This chapter is focused more on the interactions between Mallory and Luke, plus there is a little more about Luke's past. As always, suggestions, reviews, and comments are welcome. Enjoy!
The Mako took a hard hit and the alarms for drained shield energy started going off. Luke diverted what energy he could but there was not much to reroute. His gaze snapped to Mallory as she tried to maneuver the Mako out of enemy fire, but the vehicle was not agile enough and took another direct hit from a rocket launcher.
"Mallory, there is no room to maneuver! We have to get out and take these things down on foot!" Luke shouted as he used his the omni-gel to fuse some of the wiring back together.
"Don't you ever give me orders Luke! You are not in command here!" Mallory snapped back. Luke shook his head and locked his helmet into place.
"You heard her! We stay!" Kaiden shouted firing the canon. Luke shook his head and retrieved his pistol from his hip.
"I'm not a marine." With that, Luke opened the back hatch and slipped through the shield.
"God damn it Luke! Get your ass back in this vehicle!" Mallory's voice blared over the radio, but Luke simply pressed forward and deliver a shot through a Geth rocket trooper's head. The synthetic being fell backwards firing it rocket launcher into a group of troopers that were taking cover from the Mako's machine gun and decommissioned all three.
"Luke, we're firing the canon on the left flank, take cover!" Ashley's voice sounded over the radio. Luke dove behind a cargo container as the shot rang out blew a prime in half.
Luke stood slowly scanning his surroundings, but the smoke, fire, and mangled geth bodies caused his memories of Mindoir to resurface. He gasped and sat back down using the crate as a back rest. His heart was pounding and his head felt light and clouded. I've got to get control. Think of the good things. Think of C-Sec. Anything but that.
He took a slow breath and thought of Ashley. He thought of her smile and the way she would joke a quote old literature and poetry when she could not think anything else to say. The more he thought about her, the more Mindoir got buried again. He smiled and stood once more to rejoin the team.
No sooner had regained his feet when Mallory and Ashley turned the corner of the crate. "What the hell were you thinking Luke, huh? I told you to stay in the damn vehicle. You are on my team down here and you will follow my orders."
"Really Mallory? Are you really going to try the drill sergeant approach with me? I'm former C-Sec. I worked with former special ops turians. I've seen every guilt tactic you could possibly throw at me. All this barking does not disguise the fact that I made the right call when you screwed up. But there is one thing you need to get through the armored skull of yours… I'M NOT A FREAKING MARINE!" He tried to shove past her but Mallory slammed him against the crate and pinned him there.
"If we are on a mission together, you will follow my orders. I am in command here. This is my team and my assignment!"
"How did that work out for your unit on Torfan? They obeyed orders, right?" Mallory released him and backed away slowly, but Luke took a step forward staying right up in her face. "Sure you accomplished your mission but how many of your men walked out of those tunnels? How many would have walked out if you had listened to suggestions from your XO? I'm not the one who needs to learn to follow, Mal. I'll follow Claire. This is her team and her mission. You are not my superior. Get that though your head."
Luke shoved past her and headed toward the center of the outpost were a small array of transmission towers were standing. His heart was still racing but he was pretty sure it was anger and adrenaline rather than panic.
"Hey Luke. I've got something here." Kaiden announced from beside a transmission tower. Luke knelt beside him and brought up his omni-tool display.
"This tower is sending some kind of signal off planet. Judging by the strength, I'd say it is within the same cluster. Tali and I can trace it to which system and planet when we get back to the ship." Luke said locking the frequency into his omni-tool. Once on board the Normandy, they could find the signal again and trace it.
"It could be the geth base of operations for this incursion."
"My thoughts exactly." Luke said widening his scanning range. He wanted to make sure that there weren't any more signals buried in the transmission.
"Can I ask you something?" Kaiden asked looking over his shoulder. Luke looked at the Lieutenant for a moment before nodding.
"Sure."
"What is with you and Mallory? She's your sister but you don't talk to her about anything and when you do, you either rip into her like now or you don't say anything about yourself." Luke locked his jaw and clenched his fist.
"That's not any of your business." Kaiden opened his mouth to respond but Luke cut him off. "I don't give a damn if you are dating my sister or not. I don't give a damn whether you like me or not. I don't give a damn if you hate my guts, but you will treat me like part of the team. You are not my superior and neither is Mallory. So, how about you climb down off that high horse of yours and get your head back into the mission?" Luke closed his omni-tool and stood up. He saw Mallory and Ashley looking at him out the corner of his eye but he did not look back. He climbed into the Mako slammed his fist against the wall.
This is why I never wanted to be a marine or in the navy. Everything is about rank and protocol. C-Sec was just as bad with the captains, agents, detectives, and officers, but at least it was a little more relaxed.
Ashley climbed in after him and sat down next to him. "You okay?"
"No." Luke said shortly. "
"I'm sorry. Anything I can do?" Ashley asked setting her hand on Luke's shoulder. Luke leaned back against the wall of the Mako.
"I don't know…" Ashley moved across the space so they were sitting face to face before leaning forward.
"You were a little harsh on Mallory and Kaiden out there." Luke waited for her to ask for an explanation but the question never came.
"This is Claire's team, not Mallory's. And who put Mallory as second in command any way? You know, I don't even think Claire knew that Mallory was taking a team down to deal with this outpost." Ashley folded her hands and sat back again.
"This was a mission for the Alliance and the Normandy is still an Alliance military craft. Claire is the XO so…" Luke looked up at her. She had a small smirk on her face. He found himself nodding but wanting to be angry with the answer, yet the anger would not surface. He could not find it in him to be angry with Ashley.
"Was I completely wrong to say what I did?" Luke asked as he looked down at his boots.
"Not completely but not completely right either."
"I just…When Mal was telling me to stay in the vehicle, all I could think about was an old poem. I guess you're rubbing off on me." Ashley smiled. She was glad she was still wearing her helmet because she did not want Luke to see how badly she was blushing. "The Charge of the Light Brigade." Ashley nodded. "Theirs not to make reply/ Theirs not to reason why/ Theirs but to do and die/ Into the valley of death/ Rode the six hundred."
"You felt like that was us if we stayed in the Mako?" Ashley asked.
"Like I told Mallory and Kaiden, I'm not a marine. I'm a cop. My job required me to see the bigger picture based on details and educated guesses. Most of my old job was reacting on instinct."
"I would like to hear about some of your old cases. Sounds like they'd be kind of interesting." Luke looked up at Ashley and nodded. Mallory and Kaiden were climbing into the front seats as Ashley and Luke took off their helmets.
"I'll tell you about a few of the interesting ones when we get back." Ashley grinned and the Mako started to rise for the Normandy to retrieve it.
"What the…How did…Who was…What happened to the Mako?" Garrus asked as he started to inspect the nearly totaled machine. The ground team was stripping their armor and weapons as Garrus looked over at them. Luke pointed at Mallory accusingly. "Is this just a female Shepard thing to nearly total the Mako every time there is a mission?"
"Quite possibly." Luke responded. Ashley smiled and held back the urge to giggle at the comments.
Mallory apparently did not find the exchange amusing at all. She tossed her weapons on to the cleaning table and marched toward the elevator. Kaiden quickly followed.
"Ten credits says that Claire is down here in ten minutes to lecture me." Luke shouted.
"Knowing you Shepard, I'd say eight." Wrex shouted from his spot. Garrus looked to be pondering the statement while Ashley elbowed Luke in the ribs.
"She is not going to lecture you." Luke looked at her with an expression that caused her to reconsider her statement. "Okay, okay, eleven minutes."
"I'll take thirteen minutes. Considering she is still not moving so good and she will have to get by Dr. Chawkwas." Garrus shouted and he started to make repairs to the Mako.
Tali appeared from the engine room corridor looking somewhat confused. "What is going on?" She asked innocently.
"We're taking bets on how long it will be before Claire is down here to lecture Luke." Ashley said checking the time on her omni-tool. "Right now Luke says ten minutes, I say eleven, Wrex says eight, and Garrus has thirteen. Ten credits to buy in."
Luke chuckled and leaned over to her. "I thought you didn't care to much for aliens."
"I don't think we should count on them staying allies but I don't mind socializing with them and taking their money." Ashley grinned up at him as she carried her weapons over to the cleaning table.
"Nine minutes." Tali shouted.
Luke opened a comm. channel to the cockpit on his omni-tool. "Hey Joker. We've got a bet going on how long it will take Claire to get down here to lecture me about the mission. You want in? Pot's up to fifty credits right now."
"Hell yeah I want in. What's the clock at?"
"Three and a half minutes." Ashley said.
"Okay, I'll take fourteen minutes." Joker responded.
Ashley and Luke smiled as they started to clean their weapons. Luke left his sniper rifle and shotgun in his locker and only took his assault rifle and pistol to the table.
"So about those interesting cases?" Ashley said as she field stripped her rifle.
"I guess the most interesting one was my first case with my first partner, Bailey. He was a hell of an officer. Anyway, we were walking a foot patrol in the factory district of Zakera Ward. The was a disturbance called in and we were sent to this old rundown apartment complex that was just crawling with all kinds of scum. I swear, I have never seen so many red sand dealers or hired thugs in one place before, and these guys were flaunting it in front of us. My guess is they had friends in high places. Turns out the call was a hoax but Bailey and I decided to but every last dealer in the place. Only a few put up a fight but we made twenty-three arrests before the building was cleared. Well, we decided to take all their omni-tool data and the terminal data in the area, then we analyzed it. Most of the rest of the story is boring but it led to an ambassador's aid being imprisoned and an asari ambassador resigning from office." Ashley had stopped cleaning her rifle and looked over at him with a small smile on her face.
"I heard about that on the extranet. Why weren't you two recognized for it?"
"Because we disobeyed orders to do it. That asari was a friend of the Executor and he came down on our station hard for it. I think he was trying to find some dirt on us but we were so new, we were still shiny."
"Still, turning a disturbance call into a high profile take down, that's pretty impressive." Ashley said running her cleaning rag down the outside of her rifle barrel.
"No one but Bailey and I really saw it as a win. Though what we did was legal, there were a lot of loopholes we exploited and situations that we arranged. Our priority was to get those scumbags off the street and in a cell. To do what was right… sadly, what is right and what is legal are not always the same thing. Bailey started to realize that and played by the rules…sometimes."
"You still don't play by the rules." Ashley responded. Luke shrugged and finished cleaning his pistol. As he started on his rifle, he heard the elevator door open and he checked his omni-tool.
"Looks like Joker won the bet." Luke said turning around and seeing his sister limping toward him. He sighed and started toward her.
"Heard you were playing hero again." Claire said throwing her arm around her brother's shoulders. He smirked and helped her toward the Mako.
"Not a hero, just mildly intelligent. If I hadn't bailed out and engaged the enemy on foot, the Mako would have been destroyed killing everyone in it. I made the right call." Claire turned to face her brother and wet her lips as if getting ready to start her lecture. "But, Ash has helped me see that I was wrong to lash out at Kaiden and Mal. I'll apologize to them for it once the repairs have been made to the Mako."
"Luke, I know you are not a marine. I've read your file from C-Sec. You do your own thing and you're damn good at it, but if I'm not down on the ground, at least get permission before you do it." Luke smirked.
"So what about when you are on the ground?"
Claire sighed and placed her hands on her brother's shoulders. "Like you said, you are on my team, when I am on the ground, you follow my orders. Most of the time I'll let you do your own thing but there will be times when I need you to be a marine at my back. Can I count on you?"
The question caused Luke's stomach to turn. He had let them down thirteen years before, yet Claire was putting an enormous amount of trust in him. It was humbling. He could not abandon Claire or Mallory again.
"I've got your back."
Claire hugged her brother and started back toward the elevator, but stopped short looking back at Garrus and Luke as they worked to repair the Mako.
"You miss my driving yet?" Her smile widened upon seeing both men nodding. The doors closed and Garrus looked up at Luke.
"Is destructive driving just a Shepard family thing?" Garrus asked.
"Actually that would be a Shepard female thing. I think I'm a decent enough driver." Garrus chuckled.
"Luke, don't forget. I've ridden with you behind the controls."
