The Hearts of Rogues

Chapter Four: Memento Mori

Janna surveyed the approach from a floor below the roof they had been dropped off. The entirety of the bridge all the way down to the entrance was choked by clusters of wrecked cars and other vehicles. One of the two towers on its length had been smashed by something massive at some point, tearing the roof off and rendering it significantly shorter than its partner. The river the bridge spanned had slowed to a crawled and was filled with debris and refuse, some of which was on fire. Alone, the view would've been horrendous, nightmarish even. Here, in the burnt out shell of what used to be London, it was as commonplace as any other sight.

The sound of packs dropping on Janna's right brought her from her observations.

"Figure we'd set up in a cross-firing overwatch pattern in the adjacent buildings," Tirk Palad said, offloading the last of the bags off his shoulders. "You and Laforge up here in the center for coordination and sniping, respectively. Hahn and I closer and on the sides. Kalok will probably want to be in the thick of it up front."

Janna didn't respond as the turian took time arranging the ammo and supply crates in an accessible fashion. He looked up at her.

"That sound good to you?"

Janna was wearing her helmet, but she kept her face stoney, more out of reflexive habit than anything else. "Does it matter? You seem to be calling most of the shots now a days."

The turian's mandibles twitched in what Janna figured passed for a lip curl among the species. She'd seen it quite a bit in the months since they fled Spekalis and folded into the forces of the galaxy's remaining defenders.

"You know," the turian replied at last, "we don't have much time until the harriers are finished on the other side and a horde of renanimated corpses engineered by demons from the edge of dark space comes streaming towards us with intent to overrun. Having a pout seems like a terrible way to spend one's last hours."

He made to leave for the stairs.

"Do you ever wonder how things might've turned out otherwise? If you had killed me on the Phaeton? If we had killed you? If we hadn't turned the Spekalis ship over to the Council?"

Tirik paused by the doorway but didn't turn around. "Pondering could-have-beens seems an equally terrible waste of one's time…but it is more natural."

He disappeared around the corner before Janna could ask her last question.

What if you had let me take that shot?

They had arrived on Earth with the rest of the Hammer forces, those that weren't shot down in the initial wave, at least. They'd reported to their dispatcher, the handler for their "N7" squad. Janna still found it humorous that someone in Alliance brass had decided give the rank held only for the best of the best in Earth's military to the ragtag, adhoc, desperate bands of resistance fighters that signed up to fight a losing battle against the Reapers. Not that they weren't competent, Janna's group at least. Even if they hadn't given Command a top of the line experimental frigate, they'd more than proven themselves over the numerous missions they'd run in the weeks after. Janna was surprised when Tirik stayed on with them, though she suspected it was because the powers-that-be didn't exactly trust her gang of criminals to stay on mission. Most of the crew felt this too, but there were few clashes between Tirik and the rest of the gang. Well, significant clashes. The turian still chafed Laforge and Kalok, but they never came to blows.

Even beyond making Command a little more at ease with her gang, Tirik was an asset. Good battle sense, ample amount of guts, and sufficient tact to politik between less than friendly sides. There were several times when Janna would defer to Tirik's judgment if the situation called for it. Despite being on opposite sides of the law for their entire lives, Tirik had fit right in, more or less.

That is, until several hours ago.

After linking up with their new handler, Janna's gang had been given a short bit of downtime while their superiors assessed and coordinated the remaining forces for what was going to be the final push. The weight of the moment, the last hours of the war one way or another, had fallen upon them. Preferring not to navel gaze, Janna was monitoring what comm channels she had access to when she heard it.

"Shepard's team arriving on base. Cleared for landing."

Shepard. The name brought her back three years, to the day her father had been killed. The day Megan threw away enough money to live comfortably for the rest of her life just to save Janna. The day that ended life as she knew it and forced her to live on the move, always running, always wondering when the next job would arrive or when the next bullet would be fired. All because of her.

Janna found Megan in what passed for the FOB's armory.

"I need your gun."

She looked at Janna for a second, and then moved to grab the Shuriken at her side.

"No. The Widow."

The black-clad woman removed the rifle from her back, expanded the heavy gun, and held it out for Janna.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do, but you should consider if this is what you really want."

Janna took the rifle and left without another word.

She found an overlook of the main promenade. It took her a few moments, but she finally spotted her target: a red-haired woman in red and black armor. Talsta Shepard.

She was talking with a scarred turian in a building directly across from Janna's point. The two were…close, which meant Janna didn't have a good enough shot. She'd only get one. Nevermind that the Widow was a single-shot weapon; the whole base would swarm her the moment she fired.

Was it worth it? They were all going to die anyway, just like Earth. The Reapers' victory seemed total. Might as well get some old-fashioned revenge in before the end. What was even the plan anyway? Some half-baked concoction of a device whose actual function no one knew. No, there was nothing, here at the closing of the day. Nothing but a woman, a bullet, and a target.

Shepard had moved away from the turian now and was speaking with someone else, partially blocked by a broken wall. But soon she'd move on top of the barricade blocking the street, unprotected and unobscured. This would be the moment.

Janna felt something press into the back of her helmet and got a familiar sensation.

"Janna Haliat," Tirik growled, "finger off the trigger. Don't do something colossally stupid."

Janna snorted, "Here we are again, eh merc? And just when I was starting to get used to you having my back."

"I do have your back, Janna," the turian said, priming what Janna knew was his Phalanx handgun, "That's why I didn't immediately shoot you."

Her eye still down the scope, Janna saw Shepard shake hands with the person she was speaking to and make her way towards the barricade.

"You know why I need to do this?"

"I know why you think you want to do this. I had your file remember. But, you don't need to do anything, not to avenge some pirate scum of a father."

Janna gritted her teeth, "My father—"

"Was the lowest of the low," Tirik interrupted, "launching attacks on his own people's colonies, consorting with slavers. The Alliance ruined him at Elysium, and seven years later Shepard finished the job. The man was the worst kind of taker and the universe took him in the end. His is not a life that needs to be avenged, Janna."

"He was still my father, dammit." Shepard had moved onto the barricade now and Janna got her first real look at her father's killer. The red-headed woman had scars across her faced and looked beat to all hell, but there was a grim resolve, a fire behind the eyes that shown with determination.

Tirik continued, "Y'know, if you had devoted these last two years to hunting Shepard down, I'd almost believe that reasoning. You could've done it, too. Us becoming N7 was the perfect in for you, or at least the best one you had in two years. But you never made any moves towards her."

"You were watching me?" There were shouts from below. Something was attacking the barricade. Shepard moved to the turret emplacement closest to her.

"Of course," the turian almost chuckled, "how do you think I knew you'd be up here?"

"So you never trusted us," Janna said coldly. Shepard was in the turret now. Locked in, facing away from her. Perfect positioning.

"I know what it's like to be tempted by things we think we should be or things we think we should do. Don't fall into that. Don't throw away all the good we've done these past weeks. You shoot that woman with Laforge's gun, it'll undo all of that."

"If it's all pointless anyway, what does it matter?"

"Life has no point. All that matters is how we live it."

Tirik's words hung in the air as Janna watched Shepard reverberate with the turret's shots. Then, she sighed and unshouldered the rifle. She felt the pistol ease off her helmet.

"Still smart," Tirik said.

Janna chuckled, the tension in the room diffusing. "Well, wouldn't want to disappoint." Out of the scope, she could see Shepard get off the turret and carry on her way, unaware of how close she came to death.

"That was a hell of a phrase, there at the end. Where'd you hear that?" Janna asked.

But the turian had already left.