Writers Notes:

Soooooooooo... No reviews for the last chapter. Zip. Zero. Nada. I know I said I'd be trying to get out a chapter every other week, but honestly the lack of reviews kind of threw me off. PLEASE review if you like it! Or review if you'd like to see more of something. Either way, REVIEW! And if I'm taking to long between posts, just review more, it will make me work faster. :)

Anyhow, enough of all that stuff, and on with the story...


"Get down!"

James didn't look to see what Shepard was yelling about, and dove off into cover without any hesitation. A second later, a rocket exploded right where he had been standing, the shock wave still close enough to shower him with debris. His omnitool blinked with a notification prioritizing the geth rocket trooper that fired at him as the highest threat in the area. It was about 30 meters away, taking cover behind some type of mining equipment. James had dove behind a large boulder, and the rest of the team were scattered behind different pieces of machinery, all defending themselves from various dis-jointed geth attacks but also pinned down by the geth rocket trooper that was taking pot shots at them.

They had arrived on the planet Therum less than twenty minutes ago, and had been working their way through what turned out to be a very hostile Prothean dig-site. Shepard had taken James, Wrex, and Tali down the mineshaft, while Garrus, Kaiden, and Ashley stayed topside with the Mako to cover the entrance. Their objective was to find an alien doctor named Liara T'Soni, a so-called Prothean expert, and coincidentally the daughter of one of the people trying to destroy the galaxy. And while saving the galaxy was currently on his short-list of things to do, James also hoped more than anything she might know something about how he could get back home to his own time.. and to his wife.

Unfortunately while they did find the doctor, she turned out to be held behind some type of impenetrable force field, which caused them to get into their current position of trying to clear the area of geth to find some way to gain entry. James had never seen walking machines like these before, but they broke when he hit them, which was just about all he figured he needed to know.

Suddenly an indicator on his hud began blaring a warning alarm about an another incoming rocket, and also about the fact that the boulder he was crouching behind was insufficient cover for the impending blast. "SHIT!" Was all he could get out as he dove out of cover right as it exploded into chunks of gravel.

The ringing in his ears prevented him from immediately understanding the yelling coming in from his comms, but as he lay on the ground he noticed a seemingly small bit of information on his omnitool. The tactical threat analysis program that Tali had made for him had a number of stats about the geth that just tried to kill him, but there was a specific one that stood out right now: its re-fire rate was currently averaging 11.68 seconds with approximately 8 seconds remaining until the next shot.


Moments earlier...

Tali watched from cover as Shepard shouted "Get down!" at James, and was relieved to see him dive safely behind a boulder. She wasn't sure how he ended up so far out in the open, but the trail of geth bodies that lead up the the boulder left little to the imagination. As she was surveying the carnage, the distraction was enough to cause her to miss the fact that a geth platform was flanking her from behind. Her bright eyes went wide behind her visor as she became aware of the foe indicator blinking on her heads up display.

She cursed to herself and turned just soon enough to see the geth raising his rifle up, too quickly for her to swing her shotgun to bear. In a split second, one that seemed to be an eternity for Tali, its head exploded in a shower of sparks and mechanical fluid as a barrage of gunfire hit the geth. As the platform began to tip over lifelessly to the ground, Wrex appeared suddenly and knocked it out of the way as he threw himself against the cover she was pinned against. The impact of the large Krogan caused the massive machinery they where using as cover to shake slightly. Tali, still standing with a look of shock, barely acknowledged the massive hulk in front of her.

"QUARIAN, SNAP OUT OF IT!" The large mercenary's voice boomed, the shock of which visibly startled the woman.

Tali's glowing eyes momentarily disappeared from her visor as she shook her head to clear it. "Right. Um... Thank you Wrex." Getting a grunt as a response, she immediately scanned the area for more threats nearby and found a clustered group of geth on the far side of their cover. She primed a grenade and tossed it to where her omnitool indicated, bracing herself against the machinery where she and Wrex stood at as the explosion sent geth parts flying over them.

"HAHAHA! That's more like it!" Wrex laughed maniacally and unloaded his assault rifle into a surviving geth that charged their position.

Suddenly, behind her she heard James yell a human profanity right before a geth rocket exploded and showered the area with broken pieces of boulder. She turned and ran to the edge of her cover in time to see James laying face-down on the ground, a cloud of smoke and dirt still dissipating around him.

"James!" She yelled as he began to push himself up. She saw him look down at his omnitool momentarily, then without warning scramble to his feet and run full tilt down the battlefield.

"Where is that stupid pyjack going!?" Wrex yelled over his assault rifle as he mowed down a geth across the way that was attempting to flank Shepard.

Shepard didn't even turn as the geth exploded to her side, but instead looked past it with the stoic gaze of a battle-hardened warrior. She watched James sprinting across the no-mans land toward the geth rocket troopers position, and almost imperceptibly nodded as she determined his destination. "COVERING FIRE!" She roared across the battlefield as she unleashed a torrent of fire from her assault rifle.

A hail of gunfire erupted from Shepard's squad as multiple geth positions were engaged simultaneously. The geth, who were readying to fire on the lone human running in the open, instead re-prioritized the organics currently firing on them as the much higher threat.


"5..."

Gunshots flew past James as he rushed the enemy position, rounds passing close to his head causing his shields to shimmer.

"4..."

As he got closer he saw his target crouching behind the mining equipment, busying itself with reloading its ordinance.

"3..."

Without warning, the geth trooper stood up from cover, its rocket launcher shouldered and ready to fire.

"Damnit! Too soon!"

As he desperately tried to close the remaining 5 meters to his foe, his omnitool suddenly flashed: "REMOTE OVERRIDE. INITIATING OVERLOAD."

The geth's shields lit up and then immediately dissipated, the electrical current from his omnitool causing the platform become stunned and go into mechanized convulsions. He closed the gap and before the geth could recover, delivered a powerful superman punch into its headlamp, causing the synthetic to topple over backwards and drop its weapon. As it hit the ground, James fired two more shots into its head with his pistol to make sure it was dead.

He turned around to find the rest of the squad jogging up to meet him, having already dispatched the remaining geth. Noticing Shepard had a genuinely pissed look on her face, he turned instead to Tali, whom was busy inputting commands into her omnitool.

"REMOTE OVERRIDE DISENGAGED." His omnitool flashed, suddenly returning to normal as Tali finished typing.

James eyed Tali with somewhat mock suspicion, still breathing heavily after his full-tilt sprint down the battlefield. "Did... you hack my omnitool?"

"Well, yes and no... I um... Well.." Tali was silent for a moment and began wringing her hands nervously. "...I put in certain back doors in your omnitool so I could remotely execute commands on it."

"What?" Came the reply, surprisingly from Shepard, whom for the moment seemed to forget about being upset with James' reckless charge.

"Cleaver girl. Ha!" Came Wrex's amused reply. "...but don't let me catch you near any of my stuff."

Tali suddenly looked panicked, and was looking frantically back and fourth between her squadmates. "Wait, it's not like that! It was meant to help James, in case he got into trouble! I didn't think he would be using his omnitool to its fullest in combat, so I designed an encrypted command structure to synch up with mine to perform simultaneous attacks against..." She slowly trailed off as she received blank stares from all of her present company.

"Wait." James broke the silence. "Couldn't this be abused if an enemy hacked into it? Like they could make me electrocute myself or something?"

Tali shook her head. "No, not at all! It was locked down so that it could only execute offensive programs against confirmed enemies!"

James grinned at her statement. "So you snuck 'offensive' programs on my omnitool? I'm not sure how that would help me in the middle of a fight..." This caused a slight chuckle from Wrex and instinctively made Shepard roll her eyes.

"I... Wh..." Tali looked back and fourth confused, until suddenly her eyes widened in realization and then immediately narrowed into slits. "You bosh'tet."

She shook her head and continued. "Look, it won't register any other commands, only a very small subset that I was sure couldn't be abused. I made sure there were multiple safeguards..." Tali trailed off, and then lowered her head solemnly. "I... I'm sorry, I thought it could help. I'll remove it as soon as we-"

"No, that's ok." James cut her off, adding a smile to make sure she understood he was genuine. "It probably just saved my life so I'd say it is pretty damned handy."

Tali didn't respond, but lifted her head up and tilted it to the side slightly.

"By the way, what the hell where you thinking?!" Shepard barked out suddenly, causing Tali to stiffen up until she realized she was talking to James.

Instead of immediately responding, he just shrugged. "It wasn't supposed to reload that quick."

Shepard just sighed heavily and made her way past him. "Come on everybody, lets see if there is any equipment here we can use to free the doctor..."