If I am to be honest, I have to confess I expected getting official custody of Shepard would be a relatively simple affair. What I didn't realize was that, for someone like Carol, it was far too juicy an opportunity to create extra drama, and to fill her meaningless, empty life. So, I spent an entire week wrestling legal challenges, court orders, and anything else she could think of to make the experience as painful as possible.
That's probably not what she was thinking, but it was what it felt like from my end. And Shepard's. Eden Prime was one of the quietest corners of the Galaxy, so at least the court proceedings could be moved fast. It all came to a head when, five days knee-deep in legal shit, Carol decided to fling some wild accusation of me being some sort of sexual predator, and it being the reason I wanted to "take her girl away".
Captain Kishi put an end to that in what was, for what I heard, an absolutely epic verbal smackdown in court. I didn't know, since I was barred from the proceedings.
As a side effect, child protection services got involved, and started asking questions. Specially to Shepard. Soon after that, Carol dropped the crap and pulled back with her metaphorical tail between her legs.
Done by her own freaking lies.
Nonetheless, it had been a very long week. I think I got about ten hours of sleep during the whole seven days, and was functioning on stims and emergency rations. And if it had been stressful for me, I can't even begin to describe how it had been for Shepard.
But it was finally over. Now, the plan was simple. I was still technically a resident of Arcturus Station, so that's where we were planning to go. Approximately five thousand of Arcturus' residents were families of military personnel, so there were facilities to attend to them. Including a pretty good school.
Home away from home.
That was as close to normal as I could give her.
"Attention everyone," Captain Kishi's call over the ship's comms interrupted my musings. "We have received new orders, all leave is cancelled and we are moving to amber alert. All further orders will come through your superior officers. That is all."
Huh.
I made a very quick mental recap of the regs. Amber alert aboard a carrier. We were going to be in a combat situation, but not expected to carry out hostile orders.
I think.
It wasn't the best time to do any thinking, because it was complete chaos in the ship. Organized chaos, I might add. The noise of weights and plates being slammed into place as everyone rushed to tie everything down at the gym was deafening, and outside it wasn't much better.
My first thought was trying to figure out who would have my orders. It had to be the range master. The second one was that we had Shepard on board and we were heading for a combat operation.
And apparently I wasn't the only one with that thought. My omni-tool beeped with an incoming call. Corporal Gomes.
"Jinx," her voice greeted me. "I've got your orders. You're on babysitter duty with the civvies."
"We have civilians onboard?" I replied. There was a pause, which almost had me facepalming when I realized what I had said. "Other than Lana I mean."
"Yeah," Gomes replied with a chuckle. "Couple of suits from Earth, and the rep from Hahne-Kedar."
As she spoke, my omni-tool beeped again with the information package. The civilians were to be housed in an ejection pod at the bottom of the ship, in case of emergency. Getting there was quite the trip, too.
"Do I go there directly?"
"Suit up first. If you can get your guns from the range master that is," she said with another chuckle.
"Why do I have the feeling I'm about to get a shafting?"
"Jinx!" Gomes snapped, though she couldn't disguise the chuckle that escaped her. "Should I remind you you're talking to a superior?"
"No sir! Why do I have the feeling I'm about to get a shafting, sir?" I said.
Given the way she started to laugh, I was probably right. However, she did answer quick to put me out of my misery.
"Nothing so dramatic. It's just the most boring job during an op, you're going to be stuck there looking at a metal wall for, oh, ten to twelve hours. Anyway, take Lana and head over right now. We don't have much before we jump into action."
"Yes sir! I- Wait, isn't Lana with you?"
"No? I sent her to the gym an hour ago."
I looked around, a sinking feeling settling in my stomach. She was definitely not there, she always stood out like a sore thumb. I hadn't seen her since the morning.
"Jinx! We can't have a lone civilian wandering around," Gomes snapped again, all the playfulness gone from her voice. "Get suited up, grab a kit for Lana, and FIND HER! I'll take care of the other civvies and meet you in ten minutes. Move it!"
"Yes sir!" I replied, and killed the comms.
The noise wasn't abating one bit. She had been exploring the ship for the last few days, and this was always the quietest spot, but now... Now it was utter chaos outside. People running, shouts being exchanged, and grinding noise of machinery. It was too much. It was all too much.
Shepard recoiled and sat on the ground, between the two large crates. It was a good hiding spot, nobody stopped to look there. As long as she stayed perfectly still.
It was a little bit of peace. That's what she wanted. Just a little bit of time for herself. Gomes was nice, but when she was around, she always had the feeling that she was observing her every move. Like she was putting so much pressure on her. She actually hadn't much cared for learning to shoot, or learning to fight, but she felt it was what was expected of her. So she went at it hard.
And then there was Roy. She had seen him age a decade in the last week. And it was her fault. Why had she done that, put it all on his shoulders? She didn't know. She felt guilty, but Roy... he never complained. Whenever he looked at her, she felt like there was something behind that look. She didn't know what.
She didn't want to ask. It felt like everything was too fragile. That it'd break and disappear again if she did anything.
It was too much. She just needed a little peace and quiet. Just a little.
"Lana!"
She let out a little surprised yelp, and looked up to see Roy leaning down at the end of the crates, peering at her between them. It took a moment for her mind to click that he was in full armor and weapons.
"There you are, I've been looking for you all over!"
"Roy! I... sorry," she muttered, looking away. It suddenly dawned on her how stupid her attitude was. What was she doing there? She stood up, still not looking at him. "Sorry."
"Hey, it's fine. Well, it's not, we're in the middle of an operation."
That did get her attention. "What? What... what does that mean? We're under attack?"
"No, but I've got to get you to the safety pod. Come on, put this on."
He shoved something into her hands, and she started to unravel it. She had no idea what it was.
"What's this?"
"Shield harness and helmet," Roy replied. That, she didn't expect. "Just as a precaution. Come on, turn around."
Shepard did as ordered, and started putting the awkward garment on. It was a bit like a vest, with several straps to hold it in place. She didn't see the helmet anywhere, until Roy hit a switch on her neck, and it unfolded over her head, a thin, transparent layer of plastic.
"Ali, why were you hiding in there?" Roy suddenly said. Shepard had been so focused on the stupid shield harness, she hadn't expected him to say anything.
"What?"
He fastened the last buckle and let go of the harness, so she turned around to look at him.
"Are you still bothered by Carol's shenanigans? It's over, we won the case."
"No, no that's-" She stopped halfway through her denial. It would have been a good excuse. The truth, that she just wanted some peace? It would make her come across as an ungrateful brat.
With a sigh, Roy gave her a tap on the shoulder and seemed to simply let go of it. Despite herself, that annoyed her. She'd have almost preferred if he had at least said something, demanded an answer.
Too much. It's too much...
"I just needed some time alone," Shepard said.
"Well, I can understand that," Roy replied, and for a wonder, he looked like he did. "But this may not be the best way. We-"
"JINX!"
Shepard winced at the voice. That was Gomes. And she was pretty sure she was in for a chewing-up. She was stomping towards them at a good clip, and looked none-too-happy about her, Roy, and the Universe in general.
"Yes sir!" Roy replied immediately.
"You found her, good! Get your ass out to your post, we're about to go through the relay."
As if to confirm her words, the internal comms announced the transit and started a countdown. On one the whole ship vibrated, and there was a distinct, almost instant feeling of vertigo clutching all their bellies. It was mere moments before they were thousands of light years across the galaxy.
What they didn't expect was the sudden crash that made the entire ship tremble. Lights flickered, and more crashes followed. For a moment it seemed like chaos was spreading through the hangar, as pilots tried to make it to their small fighters, and piles of gear were shaken out of place. Everything was bolted down for battle, but the impacts were strong enough that they were jolting the enormous ship.
"What the hell!" Roy shouted.
"We're under attack! Move it!" Gomes replied.
It all happened in a split instant. Roy grabbing her by the shoulder to drag her away, the explosion that threw the bay into chaos, and the following, hair-rising sucking noise as atmosphere vented out of the bay.
Short lived as it was, that noise would never, ever leave Shepard's memory. All Alliance ships were capable of creating high density kinetic barriers capable of keeping atmosphere in, to block smaller breaches in their hulls. They didn't always work one hundred percent. And also, they didn't work brilliantly when something was stuck right through the opening.
Like the forward end of a breaching pod.
"The fuck-" Roy muttered. He didn't get to finish before the pod opened, and armored humanoids started jumping off it.
As the bullets started flying, her mind went blank. Blank, like a layer of snow over a field of pure fear. Blank, because it was the only way her brain could keep the images of batarians destroying her home from ravaging her mind again.
Blank, because those were batarians.
I had never been aboard a spaceship during combat. That much should have been obvious, I had not spent that much time in space. But as I saw the thing that had broken through one of the hangar doors unfold, and batarians come in numbers out of it, it all felt incredibly familiar.
It was a nightmare.
One, two, three, four, five... That's all my fingers.
It wasn't a nightmare.
The shots started flying, and my confusion crystallized into a single, clear thought.
Batarians are boarding us and Shepard is right fucking here!
"Move! Get to cover!" I shouted, practically dragging Shepard with me. She seemed completely petrified, which neither surprised, nor concerned me. All I had to do was stay right between her and the batarians at all times.
Gomes followed me, her assault rifle already in her hands, and it was spitting rounds at the same speed her mouth was spitting expletives. The batarians were hitting hard with everything they had, and they had caught the crew on the back foot. There were a lot of people in the hangar, but not a lot of marines. In fact, it was just Gomes and I. Everyone was armed, but it was mostly pistols and low grade kinetic barriers.
Everyone was scrambling for cover.
I headed straight for the back, towards the passageway to Engineering. There was plenty of cover there, and more importantly, I could get Shepard behind a very heavy reinforced door.
Only, as I realized, said door was glowing angry red.
Fuck!
I pulled behind a solid barrier, almost throwing Shepard as I pulled her with me, and immediately switched mentally back to what I had to do.
Without thinking, I pulled my sniper rifle, and popped out of cover to look for targets.
I didn't have to look for long.
*POW*
For some reason, the batarians looked like they were huge targets, and were moving in slow motion. My heart was beating hard in my chest, I could feel how my arms were trembling with every pump in my ribcage, but it all felt like ice when I came to squeeze the trigger. I watched the batarian stumble as the heat gauge on my HUD crawled down, and fired a second shot before the batarian could recover.
The splatter of alien blood coming out the back of his helmet was quite satisfying.
"Jinx!" Gomes called. "Cover the pilots! The pilots! Get them to their ships!"
Following Gomes' gestures, I saw what she meant. There were dozens of fighters in the hangar, all lined up for drop. Small bulkheads on the floor were the only thing standing between the fighters' noses and them being out there shooting at the batarians.
Cover them and let them get to their ships!
I dove into cover for a moment, to let my shields recharge and take a breath. We were being peppered by bullets, but from the other side of the bay they weren't particularly accurate. It seemed as if the average batarian prick wasn't better equipped than the average Alliance recruit.
Not that I mind, I thought, getting out of cover and lining up the next shot.
Take the entire field in a blink. Line the shot without delay. Have you mind's eye on the next one. Gomes was absolutely shredding any batarian that came anywhere near a pilot, damn but she was good with that assault rifle. I, however, didn't even think of switching weapons. After being drilled almost to death on the sniper rifle, my hands had moved almost by themselves. I could just hear the range master yelling at me to line up the goddamned targets and blow them up like a fucking marine.
I double-tapped a batarian that had sneaked up to a couple of pilots, and yelled at them to move. They did so, running across the hangar towards their fighters, but had to stop halfway and dive into cover due to enemy fire. I lined up a second batarian, but after the first shot, I was greeted by the unpleasant beeping of an overheated weapon.
"Fuck!" I shouted, diving into cover and scrambling to pull my assault rifle out. Shit, shit, SHIT! The range master would have me doing laps of the fucking SHIP if he heard about this. In full armor. I could hear the shooting and shouting from the pilots I had so stupidly abandoned.
"Jinx! Catch!" Gomes shouted. I turned to see not her, but her sniper rifle flying towards me.
I think I heard the fucking music from 2001: A Space Odyssey swing down from the heavens.
Catching it, lining up the next shot, and double-tapping the motherfucking batarian right in the face were all one. Gomes' sniper rifle felt absolutely perfect in my hands. Hell, it smelled good. Fresh oil and metal, the heated prickle of an overloaded heatsink. Smelled like love.
At that moment, I loved that gun.
Yet it wasn't particularly hard for me to let go of it, quickly dropping it to exchange it for my own sniper rifle. Swap and let them cool down. I found a second batarian, and a quick double-tap put it down for good.
It was easy. Easy, easy, easy. I didn't even register that I was actually killing them. It didn't fucking matter. They were shooting at my people. At me. At Shepard.
A spray of bullets made me dive deep under the metallic barrier I was using for cover, feeling impacts – real impacts – hitting my kinetic barrier as I did. These weren't the shots my drill sergeant used as encouragements. These were bullets looking for a kill. I was familiar with the sensation, but the intent was very different.
As I tried to get my breath back, I took a moment to look at what Shepard was doing.
Absolutely nothing. She was sitting on the floor, eyes wide open, just staring at me.
"Just stay down, we're fine!" I lied. I had no idea if we were fine. The ship was still shaking, and I had no idea how many batarians we had aboard. Assuming we had the only breach, which was a bad assumption.
She didn't answer, but I didn't have time to say much more. I had switched rifles once more, and had a lot of targets to get rid of. I got out of cover a step away from my previous spot, and trained the rifle on the next target. There was a lot more room now, at least six pilots had made it to their ships and opened up the area for us to soot back. The batarians were no longer pushing hard, either there were less of them, or they had realized they were going nowhere.
Or maybe-
The hangar shook again, throwing my aim and saving some bastard's head from turning into wall paint, and out of nowhere I saw a second pod just rush through the wall, barely fifty yards in front of us.
And batarians started coming out.
"Shit! SHIT!" I shouted, quickly switching targets and firing. I took the first one down, spraying his brains all over the face of the one following him. It was too damn close, the targets looked huge through the scope, and they rushed in and out of view with the slightest movement of my hands.
Echoing my imprecations, Gomes switched targets too, and the second batarian went down, even as I swapped rifles again. Dammit I needed a better rifle. They didn't have enough punch to break through barriers and armor in one bullet.
"Keep them off! Don't let them board!" Gomes shouted, spurring me on.
The boarding pod had come at an angle, and the way it was wedged made a chokepoint out of the exit. The batarians were shouting, and whatever they were saying my translator wasn't picking up, but it was easy enough to guess. They were in a hard place, and neither Gomes nor I were above taking advantage of it.
When the batarians tried to rush through again, both Gomes and I pounced. With our combined firepower, the next two batarians didn't make it far.
The next one, however, was a little bit smarter. I opened fire as soon as the next ugly showed his face, and so did Gomes, but despite both of us cracking through his defenses, he didn't fall down. I cracked a second shot of the sniper, letting it cool between shots as I had been taught, and despite scoring a hit right through the neck, he kept coming.
"The fuck!" I shouted, shooting again. The rifle beeped angrily for being overheated, and I dropped it to swap – I had lost track of whose rifle I was using anymore – only to see the batarian come flying my way.
When I looked at it without the distraction of the scope, it was so blindingly obvious I could have kicked myself. The batarians coming from behind were using him as a living shield. Well, not so living anymore. Make it a meatshield. Meatbag shield.
Channelling my inner HK-47, I popped out of cover after exchanging rifles, and started shooting. Tap, tap, double tap and overheat. I was being peppered by assault rifle fire, and this time they were close enough that they were hitting. I felt every impact like a punch, a kick, trying to push me aside as more batarians try to get out of the pod.
I ducked back down, cursing loudly with the knowledge that it was a chance for more of the batarians to get out of the boarding pod. It was like holding back a tide, the second the dam broke, we'd be in a world of shit. But my rifle was overheated, my shields were all but depleted, so the best thing I could do was take a small break to get my own assault rifle out.
"Take it you four-eyed pieces of shit!" Gomes shouted. She was getting all the fire now, and sounded like she was trying to use curses as a shield. I, myself, was muttering my curses rather than shout them, but I was fucking unhappy. Fucking hell, but the shields took an ege to recharge.
"FUCK!"
That was Gomes again. Her extra-loud curse came with a bang, her either dropping down behind the barrier, or being dropped down. Like it was a signal, my shields finally started to recharge. I gave them half a second, and came out swinging, unloading with the assault rifle like there was no tomorrow.
There were four batarians now in cover, and one more was coming out until I pained a trail of bullets all through his chest. I didn't even realize I was shouting until the heat bar of my rifle was up to 2/3rds full, and I had to go back to small controlled bursts. Gomes was still getting herself sorted, and with the pauses in my shooting now the batarians had a chance to really put some hurt on us.
Focused as I was, I could still hear the voice of the range master hammering me.
Every bullet must count! Your ammo block has nineteen thousand shots, and a SINGLE ONE can make the difference! Make! Them! Count!
Damn, but he was right. Every burst of five, I made damn sure I was hitting someone. They showed as much as an inch of their helmet, a piece of their shoulder, and I was slamming bullets on them.
Then, one of the batarians shouted something, and started what could only be a countdown. Fuck, what now?
On four – I guessed – all four of them came out at once.
I jammed it down, spraying. Don't panic, don't panic, I heard Gomes going at it too, it wasn't enough, too many guns. I hunkered down as my shields discharged.
Then, a scream. A long, sustained scream, of anger, fear, or everything together, and the unmistakable sound of a pistol being shot. Fast. It caought me by surprise, but it caught the batarians too.
Shepard.
Two of the batarians went down before I had to tackle Shepard down to the ground. She was shooting even when we were drawing all the fire, and didn't look like she was going to duck anytime soon.
"Goddamit Ali! What are you doing!" I shouted. Shouted. Dammit, why was I shouting at Shepard.
"Let go!" Shepard replied, struggling to free herself.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"
"No! I'm not letting them do it again! I'm not!"
She sounded like she was on the verge of a panic attack. And who could blame her, we were against the wall, batarians in the goddam ship, and no reinforcements in sight. Engineering was on lockdown, and it looked like damage on the other side of the bay had sealed that end too.
And on top of that, Gomes and I had done our best to actually empty the hangar, getting the pilots to their ships, and the only people left, the techs, were dug in good, and definitely couldn't be counted on for help.
"Jinx! Get your head in the game!" Gomes shouted.
I cursed internally – not happy about having been shouting at Shepard to begin with – and pulled myself up. Assault rifle up, time to mow down batarians again.
Six of them now.
God Fucking Dammit! How many of them were in that pod!
Gomes was spraying good, so I stuck to short bursts, trying to dig the batarians out. Every burst felt like my life, like Gomes' life, like Shepard's life, depended on me hitting those targets. Every single burst had to drill through a body armor, break through a kinetic barrier, make a splatter of blood down the opposite end.
And without me to hold her down, Shepard was at it again.
"Dammit Ali, stop!"
"NO!"
"Will you stop for a second-" I stopped talking to switch targets completely around. A batarian had gotten a little too ambitious rushing forward, and got a burst straight through the visor for his trouble. The helmet painted itself yellow from the inside, and the outraged shouts of the batarians were like music to my ears.
Except that it meant I had all the attention. Bullets bounced off my kinetic barrier, chewing through the charge at an alarming speed. I dove down as fire piled up in our position, feeling a couple of impacts punch on my armor and snap one of the ceramic plates on my shoulder, and pulled Shepard down with me.
"Stop it! I'm gonna-"
"Ali! Will you listen dammit?" I shouted. She did stop and looked at me, annoyed. And scared. "Don't waste bullets, one well aimed shot is better than ten thrown away! And when I say duck, you duck! No ifs or buts!"
She furrowed her brow, and gave a reluctant nod. Gomes had had a chance to do some real damage with the batarians throwing themselves at me, so it was time to go back to shooting.
With no shields. They were about to recharge, but I couldn't waste any time. I had to be up there. We couldn't let the batarians get more of a foothold. I had no idea what was happening in the rest of the ship. I had no idea if any reinforcements were coming. But we were standing between a whole bunch of batarians and the engineering deck, and the engineering deck was the heart of the ship. We let it fall, the entire ship would be pretty much dead on the water.
Or space. Which was even worse.
I started spraying, at the same time that Gomes dropped down. I hoped as all hell she was okay, because she wasn't cursing.
"-peat, deck f- … -ead me?"
The broken chatter came mixed with a burst of static, and a lot of white noise. It was still music to my ears.
"This is Gomes, repeat! We're pinned down and have batarians all over our asses!"
"-ave incoming pods! I repeat, incoming pods!"
Fuck.
It took maybe three seconds. I shouted for Shepard to get down – and thank goodness, she did – and then, the entire deck shook again. The sound of grinding metal was deafening, and everyone, human and batarian alike, had to brace themselves.
Three pods. Three fucking pods.
I picked my rifle again and started shooting, but could barely pick a target. There were batarians coming out left and right.
"We can't hold them!" Gomes shouted at her radio, joining me in the spray and pray. "It's just me and Jinx! We need reinforcements, now!"
There was a garble of static, which had Gomes and I cursing in perfect unison, and then what I didn't expect. Captain Kishi herself on the radio.
"Gomes, Jinx. I want those batarians out of my ship. Now."
"But sir-" Gomes started to answer, only to be cut mid-phrase.
"I am sending gunships with reinforcements, but you have to get those doors fully open. I want those doors open no matter what. Am I clear?"
I wasn't looking at Gomes, only hearing the conversation, but I could tell we were both doing the same mental maths. However we wanted to slice it, running for the bulkheads was almost a suicide. But if we let the batarians take the deck, the entire ship was fucked.
"I said am I clear?" Kishi insisted. She never raised her voice. She didn't need to.
"Yes sir!" Gomes replied.
We both dropped back in cover, taking a small breather and letting the guns cool.
"How are we going to play it?" I said, peering out the edge of my cover and getting a burst of bullets against my shields for my trouble. I dug back in and looked at Gomes.
"I'll go first, follow me on two. We're heading for the manual release."
"Don't know what or where that is, so I'll just follow you!"
I heard her laugh at that, which I supposed was just as well. About to face the worst odds South of the reapers with a newbie who didn't know where he was going. And somehow, she wasn't fazed.
"Get ready," she said, and gestured with her chin behind me.
Yup, I had to get ready.
"Lana, you stay here," I said, turning to Shepard.
"But-"
"Give us a little cover. If they know you're here and that you're armed, some will have to keep an eye on you."
"… okay."
"And feel free to shoot blindly this time, just don't get your nose out of cover. I mean it."
"Fine."
I tried to put my best smile on and gave her a squeeze on the shoulder. She was trembling all over, but holding her pistol firm.
I have to make this run.
For a moment, I wondered how much of all this would have happened if I had never meddled with the timeline. If Shepard would have stayed at Arcturus, or would have ended up with the same family she did. If the Einstein would have been ambushed like that during yet another batarian operation.
"Ready?" Gomes shouted.
"Ladies first!" I replied, priming my rifle.
I saw her smile from behind the transparent face plate, and with that she was up and running like a hare. I popped out of cover to spray bullets in her wake, counted to two, then vaulted over my own cover to chase after her, spraying with the assault rifle as I ran.
There was an assload of batarians out now. Way at the back of the hangar, they were pressing hard on the poor techies. In front of me, Gomes was running like the devil was coming for her, her kinetic barrier shimmering blue with every impact, much like I suspected mine was.
When she was but three steps from her target, her barrier broke.
Her legs were the first to give, wobbling under her as blood seemed to explode from their sides. She jerked sideways with more impacts, and in doing so, she turned so I could see her face.
She looked surprised. Not in pain, or scared. Just surprised. Shocked.
I yelled with a new burst of energy, dropping my rifle in the process, and tackled her as she fell, dragging her down with me to the ground. Bullets bounced off my kinetic shield until it broke, and I felt impacts along my back like the worst hailstorm in history had caught me outside in my underwear.
When we finally crashed to the ground behind the bulkhead beam, the pain started in earnest. Sharp, throbbing pain on my back, on the left side from my butt almost to my ribs. I tried my best to ignore it, I had to help Gomes. I had to-
My eyes fell on the flashing red light in front of me. The emergency release. A simple lever above my head, with a big honking arrow and a large sign on top.
I could hear the batarians shouting, and more bullets falling on our precarious cover. I fought against the pain to raise my arm high enough to reach, only to immediately take it down when it started raining bullets again.
Behind me, I heard Shepard calling my name.
Fuck it, gotta do this.
I raised my arm again, ignoring the bullets cracking against the plates of my body armor, and managed to grab the lever. Then, it was a simple matter of putting all my weight against it.
The result was something I would never forget. The deck rocked with the reports of the explosive bolts releasing the hangar doors, leaving only the thin protection of bulkhead-grade kinetic barriers, and less than a heartbeat later, a freaking Alliance gunship came barrelling through and crash landed right on top of the nearest clump of batarians, side doors open and marines pouring out of them like a tide.
"Friggin' hell," I muttered. "We made it Gomes."
She didn't answer.
I never found out who had screwed up the operation. It was way, way above my paygrade. The problem was that we were decked out for a surface operation, and on the other side of that relay we had found a heavy fleet waiting for us. The Alliance had a whole lot of different small flotillas that moved around with different groups, and had the intel been adequate, the Einstein's carrier group would have been reinforced by more space warfare decked ships.
What we had to contend with was one of the many pirate fleets sponsored by the Batarian Hegemony. Much like the British Empire did with their letters of marque for their privateers, they were "authorized" to raid any non-batarian place and ship that was not "officially" supported by the Council.
And my overuse of quotation marks is not accidental. I knew about Mindoir, and suspected Elysium and Torfan, too. But while those three were the only ones really shown in the Mass Effect games, after Mindoir, the Batarians apparently thought it was open season on the Systems Alliance. There were dozens of smaller raids like the one we were up against, this one against a tiny mining colony near the Traverse, with barely three hundred people working an eezo-rich asteroid belt.
Too tempting a target for the scumbags.
Regardless, I wasn't to be involved in all that anymore. Once they had filled me up with medigel, I had been sent to my post, guarding the civilians, and after a tremendous bollocking by Operations Chief Archer – who had been stuck there waiting for me to show up, and wasn't at all interested in my excuses – I was on my own.
Gomes had been taken in one of the gunships, they didn't even wait for the repairs to reconnect the hangar and the rest of the ship. Last I saw her, they were trying to get her heart going again.
I wasn't too optimistic about her chances. And given that keeping me in the loop as to how she was doing was probably at the very bottom of the list of priorities for our newly repaired comms, all I could do was stew on it.
That, and the fact that, as per regulation, I was posted outside the closed door of the civilian escape pod, while Shepard was inside. And I was itching to have a chat with her. When our reinforcements arrived, she had been sitting at her corner the entire time, just watching the fight unfold, and even as we left, she kept her eyes on the carnage, and specially the dead batarians.
And wasn't saying a single word. Now, she was inside with the other three civilians.
"May I remind you who it was that supplied the Alliance during the first contact war?"
Including that one.
Shepard looked at the man with a wary eye. He was loud, and quite enthusiastic, and hadn't stopped talking ever since he had introduced himself as Patrick Magroyn. He looked pretty tall, although, like the rest of them, he was sitting down, brown cropped hair and a wispy beard that looked fastidiously kept into a superficially unkept appearance. And he was built, he looked right at home with the rest of the alliance soldiers.
The Hahne-Kedar logo was prominently displayed on the right breast pocket of his shirt, which she recognized because he had announced it loudly – and proudly – during his introduction.
"I don't think the fact that your guns can be easily used by a child is a good slogan, Patrick."
That was the other man, who hadn't even bothered looking at her. A short, balding, greasy fellow she couldn't stand the sight of. The third, a woman who was quietly snoozing in a corner – sleeping! At a time like this! - hadn't even opened her mouth.
"I would dispute that child monicker, but that's not the point to begin with! Our equipment is the best the Systems Alliance Navy can have, and if it's not, I'll make damn sure it is before you have a chance to complain!"
"You mean like the Avenger assault rifle?" the man said, a disagreeable smirk on his face.
"Yeah, great idea that, buying the guns for your riflemen from the Volus. The Volus! The Elkoss Combine makes cheap knockoffs!"
"Knockoffs? What does that make the Lancer? It had a failure rate of ten percent! TEN!"
"Because of the specs we were given! I told the joint chiefs that was going to happen, and they didn't listen! You can't have passive aluminium heatsinks and that rate of fire without at least grade three frictionless materials for the chambering mount! But that was too expensive, so go with carbon nanotubes. Well, look how that worked."
"Well, the Elkoss' model seems to be doing just fine."
"Fine? FINE?" He turned to look at Shepard, who had been following the conversation with the simple fascination of not wanting to think of anything else at the time.
She was still trying to digest what had happened.
"Would you say the Avenger assault rifle is fine?"
"I... I wouldn't know..."
"Patrick-" the greasy man chided him.
"I've heard what the soldiers say, it's a piece of trash!" He turned to look at Shepard again. "Didn't you hear them say it?"
"… Roy was using his sniper rifle," Shepard finally replied.
"Inside the ship?" Patrick said. "Hah! See? Why else- Actually, I'm going to ask him."
"Patrick!"
He ignored the greasy man and went for the airlock, unlocking it and peering outside.
"What the-" Shepard heard Roy say. He has been standing outside, and turned to look inside. "What are you doing? We're still-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Patrick replied, waving Roy down dismissively. "But we were having a friendly discussion."
"I heard," Roy replied giving Shepard a glance.
Brave face, you're fine, she thought, trying to compose her face. She didn't smile. She had tried so many times in front of the mirror, and it always looked like she was grimacing. She knew she had smiled a couple of times since... Since the day. She didn't know how she had done.
But at least she had to look calm.
Looking at Roy's face... it hadn't worked. She didn't think she would be, but she was glad Patrick interrupted again.
"Why don't you tell Skippy here-"
"Patrick!" the greasy man yelled, only to be ignored by everyone.
"-what you think about the Avenger."
Roy looked at Patrick, at the greasy man, at Shepard – who could only shrug – and at Patrick again.
"Really?" he said, getting a nod from Patrick. After a couple of seconds, he finally acquiesced. He reached back, and pulled his sniper rifle out. "Okay. Look, it's not brilliant," he continued, unfolding it. "It's not bad at range, but it's way too slow. It takes almost two seconds to cool down between shots, and I had to double-tap to get through the batarians' shielding. And..."
Roy trailed off as he heard the greasy man laugh, and saw Patrick's face fall.
"I meant the assault rifle."
"Oh." There was an awkward silence, as Roy exchanged weapons, unfolding the assault rifle. He looked it over a few times, and then shrugged. "I think it'd be more effective if it had a bigger grip. You know, to club people on the head with it."
That didn't seem to make the greasy man's merriment, but it did seem to mollify Patrick. The latter looked back at his debating opponent, and gave him a smug smirk.
"See?" Patrick said.
"Yeah, sure. What a glowing indictment!" he said, with a chuckle.
Patrick shook his head and threw his hands up, but seemed happy to let the matter drop. Roy, too, seemed about to drop the whole thing, as he made for the airlock, but he was stopped by Patrick.
"You really don't like the sniper rifle at all?" he said, sounding genuinely surprised.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, a simple gesture that easily relaxed the atmosphere, almost inviting Roy to join the conversation. Shepard didn't even realize it, but she, too, relaxed ever so slightly, listening to them.
"Well... no, it's not brilliant. As I said, it's too slow."
"It is a sniper rifle, you know."
"I know, I know. But I had to make every shot count, you know. And a single shot just didn't do it."
"It was never designed as a front line weapon. Then again, if your alternative was that," Patrick added, pointing at the assault rifle.
"No, it wasn't that. I'd rather have this," Roy said, pointing at the sniper rifle on his back, "with no scope and better heatsink. Even close by."
"I see, I'll keep it in mind. What about-"
Roy raised his hand, stopping Patrick on his tracks.
"Yes sir. No..." He paused, probably listening to a transmission. "No sir, just representative Patrick needed to go to the toilet. I- No, I mean, yes sir! Right away sir!"
"What?" Patrick inquired.
"Chat's over," Roy said, his voice clipped. "Airlock stays locked until the all clear comes through."
"Okay, okay, don't want to get you in trouble," Patrick said as Roy hit the airlock mechanism back in place.
Shepard gave him a last look as the door closed, trying still to look calm. But as the door closed she knew the truth. She'd never hear the end of it.
Author's Notes: Introducing Patrick Magroyn, field rep for Hahne-Kedar, plucky, bombastic, and the brainchild of DrStache. You thought things would be quiet aboard a Systems Alliance carrier? Think again.
So, a little bit more between Shepard and Roy. Forged in fire, so to speak. BUT will they be able to handle the fallout of the aftermath?
We'll have to find out, but it won't be this chapter!
Sorry :)
Lots of reviews! Thanks as always, really rocks to have so many reviews. Many thanks indeed!
Toothless: This! Is! DIVERGENCE! *Kicks batarian*
Sterata: I plan on revisiting the gene mods soon enough (I bet you can imagine when!). I find the idea of gene mods quite fascinating myself.
PFCDontKnow: Thanks! Make sure you give Shepard a hug for me, will ya? She's growing so fast...
Archer: I know! It's like, trying to keep the tide back. Really, with that background, the last thing she needs is to join the military. But as for saving the galaxy, that'll have to wait. Because Shepard comes first.
So, hope you enjoyed the chapter. As I mentioned before, more timeskips coming, in this case a whole week, which, if you're counting, it's a good chunk of Roy's bootcamp spent aboard the Einstein. Just wait and see if he gets back. Thanks for reading! =)