Author's Note: I wasn't going to update Torment twice in two days, but Jack insisted on some screen time. I don't think this is what she had in mind.
Mordin did return with a heavily-damaged omni-tool, adding it to his list of projects, and Shepard spent two hours writing, erasing, and re-writing her report to Hackett, finally giving up on anything but the bare bones of the situation.
TIM had sent her another three dossiers, so in between hours and hours of robo-mining unexplored planets, she perused them. Nameless had, true to his word, been exceedingly careful not to harm any of the crew, but she'd already received complaints from Kelly, Daniels, Joker, and even Miranda (though the beauty would probably object strenuously to it being called a "complaint") about his behavior. He was well spoken, yet despite his careful words, his gaze and mannerisms were all full of a quiet menace, like the shadow of a movie serial killer cast on one of those Japanese rice-paper doors – nothing holding it back but a thin veneer of civility.
He'd even tried to intimidate her, at which point she set his head on fire, watching him calmly grope his way to the emergency fire extinguisher Gardner kept in the kitchenette and put it out, the flesh regrowing in a smooth motion. He hadn't tried it again … but far more crew members were choosing to take their meals at their stations or in their quarters. The ventilation was also the cleanest it had been since the SR-2 was constructed, and the quality of the food hadn't dropped, not that there was much further down to go.
Sighing, she left her desk, taking the elevator to the CIC. "Joker, set course for Osun. This should be easy as getting Zaeed on board." She considered it as the galaxy map shifted to show their relay course, and then sighed. "EDI, please inform Zaeed and Nameless to suit up. I'll take them along with me. Just to look nice and threatening."
Their trip there took a leisurely two hours, most of it spent boosting to and from the system's mass relays, until finally the prison ship Purgatory was visible. Why is my life full of places synonymous with death? Elysium, Afterlife, Purgatory, next I'll visit Nirvana maybe? Trying to clear her thoughts, she took the elevator down to the shuttle bay, finding Zaeed and Nameless already waiting on her. Zaeed was armored up, but, "Nameless, I thought I ordered you to suit up?"
His smile, as usual, did not reach his eyes, reminding her of a shark. "I did search the supplies in the armory. Mr. Taylor was quite helpful in that regard. However, none of the suits of armor on board can be made to fit me without extensive fabrication." He adjusted the bone baldric, showing her a modern web belt beneath it. "I do, however, have a shield generator, which combined with my regeneration should be sufficient for any trouble."
"I made sure he's armed, Shepard," Zaeed said. "Had some new energy talons I picked up two jobs ago from a krogan. Used them to hamstring the bugger." She irritably waved a hand at his usual stories. "Why are we down here, though? Why not docked at the airlock?"
"Because I'm paranoid." She leveled a glare at the mercenary. "Is that alright with you?"
"That's goddamn amazing," he said, with a rare smile. "Not enough people are."
"Are we going to talk, or go collect our newest crew member?" Nameless interrupted, clearly bored.
They climbed into the shuttle, and she let Zaeed pilot it just to ensure she was the first one out the door. "EDI, lock down the shuttle, nobody but us leaves." She strode out confidently, with Nameless hulking behind her and Zaeed ghosting behind him fingering his assault rifle. "You have a package for me," she said to the first bare-faced turian she'd ever seen.
He led her through the prison, leaving her to speak with a couple of the prisoners before finally exiting into a room and being told to step into cells, one for each of them. Zaeed's rifle was already out as he kicked over a desk for cover. "Paranoia is a goddamn blessing, Shepard," he said, sighting at the door.
Nameless, however, simply stood in the middle of the room as she took her own shelter and unfolded her sniper rifle. "What are you doing?" she shouted at him.
In response, he raised an eyebrow, remaining still as a Fenris finished taking down his shields. "You made me promise not to harm anyone without your permission."
"For crying out loud," she muttered, sniping a batarian as he raised his shotgun. "You have permission to kill anyone on board that's not with us!"
Gleefully, he picked up the Fenris with one hand, cracking the frame as he crushed it against his knee, then hurled it at the turian in the doorway with enough force to smash him all the way to the end of the hallway, where the mech shorted out anticlimactically. In a smooth motion, two blade handles appeared in his hands, and flickering blue-purple blades of eezo-controlled energy burst from the back of another turian as Nameless slammed the handles into him, before crossing his arms and ripping the merc in half.
"I hope you've got a better leash than just your goddamn say-so, Shepard," Zaeed muttered. So do I, she thought uncomfortably to herself. The scarred immortal was a veritable storm of death as they followed him down the hallway. His shield stayed up for mere moments, but the bullet wounds he took healed in bare seconds as he sliced, diced, and simply threw enemies away.
When they reached the console, Shepard quickly hacked it, opening all of the cells. She did kind of hate to let loose all of these prisoners, most of whom were quite clearly insane murdering psychopaths, but since she already had one, possibly two, and was adding another one … well, after what Kuril had just tried to pull, she didn't feel sympathy for the guards.
As they watched Jack blow through the mechs, Nameless' blades flickered out, and he pressed fingertips to the window, watching her move. "I really must find out the name of her tattoo artists," he murmured.
Shepard and Zaeed looked at each other in horror. "Please tell me he didn't just discover his dream girl," she whispered.
"I goddamn hope not," he muttered under his breath.
"If you continue that with, 'But it reminds me of this one mission,' I will shoot you right now," she warned him, only half-serious as they moved towards the exit.
"No," he replied, popping a new heat sink into his Vindicator, "but you just did." Grinning at her growl of frustration, he blew off the head of a prisoner before Nameless could reach him, then grinned even more when the scarred man turned around to glare while ignoring the prisoner repeatedly shanking him in the kidney. "Sorry mate, had a perfect shot lined up. Hated to waste it." The only response was one giant hand reaching over his shoulder, grabbing the escapee by the eye sockets, and wrapping him around the door frame.
"Let's just please, please get out of here before anything else goes wrong," Shepard pleaded. They fought their way through two more rooms, with Nameless simply muscling his way through Kuril's shields while the other two held off guards and prisoners alike, before ripping off his mandibles and choking the warden to death with them. As he started to stand up, Shepard shouted, "No, you may not keep them as trophies!" Scowling, he dropped the mandibles back to the floor, and joined them.
Jack was standing in front of the shuttle, cursing as she tried vainly to hack past EDI and gain entrance. "Jack? Or do you prefer Subject Zero?" The biotic whirled around, raising one fist already wreathed in power. "Calm down, we're here to rescue you."
"In a Cerberus shuttle? Hell no!" Shepard holstered her own pistol, still holding a vague hope of calming her down.
Nameless stepped forward. "Commander, allow me. I'll just knock her out, and we can load her in the shuttle and be on our way."
Jack snorted, sizing him up. "C'mon and fucking try it, corpse breath." He stepped forward, and she hit him with a shockwave, shattering his shields as Shepard and Zaeed scrambled out of the way. As he continued to step forward, Jack pulled her pistol, putting three rounds into his chest in a perfect triangle over his heart.
This was enough to stop him, momentarily, as he fell to his knees, the wounds already healing. "What the fuck?" Jack said, pressing herself back against the shuttle, then putting two rounds in his forehead, sending brains and bone chunks splattering between Shepard and Zaeed. "I'm not going with Cerberus!" she said, now aiming her pistol at Shepard.
"Relax, Jack. I'm Commander Shepard, of the Normandy. I don't know if you were on ice for the whole battle at the Citadel and the destruction of Sovereign. I'm not Cerberus." Whatever else she might have said was cut off, as Nameless suddenly surged to his feet, one hand around Jack's throat and the other holding her gun hand by the wrist with a sudden crack of bone.
"You are a sheer delight," he all but purred, bringing her face close enough for him to rub his cheek against hers like a cat. "But really, darling lady, you must so learn your place." She spat at him, and he body slammed her against the side of the shuttle hard enough to crack ribs and possibly her skull.
"Nameless! You promised not to hurt anyone who was with me!" Shepard shouted, her pistol out and pointed at his head, Zaeed's finger already tensing on the trigger as he aimed lower on the spine.
"And as she has quite vocally protested, she is not with you, Commander," he gloated.
"I'm with Shepard," Jack managed to rasp out through the fingers wrapped around her throat. "I'm with Shepard!"
His gloating face slowly turned to a scowl, and with deliberate care he lowered her to the ground, releasing both hands. "Before you do anything rash, m'lady," he said quietly, "do recall that you just shot my brains all over the deck behind me, and I then got up anyway." With those parting words, he knocked on the shuttle, and ducked inside the moment EDI opened the door.
Jack tried to talk, coughing as Shepard stepped up to administer medigel. "What the fuck is he? Another Cerberus experiment?"
They boarded the shuttle, being careful to avoid the brooding immortal. "I'll tell you when we're on board. The ship is Cerberus, but I'm not, nor are most of the crew. I'll take you to Doctor Chakwas once we're aboard."
The short ride back to the Normandy was spent in total silence, no one wanting to do anything to provoke Nameless, just in case.