A/N For the rest of this work (The name I use for any literary piece including fanfiction) any dialogue in parenthesis is in sign language or some other kind of nonverbal communication (But typically it's sign language) unless it is specifically noted that the characters are speaking in a non-english language A/N
It hadn't occurred to me that a woman as together as Shepard would be so paradoxically skilled at driving. The problem wasn't that she was bad at driving the skycar per say, quite the opposite actually, she was one of the best drivers I'd ever seen. The problem was that she was absolutely crazy.
She wove through the air traffic skillfully with little regard for unimportant matters like 'safety' or 'laws'. I couldn't count how many times we'd almost collided with another vehicle only for the gutsy redhead to suddenly dive underneath the traffic. A perilously dangerous maneuver as the underside of a skycar is a universal blind spot.
"So how are we breaching the glass?" Kaidan asked the both of us. "It's glass is going to be dammed tough. It would have to be, at the speeds the winds move at that altitude."
I unconsciously flexed my hand, still not used to the bizarre texture of the lanthium armor on my skin.
"I could probably manage it without too much trouble," I suggested. "My only reservation is that this suit is laced with eezo current that augment my biotics, But I haven't had the opportunity to test how much of a difference it makes so…" I let the thought trail off and shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I won't under-shoot either way, so I'm pretty confident I can do it. How big should the blast be?"
"About the size of an airlock door!" Shepard shouted from the front after turning the car on its side to slip between two other cars.
"Alright I can manage that." I shouted back after I'd recovered my footing. I'd been expecting a smaller target, but I was far from being disappointed.
Small targets sucked.
With that out of the way Kaidan turned to address just me.
"Fair warning Jane is a force unto herself on the battlefield," Kaidan whispered quietly enough that she probably couldn't hear him. "There's a thing or two you should know before we dive in headfirst." He lifted his hand with all of his fingers curled into his palm. "First rule," His index finger popped up pointing to the ceiling" "Stay out of Jane's way. If you're between her and an enemy it will cost her a few precious seconds to get around you. She won't complain if that happens, but it works out better for everyone if you just avoid the situation." A second finger comes up. "Lastly, and possibly most importantly, don't try to keep up with her, physically or mentally. You haven't fought beside her long enough to know how to without getting distracted, distractions will get you killed and Jane can be a pretty big one."
"Better or worse than her driving?" I asked. Kaidan thought for a second before replying.
"In what way?" He said pausing for emphasis. "In how good she is at it? Or in how terrifying it is?" I decided to go for the safe answer.
"Both."
"Yes." The look on Kaidan's face was dead serious.
"I'll keep that in mind."
Kaidan gave me a thumbs up and turned back to face the window.
"Get ready Doc!" Shepard yelled. "ETA is two minutes!"
The rest of the ride was filled with the tense silence that always occupied the transport before a mission. The quiet persisted until Shepard signaled me to get ready.
I got to my feet and gathered a biotic aura around myself. I felt my armor vibrate ever so lightly for just a second before it settled. I spent the seconds before the door opened wrapping myself in a barrier until I remembered that the vibration of my armor was meant to remind me of the natural barrier generated by my armor.
At that realization I hastened to draw the shield inward so it would reinforce the natural barrier instead of potentially destabilizing both of them like mass effect fields had the tendency to do when were too close to each other for too long. If my barriers destabilized mid fight it could mean my death. If I was lucky then they would just collapse, but if I wasn't than they could very well turn volatile and detonate. I was very glad I caught that before if blew up in my face, maybe literally.
Once the door had started opening I began to draw power into the air in front of me in the form of a sphere floating in midair in front of me. When the door opened all the way I released the power as a wave of force that slammed into the wind resistant glass shattering it on impact.
I allowed myself a brief moment of before I saw Kaidan leap from the car to the inside of tower. After he touched ground safely the man twisted in place and reach his hand out wrapping the car in a biotic field so it wouldn't plummet when Shepard leg go of the controls.
Without a second to waste I sprang from the skycar, and caught myself in a biotic field that carried me to safety beside Kaidan. I turned to help him hold the vehicle. Shepard made the jump soon after, landing with the grace that I had expected of herr. After she was safe on solid ground Kaidan and I set the car down on the floor.
"You have got to teach me how to do that." Kaidan said once the car was secure. I chuckled at the demand. I asked he was referring to the biotic glide I'd used to get onto the building without incident. It was a popular trick among Alliance trained Vanguards and Adepts, but since Sentinels didn't usually have the sheer biotic power of a Vanguard, or the impressive skill of an Adept, they were rarely taught how to perform the glide. This made teaching the technique a popular request during my training at Grissom since the panache of the technique had a way of catching the eye of young hotshot biotics who couldn't tell when something was beyond them.
"We'll see." Normally I would've just gave him an outright no. There was a good reason that Sentinels weren't taught how to glide despite how useful it was. They just didn't usually have either the power to successfully hold themselves in the air or the skill to control the effect with anything resembling consistency. What made me answer the way he did was that what I've seen of Kaidan's biotics in particular gave me the impression of an Adept in training.
He rolled his eyes at me while trying to bite back the smile that was making itself known across his lips. He drew his assault rifle, falling into a firing stance as he turned his focus away from me.
Shepard didn't speak. She nodded at Kaidan and I took that as my que to start being quiet. My suit helped with that.
For some reason the same quality that made it resistant to gunfire made my footsteps quieter. I didn't understand it, but I figured I didn't need too. It helped that Nathan had taught me a trick or six about moving quietly and not being noticed.
The three of us crept our way through the hall that we had entered into. I had expected to have company as soon as we made our entrance, but instead we we're almost completely clear. The few guards we did encounter were easily evaded.
It turned out that Shepard preferred stealth tactics over the common 'kill them all' method. I liked that. It helped me feel more confident in my decision to join her team.
Kaidan was also surprisingly good at sneaking in hindsight I should've expected that. He always moved very smoothly, taking each step with an unintentional degree of care. Now he was just putting effort into the task.
What I very much did not like was how easy this was.
"This doesn't feel right," I whispered to my companions at a barely audible volume. "If Nassana is really so scared this should be harder."
Shepard and Kaidan nodded in silent agreement.
"We're probably going to run into pretty heavy fortifications on the roof," Shepard noted just as quietly as I had. "Which will be good for us at least." I quirked my brow and put on a confused expression asking a silent question.
"Why?"
"Because we'll be biotics on a rooftop," Kaidan elaborated softly. "A rooftop is a really great position for any biotic. If we need to get someone out of the way quick it's as easy as tossing them off the roof."
I gave a thumbs up in place of a verbal response.
I didn't like the idea of killing. It wasn't something I'd done often and I was light years away from being okay with that.
Our trip was went on like that until we got to a roof access point. Shepard and Kaidan both shared a look and turned to me. Then Shepard began to make a complex series of gestures that I recognized as a mix of American Sign Language and standard Alliance military hand signs. Both of which I was familiar with.
"Do you understand this?" She asked. I nodded an affirmative. "Good."
"Just so you know I know sign too." Kaidan gestured mostly at me, tossing me a quick wink with the eye that Shepard couldn't see.
"Here's the plan," Shepard signed. "I will be the first to go up. After 10 seconds Blue-Gun-Man goes up, and Blue-Mind-Doctor goes up 5 seconds after Blue-Gun-Man." Her orders baffled me for a split second until it hit me.
Blue-Gun-Man and Blue-Mind-Doctor were name signs for Kaidan and I respectively. With that in mind I just interpreted them as our names instead of the literal meanings.
"Once we are up there aim to deal with any that as quickly as possible. It won't take long for the enemies to regroup. We want to start and finish the fight all before that chaos dissipates. Understand?"
"Understood Tiny-Crazy-Woman." Kaidan and I signed back in unison. I was glad to see we were on the same page with Shepard's name sign. Shepard on the other hand just put her hand over her face in a universal sign of disappointment that needed no translation.
Then she raised her hand and counted down from three on her fingers
One…
Two…
Three…
Shepard nearly instantly drew two matching pistols from her holsters and leaped through the door at speed that I was almost certain weren't possible for a human to achieve with either specialized drugs, or heavy genetic/cybernetic augmentation.
Which made sense for a high ranking former Alliance officer like her after I put a second of thought into it.
Before I could consider that anymore I saw Kaidan bolt out and the sounds of gunfire were joined by the telltale sounds of tech attacks and biotic strikes.
I almost forgot to count after Kaidan made his charge.
Almost.
Five seconds later I rushed into the fray under the heaviest barriers I could pull together.
The roof was bare, and clearly not designed to be the site of a firefight like this one. Kaidan was hunkered down behind a piece of large machinery, but despite the less than ideal cover he was untouched.
Probably because almost all of the enemies focus was on Shepard.
When Kaidan gave me that warning in the car I hadn't had any idea what to expect, but seeing it with my own eyes it suddenly made all to much sense.
Shepard was sprinting around the rooftop wielding only her twin pistols, and minimal armor. Not that it looked like she needed the armor at all. The Redhead wove her way through the storm of bullets in a way that made it look like a dance. When a normal soldier took cover, Shepard combat rolled out of the way.
Only she wasn't just evading every single bullet aimed her way, but she was hitting them just as hard as they tried to hit her. The twin pistols in her hands were firing almost constantly in time with her dance, and what's more as far as I could tell damn near every shot she fired hit! Not every bullet was a lethal shot mind you, but even the ones that didn't kill its mark hit something like a knee, basically downing them anyway.
I hadn't even realized I had fallen into the exact trap Kaidan had warned me against until Kaidan grabbed my shoulder and shook it hard.
"Snap out of it Doc! This is a fight, do something!"
That ended up being the kick in my ass that brought me into the action.
There were about two dozen hostiles on the same roof as us. Most of them unshielded, unarmored, and without any barriers. It was a biotic's dream come true.
I flung a bolt of hastily gathered power towards a group of three foot soldiers. The attack slammed into them without warning. The center most one took the brunt of the attack, and was flung clear off of the side of the building while the other two were just knocked on the ground.
I caught a slight movement in my peripheral vision and twisted left as quick as I could. Which caused the armor covered fist of an enemy lieutenant to just barely miss my jaw.
The lifetime of aikido and dabbling in other martial arts had honed my reflexes to the point of reacting without conscious thought.
I reached out and grabbed the man's arm by the wrist and pulled him into me. I angled my shoulder so that his forward momentum would carry him into it. As hit impacted my shoulder I thrust the joint up and against his form. The motion of my shoulder and by the grip I had on his arm sent him flying into the air. Where I caught him in a mass reducing field that left him to drift aimlessly through the air.
The air grew silent as the sounds of combat abruptly halted. I looked around to find every opponent who had attacked us dead, unconscious or out of sight.
"Damn." I whispered under my breath. Shepard had, for the most part, singlehandedly taken out at the very least half of the people who'd attacked us.
I knew that the training at Grissom Academy was some of the best in the galaxy, but even so I only dealt with four people in the time it had taken the short redhead to dispose of more than twice that.
My thoughts must have been easy to see on my face because I caught Kaidan smirking at me out of the corner of my eye. I shot him a dirty look.
"Come on people we've got work to do," Shepard scolded. "You can make eyes at each other on your own time."
"Yes Ma'am." Kaidan and I replied not quite in unison.
The woman nodded in satisfaction and we followed her to what we figured was the rooftop office.
"How do we know that this is it?" Kaidan asked, pointing to the building. "It could just as easily be that one or the one back there."
"The human subconscious is hardwired toward self preservation," I replied automatically. "So it can usually be assumed that if you let a person pick any room in a building to have their office in they will almost always pick a corner office on the top floor with a great view. The top floor is the hardest to get too, and the view could help you see a threat before it gets to you." I pointed at our destination. "That of fits that profile best."
"It's also the only one that has guards." Shepard added to the end of my lecture. I actually hadn't noticed the guards but sure enough she was right.
"Fair enough," Kaidan said with a slight hint of something odd in his voice. "I'll keep the questions to myself next time."
"Kaidan, Shepard, stop," I commanded, the words slipping out before I gave them a first thought, much less a second. I turned to face Kaidan beside me, who had in fact froze in place.
"Say that again," I ordered. This time I noticed that my voice had taken on the quality that I used on patients that were being particularly dense. Kaidan looked thrown off by the sudden shift in tone.
"What?" He said his confusion plain to see.
"What's the meaning of this Crystilyn." Shepard demanded authoritatively.
I didn't even turn to address her.
"Wait your turn." I barked fixing Kaidan in place with what I'd been told was a harrowing stare. "Say it again."
"I'll keep the questions to myself next time?" He repeated unsure.
I marched right up in his face with my eyes barely a quarter of a foot away from his.
"I never want to hear you say that again. You should never feel ashamed because you asked a question because you don't know something. Asking questions is good, it's healthy, it's necessary. Do you understand?"
Kaidan nodded slowly, but he didn't speak.
"Good," I smiled as a backed away. "We can go now."
When I turned to glance at Shepard I almost froze at the absolutely withering glare she was sending my way.
Key word; almost.
She didn't say a word. She just glared at me like I'd just run over her dog.
"Go." She Commanded, and I didn't think insubordination would end particularly well at that moment.
That was when the plan went sideways.