-1.8
SSV Normandy SR-3, en route to Goliaerus Aerie system
13 days later, Mon, Jul 30, 2187
-1.8
Normandy dropped out of conduit drive at the head of the Council task force on the edge of the Goliaerus Aerie system. The turian colony had been saved from a planned Cerberus attack during the Reaper invasion by Shepard's chance intervention when the volus ambassador, Din Korlack, was abducted by Zaeed Messani and some mercenaries acting on behalf of the turian government, which suspected him of conspiring against them. The colony's small size and out-of-the-way location had seen it bypassed by the Reapers as they focused their campaign on larger centres.
After the Crucible Day event crippled the star cluster's mass relay the colony had gone into subsistence mode, its shipyard inactive but still protected by a small attendant wing of turian frigates and one cruiser. But with the Normandy's delivery of a server bearing several thousand geth programs, and two hundred assorted platforms for them to inhabit and work in, the expectation was that inside of two weeks the yard would be ready to start turning salvage from the relay collected by the patrol group into conduit drives for those same ships, enabling them to go back out into the galaxy and start re-connecting the planet with other surviving turian colonies. Military ships acting as trade and supply and passenger vessels would be a stop-gap measure until things were back to some new kind of 'normal.'
As soon as the damaged assortment of ships arrived, however, it became clear that things were far from normal.
"Commander," Nymandra said in a low, anxious voice. Shepard rose from his chair and descended the raised platform to stand next to her on the right side of the main console around the master holo display.
"What is it?" he asked, his tone hushed.
"Jamming, Commander. The same as at Rannoch."
Hadrian looked over at Hallis, who was turning from his science station, clearly having noticed the same readings. The salarian's face looked concerned, and the spike of tension from Hadrian summoned Kaidan back from the cockpit.
"What is it?" Alenko asked. Hade looked up at him grimly, the glowing image of the Normandy casting shadows across his face.
"They're here, too," Shepard said.
"Are we sure?" Kaidan strode to Hallis' station and examined the display, furrowing his brow. The rest of the crew so far seemed unaware, but the rising stress between the four officers was bound to be noticed, even without synthempathy.
"Unless someone else is scrambling every comm frequency with static," Hadrian hissed.
After a tense pause, Alenko looked to Hadrian and asked the obvious question. "What do we do now?"
"Nymandra, get on the laser comms and tell the rest of the fleet- they're to hang back with the Shepard while we're going to get confirmation."
"The turians won't like that order," Kaidan said.
"I'm sure they won't- it's a good thing turians generally follow orders, even when they don't like them. Which is what I need you to do, too. I want you to stay with the task force." Kaidan started to shake his head but Hadrian continued. "If anything happens to the Normandy, one of us should be aboard the Shepard to maintain some order and make the call for what to do next.
"I don't want you out of my sight," Kaidan protested, fighting with himself to keep his voice down. Hadrian took his elbow and gently led him to a back corner of the CIC out of earshot of any of the other bridge crew.
"Don't worry," Shepard said, trying to assuage his spouse, "I'm not going in there looking for a fight I can't win. I just mean to verify their presence, see what they have deployed, and get out again. We need more intel on these fuckers."
"They'll shoot you down as soon as they see you coming. I'm not losing you again." Kaidan grabbed Hadrian's upper arms as if to restrain him physically from going, and through the touch their connection opened up. Shepard felt his husband's anxiety, and tried to answer it with the feeling of his promise that he'd return safely. Alenko sighed, because with it he also felt Shepard's determination. "So help me God, if you..." He slid his hand down to Shepard's, took his hand, and gently pulled off his wedding ring- a layered band of titanium on the interior, tungsten carbide on the exterior, and inlaid with a gold-platinum alloy band, which Kaidan had picked out for him- and then removed his own identical ring, swapping them between their fingers. "You come back, or I'm keeping yours," he said.
"Yes Sir, Major, Sir," Shepard replied. He smirked, pulled Kaidan's hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it.
"Retired," Alenko quipped, "as in, 'I'm retired, therefore I'm getting too old for this shit.'" He sighed again looked Hade in the eyes. "Don't expect me to put up with you putting me through this forever, you know- this is our last war. I'm putting my foot down. After this war, we're settling down somewhere."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Hadrian smiled. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. I-"
"Don't. Don't promise," Kaidan interrupted. "If you... if you can't guarantee it'll be kept, don't make it." He couldn't help thinking back to Crucible Day, to the day Shepard died. And for a moment he was reminded again that the man standing before him hadn't always been Hadrian Shepard. They looked at each other, Alenko's worry still unplacated and Hadrian wishing he could made it go away.
"I'll be right back," he said, and stroked Kaidan's short hair with his thumb. "You'll have this back in no time."
-X
3 hours later
-X
Kaidan stepped off the Shepard's shuttle back on to the deck of the Normandy, which had returned unscathed from her surveillance run to Aephis, and dropped his duffel bag to wrap his arms around Hadrian and squeezing him. After they separated, Hadrian picked up Kaidan's rucksack from the deck and the two started walking from the hangar down the ship's length toward the CIC. "So?" Alenko asked
"Two ships. Couldn't tell if they were the same ones as at Rannoch, but unless they just dropped whatever it is they're doing there, it seems more likely that it's two different ships," Shepard explained.
"I'm surprised you got close enough to tell. It doesn't look like there's any new battle damage- must have been some wild flying from Joker?"
Hadrian shook his head, a bit of puzzlement creeping onto his face. "No, they never attacked. We went in quiet on the Tantalus drive, no thrusters, and ghosted through without incident. Whether the stealth system actually worked against them this time when it hasn't previously or whether they didn't see any need to because they knew we couldn't stop them... I don't know. When I thought it might be the latter, I was actually tempted to take a shot at them. I don't like feeling ignored."
"I'm just glad you're back safe. Thank God," Kaidan sighed, relieved. They were just passing the memorial wall, the recently engraved plates with Deacon, Imperatus and M'sona's names glaring at him, and he was grateful that they didn't have any new names to add to it today. His eyes lingered a moment on a nick in the surface near the middle before he looked back at Shepard, who just looked irritated.
"Thank it for the outcome, if you want to, but I don't appreciate the change in behaviour raising new questions about these guys. Inconsistency makes it harder to figure out how they think, to predict how they'll act in the future." They walked on to the CIC and Nymandra nodded, gladly acknowledging Alenko's return to the ship.
"Speaking of the future, what do we do now?" Kaidan asked.
"Now we take our damage to the only other operational shipyard we know about to get patched up." Hadrian handed Kaidan's bag back to him and stepped over to Nymandra's station, and tapped a button to open a channel to the rest of the fleet. "This is Shepard to all ships. Aephis, like Rannoch, is presently occupied by the unknown aliens, which leaves us with no other real options to effect repairs but to return to Earth. So that's where the rest of you are headed immediately, under Captain Lavoie's command. Normandy will meet you there. Fly safe."
He closed the channel and looked back at Kaidan, who's forehead crinkled with a little confusion.
"We'll meet them there? Where are we going?" he asked.
"The turians are under attack now, too, and we've lost the only turian we had aboard. I don't like moving forward without someone to liaise on behalf of the Hierarchy. So while we were in-system I got on the entangler to Palaven. We're going there to pick up a turian."
"Any turian in particular?"
"I had someone in mind," Shepard said, and a slanted grin crept on to his face. "We'll probably even get a free weapons calibration out of the deal, too."
"I thought as much." Kaidan leaned against the aft bulkhead and smiled at his husband nostalgically. "Seems like the band just keeps getting back together, huh?"
"The circumstances could be better, but yeah, the old team does seem to get things done. Which is why after I got off the line with Palaven, I made a couple more calls to Earth. With the vacancies left by our casualties, plus the unknowns inherent to a new threat, I thought our crew could use some filling out. Some more brains, some more muscle." Hadrian nodded back toward the starboard door and the pair left the CIC, boarding the elevator to go up to their cabin.
"Besides Garrus, we'll be bringing Vega back aboard to join the ground team in Deacon's place- his N7 instructors said he's ready for field placement to complete his training. And I pegged Jack to join in Saelia's spot as the team's biotic. Traynor will be coming back aboard from the Shepard, to study and try to overcome the enemy's jamming, and to assist Liara with integrating her Broker comms system in the port ops module. It's a whole other network of comm buoys, off the official grid, that mostly survived the Reaper invasion, so that should help keep us aware of what's going on out there. And I thought we could use some more stealth and technical expertise, so I talked Kasumi into a bit of legit work."
Kaidan hung back a moment, mildly stunned, as Shepard stepped off the elevator toward their quarters. "Wait," he said, "you got Jack back aboard to play with others? And Goto?" He hopped forward to catch up. "I thought she told you last year she wasn't interested in any more suicide missions."
"She did. But she said okay when I told her that we... ugh... withdrew from the last two encounters, rather than commit 'suicide.'" Hade fished a bottle of juice out of their fridge and took a sip to drown the rest.
"And?" Kaidan asked. Shepard narrowed his eyes, firing off a dull, un-amused look.
"And she said I was getting conservative... in my old age."
"Oh. Ouch," Alenko smirked, and faked a wince. He leaned against the edge of the kitchenette counter and crossed his legs. "So we'll be putting her up, where, in geth platform storage? Under the static sink?"
"I told her she could bunk in the other ops module- we'll swap out the Rannoch QEC's servicing pod for an accommodations suite, put her and Jack up in it. Garrus can have the visitor's stateroom. Liara will probably want to sleep with her equipment again." Kaidan snorted a small laugh and Hadrian rolled his eyes briefly.
"Well... at least these aliens would have to be stupid to attack Earth, with the bulk of the whole galaxy's fleets still stuck there. And now they're getting upgraded with the advances we've made in the last year. I don't care how strong their defenses or their weapons are, unless they have a couple thousand of those capital ships of theirs, I'd still stake everything I'm worth on us if they took the fight there."
"Yeah," Hadrian agreed, "at least there's that. 'Fortess Sol,' until the modernization program finishes retrofitting the fleets and everyone goes their separate ways, anyway." The two took a moment to share via their connection the sense of comfort in their assurance of Earth's safety.
"So much for our nice, relaxing honeymoon tour of the galaxy as it rebuilds, huh?" Kaidan sighed. Hade made a resigned face and closed the distance between them, curling his arms around Alenko's waist and rocking gently pressed together.
"Well, after this new war is over maybe we'll look for somewhere quieter to settle down. Andromeda's pretty from a distance. And nobody would know us there or expect anything from us."
Alenko chuckled softly. "We'd probably have to get new jobs. Do you know how to do anything else?"
Shepard's hands strayed to Kaidan's rear and squeezed affectionately. "Besides fight and fuck like a superhero? No, not so much."
"We could take our biotics and join the Andromedan circus. See the freaks from the Milky Way."
Feeling the artificial gravity dampen the accelerating ship's inertia, the pair looked up through the viewport in the ceiling and saw the stars lurch and disappear into the swirl of conduit drive.
"Anybody calls my husband a freak, they'd better mean in bed. Speaking of..." Their bodies pressed together, Hadrian started to playfully but insistently herd Kaidan toward the bed. When they reached it and Shepard gently pushed him onto it, and pulled from his back pants pocket a condom wrapper. Looking up at his husband Alenko made a bit of an awkward face.
"I'm not gonna' say no, but do you think this is exactly the right time? Don't we have work to do?"
Shepard grinned, held the wrapper between them, and focused on it intently. Gradually withdrawing his hand, he held it precariously in the air with his biotics. "I need the practice," he said between controlled breaths. Noticing the smirk beyond the focus of his attention, he narrowed his eyes. "With my biotics," he stressed, "re-learning to use them seems to go better when I work on them with you. And I'll show you afterwards that I don't need any practice with the other thing."