Ashley Williams was certain of one thing as she sprinted through the open field: those synthetics were fast. There was some sound up ahead - voices? Radio chatter? Whatever it was, it was human, and right now, that was enough. Banking hard to the right, she slid and slipped across the hills, her motions jagged, her legs a blur. Her lungs burned, and as she neared the source of the noise, she saw two figures, one standing and one crouching. She forced herself to focus on their outlines. This was the goal. You can get there.
She raced through the clearing, passing rocks and bodies, and, to her chagrin, a patch of dust and dirt and grass still stained with remnants of her own vomit. Had she run in a circle? No - the two shapes were still ahead, small and dull and blurry and far, too far!
Ashley dug into her body's reserves, tapping pockets of energy she had not previously known existed. This was adrenaline, this was her final push and surge before she would collapse and shut down and die, near where there had once been a pool of her own vomit.
This very terrain had been patrolled hundreds of times before. Eden Prime was considered something of a paradise, full of lush and fertile land that took to farming as if it had been designed for that very purpose. Had she been asked to describe the planet, she would have said it was green; she would never have mentioned its crags and valleys and frequent dusting of rock formations. It's funny what you don't notice until you need to use it. Today, and hereafter, she would say that Eden Prime was rocky.
Williams dove behind a small outcropping of rocks near where the humans rested. They'd have to see her. One, the standing man, straightened - he did. He pulled a weapon and began a jog towards her, calling back over his shoulder at the other. As the person neared, Ashley could see he was Alliance - the standard-issue armor gave that away - though he was not someone she recognized as being stationed on Eden Prime. An open pocket on his armor flapped as he ran - a medigel compartment. The man was a medic. She glanced towards where the other human figure still crouched, partially hidden behind some rocks. It appeared to also be a man, though long pieces of hair flew violently about in the winds. He must have been injured, must still be healing.
The medic approached, a pistol brandished in his hands. Ashley turned, firing short, controlled bursts with her assault rifle, a happy tingling spreading through her limbs as she heard a chorus of pistol shots melding with and mimicking her own fire. The man leaned his back against her rock, and their eyes met. They nodded at each other in the marine way, in that battlefield camaraderie that melted all barriers between people like nothing else. They didn't need words. They were soldiers, on the same side. It was a transcendent bond; it was her bond with the medic.
The synthetics twitched and sparked and whirred as an overload slammed through their systems. A burst of energy whizzed so close to the side of her helmet that Williams would swear she could somehow feel its breeze, and it sailed straight through the middle of the light on the closest machine's head. The glass, film, whatever it was, shattered and sent tiny particulates shimmering through the air, like the glittering after-effect of a firework still simmering in the night sky. The other man hadn't been injured, Williams realized: the other man had been a sniper.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Williams turned, casting an appreciative smile towards where the sniper still crouched low. He had begun moving, slowly and quietly, across the land between them. With a sudden scream - a feral, otherworldly yell that made her recall both the shrieks of birds and yowls of cats - he rose and began to charge towards them, his sniper rifle raised before his chest like a galloping knight would have brandished his lance. The Lieutenant caught sight of his companion and quickly ceased fire, motioning for Williams to stop as well. As the other man passed them, he bore down on the remaining synthetic, slamming the nose of his rifle through the creature's glass eye. The light went out.
it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
"I thought I was going to die," Ashley breathed, her eyes wide. "Whoever you are, whatever you want, I'm buying once we get out of here!"
Both men ignored her.
The synthetic struggled beneath the sniper, and though the man appeared to be very small, he was also very strong. With exaggerated grunts and groans, the sniper kept slamming the butt of the sniper rifle through the machine's eye, sparks sputtering from now-exposed mechanics and cables, and the flaps that covered the side of what made its head quaking with each thrust.
The medic tore himself away from the scene, moving toward the synthetic nearest him. He nudged it with the toe of his boot, his eyes narrowing in curiosity. "What is this thing?"
"I think they're geth. Uhh, sir," Williams offered. She hadn't thought to check either man's chest plate for the rank insignia, though she could guess they'd probably outrank her. Her brown eyes flickered back to the sniper, still happily pulverizing the twitching machine beneath him. The sniper must have a lot of anger.
The medic cast a look over his shoulder at Williams, turning to face her. Now that his chest was exposed, her guess was confirmed: Lieutenant. "Geth? They haven't been seen out here in over 200 years." He paused, his eyes locking on the sniper, a strange expression twisting his features. "I- I think that's dead, ma'am."
Ma'am?
As the sniper rose, Williams could see that it was indeed a very small woman, too small, in fact, for standard issue armor to fit her properly. She dressed in a man's breastplate with - to Ashley's great amusement - the handle of a pistol barely peeking past its edge. That can't be safe, Williams thought to herself, barely contained laughter crinkling her eyes. I guess that's why she was given a personal medic.
The woman's hair, tussled by the wind, looked matted and tangled, causing Williams to run a hand over her helmet in an effort to check the security of her own bun. At one point, the woman had worn bright red lipstick that now had been smeared across her cheek. It was an odd choice to wear such a bold color. Most female marines took pains to keep the make-up to a minimum, almost as if they were afraid to do anything that made them be or look too female. Williams admired this strange woman's moxy; it would be nice to do or have something to make her feel feminine sometime, even if bold red lipstick were not her personal taste.
"Who are you?" the small woman spoke at last, deep violet eyes locking onto Williams'. The eyes were said to be the window to the soul, but Williams felt as if that pair could see through straight to hers.
"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 2-12, ma'am!" she barked. Ashley straightened, noticing an N7 insignia on the other woman's chest for the first time. Could it be? Was this small and strange creature before her the subject of all those whispers, those tales ...
The woman pointed to her chest. "Commander Shepard," she spoke delicately, taking her time to roll her tongue over the syllables as if the words were foreign to her somehow. She pointed next to the medic. "Lieutenant Alenko."
Me: Tarzan. Him: Alenko. Did she hit her head or something?
Kaidan Alenko winced at the awkward introduction, offering the Gunnery Chief a nod. She looked somewhat old for the rank, though, glancing sidelong at Shepard, he realized he'd become something of a novice at matching ranks to faces recently.
His eyes drifted to his hands, to where his fingers were still trembling. He prided himself on being fair and honest, and he had misjudged the Commander - assumed her to be some poster-child charlatan before he'd had a chance to see her in the field. Kaidan knew what it was to be misread; as a biotic, he'd encountered enough misinformation and prejudice to last him. Recalling that horrible screech, the waving bunches of hair warping and twisting in the wind, the hideous snarl etched across her face as she'd advanced on the synthetic ... It almost made him feel bad for the machine to have that be its last vision. She would take on a maw single-handedly, he decided. She acted as if she were not of this world.
Maybe Spectres aren't supposed to be cut from the same cloth as the rest of us. Maybe they want her because she's different.
"Here," the Commander ordered in what was now becoming her familiar, distant tone. She shoved the extra assault rifle that Kaidan had left behind into the other woman's chest. "Put this somewhere."
Williams' hands gripped the thrust rifle awkwardly. Once Shepard had loosed her grasp, the Chief's fingers expertly began tracing the firing mechanism and muzzle. Having judged Commander Shepard's offering to be superior to her own, Williams skillfully stowed the rifle she had fired into the holster on her back, settling her hands upon the stock of the new rifle.
"We're here for the beacon," Kaidan offered, feeling awkward in the silence that had settled. "Where's the rest of your unit?"
Williams stilled her motions, lowering her head. "They're- I think they're all dead. It just happened so fast, and I ..." Her voice had been strong, though it trailed off. The truth had just begun to hit her.
"Yes," Shepard affirmed about nothing to no one. She absently ran a hand over her head, wiggling her fingers through the matted and tangled tresses still half-twisted into a regulation bun.
The Gunnery Chief's gaze shifted, her dark eyes studying the small woman standing to Alenko's side.
"You, uh... You wouldn't happen to know where the beacon is, would you?" The Lieutenant ventured, catching Williams' eye.
"Sure," she replied evenly, a momentary spark of curiosity playing across her face. "The dig site's over this hill. My unit wasn't assigned to guard it, so I don't know the details, but the damn thing was still sitting at the dig site last I saw it." She paused. "You're here for the beacon, huh? Do you think-"
The Chief stopped short, her head snapping to her right at the sound of a sharp thud, her rifle rising instinctively. Alenko followed suit, his pistol whipping upright, clasped firmly in two hands in front of his torso.
The Commander, the same Commander who had just stood next to them, was thumping the butt of her sniper rifle against an unopened storage chest a few paces from the two marines.
"How'd she get over there so fast? That armor doesn't even fit." The Chief slowly stepped to Kaidan's side, her fingers tapping nervously against the stock of her new rifle.
"It seems a little disrespectful, doesn't it?" Kaidan mused absently. "These corpses are still smoldering and she's already looting their stores."
Williams snorted, glancing sidelong at the Lieutenant. "It's practical, sir. What do they need the guns for when they're dead anyway?" She rocked back on her heels, her head nodding slightly. "You know, that's just how I imagined her - The Raven, I mean. Ruthless, practical, focused on the mission." The Chief looked down at Shepard's present still resting in her hands. "She doesn't know me from Adam, just sees that I'm Alliance, and she outfits me with better gear than what those bastards back at the base judged me worthy of. You're lucky to be serving with her."
He was unsure if it was luck or some sort of curse. He liked the simpleness of order, the complacency of routine. Nothing would be simple or routine with Shepard, he sensed; nothing would be the same again.
Kaidan chose to ignore most of what Williams had said. She lost her unit today; she doesn't need to lose her hero too.
"The Raven?" Alenko slipped his pistol back into its holster, folding his arms across his chest. "So you know the stories then?"
Williams let the assault rifle dangle to her side, assuming a similarly at-ease stance. "Yeah," she admitted with something of a forced casualness to her tone. "Who doesn't?" The Gunnery Chief stole a quick glance at the small woman still slamming the butt her of rifle into the storage chest. "She uses that thing like an extension of her arm. She's something."
Yeah, she's something all right. I still don't know what - but something.
The lid to the storage chest swung open, and Shepard's upper body disappeared from sight as she leaned into the crate, sloshing through metal to find what she deemed valuable bounty. After a few minutes, she emerged, cradling a few more rifles, some ammunition packets, and a couple armor upgrades in her arms. Shepard jerked her head, causing both marines to start walking towards the Commander at the signal.
Ashley stopped short, hesitating. "What am I doing?"
"Chief?"
Alenko paused too, watching her closely.
She shook her head lightly. "What do I do? Do I follow you two? I just ..." She licked her lips. "I don't want you to feel obligated to take the Eden Prime orphan along just because I've got nowhere better to be. I am not going to be a burden." Williams nibbled on her bottom lip, as if hoping to tap into one last store of courage. "Listen," she began carefully. "I know I'm only a Gunnery Chief with crappy ground-side postings under my belt, but I can hold my own ..."
So, she wanted to come along. Kaidan supposed it made some sense, and she had impressed him with the quick and easy way she'd evaluated the assault rifle. The way her fingers had breezily glided over mechanisms demonstrated a knowledge of and passion for weaponry far greater than his own. She had proven herself a good shot, and she was smart and strong enough to survive where the rest of her unit had not.
"We had a third with us when we left," Alenko replied thoughtfully. "You can take Jenkins' place - for now. I think the Commander will like having you with us." I don't think the Commander will notice you with us. "Besides," he added, flashing her a small smile, "you can be our tour guide. Jenkins was from Eden Prime. Shepard and I don't know our way around."
Ashley began walking again. "Sorry about Jenkins."
Kaidan raised a brow. "Thanks ... Sorry about your unit."
She nodded. "Thanks."
Shepard dumped her bounty onto the turf before them, picking a few things for her own use from the pile and gesturing to the two marines to take what they wanted as well. Her shining eyes fell on Williams.
"You are coming with me?" she called in that strangely accented bird-voice.
"Yes, ma'am!" the Chief replied firmly, her small glance towards Kaidan belying her unease.
Shepard nodded, busying herself with the armor mod she had just found. "Okay."
Oh-thay.
Kaidan added quickly, "Chief Williams knows this land - she can lead us to the dig site."
The Commander snapped a medi-gel armor mod into place. Williams silently crouched beside the pile, picking up a few specialized rounds and a heavy weave mod for her own armor. Both women looked to the Lieutenant. He paused and followed suit, carefully choosing a few upgrades for his weapons.
Satisfied that her crew was outfitted, Shepard offered the pair another brusque nod and another small, distracted, "Okay." She took off across the hill, looking over her shoulder to make sure the other two marines were keeping pace. As before, she charged forward quickly and purposefully, forcing the two companions to start a light jog.
"Are you sure you need me?" Williams grumbled, gritting her teeth. "Shepard seems to know where she's going."
Kaidan quietly cursed. He'd let his medic training slide, hadn't thought of offering medigel to the Chief or checking her for wounds. As she ran, she appeared to favor one leg, and her breath seemed a bit ragged. She'd been running for her life when he'd first found her. Though she'd had some time to rest, it probably had not been enough. He slowed his pace, allowing the woman some reprieve.
"You're an extra gun on our side. Under these conditions, I'm never going to turn that down."
Williams smiled at him - a full, true smile without forced emotions or hidden undertones. It was a nice smile, he decided. It felt good to have a woman smile at him that way again.
A/N:
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
From Macbeth.
Thanks to everyone who's read this, especially to those who have added this to their story alerts and to the reviewers. Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it.