Author's note
BioWare owns all.
No trigger warning in this one, which makes a nice change.
Chapter seven: November to December: the unofficial report
The day after Kaidan's spectacular victory (the very first competition Pod 3 had ever won) marked the beginning of a hunger week. I woke up just before four, waited around a bit for the rising siren, then decided that all sleep was precious, so went back to bed again. The siren rang at six o'clock.
"What's this?" Ismaeel asked, looking up at the clock.
"It's a hunger week, obviously," Cat said in a horrible, superior voice.
"Oh," Sven said. "I was hoping that we were still being rewarded for Alenko's brilliant performance yesterday."
"Hm?" Kaidan asked. "Oh, you mean in the ring? Yeah, I doubt it somehow."
We showered and got dressed. "Shall we go to the mess hall just to be certain?" Zac asked.
"Might as well," Pierre answered, sounding dubious. "You never know what might happen."
As we all suspected, the catering corps turned us away at the door of the hall.
"Shit, this is bad," Kaidan mumbled.
"Yeah, if I lose any more weight I might disappear," I said. "If we get really hungry, I suppose we could always kill and eat Mahlberg. He's the biggest person in the pod after all."
"No, that's not what I meant, although I suppose if push comes to shove we could do that," Kaidan said.
"Oh," I said. "What did you mean then?"
"I mean I'm on chronic medication for my fits and headaches," Kaidan said. "I need to take the medicine with food."
"Crap," I said. "So am I, for my allergies and…stuff."
"You still have your emergency chocolate rations?" Ash asked.
"Maybe three pieces," I said. "Why?"
"Come on Jane, think for a second," Ash snapped.
"I can't," I said. "I'm on strike. I demand more food and a safer working environment."
"Holy crap, woman, you're impossible," Kaidan groaned.
"Take the medicine with the chocolate, genius," Ash said impatiently.
"Right," I said. "Except I only have three pieces of chocolate left. Not enough for an entire week."
Ash rooted around in her BOL. "Here," she said, shoving her slab of chocolate into my hands.
"Ash, no it's fine," I said. "I'll just have a lot of…allergic reactions for the week."
"Jane, take it," Ash insisted. "You can give me your slab for next month."
"Alright," I said. "Thanks."
Commander McDougal started the session off by congratulating Kaidan on his performance. "It's rare for Pod 3 to have a champion," he said. "Good work Alenko. You may force me to re-evaluate my opinion on you. You're not nearly as dim-witted as you appear."
"Um, thank you, sir," Kaidan said.
"In December is the marksmanship competition, where Pod 3 will have another champion," Commander McDougal continued. "I am yet to find anyone who can outshoot my Catlin."
"Shepard can," Zac said quietly. Unfortunately Commander McDougal heard him.
"Are you contradicting me, boy?" he snapped.
"Well, in our training this week Shepard shot better than McDougal, sir," Zac said.
"I said no one can outshoot my daughter and you said that someone can," Commander McDougal shouted. "That counts as contradicting a commanding officer. On your feet when I speak to you, Tobrin."
Zac got slowly to his feet. "Sir, I'm saying the facts speak for themselves," he said.
"The facts can go suck a large one, Tobrin," Commander McDougal shouted. "I'm putting you on all-night stand-to. Report to your guard post at 1800 hours."
Zac sighed and saluted. "Aye aye sir," he said.
"And you, Shepard?" Commander McDougal said, rounding on me. "Do you agree with Tobrin's assessment that you are the best shot in your pod?"
"Not in a million miles, sir," I said promptly. This seemed to satisfy him.
"Well now, it is time to talk about the roundrobin," he said, moving to the front of the room again. "It will be happening from the beginning of April until the beginning of May and will be a chance for you all to show the skills that you have learnt in the academy. Each pod will be divided into four teams, with each team consisting of three recruits. In the event of a pod having lost a recruit, there will be a team or two with less members. Now, type this up, it's important." There was a flurry of noise as we got our datapads out. "The Pod 1 squads will be competing from 1 April until 7 April, Pod 2 from 8 April until 14 April, Pod 3 from 15 April until 21 April, Pod 4 from 22 April until 28 April, Pod 5 from 29 April until 6 May, and Pod 6 from 7 May until 14 May. The competition tests you on the following fields: weapons and armoury, fitness, combat, tech, reconnaissance, and navigation. During this time, all pods not competing will all be deployed either to an inactive carrier in orbit around Earth, either the Hobbes or the Churchill, or you will be training for your specialisation."
"How do you get chosen to do a specialisation?" a Pod 5 boy asked.
"A recruit can only be chosen for a specialisation if he or she gets an average score of eighty per cent or more for a course," Commander McDougal said. "There are only four fields that an Alliance marine can specialise in: weaponry, tech, recon and combat, and the lists are announced before December week. Now, I want you to choose your squads and let me know next Wednesday what these squads are. Enough of the roundrobin. Who can tell me who to contact should the commanding officer on the battle field fall?"
That Sunday was our second communication Sunday of the year. Owing to the hunger week the hours were slightly different to the previous one. Kaidan would be kicking things off at seven in the morning. My slot was at three in the afternoon. Ash, Kaidan and I put the finishing touches to our plan to hack into the Alliance secure network whilst waiting in line in the showers.
"I have no idea how long it will take me," Kaidan said. "Some codes can take hours to decrypt. I estimate that it'll take all three our slots for me to do this."
"Alright, I'll check in on Lee again I guess," Ash said moodily.
It was always awkward for me in the showers and I tended to avoid eye contact with anyone else in the vicinity. "Are you sure you want to do this, Alenko?" I asked the ceiling. "I mean, if we're caught, we're looking at the very least some jail time."
"Yeah, I want to do this," Kaidan said. "I can't say I'll do something and not commit to it."
"What's that on your chest, Kaidan?" Ash asked suddenly.
"What, the bruise?" Kaidan asked ironically. He was covered in bruises.
"No, the scratch," Ash said.
"Williams, I just won an anything goes boxing tournament," Kaidan said patiently. "I'm covered in all kinds of wounds."
"You weren't ever scratched," Ash said. "And we haven't done anything to warrant you getting scratched on your nipple."
"Is she for real?" Kaidan asked me.
"She's like that," I said. "Called my sister an 'it girl'."
"She didn't," Kaidan said in mock scandalised tones.
"Spill it, Alenko," Ash said. "Who was scratching your nipples?"
"For Christ's sake, you aren't going to let it go, are you?" Kaidan asked.
"Nope," Ash said.
Kaidan sighed. "Fine, but don't tell anyone," he said, dropping his voice and glancing covertly around. "On Thursday night I snuck away from the feast and met up with Kasuumi."
"I take it she was impressed by your skills," Ash remarked nonchalantly, glancing my way. I rolled my eyes at her.
"Yeah," Kaidan laughed self-consciously. "Anyway, one thing led to another, and well, I slept with her."
"Oh my God, you had sex with Kasuumi," I said loudly.
"Jane," Kaidan groaned.
"Who had sex with Kasuumi?" Nina asked from behind me.
"Thanks Shepard," Kaidan said acidly.
"Alenko, you dog," Nina said. "Hey everyone," she shouted. "Our champion has been porking the galaxy's most beautiful woman."
A loud chatter filled the room. "Sorry," I mumbled.
"I'll get you later," Kaidan muttered under his breath.
Kaidan insisted we sit with him whilst he vidcommed his family. "They don't know us from Eve," I protested.
"Mom thinks I'm antisocial," Kaidan said. "I was part of a gang back home. Probably still am, it's one of those blood in blood out gangs. Anyway, it'll do her good to see that I have some normal friends."
"Bra, you don't know us well if you think we're normal," Ash said, settling down next to him in front of the terminal.
"Trust me Williams, compared to some of the people I ran with back home, you're normal," Kaidan said. "You wouldn't survive a second in Jump Zero."
"I take it you're referring to your gang and not the biotics school," I said.
"Actually, I was referring to the school," Kaidan said.
"I thought you didn't attend school," Ash remarked.
"Jump Zero isn't actually a school," Kaidan said. "It doesn't teach things like maths or protha. It teaches life-skills to biotics. Look, it's a long story, can we talk about this later?"
The extranet came on and he dialled his home number, then opened a site on the web. After what seemed like a very long time a woman with greying dark curls and a tired face answered the line.
"Kaidan," she exclaimed.
"Hi, Mom," Kaidan said.
"Oh sweetheart, how are you?" Mrs Alenko asked. "I miss you so much. What happened to your face?"
"Starting hack," Kaidan mumbled to us. "I'm good, Mom. These are my friends, Ashley Williams and Jane Shepard."
"Hi," I said.
"Nice to meet you," Ash said.
"Nice to meet you too," Mrs Alenko said. "Kay, are you sleeping with these girls?"
"Mom," Kaidan groaned.
"I'm sorry sweetheart, but I have to ask," Mrs Alenko said. "You know what happened last time."
"Ma'am, you don't need to worry," I said. "Kaidan and my relationship is based purely on the fact that I can shoot better than him and he can run faster than me."
"Is that some kind of euphemism?" Mrs Alenko asked.
"Mom, just drop it," Kaidan snapped. "I'm not having sex with anyone at the moment."
"Liar," I heard someone behind us mumble. Kaidan threw a rude sign behind him.
"Ok, well let me see if the others are up yet," she said. She turned and bellowed, "Douglas, kids. Kaidan's on the vidcom." She turned back to us. "What happened to your face, Kaidan?"
"It was the hand-to-hand competition this week," Kaidan answered.
"How did you do?" Kaidan's mom asked. "Did you do well?"
"Yeah, I did fairly well," Kaidan said uncomfortably.
"Actually he won," Ash said.
"Oh Kaidan," Kaidan's mom said excitedly. "That's wonderful, I'm so proud of you, well done. You didn't cheat, did you?"
"Mom, I haven't used my biotics at all since coming here," Kaidan said absently. "Crap, this is a problem."
"What is it?" Kaidan's mom, Ash and I asked at exactly the same time.
"Nothing," Kaidan said unconvincingly. "Hey, is Elise around?"
"I'll go find her," Kaidan's mom said, getting up from her chair.
"What is it, Kaidan?" I asked quietly.
"The first firewall is passcode protected," Kaidan said. "I have ten seconds to crack the code or admin'll know something is up."
"Can you do it?" Ash asked.
"We're about to find out, aren't we?" he said. He raised his hand and sent his water bottle flying across the room and into the opposite wall.
"What the hell was that?" I asked.
"Sorry, when I'm stressed the implant builds up a charge and I need to let it off or it'll short and I have a fit," Kaidan said. "Ouch, that feels much better."
"Talking to your mother shouldn't be this stressful, Alenko," Bridget said sleepily from her bed.
"Hilarious big mama," Kaidan said. "Alright, I'm going in."
He cracked his fingers, and typed a bunch of codes into the terminal. My eyes fell immediately onto the clock and my lips moved silently with the seconds. "I'm in," Kaidan whispered with literally one second to spare. He raised his hand again and the water bottle flew back across the room and landed in front of him.
"Putting in decryption key," he said, typing more slowly now. "And that should take a couple of hours to decode."
He closed the window as his mother reappeared on the terminal with three dark-haired girls in tow.
"Hey, butt face," the oldest girl said.
"You're the butt face," Kaidan answered. "Hey there Els, Trace, how're you doing?"
"We had sport's day at school on Friday," the youngest girl said excitedly. "I won the Victrix."
"No kidding," Kaidan said. "You're just a kid and you're the fastest person in the entire school?"
"Hey, Kay, you kill anybody else?" the middle girl asked.
"What do you mean?" Kaidan asked, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
"Well, you're at an academy where you're taught to kill," the girl said earnestly. "Abbie says it's just a matter of time."
"Ugh, you're such a brat, Abbie," Kaidan groaned.
"I need to go pray," I said, getting up. "I'll see you later. Nice meeting y'all."
I went to the rec room, which was empty apart from Ismaeel who was praying on his mat in the middle of the room. I went to the corner next to the television and knelt down.
In the old days before religion went defunct, Catholics had confession in church. Dad told me. There was a confessional, where you went and confessed your sins to the priest. Now though, priests were pretty much dinosaurs and we tended to skip the middle man and confess directly to God. Afterwards we said the entire rosary, just to be safe.
I crossed myself and clasped my hands in front of me. "Bless me Father, for I have sinned," I whispered. "It's been a week since my last confession. I don't think I have much new to confess, just the old stuff like pride and sloth. You must get pretty bored of hearing about those two from me; I've been confessing them since my first holy communion when I was eight. I try to change, but it's really difficult. I've also been swearing a lot and I've been taking Your name in vain. Here at Del Sol they're training us to kill others, which I know is a mortal sin. I haven't killed anyone yet, but I guess it's just a matter of time, so I'm warning You in advance so You aren't surprised." I cleared my throat. "I've also been having lustful thoughts about nearly every single male around here. I try to control it by reciting the names of the saints and stuff, but sometimes it doesn't work. There's one boy in my pod that I really like, but I think he's an atheist. There's nothing in the bible about going out with someone who doesn't believe in You, but Dad said it's a sin." I swallowed. "I miss them," I whispered. "All of them. I would give anything to be able to vidcom them today. While I'm down here, God, please look after Jason. He's all I have left and it would break me if something happened to him. So, that's pretty much it from me. I'll say the rosary now."
The funny thing with hunger was that it didn't affect us much as exhaustion. After a while our bodies got accustomed to the feeling of hunger and we were able to perform all our normal tasks, albeit at a much slower pace than before. I was usually famished until the middle of the morning; thereafter I felt nothing. A number of people were struggling though. Mikhail, Suang, Zac and Kyle had all passed out already from a combination of hunger and heat exhaustion, and the dorm was far quieter as people spent more time sleeping in order to make time pass by faster. When I phoned Jason, Kaidan and Ash were the only ones still awake.
Kaidan checked on the progress of his hack whilst Mari called Jason. "We're through," he said excitedly. "Ok, it should be pretty easy from here on out. There might be a silent alarm, yep there it is." He tapped the keys on the keyboard. "And now it's disabled. I am the king of hacking, you should all bow to me. Another ten minutes and I'll have what we need. We can use Williams' slot to erase our footsteps."
"Shay," Jason said, appearing on the screen.
"Hey kid, how are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm fine," Jason said. "How are you?"
"Pretty good," I said. "Quite hungry though. I'll push through."
"What happened to your face, Shay?" Jason asked, frowning.
"That is the result of me, a scary body-builder and an assholic senior," Ash said.
"Ha Ash," Jason said shyly.
"Ha Shane," Ash said grinning. "You're getting tall. Is your voice changing?"
"Naw," Jason said hurriedly. "It's not." I could hear it too though.
"It is," I said excitedly. "Aw, my baby brother is growing up. It's so adorable."
"Who's that?" Jason asked, flicking his eyes over to Kaidan.
"Oh, that's Kaidan Alenko," I said. "Kaidan, meet my brother Jason."
"Hey," Kaidan said cautiously.
"Ha," Jason said. His face screwed up in concentration. "Kay…en," he said, his head jerking.
"Call him Kay, that's what Ash and his family calls him," I said. "He's helping us with…with the stuff we talked about last time."
"Did you find anything?" Jason asked.
"Yeah, I can't tell you about it now," I said.
"I'm through," Kaidan said. "Can I use your datapad, Jane?" I handed it to him. "Starting download," he said.
"Hey, listen Jason," I said. "I have a week's leave next month. Do you want to get a ticket to Cape Town? I miss you."
"When is your leave?" Jason asked.
"December 27 until January 3," I said. "I'm so excited, I feel like I've spent my entire life in this stupid place."
Jason's face fell. "Oh, I can't," he said. "I've got a sponsor now who saw how good I am at programming. He's sending me on a camp to Sur'Kesh for the whole of December. I leave next week."
"Oh," I said. "Oh, ok. A programming camp on Sur'Kesh, huh? That's pretty incredible. Who is this person who can afford something like that?" Sur'Kesh was the salarian homeworld. Salarians looked most like what humans thought aliens looked like in the twentieth century, with their long, thin faces, large bug-eyes and antennae on the tops of their faces. The only difference was that their skin was pink and not green.
"I can't tell you yet," Jason said. "It's sort of top-secret at the moment, but he's with the Alliance. Apparently he's going to pay my fees at the Citadel University when I'm sixteen if I do well at this camp."
"Jason, you're turning into a super-genius," I said excitedly. "I'm so proud of you, baby brother."
"Yeah," Jason said, sounding proud. "I can't do much, but programming is one of the things I'm really good at."
"That you are kid," I said. "Hey, have you heard anything from Auntie Jen recently?"
"Yeah, I got an email last week," Jason said. "Her ship's been posted to Skyllia. She sounded like she was ok though. Said she has leave coming up in January sometime. She couldn't say much else."
"Hope she keeps safe," I said. "How's Marvin?"
"He's ok," Jason said. "Eats a lot. I think he misses you."
"Who's Marvin?" Kaidan mumbled.
"Jane's hamster," Ash answered. "She left him with Jason."
"I'll ask Lee to feed him whilst I'm away, ok?" Jason said.
"I'm done," Kaidan said, handing me the datapad. "I'll clean up in Williams' slot, you only have five minutes left."
"Great, good work Alenko," I said. "Jay, I have to say good bye now, ok?"
"Yeah," Jason said. "Enjoy your leave, ok? Have a milkshake for me."
Jason had developed a taste for milkshakes during our stay in Seattle earlier that year. "Definitely," I said. "And you enjoy Sur'Kesh. Show those salarians who the king of programming is." Kaidan cleared his throat, which I ignored. "Stay safe."
"You too," Jason said. "I miss you, Shay."
"I miss you too, kid," I said. "I'll see you again real soon, ok?"
"Yeah," Jason said. "Bye."
The screen went blank. "Feel like a smoke?" Kaidan asked casually.
"Yeah," I said. "Come on, let's go."
We sat on the deck of the bunker and lit up. "What did you find?" I asked Kaidan.
"Well, I have the unofficial report from the paratroopers who were sent in to do salvage on the ship," Kaidan said. "Unfortunately the document is heavily encrypted. The document was coded, planted deep in the governmental secure site and then fragmented. It'll take a while for me to decrypt it."
"How long?" Ash asked.
"Couple of weeks," Kaidan said. "I could do it in an hour if this pad could hook up to the extranet. I would be able to use multiple hacks at the same time, but I need to go old school on this, first defrag it then decode each individual word. It'll take time."
"Ok, well do what you can," I said. "Your family seems nice, by the way."
Kaidan dragged on his cigarette. "I guess they are," he said doubtfully. "They've certainly put up with me through all the shit. My parents feel guilty about sending me off to get the implant."
"I'm sure that's not true," Ash said.
"No, it is," Kaidan said. "That's why, when I screw up, Mom doesn't get mad at me, but instead says it's her fault for selling me. Which it was," he added bitterly.
"What do you mean?" Ash asked.
"We were living under a bridge in the East Side," Kaidan said. "It was me, Abbie and Tracey, Elise hadn't been born yet. One day a suit comes up and tells Mom about this new biotic implant that his company wanted to test out. He examined me and said I fit the criteria for the implant perfectly. Said that the company would pay her ten million credits if she and Dad were willing to let them take me back to the lab to do the procedure. Told her that the procedure was dangerous and could be fatal, but if it was a success I would be trained by them and, when the time was right, employed by them. Mom signed the contract later that afternoon. I was four."
"You said she used the money to buy the apartment where you all stay now," I said. "Something good came of it."
"Yeah, I guess," Kaidan answered. "They do a standard test for all biotics to make sure that the implant is working properly. They put you on a balcony or platform and push you off. A charge builds up because you're in a stressful situation, and the implant discharges itself by manipulating the energy around you so that you don't fall."
"I'm not sure I understand how biotics work," Ash admitted.
"Well, basically what the implant does is alter our nervous systems so that we are able to see energy, and then manipulate it to our wills," Kaidan said. "Like this."
He clenched his fist. "Jane, see that piece of gum on the floor?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. It looked like it had been there for a while.
"Throw your cigarette butt at it."
I stubbed my cigarette out and tossed it at the piece of gum. Instead of hitting the gum, the butt whirled around it in a large spiral.
"We call that a singularity field," Kaidan explained, relaxing his hand. The cigarette butt fell to the floor. "It's basically an energy-well, sort of like a cyclone."
"So when you get tossed of the balcony, you're meant to float?" I asked.
"Not unless you've gotten acclimatised to the implant very quickly," Kaidan said. "Most kids manage to slow themselves down enough so that the fall doesn't hurt them."
"But you had a fit instead," I said.
"You pay attention, Jane," Kaidan said. "Yeah, I would have died if one of the bystanders, he was a B10 who the researchers mostly kept around to guard them against angry test subjects, hadn't stepped in. I broke my leg as it was."
"Can't imagine the researchers were too pleased," Ash remarked.
"Nah, they were pissed as hell," Kaidan said. "Perhaps the only good thing that came out of their experiment with me is that I have a very good control on my biotics. I can't lose control and fire them off by accident. Instead I have the fits. At that stage I was also pretty much incapacitated by the headaches, couldn't talk, couldn't move. So they called me a failed experiment and chucked me back onto the streets." He sighed. "We should get back inside. It's nearly time for Ash's slot."
I was struggling to teach the others how to shoot. "Don't hold," I said as the squinted at the targets. "The longer you hold for, the more your muscles seize up and the harder it gets for you to actually shoot."
"How are we supposed to aim if we don't hold?" Mikhail asked in frustration.
"Your eye knows what it's looking at," I said. "Trust that. If you can build the trust between your hand and your eye, you'll hit anything. Back me up, McDougal."
"What bullshit," Cat (unsurprisingly) said. "Learning to aim accurately takes practice, and there's a technique. You need to take into account wind velocity, projectile velocity and target movement. There's more to it than looking at the target and shooting."
"Wow, your method sounds like it would take forever," Zac said.
"And this is why I am the one teaching you how to shoot," I said. "What I want you all to do now is look at the bull's eye on the target, then shoot. Look for exactly one second." They all stared at me. "Come on, chop-chop. We're needed in com soon."
They turned and faced the targets. "Alright, and shoot," I said.
There were colossal bangs as everyone fired at the targets. "Right, that's enough," I said when everyone had used their clip up. "Go get your targets."
There wasn't much improvement. "Shepard, your idea doesn't work," Cat said. "Can we talk about calculating wind velocity now?"
"It's a matter of training your eye," I snapped.
"Jane's right," Kaidan said unexpectedly. My head snapped up in his direction. "I could see all energy around me after I got my implant, but it took years of practice before I could use it. We just need to practice."
"And you're all getting better," I said. "Most of you managed to at least hit the targets. Keep doing this. I'm going to be doing some core exercises for fitness in the corner there."
At the end of the hour we packed up the equipment. "Nah, it's impossible," I heard Kaidan say from behind me.
"Come on, just try it for me," Ash said.
"Try what?" I asked.
"Ash wants me to see if I can use my biotics to move a bullet across the room to a target," Kaidan said in disgust.
"Do you think you could do that?" I asked.
"No, of course not," Kaidan said. "It requires great precision as well as stamina, both of which I am lacking."
"Come on Alenko, I thought you were the most powerful human biotic or something," I said.
"I can't do something like that," Kaidan said. "I doubt any human biotic could."
"I once watched a documentary about Jump Zero where students were taught how to take a clock apart using biotics," Ash said.
"I reckon he just lacks confidence," I said. "He thinks he can't do it. Isn't the Ascension Project slogan something along the lines of 'the brain is just a muscle that needs to be strengthened?" The Ascension Project was the company that sponsored the development of biotics.
Kaidan sighed. "Fine, let me just show I can't so that I can get the two of you off my back," he said. He opened a box of pistol bullets and picked one up.
We followed him back onto the shooting range. "I honestly think he can't do it," I said as he placed the bullet carefully onto a table. "What do you think, Ash?"
"Uh, I issued this challenge, Janey," Ash said cautiously.
"Yeah, I know, Ash," I said. "I'm trying to reverse-psychology his ass so that he will perform better. Of course it won't work now that he knows what I'm up to."
"You are one crazy person, Jane Shepard," Kaidan said.
"Says the one with the defective implant," I said. "Oh yeah, I went there."
"Get this woman some food, she's not coherent," Kaidan said.
The rest of the class had gathered around by this stage. "What are you doing, Alenko?" Bridget asked.
"Attempting to hit that target with this bullet," Kaidan said.
"Wouldn't you need a gun for that?" Ismaeel asked.
"I'm going to use biotics," Kaidan said.
"Oh wow, can we watch?" Sven asked excitedly.
Kaidan glared at Ash and me. "Fine," he snapped at the others. "Stand behind me though. I don't want to accidentally hit you guys."
We all crowded around behind him. He raised his hand. For a moment nothing happened, then the bullet slowly rose and started moving across the room.
"Faster," Suang said.
"Look, who's the biotic here, you or me?" Kaidan snapped, not looking around.
The bullet picked up speed. It looked almost as though it was going to make it to the targets when it fell to the floor with a loud tinkle.
"Ow, my head," Kaidan mumbled.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," I said. "Shall we get to com?"
Commander McDougal had a surprising announcement for us. "So, this'll be our last week together," he said. "From next week you will be meeting with Sergeant Rhys to learn in-field first-aid. On Sunday you will be writing a test for me that is an FP, and I need you all to get a mark above seventy per cent. I will be testing you on everything I have taught you. Any questions?"
"I sure am going to miss him," I mumbled to Ash in a mock drawl.
"Should we ask him to never come back?" Ash whispered back.
"Is there are problem, Miss Shepard and Miss Williams?" Commander McDougal asked.
"No sir, Shepard asked me which letter in the phonetic alphabet is an old Earth country," Ash said quickly.
"Really, Williams?" Commander McDougal asked. "And what did you answer?"
"It's India, sir," Ash said smartly.
"Well, at least you know one of the letters, Williams," Commander McDougal said.
I had an appointment with Elizabeth after com. I'd seen her the past two Mondays and had pretty much spent those sessions staring at my hands and not saying anything. I was pretty surprised that Elizabeth hadn't kicked me out of her office yet. I would have if I was her. Although I was not one who could fathom how the shrinky mind works.
She looked up and smiled when she saw me. "Jane," she said. "I was just about to put a call out on the intercom."
"For what?" I asked. "I'm not late, am I?"
"No, no," she said, smiling gaily. "I was going to say that I don't think you need to see me anymore."
"I don't?" I asked in surprise. "Why not?"
"Well, as far as I can tell, you're functioning well within your current circumstances," Elizabeth said. "There's no reason for us to waste our time here."
"Are you sure?" I asked. "I've barely said anything to you."
"I've been trained to understand that silence speaks louder than words," Elizabeth said.
"Uh, right," I said. I was almost positive that my silences had not ever said anything of substance. "So I can go?"
"Well, now that you're here, I'm wondering if you could maybe do me a favour," Elizabeth said. "I'm a tutor to a group of first year social work students and I need to teach them the assessment tools: eco-map, genogram and the like. Would you be willing to draw these with me so that I can have a practical example to show them? I would make sure that it's non-identifying."
"It wouldn't be part of therapy?" I asked.
"Of course not," Elizabeth said. "I've already said I don't think you need therapy."
"Yeah, alright," I said. "So long as nobody knows that it's me."
"Awesome," Elizabeth said. "Now where is the datapad with the timelines on it?" She rooted around on her desk for a minute. "Here we are," she said, picking a datapad up. "So, today we can do the timeline. Basically it records all the positive and negative events in your life, from your birth until today. It gets recorded on this." She showed me a straight, vertical line. "Negative events go on the left side of the line, positive on the right. Do you have any questions?"
"Nothing important," I answered. "Mostly stuff about the phonetic alphabet."
"Well, then let's get started," Elizabeth said. "What year were you born?"
"2161," I said. "I guess you could say that that was a bad experience for me."
Elizabeth looked startled. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"Well, my parents were both serving on the Hugo Grayson during my mother's pregnancy with me and Jean, my twin," I explained. "Mom was never really dedicated about going for check-ups, so no one knew I was in trouble until I was born. There was some sort of defect that caused me to be undernourished and underdeveloped. I weighed about nine hundred grams when I was born and I've had…health problems ever since."
"Nine hundred grams?" Elizabeth asked in amazement. "That's not much at all."
"Nope," I said. "Apparently it's a miracle I survived at all. Then again, I guess that's just the way it's always been for me, the smaller one that stumps along behind everyone else and just manages to survive."
"Hm," Elizabeth said. "You don't seem to have a very high opinion of yourself."
"No," I said shortly. "I don't." I sighed. "Jean and my older brother John were the perfect children. Especially Jean. When we were two, Jean and I were told that unless we made into the marines, my father would not love us, and he spent his entire life making sure that his dream came true. John and Jean did very well under his rule, but I was always too slow, too short, too stupid or too rebellious."
"Rebellious?" Elizabeth asked.
"Yeah, I've gotten quite the reputation around here for being a smart-mouth," I said. "I dunno, I enjoy shooting at things, but I also like lying on my back and wishing on stars. I don't think that that makes me a bad soldier. It just makes me human."
"But you still have a low self-esteem," Elizabeth said.
I shrugged. "If you get told that you aren't worth shit often enough and you'll begin to believe it," I said. I ran my finger down the timeline. "In 2164 my younger brother, Jason, was born."
"Was this a good thing or a bad thing?" Elizabeth asked.
"It was definitely a good thing," I said, smiling slightly. "He's the smartest kid you'll ever meet. Dad hated him."
"Why?" Elizabeth asked.
"Well, he has cerebral palsy," I said. "No chance of a perfect soldier coming out there."
"Why didn't your parents have it cured?" Elizabeth asked.
"The doctors offered apparently, but Mom turned them down," I explained. "I think she wanted Jason to stay that way as a reminder to Dad."
"That not everyone's perfect?" Elizabeth guessed.
"Yeah," I said. "Something like that, I suppose."
I described how we had learnt to shoot when we were five and had started karate when we were six. I skirted the gymnastics issue. "The happiest time of my life was when I was eight," I said.
"What happened when you were eight?" Elizabeth asked.
"Mom was stationed as a shuttle pilot to Ciro space station in the Exodus Cluster," I said. "She had to transport miners and scientists to and from X15 asteroid where they were mining eezo to be used in starship drive cores. She wanted to take all of us with to the posting, but Dad refused to give Jean and John up, so Mom took Jason and me with."
"Must have been quite hurtful, the fact that your father was always choosing Jean and John over you," Elizabeth remarked.
I shrugged. "The man had a screw loose," I said. "Everyone in the family's initials has always been J.T. He can't have come from sane stock. Anyway, I didn't really mind. I enjoyed being on Ciro. It was the first time I got to interact with kids my age that weren't related to me and I didn't have to keep a ridiculous training plan. I made friends. I spent a lot of time reading and learning to speak krogan. Mom promised to get me enrolled into CLP, but I guess she just didn't have time for it."
"How long did you live on Ciro?" Elizabeth asked.
"About two years," I said. "When I was ten, Mom asked to be posted back to the Hugo Grayson. Said she missed John and Jean and needed to see their faces again. So we packed everything up, said goodbye to everyone on Ciro and boarded the Hugo Grayson."
"Was it a good or a bad thing that you left Ciro?" Elizabeth asked.
"Depends on your perspective," I said. "It was good to see my brother and sister again, but at the time I kind of wished we had never left."
"Ciro?" Elizabeth asked.
"Uh uh," I said. "The Hugo Grayson. I was two years behind in my training for super soldierdom and Dad worked me harder than ever. Looking back though, I know it's a good thing we went to Ciro, and it's also a good thing we went back." She raised her eyebrows. "When I was twelve, Commander Pieterse's daughter came to live with him aboard the Hugo Grayson. Ash." I looked at the clock behind her. "My time's up," I said.
Elizabeth looked at the clock. "Ah, so it is," she said. "Well, thanks a lot, Jane, this will be a great help. We can finish it off next week."
"Ok," I said. "Good thing you aren't counselling me anymore, else you'd have to sift through all the crap I'm telling you."
Elizabeth hesitated. "Yeah," she said. "It's a good thing. I'll see you next week Jane."
I found Pod 3 in the gymnasium, busy working the weights. "Come on you assholes," Kaidan was shouting. "If you can't bench-press these weights, there's no way you can do the duck-'n-cover. Oh hey there Jane."
"When did you become a drill sergeant, Kaidan?" I asked.
"I'm struggling with this lot, Jane," Kaidan groaned. "They just don't seem motivated to work, so I thought to myself: 'what would Anderson do to get this lot motivated to work'. Based on past experience, I guessed he would probably insult them a lot, so now I'm trying that out."
"I think we're all just tired," I said. "We've been here two months now with no break."
"There are no excuses in the army," Kaidan mumbled. "Come on, Jones, those better be tears of joy," he shouted.
"Well, I should probably join in," I said.
"Be my guest," Kaidan said. "Oh, by the way, Jane, I've almost cracked the unofficial report. Should be done by Friday. There's a vid of the para's salvage report attached that's taking a while, but I think I've found the right algorithm."
"Good work," I said.
I went over to the bench next to Ash. "Hey Janey," Ash panted. "Kaidan's turned into a sadist."
"I think he's just venerating his hero, Commander David Anderson," I said, adjusting the weights to a more realistic level.
"Well, I wish he wouldn't," Bridget, who was on my other side said. "He's depressing me."
"So, how was Elizabeth?" Ash asked.
"Good," I said. "She said there's nothing wrong with me, so now I'm helping her construct exemplars for her students."
"I had no idea she has students," Ash said.
"She said there's nothing wrong with you, Shep?" Bridget asked in amazement.
"Fuck off," I mumbled, lying down on the bench and grasping the bar. "Oh, Ash we need to talk about what we're going to do over December week now that Jason can't join us."
"Cape Town," Ash said.
"How?" I asked. "We can't book anything apart from a shuttle flight from here. Besides, I can't afford it."
"I can," Ash said.
"Ash, I'm not taking your retirement fund," I said. I started pushing the weight up.
"I don't mind," Ash said.
"I do," I groaned. "Ugh I've always hated pushing weights. One false move and I'm crushed under these things."
"You could come stay with me and my girlfriend in Seattle," Bridget suggested.
We both turned to stare at her. "You have your own flat?" Ash asked cautiously.
"Yes," Bridget said. "Mathilda's step-father owns a stake in Nevos."
I whistled. Nevos was the French colony and was humanity's main source of diamonds. "The dude must be rich," I said.
"Are you kidding?" Bridget asked. "He's loaded. Anyway, Tilda's real dad owns a business on Bekenstein where I grew up, and she was visiting him one summer when we met. I was fourteen, she was thirteen. I fell in love with her, she fell in love with me. She went back to Nevos and begged her mom to let her move to Bekenstein. She wouldn't, so Tilda bought herself a flat in Seattle in her step-father's name and had me flown there to live with her."
"Wow," Ash said. "She seems like a colourful person."
"She's as dramatic as fuck," Bridget said smiling fondly. "Anyway, the point is there's a spare bedroom in the flat and we'd love to have you along."
"Why us?" I asked. "I mean, no offence, but Ash and I aren't exactly the best people around here. I'm rude and Ash tends to boss me around."
"I don't," Ash said. "By the way, you'll hurt your neck if you press like that." I glared at her. "I'm joking," she said hastily.
"Yeah, you two aren't the nicest people in the galaxy, but I don't really like nice people," Bridget said. "They annoy me and are too busy being nice to actually make a difference. You're interesting though. You're both honest, and you're tough and you're team players. That's what I like to see in people. Tilda would like you guys too, I know she would."
"What do you think, Ash?" I asked.
She grinned. "I think it sounds like fun," she said.
"Awesome," Bridget said. "I'll tell Tilda next com Sunday."
Training was cancelled on Saturday owing to the fact that it was Freedom Day. Freedom Day was a bit of ironical name, as it was the day that Earth was declared uninhabitable and the evacuations began. There were the pessimists and nay-sayers that thought that deep space travel was dangerous and the root to our problems, which meant that Freedom Day should not be celebrated. The real irony there was the fact that most of these nay-sayers lived in a group of star-clusters known as the Terminus Systems and engaged frequently and liberally in space travel.
Anyway, on Freedom Day I planned to sleep in late as I didn't have to be anywhere in particular apart from a particularly strange brand of cricket in which every recruit was ordered to take part, which was why I was rather pissed off when Kaidan woke me up at half past five.
"What is it, Alenko?" I hissed. "I don't have to be anywhere in particular today apart from that particularly strange brand of cricket that every recruit has been ordered to take part in."
"I've cracked the unofficial report," he whispered.
I was suddenly wide awake. "Get Ash up," I said softly, hopping out of bed and pulling my clothes on.
"We need to go somewhere where we can't be overheard," Kaidan said softly as Ash dressed. "This is really big."
"The compound has surveillance everywhere," I whispered.
Kaidan shook his head. "I know a place where there are no cameras," he said. "Follow me."
He led us outside. "You know we're breaking regs?" Ash asked.
"Not technically," I said. "No one is allowed outside their pod building during lights out which is from midnight until four unless it is a long week. It's quarter to six."
"A fair point," Ash said. "Where are we going, Kaidan?"
"A place I found one day when I was exploring," he said. "Last com Sunday I hacked into the surveillance feeds and saw that they don't have it covered. Probably don't expect any recruits to find it."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Dunno," Kaidan said. "You'll see."
He led us to a small building behind the Annex. "I was trying to find someplace private," he explained, going up to the door. "And I found this."
"There's a keypad, Kaidan," Ash pointed out.
"Key in 2073947651095," Kaidan said.
"Ok," Ash said doubtfully, keying the code in. The door swung silently open.
"What the hell, Kaidan?" I asked in amazement. "Whose code is that?"
"Admiral Greyling," Kaidan said proudly. "I may not be good at adding numbers, but I'm good at remembering them. I was on my way to the admin office last assessment week and he was walking ahead of me. He keyed me in."
"That was nice of him," I said cautiously.
"Go on in," Kaidan said, standing aside.
Inside the building were high shelves filled with large boxes. "Are those made of cardboard?" I asked in wonder.
"Yeah, I think so," Kaidan said. "Take a look inside."
Ash opened one of the boxes. "Wow," she whispered.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Paper," Ash said. "Lots of paper."
I looked over her shoulder and picked one of the sheets up. The paper was a lot smoother than I'd expected. "It's yellow," I said. "I thought paper was white."
"Paper goes yellow as it ages," Ash said knowledgably. She'd finished school, of course she'd know something like that
I read the date on the paper. "September, 1940," I said. "This is an old field report from the Second World War."
"There's stuff from the 1800s here," Kaidan said. "I guess it's some sort of archive or something. Oh and check this out." He led us to the other end of the room, where a strange box with a screen and keyboard stood.
"What the hell is that?" Ash asked.
"It's an old Dell computer from the early twenty first century," Kaidan said.
"Our forefathers used to work on a crappy thing like that?" I asked. "Look at the size of that screen, what were they designed for, blind people?"
Kaidan shrugged. "Dunno," he said. "I wonder what it's here for though. And all these papers."
"It's an empty room," Ash said in wonder.
Kaidan and I both stared at her. "Um, Ash, it's full of boxes of paper," I said cautiously. "That's a twenty first century computer."
"No, a metaphorically empty room," Ash said impatiently.
"I thought those were urban myths," I said.
"What's a metaphorically empty room?" Kaidan asked in frustration.
"A metaphorically empty room Kaidan, is where a room is metaphorically empty," I said. "Sort of like the pie in the sky."
"What the fuck is she talking about?" Kaidan asked Ash.
"Don't pay any attention to her," Ash said. "An empty room is a room where big brother can't watch you."
She was only half joking. Science fiction from the twentieth century had been alarmingly accurate. We didn't have androids running around, shooting humans because their best before date was expiring, or Jedi knights (technically not from the future, but since we were living in an age of aliens, I thought the metaphor counted), or even alien babies bursting out of people's stomachs. We did have a governmental department, the Department of Human Affairs, that took its name rather literally. The Department of Human Affairs (or big brother, as most of us called it, after the book and the movie) tracked every human in Council Space through identity codes, DNA samples, voice prints and finger prints. Big brother knew what you were doing, who you were doing and where you were doing it, and it made sure that every human knew this too. They weren't nearly as dramatic as George Orwell had predicted, but people were occasionally publicly tried and executed, just to remind us that, despite our so-called freedom, we were still controlled by the Alliance.
"Are you serious?" Kaidan asked incredulously. "There are places like this, with no surveillance, on purpose?"
"Empty rooms?" Ash asked. "Yeah. Every warship has one, usually the commander's cabin, and every major Alliance building."
"Why?" Kaidan asked.
"For deniability," I said. "You want to make a crappy decision, go into the empty room and make it there. If it fucks up, it never happened because there's no proof. You know that every soldier's armour is equipped with at least three minicams. All except the high up officers, the commanders, the generals, the admirals."
"I did not know that," Kaidan said. "So, do you guys want to hear this damn thing or not?"
"You fell off the ball, Kaidan," I said. "You said you'd be done by yesterday."
"Where were you yesterday anyway?" Ash asked. "I didn't see you the whole day."
"Looking for the A 18 protocols for Canning," Kaidan said, sounding somewhat sulky. I hid a snort behind a cough.
"What are the A 18 protocols?" Ash asked curiously.
"A pain in the ass," Kaidan said. "They are also classified." He pulled my datapad out of his BOL and offered it to Ash. "Ladies first," he said.
Ash hesitated, then took the datapad. A dent appeared between her eyes as she read, which became more pronounced the further down the pad her eyes travelled.
"I don't understand," she mumbled. "It doesn't make sense."
"I know, right?" Kaidan said. "It leaves more questions than answers."
"What does it say?" I asked impatiently.
"See for yourself," Ash said, handing the datapad to me.
This report was far longer than the official report. It had been written by the paratrooper commanding officer on the scene. "'At 0800 hours a passing starship, The Galactica, reported seeing a downed warship on the surface of Akresh in the Aralakh system,'" it read. "'Paratroopers off of the colony Akuze were sent to investigate. They landed on Akresh at approximately 1400 and immediately discovered the warship. Its hull did not appear to be breached and, apart from the fact that the engines were offline, there seemed to be nothing wrong with the ship. The airlocks had not been broken, and we therefore deduced that the crew was still aboard. After attempting to raise someone on the coms, we broke one of the airlocks in the engineering centre and boarded the ship. There was no sign of the crew or any sign of a struggle. After a careful examination of the ship's command logs, Tech Specialist Moliner learned that the ship had originally been posted to Rinva to deal with unusual krogan activity, but that, once in the system, the orders had been overridden by a member of Alliance command and the ship was instead ordered to Akresh. The military code of the person who did this was scrubbed from the ship's system, and it is unclear exactly who did this. Once on Akresh, someone aweigh overrode compartment control and had the ship vented. Again, it is unclear who was responsible for this. At this time, the entire crew, as well as XO Shepard's two older children were aboard. The airlocks were then broken, again by someone aweigh who had compartment control, the bodies most likely removed, and the airlocks were re-sealed. Vids taken off of the ship's surveillances cut out after the ship was vented and did not show whoever took the bodies away. No non-human biological residue was found on or around the ship, and my team scanned the entire ship and found no sign of the crew or anything else unusual.'"
I read the report again, just to make sure that I understood what was written. "I don't understand," I mumbled. "How did this happen?"
"I know," Kaidan said. "I've never seen anything like this, and I've seen a lot."
"They say there are vids with this report," Ash said. "Did you get them?"
"Yeah, I got three," Kaidan said. "One was taken by one of the paras on the scene. The other two were taken off the ship's surveillance, one in the CIC, whatever the hell that is, and one in the engine room. Do you want to see it?"
"I don't know," Ash mumbled. I wasn't too keen to see my family's deaths either.
"Well, I had to manually reconstruct the vids, the programming on the datapad is shit," Kaidan said. "The quality's not so great. I don't know anything about ships, but you guys might see something that shouldn't be there."
"Yeah," I said in a voice unlike my own. "Maybe we should see it."
"Which one?" Kaidan asked.
Jean and John would probably have been in their seats in the engine room. Dad would have been in the CIC with Ash's father, and Mom would have been on the bridge.
"I don't know, you choose," I said.
"Alright, the engine room then," Kaidan said, sounding almost cheerful.
He opened the vid. The quality was bad, but it showed a frontal view of the crew seats in the engine room. In the front row sat Jean and John, with their heads bent together. Behind them, sat Pedro, talking to Engineer Kramer. Ash's hand clamped around my wrist.
"Is there no sound?" I asked quietly.
"You didn't have the right programs to reconstruct it," Kaidan said. "Watch though."
A few seconds later, the crew looked up as though they had heard something. Chief Engineer Hadrian said something tersely, but the others still looked concerned. Then suddenly Engineer Gail collapsed against her seat belt. Blood spewed out of her mouth. There was instant panic as the other engineers unclamped their seat belts and floated away. I closed my eyes then. I couldn't watch my twin and brother die. Ash buried her face in my neck.
"Are you guys ok?" Kaidan asked in concern.
I wiped at my eyes. "We just saw people we grew up with die," I said. "What do you think?"
Kaidan frowned unhappily. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I guess that would make you unhappy."
"What do you mean 'I guess'?" I asked angrily. "How would you feel if I showed you a vid of your mom dying?"
"I don't know," Kaidan said. "I've never thought about it."
I opened my mouth, but Ash touched my arm. "It's alright Janey," she said. "I understand, Kaidan. You don't tend to think about these things."
"Yeah," Kaidan said. "I don't. Did you see anything unusual?"
"No, not really," Ash said. "Good work though, we'll think of what our next step is."
"Sure," Kaidan said. "Ok, we should get back to the bunker."
"You go on ahead," Ash said. "We just need a few moments to gather ourselves."
"Alright," Kaidan said. "See you guys later."
Ash waited until the door had shut behind Kaidan before levelling a glare at me. "What?" I snapped. "He was being insensitive."
"Jane," Ash sighed.
"Ash, don't 'Jane' me," I said, exasperated. "He was being an ass and you know it."
"Ja, he was being an ass," Ash said. "But it wasn't his fault."
"What the hell do you mean it wasn't his fault?" I asked in amazement. "Did the rachni come back to life and mind control him into being a dick?" The rachni were an alien species that had gone extinct a thousand years before humanity entered the galactic community. A huge war had been fought to get rid of them, because apparently they went crazy and started mind-controlling everything in sight.
"If you don't know I'm not going to tell you," Ash said. "It's Kaidan's business."
"Ash, for Christ's sake, you're making me want to punch you," I said.
"Janey, you know that Kaidan has issues," Ash said. "Just leave it at that."
"You mean on top of being sold by his mother and having a faulty implant?" I asked.
"Exactly," Ash said. "Just-just drop it for now, ok?"
I levelled a glare at her. "Fine," I snapped. "I'll drop it."