We're getting closer to the end. This chapter, Christmas Eve, and Christmas.
And somehow the beginning part because a mockery of bad action scene writing. I just can't write today.
Seeing as everyone like last year's crossover, I've decided to bring it back, at least in passing.
The next two chapters will be significantly lighter, for better or for worse.
December 23, 2012
Eleya's eyes darted around the room. Her pistol was lying on the floor only a short distance away, and she still had her biotics. If she could-
"Don't even think about it," Shepard warned, pressing her own weapon into the asari's exposed neck.
Tossing the asari on what was left of a table, she smashed the grip of her pistol down onto the back of her neck, knocking her unconscious and shattering the wood beneath. She restrained the asari with zip ties (they needed to start making those again).
"Package is secure," Shepard reported, slinging the dead weight over her shoulder. "Let's get the hell out of-"
A burst of gunfire forced them down into cover. "Fuck! Why can't things ever be simple?"
"Who's shooting at us?" Tali asked from behind her.
"It's the insurgents," Rodney informed them. "Iraq is crawling with them."
"They don't pose that much of a threat," Shepard reassured them. "Let's just get the hell out of here before they try something stupid. Colonel, you got that?"
"Got it. On our way to the exfil site."
They backed out the way they came, out the door and down the hallway.
"Allahu akhbar!" a terrorist shouted, waving his AK-47 in the air. Shepard shot him and blew out his head.
They ran back to the extraction site where the jumpers were waiting and boarded. As the door closed behind them, Shepard mused, "Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?"
"So, do you want to take good cop or bad cop?" Sheppard asked Shepard.
She paused for a moment. "Bad cop. She knows what I can do when I'm sufficiently motivated."
"All right, let's do this. If it doesn't work, well, there's always Ronon." Together, they entered the interrogation room. The asari was fully awake and doing a good job of hiding the pain that coursed through her body. She turned and watched them close the door behind them.
"Hi, I'm Colonel Sheppard, and this is-"
"Commander Shepard. I know. The whole fucking galaxy knows." She turned to the Commander. "You think you're so great, but all you've done is destroy the natural order of the galaxy."
The two interrogators shared a look. Shepard retreated, leaning up against the back wall and Sheppard taking a seat. He handed the blue woman a glass of water, which she ignored. "You should really drink that."
"Why? To get a truth serum into me?"
John shrugged. "Well, know, because you're thirsty."
He leaned forward. "The current date is December 23, 2012. Look, I know this may be hard for you to grasp, but you aren't even in the same reality anymore."
"What?" There was shock in her eyes. "No, you're lying!"
"Something weird happened with your FTL drive- I don't pretend to understand. Somehow, you dropped out and crashed into our Earth. You're among the last of your kind in the galaxy."
"So this is true, so what? Am I supposed to cooperate now?"
Another shrug. "The circumstances have changed, Miss T'avari. Whatever issues you had in your old universe don't matter anymore. And if you cooperate, your crimes won't matter anymore either."
"What do you want?" the asari asked. It was a neutral question, and it was obvious she wanted answers too.
"Obviously you weren't working alone. We counted eight bodies. Are there more?"
"Maybe." It was about a non-committal answer as could be.
"And what were you planning?"
"Everything and nothing."
He folded his fingers on the table. "Why?"
The question took her by surprise. "Why what?"
"What you're doing, whatever it is. Why are you doing it?"
"How much do you know about our universe, Sheppard?" Eleya asked. Without waiting, she added, "What? Didn't your twincestor fill you in?"
Jane removed a knife from her waist and began absentmindedly flipping it through the air. He smiled and tilted his head. "Enlighten me."
"When your kind came onto the galactic scene, they fucked everything up," the asari explained simply. "Within a few decades, the balance of galactic power shifted. Because of one so-called hero, your species gained Council membership before the elcor or the hanar or countless others. A few years later, the quarians are back on their homeworld, the genophage is gone and the rachni have come back."
"I don't see how this is a problem, to be honest. Change happens." Oh boy, he knew where this was going.
"Your species is too impulsive and irrational. The quarians screwed themselves, it's not up to anybody to fix that. The krogan are a danger to the entire galaxy. Don't you see? Centuries of peace, destroyed in just a few years."
He switched topics. "Okay, so what are you trying to do about it?"
There was a grin on Eleya's face. "Nope, sorry. I'll give you as much ideology as you want, but you don't get anything on our operations."
Sheppard sighed. This wasn't going to work. "Excuse me, I have to step outside for a moment."
Before he closed the door, he called, "Oh, and you should really be nice to the Commander. She has this ability to channel Jack Bauer when she's angry."
As soon as the door closed, Jane stepped forward and drove the knife through the steel table. "All right, guess we have to do this the hard way."
"Uh, you aren't really going to-"
"I'll ask nicely, once," Jane hissed into the asari's ear. She bellowed, "What the fuck are you planning?"
She remained silent, and Jane drove her head into the table. "Nobody's going to come for you. You're stuck here until you either answer or die!"
Despite the pain, Eleya smiled. "It doesn't matter. We planned for contingencies like this. You can still look forward to watching thousands, maybe millions, of your people immolated."
Jane grabbed the asari and smashed her head into the table again. "Where's the fucking bomb?!"
"Even if I knew where it was, I wouldn't tell you."
"Fuck it." With one last smash, she left the room.
"When I said bad cop, I didn't mean actually beating her up," Sheppard whispered to the Commander.
"I know." Shepard sighed. "I just... sometimes I get pissed off, I lose it. It's not like I'm out of control, not really. I just think the benefits outweigh the consequences. People who cross me... let's just say bad things tend to happen to them."
She paused. "Besides, it's Christmas."
"You know that's supposed to be a happy holiday, right?"
"Not for me," she replied darkly.
"Care to explain?"
"No."
Before John could question her, General O'Neill walked into the briefing room and sat down at the head of the table. "Ahhh... So what have we got?"
"A bomb," Commander Shepard stated simply. "Somewhere on Earth."
"Was it on your ship?"
"It was."
"If it was on the Normandy, we would have found it," the Colonel added. "Meaning either they left it in orbit, or it crashed somewhere on Earth."
Crossing the crime scene tape into a sealed off corner of the Annapolis grounds, the four investigators flashed their badges at the armed Marines and contracted guards.
"We already secured the area and called in the EOD techs," one of them stated.
"And what did they say?" one of the NCIS investigators asked. He was an older man, with well greyed hair.
Another Marine, wearing most of a bomb vest, told him, "That we've never seen anything like it, sir."
"Is it safe?"
"As far as we can tell," she replied. "But we have no idea what it is or where it came from."
He bent down to examine the object. It was a large grey pod, burnt black and buried halfway in a crater in the earth. A side panel was open, revealing the device- a short, sausage shaped silver casing surrounded by square grey containers. Several wires were hanging out of an access port- presumably that was how they deactivated it.
Deciding he had enough, the investigator stood up and said to one of the others, "It sure as hell isn't someone's weekend project. No, this is professional. Inform Homeland Security. We've got a terrorist bomb here."
"How did they get it here? And why not just detonate it?" the female agent asked.
"That's what we're going to find out."