Author's Note: Happy Birthday to Commander Shepard, all *stops to count* 23 of them! V and W are in today's chapter, so next up we'll be visiting sunny Feros to pick up the last of the crowd. Then, well, Saren will have quite a shock waiting for him, right? I'd also like to point my fans towards a fic called Galactic Life, and Reapers, a collaborative fic which includes some work by yours truly, currently up on the page of LegionN7. As always, I love reviews!
As they departed the building controlling the second torch, Angela was already on the comm with Joker. "Take the Normandy by these coordinates, have Neville and Bradley take down a squad each and check for survivors," she ordered curtly. "Let them know I have Ubon Shepard."
"Understood, Commander," Joker replied, and they raced along towards the third torch.
As they were revving up the Mako, Ubon was listening intently to her earpiece. "What's up?" Quistis asked sarcastically. "Find a new band you like?"
"Hacked into an open channel," their new engineer responded. "Batarians, threatening several of the locals." She winced suddenly. "And they just shot one of the hostages to find out who's been talking to me." Ubon glanced up. "Or should that be us?"
Angela frowned, charging the Mako over a ridge. "I haven't been talking to anyone local," she said. "Which worries me. How many of the people here are from this universe, and how many from yours?"
Ubon shrugged. "Is there a difference?"
Talya grinned. "Oooh, maybe next we'll start getting in duplicates of everyone else! How many Kaidans do you think I can talk into being my boy toy harem?" Whatever she was going to say next was cut off as the Mako shot off a cliff and into freefall for a couple of seconds.
"As you value your life," Angela muttered, "do not finish that thought."
"She's a little touchy about Sierra Echo X-ray," Quistis stage-whispered, purposely loud enough to be heard. "Polarity thinks she needs to get plowed."
"Who's Polarity?" Ubon and Talya asked together.
"Polarity is a unicorn. Don't ask right now," Angela admonished, putting the accelerator pedal to maximum.
"Angela? You're charging straight at one of the cannons."
"Yep."
"We're going to hit it!"
"Yep!" Laughing madly, she skipped the jump jets over a rocket, giving Quistis just enough time to blow out the shields with the cannon before they smashed right through the turret, slewing sideways, shields dropped to half. "Take that, you batarian bastards!" she whooped, charging for the next turret in line.
"Oh, fuck this," Sachiko finally spoke up, lunging forward and fighting Angela for control of the wheel. The next two minutes, as they jerked back and forth, proved more than capable of eluding the turret VI targeting, and the last of the turrets exploded moments before the Mako went shooting through its wreckage. "Are you crazy?"
Angela looked pointedly around the Mako. "In the last month and a half, I've had twenty different alternate versions of myself pop up, several of which aren't even recognizably human. I would have to say yes." Eyes glinting, she moved to get out of the Mako. "And what would happen to all of you if I died?"
"Oy vey," Talya muttered again. "Don't make me knock you out and run this op without you," she threatened.
She stopped to take several breaths. "I'm good. Let's kick these batarians in the teeth."
The five of them readied their weapons, storming through the front doors of the facility. Several batarians were waiting, biotic shock troopers, forcing them to scatter. Sachiko had her hands full as she tried to take out the biotics with a little help from Talya, and the two engineers kept the non-biotics from doing much of anything except dying.
They reached the second floor, opening the door to see another tall man in a marine buzz cut pointing an assault rifle at the console. "What the hell are you doing?" Angela and Ubon shouted in unison.
He turned just his head around. "Who are you? Where's Tali?" he said, a faint accent coloring his words. "I was going to have her disable this, but she disappeared."
Ubon shoved him out of the way while Angela wearily etched a 'V' in his armor. "How did you know my name started with a 'V'?" he asked. "Commander Victor Shepard, Alliance marines." He glanced around at the otherwise matching N7 logos. "Are you part of the original shuttle?"
Sighing, Angela held up three fingers and counted down. "I'm Commander Shepard," the rest of them said, causing him to glance around the room.
He stared between them all. "I did not know my other selves would be so … tiny," he murmured.
"There, it's off. The asteroid should miss the planet by a couple miles," Ubon told them, turning back from the console. "I can't help but think we're missing something around here."
"The batarians definitely have a base around here somewhere," Sachiko said. "Probably their escape ship. Landed, sent out squads of soldiers to take over the facilities and kill any stragglers."
"Sounds likely," Angela agreed. "Let's head back to the Mako, see if we can triangulate it between our sensors and the Normandy." They stepped out, looking at the new squad of batarians near the door. "Or we could ask them nicely," she added sarcastically.
"Oy! Dickface!" Talya shouted from the balcony. "Tell us where your leaders are before you get Angela really pissed off!"
The batarians looked at each other. "What happens then?" one of them asked.
"We shoot you all in the legs, disarm you, line you up outside, and run you over with our tank," Victor said, calmly centering his rifle scope on the one on the left while Quistis matched him on the right.
"Please, give me a fucking reason," Ubon spat, omni-tool ready to fry them all.
They glanced at each other nervously again. "If we tell you, can we leave? We didn't sign up for this," their leader said, gesturing to the facility. "Balak's gone nuts. Wants to get revenge for Torfan or something."
Quistis and Ubon, in unison, responded, "He's going to get a personal Torfan in a minute."
Angela held up a hand. "Give us the coordinates. You have until we're done with him to get the hell out of Alliance space."
"We'll take it," Charn said hurriedly. "Here you go," he said, putting down a data disc by the entrance as they all hurriedly backed out onto the surface. Wordlessly, Quistis started counting, and on six there was a thudding explosion.
Angela looked at her calmly. "Turned on the VI auto-target?"
"Duh, we're on a rock full of hostile batarians. You think I was going to just let them drive away in our Mako?" She spat as they moved towards the stairs. "Fucking four eyes."
Outside, they skirted around the splattered remains of the three batarians and got back into their vehicle, charging for the hideout with Sachiko driving this time. "No offense, but I really hope we don't find anyone else in there," Angela said.
"You don't think a sixth Shepard will come in handy at assaulting the base of these invaders?" Victor asked, confused.
"I don't think a sixth Shepard will fit in the Mako," Ubon said. "Unless Angela sits in my lap."
"I'll leave that for Flora," Angela muttered darkly, causing Quistis to chuckle and the two new Shepards to look confused.
They arrived at the new facility, watching the turrets move on tracks back and forth. "Are you kidding me?" Sachiko muttered, sending the Mako jumping up onto one of the tracks to simply knock the thing loose, sending it crashing to the ground while Quistis blew up the second, and then pulled around to the front of the facility, where the third one couldn't shoot at them.
Piling out of the Mako, Angela paused as Joker paged her. "Commander, we checked out those coordinates. Couple of dead bodies, little bit of salvage, that's it."
She sighed heavily. "Alright. We're at their base. Bring everybody." Two minutes later, the Normandy hovered overhead, taking out the last turret and half the track with a single GARDIAN shot, and then the rest of the Shepards were jumping out the cargo door to the ground. "Alright everyone, inside we've got an unknown number of hostile batarians, probably with defensive drones, and an unknown number of hostages. Their leader is named Balak. When we find the prisoners, Tali, Robo, and Ubon will see about freeing them. Everyone else, deal with the batarians. Weapons free." Twenty-eight weapons were held aloft.
They moved into the building in threes and fours, Wrex and Eric leading, flanked by Charles and Victor. The batarians were caught nearly flatfooted, expecting no more than a half dozen soldiers, to be met with almost thirty pissed off people. The hostage cage was found quickly, and the three engineers ducked from cover to cover across the courtyard to reach them, splitting up their tasks quickly, disarming the explosives and hacking the locks. Before long, the only batarians left were entrenched in cover at the rear of the room, with everyone lining up different angles of fire, a couple of experimental tech and biotic attacks lobbed into the area.
"Who are you people?" one of the batarians shouted angrily. "How the hell did you get here?"
Twenty two Shepards roared in unison, "I am Commander Shepard, and you just pissed me off!" The very building shuddered, support beams warping and windows shattering. The heavy cargo crates being used for cover tumbled backwards, crushing the cowering batarians beneath them and sending Balak slamming into the rear wall. "You think you deserve revenge?" The wall around him cratered as the force of their voice, their simple focus, crushed him against it. 'You deserve nothing!"
On the last word, Balak was reduced to nothing more than a grimy smear spread out across the surface, the wall exploding outwards and leaving a hole almost large enough to fit the Mako. The sudden decompression was fortunately partial, as the building VI raised a shield to hold in the rest of the atmosphere, but it also disrupted their symbiosis.
"Spirits," Garrus muttered, as Liara uttered, "By the Goddess," right beside him.
"Shepard," Alenko yelled from the back, "these people all need medical treatment. Especially with … that … whatever it was," he stuttered out.
"Angela to Normandy. Land and bring Doctor Chakwas in," she said numbly, staring at the hole they had left. Four more of us, potentially, she thought with detached panic. What next? We get mad at a merchant and split the Citadel in half?
Her report to Hackett was short, absent of any emotion or editorial comments, and sent via text instead of voice. Angela still wasn't sure she could talk about what happened and not sound like a raving lunatic. Sighing, she returned to the galaxy map. They'd talked down an Akuze survivor thanks to Bradley and Lilitu, and were now checking out some Cerberus signals in Styx Theta. She took down Flora, Oksana, and Victor, figuring they'd need the combat skills of the second two.
Cruising around in the Mako led them past two rachni nests, obviously feral, or she and the queen were going to have some serious words later. Arriving at a small outpost, still manned by a couple of Marines, they slewed to a halt. "Get out there and support them," she ordered, turning to hook the Mako up to their damaged generator. Within seconds, the turrets were again active, blasting away at the rachni soldiers boiling up from the tunnels nearby.
When the wave was done, the lieutenant in charge turned to look at them all, obviously confused. "I'm Commander Angela Shepard. Where'd the rachni come from?"
"Rachni? We don't know. They started showing up a couple of days ago after a supply ship came through," the woman said, near panic. "We're down to living on stims and medigel."
Angela was about to say more, when a rachni warrior suddenly loomed up above the barricade, only to drop from a sniper shot straight through its mandibles and into the brain. She turned around, groaning. "Let me guess, W Shepard?"
The fairly nondescript man raised an eyebrow at her. "Waldo," he said quietly.
"Your parents named you Waldo?" Flora asked incredulously. "Did they hate you before birth, or something?"
He gave a tiny smile. "Made me good at hiding," he said, and Oksana scowled.
"We will see about this," she said, hefting her own sniper rifle.
"Shouldn't Garrus and Lilitu and Deirdre be here for this?" Flora said as the next wave of rachni started to come pouring out of their tunnels.
"Just shut up and kill the goddamn bugs!" Victor shouted, assault rifle chattering away and a broad grin on his face.
When the waves finally stopped for a while, they went down into the tunnels, splattering several hundred gallons of rachni guts all over the walls and leaving behind some nice large blasting charges, collapsing several of the tunnels. "That should take care of them." Angela glanced around after they were safely back on the surface, frowning. "Where's Waldo?"
"Right here," he said from about six inches behind her shoulder, causing her to jump, whirl, and scowl. She'd just looked over her shoulder, too.
"Fine, let's get back to the Normandy," she muttered. "Go save some more of the galaxy."
