Kaidan sighed and shook his head as he holstered his weapon. "James, one of these days someone's gonna shoot you on accident if you keep doing that." The drones had been set as passive sensors; they wouldn't have activated their weapons unless James had ordered them to. It was a damned stupid stunt to pull even as a joke - but it was James all over.
"Hasn't happened yet," the other man scoffed as he put his shotgun away.
"The statistical probability of such an event occurring has just risen," EDI observed.
"Anything to report?" Shepard asked, interrupting them.
James shook his head as he led them through the dimming drones. "Nope - everything's been quiet since we landed. Comm channels are still jammed, but we haven't heard anyone talking about you guys."
Kaidan glanced up at the prefabs, which looked like a haphazard pile of huge bricks some passing giant had carelessly dropped. "Who's on watch right now?"
"Me and Sparks - the others are gettin' some shut-eye," the lieutenant replied as he pulled aside a thick, voluminous curtain that hid the bright lights inside the building. "You want me to wake 'em? It's almost time for shift change, anyway."
"No, just Liara, I think, and whoever's your relief," Shepard said. "EDI found what we were looking for - some of it, anyway - and I want our resident Prothean expert's take on it."
"Man, it's gonna be like Christmas and her birthday for Doc!"
When Kaidan ducked inside, unsealed his helmet, and blinked to adjust to the brightness, he found that there was a wonderful, delectable scent of chili in the air. It was so ordinary, so domestic, that with every deep breath it dispelled a little of the grimness he'd felt since seeing the bodies.
While James left to carry out Shepard's orders and EDI set about decrypting her findings in order to transmit them to their omni-tools, Kaidan followed his nose and investigated the simmering contents of the promisingly large pot left on the stove. "Where the hell did you find the time to cook this? We only had half an hour to prep for the recon mission!"
The commander pulled her helmet off, revealing a self-deprecating smile; a tiny flicker of old grief passed across her face, easy to miss if he hadn't been looking right at her. And if he didn't know her.
"I used to cook three square meals for about twenty-five people every day, back on the farm. Maybe we didn't have biotic appetites, but we worked hard and came home hungry. Making something for just five? That's nothing."
By the time James returned, an excited Liara in tow, with Tali bringing up the rear, Kaidan was already halfway through a big bowl of chili. It was rich, thick and savory, with just the right amount of spiciness: not so hot that it napalmed his mouth, yet with enough bite to leave his palate tingling pleasantly.
Then he realized something was... missing. "No beans?" he asked, licking his lips.
Her eyes crinkling at the corners, Shepard looked up from her own dinner and shook her head. "Traditional, but I thought it would be best to use the family's secret no-beans recipe. Communal bedrooms, Kaidan."
"Oh, right. Good point." More was the pity. The thought of being so near Shepard and yet so far left him feeling forlorn.
The commander turned to James, who was at the stove filling a couple of bowls of chili; Liara was already at the table with her nose buried in her omni-tool display. "Have you been relieved yet?"
"Yeah, Scars and Esteban are on watch now - I'll turn in after I finish eating," James said as he set a bowl and spoon down by Liara and took the other for himself. "I gotta hear what you guys found."
Tali nodded, taking a seat next to the oblivious doctor. "I won't be able to sleep a wink until you satisfy my curiosity. Well, Liara? What have you discovered?"
"This is simply fascinating," the asari mumbled between bites; it was a measure of her intense absorption that she was shoveling the chili into her mouth without regard for its spiciness.
"What is?" Tali prompted with ill-concealed impatience.
"Goddess, this can't be possible," Liara breathed, ignoring the question as she stared wide-eyed down at her omni-tool.
"Liara..." Shepard growled.
Taking the unspoken warning, the doctor said, "Cerberus didn't just find a Prothean artifact - they found a Prothean."
Kaidan blinked, swallowed, then craned his neck to look over Liara's shoulder. "Wait, what? You mean like the ones we found at Ilos?" he asked before taking an absentminded bite of chili.
"No, those Protheans died due to a lack of power, this one... this one is still alive."
James gaped; Kaidan was saved from doing the same only because his mouth was full. "After fifty thousand years? You're shitting me."
Liara frowned at the lieutenant. "I don't shi - I don't joke, James. Not when it comes to my life's work. My colleagues don't take me seriously enough as it is," she added, sounding a little miffed - proving academics were the same the galaxy over, regardless of species.
"That explains why Cerberus were in such a hurry to load the artifacts they found," EDI said.
"Why didn't you mention this earlier, EDI?" Shepard said, sounding almost accusing. "I mean, with your data analysis capabilities -"
The AI was unperturbed. "I didn't want to reason ahead of my data, and I also lack Dr. T'Soni's specialized knowledge and experience. The middle of a reconnaissance mission was also not the time and place to discuss the matter." An irritated wave of the commander's hand conceded the point.
"Think of the things this Prothean could tell us!" Liara exclaimed, her eyes shining with the light of discovery. "I've spent fifty years sifting through their ruins and fragments, but attempting to reconstruct their history and culture has been like, like trying to see a picture in a broken mirror. To learn the truth from a Prothean who was alive during the last Reaper war, straight from the horse's mouth, as you humans say -"
"Before you get carried away writing up a new paper, we have to stop Cerberus from getting it first," Kaidan said. "If they manage to wake the Prothean up... I hate to think what the Illusive Man could do to the poor bastard."
"Cerberus's dislike for non-humans is well known," Tali said in a dark mutter.
"Shepard, you can't let them - dear Goddess, what - what have I been eating?!" Liara cried, putting down her spoon to frantically fan at her mouth; her eyes watered, and her face was turning a fascinating shade of purple. "Hot!"
The commander managed to keep a straight face as she left the table to fill a glass at the sink. "It's called chili. Old family recipe," she said as she handed the water to Liara and sat back down.
After emptying the glass in a few gulps, the asari gasped, "So it's not poison?"
"Liara!" But Shepard was laughing.
"Don't listen to her, Shepard," James said, getting to his feet to get seconds - or maybe thirds. "This is awesome!"
"It'll put hair on your chest," Kaidan agreed, hiding a smile behind his fist.
The asari stared. "Why would I want hair on my chest?" She gave the nearly empty bowl in front of her a dubious look, then directed it at the commander. "Tell me this isn't really going to put hair on my chest, Shepard."
"Only in the metaphorical sense."
Liara screwed her face up as she tried to decipher that, but then her attention was caught by some flashing data streaming across her omni-tool display. "Oh, no, according to these logs, Cerberus tried and failed to open the stasis pod, and their meddling has damaged the machinery somehow - the Prothean's life signs are unstable."
That brought a frown to Shepard's face as she scraped up the last remnants of chili from her bowl. "That's not good. I'd hate to think we came all this way for nothing. Are there more details?"
The asari shook her head. "Not much, other than orders sent from headquarters to cease all attempts at opening the pod by force. I assume that means they plan to send it to one of Cerberus's labs, some place that has better equipment, where they can study it at their leisure."
"We'd never be able to find it again if they manage to get it off planet," Kaidan said.
"I agree," the commander said. "But after seeing the dig site, I have to say I don't like our odds - even with the entire ground team."
"Shepard, I discovered some notes that you may find relevant to your concerns," EDI said, making them start; the AI had been so still and quiet they'd forgotten she was there. "Forwarding them to your omni-tool."
While Shepard perused the data, Kaidan turned to James and Tali. "You two had better get some sleep."
"Yeah, I'm done here," the other man said as he got up to put his bowl and spoon in the sink. "So who's doing the dishes?"
"Why, thanks for volunteering, James," Kaidan said, managing to suppress a smirk.
James yelped with faint outrage, "Wait, what?" He glanced at Shepard as if looking for help from that quarter.
The commander looked up, raised an eyebrow, and said, "Hey, I cooked."
"I outrank you... Lieutenant," Kaidan observed in a bland tone that masked his amusement.
Tali shook both her hands. "I might be allergic to the cleaning solution. You wouldn't want me to get sick, right?"
"Er, don't you deal with worse every day? Omni-gel can burn right through your gloves if you're not careful," Kaidan whispered to the quarian.
Tali placed a finger over her vocalizer, her glowing eyes narrowed in what he assumed was laughter. "James doesn't need to know that," she murmured back; Kaidan had to duck his head to hide a smirk.
Even EDI got into the act. "I have anti-Reaper algorithms, an extensive cyberwarfare suite that evolves as it learns, and Cerberus encryption protocols - but I do not have any dishwashing programs installed."
Liara never even looked up from her omni-tool; it was hard to say whether she was too distracted to respond, or if she was just ignoring them all on purpose.
Seeing no help from anyone, James gathered up the rest of the empty dishes and took them to the sink with a resigned grumble. No one commented when he began to wash them with unnecessary force - but maybe that was because they were all trying not to laugh.
Shepard closed down her omni-tool display and got to her feet. "All right, people, it's been a long day - time for you to get to bed."
"Come on, Liara," Tali said as she rose, taking a firm hold on the asari's elbow; Liara allowed the quarian to pull her up, her eyes never leaving her omni-tool display.
"Think we'll finally see some action tomorrow, Commander?" James asked as he wiped his hands on a rag.
The commander shook her head as she patted her pockets and stuck the cinnamon stick she found into her mouth. "Too early to say, James. We walk in there unprepared, you might as well shoot yourself now and save yourself time." The stick waggled on every syllable, always in danger of falling, but never quite doing so.
James looked more confident than worried. "Huh. But you've got a plan, right? You always have a plan."
"I'm working on it, yeah, but there're some new variables I need to take into account."
"Right, I get that," James said. "Well, I'll stop bugging you about it and go hit the sack. G'nite, guys."
Kaidan trooped out after the others as they headed for the communal bedroom, leaving Shepard and EDI in the kitchen. After a long day of marching back and forth all over the countryside, he was looking forward to a shower - a luxury not often found in the field.
James set down his weapons and began stripping off his armor, and Tali did the same, although she couldn't take off her suit; Liara was still engrossed in her omni-tool display, sitting where Tali had directed her. Kaidan looked around for an empty bunk, and spotted a couple at the darkest end of the room, left unclaimed because they were furthest from the windows.
By the time Kaidan finished his shower and got dressed in his armor's thin mesh undersuit - the only clothes he had - James was already in bed, but Tali was still puttering about, and Liara was up and awake, surrounded now by a heap of glowing data pads. There was no sign of Shepard except for a neat pile of her gear on the bed next to his, so Kaidan went off to find her, only to be stopped by the quarian at the door.
Tali put a hand on Kaidan's arm. "Make sure Shepard takes her own advice," she murmured. "I'm sure you know how."
He had a sneaking suspicion Tali was grinning at him under her helmet; he could hear it in her voice. "Yeah, well, you know how hard it is to get Shepard to do something she doesn't want to," he whispered back.
"I don't think you have to look far to find something she does want to do. Or someone."
"Tali!" He was glad the room was too dim for her to see his blush. Unrepentant, Tali sauntered off, leaving a trail of smothered giggles in her wake.
Shaking his head, Kaidan left the prefab and walked the few steps into the kitchen, but only EDI was still there. As far as he could tell, the AI hadn't moved. "Hey, EDI. Have you seen Shepard?"
"The commander left shortly after you did, Major, and I have not seen her since. However, I did hear her footsteps in the prefab above."
"Okay, thanks." He hesitated. "Don't you need to, I dunno, recharge your platform or something?"
"I have full energy reserves, I require no rest, so I will continue monitoring comm channels and take my turn on watch. I would apply for overtime - that is, if I were paid in the first place. Which I am not." EDI paused. "Perhaps I should join a union."
"EDI."
"That was a joke."
"Right," Kaidan drawled, and left before EDI could come up with more conversation topics to distract and disconcert him.
He found the commander up on the terrace outside the botanical lab, kneeling next to a tub of soil. Out here, where there were no cities, the stars were more than bright enough for him to make out her features. She was rubbing the dirt between her fingers, an odd look of contentment on her face; he'd seen his father do the same thing at the orchard, just savoring the feel of the fertile earth, as if he were waiting with great anticipation for what would grow out of it.
Shepard looked up at his footsteps and rose to her feet, brushing the dirt off her hands. "This is good soil, good for growing crops."
Kaidan was impressed. "You can tell just by touching it?"
She snorted as she stepped down onto the roof of the prefab below, used as an impromptu balcony, and let her feet dangle over the edge as she sat down. "I was raised on a farm - of course I can tell." Frowning, she gave the cinnamon stick dangling from her mouth a fierce bite before speaking. "It seems like such an injustice to know that Cerberus is trampling all over it."
"We'll kick 'em off Eden Prime - we'll reduce a good portion of their manpower when we make our raid," he said as he followed suit. He found that the roof of the prefab still retained the warmth of the sun when he sat down next to her, but it was nothing compared to the heat radiating from her body; he had to resist an impulse to burrow into it. "They'll have no reason to stay once we snatch that Prothean out from under their noses."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," she said, and flashed her omni-tool at his. "I think Cerberus has more reasons than just the Prothean for being here. I've also highlighted the sections I think are pertinent to our mission."
From her grim words, Kaidan suspected the news wasn't good, and what he saw on his omni-tool confirmed it. "Shit. Cerberus murdering everyone at the dig site is bad enough, but now they're kidnapping the surviving colonists? What the hell for?"
"Nothing good, that's for sure."
He closed down the display and gave her a sharp glance. Oh, God, she's gone into 'knight in shining N7 armor' mode. Though her armor didn't look that shiny anymore, these days, but then they were all looking pretty battered. "You want to warn them, don't you?" - no, Shepard didn't do things by halves - "you want to help the colonists."
"I want to help them, yeah," she admitted after several moments had passed in introspective silence.
He wondered what she was thinking about. The destruction Sovereign had left behind? Mindoir? Freedom's Progress? Horizon, maybe - except that this time, he wasn't going to walk away. He wasn't going to walk away ever.
Then he picked up on her tone; she hadn't used the determined I'll walk through fire to get this done and don't you dare give me shit about it voice, it was the talk to me and tell me it's not such a bad idea voice.
Kaidan felt inordinately pleased that she'd come to him and not one of the others. Was it because he'd proven he could stand up to her and not just go along with her schemes? Of course, the circumstances at the time had been less than ideal. Understatement of the century, he thought with a wry mental snort. Or maybe it was just because he was the unofficial XO.
"Normally, I'd be all for it, because these people need and deserve help, but can we really afford to diverge this much from our primary mission?" he asked, keeping his tone as neutral as possible. "Liara can use her Shadow Broker resources to get this intel into the hands of the resistance. We don't have any contacts in the resistance."
Her eyes crinkled as if she'd heard his reservations despite his care, and he relaxed. "This isn't just going to help the colonists - it'll help us, too."
"You're thinking Cerberus will have to draw troops away from the dig site in order to reinforce the ones attacking the resistance."
Shepard nodded in approval of his guess. "Given the number of troops guarding the dig site, and the amount of activity we saw, we can assume that they're close to a breakthrough, if they haven't already figured things out. We've got a great team, but there's just no way we can fight through all of them before they finish loading it onto a shuttle. They might even destroy it."
"We can't risk that - there might even be another beacon, or a repository like the one on Mars." Kaidan grimaced at the thought of the Prothean being deliberately killed. The thought of a being who had survived for fifty-thousand years, only to be murdered by total strangers in its sleep, when it was so close to awakening, left a horrible taste in his mouth. "We can't wait for reinforcements of our own, either, if they're that close."
"Right. We need to level the playing field, and I think this is the best way of doing it, short of using bombs or calling in the Normandy for an air strike -"
He shook his head. "And that might damage the artifact - I mean the stasis pod," he finished for her. "A good plan, in theory - but how're we gonna get in touch with the colonists?"
Shepard pursed her lips. "We could broadcast a message on all military channels. The resistance couldn't have lasted this long without some soldiers - or ex-soldiers - helping them. They're out there, somewhere."
"Hm, risky," Kaidan said as he thought it over. "Cerberus might pick it up. And... I'm not so sure there are any survivors. The first thing they hit was the military base, and the bulk of our forces were stationed at the dig site. And you saw what happened to them."
"What about our helmet comms?" She touched her right ear, where the subcutaneous implant was located.
"Well, they're short range, so you're not going to pick up their channels and vice versa unless you happen to be in the general area." He gestured at the kilometers of flat fields that stretched toward the horizon in every direction. "It'd take blind luck to stumble over a signal in all of this."
Shepard leaned back on her hands and chewed on her cinnamon stick for a moment. "Can we boost the signal somehow?"
"Not enough to make that much of a difference." He looked at her askance. "You're not thinking of trying to free the colonists, are you?"
"That really would be outside the scope of our mission," she said with a regretful sigh. "Even if we can't get in touch with the resistance, we can still take advantage of their attack."
"Ambush Cerberus before they can ambush the resistance? It'd be more effective if we could coordinate with the colonists beforehand, but, yeah, I think that could work." The soldier in him liked this approach better than attempting a rescue that would surely alert Cerberus forces to their presence, even if the man loathed the necessity of leaving them in enemy hands. "It might even draw more of their forces away from the dig site if we hit them hard enough."
The commander nodded. "We can send in Team Two to help the colonists beat back the ambush, then they follow through with the flashy frontal assault on the dig site like we planned. Meanwhile, we slip in the back while they're distracted."
The more Kaidan thought about it, the more he liked it, even as he was appalled by the ruthlessness of using the colonists like that. "I just..." Shepard tilted her head at him in silent inquiry. "I just don't like using civilians to fight our battles for us."
"They aren't civilians anymore." The very lack of inflection in her answer told him that she was aware of the consequences - and her decision to sacrifice fellow colonists pained her. More like haunted her.
He slung his arm around her shoulders; she wrapped hers around his waist and leaned against him. "Whether they are or aren't, we'll save as many of them as we can."
"I know." She looked out across the dark, too-still land, but Kaidan got the feeling she wasn't really seeing it. "This was a beautiful colony, once. They deserve better."
"They're survivors, and they're fighting back. It won't be easy, but they'll get through this," he assured her. "They came back after Saren and the geth attacked. They'll come back again."
Shepard seemed unconvinced. "They rebuilt Mindoir. It wasn't the same."
"I didn't say it'd be easy, Shepard. But they'll be back." Glancing at her pensive expression, he guessed, "Bad memories?"
"Yeah. No. Sort of." She made a self-deprecating sound at her own vacillating answer, but then she sobered. "It's just... seeing all these empty buildings when they should've been bustling with energy and people and purpose. Especially in this season." She nodded at the dark outlines of machines standing idle out in the open. "It's getting close to harvesting time, and if no one brings this in... it'll rot in the fields."
Kaidan couldn't really tell, but he supposed she'd know. "You miss it."
"Yes," she breathed, a world of regret and nostalgia in that one simple word. "Traveling on a ship, it's easy to forget the smell of good earth, the soil shifting under your feet, watching crops grow, the feel of the wind against your face, the taste of a cold beer after working for hours in the sun."
He stared at her. There were times when he could predict just what she'd say or do, when he felt he knew her better than anyone else, even Anderson, but then there were times like this, when he never would've suspected just how much she missed her old life.
"So... you never meant to leave Mindoir?" He wasn't sure what to think about that.
"No. I would've been happy to stay, find someone to love, marry, have children." There was a wistfulness in her voice he'd never heard before.
Was it just a longing for a simpler, more peaceful life, or was it more than that? Maybe... maybe she doesn't want to put up with a moody biotic who thinks too much...?
He shook off his doubts, because here she was anyway, pressed up against his side, a solid line of heat from thigh to shoulder.
"Then... if the batarians had never - I never would've met you." Kaidan tried to imagine his life without Shepard in it, and failed. The one thing he knew for certain was that it would've been a lot less interesting.
She shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. It's possible I might've been sent to Brain Camp after someone figured out I had biotics. My brother couldn't have covered for me forever, especially once he'd gone to Earth to study."
"Huh. Guess you're right." Would his life have turned out any differently if he'd met Shepard earlier? But they'd been two different people back then, so maybe it was better this way. For all the pain and heartbreak he'd experienced, he wouldn't change any of it if it meant he still arrived at this moment.
"God does appreciate His little ironies," Shepard murmured, as if she'd heard his thoughts. Taking the cinnamon stick out of her mouth, her lips curved in an enigmatic smile, the same one that had set his heart racing three years ago.
Kaidan snorted as he buried his nose into her hair and breathed in the scents of medi-gel, soap, and clean woman. "Yeah, I know - sometimes it seems like the universe is making one big joke at my expense. If I hadn't killed Vyrnnus..."
She turned so that her forehead was resting against his, and her cinnamon-scented words puffed warm against his face as she spoke. "I've always felt a little disturbed when I realize my biotic training was based in no small part on your pain, but... I've lost count of the number of times it's saved my life - and the lives of other people."
"Then I'm glad - I'm happy something good came out of the whole sordid mess," he said, smiling into her skin. "That it helped someone, even if it didn't help me."
Pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek, she reached for his free hand and grasped it. "It doesn't matter how we found each other, Kaidan, as long as we did."
"Yeah," he agreed, holding on tight.
