadron on our ass across each plane."
Sure enough, the LADAR danced with so many red lights, it could have decorated an entire neighborhood on Earth at Christmastime. Pirate fighters may not have withheld the professional training Normandy did, but they were agile and deadly in swarms regardless. Live fire ricocheted off Normandy's shields, and lessened the affect of the inertia dampeners.
Miranda tacked up the light years in her head. "Joker, can you get a clear shot for a jump to Illium? If we go now, we can make it with over an hour to spare."
"Gee, I'd love to, but they're attacking like a bunch of bees, and collisions are bad."
"Not what I asked!" Her knuckles tensed. "Can you get a clean jump?"
"Pff. 'Course I can," he boasted.
"Good. EDI, help Jeff find a route out." Miranda's voice remained fairly even for someone with an abnormally constricted lung. "Drop us into stealth."
"Sure." Irritation stacked in the flight lieutenant's voice, but Normandy's flight patterns evened out with AI assistance. "They could still look out a damn window and see us, though. At least reapers could."
"Windows are a structural weakness," a new voice chimed in. Curious, intelligent, quirky, synthetic. Legion.
Joker's temper no longer kept in check, his jaw twitched. "Someone shut him up!"
As impossible as it is to actually visualize nearly anything in outer space unless in almost direct contact, light was certainly abundant in this solar system. Twin suns gleamed from hundreds of thousands of miles away, casting alight everything in their midst with a stark silhouette at the rear. Halos were the only indication of movement against the otherwise inky background.
"We could technically tear them apart," Shepard murmured suddenly, a pensive expression on his face.
Miranda head whips around so quickly the bridge spun a little. She wanted to ask him if he'd completely lost his mind. Instead she restrained herself, terse as ever. "But you have no intention of further engagement. Correct, Commander?"
A jarred flicker flashed in his eyes at the sole use of his title. They were honey today, the olive nearly an afterthought. He stayed silent.
"Twelve hours, Shepard," Miranda reiterated, slamming the side of her hand into the opposite palm for emphasis. "We don't have the time or dexterity to engage them in a knife fight. Normandy is crippled."
You better damn well listen to reason, you insolent, deranged, lovely human being. I thought you were doing better. I thought I helped you fix this.
She knew how unfair that was as soon as she thought it.
"Normandy could technically do it, Miranda." One of Shepard's fists balled into the frazzled auburn mess atop his head, and he pawed at the back of his neck. "She's the quickest ship in the galaxy. We could be in and around them in minute—."
"I'm well aware of Normandy's status quo when she isn't ready to fall apart! We have to go. Don't we, Commander?" Boulders dropped into her gut one by one.
Oh, Shepard, what's the matter with you? Please, don't make such a poor judgement call. You are one of the most compassionate, intelligent people in the galaxy, and you're suddenly prepared to jeopardize everything? Don't make your father's mistake. I'll keel haul you!
An impulse to reach for him overcame her, but they are on deck, in command, and he stiffened away before her reach even suspended. A new sting dug in deeper, but Miranda didn't let the loneliness overcome her expression.
"Shepard . . . ," Garrus began.
"Get us the hell out of this system, Joker," Shepard grumbled. An abundance of color drained from his face and he backed away from the monitor. His skin grew ashen and a shadow passed over his eyes. Suddenly, beneath the physical youth, his eyes—his soul—looked so very old.
And it killed her.
A moment's pause, the air stale and mute. Normandy stilled. In the corner of Miranda's eye, shields stabilized and a berth opened in the front line. This was Normandy's chance. Colors outside the vessel bent in an array of broken lights, and on their way to sanctuary they flew.
A collective sigh of relief rang across the deck the moment they slipped the enemy's reach. Running lights switched back to proper daytime hours lighting, alarms died down. Unsettled and stressed, the crew eased back into routine procedures.
Garrus professed a need for sleep, and switched off the vid monitor. Joker threw Miranda a half-hearted smile before returning to his race against time.
The XO folded her hands behind her back, and relayed instructions to the flight lieutenant to head to Nos Astra before returning her attention to Shepard. Her voice softened, and she offered him a quick salute. "Commander Shepard, I hereby relieve you of your post. I will resume command of Normandy henceforth until we reach port in Nos Astra, or until the time Mr. Vakarian chooses to relieve me."
Shepard copied the gesture, and nodded sadly. "Keep her safe, Miss Lawson."
"Always do," she said. "You get some sleep."
And as she watched him leave his command, as much as she'd tried to suppress every ounce of feeling, her own devastation began to overwhelm her.
Omni-tool actived, Miranda immediately jotted down their previous coordinates, and warred with herself over whether to send them to Admiral Hackett and his task forces and ignore the impulse to reach out to the Illusive Man.
I'm not sure whom I trust anymore, she thought. The Illusive Man's willingness to preserve a place so awful and . . . we kept it. All of the horrors and nightmares for humanity is still alive, safe and sound in the center of galaxy. And he's using it to hurt all of those people.
So she pocketed the coordinates for later, and excused herself from the bridge.
The elevator was a much more peaceful place without a constant clatter. On the opposite side of the door, Miranda found herself at the entrance to the captain's loft. After two sets of knocks and a quick scope, she discovered Shepard flat on his back on his side of the bed, an arm draped over his eyes. Concern swelled in the back of her mind when it took him longer than usual to acknowledged her. But with his head tilted back against the pillow, she saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.
With a degree of effort Miranda had quickly developed a profound distaste for, she tossed aside her shoes and slunk onto the bed beside him with a nearly inaudible grunt.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"M'okay," she lied.
"I know I couldn't save them—the slaves onboard that cruiser. You recognized the flag on the monitor, right? Raiders. Bunch of filthy bastards. I've been around long enough to realize those people are just more victims of the universe. But I thought maybe . . . maybe just this once I could, I don't know . . . . I know what they do to them, and it's horrible." He took a shaken breath. "I should have fired at the cruiser instead. Should have killed them. Death would have been merciful."
"How very existentialist of you," she teased.
He snorted. "Do you disagree?"
"Maybe not." Miranda hesitated, and looped his fingers through her bare hand. "But maybe this was meant to be. For all we know, they'll escape or be rescued, and live the lives they want on a refugee world."
Shepard paused thoughtfully. "You don't believe that. Every habitable world is dying."
"With you?" Miranda's brows scrunched into her line of vision. She would normally have bumped his side, but the strain in her chest had grown excessive enough. "Please, anything is possible."
Shepard's lips twitched, and his voice lost the derisive edge. "Would you have believed me to be as stupid as I was on the bridge a little while ago?"
"A couple years ago probably. But in a different way," Miranda agreed. She skimmed her thumb across his knuckles and discovered an awkward lump he should have consulted Dr. Chakwas on, no matter how much they all despised the bone knitter. "You're always so irritatingly compassionate, willing to delay our mission for cats stuck in trees."
But Miranda held no real spite in her voice, only admiration and affection.
"Was I a cat stuck in a tree? You've gone out of your way to help me," Shepard chuckled.
"Yes, well, it's because I want . . . ." She trailed off and he turned for a moment to stare at her.
"And Oriana, and Hackett, Liara, Kasumi, Rolston, those people on Horizon, and Jacob—," he choked and buried his way back into his forearm. "Mordin."
"I want the best for you."
"You're a good person, " he whispered.
When he quieted the air held still for such a long moment, she almost began to think Shepard had fallen asleep when she caught a glint of refracted light slip down his cheek from beneath his arm. Millions of distant stars twinkled down from the viewing windows above them, speckled across endless velvet. Space was so vast and endless, no matter how many threats they purged. And Miranda suddenly felt a little insignificant.
"When they started shooting at us, I just wanted to kill them all. They were trying to hurt the crew . . . my friends. I'm . . . ." Shepard trailed off from his neutral and unyielding voice, and gnawed on his lower lip. "I needed to feel in control. Like I get to pick who lives a good life, and dies a good death. I'm so tired of watching my friends die."
Nausea swept across Miranda, and her mouth tasted like metal. "We're going to lose a lot more friends before this is over."
Dammit. He knows that! He's lost people since day one. Just be here.
"I promised I'd do better. I didn't," he drawled. "I'm so sorry, Miranda. I wish I could, but I can't fix him. I can't bring Jacob back. Mordin, Thane, Earth. God dammit."
Miranda's throat closed up, and she shut her eyes tight because all she sensed was Jacob's heartbeat fading beneath her fingertips. The snowflakes he couldn't bat from his lashed. His breaths shallow and fast against her arm, warm against the chill. The smile he granted her when he told her to go get them, that she always made the best promises.
Miranda would remember until the day she died.
With a wheeze, Miranda pulled herself to the edge of the bed and slung her legs over the side. The tiles were just as numb to her feet as she felt inside. The pain—both physical and emotional—would fade in time as things always do. Bones broke and they healed. Life began and it ended.
The tight seated position she worked her way into certainly left her with added bruising. Yet when Shepard ran his hand gently down her spine, Miranda lingered a moment longer, pawing the downturned sheets with a vice.
"I'll send a message to Brynn Cole when we reach port. She deserves to know Ja- he won't be coming home," Miranda drawled. "You rest."
Brynn knew, watched her lover bleed to death, cried silently into the bulkhead of the shuttle. Why then, did Miranda need to tell her?
"I couldn't stop Cerberus, Miranda," Shepard choked. "I shouldn't have let you go to Gellix alone. I should have been there to save them."
"You can't be everywhere. You were busy saving the galaxy. The scientists, Brynn, Jacob—they were my people. My responsibility. I failed them."
"I'm sorry I couldn't stop them. Maybe the Illusive Man was right. Maybe I am short-sighted."
"Miss Lawson," EDI called before Shepard could say anything.
"Yes?"
"Miss Lawson," she repeated. "We need you."
A strange request, but one she believed to understand. "I'll be down in just a moment."
"Miss Lawson."
Not EDI.
"Miss Lawson."
Miranda jostled. A tidal wave of unintelligible noise assaulted her eardrums. She blinked to clear the film coating her eyes, and found herself slumped in a chair, staring up at none other than Chief Reed. Adorned in a medical mask and gloves, a fair amount of fresh stains pooled upon his trunk.
No longer aboard Normandy. Perhaps she never had been. Sterile and contagious scents alike flooded her nostrils. Lights flickered. People filled the room and surrounded the bed beside her. And a terrible chirping persisted.
What was that godforsaken sound?
"Miss Lawson," he barked, ushering her to the curtain flap. "We need you to step outside right now!"
Only once she felt the splash of soot and mud beneath her boots did she realized surgical gloves were not made in red.
There wasn't always someone to kiss away her nightmares.