Hello all, long time no write! I have lots of excuses: work, laptop breaking, family stuff, but let's just ignore that and get on with this again. Hope you like the new chapter, I'll be writing and uploading from my new iPad now, so fingers crossed no more technical hiccups! I've missed writing so much!
Oh no.
The Asari held Jessie's wrist tightly, there was no chance of her getting away. Jessie recognized her right immediately she had picked her pocket only the day before. She thought it had been a clean grab too, but from the look on the Asari's face, she knew exactly who Jessie was, and what she had done.
The Asari pulled her back into the club, past the door to the room where the rest of the women were auditioning, up a set of stairs, and into a small office. She only released her grip on Jessie's wrist when she had securely locked the door behind them, and Jessie knew there would be no escape.
She waited for the beating, she had only been caught stealing a few times, but there was always a beating.
But it didn't come. The Asari just stared at her for the longest time, and Jessie began to wonder if she was in for something worse: maybe a beating was the least of her worries? Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the Asari spoke. "That was a pretty good lift."
Jessie didn't reply, what was there to say? But the Asari seemed to want something, because she raised an eyebrow, "Do you speak?"
"Yes," Jessie replied quietly.
"Well?"
Jessie figured she didn't have much to lose, so simply said "It wasn't that good, I'm here now."
The corners of the Asari's mouth twitched, and she smiled for a fraction of a second, before her stony expression returned. The sat down on her couch, looking Jessie up and down. "You been doing this for long?"
Jessie shrugged.
"Born on Omega?"
Jessie didn't respond, she wasn't sure how legally she and Tom had actually been brought to this place, and she still wasn't sure what this woman's game was. But the Asari just smiled again, and said "No, I don't think so, otherwise you'd probably know who I am."
"I know who you are," Jessie muttered, and it was true, she did…now. As soon as she had been dragged into this office it all became clear: there was only one Asari who used this room, the same Asari who ran this whole station.
"What do you know?"
"You're Aria T'Loak."
"If you know who I am, then I have to ask, do you have a death wish? Why would you try to steal from me?"
Jessie shrugged again, "I didn't realize then, it was dark."
Aria looked her up and down one more time. "I usually have no patience for thieves, it comes from the fact that I used to be one, and no one likes to be reminded of their past."
Jessie nodded, so the beating was coming.
"But…" Aria seemed to be considering something. "What is your name?"
"Jessie." There was no point lying, Aria knew everything. Or could find it out whenever she wanted.
"How old are you Jessie?"
"Twenty-one."
Aria raised an eyebrow. "Bullshit. If we're going to be friends, you're going to have to be honest with me. I won't accept another lie, so think carefully about what you're going to say next."
Jessie paused, then answered "Sixteen."
Aria smiled, "That seems more like it." She stood up. "How do you feel about a job where you don't have to steal, and where you get to keep your clothes on?"
Jessie felt a smile cross her lips, something told her things might not be as bad as she thought.
So far so good, Jessie breathed, as the shuttle approached Palaven. No one knew she was here other than the pilot, who thought she was someone else anyway. She had no idea what she was going to do when she actually reached the moon: somehow she didn't think Tom would appreciate her opening the door and shouting "Surprise!" But she'd need to reveal herself at some point, otherwise she wouldn't be able to help, and something inside her told her she could do it, she could help them to stop the jamming signal. She could at least try, no one else seemed to have the same kinds of skills as her at any rate.
Steve landed the shuttle, Jessie heard the doors open, and her brother disembark. Just as easily as she had done it, she unlocked the door between the cockpit and the rest of the shuttle, and got to her feet. "Hey, how did you do that…And where are you going?" Steve asked, a puzzled look on his face.
"To help," Jessie replied, as casually as she could and, before giving him time to react, but noticing the slow realization cross his face, Jessie left the shuttle. She could see Tom, Liara, and James not too far away, heading to a camp of sorts. There was gunfire in the distance, but for now at least, Jessie felt relatively safe. Underdressed, in just her normal clothes, and cold, it was really cold here, but safe.
Tom and the others had entered the camp now, and Jessie hurried to catch up. Just as she arrived, the gate began to close. "Wait!" She called, noticing a Turian standing on a platform just above her. He looked at her suspiciously, and Jessie wished now more than anything that she had been wearing armor. "You lost?" He asked her, raising a brow plate.
"No, I'm here with Tom- with Shepard. Open the gate." She must have sounded at least halfway confident, because the Turian did as she asked. Jessie hurried inside. Tom wasn't far away now, he was talking at a nearby table with another Turian. It was now or never. Jessie held her breath and approached, deciding to wait until he had finished before announcing herself. James saw her first, and though he seemed more than a little surprised, Jessie noticed he also looked like he was about to laugh. Liara spotted her next, but she didn't look amused, she looked worried. Finally, Tom, who realized his squad mates were staring over his shoulder, turned around. He definitely wasn't laughing, and pushed past the others to get to her. He pulled her to one side. "Jessie?! What the hell are you doing here?"
"I wanted to help," Jessie replied firmly, though her legs were shaking a little, her brother looked beyond angry.
"I told you it's not safe, I can't believe you ignored me!"
"And I can't believe you won't use me!" Suddenly Jessie felt equally mad. "You know I can help, you can't forbid me from coming because you're my brother, you're supposed to be this great leader! Well then appreciate the fact that I might actually be able to do some good here! I'm not a child!"
Tom seemed a little taken aback, and was silent for a moment. "Ok," he said finally.
"What?" Jessie was sure she had misheard him, it couldn't be as easy as that, could it?
"I said, 'ok'. You're right, you could help." He looked her up and down. "But before you go anywhere near that communication tower, you're putting on some armor, deal?"
Jessie nodded, too shocked to say anything else.
Tom turned back to Liara and James, who looked equally surprised at his decision. "James, take my sister back to the shuttle to get some armor, then take her to the tower." He paused. "Keep her safe."
James stepped forward, clasped Tom's shoulder and said "I'm on it Shepard, she'll be safe with me."
Jessie wanted to feel victorious: she'd done it, she'd convinced her brother to let her stay, she was on her way to the communications tower to try and take out the jamming signal, and she even had some armor. But she didn't feel like celebrating just yet. In fact, she was starting to wonder what she'd gotten herself into. The armor may have been keeping her safe, but it wasn't exactly the right fit, and it made her movements feel restricted and clunky. The moon was terrifying, James had already had to push her to the ground so he could shoot some of those hideous Husk things she'd read about. Plus she still had no idea if she could even actually do anything.
"You ok?" James asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"Yes," she replied, much too quickly. James grinned. "Pretty dumb idea coming down here, bet you regret it now huh?"
Jessie prickled a bit, "No, it's the right thing to do."
James was still smiling, "Oh sure, sure, coming down to a hostile planet with no armor or weapon, no training, no idea what you're up against, yeah that was totally the right call."
She knew he was joking, and that he was right, but the fact that he'd just said everything that had only two seconds ago been running through her own brain really bugged her. "For your information," She replied hotly, "I know exactly what we're up against. Ok I may not be the most prepared, but I know the stakes." But she realized James wasn't listening any more, he was staring at something in the distance, just over the crest of the hill they were climbing. Jessie moved closer to him, following his gaze.
She realized she didn't have a clue what they were up against.
Standing there, in the valley below, was a Reaper. Hours later, sitting alone in her room, she would try to make sense of what it looked like, but it was so far removed from anything she had ever seen before that the closest she would get would be 'giant robot bug'. The thing stood over 150 meters high, with huge metal legs, and what looked like a cylindrical eye in the center. It stood it's ground, firing shots at the small one-man fighters circling it. One by one they fell out of the sky.
"Come on," James said, leading her gently away. "Nothing we can do here."
He led her down through the rocks and away from the fighting in the distance, though she could still hear it. Soon they reached the tower, where, Tom had informed her, there was a communications control panel at the top. She should climb up, 'do her thing', then come down. Whatever 'her thing' was, Jessie still wasn't sure about that part.
"You ok?" James asked again as she approached the ladder.
Jessie didn't know how to answer this time.
"I know," James replied, before she said anything. I've seen those things on Earth, on vids, and it still doesn't make it any easier. But we'll beat em', we've got your brother, and soon we'll have the Turian's too."
Jessie nodded, the only response she could provide at that moment in time, and made her way up the ladder towards the top of the tower. James waited below, his eyes scanning the surrounding area for any movement. Jessie was grateful, the last thing she wanted was any of those husks following her up!
The console itself was unlike anything she'd ever come across before. Not only did it look bigger and more complicated than Human technology, but there were no letters or words she could recognise, only symbols which she assumed must be Turian script. "Fuck," she muttered. What was she supposed to do with this?
"Jessie, are you there?" Tom's voice was in her new earpiece.
"Yeah," Jessie replied, leaning in to look closely at a symbol that looked a little bit like a cat wearing shoes.
"How's it going?" Tom asked.
"Pretty good," Jessie replied. She'd just pressed the cat button and now the whole console was flashing red. She bit her lip, OK, so cat is bad, let's not press that again.
"Any idea of a timescale?" Tom asked, she could hear shooting now, he was obviously fighting. He needed this tower working.
"Five minutes?" She offered, pushing three buttons at once. The screen was green again, except now it was making a buzzing sound. Is that better or worse? She wondered.
"Ok, the sooner the better," Tom replied. "Shepard out."
Five minutes, why the hell did I say that?!
The sound of gunfire drew her attention, except this time it was below her. Jessie looked down, James was now fighting off husks. She had no idea where they came from, but they were approaching fast from all directions, how long would he be able to last? She turned back to the console, taking a deep breath. You can do this, she told herself. Then she had an idea, she pulled off the cover on the panel to the left. There was a multitude of wires, all reaching off in different directions, all different colours. But this was ok, Wires I can handle, she thought. And, as though on auto pilot, she began pulling some out, reattaching others in different places, and generally making a mess inside the console. Except this wasn't chaos, she knew exactly which ones to pull, and which ones to leave, as though she had someone reading out instructions inside her head.. When she had finished, she turned back to the console. Again, as if on auto pilot, Jessie began typing using the foreign keys. She knew what she wanted to do: stop the jamming signal. The language was irrelevant, her hands knew what they had to do, and so they did it. Jessie thought about what she wanted to see, and it was although she could see through the jumble of symbols and shapes on the screen, and into the core of the device. It took her less than fifteen seconds to find what she needed, and less than three to stop the jamming signal.
"It's done," she said into her Omni-tool.
"Already?" Tom sounded shocked. "Great, now get back to the shuttle."
Jessie sighed, her job was done, may as well do what he said now. She looked down, James had killed most of the husks, only a couple were still lolloping towards him. But there was something else coming too. It was far away, but it was moving quickly. As it got closer she realised it was another one of the Reaper creatures, the one they called 'Brutes'. It was running towards James now at full speed, but he was so busy with the husks that he didn't see it! Jessie climbed down the ladder as quickly as she could, almost losing her footing a few times, but was on the ground in seconds. "James, Brute!" She cried, and he spun around just in time for it to knock him out of the way. James flew twenty feet and landed out of sight. But Jessie barely had time to register this, because now the thing had turned and was looking at her. She gasped, turning and running in the opposite direction.
This thing was fast, but years of picking pockets and running away had made Jessie faster, and she was able to create some distance before she realised she was heading for a dead end. The ground in front of her just seemed to stop, and she was running so fast she very early went over the edge. She looked over, it was a steep descent, with it only levelling out about fifty feet below, but she could probably manage it. There wasn't much time to think about it, the Brute was only feet away. Jessie dropped down, sliding most of the way down the steep slope, and landing clumsily on the ground below.
She could hear the Brute, it was coming too, following her down! Jessie got to her feet, one of her ankles didn't feel great, but there wasn't anything she could do about that. She hobbled away towards a rock face in front of her: there was a narrow gap she was sure she could fit through, and the Brute wouldn't be able to. She reached it just in time, squeezing herself into the narrow space. It got even tighter further in, but she continued on. Within seconds the Brute was at the gap, reaching in, trying to grasp her. She was just out of reach, but couldn't get any further in without seriously injuring herself.
What was she going to do? She was trapped! The Brute was throwing itself against the rock face in an attempt to widen the gap, and now dust and small rocks were showering down on her. If this went on for much longer, she could get buried alive in here! Or the Brute would get in, and was either option any better than the other?
